Small and Stupid, Too Slow to Get Away, It Was Only a Promise I Had Made to Myself Once and Then Forgot

I'm leaving shortly for an eight-miler on the Appalachian Trail, Crampton's Gap to top of Lambs Knoll and then down again, again without Earthgirl, she thinks she's a couple of weeks away though her leg is much better. When I get back to the car after the hike, a decision will have been made. There have been changes in the permanent three spots on my Sillyass Deserted Island Game before: twelve years ago I dropped XTC from a spot into the innermost circle of bands and artists who take turns in the two rotating spots in the Sillyass game to elevate Guided by Voices into a permanent spot. (Kate Bush and Pere Ubu/David Thomas had, have, and will always have permanent spots.) Have I ever mentioned how much I love Lambchop? It's not that I love GbV any less than ever, it's that I love Lambchop more than ever. I need two rotating spots and six circles, in ascending order, of bands and artists who cycle through the rotating spots. No, I cannot make it a Sillyass Deserted Island Six Game.

• Notes on conspiricism: This is not to say that there are not operatives in our midst giving the system a nudge here and there. It’s a testimony to the extent of our indoctrination, that in light of this country’s history and a year of revelations about mass surveillance, people still roll their eyes at any suggestion of organized state deception and malfeasance. Certainly Graeber is well aware of the extensive state interference with Occupy, so presumably he is intimating only the looniness of implicating him. But there is little profit in focusing on this aspect when the end result is the same. It doesn’t truly matter what compelled Graeber to knowingly run interference for defamation and red-baiting. What matters is that he did.
• Surveillance, capture, and the endless replay.
• On the war on teachers. Full disclosure, my wife is a teacher, my parents were teachers, my favorite aunts and uncles were teachers, I have beloved who are teachers. I am ridiculously biased.
• More on the above.
• Broadsnark's things you might have missed.
• Baffler's week that was.
• Maggie's weekly links.
• { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
• Main character syndrome.
• Pale notes on friendship.
• The most difficult and painful turn.
• Go west in that case.
• I have an inkling the decision has already been made.

BROKEN PROMISES

David Kirby

I have met them in dark alleys, limping and one-armed;   

I have seen them playing cards under a single light-bulb   

and tried to join in, but they refused me rudely,   

knowing I would only let them win.   

I have seen them in the foyers of theaters,   

coming back late from the interval   

long after the others have taken their seats,   

and in deserted shopping malls late at night,   

peering at things they can never buy,   

and I have found them wandering   

in a wood where I too have wandered.   

This morning I caught one;   

small and stupid, too slow to get away,   

it was only a promise I had made to myself once   

and then forgot, but it screamed and kicked at me   

and ran to join the others, who looked at me with reproach   

in their long, sad faces.

When I drew near them, they scurried away,   

even though they will sleep in my yard tonight.   

I hate them for their ingratitude,   

I who have kept countless promises,   

as dead now as Shakespeare’s children.   

“You bastards,” I scream,   

“you have to love me—I gave you life!”