Swerve with Personal Radar, Crisisless, Kid

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

It's true! and fuck me, it's all the energy, soul, heart, and oomph* I have to write about today, and, serendipitously, the Post's Steve Goff sat down with Kevin Payne for the first half of their post-season interview (today on-field, tomorrow off-field, as in United's future, or lack thereof, in DC). Not surprisingly, Payne's autopsy/obituary/outlook sounds like pretty much every other I've seen, including mine, though, of note, there's positive GM-yadda about Boskovic returning amidst the standard GM-yadda blaming the players for not being the players the GM thought he'd signed.

Tomorrow, the Sadder Yadda, or: I will never need gladly Fuck-Me-Jig.

• Silly Taibbi: cheating is winning.
• Market outcomes and political power.
• The lamestream.
• In media res.
• Oakland 10/25/11.
• Closing down.
• Posted without comment.
• On the above.
• Bloombergville.
• Where does Occupy go from here?
• Occupy the military.
• Motherfucking Obama.
• Letting loose the dogs of war.
• Pictures that could have been taken anywhere.
• * I must conclude I have no inner resources.
• What Hamster's getting for Giftmas.
• Another love song for 1Q84.
• Notes towards a conversation w/Ashbery.
• I'll get you, I mean it.
• Woke up with this song in my head, made me think of this song:

DREAM SONG 63

John Berryman

Bats have no bankers and they do not drink
and cannot be arrested and pay no tax
and, in general, bats have it made.
Henry for joining the human race is bats,
known to be so, by few them who think,
out of the cave.

Instead of the cave! ah lovely-chilly, dark,
ur-moist his cousins hang in hundreds or swerve
with personal radar,
crisisless, kid. Instead of the cave? I serve,
inside, my blind term. Filthy four-foot lights
reflect on the whites of our eyes.

He then salutes for sixty years of it
just now a one of valor and insights,
a theatrical man,
O scholar & Legionnaire who as quickly might
have killed as cast you. Olč. Stormed with years
he tranquil commands and appears.

Mission Accomplished, Pal. My Molten Yellow & Moonless Bag, Drained, Hangs at Rest

Blogfriend Brad proposes a December reading group for William Gass' Omensetter's Luck, and while I can promise to try to play I can't commit to playing, not because I reread Omensetter last winter but because I can't commit to reading anything right now. I've been toying with ordering Murakami's 1Q84, out today, on kindle, to spark my reading slump's end, but no, I've never found Murakami wondrous, and I wonder if even something new from an author I find wondrous would help.

What's different about this desperate reading slump is that it isn't desperate (even if Berryman broke it, for today at least, the way he thinks in blocks like I think helping), what's different is that not only am I not frantic I'm not desperate, I'm fascinated I'm not desperate. CWCF, strangest days of my life, the first time in my life when novels don't speak to me, seem obsolete and closed. Now, on the other hand:

DREAM SONG 25

Henry, edged, decidedly, made up stories
lighting the past of Henry, of his glorious
present, and his hoaries,
all the bight heals he tamped— —Euphoria,
Mr Bones, euphoria. Fate clobber all.
—Hand me back my crawl,

condign Heaven. Tighten into a ball
elongate & valved Henry. Tuck him peace.
Render him sightless,
or ruin at high rate his crampon focus,
wipe out his need. Reduce him to the rest of us.
—But, Bones, you is that.

—I cannot remember. I am going away.
There was something in my dream about a Cat,
which fought and sang.
Something about a lyre, an island. Unstrung.
Linked to the land at low tide. Cables fray.
Thank you for everything.

• Occupy Obama.
• Battle for the heart of Occupy.
• Occupy and the deradicalized Rawls.
• It's true!
• The long goodbye.
• Denunciation and disruption.
• Go the fuck away.
• Judith Butler can stay.
• Empowers.
• Related to the above.
• Shooting the greatest academic fraud of his generation (I say that admiringly). 
• I know it's The Duh, though it still needs saying.
• Also, motherfucking crackers.
• Things you might have missed. 
• MOCO traffic!
• Suddenly, a new worse nightmare.
• On one's little girl.
• Woke up with this in my head:

DREAM SONG 16

Henry's pelt was put on sundry walls
where it did much resemble Henry and
them persons was delighted.
Especially his long & glowing tail
by all them was admired, and visitors.
They whistled: This is it!

Golden, whilst your frozen daiquiris
whir at midnight, gleams on you his fur
& silky & black.
Mission accomplished, pal.
My molten yellow & moonless bag,
drained, hangs at rest.

