the only committee member unenthusiastic regarding this proposal is an optometrist who has raised the issue of eye damage if the typeface of the lines of verse on the underpants were too small

I needed attend my 666th copyright webinar today, I said at Thursday Night Pints, that's how my day was. D, K, and L sighed, muttered fuckers beneath breath, face-palmed, a universal sign of resigned weariness in academia: Fair Use Fair Use Fair Use Fair Use, webinarians are here to demand you use it while they refuse to define it. No, it was good, I said, one of the presenters was as smart and precise at not telling us anything (including a two minute burlesque with the other presenters that what they were giving us "is not legal advice") as anyone I've needed endure over the past five years, and he sounded just like Paul Harvey!





I said, I couldn't stop giggling, every time one of his colleagues tossed the presentation to him, I wanted him to say, Hello Americans, Stand by.... for NEWS! Was he as big an asshole as Paul Harvey, asked L. I've no idea, I said, all he said was This is the current status of best practice use of fair use's indefineability re: academic library's liability, though this is not legal advice, just in Paul Harvey's voice. Christ, Paul Harvey was an ass, said D. Who was Paul Harvey, asked K, and the old people made her pay the entire check.

• Start the first, wait four seconds, start the second. You're welcome.
• Terrifyingly real.
• POTUS 12 and the evolution of political protest.
• Class consciousness (includes a quiz!).
• The road to oppression is paved w/good intentions.
• On the uses of bridges.
• Compromise.
• Follow along if you want.
• Feature or bug?
• Mortgage fraud is an Obama priority?
• Motherfucking Obama.
• Liberals and war.
• Okay, he's a beast.
• Sick of this image already.
• UPDATE! On the above.
• HRC says she's done w/politics. I believe she believes this.
• More from his generation's greatest fraud - I say this admiringly.
• Epstein has died.
• Pynchon, Gaddis, mistaken identity.
• Woke up with this in my head:

the library of t-shirts

Joanne Burns

in order to upgrade the community’s appreciation of poetry during the international year of cultural enrichment stage 2, members of the state’s library progress committee decided to establish a small library of t-shirts on which would be printed quality verse in vivid, bold colours and lettering. the poems would be selected on the basis of one of three qualities: is the poem poignant, perspicacious, or pithy.

given the respectably researched fact that the wearing of words on t-shirts expresses a deep psychic desire for an intimate union of word and flesh, (and bear in mind the way “logo” nudges towards “logos”) it is not surprising that this library of t-shirts has been a great success. no one seems to mind borrowing pre-worn clothing. of course the library’s washing and ironing staff maintain the t-shirts in excellent condition. even after ten borrowings the shirts look brand new. and considering the phenomenal success of andrew lloyd webber’s “cats” it is no shock revelation that t.s. eliot’s “hollow men” has proved to be the library’s most popular t-shirt so far. in fact there are now eight copies of this shirt on loan, most in metallic or fluoro colours.

a couple of the more entrepreneurial of the library’s progress committee members are leading the push for diversification of the library’s poetry program, into neck to knee anti-uv swimwear, with maybe slessor, shelly and stevie smith prints for starters; and into underpants, with their multiple attractions.

while the committee feels both these garments could increase poetry’s appeal, they are worried about the practicability of adding these garments to the t-shirt poetry collection. would many members want to borrow preworn underpants, however compelling the poems’ cadences and metaphors; while the wear and tear on the swimming costume fabric via chlorine and salt water would perhaps be too great. however they are interested in marketing and selling these articles from a stall in the library’s foyer. the only committee member unenthusiastic regarding this proposal is an optometrist who has raised the issue of eye damage if the typeface of the lines of verse on the underpants were too small. a solution in the form of large print haikus is being considered.

