I simply don't believe the Democrats would really be worse off with voters if they committed themselves to putting people back to work, policing Wall Street, throwing their weight behind a real public option in health care, making hedge fund managers pay the same tax rates as ordinary people, ending the pointless wars abroad, etc. That they won't do these things because they're afraid of public criticism, and "responding to pressure," is an increasingly transparent lie.
A question needs asking: there's no power to be had, no celebrity, no notoriety, as an honest advocate for progressivism or as a Clintonian fraud, a cynic of especial skill and duplicity? No money to be made? In a country that celebrates the entrepreneur as Avatar One and the con-man as Avatar Two, that holds the right to exploit motherfucking rubes as the Most Sacred Law in a society that proudly considers itself just, no power to be had? No fortune to be won, large or small, filling the obamavacuum roobish pwoggles like me luxuriate in?
Yes I've asked before. I'm rube enough still to be astonished there's not.
The adoption of Clops may have hit a speedbump. His foster parents are making wannakeepem noises. They have our blessing, I told the guy so, told him we'll uphold our commitment but PLEASE keep the cat if they want him, we have seven already and the world is full of cats that need homes, we'll get one of them.
Here's Napoleon, a wonder cat.
- Politics of austerity.
- Truth is a matter of opinion.
- Wars of whim.
- My country, wrong.
- Category error.
- Security State.
- Crackerfornia!
- Interview with a motherfucking christercracker.
- Israel's motherfucking crackers.
- Welcome to Murdochia.
- As the News of the World turns.
- Murdoch and the rule of the oligarchy.
- Monday Gun Day!
- Soccer, New York, photos.
- On the bias against narrative poetry.
- Jack asks questions about what the success of a band as shitty as Fleet Foxes signifies. I was going to expound here, but have this comment instead.
- Paul Weller Monday?
ANOTHER INSANE DEVOTION
Gerald Stern
This was gruesome—fighting over a ham sandwich
with one of the tiny cats of Rome, he leaped
on my arm and half hung on to the food and half
hung on to my shirt and coat. I tore it apart
and let him have his portion, I think I lifted him
down, sandwich and all, on the sidewalk and sat
with my own sandwich beside him, maybe I petted
his bony head and felt him shiver. I have
told this story over and over; some things
root in the mind; his boldness, of course, was frightening
and unexpected—his stubborness—though hunger
drove him mad. It was the breaking of boundaries,
the sudden invasion, l but not only that it was
the sharing of food and the sharing of space; he didn't
run into an alley or into a cellar,
he sat beside me, eating, and I didn't run
into a trattoria, say, shaking,
with food on my lips and blood on my cheek, sobbing;
but only that, I had gone there to eat
and wait for someone. I had maybe an hour
before she would come and I was full of hope
and excitement. I have resisted for years
interpreting this, but now I think I was given
a clue, or I was giving myself a clue,
across the street from the glass sandwich shop.
That was my last night with her, the next day
I would leave on the train for Paris and she would
meet her husband. Thirty-five years ago
I ate my sandwich and moaned in her arms, we were
dying together; we never met again
although she was pregnant when i left her—I have
a daughter or son somewhere, darling grandchildren
in Norwich, Connecticut, or Canton, Ohio.
Every five years I think about her again
and plan on looking her up. The last time
I was sitting in New Brunswick, New Jersey,
and heard that her husband was teaching at Princeton,
if she was still married, or still alive, and tried
calling. I went that far. We lived
in Florence and Rome. We rowed in the bay of Naples
and floated, naked, on the boards. i started
to think of her again today. I still
am horrified by the cat's hunger. I still
am puzzled by the connection. this is another
insane devotion, there must be hundreds, although
it isn't just that, there is no pain, and the thought
is fleeting and sweet. i think it's my own dumb boyhood,
walking around with Slavich cheeks and burning
stupid eyes. I think I gave the cat
half of my sandwich to buy my life, I think
I broke it in half as a decent sacrifice.
It was this I bought, the red coleus,
the split rocking chair, the silk lampshade.
Happiness. I watched him with pleasure.
I bought memory. I could have lost it.
How crazy it sounds. His face twisted with cunning.
The wind blowing through his hair. His jaw working.
