Three Posts Written a Year Ago Today and Tomorrow Copy/Pasted into This Post

RIP, Captain Beefheart.

1/15/41 - 12/17/10
UPDATE 12/17/11: Zen Dave remembers too.

I'll post more over the weekend. No eulogy from me, I promise.

UPDATE! Another song.

UPDATE!

Please read and listen to this.


That's 1   here's   2





Another broken promise: here's my eulogy -

Whatever truths, myths, fables, lies about Beefheart's and Zappa's relationship - and I like Zappa, but I love Beefheart - in my cosmology they are bound, and it's apt that Beefheart died during Zappadan.

I love Beefheart, but I love love love Pere Ubu and all the other sounds that wouldn't exist if not for Don Van Vliet. No Beefheart, no Pere Ubu. I can't imagine.

And the uncanniness of serendipity - just as I'm falling in love again with Stanley Elkin, finishing up The Franchiser, the first novel in which he introduces his own battle with multiple sclerosis, Van Vliet's death from MS and the chance to fall in love again again.

• Goodbye, Captain.
• Captain Beefheart's innocent soul.
• Top 14 reasons why Captain Beefheart was a true American genius.
• Early performance.
• Rolling Stone obit.

3


I sent this email request yesterday morning (subject line = Beefheart) to the AM DJ of the station I listen to:

Get you to play a song or two? He's grandpa to at least half the bands you play.

All best.

No Beefheart, no return email.

Sent this email to midday host of the station I listen to:

Hi Chxryl, can I get you to play some Beefheart please, how about "Sue Egypt" off *Doc at the Radio Station* please and thanks.

I must confess, I'm shocked at how little air love Beefheart has got at KxXP. From what I can tell from looking at the playlists since the news of Beefheart's death there has been one song played (on Cole's show Friday).

I realize I'm older (by far) than many of the DJs there who may never have heard or heard of Beefheart, but half the bands and solo acts you all play are descended by some greater or lesser degree to Beefheart. Anyway, I dig the man and his music.

All best. Have a great holiday.

No song. No return email.

First, Sue Egypt:

I don't care they didn't play Beefheart - I'm old, they're young; they may know the name but not the music and don't feel comfortable playing something they've never heard; they may know the music and not like it; they may have had their sets planned out and couldn't find a good seque; whatever: I've never expected all my requests to be played; it's their show. Still, I've been listening to and interacting with and giving money to this station for a decade, these djs aren't friends by any means but they know that I'm a loyal listener. Acknowledge the motherfucking email.

I thought about bitching in a post then decided no, don't be petty, when into my mailbox came (I swear to St Benny of Olsen and will forward the time-stamped email to you if so requested):

’Tis the season. I watched A Christmas Carol with George C. Scott playing Scrooge as though it was the first time I’d heard the story, and thought, “Now there’s a great message, I’ve got to remember that!” (That guy can act!) So, now my heart is bursting with good cheer and thankfulness.

I’m thankful for KxXP listeners like Jenneviere from San Francisco, who recently wrote this to John Richards: “You routinely surprise me by seemingly reading my emotional landscape and playing music that is a direct reflection of how I'm feeling on any particular day… Without ever having met me, you, day after day, mix the soundtrack of my life, and have moved me to laugh, to cry, to dance, to sing...  I am most sincerely grateful.”

KxXP’s staff and volunteers work tirelessly to bring you these incredible music experiences. No matter where or how you listen, please support the music community that brightens your day and brings you hours of inspiration and enjoyment.

Why is it important to donate now?

Angriest year of my life. Every day a renewed apostasy, every day a replayed apostasy. I'm dumber today than yesterday. I can't see anything but angrier ahead.
   

• Police state.
• Now that you can, don't.
• The privilege cringe.
• Bloody trophies.
• Attention deficit disorder. 
• The Assange accusations.
• 2010 moments of pure crazy, part one.
• Robert Reich's obamapostasy is tepid.
• UPDATE! Financial Times urges Corporate to tell Americans to Sit the Fuck Down and Shut the Fuck Up! 
• UPDATE! Not a bug, a feature.
• Substitute Republicans for Celtic and Democrats for Rangers and understand why no one asks me how I separate politics and soccer.
• An apostasy.
• Kensington!
• UPDATE! SNAP! Earlier this month five Columbia University students were charged with allegedly dealing drugs like LSD, coke and pot out of their fraternity houses and dorm rooms. Police called the investigation and bust "Operation Ivy League." In October, a Georgetown University student and one of his high school friends were charged with allegedly operating a DMT lab in a freshman dorm. Although Georgetown is not an Ivy, the news surprised students at the prestigious D.C. college and made national headlines. (Emphasis for my giggles.)
• Under Armor wants Maryland to be what Oregon is to Nike.
• UPDATE! When Ralph Friedgen had a drink w/Gary Williams: He told me another story about a time he felt basketball coach Gary Williams tried to embarrass him in a talk he gave in front of some prominent boosters. One of Friedgen's graduate assistants had recently been arrested for DWI, and Friedgen, even though he liked the coach, decided he had no choice but to fire him. When Williams made it a point to mention to boosters than none of his staff had been in trouble, Friedgen read it as a direct shot at him. Later, Friedgen said he and Williams had a drink together, and the football coach leaned in and told the basketball coach if he ever did something like that again, they'd have to go out back and settle it like men. Williams simply nodded. As far as I know, they got along fine after that.
• NEW PJ HARVEY!
• Birthday playlist.
• UPDATE! Cloudburting cover! (by a 21 year old!). 
• UPDATE! KATE BUSH!
• UPDATE! NEW MOGWAI!
• Skyway.

