Poets Are: a) Clowns b) Parasites c) Legislators d) Terrorists

Guess what old cassette I found last night while looking for something else.

Basket of Deplorables, I said to my hyperventilating Hillaryite Colleague freaking out over Trump catching HRC in the polls, when HRC loses this election historians will look back at HRC standing in front of a group of LGBT and denouncing Trump supporters as Basket of Deplorables and declare this the watershed event of the campaign, and they'll be right but for the wrong reason. Yeah, HC said, she shouldn't have said it. Sure, I said, she should have said it, but she should have waited for the first debate and she should have looked directly into camera and called them racist sexist motherfuckers. HC: what? I said, you can't half-fuck kayfabe. HC: what? I said, I said you can't fight kayfabe with half-fucked kayfabe. HC: what?

• Crept over by shining white flies.
• The beginning of the end of the world.
• Politics beyond politics: beyond the endgame.
• Elizabeth Drew says you're sexist if you don't like Hillary.
• Stop whining about "false balance."
• Fairly unbalanced.
• Hillaryites wallowing in anxiety.
• Dear Hillaryites: did you lose your Indian Drum?
• Shitty soup.
• Onlocking the keys to the election: blame Obama.
• American business, bipartisanship edition.

• Maggie's weekly links.
• Fish kills are the new normal.
• 1.5 billion birds missing. Must be those evil feral cats.
• The resistance to the pipeline is about climate justice.
• { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
• Gavin Trefoil.
• Dan's got a book coming out.

QUIZ

Linh Dinh

Invaders invariably call themselves:

a) berserkers
b) marauders
c) frankincense
d) liberators

Our enemies hate us because:

a) we’re sadists
b) we’re hypocrites
c) we shafted them
d) we value freedom

Our friends hate us because:

a) we’re bullies
b) we hate them
c) we’re hypocrites
d) we value freedom

Pushed to the ground and kicked by a gang of soldiers, about to be shot, you can save your life by brandishing:

a) an uzi
b) a crucifix
c) the Constitution
d) a poem

A poem can:

a) start a war
b) stanch a wound
c) titillate the masses
d) shame a nation

Poets are:

a) clowns
b) parasites
c) legislators
d) terrorists

A nation’s standing in the world is determined by:

a) its buying power
b) its military might
c) its cultural heritage
d) God

A country is rich because of:

a) its enlightened population
b) its political system
c) its small stick
d) its geography

A country is poor because of:

a) its ignorant population
b) its political system
c) its small stick
d) its geography

A man’s dignity is determined by:

a) his appearance (skin color, height, etc)
b) his willingness to use violence
c) his command of English
d) his blue passport

Those willing to die for their beliefs are:

a) idealists
b) terrorists
c) suckers
d) insane

Those willing to die for nothing are:

a) principled
b) patriotic
c) insane
d) cowards

Terrorists:

a) abuse language
b) hit and run
c) shock and awe
d) rely on ingenuity

Smart weapons:

a) render hopeless and dormant kinetic objects
b) kill softly
c) save lives
d) slaughter by science

Pain is:

a) payback for evil-doers
b) a common misfortune
c) compelling drama
d) suck it up!

Humiliation is:

a) the ultimate thrill for bored perverts
b) inevitable in an unequal relationship
c) a fear factor
d) sexy and cathartic

The media’s job is:

a) to seduce
b) to spread
c) to sell
d) to drug

The Internet:

a) allows us to be pure minds
b) connects us to distant bodies
c) disconnects us from the nearest minds and bodies
d) improves illiteracy

Pornography is:

a) a lie that exposes the truth
b) a needed breather from civilization
c) class warfare
d) nostalgia for the garden of Eden



Correct answers: c,d,d,b,b,a,b,a,a,c,b,b,b,c,b,d,b,d,c.
—If you scored 14-19, you’re a well adjusted person, a home-owner, with and income of at least $50,000 a year.
—If you scored 8-13, you either rent or live with your parents, never exercise, and consume at least a 6-pack a day.
—if you scored 7 or less, you’re in trouble with the FBI and/or the IRS, cut your own hair, and use public transit as your primary mode of transportation.

To Snack on a Tub of Roasted Grasshoppers at the Movies

Had a date with Earthgirl last night. That's the view from a table of Abol Ethiopian Restaurant through their front window and across the street to AFI Theater in Silver Spring where we saw the movie adaptation of Pynchon's Inherent Vice. The restaurant was excellent - of all the Ethiopian restaurants in Maryland/DC we've eaten, the food as good as any but with more generous portions at the same prices. Pink pee! Earthgirl didn't care for the grilled beets, best fucking grilled beets ever, I ate them all.

