"Although I never use the Japanese keys (unless I'm asking Shizu to write something for a Google search), I consider them a badge of honour, a status symbol."


"Good morning everybody,
Well, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences will unveil nominees for its annual Oscar awards in exactly one week, and last night's Golden Globes, presented by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, is a likely indicator of things to come. So, let's start with a look at how the races are shaping up in the major races.

First, of course, the Globes divide some categories by genre: either comedy (or musical comedy) and drama, thus spreading the wealth and generating momentum for comic performances which, historically, have met with only middling Academy approval (though, like anything else, there have been notable exceptions). Okay, let's start with Best Actress in a Drama. By now the whole world, or at least hardcore film aficionados (not aficionados of hardcore films) must know that Helen Mirren is the frontrunner for the Best Actress Oscar, thanks to her role as Queen Elizabeth II in "The Queen." Last night's Golden Globe win just further cements an already commading lead. Mirren's pre-Oscar kitty at this stage of the game tallies something like two dozen awards, dating back to last year's Venice Film Festival. The winner of the Best Actress in a Comedy award went to Meryl Streep for her sublime turn as the impeccably clad boss from hell in "The Devil Wears Prada." Streep is now most assuredly on target for her 14th Oscar nomination, though it's still Mirren's statuette to lose. Also, here's a clue: while the media has been busy reporting that Meryl Streep is the most nominated actress in Academy history, they've also been selling her a bit short. The truth is, Meryl Streep is not only the most nominated actress in Academy history, she is also--and more importantly--the most nominated performer of either sex in Academy history; the most nominated male is Jack Nicholson, with 12 bids.
Also, Streep was right on when she recalled the relatively large number of good film roles there were for women in 2006, especially as reported in the current "Entertainment Weekly" cover story. Not only is no one complaining about a dearth of Best Actress possibilities, there's reason to rejoice in that three of the strongest contenders, Mirren, Streep and Judi Dench ("Notes on a Scandal"), are thriving at 50+, thus bucking the Academy's recent trend of honoring women in their mid 30's or younger. The last three Academy Best Actress winners, Reese Witherspoon ("Walk the Line"), Hilary Swank ("Million Dollar Baby"), and Charlize Theron ("Monster") were 29, 30, and 28, respectively, when they took home their awards. [Further, Swank was a mere 24 when she won her first Oscar for "Boys Don't Cry."] Of course, they were all brilliant, but it's good to see that someone out there has suddenly taken such a keen interest in writing stories about more mature women. Dench is 72, Mirren is 61, and Streep is a relative babe at 57. Yet for all that, Annette Bening, still fabulous at 48, seems to be losing steam in her quest to earn a fourth Oscar nom for "Running With Scissors." Too bad. Her performance, for my money, was easily the year's most dazzling--and, hey, I really am a fan of both Mirren and Streep.

Moving on to Best Actor. Again, just as there was no surprise in the Best Actress in a Drama category, there was not even a hiccup in Forest Whitaker's bid for Oscar glory as he nailed yet another win for playing [now deceased] Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in "The Last King of Scotland." Whitaker has clearly been this season's Best Actor favorite, though the Longview Tx born actor has not obliterated the competition as effectively as Mirren, but that's really beside the point. Whitaker is definitely the actor with the greatest claim on the Oscar at this moment. Will Smith's "The Pursuit of Happyness" is a bigger moneymaker, Leonardo DiCaprio has two chances with "The Departed" & "Blood Diamond, " Ryan Gosling is all brilliant potential in "Half Nelson" (though conspicuously absent as a Globe contender) and seven time nominee Peter O'Toole looms as a strong sentimental favorite for "Venus" (which has yet to go into wide release), but, so far, no one has significantly slowed Whitaker's momentum. That said, the big question mark in this year's Best Actor race is Sacha Baron Cohen, who won the Globe for Best Actor in a Comedy for his documentary length, improvisational stunt, "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan." Full disclosure: I have not seen "Borat," and I don't know if, even in the name of research, I ever will. I know lots of people who have seen the movie and loved it--and assure me it's righteously funny and that I would get a kick out of it, and I really REALLY want to believe them, but every time I see a clip of the movie, I have to wonder what the big deal is. In my admittedly limited exposure, I've only seen a movie that's mean spirited and, to put it mildly, crude. I don't see anything genuinely witty or satirical about it--and Sacha Baron Cohen's vulgar acceptance speech last night did nothing to change my mind. Sorry. (Didn't I read somewhere that 35 year old Brit Cohen was educated at Cambridge? You'd never know it from his vile speech last night--and to think the show's producers let him run on like he did, then immediately turned around and cut-off the producer of "Dreamgirls." Talk about "Foul!")