Collect in the cold depths barracuda. Ay,
in Sealdah Station some possessionless
children survive to die.
The Chinese communes hum. Two daiquiris
withdrew into a corner of the gorgeous room
and one told the other a lie.

Born Ninety-Seven Years Ago Today

Born Ninety-Seven Years Ago Tomorrow

Because I am so desperate to break out of my deepest, most severe reading slump of the past five years since the last until the next (I'm stuck on page 737 of Gaddis' The Recognitions, I can't get past page ten of Crawford's The Log of the SS The Mrs Unguentine, I stuck on page 201 of Elkin's George Mills, page 114 of Harvey's Enigma of Capitalism, page 309 of Grossman's Life and Fate, page 175 of Eliot's Mill on the Floss, and past the fifteenth Devotion in Bruce Smith's new book of poems), so much do I want to break out of this reading slump that when I remembered tomorrow is John Berryman's birthday I grabbed the Dream Songs from my cubicle's shelf and found my favorite and, searching to find it on the web to c/p, found the above youtube, and shazam, it probably won't break the slump (but waiting until tomorrow won't either), so here it is now. More, maybe on the slump if I honor the what the fuck (though this might do), tomorrow, certainly more Berryman.

UPDATE! Here to the rescue!

All Ardent and Catastrophic and Counter

Occupy DC. My confession, my complicity: yesterday we went on one of our favorite hikes to cliffs over the Potomac instead of going Downtown, and even worse, it wasn't until I was three miles into the hike that I remembered I wanted to think about going Downtown yesterday instead of hiking in the woods.

Though it's still vital to remember: Fuck NPR and anyone who gives them a motherfucking penny:

NPR will no longer distribute the member station-produced program "World of Opera" to about 60 stations across the country because the show host helped organize an ongoing Washington protest, a network official said Friday evening.

NPR spokeswoman Dana Davis Rehm said the network disagrees with the station on the role of program hosts but respects its position.

"Our view is it's a potential conflict of interest for any journalist or any individual who plays a public role on behalf of NPR to take an active part in a political movement or advocacy campaign," she told The Associated Press. "Doing so has the potential to compromise our reputation as an organization that strives to be impartial and unbiased."

Dana Rehm? Really? As in nepotism? I don't know, I'm asking.

Also, it is vital to remember: Fuck Man Utd, and fine fucking metaphors abound:

The Glazers found little to cheer their spirits at Wembley. Private helicopters swept the Manchester United owners away from Old Trafford in the wake of Sunday's derby defeat and down to London in time to see their other team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, lose to the Chicago Bears 24-18 in the latest instalment of the NFL's International Series. This defeat may not have been quite so emphatic but when your regular season is only 16 games long, every loss is that little bit more significant.

I watched City demolish United on Fox Soccer yesterday morning (and Mario Balotelli can be the next great football player if he decides he wants to be, holyfuck - and holyfuck is Carlos Tevez a moron, but that's another story) and the British announcer and color commented on the traffic jam caused by the Glazers shutting down parking spaces for their private helicopters, the American fuckers, fucking with Man Utd true local supporters.

• Is Occupy changing the discourse?
• The image that marks the end?
• Occupy is not difficult to understand.
• Occupy Prague. 
• Occupy everything, but you make it so hard.
• Crackers: The self-hating 99%.
• Job-killers.
• Why Credit Unions?
• The epileptic economy. 
• Liberal bias of American media?
• When bad presidents happen to good Democrats.
• It is vital to remember: Fuck Chelsea.
• A thoughtful afternoon.
• My future hell.
• Hilltop v DC. Hilltop should have bought Mt Vernon College when it had the chance.
• Defending MFAs. Fuckers.
• I remember loving Norman Rush's Mating when it came out, but so much had my tastes changed I don't think I gave Mortals a fair chance.
• Speaking of reading, I'm not, not because I don't want to.
• Could this break the slump?
• Darkblack's Sunday Overnight.
• Woke up with this in my head, one of dozens of my five favorite Guided by Voices songs, even if runs forever by GbV clocks (and Universal Truths and Cycles is way underrated):
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  DEVOTION: THE BURNT-OVER DISTRICT
  
  Bruce Smith
  
  
  Late fall in the villages of Pompey, Preble, Oran, Delphi Falls,   

        churched

  river and woods. In Homer and Ovid, the localities   

        and principalities

  of central New York, the hollows and corners of the   

        burnt-over districts

  visited by angels in the 1800's who led us to greatness: awakenings,

  gold, portents and lies, heaven, women's suffrage, and bundling

  with the other in the love beds while we waited for the lamb,   

  the dove, the velvet of the ten-point buck grunting through   

        the underbrush

  to rut. We learned in divine time a year's a day.   

