Sunday, February 14, 2016

Withdrawing My Trademark Claim on Word *Potuscotus*




That's Jess, the unloved (but not hated) One of Eight. She's needy, offers nothing. The afghan is over fifty years old, crotcheted for me by my paternal grandmother.

Long-timer's can vouch - and typing the words John Roberts into the search box top left corner of blog and submitting will confirm - I've long desired Obama receive the duty of nominating a replacement of a conservative member of SCOTUS in POTUS season (to see who he would choose, as test of his - and his followers' - Liberalism*). His, of course, his 2012 reelection, but.

Snide me tapped out a twoot reflexively, thinking only I thought it funny: Yes, HRC's ruthless, will do ANYTHING to be Potus, but I have to admit killing Scalia NOW seems a good tactical move for lagging campaign. But it would be. Unless the focus isn't on social issues but oligarchal control of props of government, but that would take Obama nominating.... So yes, in Pragmatistan, it's good for Hillary Clinton.

Clinton yesterday: "If we broke up the big banks tomorrow….would that end racism? Would that end sexism?" "No!" crowd yells out. There you go.

UPDATE! Not everything is about an economic theory. There you go.












DEEPLY MORBID

Stevie Smith

Deeply morbid deeply morbid was the girl who typed the letters
Always out of office hours running with her social betters   
But when daylight and the darkness of the office closed about her
Not for this ah not for this her office colleagues came to doubt her
It was that look within her eye
Why did it always seem to say goodbye?

Joan her name was and at lunchtime   
Solitary solitary
She would go and watch the pictures   
In the National Gallery
All alone all alone
This time with no friend beside her   
She would go and watch the pictures   
All alone.

Will she leave her office colleagues
Will she leave her evening pleasures
Toil within a friendly bureau
Running later in her leisure?
All alone all alone
Before the pictures she seems turned to stone.

Close upon the Turner pictures   
Closer than a thought may go   
Hangs her eye and all the colours   
Leap into a special glow
All for her, all alone
All for her, all for Joan.

First the canvas where the ocean   
Like a mighty animal
With a really wicked motion   
Leaps for sailors’ funeral

Holds her panting. Oh the creature   
Oh the wicked virile thing
With its skin of fleck and shadow   
Stretching tightening over him.
Wild yet captured wild yet captured   
By the painter, Joan is quite enraptured.

Now she edges from the canvas   
To another loved more dearly   
Where the awful light of purest   
Sunshine falls across the spray,   
There the burning coasts of fancy   
Open to her pleasure lay.
All alone, all alone
Come away, come away
All alone.

Lady Mary, Lady Kitty
The Honourable Featherstonehaugh   
Polly Tommy from the office
Which of these shall hold her now?   
Come away, come away
All alone.

The spray reached out and sucked her in   
It was a hardly noticed thing   
That Joan was there and is not now
(Oh go and tell young Featherstonehaugh)   
Gone away, gone away   
All alone.

She stood up straight
The sun fell down
There was no more of London Town   
She went upon the painted shore   
And there she walks for ever more   
Happy quite
Beaming bright
In a happy happy light
All alone.

They say she was a morbid girl, no doubt of it   
And what befell her clearly grew out of it   
But I say she’s a lucky one
To walk for ever in that sun
And as I bless sweet Turner’s name
I wish that I could do the same.



7 comments:

  1. with respect to the Afghan Whigs, the Wikipedia article on them says, in part

    [Greg] Dulli’s songs with Afghan Whigs also betray a fascination with and sympathy for the anti-hero, which he attributed to an influential conversation with his grandfather during childhood: "I remember as a kid watching a cowboys-and-Indians movie and I was rooting for the cowboys… My grandfather asked me why, and I said, `Because they're the good guys.' And my grandfather explained to me that the Indians were fighting for their land and that the cowboys were trying to steal it from them. Then he said something to me that I never forgot, which was,`Good people aren't good all the time and bad people aren't bad all the time.' I've been exploring that gray area ever since, the idea that saints can fall and sinners can transcend."

    coincidentally, the death of scalia - and the recounting of his friendship with his fellow justice Notorious RBG - reminded me of some dialogue from a movie starring ben stiller, whose most recent release is in theaters even as we speak -

    there's a line in the movie 'zero effect' - ben stiller's character tells bill pullman's character, "There aren't Good Guys and Bad Guys. They are all just a bunch of guys!"





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  2. i am not advocating moral relativism, but rather a sense of compassion for our fellow sinners, and ourselves - as the bard wrote, "Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?"

    light of the world, shine on me,
    love is the answer
    light of the world, set us free,
    love is the answer


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  3. 1)i feel sad when i see the cat in the top photo described as Jess, the unloved (but not hated) One of Eight. She's needy, offers nothing.

    in coloring she strongly resembles the best cat i have ever known, who now lies in eternal repose in our back yard

    2) that's a nice-looking afghan on which the least of these cats is resting

    3) speaking of afghans, the afghan whig cover of "the temple" reminded me for a second of mccartney's 'band on the run' song - paul took a lick from there, it seems

    4) scalia's completion of his cycle of life reminded me of the following - the 3rd line is my own addition, and i have just pruned it into a haiku


    time flies like arrow
    fruit flies like a banana
    maggots like corpses


    5)the sunnier lines at the end of my last comment were written by todd rundgren, although it was england dan and john ford coley who had the radio hit

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  4. *I love Jess, she is not unloved.

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  5. KITTIES GOOD. Tough for a Dog to admit, but, still.

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  6. would like to see Barry Bamz nominate a qualified jurist who decides based on other than political ideology. believe it or not, reality does tend to have a leftward bias in a demotic society. then, said nominee loudly shut down by obstreperous gop caucus (maybe with racial or sexist overtones). then hills or bernie nominate kenyan muslin Barry Sotero to ussct. how much fun would that be? 2+ years of drama better than L.A. Law!

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