Born Eighty-Six Years Ago Today

Part two, part three.

On Morton Feldman.

Rothko Chapel one, two, three, four, five.

It - Money - Makes Sense: You Need a Better Tractor, an Addition to the Gameroom, You Prefer to Buy Your Beancurd by the Barrel

I was scolded three times yesterday for again reiterating what a motherfucking authoritarian tool motherfucking Obama is, twice with a version of the refrain, o, I suppose you'd like Mitt Romney president with Republican majorities, and I love you all sincerely, but fuck that cheap slur. Saying Obama sucks isn't saying Romney doesn't (and there's no fucking chance in hell Mitt Romney is going to beat Obama, there is FAR LESS PROFIT FOR CORPORATE IF A REPUBLICAN WINS THE ELECTION, it would slow up the demolition charges Obama can plant that a Republican never could). Here's where we differ: I think the greatest significance of Obama's presidency is his gleeful expansion of executive power and violent endorsement of continued empire by any bloody means and his assault on the civil liberties of American citizens and you don't, and I haven't changed your mind yet and you haven't changed mine and we're not going to change each others no matter how often we have this motherfucking argument over the next ten shitty months of POTUS 12 and, Hey, did you know Washington DC has a professional soccer team?

• It's true, and I've mailed off our season ticket payments, meaning we've done more this offseason than DC United!
• United will pick 7th in MLS draft today.
• At least one friend at Thurday Night Pints tonight will use the "so, I guess you'd rather have Romney win" slur; you can guess my response.
• Cognitive discourse. Yes.
• It's not terrorism is Americans do it.
• Occupy and the urgency of inclusion.
• I was shitting you people - a message from Ayn Rand.
• Fine representation.
• UPDATE! On the above.
• UPDATE! On the above.
• Why the Tea Party needs Mitt.
• Look at the far right go after Mitt from the left.
• Newt skullfucks Mitt.
• The situation in American waffles.
• Wheaton! as Adams Morgan?
• Purple Line!
• Why do libraries smell that way?
• Want some Bukowski?
• Comparing hatchets.
• Roxy Music remixed.
• Trailer for LCD Soundsystem's documentary on last show. This is true: Planet is dating the nice guy she is because, in a tangential way, she fell in love with LCD Soundsystem from listening to me play it in my car.
• Morton Feldman born 86 years ago today. More later, or not.

YOU GO TO SCHOOL TO LEARN

Thomas Lux

You go to school to learn to
read and add, to someday
make some money. It - money - makes
sense: you need
a better tractor, an addition
to the gameroom, you prefer
to buy your beancurd by the barrel.
There's no other way to get the goods
you need. Besides, it keeps people busy
working - for it.
It's sensible and, therefore, you go
to school to learn (and the teacher,
having learned, gets paid to teach you) how
to get it. Fine. But:
you're taught away from poetry
or, say, dancing (That's nice, dear,
but there's no dough in it). No poem
ever bought a hamburger, or not too many. It's true,
and so, every morning - it's still dark! -
you see them, the children, like angels
being marched off to execution,
or banks. Their bodies luminous
in headlights. Going to school.

Should We Bring It a Chair to Sit On and Offer It Meat?

• Woke up with that in my head, Serendipitously.
• Romney is Michael Dukakis, Fritz Mondale, Bob Dole, the sacrificial candidate. Pint bet that Obama's reelected stands. I wrote two fucking paragraphs saying what the first sentence says. Fucking POTUS 12. 
• Just ten months until the start of POTUS 16.
• Wetwork.
• On the above. 
• Actually, I wrote two more paragraphs for another post, which can be summed up, after viewing this, as jeebusfrackingcrisp, shoot me.
• Falguni Sheth versus motherfucking Digby liberals.
• Thinking person versus Obamabot.
• Twitter versus Google.
• Gingrich versus Occupy.
• Issahole versus Occupy.
• Editorial writers versus Citizens United.
• Krugman versus Chicago School.
• Bill Kristol versus crackers.
• NYT public editor versus NYT propagandists.
• Egyptian student versus Shitty Friedman.
• Shit Republican candidates say.
• The end of capitalism?
• Why banks back SOPA.
• Airport hearts Corporate.
• We are the hollow men.
• Things you might have missed.
• I haven't posted them all, but Stalin's Mustache continues his compilation of typology of scholars.
• Pynchon versus McCarthy.
• Be kind.
• Jay Farrar and Jim James cover Woody Guthrie.
• Snowed in at Wheeler Street.
• 50 Words for Snow gets better with every listen:

BEDTIME STORY

Charles Wright

The generator hums like a distant ding an sich.
It's early evening, and time, like the dog it is,
                                                                   is hungry for food,
And will be fed, don't doubt it, with be fed, my small one.
The forest begins to gather its silences in.
The meadow regroups and hunkers down
                                                               for its cleft feet.

Something is wringing the rag of sunlight
                                                            inexorably out and hanging.
Something is making the reeds bend and cover their heads.
Something is licking the shadows up,
And stringing the blank spaces along, filling them in.
Something is inching its way into our hearts,
                         scratching its blue nails against the wall there.

