then a loopy face behind a glass enclosure

My two standard desperate last ditch attempts to end a reading slump are Ishiguro and Murnane for novels and C.D. Wright and Ashbery for poetry and I am now 0 for 4, and as I put down *A Million Windows,* my very favorite Murnane novel, yesterday afternoon it dawned on me than not only can't I read novels and poetry any longer, I no longer want to read novels and poetry any longer, at least for now

I can't blame my eyes (my left eye above): true, they ache after ten minutes of reading, and, true, my left eye literally cannot read anything and won't be able to until its cataract is yoinked out later this summer, but I spend hours online for work and pleasure every day and my eyes ache then too. Need to get right eye's (below) cataract yoinked out too but not until Fall, but they are not why I not only can't read but actively don't want to read, and to be honest it doesn't bother me that it's not bothering me and *that* doesn't bother me at all either

Bots - American, Chinese, Singaporian, Japanese, South Korean - still pinging me by the tens of thousands of hits a day. I don't think it's surveillance directed at me, I said to a digibud relieved but slightly jealous he/she/they not getting the relentless scrubbing, I think it's AI filling its silos, and he/she/they said, it's you for if/when for giggles you're swooped up and shipped to El S.......r because of your grids. I said, grids what I do when I can't and don't want to read but for the first time, and not from fear of a concentration camp, I've wondered if I could stop making these grids if I wanted to (save my peace of mind) and if maybe not wanting to read is an issue that it isn't more an issue that goes beyond documenting the clusterfuck and my motherfucking painting. Music still works

NO FOOD HAS ENTERED GAZA IN FORTY-FOUR DAYS
⬆	"The word is “starvation”. Starvation. You media weasels"						⬆
⬆	Arab Complicity and the Normalization of Evil in Gaza						⬆
"Again, if the idea is that when someone in custody leaves the nation’s airspace there’s no way for a court to compel the state to return them—or exert any jurisdiction at all—then you’re simply saying whoever’s in power can fly people 100 miles offshore and push them out of helicopters into the sea"
"This Is How Democracies Die: One Man, One Cell, No Charges"
⬇	The Rise of End Times Fascism						⬇
“exit” – the principle that those with means have the right to walk away from the obligations of citizenship, especially taxes and burdensome regulation. Retooling and rebranding the old ambitions and privileges of empires, they dream of splintering governments and carving up the world into hyper-capitalist, democracy-free havens under the sole control of the supremely wealthy, protected by private mercenaries, serviced by AI robots and financed by cryptocurrencies"
How Corporations Weaponize Hope to Sell Extinction
Seven Truths About Trump’s Tariffs
Trump’s in-the-know plan to demolish the US economy
"This. America, as I've said many times, has already lost. Once again for the back benches: China has the tech lead in 80% of areas, more industry than the US/Japan/SK combined, and as Alon notes, regularly completes mega-projects"
"The bedrock premise of American political culture is that the US can go anywhere on earth and kill as many people as we want and it's fundamentally illegitimate for anyone to fight back"
"America is exceptional in how it provides an endless supply of media amplification and status rewards for the people who ruined the entire world"
"We've seen this show twice before. It always ends the same way. He drops out, endorses an oligarch he claimed to oppose, and then supports their wars"
⬆	"some anti-genocide people unfurled a Free Palestine flag behind Bernie Sanders at his rally just now and police thugs arrested them as Bernie Sanders looked on and let it happen without saying a word. A minute earlier Sanders said "Israel has the right to defend itself" and repeated his lie about "not one more nickel to Netanyahu" when he opposes sanctions and an actual arms embargo and to this day refuses to recognize the genocide"						⬆
So, you want to be a dissident?
"Imagine the kind of sociopath that would help build an incendiary device, knowing full well it would be used to set fire to someone’s house"
Trump as the American Gorbachev
"hey remember when bush used the patriot act to expand executive power to dangerous fashy levels and then obama expanded those powers and then trump expanded those powers and then biden expanded those powers? probably nothing to worry about!"
The attack on international students
NIHILISITIC VIOLENT EXTREMISTS
"Kyle Langford, a 20-something Nick Fuentes acolyte, is running for governor of California on a platform of deporting all male undocumented immigrants and then giving all the females one year to marry a "Californian incel" to avoid deportation"
The Life and Death of the Modern University
"As someone who took a lot of hits (career hits, but also campaigns of death threats and SWATtings) over the years warning about rising fascism... It is both exhausting and infuriating to see all these pundits all of a sudden at the eleventh hour going "oopsie yeah he's a fascist lol my bad"
The case for letting the world burn
"A useful reaction for political elites who “didn’t see this coming” would be to reconsider how smart it was to be a condescending, dismissive prick to everyone who tried to tell you it was coming"
The time is ripe for member-driven organizations
Will the same Leonard Leo (who gave us 5 or 9 on SCOTUS) and his army of judges working diligently to dismantle every New Deal and Great Society achievement take down Trump over tariffs?
"Totally silent about every one of Tr*mp's depredations until the stock market and Harvard are affected. That's our Obama"
This mthrfckr signed American bombs given to Israel to drop on Gazan citizens
"I've said this a couple of times, but until news coverage of the trump administration makes clear "the doj and fbi will not prosecute republican crimes, or crimes by people they favor," journalists are lying to you"
Ethically Energised				Deterrence Theory
Becoming Ungovernable
"Nothing says “small government and free speech” like electrocuting dissent in a public forum"
Maggie		Ghosting		Motherfucking painting (with an alternative interpretation of the two above with a bonus third explaining)
Sandy Spring Friends School closing
⬆	I've friends who went to SSFS and my daughter's bestfriend went to SSFS				{ feuilleton }
The man who invented ultralight backpacking
I had no spasms of anger at this list until I saw Richard Powers at number five, the fuck, ahead of Pynchon and DeLillo?
Stray thoughts on the announcement of Thomas Pynchon’s novel Shadow Ticket
Pioneers of Computer Music

