Planet got her first of two plague shots, Earthgirl gets her first a week from today, I get my first a week from tomorrow, it is conceivable I could hug my daughter for the first time in a year in March or April!
Salamander Red's last day, let me write about Salamander Red before I forget her newt Tuesday. A scold, a busy-body, a talk shit about you shit, fortunately not an instigator (or a bad one if she was), I mention first because she earned an MLS and finally got a job in an overcrowded and diminishing profession reminding me I wouldn't be typing this sentence now if I hadn't dropped out of Library School when I did and while I might be able to hug my daughter in March or April it may or not have been in Michigan but not with her now husband and I have never regretted for a second my level of ambition, I vouch, so while I'm happier for me than her I'm glad she got a job, and second because the minute you walk out the sliding doors it's like you never worked here at all
Two my two former fellauingers not forgotten eternal apologies for the shitty correspondent that I am
<<< My worry goes beyond the fact that people are deceived by aspects of their social environment that appear to empower them without actually rendering them able to affect the course of things. Worse, I think, is that a great many don't care, or at least have passed a point of cynicism wherein they do not really think things can be otherwise.
This is why you’ll never see a US politician actually slamming the brakes on imperialism. If anyone gets anywhere near a position where they might do so, they will be targeted and eliminated. It’s the one door you’re forbidden to go through, because it threatens an entire empire. They might let you advance a few mildly progressive domestic agendas, but they will never, ever let you anywhere near the possibility of ending western imperialism. >>>>
<<< Most of the insurrectionists do not come from deep-red strongholds. People familiar with America’s political geography might imagine the Capitol rioters as having marinated in places where they are unlikely to encounter anyone from the opposite side of the political spectrum. Yet of those arrested for their role in the Capitol riot, more than half came from counties that Biden won; one-sixth came from counties that Trump won with less than 60 percent of the vote.
^^^ Yet I keep seeing liberal Democrats on denouncing the Right as ignorant, uneducated, low-class trash. No matter how much evidence to the contrary they're confronted with, they won't let go of the illusion. (Much like the QAnon-brainwashed Trump cultists they deride.) They don't believe it because it's true, but because it lets them feel comfortable. Why that should be is difficult for me to understand, because the Trump Right is a serious threat to this country whether its members are educated or not. I think their refusal to face reality is of a piece with the same Democrats' belief that with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris in office, they can relax and go to sleep for the next four years. >>>
Coincidences in my real life (discovering and reading Waldrep and Wiman's excellent poetry for poetry's sake) and my work life (I needed scan text by and about her (Merton too) for a professor) and my desire to not see every christian a fucking lunatic incapable of good faith then I discover by accident this article on >>>
Blegsylvania drooping since Trump's disappearance, not only yinz but ejournals political, poetry, music, eclectic, the restoration of kayfabe more demoralizing than Trump's breaking of it. In any case, February's moribund sweep now done, some of yinz moved to the second cemetery so I can see you stir when you float to the top of the dead. Yinz fell asleep before Trump's dumping, it still feels a part of a bleg-tidal shift. As always, no one has been canceled, I promise
Tall, narrow containers make it needlessly difficult to use all the sticky, amorphous gels residing in them. This structural difficulty, in turn, leads to a small but meaningful amount of the peanut butter being throw away, rather than used. It means, on average, people buy the next jar of peanut butter a day earlier than they would if the stuff came in a short, wide tub that permitted easy access to the last portions... It bears repeating, and remembering: Salesman, then engineer…in that order. >>>
BLCKDGRD tradition: more effort on Holy Motherfucking Helmetball Day post than any other post of the year, most time spent creating, least read by yinz of the year!
But only one-way, I'll try being the short, wide tub I know I can be
‘The great blanket of cloud,’ she writes, ‘spread out hangs low and heavy over me. Only in the distance are there breaks in the cloud, giving a glimpse of a streak of pale powdered pink.’ Those two sentences have a painterly compression, almost as if she were describing a picture. It doubles, as all of the prose from the section does, as both a description of a real place and an attempt to reimagine the lost painting. The picture she has in mind has, of course, vanished – hence we have no idea if what her words describe bear any resemblance to the destroyed artwork. >>>
I tame you. (No you don’t). You were nude. You were intangible. You were unconvincing. You were vague. You claimed you were born from angels. You stank of the horrors of war. You blazed with ruthless pride. Your full, loose mouth blazed. You had a fruit bloom. You bloomed like a cannibal. Ready to devour or be devoured. Or both. You had your portrait painted as a butcher’s block. Yet you were not a still life. You were meat but recently living. You had come with your own legs. I replaced your legs. I replaced your crotch. Crotches. All of them. You were ghosting around as if a mystery of Hymen. I undressed you. That is the only difference. Beyond that there was little development between us. I used crutches, stilts, evisceration, plaster casts. I rooted your shoes. I tilted the stage, I knocked it apart, I combined you with other genders. I rolled up my sleeves. I showed you no tenderness, we might as well have been sexual! Or medical! Or archaeologists! I required you to clean up whatever mess we made. I used the mess again next day. I slowed your steps, inhibited your breathing, assaulted you with film score music (waltz). I littered the stage with open graves and you fell into them – hilarious! I laughed at you! I made you walk on your hands without oxygen or effective friends. I made you build the floor you walked on. I blew your clothes off. I mangled your Orpheus scene. I threw someone else’s thighs at you. I doused you with the waters of Lethe. I flattened you into a lozenge and stuffed you in my pocket. I shot all the arrows of King Darius’ Persian army at you (fast!) then made you pick them all up (slow). I tossed your skeleton off its slab (it smashed). I played with your skull. I got you chasing a nostalgic scrap of paper then turned out the lights and told the audience to go home. Beyond that nothing was resolved between us. The legs were of various heights. You invited me into your golden age, I made you a stranger, a loser, an arriviste, an undocumented alien, an unclaimed hostage, a bad birthday gift. I had you eaten into by the human. I broke your energy, I invented your gravity, I pulled you out through your own peep-hole. (No you didn't). I tame you. (No you don't).
