That's Earthgirl's knee last night. Other things we learned from Sunday's hike, by far the most ambitious we've planned since we were twenty years younger. Eat. Eat healthy the night before, healthy in the morning, healthy along the way even if we don't feel hungry. Double our water, drink even if we don't feel thirsty. Stop more, more for the sake of enjoying the wood than for rest, though rest even if we don't feel tired. The next time the guide says "the trail gets considerably more rocky" believe the guide book. Next time one of us falls and bashes a joint or bone, turn around and go home. There will be a next time, goddamn it. And then another, motherfucker. I'd be surprised we get a chance this weekend, at least a long hard hike, that knee is going to be spectacularly marbled and colored for more than a few days.
Regarding the bleggalgaze - (a) when bleggal overlords stop by to see if there's action here then Blegsylvania is dead everywhere and (b) there will be a Pere Ubu post later today or, more likely, tomorrow (with a Henry Cow cascade), and (c): this:
- I fished a little last night. It's not the I don't like sharing what I read - I never considered not aggregating things I find interesting for friends - it's that I no longer plan to fish as a chore on nights I'd rather do something else.
- Meet your ACLU civil liberties defender.
- Elliott Rodger among the ruins.
- eBay shrugged.
- BroadSnark's things you might have missed.
- { feuilleton }'s weekly links.
- There will never be a new DC United stadium in DC. I am curious to see how I react to the World Cup this month, cause my damn for United is gone. There are many reasons, but the most symbolic is their changing the game time from 7:30 to 7:00. I can't express how much that pisses me off. It totally fucks up my Saturday.
- The strings of Bertie.
- Silliman's always generous litlinks.
- The summer he really started reading.
- Worship of life itself.
- Poetry is felt, not fathomed. Honestly, stop writing these columns. You are being trolled.
- Everybody is somebody's troll.
- House or window flies?
LIVING WITH EQUATIONS
Mark Ford
As I emerged from my hip-bath it suddenly dawned
The facts might be remarshalled and shown to rhyme.
Now the era need never end: its coefficients learn
To crack their knuckles, or reach for a handful of silver.
I watch the entangled sums unspool, as if the weight
Of earth pressed fitfully upon their mad proposals.
Stray hints lead across perilous foreclosures, around
Noisy corners, then out into featureless, sandy scrub.
The devolved particulars - a shoe, a mole - reappear
In compounds that seem so explicit one forgets to gasp.
The remainder can only imperceptibly dwindle, retreating
Backwards until their long lost premises turn inside out.
