- Last night I sat in a house I won't identify at a dinner party with people I won't identify and I participated in conversations whose details I won't reveal here (though I''d like to).
- Today I'm at work at an institution I don't directly name (though I'd like to). It's in flux, both within the micro but especially the macro, some of it fascinating, the dire speculations about the future, which I won't discuss here (though I'd like to).
- There's the unfortunate death of a popular blogger I won't name (though I'd like to) who did me an unKind that I won't describe (though I'd like to) (it was years ago, though I remember the incident like a fresh wound, he no doubt promptly forgot if he noticed at all), plus subsequent indulgent bleggalgazing I won't post here (though I'd like to), bleggalgazing just slightly more popular than an unread post full of quotes from the novels and letters of an 18th C American novelist.
- I've a photo of a dad and his kid I'd love to post here, but I won't, though I don't feel cowardly about this one since the dad asked me not to post it.
- All won'ts in the prior four bullets were first can'ts. I can. I won't.
- I will say on twitter yesterday I was reminded - I am such a dope - that tics and allusions I assume others get others don't. Thanks. I need constant reminders to Fuck It.
- Yes, I understand the tics and allusions are in service to my won'ts, are proxy Fuck Its.
- So, have yap about my reading slump. Another review of Gass' Middle C. I started it twice, quit early, recognizing my mind is still too blocked to engage it. I am 3/4s through an unsatisfying reread of Mason & Dixon, I have the new McElroy and see the above comment about Middle C, but I'm surprised I find myself thinking about about Vollmann's Ice Shirts, I'm attempting a reread of all the previously released volumes of his Seven Dreams in anticipation of the Fall release of the next. Fathers & Crows is my favorite. It concerns the first interactions of the group that founded the institution I won't name with Native Americans and the mutual carnage that ensued. I have an extra copy, you have three days to claim it before I send it to one of the two of you who claim most of these.
- What, google didn't do it? What the fuck am I going to do with the 35 pressure cookers I ordered online yesterday?
- Feel free to laugh.
- In defense of leakers.
- Un-Manning.
- Libertarian Democrats search for a leader! Or something.
- On the State monopoly on sanctioned violence.
- UPDATE! I soooooooo call bullshit.
- Texas running out of execution drugs.
- Purple Line.
- Even littler eyes.
- The five most sinister things about Disney World.
- One hundred years of nosebleeds.
I AM AN ATHEIST WHO SAYS HIS PRAYERS
Karl Shapiro
I am an atheist who says his prayers.
I am an anarchist, and a full professor at that. I take the loyalty oath.
I am a deviate. I fondle and contribute, backscuttle and brown, father of three.
I stand high in the community. My name is in Who’s Who. People argue about my modesty.
I drink my share and yours and never have enough. I free-load officially and unofficially.
A physical coward, I take on all intellectuals, established poets, popes, rabbis, chiefs of staff.
I am a mystic. I will take an oath that I have seen the Virgin. Under the dry pandanus, to the scratching of kangaroo rats, I achieve psychic onanism. My tree of nerves electrocutes itself.
I uphold the image of America and force my luck. I write my own ticket to oblivion.
I am of the race wrecked by success. The audience brings me news of my death. I write out of boredom, despise solemnity. The wrong reason is good enough for me.
I am of the race of the prematurely desperate. In poverty of comfort I lay gunpowder plots. I lapse my insurance.
I am the Babbitt metal of the future. I never read more than half of a book. But that half I read forever.
I love the palimpsest, statues without heads, fertility dolls of the continent of Mu. I dream prehistory, the invention of dye. The palms of the dancers’ hands are vermillion. Their heads oscillate like the cobra. High-caste woman smelling of earth and silk, you can dry my feet with your hair.
I take my place beside the Philistine and unfold my napkin. This afternoon I defend the Marines. I goggle at long cars.
Without compassion I attack the insane. Give them the horsewhip!
The homosexual lectures me brilliantly in the beer booth. I can feel my muscles soften. He smiles at my terror.
Pitchpots flicker in the lemon groves. I gaze down on the plains of Hollywood. My fine tan and my arrogance, my gray hair and my sneakers, O Israel!
Wherever I am I become. The power of entry is with me. In the doctor’s office a patient, calm and humiliated. In the foreign movies a native, shabby enough. In the art gallery a person of authority (there’s a secret way of approaching a picture. Others move off). The high official insults me to my face. I say nothing and accept the job. He offers me whiskey.
How beautifully I fake! I convince myself with men’s room jokes and epigrams. I paint myself into a corner and escape on pulleys of the unknown. Whatever I think at the moment is true. Turn me around in my tracks; I will take your side.
For the rest, I improvise and am not spiteful and water the plants on the cocktail table.