CALL ME ISHMAEL

Jackson Mac Low

Circulation. And long long
Mind every
Interest Some how mind and every long

Coffin about little little
Money especially
I shore, having money about especially little

Cato a little little
Me extreme
I sail have me an extreme little

Cherish and left, left, 
Myself extremest
It see hypos myself and extremest left,

City a land. Land. 
Mouth; east,
Is spleen, hand mouth; an east, land.

All the Seats Were Occupied

Today's draw. You realize that whoever wins the Barcafuckers/Realfuckers match, whether in knockout or in finals, will win, yes? While I rarely root for Italian clubs - normally I'd root for anybody but motherfucking Madrid to beat any Italian club - imagine the existential aargh of the English football fan if Chelsea and Arsenal crash out in round of 16. Go Napoli, Milan.

Also, I just remembered I had promised a dear friend I'd post this sonata for Beethoven's birthday today, one, two, three, I can't hear the opening bars of the second movement without hearing Karl Haas say "Hello everyone." 

Also, one, two, three perspectives while they're fresh on Hitchens, who I read when he was crucifying Kissinger but not so much lately and whose death seems to signify to many some kind of watershed moment. Also, here's a friend's post from 2008 on Hitchens.

Also, heard this on Bryce's show today and had an excellent flashback:

Like Wrestling Statues; But It Still Goes on Inside My Head

Besides a couple of Mats albums on the drive to and back, lots of the above band and lots of the guy guesting with the above band in the vid below. Here's some of what I missed during my news/blog blackout, here's some of what I haven't missed but don't have the fuck today to go beyond this gimmick to comment on because (a) I'm in a good mood where it counts but (b) in a vile mood where it counts and pays for my mortgage and (c) in a vile mood in three worlds that don't matter at all, or rather do but shouldn't, which makes (d) my discovery that blooger now has a link opens in new window option I just noticed (and will use from now on) a cause for slight elevation of my vile moods though not enough to go back and add to the links posted below before I discovered the new option:

This and this and this and this and this and this and credit Ben discredit Babs and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and this and a reminder that a link is not necessarily an endorsement of the provocative element of any particular link I post because I think you might find interesting from your own pro or con perspective. Geez.





THE BED

Thom Gunn

     The pulsing stops where time has been,
         The garden is snow-bound
The branches weighed down and the paths filled in,
             Drifts quilt the ground.

      We lie soft-caught, still now it's done,
           Loose-twined across the bed
Like wrestling statues; but it still goes on
               Inside my head.

I'm in Love, What's That Song?

Safe trip, Planet's home, always 70 to 68 to 79 to 70 to Bamgier, 70 to 79 to 68 to 70 back from now on. Bamgier is beautiful. Dinner last night with Planet and three friends, charming, sweet. Listened to CDs the entire way, listened to no news on the radio, watched no TV in the hotel room, checked my email briefly last night, no sites, not you, sorry, imposed a news blackout the entire trip start to finish, get into Earthgirl's car after driving the rental back twenty minutes ago, her radio was tuned to WTOP, Breaking News! Countdown to the Shutdown! here's analysis by motherfucking Plot Markkin, quick, here's one of the songs from the trip:

You Could Walk the Rest of the Day into the Picture and Not Know Why, at Any Given Moment, You're There

A week ago today, it feels a year ago, I occupied 15th and K for two hours (but left before the arrests started), today I'm driving to Bamgier Ohio to pick up Planet from her elite college to bring her home for Giftmas Break. _____ _ _________, _ _____ ____ - *!____!* - _______ _______ __ __ ________. ____ __  .__ %. + __ -  ___ _ ___ ______. ____, ____________ ________. ____ __ ___ ____, ___, ____ ___ ____ ___ ____. O! and lots of Stephen Merritt projects as promised!