Btw, writer Peter Morgan who won the Best Screenplay Globe for "The Queen" has much to celebrate. Besides penning "The Queen," he also co-wrote "The Last King of Scotland," which means come February he could find himself in the rare position of having written the year's two most acclaimed leading roles--and in separate films, no less. The last time a writer could make a similar claim was in 1991 when Ted Tally won an Oscar for adapting Jonathan Harris's "The Silence of the Lambs," which, of course, starred Academy victors Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins.

Okay, now Best Supporting Actress and Best Supporting Actor. To the surprise of almost no one, Jennifer Hudson nabbed the award in her category for her full throttle performance as Effie, the showiest character in "Dreamgirls." Barring an unforeseen surge in popularity for Abigail Breslin ("Little Miss Sunshine") or darkhorse bids for Emily Blunt ("The Devil Wears Prada") or Catherine O'Hara ("For Your Consideration"), Hudson could very well find herself with an Oscar next month. Hudson practically sealed the deal when she dedicated her award to the late Florence Ballard, the ousted Supremes' singer whom Dreamgirls' Effie most obviously resembles. For Eddie Murphy, also in "Dreamgirls," the race is just starting. Over the weekend, he won honors from the Broadcast Film Critics Association--and now the Globe. Still, Murphy is a volatile personality and has made a few enemies during the course of his career, so the Academy might not be ready to make nice just yet. So far, the most frequent presence in the Best Supporting Actor race has been Jackie Earle Haley for "Little Children." Haley curiously was not nominated for a Globe, but in less than two weeks, he and Murphy will duke it out for the Screen Actors Guild Award--along with Djimon Hounsou ("Blood Diamond") and Alan Arkin ("Little Miss Sunshine"), neither of whom should be ruled out just yet. Arkin, after all, is a previous two time Oscar nominee for Best Actor ("The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming" [1966] and "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" [1968]), and the Academy loves honoring previously unheralded vets in this category. (Btw, even if Jack Nicholson secures his 13th nomination for "The Departed," I don't see him as heavyweight in this race.) Meanwhile, hopes of Oscar nods are fading for Ben Affleck ("Hollywoodland") and Stanley Tucci ("The Devil Wears Prada").

Now for Best Picture and Best Director. Unfortunately, the Globes did nothing to advance a possible consensus. "Dreamgirls" took the award for Best Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, possibly damaging Little Miss Sunshine's chances at a Best Picture nod in the process. [For the record, "Dreamgirls" three awards made it the most honored movie of the evening.] The Hollywood Foreign Press then split Best Motion Picture Drama and Best Director between "Babel" and Martin Scorsese for "The Departed," respectively. I'm inclined to think, absent an overwhelming last minute favorite--like Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" (or, possibly, Bill Condon's "Dreamgirls")--Scorsese is on target to finally claim a competitive Oscar, but his campaigns have been known to famously backfire at the finish line. So far, this season his biggest competition has come from Paul Greengrass of "United 93," a movie which was under represented at last night's ceremony. I think the heat has cooled for both of Eastwood's WWII movies, "Letters from Iwo Jima" and "Flags of Our Fathers," but I still don't see "Babel" as a strong contender for Best Picture. Not just yet, at any rate. Oh, and don't be fooled by Eastwood's "Iwo Jima' winning the Best Foreign Language Film award at the Globes. Yes, the movie is in Japanese, but it still has an American director and was produced with American money. This award smacks of a savvy studio's "handling" of the Hollywood Foreign Press. The Academy will be less easily swayed. Contenders for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar must be in the language of the director's homeland and financed accordingly.

