Your Daughter's Tall

Thanks to Uncle SeatSix for sending me a batch of his niece's photos. This is our last full day visiting Planet at Bamgier this week. The header - there are header's here all the time at night, no more silly a self-indulgent gag than any other here - was shot by Planet out the back-window of our rental on our way home from Delaware Ohio last night after dinner at Bun's; I live in a state on the Atlantic, the best seafood I've ever is in the geographical middle of Ohio.

• UPDATE! A friend writes and suggests I explain after a friend she forwarded this to said, you know, not everyone understands the context through digital osmosis: we are visiting my daughter Planet, a sophomore at a small Liberal Arts college in Ohio, this week. (And it's true, I think of this bleg as a serial, not episodic, show, assume everyone knows the shorthand and code, doesn't want me re-explaining the shorthand and code, at least those who lovingly complain that I'm always re-explaining the shorthand and code, see this sentence, e.g.)
• Serendipitous, at least to me, since I've bleggalgazed this week, as we were driving towards Delaware my iPhone chirped out tweets from blogbuds, those I used to group blog with, those I still swap blogspit with, tweets sending out bumps of Kind. Was sweet.
• Stealing from yourself.
• This is true: I left my Ohio fold out map, the one I yellow highlight roads I drive on for the first time, at home, when I've stopped for gas or water or caffeine I've asked at the Marathons or CVSs or local stores for road maps, nobody sells road maps anymore.
• I'm told tonight is Shock Your Mama night at Gambier. I suspect that means louder and drunker than normal.
• UPDATE! Planet says it's not Shock Your Mama night, whoever told me that "doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about." Where'd she learn to use that sort of fucking language?

• UPDATE! After I tweeted a blogwhoring Hey Sailor! this morning to this post, I get back from a long drive to discover four people unfollowed me. Expect more posts just like this one.
• How memes are orchestrated.
• Today in Motherfucking Obama. When you lost the folk at Kos....
• Domestic drones.
• Capitalism.
• So, yes, this argument again, with the additional question, who the fuck is Oliver Willis and why the fuck should anyone care?
• Complicity, consequences, intentions.
• Maggie's weekly links.
• Deer hunting in Rock Creek Park.
• Bleggalgazing.
• Stevie Smith.
• The novel is a boat.
• Ozick reviews the new Gass. Forgive me, I bought the new Gass, promptly forgot I bought it, I could have been reading it on this trip, in theory.
• Beckett reads.

A LITTLE TOOTH

Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all

over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet talker
on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.

You Look Like a God Sitting There. Why Don't You Try Writing Something?

   
The youtube seems to be working this time. That's the drive to and then the four mile hike yesterday in Mohican State Park, photography, as always, by Earthgirl, I'm the lard in the United hat. I've no doubt operator error causes 51% or more of my grief with Google products, but the Youtube that came up as private yesterday is properly coded for public even though it doesn't work, and as I type this post Blooger backside won't open in Firefox but will in Chrome. (Today being Good Friday, the beginning of a three-day weekend in which readership will drop precipitously from almost nobody to hardly anyone, I indulge the bleggalgaze). I've been screaming all week about the inability to cut-and-paste into Blooger template, long poems - I've neither the time or desire to type long poems. I can no longer change anything in this blog's template because the Apply to Template button is dead, not margins or color or font or, most frustratingly, the size of the blog title, it's driving me fucking nuts, and I am not alone: hundreds, if not more, have complained of the same problem, Blooger Help Forum is full of inquiries and complaints, not a single one addressed by a Google employee. I suspect it would take a Google engineer upwards of two minutes to fix the problem. I'm genuinely curious whether Google doesn't give enough of a fuck to know about the problem or Google knows about the problem and doesn't give a fuck. Google is killing Google Reader, which many use and like, because Google doesn't give a fuck, so I suspect Google knows about the dead Apply to Template button and doesn't give a fuck. I started with blooger in 2003, moved to typepad because blooger pissed me off, moved back to blooger (here) for no greater reason than access to a larger audience and the self-updating blogrolls. I created a site in wordpress but won't ask anyone to move because I want the largest audience for this shitty vanity project I can garner plus I'm lazy, I love the self-updating blogrolls, I use them as bookmarks, it's how I know when you've updated your shitty vanity blog too. I expect Google to disable them at some near point in the future, in which case I will still not leave blooger because regardless blooger brings the most eyes to this shitty blog. Fine metaphors abound. I am the lard in the Google trap.

