& if that's not enough (he says to himself in the voice of a black-and-white actor whose name is a moth that keeps avoiding the tip of his flaming tongue) to bring you home, well, there it is again, already exhausted by your efforts to make it comfortable enough to stay

• Caught last night and tweeted out. What's worse, that subhead, that Alexander says it aware of the irony, that he says it unaware of the irony?
• My apologies, but I've re-enabled the spam-blocker in comments. What was funny at a couple of dozen a day has now turned into hundreds a day - Friday and Saturday past over three hundred - and fuck that. Thanks to everyone for their comments, I understand if between the word verification to stop spambots and mediation to stop trolls you say fuckit.
• Shutdownkabuki in three paragraphs.
• Some impromptu thoughts on Left unity.
• All of you who've questioned Greenwald's motives, for what it's worth, I'm feeling you.
• A heat vampire in search of a movie deal.
• Hey, Susan's back from her hiatus!
• Was going to post three photos of Confederate flags currently leading three different articles on Salon as of 8:00 AM EDT Sunday 10/13/13 and write something about it, but fuck that every single day but especially on a Sunday of a three day weekend when nobody reads this blog, so have links, songs, a poem, and a photo of my cats:

• Purple Line!
• Maggie's weekend links.
• { feuilleton }'s weekend links.
• Beckett, for those of you who do.
• I bought Evan Dara's Last Scrapbook when it came out in 1995 and - this is true  - Katie ate it, gnawed a corner of print off, slobbered all over the rest, and I forgot about it.
• Ungaretti: Sunset.
• An open letter to The Poetry Foundation, a resource I, in full disclosure, use constantly, consider invaluable. I hate research, think I have to here.
• A confession of love for alt-country.
• Alt-country? Thanks! for programming Sunday's music. LOTS of great alt-country can be found on Meredith Ochs' playlists!

JUST ANOTHER PARADIGM SHIFT

Paul Grant

Just a shadow. Hardly that. But audible.

Coming out of the woods, whispering

Happily Ever After.

                          Even in that light—

stars with the skeletons of animals

and old friends—

                       visible

to the eye behind the one always

left open on the east side of the house,

downhill. Where the coffee trees

and hemp and the graves of old dogs lie,

buried themselves in leaves and left

to the sputtering wind of memory.

& if that's not enough (he says

to himself in the voice of a black-and-white

actor whose name is a moth that keeps

avoiding the tip of his flaming tongue)

to bring you home, well, there

it is again,

              already exhausted

by your efforts to make it

comfortable

enough to stay. Impatient,

                                   already headed

back down into the woods, whispering

Once Upon A Time . . .

The Me Who So Loves to Garden Because It Prevents the Heaving of the Ground and the Untimely Death of Porch Formula

Terry Riley (here's the MP3 library at Ubuweb) was born 78 years ago today. Here's an all Riley show from Bryce in 2012. The recently released Don Cherry - Terry Riley 1975 live concert from Koln is another best release of 2013, it's today's cascade. It's only on vinyl that I can find, fucking iTunes is useless as usual, HEY! someone with a turn-table, if I buy this and send it to you will you please burn me a CD? Archive that direct appeal for a partner in copyright theft, Copper!

• The elite are not primarily concerned about terrorism.
• Unearthing chthonic conspiracies.
• The Ten Commandments of Neoliberalism.
• The Thirteen Commandments of Neoliberalism.
• How to protect - to a point - yourself.
• I actually did phone canvassing for hours in the weeks leading up to the 2004 election and physically canvassed voters in Harrisburg on election day in 2004 for this motherfucker, gave his campaign hundreds of dollars, the current SoS. He lost the election in significant part due to a campaign labeling him a traitor for speaking out against the atrocities in Vietnam. Irony's a bitch.
• Michael Hastings and the war on journalism.
• Obama is making a speech on campus tomorrow, in the extraordinary security precautions going into effect the building in which I was to attend a meeting I dread will be closed so the meeting needs rescheduling, so thanks, Obama.
• Bleggalgazing, of a sort, and more.
• I have read at least six variations of the joke on the irony that Snowden might go to Cuba to avoid US courts where did he get that idea. 
• I am also reminded that during breaking news people report to their digital overlords for info and instruction.
• The Napoleon and Momcat Emergency Alert tagline remains until....
• Map of MOCO tweets.
• Ten Mile Creek!
• New Inquiry's Sunday links.
• World Cup of Short Form of Cricket.
• Anthony's links of the week.
• To a mouse.
• Ashbery and the pragmatist sublime.
• Twee started earlier than you think it did. Remember arguing, Belle and Sebastian, twee or fey?

