"Luge Snuff Video"
1.
siege singe repose at
once starless cold · construction interval culls
skua spork squeak
in the long rays of morning
sphinx made of snow
and Tvashtar fountain
2.
suns, huts, attacks and the striking teeth
like enthalpy i hold fast
into the hellbox
i can has Armageddon · felspathic glint
prisjadka
skelp · a sunny epimenidean blurb
like a vivid bronze
ship, ship, how · very sorry
tatters hap
into the corkscrew wind of a down
shadow built into the floor
drabgossipy pearl
klicalob proplyds
cold for so long
and nights long to contemplate
defunctive musics
the fingerless askesis
the tatters that sing
A thread in which i am valuably corrected.
"Mavaraannahr"
"In medieval times, Central Asia had been known by such regional designations as Mavaraannahr, or Transoxiana..." --Subtelny, op cit
1.
corridor of vague trees
street on singe thrill blind
huge branches the weight
creeping maniac song
of snow pulled down
dismember had as
now bare & dry
intercourse dragon cut
angels from the days to come
to vicious abandoned
burning
with that particular Willy Pete
cryptic golem pyrrhic
dark matter
dark energy
dark knowledge
thrust creeping pawn
the Bridge to Celsclan
2.
as snow
becomes the memory of snow
America
will become the memory
of America
through purgatory go
a red glow at night
vats fruits barf
in which all dreams once seemed possible
slide the wrong desert
until betrayed
"DoXoD9191"
freezing fog thus fosters
dulabul, morning star,
gwome of white discarding
klicalob spar
globe's
stark wipe
such fester
freezing fog high
ankle deep & the spun class muttapa
muddawa waylaid
by old snow
soldiers of desire
it tore
without making a sound
Keeler on Twitter. (via Ebert via Silliman)
For Millie Niss. (ditto)
"And prove the stealthy, coiled morass" --C A Smith
"Ode to the DSM-5"
perse gloomth festers
my tree stays tree
prowlincredulous
crystal do them desert
indigo zombies
the hunger for apocalypse
stopgap indenture
four ambulances and a fire truck
the next storm
the Jebwinni's glob
i walk on gilded Slurpees
I knew someone would write a decent paradelle one day.
On looking for a map of Baghdad.
"In stillness of the santal-pillared woods" --C A Smith
"Forms of Surveillance"
overkill with oodoolay
past avarice of Ubar
i outrun the last gazelle
but not spiritual slavery
this is the kind of long rain
that dissolves even my poems
why should a kamikaze
put duct tape across his mouth?
"...both Uzbeks and Tajiks laid claim to the tenth-eleventh century philosopher Ibn Sina (Avicenna), even though the vast majority of his works were written in Arabic--the Uzbeks on the grounds that he had been born near Bukhara in present-day Uzbekistan, and the Tajiks because of Iranian (probably Soghdian) origin." --Maria Eva Subtelny, in: Central Asia in Historical Perspective (1994)
Dave Pollard prepares for civilization's end.
"Eating Fast Food Mexican in the Car"
tactics in the endgame
tcati ritli
in the shroud of an endless rain
three kinds of TV
it's not like you're really stranded
as the blogs that you count on fold
their tents & steal away
woke up with five cats
i remember: questions of faith
and a lure flashing
customers talk
cats're marking you
as their own
has the rain stopped? no
the best we can do
is erase it here
i wish i had time
for another
in this Sogdian looth
where puddle touches puddle & the Empire
in decline is enough
shelter
from the cosmos berserk
"...there's a nice Portuguese word meaning to make the most of or take advantage--aproveitar...another nice human verb that English needs [is]--when you want to get out of an engagement, or dis-invite yourself--desmarcar." --Bishop, op cit
SPK & Systemic.
"The Man Who Loved Cat Scratch Fever"
car keeps dying off
did i warm it up enough?
pewter sky
looking out for a gas station
drizzle becomes furious
as i'm standing there
hope this does the trick
diwskovarn
a road called Stonehenge
"I think of him [Randall Jarrell] as a fencer who has defeated and scarred all his opponents so that the sport has come to be almost abandoned, and Randall stands leaning on his foil, one shoulder a little lower than the other, unchallenged, invulnerable, deadly, salt marsh and deserted tennis court stretching below him." --Lowell, ibid
Nancarrow thread on Metafilter with, as always, some curious links.
"The Trials of Lorenzo"
sound of rain
heard from in the dark kitchen
fluttering deafly · babies' ricochet shows
fluorescent light bulb
in front of me on the table stored
how long i can't remember
are you sure?
"I guess my coming-out as a Scottish American really started last year... Mainly, it's the relief of feeling visible. For so long I've projected the burden of otherness, of having a race at all, onto others, as if my mix of ethnic origins somehow matters less than that of someone who could be labelled 'of color'."
"Thus often our belief, our creed, seems like some simplified abstraction to people who can no longer use their senses, a way of going to a country by not going, but by staying at home and buying a book of maps. Then you tell people who also stay at home looking at maps that they are not getting anywhere because they have the wrong directions." --Robert Lowell, op cit
How We Designate Planets Nowadays.
51 Pegasi b.
"Argyle Turkey Goes to Ganderland"
the ceremonial glitter
torn where the undersky winches
have pierced through · difficult focus
no leeway to rustle golden
the Virgin of Guadalcanal
absurdly flying · no network
signal now · argyle and powder
as what carves time spires the downdraft
"...little by little, we will discover that the acausal universe is just as consistent and just as capable of accounting for our actual experience as the causal universe. But we will also discover that the former is a universe devoid of all those enigmas that are part and parcel of the belief in physical necessity. In other words, we have nothing to lose by moving from a causal to an acausal universe--nothing except enigmas." --After Finitude
The new Collapse.
