- A Day at the Beach.
- Last year's most annoying every fucking half-inning commercial on Nat's radio was Budweiser's Brewed the Hard Way, Not the Easy Way.
- This year's every fucking half-inning Budweiser commercial on Nat's radio climaxes with, When We Stop Calling Ourselves a Start-Up Cause We're Not a Start-Up Anymore!
- The giant European beverage conglomerate swiveled from patriotism to capitalism to move product.
- USA! USA! USA!
- This year's most annoying every fucking half-inning commercial on Nat's radio is Innova Health Care's That tingling in your heart might be love BUT YOU'RE DYING MOST LIKELY! come get a heart scan, concerned female voice over a bed of treacly, tinkling, melodramatic piano.
- The Return of the Repressed.
- People who have freaked at Trump (w this comment by one BLCKDGRD: it's the relentless feminization as mode of attack - all sides do it http://bostonreview.net/politics-gender-sexuality/bonnie-honig-he-said-he-said-feminization-james-comey - and then the blind horror when it's done to one's own that's old, tired, and will never stop. One thing different about Trump than his predecessors - he hurls insults back (and sometimes first). Then those who hurled at him whinge about decorum. Life in the Assholocene - too many people are enjoying it, though too few of those will admit it.
- WTF? The future of the Democratic Party?
- July 4th, 1899 in Pynchon's Against the Day.
- Cringe-worthy poets?
- Post title taken from today's poem (James Tate's Bounden Duty) linked here since (Poetry Foundation has completely revamped their website, is nice, but...) I want to Galaxie 500 bracket the post.
Tuesday, July 4, 2017
The Sudden Pressure to Act Normal Was Killing Me
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1)james tate is great, even though many or most of his poems do not lend themselves to explicitly anagogic analyses - i treasure a book of his poems which i received as a gift
ReplyDelete2)on a day like today, i reflect on krishna's assertion, in the bhagavad gita, that people have both divine and demonic tendencies
2a)on sunday at church we sang "america the beautiful" - i noticed with sadness the myth of the empty continent populated by my ancestors in the first half of the second verse
O beautiful for pilgrim feet,
Whose stern impassion’d stress
A thoroughfare for freedom beat
Across the wilderness!
even while feeling approval for the sentiment expressed in the second half of the verse, while recognizing its aspirational nature
America! America! God mend thine ev’ry flaw,
Confirm thy soul in self-control,
Thy liberty in law!
2b)channel surfing yesterday i came across a "cowboys and indians" show from my childhood - quite a lot of the latter were shot dead by the pistols and rifles of the former
3)the 3rd verse of "america the beautiful" pats the country on the back for the civil war - the author did not refer to the fact, and indeed may not have been aware of the fact, that the counter-reconstruction era had reversed a great many of the gains bought at the price of rivers of blood
4)and then, poetic and utopian hyperbole takes over - why express such impossible wishes?
human tears are inevitable as long as we live and die human lives, even if we eventually arrive at the country of our hopes, with liberty and justice for all - right now it seems we are going in the wrong direction - a temporary fluctuation, or a historical turning point? - i don't know, nobody knows, god only knows
O Beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam,
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America! God shed His grace on thee,
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
5)i'm still reading culadasa's instruction manual
https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Illuminated-Complete-Meditation-Integrating/dp/0990847705
6)visiting relatives plan to go to clarksburg premium outlets today
7)and speaking of freedom, and visiting relatives, they have ostensibly admired my back yard, my self-proclaimed "nature preserve" - and so far this year i have not yet gotten a letter from the homeowners association asking me to tame these few square feet of wilderness - which would be "sudden pressure to act normal", one could say
may the creative forces of the universe be with us all
1. And each rereading the poem is deeper funnier.
Delete6. When we hike at Little Bennett the traffic to outlet is amazing.
Thanks as always.