Thursday, April 5, 2012

The Very Flatness of Portrait Makes for Nostalgia in the Connoisseur

Actually Rick Santorum's name did come up that Monday morning in the Zanesville HIE's breakfast lounge, and yes, the reaction, out of a dozen people not me, was more mixed than the group-panning of both Mitt Obama (mittobama - trademark!) and Barack Romney. None were - or pronounced him or herself as - a Santorum zealot, though more than half said they voted for him for the cultural war reasons for which we measure them so contemptuously. One fireman said, Santorum has zero chance of ever being president, he's too honorable to be electable, even within the Republican Party. A Mary Kay representative said, too bad, he'd be a great president. No he wouldn't, said another Mary Kay representative, he'd be another Jimmy Carter.





Yeah, that was easy, but it's a great song plus I truly didn't do proper by Richard Thompson's birthday, so songs today. I've read Romney's new spearhead is Obama being caught on mic promising he doesn't give a flying fuck about public opinion beyond the necessary winking bullshit needed to get reelected, wait until after the election when we Corporate assholes can operate as the Corporate assholes we are, Romney's attack so perfectly apt and correct and prismatically ironic I hope it fucking works from now until November since it will be true next January no matter which Corporate asshole is elected.










OUR NATURE

Rae Armantrout

The very flatness
of portraits
makes for nostalgia
in the connoisseur.

Here's the latest
little lip of wave
to flatten
and spread thin.

Let's say
it shows our recklessness,

our fast gun,

our self-consciousness
which was really

our infatuation
with our own fame,

our escapes,

the easy way
we'd blend in

with the peasantry,

our loyalty
to our old gang

from among whom
it was our nature

to be singled out.


6 comments:

  1. The Mary Kay rep and the rest of that lot would have gladly said that same too honorable to be prez jazz about Newt if he only had one ex-wife. Two exes is pushing it.

    I'll bet none of them expressed any reservations about voting for a guy with a sweater vest. That's how you can tell they're lying.

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  2. I'm with Earthgirl on that one.

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  3. Yes, I seem to be in the minority on The Unconsoled. Have you liked other Ishiguro? Earthgirl loved Never Let Me Go.

    Re: Newt - his name never came up so I'm only guessing, but the vibe I got is that the people were valorizing authenticity and they would have dismissed him as perhaps the more entertaining fraud but still a fraud. I could be snarky and say Romney and Newt and Obama *are* authentically who they are, and I could be snarky and say Santorum has the luxury of knowing he can maintain his mantras since he's no chance of winning and that he would seek the center if he thought it profitable, but my takeaway is that Obama and Romney are so transparently twin-mannequins separated at birth that, sure, folks will vote for the home team, as much to spite the other team as anything else.

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  4. Well, as long as my phone is saving lives, but since I barely use it, am I saving enough of them?

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  5. I was getting a haircut just when Obama was on the TV to sign the jobs bill.

    Tax cuts - entrepreneurship - small business - cutting red tape...He sounded like black Ronald Reagan.
    ~

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