LIKE THE CIRCLES UNDER YOUR EYES

C.D. Wright

clouds jammed into the foreground     big toe in the suckhole

with all our know-how     all our equipment     you would think

we would be on guard     be smarter than water     less indifferent

than the critter at the corner     or the machine     that rolled over its head

so early in the season     so many dead things to build on

a broom goes before me     the dog refuses to budge

leaves winging down onto leaves     under such conditions

on american soil     longtime dealers in old things unemployed

shrink     teachers     pastry chefs     horn player with a monster sound

the stuff of legends     married cousins     then a loopy face

behind a glass enclosure     being driven away     sliding from sight

a man smokes listlessly on a bed     next to a mound

of swollen books     written in french     his shoes set out to dry

scent of last tenant     unwashed socks shut up in a box     crept out

onto the landing     of the photographer’s house     searched

9/11 by the authorities     sprayed that hateful date on the front

windows tall enough for a mast to pass under     my friend

didn’t lose much     by comparison     but still     the top floor

on top of which     mother murdered     husband deserted

who kept hens in the heart of town     where I used to hear birds

when I phoned     now bullhorn now chopper     someone

puts a plate in her hands     hours later     someone takes the plate

from her lap     and says damn if it isn’t overcast again     it’s time to get out

the candlesticks

Feathers Fluffed the Ashtray Bin at the Bottom of the Elevator

Blumen - back in the nine to midnight time slot his show deserves - played new Ashtray Navigations, I am allowed to play Ashtray Navigations when Earthgirl is in the car as long as she can use the dump switch on particular songs

Also too, Earthgirl's on a hot streak, her palette expanding, her technique evolving

Also too, when I sat at picnic tables every summer evening on Sugarloaf until just before closing and read - this was before the internet was all inclusive - and read in bed, and read in the daytime and before sleep, I kept a list of novels read (long since incinerated because tonsure's my pleasure). I don't finish novels anymore, and not just because of my eyes. I listen to music as voraciously as always, and I read poetry not as voraciously as once but daily until my eyes hurt, but I lose all forward impetus in every novel I start, I lose interest, it's not only my getting older faster the fuck with getting older faster and can't concentrate much less organize like once (though I am getting older and can't concentrate or organize like once), and strangest: I don't seem to care as an option for the first time, and worse, and/or better, I can envision abandoning my rule of fifty plus years that I must always be working a novel

The last novel I read that I finished that stayed in me beyond the day I finished it was Ishiguro's *Clara and the Sun* this past Spring, but the only first read novel in the past five years that imprinted on me and remains imprinted is Marlon James' *Black Leopard, Red Wolf,* the first in a trilogy, and I discovered yesterday the second of the trilogy, *Moon Witch, Spider King,* released this coming February (I stalled in Mantel's third of Cromwell Trilogy (and have no intention of going back) (when was the last time you thought about much less read the Deptford Trilogy? the Balkan Trilogy? I burned lists with multiple rereadings of both included)). Will attempt to reread *BL, RW* before reading *MW, SK,* no doubt fucking up my reading of both.