        We learned obedience

  and had charismatic children. And now the boy's an angelic

  eighteen days or six thousand years, as he leaves to serve.

  He did what we told him: blocked for punts—no one likes to   

        block for punts—

  and when his friends crashed the truck in a ditch, he waited   

        for the cops

  and took the rap, nice kid, because he did the act of deliverance   

        one does

  in central New York and made the vows, pledged, testified,   

        and swore

  and participated in the sport greater than the coming of the dead,

  and escorted the exaggerated girl to the prom where he   

        was befuddled

  with organza and tulle and he did not forget the corsage, an orchid

  in a box he stared into: the white outer whorl and the inner whorl

  and pouted purple lip. He butterflied the pollen with the lashes   

        of his eyes.

  The flower was his terror. He was not meant to be the   

        indwelling beauty

  of things and surely he was not meant to be the wind in Iraq   

        with three others

  in his division and become the abstract shape of a god formed from a blood clot.

  I've seen the pictures, the vague shapes that ripple in the heat

  until I was terrified. It looked like he still moved. Remember fall

  in Delphi? All ardent and catastrophic and counter, elbows flailing,

  he ran in the flat places scraped from the gold hills and valleys.

Postworthy News

UPDATE! I was very politely asked by someone I'm almost certain didn't bother to send me a crank email to please take down the New GbV! and I said OK.


Also, I've been and am being unusually botted since Friday. Googlebots as always, but new, never seen before bots. A friend tells me it's probably good with a small but decent chance it's bad. Bad as in some asshole's trying to spam the site down? I asked. Well, yes, I suppose that too, she said. In any case, one of the not-googlebots is scrolling all your comments the past year! Yay you!

United 0, Kansas City 1

End of Charlie Davies in DC. I didn't think he was special before the accident, he's nothing special now. Also probably the end of Clyde Simms, who, after justly being criticized for not giving up his body versus Chicago when the game mattered, gave up his face in a game that meant nothing.

Excellent time. Deposits already down for next season. Five long months. Autopsy and obit maybe later this week, though it was probably yesterday.

It ends badly, this glass of wine, before you drink it you have to drink a prior glass, before you sip you gulp, before you chug the bottle you pour it down your throat, before we lie together naked, we divorce, before we rest we grow old, it ends in chaos, but it is delicious, when we wake it is the past, we are the faces staring from the high lit window, the unmet lovers, the rivals who do not exist, united in a radiance that will not fade at dawn

Hey! Do yourself a Kind and do Kind for others.

Hey! Did you know Washington DC has a professional soccer team?

It's true! and tonight is the last game until next Spring at RFK, and while I'll wait until next week to write this year's autopsy and obit (or not, or not at all), it will read sort of like this United autopsy and obit. It was a boatload less miserable than last season. I think they could have survived either Jakovic or Pontius' injuries to make the playoffs but not both (and been a dangerous team if neither had got hurt), and more good was gained this season than bad. Next year I want to see Boskovic in attacking mid playing off DeRossario in withdrawn with Pontius and Najar on the wings and anybody but Josh Wolff or Joseph Ngwenya or Charlie Davies up top.

As for Kasper Payne, he fell in the love with Nodax, which was stupid, but fell out of love and traded Nodax for DeRossario, which was smart. If fucking Stevie Nicol hadn't ordered Boskovic crippled in a USOC qualifier in Germantown that trade probably would never have been made. I went to England three months after United's season opener and got home four months ago today. Time is elastic, and sometimes it's enough that my team no longer has Nodax to consider the season successful.

• Also: The conference was illuminating and provocative, though there were parts that were challenging and even a bit dense. That is the nature of the beast. Unfortunately, too often the major questions on how to realize a radically new society resides with the intelligentsia, especially those in academia. In this, some work harder than others to make difficult stuff popular. That said to even try is commendable -- an expression of a certain commitment toward breaking through. In that respect a story Zizek -- the Slovenia philosopher who is among the most important thinkers around today -- told of how the Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawn once gave a talk to a group of workers. In a self-deprecating style he said, "I'm not hear to lecture, I'm here to learn from you." Zizek noted their response. "Fuck off, you are making fun of us -- you have the duty to tell us what you know!" There is a need for such intellectual work.
• OWS: The Commercial.
• Occupy and the poetry of now-time.
• What is communalism?
• Occupy the mortgage lenders.
• John McCain has a sad.
• Was going to comment on this, now I don't have to.
• It's so unfair. Say what you will about motherfucking Democrats holding up their end of my .06% less-shitty problem, the Republicans are having no problem honoring their end of my .06% less-shitty problem.
• That's no moon. 
• Liszt was born 200 years ago today.
• What you can buy me for Giftmas.
• Jack-O-Lantern.
• In the Whippoorwill's Sad Orchard.
• Hyacinth Girls.
• Azure Dome.
• Garden of Your Past.
• Too late! I just bought it. I've a fortune of worthless cassettes.
• You can buy me this for Giftmas, though.
• Though I woke up with this in my head:

