Your Daughter's Tall

Thanks to Uncle SeatSix for sending me a batch of his niece's photos. This is our last full day visiting Planet at Bamgier this week. The header - there are header's here all the time at night, no more silly a self-indulgent gag than any other here - was shot by Planet out the back-window of our rental on our way home from Delaware Ohio last night after dinner at Bun's; I live in a state on the Atlantic, the best seafood I've ever is in the geographical middle of Ohio.

• UPDATE! A friend writes and suggests I explain after a friend she forwarded this to said, you know, not everyone understands the context through digital osmosis: we are visiting my daughter Planet, a sophomore at a small Liberal Arts college in Ohio, this week. (And it's true, I think of this bleg as a serial, not episodic, show, assume everyone knows the shorthand and code, doesn't want me re-explaining the shorthand and code, at least those who lovingly complain that I'm always re-explaining the shorthand and code, see this sentence, e.g.)
• Serendipitous, at least to me, since I've bleggalgazed this week, as we were driving towards Delaware my iPhone chirped out tweets from blogbuds, those I used to group blog with, those I still swap blogspit with, tweets sending out bumps of Kind. Was sweet.
• Stealing from yourself.
• This is true: I left my Ohio fold out map, the one I yellow highlight roads I drive on for the first time, at home, when I've stopped for gas or water or caffeine I've asked at the Marathons or CVSs or local stores for road maps, nobody sells road maps anymore.
• I'm told tonight is Shock Your Mama night at Gambier. I suspect that means louder and drunker than normal.
• UPDATE! Planet says it's not Shock Your Mama night, whoever told me that "doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about." Where'd she learn to use that sort of fucking language?

• UPDATE! After I tweeted a blogwhoring Hey Sailor! this morning to this post, I get back from a long drive to discover four people unfollowed me. Expect more posts just like this one.
• How memes are orchestrated.
• Today in Motherfucking Obama. When you lost the folk at Kos....
• Domestic drones.
• Capitalism.
• So, yes, this argument again, with the additional question, who the fuck is Oliver Willis and why the fuck should anyone care?
• Complicity, consequences, intentions.
• Maggie's weekly links.
• Deer hunting in Rock Creek Park.
• Bleggalgazing.
• Stevie Smith.
• The novel is a boat.
• Ozick reviews the new Gass. Forgive me, I bought the new Gass, promptly forgot I bought it, I could have been reading it on this trip, in theory.
• Beckett reads.

A LITTLE TOOTH

Thomas Lux

Your baby grows a tooth, then two,
and four, and five, then she wants some meat
directly from the bone. It's all

over: she'll learn some words, she'll fall
in love with cretins, dolts, a sweet talker
on his way to jail. And you,

your wife, get old, flyblown, and rue
nothing. You did, you loved, your feet
are sore. It's dusk. Your daughter's tall.

You Look Like a God Sitting There. Why Don't You Try Writing Something?

   
The youtube seems to be working this time. That's the drive to and then the four mile hike yesterday in Mohican State Park, photography, as always, by Earthgirl, I'm the lard in the United hat. I've no doubt operator error causes 51% or more of my grief with Google products, but the Youtube that came up as private yesterday is properly coded for public even though it doesn't work, and as I type this post Blooger backside won't open in Firefox but will in Chrome. (Today being Good Friday, the beginning of a three-day weekend in which readership will drop precipitously from almost nobody to hardly anyone, I indulge the bleggalgaze). I've been screaming all week about the inability to cut-and-paste into Blooger template, long poems - I've neither the time or desire to type long poems. I can no longer change anything in this blog's template because the Apply to Template button is dead, not margins or color or font or, most frustratingly, the size of the blog title, it's driving me fucking nuts, and I am not alone: hundreds, if not more, have complained of the same problem, Blooger Help Forum is full of inquiries and complaints, not a single one addressed by a Google employee. I suspect it would take a Google engineer upwards of two minutes to fix the problem. I'm genuinely curious whether Google doesn't give enough of a fuck to know about the problem or Google knows about the problem and doesn't give a fuck. Google is killing Google Reader, which many use and like, because Google doesn't give a fuck, so I suspect Google knows about the dead Apply to Template button and doesn't give a fuck. I started with blooger in 2003, moved to typepad because blooger pissed me off, moved back to blooger (here) for no greater reason than access to a larger audience and the self-updating blogrolls. I created a site in wordpress but won't ask anyone to move because I want the largest audience for this shitty vanity project I can garner plus I'm lazy, I love the self-updating blogrolls, I use them as bookmarks, it's how I know when you've updated your shitty vanity blog too. I expect Google to disable them at some near point in the future, in which case I will still not leave blooger because regardless blooger brings the most eyes to this shitty blog. Fine metaphors abound. I am the lard in the Google trap.

• So much for detoxing.
• Eating last night in a restaurant overlooking the Mt Vernon Wal-Mart and Mt Vernon JC Penneys, I said, I don't know how these places stay in business, the JC Penney parking lot is empty, the Wal-Mart parking lot 3/4ths as empty as I remember, and serendipitously this morning I find this and this on Wal-Mart.
• Fracking, he says, minutes after turning up the gas heat in the B&B room.
• On being a problem.
• Left Side of the Aisle.
• I've never said I was a libertarian.
• Exceptions R Us.
• Normal.
• I missed news of this fire, though I've hiked through there and wondered what happened.
• Glenmont!
• Please forgive me if I lack outrage at Amazon buying Goodreads. I understand those that are outraged, but I've only so many hours, so many windmills, so much outrage.
• New Doctorow novel in 2014. I've read most of Doctorow, or at least those written before the turn of the century and one or two since, struggle to recall a single thing about one of them. Liked them; nothing stuck.
• Age.
• Coetzee, for those of you who do.