"I'm now studying the poems of the most popular Portuguese poet, Fernando Pessoa--ever heard of him?--who had a four-split personality; wrote four different kinds of poetry under four different names--volumes of each--and committed suicide sometime in the 30's, though if alive he'd be just Miss [Marianne] Moore's age." --Bishop, ibid
"Words from a Distant Sun"
the
steepening light
hydrochloric acid spill
this cough is permanent
four choppers hovering
at the corners of a great cube
mow the dead lawn · spew grass dust
Tuesdays with Moby
devolve into stabs at margh anagram
Things have gone too far.
The syllable sestina. (via Silliman)
A good selection of "steampunk" hats. (They also have pocket watches.)
"Yes, we can say that it is dangerous, harmful, for a white person to want to be a native, and yet is it not also good to love and desire being another?" (via Prau)
Goodnight Dead Moon. (via Infocult)
"The 'Institute' [Library of Congress] staggers along. The latest faux pas was their announcing a reading by Juan Ramón Jiménez as by José Jiménez (an inferior Brazilian) so Mr Jiménez called it off at the last minute. It's really about as bad as calling T S Eliot George Eliot, but they all seemed unaware of the enormity of it all." --Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell (5-8-50), in- Words in Art: the Complete Correspondence (2008)
"Giant Robot Gladiators"
absinthe grue
Alexandrite bleen
concoct carotid döppelgänger
diametric but wholly coincident
we are secret succotash
the La Réunion that never failed
our ovoid runes
become burnt orange to the discerning eye
embonpoint
with absence · saltatory
embellishment evokes from
brute asynapsis
on the turbulent floor where em'rald
anamnesis reigns · venire across the sky
trade places
with the one in the middle
Speculative realism in Bristol.
"The disease I see happening now among some on the left is similar to a disease I saw in college: someone does or advocates a few things you don’t agree with, and you think immediately he must be allied with the forces of darkness."
"After the death of Benjamin Franklin a statue of Faust was erected in front of Franklin's birth house."
"...the vast majority of the Web consists of malware and spam." (via Sterling) --Like, you thought this wasn't the other toxic playground??
"Remade Better"
syllabus byssus
slowing aliquot fallout
above lunch
psalmist abysmally gyres as usurper
pullulates, as tsetse slaloms forth
twitching · his anvil
again far
Vas: an Opera in Flatland.
The 52 hertz whale. (via Metafilter)
Re/Search Newsletter. (long) --Glad they're still going. Someone should tell Sterling that V(icki) Vale is not a guy, though.
"Pride and Prejudice and the Economic Downturn"
derf fackeltanz
renao hoosgow
paladin chull
mind over bone
whatever whets
a wooden book
nightmarish blame
avoidy foin
the Hittite gift
pinball allots
and looth garou
in lethal teen
ally of wine
the last rainman
"The burning of expensive, rare incense woods on special occasions increased their value, and made them a 'once in a lifetime' experience."
"The future of music no longer lies in the breaking of rules or the perpetual veneration of a creative condition without rules...but in the localised invention of new and detailed rules for the playing of new games." (via splinteringboneashes)
Oscar's Biggest Twist
"It’s perhaps the most interesting twist in the entirety of Oscar history. This year’s two leading contenders are directed by ex-spouses. Oh sure, everyone pretty much knew that James Cameron’s mega-smash, Avatar, and Kathryn Bigelow’s critically hailed war film, The Hurt Locker, would be nominated for Best Picture, but, really, who could’ve predicted that the two films would garner 9 nominations each, including Best Picture and Best Director? At this early stage of the game, I’m willing to give a slight edge to Bigelow’s film for being topical, and for showing how such a stirring movie can be made on a relatively small budget. (Even the Producers Guild, which normally opts for glossy commercial entertainments, chose Hurt Locker over Avatar.) No one can deny, on the other hand, that Cameron has created a visually imaginative, technologically groundbreaking film—but, of course, Cameron is Cameron, and he was able to spend hundreds of
millions of dollars on his dream project—the perks of all that residual goodwill left over from Titanic. To clarify, Cameron lists the two biggest grossing films of all-time on his resume (and Titanic, you’ll recall, made a virtual sweep of the Oscars, winning a total of 11 statuettes). Another thing that might work against Cameron is the Academy’s decision to expand the slate of Best Picture contenders from five to ten, which means there are more potential upsets, more potential diversity among voters to thwart a landslide. With that in mind, the other Best Picture contenders, in alphabetical order, are: The Blind Side (arguably my favorite film among the field), District 9, An Education, Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino’s comeback with the badly spelled title snagged 8 nominations), Precious, A Serious Man (a little seen Coen brothers’ film that should not be confused with Tom Ford’s A Single Man), Up (only the second fully animated
film, after 1991’s Beauty and the Beast, ever nominated for Best Picture…Avatar kind of falls somewhere in the middle of live action and animation) and, not surprisingly, Up in the Air. I think the latter also stands a strong chance against Avatar because it’s so middle of the road.
Even with those ten, I still wish Invictus had been nominated, but at least I can rejoice in the nods for Morgan Freeman (Best Actor, for playing Nelson Mandela) and Matt Damon (Best Supporting Actor…and his first nomination since being nominated for Best Actor in 1997’s Good Will Hunting—and co-winning Best Original Screenplay for the same film). Likewise, I felt such a rush of excitement this morning when I thought that former fashion designer Tom Ford’s directorial debut, A Single Man, was up for Best Picture…but then I realized I had misread, but, again, I can take some comfort in knowing that Colin Firth was nominated for his leading role in the film though I don’t think he stands much of a chance. My guess right now is that this is a race between George Clooney (Up in the Air) and Jeff Bridges (Crazy Heart). Clooney won Best Supporting Actor a few years ago (Syriana) and was nominated for Best Actor (Michael Clayton) in 2007.