THE RAIN-STREAKED AVENUES OF CENTRAL QUEENS

D. Nurkse

It ends badly, this glass of wine,

before you drink it

you have to drink a prior glass,

before you sip you gulp,

before you chug the bottle

you pour it down your throat,

before we lie together

naked, we divorce, before we rest

we grow old, it ends in chaos,

               but it is delicious,

when we wake it is the past,

we are the faces staring

from the high lit window,

the unmet lovers, the rivals

who do not exist,

united in a radiance

that will not fade at dawn.

On a Single Night Not Even Near to Freezing

Of course NPR will deny responsibility, whether they did it or not, but she didn't work for NPR, I said to L at Thursday Night Pints, she was a free-lancer at a sub-contractor, though the broader legal implication is that she was not legally bound to NPR's contractual gag-orders for employees, which means NPR employees are gagged, however selectively enforced. K asked, if she'd attended, organized, a Tea Party gathering, would you have wanted her fired? Mara Eliason attends Tea Party gatherings every Sunday morning on Fox, said L. What's fascinating, I said, is that for however much I'm convinced that Occupy is nothing I've no memory of any time since the last time until the next time Corporate seems genuinely concerned about what some off-script, temporarily uncontrolled people-gathering represents. Shit, said Dennis, if Mara Eliason was spokesperson at a Tea-Party I'd.... once... and walked off to get me and him a pint, K and L a ridiculously priced scotch.

• Today's music brought to you by Hamster, who Kindly reminds us that Charles Ives was born 137 years ago yesterday.
• More Lisa.
• More Lisa.
• Americans for greater inequality!
• Semi-random notes on Occupy.
• One fat reason I resist Occupy.
• The autocratic response.
• Young and old.
• Occupy and Tea Party unite?

• Obama's victory.
• Shockingly, motherfucking ambitious cracker lied.
• Cracker priorities.
• WalMart cutting employee benefits. I didn't know WalMart gave employee benefits. 
• This occurred to me too when thinking about the Twinbrook WalMart.
• The coming squirrel famine. 
• Twenty great archaic words. 
• For the last time until the next time, my favorite post ever.

THE CONSENT

Howard Nemerov

Late in November, on a single night

Not even near to freezing, the ginkgo trees

That stand along the walk drop all their leaves

In one consent, and neither to rain nor to wind

But as though to time alone: the golden and green

Leaves litter the lawn today, that yesterday

Had spread aloft their fluttering fans of light.

What signal from the stars? What senses took it in?

What in those wooden motives so decided

To strike their leaves, to down their leaves,

Rebellion or surrender? and if this

Can happen thus, what race shall be exempt?

What use to learn the lessons taught by time.

If a star at any time may tell us: Now.

Was He Free? Was He Happy? The Question is Absurd: Had Anything Been Wrong, We Should Certainly Have Heard

UPDATE! According to this, WDAV has decided not to fire Lisa.

Wasn't going to post again until tomorrow, but news that a friend of this blog, Lisa Simeone, has been fired from her NPR gig for participating in October 2011 merits immediate attention:

National Public Radio on Wednesday discovered that a woman named Lisa Simeone who produced hosted a show about opera called "World of Opera" had been participating in a nonviolent occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C., organized by October2011.org.  That same day, NPR persuaded a company for which Simeone worked to fire her, cutting her income in half and purging from the so-called public airwaves a voice that had never mentioned politics on NPR....

