In The Dumps

Seaweed bluegreen dung:

Love-child of

Gastroenteritis and

Pepto-Bismol Pink.

Unloved and gotten-rid-of.

Crystal Ball

How far into the future does the future go? Into the past, the past?

Language isn't the obstacle in answering.

In its exercise, it tells us the necessary answer: only present.

In its silence, it allows the necessary experience

Book Bog

Credit C. She thought of 'blogging' about this phenomena. The title for it is mine.

In reading, I rotate. A stack of books, another stack, a third stack.

At the side wall of the room: auxilliary stacks not quite rejected, but not in favor, either. Waiting to get off the bench.

What keeps a book in rotation may come clear after some writing, though not now.

Now, just a mention of two books that have 'stalled', two that have been 'benched': Henry James's The Ambassadors, and a D.H. Lawrence collection on Italy.

With James, the difficulty of style instantly hits most readers now, and the difficulty in his later style is notorious. What can help his books are small chapters, smaller segments within the dense texture of his prose. The Ambassadors does not help in that regard. I've been finding the subtle behavioral hints in the characters' psychology take long paragraphs to gel, and the sections tens of pages per go. For me, not a reading 'for one sit'.

With Lawrence, the descriptive level is pronounced, with the setting, natural and man-made, articulating a world fully involved in the human story. Though these are travel pieces, the mood establishes the meaning for the place. Rich, richer, richest. Again, long pages of immersion, no quick 'break points'.

Editorial Blast

Definition of 'journalist': a cynic writing for morons.

Or is that cynical to say? Am I one then? Are you of the other party?

Oh. They're neither of us, 'the critical class'.

We don't chatter. We woe. Want prophecy.

Definition of 'America', then: the place that wants to be good,

The place that's not sure it is, will fight for that certainty.

A Man Walks Into A Bar . . .

That's the existentialist joke:

Not that there's no meaning in the universe aside from us, but that there's no meaning in the universe aside from us. We're that important.

Earful

Listening to chosen music.

Burning fast like a cheap candle.

Health Man, Idiosyncratic

My joy: plain yoghurt dusted with false sugar.

Then. A blend of various cereals, mysterious in mix,

Blindly reached at and grabbed into.

Chopped dates.

What indeterminate a pleasure is the flake

Tarted up like granola.

Message Made

Like talking to yourself, it is.

Like the man in the field talking to the stalks.

Like hailing the listener you think passed.

Like your own footsteps one for another, meant.

Like snapping the water awake.

Like telling, vulnerable, a truth to sleeping her.

Talking to yourself, it is, then.

I'm The D.J., Bitch!

('Desk Jockey', I meant)

Art Appraisal

Renaissance prints of a Renaissance prince: what price do they yield when they field at Sotheby's?

A ducat, a florin, a sovereign, gold bar?

A billion of bullion, a million of mullion

The skill of a scullion, a skull of vermillion?

Baroquey gouache at the courts built for squash: what cost for quadrille on the dancefloor at Doyle's?

The Deity Next Door

In speaking of YHWH, we're trying to make words approximate what we concede is beyond words.

Of course, the right question is: are we fooling ourselves? To go 'beyond words' in approaching the 'nature' of (note the metaphor) of G-dash-D may just be a way of sneaking things in -- establishing by quiet fiat what we (tentatively) claim to be discovering.

To go 'beyond words' may also avoid that by arriving honestly at '[ ]' -- a deliberate blank which, in truth, is a psychological gambit to shuffle scrabble tiles so as to obscure any evident understanding and shrug off its possibility.

Or to go 'beyond words' may assume a lotus-positionlike '{ }', where conceptualizing what is existentially occurring in 'real-time' is deliberately evaded, not assigned verbal recognition, just undergone. That might imply godly presence at any given time or place just by virtue of there being 'something' of which we can be aware. It might also imply nothing at all if the refusal to 'go verbal' is disciplined and maintained.

Consciousness is a key factor in human self-identity, and for humans, seems utterly sure. That which is in and of us suggests what is purposeful about us. Whether that 'something' is 'only' a nervous system may be beside the point.

HaShem tags it 'Name'. I'll call this The Existant. We find it hard to find. The Face whose eyes we dare not behold: where is it?

Try looking at a mirror honestly. Part of nature speaks to itself without saying a word. Is there something it wants to become?

The GOP 'Virtue Analysis' Strategy Syllogism

If people do repetitive, routine work; and

If they fret and anger over such work, not finding relief enough in pay alone; and

If they see their life, effectively, a function of their work, their function in the economic scheme of things; and

If they psychologically justify that otherwise thankless work as their being needed, as their existential singularity of purpose; and

If they reify that justification into the status of personal virtue;

Then

a) Other people, those without work, must be absent that virtue; and

b) Any system economically supporting those virtueless others must be wrong;

c) No one can make a 'rational' choice in favor of such a system; and

d) Any such choice is politically wrong

Place Your Bets

Neither I nor the people of California knew what the outcome would be.

It was a crapshoot, and I'm the roll of the dice.

A 'Matter' Matter

Beneath the rear window negligently accorded my end of the shared office room, a corrugated shed roof for seasons has been taking a rain-pounding. Here, that means days on end of drizzle, puddling, two-minutes' barrage, the Spring hailpellet, overnights, thunderstorms hitting as summer surprises. Too: snow

Inert in sun.

Which will be the last part? The last part identifiable as metal?

Have I Mentioned?

You haven't gotten the wrong idea, have you?

I mean, this isn't being done in order to join a trend.

I mean, the words plunked down here come to you with the notion that you're to digest any idea that may issue from the style, not that you're only to be passingly entertained or find any of this simply cute.

I mean, there's no intention of actually meeting or networking with a single person, live or RT or virtual.

I mean, I write this as I have everything else for some time with the realization that I'm likely never going to be read except by a select forced few even among whom there may be a majority who feel impinged upon by the gift.

I mean, I may already be dead for all you know.

Mismatch

The incommensurability of 'I need' and the social containment of 'I need'

Counter-Populars

Violence is sweet

Racism becomes art

Courage is an excuse

Morality is a prison cell

Tripping Off The Tongue

It's easier to say the word 'heads' than the word 'tails'

'Me' than 'you'

'Here' than 'there'

'High' than 'low'

'Now' than 'then'

We're always flipping coins with 'the fix in'

It Gets Me Goosepimply All Over

Joseph Cornell and
David Smith

Chaim Soutine and
Jack Levine

Klee and Kitaj and
Lucian Freud

And the Dreamtime
Abos of Kunga Kutjarra

The Essence Of M.D.

1) Move muscles, but not too much.

2) Estrange no joints.

3) Circulate air, and keep blood clean. Circle again the manganese and iron, potassium; eat kidneys once a month.

4) Eat low on the food chain; never stuff.

5) Plants before animals. Water the more.

6) Don't fuck; fuck only her or him, not both, and be clear which.

7) Have friends who laugh, but not at you. Join groups, hold hands, use gloves.

8) Don't drive, at least not sitting down. Wear belts though they don't save knees.

9) Crying is good. Too much is bad.

10) Have a plan for any fear.

11) We always adjust the amount.