• I wish I had an evil twin.
• More about sedation than provocation.
• Lovers from the moon.
• Is Occupy reaching take-off?
• Two characters in search of a country song.
• Rocky Anderson? Rocky Anderson doesn't seem to have a website. Fail.
• The flowers she sent and the flowers she said she sent.
• Ruth Marcus and Clench Wills, hell, the whole fucking inbred-Villager lot of Fuckface Hiatt's editorial page hate Newt Gingrich. Golly! (Sorry, but you find a Golly.)
• A thousand lovers. 
• Michael Savage hates Newt Gingrich. Savage's cynicism is purer.
• The world is a disco ball. 
• Dick Cheney and Smirk Guiliani, however, love Newt.
• Alien being. 
• Still Dick.
• When you're old and lonely.
• Conceived, designed and manufactured with you in mind.
• Lonely days.
• Obama's good for this business.
• Old fools.
• Awesome architecture.
• Sun goes down and the world goes dancing.
• The future at the end of the economy.
• you you you you.
• Carnival versus capital. Time to revisit Bakhtin.
• Dada polka.
• Canonical nationalism.
• Sailor in love with the sea. Yes, that's Gary Numan.
• Beckett, for those of you who do and/or will.
• Merritt covers Gabriel.
• Live (recent) Cure. Fuck I'm old, four months older than Robert Smith.
• Dress up in dreams. Yes, that's Mary Timony.
• Something for Randal.
• Falling out of love with you. Yes, that's Dean Wareham.

OFF A SIDE ROAD NEAR STAUNTON

Stanley Plumly

Some nothing afternoon, no one anywhere,

an early autumn stillness in the air,

the kind of empty day you fill by taking in

the full size of the valley and its layers leading

slowly to the Blue Ridge, the quality of country,

if you stand here long enough, you could stay

for, step into, the way a landscape, even on a wall,

pulls you in, one field at a time, pasture and fall

meadow, high above the harvest, perfect

to the tree line, then spirit clouds and intermittent

sunlit smoky rain riding the tops of the mountains,

though you could walk until it’s dark and not reach those rains—

you could walk the rest of the day into the picture

and not know why, at any given moment, you’re there.

Cause I've Got a Sense of Perfection and Nothing Makes Much Sense at All

Excellent news!

The Magnetic Fields will be releasing a new album, "Love at the Bottom of the Sea", on March 6, 2012, on Merge Records in North America, and Domino Records overseas. The band's tenth full-length album is their first release of new material with Merge since 1999's highly acclaimed "69 Love Songs". The band will celebrate their new album with tours through North America and Europe. Please visit the calendar for full ticket purchasing information.

April 9, 2012 - 930 Club, who's in? Hamster, I'm looking at you.

After putting out their "synth-free trilogy," The Magnetic Fields are returning to their signature mix of synth and acoustic sounds. Merritt notes about the new album that "instead of using a synthesizer as a melodic instrument, much of the time I used it as a compositional destructive mechanism, something eating away at the apparent order of my perfectionist arrangements. I was very happy to be using synthesizers in ways that I had not done before. Most of the synthesizers on the record didn't exist when we were last using synthesizers."

All Merritt's bands - The 6ths, Gothic Archies, Future Bible Heroes, and especially Magnetic Fields - are in the short rotation for one of the two remaining spots in my Sillyass Desert Island Five game. Think you'll hear some of each in the next post?

Midwinter Murder Is in My Heart as I Stand There on the Curb in My Opera Pumps

• Yes, this is at least the third time that's been Theme Song of the Month. 
• Panopticon and police states.
• On the above.
• Police state.
• Police state. And find the Jeff Perkin mentioned and punch the motherfucker in the face.
• Occupy theory, Occupy strategy.
• Rape and the Occupy movement.
• For and against precarity.
• The anti-Occupy/CIA connection.
• Morons or sellouts? Death to the either/or.
• Deliver Occupy from its friends.
• No labels and the emerging oligarchy.
• Imperialism through the looking glass.
• Those being eaten by America. 
• Newt Gingrich and the invention of politics. 
• Pastor Sanctimonious and She Who Is as Shitty really hate Gingrich.
• Occupy's free-speech appeal.
• Fight fair, dammit.
• @BLCKDGRD if you want.
• Bring the Sentinel home.
• Resisting the siren song.
• Siren songs.
• Yes, the urge to blurt I can't control though all I got is repetition and reiteration. Should we collaterally inconvenience the second 9% in hopes they'll join us in revolution? Don't answer, listen! Anyway, this is a very old and never-to-be resolved question like all the other very old and never-to-be resolved questions, arf?
• and he named them as he passed them....
• Happy as a dog's tail.
• Changing of the guard. Burch scores on a free kick v United at Germantown in Cup match. Bet.
• Internalization of the crisis.
• Silliman's always generous lit-links.
• Hilary Mantel meets her father-in-law. She's writing the follow-up to Wolf Hall which is either great or awful. Death to the either/or.
• One, two, three, four.
• Three hours of sublime. Especially the first set. Holyfuck.
• The finest drops.
• Exceptionally good news.

MIDWINTER

Frederick Seidel

Midwinter murder is in my heart
As I stand there on the curb in my opera pumps,
Waiting for the car to come and the opera to start,
Amid the Broadway homeless frozen clumps.

Patent leather makes my shoes
Easter eggs by Fabergé.
The shoes say New York is still run by the Jews,
Who glitter when they walk, and aren’t going away.

The morning after the Mozart, when I take my morning stroll, I feel
Removed all over again from the freezing suffering I see.
Someone has designed a beautiful, fully automatic, stainless steel,
Recoilless assault shotgun down in Tennessee.