Simeone told me: "I find it puzzling that NPR objects to my exercising my rights as an American citizen -- the right to free speech, the right to peaceable assembly -- on my own time in my own life.  I'm not an NPR employee.  I'm a freelancer.  NPR doesn't pay me.  I'm also not a news reporter.  I don't cover politics.  I've never brought a whiff of my political activities into the work I've done for NPR World of Opera.  What is NPR afraid I'll do -- insert a seditious comment into a synopsis of Madame Butterfly? "This sudden concern with my political activities is also surprising in light of the fact that Mara Liaason reports on politics for NPR yet appears as a commentator on FoxTV, Scott Simon hosts an NPR news show yet writes political op-eds for national newspapers, Cokie Roberts reports on politics for NPR yet accepts large speaking fees from businesses.  Does NPR also send out 'Communications Alerts' about their activities?"

I need decide whether I need to digest this more than saying fuck NPR and fuck anyone who gives it another motherfucking penny, but in the meantime: Fuck NPR and anyone who gives it another motherfucking penny.

UPDATE! Lisa wasn't fired from NPR but from the company that produced her show. NPR probably asked/threatened that company to fire her, so the Fuck NPR and anyone who gives it another motherfucking penny stand.

• How the media will cover the Ohio zoo escape.
• Why Rush Limbaugh is freaking out over Occupy.
• Billion points of light.
• Hypocritical Iranians.
• On the above.
• Bailing out the complex.
• ICC!
• MOCO homophobia!
• New Radigue! Listen!
• Mercy now.
• Good intentions paving company.
• Via Richard, Throwing Muses and Gil Scott Heron.

THE UNKNOWN CITIZEN

W.H. Auden

He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be
One against whom there was no official complaint,
And all the reports on his conduct agree
That, in the modern sense of an old-fashioned word, he was a
   saint,
For in everything he did he served the Greater Community.
Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired,
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors Inc.
Yet he wasn't a scab or odd in his views,
For his Union reports that he paid his dues,
(Our report on his Union shows it was sound)
And our Social Psychology workers found
That he was popular with his mates and liked a drink.
The Press are convinced that he bought a paper every day
And that his reactions to advertisements were normal in every way.
Policies taken out in his name prove that he was fully insured,
And his Health-card shows he was once in hospital but left it cured.
Both Producers Research and High-Grade Living declare
He was fully sensible to the advantages of the Instalment Plan
And had everything necessary to the Modern Man,
A phonograph, a radio, a car and a frigidaire.
Our researchers into Public Opinion are content 
That he held the proper opinions for the time of year;
When there was peace, he was for peace:  when there was war, he went.
He was married and added five children to the population,
Which our Eugenist says was the right number for a parent of his
   generation.
And our teachers report that he never interfered with their
   education.
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard.

United 1, Portland 1

That's Charlie Davies, subbed out at 50, sitting by himself for the remainder of the game. Goodbye, Charlie, you whiny diving lazy poacher.

Here, here, here, and here. Last twenty minutes were fabulous, frustrating, and though the end result was just, how many handballs in the box have been waived off in the past four games? Also, Portland's road kit is gorgeous.

That's St Benny Olsen, walking off after coming over to Loud Side. He's much to learn still, though I don't know how much more anyone else could have got with what United had left standing at season's end.

Autopsy and obit next week.

The Theft and Vandalism Were Our Own

Divine was born sixty-six years ago today. There's a reason I give all praise and awe to Serendipity, Serendipity again providing the perfect trope for the particular day, plus I'm busy, burned-out, stuff to do before tonight's game - the ticket is still available (game is at 800, not 730, btw, and you must let me know by 200) - so for today just links, poem, music, and this:

• Walmart Derangement Syndrome. Look for updates and follow-ups. 
• Blogging is a system of control. You've no idea how much I repress the urge to bleggalgaze on a minute by minute basis. This second.
• Baby, we're all anarchists now.
• The strange success of Occupy.
• Noam Chomsky, anarchist, on the impossibility of anarchism.
• The guy in blue.
• The World's Second Shittiest Human is grateful for Occupy.
• The World's Second Shittiest Human is grateful for Occupy.
• On the above.
• The Roman rigor of Obama's death squads.
• Fight for the conch. 
• I'll bump plans with you, brother.  
• All right, two bits of bleggalgazing - both regarding additions to blegrells, logistical and regarding Kind, and.... fuck it. 
• Friday!
• Hey, I slept in Zanesville three nights three days ago! Coincidence? 
• Purple Line!
• Lit-links. 
• What makes a book great?
• New Mazzy Star in two weeks?
• Stone Roses reunite? 
• Why he doesn't hate Pink Floyd. My issue w/Floyd is you couldn't go to a party w/o hearing Dark Side of the Moon four times.
• The Kinks never worked for me, but if for you, have three hours.
• How about a Kristen Hersh live set?