• So much for detoxing.
• Eating last night in a restaurant overlooking the Mt Vernon Wal-Mart and Mt Vernon JC Penneys, I said, I don't know how these places stay in business, the JC Penney parking lot is empty, the Wal-Mart parking lot 3/4ths as empty as I remember, and serendipitously this morning I find this and this on Wal-Mart.
• Fracking, he says, minutes after turning up the gas heat in the B&B room.
• On being a problem.
• Left Side of the Aisle.
• I've never said I was a libertarian.
• Exceptions R Us.
• Normal.
• I missed news of this fire, though I've hiked through there and wondered what happened.
• Glenmont!
• Please forgive me if I lack outrage at Amazon buying Goodreads. I understand those that are outraged, but I've only so many hours, so many windmills, so much outrage.
• New Doctorow novel in 2014. I've read most of Doctorow, or at least those written before the turn of the century and one or two since, struggle to recall a single thing about one of them. Liked them; nothing stuck.
• Age.
• Coetzee, for those of you who do.

TEACHING THE APE TO WRITE POEMS

James Tate

They didn't have much trouble
teaching the ape to write poems:
first they strapped him to into the chair,
then tied the pencil around his hand
(the paper had already been nailed down).
The Dr Bluespire leaned over his shoulder
and whispered into his ear:
"You look like a god sitting there.
Why don't you try writing something?"

Idea Laundering Exists Primarily to Promote Equilibrium

     
Yes, reset title and youtube: fuck google.

We are staying at a B&B right on campus at Bamgier. Our room is actually a mini-apartment with its own entrance so Planet can come and go to classes or homework or meet friends or go back to her dorm almost as if this was home. Breakfast is served at 8:30, all the B&B's guests gather around a large table, yap is required, that's fine, I'm apt at yap. Yesterday morning there was a family of a high school junior visiting Bamgier, when they heard we were the parents of a Bamgier sophomore they peppered us with questions, you can imagine what they were. In response to one and the digressions that followed I said college exists beyond the actual academic education itself primarily to teach children the skills to at first interact with and then participate in the adult world. What I didn't say was that college is a credentialing factory, though I've said it often enough here, though not as often as I used to. Also said often enough here but not as often as I used to: my complicity - I made a deal twenty-five years ago this July which I will honor, as will I honor whatever choice my daughter makes for her life both in and after college. How I deal with my complicity come June 2015 after her graduation is the open question, I expect I will continue to indulge it in my current comfortable and hypocritical way (though I daydream of alternatives, none of which include leaving the collective). Detropia and cruel optimism. Obama's legacy and his four must-haves. The 12th Anniversary of American Cowardice. I sooth my unease with agreeing to a point with George Will by reminding myself he wouldn't be bitching if Obama was a Republican. Stunning facts about the American banking system. Why not call it oligarchy? A history of like. The Star Trek episodes you should watch for free on Hulu, none of the suggestions include the collective.






LONG GREEN

Rae Armantrout

Such naked spines
and vertebrae -

convincing parallels -

upright, separated

by a few inches
of clay.

Such earnest, green
gentlemen,

such stalwarts
jouncing

in the intermittent
wind.

          *

"Idea laundering

exists primarily

to produce a state

of equilibrium."

          *

All night
the sea coughs up

green strands,

cold boluses

and swallows them
back in

Born Eight-Seven Years Ago Today

  
SONG

I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab
which is typical
and not just of modern life

mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves
must lovers of Eros end up with Venus
muss es sein? es muss nicht sein, I tell you

how I hate disease, it's like worrying
that comes true
and it simply must not be able to happen

in a world where you are possible
my love
nothing can go wrong for us, tell me

 



 
Here's a bunch and here's a bunch and here's a bunch. Also too, from Thurstson Moore's newest project Chelsea Light Moving:

Kensington to Frederick to Hagerstown to Hancock to Cumberland to Morgantown to Washington to Wheeling to Zanesville to Bamgier

• Easy drive. By Natural Law, snow flurries from the Garrett County line at Savage Mt to the West Virginia border, but easy.
• Sigh, this argument again. This is precisely why the lack - or at least less than once upon a time - of political links, no one is going to change anybody's mind. But yes, Erik Loomis is still a despicable fuckstick, perhaps has doubled his resolve to be forever a despicable fuckstick. He seems quite determined to be forever a despicable fuckstick, the bestest despicable fuckstick he can be, the poster boy of despicable fucksticks. Admittedly, the competition is fierce.
• The Roger Ailes of MSNBC.
• Capitalism.
• Apologists for power.
• Speaking of Once Upon a Time, I've seen no posts no have heard from Silbur since his last worrisome post. Anybody been in contact?
• Keyframe.
• Not yet a breach but an exception.
• Happily ever after.
• When did it become unconstitutional?
• Pastor Sanctimonious says lack of religion leads to Sweden.
• I hadn't thought of Megan McArdle since Susan of Texas went on (hopefully voluntary) hiatus.
• Watching the drones.

