I learned that while I am still addicted to telling anyone willing to read what I think I think if I'm not less addicted I'm at least more interested in exploring the improbability of ceasing to daily disingenuously bemoan that addiction and take steps towards actively shutting the fuck up about the addiction, I said at Thursday Night Pints at questions of What the fuck was with the static? Lamest fucking post ever, said L, all agreed. Most of the evening's talk, as always, can't/don't/won't be mentioned here. Most of what I want to talk about, I in fact said, I can't/don't/won't onblog. And then we talked about the things I can't/don't/won't blog about and things K and L wanted to talk about. K said, my sister's husband has a blog he only allows invitees to read, you could do that. That's lame and cowardly, I said. L said, that's like the family letter your uncle mails with the Christmas card that details the year of his immediate family. Walter, I said. Walter who? asked K. The Walter who gets mentioned in three sentences in Friday's post.
- Fine metaphors abound: Atrios links to Pierce who slams Sullivan re: Hillarian Inevitability. This is why, K, I resort to links rather than re-paraphrase for xillionth time, I said. And that was your Clusterfuck Link of the Day. I really am tired of fishing for clusterfuck links as if amassing them changes or reaffirms anyone's mind (including if not mostly mine) more than (none) just one. The concept is still in R&D, this a test balloon, yes?
- Rhetorical question, that. Day by day.
- Dissent, disappointment, and draconian rule.
- So much for that balloon.
- When schools become dead zones of imagination.
- Bleggalgazing a tenth birthday. Happies!
- This week in water.
- Aimless and contemplative.
- The books we've lost.
- Because.
- 100 reasons Baltimore is better than DC.
- Lord & Taylors versue White Flint Mall.
- Scott's Run WV, circa 1930s. I feel asleep sometime the past week thinking about Felix Grant and his evening jazz show on WMAL when I was a kid, how one of the ads, almost every ad-break, was in support of the Rural Electrification Act.
- A new phenomenology? Object>subject>subject>object>fuck me.
- How to read philosophy.
- Why don't people want to read eBooks on tablets?
- Bukowski was born 93 years ago today. Not so much anymore, but 30 years ago his novels and poems influenced how I read and write.
a 340 dollar horse and a 100 dollar whore
Charles Bukowski
don’t ever get the idea I am a poet; you can see me
at the racetrack any day half drunk
betting quarters, sidewheelers and straight thoroughs,
but let me tell you, there are some women there
who go where the money goes, and sometimes when you
look at these whores these onehundreddollar whores
you wonder sometimes if nature isn’t playing a joke
dealing out so much breast and ass and the way
it’s all hung together, you look and you look and
you look and you can’t believe it; there are ordinary women
and then there is something else that wants to make you
tear up paintings and break albums of Beethoven
across the back of the john; anyhow, the season
was dragging and the big boys were getting busted,
all the non-pros, the producers, the cameraman,
the pushers of Mary, the fur salesman, the owners
themselves, and Saint Louie was running this day:
a sidewheeler that broke when he got in close;
he ran with his head down and was mean and ugly
and 35 to 1, and I put a ten down on him.
the driver broke him wide
took him out by the fence where he’d be alone
even if he had to travel four times as far,
and that’s the way he went it
all the way by the outer fence
traveling two miles in one
and he won like he was mad as hell
and he wasn’t even tired,
and the biggest blonde of all
all ass and breast, hardly anything else
went to the payoff window with me.
that night I couldn’t destroy her
although the springs shot sparks
and they pounded on the walls.
later she sat there in her slip
drinking Old Grandad
and she said
what’s a guy like you doing
living in a dump like this?
and I said
I’m a poet
and she threw back her beautiful head and laughed.
you? you . . . a poet?
I guess you’re right, I said, I guess you’re right.
but still she looked good to me, she still looked good,
and all thanks to an ugly horse
who wrote this poem.