A LOCKED HOUSE

W.D. Snodgrass

As we drove back, crossing the hill,

The house still

Hidden in the trees, I always thought—

A fool’s fear—that it might have caught   

Fire, someone could have broken in.   

As if things must have been

Too good here. Still, we always found   

It locked tight, safe and sound.

I mentioned that, once, as a joke;   

No doubt we spoke

Of the absurdity

To fear some dour god’s jealousy   

Of our good fortune. From the farm   

Next door, our neighbors saw no harm   

Came to the things we cared for here.   

What did we have to fear?

Maybe I should have thought: all

Such things rot, fall—

Barns, houses, furniture.

We two are stronger than we were

Apart; we’ve grown

Together. Everything we own

Can burn; we know what counts—some such   

Idea. We said as much.

We’d watched friends driven to betray;   

Felt that love drained away

Some self they need.

We’d said love, like a growth, can feed   

On hate we turn in and disguise;

We warned ourselves. That you might despise   

Me—hate all we both loved best—

None of us ever guessed.

The house still stands, locked, as it stood   

Untouched a good

Two years after you went.

Some things passed in the settlement;   

Some things slipped away. Enough’s left   

That I come back sometimes. The theft   

And vandalism were our own.

Maybe we should have known.

Less Mystical, More Mongrel

Hey, did you know Washington DC has a professional soccer team? It's true! and I've got an extra ticket (and might have a second) for Wednesday night's (10/19) game versus Portland at RFK at 730. If you want to come STAND! with me and this guy, send me an email and I can send you a pdf of the ticket. Getting to the stadium is up to you - ticket is free, though if you drive and park it'll cost you $15.

Also, this: Hey, Frederick, I found this Bruce Smith poem and sent you the pdf to your MCCS email (which may be as dead as that bleg). Click, yo:

Yes, I did change this post's title to the current more apt.

Also, this again:





Not only because it's my favorite post ever, I'm trying to stuff the ballot box.

They Smelled Better Than Sin, Better Than Decadent Capitalism

Buddy Jim gently scolds me in comments:

But...without the Abbie Hoffman's and Jerry Rubin's, you know what I mean? Attention whoring can be a positive, especially for these kids who are assembling only to be defined, used, dismissed as irrelevant. I'm a fan. I want them to stay put. I want more att'n whoring, more people to try to define them and what they want, more people to use them for their own cynical (or not) purposes (yes, you a-a-a-and Corporate, too!), more serious and important people to dismiss them. And, through it all and beyond it all, I want them to stay put... There was this thing back in these old Woolworth lunch counters in NC in the Sixties, sit-ins they called them. They, like Rosa Parks, just sat. This is Rosa's grandkids—and a buttload of them... And here we've been lamenting this generation's lack of commitment, lack of paying att'n to what's happening, lack of concern. That'll show us.

Goodbud Sasha scolds me harder!

I don't care if West or anybody else is a whore if they get the thing on the teevee because otherwise Murdoch gets to control the conversation. It can be George Clooney or Lady Gaga for all I care. Jim H. said it better. But this all has to be on the Twitter and iPhone and teevee or it will "fail." Also. Re "before I'm utterly convinced it will fail." What would failure or success look like? If it pushes Obama to the left, even a little it succeeds. Also BofA discovered a substantial sum of money that it had been cheating me out of last Friday (at my insistence). I think that is success.

I'm not Occupy neutral. I'm incapable of saying anything without self-irony, self-mockery, but I mean this as least snarkily as I'm able: I want to play. I need get on the bus into or out of Occupy soon, get on or off before it's crosses that Walmart bandwagon/martyr endcap of participation. I'm going downtown this Sunday if plans hold to see what October 2011 is doing that day, to see what it feels like, see if it stirs, to see what it feels like to have my photo taken by government agents, see if it stirs. We're never putting another dollar on our Bank of America credit card, gonna pay it off, use a card from the teachers' credit union, rebellion, motherfuckers. I'm remembering that being complicit in somethings doesn't make me a thorough hypocrite if I'm not complicit in all things, or rather, personally being .06% less of a tool makes me .06% less of a tool, and that's a modest enough goal I need to learn how to not feel I'm a fool in trying to obtain.

