Got to Get Back Where You Belong

The excellent run of High Holy Days of Egoslavia continues tomorrow. The best part of the days is the day-before hunting.

It's Not a Test, S'Not a Test, S'Not a Test, I'm a Broadcasting System

When I wrote automocoblogography almost three years ago I was driving backroads to a United game because it's love and remembered the paragraph from Gass' The Tunnel that gave yesterday's post its title. I'm gonna leave a couple hours early this Saturday before United v Columbus and drive backroads, it's been too fucking long. That's today's bleggalgaze. In blegistics, I'm getting major comment spam, rather than squiggle you I'm closing comment threads after twenty-four hours of dormency: it's not you, it's the lack of you. Fine metaphors abound. Also too, Theme Song for Meantime. Loud please. Dance please.

It Was Plain that Every Ten-by-Ten-by-Eight Container Contained Cubes which Were Nine by Nine by Seven, and Eight by Eight by Six, and Seven by Seven by Five, and so on Down to Three by Three by Two, as Well as Many Smaller, Thinly Sided One at Every Interval in Between, so That Out of One Box a Million More Might Multiply

William Gass is eighty-eight today. From Omensetter's Luck:

All those cities, those hollow house, all those lives, those graves, the graves of hope... With a madness like the madness to bury that seizes men, a craze to cover that overcomes all of them, the cities covered themselves with sand and mud, vines, grass, lava, with noisier cities, completer ruins, further graves and further grasses. I am their proper lordship, Furber thought. My credentials make me master of the resting places. That was the way - burial to burial, shame to shame - it had always been since Adam's fig had hidden him, his sex and death together and the same, and surely that was the way it would continue. He - Furber - would be lost in a swallow of persons. The stone in the corner of his garden would not truly speak of him, the great Leviathan would have him, he'd be buried in their bodies - cover after cover coming - for that was the whole of life on the earth, our bodies for a time athwart another's middle, our lives like leaves, generation after generation lifting the level of the land, the aim of each new layer the efficient smother of the last.

• Puke Britannia: Whatever the creators' intentions, whatever people now do to appropriate elements of this spectacle for their own agendas, the fact is that it's major achievement was to induce people to forget temporarily what a disgrace the Olympics are; how hated they are in the East End where the Olympics Green Zone has been implanted, protected by rooftop missiles that residents don't want; how poor people have been drive out of their homes as they always are when the Olympics comes to town; how much our civil liberties have already been attacked in the name of suppressing criticism of this ugly metro-plasty, as legislation and police exercises have been framed in the assumption that protest during these events is a potential terrorist plot; how preposterous it is that the 'security' for this montage of pointless exercises is being supplied by thousands of soldiers fresh from hunting shepherds in Afganistan; how fucked up it is that the major sponsors of this debacle, their names glowingly referenced all over the city's billboards, are corporations like McDonalds (which specialises in heart disease, bowel cancer and obesity), and Atos (which specialises in throwing disabled people off benefits and will no doubt have a special role in the Paralympics); and above all the fact that this is sports, pointless, boring sports, and the only reason anyone really wants to watch someone else swim forty lengths or jump over sandpits is because they're doing so on behalf of the nation.
• Towards a revised manifesto of auto-destructive art.
• Boyle's bicycles.
• Magic buttplug.
• From Kabul to Anaheim.
• Motherfucking Obama.
• Last kind words.
• Changling.
• How to become an unperson.
• They're not gaffes.
• Some fun from an empty suit.
• Motherfucking cracker christers.
• A geography of containization: The globalized geography of containerization comes with another, stranger phenomenon: the aestheticization of the container. At first, the fascination exercised by the box appeared to be zero, since it has none of the elements traditionally associated with the marine world. But an aesthetic revolution has intervened, making the container into a design object prized by artists and architects, who use it as a fixed object that can be inhabited under minimal and economical conditions. Shaped like a cabin, the box is the building block for clusters and montages of all kinds, to be used as student accommodation or hide-outs for illegal immigrants and the homeless. A matrix of intermodality, it can be fixed, immobilized and turned into a dwelling or place of refuge. As Virilio writes, the container's final role is as a terminal: "The bedroom is the ultimate box, while the high-speed terminal is just as much a container. The container is an architectural figure of the box. It becomes the interconnected locus solus.
• Gass interview.
• Gass interview.
• Byrne and St Vincent. I'm told their show this Fall at Strathmore sold out in hours.
• New Animal Collective. I really like Animal Collective, shoot me.

Gass, The Tunnel:

The other large carton unpacked in the same way - box into box - but the feeling it gave me was the opposite of that suggested by the endless nest of Russians dollies in otherwise resembled, for what I was opening was a den of spaces which now covered the floor near my feet. It was plain that every ten-by-ten-by eight container contained cubes which were nine by nine by seven, and eight by eight by six, and seven by seven by five, and so on down to three by three by two, as well as many smaller, thinly sided one at every interval in between, so that out of one box a million more might multiply, confirming Zeno's view, although at that age, with an unfurnished mind, I couldn't have known of his paradoxes let alone have been able to describe one with any succinctness. What I had discovered is that every space contains more space than the space it contains.

Fifty-Four Today

Hounds of Love has to be one of my three most listened to albums, and the song cycle of side two back in the days of album sides unquestionably the side of music I've listened to most. Dream of Sheep and Under Ice and Waking the Witch and Watching You Without Me and Jig of Life and Hello Earth and finishing with, and you must listen in order like I just did for full kaboom, holyfuck, I love this song:







The line between loving the music and loving the memories the music evokes (and there are ten formative years and three exceptional women - one of whom I'm still married to - when Kate Bush was on the daily soundtrack) has long blurred, but she's one of three permanent members in my Sillyass Desert Island Five Game for both reasons. Adding, for this year's celebration: listening to the albums this past week, nothing - nothing - gongs my soul's bells more than the first time I hear her voice after not hearing it for a week.

But Just Saying It Could Even Make It Happen

High Holy Day Eve. 333334333 344433343 454334344 at Seneca to celebrate.

