At Least Embarrassment Is Not an Imitation. It's Intimacy for Beginners, the Orgasm No One Cares to Fake.

Palin was discussed over Thursday Night Pints. Why wasn't Palin riding shotgun on a Harley her Dukakis in a tank moment, wondered L. She's a grifter, said D. Say, said me, she's not only a grifter but a world class grifter, a once in a lifetime grifter, a genius grifter that at this dawning moment in American consciousness of its empire's imminent collapse understands America wants one last American gold standard conman and Palin instinctively, deliberately, brilliantly, delivers?

Shame you can't write novels, said L. Didn't we have this conversation two, three weeks ago, asked D, each winning a ridiculously priced Scotch. What fascinates me, I said, is how she can simultaneously be both a rodeo clown and capitalist superstar, she transcends either/ors. The stupider she makes herself - what if she's brilliant and chooses to act stupid - the larger and loyaler her following. She brands herself as the anti-what makes her money, and the angrier we get at the tacky obviousness of it, the more money she makes.

You don't believe that, do you, L asked, that she's brilliant and acts stupid for profit. It's wishful thinking, I said, that she's a devious and subversive mastermind, a canny manipulator and brilliant actor rather than a cartoon grifter filling a vacuum in Crackerstan, a cipher and avatar of vacuous late American capitalism and collapsing American empire. There's hope in the former, tomorrow in the latter.

• Yes, the above holds true for Obama too. And though I posted this from Jack yesterday, make sure you go back and read the comments.
• Where is your vortex?
• Satire, meet reality.
• One percent holds thirty-nine percent. Not enough for the one percent.
• Humpty Obumpty and the Middle East.
• Train wreck.
• We're all going to die.
• Wall Street and narco-trafficking.
• Romney and the conservative elites.
• Motherfucking christers.
• Word Salad Annie.
• Pastor Sanctimonious chubbies Cameron.

• Curiosity in philosophy.
• One of the blogs that doesn't update on the blogroll is :::wood s lot ::: which provides me lots of stuff I show you. His rss feed works fine if you want to subscribe.
• People are stupid.
• ICC!
• Peruvian election and NOVA traffic jams.
• Blogging.
• Brettschneider! Game tonight at eleven. Might watch it tomorrow.
• Gauguin.
• I was made to read Naipaul once for a class. Suck. And that was before I knew he was a total and thorough asshole.
• Ten great authors of 1963.
• 5/4. 
• Into an animal together.
• Guardian angel.
• If you were a priest.
• Globe of frogs.
• I wanna destroy you.

 ABOUT FACE

Alice Fulton

Because life's too short to blush,
I keep my blood tucked in.
I won't be mortified
by what I drive or the flaccid
vivacity of my last dinner party.
I take my cue from statues posing only
in their shoulder pads of snow: all January
you can see them working on their granite tans.

That I woke at an ungainly hour,
stripped of the merchandise that clothed me,
distilled to pure suchness,
means not enough to anyone for me
to confess.  I do not suffer
from the excess of taste
that spells embarrassment:
mothers who find their kids unseemly
in their condom earrings,
girls cringing to think
they could be frumpish as their mothers.
Though the late nonerotic Elvis
in his studded gut of jumpsuit
made everybody squeamish, I admit.
Rule one: the King must not elicit pity.

Was the audience afraid of being tainted
--this might rub off on me--
or were they--surrendering--
what a femme word--feeling
solicitous--glimpsing their fragility
in his reversible purples
and unwholesome goldish chains?

At least embarrassment is not an imitation.
It's intimacy for beginners,
the orgasm no one cares to fake.
I almost admire it.  I almost wrote despise.