• Occupy is too big to fail?
• Occupy is the most significant radical movement since the 60s?
• The most important political happening since 1968?
• What are they angry about?
• The World's Second Shittiest Human says you're anti-Semitic. 
• Anne Applebaum, more stupid than mendacious, more mendacious than stupid?
• Pitying billionaires.
• The 53% backlash.
• Going apeshit.
• The $600 trillion time bomb.
• Eternal politics of debt and forgiveness.
• Why non-violence?
• The Ron Paul media blackout. (h/t)
• A frothy mix of fecal matter and lube is a whiny little prick.
• Speaking of WalMart: my future hell, or: because there aren't enough cars on Rockville Pike already.
• All our questions are posed as answers.
• Silliman's always generous lit-links.
• Tom Waits has never worked for me, but if for you (and he has for many people whose musical tastes I admire), here, stream his new one.
• Sonic Youth's musical love story. Marriages are mysterious: it's not my place to be sad. I'm sad.
• This has been the only song in my head for the past five days, I can't make it stop, it's a good thing, it's Theme Song October 2011:

LAUNDRY

Bruce Smith

Not even the cops who can do anything could do this—

work on Sunday picking up dirty and delivering clean

laundry in Philadelphia. Rambling with my father, get this,

in a truck that wasn’t even our own,

part ambulance, part bullet, there wasn’t anything

we couldn’t do. Sheets of stigmata, macula of love,

vomit and shit and the stains of pissing

another week’s salary away, we picked up and drove

to the stick men in shirt sleeves, the thin

Bolshevik Jews who laughed out the sheets like the empty

speech in cartoons. They smelled better than sin,

better than decadent capitalism. And oh, we

could deliver, couldn’t we, the lawless bags through the city

that said in his yawn, get money, get money, get money.

Knelt Before the Philco to Coax the Detonation from the Static

The highlight of trip to visit Planet in Bamgier was a four hour car ride we took Saturday afternoon. I drove on roads I've never driven, Planet got away from from a loved but isolated campus for a few hours, Earthgirl shot photos for potential paintings, we talked a lot. From Bamgier we took Ohio 229 east to US 36 east through Nellie and Warsaw for forty miles through the beautiful Walhonding River valley until it reaches Cochocton. Here's the Walhonding River watershed:

I'm still thinking about the drive, I actually wrote out the entire thing but will spare you and me the bother, but this: we oohed and aahed the physical beauty of rural east-central Ohio, but then we drove into Coschoton, we drove into Newark, me and Earthgirl stayed, ate and drove through Zanesville, and what percentage of those still living in these dilapidated and deteriorating and abandoned by Corporate's inexorable hunger cities sympathize with Occupy much less doesn't loathe Occupy?

And my apologies, after reflecting, I won't post the dinner stories as promised last post, too bad, there are two good angles, if you ask me in person I'll tell you them both. Meanwhile, from the soundtrack of the trip:

• A different tribute to MLK.
• West arrested. This is one of the stumbling blocks to my embracing Occupy - when someone famous (as much as Cornel West is famous) makes an appearance, my default assumption is s/he's celebrity whoring.
• The Nixonification of Occupy.
• Addressing racism, oppression, and privilege in Occupy. 
• Listening to Zuccotti Park.
• Strategies for the anticapitalist tradition.
• Occupy Columbus.
• Thank you sir, may I have another?
• Drones.
• Panopticon.
• Panopticon.
• Libera nos a malo.
• Yes, I did drop comments on Planet's video post, the first time I've ever closed comments. Whoever it was, die painfully, with or without my help.
• Whatever happened to modernism, continued.
• Dogechism!
• Bleggalgazing!
• The distinction between depression and melancholia.
• Earthgirl read this on the trip and loved it (and loved the kindle).
• Reading something significant.
• Hejinian.
• The Future.
• Darkblack's Sunday Overnight.

THE PLANET KRYPTON

Lynn Emanuel

Outside the window the McGill smelter

sent a red dust down on the smoking yards of copper,   

on the railroad tracks’ frayed ends disappeared   

into the congestion of the afternoon. Ely lay dull

and scuffed: a miner’s boot toe worn away and dim,   

while my mother knelt before the Philco to coax   

the detonation from the static. From the Las Vegas   

Tonapah Artillery and Gunnery Range the sound

of the atom bomb came biting like a swarm

of bees. We sat in the hot Nevada dark, delighted,   

when the switch was tripped and the bomb hoisted   

up its silky, hooded, glittering, uncoiling length;

it hissed and spit, it sizzled like a poker in a toddy.   

The bomb was no mind and all body; it sent a fire

of static down the spine. In the dark it glowed like the coils   

of an electric stove. It stripped every leaf from every

branch until a willow by a creek was a bouquet   

of switches resinous, naked, flexible, and fine.   

