Disappear into the Recesses of the Cliff

  

• It's been at least a month since a Feldman cascade, sorry.
• I was going to write what you'd expect me to write - here, I tweeted it: My first thought was that the speech guaranteed Kelly's nomination. Prime the liberal loads w/Obamalube, then boom, in response to someone tweeting that Obama's Martin speech eliminated Kelly from contention - about Obama's Martin speech, offered "extemporaneously" according to a WaPo article I'm not going to go back and find (and besides, I've now used up my July allotment of free WaPo articles and if WaPo thinks I'm giving them money....).
• And then it occurred to me to give you Morton Feldman instead to listen to while you read these links.
• But listening to Obama's remarks on the death of Helen Thomas yesterday, it occurs to me that every sentence in your head about whatever Obama says about anything need end with the phrase, but what the fuck did you think he was going to say.
• Improve your conspiracy theories.
• Yay! Transparency! 
• On the above.
• Three degrees of separation.
• Friend or fro.
• Beltway stages thoughtful spontaneity.
• Slate analysis.
• America is a tinderbox.
• For the record, I don't think Obama will nominate Kelly to be head of Cheka, not because Kelly is a racist authoritarian asshole (hardly disqualifying to Obama) but because of all the people who have spoken up for Kelly - Obama won't want to be seen as taking orders. Obama's vanity, not his humanity, will be the difference (on Kelly: America is full of racist authoritarian assholes, Obama can find another).
• The Manning Show Trials: These Teachable Moments.
• Education, neoliberal education, and the brain.
• Today in Fuckface Hiatt.
• Weekly reminder.
• Prole for a Day.
• King for a Day: 

• Another Kiwi is on twitter?
• The bleggal thing: google didn't do whatever it was it was threatening to do. Fine metaphors abound. 
• Maggie's weekly links.
• { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
• What bees know.
• There is no North Bethesda, it's fucking called Rockville.
• Yes, United lost 4-1 in Chicago. Gave up a goal in 110 seconds. Watched the first half, United unbelievably bad. It is not an accident.
• More riffs on Against the Day.
• Lispector, for those of you who do.
• Hart Crane born 114 years ago today. Here's the poem you'd expect to read.
• Excellent reading of the Rexroth poem posted below. 
• McElroy, for those of you who do.
• Stereogum ranks Gabriel's albums. Look, it goes 3-4-2-1, then everything else. 
• The most horrifying sentence you'll read today.
• Has it really been at least a month since I posted any Morton Feldman?

ON WHAT PLANET

Kenneth Rexroth

Uniformly over the whole countryside

The warm air flows imperceptibly seaward;

The autumn haze drifts in deep bands

Over the pale water;

White egrets stand in the blue marshes;

Tamalpais, Diablo, St. Helena

Float in the air.

Climbing on the cliffs of Hunter’s Hill

We look out over fifty miles of sinuous

Interpenetration of mountains and sea.

Leading up a twisted chimney,

Just as my eyes rise to the level

Of a small cave, two white owls

Fly out, silent, close to my face.

They hover, confused in the sunlight,

And disappear into the recesses of the cliff.

All day I have been watching a new climber,

A young girl with ash blonde hair

And gentle confident eyes.

She climbs slowly, precisely,

With unwasted grace.

While I am coiling the ropes,

Watching the spectacular sunset,

She turns to me and says, quietly,

“It must be very beautiful, the sunset,

On Saturn, with the rings and all the moons.”