• Yeah, that was easy, it made me chuckle.
• So we go into the Bamgier Deli to get sandwiches for dinner, Billy Joel CD playing. Go into Bamgier Bookstore to reload Planet's K-Card, Elton John CD playing. This is not just Bamgier phenomenon - when I go into student coffeehouse in Library at Illtophay, same thing.
• Speaking of Illtophay, not only do I know this guy, I was on the committee that hired him.
• Yes, Mexico probably got fucked out of a penalty, but (a) fuck ESPN for advertising the game as starting at 930 when it didn't start until 1030 and (b) why the fuck is Mexico wearing black kits and (c) fuck Chicharito, whiny fucking bastard. 
• It seems that once incidence of the inadvertent shitsmear was limited to that one post two posts ago, so it's fuck blooger, not FUCK BLOOGER, at least for now. 
• What is the business of literature?
• Two new Frederick Seidel poems. 
• Song (The World Is Full of Loss).
• A cheat sheet to the works of Anne Carson.
• Prunella's latest playlist.
• On grief and Led Zeppelin. If you read only one of these links today, this one.

THE THOUSAND SOMETHINGS OF SOMEONE

Forrest Gander

Could have been
otherwise and
birdsong make us
nauseous. And
gigantic rolling sunsets
give us vertigo. The
world of flowers
is for insects, not
us. But tonic
is durance among.

Fresh Name, Donor Game, Fair Meat, All the Same

Three reasons for this post: first, I love that song, it's been Theme Song of the Month numerous times, possibly, even probably, more than any other song. Second, Wire is coming to Black Cat on July 14 and I wanna go. Third, I need to see if that weird glitch in the last post is a permanent shit-smear across all future posts. Here's the weird thing: I didn't see it in the coding, and when I clicked preview it didn't appear. This is a just opened new post page, just added the Wire song, typed this paragraph, check preview, looks good, ready, pushing publish now and.... no (unintentional and/or inadvertent) shit-smear, though this post is shorter than the last, but....

Fat and White, On a White Heal-All, Holding Up a Moth

Three facts: first, Spock was born 81 years ago today, admit it, when you saw Fleabus in her Halloween evil-Spock costume you thought Spock. Second, Robert Frost was born 139 years ago today. Third, while true I greatly prefer Frost's short poems to his long poems, and while I may have chosen these two anyway, motherfucking blooger no longer accepts ceepees from the two primary resources I use to find these poems - or to be more precise, blooger will not accept ceepees from the two primary resources I use to find these poems on my laptop but will accept ceepees from the two primary resources I use to find these poems on my work desktop but only in Firefox, not in Chrome, motherfucking blooger - I had no choice, it was these two Frost poems, I don't love his long poems enough to type them out, and I've no intention of touching my work computer again until next Monday. Fourth, fuck blooger, I've no idea where that script overlaying the second poem comes from, I don't see it in the html code, I did no ceepeeing on this post, what the fuck, it must be...

DESIGN

Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right.
Like the ingredients of a witch's broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like paper kite.

What had the flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
The steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

THE SILKEN TENT

Robert Frost

She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And in its supporting central pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe nought to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To everything on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

We Can Only Cleanse Our Bodies So Much Before We Realize It's Not Our Bodies That Need Detoxing

I dig Bartok, have since I first heard. Hey, tomorrow we Kensington to Frederick to Hagerstown to Hancock to Cumberland to Morgantown to Washington to Wheeling, whether we side trip from Wheeling up 250 then across 36 to Gambier (I've never driven 250 from Wheeling to Ulrichsville or 36 from Ulrichsville to Coshocton) or just Wheeling to Zanesville to Gambier per usual depends on how much snow in mountains last night and today, how soon we get on the road tomorrow. Beyond enjoying whatever minutes Planet gives us and publishing sucky slideshows of our daily drives, eating healthy on one of these trips for the first fucking time and exercising daily in the multiple state parks that grace Ohio, I've no set plans, though in my head the word I think of with desperate hope to describe my goal for tomorrow through when I walk in my house next Sunday is detox.

