Thursday, July 4, 2013

Dread Was His Nature, and He Hared Through Sunlight and Shade, Head Swiveling for the Copperhead He'd Begun to Covet, the Ballyhooed Killer a Camouflaged Godhead on Which His Ingrained Faith Cohered, and Finally His Priesthood





WHO WANTS TO GO? B((arr(gh))ing a b((arr(gh))age of new kaboom I'm going to attempt to a(argh)void daily clusterfucka(argh)ge updates through the holiday weekend. I mean topical updates like here's why Obama particularly sucks today, none of those, PDFs of obscure French philosophers' theories of cultural signifiers and the subaltern and the like are OK. Spark to resolution? Last night I saw William Greider's praising review of the first months of Elizabeth Warren's term as Massachusetts senator, typed Greider writes Warren a love letter, linked. Rimshot noise. She may be who Greider and her fans think she is now, should she gain power and influence we'll see, my actuarial tables differ from theirs, mine set by and read by an evangelical apostate. Still, I can take four days off of easy rimshot trolling. Can't I? A farewell to blogging. I have entered negotiations on daily obligations - as in not having them - with my editor, publisher, publicist, and ghost-writer. neither the wish nor the power. Prunella reminded me both of The Evens concert and The Evens song. The Three O'Clock. I watched the first half - United sucks - but what needs saying is Eddie Johnson is a punkass fool. Goff gets snarky. OK, another soccer aargh: fucking Adidas ruins everything it touches. A Dog with Wings (I think it's unlocked, if not, email me, I'll send you a PDF). It took me a while to Simic, but I'm in. Wrist injury sidelines orchestra conductor! Les-rivieres-sont-des-chemins. Which reminds me there are a couple of new places over in Newest Gag the Second. So slender a basis for a lifetime friendship. For instance, this one. Knausgaard, for those of you who do. Obscure Sounds' Best of June, with sound. Obligatory link to this song and this song. X is fine, but HOLYFUCK! Galaxie 500. Holyfuck.






THE IMAGINED COPPERHEAD

Andrew Hudgins

The imagined copperhead
hid on the path ahead,
unseen on bronze leaves, unheard,
and a mortal likelihood
at every step. This was childhood,
mine, the woods' jihad
against a boy who'd
intruded among monkshood,
wasp, tick, and nettles haired
with needles. Scrub brush abhorred
him with a horde
of welts, bites, and stings, but he'd
never seen a copperhead,
though he'd looked hard,
taking, as he'd been ordered, heed.
The snake wasn't a falsehood,
though, to him. Dread
was his nature, and he hared
through sunlight and shade, head
swiveling for the copperhead
he'd begun to covet, the ballyhooed
killer a camouflaged godhead
on which his ingrained faith cohered,
and finally his priesthood.



7 comments:

  1. PDFs of obscure French philosophers' theories of cultural signifiers and the subaltern and the like are OK

    Honestly, I'd rather read the black helicopter corporatey alien stormtrooper overlord conspiracy theories. It's way better comedy.

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  2. Adding: yeah, I know you trolled me there.

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  3. At least I wasn't standing on my bass boat. And be fair: I don't do aliens.



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  4. nothing topical? ok - here's an anti-war poem - anti-wwi - from a dead male poet of noncolor

    i sing of Olaf glad and big

    by E. E. Cummings



    i sing of Olaf glad and big
    whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
    a conscientious object-or

    his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
    westpointer most succinctly bred)
    took erring Olaf soon in hand;
    but--though an host of overjoyed
    noncoms(first knocking on the head
    him)do through icy waters roll
    that helplessness which others stroke
    with brushes recently employed
    anent this muddy toiletbowl,
    while kindred intellects evoke
    allegiance per blunt instruments--
    Olaf(being to all intents
    a corpse and wanting any rag
    upon what God unto him gave)
    responds,without getting annoyed
    "I will not kiss your fucking flag"

    straightway the silver bird looked grave
    (departing hurriedly to shave)

    but--though all kinds of officers
    (a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
    their passive prey did kick and curse
    until for wear their clarion
    voices and boots were much the worse,
    and egged the firstclassprivates on
    his rectum wickedly to tease
    by means of skilfully applied
    bayonets roasted hot with heat--
    Olaf(upon what were once knees)
    does almost ceaselessly repeat
    "there is some shit I will not eat"

    our president,being of which
    assertions duly notified
    threw the yellowsonofabitch
    into a dungeon,where he died