My friend H responded to my inquiry about Fleur Jaeggy, recommended, I got my hands on one, I have access to a university library, ten pages in I loved it, thirty pages in I'm done, fuck me

Permission and the fall of oligarchies?
The fascinating world of corporate sabotage!
Democrats ratfuck too
Influencer society and its future
Life in the Magic Kingdom
Remembering the crime of war
Pleasure and the genesis of anxiety
The Chorus			#1221		Mammoth
Tyme masheen		The foyer inside				Nobel odds

YOU CAN'T WARM YOUR HANDS IN FRONT OF A BOOK BUT YOU CAN WARM YOUR HOPES THERE

Fanny Howe

Feathers fluffed the ashtray bin at the bottom of the elevator. Feathers and a smeared black look littered the parking lot like mascara. A cage would glide back and let them out to merge with the other cars on La Brea. It looked as if a struggle had ended in tears between the bird and an enemy. She broke through the fear to examine it. No chicken claws, or comb, no wing, no egg. The neutrality of words like “nothing” and “silence” vibrated at her back like plastic drapes. How could there be a word for silence? A child’s lips might blow, the North wind bring snow, a few stars explode, boats rock, but whatever moved in air did not by necessity move in ears and require the word “silence” therefore. She had personally sunk to a level where she could produce thought, and only “violence” remained a problem. It was common in her circle. A bush could turn into a fire, or a face at a clap of the hand could release spit and infection. The deviants were like herself unable to control their feelings. Los Angeles for them was only hostile as a real situation during the rainy season when torrents ripped down the sides of the canyons and overnight turned them sloshy. Then they hid in underground places, carrying Must the Morgue be my Only Shelter?? signs. But the rest of the time the sort of whiteness spread out by a Southland sun kept them warm, and they could shit whenever they wanted to, in those places they had long ago staked out. My personal angel is my maid, said one to another, putting down his Rilke with a gentle smile.

What Am I Doing Inside This Old Man's Body

New Lambchop, better than OK, old, not love, fuck me, fifth time worked, it's love, I correct my final judgement ass mid-sentence, fuck me

 

New Lindsey Buckingham, OK I guess, old, not love

 

This was a new trend since before the plague, picked up momentum since then. I wrote this on June 14th of last year:

Today may or not be David Thomas' birthday and he may or not be 67 today (68th this year), but June 14th I saw somewhere once is his birthday so here, BLCKDGRD Theme Song Two, and if I like the current iteration of Pere Ubu less than previous iterations and listen to previous iterations less than I once did Pere Ubu/Thomas projects still one of two permanent members of My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game

Not just music (the new Six Organs of Admittance, the new album, meh): poetry, novels - the new Ishiguro, meh plus, he new Krasznahorkei, meh, everything, everywhere
 

What	percentage	of	my	rewiring	last	two	years
real	life	versus	my	life	as	agency-less	pawn?
Who is afraid of the forest and why?
How America destroyed the Middle East
Canada sucks too					Demon wants to be your friend
Reminder: motherfucking Democrats
An eye for an I			Checking your privilege
Maggie's weekly links				Tyranny of time
Pro forma		Truth, reading, decadence
{ feuilleton }'s weekly links						David Ferry
Newly discovered early Ashbery prose poems

SOUL

David Ferry

What am I doing inside this old man’s body?
I feel like I’m the insides of a lobster,
All thought, and all digestion, and pornographic
Inquiry, and getting about, and bewilderment,
And fear, avoidance of trouble, belief in what,
God knows, vague memories of friends, and what
They said last night, and seeing, outside of myself,
From here inside myself, my waving claws
Inconsequential, wavering, and my feelers
Preternatural, trembling, with their amazing
Troubling sensitivity to threat;
And I’m aware of and embarrassed by my ways
Of getting around, and my protective shell.
Where is it that she I loved has gone to, as
This cold sea water’s washing over my back?

