I’d Give Up Years Yes Years of My Own Life for Such a Gulpable Semblable

Took I-68 west from Hancock through Cumberland to Morgantown then I-79 north to Washington PA instead on the Turnpike and gorgeous, what we could see in the rain and the fog, what we couldn't see in the rain and the fog. There is a farm on the right heading west just shy of Flintstone, just before crossing Town Creek, that I could put 36 holes for disc and Earthgirl could raise llamas and alpacas, it's what I want for Giftmas, please buy it for me.

More, more photos, few links, poems, music, below fold

Made great time, even driving through downtown Wheeling - the above is the I-70 bridge over the Ohio between Wheeling and Bridgeport, which of course requires I give you this poem (for the umpteenth time):

IN RESPONSE TO A RUMOR THAT THE OLDEST WHOREHOUSE IN WHEELING, WEST VIRGINIA HAS BEEN CONDEMNED

James Wright

I will grieve alone,

As I strolled alone, years ago, down along   

The Ohio shore.

I hid in the hobo jungle weeds

Upstream from the sewer main,

Pondering, gazing.

I saw, down river,

At Twenty-third and Water Streets

By the vinegar works,

The doors open in early evening.

Swinging their purses, the women   

Poured down the long street to the river   

And into the river.

I do not know how it was

They could drown every evening.

What time near dawn did they climb up the other shore,   

Drying their wings?

For the river at Wheeling, West Virginia,   

Has only two shores:

The one in hell, the other

In Bridgeport, Ohio.

And nobody would commit suicide, only   

To find beyond death   

Bridgeport, Ohio.

Well, making good time until Bethesda! (also near a Barnesville!) where Ohio DOT caused a ten mile back-up on I-70 so two fuckers in neon vests could smoke cigarettes in the right lane of bridge over US 22. Fuckers. Still, made Zanesville in little over six hours. Planet needed finish some papers, so didn't drive to Bamgier, instead tried a local restaurant the hotel desk manager highly recommended (we could walk to an Olive Garden or Red Lobster from the hotel, and fuck that).

Muddy Miser's, on the banks of the Muskingum. We sat at the table under the fish in the website photo. Earthgirl had the walleye reuben, I had the walleye fish-and-chips, yummy, charming.

Bamgier tomorrow, Parent's Weekend activities then dinner with Planet's new buddy (who shares Planet's name, her fifth friend with the same name, we thought we'd picked not a unique but a pretty and plain little used name, and no, Planet's generation is full of Planet's real name) and her parents, then back to Zanesville to sleep before Saturday. Expect more photos.

• The fight for real democracy at the heart of Occupy.
• Motherfucking Democrats.
• Sweeping up the filth.
• Which side are you on?
• On the 53%.
• Percentiles.
• On the 53%.
• Alas, I cannot help quoting The World's Shittiest Human: Exhibit C. To the villainy-of-the-rich theme emanating from Washington, a child is born: Occupy Wall Street. Starbucks-sipping,  Levi’s-clad, iPhone-clutching protesters denounce corporate America even as they weep for Steve Jobs, corporate titan, billionaire eight times over. These indignant indolents saddled with their $50,000 student loans and English degrees have decided that their lack of gainful employment is rooted in the malice of the millionaires on whose homes they are now marching — to the applause of Democrats suffering acute Tea Party envy and now salivating at the energy these big-government anarchists will presumably give their cause. Except that the real Tea Party actually had a program — less government, less regulation, less taxation, less debt. What’s the Occupy Wall Street program? Eat the rich. And then what? Haven’t gotten that far. No postprandial plans. But no matter. After all, this is not about programs or policies. This is about scapegoating, a failed administration trying to save itself by blaming our troubles — and its failures — on class enemies, turning general discontent into rage against a malign few. Sure, he tossed that off in forty-five seconds, but still, he hasn't written more passionately meant sentences in ten years. Guillotine, motherfucker.
• Come let us reason together. 
• Occupy London.
• I am an atheist who says his prayers.
• Williams/Ashbery.
• If you're looking for a way out.
• Listened to Tindersticks for three hours yesterday while driving.
• Just a dog.
• People keep coming around.
• Don't ever get tired.
• El diablo en el ojo.
• Snowy in F# Minor.
• Are you trying?
• No place so alone.

PHILOSOPHER ORDERS CRISPY PORK

Heather McHugh

I love him so, this creature I do pray

was treated kindly. I will pay

as much as pig-lovers see fit

to guarantee him that. As for his fat,   

I’d give up years yes years of my   

own life for such

a gulpable semblable.   

(My life! Such as it is! This

liberality of leaves! The world

won’t need those seventeen more

poems, after all, there being

so few subjects to be treated. Three

if by subject we mean anyone

submitted to another’s

will. Two if by subject we mean   

topic. One if by death we wind up

meaning love. And none if a subject   

must entail

the curlicue’s indulgence of itself.)

All That It Contains, Myself and Spinach in Particular

It's Parent Weekend at Planet's college in Bamgier. We're driving out today (taking the scenic, non-Turnpike route this time, stopping for staymans, driving through downtown Wheeling), maybe have dinner tonight w/Planet, see her Friday and Saturday, YAY US! I suspect it's what made me think of this past summer's UK trip, four months but seems like twenty-seven years ago, yesterday: expect photos and that stupidass travelogue I do the next few days as I document the glorious fall foliage of my full complicity. Here or elsewhere.