TEACHING THE APE TO WRITE POEMS

James Tate

They didn't have much trouble
teaching the ape to write poems:
first they strapped him to into the chair,
then tied the pencil around his hand
(the paper had already been nailed down).
The Dr Bluespire leaned over his shoulder
and whispered into his ear:
"You look like a god sitting there.
Why don't you try writing something?"

Idea Laundering Exists Primarily to Promote Equilibrium

     
Yes, reset title and youtube: fuck google.

We are staying at a B&B right on campus at Bamgier. Our room is actually a mini-apartment with its own entrance so Planet can come and go to classes or homework or meet friends or go back to her dorm almost as if this was home. Breakfast is served at 8:30, all the B&B's guests gather around a large table, yap is required, that's fine, I'm apt at yap. Yesterday morning there was a family of a high school junior visiting Bamgier, when they heard we were the parents of a Bamgier sophomore they peppered us with questions, you can imagine what they were. In response to one and the digressions that followed I said college exists beyond the actual academic education itself primarily to teach children the skills to at first interact with and then participate in the adult world. What I didn't say was that college is a credentialing factory, though I've said it often enough here, though not as often as I used to. Also said often enough here but not as often as I used to: my complicity - I made a deal twenty-five years ago this July which I will honor, as will I honor whatever choice my daughter makes for her life both in and after college. How I deal with my complicity come June 2015 after her graduation is the open question, I expect I will continue to indulge it in my current comfortable and hypocritical way (though I daydream of alternatives, none of which include leaving the collective). Detropia and cruel optimism. Obama's legacy and his four must-haves. The 12th Anniversary of American Cowardice. I sooth my unease with agreeing to a point with George Will by reminding myself he wouldn't be bitching if Obama was a Republican. Stunning facts about the American banking system. Why not call it oligarchy? A history of like. The Star Trek episodes you should watch for free on Hulu, none of the suggestions include the collective.






LONG GREEN

Rae Armantrout

Such naked spines
and vertebrae -

convincing parallels -

upright, separated

by a few inches
of clay.

Such earnest, green
gentlemen,

such stalwarts
jouncing

in the intermittent
wind.

          *

"Idea laundering

exists primarily

to produce a state

of equilibrium."

          *

All night
the sea coughs up

green strands,

cold boluses

and swallows them
back in

Born Eight-Seven Years Ago Today

  
SONG

I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab
which is typical
and not just of modern life

mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves
must lovers of Eros end up with Venus
muss es sein? es muss nicht sein, I tell you

how I hate disease, it's like worrying
that comes true
and it simply must not be able to happen

in a world where you are possible
my love
nothing can go wrong for us, tell me

 



 
Here's a bunch and here's a bunch and here's a bunch. Also too, from Thurstson Moore's newest project Chelsea Light Moving:

Kensington to Frederick to Hagerstown to Hancock to Cumberland to Morgantown to Washington to Wheeling to Zanesville to Bamgier

• Easy drive. By Natural Law, snow flurries from the Garrett County line at Savage Mt to the West Virginia border, but easy.
• Sigh, this argument again. This is precisely why the lack - or at least less than once upon a time - of political links, no one is going to change anybody's mind. But yes, Erik Loomis is still a despicable fuckstick, perhaps has doubled his resolve to be forever a despicable fuckstick. He seems quite determined to be forever a despicable fuckstick, the bestest despicable fuckstick he can be, the poster boy of despicable fucksticks. Admittedly, the competition is fierce.
• The Roger Ailes of MSNBC.
• Capitalism.
• Apologists for power.
• Speaking of Once Upon a Time, I've seen no posts no have heard from Silbur since his last worrisome post. Anybody been in contact?
• Keyframe.
• Not yet a breach but an exception.
• Happily ever after.
• When did it become unconstitutional?
• Pastor Sanctimonious says lack of religion leads to Sweden.
• I hadn't thought of Megan McArdle since Susan of Texas went on (hopefully voluntary) hiatus.
• Watching the drones.

• Yeah, that was easy, it made me chuckle.
• So we go into the Bamgier Deli to get sandwiches for dinner, Billy Joel CD playing. Go into Bamgier Bookstore to reload Planet's K-Card, Elton John CD playing. This is not just Bamgier phenomenon - when I go into student coffeehouse in Library at Illtophay, same thing.
• Speaking of Illtophay, not only do I know this guy, I was on the committee that hired him.
• Yes, Mexico probably got fucked out of a penalty, but (a) fuck ESPN for advertising the game as starting at 930 when it didn't start until 1030 and (b) why the fuck is Mexico wearing black kits and (c) fuck Chicharito, whiny fucking bastard. 
• It seems that once incidence of the inadvertent shitsmear was limited to that one post two posts ago, so it's fuck blooger, not FUCK BLOOGER, at least for now. 
• What is the business of literature?
• Two new Frederick Seidel poems. 
• Song (The World Is Full of Loss).
• A cheat sheet to the works of Anne Carson.
• Prunella's latest playlist.
• On grief and Led Zeppelin. If you read only one of these links today, this one.

THE THOUSAND SOMETHINGS OF SOMEONE

Forrest Gander

Could have been
otherwise and
birdsong make us
nauseous. And
gigantic rolling sunsets
give us vertigo. The
world of flowers
is for insects, not
us. But tonic
is durance among.

