Saturday, June 19, 2004

Once again the natural foods store where i do most of my shopping, has discontinued one of my staple items. This must be the dozenth time. I know that modern hyper-capitalism tends to punish loyal consumers & reward the "fickletons" (those who switch to the new as soon as it appears), but you'd think a place with a semi-sustainable philosophy would be above such considerations. But i see this in a wider context, as a part of the dominance of one kind of perception over another, that (whether or not consciously) competition & economic stress are used to justify favoring. It's like radio stations that only play one kind of music--the "format"--instead of (as in the old days) having DJ's who pick out their own choice of perceived good music. It's class over the separate individual. And under the mercy of a democratic "market", the unpopular is phased out, whether or not it may actually have been better than the more popular ones. And people think there's no point in fighting that iron hand. Imagine, though, that this were a Commons--an ecosystem--in which variety itself is seen as a benefit. We might even put up with a slightly less efficient economy, just to hang on to things we care about for themselves. Yeah, think of that.

Among the Meek so endangered, find poets & poems.

Friday, June 18, 2004

A new constrained-writing webpage. (via Language Hat)

Spin this, motherfucker.

The Final Frontier. (via Doc Searls)

Pray for Reason. (via Neal Pollack) (But don't dispense with your voodoo dolls, either.)

Now that it's starting to appear that the Revolution will be Televized after all--i miss Umbrism.

As in lying shorn on this chained field.




Looks like i'm going to be working for the rival bookstore starting Monday. I told someone it's like, in Cold War imagery, a top Soviet scientist was defecting to the West--or vice versa. But really, i'm just glad i landed something quick before they packed me off to credit-card debtors' prison.

It was like crossing a swaying rope bridge, more frightening than dangerous, that disappeared into fog; & then it turned out not to be so long, after all (i've been unemployed for years at a time). This time, however, i felt like i was being followed (like so many people in the world--& whole nations--) by a whirling toothed machine advancing at an inexorable rate, ready to chew me in shreds should i falter or pause to rest. And i think what the world needs right now, almost more than love, almost more than peace--is debt amnesty. (Students of history will know that such a thing, far from being the physical impossibility we believe, has occurred repeatedly under the pressure of social change & economic catastrophe.)

But of course, that's crazy talk! You can't say that!

Thoughts on a beautiful morning, from the branch library at opening time, not without bitterness.

Thursday, June 17, 2004

I like what the Roches' compilation album liner-notes say about their famous a cappella rendition of the chorus from Handel's "Messiah": "Why did the dog lick his balls? Because he could."
"One problem with this referendum is that the case against George Bush is much too strong." (via Hightower)
   the delicate wake
of two ducks swimming closely
   in the cool morning

olive waterway, pale sky
i on the bridge, hurrying

06 17 04

Online serial SAT-vocab novel. (via Caterina)

"He started picking up debris off the beach, and randomly at first, and then with a steady and abnormal concentration, he had built a spiralling construction of marramgrass and shells and driftchips and seaweed.
'What are you doing?'
He whistled and pointed to it.
It whistles?
He lay down on the sand with his ear by it, and she went to him, puzzled. Simon got up quickly. Listen too, he said, touching his ear and pointing to her. So she did, and heard nothing. Listened very intently, and was suddenly aware that the pulse of her blood and the surge of the surf and the thin rustle of wind round the beaches were combining to make something like music.

She adds, 'They only make music when someone's listening. They're focusing points more than anything...' " --Keri Hulme, The Bone People (1984)
Poems.

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

The Other Exile-Myth. An interpretation of the Sixties: All Hell Broke Loose. And things have never been the same since. Which is not untrue. But so have the people who came after, grown into changed beings. Only, so to speak, the dismay of the elders who were there in the Sixties still hangs in the air, & can be channelled by others who really weren't there when the status was quo. And they apply it to the far different wrongs of today.

