- I *do* hate motherfucking Democrats, but I need a better hobby.
- Democracy dies in empire.
- Eat the young, student loan edition.
- A thousand milliseconds of peace.
- Avedon's occasional links.
- A quick quiz to make a point.
- Maggie's weekly links.
- Express lanes for the rich.
- { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
- The narcissism of contemporary poetry.
- I am also going on vacation this coming week, while I love *being* on vacation I hate *going* on vacation, my cats.
- The business of poetry devalues poetry.
- Lowell George was born 74 years ago yesterday:
SHAMANISM 101
Dean Young
Like everyone, I wanted my animal
to be the hawk.
I thought I wanted the strength
to eat the eyes first then tear
into the fuse box of the chest
and soar away.
I needed help because I still
cowered under the shadow of my father,
a man who inspected picture tubes
five out of seven nights,
who woke to breakfast on burnt roast
except the two weeks he’d sleep
on a Jersey beach and throw me
into the gasoline-sheened waves.
I loved him dying indebted
not knowing to what,
thinking his pension would be enough,
released not knowing from what,
gumming at something I was afraid
to get close enough to hear, afraid
of what I was co-signing. So maybe
the elephant. The elephant knows
when one of its own is suffering
up to six miles away. Charges across
the desert cognizant of the futility.
How can I be forgiven when I don’t know
what I need forgiving for? Sometimes
the urges are too extreme: to slap
on the brakes and scream, to bite the haunch
of some passing perfume, so maybe my animal
is the tiger. Or shark.
Or centipede.
But I know I’m smaller than that,
filling notebooks with clumsy versions
of one plaint, one pheromonal call,
clamoring over a crumb that I think
is the world, baffled by the splotch
of one of my own crushed kind,
almost sweet, a sort of tar,
following a trail of one or two molecules,
leaving a trail
of one or two molecules.
about hating mf democrats and the possibility of having a different hobby
ReplyDelete1)in general, when disturbed by what other people are doing, i sometimes recall the harvard law of behavior allegedly formulated by b.f. skinner, founder of the operant conditioning paradigm - "under carefully controlled experimental conditions, the subject organism does what it damn well pleases"
1a)in other words, people are both responsible for their actions and NOT responsible for their actions - they do what they consider to be appropriate, but what they consider to be appropriate is a function of their learning history, their organismic state at the moment, and so on
2)the hobby of hating mf democrats has antecedents - historical reasons why it is engaged in - and consequences - results which flow from practicing it
3)andrew lakein [he has a wikipedia article on him, from which this is quoted] is credited as the creator of Lakein's question: "What is the best use of my time right now?"
3a)"best" criteria are evaluated by the doer of the action, and relate to short, medium, and long term goals, what is pleasurable, what is consistent with one's values, what is necessary, what is fun, what involves keeping an important promise, what helps answer life's four most persistent questions - where did i come from, where am i going, why am i here, what's for lunch - etc etc etc
4) "how's your hobby __________ ?" "compared to what?"
5)and now for something somewhat different - spouse and self watched a few episodes of 'game of thrones' years ago - too violent, too malevolent, too explicit for our tastes
over the past week we have been watching, instead, a struggle for the throne set in 7th century korea - 'the great queen seondeok' - still plenty of plotting, deaths by swords and daggers and poisoned arrows, but more love and loyalty than we recall seeing in g.o.t. - we are fans of the actress playing the title character - we have seen some series with her on netflix and now we are branching out to other ways to access her shows - right now we are seeing g.q.s. on youtube, with annoying ads, of course, but so it goes - it turns out local dentists advertise on youtube - who knew? we didn't, until this weekend
6)may your cats be well, happy, and at peace