United 1, Paris St Germain 1

That's first intermission, at the 22 minute mark, forty-five minute stoppage for lightning. Every season Baal requires at least one United game be interrupted by weather. As for the game, friendlies serve to remind that MLS athletes are smaller, weaker, slower than athletes of top flight European league teams. DeRossario can say If we can play with PSG, we can play with any team. Saying that, we just have to show up and play with that same confidence, but PSG opened United like a carp's belly with shocking ease the first ten minutes then parked the bus the remaining 80. This is not a complaint, just an observation - there's a reason a 32 year old Tim Cahill moves from Everton to Metros, not visa versa. This is not to denigrate the joyousness of attending professional soccer games in my city. It's love of course. Here's the second intermission, the standard soccer halftime. Look for Fleabus.

Popeye Chuckled and Scratched His Balls

John Ashbery is eighty-five today. Some poems I once loved have aged better than the majority that haven't, but however I read today first reading John Ashbery thirty-five years ago remains a transformational moment. Today's a High Holy Day in Egoslavia.

I got to know two poets at Hilltop, Tony Hecht, who I talk about all the time and who loathed Ashbery's influence but begrudgingly acknowledged the quality of the poetry, and Roland Flint, who hated every other poet but Ashbery particularly, his bad Lazarus to Flint's good.





Was funny. Hecht would wind Flint up then say something complimentary about Ashbery (or O'Hara or Sexton or Lowell) and Flint would flint, especially when ryed. I do understand and appreciate Hecht's resentment of Ashbery's influence: while Ashbery could successfully write Ashbery poetry, the poetry of a gigazillion Ashbery imitators, precious few of whom (Hecht said, raising that right eyebrow of owl feathers and skewering me) rise above derivative suck, sucks. So this is how I work in a shitty Star Trek allusion, proof Hecht's eyebrow knew of what it scowled.

• Why so many communist philosophers?
• Marx is back?
• Marxism is on the rise?
• More proof Krugman is a moron.
• Empty victories.
• Israeli prison guard hearts motherfucking Obama.
• YMOBMC.
• Romneyshambles. 
• YMOBMC.
• Those of you (most of you) who tune in here for the links probably know about Avedon Carol, who plays in a much higher Blog Ladder League than me, but those who don't know should check her blog.
• Because August is being debated.
• UPDATE: Yes, there was a hypothetical question here, typed in at two in the morning and showing that half-sleep phase, that I was removing as Sasha was commenting. See comments for more.
• İlhan Mimaroğlu.

FARM IMPLEMENTS AND RUTABAGAS IN A LANDSCAPE

John Ashbery

The first of the undecoded messages read: "Popeye sits in thunder,
Unthought of. From that shoebox of an apartment,
From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges: a country."
Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: "How pleasant
To spend one's vacation en la casa de Popeye," she scratched
Her cleft chin's solitary hair. She remembered spinach

And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any spinach.
"M'love," he intercepted, "the plains are decked out in thunder
Today, and it shall be as you wish." He scratched
The part of his head under his hat. The apartment
Seemed to grow smaller. "But what if no pleasant
Inspiration plunge us now to the stars? For this is my country."

Suddenly they remembered how it was cheaper in the country.
Wimpy was thoughtfully cutting open a number 2 can of spinach
When the door opened and Swee'pea crept in. "How pleasant!"
But Swee'pea looked morose. A note was pinned to his bib. "Thunder
And tears are unavailing," it read. "Henceforth shall Popeye's apartment
Be but remembered space, toxic or salubrious, whole or scratched."

Olive came hurtling through the window; its geraniums scratched
Her long thigh. "I have news!" she gasped. "Popeye, forced as you
     know to flee the country
One musty gusty evening, by the schemes of his wizened, duplicate
     father, jealous of the apartment
And all that it contains, myself and spinach
In particular, heaves bolts of loving thunder
At his own astonished becoming, rupturing the pleasant

Arpeggio of our years. No more shall pleasant
Rays of the sun refresh your sense of growing old, nor the scratched
Tree-trunks and mossy foliage, only immaculate darkness and thunder."
She grabbed Swee'pea. "I'm taking the brat to the country."
"But you can't do that--he hasn't even finished his spinach,"
Urged the Sea Hag, looking fearfully around at the apartment.

But Olive was already out of earshot. Now the apartment
Succumbed to a strange new hush. "Actually it's quite pleasant
Here," thought the Sea Hag. "If this is all we need fear from spinach
Then I don't mind so much. Perhaps we could invite Alice the Goon over"
     --she scratched
One dug pensively--"but Wimpy is such a country
Bumpkin, always burping like that." Minute at first, the thunder

Soon filled the apartment. It was domestic thunder,
The color of spinach. Popeye chuckled and scratched
His balls: it sure was pleasant to spend a day in the country.

But If I Am Still There, Grant That We May See Each Other

Holyfuck, sixty straight hours of Conrad Schnitzler starting at 6PM EDT. Wish I could see some of it. Als0 to0, Ashbery is 85 tomorrow. Here's Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror. Here's:


JUST WALKING AROUND

What name do I have for you?
Certainly there is not name for you
In the sense that the stars have names
That somehow fit them. Just walking around,

An object of curiosity to some,
But you are too preoccupied
By the secret smudge in the back of your soul
To say much and wander around,

Smiling to yourself and others.
It gets to be kind of lonely
But at the same time off-putting.
Counterproductive, as you realize once again

That the longest way is the most efficient way,
The one that looped among islands, and
You always seemed to be traveling in a circle.
And now that the end is near

The segments of the trip swing open like an orange.
There is light in there and mystery and food.
Come see it.
Come not for me but it.
But if I am still there, grant that we may see each other.

Is the Puckered Garance Satin of a Case that Once Held a Brace of Dueling Pistols Our Only Acknowledging of that Color?

Everyone at Thursday Night Pints expressed sustained disgust and bored contempt for every motherfucking participant in POTUS 12, ourselves included. Extra-loathing for Rahm Emanuel and his motherfucking American liberal tboggian glee club who don't see (or, worse and more probably, at least in the marketing department, do see) the similarities between an argument against a mosque you needn't attend and a fast food restaurant you needn't frequent. POTUS 12 reminds me, said L, of being a little girl on my uncle's farm year after year in Iowa for three weeks every summer with a bitch older sister and seven older asshole cousins. K said (I'm sorry K, I had no choice, start your own blog and dispense revenge, I dare you, it'd be like the office on the top level of Holbrook Shopping Center, the office where, when I was 20, I made cold calls for the Praternal Irder of Folice for a fund-raising benefit starring Bobby Vinton), POTUS 12? Who are the older cousins? It's not that direct a comparison, I said. L said, I'm just talking about the flavor of suck.