Hey, I got another email from typepad:

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• Stay in touch with friends and family
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Bulletpoints in blogging? How fucking lame is that.

• Golly, within days of busting those Iranian James Bonds, news the Ay-rabs are arming on the Israeli border. Wouldn't it be nice to think the Corporate is as freaked out by Occupy as we'd like them to be and are going Patton for that rather than signalling that Obama is going to run the same campaign against Whatever F Cracker that Bush ran on Obama?
• Dana Milbank mocks Occupy DC. Corporate doesn't give a flying fuck about Occupy other than how to monetize it.
• When do the post-mortems begin?
• Incapable of honesty.
• How he communicates with people less right that he. 
• Motherfucking crackers. 
• Motherfucking faux socialist.
• I the people, you the people.
• Hey, few new places on the rolls, check them out.
• A hedge of rubber trees.
• Beginning.
• Flying and falling.
• Screaming fist.
• Of a dropping pin.
• Sea Song.
• Airlessly.
• Guarding you.

FARM IMPLEMENTS AND RUTABAGAS IN A LANDSCAPE

John Ashbery

The first of the undecoded messages read: "Popeye sits 
   in thunder,
Unthought of. From that shoebox of an apartment,
From livid curtain's hue, a tangram emerges: a country."
Meanwhile the Sea Hag was relaxing on a green couch: "How 
   pleasant
To spend one's vacation en la casa de Popeye," she 
   scratched
Her cleft chin's solitary hair. She remembered spinach

And was going to ask Wimpy if he had bought any spinach.
"M'love," he intercepted, "the plains are decked out 
   in thunder
Today, and it shall be as you wish." He scratched
The part of his head under his hat. The apartment
Seemed to grow smaller. "But what if no pleasant
Inspiration plunge us now to the stars? For this is my 
   country."

Suddenly they remembered how it was cheaper in the country.
Wimpy was thoughtfully cutting open a number 2 can of spinach
When the door opened and Swee'pea crept in. "How pleasant!"
But Swee'pea looked morose. A note was pinned to his bib. 
   "Thunder
And tears are unavailing," it read. "Henceforth shall
   Popeye's apartment
Be but remembered space, toxic or salubrious, whole or 
   scratched."

Olive came hurtling through the window; its geraniums scratched
Her long thigh. "I have news!" she gasped. "Popeye, forced as 
   you know to flee the country
One musty gusty evening, by the schemes of his wizened, 
   duplicate father, jealous of the apartment
And all that it contains, myself and spinach
In particular, heaves bolts of loving thunder
At his own astonished becoming, rupturing the pleasant

Arpeggio of our years. No more shall pleasant
Rays of the sun refresh your sense of growing old, nor the 
   scratched
Tree-trunks and mossy foliage, only immaculate darkness and 
   thunder."
She grabbed Swee'pea. "I'm taking the brat to the country."
"But you can't do that--he hasn't even finished his spinach,"
Urged the Sea Hag, looking fearfully around at the apartment.

But Olive was already out of earshot. Now the apartment
Succumbed to a strange new hush. "Actually it's quite pleasant
Here," thought the Sea Hag. "If this is all we need fear from 
   spinach
Then I don't mind so much. Perhaps we could invite Alice the Goon 
   over"--she scratched
One dug pensively--"but Wimpy is such a country
Bumpkin, always burping like that." Minute at first, the thunder

Soon filled the apartment. It was domestic thunder,
The color of spinach. Popeye chuckled and scratched
His balls: it sure was pleasant to spend a day in the country.

Vancouver 2, United 1

Too soon for the obituary, but when it's written it's likely that cause of death was Chris Pontius' broken leg in that spectacular win at Chivas in August when United looked as dynamic as they had since 2006, looked legitimately dangerous. Since then, but for DeRossario's thirty minutes against Salt Lake, United's looked like last year. (And yes, it was a handball, but so?)

Playoffs? United hasn't won back-to-back games in two, three years, what makes anyone think they can win three in a row at home? (I will be at the last two, I'll be in Ohio - more on that shortly - this Saturday.) And to be fair, DeRossario away on Canadian National Team duty or not, a team starting Chris Korb, Marc Burch, Daniel Woolard, Steven King, Blake Brettschneider, and Josh Wolff, ain't going anywhere.

This isn't anger or frustration but perspective: United hasn't enough depth to offset the loss of key-players. This season is better than last season. Next season will be better than this one.

Any Fool Can Get into an Ocean but It Takes a Goddess to Get Out of One

But K, I said exasperatedly last night at Thursday Night Pints, moved again to Tuesday cause I'm going to Bamgier Thursday (more about that tomorrow, or not), remember that Obama had total cover to go progressive if he'd wanted to. He could have said any cracker could summarily execute any brown person that cracker deemed dangerous and he'd still been called a Muslim sleeper by said cracker, he could have given bankers the right to take my house even if I was ahead on mortgage because the banks could sell it for more than I owed them and still been called a socialist by the Chamber of Commerce. This a digression from Occupy: L said Occupy will help Obama's reelection campaign, K added Occupy might help Obama regain his footing, I responded profanely then said the two sentences above.

I'm not not occupying because I know it will fail and how it will fail and not not occupying because my complicity and unwillingness to divest makes me a hypocrite. Or yes, too, but mostly I'm not occupying because my mithridatism is advanced, let the young dose themselves. You could go and keep you mouth shut, said L, winning her - if getting a free one every week one way or the other constitutes winning a particular night's contest - round of ridiculously priced Scotch.