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

Three reasons for this post: first, I love that song, it's been Theme Song of the Month numerous times, possibly, even probably, more than any other song. Second, Wire is coming to Black Cat on July 14 and I wanna go. Third, I need to see if that weird glitch in the last post is a permanent shit-smear across all future posts. Here's the weird thing: I didn't see it in the coding, and when I clicked preview it didn't appear. This is a just opened new post page, just added the Wire song, typed this paragraph, check preview, looks good, ready, pushing publish now and.... no (unintentional and/or inadvertent) shit-smear, though this post is shorter than the last, but....

Fat and White, On a White Heal-All, Holding Up a Moth

Three facts: first, Spock was born 81 years ago today, admit it, when you saw Fleabus in her Halloween evil-Spock costume you thought Spock. Second, Robert Frost was born 139 years ago today. Third, while true I greatly prefer Frost's short poems to his long poems, and while I may have chosen these two anyway, motherfucking blooger no longer accepts ceepees from the two primary resources I use to find these poems - or to be more precise, blooger will not accept ceepees from the two primary resources I use to find these poems on my laptop but will accept ceepees from the two primary resources I use to find these poems on my work desktop but only in Firefox, not in Chrome, motherfucking blooger - I had no choice, it was these two Frost poems, I don't love his long poems enough to type them out, and I've no intention of touching my work computer again until next Monday. Fourth, fuck blooger, I've no idea where that script overlaying the second poem comes from, I don't see it in the html code, I did no ceepeeing on this post, what the fuck, it must be...

DESIGN

Robert Frost

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth--
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right.
Like the ingredients of a witch's broth--
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like paper kite.

What had the flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
The steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?--
If design govern in a thing so small.

THE SILKEN TENT

Robert Frost

She is as in a field a silken tent
At midday when the sunny summer breeze
Has dried the dew and all its ropes relent,
So that in guys it gently sways at ease,
And in its supporting central pole,
That is its pinnacle to heavenward
And signifies the sureness of the soul,
Seems to owe nought to any single cord,
But strictly held by none, is loosely bound
By countless silken ties of love and thought
To everything on earth the compass round,
And only by one's going slightly taut
In the capriciousness of summer air
Is of the slightest bondage made aware.

We Can Only Cleanse Our Bodies So Much Before We Realize It's Not Our Bodies That Need Detoxing

I dig Bartok, have since I first heard. Hey, tomorrow we Kensington to Frederick to Hagerstown to Hancock to Cumberland to Morgantown to Washington to Wheeling, whether we side trip from Wheeling up 250 then across 36 to Gambier (I've never driven 250 from Wheeling to Ulrichsville or 36 from Ulrichsville to Coshocton) or just Wheeling to Zanesville to Gambier per usual depends on how much snow in mountains last night and today, how soon we get on the road tomorrow. Beyond enjoying whatever minutes Planet gives us and publishing sucky slideshows of our daily drives, eating healthy on one of these trips for the first fucking time and exercising daily in the multiple state parks that grace Ohio, I've no set plans, though in my head the word I think of with desperate hope to describe my goal for tomorrow through when I walk in my house next Sunday is detox.

• Your God is too small.
• The collapse of time and space into search.
• Fine metaphors abound.
• Personality hunger and the regulation of consumptive choice.
• American oligarchy.
• Is Zachary Goldfarb a fooltool or a tooltool? Honest question.
• The New Inquiry's extraordinary Sunday Linkages.
• I don't watch much television (not for any righteous aesthetic motive, I just don't) so I'll not watch this, but I know a Zombie in Blegsylvania, he might be interested in how to tame a zombie. Or not.
• Some lateral thoughts, part one, part two.
• A person can dream Fuck This.
• Sebald, for those of you who do.
• Beckett, for those of you who do.
• Creeley, for those of you who do.
• Silliman's always generous litlinks.
• Godspeed, Jason Molina.

                 
DEAR CORPORATION

Adam Fell

                         I don't know how to
say how I feel politely, or poetically, or
without the jugular and collapse of the
immediate heart, so tonight, I won't
say anything at all. Just stare out the
window at our stunned little writhe. Hold
back the strongest urge to knock out a
few of the capitol's most critical walls,
replace its fiber optic cables with
lightning bugs, replace the investment
bankers all with bunker busters. I lock
eyes with the capitol's bright and empty
rooms and admit that, sometimes,
deep in my affluent, American cells, I
miss my body carved to projectile. I
miss trebuchet shoulders and knuckles
flaked to arrowheads, miss my hands
massive and molded from molten to
the bolts of ballistas. I miss blackjack
and cudgel and quarterstaff and
flintlock. I miss pummel and pike and I
am not proud of this. I know it's not a
healthy feeling. I try to un-arm, to
un-cock. I try to practice my breathing.
I try The Master Cleanse, The Stationary 
Bike, The Bikram Sweat, The Contortion 
Stretch, The Vegan Meatloaf, The Nightly,  
Scorching Bath, The Leafy Greens and  
Venom Television, The Self-Mutilation of a 
Winter's Run, but we can only cleanse
our bodies so much before we realize
it's not our bodies that need detoxing.

