A Tiny Universe in Your Hand Made of Stringy Oil, Cats' Hair

Fleabus, photo from Monday night past, now in dotage, eats too much then won't eat at all, still poops in box but pisses next to it, kidneys drying to raisins, the meds and the special RX food she eats too much then won't eat at all working as well as possible says vet, the cat is eighteen, now going blind too, like the old fuck below, photo from last night, in hat knit by Planet holding the phone with a Fleabus protective case, a gift from Planet

Animals distill into their essence getting older, Fleabus getting sweeter day by day, the fuck below more sideways

Washington Post has an article on digital front page: Why Do People Mistreat Dogs, won't link to, won't read, will rip out my blinding eyes with a butterknife before I look at the photos, need more proof the eternal and infinite assholosity of humans than sillyass helmetball which is only the finest metaphor? watch in reality how humans treat animals (including the shittiest animal when they can, daydream of doing so if they can't)
The Great Tree Migration
The Economics of Repulsion
The Great Duh		☚	I work at a university whose most profitable programs teach students to Zero Sum Win at Clusterfuck, it's training for Shitlordia, I particularly like how cohorts are mandatory, Shitlordia HR using death matches in each cohort then pitting cohort top dogs against each other to find the brightest, most amoral ensigns they can then make more vicious and sociopathic by dangling bonuses and promotions over their noses. So no, Democrats won't save you, the university I work at gave you Bill Clinton
Shitlords hold the planet for ransom
I have two utterly useless in a professional sense degrees from the university where I work- I took (and still have) the tool job before I took advantage of tuition benefits and then getting fun but useless degrees, a BA in Antifa Hand Signals and an MA in Critical Race Theory, was fun! you are reading this because my trajectory would be different had Earthgirl not badgered me to apply to a job I thought you'd need at least a college degree to get
Planetary Rift
The problem with safety
Everything is an argument
Wallace Stevens and the New York School of Poets
The Villainous Empath			Link in part related to my thinking about Auster writing an autobiography of Crane which made me think about Henry James (who is the half the subject at the link) and my peculiar itch to read James though every single voluntary attempt (I read, and disliked, for assignments) fails, but two dear friends, both whose opinions I trust and value, tell me that once I get the breakthrough I will work my way through James' canon, and for some nagging reason I think they're right
Big Star live concert tribute!
New Jack Spicer uncollected!

BE BRAVE TO THINGS

Jack Spicer

Be brave to things as long as
As long as
As long as the plot thickens
As long as you hold a tiny universe in your
hand made of stringy oil, cats’ hair,
tobacco, remnants
Of what was once wide.
As it was once as long as, the plot thickens.
Be brave to thinkers in the night, rusted
boxes, anything
That has dimension.
As if it were a foot wide
Tall, square, as long as boxes
Were.

No Layoff from This Condensery

• By mid-June in past years Boogle/Glogger would have sent me daily screaming emails Hey, renew your domain name, YOU ARE DEAD JULY 25 IF YOU DON'T! Entering early-late-June not one.
• I logged into my Glogger admin dashboard yesterday - I had to change my debit card number when the old card expired and a new card was issued, and yup, this blog dies last week of July unless I renew the domain name and the dashboard nowhere allowed me to renew the domain name.
• Last night I thought about what I'd do if the domain name doesn't renew and this shitty blog goes dark.
• I have Adobe's Muse through their Creative Cloud, and I could build a website there (though it's more for business applications than daily farting like here), and beg you to follow me there.
• I went to wordpress last night, I could wordpress again and beg you to follow there.
• I could set up an alternative here with Glogger with the vanity-free (compared to the current domain name) blogspot in address and beg you to follow me there.
• I could do nothing, and if this place dies this place dies...
• Life in the Fuck We're So Fucked So Fuck It-ocene, fine metaphors abound.

• Give a bug blot enough time....
• The Rich won and neoliberal capitalism is over.
• The new American aristocracy.
• Climate Leviathan.
• A night among Trump believers way up north.
• I am telling you three times, we are being reprogrammed.
• Conversations with "The Enemy."
• Humanity's borders.

POETS WORK

Lorine Niedecker

Grandfather   

   advised me:

         Learn a trade

I learned

   to sit at desk

         and condense

No layoff

   from this

         condensery

In the First Dream the Angel Was Having a Dream; in the Next Dream the Angel Still Clung to His Story

• That is the second-most posted song in the history of this shitty blog. Alex Chilton was born sixty-four years ago today. Click the Big Star and/or Alex Chilton tags for more songs.
• Dishonorable: on the whiny pigs of New York.
• Willfully obtuse. Ask your white right-wing friends who insist America is not a racist society if they were born tomorrow and could choose to be white or black which they'd choose.
• David Harvey: Austerity schemes and right-wing economic doom. 
• Working the dark side - on torture and America.
• America defined in four words. 
• One crutch in Hell.
• Maggie's weekly links.
• Meditation Box.
• Even more Ivan Dishdogavitch.
• Mason & Dixon, third riff. 
• Felix Kubin!