By a curious & significant rhetorical inversion, those who disagree with them are accused of being deceived by a Spook from the Sixties. Young Republicans fancy themselves as hardnosed realists. (Not barbarians.) But this myth lends seeming legitimacy to all manner of vandalism against infrastructure: it's supposed to be putting things back where they were.
Seasons reversed down under. Do they call summer summer by the weather, or by the calendar? It's June, it's winter, & the connotations match, seem normal. Well, there are left & right political hemispheres of speaking; only, they seldom acknowledge that together their languages comprise a totality (even if only a totality of misunderstandings). This is not the part about right & wrong: this is the part about not being able to even talk to each other. Which actually is more important than stopping the wrong. Because it's the root of the wrong. The words we define differently, the aspects we choose to highlight or leave out. I know very well that the preponderance of right lies with the left, but it is wrong not to ever attempt to reach out. We are not going to be able to have the luxury of an utter rout, even after winning in November. You can't put the other half of the country in jail.
Most poetry chapbooks are like one course of tapas. At
the time you think, "This is really sort of
interesting," but afterwards you wish you'd gotten
more for your money.

Tuesday, June 15, 2004

Once again my email service has been "upgraded", shutting me & my antiquated browser out of my own mailbox. I have a new address which should be included on the link on this page, & i will be using it exclusively from now on... We are nomads, even in Cyberspace.
Under God. (thanx Melanie!) --Let me clarify. The part that is Stoic ethics, is good & worthy of being promulgated. The part that is Buddhist charity, ought to be pondered more by people who profess themselves to be "followers of Jesus". The part that is syncretic razzmatazz, has entertainment value but not much more. And the part that is totalitarian bullying--should not continue for one hour more.


An object of veneration appears surcharged with meaning. An object of contempt appears devoid of it.
The sage walks through the world.

Voting Democrat is like running into a tree to keep from hitting a child.

Listening to: "Jacob's Ladder" by A. Schoenberg.

"...our Scholar GoH [Guest of Honor] was also from a non-Anglophone background. Editor and translator Marcial Souto told us he grew up in a house with one book, which he read over and over again even though its beginning and end had fallen off and were lost. ...He discussed the joys and problems of translating: being 'the most attentive reader the book will ever have' and knowing that even in the least of books there is something to lose." --Arthur Hlavaty, in Nice Distinctions 6

Seeking, i grow superstitious. They play a rarity on the radio & i take it for a sign.

Sedlec. (via Planing Lakes)

Painting is Back.

Monday, June 14, 2004

"A Shadow Over Westchester"

words
are born
free, yet everywhere

the
only emperor
is the emperor

gray
clouds march
across the ruins

gods,
feared, whatever
they might be

06 12 04

RONALD WILSON REAGAN ENTERS INTO HEAVEN

'A raw, snarling noodle' with his fake dyed hair
Revenge buoys telepath
'Insane anglo warlord' sans his wits quits here
Tape lets you beg, never
Deluded a mob vents its programmed moan
Revenge buoys telepath
He took & took & took--yet you'd still fain give
Tape lets you beg, never
So here's my kiss-off to the shame of this
Revenge buoys telepath
He pledged an age of gold & what we get is iron
Tape lets you beg, never
And "Republican" means never having to say you're sorry.

06 12 04

"A Dollar's Worth of Blood, Please

With the last memo checked: They will sign, success; with the phone put down upon the day's last call; then with the door locked at last,
Wait; think;
What should the final memo be?

SAY THE LAST WORD,
SAY THE LAST WORD ADDING ALL WE'VE MADE AND LOST,
SAY THE LAST WORD THAT WEIGHS THE TRIUMPH SEALED IN INK AGAINST THE DEBT PRESERVED IN STONE AND THE PROFIT LOCKED IN STEEL,

One final word that the doorman knows, too, and the lawyer, and the drunk,
That the clerk knows, too, sure of tomorrow's pleasant surprise,
And the stranger, who knows there is nothing on earth more costly than hope and nothing in all the world held one-half so cheap as life,

One final word that need never be changed,
One final word to prove there is a use for the hard-bought distrust and the hard-won skill,
One final word that stands above and beyond the never-ending weakness and the never-failing strength,

SAY THE LAST WORD, YOU LONG STRAIGHT STREETS,
SAY THE LAST WORD, YOU WISE GUY, DUMB GUY, SOFT GUY, RIGHT GUY, FALL GUY, TOUGH GUY,
SAY THE LAST WORD, YOU BLACK SKY ABOVE."

--Kenneth Fearing