I don't know how to say how I feel politely, or poetically, or without the jugular and collapse of the immediate heart, so tonight, I won't say anything at all. Just stare out the window at our stunned little writhe. Hold back the strongest urge to knock out a few of the capitol's most critical walls, replace its fiber optic cables with lightning bugs, replace the investment bankers all with bunker busters. I lock eyes with the capitol's bright and empty rooms and admit that, sometimes, deep in my affluent, American cells, I miss my body carved to projectile. I miss trebuchet shoulders and knuckles flaked to arrowheads, miss my hands massive and molded from molten to the bolts of ballistas. I miss blackjack and cudgel and quarterstaff and flintlock. I miss pummel and pike and I am not proud of this. I know it's not a healthy feeling. I try to un-arm, to un-cock. I try to practice my breathing. I try The Master Cleanse, The Stationary Bike, The Bikram Sweat, The Contortion Stretch, The Vegan Meatloaf, The Nightly, Scorching Bath, The Leafy Greens and Venom Television, The Self-Mutilation of a Winter's Run, but we can only cleanse our bodies so much before we realize it's not our bodies that need detoxing. - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23243#sthash.Fjwa5uh7.dpuf

Egoslavian Holy Day Eve

United 1, Columbus 2

Here's my theory: Najar's absence makes United too easy to defend. With Najar on the field other teams couldn't one-on-one press, which is all teams are doing, marking one-on-one, relying on constant pressure on good but clearly limited players or mediocre players to bad pass into space. The only United player on the field who frightens in a one-on-one is Pontius, but only going right, Columbus let him run into the left corner, into open space, rather than let him go right. DeLeon looks (looked, he ripped his hamstring yesterday) terrible. Pajoy not only doesn't scare anybody, opposing teams are delighted to see him on the field (he did hit post, late, on a free header). DeRossario looks grandpa, so washed-up and grandpa. Najar on the ball, whether from the back or on the wing, drew multiple defenders, created space for others when their markers ran at Najar. No one on United does now. SeatSix declared himself done with Benny, this guy declared Benny a fucking idiot, and maybe - it is the coach's responsibility to make adjustments to his system with the players he's given. I'm just unclear whether Benny isn't making best use out of what he's been given or - what I fear might be true and a worse-case scenario - he is.

No Layoffs from This Condensery

That's the promised slideshow from this past Wednesday night's Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds show at Strathmore Music Center in South Rockville. Maybe the acoustics of a hall designed for classical music defuses the noise of a rock crowd, but seems to me Nick Cave worked harder than the audience, certainly on our tier, where one guy stood up to clap after the second song and was tugged down by his girlfriend before anyone had the chance to tell him to sit the fuck down. And watching the Strathmore docents’s faces as Cave sang Stagger Lee’s lyric I’ll crawl over five good pussies to get to one fat boy’s asshole was almost worth the price of admission itself.




  

• That was the first song in the encore.
• Shown no mercy in St Francois County Missouri.
• Facing denial in climate change debate.
• This is my daily contribution to my surveillance.
• Foucault, for those of you who do.
• Abonilox surrenders. 
• Who is God? So asked our dog. 
• Why the rich don't give to charity.
• The Honest Courtesan's weekly links.
• Skull-blogging.
• Ugly carpets.
• Cities of sleep.
• No other result was conceivable.
• MLS isn't the only thing rinkydink in American soccer.
• Rinkydinkness in American ice-soccer. I thought they were on strike.
• Achebe and damnation of faint praise.
• Photographs of the interior of dictators' houses.
• Prunella's latest playlist.
• darkblack's Weekend Overnight.
• Hand-farting Simon and Garfunkel.
• I realize you're not going to listen to these Swan whole albums here now, so listen a few minutes each and bookmark for when you've the time.

POET'S WORK

Lorine Niedecker

Grandfather
          advised me:
                    Learn a trade

I learned
          to sit and desk
                    and condense

No layoffs
          from this
                    condensery

I Investigate So Much That in the End It Is For Form's Sake Only, Only a Drop Comes Out

Yes, I know whose birthday is tomorrow (meaning today) I said when asked by L last night at Thursday Night Pints, Shatner eighty-two today (meaning today). L held Planet when Planet was two and three years old, she suggested I add the St Clairsville video just now (meaning last night in another post) to today's (meaning yesterday's) Planet Birthday Cascade. Know who else has a birthday tomorrow (meaning today), born eigthy-seven years ago tomorrow (meaning today) I asked?


 


Yes, this Rostropovich bit is ceepeed from last May, apparently I forgot to wiki Slava's birthday then to verify the shitty lists I use for these gags is correct. I said then, Next to piano, I love cello most. Here's Rostropovich playing Shostakovich's Cello Concerto Number 1, first, second, third, fourth movements. Here's him with Benjamin Britten on piano playing Shostakovich's Cello Sonata Opus 40 first, second, third, fourth movements.

• Don't Spock and Frost share a birthday in a week or so, if I remember from last year, said D. Yes, yes they do.
• It's important to remember that even though we fucking hippies were right we were right for the wrong reasons and those who were wrong were wrong for the right reasons. The fucking hippies still need punching. All our former bleggal overlords now paid by Corporate demand order.
• Jesus, you hold a grudge, said K, getting up to buy a round for a twitter bet she made with me and lost.
• Why Mr Fish misses George W Bush.
• Wall Street, War Street.
• Some lies never die.
• Worse than Nixon.
• On my contributing to my surveillance.
• Culture of monsters.
• Maryland Wombat. Hamster sends, wants the youtube, at least the Divine, IT DOESN'T FIT THIS POST, or does fit this post but I can't get past my motherfucking format rules. Tomorrow. This is not the only time this post.
• Climate deniers and the cycle of abuse.
• Only Number Six?
• Number Six?