How a Man, with Such a Belly Could Pose, Smiling, without a Shirt

• Better mood, thanks, but still a nail being hammered. And thanks for the bursts of Kind - you know who you are. I deeply appreciate it.
• Dogs and the election.
• Cats and the election.
• Oh.
• As much as I'd like to credit Occupy, this populist face-turn by Obama was always the gameplan.
• So was this.
• I honestly don't know how much of EJ Dionne's toolishness is foolishness.
• The Swiss Bank Account Guy.
• Heh.
• Will Israel attack Iran?
• The caging of America.
• Purple Line!
• Purple Line!
• Camptown Races five miles long, Dudar, Dudar. It needs saying: with DCU's legacy of concussions and Dudar's history of concussions, I give Dudar until May before his career is effectively over.
• Roster reset #6.
• Old loves.
• I haven't thought about Mr or Mrs Bridge in at least two decades.
• Blood in the grass.
• In California During the Gulf War.
• Playlist from greyhoos.
• Woke up with this in my head:

BUDDHIST BARBIE

Denise Duhamel

In the 5th century B.C.
an Indian philosopher
Gautama teaches "All is emptiness"
and "The is no self."
In the 20th century A.D.
Barbie agrees, but wonders how a man,
with such a belly could pose,
smiling, without a shirt.

Theme Songs 4:40 PM EST January 25, 2012

Not this here joint and not real life, which leaves.... Also too:

Head Hissing Static

• I caught fifteen seconds of SOTU in the car. The guy in the car next to me at the stoplight honked and gave me the finger. He thought I was screaming at him while I waved middle fingers in the air. I mouthed, it's not you, it's motherfucking Obama. He thumbed-up, sped off at green, Ron Paul and pro-gun bumperstickers on his car's ass.
• YES!! It was only fifteen seconds but it was just like this.
• SOTU rebuttal from McPherson Square. (h/t)
• Do the CREEP.
• So good it hurts.
• The most conspicuously absent word in SOTU.
• The dodge of war.
• Of course Schneiderman sold out.
• I didn't hear Mitch Daniels' SOTU rebuttal, though I'm sure I wouldn't have cursed and waived middle fingers in the air, his saying exactly what anyone knew he'd say not worthy of cursing or waiving middle fingers. My disconnect is only half done. It's fun! I allow myself a gif!
• The Republican nightmare.
• Why you are in debt.
• You can't read about dogs without goddamn patriarchy getting in your face.
• One pause poetry.
• Eno talks about Music for Airports.
• A friend recommends Six Organs of Admittance. This link serves as a mnemonic device for me.
• Woke up with this in my head:

LIMBO: ALTERED STATES

Mary Karr

No sooner does the plane angle up

than I cork off to dream a bomb blast:

A fireball roiling through the cabin in slo-mo,   

seat blown loose from its bolts,

I hang weightless a nanosecond

         in blue space

then jerk awake to ordered rows.

And there’s the silver liquor cart jangling   

its thousand bells, the perfect doses   

of juniper gin and oak-flavored scotch

         held by a rose-nailed hand.

I don’t miss drinking, don’t miss

driving into shit with more molecular density   

than myself, nor the Mission Impossible

reruns I sat before, nor the dead

space inside only alcohol could fill and then   

         not even. But I miss

the aftermath, the pure simplicity:

mouth parched, head hissing static.

How little I asked of myself then—to suck   

the next breath, suffer the next heave, live   

till cocktail hour when I could mix

         the next sickness.

I locked the bathroom door, sat   

on the closed commode, shirtless,

in filmy underpants telling myself that death   

could fit my grasp and be staved off   

while in the smeary shaving glass,   

I practiced the stillness of a soul

         awaiting birth.

For the real that swarmed beyond the door

I was pure scorn, dead center of my stone and starless   

universe, orbited by no one. Novitiate obliterate, Saint   

Absence, Duchess of Naught . . .

A stinging ether folded me in mist.

Sometimes landing the head's pressure’s enormous.   

When my plane tilts down, houses grow large, streets

lose their clear geometry. The leafy earth soon fills my portal,   

and in the gray graveyard of cars, a stick figure

becomes my son in royal blue cap flapping his arms   

as if to rise. Thank god for our place

in this forest of forms, for the gravitas

that draws me back to him, and for how lightly

         lightly I touch down.

Spooky Wood Looking

Lake Tahoe, new video, off Kate Bush's 50 Words for Snow.

Offer Your Usual Posy of Goatheads

I still haven't watched a GOP candidate debate (I'm told last night's was missing the Red Meat Glee Club in the audience, so it must really have sucked). I won't watch or listen to Emperor Obama's State of the Union, POTUS 12 edition, tonight, though the predictable keywords he'll use will have you drunk after ten minutes if you're Hi-Bobbing the speech, and the post-SOTU reaction from professional partisans to partisan fan clubs down to shitty bloggers, as we all inhabit precisely-enough the positions we all reflexively adopt, just as predictable. Witness this post.