Bridges, on the other, hand is second-generation Hollywood who has never won, out of four previous nominations, in a career that spans 40 years. With his recent wins at the Golden Globes and the SAG awards, I’ll give Bridges a strong sentimental edge. Meanwhile, besides Firth and Freeman, my two faves, the roster is rounded out by newcomer Jeremy Renner—definitely a worthy choice. His performance in The Hurt Locker builds over the course of the difficult film, and his last two-three scenes are devastating in their subtlety. I can’t really nitpick the Academy’s selections, but I don’t think Bradley Cooper has gotten enough year-end acclaim for his work in the raunchy comedy hit The Hangover, and District 9’s Sharlton Copley has a loyal, vocal, following.
Meanwhile, I’ve made no bones about how crazy I am about Sandra Bullock’s performance in The Blind Side—and, likewise, her chances of winning an Oscar. Now in her forties, and no longer working the “kid sister” act she so winningly portrayed in Speed, Bullock is, like Marvelous Meryl Streep, defying Hollywood logic and enjoying a career high (the logic being that women over 40 are pretty much suited for playing sexless grannies and not much else). Bullock’s perf in The Blind Side is not a jaw dropping feat of screen acting (comparable to, say, Holly Hunter in The Piano, Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry, Charlize Theron in Monster, or even Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose), but she’s impassioned and inspired, and I think her work is as least as good as Julia Roberts’s Oscar winning Erin Brockovich. (Oh, and I’ve had a few friends at the youth center where I volunteer compare me to Bullock’s take no prisoners character, which I
take as a huge compliment.) Like Bridges, Bullock has a Golden Globe and a SAG award—and she starred in two of 2009’s biggest hits, the other being The Proposal—but she’s also competing against the legend known as Meryl Streep, outdoing even herself as Julia Child in Julie and Julia. It’s Streep’s 16th nomination, and, yes, she already has two Oscars—but it’s been over 25 years since her last win, and like Bullock, lately she’s been proving that actresses in their 40s, 50s, and older can still draw crowds in a variety of roles. The rest of the race is rounded out by Helen Mirren (The Last Station), Carey Mulligan (An Education), and Gabourey Sidibe (Precious). Of course, Mulligan and Sidibe are newcomers in their 20’s, and Mirren is a 4 time nominee with a previous win (The Queen, 2006).
As happy as I am for Bullock and Sidibe, I’m still a little disappointed that there were so few viable contenders in the field. Of those that were overlooked, I’m most fond of Zooey Deschanel, the lovely heart and soul of the summertime romantic hit, 50 Days of Summer. Actually, I was stumped when Deschanel was even passed over for a Globe nomination (in the comedy category) though her co-star Joseph Gordon Levitt was nominated (for a Globe, that is). Emily Blunt also seemed promising for her work in The Young Victoria, and Bryce Dallas Howard had a plum role in The Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, a new film based on an obscure Tennessee Williams screenplay. Finally, it’s too bad Hilary Swank’s work as Amelia Earhart was dismissed by the critics and that the film…disappeared. I did not see it, actually, but from the previews it looked like she was perfectly cast.
I am certain that Mo’Nique will win Best Supporting Actress for her uncompromising performance in Precious (talk about a jaw dropping feat of acting), and good for her. It almost seems a shame to even have four other nominees….since they are surely destined to go home empty handed. I’ll be frank: I don’t get all the acclaim for Up in the Air—it’s not bad, exactly, but it left me cold—and, by extension, I don’t get all the acclaim for its female co-stars, and Best Supporting Actress nominees, Vera Farmiga and Anna Kendrick. What I got out of the movie is that both women were shallow and one-note, and since absolutely nothing about either of them surprised me (including the big twist), I took that as the actresses’ shallow, one-note skills. I think they’re both too transparent, too one-note, to be interesting, compelling or believable…because I didn’t believe them. The other two nominees in the category at least offer some
surprise: the often under-utilized Maggie Gyllenhaal (Crazy Heart), and Penelope Cruz (Nine). I’m rooting for Mo’Nique all the way, but I’m especially pleased by Cruz’s nomination, on the heels of her win last year in this same category for Vicky Christina Barcelona. Nine has proven to be a huge flop, but I don’t think it’s as bad as some reports suggest—and Cruz is the sizzling showstopper in the middle of it all. (I could’ve supported a Best Actor nod for Daniel Day Lewis, btw). And, okay, I think Mariah Carey was also deserving of a Best Supporting Actress nod for her performance as a burnt-out social worker in Precious. Some critics harp that Carey’s performance was a cosmetic triumph or that the part was too small to be taken seriously, but I think her body language and her voice really show the character’s vulnerabilities, if that’s what it can be called, and I actually think her role is the perfect size for Best Supporting
consideration…mainly because by now we’re so used to seeing leading roles demoted to supporting categories, we don’t recognize a true supporting role when we see it.
The race for Best Supporting Actor probably begins and ends with Christoph Waltz, the multilingual Nazi in the Tarantino film. Not only has Waltz been winning virtually every Best Supporting Actor award from coast to coast, he won Best Actor at last year’s Cannes film fest for this very performance. I don’t care too much for Tarantino’s trivialized look at WWII (that rewrites history), but Waltz performs a neat trick in his role, so good for him. The other nominees, besides the aforementioned Matt Damon, are Woody Harrelson (The Messenger), Christopher Plummer (The Last Station), and Stanley Tucci (The Lovely Bones). Harrelson, of course, was nominated for playing Larry Flynt in the 90’s, but Plummer and Tucci are, arguably, long overdue for their first nominations. I still haven’t forgiven the Academy for overlooking Plummer’s superlative work as reporter Mike Wallace in 1999’s The Insider, and Tucci has come close several times,
such as 2006’s The Devil Wears Prada. I would have liked to have seen Colin Farrell nominated for his supporting turn as Bridges’s hotter than hot protégé in Crazy Heart, or Alec Baldwin as Streep’s goofy, scheming ex-husband in It’s Complicated. It’s interesting that the studio campaigned for Baldwin as a supporting player when he’s really Streep’s fully equal co-star. Oh well, at least Baldwin—and the other star from It’s Complicated, Steve Martin—are co-hosting this year’s telecast.