Okay, a shout-out to some of the winners in the TV categories and then a quick rundown of the best and worst fashions. I salute Kyra Sedgwick ("The Closer") for winning Best Actress in a TV Drama. Sedgwick's Detective Brenda Lee Johnson is currently my favorite TV character, and I'm glad that after being an also-ran during last year's awards season she's finally front and center. Thank you, Hollywood Foreign Press, thank you so much. Also, congrats to Hugh Laurie ("House"), Alec Baldwin ("30 Rock"), America Ferrera and the cast of "Ugly Betty."

My favorite dress of the evening was the emerald number worn by Renee Zellweger, then Rachel Weisz in a stunning red strapless, Sarah Jessica Parker in form fitting "blush" colored brocade, Drew Barrymore, looking surprisingly glam in soft pink, Sharon Stone, always a knockout in basic black, Helen Mirren in teal, and Meryl Streep in gauzy beige. Hilary Swank was tres elegante in a black gown and a sleek 1940's hairdo, held in place with a big jeweled ornament. The first time I saw Swank in profile on the tube, I mistook her for Jennifer Garner--this is a good thing. I loved, loved Reese Witherspoon's lemony cocktail dress, but she loses points for tired, unimaginative, flat-ironed hair. Vanessa Williams took the award for Witherspoon's polar opposite, the evening's biggest hair, a throwback to the '70's. Worst dressed? Cameron Diaz with her dud dark hair and a ruffled, one shouldered ballgown that looked as if it had been attacked by moths. Not a good look. The evening's most impressive male was Terrence Howard, followed by Justin Timberlake (of whom I can honestly say I'm not a fan) and, what the heck, even Warren Beatty who at almost 70 is still a handsome guy--and much better looking than, say, his buddy Jack Nicholson, who's right up there with him in the age department. For that matter, Beatty at 69 is more handsome than Tom Hanks at 50 (and, golly, who was dreamier/hunkier than Beatty back in the 70's when he was making hit films like "Shampoo" and "Heaven Can Wait"?); the worst was, no surprise, always slovenly Philip Seymour Hoffman.

My favorite moment of the evening was seeing Charlie Sheen introduce the clio for "Bobby," the sprawling ensemble pic written and directed by his brother Emilio Estevez. "Bobby" has been a fringe player throughout the awards season, and I'd like to see it snag at least an Oscar nom or two. My least favorite moments were Sacha Baron Cohen's speech and Tom Hanks's clumsy intro of lifetime honoree Beatty.

Well, that's my two cents. I apologize for any bloopers, typos or factual glitches. It's early yet. I also appreciate any questions, suggestions or good natured differences of opinion; however, please be mindful of others' privacy and, if you have any comments, please respond to me specifically and skip the "Reply All" button.

Thanks for your consideration,
Mp"

Filmoj.


"Hello, everybody. Well the countdown to the Oscars just keeps getting more and more exciting. Today the Directors Guild of America (DGA) announced the nomiees for its annual awards. The DGA is the official union of American film directors and has been handing out a Director of the Year prize since the 1940's. Of all the awards that precede the Oscars at this time of year, the DGA honor is typically the most dead-on accurate barometer of how the Academy will vote--for Best Director and, by default, Best Picture. Again, this duplication can be explained because directors in the union nominate among their peers for the DGA award in the same way that members of the Academy's directors' branch, also from the union, serve as that organization's initial selection committee. This year's nominees are:

Bill Condon ("Dreamgirls")
Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris ("Little Miss Sunshine")
Stephen Frears ("The Queen")
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu ("Babel")
and
Martin Scorsese for ("The Departed")

Of course, Scorsese is the heavyweight here, having previously been nominated six times, most recently for 2004's "The Aviator." Scorsese has never won the DGA prize, per se, but he was honored for his entire body of work a few years ago. There's a lot of interest in Scorsese this time because not only is he without a DGA win for a specific film, he's also famously never won an Oscar. Meanwhile, Stephen Frears was Oscar nominated for 1990's "The Grfiters," which Scorsese produced. On the other hand, Frears was--infamously--not nominated for directing 1988's Best Picture nominee "Dangerous Liaisons." I, for one, am still bent out of shape over that one.