    Christ(of His mercy infinite)
    i pray to see;and Olaf,too

    preponderatingly because
    unless statistics lie he was
    more brave than me:more blond than you.







    Copyright 1931, © 1959, 1991 by the Trustees for E. E. Cummings Trust. Copyright © 1979 by George J. Firmage, from The Complete Poems: 1904-1962 by E. E. Cummings. Reprinted by permission of Liveright Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

    http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15408

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  5. from "writers no one reads" - first lines from the stories of pierre bettencourt

    My wife and I have a way of sleeping together that might seem a bit bizarre: neither face to face nor back to back, but with the soles of our feet pressed together.

    vonnegut in cat's cradle describes this as the bokononist rite of boko-maru

    while checking the spelling of boko-maru, i discovered a couple of interesting science facts:

    >>Irving Langmuir came up with the idea of ice-nine as a way to entertain H.G. Wells who visited Schenectady in the 1930s.<<

    >>Borasisi and Pabu, the Sun and Moon; the binary trans-Neptunian object 66652 Borasisi and its moon 66652 Borasisi I Pabu now bear their names.†

    "Borasisi, the Sun, held Pabu, the Moon, in his arms and hoped that Pabu would bear him a fiery child. But poor Pabu gave birth to children that were cold, that did not burn...Then poor Pabu herself was cast away, and she went to live with her favorite child, which was Earth."<<

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  6. IN BUFFALO

    The scene: Buffalo, New York,
    late 1970s or early 1980s,
    the campus of Buffalo State College.

    The Philosophy Department sponsored a talk by Robert Nozick
    open to the general public
    and scheduled in the early evening.
    Three or four dozen people showed up, as I recall,
    including myself, a graduate student in a different discipline
    from a neighboring institution of higher learning.
    Nozick was wearing a blue wool blazer, a white turtleneck sweater, and blue jeans.

    During the question period, I asked,
    "You've mentioned two ways of examining the morality of an action -
    whether it corresponds to a received code of conduct,
    and what its effect will be on those who are the object of the action.
    But what about its effect on the person who DOES the action?"

    Nozick thought for a minute before replying
    (an actual minute - I don't mean 10 seconds that felt like a minute),
    said, "I need to consider that more",
    and went on to another question.

    How did I feel? Triumphant, in having shut up the famous author? Amused? Heartbroken?

    As I recall, I was saddened.

    In my current view, the problem that Nozick had in answering my question
    comes from the fact that, in his tradition, all the heavy lifting is done by the intellect,
    and life's persistent questions are treated as academic exercises.

    The last two paragraphs of Erich Fromm's The Heart of Man are relevant here:

    Man's heart can harden;
    it can become inhuman, yet never nonhuman.
    It always remains man's heart.
    We are all determined by the fact that we have been born human,
    and hence by the never-ending task of having to make choices.
    We must choose the means together with the aims.
    We must not rely on anyone's saving us,
    but be very aware of the fact that wrong choices make us incapable of saving ourselves.

    Indeed, we must become aware in order to choose the good --
    but no awareness will help us if we have lost the capacity to be moved
    by the distress of another human being,
    by the friendly gaze of another person,
    by the song of a bird, by the greenness of grass.

    If man becomes indifferent to life there is no longer any hope that he can choose the good.
    Then, indeed, his heart will have so hardened that his "life" will be ended.
    If this should happen to the entire human race or to its most powerful members,
    the the life of mankind may be extinguished at the very moment of its greatest promise.

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