Not That Any Given Face Is Not Afraid

I get a new boss today. I hadn't consciously thought about it when starting the piece below last Tuesday but I was certainly thinking about it when (maybe) finishing it yesterday

I was on the hiring committee, he absolutely won, and I expect a cordial professional relationship at worse and do not expect regular doghousing for imagined satanic crimes of insubordination to a christer-whack bookkeeper, but this Saturday past it gonged me that my four-month reprieve from direct oversight over today

Oversite in the personal sense, here I am contributing content to my shitlords' constant surveillance on my free shitlord blogging platform
Nickel-and-Dimed					🡀	Rest in Peace, Barbara Ehrenreich
SHITLORDS WANT A SHITHOLE COUNTRY
The irreversibility of globalism
2022's climate carnage so far!
Shitlord, Inc and illegal aliens and the meat you eat, dummy
Democracy dies w/o ready access to lithium deposits
Mike Davis interview				History by numbers
Mass surveillance on a budget
The sick society				The Fed is *not* overreacting, the Fed is deliberately causing a recession because shitlords want to crush labor once and for all
The President of the United States calling crackers crackers wasn't the rush I once thought it'd be, imagine that
That *debt* has a *B* explains much, nothing
How important is dishonesty?
Trans-panic comes to Germany
The complicity of the textbooks
Maggie's weekly				FRESH HELL
MOMs workers in Baltimore unionize
After our hike yesterday in piedmont Maryland where the trees are changing color, the fuck? we stopped at MOMs on Shady Grove Road and when checking out I asked the cashier and bagger what they thought about the Hampden union and one said Huh and the other said I think I heard something about it and the first said, I'm happy here, got no complaints, so sure
I have no idea why you would shop at Trader Joes cause product sucks but if you do, don't
{ feuilleton }'s weekly					DEER ISLE
I don't mean to rag on this guy but this dialogue a fine example of why I never dug DeLillo but read every DeLillo during a period when you read every DeLillo, laugh
Vanished		Graham Foust			Game trails
Interview with an imaginary interviewer
Collective lyric self in 21st century poetry
Freddie Mercury was born 76 years ago yesterday

FROM A FINISHED BASEMENT

Graham Foust

In our arteries and eyes, a hundred lightbulbs

throb like drugs. The furnace:

a permanent mishap.

And up in the dusk, there is lucid debris—

a conduit, a wire mask, a swastika

of corn.

Boy- and/or girl-small, we'll find

some horizon, an intricate faking

in which to lose way.

Here we are, not speaking

or dead. Here we are

or dead.

To what do we owe this

forgetting not to kiss?

Not that any given face is not afraid.

Please You Must Forgive Me, I Am Old but Still a Child

If this was a week's vacation instead of two, at the time I type this sentence (7:07 AM EST, Saturday July 23rd), if we left the house at 5AM, we'd be approaching the Maine - New Hampshire border on our 102 to 3 to 1A to 95 to 495 to 290 to 90 to 84 to 81 to 83 to 695 to 95 to 495 journey home. I do not miss work, I look forward to seven more days of hikes and sunsets w L, I do miss our house, cats, and I will not miss once home the sun breaching my bedroom's windows despite sturdy window blinds at five in the morning here, my clock is sideways

I have not touched my paints and have no plans to currently (and no plans NOT to currently). Tablet getting worked but disordered and scrambled, coherent but disconnected one paragraph from the next. When Biden dies of covid tomorrow who does Harris name as her VPOTUS and imagine the noise. I don't know how much is me now versus Maine now as compared to me then and Michigan then a month ago, but the percentage of white males' pick-up trucks in Maine that have Flag Punisher bumperstickers and decals far higher than Michigan, and the hate radiating from locals towards the tourists whose tax dollars float the local economy far more prevalent and open. One guy I disced with on Thursday said locals like to pass cars with out-of-state tags (especially Subarus) then slam on the brakes and crawl as a Fuck You! and I've had it done once though we're in L's Mazda. I had no plans to link-farm on vacation (and had - and have - no plans to NOT link-farm on vacation, I haven't yet and am not today). I currently have no plans to make any plans about anything this vacation (and no plans NOT to). Excellent but strangest vacation ever, I'm happier than sideways but more sideways than normal and not just because it sucks to be woken at 5AM. The evening light here though, this from last night's sunset too

