GAH! To be fair, I once liked My Morning Jacket before it ran out of idea (sic). And to be fair, see where it says Ryan Bingham? Some of the tours' shows (the one above is at Merriwether in July) it says Richard Thompson. Well, fuck me with multiple formats.
HEY! Earthgirl dumped me for our date this coming Saturday night to see Meredith Monk at Clarice Smith Center at University of Maryland. To be fair, I bought the tickets months ago and then didn't mention it until last Tuesday night, she made plans a month ago to take a dear friend out to dinner for her birthday. To be fair, Earthgirl screams at me to turn Meredith Monk off whenever I play Monk's music. All of which to say, I've got an extra ticket, I know Hamster's already booked (or he'd have a ticket already). Anyone?
- The Klown Quotient increases.
- A few words on Jacobin and Purity Cults.
- And a response.
- Biologist says we're fucked.
- We're fucked, part two.
- Surveillance state.
- I referenced Vic Davalillo in a tweet about last night's header.
- So, baseball: thank grace, the Nats' start is underwhelming I haven't been tempted beyond speculation to go to a game, so suck is Metro, 35K descending in mass into one narrow tunnel.
- But baseball: I remember when I was always at Memorial, then Camden Yards, when we rotisseried, I was obnoxiously pro-designated hitter, now, I see the potential, its inevitability if I toke baseball again tonight, I could fanatically and obnoxiously embrace the pitcher's spot batting. Because the National League is a better game of baseball, yes? Fine metaphors abound.
- I wanna be a poseur.
- A reminder about Newest Gag, over on Left Blogroll, every day in May a new site added, so far I've kept up, suggestions solicited.
- Worst kit ever?
- Insufferable pronouns.
- What happened to Literature?
- Lawless Pantoum.
- Speaking of GAH!
- Only assholes don't like the B-52s.
- Look, I don't hate Dylan, I get why Dylan is celebrated and honored even if I don't get the music, you just won't ever catch me listening.
- Now, Wilco? Suck.
- Obscure Sound's Best New Stuff from April, with sound.
- Yes, I've posted the Lehman sestina before, (a) it was necessary for this post and (b) I like it.
OPERATION MEMORY
David Lehman
We were smoking some of this knockout weed when
Operation Memory was announced. To his separate bed
Each soldier went, counting backwards from a hundred
With a needle in his arm. And there I was, in the middle
Of a recession, in the middle of a strange city, between jobs
And apartments and wives. Nobody told me the gun was loaded.
We'd been drinking since early afternoon. I was loaded.
The doctor made me recite my name, rank, and serial number when
I woke up, sweating, in my civvies. All my friends had jobs
As professional liars, and most had partners who were good in bed.
What did I have? Just this feeling of always being in the middle
Of things, and the luck of looking younger than fifty.
At dawn I returned to draft headquarters. I was eighteen
And counting backwards. The interviewer asked one loaded
Question after another, such as why I often read the middle
Of novels, ignoring their beginnings and their ends. when
Had I decided to volunteer for intelligence work? "In bed
With a broad," I answered, with locker-room bravado. The truth was, jobs
Were scarce, and working on Operation Memory was better than no job
At all. Unamused, the judge looked at his watch. It was 1970
By the time he spoke. Recommending clemency, he ordered me to go to bed
At noon and practice my disappearing act. Someone must have loaded
The harmless gun on the wall in Act I when
I was asleep. And there I was, without an alibi, in the middle
Of a journey down nameless, snow-covered streets, in the middle
Of a mystery--or a muddle. These were the jobs
That saved men's souls, or so I was told, but when
The orphans assembled for their annual reunion, ten
Years later, on the playing fields of Eton, each unloaded
A kit bag full of troubles, and smiled bravely, and went to bed.
Thanks to Operation Memory, each of us woke up in a different bed
Or coffin, with a different partner beside him, in the middle
Of a war that had never been declared. No one had time to load
His weapon or see to any of the dozen essential jobs
Preceding combat duty. And there I was, dodging bullets, merely one
In a million whose lucky number had come up. When
It happened, I was asleep in bed, and when I woke up,
It was over: I was 38, on the brink of middle age,
A succession of stupid jobs behind me, a loaded gun on my lap.