SURVEILLANCE NOTES

Bill Manhire

In Sweden, they whispered all winter,

counting the frozen minutes.

In France, they branched out. Tips of experience.

In England, they dreamed of Ireland.

In Ireland they seemed to be lonely.

Germany was Belgium then was Spain.

Italy was something else again.

Portugal, Portugal, Portugal:

they said that a lot because they never went back.

Later in Hungary, he lay on his back

and watched the clouds — so few of them

but each one big and fluffy. In the first dream

the angel was having a dream; in the next dream

the angel still clung to his story.

They Find a Soul, and Their Dim Moan is Wrought into a Singing Sad and Beautiful, or: Born Sixty-Three Years Ago Today

Alex Chilton was born sixty-three days ago today. Not going to type it all out again, click the Alex Chilton and Big Star tags for other posts here on Chilton. El Goodo is probably on all of them, it's my first and favorite love. I just used one of my gift cards at the joint of one evil motherfucker on the DVD:







Love love love, but did you see, around the 2:00 mark, a blurb exclaiming that this documentary was going to introduce Big Star to a whole new generation? No, all but a very few of the whole new generation (roughly the same percentage as my old generation) will never understand the mythologizing of Alex Chilton by a few of my generation, all of us who aren't geniuses but are brighter than our stations and see in Chilton's failures to achieve his deserved super-stardom a comforting robe to warm in after another cold bath at our station, nor will the whole new generation listen to Big Star any more than almost everyone of my old generation.

• But the music stands.
• Today's Maqroll precept: Some things must be paid for, others must remain debts forever. That's what we believe. The trap lies in the "must." We go on paying, we go on owing, and often we don't even know it.
• Rest in Peace, John Harvill. Yes, he was famous in Gaithersburg as the football coach, he also taught me to drive (did you know, young people, that Drivers Ed used to be offered in public schools) and lived in my neighborhood on Gaither Street and even years after I graduated he would remember my name and shake my hand. Good guy.
• Off Vesta's review of Off Vesta 2013.
• Willfully Obscure's review of Willfully Obscure 2013.
• The Top Ten most popular articles of 2013 at New Inquiry.
• Sinkhole of Dreams: locating Boston's "literary renaissance."
• Styx. More beauty via Tom.
• Re: below link. Serendipity is awesome and awful: Styx's Sail Away is possibly the worst rock song intro ever.
• Best rock intro contest!
• Was going to play this Giftmas but waited until today, BUT WHY ISN'T THIS RECOGNIZED AS THE GREATEST CHRISTMAS SONG EVER!

MOUNTAIN PINES

Robinson Jeffers

In scornful upright loneliness they stand,
       Counting themselves no kin of anything
       Whether of earth or sky. Their gnarled roots cling
Like wasted fingers of a clutching hand
In the grim rock. A silent spectral band
       They watch the old sky, but hold no communing
       With aught. Only, when some lone eagle's wing
Flaps past above their gray and desolate land,
Or when the wind pants up a rough-hewn glen,
       Bending them down as with an age of thought,
       Or when, 'mid flying clouds that can not dull
Her constant light, the moon shines silver, then
       They find a soul, and their dim moan is wrought
       Into a singing sad and beautiful.

But I'm Not Altogether Evil, There Are Also Times When I Will Refuse to Lick or Swallow Anything That's Not Generally Available to Mankind

Jerry Garcia was born 71 years ago today. Something else I say once a year: that 4/12/78 Durham show, one of the five best nights of my life, the buzz, the girl and that week, the intimacy of the venue, the Dead on. Saw dozens of dozens of shows, others who have can vouch too, there were stinkers, there were the many meh minus to meh plus shows (though, with few exceptions, BLAST was had), then there were the shows when the band clicked, as infrequent as a come-from-behind walk-off home run home game, and made all the mehs and stinkers worth it.