This is a live post until I abandon it unless I've abandoned it already. I didn't forget - Brian May turned 75 on the 19th, this is the greatest Queen song ever, fight me

The World Is at Least Fifty Percent Terrible

Brian May's 74th birthday yesterday, that's the second best Queen song ever, it's a Brian May song though Freddie sings lead, and personal touchstone, one person can vouch
My domain name renewed for another year
Happy 89th birthday yesterday to my dad, if he had written and sung the best Queen song ever he'd have got top billing because of my stupidass blaagerdesign rules
Talk of course turned to covid with the chorus of three singing Make People Get Vaccinated or Ban Them from Entrance into Any Public Space and Private Business. What I'm saying, I said, is that a person can simultaneously hold as true both that Covid exists as a dangerous risk to public health and will only get worse unless mitigated now *and* that our shitlords are exploiting the crisis not only for monetary profit but more importantly are using the crisis to manipulate important narratives of power - think about the achievement of more than half the people in the world wearing masks in conjunction with daily catastrophe roulette to keep us constantly disoriented and anxious and obedient.
No.	I	am	media	ochre	Bark	you	why
The propaganda war and how to fix it
Coming Soon! Resource wars for water!
Masters degrees are the 2nd biggest scam in academia
I did not say, for all I know this past week's Delta Awooga that triggered yesterday's massive selloff in the very stocks most affected by threats of another shutdown entirely legitimate from a medical crisis perspective and simultaneously think said perspective was known to shitlords two weeks ago when they short sold the stocks. For all I know lessons learned in the first attempt at worldwide behavioral modification as more than half the people put on masks saved countless lives while simultaneously taught the shitlords' peasantologists exciting new avenues towards optimum peasant herding tactics such as pace of OMFG releases depending on level of basic animal fear instincts wanted presently at any given moment, yadda, and always rent extraction, I've a penny in my left big toe, they will want it sooner or later
(late) { feuilleton }'s weekly links
Brian May, 74 yesterday, wrote and sang this, the best Queen song ever and my personal obsession for thirty plus years, I vouch

GOOD BONES

Maggie Smith

Life is short, though I keep this from my children.

Life is short, and I’ve shortened mine

in a thousand delicious, ill-advised ways,

a thousand deliciously ill-advised ways

I’ll keep from my children. The world is at least

fifty percent terrible, and that’s a conservative

estimate, though I keep this from my children.

For every bird there is a stone thrown at a bird.

For every loved child, a child broken, bagged,

sunk in a lake. Life is short and the world

is at least half terrible, and for every kind

stranger, there is one who would break you,

though I keep this from my children. I am trying

to sell them the world. Any decent realtor,

walking you through a real shithole, chirps on

about good bones: This place could be beautiful,

right? You could make this place beautiful.

A Feeling Like Being Choked Enters My Throat

Napoleon, Chirp (o Rosie, who smiles at me when I call Chirp when our eyes meet), house, I choose to enjoy this teffjilt and not griddle grief today

Doesn't rile me up like humans torturing and killing animals for sport but certainly in running for wild card spot in What Tilts Jeff! my country's motherfucking finest metaphor abounding, our colony Israel, how the West was won, how the West Bank and East Bank already are and will be ultimately won jilts Teff every time

Creeley born 95 years ago today

The best Queen song plays in my head insistently these times, it's not only the best Queen song ever it's one of the three best songs by composed by humans for humans and I'm only vouching for this one forever at this minute, have I mentioned this?

THE END

Robert Creeley

When I know what people think of me

I am plunged into my loneliness.  The grey

 

hat bought earlier sickens.

I have no purpose no longer distinguishable.