Now, about that Best Director thing. Of course, Cameron won in 97 for Titanic, and Bigelow takes her place as only the fourth female nominee in this category (and she won the DGA award over the weekend, a first). Bigelow and Cameron will now duke it out with Ivan Reitman (Up in the Air), Lee Daniels (Precious) and Tarantino. Daniels is only the second African-American nominated in this category (after John Singleton in 1991), and, to clarify, Sidibe is the first African-American nominated for Best Actress since Halle Berry’s triumph almost 10 years ago, Whoa!
Okay, the five nominees for Best Animated film are Coraline, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Princess and the Frog (yes!), The Secret of Kells, and Up. This one will be close.
Two more: I’m openly rooting for Sandy Powell to win another Oscar for her costumes in The Young Victoria, and I’m pleased as punch that one of my top 5 films of the year, In the Loop, snagged a nod for Best Adapted Screenplay. Smart, funny, British, and eminently quotable, but perhaps not in mixed company.
Thanks for your consideration,
Mp"
The Burnt Orange Heresy.
"The Return of Odin"
dreamgoogling ebon
spiral of indigo
i talked to them awhile
without arm to silence
the ice scraper rides
a homely trade
to lash
to kill my reject
sandbag poultice
spiral of indigo
New Human Race.
"One or two attempts at collaborating with Darrell & realizing that the gallon of red wine next to the typewriter was as important as the typewriter were enough to scare me off."
Poictesme.
"Tales of Exemplary Dogs"
1.
aboulia cilia filioque
i talked to them awhile
suppurating curtains
under the rubble
your stuff stacked out front
the door chained shut
the stretch limo coasts
to a stop at the five star rest'rant
my hands softening
in the hard water · in this flat place
a brand new birthday card
shredded unsent
2.
these shoes used to turn water
metallic trek joy
but not anymore
a brand new birthday card
a jet my clerk toil
shredded unsent
a bereavement
joke melts clarity
have lost the great outdoors
a lyric elk met jolt
shard of a whirling wisdom
ancestral
a jerky comet lilt
before cars had computers
frozen at freezing
metrical jet yolks
crystal do them desert
3.
poems
i couldn't get to the end of
before they changed · how many
have you deactivated
eight thousand seventy three
i've deactivated disarmed
eight thousand seventy three poems
[A] farewell to the 1990s vampire subgenre.
puSlogh vagh again. (His home page is pretty interesting too...guess i'm not the alpha prosody-geek anymore!)
"Arkham's Razor"
this random darkness part of the way i go
funest oflonsu · Shub Niggurath flames
into being · melody & indigo
& zero sumless games
a paling comes across the sky · over the warehouse
district · cars stand ready for repair
in rows · it's cold · i hear te freeway blare
declaring a prophet porous
what boots it to unbox a record player
with debts like mine · three speeds · USB
port · and as i sit in curled cold splendor
directs the apricot aggry
"Traditional publishing is falling apart, it wasn't working for much of anyone but especially not most of the writers, and I for one am thrilled to see it happening."
Electoral College Reform. (via Metafilter) [The real Kcymaerxthaere.]
The Big Slide.
"Laughterhouse Five-O"
no God din make
little green footfalls
there is no god but
Chemical Charley
and it don' rain in old Persep'lis
when the bulbul wakes
the Franken Kraken flakes
zgikypra flonging
and ice floes tilting
and the Piltdown blowing & roaring
In a Manner of Speaking.
Gary Sullivan's best films of the decade list.
"Pullet Surprise"
the first one has beauty
the second, authority
all the things needing doing
are done or nearly
devotion in skugry
to an obsolete symbol-system
or pretend devotion
since nothing is at stake
pool of greenish water
next to the left front wheel tire
a befuddlement
that points the way
and who does not need a way
"the whole point being"
not real stakes to this game
my foot falling asleep
and more water to be added before i go leave
foam rising
like the river in spate
somewhere there's money
with my name on it
knowing only of art
the myth of the artist
leave a puddle
wherever i go
"...Listen, Dalton Fury is really a character in the Candlelight Ecstasy Romance _Bargain With The Devil_ by Jayne Castle..."
"Word a Long Time Arriving"
the last parasinistral would say
dark energy alembic
turns · has urned & will find itself not turning
droglam satellite
stones take care
a whine in the boiler room
"He showed me, moreover, certain musical instruments, which he himself had designed during hours of leisure. Among them, I remember that there were lutes fashioned from the ribs and arm-bones of women, and stringed with male sinews, and also there were tabors of human skin, that had a deep sonority. On more than one of these instruments, he [Omoultakos] played for a while for my diversion, and though I thought the airs he extorted from them were more than atrocious, I felt that it would be politic to commend, rather than criticize, his playing." --Clark Ashton Smith, "The Third Episode of Vathek," in: The Abominations of Yondo (1972)
"Lojban: the Motion Picture"
palindrome rally
a horror of stillness · necrotorium
txon · hazmat more gigantic
springlike day
at Ankhor · away from the chrome chrome
Vat dark call · pungent do it chrome him
at all · their soul
Damascus
bent · is their soul surf Baghdad
humst and thinking that · they are not infinite
prinal fordar terrible
want Samarkand cipor what pinatin dark
chrome parrie oflonsu mishankt humst
"In cities over-webbed with somber weed" --Clark Ashton Smith
A Memory of Howard Zinn.