Bathed in the light of KDWN, Las Vegas,

my crouched mother looked radioactive, swampy,

glaucous, like something from the Planet Krypton.   

In the suave, brilliant wattage of the bomb, we were

not poor. In the atom’s fizz and pop we heard possibility   

uncorked. Taffeta wraps whispered on davenports.

A new planet bloomed above us; in its light

the stumps of cut pine gleamed like dinner plates.

The world was beginning all over again, fresh and hot;   

we could have anything we wanted.

Planet Actress

Driving home from Bamgier today, lots here tomorrow, including a story about my daughter, the actor playing opposite her in that short film and a dinner Friday night (or not), the trip to Bamgier (the drive around Ohio yesterday, more photos, being pulled over by Knox County sheriffs, more), plus the stuff I confront and/or don't and/or don't don't and/or don't don't don't here on a relentless daily basis.

United 1, Chicago 2

Wasn't there, didn't see in live on PC, was in Bamgier when game started, was driving to Zanesville (later than planned after being pulled over and given a warning for speeding by Knox County sheriffs) when game ended, just watched the highlights at seven this morning, and yes, the winning goal was offsides, and GOOD! the motherfuckers deserved it. Here's DeRossario calling out Clyde Simms on the tying goal:

“This has been our season in a nutshell, right? Giving up bad goals at bad times. I just would like to have seen someone take [Grazzini’s shot] in the face or the body instead of jumping and turning their back on top of the box, especially 90 minutes we’re up, the momentum, the fans on our side. You take it for your team. … It’s just too easy. We can’t keep doing that to ourselves. We’re too good of a team. We can’t keep depending on scoring and getting scored on and then trying to score again. It just doesn’t work that way. Guys should be learning, but it’s frustrating because every game it’s the same tale.”

Guys should be learning? Simms is 65 in soccer years, learning? And do watch that first goal again. Take it in the nuts if you have to, motherfucker. Here's hoping Montreal takes Simms in the expansion draft (though I can't come up with eleven players on yesterday's roster worth protecting, can you?)

Here's Charlie Davies:

“I’m physically fine. I can only do so much with the time I have. I’m a guy that expects to play 90 minutes. I’m fit. I’m healthy. It’s disappointing when you want to get the playing time to help the team win, and you only get 20, 15 minutes. I’ve done all I can do. I come in and bring energy to the game, change the game. I thought I did a good job. But I’m not getting a lot of time to go out there and really help the team.”

That's cause you suck, you diving no talent poacher.

Reasonable expectations for the season met and yadda. I'll be there this Wednesday, I'll be there next Saturday, I'll be there next March. Obituary for this season week after next.

I Stood There with the Maps in My Hand

Wonderful day - Bamgier is monastic, singularly beautiful, and Planet is happy - so wonderful that while I don't intentionally drive more readers away with my self-indulgence I'm reminded how costless it is to say fuck it and publish the self-indulgence, how crushing it is to not publish the self-indulgence for fear of a false loss of self-ratification through the withdrawn pinged approval of others.

A friend tells me I've been composing off-key of late, I say I've been writing in minor keys, scoring with B-sharps and F-flats, though I admit that while I still feel full Cassandra and complete fool, my weathervane's pivot has frozen and my canary's gone missing (or the pivot is working and the canary on my shoulder chirps but I don't hear). Perhaps we're both right, though she more so. It's fun as only self-indulgence styled as necessary divining for self can be.

• Via Planet via one of her professors: Cell Phone Numbers Go Public this month. REMINDER..... all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sales calls. .... YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: 888-382-1222. It is the National DO NOT CALL list It will only take a minute of your time.. It blocks your number for five (5) years. You must call all from the cell phone number you want to have blocked. You cannot call from a different phone number. HELP OTHERS BY PASSING THIS ON .. It takes about 20 seconds.
• Late capitalism and its discontents. 
• Some thoughts and concerns on Occupy. (h/t)
• Charts.
• Bodies in alliance and the politics of the street.
• Of course they are.
• You just wait!
• Occupy needs corporate sponsors!
• Picking on Noam Chomsky.
• WTF? Please, speculate wildly and irresponsibly on Obama's motive.
• Hmm, this? (Or what it symbolizes, the pussy.)
• Fucker: President Obama and his team have decided to turn public anger at Wall Street into a central tenet of their reelection strategy.
• A Gary Williams fist pump!
• Did you know Washington DC has a professional soccer team? It's true, and they have a home game tonight I'll miss for honorable reasons.
• Animaniacs confront Ahab!
• Damn. At least for me. Maybe not for them.

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.