There are some noteworthy omissions for the DGA prize, including Clint Eastwood ("Flags of Our Fathers" and/or "Letters from Iwo Jima"), Emilio Estevez ("Bobby"), Todd Field ("Little Children"), Paul Greengrass ("United 93"), and Guillermo Del Toro ("Pan's Labyrinth"); however, the real story here is the two-fer nomination of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris for "Little Miss Sunshine." If the momentum for "Little Miss Sunshine" continues, Dayton and Faris will be one of the very few "director teams" nominated for the Oscar. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two others: Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise ("West Side Story" 1961--and they won), and Warren Beatty and Buck Henry ("Heaven Can Wait," 1978); moreover, Faris could find herself only the fourth woman nominated for the Academy's Best Director Oscar--and only the second American woman, in fact. Obviously, a woman has yet to win this award. Should she get the nod, Faris will follow in the footsteps of Lina Wertmuller ("Seven Beauties," 1976), Jane Campion ("The Piano," 1993), and Sofia Coppola ("Lost in Translation," 2003). FYI: Randa Haines ("Children of a Lesser God," 1986), Penny Marshall ("Awakenings," 1990), and Barbra Streisand ("The Prince of Tides, 1991") are all women who directed Best Picture nominees without likewise being recognized.
Below you will find excerpts from two Variety.com articles: one about the DGA, and the other about the USC Scripter Award. The next few weeks will bring nominations from the Writers Guild and the American Society of Cinematographers. The Broadcast Film Critics name their picks this Thursday, the Golden Globes are this coming Monday (1/15), and Oscar noms will be announced Tuesday morning (1/23).

Mp"

(via //for*stpirat* dot n*t slash pictur*s)


'This year has raised a fine crop of poets; there was scarcely a day throughout the month of April when someone was not giving a public reading.' --Pliny, quoted in Th* Mammoth Book of 3y*witn*ss*s: Anci*nt Rom*


All that we think, dream, or perceive, passes either through the horn gate of As-If, or the ivory gate of Not-As If.

Truth Tables. Not to be construed as adding ~T ∩ ~F and ~T ∪ ~F (redundantly), but rather a profound recognition of the metaphorical nature of language, involving as it does a devalorization ofthe pole "Truth", which is either tautology or insight... [picture of a tetrahedron with vertices T, F, Q', and G'.]



if i among shards of shadows crawl
shall thoughts act Canopus krill

military wisp
coils out of shoggoth and talisman coral

as Grinchus
drifts past a Zaqaziq kraal


Th* N*w Adv*ntur*s of Hitl*r.

   "Grinchus Balboa"

ordalic palinodist
O Noah rainbow palinodist

gray but possibly not as our mild noon crawls
waltz palinodist

Grinchus trains
vain sciamachy palinodist


Logic is an attitude toward description. Since it is a subset of descriptive language, fuazole & gwedd belong in the category of nondescriptive language, rather than as forms of logic. Statements-in-context have truth-values, but isolated sentences don't. (They only have shorn meanings.) And all meanings derive from an allusion to shared experience. Thus poetry (as fuazole) is the least transferrable (in time, space, or language) form of communication--it becomes frop too easily--except insofar as it is both simply expressed & universal in scope. ...Poetry survives cosmopolitanism only because of the magical utility of gwedd poetry...


Th* Tru* Furqan. Plus.