The dogs tied up outside the Broadway stores
In the cold look with such touching expectancy inside.
A dog needs to adore. A dog adores.
A dog waiting for an owner is hot with identity and pride.

Well I Don't Know What It Is but There's Definitely Something Going on Upstairs

That's this shitty blog's official Bleggalgazing Anthem, played today (beyond blogwhoring) because news that Grinderman is breaking up:

Nick Cave has ended Grinderman's latest tour by announcing that the band is "over". The group played their final show on Saturday night, at the Meredith music festival in Victoria, Australia. For their last gig, the hirsute quartet played to 12,000 people at the outdoor festival, gnashing and snarling through their headlining set. But then at the end came the news: "That's it for Grinderman," Cave growled, according to the Vine. "It's over … See you all in another 10 years when we'll be even older and uglier."

There is good news:

Cave's next project is thought to be the Bad Seeds' 15th studio album, the follow-up to 2007's Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! "We're quite excited about [it]," said Jim Sclavunos, drummer for the Bad Seeds and Grinderman, in a January interview. "This'll be the first time the Bad Seeds exist as a wholly different band than they were when they started. Nick's the only remaining person from the original lineup." Bad Seeds co-founder Mick Harvey left the group in 2009.

become song—simple, hard: removed

I like this past weekend's posts (and especially the Ammons' poem that gives this post its title): they make me smile, I want to keep them at least one more day above the scroll, above the blegyard, not buried on page two-through-forgotten as if they never existed, but death! to the either/or, I am mailing it in today too. I can't vouch for the rest of week either (though I've a half-finished post and a bunch of links for later today or tomorrow): Wednesday we're *(YAY!)* driving to Bamgier and taking Planet and friends out to dinner, Thursday we're *(YAY!)* driving Planet home, so I'm busy before, during, after, but death! to the either/or, I might mail it in then too, though thinking of it as a loser-leaves-town match between tiresome yodel-strain and tedious echo-sprain makes me smile. That's right: death! to the either/or.

103 Today

• Yes, he's still alive.
• String Quartet #1 one, two, three , four.
• Hamster, anyone, requests?

It’s One Song, an Over-Reach from Which All Possibilities, Like Filaments, Depend

Your mission for the day, from The Guardian's live-blogging the Barca-Madrid game:

25 min: Benzema, to the left of the area, is being shepherded away from goal, but suddenly sends a cracking reverse pass back inside to Ronaldo, who with only Valdes to beat, shanks a hellish effort miles wide right. That should have been a second goal, especially as Di Maria was also unmarked, and in an even better position, just to his right. Ronaldo does a lot of shouting, using the Portuguese words for EFF and CEE.

EFF and CEE? Here, have three more sentences of good:

29 min: Dani Alves cries murder after Marcelo clatters into him. The referee sighs wearily. There's an edge now.

• Holyfuck.
• Current Standings: I'd root for Barca to beat England's traditional big four (and City if City didn't have Why Always Me), any Italian side (though I love Fiorentina's violet), and Madrid; there's no team on the planet I'd root for Madrid to beat.
• Mailing it in again? What's this pen's significance? I don't know! 
• Irony alert.
• Graeber interview.
• Why Occupy?
• OMFG!
• The initial thought was to comment on how any profile piece on a Republican wannabe-POTUS in the NYT or YFWP will infuriate predictable people (once and hopefully now much less reflexively me) if it isn't a savaging and it's never been a savaging and will never be a savaging, but what caught my attention is this sentence: “I don’t think George ever forgot that,” said Walter DeVries, a longtime friend and colleague, all praise to Serendipity, yesterday morning before seeing the linked article I was looking for something else, and I found Peter De Vries' Slouching to Kalamazoo, and thought, I haven't thought about Peter De Vries in at least a decade. I think of Thomas Berger when I think of De Vries, though I think of Thomas Berger all the time.
• The dematerialization of the art object.
• Reality B.
• Copland and the Republicans.
• Obscure Sound's AWESOME Top 50 with lots of glorious sound. I LOVE Destroyer, I have every Destroyer album, I didn't even know about this one, I don't have enough ears, eyes, how the fuck did this happen?
• Holyfuck.
• Best Bryan Ferry homage ever:

GLASS

A.R. Ammons

The song

sparrow puts all his

saying

into one

repeated song:

what

variations, subtleties

he manages,

to encompass denser

meanings, I’m

too coarse

to catch: it’s

one song, an over-reach

from which

all possibilities,

like filaments,

depend:

killing,

nesting, dying,

sun or cloud,

figure up

and become

song—simple, hard:

removed.

Moon-Fingers Lay Down Their Same Routine on the Side Deck and the Threshold, the White Keys and the Black Keys

• Olivier Messiaen was born 103 years ago today.
• Some minor bleggling, more Messiaen, poem, but mailing it in today.