Disclaimer: I don't like watching movies. I'd rather read. This is not a moral stance, just a preference. The only reason I asked Earthgirl on this particular date was out of curiosity how a Pynchon novel would translate to film. This was stupid - there has never been a movie as good as the novel it interprets, why would I think a film of a novel by one of my favorite authors would be anything but unfaithful to the novel (how could it not be, how could a film, even in a plodding two and a half hours, capture the multiple universes of even a Pynchon Light novel?) and shitty to boot (was the horrible sound production on purpose? to name just one gripe)?

I tweeted last night If you've never read Pynchon you can skip Inherent Vice. If you read and love Pynchon you should NOT see Inherent Vice and Jim tweeted this response just saw it. Wild ride, close to the novel. More for the experience than plot, char., or meaning. Contact high and Alex the Desest Ox tweeted Oh? I love Pynchon, and enjoyed the novel Inherent Vice. Avoid the film? Hmm. Go see the movie, do not let me dissuade you. Mine was a tweet upon getting home, I am not a reliable judge on movies, I was feeling dumb to be disappointed to be disappointed in an experience I knew would disappoint me. But... shitty movie.

So, confirmed: I don't like watching movies, I don't like going to theaters, a movie can never be as good as its novel, downtown Silver Spring is creepy and dangerous after dark, I like beets, I love grilled beets, we discovered a great Ethiopian restaurant, I love going on dates with Earthgirl.







EARTH CAFETERIA

Linh Dinh

Mudman in earth cafeteria,

I eat aardwolf. I eat ant bear.

I eat mimosa, platypus, ermine.
 

“White meat is tasteless, dark meat stinks.”

(The other white meat is pork, triple X.)

Rice people vs. bread people.

White bread vs. wheat bread.

White rice vs. brown rice.

Manhattan vs. New England.

Kosher sub-gum vs. knuckle kabob.
 

“What is patriotism but love of the foods one had as a child?”*
 

To eat stinky food

is a sign of savagery, humility,

identification with the earth.
 

“It was believed that after cleaning, tripe still contained ten percent

excrement which was therefore eaten with the rest of the meal.”**
 

Today I’ll eat Colby cheese.

Tomorrow I’ll eat sparrows.

Chew bones, suck fat,

bite heads off, gnaw on a broken wing.

 

Anise-flavored beef soup smells like sweat.

A large sweaty head bent over

a large bowl of sweat soup.

 

A Pekinese is ideal, will feed six,

but an unscrupulous butcher

will fudge a German sheperd,

chopping it up to look like a Pekinese.
 

Toothless man sucking

a pureed porterhouse steak

with a straw.

 

Parboiled placenta.
 

To skewer and burn meat is barbaric.

To boil, requiring a vessel, is a step up.

To microwave.
 

People who eat phalli, hot dogs, kielbasas

vs. people who eat balls.
 

To eat with a three-pronged spear and a knife.

To eat with two wooden sticks.

To eat with the hands.
 

Boiling vs. broiling.
 

To snack on a tub of roasted grasshoppers at the movies.

 

*Lin Yutang

**Mikhail Bakhtin


   

A Complete Set of Nude Photos of You, Taken by You and Sold Back to You - at a Discount

Siouxsie born fifty-seven years ago today. She was on the daily soundtrack of my twenties. I think the music has aged well, but then I think I've aged well, so take that into consideration.

For the few of you following along: We did the two-car tandem and the eight miles on the Appalachian Trail this past Sunday. It was admittedly the easier north-south down to the Potomac than the south-to-north climb to South Mountain's ridge above the Potomac. Combined with Friday's five miler around Blockhouse and yesterday's six miler finishing up Little Bennett's twenty-three miles of hikes (we've just two miles left to do) that makes nineteen miles for the three day weekend. We'll go for the same or more in two days this coming weekend.

Other than this photo meditation on a Robert Creeley poem and this meditation (with songs) on Queen and this article on what to name my future hell (I vote NoBeSoRo if it's not to be called Rockville, which is what it is) you get nothing else but more Siouxsie and two poems because (I needed to get that Gregg Popovich gif off the top of the page) because.








BRAND NEW PRODUCTS

Linh Dinh

A vigilant gun that always picks out

The right target—even if it’s you—

No matter who you’re aiming at.

A computer that listens and blows you,

As you blow it, to your favorite tune.

Meat that cleans your teeth

As you’re masticating it.

A truck so awesome, only the President

Of the United States of America’s allowed

To careen in it, to his own beat.

A dictionary with positive adjectives only.

A dictionary with no wet verbs.

A dictionary with negotiable definitions.

A dictionary that defines words by their antonyms.

All the greatest hits from the last millennium

Performed live, on stage, on the inside

Of your state of the art, acoustically-enhanced skull.

A complete set of nude photos

Of you, taken by you and sold

Back to you—at a discount.

A sex doll with a mirror for a face.