 

A feeling like being choked

enters my throat.

no sense to note not one no none

• Font for poem at bottom deliberate, font used by poet in excellent sonnet anthology I'm eating where I found the poem, read that out loud please and thanks
• I did not play the name six lie about one game, but my lie would have been Queen, I never did see live, but below, my favorite Queen song (off an album I otherwise didn't like much) 
• Culled the blogrolls, moribund to cemeteries, no one deleted
• as always if you are Kinding me but me not you let me know
• kind with a K absent me lately
• I thought this was funny but nobody responded, fine metaphors abound plus 
• I got Doctor Sevrin ears:

• Three Pebbles.
• An Open Letter to Extinction Rebellion.
• Race, Colony, Body, Land.
• Back Row America.
• Motherfucking Democrats.
• Why we join cults.
• Shippea Hill.
• Global Game of Thrones.
• A literal sports analogy.
• { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
• Language seems to stoke itself.

so'net 3

Paul Dutton

onset tense no tone to set
no sense to note not one no none
so one soon tosses on to net
tenses notes tones one soon sees one
to ten tenses soon one's not too tense
one's not sent to see eon's nest 
on stone tenets set to sonnet's sense
one sense sonnets not sent to test
sees no noose set no nonsense no
set one-ness one senses entente not
tense tones no sonnte's set to tone so
tense not testes on notes to one's tot
     noon noses onto sette son's set on
     one not seen to toss stone sonnet net on

Because We Are So Stupid the Prizes in Cracker Jacks Are Now Paper

• I've a new pencil-sharpener, gave Earthgirl my blue cylinder on Eastern Shore past weekend
• now own a  bright pink double razored trapezoid (one barrel for regular pencils, the second for drawing pencils, I have no drawing pencils in the creel I at this very minute permit myself)
• couldn't see the shavings in the blue cylinder can see the shavings in the bright pink trapezoid
• do I want to watch poop accumulate or open poop hatch and be surprised
• the purchase forced me to open the pencil tablet
• I'm blank
• instead of a photo of the new pencil-sharpener here's a new PhotOlive

• A future without fossil fuels?
• Life in the Crackerocene, and fuck their imaginary friend White Cracker Jesus
• I think the Democratic Party'd run 1K identical fucks in hope of diluting to death Sanders' planks
• Parables for dummies
• The Century of Spin
• Born free
• DS9, Season One, Episode Four: the first of 1K episodes of O'Brien's Agonies, screeeeeeech (I
• do appreciate the Vediks telling me the third time through the series is when I'll orb it)
• DS9, Season One, Episode Three: Kira proves her neoliberal creds
• 
  
• 
  
• Woke up with this in my head:

CRASH TEST DUMMIES OF AN IMPERFECT GOD

Dean Young

Because we are so stupid,

the prizes in Cracker Jacks are now paper

so they can be swallowed, ladders

spackled with warnings. No getting

within a hundred feet of Stonehenge because

everyone wants to hack off a souvenir

and the way home is clogged to one lane

so whoever wants to can stare into a pothole

until coming up with a grievance. I’d vote

the greatest accomplishment of mankind

is the pickle spear. God created paradise

to tell us Get out! which is why we probably

created God who doesn’t much like being created

by ilk like us. No wonder it’s pediatrics

every morning and toxicology by happy hour.

Is it all in the mind, the dirty, dirty mind?

Maybe God tried to turn you into a garbage can

so you could be lifted by the truck’s hydraulic

arms and banged empty. Maybe a snow cone

so you could be sticky-sweet and dropped.

Maybe a genital-faced bivalve to be dashed

with Tabasco and eaten whole or, to his glory,

produce a pearl.

national anthem hearer

• The Bannon/New Yorker story is dead where I read - I expect it still dominates places I'd expect - and the Kaepernick/Nike story is dead where I read - I expect it still dominates the places I'd expect.
• Only the K/N story interests me.
• I have no idea if Kaepernick is a good quarterback though I follow the story because Fuck Helmetball and I've read enough he'd have a job but and have !all! faith the reason he's unemployed is exactly the same reason everyone knows he's unemployed.
• Nike using Kaepernick (and Kaepernick taking the money) to capitalize on "resistance" strikes me as a brilliant business decision by a company that makes billions on sweatshop labor, 
• a metaphor abounding without Motherfucking Helmetball, a fine metaphor abounding with.