Like the header? UPDATE: Too bad, it's gone - I was bored, then I was told it sucked, which hardened my determination to keep it, then I was told by two people it kept the motherfucking bleg from loading, so - That's a photo from Stratford-on-Avon where I was four months ago two weeks from now. That was weeks before rioters burned Tottenham, remember that, two months or so ago, feels like a decade? Yay or nay on the header if you feel like it, not if not. It'll be there until it isn't.

Hey, did you know Washington DC has a professional soccer team?

• It's true! and they play tonight at ten in Vancouver, the first of the last four games of the season, needing (probably) to win three to make MLS' sillyass post-season tournament.
• Takes no balls to call bullshit.
• A Zuccotti Park education.
• Four weeks on Wall Street.
• This is not a time for cautious politics says man who won't primary Obama.
• Six reasons motherfucking Democrats can't Occupy.
• Not that they won't try.
• Motherfucking Democrats.
• Five conservative economic myths Occupy busts.
• Follow the money.
• Follow the money. 
• Hamiltonians get Hamilton wrong.
• The woman who knew too much.
• Panopticon.
• Fuckstick.
• Fucking christers.
• If you can spare, send some coin to Corrente.
• Gass on Bishop.
• This week's new releases. 
• My baby she's alright.
• What you can buy me for Giftmas.
• Woke up with this in my head:

ANY FOOL

Jack Spicer

Any fool can get into an ocean   

But it takes a Goddess   

To get out of one.

What’s true of oceans is true, of course,

Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming   

Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed

You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess

To get back out of them

Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly

Out in the middle of the poem

They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the

    water hardly moves

You might get out through all the waves and rocks

Into the middle of the poem to touch them

But when you’ve tried the blessed water long

Enough to want to start backward

That’s when the fun starts

Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural

You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown

Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth

But it takes a hero to get out of one

What’s true of labyrinths is true of course

Of love and memory. When you start remembering.

The New Absence Is Always the Same

That's Kate Bush's new single. After fifteen listenings, better than mkay, not near wow, but never judge an album by the first single. 50 Words for Snow releases November 21. Was recorded during the Director's Cut sessions - and I have multiple issues with Director's Cut - but maybe her new sounds and textures sound better with new material. Regardless (and it might be great, lord, I hope it's great), Kate Bush has one of the two permanent spots in my sillyass desert island five game.

• This is true: news of the new Kate Bush album buys me another day of blogwhoring without confronting my not confronting Occupy. I can say Zizek has helped: that motherfucker trying to grab the brand - I admire the motherfucker, he's transcended self-parody, he's - I say this admiringly - the embodiment of our age of complex superficiality of late-capitalist self-defense of personal whoredom. I thought about going downtown yesterday, thought of Slavoj, said fuck that for now.
• Also, it's not my generation's occupation.
• The greatest cover of all time. 
• Occupy London.
• Occupy everything.
• The elites in trouble?
• You say misconception, I say attempted hijack.
• The lump of unfairness fallacy.
• In search of honest capitalism?
• Police violence.
• Who do the white shirts report to?
• Days of rage, evenings of indifference.
• And no, I can't subjectobjectsubject like you, like Slavoj, who can out-subjectobjectsubject motherfucking Lacanians, I resort to imprecise metaphors that attempt to capture not so much my soul as my compromised and circumscribed motherfuckedness.
• It isn't much, but we're paying off our Bank of America credit card and getting one from our credit union.
• Ambitious motherfucking cracker asks for federal aid.
• This is really funny. 
• Days. 
• In defense of Paul Simon.
• Go team!
• Go Team!

THE MOWER

Philip Larkin

The mower stalled, twice; kneeling, I found   

A hedgehog jammed up against the blades,   

Killed. It had been in the long grass.

I had seen it before, and even fed it, once.   

Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world   

Unmendably. Burial was no help:

Next morning I got up and it did not.

The first day after a death, the new absence   

Is always the same; we should be careful

Of each other, we should be kind   

While there is still time.

A Pillowcase Makes a Fine Substitute Pouch for an Orphaned Kangaroo

This is true, though Earthgirl and Planet can only vouch for this part - driving Planet to National yesterday morning around nine, just after swinging the exit curve off the Beltway just over the river onto GW Parkway, we were blocked by a Park Police car spread across both lanes, flashing. Another tenth of mile or two ahead another Park Police car sat flashing, then an officer got out, walked to some injured animal, pulled out his revolver and shot it twice, a small animal, I don't know what, he wrapped it in a tarp and threw it in his trunk. This all took five minutes. What Earthgirl and Planet can't vouch for even if they had seen motherfucking Captain Kangaroo

(since, when I said, and they can vouch I said, Hey, it's motherfucking Captain Kangaroo, they said, Who?) is motherfucking Captain Kangaroo stepping out of a Mercury limo two cars behind us, glancing at his watch, kicking a tire, pulling out his cell and cursing into it while getting back in the limo, though it's true! I didn't have time to get a shot off, he was back in the car before I could dig my camera phone out of my pocket, before I could get him. Once traffic was waved on, he ordered the driver to speed and weave, but this was the GW Parkway, and if we mere (but made) assholes want to frustrate major assholes, well, we (and by we I mean me and a some guy in a Camry with vegan stickers and some woman in a prius with one of those coexist stickers) can tandem lane @ 50 mph all the way to National Airport, motherfucker. Resistance, bitches. Giggled day.