Should we let it in?
                                    Should we greet it as it deserves,
Hands on our ears, mouth open?
Or should we bring it a chair to sit on and offer it meat?
Should we turn on the radio,
                                     should we clap our hands and dance
The Something Dance, the welcoming Something Dance?
                           I think we should, love, I think we should.

A Dog Drops a Bone, Another Dog Snatches It

We've been told that Stanley and Rose are not purebreds (which is why they were in rescue as young as they were) but are definitely in some large fraction Maine Coons:

Maine Coons develop slowly, and don't achieve their full size until they are three to five years old. Their dispositions remain kittenish throughout their lives; they are big, gentle, good-natured goofs. Even their voices set them apart from other cats; they have a distinctive, chirping trill which they use for everything from courting to cajoling their people into playing with them. (Maine Coons love to play, and many will joyfully retrieve small items.) They rarely meow, and when they do, that soft, tiny voice doesn't fit their size!

While Maine Coons are highly people-oriented cats, they are not overly-dependent. They do not constantly pester you for attention, but prefer to "hang out" with their owners, investigating whatever activity you're involved in and "helping" when they can. They are not, as a general rule, known as "lap cats" but as with any personality trait there are a few Maine Coons that prefer laps. Most Maine Coons will stay close by, probably occupying the chair next to yours instead. Maines will follow you from room to room and wait outside a closed door for you to emerge. A Maine Coon will be your companion, your buddy, your pal, but hardly ever your baby.

Maine Coons are relaxed and easy-going in just about everything they do. The males tend to be the clowns while the females retain more dignity, but both remain playful throughout their lives. They generally get along well with kids and dogs, as well as other cats. They are not as vertically-oriented as some other breeds, prefering to chase objects on the ground and grasping them in their large paws -- no doubt instincts developed as professional mousers. Many Maine Coons will play "fetch" with their owners.

YES! it's like that. Rose is funny, Stanley's hilarious. Neither has meowed though they never stop trilling, it's wonderful. We've learned five and a half indoor cats are too many, so, not counting the inevitable rescue that will be thrust upon us, if these are the last two until they die in twenty years, yay me. Fleabus?

Loves to play with them until she sees us seeing her play with them and then she gets pissy. It's like she's playing POTUS 12 on a blog. O and twooter, look at the twootwhore I am, 500+ twoots in less than two months, what to call twooter angst, it can't be called bleggalgazing (though this guy bleggalgazes his twooter angst). Truth in some small fraction is that twooter makes burying links like acorns for harvesting for next post easy, but still. Twooteroscopy?

• All photos by Planet.
  
• Villagers love this shit. I bet Diane Rehm devotes an entire segment of her smarmy and self-congratulatory Friday circle jerk to it.
• Thought experiment.
• Behind anomie lines.
• Shoot the messenger.
• Has Occupy been a dream?
• Decay of perspective.
• Romney: The curse of the trochee.
• This ripe moment.
• Motherfucking Obama.
• From Mr Fish:

• The very real danger of genetically modified food?
• Purple Line promotional video!
• There is no try. Speaking of twooter, I replied to a Goff twoot re: the ominous silence of DCU's offseason and was followed within fifteen minutes by ten people. 
• Loft and turf and Elkin.
• Serendipity: I literally pressed Against the Day into P's hands yesterday.
• Markson on Gaddis.
• Two new Goldbarth poems.
• Embarrassingly bad!
• A quick one before I go.
• Kuupuu.
• New Xiu Xiu for those of you who do. I don't (though I hear why those who do do), but two loved ones do.
• New Shins for those of you who do. I almost positive it's their bridges that keep me from loving.
• One hour of gorgeous.
• Holyfuck, thank you! Dangerous Minds, I don't think I've ever of these two Queen vids before:

SUBURBAN

Peter Cole

Conformity caught here, nobody catches it,
Lawns groomed in prose, with hardly a stutter.
Lloyd hits the ball, and Lorraine fetches it.

Mom hangs the laundry, Fred, Jr., watches it,
Shirts in the clichéd air, all aflutter.
Conformity caught here, nobody catches it.

A dog drops a bone, another dog snatches it.
I dreamed of this life once, Now I shudder
As Lloyd hits the ball and Lorraine fetches it.

A doldrum of leaky roofs, a roofer who patches it,
Lloyd prowls the streets, still clutching his putter.
Conformity caught here, nobody catches it.

The tediumed rake, the retiree who matches it, 
The fall air gone dead with the pure drone of motors
While Lloyd hits the ball, and Lorraine just fetches it.

The door is ajar, then somebody latches it.
Through the hissing of barbecues poets mutter 
Of conformity caught here, where nobody catches it.
Lloyd hits the ball. And damned Lorraine fetches it.

So Hologramic

Two bits of good news! Planet has been aiming her eye and camera at Stanley, a wondercat, chirper, clown. More photos tomorrow!

Also, a friend found the TVC15 I spent hours looking for this past weekend!



David Bowie & Klaus Nomi - TVC15 & Boys Keep... by ZapMan69