Thursday, April 18, 2019

come down jiffy by shake



  • If two years in a row on April 18th make an Egoslavian tradition, new Egoslavian tradition
  • I had written something gratuitously snippy about the NYT's article on Neera Tanden
  • I had written something gratuitously snippy about the people giving money to the Catholic Church to fix Notre Dame who flip off beggars at traffic lights on 355
  • This is the snippy sentence I write right now about the shitty Mueller kabuki
  • 31 miles from my house to Frederick, 52 miles from Frederick to Pennsylvania border, 180 mile from Maryland-Pennsylvania border to Pennsylvania-Ohio border, 185 miles from Pennsylvania-Ohio border to Ohio-Michigan border, 55 miles from Ohio-Michigan border to Chelsea Michigan, so 503 miles from my stoop where Napoleon knew we were abandoning him to the Jiffy Factory on Michigan 52 in downtown Chelsea. 




  • I was not sitting the in the breakfast lounge of the Comfort Inn in Chelsea Michigan when I wrote last year's April 18 post
  • I am sitting alone in the corner of a breakfast lounge with fourteen tables, mine the remotest, in walk a family with three screaming kids, they choose the table closest to me, fine metaphors abound
  • Today's plan: Hudson Mills MetroPark with a world class disc golf course and multiple bridges gardens places for Earthgirl to paint and draw, today's weather forecast: Hard Rain All Day
  • Tomorrow's plan: drive to Chicago with Earthgirl and Planet and Air and walk to cool places, tomorrow's weather forecast: Hard Rain All Day.
  • Saturday's plan: walk to all the cool places in Chicago we couldn't get to Friday, Saturday's weather forecast: Hard Rain All Day.
  • Sunday's plan: drive home so we can go to work Monday, Sunday's weather forecast: Sunny, pleasant, mid-60s, fine metaphors abound.
  • Here is this April 18th's photo of Olive, light, mirror, taken Tuesday night before I knew there was a tradition April 18th Egoslavian blogpost:




  • We crossed the Ohio - Michigan border and shazam, dozens upon dozens of dead woodchucks, raccoons, possum, fox, the animals of Michigan are not stupider or more suicidal, Michigan doesn't remove the car-slaughtered corpses from their roads
  • Michigan won't provide clean water to the biped animals of Flint
  • The family leaves, I am alone in the breakfast lounge for two minutes, an arguing couple come take the table next to me
  • Blegsylvanian rhythms - look at the blogrolls, I know I focus everything through the lens that is me, but Blegsylvanian rhythms are real
  • I am telling you three times we train and retrain ourselves
  • and can't quit





SONGS OF WEIGHTS AND MEASUREMENTS

Martha Silano

For there is a dram.
For there is a farthing.
A bushel for your thoughts.
A hand for your withered heights.
               
For I have jouled along attempting
to quire and wisp.
           
For I have sized up a mountain’s meters,
come down jiffy by shake to the tune
of leagues and stones.
           
For once I was your peckish darling.
                 
For once there was the measure
of what an ox could plow
in a single morning.
                
For once the fother, the reed, the palm.
          
For one megalithic year I fixed my gaze
on the smiling meniscus, against the gray wall
of graduated cylinder.
                
For once I measured ten out of ten
on the scale of pain.
         
For I knew that soon I’d kiss good-bye
the bovate, the hide and hundredweight.
                   
For in each pinch of salt, a whisper of doubt,
for in each medieval moment, emotion,
                 
like an unruly cough syrup bottle,
uncapped. For though I dutifully swallowed

my banana doses, ascended, from welcome
to lanthorn, three barleycorns at a time,
                       
I could not tackle the trudging, trenchant cart.
                        
For now I am forty rods from your chain and bolt.
For now I am my six-sacked self.

5 comments:

  1. 1a) a prosaic discussion of a few of silano's measures -

    https://mentalfloss.com/article/25108/why-are-there-5280-feet-mile-making-sense-measurements

    1b) units used in stating the weight of a cat

    http://dailymail.co.uk/reader-comments/p/comment/link/416026103?ito=rcreplyemail

    2)re the tweets linked to at "we train and retrain ourselves" -

    today the cartoon on the editorial page in the financial times, by "banx" [i sometimes wonder how close this is to the artist's birth name] refers to the extinction rebellion demonstrations - it shows two dinosaurs looking up at a flaming meteor coming towards them - one says to the other "i've half a mind to protest"

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  2. My first thought when you wrote it was 503 miles was that that was a remarkably short distance compared to what I'd've guessed. Have a lovely time.

    Your back-t-woyk Monday reminds me we got a four-day away here, what with Friday the Good (day of the torturous murder and all) and "Easter Monday" both being national holidays, and old habits die never: I bitched a little because I had to stock up on something to eat, lest I starve while the stores're closed.

    I don't think I update as much as I used to and I noticed the following link having been hit recently and wondered because the title rarely betrays what I was on about, and after reading decided to archive dot org a few dead links. I used to moan & drone more back in the good ole Rama daze, which betrays that the observation by nihilists that Don 45 would at least make the Ramabots care again had precisely the opposite effect on me:
    http://davidly66.blogspot.com/2010/03/ramblin-on-gamblin-and-moanin-dronin.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. "I bitched a little because I had to stock up on something to eat, lest I starve while the stores're closed."

    (Bunny)Dammit, if only I'd read this comment thread earlier... it's too late to stock up now! (Well, we always have inconvenient Ullrich and the others)

    Is today a birthday? I'm gathering as much. Two days from today is a birthday I tend to stay home for... so Happy Benign Birthday

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No birthday today - I woke up and thought about the gif cause it's my mood, looked to see what I posted last year to see if it *was* a birthday before starting a post, must surrender to the Serendipity and pray to it.

      Iggy and Cure Boy *are* the 21st.

      Delete