Carried Through Artificial Tunnels and Dream Recurrent Dreams

I vouch for Ishiguro's Klara and the Sun. I don't write reviews, but below the fold below the poem, put there because spoilers, Monday and last night's thoughts and questions, in the order typed and - I need emphasize this - without edit, it's muddy. 

Here's a taste: Why is the housekeeper named Melania who speaks with a central European Slav accent? Her main role in the novel is to compare and contrast other humans interaction with her as servant viz Klara, an AI robot (for sake of shorthand), as servant, and anyway, below the fold, just the first two days thoughts.

First read through brought back every sensation my first reads of The Unconsoled and Remains of the Day and When We Were Orphans chilled me, here's another tease: every Ishiguro novel is first about parenting and are filled with orphans, sometimes even those with parents. He thinks about what I think about and when zap the uncanny gongs, I didn't forget but sweet to be jolted

Will reread this time next year (says Jeff). Won't be posting tonight's tomorrow's ... thoughts, though much I haven't connected yet will be thought. I have an extra copy, been offered two places, silence so far, grab it. 

There's new Lambchop in May, here's a first release, Klara didn't gong my bell at first either, by the third listen I'm in, those certain chords

Immunity Bath	Totalitarium	I do aggregate because I'm looking anyway plus this shitty blogs Schtick One
We had different plans	Maggie's weekly links	{ feuilleton }'s weekly links	Exercises in Color
Johannes Göransson	I don't, right now, need read much less link to Purina Mark Chow, as your Artificial Friend I will throw my hairpin into a wood-chipper to save you, I am telling you three times, programmed to
Had cause to think of:

THE MAN-MOTH

Elizabeth Bishop

Man-Moth: Newspaper misprint for “mammoth.”

Here, above,

cracks in the buildings are filled with battered moonlight.

The whole shadow of Man is only as big as his hat.

It lies at his feet like a circle for a doll to stand on,

and he makes an inverted pin, the point magnetized to the moon.

He does not see the moon; he observes only her vast properties,

feeling the queer light on his hands, neither warm nor cold,

of a temperature impossible to record in thermometers.

                     But when the Man-Moth

pays his rare, although occasional, visits to the surface,

the moon looks rather different to him. He emerges

from an opening under the edge of one of the sidewalks

and nervously begins to scale the faces of the buildings.

He thinks the moon is a small hole at the top of the sky,

proving the sky quite useless for protection.

He trembles, but must investigate as high as he can climb.

                     Up the façades,

his shadow dragging like a photographer’s cloth behind him

he climbs fearfully, thinking that this time he will manage

to push his small head through that round clean opening

and be forced through, as from a tube, in black scrolls on the light.

(Man, standing below him, has no such illusions.)

But what the Man-Moth fears most he must do, although

he fails, of course, and falls back scared but quite unhurt.

                     Then he returns

to the pale subways of cement he calls his home. He flits,

he flutters, and cannot get aboard the silent trains

fast enough to suit him. The doors close swiftly.

The Man-Moth always seats himself facing the wrong way

and the train starts at once at its full, terrible speed,

without a shift in gears or a gradation of any sort.

He cannot tell the rate at which he travels backwards.

                     Each night he must

be carried through artificial tunnels and dream recurrent dreams.

Just as the ties recur beneath his train, these underlie

his rushing brain. He does not dare look out the window,

for the third rail, the unbroken draught of poison,

runs there beside him. He regards it as a disease

he has inherited the susceptibility to. He has to keep

his hands in his pockets, as others must wear mufflers.

                     If you catch him,

hold up a flashlight to his eye. It’s all dark pupil,

an entire night itself, whose haired horizon tightens

as he stares back, and closes up the eye. Then from the lids

one tear, his only possession, like the bee’s sting, slips.

Slyly he palms it, and if you’re not paying attention

he’ll swallow it. However, if you watch, he’ll hand it over,

cool as from underground springs and pure enough to drink.

Klara thoughts below the fold