Sunday, April 28, 2019

The Bold, Enduring Menace of Courtship Is Upon Us Like the Plague




  • I never had a Sonic Youth tag? the fuck is wrong with me.
  • On Learning to Die in the Anthropocene. I vouch.
  • Materialist enchantments.
  • He's not your Uncle Joe.
  • On Biden: "you have to fuck him up!" 
  • I tweeted out yesterday I thank Biden
  • my contempt for him the contempt I have for anything Clinton
  • We had dinner last night with my brother-and-sister-in-law, my sister-in-law a minor motherfucking professional Democrat.
  • You *have* to support Biden if he's the nominee, she insisted
  • - disclaimer: I like my sister-in-law, this is not a snidejob - 
  • I said to my sister-in-law, Why aren't you supporting Warren, you insisted in 2016 the symbolism and significance of a woman POTUS was paramount above your distaste for Clinton's centrist positions, you wanted Clinton to make Warren VPOTUS for Warren's progressive economic positions
  • My sister-in-law said, Warren can't beat Trump, she will never survive the grinder, Biden's the only one who can survive the grinder
  • and before I could choose how to *what the fuck?* the check came and restaurant - Ruan Thai, on Amherst in Wheaton, best Thai period - needed the table.
  • Kim Gordon born 66 years ago today.










     
LEAVE THE HAND IN

John Ashbery

Furthermore, Mr. Tuttle used to have to run in the streets.   
Now, each time friendship happens, they’re fully booked.   
Sporting with amaryllis in the shade is all fine and good,   
but when your sparring partner gets there first   
you wonder if it was all worth it. “Yes, why do it?”   
I’m on hold. It will take quite a lot for this music   
to grow on me. I meant no harm. I’ve helped him   
from getting stuck before. Dumb thing. All my appetites are friendly.   
Children too are free to go and come as they please.   
I ask you only to choose between us, then shut down this election.   
But don’t reveal too much of your hand at any given time.   
Then up and pipes the major, leave the hand in,   
or change the vows. The bold, enduring menace of courtship is upon us   
like the plague, and none of us can say what trouble   
will be precipitated once it has had its way with us.   
Our home is marshland. After dinner was wraparound.   
You got a tender little look at it.   
    
Outside, it never did turn golden.

3 comments:

  1. One never survives the grinder ... until finally they do.

    ReplyDelete
  2. 1)in 2016 i voted for hillary - bernie told me to - given where i lived, the electoral vote for our state was never in doubt, so my vote for hillary was an act of loyalty to bernie

    2)spouse and self have been watching the k-drama 'great queen seondeok', in which it is made clear that statecraft requires killing people from time to time - the difference is who and how and why

    3)at this point - given the clintonista determination to burn bernie to a crisp - i find myself wondering if the least objectionable candidate and most plausible president might be seth moulton - congressperson, semper fi, harvard alum, whose daughter emily will be two at the time of the 2020 election

    4)"how's your preferred candidate?" "compared to what?"

    5)i wonder if i'll read eric liu's* you're more powerful than you think: a citizen's guide to making change- currently on the blogroll right here, even as i type

    https://blogternator.com/2019/04/29/youre-more-powerful-than-you-think-a-citizens-guide-to-making-change-eric-liu/

    *his wikipedia bio is interesting - and there are three books by him in the my local public library system

    6)today's poem by ashbery is full of vague allusions - one way of dealing with that is to enjoy the fun of puzzling then moving on

    6b)on the other hand, sometimes the concrete can be quite satisfying, as in my own favorite self-authored haiku, now dubbed "walking down the buffalo, ny sidewalk on a snowy evening"

    white nights are bright nights
    snowflakes slant through street lights and
    muffle my footsteps


    6c)interpretive note - this was written during the last quarter of the twentieth century when 'snowflake' had not yet become a term of abuse

    ReplyDelete