• Yesterday afternoon I provided a successful ten minute reference consultation for Shard Mields, who'll be on that crap PBS news show tonight "debating" Bavid Drooks. I was friendly, collegial, non-confrontational. I am such a motherfucking whore.
• We create the conditions that condition us.
• A philosophy of boredom. Apologies if I already posted that.
• A letter from IOPS.
• The urbanization of class struggle.
• If Obama's puppeteers were smart they'd have him on a podium today cynically saying, While I have profound differences on gay marriage with whatever that christer's name is, as long as his company meets the legal local standards necessary to open a franchise his company is welcome to open that franchise.
• Your Fucking Washington Post wants you to be scared of Iran.
• >>>Deleted bleggalgazing<<<
• Ashbery's holy day tomorrow, Bush's Monday.
• New Pinback!

DAFFY DUCK IN HOLLYWOOD

John Ashbery

Something strange is creeping across me.
La Celestina has only to warble the first few bars
Of "I Thought about You" or something mellow from
Amadigi di Gaula for everything--a mint-condition can
Of Rumford's Baking Powder, a celluloid earring, Speedy
Gonzales, the latest from Helen Topping Miller's fertile
Escritoire, a sheaf of suggestive pix on greige, deckle-edged
Stock--to come clattering through the rainbow trellis
Where Pistachio Avenue rams the 2300 block of Highland
Fling Terrace. He promised he'd get me out of this one,
That mean old cartoonist, but just look what he's
Done to me now! I scarce dare approach me mug's attenuated
Reflection in yon hubcap, so jaundiced, so déconfit
Are its lineaments--fun, no doubt, for some quack phrenologist's
Fern-clogged waiting room, but hardly what you'd call
Companionable. But everything is getting choked to the point of
Silence. Just now a magnetic storm hung in the swatch of sky
Over the Fudds' garage, reducing it--drastically--
To the aura of a plumbago-blue log cabin on
A Gadsden Purchase commemorative cover. Suddenly all is
Loathing. I don't want to go back inside any more. You meet
Enough vague people on this emerald traffic-island--no,
Not people, comings and goings, more: mutterings, splatterings,
The bizarrely but effectively equipped infantries of
happy-go-nutty
Vegetal jacqueries, plumed, pointed at the little
White cardboard castle over the mill run. "Up
The lazy river, how happy we could be?"
How will it end? That geranium glow
Over Anaheim's had the riot act read to it by the
Etna-size firecracker that exploded last minute into
A carte du Tendre in whose lower right-hand corner
(Hard by the jock-itch sand-trap that skirts
The asparagus patch of algolagnic nuits blanches) Amadis
Is cozening the Princesse de Cleves into a midnight
micturition spree
On the Tamigi with the Wallets (Walt, Blossom, and little
Sleezix) on a lamé barge "borrowed" from Ollie
Of the Movies' dread mistress of the robes. Wait!
I have an announcement! This wide, tepidly meandering,
Civilized Lethe (one can barely make out the maypoles
And châlets de nécessitê on its sedgy shore)
leads to Tophet, that
Landfill-haunted, not-so-residential resort from which
Some travellers return! This whole moment is the groin
Of a borborygmic giant who even now
Is rolling over on us in his sleep. Farewell bocages,
Tanneries, water-meadows. The allegory comes unsnarled
Too soon; a shower of pecky acajou harpoons is
About all there is to be noted between tornadoes. I have
Only my intermittent life in your thoughts to live
Which is like thinking in another language. Everything
Depends on whether somebody reminds you of me.
That this is a fabulation, and that those "other times"
Are in fact the silences of the soul, picked out in
Diamonds on stygian velvet, matters less than it should.
Prodigies of timing may be arranged to convince them
We live in one dimension, they in ours. While I
Abroad through all the coasts of dark destruction seek
Deliverance for us all, think in that language: its
Grammar, though tortured, offers pavillions
At each new parting of the ways. Pastel
Ambulances scoop up the quick and hie them to hospitals.
"It's all bits and pieces, spangles, patches, really; nothing
Stands alone. What happened to creative evolution?"
Sighed Aglavaine. Then to her Sélysette: "If his
Achievement is only to end up less boring than the others,
What's keeping us here? Why not leave at once?
I have to stay here while they sit in there,
Laugh, drink, have fine time. In my day
One lay under the tough green leaves,
Pretending not to notice how they bled into
The sky's aqua, the wafted-away no-color of regions supposed
Not to concern us. And so we too
Came where the others came: nights of physical endurance,
Or if, by day, our behavior was anarchically
Correct, at least by New Brutalism standards, all then
Grew taciturn by previous agreement. We were spirited
Away en bateau, under cover of fudge dark.
It's not the incomplete importunes, but the spookiness
Of the finished product. True, to ask less were folly, yet
If he is the result of himself, how much the better
For him we ought to be! And how little, finally,
We take this into account! Is the puckered garance satin
Of a case that once held a brace of dueling pistols our
Only acknowledging of that color? I like not this,
Methinks, yet this disappointing sequel to ourselves
Has been applauded in London and St. Petersburg. Somewhere
Ravens pray for us." The storm finished brewing. And thus
She questioned all who came in at the great gate, but none
She found who ever heard of Amadis,
Nor of stern Aureng-Zebe, his first love. Some
They were to whom this mattered not a jot: since all
By definition is completeness (so
In utter darkness they reasoned), why not
Accept it as it pleases to reveal itself? As when
Low skyscrapers from lower-hanging clouds reveal
A turret there, an art-deco escarpment here, and last perhaps
The pattern that may carry the sense, but
Stays hidden in the mysteries of pagination.
Not what we see but how we see it matters; all's
Alike, the same, and we greet him who announces
The change as we would greet the change itself.
All life is but a figment; conversely, the tiny
Tome that slips from your hand is not perhaps the
Missing link in this invisible picnic whose leverage
Shrouds our sense of it. Therefore bivouac we
On this great, blond highway, unimpeded by
Veiled scruples, worn conundrums. Morning is
Impermanent. Grab sex things, swing up
Over the horizon like a boy
On a fishing expedition. No one really knows
Or cares whether this is the whole of which parts
Were vouchsafed--once--but to be ambling on's
The tradition more than the safekeeping of it. This mulch for
Play keeps them interested and busy while the big,
Vaguer stuff can decide what it wants--what maps, what
Model cities, how much waste space. Life, our
Life anyway, is between. We don't mind
Or notice any more that the sky is green, a parrot
One, but have our earnest where it chances on us,
Disingenuous, intrigued, inviting more,
Always invoking the echo, a summer's day.