• One thing I remember: in the late 70s, early 80s, there were always Talking Head shirts at Dead concerts, Dead shirts at Talking Head concerts, I was always pleasantly surprised and delighted at the overlap.
• But yes, loved them, lost them, have gained them back.
• And always the best album covers to sift seeds on. We used to have to sift seeds, youngsters.
• Slapping Toobin: We wouldn’t be having this discussion if it wasn’t for him (Snowden). Why do you think–I mean, that’s the thing I don’t understand about the climate in Washington these days, is that people want to have debates on television elsewhere, but then you want to throw the people who start the debates in jail.
• Hola NSA.
• @firetomfriedman has a blog. Who knew? Looks like he forgets about it from time to time too.
• "It's your moment, Obama. Don't blow it." 
• Obama losing his poise?
• Larry Summers and the end of political shame.
• Obama a fucking dick?
• Cat signs.

• A partial list of things John Berryman found delicious. I've been thinking about my Sillyass Deserted Island Game not including poets, more later (or not (or not here)), but Berryman is on the short list.
• Coetzee, for those of you who do.
• Beckett, for those of you who do.
• But how far do I have to go.
• The Ballad of Big Star. I have still not seen the documentary, if it's been in the area I've missed it, I was told on the radio I can stream it through Amazon, FUCK AMAZON! I'll see it somehow, sooner than later I hope.
• Julie had a Kate Bush set earlier this morning.
• It's a Bobby song, but this Dead song was requested.
• Bertha.
• Dire Wolf.
• He's Gone.
• Not Fade Away.
• Cold Rain and Snow.
• Black Peter.
• Althea.

EATING FRIED CHICKEN

Linh Dinh

I hate to admit this, brother, but there are times
When I’m eating fried chicken
When I think about nothing else but eating fried chicken,
When I utterly forget about my family, honor and country,
The various blood debts you owe me,
My past humiliations and my future crimes—
Everything, in short, but the crispy skin on my fried chicken.

But I’m not altogether evil, there are also times
When I will refuse to lick or swallow anything
That’s not generally available to mankind.

(Which is, when you think about it, absolutely nothing at all.)

And no doubt that’s why apples can cause riots,
And meat brings humiliation,
And each gasp of air
Will fill one’s lungs with gun powder and smoke.

Tablespoons of Blue Lentils

 

• Mark McKinney is 54 today, two months and two days older than me. One of the funniest, saddest, wisest skits I've ever seen.
• Good lord, he's wearing the same glasses I have in the interview at the end. 
• I hearby pledge to watch the interviews at the end of KITH skits as they now exist on youtube via Nerdest whenever I need to squelch the urge to bleggalgaze.
• Good news: if you want to comment you no longer have to decipher the spam-catcher. Bad news, I've enabled comment moderation. Regulars can guess why.
• Opaque zones of empire.
• Triskelions.
• The costs of maintaining a Triskelion lifestyle are rising at the same time Triskelions enforce austerity on the peasants and increase surveillance on peasant dissent. Coincidence?
• Between the SCOTUS decision yesterday and the Snowden Incident's likely crescendo towards some noisy resolution this is going to be an especially cordial week between Obama supporters and Obama's critics from the Left. During the election cycle I fervently wished often here that John Roberts would walk in front of a bus on such a date that Obama would need name in the weeks of the conventions/Labor Day weekend both a Chief Justice and, if it wasn't the same person but a sitting Justice (and which would he choose in that case), a new Justice. The strongest argument (and the most dearly held) for Obama according to the Obama supporters I read or directly interacted with was who would name the replacements for retiring Justices between January 2013 to January 2017. Wouldn't it be great, I said, if Obama was forced to show his hand if he had to name a swing judge, one that would tip the Court left in 5-4s, while his political career is in the balance both with his voting base and with his Corporate sponsors?
• Still, it's never to late for John Roberts to walk in front of a bus.
• Because I am genuinely curious who Obama would pick.
• I'm guessing for easy legacy's sake - because I don't think Obama would nominate the swing-vote Justice you think you voted for Obama for - Obama hopes he only need replace Liberal justices during his second term.
• But say Obama need replace Roberts or Scalia or Alito or Kennedy or Thomas: if Obama named who you think you voted for Obama for, and Obama fought for that nominee's Senate ratification, spent the real political capital it would take for that person who you think you voted for Obama for, I wouldn't, for instance, dismiss as rank lies and false promises everything that Obama said in his climate speech yesterday.
• Today in self-incrimination.
• Your Fucking Washington Post pens a love letter to "top Democratic NSA defender" Dianne Feinstein, fails to mention her husband a war profiteer.

• Blindness.
• Insert cat video here interlude.
• Jim's Hawaiian Adventure, Part Three.
• Hamster! Are you alive? I've sent you emails. Do you want to join me and Planet and Ari tonight in Germanboyd's for DCU v Ningland Open Cup game? SeatSix probably game-day scratch, Landru out still with a pulled lung. Email me. Better yet, be at Napoleon's house at five, or if you're working in Ziosville, we can pick you up. And get a pizza.
• Barnes & Noble dying faster than expected.
• Slowly we rot.
• Shards of summer.
• Insect assassins.
• In case you missed it, there's a Big Star documentary being released next week.
• Brad reminded my of Anna Thorvaldsdottir. I know the name, know I've heard some music, fell of my radar. 