   
THE DEFINITION OF GARDENING

James Tate

Jim just loves to garden, yes he does.

He likes nothing better than to put on

his little overalls and his straw hat.

He says, "Let's go get those tools, Jim."

But then doubt begins to set in.

He says, "What is a garden, anyway?"

And thoughts about a "modernistic" garden

begin to trouble him, eat away at his resolve.

He stands in the driveway a long time.

"Horticulture is a groping in the dark

into the obscure and unfamiliar,

kneeling before a disinterested secret,

slapping it, punching it like a Chinese puzzle,

birdbrained, babbling gibberish, dig and

destroy, pull out and apply salt,

hoe and spray, before it spreads, burn roots,

where not desired, with gloved hands, poisonous,

the self-sacrifice of it, the self-love,

into the interior, thunderclap, excruciating,

through the nose, the earsplitting necrology

of it, the withering, shriveling,

the handy hose holder and Persian insect powder

and smut fungi, the enemies of the iris,

wireworms are worse than their parents,

there is no way out, flowers as big as heads,

pock-marked, disfigured, blinking insolently

at me, the me who so loves to garden

because it prevents the heaving of the ground

and the untimely death of porch furniture,

and dark, murky days in a large city

and the dream home under a permanent storm

is also a factor to keep in mind."

Rosie Glasses

It's true, this blog's sub-lede as I post this, the most gratuitously brazen blogwhoring post ever! since the last until the next. Once the sub-lede goes away in the morning I'll either explain in more detail the next post or most likely not, but Rosie the Terrorist, photograph is header as I type this, destroyed my glasses at 4:30 Tuesday morning. She is not now a rug. The glasses freak me out, either acquaintances I thought disliked me when they thought about me at all are suddenly, unanimously thoughtful and nice or, alternatively, fifteen years of hippie, as-invisible-as-possible round-rimmed glasses was a tactical aesthetic error.

To Make Love, Turn to Page 121. To Die, Turn to Page 172

Got turned on to Foot Village last night by Bodah. I confess it's not a surprise that when I am actually capable of approaching not giving a fuck I rediscover not giving a fuck comes with its own baleful encumbrances, not that I am actually capable of approaching not giving a fuck. Here, one of many things I don't mind giving a fuck about that I don't write about on this blog: The Faculty Senate wishes to express its opposition to a cost reduction measure that puts the burden on staff (including AAPs) and non-tenureline faculty, and therefore on the most vulnerable members of the community, contrary to the values of the University. Austerity, bitches, >>delayed bleggalgazing<<. American exceptionalism. Police state. Banks win again. You win again. System of compromise. Control your local police. Day's work. Note to self: when large-scale pot growing in house, don't call police to report burglary of home. Geospatial predictive analysis. The way we kill today. The art of war. Bleggalgazing comments. Marcus and Markson. Ricouer, for those of you who do. Eight ways to ensure your first novel sucks. Ashbery talking. Oh, the Rosie photos - we bought a three foot green cat tunnel, photo taken with an iPhone camera set to automatic, I didn't manipulate the image. Why classical music has to be sticky. Gyorgi Kurtag is eighty-seven today, piece below poem.






[SONNET]

Bernadette Mayer

You jerk you didn't call me up

I haven't seen you in so long

You probably have a fucking tan

& besides that instead of making love tonight

You're drinking your parents to the airport

I'm through with you bourgeois boys

All you ever do is go back to ancestral comforts

Only money can get—even Catullus was rich but

Nowadays you guys settle for a couch

By a soporific color cable t.v. set

Instead of any arc of love, no wonder

The G.I. Joe team blows it every other time

Wake up! It's the middle of the night

You can either make love or die at the hands of the Cobra Commander

_________________

To make love, turn to page 121.