Hoping that We&#39;d Fail to Disappear

HEY! New Sea and Cake here, new album coming, old Sea and Cake above and below. Love love love love love, they are in the short rotation (all Prekop and Prewitt productions). S&C coming to Black Cat October 24. Who's in? More cascades to come before then.














Als0 to0, reaffirmation of love and deep awe before Serendipity: I posted Kate Bush's Aeriel this morning before I saw the news of new Sea and Cake, thought to post their Aeriel.

When the Sun Was Done Muttering, in an Optimistic Way, It Was Time to Leave that There

So the plan is to stop posting DRGDKCLB (click mosaic, yo) stuff here two days ago, but in lieu of embargoed bleggalgazing - you'd rather have nothing than this, this than bleggalgazing, I seem incapable of giving you nothing - you get this, plus now through July 30 a daily Ashbery poem and a daily Kate Bush song in anticipation of two of the holiest days in Egoslavia. I had two fascinating email threads working yesterday on Blegsylvania and... oh, right. Had a conversation with my obamapostle friend, the one who doesn't even want me to use a pseudonymous initial to identify him/her, s/he said.... oh, right.

• Some choices are more equal than others.
• Motherfucking Democrats.
• UPDATE! Motherfucking Democrats.
• OK, more Cockburn: this.
• Those who know me aren't surprised this is placed here.
• Villager Court Jester really dislikes Willard.
• Things you might have missed.
• I hate the motherfucking Olympics. Possibly more than The Motherfucking Doors. It's close.
• I hate the motherfucking Olympics. Possibly more than The Motherfucking Doors. It's close.
• Via this, there's this. I drive by it almost every day.

• The Marlo on Rocketville Pike that caught on fire yesterday ironically was built on the plot of land the Rocketville Fire Department held their annual fundraising carnival for years. 
• I am shocked to learn that Peter Nowak is a raging asshole. I've witnesses I've always said so, even in good times.
• Participatory art.
• Silliman's always awesomely generous litlinks.
• Will it be Mantel again? Wouldn't surprise me if they Bookered the whole trilogy. I tried reading Nicola Barker's Darkmans a few years ago, left it on Metro by accident, and....
• A Thurston Moore playlist from yesterday.

THE NEW HIGHER

John Ashbery

You meant more than life to me. I lived through
you not knowing, not knowing I was living.
I learned that you called for me. I came to where
you were living, up a stair. There was no one there.
No one to appreciate me. The legality of it
upset a chair. Many times to celebrate
we were called together and where
we had been there was nothing there,
nothing that is anywhere. We passed obliquely,
leaving no stare. When the sun was done muttering,
in an optimistic way, it was time to leave that there.

Blithely passing in and out of where, blushing shyly
at the tag on the overcoat near the window where
the outside crept away, I put aside the there and now.
Now it was time to stumble anew,
blacking out when time came in the window.
There was not much of it left.
I laughed and put my hands shyly
across your eyes. Can you see now?
Yes I can see I am only in the where
where the blossoming stream takes off, under your window.
Go presently you said. Go from my window.
I am in love with your window I cannot undermine
it, I said.

At Night Deer Drift from the Dark Woods and Eat My Garden. They&#39;re Like Enormous Rats on Stilts Except, of Course, They&#39;re Beautiful

I'll keep the details to myself, but I'll never swap out songs again because yesterday was the greatest example of serendipity ever though I haven't the timestamp to prove it, but Sherman Helmsley, who knew? which both is and isn't the point, though yes, Thurston Moore is 54 today.

• Drone-court advantage.
• 26 billionaires.
• Reinventing crony capitalism.
• Knives out for Barofsky.
• Police.
• Knives out for Barofsky.
• Mitt Romney, a hero in my mind.

• Predawn philosophers club.
• >>>Deleted bleggalgazing<<<
• Rats on stilts.
• St Benny of Olsen.
• Is his name Giles?
• Literature's brooder.
• An anti-novel?
• Modernism and the anti-novel.
• Music before revolution.

PRAYING DRUNK

Andrew Hudgins

Our Father who art in heaven, I am drunk.
Again. Red wine. For which I offer thanks.
I ought to start with praise, but praise
comes hard to me. I stutter. Did I tell you
about the woman whom I taught, in bed,
this prayer? It starts with praise; the simple form
keeps things in order. I hear from her sometimes.
Do you? And after love, when I was hungry,
I said, Make me something to eat. She yelled,
Poof! You’re a casserole!—and laughed so hard
she fell out of the bed. Take care of her.

Next, confession—the dreary part. At night
deer drift from the dark woods and eat my garden.
They’re like enormous rats on stilts except,
of course, they’re beautiful. But why? What makes
them beautiful? I haven’t shot one yet.
I might. When I was twelve, I’d ride my bike
out to the dump and shoot the rats. It’s hard
to kill your rats, our Father. You have to use
a hollow point and hit them solidly.
A leg is not enough. The rat won’t pause.
Yeep! Yeep! it screams, and scrabbles, three-legged, back
into the trash, and I would feel a little bad
to kill something that wants to live
more savagely than I do, even if
it’s just a rat. My garden’s vanishing.
Perhaps I’ll merely plant more beans, though that
might mean more beautiful and hungry deer.
Who knows?
I’m sorry for the times I’ve driven
home past a black, enormous, twilight ridge.
Crested with mist, it looked like a giant wave
about to break and sweep across the valley,
and in my loneliness and fear I’ve thought,
O let it come and wash the whole world clean.
Forgive me. This is my favorite sin: despair—
whose love I celebrate with wine and prayer.

Our Father, thank you for all the birds and trees,
that nature stuff. I’m grateful for good health,
food, air, some laughs, and all the other things
I’m grateful that I’ve never had to do
without. I have confused myself. I’m glad
there’s not a rattrap large enough for deer.
While at the zoo last week, I sat and wept
when I saw one elephant insert his trunk
into another’s ass, pull out a lump,
and whip it back and forth impatiently
to free the goodies hidden in the lump.
I could have let it mean most anything,
but I was stunned again at just how little
we ask for in our lives. Don’t look! Don’t look!
Two young nuns tried to herd their giggling
schoolkids away. Line up, they called. Let’s go
and watch the monkeys in the monkey house.
I laughed, and got a dirty look. Dear Lord,
we lurch from metaphor to metaphor,
which is—let it be so—a form of praying.