• For more bleggalgazing, see poem below.
• Consider this post's title and my favorite nighttime blogheader, speaking of predictability, along about 730 tonight.
• Earth is always talking along fault lines.
• Rules of American justice.
• His generations greatest fraud - and I say this admiringly - on coffee.
• Good news!
• I'm not speechless but I'll post the link and keep quiet.
• Fuckface resurfaces.
• Pastor Sanctimonious, without self-awareness or irony, calls Gingrich a con-man.
• I don't give a flying fuck whether some ice-soccer player went to the White House or not. I used to give a flying fuck how motherfucking stupid it is for sports teams to go to the White House to meet whoever the motherfucking president is, but I don't give a flying fuck about that anymore either, though I do wonder if those applauding this particular ice-soccer player would be condemning him if he was a pwoggle refusing to meet a GOP POTUS and visa versa.
• The sea is madness.
• The world is silence in your head.
• Life on a beam.
• Sonar in my soul.

DEAR DROUGHT

Amy Beeder

Offer your usual posy of goatheads. Proffer
sharp garlands of thistle & Inca's thin down;
of squash bugs strung on blighted stems; send

back necklaced every reeking pearl I crushed,

each egg cluster that I scraped away with knife
or twig or thumbnail. Wake me sweat-laced
from a dream of hidden stables: the gentle foals

atremble, stem-legged, long-neglected. Dear
drought our summer's corn was overrun again
with weed & cheat; the bitter zinnias fell to bits.

Dear yearlings our harvest is lattice & husk.

Even Apolitical Poems Are Political

• On the above. Found it yesterday on Ubuweb looking for something else ten minutes after @elserracho tweeted a question about catfood. I need (or not) to figure out how to link to a particular tweet, but, as always, Serendipity is always awesome.
• An article and a follow-up on finance game theory.
• Alien v Predator, or: Wikileaks v Facebook.
• Lambert visits Occupy.
• Newt in South Carolina.
• The Straight Cock Express Rides Again.
• Motherfucking Obama.
• Strange days in Blegsylvania. Maybe it's helmetball, maybe it's winter, maybe it's fatigue in the face of ten more months of POTUS 12, maybe it's the mountains of duh, maybe it's obsolescence, both the media and its whores, but Stringtown's a bit deader than I've ever seen.
• Yes, we needed another news radio station.
• What John Cleese did between Python and Fawlty Towers.
• Biblioklept riffs on JR.
• Sweepstakes Prize. Whole album was on the CD player as we drove on Ohio 95 from Fredericktown to Butler then Ohio 97 to Mohican Gorge State Park near Loudonville.
• Neil Young angered by sound of digital music.
• Leave me alone.
• Faust's lost album.
• I think I posted a live version of Destroyer covering New Order, but if I posted this studio version and said Holyfuck before, I'm doing it again.
• I'd heard both the two below songs on WFMU, brought to my attention last night by a bud.

CHILDREN OF OUR ERA

Wislawa Szymborska

Translated by Joanna Trzeciak

We are children of our era; 
our era is political. 

All affairs, day and night, 
yours, ours, theirs, 
are political affairs. 

Like it or not, 
your genes have a political past, 
your skin a political cast, 
your eyes a political aspect.
 
What you say has a resonance; 
what you are silent about is telling. 
Either way, it's political. 

Even when you head for the hills 
you're taking political steps 
on political ground. 

Even apolitical poems are political, 
and above us shines the moon, 
by now no longer lunar. 
To be or not to be, that is the question. 
Question? What question? Dear, here's a suggestion: 
a political question. 

You don't even have to be a human being 
to gain political significance. 
Crude oil will do, 
or concentrated feed, or any raw material. 

Or even a conference table whose shape 
was disputed for months: 
should we negotiate life and death 
at a round table or a square one? 

Meanwhile people were dying, 
animals perishing, 
houses burning, 
and fields growing wild,
just as in times most remote 
and less political. 

Lurid Conditions Are Facts. This Is No Different from Daily Protests and Cashbars

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.