• Chelsea have confirmed that Andre Villas-Boras has asked his players to involve him in goal celebrations. The Portuguese manager made the request at a recent team meeting and a Chelsea spokesman told the Sun: "The manager has asked the players to look across and recognise him and his staff on the bench after a goal. "He believes that by celebrating together it shows we are all in it together. That's the players, the manager, the subs, the staff, the medical people – everyone working and celebrating together."
• I played caption contest comment at a blog - I didn't leave a link back here, I know better to blogwhore where I am not worthy, as soon as I impulsively typed the allusion and pushed plunge I wish I hadn't - I made somebody smad, a reminder that just because I flash to a Gilbert Gottfried set piece twenty years ago on some midnight Saturday cable show of mocking shitty movies doesn't mean everybody else does.
• @BLCKDGRD if you want, if you want me to @You let me know.
• I need bleat 1Q84 can fuck me any way any time. Little People just marched out of the mouth of a sleeping ten year old damaged girl, there's a new second moon, and I read and don't think about Digitalstan for whole minutes at a time. All weekend, I hope.
• Cantique Divan.
• Vision de l'Amer one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Holyfuck.

CLEAR NIGHT

Charles Wright

Clear night, thumb-top of a moon, a back-lit sky.

Moon-fingers lay down their same routine

On the side deck and the threshold, the white keys and the black keys.

Bird hush and bird song. A cassia flower falls.

I want to be bruised by God.

I want to be strung up in a strong light and singled out.

I want to be stretched, like music wrung from a dropped seed.   

I want to be entered and picked clean.

And the wind says “What?” to me.

And the castor beans, with their little earrings of death, say “What?” to me.

And the stars start out on their cold slide through the dark.   

And the gears notch and the engines wheel.

I Invoked the White Robes, Gleaming Blades Ready for Blood, and, Feeling the Scourge of Increase and Multiply, Made Affirmation: *Yes,* Deliver Us from Complicity

I understand the thinking of friends who think pissing off a potentially sympathetic demographic by making their commute a horrific two hours of inconvenient hell is a fatal strategic mistake, and maybe possibly probably true, which to me is the reason to fucking inconvenience them. I understand the thinking of friends who think aligning in any manner with coopting motherfuckers for the sake of better air-time in exchange for a diluted at best, serving the Master at worse message is a fatal strategic mistake, and maybe possibly probably true (and I watched some of those Union fucks in their yellow vests look at Occupiers with policeman stares), but, for the sake of the argument, one million people in DC the week after New Year during POTUS12 agitating about whinyass Jamie Dimon's salary is a bad thing?

Not that there will be one-hundredth of a million people. Fuck, that's all the gah I've got for yodeling the cud today. Here's an anti-Occupy K St, here's a pro-Occupy K St, needless to say I understand and completely agree while disagreeing with each. Here's an oldie, Fleabus as Metaphor:

• Useless inventions.
• Occupy the Police State.
• Police state.
• Austerity and blood baths.
• Occupy Philadelphia.
• Gitmo forever.
• The face of the killer who is your president.
• Krugman will never have an obamapostasy.
• A frothy mix of fecal matter and lube sums up crackerism.
• He is still The World's Shittiest Human.
• Varieties of political correctness.
• Art as propaganda.
• Albums liked, with sound, for both those worthy and unworthy.
• Way of the sun.
• Honey and the moon.
• Morning star.
• Woke up with these in my head:

VASECTOMY

Philip Appleman

After the steaming bodies swept

through the hungry streets of swollen cities;   

after the vast pink spawning of family   

poisoned the rivers and ravaged the prairies;   

after the gamble of latex and

diaphragms and pills;

I invoked the white robes, gleaming blades   

ready for blood, and, feeling the scourge   

of Increase and Multiply, made

affirmation: Yes, deliver us from

complicity.

And after the precision of scalpels,

I woke to a landscape of sunshine where   

the catbird mates for life and

maps trace out no alibis—stepped   

into a morning of naked truth,

where acts mean what they really are:   

the purity of loving

for the sake of love.

That Heavy Bear That Sleeps with me Howls in His Sleep for a World of Sugar

More. See you there.

UPDATE! I've been asked by a blogbud and asked by a total stranger to not hump Occupy Congress. Yes, I understand the objections. As with everything Occupy, I'm capable of seeing all points of view while being unable to articulate mine. My lame solution to this particular problem is to reduce but not eliminate Occupy Congress' logo. As always, fine ham abounds.

Also, here's a friend's report from yesterday's Occupy K Street - he can be seen in one of the vids, see if you can see him! 

A guy shared his umbrella with me at the bus stop after seeing the Occupy DC pin on my backpack, the same kind he wore on his jacket.  Were you just blocking K Street? he asked.  Yeah, I said.  Were you?  Yeah, he said.  We waited in the rain for another half hour, the S2 nowhere in sight.  This is totally our own fault, isn't it? he said.  We shot ourselves in the foot, I said.
 