"We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth." --Henry Beston (heard on NPR today)
"The Rapture"
palindrome rally
blindfold firing unbeknownst
adipose pronoun · softly impediment
retain bruise
fallout plume allowing fylfot
abolish plunderous nightcap · pnyx
adorn · aftermath fossick
bloodwork oddjob off
finitude
orbital ninja antidote · ogham putsch
"The trick of selling CDs as loyalty-proving 'character goods' rather than musical content..." --Japonisme (The future of books?)
The vogue of science fiction set in the near future.
"The Regime"
1.
we, doomed and simple species
come little rabbit
wara wara ingdolou
hope, trend, pleasure
prismatic balloon
of what is not yet rain
2.
chi-1 Sagittarii
3.
snuff-dance of vectors
wipe the mist from my windshield car windows
with the edge of my hand
korbi
rooibos lopez · Celan's
IED
a kiss that only meant goodbye
2 teas in the cardboard carrier · snailcrunch
brick red door
The Revolution will be Syntactically Unambiguous.
"The Rising"
1.
years of insomnia
then sleep deprived years
my fingers worn thin
from counting sheep
don't you speed up just
to clear my way
making the time rhyme
that boiling sound
when i come to a stop
2.
sixsix sigma
ballpoint pen tracheotomy
glasses lens that pops out
as i'm cleaning them
the light darkness lifts in the warehouse rows
and concrete emptiness gains sound
from the nearby freeway · so i close
my eyes upon an endless round
of car repairs · defunctive music
chimes with a world at "midnight" poised
and wrath-filled · they don't abuse it
by cataclysm unsurprised
i wend thread my way through down the broken roads
what should i hope to save hold at last
but having loved what time lime corrodes& having watched it slow or fast & watched a wasteland grow more vast
"Glorious Glourious Appearanceing"
past moon drop
and the Devil wears purdah
kingdoms of squalor · destroy the grave
succumb to checkmate
you go on to break things in Indo-China
only the young die young and kamikaze
omits rehearsal
our castlespiral the stern visit catafalque
spiralling in · you supply its word
an incomprehensible crumbling
in my reach forth from the citadel · swiftly
the glacial machines perish
ravaged clouds regard
turmoil fled
i am barbaric
in my instinct secrecy
from cliffs dared
the road's unthoroughfaresomeness bulks
as perennial snowfalls cease their descent
from whatever eminence
gathers the crystal
seed · though by now as well abandoned
are the owls
that glimmered & which drew me here & burned me
(toxic owls
of blue polyethylene)
with an undying
& most tragic fierce nympholepsy
Ngadjonji glossary. (via Metafilter)
On Bowie's iPod. (via iMomus)
ROMOI MU'E JAMNA
ko vorme le mokca
co nalbalvi
joi nalpurci ku zi'o
le cfipyboi .i tcati ritli
clinoi ni'o carvi
.i vacri le terdi poi mi nelci
ke'a .uusai .uinai ku'o
lo remna selcne galfi
.i pu'e zu'i ku mi'o fange
daspo le mokca porsi
.i do spuda fi le respa
sance .i cnisau .i
ve vorme co se ckape lei
pacna befi lipimo'e le picti
.i bebna je ja dimna se danmo
(' "Armageddon": You be the doorway between the moment that is not-future mixed-with not-past, & nothing, in the confuser-ball structure: tea ceremony instruction-message... Rain. Air, of earth which i am fond of (strong pity!) (sadness!), with composition humanly-altered modified. By process the-usual, we-including-you are foreign-destroyers of the moment-sequence. You reply with a hissing [reptile sound]. Familiar-feeling. Doored-structure endangered by the mass of hopers of-likelihood- too little a trillionth. Foolish and or fatal smoke-source.')
Writing into Whitman. (via wood_s lot)
Morock'n Roll.
"The Remnant"
i have lived without purpose
as some without light all their days have · & not
despaired of
yet making something
languages · like the complex bizarre patterns of on beetles
on beetles
and butterflies · that they cannot see
themselves · this might be purpose
in a larger plan sense
if you include the stars · that watch & abide
in vacuum silence stillness
this i feelthe in the bare words · as they move crawl move
out of the hive of mind · into utterance
Lucky Pool.
"Desecration"
the thing you are looking for is here
it is dig through the rubble
and pursue a cry
you must know
Little Drummer Boy.
Zan live.
The Scales.
"The Mark"
and one by one the poets stop showing up
and the cold strengthens its grip
on the stone city
i imagine it's secret police
takes away
in darkness my friends
instead of lack of health care
i imagine instead of blind dumb brute indiff'rence
censorship
stops the mouths and ears of so many
this gives me the rage
to push on
through the increasingly sparse streets
of the appallingly hideous city
and write what no one will want to read
now or in the far future
Why is shit music?
"The community now consists of tens of thousands of people all over the globe, in countless internet forums, taking millions of pictures of abandoned places and infiltrated spaces every year." (via Metafilter)
"The Indwelling"
soggy pine needles
underfoot
jet-propelled verse facelift veils
much of the same red clay as always
rain on a windshield is rearranging rain
as the last sun fades
i could close my eyes & sleep
magic touch
of shatter each thing that i may encounter
and rubble pushed aside to reveal
familiar bodies
Leftover Wine.
"The four finalists were..."
"Assassins"
find out how
ever many firm sad forensic
siempre eye sore fremd
ruined dark leave down grow-. Alexandria
burnt despite Aldebaran
calling · the water
of darkness weighing · world blood
pollen rune
gaseous terrain promise rigor
curb forsaken splint ants chamber against sex
of a sleepy phrase
Bram Stoker's Dracula- Introduction is one of the things i think of when contemplating earthlike planets around red dwarf suns. (Another, is one of the opening scenes to Exorcist 2.)