I’m usually asleep by now—the time
for supplication. Requests. As if I’d stayed
up late and called the radio and asked
they play a sentimental song. Embarrassed.
I want a lot of money and a woman.
And, also, I want vanishing cream. You know—
a character like Popeye rubs it on
and disappears. Although you see right through him,
he’s there. He chuckles, stumbles into things,
and smoke that’s clearly visible escapes
from his invisible pipe. It makes me think,
sometimes, of you. What makes me think of me
is the poor jerk who wanders out on air
and then looks down. Below his feet, he sees
eternity, and suddenly his shoes
no longer work on nothingness, and down
he goes. As I fall past, remember me.

Another Can of Worms

Was going to wait until tomorrow to post some songs, but inspired by Prunella's latest playlist (I don't know she thought of this when she posted a Sonic Youth song) have a Holy Day Eve song for Thurston Moore who's 54 tomorrow. FuckI'mold. AlsO toO: thisbit'soldtoo:

Tottering and Elastic, Middle Name of Groan

• Here's one on Alexander Cockburn, who I read enough to need to note his death but who did not move me enough to eulogize him now.
• Liberalism agonistes.
• The careerists.
• Shit.
• Triptych.
• Politics of the unconscious.
• Myths of human nature, part one.
• Empty pitchforks.
• Republicans, public goods, sheer idiocy.
• Republican governor, presidential hopeful based on his fiscal conservative posturing, asks for federal aid. YMOBMC.
• >>>Deleted bleggalgazing<<<
• The people of the other village.
• On Sally Ride.
• Stop time.
• The view from Missouri.
• Buy me Kapow for my birthday, please.
• Too late.
• Mary Garth. It's been a decade since I reread Middlemarch, probably time to make time again.
• A little touch of Schmilsson.
• Mission of Burma.

PEDESTRIAN

Thomas Lux

Tottering and elastic, middle name of Groan,
ramfeezled after a hard night
at the corpse-polishing plant, slope-
shouldered, a half loaf
of bread, even his hair tired, famished,
fingering the diminished beans
in his pocket—you meet him.
On a thousand street corners you meet him,
emerging from the subway, emerging
from your own chest—this sight’s shrill,
metallic vapors pass into you.
His fear is of being broken,
of becoming too dexterous in stripping
the last few shoelaces of meat
from a chicken’s carcass, of being moved by nothing
short of the Fall of Rome, of being stooped
in the cranium over some loss he’s forgotten
the anniversary of.... You meet him,
know his defeat, though proper
and inevitable, is not yours, although yours also
is proper and inevitable: so many defeats
queer and insignificant (as illustration:
the first time you lay awake all night
waiting for dawn—and were disappointed), so many
no-hope exhaustions hidden,
their gaze dully glazed inward.—And yet we all
fix our binoculars on the horizon’s hazy fear-heaps
and cruise toward them, fat sails
forward.... You meet him on the corners,
in bus stations, on the blind avenues
leading neither in
nor out of hell, you meet him
and with him you walk.

A Dog Racing in Tight Circles

Continuing the Blog Days of Summer airing of blemes: just finished my quadrennial reading of Pynchon's Mason & Dixon and mwah, the Vulcan golem still live-longing and prospering. Serendipitously, a bud who's the first link below also posted about Stephen Dixon who I mentioned a couple of weeks ago when posting a link to Millions' upcoming releases post. I confess Dixon has never sung to me, but perhaps now is the time to try again. I spent an afternoon reading Denis Johnson's Train Dreams and loved it, bought his Tree of Smoke and it's (or rather, I'm) not working. Found my paperback of Vollmann's Fathers & Crows, a new Vollmann, a Seven Dreams, mentioned in said Millions' list; even though they are not related narratively they are related thematically, I'm thinking of rereading at least one or two, Fathers & Crows my favorite. Gass has a new novel coming: The Tunnel is on my shelf Hey Sailoring me. So, no reading slump, yay me! Suggestions for something I've never read, maybe even heard of, solicited. Oh, never mind.

• Capitalism and definitions.
• The geopolitics of the financial crisis.
• C'est normal.
• The joke's on you.
• UPDATE! Stewart responds to the above.
• The nauseating grief of diseased America.
• Krugman's obamapostasy will never be ready.
• Yes, motherfucking Obama, but motherfucking crackers will now be designated YMOBMC.
• YMOBMC.
• Trust Me, I'm Lying.
• Thoughts on a Denise Duhamel poem.
• Presence in God's absence.
• Frances sends me a thank you. My pleasure. Thank you.
• The Charlie Parker story.
• Have some Goatwhore?
• Is there progress in music?
• We're through being cool.
• Someone else loves Kate Bush. Seven days to High Holy Day.
• Mr Alarum introduced me to Ferneyhough, which has an insider work pun only he and I will get:

DAMARISCOTTA

D. Nurkse

     1

How we loved to create a world.

Out of gray we made the pin-oak leaves
with their saw teeth and odd waxy sheen,
dry and matte to the touch, out of granite
we made the marriage house, and always
we added a flaw which we called fire
or time or the stranger.

     2

A drop of water on the lip of a jug,
trembling, trying to hold on
for another second to the idea of sphericity—
that was us, our nakedness.

     3

We worked to thwart our happiness
because it was so unexpected;
suffering tasted like our mouths.

     4

We had a flagstone path, a pond, four birches,
a dog racing in tight circles, helpless
against the dream of fresh snow.

Tomorrow that red Schwinn with training wheels
must find a way to pedal itself.

     5

World like a child who learned to walk
beyond our outstretched hands.

Columbus 1, United 0

I got home from a big family dinner celebrating my father's 80th birthday just in time to see Chris Korb slam a shot off the left post and then four minutes of stoppage, so I can't offer much. Olsen started Neal in place of Boskovic (dude, calf?) instead of pulling DeRossario back and moving Pontius back up top which surprised me. Goff says offense sucked all night and I can believe it. Noises made by Benny (though not blustery) and Pontius re: digging-in for effort, but let me suggest this: MLS front-loaded United's schedule, United rounded into form, MLS gave them a fucking month off and then two road games (plus Najar is away at the motherfuckingly stupidass motherfucking Olympics, of which I will watch not a motherfucking second) and these are like preseason games re: chemistry, see lack thereof.