• Electric Fence.
• Berryman interview.
• Beckett, for those of you who do.
• Archie Ammons.
• Joanna Russ, for those of you who do.
• Celebrity Britten.
• HEY! Mr Alarum's band!
• HEY! Yes, we did see Nick Cave Wednesday night, there is a slideshow, tomorrow maybe, there's no room in this post. Here, a quick review of the concert. 
• Every day. And Happy Anniversary!
• (A) Good on Mark and (B) our last dog was named Rudy and (C) this is the fourth time in the past four days I was reminded of the James Tate's Yoko, posted below the Webern.

YOKO

Thom Gunn

All today I lie in the bottom of the wardrobe
feeling low but sometimes getting up
to moodily lumber across rooms
and lap from the toilet bowl, it is so sultry
and then I hear the noise of firecrackers again
all New York is jaggedy with firecrackers today
and I go back to the wardrobe gloomy
trying to void my mind of them.
I am confused, I feel loose and unfitted.

At last deep in the stairwell I hear a tread,
it is him, my leader, my love.
I run to the door and listen to his approach.
Now I can smell him, what a good man he is,
I love it when he has the sweat of work on him,
as he enteres I yodel with happiness,
I throw my body up against his,
I try to lick his lips,
I care about him more than anything.

After we eat we go for a walk to the piers.
I leap into the standing warmth, I plunge into
the combination of old and new smells.
Here on a garbage can at the bottom, so interesting,
what sister or brother I wonder left this message I sniff.
I too piss there, and go on.
Here a hydrant there a pole
here's a smell I left yesterday, well that's disappointing
but I piss there anyway, and go on.

I investigate so much that in the end
it is for form's sake only, only a drop comes out.

I investigate tar and rotten sandwiches, everything, and go on.

And here a dried old turd, so interesting
so old, so dry, yet so subtle and mellow.
I can place it finely, I really appreciate it,
a gold distant smell like packed autumn leaves in winter
reminding me how what is rich and fierce when excreted
becomes weathered and mild
but always interesting
and reminding me of what I have to do.

My leader looks on and expresses his approval.

I sniff it well and later I sniff the air well
a wind is meeting us after the close July day
rain is getting near too but first the wind.
Joy, joy,
being outside with you, active, investigating it all,
with bowels emptied, feeling your approval
and then running on, the big fleet Yoko,
my body in its excellent black coat never lets me down,
returning to you (as I always will, you know that)
and now
filling myself out with myself, no longer confused,
my panting pushing apart my black lips, but unmoving,
I stand with you braced against the wind.

Also Too Two

Also Too

Also too.

Twenty

Twenty. T-W-E-N-T-Y. Twenty.

We'll be visiting her in Ohio next Tuesday through Sunday, *!wOOt!*

The Ruined Banisters of the A, a Bridle-Ring of the O, the Saddle of the U

Wowee, this was on a new book cart yesterday, I've already read the first five poems, I've already bought my copy from the publisher, I hope I get it by Monday before we head for Ohio Tuesday - more tomorrow, someone turns twenty - so I can beat it up in my hands and write in the margins like a book of poetry needs to be read and held and dog-eared and underlined and loved, here, have this poem:


THE VOWELS PASS BY IN ENGLISH

Brenda Hillman

          -& the owl drops flowers
     from its eyes [Dentaria californica]
   the raceme, the stubbed stem lands straight
in the woods - as the ancients do;
on a hazel branch, a cocoon
     hoists itself.... with a worm's mind -;

i-eee is released in winter
     as humans hold bones to the fire -
they were there a long time,
                    (interpreting the dead loves
as meaning seeped through the cracks
     of centuries held by everyone --);

     the ocean rises by inches -- when
the wave withdraws, plovers pick evidence
     from married footprints as the lyric does,
                   or sanity... Luminescent creatures
           sink red in the sand --
for they have swallowed... all 3 sunsets!

& the vowels pass by in English,
   the ruined banisters of the A, a bridle-
ring of the O, the saddle of the U
         brought from the underworld;
I had to negotiate with devils
   to retrieve even this much
from the language of the colonizers.


Wowee, huh? I tweeted in defeat Monday night that I am utterly incapable of reading fiction, as in I can read it for half an hour but none of it sticks. I've bitched about as it's steadily got worse the past three years, but here's good or bad news depending on moment: the guilt, the panic is easing. If I can just stop buying fiction I can't read in effort to fix the problem I'll save money too. HEY! tonight me and Earthgirl and Hamster see this guy:

• You won't hear about it or see photos from the concert until Thursday because tomorrow is Egoslavia's Most Sacred Day.
• No links tomorrow either tomorrow, Egoslavia's Most Sacred Day. Have some today.
• But not many, besides the link directly below I'm going to skip the Iraq scab-picking not because the scabs don't need picking, they just don't need re-picking here.
• UPDATE! Heroes in error. 
• Barbarian Rhapsody. Yes, again, icymi.
• Yves on Cyprus.
• Steubenville and Jock Culture.
• Scoffing at the sacred cow.
• Oldblogbud Ed's latest project. I'm good for a postcard, more if he makes it to Indiana, then...
• There are new places to read over in New Here, go look for them.
• For instance, on the death of google reader. Google has removed the link to reader in my gmail accounts, can still get by - fuck me - googling google reader.
• Anacostia.
• Dickens and Blegsylvania.
• Archie Ammons.
• Another anthology I need get.
• UPDATE! Zombie playlist for a lost one.
• Most of the poems in The Arcadia Project are too long for me to type out, I may jpeg some and post, but below song, another.