Golden Globes Wrap-Up
"An interesting scenario played out last night at the Golden Globes. Those of you who’ve been reading every word written about Cameron’s Avatar, or are just movie factoid fiends in general may already know this, but here goes: prior to the Hollywood Foreign Press’s coronation of Cameron/Avatar, the most honored movie of the awards season has probably been Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker, a barely distributed film about the war in Iraq. Released over the summer (in slightly more than 500 theatres), The Hurt Locker has earned a meager 12 million dollars at the box office, nowhere close, of course, to the almost 500 million that Avatar has grossed in this country alone. In an interesting, and unprecedented twist of fate, Bigelow and Cameron were once married. Cameron even co-wrote and co-produced Bigelow’s 1995 film, Strange Days. I don’t know that the Golden Globes bestowed on Cameron and his new movie are in any way proof positive that the phenomenally successful filmmaker is about to pick up another set of Oscars to go with the pair he won for 1997’s Titanic; after all, Academy members might decide that Cameron’s box office success is reward enough. On the other hand, they might reward him for being such a visionary. I haven’t seen Avatar yet—I just can’t get past the word “Unobtainium,” but that’s just me—nor have I seen The Hurt Locker, but it just came out on DVD, so I plan to see it by the end of the week. I do know that I’m really hoping Bigelow at least gets nominated for Best Director on general principle, becoming only the fourth woman in Oscar history so honored—I mean, come on, it’s been six years since Sofia Coppola was nominated for Lost in Translation (following Lina Wertmuller for Seven Beauties in 1976, and Jane Campion for The Piano in 1993). The Bigelow-Cameron dynamic aside, my guess is the Best Picture race is mainly between Avatar, Hurt Locker, and Up in the Air (the latter of which may very well be the happy medium). Of course, this year’s Best Picture contest is complicated by the fact that the Academy has opted to open the race to a field of 10 contenders—while all other categories, including Best Director, are still limited to a roster of five. (I can imagine well deserved Best Picture nominations for Up, Invictus, and possibly The Blind Side as well as the other movies mentioned in this paragraph, including Precious). With that in mind, I’d like to see the traditionally all-white male Best Directors’ club broken up by not only Bigelow but also Lee Daniels, the African-American director of Precious (based on the novel Push, etc.). Incredibly, if Daniels gets a nod he’ll only be the second African-American ever nominated as Best Director, the first being John Singleton for 1991’s Boyz N the Hood—yeah, and that was almost 20 years ago.
My favorite win of the evening was Sandra Bullock (Best Actress in a Drama) for the inspirational, fact-based The Blind Side. I think Bullock may now be firmly positioned as the front-runner in the Oscar race for Best Actress. Not only does she have the statistical advantage of playing a character drawn from real-life, she’s had an amazing year: The Blind Side is raking in big bucks at the box-office, her biggest hit ever since graduating to star status; likewise, she also appeared in another top performer, The Proposal (a movie which I frankly hated). Indeed, The Proposal WAS Bullock’s all-time career high until The Blind Side, so, yes, this has been a banner year for the Texas based actress. I just like Bullock in general, and I especially like her work in The Blind Side even though it’s not as flashy as some recent Oscar winners (Marion Cotillard in La Vie en Rose, Charlize Theron in Monster, etc.). Certainly, between The Blind Side and The Proposal, Bullock demonstrates variety in her choices (in a career that includes everything from Speed to Miss Congeniality, Crash and a role as Harper Lee in the “other” Truman Capote bioflick, Infamous). Bullock will definitely face strong competition from Meryl Streep, last night’s Golden Globe winner for Best Actress in a Comedy (playing Julia Child in Julie & Julia). There’s no doubt that at 60 Streep is also on a career roll, what with a recent batch of hits (including It’s Complicated and 2008’s Mamma Mia!) as well as Oscar nominated roles in The Devil Wears Prada and Doubt. Streep may very well be the most nominated performer in Academy history, but it’s been more than 25 years since she won the second of her two Oscars (Best Actress, Sophie’s Choice, 1982), so the Academy may decide she’s long overdue for a third win. Also likely in the race for Best Actress are British newcomer Carey Mulligan in An Education and Gabourey Sidibe in Precious, possibly Emily Blunt in The Young Victoria and Helen Mirren in The Last Station—but the Academy may also overdose on Brits (per Mulligan, Blunt, and Mirren).
Sidibe represents an interesting choice in that she stands a good chance of being the first African-American Best Actress nominee since Halle Berry triumphed for 2001’s Monster’s Ball
(produced by Lee Daniels). My point is that while Sidibe’s co-star Mo’Nique is clearly poised to earn a well deserved Best Supporting Actress Oscar, so soon on the heels of Jennifer Hudson’s singular performance in 2006’s Dreamgirls (joining the ranks of Hattie McDaniel and Whoopi Goldberg), it’s obvious that Berry’s win really didn’t “change” Hollywood’s perception of black women; that is, it seems that Tyler Perry and Daniels aside, almost no one in the biz knows how to create strong Oscar caliber leading roles for African-American actresses (either that, or they simply don’t care to). Even Pixar has run into trouble for its dearth of females in leading roles, and Disney-proper faced some backlash for The Princess and the Frog. (I liked the movie, overall, but I still winced a bit that the first African-American Disney cartoon princess spent much of her screentime turned into a frog.) Maybe that’s why I can’t get too excited about Avatar. Maybe before we get too carried away with technology that allows directors to create fantastic, otherworldly digital landscapes filled with lifelike computer animated alien creatures, we should focus more on the multitudes of people on this planet whose stories have not yet been told. (Yes, I understand that Avatar’s Zoe Saldana is an American of Afro-Caribbean descent, but I also understand that in the film she plays a blue-skinned alien—and for that matter, she’s only the voice and motion model for the character…her performance is hybrid rather than a flesh and blood portrayal.)