Here's Shatzer, here's Webb (who suggests schedule issue too), here's some guy at Ives, lose the pop-ups, Galarcep, more if and when I find them, or not.

You Can Hear It in the Dark from Beyond What Was Once the Amusement Park

That's me, trapped in my car parked outside my house, recording Thursday night's storm. Yes I posted it last night too. I'm not trying to drive away readers I had said to K at Thursday Night Pints in response to her question of why the fuck I'm posting what the fuck I've been posting. I wasn't supposed to attend Thursday Night Pints - Thursday was my father's 80th birthday and we were to go out to dinner - but between my recovery from plague and Planet's full-on plague we cancelled, not wanting to give my father plague as his present. K has been asked to contribute to a site recently added to Because Left (I added it before I knew she'd been asked), she'll have a piece in a couple of months, she's threatened to start a blog for two plus years, go ahead, I dare you, it'd be like opening a nail salon in a dying strip mall, she wants to ask me blog questions, knows I want her to ask me blog questions, she studies this shit professionally, I fixate on it because I'm a dope. I wasn't going to write about this episode of Thursday Night Pints because it was mostly (FUN!) bleggalgazing. It's not that I'm trying to not drive readers away either, though bleggalgazing does it, almost as much as United posting. We hadn't heard of the Batman shooting, of course, but K sent me an email yesterday which included the line, I bet today is busy in Blegsylvania, and I responded no, not only because breaking news days drive eyes to big mouths in Blegsylvania, not only because Blegsylvania is dying, but because, what, another mass shooting spree in America, pfft, please, this is news?

• Yes! I think of the song below the links when I think of that song above the links too!
• Motherfucking Obama: “There are going to be other days for politics,” Obama told an audience that had gathered for what was originally intended to be a political speech in Fort Myers. “This, I think, is a day for prayer and reflection.” He led the audience in a moment of silence “for the victims of this terrible tragedy,” their loved ones and for “all the victims of less publicized acts of violence that plague our communities every single day.” Today is a day for craven cowardice couched as polite decorum, especially in an election year. Someone tweeted - I'd love to give credit but I forget who it was, don't have time - or will - to go down timeline - that these bullshit timeouts prove the bullshit of the game.
• Oh, be fair to Obama, you say. OK: he'd be craven and cowardly even if this wasn't an election year.
• The price of gun control?
• This isn't over yet, Batman.
• The mystification of state power.
• Police state.
• Six reasons motherfucking Obama will hate Barofsky's book.
• Motherfucking Geithner. Which means motherfucking Obama.
• Please remember, the money doesn't exist.
• Occupy as anarchy.
• Journalism v propaganda.
• Eat less totalitarianism.
• Motherfucking Democrats.
• Yes, I know, but just because motherfucking Obama progressives doesn't mean motherfucking crackers aren't motherfucking crackers.
• Yes, I know, but just because motherfucking Obama's doesn't mean motherfucking Romneys aren't motherfucking Romneys.
• Speaking of United, they play tonight in Columbus so there will be a post tomorrow, though there's a big birthday thing for my father tonight: I might get to see the second half.
• Heh, the same bleggalgaze as me the other day.
• Dreaming of a world of no intellectuals.
• Fifty photos of Bill Clinton's forehead. Yes, the same joke occurred to me.
• Some Russian futurists?

BEFORE DAWN ON THE BLUFF ROAD

August Kleinzahler

The crow’s raw hectoring cry
scoops clean an oval divot
of sky, its fading echo
among the oaks and poplars swallowed
first by a jet banking west
then the Erie-Lackawanna
sounding its horn as it comes through the tunnel
through the cliffs to the river
and around the bend of King’s Cove Bluff,
full of timber, Ford chassis, rock salt.

You can hear it in the dark
from beyond what was once the amusement park.
And the wind carries along as well,
from down by the river,
when the tide’s just so,
the drainage just so,
the chemical ghost of old factories,
the rotted piers and warehouses:
lye, pigfat, copra from Lever Bros.,
formaldehyde from the coffee plant,
dyes, unimaginable solvents—
a soup of polymers, oxides,
tailings fifty years old
seeping through the mud, the aroma
almost comforting by now, like food,
wafting into my childhood room
with its fevers and dreams.
My old parents asleep,
only a few yards across the hall,
door open—lest I cry?
I remember
almost nothing of my life.

Seven Minutes Trapped in My Car in Front of My House Thursday July 19, 2012, 2200 EDT, or: Autoblogography

Seventy-Four Today

High Holy Day in Egoslavia. Diana Rigg, first, best crush ever, is 76 today. The Avengers, the Honor Blackman/Katherine Gale years in b/w, the Diana Rigg/Emma Peel years, but especially the first Emma year, in b/w, first, best crush ever. Have an old episode.

Taking My Plastic Medicine Seriously

I'm better, thanks! The grippe broke yesterday just after I saw a Sportsbog about St Benny of Olsen photobombing at a charity tennis event Tuesday night in DC. I'd been thinking this just a so-so fever, a When Did Wednesday Go From Being the Busiest Weekday in Blegsylvania to the Slowest kind of fever, but these two photos seared into my brain's rolodex as only images when first observed feverish can sear. Here's the standard homage to Olsen:





He's been elected to DC United's Hall of Tradition, to be inducted before the September 15 game v Ningland, and I didn't know he wasn't in the Hall of Tradition. I just assumed he was in. And what the fuck were 19% of the voters thinking. But yes, I felt better enough to get some reading done so links for you who tune in for links, not grippe updates. Whatcha think?