• I ask myself the xth time, why don't I love Spoon, I should love Spoon, everyone who knows me and loves Spoon doesn't get me either.
• Typed at 2020 EDT 9/4/18: just saw tweet - some dumb patriotic racist lit his Nikes on fire while still wearing them, dumb patriotic racist now in hospital with 3rd degree burns, and it gave me no motherfucking joy for whatever that's worth even after he tweeted out photos of his burns pretending he meant to do it.
• Belabor Day Is 20/20.
• Grotesques.
• On Ashbery one year after his death. 
• Ashbery isn't difficult unless you insist it be.
• Freddy Mercury, born 72 years ago today, I've been nattering to myself about hagiography lately (more songs click Queen tag).

BEAUTIFUL HABIT

Tom Raworth

greetings

as the door opened

ticking

              

please listen to this

food alone for all

the f.b.i. will continue

              

maybe you dozed off

i hung by that phone all night

suppose he talks

             

*

          

vida

 

later

 

aria

            

*

            

once upon a time

not looking for any thing

            

*

                

you’re on

your own

it’s off

it’s on

             

*

        

perhaps it means

ragged like that

golda my-yeer

         pre-meer

             

*

             

and pour the old box

down a drain

           

*

            

too  much news

said the news

             

*

           

r e  o l e

          

*

           

it’s us

or rust

listener

           

*

            

deep

 

personal

 

regret

 

looking

 

up

 

monday

              

*

             

we can save

your head or your body

we can shave

           

*

          

even

his admission

is

a subtle lie

             

*

             

in suspense

what is cut into

the smallest of the

           

*

               

grinding

 

to fill

 

a prescription

 

*

            

drum to the wobble and a roll on the sea

come to mind an article of light

distance through distance unfinished

               

*

              

piano

            

*

              

willing to believe

           

*

           

national

 

anthem

 

hearer

              

*

             

perfect rhyme to some

 

all cars

 

kept in doors

           

*

            

sophisticated

newsmen

show how

it could have been

           

*

          

retreat

from the swiss

legation

           

*

           

numbers

for an event

 

*

                

corruption

why not?

 

*

          

infinite

 

detail

 

is no more real

           

*

           

thought

 

             against

 

                          power

           

*

               

answer

 

 

it

              

*

        

hooked

to just another

piece of tape

hooked

to just one more

little piece of tape

            

*

              

through words in to

no

record

             

 

*

                

writer

 

righter

 

riter

          

*

                   

am:

              

i

                 

on replay?

               

*

              

all you

do is

expand

the system

              

*

               

a polaroid

of la

with the wrong

voice print

        

*

    

astronaut

amazed

at what

was expected

He Makes Better Errors That Way

• No more Ashbery RIPs beyond two links and a poem (via link) below.
• Gutted? No. Distraught? No. Upset? No. Sad? Maybe.
• Sad at that? No. Silly? Yes.
• I had seen no reports Ashbery's health turned, but 90 is 90.
• 90? I'll down-payment a guaranteed 90 if for no other reason the world will still exist in 2049.
• 2049 is two years after the year my daughter will be my age today.
• What world will that be? I'm out my money?
• An old gag, so old I forget which Ashbery poem tripped the trap the first time.

• Trick questions.
• Odds're good my arithmetic is off.
• It's the ferns. We both saw it yesterday. Here, Shenandoah, Maine, the ferns, fernier.
• Lushest, most vibrantly colorful summer woods in our collective memory! 
• Since the last until the next.
• We went south from Hamburg on Catoctin Blue. Three miles at crossroad to loop right old entrance sign to Frederick Watershed. I walked uphill to read it and, phone in pocket, it didn't occur to me to take a photo and post it here, the fuck is wrong with me? 
• I need wear blaze orange hiking Frederick Watershed Sept 15 to January 15, yo. 
• Jinx: Fall should be !!!
• Goalie's Anxiety on Ashbery's poem *New Spirit.*
• Mumpsimus on Ashbery dying the same day as the last Twin Peaks.
• The Ashbery poem this post's title's stolen from.
• Also too: it's Freddy's birthday (more songs here) (also too John Cage's).
• Best Queen song ever:

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.