• Giggled day except for that putting Planet on a plane back to Bamgier, which we're visiting next weekend, yay us! I can't wait.
• OWS once, twice.
• Teevee's day at Occupy Seattle.
• Lame agents provocateur. Nothing so pathetic as a wannabe K Street cracker-baiter in his 20s.
• Occupy K Street.
• Occupy all streets.
• This generation's greatest academic fraud (I say this admiringly) at OWS.
• This generation's greatest academic fraud (I say this admiringly) at OWS.
• Though I say this without admiration - what a fucking dry-humper.
• Panic of the plutocrats. 
• Finance anti-capitalism. 
• Memory Lame.
• Geraldo!
• Directions in feminism.
• Decade of folly.
• Not an obamapostasy, but Reich's getting closer.
• Killing citizens.
• Perspective from liberal heaven.
• Romney's brave new world.
• The penis metaphor is strong!
• Football Quiz!
• Al Davis?
• The Eagles will win next Sunday by 25. Pint. 
• Avid Diva. 
• Flying weather.
• Claviers.
• Darkblack's Sunday Overnight.

NURTURE

Maxine Kumin

From a documentary on marsupials I learn

that a pillowcase makes a fine

substitute pouch for an orphaned kangaroo.

I am drawn to such dramas of animal rescue.

They are warm in the throat. I suffer, the critic proclaims,

from an overabundance of maternal genes.

Bring me your fallen fledgling, your bummer lamb,

lead the abused, the starvelings, into my barn.

Advise the hunted deer to leap into my corn.

And had there been a wild child—

filthy and fierce as a ferret, he is called

in one nineteenth-century account—

a wild child to love, it is safe to assume,

given my fireside inked with paw prints,

there would have been room.

Think of the language we two, same and not-same,

might have constructed from sign,

scratch, grimace, grunt, vowel:

Laughter our first noun, and our long verb, howl.

Born Seventy-One Years Ago Today

Hagiography much? Sure, don't you? Re: this? Noer and yesser!

The Very Flatness of Portraits Makes for Nostalgia in the Connoisseur

Speaking of sillyass Star Trek allusions, and wonderfully serendipitous to thinking about Occupy (if unfortunate to him), Charles Napier died this past Wednesday, who played Adam, who called Kirk Herbert.

Motherfucking Obama is often compared to Herbert Hoover. Coincidence?

Also, looking for the above youtube I found the below. Is proof I'm old that I bring up this old sexist debate, but most guys said Marianne but I always said Ginger.

• Old news already.
• Danger of elite capture.
• Occupy to Move On: Fuck off.
• Good cop, bad cop.
• Old odds and ends.
• Operation Forever War.
• Decade of War.
• Just napalm.
• Liberals and reactionaries. Zebras are reactionaries.
• Authoritarian mothering.
• TV party tonight.
• Where I live, though I rarely go to Antique Row - only to a very cool old watch repair shop to get my watch battery changed.
• Purple Line! 
• Maps.
• Maps.
• How do you begin a poem?
• A Poem for Vipers.
• Prufrock.
• I am produced.
• Have some live Mogwai.
• More Bert Jansch.

OUR NATURE

Rae Armantrout

The very flatness

of portraits

makes for nostalgia

in the connoisseur.

Here’s the latest

little lip of wave

to flatten

and spread thin.

Let’s say

it shows our recklessness,

our fast gun,

our self-consciousness

which was really

our infatuation

with our own fame,

our escapes,

the easy way

we’d blend in

with the peasantry,

our loyalty

to our old gang

from among whom

it was our nature

to be singled out

We Holler These Trysts to Be Self-Exiled that All Manatees Are Credited Equidistant

I'm still having trouble processing Occupy (it's a blessing, hard processing!) because I'm still terminally, fatalistically cynical, forgive me:

Jack Tapper: Thank you, Mr. President. Just to follow up on Jackie's question -- one of the reasons why so many of the people of the Occupy Wall Street protests are so angry is because, as you say, so many people on Wall Street did not follow the rules, but your administration hasn't really been very aggressive in prosecuting. In fact, I don't think any Wall Street executives have gone to jail despite the rampant corruption and malfeasance that did take place. So I was wondering if you'd comment on that.

Obama: Well, first on the issue of prosecutions on Wall Street, one of the biggest problems about the collapse of Lehmans and the subsequent financial crisis and the whole subprime lending fiasco is that a lot of that stuff wasn't necessarily illegal, it was just immoral or inappropriate or reckless. That's exactly why we needed to pass Dodd-Frank, to prohibit some of these practices.

The financial sector is very creative and they are always looking for ways to make money. That's their job. And if there are loopholes and rules that can be bent and arbitrage to be had, they will take advantage of it. So without commenting on particular prosecutions -- obviously that's not my job; that's the Attorney General's job -- I think part of people's frustrations, part of my frustration, was a lot of practices that should not have been allowed weren't necessarily against the law, but they had a huge destructive impact. And that's why it was important for us to put in place financial rules that protect the American people from reckless decision-making and irresponsible behavior.

Fucker. Here's what maddens me: wink, you motherfucker, wink me you know I know you're a dedicated motherfucking turnkey fucking me over, just inflect one syllable of an ugly verb, raise an eyebrow you motherfucking Triskelion thrall:

Under Obama, the executive branch is setting the penalty for treason. It isn't bothering to convict the accused. And alleged guilt is established through an opaque process that it won't even discuss. There is no indication that witnesses are being called to testify to the same overt act, and the accused are most certainly not confessing in open court. In other words, the actions of the Obama administration are straightforwardly unconstitutional, and those involved in the process are violating the oath that they took to protect and defend our founding document.