• Today in Swallow My Hypocrisy and Complicity and Like It: Olsen’s team, “The Stars,” also included radio personality Mark Plotkin, Ward 7 Councilwoman Yvette Alexander, former Indiana Governor Evan Bayh, ex-Louisiana Senator John Breaux (holding the trophy above), former Redskins linebacker Rocky McIntosh, economist Alan Krueger, National Economic Council director Gene Sperling, Ohio Congressman Steve LaTourette and a few Kastles regulars. Motherfucking Kastles regulars.
• Obedience.
• Attic Amnesia is primarily about Greece, but does open with this shot: The catastrophic situation in Greece has disappeared from the headlines in recent weeks, replaced largely by lurid reports from Syria, where religious extremists aligned with al Qaeda are wreaking carnage with suicide bombers in the capital -- to the cheers of America's adamant anti-terrorists.
• Real democracy.
• Lands, empires, multiculturalism.
• I confess, listening to Republicans squeal about Corporate hardball intramural politics still makes my heart pitter-pat even it's lost the last ter in my mostly unsuccessful fight to untribalize myself. 
• I give that ter to motherfucking Democrats.
• What's a socialist?
• The answer is Yes.
• Against community.
• Good to the last drop.
• Things you might have missed.
• Measured existence.
• Want to see/hear. Buy me and Earthgirl and Planet tickets to Paris, hotel rooms, we'll pay for our own meals, thanks, for this weekend after tomorrow for my birthday, please and thanks. Ironically, I couldn't go next weekend because United has a home friendly v PSG. Go to both!
• Poemflow.
• Brian May, who wrote the two Queen songs below, is 65 today.

ON THE SUBJECT OF DOCTORS

James Tate

I like to see doctors cough.
What kind of human being
would grab all your money
just when you're down?
I'm not saying they enjoy this:
"Sorry, Mr. Rodriguez, that's it,
no hope! You might as well
hand over your wallet." Hell no,
they'd rather be playing golf
and swapping jokes about our feet.

Some of them smoke marijuana
and are alcoholics, and their moral
turpitude is famous: who gets to see
most sex organs in the world? Not
poets. With the hours they keep
they need drugs more than anyone.
Germ city, there's no hope
looking down those fire-engine throats.
They're bound to get sick themselves
sometime; and I happen to be there
myself in a high fever
taking my plastic medicine seriously
with the doctors, who are dying.

Fresh Name, Doner Game, Fair Meat, All the Same

More fever songs cause kaboom continues. It's not a coincidence all have been at least one month's Theme Song, the above at least four times. I usually know grippes are coming two days ahead. My body twinks that oh-fuck, I think, fuck, I haven't had a cold since when, two days later day one. This one, WHAM! in half-an-hour, no warning. Weird bout, good thing I'm not writing about it. I was talking with Mr Alarum Tuesday morning (I think I've landed another Harington fan) about POTUS 12 and Occupy (as in, where is it? rhetorically asking, wonder if the police kettlings and beatings achieved their strategic aim, plus how peaceful and thankfully chalk-free, if heavily policed, Charlotte will be this August), and duhdumpduhdump, I go completely blank on what I was going to say after I said I go back everyday to four years ago on this blog and read what I wrote then. I used to think it enough to support Obama because he'd drive the American Right nuts, I bet pints on his reelection based on his driving the Right scary crazy, and..... huh, fever wee-wooing and a behind the right eyeball super-sneeze catastrophically building....





Well, you follow. Anyway, if I'm upright I'm busy next two nights, I might tell you about them, if I'm prone I'm busy the next two nights asleep. I'm out until I'm back, though I'd urge you to check the Because Left, Right, there are new additions plus blogfriends who've been dormant stirring. Dance, please.

The Horns of Elfland Swing Past, and in a Few Seconds the World, as We Know It, Sinks into Dementia, Proving Narrative Passé

Shittiest week ever since the last until the next topped by a fuckingly vicious summer grippe. The above is the new 3rd Official Fever Dream Theme Song of Egoslavia. Immediately below this paragraph is the 2nd, the Official Fever Dream Song of Egoslavia below some links that need posting before they go stale. The song beneath the Official Fever Dream Poem of Egoslavia I heard last week, I like it, it has some strong fever dream qualities but doesn't quite rise to the proper hallucinatory standards necessary for said designation. Als0 to0, I reread what I wrote for today and am reminded don't publish anger written while at 101+ until editing once temperature returns to normal, so you are spared a fervid jeremiad (yes, as compared too....) if not spared an especially feverish blurt of self-indulgence. Verily, fuck it.

• Ennui.
• Party mask party.
• Choosing the boss that beats you.
• Gatekeepers. 
• Home drone.
• The Death of Evidence.
• Reflexive impotence.
• Neo-McCarthyism.
• Anarchists and Occupy. Here is where some of the embargoed arrgh was embedded.
• Popping the media bubble.
• This should generate some cracker outrage today.
• Bleggalgazing, of a sort.
• Purple Line! 
• Lispector, for those of you who do.
• Rereading Ashbery.
• Curse #7.
• Joe Strummer and The Mescaleros live 1999.

HOTEL LAUTREAUMONT

John Ashbery

1.

Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society
working as a team. They didn’t just happen. There was no guesswork.
The people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.
We see the results in works as diverse as “Windsor Forest” and “The Wife of
     Usher’s Well.”

Working as a team, they didn’t just happen. There was no guesswork.
The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds
we see the results in works as diverse as “Windsor Forest” and “The Wife of
     Usher’s Well,”
or, on a more modern note, in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.

The horns of elfland swing past, and in a few seconds
the world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé,
or in the finale of the Sibelius violin concerto.
Not to worry, many hands are making work light again.

The world, as we know it, sinks into dementia, proving narrative passé.
In any case the ruling was long overdue.
Not to worry, many hands are making work light again,
so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure.

2.

In any case, the ruling was long overdue.
The people are beside themselves with rapture
so we stay indoors. The quest was only another adventure
and the solution problematic, at any rate far off in the future.

The people are beside themselves with rapture
yet no one thinks to question the source of so much collective euphoria,
and the solution: problematic, at any rate far off in the future.
The saxophone wails, the martini glass is drained.

Yet no one thinks to question the source of so much collective euphoria.
In troubled times one looked to the shaman or priest for comfort and counsel.
The saxophone wails, the martini glass is drained,
and night like black swansdown settles on the city.

In troubled times one looked to the shaman or priest for comfort and counsel.
Now, only the willing are fated to receive death as a reward,
and night like black swansdown settles on the city.
If we tried to leave, would being naked help us?

3.

Now, only the willing are fated to receive death as a reward.
Children twist hula-hoops, imagining a door to the outside.
If we tried to leave, would being naked help us?
And what of older, lighter concerns? What of the river?