OPERATIVE SPRING

Eric Linsker

near/gaseous twigs lacking fluency in the chunks of branch pipe
rot centered shade, and the shade of the thrush
          stained by the suthering wind, loosens from the
other, bit-green/brown flap of sound, restart, touring on its side, a grass/attempt
     sticking
with snow seen by, it brushing/delineated yellow ashes of human dropped
forsythia like thrush, who handles its world when it looks away, the
powers are marching hitherward it is known before
            where they arrive they move
belike some things I know not what/whatever, cannot hear them, cannot hear
thrush now, I think we should slaughter them

There's a Dead Archer in the Tower

RIP Jason Molina. I'm not as familiar with Molina's music as I should be relative to how much I like it when I hear it. I've only so many hours and only two ears that feed into only one brain. All songs here from friends, thanks much, the cascade is for you.

Infinite Finitude

         
So I moused twice for WFMU this marathon, once early then once again when Yo La Tengo, for the eighteenth straight year, played three hours of requests in exchange for donations. I asked them to play their favorite Guided by Voices song (I am curious what it is) but they never got to it. No big deal, I think, they got hundreds of requests. Saturday, I get this email:

Hey Jeff,

   When we were cleaning up the mess we made of the Berlin studio at 5 pm German Standard Time, there was band-wide dismay when we uncovered your generous pledge that somehow was overlooked amid the chaos.  We all hope you'll accept our apology.  We hate to let any request go unacknowledged (that's why they invented medleys), and especially a Mouse.

Ira, Georgia and James

Love. Also love for WFMU, which made their goal. If you gave, thanks.

• Barbarian Rhapsody.
• State of Play, Spring 2013.
• Even Democratic loyalists?
• Of course it is. Something I debate: how often do I yodel the same point here? For instance, for all my bitching and moaning about the surveillance state, no one contributes more to my surveillance than me. I post on internet, I pay my bills on internet, I use a cell phone, my cell phone has a GPS.
• Cops are here to protect you, cont.
• On Steubenville and ruining promising lives.
• The assholes of CNN.
• Predators of the First Amendment.
• The point of intersection.
• The Litany Against Beers.
• Idea for a movie.
• His Generation's Greatest Academic Fraud writes soft-porn for Abercrombie & Fitch.
• Is Francis a fraud?
• I know nothing about the crisis is Cyprus. Here's Yves w/background.
• Capitalism, Fuckface Hiatt's rag, morality.
• Tactics for the revolution of everyday life.

• The New Inquiry's awesome Sunday link aggregation.
• The Honest Courtesan's awesome link aggregation.
• davidly's 500th post.
• Silver Line.
• Things I had forgotten: beets are yummy, especially roasted, and beets turn your piss pink.
• Anyone have an opinion on Feedly?
• On Philip Roth.
• The inscrutable brilliance of Anne Carson. I need investigate.
• Listen to Finnegan's Wake.
• Glück, for those of you who do.
• The letters of Robert Bly and Tomas Tranströmer.
• Babbitt, for those of you who do.
• Randal's latest playlist.
• darkblack's Weekend Overnight.
• Mining the audio motherlode.

THE ANNIHILATION OF NOTHING

Thom Gunn

Nothing remained: Nothing, the wanton name

That nightly I rehearsed till led away

To a dark sleep, or sleep that held one dream.

In this a huge contagious absence lay,

More space than space, over the cloud and slime,

Defined but by the encroachments of its sway.

Stripped to indifference at the turns of time,

Whose end I knew, I woke without desire,

And welcomed zero as a paradigm.

But now it breaks—images burst with fire

Into the quiet sphere where I have bided,

Showing the landscape holding yet entire:

The power that I envisaged, that presided

Ultimate in its abstract devastations,

Is merely change, the atoms it divided

Complete, in ignorance, new combinations.

Only an infinite finitude I see

In those peculiar lovely variations.

It is despair that nothing cannot be

Flares in the mind and leaves a smoky mark

Of dread.

               Look upward. Neither firm nor free,

Purposeless matter hovers in the dark.

Hoof & Mouth Sinfonia, or: Four Hours Left, Give

Streaming video by Ustream

Watch! Give! Yes, for me mostly, but it's in your interest too.

Metros 0, United 0

Enjoy watching Bill Hamid through this season if we're lucky, the August transfer window most likely. Oh, game was early afternoon, I had no one to talk to so I talked to myself on Evernote trying to beat it's auto-correct. I won't use this gag again until I do. I mention Hamid early because he (and the crossbar) is clearly man-of-the-match, but also because Evernote calls him humid in the transcript below:

Revenge is here says the metro fans TiVo

Korb, jakovic, McDonald, Riley/Saragossa, kitchen, Pontius, Deleon/ derossairo, parody.

230 Riley horrible giveaway ny free kick.

300 Henry fouls parody, glares at parody, who the fuck are you?

500 dero earns freek kick deep right, Pontius takes, nothing, leads after scramble to weak shot bt dero

730 Henry shot save by humid leads to corner, nothing.

Replay if Henry had it it square humid wouldn't have got.

900 united breakaway dero has ball keeper out nothing but leads to ck. nothing.

1230 after midfield dancing ny gets fk, nothing. First ten minutes adrenalin done.

1540 Lordy Pajoy has no touch, brilliant ball from dero and gack, suck.

1830 ball in ny half, not dangerous but discovering holes.