How many FBI and other federal agents have been ordered into the swarms of Occupy, taking names, taking pictures, filling databases, infiltrating agents provocateurs? Which is an argument for, not against, playing Occupy. Slowly, I'm getting there. And who the fuck uses Star Trek allusions?

• Hey, photoshoppers, Obama that, yo.
• Tear and frembling.
• Moving your money.
• Occupy does not support Obama.
• Occupy St Louis.
• In my back yard.
• Isocratic.
• I asked Planet if anyone at KC in the middle of Nowhere, Ohio was talking about Occupy and she said no. 
• Generosity.
• The end of the affair.
• iCame, iSaw, iConquered.
• The Nobel reaction.
• What's wrong w/Nobel Prize.
• Woke up with this in my head:

SHORTER AMERICAN MEMORY OF THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

Rosmarie Waldrop

We holler these trysts to be self-exiled that all manatees are credited equi- distant, that they are endured by their Creator with cervical unanswerable rims. that among these are lightning, lice, and the pushcart of harakiri. That to seduce these rims, graces are insulated among manatees, descanting their juvenile pragmatism from the consistency of the graced. That whenever any formula of grace becomes detained of these endives, it is the rim of the peppery to aluminize or to abominate it. and to insulate Newtonian grace. leaching its fountain pen on such printed matter and orienting its pragmatism in such formula, as to them shall seize most lilac to effuse their sage and harakiri.

In the Middle of the Forest There's an Unexpected Clearing which Can Only Be Found by Those Who Have Gotten Lost

Some Transtromer. Nice I've access to a university library's stacks. Click, yo.

I've read his poems in journals and anthologies, but since I have issues with translations in general and in poetry in particular I'm sure I haven't given him the attention he either deserves or doesn't.

I Wake to Sleep and Take My Waking Slow

Got an email yesterday from typepad telling me they tried to renew my year subscription for their service but the credit card I had been using had expired, give them the new numbers or my right to post will be suspended in a week - they won't delete content, though my ability to add new content is contingent on my renewing.

Meaning it's been almost a year since I migrated here from there. Jesusfuck, look at that gahfulness. Much better here, yes? for the updating blogrolls alone - lordy, not needing to ping you to see if you'd posted must have cost some of you five pings a day. That's it for the bleggalgazing: I enjoy blogging, I've come to peace on why I blog, the good reasons, the selfish reasons, the bozo reasons, come to peace with the how and embraced the what the fuck: you read or you don't, it's all cool. Thanks for the Kind. If you're Kinding me and me not you, please let me know.

• No reason. None at all.
• Bad busy at work, good busy in real life, short list o'links today.
• Notes towards a future of not slaughtering each other.
• To do.
• Dicks versus not-dicks.
• Two pwoggles debate Occupy.
• A commie-music and food blog.
• Silliman's astonishingly generous lit-links.
• Tomas Tranströmer wins Nobel. Some poems.
• I'm 52 - I wonder, if I live another thirty years, whether an American will ever win. This is not a complaint.
• Well-deserved.
• Mining the digital motherlode.
• Jack Orion.
• Needle of death.

THE WAKING

Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?   

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?   

God bless the Ground!  I shall walk softly there,   

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?   

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do   

To you and me; so take the lively air,   

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.   

What falls away is always. And is near.   

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.   

I learn by going where I have to go.

Were Mankind Less Transfixed by Its Own Importance, It Would Be Harder to Be Happy

Thursday Night Pints were Tuesday Night Pints, moved again at my request - tonight we pick up Planet at National, she's spending KC's post-midterms long-weekend with us, and YAY! - so no D; he plays high stakes bridge every Tuesday, claims he's a grandmaster. We talked - K and L and special guest C, sitting alone as only those who give up teaching for deaning do, invited over. Good guy! - about our kids and college, my kid especially since I'm the only one currently playing, K eight years away, L and C done.

Eventually Occupy comes up. C asks me, does this help or hurt your man Obama, and I said, it has been a couple of years since we talked. He thinks, K said to C, nodding at me, Obama's worse than any Republican can be because he can do what Republicans can't. Well, sure, said C, that's why he'll be reelected. Did you hear, I asked, that Glenn Beck told his listeners to withdraw all their money from banks, that the violent American Left will attack Wall Street next week, that we - you and me - want to guillotine the rich. What's the what in your Stringtown, Blegsylvania, K asks me. Bemusement, I said. Wist. Wry smiles that involuntarily deepen to muscles that haven't smiled that deeply in decades when remembering the last time we daydreamed ourselves as revolutionaries. You're talking about you as the galaxy again, L said. As I got up to get L a ridiculously priced scotch, C said, this is about nothing more than protecting your stake. Everything is negotiation, I said. Galaxies.

• No idea what blogging will be over next few days. When Planet wants to hang out with us we'll be hanging out with her.
• Don't look down.
• I also talked about my complicity. It sounded like this.
• How to occupy an abstraction.
• Ending capitalism's alibi.
• On the above. 
• Top motherfucking cracker responds.
• Reign of the One-Percenters.
• Memo to the super rich.
• One-Thirders.
• Mr. Fish.
• What are you fighting for?
• Urban roots of the financial crisis.
• Five reasons why Occupy is like the Boston Tea Party.
• Tugboat.
• Congressional drones.
• Power of Barackmania.
• Motherfucking Democrats really do think you're stupid. 
• Motherfucking Democrats really do think you're stupid.
• If you're looking for a way out.
• Build up this wall.
• Liz Warren decides to lose to Scott Brown.
• Galaxies.
• Song of the cosmos.
• Nobel pre-game.