(via m*mory dot loc dot gov slash pnp)


Everything exists, even Nothingness. The Nothingness that exists is As-If [fuazole]. By virtue of As-If, Cosmos is & is not; Mind is and is not. The part of mind that is-not (Language) corresponds both to the part of cosmos that is (things) & the part of cosmos that is-not (the Unmanifest). Thus Language has secular & sacred aspects.

   raft lucky amidst
drowning thalassa of days
   that still must watch it

gray floors and so much waiting
staring with harsh droning sounds


6174. (= 3037 + 3137)


"...morality is the most dark and daring of conspiracies..." --Ch*st*rton

"...the Real is the symbolic itself in the modality of non-All..." --Slavoj Žižek, Th* Pupp*t and th* Dwarf (2003)


"Ironic" r*ironiciz*d. (via M*tafilt*r)


   "Aphorism"

crypt moorings
stunt cannot bury warrior diplomat
twilight is a light

star stomp carious lungfish
planing crypt
around us only an army char

dawn part of rainbow chull and us pour adopt
tarn owing


"My livid past still lingered about me, but faintly, like the roar inside a seashell, and my longing for it was a dull arrhythmic spasm, or murmur, in the meat of my functioning heart." --V*ronica


      Dhjksdc (4-value logic).
Fuazole = both-true-and-false [T ∪ F, Metaphor] (noun; adjective= "irreal"), symbol: Q'

Gwedd = neither-true-nor-false [~T ∩ ~F, Nonsense] (adjective; noun= "frop"), symbol: G'

Glaugnea has both logical and observational modifiers: the default is true, apparently & really, for me &/or some others.

              apparently    apparently  despite
              and really     but not       appearances

true          ---            VR'             VL'
false          P'             PR'              PL'
irreal         Q'             QR'              QL'
gwedd       G'             GR'              GL'

Fuazole: also includes collaborative conceptual structures (occult traditions, religious doctrines)--even: bwinmol [conlangs] (usage). The "Rainbow Bridge" of concepts is like a poet's idiolect. ...Legends...Games...


Photocroms. (--Prior to this, i would go out & look for.)

"...sedition is, by definition, ungrammatical; the artist is the first to recognize when a language is lying." --B*rg*r


3 Pulitz*rs.


   "Howdah"

thwart common photon cannons
a word that i hold
clairbuoyant duppy Podvaxtag glim
and wolf tag


Paintings that chang*d th* World.


Dualisms directly proceed from prejudice to absurdity, in a foreordained march that is nonetheless incomprehensible to their footsoldiers.


"Tolkien intends the relationship of Quenya to Sindarin to be the same as Latin's relationship to the Celtic and Welsh languages used in Britain when the Romans arrived." --David Colb*rt, Th* Magical Worlds of Th* Lord of th* Rings (2002)

(via ulib dot iupui dot *du)


Cal*ndar r*b*ls.


"Such political consequences as it [the Congress of Vienna] achieved were in the main disastrous and brought much misery. But its glittering gaiety had one odd result. It gave Vienna--a fine but rather sombre city, with not a particularly happy history--a curious glamour, a touch of magic, determinedly exploited by writers and composers of operettas and the like, that refused to vanish until after the First World War, when even the ghost of the Congress stopped dancing." --J B Pri*stl*y, Th* Princ* of Pl*asur* (1969)


dawn silk vow
strict napalm
hit


"In Cameroon, gender is organized on the lines of the concepts of wet and dry." --Jay Griffiths, A Sid*ways Look at Tim* (1999)


Darkly.

"It is something else: a sustained, philosophical reflection upon identity, made in the person of one who felt he had none".


We should seek the bones of our language in grief, not grammar.


tuymaq hurls constantly burn
Itzcuintli burn

fraud lamps stand
Grinchus sjambok links in passports burn


Tuymaq is a dark knowing, sjambok a bullwhip.


"There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell." --B*rtand Russ*ll


"...the engine of the movement is deep economic and personal despair."


"She took me up to the ridge, and proudly showed off its awful emptiness. It was a gift, but only now do I receive it." --Parsifal Mosaic

(via fr**th*fiv* dot org)


"We might as well start dating the new era from Quetzalcoatl's 2012 now, since that's what they're going to do anyway once they've forgotten what it meant for real." --Parsifal Mosaic, Com* Glut th* Str**ts with Spill*d Bodily Fluids (2006)


"Between official order and unofficial disorder, the responses were multiple, giving the Spanish Golden Century its sense of urgency and perhaps even its beauty." --Carlos Fu*nt*s, Th* Buri*d Mirror (1992)


Wikinomics.