1900 united touches either too fast or too slow, no rhythm yet, but just earned s ck on dumb touch by ny.

2000 Saragossa airball s on cross, Deleon kicks it 20 wide 20 high.

2200 nodax still sucks.

2330 jakovic bad pass leads to ny header off crossbar. 

2400 yellow card Cahill for bad tackle on Deleon. 

2600 don't know if that was on Pajoy oar Deleon but they don't plat we'll together.

2700 united pressing everything deep works third doesn't two thirds ny breakaway.

2800 Lordy Pajoy sucks, doesn't play we'll with Deleon.

2900 ny dominating possession, creating chances.

All damn day - deleon's hair is stupid, as is announcers talking abut Deleon being on klinssmanns radar.

3100 dero cross to Pajoy nothing he could do another long ball to Henry, third or fourth, it's working, lead to ck. nothing.

3300 Henry in his shirt with us flag, so stupid, so American, insist of flags on uniforms.

3500 jakovic ok in defense but with ball is crap.

3700 ny dominating, earns ck.

3800 humid hacks ck, bobbles, recovers.

3900 metros already warming up.

3900 united fk rift 40 yards, dero, wasted.

4000 ny in box again, thank Baal they suck too.

4100 Pontius should have earned fk but also should had done better.

4200 derossairo not involved enough, barely touching the ball, he's asking not getting.

4300 Henry shoots again catches on chest, drops to foot, pretty, no power thoug, right at humid.

4400 if united has had a decent fk or ck today I've forgot it, very sh itty.

4500 just eleven seconds stoppage. 

Benny smiles into microphone, says metros putting two on Pontius wherever he goes, united need defend against breakaway, tale better care of the bal. 

Second half no changes united. No changes metros.

4530 Pajoy runs himself offside on set play off kickoff. Totally stupid.

4600 kitchen fortunate to not get yellow on bad tackle.

4730 Henry soft header right at humid. 

4800 united breakaway slows outside to Pajoy who crosses, dero whiffs on bicycle. united has had at least three rushes man up or equal and doesn't seem know what to do.

5000 unlisted fk, Deleon good fk, punched sesy, Saragossa hits rebound off ny for ck nothing.

5150 excellent should to shoulder tackle. Box by jakovic, RSI,t his best play of game.

5200 good thing ny sucks too.

5400 secretly riffed so far, Geiger starting to lost a bit of control.

5500 off cross bar ny, too much possession in box.

5630 didn't Pontius used to be 13, changed to 11?

5700 Pontius barely touching ball, derossairo anew touching ball.

5730 Henry gets behind McDonald misses high from tough angle. 

5830 feels like ny score inevitable.

5900 although good entry from dero to Pontius who touches well, spins, saved.

6000 kit hen foul on the impressive Espindola, close to yellow on next foul.

6030 pajoy fucks up breakaway, leads to ny breeasksey leads to ny ck, nothing.

6200 Espindola fouls a kitchen like he meant it.

6300 then fouls Saragossa, takes yellow.

6330 graphics - shots ny 16 united 4.

6400 Deleon and Pajoy don't play we'll together.

6500 screen shot shows Benny telling asst to go to warming up and tell someone to get ready fast.

6530 screamer from ny from 30 yards, just misses top left corner. 

6600 united back line looking tired, slow,

6630 Hamada saves Cahill at goal mouth, united cant clear, great wave humid,

6700 united being completely outclasses.

6730 ny first sub, NBC hasn't told me who.

6800 gervinho for Steele.

6900 united hasn't had possession n five minted, Saragossa saves goal on line.

7000 Ruiz in for Pajoy. Fuck Pajoy, he sucks.

7100 bit of lull, united passing around back to catch breath. 

7200 ny pushing seven forward, has few concerns re united count attack.

7300 no that wasn't s handball Henry you ass.

7500 united has no energy, their passes are slow the are slow to the ball. There are fitnes issues.

7600 derossairo oz out Sanchez in. Door didn't look good at all.

7700 united playing ping in midfield,

7730 juninho, not gervinho. In either case, yellow card.

7820 Sanchez dispossessed. He's small, not strong.

7900 good thing metros suck too.

8000 kitchen on breakaway, there's a reason he's a defensive mid,

8200 united now playing for point

8230 so many weak slow passes that united does hurry to.

8300 take 40 seconds to take a fk from own zone. Killing time. 

8430 cross almost makes it to Ruiz, first time in box in ten minutes. 

8600 united doesn't bother to build out for back, it's whack e ball downhill.

8630 psst.. Henry isn't very good anymore.

8730 and he cries for pk on weak header.

8800 and may have just blown out his knee. Just kidding he's washed up diving bastard. He's up now, being removed.

8900 kit)3! Whacks Espindola, heh,

9000 NBC won't say how much stoppage.

9100 ny ck. ny claiming goal, humid saved goals,, looed like good save.

9200 ny didn't protest that much.

9300 ny cries for handball, no. 

9330 that's that. Steal a point. humid is man of the match. No one else in con station.

We need to talk about Pajoy. Notice how at first Evernote's auto-correct called him parody, me thinking, hey, an auto-correct with an ironic sense of humor, which maybe it does since I typed Pajoy sucks so often it let me have my way.