2)i read elsewhere about the guy driving erratically, causing accidents, swinging a large piece of wood at people, hitting a sheriff's deputy with it, and being shot dead by said deputy
maybe that was the way his story had to end, but then again maybe not - i wonder as i wander but i really don't have enough information to arrive at a conclusion
3)you quote liam kofi bright as saying a great many [people] don't care, or at least have passed a point of cynicism wherein they do not really think things can be otherwise.
this is what i wonder about the man shot dead in montgomery county after his erratic behavior - could it have been otherwise? instead of a sheriff's deputy with a gun, what if someone skilled in martial arts training had been present, attempting to stop him from doing what he was doing? what then? but was there - or will there be in similar circumstances at a later date - any real possibility that things could have been meaningfully different?
4)lkb, in the interview you quote from, says that the full argument for the correct theory of the meaning [of] life is given in the poem Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
It little profits that an idle king, By this still hearth, among these barren crags, Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole Unequal laws unto a savage race, That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me. I cannot rest from travel: I will drink Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades Vext the dim sea: I am become a name; For always roaming with a hungry heart Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments, Myself not least, but honour'd of them all; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy. I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move. How dull it is to pause, to make an end, To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use! As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life Were all too little, and of one to me Little remains: but every hour is saved From that eternal silence, something more, A bringer of new things; and vile it were For some three suns to store and hoard myself, And this gray spirit yearning in desire To follow knowledge like a sinking star, Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus, To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,— Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil This labour, by slow prudence to make mild A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees Subdue them to the useful and the good. Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere Of common duties, decent not to fail In offices of tenderness, and pay Meet adoration to my household gods, When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail: There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners, Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me— That ever with a frolic welcome took The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old; Old age hath yet his honour and his toil; Death closes all: but something ere the end, Some work of noble note, may yet be done, Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods. The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks: The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world. Push off, and sitting well in order smite The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths Of all the western stars, until I die. It may be that the gulfs will wash us down: It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles, And see the great Achilles, whom we knew. Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho' We are not now that strength which in old days Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are; One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Per tomorrow's non-commentable-upon poest: https://thenapministry.wordpress.com Aside: James Cone was my minister when I went to church, and went to church at Riverside in NYC. Coffin was there for awhile. Met Jesse Jackson there. Cool place.
1)i like what you're doing with the grid
ReplyDelete2)i read elsewhere about the guy driving erratically, causing accidents, swinging a large piece of wood at people, hitting a sheriff's deputy with it, and being shot dead by said deputy
maybe that was the way his story had to end, but then again maybe not - i wonder as i wander but i really don't have enough information to arrive at a conclusion
3)you quote liam kofi bright as saying a great many [people] don't care, or at least have passed a point of cynicism wherein they do not really think things can be otherwise.
this is what i wonder about the man shot dead in montgomery county after his erratic behavior - could it have been otherwise? instead of a sheriff's deputy with a gun, what if someone skilled in martial arts training had been present, attempting to stop him from doing what he was doing? what then? but was there - or will there be in similar circumstances at a later date - any real possibility that things could have been meaningfully different?
4)lkb, in the interview you quote from, says that the full argument for the correct theory of the meaning [of] life is given in the poem Ulysses by Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
Ulysses
ReplyDeleteby ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
It little profits that an idle king,
By this still hearth, among these barren crags,
Match'd with an aged wife, I mete and dole
Unequal laws unto a savage race,
That hoard, and sleep, and feed, and know not me.
I cannot rest from travel: I will drink
Life to the lees: All times I have enjoy'd
Greatly, have suffer'd greatly, both with those
That loved me, and alone, on shore, and when
Thro' scudding drifts the rainy Hyades
Vext the dim sea: I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honour'd of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'
Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades
For ever and forever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!
As tho' to breathe were life! Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this gray spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
This is my son, mine own Telemachus,
To whom I leave the sceptre and the isle,—
Well-loved of me, discerning to fulfil
This labour, by slow prudence to make mild
A rugged people, and thro' soft degrees
Subdue them to the useful and the good.
Most blameless is he, centred in the sphere
Of common duties, decent not to fail
In offices of tenderness, and pay
Meet adoration to my household gods,
When I am gone. He works his work, I mine.
There lies the port; the vessel puffs her sail:
There gloom the dark, broad seas. My mariners,
Souls that have toil'd, and wrought, and thought with me—
That ever with a frolic welcome took
The thunder and the sunshine, and opposed
Free hearts, free foreheads—you and I are old;
Old age hath yet his honour and his toil;
Death closes all: but something ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods.
The lights begin to twinkle from the rocks:
The long day wanes: the slow moon climbs: the deep
Moans round with many voices. Come, my friends,
'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Per tomorrow's non-commentable-upon poest: https://thenapministry.wordpress.com
ReplyDeleteAside: James Cone was my minister when I went to church, and went to church at Riverside in NYC.
Coffin was there for awhile. Met Jesse Jackson there. Cool place.