Cows, for Example, Find Each Part of Themselves Traveling at a Different Rate of Speed

Earthgirl's cows ▲ at a show in Glen Echo yesterday (it was a group show, she didn't make a big deal of it, didn't promote). She purposely priced it silly so she either made a lot of money or could give it to Planet to hang in her new apartment in Baltimore. It's going to hang in Planet's new apartment in Baltimore.

Hey! Joe Strummer was born 64 years ago today:







The tradition Egoslavian Joe Strummer birthday monologue:

Holyfuck, I love that song. One of my Clash stories: in 1982 Pete Townsend asked Strummer if The Clash wanted to open for The Who for stadium shows in support of the Who's It's Hard tour, and in September Blondie and me and Evinkay Kinnersay got in my green Ford Valiant and drove to JFK Stadium in Philly for the show. Good blotter was involved, just a quarter tab for me (I was driving after all), two full for Blondie, who knows how many for Evinkay, he was the provider, that and beer comprising his gas money. Blondie promptly disappeared into the stadium crowd after seeing one of the hundreds of thousands of best friends she had - this was her act; what charmed me was the once in a while she ditched others to be with me - and Kinner ran into a friend w/blow and disappeared (I was invited, but this is true, loved ones can vouch - blow never worked on me. Zip, zero. I'd tell people this and they would lay out $$$'s worth of lines and I'd say, you're wasting your money, and they'd dare me: they wasted their money) and I didn't see Blondie for two weeks or Kinner for three. I had a good jangle, my car keys, I didn't freak out, I got down near the front on the infield. I'd seen The Clash before, had seen them when they were on and into the show; they were neither on or into the show. Who fans booed them. Joe said, leaving the stage, Fuck You, Philadelphia.  

About Strummer: youngsters, The Clash were not the only band that mattered, but they did matter, and they were on the daily soundtrack once.

Here's Terre's tribute show from 2002 just after Strummer died.

Here's Diane's tribute show from 2002, just after Strummer died.

Lots of Clash at those two. When I put Strummer on the iPod now, it's the Mescalaros.

• I realize, I said to a Hillaryite Colleague, we're in the traditional post-convention /  pre-Labor Day POTUS lull, but the recent episodes of POTUS 16 suck. HC said, I don't know, the Trump statue generated heat. I didn't want to talk about the Trump statue with HC, at least until I knew whether HC gleefully approved of the statue and giggled at its mockery. I don't want to talk about the Trump statue period. HC continued, I found it interesting he made his apology speech the day after the statue's news broke. I said, you think they're related? Yes, HC said, to maximize his false new humility via his humiliation. So you're saying, I said, he alluded to his humiliation deliberately to drive up his poll numbers? Yes, HC said. I think, I said, maybe everyone's overthinking this fucking election.
• Some thoughts on the Trump statue.
• The Summer of the Shill.
• Emptiness and narcissism.
• Maggie's weekly links.
• { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
• Durutti Column.
• A poem about your university's new institute.
• City without a Name.

FOUR QUESTIONS REGARDING THE DREAMS OF ANIMALS

Susan Stewart

1. Is it true that they dream?
   
      It is true, for the spaces of night surround them with shape and purpose, like a warm hollow below the shoulders, or between the curve of thigh and belly.
      The land itself can lie like this. Hence our understanding of giants.
      The wind and the grass cry out to the arms of their sleep as the shore cries out, and buries its face in the bruised sea.
      We all have heard barns and fences splintering against the dark with a weight that is more than wood.
      The stars, too, bear witness. We can read their tails and claws as we would read the signs of our own dreams; a knot of sheets, scratches defining the edges of the body, the position of the legs upon waking.
      The cage and the forest are as helpless in the night as a pair of open hands holding rain.

2. Do they dream of the past or of the future?

      Think of the way a woman who wanders the roads could step into an empty farmhouse one afternoon and find a basket of eggs, some unopened letters, the pillowcases embroidered with initials that once were hers.
      Think of her happiness as she sleeps in the daylilies; the air is always heaviest at the start of dusk.
      Cows, for example, find each part of themselves traveling at a different rate of speed. Their bells call back to their burdened hearts the way a sparrow taunts an old hawk.
      As far as the badger and the owl are concerned, the past is a silver trout circling in the ice. Each night he swims through their waking and makes his way back to the moon.
    Clouds file through the dark like prisoners through an endless yard. Deer are made visible by their hunger.
    I could also mention the hopes of common spiders: green thread sailing from an infinite spool, a web, a thin nest, a child dragging a white rope slowly through the sand.

3. Do they dream of this world or of another?

    The prairie lies open like a vacant eye, blind to everything but the wind. From the tall grass the sky is an industrious map that bursts with rivers and cities. A black hawk waltzes against his clumsy wings, the buzzards grow bored with the dead.
    A screendoor flapping idly on an August afternoon or a woman fanning herself in church; this is how the tails of snakes and cats keep time even in sleep.
    There are sudden flashes of light to account for. Alligators, tormented by knots and vines, take these as a sign of grace. Eagles find solace in the far glow of towns, in the small yellow bulb a child keeps by his bed. The lightning that scars the horizon of the meadow is carried in the desperate gaze of foxes.
    Have other skies fallen into this sky? All the evidence seems to say so.
    Conspiracy of air, conspiracy of ice, the silver trout is thirsty for morning, the prairie dog shivers with sweat. Skeletons of gulls lie scattered on the dunes, their beaks still parted by whispering. These are the languages that fall beyond our hearing.
    Imagine the way rain falls around a house at night, invisible to its sleepers. They do not dream of us.

4. How can we learn more?
   
    This is all we will ever know.