   "pigeon passenger

Excess of Mercy did not make this world;
in strangest strangeness. Yet also, a password
into. If only all! we thrive
like weeds in a wall. We pray
to Father Christmas while breaking on the wheel.
Do you think I don't know that?
I have so many lies at hand.
I choose at times to be harsh for truth, though.
For honor. (That despised word.)
Honor is a harder thing than love,
so I spare everyone but those I truly love...
And not a day passes that I don't despair
in this labyrinth of knives where I'm still too nesh.
And that is how I know I don't belong!"

--Ald*rman Whinny, Th* Sun Som*tim*s Ris*s (1911)


198 M*thods of Nonviol*nt Action. (via fring* matt*rs)


"The world's most watched TV programme is apparently the Hindi version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire, with about 250 million people watching it live every week."


Lycr*ls. (196 = 89 + 107.)

"Baieido has dedicated itself to making incense for over 300 years."


A pathos of apologists. A king who sits grinning foolishly, atop a mountain of dung. All around, a crowd who would try not to watch, and must.


"Yes, we were stupid for disregarding the limits placed before us; for tryng to go everywhere and know everything. Stupid, spoiled, and arrogant. But we were right, too. I was right. How could I do otherwise when the violence of the unsaid things became so great that it kept me awake at night?" --Mary Gaitskill, V*ronica (2005)


   Lando

L'ombro nuba, domsxtelista
baroj kaj fajro;
espero lupa mia
en cxi-tiu disputita
lando
lavanta miajn pajnojn

skrapo
skrapo

   Land

The housethief cloud-shadow,
barriers & fire;
my wolfly hope
in this disputed
land
washing my wrists

scrape
scrape

(1989)


Meaning comes from speech communities interacting. The "language" that exists as dictionaries and grammars is the result of a complex process of analysis, but its relation to the meaning that comes from a speech community interacting, is that of a cut-out traced shadow silhouette to its threedimensional figure source.


Th* Land That N*v*r was.

The Hat model of meaning: every word is a hat, and every meaning is something that wears that hat.


Fl*sh in th* Ag* of R*ason.


Sound of th* B*ast.


Thomas Pain*, Star Park*r, Dani*l P*arl in a row.


   "UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE

There are places in me where nothing can live.

Places like the road to Mongolia
tells you to roll up your windows & try to breathe shallower.

Maybe it was a failure of enginering.
I dunno. i don't go out at night
searching for beacons that aren't there...

But I keep track pretty good. That's something;
& for jokers who have to ask, I've prepared
a variety of colorful accounts."

--Y*ntl Hambright, Bri*f and Burning Pray*rs (1968)


"Butterflies are landing on your right arm, your left arm is covered with cockroaches. Or you are walking in mud and your eyes are on the back of your head."

Ori*ntalism's Int*rlocutors.


starts with morning's cold
this manifold light that sings
story all to know


Our picture of how we use words is not only different from how we use them, if it were so, we could not even form that picture. Rather, it is one of our myths--call it the myth of thinginess (Haeccitas). It's why translation seems inherently paradoxical, and true philosophy a goal almost beyond imagining. And, when one abandons this myth, it is so great a leap that it takes only a modest degree of fetishizing to render it the Jewel in the Crown, the experience of experiences, satori--or letting go of words as words. Why should this be so? Is it that who we think we are, is also a grave matter of "words as words"? And where do we go from there?

"I looked
around
lousy candle's all I found"

--St*pp*nwolf


"The ultimate proof of his regime’s secular nature is the fact that in the Iraqi elections of October 2002 — in which Saddam Hussein got a 100 percent endorsement, and thus overdid the best Stalinist results of 99.95 percent — the campaign song played again and again on all the state media was Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You”." (via cursor)


old wisp floating still
fragrant stain
turning in morning's corona as
cars rip through that stationary cataract
of swung grasp and story fall

(via iit dot *du slash ~khanath slash *bay slash sakina)


   'LXX

EVERYONE SMILES AT THE CASUAL WAY I SINK TO THE BOTTOM, CELLULAR FROM EATING well and drinking well.