Children twist hula-hoops, imagining a door to the outside,
when all we think of is how much we can carry with us.
And what of older, lighter concerns? What of the river?
All the behemoths have filed through the maze of time.

When all we think of is how much we can carry with us
small wonder that those at home sit, nervous, by the unlit grate.
All the behemoths have filed through the maze of time.
It remains for us to come to terms with our commonality.

Small wonder that those at home sit nervous by the unlit grate.
It was their choice, after all, that spurred us to feats of the imagination.
It remains for us to come to terms with our commonality
and in so doing deprive time of further hostages.

4.

It was their choice, after all, that spurred us to feats of the imagination.
Now, silently as one mounts a stair we emerge into the open
and in so doing deprive time of further hostages,
to end the standoff that history long ago began.

Now, silently as one mounts a stair we emerge into the open
but it is shrouded, veiled: We must have made some ghastly error.
To end the standoff that history long ago began
must we thrust ever onward, into perversity?

But it is shrouded, veiled: We must have made some ghastly error.
You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.
Must we thrust ever onward, into perversity?
Only night knows for sure; the secret is safe with her.

You mop your forehead with a rose, recommending its thorns.
Research has shown that ballads were produced by all of society;
only night knows for sure. The secret is safe with her:
The people, then, knew what they wanted and how to get it.

Houston 4, United 0

Pontius had the ball on his foot in a situation where he'd scored all season and he gacked the shot, three minutes later Hamid stupidly dumps a Houston striker in the box, a turd of a game was assured. St Benny of Olsen made standard complaints about work rate and heart, what else is going to do? Me, beyond reiterating that the back line needs upgrading (I mean, Daniel Woolard is the best defender on the team, and what the fuck?), that the back line is what separates United from being good and being championship-threatening good, I'm gonna eat this turd quietly and see what happens this Saturday in Columbus.

Here's Shatzer unloading on Hamid, here's Webb, here's.... nobody else. Updates if and when, or not.

Born Fifty-Six Years Ago Today

Ian Curtis. Not a High Holy Day, but a Holy Day in Egoslavia nonetheless.

Finally All Indications of a Subject Began to Fade, Leaving the Canvas Perfectly White

That's a graph-paper canvas soaking in water and a mix of yellow and red calligraphy inks. As I type this I have not touched the canvas or disturbed the water or added any addition colors or ink in 36 hours, the longest I've been able to withhold myself from touching a curing ever and until the next time. This is wash number four, the first three wet washes, only five, six hours drying each. This is driving me fucking nuts, I'm going to try to not touch until the water completely evaporates beneath the paper, held up by seven columns of four pennies each. I suspect I need either break my resolution to wait for evaporation (UPDATE! Ding!) or break my religion of permitting myself only one curing canvas at a time.

• And that's today's Blog Days of Summer Saturday Bleggalgaze.
• There was a Thursday Night Pints, yesterday's High Holy Day postponed the usual Friday schtick. D graduated BA from Penn State in 1952, it was the day - it was two days now, now being Saturday morning; I know, a lifetime ago - Louie Freeh released his report on the Paterno scandal. His family is Butler/Sharon-based, many - all if they could get in and afford it - went to Penn State. Most of them, D said angrily, condone everything, defend Joe Pa, defend the university, say, Look at the library, Look at the works. We talked about power and money and powerful fine metaphors abounding. D said, what jackasses (I saw that Seinftein column Friday night) people are who think this is just about football: This is an opportunity for presidents to do something other than preen. They should take steps to ensure that no coach can ever again have the absolute power Paterno wielded. They should stop giving coaches multimillion-dollar contracts. They should stop building statues and naming stadiums, arenas and basketball courts for them — especially while the coaches are still active. They should also stop asking them to raise funds. Tell them to coach their teams and try to see to it that their players graduate. Period. Period, yo.
• For example.Watch, I said, Penn State with be ideological state apparatus-ed, made an example of and then paraded as the self-correcting moral instinct of corporate power while business goes on as normal.
• The weaponization of economic theory. 
• From welfare state to police state.
• Fifty shades of capitalism.
• The American model won't work for Europe.
• LAPD takes on Chalk Bloc. 
• The phony war on cops.
• Oh look, the $2B JP Morgan said it lost is now $6B. Oopsy, yo. And sheeyit, it's only $6B.
• Capitalism's boundless war.
• Priorities.
• The original lesser-evil.
• Neverland.
• The writer, not the words.
• Mutual hack-scratching.
• I rarely go to Virginia but I hope this happens, would go at least once, via White's Ferry.
• Fiorentina's home purple is gorgeous. 
• Big scare, good news. 
• Hungary wins European Penis Olympics. 
• A reason the literary crowd is smitten with Hungarians?
• Akhmatova tumblr.
• Fucking shoot me.
• Collecting sounds.
• You realize this blog is always seconds away from a GbV cascade?

THE PAINTER

John Ashbery


Sitting between the sea and the buildings
He enjoyed painting the sea’s portrait.
But just as children imagine a prayer
Is merely silence, he expected his subject
To rush up the sand, and, seizing a brush,
Plaster its own portrait on the canvas.

So there was never any paint on his canvas
Until the people who lived in the buildings
Put him to work: “Try using the brush
As a means to an end. Select, for a portrait,
Something less angry and large, and more subject
To a painter’s moods, or, perhaps, to a prayer.”

How could he explain to them his prayer
That nature, not art, might usurp the canvas?
He chose his wife for a new subject,
Making her vast, like ruined buildings,
As if, forgetting itself, the portrait
Had expressed itself without a brush.

Slightly encouraged, he dipped his brush
In the sea, murmuring a heartfelt prayer:
“My soul, when I paint this next portrait
Let it be you who wrecks the canvas.”
The news spread like wildfire through the buildings:
He had gone back to the sea for his subject.

Imagine a painter crucified by his subject!
Too exhausted even to lift his brush,
He provoked some artists leaning from the buildings
To malicious mirth: “We haven’t a prayer
Now, of putting ourselves on canvas,
Or getting the sea to sit for a portrait!”

Others declared it a self-portrait.
Finally all indications of a subject
Began to fade, leaving the canvas
Perfectly white. He put down the brush.
At once a howl, that was also a prayer,
Arose from the overcrowded buildings.

They tossed him, the portrait, from the tallest of the buildings;
And the sea devoured the canvas and the brush
As though his subject had decided to remain a prayer.