William Gass is eighty-nine today. This is the traditional William Gass birthday post excerpt: from 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.
Like I said last year, that passage reminds me of a what I was trying to get at (much less successfully than Gass) with automocoblogography. Still, it's one of my favorite things I've written, and remember that template?
- This is a High Egoslavian Holy Day! Kate Bush is 55 today, the traditional birthday post up this afternoon, Davidly has three songs up at his place, if you have requests get them to me by 1:00 PM EDT today. No need to send any for anything on Hounds of Love, it's been taken care of.
- So, to recap The Weekend in Google.... know what, fuck the recap, if you've been playing along you know what happened, and this is the last post I'm going to mention it anyway. Leave it here: I am shocked, I never would have guessed on Friday when I figured out what happened the blog would be back by Sunday night.
- Today marks the end of Official Bleggalgazing the Incident.
- I cannot change the dark green background or any color or any column layout here, the APPLY TO TEMPLATE button is dead, but more friends like the dark green than the white and ultimately I have loyalty to the dark green. I am, however, going to back-up this blog at the place I created when I assumed this place was gone, and since it's back-up into the future too I can c/p the code from new blog posts easily enough into a post field there, and the many of you who told me you much prefer dark type on light background can go there.
- Because what I freaked out losing wasn't what I've written, it was the music and poems and corresponding labels to them I use to farm myself.
- There is now a link in the upper left/corner anyone can click to read this blog in not-dark green but dark writing on white background.
- I'm sorry, I'd double-column on the left if I could, I can't, now is not the time to curse my free blogging platform, but I love the photos overbleeding into the column, I know some of you don't, forgive me.
- I am able to add content to the columns. Will update (or not) theme songs according, cause this blog doesn't load slow enough already with all the youtubes.
- Anarchism, technology, and the petromodern state.
- The logical and coming end to American empire.
- The United States of Amnesia.
- Metadata is incredibly intimate.
- The selfishness of Snowden.
- Reminder: the liberal betrayal of Bradley Manning.
- Christ, "For better or worse the Democrats are the only game in town." Posted not because pro-Nader, posted because anti-motherfucking professional liberals.
- The progressive principle of collective punishment.
- Capitalism! Muslim profiting on anti-Muslim sentiment.
- Share a Coke with Stalin.
- The horizon of narrative.
- Struggles with realism.
- Prunella's latest playlist.
- Please read the two sentence Gass excerpt below out loud for full effect.
- You know who has a birthday day after tomorrow? Get your requests in, please send me links if possible. I know someone named after this song.
Excerpt from The Tunnel
William Gass
I built, of blocks, a town three hundred thousand strong, whose avenues were paved with a wine-colored rug and decorated by large leaves outlined inappropriately in orange, and on this leafage I'd often park my Tootsie Toy trucks, as if on pads of camouflage, waiting their deployment against catastrophes which included alien invasions, internal treachery, and world war. It was always my intention, and my conceit, to use up, in the town's construction, every toy I possessed: my electronic train, of course, the Lincoln Logs, old kindergarten blocks—their deeply incised letters always a problem—the Erector set, every lead soldier that would stand (broken ones were sent to the hospital), my impressive array of cars, motorcycles, tanks, and trucks—some with trailers, some transporting gas, some tows, some dumps—and my squadrons of planes, my fleet of ships, my big and little guns, an undersized group of parachute people (looking as if one should always imagine them high in the sky, hanging from threads), my silversided submarines, along with assorted RR signs, poles bearing flags, prefab houses with faces pasted in their windows, small boxes of a dozen variously useful kinds, strips of blue cloth for streams and rivers, and glass jars for town water towers, or, in a pinch, jails. In time, the armies, the citizens, even the streets would divide: loyalties, friendships, certainties, would be undermined, the city would be shaken by strife; and marbles would rain down from formerly friendly planes, steeples would topple onto cars, and shellfire would soon throw aggie holes through homes, soldiers would die accompanied by my groans, and ragged bands of refugees would flee toward mountain caves and other chairs and tables.
