Holyfuck, I love that song, early Lips.
This is why parents forfeit the suspense of not knowing the gender of their child in womb, the American Right hoping it's Muslim terrorist, the American Left hoping it's an American Right terrorist, the exquisite anticipation, the dread it's one of yours, the fervent hope it's one of theirs. Was going to tweet right now as I type this sentence at 8:05 PM EDT 4/15/16 using ...s and >>>s across multiple tweets to string together that very thought, that's exactly what I'd predict I'd do both in message and messaging, then thought, why don't I turn it into tomorrow's (meaning today's, this, post), which is exactly what I'd predict I'd do if I didn't do what I predicted I'd initially do. Progress, yo, possibly, probably no.
- Robert Smith's and Iggy Pop's birthday in five days, get requests in.
- Alternatively, don't.
- Authenticity and social media.
- The new propaganda is liberal: the new slavery is digital.
- Highbrow drag.
- Understanding organizational stupidity.
- Myths versus delusions.
- The buckraking.
- As always, as the husband of a public school teacher and the son of public school teachers and the nephew of favorite aunts and uncles who were public school teachers and the beneficiary of wonderful teachers in public school and university, I am hopelessly biased towards teachers and recuse myself from further comment, so I offer this on teachers (and teachers and motherfucking professional liberals) and bid you good read.
- Fuck-me-jig redux. Yes, posted yesterday too. This goes back to my United-Metros post re: cheap, mean vibe from United. New ownership is going to to be mean and cheap until and unless there's a new stadium, at which point, if there is one, total rebranding to new name, change to red, fuck LOUD SIDE! As always, fine metaphors abound, or to trot out an antique meme retired years ago, no one asks me how I separate my soccer and my politics anymore.
- Approaching Ashbery. NYRB, for poetry month, is going to give a week to Ashbery. Forgive me, I love Ashbery, I would not read like I read if I had not read Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror when I was eighteen.
- Dig this first paragraph of Ashbery's review (from link above) to collections by John Wheelwright and Archie Ammons: The pure products of America don’t always go crazy: Dr. Williams himself is a demonstration of this. But the effort of remaining both pure and American can make them look odd and harassed—a lopsided appearance characteristic of much major American poetry, whose fructifying mainstream sometimes seems to be peopled mostly by cranks (Emerson, Whitman, Pound, Stevens), while certified major poets (Frost, Eliot) somehow end up on the sidelines. This is suggested again by the unexpected appearance of two voluminous Collected Poems by two poets who now seem destined to pass abruptly from the status of minor to major cranks. I love that Ashbery loves Ammons.
- Sure, I'll repeat my oft-troped trope - as with Hemingway and Carver, with Ashbery, it's not his poetry that sucks, it's the shitload of imitators he spawned whose poetry sucks. Witness me.
- Gaddis on the Pulitzer Prize.
- Airport's latest playlist.
MY EROTIC DOUBLE
John Ashbery
He says he doesn’t feel like working today.
It’s just as well. Here in the shade
Behind the house, protected from street noises,
One can go over all kinds of old feeling,
Throw some away, keep others.
The wordplay
Between us gets very intense when there are
Fewer feelings around to confuse things.
Another go-round? No, but the last things
You always find to say are charming, and rescue me
Before the night does. We are afloat
On our dreams as on a barge made of ice,
Shot through with questions and fissures of starlight
That keep us awake, thinking about the dreams
As they are happening. Some occurrence. You said it.
I said it but I can hide it. But I choose not to.
Thank you. You are a very pleasant person.
Thank you. You are too.