At any rate, I think Mo’Nique’s performance as the abusive mom in Precious is the acting triumph of the year, in any category, and she is well on her way to Oscar glory. The scene in which she breaks down in the social worker’s office just baffles me…I can only barely imagine how far deep she had to search her own psyche to pull out all that raw emotion (and, yes, I’d like to see Mariah Carey score a Best Supporting Actress nod for her smallish role as the harried social worker…it’s more than just a cosmetic transformation…she “gets” the character).
Just as Mo’Nique is a Best Supporting Actress sure-shot, Inglourious Basterds’s Christoph Waltz is also front and center for Best Supporting Actor consideration. Not only did Waltz win the Globe last night, he has won just about every award imaginable—again, the same as Mo’Nique—for his masterful performance as a multi-lingual Nazi in Tarantino’s, cartoon-like caper that attempts to rewrite WWII history. I think the film as a whole is ludicrous, at best, but I do think Waltz’s performance is the real-deal. Incredibly, he won Best Actor, not Best Supporting Actor, at last spring’s Cannes film fest for the same performance.
Finally, Jeff Bridges won Best Actor in a Drama for playing a boozy, down on his luck country and western singer in Crazy Heart. Good for him. Bridges might finally get an Oscar at last. He was first nominated in the supporting category for The Last Picture Show, back in 1971. He’s been nominated three times since then, including Best Actor for Starman (1984) and Best Supporting Actor (The Contender, 2000). Bridges is certainly one of Hollywood’s most durable actors, but, truthfully, I wasn’t bowled over by Crazy Heart. It reminded me too much of last year’s The Wrestler and even 1983’s Tender Mercies for which Robert Duvall won for playing a boozy washed up country singer who gets a second chance at life thanks to a young single mom (just like Bridges also gets a second chance thanks to a young single mom). Yawn. (I could stand a supporting nom for Colin Farrell as Bridges’s one-time protégé, btw). And, oh yeah, Duvall’s presence is further felt in Bridges’s movie since he pops up for a supporting role somewhere near the middle of the film (and is listed as co-producer). Bridges’s main competition for the Oscar is George Clooney for Up in the Air, but Clooney, of course, already has an Oscar: Best Supporting Actor for Syriana, 2005. If I were voting, I’d have a hard time choosing between Colin Firth in A Single Man (the directorial debut of former fashion designer Tom Ford, based on a novel by Christopher Isherwood), or Morgan Freeman, playing Nelson Mandela in Invictus, which is proving to be a hard sell at the box office. Too bad. Meanwhile Robert Downey Jr’s Golden Globe for playing Sherlock Holmes (Best Actor in a Comedy) was a nice choice, but I think it hardly has any bearing on the Oscar race.
The Oscar nominations are at least two weeks away, but the Screen Actors Guild awards, featuring all the familiar faces from the Globes, are next week, so that by the time the Oscar nods are announced the outcome in many races may already seem like a done deal.
Thanks for your consideration,
Mp"
"Apollyon"
games people play who have no
time · already a roaring
Trondheim · spare millennia
le mokca co nalbalvi
joi nalpurci · preterite
colors in the morning gray
41 "Moves" in Contemporary Poetry. (via Silliman) --Collect them all!
"Soul Harvest"
i will alarm Islamic owls
but justice did not come
no one claimed
slowly nothing
digging
digging through
digging through the rubble
silver finned
contingent raptor
and the slide brings moly
only this once · and we wend gratefully
who alone flourish
Gormenghast on YouTube.
"Nicolae"
a sign seen
from the window
of a speeding train
fubsy welcome
from the ones in the know
The Other Secret Jews. (via 3 quarks daily)
Rough Guide to the Music of Vietnam.
Japanese Music: 2000-2009.
Lot 39.
Lojban Jabberwocky.
Mlinko reviews Okrent.
"Tribulation Force"
Arkikosa xebec practicum
manatee refuge
the solid composed of triangles and squares
bare branches frosted with light
in a dream
i found a hundred dollars
coprianairetoi · skulltopus
guarding a treasure
the cellphone starts its cheery arpeggio
the cold still grips the city
and this blog
"It is now 6 minutes to midnight."
"I think this is going to trouble me for a long time." (via fait accompli)
"So while Pat Robertson denounces Haiti's great slave revolution as a pact with the devil, Clinton is helping to reduce it to a tourist trap."
"Left Behind"
modern Italy whose xenoliths
dark amphorae tell
nascent annihilation
hanging poem
you orifice oblique · charred crystal heat will
sphingical xebec
glacial deluxe spiralling Karnak
our next slag
wearing amethystine robe
mirror hall & carrying urn the charade
Doctor Nerve's Markov Page.
Say it with Software Art!
"Greene appeared to relish destruction and death: indeed, he seemed to believe that the world deserved it." (via)
Eschatus.
"We have both 'kerosene culture' and 'tea culture' in Scotland, but have never thought to put them together."
"Sxwaixwe and the Slithy Tove"
I will alarm Islamic owls,
queue Gnostic monks in sable cowls,emphemeridsand avid thrids
blind ixodids
kudzu-broadcast, Cthulhu-derne
Hail, stern Superne!
--beneath these lids
--beneath thrang lids.
Where the Hell is Matt?
"I think the best we can hope for is the super-intelligent cockroaches will power their civilization with technology that produces huge amounts of boric acid..."
Whitopia.