Does money walk around with no food? Or is there someone who gives it seeds like a little bird. Frankly, I know almost nothing about this.

Oh stone, generous cushion to the end. Let us, the living, love the living, since the good dead things will come later. How much we have to love them and hug them, how much. We should care about current events, for we won't always be as we are. Since temporary Ravines are missing from the essential cemetaries [sic].

The carriage goes in the clay, on edge. The passage hits us on top of the head, with its dozen steps, scaled in horizontalizing frustration of feet, through shivering vacant sandals.

And we're afraid to take a step, since we're never sure if we swing with the pendulum, or if we've already crossed it.'

--Smith's Trilc*


"All sin ever is evil,
As is Sargasso
Forever on Ossa..."

--Satir*: V*ritas

"The opposite of torture is not progress but charity." --B*rg*r

   but curry stirs
scaffold sunlight crawls iron cyst
   usurp star gibbons


FOREVER starting again, having to go back to the last place you remember: isn't this the law of flicker-self? Why do you imagine it is ever any different?
   Negligence is an army. In this landscape of futile guideposts, language itself is only the pointer, perhaps, to what should have been the in-between places.
   And philosophy moves like another such caped crusade, multiplying shadows in its war against the tendency to flicker.


    diagram including you
    and form slipping habitat
    diagram bold in its faith
    black plutonium cargo
    diagram burning ions
    spiral my long story wood

(via msnbcm*dia3 dot msn dot com)


"Vantage, Used"

The mountain is an island in sky.
Our half formed lungs can’t take much of it
and our eyes sear with what we have no words for
except: sky. I feel already a fossil on the mountain.
I know that my kind will be obsolete someday.
That is why i return to the mountain, for those awful glimpses
of our apocalyptic bungling
sealed in history like an ambered dragonfly.

--Chastizing th* B*autiful Monst*rs


"...madness is revolutionary freedom confined to the self." --John B*rg*r

People who move surrounded with lies have a different relation to the world from those whose uncomplicated acceptance offers no pitfalls, and whose relative consensus in regards to the things that matter most, occasion but little irremediable conflict.


   "Devolution"

I will stay,
i will learn to live and die in the body,
the body’s knowing and what it doesn’t know.
My armor will be that i am flesh
without appeal, in the fleetness of its perishing.
Here on this island of Easter
gull’s cry flies forever among the stone faces.

--Chastizing th* B*autiful Monst*rs


Plains Indian L*dg*r Art. (via M*tafilt*r)

(via tikrit dot com )


Plan*tocopia. (via M*tafilt*r) "Move Mars where Venus is now, and put Venus is Mars's place, or perhaps a bit further out, toward the inner edge of the asteroid belt. Assume they were there from the beginning, and estimate their current surface temperatures! You'll find that life on Hot Mars probably would develop early, when the sun was cooler. Life would suck up CO2 and keep the planet from runaway greenhousing. ...Meanwhile, our Cool Venus, swathed in a thick atmosphere, would be warm enough for life but lacks enough water for large seas. With the air so rich in CO2 and water as the limiting factor, sparse plant life might be all we'd get, but who knows?"


" "If you're a poet," he said, "you don't just remember dreams, you remember how dreaming works. You can do it in the daytime: mapping from one set of states of affairs to another, so that there arises this thing called 'meaning.' I couldn't tell how 'how,' no more than I could tell you exactly how I put one foot in front of another. You don't 'how' it, you do it. You can do it with suggestive abstract patterns as easily as with shaped sound... In fact, you can't stop. It's because you and I are addicted to the thing called 'meaning' that we use words, and have responsibilities, and people who depend on us." "

--Whit* Qu**n

(via //justinsomnia dot org )


   "φυξιμος"

  not Kirlian coral blows
stark affliction block my windows

  famous mafioso wind
storp high opal moan my windows

his ik bin ibi path twinkling
    pillow book my windows


Lor*nzo Milam today. (via wood_s lot)


"...Of cataclysmic presence;
of strangest rage, of ache, of blasphemy."