A sex doll with a Ph.D.

A sex doll with adjustable skin tone.

A sensitive sex doll that just wants

To be friends—a Platonic sex doll.

Rain water in a bottle, sunshine in a box

And ambience sounds from a bus stop

Down the street, recorded on a CD.

A 24-hour video of what you did yesterday.

A 24-hour video of what you’ll do tomorrow.

A super realistic photo of what’s outside

Your window, pasted to your window.

A baseball game that never ends,

To be played simultaneously with

A football game that never ends.

Cluster bombs that scatter copies of Leaves of Grass

Over a thousand mile radius, for a thousand years.

Landmines made with dough,

Topped with mozzarella and all

Your favorite toppings.

An airplane that never lands.

And, finally, your favorite fairy tale

Painted on your new plastic limbs.

SOFT MONEY

Rae Armantrout

They’re sexy

because they’re needy,

which degrades them.

They’re sexy because

they don’t need you.

They’re sexy because they pretend

not to need you,

but they’re lying,

which degrades them.

They’re beneath you

and it’s hot.

They’re across the border,

rhymes with dancer—

they don’t need

to understand.

They’re content to be

(not mean),

which degrades them

and is sweet.

They want to be

the thing-in-itself

and the thing-for-you—

Miss Thing—

but can’t.

They want to be you,

but can’t,

which is so hot.

chơ ăn đa gá ăn sôi

BODY EATS

Linh Dinh

The word minh, body, has wide application in Vietnamese. It is sometimes used as a first person pronoun, as in “body has lived here for a long time,” or “body does not know him.” Body is I. It is also we or us. As in: “Body eat rice; they eat bread.” Body is also used to address one’s spouse. As in: “Body, what would you like to eat today?”

A spouse can also be referred to as “my house.” As in: “My house is not home at the moment. Please call back later.” To be married is to live in a new house, to be engulfed in another body.

The core of the Vietnamese body is not the heart but the stomach. Instead of saying “I don’t know what’s in his heart,” a Vietnamese would say, “I don’t know what’s in his stomach.” To be in contentment is to have a happy stomach, vui long. To be in grief is to have a rotting stomach, thui ruôt. To be in extreme anguish is to have one’s stomach chopped into pieces, dut ruôt.

Eating is the body’s primary function. Whatever else the body does, it must an, must eat. To dress is to an mac, eat and dress. To talk is to an noi, eat and talk. To have sex is to an nam, eat and lie down with somebody. To be married is to an o, eat and live with somebody.

To win at anything, a bet, a soccer match, is simply to an, to eat, an echo back to the days when to win is to swallow one’s opponent whole, perhaps. To dominate or decisively defeat someone is to an song, eat raw.

To indulge in pleasures is to eat and play, an choi. To celebrate is to eat with happiness, an mung. To go to a party is to eat at a party, an tiec. One doesn’t celebrate the New Year, one eats during the New Year, an Tet.

To look for work is to look for something to eat, kiem an. To work is to make and eat, lam an. A good business prospect is described as having something easy to eat, de an. To do well in business is to eat customers, an khach.

To spend money is to eat and digest, an tieu. To take a bribe is to eat money, an tien. To work an illicit job, thievery, prostitution, is to eat dew, an suong. To steal is to eat in secret, an trom.

Eating, and how one eats, becomes a metaphor for nearly everything, as these proverbs testify:

A magpie, starved, eats banyan fruit. A phoenix, starved, eats chicken shit.

Fish eat ants, ants eat fish.

Have vegetable, eat vegetable. Have rice gruel, eat rice gruel.

The smart eat men, the stupid are eaten.

Tailors eat rags, artists eat paints.

Father eats salty food, son's thirsty.

Eating new rice, telling old stories.

Eat in front, swim behind.

Eat for real, fake work.

Arrive late, gnaw on a bone.

Ate rice gruel, pissed in the bowl.

A bowl of sweat for a bowl of rice.

A piece of meat is a piece of shame.

Selling ass to feed mouth.

Two hands, two eyes are just enough to feed one stomach.

Better to die sated than to live hungry.

To be homeless is to eat the wind and lie with the dew, an gio nam suong. This phase used to refer to the hardships of a long journey, a concept similar to the English “travel,” a variation on travail, from the French travailler, to work.

To inherit property is to eat fragrance and fire, an huong hoa, which refer to the incense and oil lamp on the ancestral altar present in most Vietnamese homes.

A remote place is described as where “dogs eat rocks, chickens eat pebbles,” chơ ăn đa gá ăn sôi.

To be primitive is to eat fur while living in a hole, an long o lo.

To die is to eat dirt, an dat.

A common Vietnamese greeting is, “Have you eaten yet?”

One should always answer: “After eating dew all night, I’m more than ready to eat and to lie down.”