Midfield is a mess. Saragosa is slow and heavy-touches and soft-passes, when I think better John Thorrington or Lewis Neal, why are they the three choices? Olsen commented on NBC at half that Metros were doubling Pontius everywhere (so much a threat Metros considered Pajoy), Pontius rarely touched ball anywhere near danger (with one good exception around 60th), and when he went right (cause he can't go left) right meant backwards towards humid. And I don't get the anointing of DeLeon as special (the NBC voices said DeLeon had worked himself onto Klinsmann's radar), his first touches are almost Pajoy shitty, his passes behind the moving target to start and slow to boot to boot. Badumpdump.

Early and yadda. Three games, two difficult road games, four points, incoherent play because of DeRossario's suspension, the back line looks good (though Jakovic can't pass for shit and Riley seems good for two brain farts a game), Kitchen is excellent, and Bill Hamid is the future of American keepers, barring injury (and USMNT not making Brazil, a very real possibility) Bill Hamid is first keeper in Brazil in 2014 and starting for some European top division team as early as this September. So, Columbus at home next Saturday at 330. More next Sunday, with photos!

Objects of Value or Virtue, However, Are Also to Be Picked Up Here, Though Rarely, Lying with Bones and Rotten Meat, Eggshells and Mouldy Bread, Banana Peels No One Will Skid On, Apple Cores That Caused Neither the Fall of Man nor a Theory of Gravitation

• Did you know the University of Maryland at College Park is located in that shithouse of The Eastern Shore? It's true! And while I can't summon a damn about Terpistan basketball anymore, it's still rewarding to delight in Duke losing. And no, I don't know if the allusion to Big D's Underground Man was intentional.
• Facepalmistry. 
• Brand new products.
• Cosmetics as police regime. 
• Which is shittier: that Obama wants to gut the New Deal because he is enthralled to his handlers or that he wants to gut the New Deal because of his legacy?
• Total Information Awareness.
• Object-Oriented-Whatevery. (h/t) Word.
• World's Dumbest Public Intellectual! Whew.
• Someone I know who knows Jennifer Rubin says Rubin is genuinely batshit crazy, scream at the neighbors batshit crazy.
• My state does a good thing.
• Blogbud Brad tweeted last night It's amazing how suddenly visible to the world one becomes to the world when carrying a copy of Moby-Dick. and I replied, Depending on what copy it is (I have one of those wonderful tiny old B&N Moby Dick in red cloth), I think people think it's >>>> it's a Bible, it's interesting to get the looks I probably used to give, the looks of those who hope it's a Bible.
• Althusser, for those of you who do.
• HEY! United v Fucking Metros on NBC at 12:30 EDT today. Watch!
• New Murakami novel! It's called  色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年.
• Anthony's litlinks.
• Hey, JCO has a new novel out. It's been awhile since I read her, this one sounds interesting (from what I've seen beyond the Stephen King review that's linked), plus she's fun on twitter.
• Untitled.
• The Thinning.
• Hey, throw WFMU the coins in your pocket please. Listened to Pseu last night, surely a coincidence she played the same Sparks song that is one of two of this shitty blog's March 2013 Theme Songs, but here's what's surprising - she played a Fleet Foxes song that didn't suck. What Fleet Foxes I had heard were the same three dreadful songs on Hipster KEXP. Not going to seek out more, not going to post here, but I heard a Fleet Foxes song that didn't suck.
• Here, because I love you:

THE TOWN DUMP

Howard Nemerov

A mile out in the marshes, under a sky

Which seems to be always going away

In a hurry, on that Venetian land threaded

With hidden canals, you will find the city

Which seconds ours (so cemeteries, too,

Reflect a town from hillsides out of town),

Where Being most Becomingly ends up

Becoming some more. From cardboard tenements,

Windowed with cellophane, or simply tenting

In paper bags, the angry mackerel eyes

Glare at you out of stove-in, sunken heads

Far from the sea; the lobster, also, lifts

An empty claw in his most minatory

Of gestures; oyster, crab, and mussel shells

Lie here in heaps, savage as money hurled

Away at the gate of hell. If you want results,

These are results.

                          Objects of value or virtue,

However, are also to be picked up here,

Though rarely, lying with bones and rotten meat,

Eggshells and mouldy bread, banana peels

No one will skid on, apple cores that caused

Neither the fall of man nor a theory

Of gravitation. People do throw out

The family pearls by accident, sometimes,

Not often; I’ve known dealers in antiques

To prowl this place by night, with flashlights, on

The off-chance of somebody’s having left

Derelict chairs which will turn out to be

by Hepplewhite, a perfect set of six

Going to show, I guess, that in any sty

Someone’s heaven may open and shower down

Riches responsive to the right dream; though

It is a small chance, certainly, that sends

The ghostly dealer, heavy with fly-netting

Over his head, across these hills in darkness,

Stumbling in cut-glass goblets, lacquered cups,

And other products of his dreamy midden

Penciled with light and guarded by the flies.

For there are flies, of course. A dynamo

Composed, by thousands, of our ancient black

Retainers, hums here day and night, steady

As someone telling beads, the hum becoming

A high whine at any disturbance; then,

Settled again, they shine under the sun

Like oil-drops, or are invisible as night,

By night.

             All this continually smoulders,

Crackles, and smokes with mostly invisible fires

Which, working deep, rarely flash out and flare,

And never finish. Nothing finishes;

The flies, feeling the heat, keep on the move.

Among the flies, the purefying fires,

The hunters by night, acquainted with the art

Of our necessities, and the new deposits

That each day wastes with treasure, you may say

There should be ratios. You may sum up

The results, if you want results. But I will add

That wild birds, drawn to the carrion and flies,

Assemble in some numbers here, their wings

Shining with light, their flight enviably free,

Their music marvelous, though sad, and strange.