The bus finally came.  During the ride my new comrade told me he was a grad student at the university where I work.  We talked about the student body's lack of engagement with the Occupy movement, which, for such an elite-ass institution, didn't surprise either of us.  More upsetting, he told me, was what he perceived to be the McPherson occupiers' and their allies' uncritical celebration of any action approved by the DC GA, regardless of the resulting collateral damage.  What do you think? he asked me.  I said I think it's important to reclaim public space, visibly express anger, mess with cops, disrupt certain kinds of business and events.  But it can get dicey, I said, when those actions start to fuck with ordinary people's commutes.  You don't want to piss off the people you ostensibly support, he said.  Right, I said.

Such an obvious point, but it was enough for him to tell me, God, I wish more people who were engaged with Occupy were as critical of it as you.  I shrugged and thought, Really?  Because assholes like us only participate when it's convenient.  Then nothing would get done.  Anyway, I've witnessed enough discord amongst the protesters to suggest that there's at least some self-reflection going on.

We talked shit until his stop came.  All around us were working folks, mostly people of color, drenched and shivering, wishing that the two garrulous fucks in the aisle would shut the hell up already.  My bike helmet, strapped to my backpack, kept hitting seated riders in the face every time I maneuvered for more space.  Sorry, I said.  But they were already sick of hearing my voice.

Also, I just got out of a meeting from hell.





OH! Delmore Schwartz was born 99 years ago today!


THE HEAVY BEAR THAT GOES WITH ME

Delmore Schwartz

The heavy bear who goes with me,   
A manifold honey to smear his face,   
Clumsy and lumbering here and there,   
The central ton of every place,   
The hungry beating brutish one   
In love with candy, anger, and sleep,   
Crazy factotum, disheveling all,   
Climbs the building, kicks the football,   
Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.

Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,   
That heavy bear who sleeps with me,   
Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,   
A sweetness intimate as the water's clasp,   
Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope   
Trembles and shows the darkness beneath.   
—The strutting show-off is terrified,   
Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,   
Trembles to think that his quivering meat   
Must finally wince to nothing at all.

That inescapable animal walks with me,
Has followed me since the black womb held,   
Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,   
A caricature, a swollen shadow,
A stupid clown of the spirit's motive,   
Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,   
The secret life of belly and bone,
Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown,   
Stretches to embrace the very dear
With whom I would walk without him near,   
Touches her grossly, although a word
Would bare my heart and make me clear,   
Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed   
Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,   
Amid the hundred million of his kind,   
The scrimmage of appetite everywhere.

Also, thirty-one years ago today: 

Utopia: Angels Arriving Daily with iPhones

I was hungry so I got breakfast at the Cosi across the street from McPherson Square about ten of ten yesterday morning and ate it sitting down warm and dry inside rather than cold and wet across the street in the rain and the tents. Two tables away two 30ish guys in business suits were eating, talking about Occupy, one says to the other, I just don't get when they say capitalism doesn't have competition, I'm working sixty hours a week to make partner, and I was reminded again that both capitalism's winners and losers can't imagine any other league.

Fuck, we play in a digital league where everyone wants to be King of Anarchists. Can you imagine a world without competition? Again, here's my thing: aren't humans selfish bastards enough that if there was a better way to organize competition wouldn't humans clutch that model and never let it go?

Anyone know WTF with that guy in the red poncho? I thought he was a union guy arguing power to the point of violence with Occupiers, but I also was told he was just motherfucking nuts. He kept interrupting Occupiers arguing with Occupiers over who'd be King of Arguing About Everything Out of Principle. I'm old: everybody I meet reminds me of someone I already know and, as always fine irony abounds.

A elderly woman suddenly stood next to me in the intersection of 15th and K, her bunned grey hair and high-pitched whispervoice reminded my of an English professor at Anne Arundel Community College circa 1989 who did me a major Kind. The woman asked me why I was there and I did my hummina and she said, yes, it's important all these young people see some old people supporting them. Yes, I said, so they'll still be fools like us when they're old. Yes, she said.

• E.J. Dionne is a either a profoundly stupid or profoundly amoral man.
• Got you! Death to the either/or.
• Premature exaltation.
• On the above.
• They're coming to get you.
• Responding to sleaze.
• Custer doesn't equal Sitting Bull.
• Occupy is moving into your house.
• The end of capitalism?
• Open table.
• A day that will live in INnovation.
• Also, motherfucking crackers.
• One motherfucking ambitious asshole and cracker.
• Eat me.
• @BLCKDGRD. Let me know where to track you if you want to be tracked.
• ICC.
• Silver Line.
• I know someone rather intimately who's art room is right next door to the guy at the center of this story. He's a dick.
• Wonderful!
• Bat Segundo interviews Joyce Carol Oates.
• Mining the audio motherlode.
• Thirty-one years ago today.

FUTURE TENSE

Andrew Demcak

you are the standard prototype
glibly electric
who eked out a living

history remembered
religion believed

what troubled enough
to wish
on a wandering star?

you couldn't imagine another existence

this country's impressive standards
its plastic familiarities

Utopia:
angels arriving daily with iPhones

UPDATE!

Marched from McPherson Square down 15th Street to 1001 G St, the headquarters of The Podesta Group. Cops blocked entrance, of course, but word is some vanguards got in.