UPDATE! Just heard - RIP Bert Jansch:

• Two ribbed discs.
• Cat's dream.
• Birth dream.
• All the love.

THE BOOK OF THE DEAD MAN (FOOD)

Marvin Bell

Live as if you were already dead.
                          Zen admonition

1. About the Dead Man and Food

The dead man likes chocolate, dark chocolate.
The dead man remembers custard as it was, spumoni as it was, shave
          ice as it was.
The dead man talks food with an active tongue, licks his fingers, takes
          seconds, but has moved on to salads.
It's the cheese, it's the crunch of the crunchy, it's the vinegar in the oil
          that makes a salad more than grass.
The dead man has a grassy disposition but no cow stomach for flappy
          leaves and diced croutons.
The dead man remembers oysterettes as they were.
He recalls good water and metal-free fish.
Headlights from the dock drew in blue claw crabs by the bucketful.
A flashlight showed them where the net lay.
If they looked bigger in the water than in the pail, they grew back on the
          stove.
It was like that, before salads.
The dead man, at the age he is, has redefined mealtime.
It being the quantum fact that the dead man does not believe in time, but
          in mealtime.

2. More About the Dead Man and Food

The dead man's happiness may seem unseemly.
By land or by sea, aloft or alit, happiness befalls us.
Were mankind less transfixed by its own importance, it would be harder
          to be happy.
Were the poets less obsessed with the illusion of the self, it would be
          more difficult to sing.
It would be crisscross, it would be askew, it would be zigzag, it would be
          awry, it would be cockeyed in any context of thought.
The dead man has felt the sensation of living.
He has felt the orgasmic, the restful, the ambiguous, the nearly-falling-over,
           the equilibrium, the lightning-in-the-bottle and the bottle in shards.
You cannot make the dead man write what you want.
The dead man offers quick approval but seeks none in return.
Chocolate is the more existential, it has the requisite absurdity, it loosens
          the gland.
The dead man must choose what he ingests, it cannot be anything goes
          in the world the world made.
So we come back to chocolate, which frees the dead man's tongue.
The dead man is every emotion at once, every heartbreak, every falling-
          down laugh riot, every fishhook that caught a finger.

It Is Necessary to Write About the Same Old Things in the Same Way, Repeating the Same Things Over and Over for Love to Continue and be Gradually Different

Peter Gabriel has an album coming out of his orchestral reworkings of his own music. Here, read this, read the track listings, listen to the three sucks provided. Kate Bush did this shit earlier this year. Also this, fuck POTUS 12, also this, motherfucking crackers, also this, motherfucking pwoggles, but also this post and my last post and my next post and your last, now, next posts too. How soon until Google implements a plan to most profitably monetize OWS using heavily leveraged financing, oops, what?.. Here, listen again, the best topical song you'll hear today:

• Wall Street is fake.
• Democracy is fake.
• How to continue.
• You just can't satisfy some people.
• Another state subsidy.
• Another day of dread. 
• Anticipated stranger.
• The beatings will continue.
• Also, motherfucking crackers.
• Holyfuck, people didn't dig the soccer and Bonnie Prince Billy here the past two days. Expect more.
• An estrangement. BTW, Brad, Mrs Unguentine came in the mail yesterday via ILL. After this weekend.
• The unbearable lightness of acceptable bigotry.
• It's small of me, but it pleases me Maryland Democrats want to fuck Roscoe Bartlett over.
• The future of MOCO?
• To Brooklyn Bridge.
• Why Americans don't win Nobels in literature? Bet you a pint it's Ashbery. Odds are overwhelming someone I've never heard of will be named, but the worse thing that can happen is we have a pint together.
• Why critics praise bad poetry.
• Agnes, Queen of Sorrow.
• Holyfuck, listen again, the best love song you'll hear today. Tomorrow.
• David Thomas makes a playlist (h/t Richard). The Ken Nordine doesn't surprise me, and I like Gem Club's playlist better (though I've never heard of Gem Club).
• Wolf among Wolves.

LATE ECHO

John Ashbery

Alone with our madness and favorite flower

We see that there really is nothing left to write about.

Or rather, it is necessary to write about the same old things

In the same way, repeating the same things over and over

For love to continue and be gradually different.

Beehives and ants have to be re-examined eternally

And the color of the day put in

Hundreds of times and varied from summer to winter

For it to get slowed down to the pace of an authentic

Saraband and huddle there, alive and resting.

Only then can the chronic inattention

Of our lives drape itself around us, conciliatory

And with one eye on those long tan plush shadows

That speak so deeply into our unprepared knowledge

Of ourselves, the talking engines of our day.

Weather Ain't Judgment & Money Ain't Love

Holyfuck!

Saw Bonnie Prince Billy last night at Birchmere in Alexandria with Earthgirl and Hamster, a two-hour generous show, made up mostly of the new album, wolfroy goes to town (this post's title taken from this song off wolfroy):







We also got an ethereal Beast for Thee, a sublime I See a Darkness, and for an encore, a joyous version of the below. Holyfuck....







