Monday, August 1, 2011

This Is a Sailor Wearing the Watch that Tells the Time of the Honored Man that Lies in the House of Bedlam

Yesterday I said war (by which I mean Corporate's entire police-state apparatus, from boots on the ground in Afghanistan to wiring embassies for State to running a whorehouse outside Fort Benning in Phenix City Alabama) is what Corporate makes now. This is the sub-lede of this story as of 7:00 PM EST on Your Fucking Washington Post's webpage:

Sources in both parties said all sides were close to signing off on an emerging agreement except House Speaker John Boehner. The reason for the hangup was not immediately clear, but the framework has the potential to trigger big cuts in the defense budget.

and in the story:

But sources in both parties said all sides were close to signing off on the emerging agreement except House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). While the reason for the hangup was not immediately clear, the framework has the potential to trigger big cuts in the defense budget. Defense cuts are likely to be problematic for many of the veteran Republicans Boehner will need to push a compromise through the House. A Boehner spokesman did not immediately respond to questions.

I was like, well, hey! but then immediately thought: those who've served, are serving, will serve - and one benefit of high unemployment is the pool of recruits deepens - are gonna be double fucked compared to normal fuck, cause those executives at Raytheon don't want their taxes raised and aren't giving up their bonuses, and if their bonuses depend on outsourcing the making of a drone's navigational gyroscope from Bumfuck Alabama to $3 a day workers in Malaysia, win!

This is the deal that was always in place. This wasn't about breaking you and me, we outraged, OUTRAGED! I TELL YOU! motherfucking pwoggles: we've been house-broken since Bill Clinton. This was about breaking the motherfucking crackers, and breaking them in a way that Corporate can simultaneously use to keep them pissed off at pwoggles (who hate America so much they weaken its defense, who hate motherfucking crackers). Rinse, repeat.







Daily Gaddis:

 - It's not. It's not, damn it, I.... when I'm working, I.... Do you think I do these the way all other forging has been done? Pulling the fragments of ten paintings together and making one, or taking a. . . Durer and reversing the composition so that the man looks to the right instead of the left, putting a beard on him from another portrait, and a hat, a different hat from another, so that they look at it and recognize Durer there? No, it's... the recognitions go much deeper, further back, and I... this...

I found an old broken-spined mass-market copy Saturday on a shelf in the basement, anyone want it?














VISITS TO ST ELIZABETHS

Elizabeth Bishop

This is the house of Bedlam.

This is the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the time 
of the tragic man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a wristwatch
telling the time
of the talkative man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a sailor 
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the honored man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the roadstead all of board
reached by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the old, brave man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls of the ward,
the winds and clouds of the sea of board
sailed by the sailor
wearing the watch
that tells the time
of the cranky man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
beyond the sailor
winding his watch
that tells the time
of the cruel man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a world of books gone flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
over the creaking sea of board
of the batty sailor
that winds his watch
that tells the time
of the busy man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is there, is flat,
for the widowed Jew in the newspaper hat
that dances weeping down the ward
waltzing the length of a weaving board
by the silent sailor
that hears his watch
that ticks the time
of the tedious man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to feel if the world is there and flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances joyfully down the ward
into the parting seas of board
past the staring sailor
that shakes his watch
that tells the time
of the poet, the man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the soldier home from the war.
These are the years and the walls and the door
that shut on a boy that pats the floor
to see if the world is round or flat.
This is a Jew in a newspaper hat
that dances carefully down the ward,
walking the plank of a coffin board
with the crazy sailor
that shows his watch
that tells the time
of the wretched man
that lies in the house of Bedlam.



25 comments:

  1. Someone should take you up on the massmarket copy! Such an incomparable read. I scored a hardcover first run about 15 yrs ago; still have my Penguin softcover that I read in 1992.

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  2. This has inspired me! Maybe I'll never be able to afford to take a vacation again (per our marvelous economic future) but I should be able to take a train upstate with a walkman, a few Dead tapes and a dime.