Marched back to McPherson Square and ran into Union protesters. Occupied K and 16th, K and 15th, K and 14th. I left about 120 for obligations I couldn't shirk; I'd love to be there now video witnessing. I have feeling there will be more opportunities.

Watch live. Or here.

Lots to think about, including that shit on the right who wasn't the only fucker in lobbyist suites to find derisive amusement in the march, though she was the fucking shittiest. Much much more tomorrow. Or not.

We Should All Have to Spend at Least Once Decade Carving What We Mean Into Stone

CD got hold of an email outlining K Street's concern about today's march. Snippet:

Washington, DC is now becoming a focus point for Occupy-related protests now that other cities have cracked down on the tent cities and the criminal mischief associated with the Occupy movement. Other than frigid Boston, Washington is the only City that continues to allow the Occupy tent cities to continue without disruption... The key day is Wednesday, December 7th when the group plans to "swarm" from K Street 14th Street to 22nd Street throughout the day. They intend to enter the buildings (and possibly the tenant spaces) of buildings containing lobbying firms, law firms which lobby or represent corporate interests, Buildings housing healthcare tenants, oil tenants, insurance tenants, bank tenants, or drug company tenants would also be targets of this group. In other words, just about every building on K Street is a potential target. Further, I would not rely on the logistics parameters supplied by the protest organizers. If you have a building with tenants in the target groups anywhere in the City, I would take the same precautions that we are suggesting for the K street buildings. In fact, regardless of your tenant base, if your facility is in the vicinity of the protesters, they may enter your building if they cannot get into their buildings of choice and you present an easier target.

Criminal mischief! I'll post photos here tonight and Thursday morning!

I made it to 2:03 of this bout in Grifter Championship Shitwrestling (h/t):

• Just so we're clear, here's a truth: I don't actually sing or chant at United games unless it's for a particular player at a particular moment. I stand and sway, stand and bitch, stand and jump, stand and spin and slam my hands into my orange seat, stand and clap at good play, stand and scream at the ref, stand and scream at the other team, stand and really scream at United fucking up, stand and scream at Landru and Ilse and SeatSix and at some sloppy drunk axe-murderer in the row in front of us, and if I'm blessed, three, four times a year I make a primal sound at a beautiful goal that is gloriously purgative and curative, but I don't sing or chant because I have to hate you to sing or chant for you, I've the worst voice in the world. People can vouch for all of this.
• Plus I'm not a revolutionary, which is true, but not why I'm not chanting.
• Plus, I'm in for K St, can't make the White House or SCOTUS.
• Occupy San Francisco evicted.
• America justice.
• Speaking of grifters.
• On the above.
• Another flavor of shock doctrine.
• Pot calling the kettle FOX.
• As for United, thank you Tommy Wells, and fuck-me-jig, DC United - this DC United, not a second Senators United - will never get a new soccer stadium in Washington DC.
• There are few thing stupider than the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
• Obscure Sound's 40-31. 
• Yes, more Bonnie Prince Billy.

I DON'T THINK I TRUST THAT CORN

Dara Wier

As far as you're concerned,
To sentimentalize your feelings about someone retrospectively,
Your sentiments exactly,
To realize you failed to feel something you should have,
You might have said so yourself,
To feel a realization as a physical sensation,
Aggravation comes in many colors,
To sentimentalize your feelings about someone retrospectively,
Your life depended on something you failed to feel adequately,
What were you doing while your life sped by like, oh, a speeding bullet—
To mutter about a battered book you read at sixteen,
To feel a realization as a physical sensation,
Tell me more about your understanding of our collective humanity
To react retroactively, to forgive everything,
To acquiesce like a dead sponge does,
To know how it feels to be erased by someone who's mattered
To murder your others on account of your brokenness,
You don't hear a lot about the families of hermits,
You don't run into many bands of anchorites.
Run of the mill stories about men, women, and children
Don't feel sufficient when their occasion is verbatim.
Tell me about the most recent mill you've crept up on.
Tell me more about your feelings of our value.
Verbatim is such a physical word. Like a rubber mallet.
Tell me how much you once loved me, that will surely
Solve all of the puzzles. One of the best things about putting
Anything into words—instantaneous acknowledgement
Of the relative good it will do you, to make it appear to be
Static when that is impossible, we should all have to spend at least one
Decade carving what we think we mean into stone,
That might engender a little mindful, severe silence,
Don't waste your words was often or always tossed at me,
We have degraded our trajectory, we have spiraled into the vortices of despondency,
Such a sad sorry, my beloved also watched me sideways, we were a
Pack of mis-used curs squabbling amongst ourselves in agony.
The one who most looked like a generic human baby in the body
Of a feral puppy, that was the one to be most remembered,
And repulsed by, fear and repulsion are emotional cousins,
Emotions in general do exist to be tangled, it is a wonder
We ever find ourselves out of troubled waters, that is an expression
I will spend all day sorting, and while I'm at it, searching for the famous oil
That often goes with it.

It's an Inevitable Verbal Tic -- Wouldn't You Say? -- For a Super-Clean Country

Screams a headline in today's YFWP:

In race for campaign funds from billionaires, Romney outpaces Obama.

