Saturday, July 29, 2017

To All Events I Squirted You



We flew American Airlines Flight 4370 out of National yesterday morning to Bangor Maine. So did Republican Senator Susan Collins, one of three Republicans who voted against abandoning Obamacare the night before.  I didn't see her on the plane - since I first saw her on the ramp from plane to airport I assume she was in a seat ahead of us. When I first passed her - she was waiting on the ramp for somebody - I recognized that she was someone, but who didn't register. It was only when I heard what must have been one of her aides say, at the top of the ramp, how's the Senator, that I got it, and then, when she appeared out of the ramp most of the people in the waiting room applauded and thanked her. I took the photo and tweeted it to my, at that time, 410 followers.

At 2:20 I get an email:

Hi,
I’m a producer with ABC News in New York. I saw the photo you posted to Twitter of Susan Collins getting a round of applause at Bangor Airport this morning.


If so, can we use it on all ABC platforms and partners with credit to your Twitter account?

Feel free to contact me if  you have any questions.

Fergal Gallagher / ABCNews / Producer Multimedia Newsgathering

I told Earthgirl, and she said are you going to let them use it? and I said, No, of course not, and she said Why? and pleaded with me to let them. OK.

At 5:24 I get an email:

Hello, 

I work for NBC News and saw your photo of Sen. Collins coming out of the airport in Maine: https://twitter.com/BLCKDGRD/status/890966576811388929

Wondering if you took that photo and if so, may we use it across our nbcu partners and platforms? 

Thank you, 


Erin Calabrese
Reporter
NBC News

I told Earthgirl, and she said are you going to let them use it? and I said, No, of course not, and she said Why? and pleaded with me to let them. OK.

As I type this, the tweet has gotten 652 replies, 11K retweets, 43K likes. I've gained 156 followers.

Reminder: why we're in Maine:





  • Schoodic Head Trail, Schoodic Penisula.
  • Most of the replies are very positive towards Collins for her vote and to me for my photo, and the underlying assumption is that I posted it in support of Collins.
  • I confess I am small: anything that makes Mitch McFuckface unhappy makes me happy, but the sole purpose of the tweet was, Hey, this is weird, look at this, one of the three people most in the news was on the same plane as me on the day that person is, was, and will be most famous.
  • I didn't know Senators flew commercial.  I suppose had I thought about I'd have guessed they didn't all get private Leer rides whenever they need.
  • I didn't know Senators flew without bodyguards. I mean, maybe she did. 
  • Earthgirl has pictures of cairns. I will start daily cairning you tomorrow. 
  • Earthgirl below, I'm the blue blur beneath the Ashbery.
  • Also tomorrow - a return to more regular programming. I'm curious how fast the 156 unfollow.





BUNCH OF STUFF

John Ashbery

To all events I squirted you
knowing this not to be this came to pass
when we were out and it looked good.
Why wouldn’t you want a fresh piece
of outlook to stand in down the years?
See, your house, a former human energy construction,
crashed with us for a few days in May
and sure enough, the polar inscape
brought about some easier poems,
which I guessed was a good thing. At least
some of us were relaxed, Steamboat Bill included.
  
He didn’t drink nothing.
It was one thing
to be ready for their challenge, quite another to accept it.
And if I had a piece of advice for you, this is it:
Poke fun at balm, then suffer lethargy
to irradiate its shallow flood in the new packaging
our enemies processed. They should know.
  
The Gold Dust Twins never stopped supplicating Hoosiers
to limn the trail. There’s no Shakespeare.
Through the window, Casanova.
Couldn’t get to sleep in the dumb incident
of those days, crimping the frozen feet of Lincoln.




UPDATE!

Thanks to @davidly !


1 comment:

  1. i am glad your photo gained wider circulation

    see also

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/28/opinion/health-susan-collins-murkowski.html?_r=0

    the comments point out also the heroism of the senatress from hawaii, a democrat, who came further than mccain for the vote, and with a direr diagnosis (not that it's a contest) - senator mazie hirono

    may the creative forces of the universe stand beside us, and guide us, through the Night with the Light from Above (metaphorically speaking)

    ps i am a cancer survivor myself, and both my parents were cancer patients - my mother succumbed to it, my father died of something else - as buddha's contemplations point out, if one lives long enough one cannot escape

    aging
    illness
    death
    separation from the people and things one loves
    reaping the consequences of one's good and evil actions






    ReplyDelete