The Untimely Death of Porch Furniture

• I replay Trump's reaction after asked why he lies
• He doesn't think he lies when the words leave his unmasked mouth
• If what he thinks at any split second is his truth does he break kayfabe?
• Is and does our shitlords' verbs
• him dim, shitlord enabled
• I am, according to my complicit kindle, 32% through Hillary Mantel's third of three Cromwells
• It came out past July, I've been reading it five fucking centuries
• Shitlords, why am I reading another novel about
• shitlords oh that's right every novel every poem every song every painting every anything of faith is a shitfling against
• shitlords

1. Saturday's meadow, I am stupid for goldenrod
2. This the lushest woods and meadows in years  
3. The architecture of surveillance in Northern Virginia
4. On less-shittyism, duh, but reminder
5. On less-shittyism, forever and ever
6. Algoracy
7. Why Biden chose Harris, duh, but reminder
8. Greenland as canary
9. Climate apartheid is coming
10. Hello again
11. Dreams and nightmares of the world's middle class
12. #GeneralStrike?
13. Yesterday's fungi:

1. Pigs
2. Harmful jobs, odious debt, and fascists
3. Woke, Inc
4. Feral urbanism
5. Is ecohumanism possible?
6. Maggie's weekly links
7. Caravan's occasional massive link dump
8. { feuilleton }'s weekly links
9. Self-exposure: therapy and a pandemic

THE DEFINITION OF GARDENING

James Tate

Jim just loves to garden, yes he does.

He likes nothing better than to put on

his little overalls and his straw hat.

He says, "Let's go get those tools, Jim."

But then doubt begins to set in.

He says, "What is a garden, anyway?"

And thoughts about a "modernistic" garden

begin to trouble him, eat away at his resolve.

He stands in the driveway a long time.

"Horticulture is a groping in the dark

into the obscure and unfamiliar,

kneeling before a disinterested secret,

slapping it, punching it like a Chinese puzzle,

birdbrained, babbling gibberish, dig and

destroy, pull out and apply salt,

hoe and spray, before it spreads, burn roots,

where not desired, with gloved hands, poisonous,

the self-sacrifice of it, the self-love,

into the interior, thunderclap, excruciating,

through the nose, the earsplitting necrology

of it, the withering, shriveling,

the handy hose holder and Persian insect powder

and smut fungi, the enemies of the iris,

wireworms are worse than their parents,

there is no way out, flowers as big as heads,

pock-marked, disfigured, blinking insolently

at me, the me who so loves to garden

because it prevents the heaving of the ground

and the untimely death of porch furniture,

and dark, murky days in a large city

and the dream home under a permanent storm

is also a factor to keep in mind."