That's it. Wonderful evening. Regular programming resumes tomorrow, or not.

Columbus 2, United 1

What to say? A team starting Daniel Woolard in central defense, Chris Korb at right back, Marc Burch at left back, Clyde Baal Bless Him for His Service Simms in holding mid, Santino Quaranta on midfield wing, and Joseph Ngwenya and Charlie Davies as strikers (with Josh Wolff as replacement), won't win many games. How many players who started for United yesterday make Gax's or Seattle's game-day roster? Two?


Since Chris Pontius' breakthrough game and broken leg v Chivas in early September United is 1-1-3, the one win coming against a Salt Lake that played two-thirds of its reserve team and which quit after DeRossario's spectacular hat trick in the first half hour. Of the starters from yesterday's game, only Hamid, Kitchen, Najar, and DeRossario might be starting if and when United seriously challenges for Supporters. Yes, starters were missing who might be here - Pontius on wing, McDonald, Jakovic, White in central defense - but it's important to remember - or at least remind myself - that this season has always been about next season. There was never going to be a leap from historically bad to historically good.

- BTW, here's who started for United on October 2, 2010 in a surprise road win in Colorado: Troy Perkins, Jordan Graye, Devon McTavish, Dejan Jakovic, Jed Zayner, Andy Najar, Kurt Morsink, Branko Boskovic, Santino Quaranta, Danny Allsopp (Carlos Varela 60), Pablo Hernandez (Junior Carreiro 89).

It's true that in MLS mediocrity is often rewarded and reaching the playoffs a serious goal because once in MLS' sillyass playoffs every team has a puncher's chance. Still, playoffs or no (and they might still make the playoffs, though four games in eleven days means a boatload of Woolard) - and it will be disappointing if United doesn't make the playoffs - and as frustrating as this team's fits and starts have been, United, when all starters are healthy (and it's possible that team would have beat or tied Chester this past Wednesday, probably beat an awful Columbus yesterday), is significantly better than last year's, hopefully significantly worse than next year's.

I Stood There with the Maps in My Hand

Watching United v Columbus at 400 at my house, if you know how to get there you are very welcome to join us, leaving immediately afterward to see Bonny Prince Billy at Birchmere with Earthgirl and Hamster, can you guess tomorrow's content?

Also. I'm inhaling the poetry I'm reading, am clogged on any fiction I'm reading, I like but only you can judge how I'm writing, and Holyfuck, my listening to music has never been this voraciously satisfying and fluent. Strange days. Speaking of which, I didn't notice until this morning that yesterday's youtube of this piano sonata didn't identify the composer as Galina Ustvolskaya, and Holyfuck, have more:

• Holyfuck, it'd been a couple of years. Want some? I've a few. You know the routine, or email me and I'll happily explain it to you.
• $4.6M? Not $4.5M or $4.7M? (h/t)
• On the above.
• Because, that's why.
• Greed and accountability.
• Robin Hood pigs.
• Occupy everything.
• Living on stolen time. 
• Jack Goldsmith, lawyer. 
• The Rick Perry hustle. 
• Crackers triumphant.
• Nobel Lit handicapping. 
• Begging for Roth.
• Awkward bleggalgazing! Bmpthnx!
• Sebastian Cabot and Bob Dylan in the squared circle.
• Riding.
• Babylon System. 
• Eno interview.
• Grand Movement for Cello and Piano part one, two, three, four, five. 
• A less than two-minute thirty-second song I'd been saving for this post:

THE COWBOY

James Tate

Someone had spread an elaborate rumor about me, that I was

in possession of an extraterrestrial being, and I thought I knew who

it was. It was Roger Lawson. Roger was a practical joker of the

worst sort, and up till now I had not been one of his victims, so

I kind of knew my time had come. People parked in front of my

house for hours and took pictures. I had to draw all my blinds

and only went out when I had to. Then there was a barrage of

questions. “What does he look like?" “What do you feed him?” “How

did you capture him?” And I simply denied the presence of an

extraterrestrial in my house. And, of course, this excited them

all the more. The press showed up and started creeping around

my yard. It got to be very irritating. More and more came and

parked up and down the street. Roger was really working overtime

on this one. I had to do something. Finally, I made an announcement.

I said, “The little fellow died peacefully in his sleep at 11:02

last night.” “Let us see the body,” they clamored. “He went up

in smoke instantly,” I said. “I don’t believe you,” one of them

said. “There is no body in the house or I would have buried it

myself,” I said. About half of them got in their cars and drove

off. The rest of them kept their vigil, but more solemnly now.

I went out and bought some groceries. When I came back about an

hour later another half of them had gone. When I went into the kitchen

I nearly dropped the groceries. There was a nearly transparent

fellow with large pink eyes standing about three feet tall. “Why

did you tell them I was dead? That was a lie,” he said. “You

speak English,” I said. “I listen to the radio. It wasn’t very

hard to learn. Also we have television. We get all your channels.

I like cowboys, especially John Ford movies. They’re the best,”

he said. “What am I going to do with you?” I said. “Take me

to meet a real cowboy. That would make me happy,” he said. “I

don’t know any real cowboys, but maybe we could find one. But

people will go crazy if they see you. We’d have press following

us everywhere. It would be the story of the century,” I said.

“I can be invisible. It’s not hard for me to do,” he said.

“I’ll think about it. Wyoming or Montana would be our best bet, but

they’re a long way from here,” I said. “Please, I won’t cause

you any trouble,” he said. “It would take some planning,” I said.