To die, turn to page 172.

I&#39;ve Pressed So Far Way from My Desire that If You Asked Me What I Want I Would, Accepting the Harmonious Completion of the Drift, Say Annihilation, Probably

That's Rosie in a tunnel, shot last night. Abbreviated bleggalgazing - I took a day off, nothing more, thanks for asking. That's not entirely true, I was asked, yes, that's true. Was going to take today off too but in view of the fact that A.R. Ammons was born eighty-seven years ago today and today is an Egoslavian High Holy Day, can't. Use the search box top left of this blog to find many of his poems. All you need know about Obama: the fucker tucks his polo shift into his short pants. Sludge in the hour glass. Your Fucking Washington Post gives Sunday oped inches to Donald Rumsfeld to complain about the elimination of Olympic wrestling. Your Fucking Washington Post gives Sunday oped inches to E.J. Dionne to make an impassioned case that the next pope should be a nun. I say the next pope should be a duck. There is a better chance I will be happy before E.J. Dionne. Blinder leading the blind. History unfolding. The discontents of post-democracy. The logic of surveillance. Of course they are. The Lincoln Myth of Social Mobility. No, I don't make fun of rightwingers much anymore (since I was asked why I don't much anymore over the weekend), though once that was what drew new eyes here, and probably still would. Fabulous heh. Boatloads of links. MOCO seeks to be hip! Lordy, Arsenal losing makes me giddy. Robbie Rogers. Blanchot novella, for those of you who do. Beckett, for those of you who do. Barth, for those of you who do. Quest into the unknown. The problem with anthologies. Well, not the problem, some of many problems.  A Greyhoos playlist. Messiaen. Via Edmond, Mike Watt & The Missingmen cover Wire. Three hours of excellent. Three hours of excellent. Here's Stanley on a balcony from this morning.

CONTINUITY

A.R. Ammons

I've pressed so
far way from
my desire that

if you asked
me what I
want I would,

accepting the harmonious
completion of the
drift, say annihilation,

probably.

Too Late: Duty Has Become Habit, Habit a Duty

Fuck, the blogdays of summer, here's inside baseball to alienate everyone else, re: yesterday's United post - you do realize the danger of Shevchenko coming to United, yes, what a bullet that's been dodged that was never shot? Hear that sound Jill St John makes when she sees that Bombe Suprise? That's the sound Rosie, top shelf below, makes for treats. That EEE sound Jill St John makes when the kabobs are... wait, have I mentioned this?





....aflame? Rosie when we pick her up and put her in a room because she's on a vet-ordered diet. By the way, I may post links of the reflexive pukestorms over this week's SCOTUS rulings but I'm not going to flotsam in the SCOTUS pukestorm of jetsam this week, awoo. Somewhere Rod Dyachenko is failing another audition.

• Hi Stanley.
• Morality play.
• Rubes make marks' lives easy.
• The brain-dead talking point.
• Capitalism.
• Capitalism.
• Capitalism.
• I've long used my ten free reads of the fucking New York Times this month just clicking on links on other people's blogs, so I couldn't read David Brooks piece today on Springsteen (here's the sublede on the op-ed page: Bruce Springsteen's appeal is a reminder of our deeply human need to experience and express meaning within a bounded framework of a place, a people and a history) even if I wanted to, which I don't, it's another example of why the New York Times can go fuck itself for as long as I won't give them a fucking nickel.
• The first I've seen of the inevitable many mockings of the Brooks piece.
• Frances' alternative newspaper!
• Daily note of wonder at the deadness of Blegsylvania. Go scroll Because Right, open up to see all the blogs, note how long it's been since almost all have updated. Deadest Blog Days of Summer ever.
• Why Always Me makes me laugh in a happy way.
• My favorite new word is quilombo.
• Note that in the piece linked in monologue that says Shevchenko not coming to DC that Olsen will likely start Boskovic this coming Saturday and move DeRossario to withdrawn forward just like this guy said he should.
• More interesting than River Plate gaining promotion is that David Trezeguet, 57, is still playing professional soccer.
• Beckett, for those of you who do.
• Edwin's review of Mantel, part two.
• Silliman's always awesome lit links.
• Yoko Ono + Thurston Moore + Kim Gordon.
• New Raveonettes song.
• I need to get tickets. New Dead Can Dance:
• Prunella notes the new album can be streamed here. Gonna buy tickets this week for the August 27 Wolftrap show. Hamster's in - anyone else?