• Your God is too small.
• The collapse of time and space into search.
• Fine metaphors abound.
• Personality hunger and the regulation of consumptive choice.
• American oligarchy.
• Is Zachary Goldfarb a fooltool or a tooltool? Honest question.
• The New Inquiry's extraordinary Sunday Linkages.
• I don't watch much television (not for any righteous aesthetic motive, I just don't) so I'll not watch this, but I know a Zombie in Blegsylvania, he might be interested in how to tame a zombie. Or not.
• Some lateral thoughts, part one, part two.
• A person can dream Fuck This.
• Sebald, for those of you who do.
• Beckett, for those of you who do.
• Creeley, for those of you who do.
• Silliman's always generous litlinks.
• Godspeed, Jason Molina.

                 
DEAR CORPORATION

Adam Fell

                         I don't know how to
say how I feel politely, or poetically, or
without the jugular and collapse of the
immediate heart, so tonight, I won't
say anything at all. Just stare out the
window at our stunned little writhe. Hold
back the strongest urge to knock out a
few of the capitol's most critical walls,
replace its fiber optic cables with
lightning bugs, replace the investment
bankers all with bunker busters. I lock
eyes with the capitol's bright and empty
rooms and admit that, sometimes,
deep in my affluent, American cells, I
miss my body carved to projectile. I
miss trebuchet shoulders and knuckles
flaked to arrowheads, miss my hands
massive and molded from molten to
the bolts of ballistas. I miss blackjack
and cudgel and quarterstaff and
flintlock. I miss pummel and pike and I
am not proud of this. I know it's not a
healthy feeling. I try to un-arm, to
un-cock. I try to practice my breathing.
I try The Master Cleanse, The Stationary 
Bike, The Bikram Sweat, The Contortion 
Stretch, The Vegan Meatloaf, The Nightly,  
Scorching Bath, The Leafy Greens and  
Venom Television, The Self-Mutilation of a 
Winter's Run, but we can only cleanse
our bodies so much before we realize
it's not our bodies that need detoxing.

I don't know how to say how I feel politely, or poetically, or without the jugular and collapse of the immediate heart, so tonight, I won't say anything at all. Just stare out the window at our stunned little writhe. Hold back the strongest urge to knock out a few of the capitol's most critical walls, replace its fiber optic cables with lightning bugs, replace the investment bankers all with bunker busters. I lock eyes with the capitol's bright and empty rooms and admit that, sometimes, deep in my affluent, American cells, I miss my body carved to projectile. I miss trebuchet shoulders and knuckles flaked to arrowheads, miss my hands massive and molded from molten to the bolts of ballistas. I miss blackjack and cudgel and quarterstaff and flintlock. I miss pummel and pike and I am not proud of this. I know it's not a healthy feeling. I try to un-arm, to un-cock. I try to practice my breathing. I try The Master Cleanse, The Stationary Bike, The Bikram Sweat, The Contortion Stretch, The Vegan Meatloaf, The Nightly, Scorching Bath, The Leafy Greens and Venom Television, The Self-Mutilation of a Winter's Run, but we can only cleanse our bodies so much before we realize it's not our bodies that need detoxing. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23243#sthash.Fjwa5uh7.dpuf

Egoslavian Holy Day Eve

United 1, Columbus 2

Here's my theory: Najar's absence makes United too easy to defend. With Najar on the field other teams couldn't one-on-one press, which is all teams are doing, marking one-on-one, relying on constant pressure on good but clearly limited players or mediocre players to bad pass into space. The only United player on the field who frightens in a one-on-one is Pontius, but only going right, Columbus let him run into the left corner, into open space, rather than let him go right. DeLeon looks (looked, he ripped his hamstring yesterday) terrible. Pajoy not only doesn't scare anybody, opposing teams are delighted to see him on the field (he did hit post, late, on a free header). DeRossario looks grandpa, so washed-up and grandpa. Najar on the ball, whether from the back or on the wing, drew multiple defenders, created space for others when their markers ran at Najar. No one on United does now. SeatSix declared himself done with Benny, this guy declared Benny a fucking idiot, and maybe - it is the coach's responsibility to make adjustments to his system with the players he's given. I'm just unclear whether Benny isn't making best use out of what he's been given or - what I fear might be true and a worse-case scenario - he is.