I put the groceries down and started putting them away. I tried

not to think of the cosmic meaning of all this. Instead, I

treated him like a smart little kid. “Do you have any sarsaparilla?”

he said. “No, but I have some orange juice. It’s good for you,”

I said. He drank it and made a face. “I’m going to get the maps

out,” I said. “We’ll see how we could get there.” When I came

back he was dancing on the kitchen table, a sort of ballet, but

very sad. “I have the maps,” I said. “We won’t need them. I just

received word. I’m going to die tonight. It’s really a joyous

occasion, and I hope you’ll help me celebrate by watching The

Magnificent Seven,” he said. I stood there with the maps in my

hand. I felt an unbearable sadness come over me. “Why must

you die?” I said. “Father decides these things. It is probably

my reward for coming here safely and meeting you,” he said. “But

I was going to take you to meet a real cowboy,” I said. “Let’s

pretend you are my cowboy,” he said.

"Don't Mind Me," I said, "I'm Just a Hungry Little Gnostic in Need of a Sandwich." (This Old Line of Mine had Met with Great Success on Any Number of Previous Occasions.) I Thought, a Deaf, Dumb, and Blind Nurse, Sounds Ideal!

Copied in it's entirety:

If the encampment in downtown NYC is a church, then the sprouting of more of these around the country is something of an religious awakening. And the reaction of the other religious faction is pretty telling.

This is a note sent out to people in the Boston Fed building recently upon news of #OccupyBoston.

Good afternoon.

You may notice various demonstrations in the financial district this afternoon. Most notably, beginning this evening and extending indefinitely, the “Occupy Wall Street / Occupy Boston” movement plans a peaceful demonstration and encampment on Dewey Square. You may have seen media reports about this, and as you may know, a few other cities are seeing similar demonstrations in their financial districts.

Our Law Enforcement Unit is attuned to the situation and as always is in close contact with city and law enforcement officials. We will closely monitor the evolving situation throughout the weekend and beyond.

For your safety, we suggest you exercise caution, and avoid engaging with any demonstrators. Use of the Summer Street entrance and South Station tunnel may be helpful in limiting any inconvenience to you.

Apparently, the encampment is peaceful, but it’s best to avoid engaging with the demonstrators. Better safe than sorry.

(Meanwhile, the Feds loudly bust some dipshit they lead and funded to be busted for scheming to fly a model-airplane bomb into a Federal building and then three days later they proudly yodel they'd flown an model-airplane bomb into an American citizen. Funny timing, that [You're right, I'm nuts, such symmetry is beyond both Corporate's coordination and sense of humor.].)

Self-plagiarizing myself, the lazy fuck: Self-accusatory only. And the first George Mills let his horse lead him to the salt mine. Cynically, it's a nice surprise to have my complicity challenged. More cynically, new material. You see my sweet bind.

• All music today ripped off from or inspired by yesterday's nine hours of my favorite nine hours of music every week available on WFMU every Friday between 9AM EDT to 6PM. Listen now.
• Thirteen ways of looking at Occupy Wall Street.
• Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird.
• Real resistance.
• Understanding the theory behind Occupy Wall Street. 
• For the record, I'm not saying Obama's Killing the Terrorist Show is because of Occupy Anything: it's about POTUS 12, and Occupy Anything is tangentially related because it points out what Obama's Killing the Terrorist Show is supposed to distract motherfucking cracker and pwoggle rubes from complaining about.
• Motherfucking proggles. (h/t)
• Correcting the fucking New York Times.
• If Occupy Anything becomes more than a pimple, say an infected hair follicle on Corporate's Chris Christie thigh, look for the debut of Obama's Squashing the Commies Show. It won't come to that, yes? no?
• Absence of evidence.
• Liberalism is capitalism.
• Fucker.
• This speech will make a difference.
• The assassination. 
• Assassin's creed.
• Badiou for those of you who do.
• K, as requested, 4, 12, and 13. Must be me.
• Boatload of links.
• Light from the mesa.
• Pfhat.
• Void and devotion.

SHROUD OF THE GNOME

James Tate

And what amazes me is that none of our modern inventions

surprise or interest him, even a little. I tell him

it is time he got his booster shots, but then

I realize I have no power over him whatsoever.

He becomes increasingly light-footed until I lose sight

of him downtown between the federal building and

the post office. A registered nurse is taking her

coffee break. I myself needed a break, so I sat down

next to her at the counter. "Don't mind me," I said,

"I'm just a hungry little Gnostic in need of a sandwich."

(This old line of mine had met with great success

on any number of previous occasions.) I thought,

a deaf, dumb, and blind nurse, sounds ideal!

But then I remembered that some of the earliest

Paleolithic office workers also feigned blindness

when approached by nonoffice workers, so I paid my bill

and disappeared down an alley where I composed myself.

Amidst the piles of outcast citizenry and burning barrels

of waste and rot, the plump rats darting freely,

the havoc of blown newspapers, lay the little shroud

of my lost friend: small and gray and threadbare,

windworn by the ages of scurrying hither and thither,

battered by the avalanches and private tornadoes

of just being a gnome, but surely there were good times, too.

And now, rejuvenated by the wind, the shroud moves forward,

hesitates, dances sideways, brushes my foot as if for a kiss,

and flies upward, whistling a little-known ballad

about the pitiful, raw etiquette of the underworld.