Today in my complicity I am typing on my new chromebook, my buyer's regret easing already, and I will never miss windows, and trading one shitlord self-surveillance operating system for another shitlord self-surveillance operating system reminds me of when I took off a wristwatch I'd been wearing for years and replaced it with a shitlord surveillance device, lost weight, felt guilty for a month, I got more complicit with that act, yes, but betrayed an inanimate object I thought I loved, and I'm sure there's a built-in app on another of my self-surveillance devices that could do what the self-surveillance device on my wrist does but the once-beloved watch is busted, *isn't* it Olive, I can't put the watch I took off back on, but I'm just switching ogres here, and I never loved my dying laptop like I ever loved my dead watch I abandoned after promises and Olive killed before I wouldn't've made good
The new first collection of John Ashbery's posthumous unfinished and/or abandoned poems arrived yesterday, five long poems (compared especially to the poems in his late books), I've read two, they work of course like most Ashbery poems until I attempt to assign more anything to his uncanny intimations rushing over me than simply enjoying the rush
THE ART OF FINGER DEXTERITY
#17 - MINOR SCALES AT HIGH SPEED
John Ashbery
Otherwise you can turn around,
go back, I mean. Sure, others
will see it as defeat. They'll even
be right. "You take it right home
with you, boy." It isn't necessary,
though, to have your mind read by them.
You're what's being decided on, and that
weakness is your peculiar strength,
provided it's carried through, to the end
and its abominable consequences, the jackals
laughing at the moon till they cry.
They grow up so fast.
Besides, they'll end up moving back in.
Nothing much can be done to sweeten
that state of affairs. Nor would you want to,
given the ambiguity that tails us.
Speaking of complicity, I entered a neighborhood supermarket this morning in full knowledge that there was simultaneous to my visit a warning strike by a trade union that includes its employees. On top of that I used the self-checkout, which would have my father rolling had he not been turned to ashes. And to top it all off, after I'd moved to stow my wares in my bag, the gentleman overseeing the machines meant surely to replace people some day in toto came over and handed me the tenner I'd left in the return slot (I didn't forget the two cents).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind. The bumps you lend add a certain worthwhile-ness to it all. Something fine abounds, and I'll leave it at that.
Nice verbiaging.
Delete1)chromebooks - i've had a couple, liked them, would make sure to get a touchscreen if i got another - my 2 years old windows laptop is working and until it stops i won't get something else
ReplyDelete2)watches - earlier this year i upgraded from plastic 'terrorist special' digital display casio
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W
to a steel expansion wristband analog display timex - it gives me day of the week and date of the month, but if the month is shorter than 31 days i have to advance the date manually
2a)speaking of the lengths of months, canadian political cartoonist michael de adder, in his book 'you may STILL be from nova scotia if...' has a drawing of a winter street scene captioned
"february is the longest month"
you may have seen de adder's work after one particular picture went viral
https://www.themarysue.com/trump-cartoonist-fired/
3)tom junod article 'falling man' - i've seen people praise this piece at naked capitalism - i intend to read it but feel a bit too scattered right now to do it justice - junod's article on fred 'mister' rogers had an impact on me back in the 20th century - i concluded fred rogers was a saint
i was looking at the rolling stones song 'saint' video - jagger sings 'you'll never make a saint of me'
and that's true - saints do not become saints by compulsion, but by willing cooperation with higher forces [if any]
3a)john yates/culadasa, credited first author on the mind illuminated died from cancer a couple days ago
3b)i posted the following on a thread at reddit
In a book called "Wisdom of the Idiots", Idries Shah quotes a dervish song titled "Tavern Pledge".
It may be said, "They came in vain."
Let it not be that they came in vain.
We leave this, the bequest, to you;
We finished what we could, we leave the rest to you.
Remember, this is work entrusted ---
Remember, beloved, we shall meet again.