APOCALPYSE

Gerald Stern

Of all sixty of us I am the only one who went
to the four corners though I don't say it
out of pride but more like a type of regret,
and I did it because there was no one I truly believed
in though once when I climbed the hill in Skye
and arrived at the rough tables I saw the only other
elder who was a vegetarian--in Scotland--
and visited Orwell and rode a small motorcycle
to get from place to place; and I immediately
stopped eating fish and meat and lived on soups;
and we wrote each other in the middle and late fifties
though one day I got a letter from his daughter
that he had died in an accident; he was
I'm sure of it, an angel who flew in midair
with one eternal gospel to proclaim
to those inhabiting the earth and every nation;
and now that I go through my papers every day
I search and search for his letters but to my shame
I have even forgotten his name, that messenger
who came to me with tablespoons of blue lentils.

  

In Which I Will Go to a Movie Theater Next Week

   
Wait a minute: there's gonna be a Big Star documentary?

Here's Chris Bell's I Am the Cosmos solo album.






 
Here's the 2011 edition of the annual Alex Chilton birthday post. Have I ever mentioned I love Big Star? Here's one of my five favorite songs ever.
 

of the cake and flesh I now have windings of as steep and left-ward twisting as those ice-rock grindings were the giant river ran over and caught where ground itself is a fucking hole

 

First, thanks Edmond for that Stereolab youtube yesterday. I always short-shrift Stereolab here proportional to how much I love Stereolab even though I say so again and again and say I'll post more again and again. One last Giftmas present for you. Yes, today is Alex Chilton's birthday. This week in war. But, but, she's a Democrat. See, I didn't say motherfucking Democrats, though I thought it. The hehhing. Occupy, not dead, just resting? You can play that Python clip in your head, I don't need to post a youtube. Deprogramming progressives. Last on this. Drones. Double standards. Economicide. An anarchist Giftmas. Crossing the painted road. Imperial lockstep. Elizabeth Drew against the neo-cons. I respect Elizabeth Drew, I've always thought her the best of Villagers. While you were Giftmassing. Route 15 toll fizzles. Where Earthgirl grew up. Fuck Sunderland. STAND! or stay home (or at least sit on wussy side). The whole nine yards: a startling development! Bleggalgazing. So you are where now? Anthony's links of the week (and thanks for the Kind words). Until the pouring out of respect at his passing the past two days, I'd never heard of Dennis O'Driscoll. Any of you !!! with his poetry, can recommend a place to start? :: wood s lot ::, as you'd expect, has some. Nicholas Royle? New at the other place. Dye. Hauntology. Literary moist aversion. Twelve soundfiles to mouse over. Holly Herndon? There's Holly Herndon in your future. There's Birchville Cat Motel in your future. Zombie playlist. No more hotdogs. Rust worship. The Stereolab song you hear most.




STAGE FORT PARK

Charles Olson

an ice-plug a wherry where I hid my car a nights a fucking

and they tell me this was a gore under ice where the rocks made a whirlpool

when the land was then depressed below the level

of where the sea now is but the sea was out and here

in the hole of Stage Fort Park forty feet further down and then let up was the bed

of a Merry mac as wide as Massachusetts


                              the earth was down from the weight of the ice upon it

and great beds of water flowing under carried detritus

was my kame and those hollows and the rise

of choke-cherry trees I have eaten my father

piece by piece I love my cannibalism


of the cake and flesh I now have windings of as steep and left-ward twisting

as those ice-rock grindings were

the giant river ran over and caught

where ground itself is a fucking hole

Invisible Man Who Can Sing in a Visible Voice

 
Lots of requests to honor and tomorrow is an Egoslavian High Holy Day so the music focus is set if not the songs selected and Friday and Saturday I'll be on the road, so here, now, in the order they were requested, the above requested by Hamster, the first below by anne (which is not what she requested, but I posted that song within the last month or two so have this one instead), the second below by Randal, which wasn't what he asked for which I couldn't find (or get the joke if it was a joke) though I do understand more metal.


   



   



 
Egoslavian High Holy Day tomorrow? Birthday of the whom the song below is named. Requests solicited, Boxtops, Big Star, solo all welcome, not requesting welcome too.


 

You Know You Don't Have to You Can Just Say No

An excellent list of Big Star's ten best songs, with sound. Their number two is my number one, but quibble aside, joy that it's now in my head again.