Their Small Chests Swell as They Dispute a Crumb or the Empty Space Where a Seed Once Was

 
Patti Smith is sixty-six today. Hard to believe, once her music was fresh, exciting, vital. I was young once too. I was asked six times yesterday where I'm watching tonight's Washington-Dallas helmetball game. I grew up a Redskins fan, remember watching games every Sunday with this guy for years (for some reason I remember best watching games at that yellow townhouse behind the Montgomery Village Texaco and Exxon stations). I don't remember precisely why I fell out with helmetball, though there was a girl and posturing involved I'm sure, plus wanting to spend my Sunday afternoons outside, plus then I took the job at Hilltop and my schedule was Sunday-Thursday the first ten years so I couldn't have watched even had I wanted to. Plus Dan Snyder. Yesterday I overheard two MOCO cops make a bet at the coffee bar at a 7-11 in Bethesda, one betting the other they'll bust more drunk drivers tonight at checkpoints after the Redskins game than they will at checkpoints New Years Eve. Speaking of once being young and fresh and exciting and vital, tomorrow is Paul Westerberg's birthday, requests solicited.





Day Two of the aargh-free four-day weekend. So far no jones - that's not entirely true, I'm thinking about the jones I don't have which is a form of jones. Still unsure how much retweeting aargh I consider retweetworthy taints the aarghlessness here. I've only retweeted a few, resisted retweeting more. As for content here, Blogs of Aargh post more and more often than lit-blogs and music-blogs, so linkages are sparser when aarghless only are used. Oh well. I chose not to participate in this years Jon Swift Memorial Round-Up, but stuff to see. I've said this before - Jon Swift did me major Kinds, some of you reading this found me via him. On Patrick White's centenary. I tried Voss, failed, I take the blame, mean to get back to his novels in some hypothetical future. Richard's read him. Capitalism, Modernism, Postmodernism. (This is not aargh by my admittedly sloppy taxonomies.) Death Wobbles. New lows. That was now, this was then. A perfect mess. Stockhausen. New to me: Elizabeth Velden. Playlist by Mandrew. Schoenberg String Quartet. Watch Charlie Chaplin's overlooked masterpiece. The Complete Piano Pieces of Charles Ives. The lives they lived. Tablets and calligraphy? Jonesing for the end? I told you there is Holly Herndon in your future:





   
THE PLAY OF LIGHT AND SHADOW

D. Nurkse

We want to give ourselves away utterly
but afterwards we regret it, it is the same
with the sparrows, their eyes burn so coldly
under the dusty pines, their small chests swell
as they dispute a crumb, or the empty space
where a seed once was: this is our law too,
to peck and peck at the Self, to take turns
being I, to die in a fierce sidelong glance,
then to hold the entire forest in one tilt
of a tufted head, to take flight suddenly
and fuck in midair, tumbling upward.