• On the above.
• Also, too.
• Occupy DC Wednesday 12/7 action. I will be in a miserable, day-long training session, fucking shoot me. I have, however, activated a - yes, club me with a 9-iron - twitter account so if I'm getting ready to drive to Sugarloaf and I see on the computer (I have a dumb phone for the time being) that the police are moving in to dismantle a barn, I can change plans. I have no idea how to use twitter, I have no plans to post to twitter, but find me and send me stuff if you want.
• Goodbye, serenity.
• Special issue on Occupy.
• Masters' tools, masters' house.
• UPDATE! Occupy Frederick!
• Grappling with Graeber.
• 24-hour notice.
• Krugman calls The Walrus a liar.
• Obamasshole.
• Ron Paul defends Occupy.
• Vote for Ron Paul or the dog will be angry.
• 45th POTUS?
• For the record, before you start screaming at me, I'm not voting for anybody.
• Also, motherfucking crackers.
• Still crazy. I've dealt with this assclown in work-life, the asshole.
• Work, you, me, Tino Quaranta.
• I use my blogrolls as my bookmarking system, and sometime over the next week or two I'm going to take an hour and do some rearranging to make my life easier. In the meantime, suggestions solicited for people you recommend I should read. As always, if you're Kinding me and me not you, please let me know.
• Last night's playlist.
• Cruel.
• I'm not going to do many lists this Listmas, but Obscure Sound's annual countdown of his 50 favorite albums of the year is always awesome and generous. Here's 50-41.
• You're right: I haven't played Stereolab in a while.

A SUPER-CLEAN COUNTRY

Linh Dinh

You (almost) never see it in public so
You have to conjure it up all day long,
Drag it into every conversation,
To flesh out the corporate picture.

It's an inevitable verbal tic -- wouldn't you say? --
For a super-clean country.

Holy shit, that shit's wack.
She thinks she's hot shit but she ain't dogshit.
There's nothing but shit on the internet.
Why are you so hung up on shit like that?
I got some good shit at home, some far-out shit.
You're so full of shit, you dumbshit motherfucker.

Mondantidote

Jeebusfuck, I love that song. This one too: some motherfucker disabled it. This one too: youtube used to have the actual promovid, but some motherfucker removed it. This one too: youtube used to have the actual promovid, but some motherfucker removed it. Anyway, in a certain mood, this radio set plays in my head. LOUD! yo.





That too. Also, work, me, you, and Tino Quaranta. Also, too. This too:

this is ridiculous said the dog now they not only have to walk me they have to rush up with their sanitary plastic bags what is it but old-fashioned Imperialism

I swear I had not seen this until last night when I wrote Saturday evening about my inability to use language yet for what I want to say about Occupy (h/t):

Our language has not yet caught up with the political phenomenon that is emerging in Zuccotti Park and spreading across the nation, though it is clear that a political paradigm shift is taking place before our very eyes. It’s time to begin to name and in naming, to better understand this moment. So let me propose some words: “political disobedience.”

I didn't hear about the police action at McPherson Square until past six last night; I was on Sugarloaf. I would have been there taking photos if I'd known, but let me be clear: I would have done everything in my power, including moving the fuck out of the way if a cop in riot gear told me to get the fuck out of the way, to avoid arrest, not only because I owe too many creditors too much money, not only because I'm only pissed at potentially losing privileges I assumed were mine by birthright, not only because I believe in the uselessness of protest to genuinely alter the re-feudalization now inevitable by and out of control of our bankrupt warlords' craven greed (I do believe in the usefulness of the protests to further accelerate the implementation of our bankrupt warlords' daydreams of police state), but all three plus I can't find the language to imagine any other outcome than the slow and grim and inevitable re-feudalization.

• Occupy Portland.
• Sustainable?
• More Occupy Lincoln Center.
• Sasha did this two weeks ago.
• Theory and event.
• Moral relativism.
• Occupy drones.
• Fuckface Hiatt.
• Also, motherfucking crackers.
• Also, motherfucking Israeli crackers.
• Norbeck!
• Quaranta retires.
• Omensetter's Luck reading group. I'll follow along but probably not play as I am not worthy, I read the novel within the past year, and my reading slump is slowly but finally unclenching with the help of Murakami's 1Q84.
• Breakfast with Kissinger.
• Intelligence.
• Woke up with Bonnie Prince Billy in my head for the umpteeth thousandth time ever.
• The song at the bottom is one of dozens of my five favorite songs ever.
• The southside of the world.

RIDICULOUS

Alicia Ostriker

This is ridiculous

said the literary old woman

nobody gives us any respect

the young in one another's arms

are talking on their ipods

the politicians are lying through their teeth

and our husbands are taking a nap

this is ridiculous

said the tulip

all those genetically altered blossoms

those stupid long-lived orchids

that are practically plastic

and those fancy designer grasses

getting more market share

this is ridiculous

said the dog

now they not only have to walk me

they have to rush up with their

sanitary plastic bags

what is it but old-fashioned

Imperialism