"Amikejo"
Eeyore feebled guest
coinquination the hejira
parts unnamed
bio jednom jedan kralj
they crystal want · rancid coistrils whose haunted
streets of gneiss
pycgenol pawgen salt
SuSmo' Africa jaqtaH program carport
and perfidulo halo debut
lurch streak probably
Favorite Philosophers.
Theme to Spaceship Zero.
"Nocturnal Altars"
she waited for justice
my happiness is a golden poem
but justice did not come
she, the Icy Maiden, the Supreme One, waits
but conquest seeks
my happiness is a golden poem
but justice did not come
flesh melts
we are voluntary refugees
My Personal Memorial.
"(...A cupertino is a lexical error caused by unwisely trusting your word processor's spell-checker when it suggests a suitable word as an alternative to what you typed — as when you type *incect-infested and your spell-checker suggests incest-infected and you accept the correction although you actually meant insect-infested. An eggcorn is a lexical error that happens when you misanalyze a word that you have heard and your error becomes apparent only when you write down the word the way you think it is spelled — as when you hear people saying 'and her ilk' to mean 'and people like her' and you think they are saying 'and her elk'.)"
"Bring me a sea-wet stone..." R.I.P. Mog Decarnin. (via Supergee)
"Perhaps you, too, have been saved by a poem." (via Dumbfoundry)
The Fall of Rome: and the End of Civilization.
"The exploration of Sustainable Immobility is a quest for a lifestyle less determined by speed and constant mobility."
"It's Not About the Zombies"
shadows of styrofoam pellets
out back of the chicken place
i clutch the neck of my coat
we too had an answer
to the enigmas of twilight
and some of us
took the pill
took the chance
did not mistake
the inarguable effigy
Punkin Chunkin'.
klutiksi'o pe le sezga'o.
"Why do we not want our poets to do Toyota commercials?"
"Monkeys are superior to men in this: when a monkey looks into a mirror, he sees a monkey." --Malcolm de Chazal.
"Groin Gouge"
forward, into the afterglow
of the bonfire
of the humanities
capitalism will save us
pentaceratops
with fallingdown pants
HD 1461c ("Balthazar"). In order not to hold a hydrogen atmosphere, this planet must have a density less than about 0.94 ⊕, which means its radius would be greater than 3.09 ⊕ & its gravity 2.9 ⊕. Using A= 0.65 and a Greenhouse Effect of 75, the average temperature of Balthazar ranges from -36 to 220 Celsius; in order for water not to boil at the latter temperature, air pressure needs to be 26.8 times ⊕. Note that since its total area is 9.56 ⊕, it would have more land than Earth even if its surface is 96.9% covered with oceans. I think Balthazar must be a very stormy place.
Shackled to the Trilithon. More.
Nôh plays about exoplanets.
"The New Understanding Why"
Those whom the gods would destroy
they first drive mad.
Mere limits cloy
those whom the gods would destroy;
they seek a toy
no child has ever had.
Those whom the gods would destroy,
they first drive mad.
More e- than not at Amazon. (via Silliman)
Our Friend the Atom (4). H-man. Now on DVD.
"...THE WORST BOOK I HAVE EVER SEEN..." (scroll down to Frankenstein-Dracula Variation*) "The whole variation just got a little scarier." More. And: the scariest thing about the whole opening.
"...the number of fake Crowley games is astounding..."
41. [Lojban sezga'o.] (via)
--------------------------------------------------------
*which nevertheless finds a place in The Vampire Library of Darkness
One problem i encounter while attempting various Old English metrics in Modern English, is the relative paucity of useful synonyms for a given initial consonant. The other day it occurred to me that what was required might be simply a broadening of the definition of what "alliterating" amounts to.
For precedent, in Old Irish versification, the consonants are grouped in such a way that any consonant in one group is counted as rhyming (with the proper vowel) with any other in the same group.
I see two different ways to apply this to alliteration, one simple & one not so simple. First, the groups P,T,K/ B,D,G/ L,R,M,N,W/ F,S,Th,Sh and perhaps Z,Zh,J,Ch,Dh suggest themselves. (I call this option "girzylerfu".)
Then there is a more phonologically precise, three-dimensional mapping which resembles a double cube, with the first face (clockwise): P-F-V-B, the second T-Th-Dh-D, the third K-H-Gh-G; & then (separately) Ch-J over Sh-Zh over S-Z, and the W-shaped M-N-Ng with its verticals (not connected) of B & D & G. In this schema only single "kingwise-steps" are allowed (no diagonals). Thus, for instance, T with P but not with F. This one i call "pavyjorne" or kthueb.
I refer to either as Family Alliteration.
When bad things happen to good theory. (via wood_s lot)
Morphine. More. And live.
State of the World. (via Metafilter)
Did i mention my old thought about English lie and lay? Since it is becoming impossible for even native speakers to get them right, we should abolish them entirely, using recline for intransitive lie and place for transitive lay (& prevaricate for the verbal lie)
"Egil Glue"
Wara wara ingdolou
slide rigid fingers
come little rabbit
overkill
Seu te gira Galtzou
come and pray
overkill ovipositor
Hoemischep dorbiza ea
come little rabbit
bloom spectral later flesh
let us sing
Another poll to name GJ 1214b. C'mon, "Arrakis" for a planet that's 75% water by mass??
"Prudence Wolverine"
celebrity clientele
implacably smoke
in Attabar Teru i wander
red sand cliffs
small plateaux · scattered ponds seen through an alley
littered with plastic bags along the fence edge
shell craters
on the way to the dumpster
i encounter crabs
marching in single file · bright orange
carrying cardboard
cartons of name-brand icebergs
Gender-neutral pronouns. (Once upon a time, i devised ze, zer, zem for this.) Also, "...a quarter of the world's languages have some type of grammatical evidentiality." I know that's true of Lojban!
