That's new Bonnie Prince Billy.
Holyfuck, I found myself scribbling about the 2012 POTUS season like I was writing about a soccer game in which I don't have a rooting interest, say Chelsea versus Madrid (if forced to pick which I hate more I'd say I hate motherfucking Madrid .06% more than motherfucking Chelsea), writing about tactics and players, Pawlenty versus Romney versus motherfucking Obama, this after spending the last five days off-putting if not alienating all but the loyalest readers (and many of them too) with Fleabus photos and United yodeling and existential angst over Kate Bush's latest album and Planet's exceptional art and especially overbearing bleggalgazing. Why would I start writing about what drives eyes here today except lust for pings?
Kidding. I am that vain to think I make this blog so suck, but I'm not stupid: the Blog Days of Summer start in May in Blegsylvania. Look at those blogrolls. Look at the usually flush comment counters on overlords' blogs. Spring semester is over! Blogging is a winter sport. 2011 is a throwaway year in the Potus League anyway.
Hey! Bonnie Prince Billy is playing Birchmere October 2. I'll be buying tickets this weekend. Who's in? Hamster! I'm looking at you.
- Apart.
- The people v Goldman-Sachs.
- Preach it, Brother Hedges. Another friend commended the Hedges to me, and while I agree with Hedges thoughts on establishment Liberals attacking anyone who questions Liberal orthodoxy, I can concurrently maintain I've thought Cornel West an assclown for at least a decade.
- I've said all along that Obama's reelection strategy is to let the crackers cracker themselves out. Pint bets still stand.
- Rogue client state, part 37.
- David Brook's wetdream.
- On patriotism. (h/t)
- Press release from MINIPEACE.
- This will be the last shamelessly bleggalgazing post until the next one, but I do want to say while I've no gah for rephrasing myself at the minute, there are things to be read and listened to, so links and reads and poems and songs and Fleabus and United may or not continue while I take a few days off (barring some kaboom) to not worry what I want to do here next.
- UPDATE!
- Damn. Not that kind of kaboom.
- Is it OK to hate Roth?
- Stephin Merritt song you've (probably) never heard?
- Kate Bush allusion!
DEER HIT
Jon Loomis
You're seventeen and tunnel-vision drunk,
swerving your father's Fairlane wagon home
at 3:00 a.m. Two-lane road, all curves
and dips—dark woods, a stream, a patchy acre
of teazle and grass. You don't see the deer
till they turn their heads—road full of eyeballs,
small moons glowing. You crank the wheel,
stamp both feet on the brake, skid and jolt
into the ditch. Glitter and crunch of broken glass
in your lap, deer hair drifting like dust. Your chin
and shirt are soaked—one eye half-obscured
by the cocked bridge of your nose. The car
still running, its lights angled up at the trees.
You get out. The deer lies on its side.
A doe, spinning itself around
in a frantic circle, front legs scrambling,
back legs paralyzed, dead. Making a sound—
again and again this terrible bleat.
You watch for a while. It tires, lies still.
And here's what you do: pick the deer up
like a bride. Wrestle it into the back of the car—
the seat folded down. Somehow, you steer
the wagon out of the ditch and head home,
night rushing in through the broken window,
headlight dangling, side-mirror gone.
Your nose throbs, something stabs
in your side. The deer breathing behind you,
shallow and fast. A stoplight, you're almost home
and the deer scrambles to life, its long head
appears like a ghost in the rearview mirror
and bites you, its teeth clamp down on your shoulder
and maybe you scream, you struggle and flail
till the deer, exhausted, lets go and lies down.
2
Your father's waiting up, watching tv.
He's had a few drinks and he's angry.
Christ, he says, when you let yourself in.
It's Night of the Living Dead. You tell him
some of what happened: the dark road,
the deer you couldn't avoid. Outside, he circles
the car. Jesus, he says. A long silence.
Son of a bitch, looking in. He opens the tailgate,
drags the quivering deer out by a leg.
What can you tell him—you weren't thinking,
you'd injured your head? You wanted to fix
what you'd broken—restore the beautiful body,
color of wet straw, color of oak leaves in winter?
The deer shudders and bleats in the driveway.
Your father walks to the toolshed,
comes back lugging a concrete block.
Some things stay with you. Dumping the body
deep in the woods, like a gangster. The dent
in your nose. All your life, the trail of ruin you leave.