    Of course getting fucked up on the weekends is not really a joyous rejection of work but part of the same disciplining process. Some Saturday soon Uncle John and I won't give a shit, though.

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  3. We know lots about who you don't think should be President. Who should be?

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  4. I'm intrigued by KFO's hardcover first-run of The Recognitions. Did it not win some kind of design award (despite the book's famously stupid reviews)? I've never seen a copy nor known anyone who had. Any way we could see a picture of it?

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  5. Also, I have no idea how it is I'm now suddenly able to post comments here from work.

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  6. No one should be President, Sasha.

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  7. We may all starve to death before the arrival of the anarcho-syndicalist commune, Jack.
    ~

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  8. This guy!

    The problem was, is, and will always be that the desire to be president disqualifies the asshole who wants to be president. That we need to have one doesn't mean I'm obliged to vote for one.

    I should have learned with Clinton. I'm not going to make the mistake again, with POTUS, with Senate, with House. I will vote for BoE at Earthgirl's request. Fuck the rest of them, and especially, for today, Benjamotherfucking Cardin.

    (And you can bet Babs and Babs Jr are fighting that none of the "defense cuts" come out of Ft Meade, Ft Detrick, or that black building of evil off the BW Parkway.)

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  9. "We may all starve to death before the arrival of the anarcho-syndicalist commune, Jack."

    No worries. That's being arranged.

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  10. Richard, just took front, back & spine shots, will put them up at my place shortly. Perhaps it's not the first-est but I understand it to be so. However, the biblio leaf lacks that explicit "First Edition" statement that my J.R. 1st ed bears. So maybe it's not 1st? In either case I paid no special fee for either, such is the legacy of Willie.

    ************

    my little bro works at the black box off B-W and has been assured of job stability into 2020s. empty promise, or reality?

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  11. I suspect his job is as secure as any in the Imperium minus his supervisors minus their supervisor minus their supervisors etc....

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  12. true dat... something between the bookends I suggested.

    *************

    Richard, pics are up at my place.

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  13. Cool; thanks. I actually have that edition of JR, though I'm not entirely sure why I bought it.

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  14. Updated novel-reading schedule:

    1. (finish) The Recognitions
    2. George Mills
    3. The Tunnel
    4. JR

    Hey, which of you did I send a copy of JR to? I want to say JRB, but I don't think he comes here anymore.

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  15. I began The Tunnel the year it was released, and got to p. 182, according to my dust-laden copy's bookmark... should retry.

    Richard, have you read JR? I think it's hilarious -- and it presaged Milken-Boesky-arbitrage-junk bonds.

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  16. I love you, Thunder.

    Thanks for running the Jerry today instead of in 8 days, BFF. That always depresses the fuck out of me, and I'm not sure there's all that much fuck left.

    I have been effing obsessed with Cold Rain and Snow for about a year now. Bizarre.

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  17. Re: Cold Rain and Snow - I'd been sitting on that waiting for today since last October.

    Must be the times. Still, serendipity is always wondrous if not always wonderful.

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  18. I have read JR. It is indeed very funny, though a re-read is probably in order. My comment above should have said that I already had the paperback, in fine condition, so I had no need to buy the hardcover.

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  19. Heh, I've the same affliction, it's why I have books to give away.

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  20. So there has to be a President, Thunder? There has to be a boss or we'll all starve?

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  21. Oh I'm sure an anarcho-syndicalist commune would work fine, Jack.

    I'd like to see an example of one, but I'm willing to accept your imagination as proof instead.

    And all we need to do to get is just do nothing, do I have that right?
    ~

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  22. I know you can beg around the question, Thunder. I'm just curious if you can answer it.

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  23. Oh no, we don't need a president, we could have a premier, or an indian chief, or a central committee.

    Or maybe even an autonomous collective, or whatever you're proposing as an alternative, Jack?

    Don't you feel that you ought to supply something more than "Splosions! Utopia!" before laying claim to moral authority?
    ~

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  24. why is Jack obliged to tell you what to do, thunder?

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