[UNTITLED]

Lyn Hejinian

Lost after all. You can leave any time
This rat's like me, she has a human soul
Too late: duty has become habit, habit a duty
Poems distilled from other poems will probably pass away
But there's dance in the old dame yet
No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before

The Hand That Puts Fish on the Saucer Has Changed, Too

That's Jess, who I never write about. She's younger than Sarah, older than Fleabus, eight, nine maybe? She's smart but bitter, resents Sarah and Fleabus and Stanley and Rose and Napoleon, torments Sarah since Sarah's old and is the only cat that can't kick Jess' ass. She doesn't meow or purr, she gacks and hisses. She walked up to me last night while I was reading and, for the first time ever, or at least since the last time that I've forgotten, made a please love me sound. You may or not have noticed, but I am making a conscious effort to be more tolerant towards all and everything that always piss me off, it's pissing people off; I'm not going to do the research, but I bet I say motherfucking crackers much less recently than I used to when I used to say it repeatedly every day. I picked her up, put her in my lap, rubbed her ears, she has beautiful green eyes. Stanley jumped on the sofa next to us, Jess hissed, ripped open a two inch gash in my right thigh leaping away.  

Here's Napoleon this morning in our dogwood tree.

• The first ad: who are the Nazis now?
• I am an Al-Q enabler!
• Obama's SOTU, authoritarian followership, civil society, part two.
• Obama, pragmatic hypocrite, I'm sure we'll be told.
• Vladimir Obama.
• Delusional psychopath deep in denial about criminal past. (That sentence from someone tweeting from New Left Project.)
• I swear to Baal, this is an actual headline on YFWP web as I type this: Romney Tries to Fend Off Santorum Surge as Three States Hold Contests.
• I confess, I'm still small enough to smile when Karl Rove gets pissy.
• Silk skin paws hang by both feet.
• If I'd known Madonna's halftime show would be a satanic ritual I might have watched.
• David Hockney's road home.
• This is true: I walk by a new book cart this morning, see a novel called Vaclav & Lena, three minutes later see this post of Biblioklept, went and grabbed the book.
• Here's 35 minutes of live PJ Harvey:

CAT IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT

Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

Die - you can't do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here,
but nothing is the same.
Nothing has been moved,
but there's more space.
And at nighttime no lamps are lit.

Footsteps on the staircase,
but they're new ones.
The hand that puts fish on the saucer
has changed, too.

Something doesn't start
as it's usual time.
Something doesn't happen
as it should.
Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared.

Every closet has been examined.
Every shelf has been explored.
Excavations under the carpet turned up nothing.
A commandment was even broken:
papers scattered everywhere.
What remains to be done.
Just sleep and wait.

Just wait till he turns up,
just let him show his face.
Will he ever get a lesson
on what not to do to a cat.
Sidle towards him
as if unwilling
and ever so slow
on visibly offended paws,
and now leaps or squeals at least to start.

You Asked for Nothing, Why Don&#39;t You Share It

Stanley's butt has been professionally shaved by our new vet and balm applied to the rubbed raw skin about the pucker; he's embarrassed and uncomfortable in a much improved way. Rosie has (has had) a collapsed nostril and inflamed lymph nodes, a testament to the shittiness of our previous vets, the ones under whose care Rudy died in his sleep. The new vet, who has a giant cat named Shardik (yes, that Shardik, she confirmed), dosed Rosie with antibiotics and gave us hairball dissolvers to help end Rosie's diarrhea. The walk in the woods afterwards was wonderful.

Thanks for the Kind mentions of me and others by those participating in Blogroll Amnesty. As always, if you are Kinding me and me not you, please email me, and as always, thanks for reading. Regular programming resumes tomorrow, or not.