--Martillac

(via //cloudking dot com slash artists slash k*lly-burg*ss slash works)


"What would be torture in the world of phenomena is beauty in the world of artistic representation." --Un*arthing th* Past


Mast*rs of D*c*ption.


   From clarity to
blocking it and back as if
   taking action this
ord sciamachy crypt crunk
   construction mugs throng
infamous flitting mirror
   mar sky did moon skid
roam miry clutch clarity
zzxjoanw padishah drum rich murk


"What boggles the mind now is the way the nation seems to be taking this loss in stride." (via wood_s lot)

(via //n*wsimg dot bbc dot co dot uk slash m*dia)


'It is only at first sight that the absolute indifference of early Christians towards the life of the historical Jesus is disconcerting.' --Alb*rt Schw*itz*r


   Νεμεσις

our viridian
strict claw drouth
claw punish curviangular skald

cloud indigo skald laws walk
through blast tomorrow through lorn lock as only
black distract to abolish


Nation of Thizzlam.

mukataba war is loud
that ballad is honor war is loud

shigol latifundia and fragrant rugs
war is loud

labyrinth malls chortling Christmas
wailing Lilith war is loud

Grinchus knows
shadow war is loud


3y*balls in th* Sky.

(via g*orgtown dot *du slash faculty slash irvin*m slash visualarts)


"This desperate tongue-in-cheek disavowal of sincerity exposes the bare rusted infrastructure of our poetry moment, caught between the exhaustion of the confessional impulse and the exhaustion of ironic wordplay."


mukataba dusk
skirls a stirrup walg obstruct caftan

idiomatic fungoids using up ash
skull millions

his sloppy psalm sandstorm is
star story crippling


"I’d compare RT’s switching to the Strat to the moment when the medieval/renaissance revivalist Phil Pickett laid down his modern oboe and picked up his first crumhorn. Finally: the right tool for the job."

"Of the younger painters none actually paints so beauifully as Francis Bacon." --Wyndham L*wis (1949)

   chords of rain slip down
my stationary car's glass
   as faintly traffic
churns and i think of away
but not i think in this car


"And terribly the hoofs of Sleipner rang
Along the flinty floor of Asgard streets..."

--Matth*w Arnold

(via //n*wsfromrussia dot com)


"I adore italics, don’t you?" (via AL Daily)


cold and fuzzy final in wrong
indigo brouhaha
along slag glory
black mandolin for snow occult
building ischial anagrams


I'm calling it magic, in my fantasy. It's a way of describing a world situation where unbelievable, jaw-dropping bad things happen, and nobody bats an eye, and people (except for what's known as the lunatic fringe) just carry on as normal. In another generation, it was called fascism.


This Island 3arth.


"If an artist wished to justify himself as a specialist, he could not do better than to base his claim on the social undesirability of everybody being an artist." --Wyndham L*wis

(via //s*ahors* dot gom*n dot org)


Burning Tigris.


   "MJ-12"

count ladybug dots

Saanich his limbo physical gray
blind twinkling

caraway asthma dictionary gory
Navia Dratp watch counting

rumpabumpbum


Th* incr*dibl* wat*r b*ar.

(via imag*cach*2 dot allpost*rs dot com)


"The philosophy of human creation is: reaching the pinnacle of bliss, construction of immaculate life, efflorescence of all potentialities and talents, implementation of justice and devotion across the world amongst all human beings." (via M*tafilt*r)


upon vicinity of
rat iron road
tilt padlock · any cold apt lit count

quoia bran chsp spur
sporadic word · whisking hospital blind warps
afford in floating


B*atl*grass.


Th* Pass*ng*r.


Bogs hurry.

"You know, you do have to wonder where Liebkraft got his ideas from."


   "A Low Country"

call · old things
ruinous mock · rishima
rains blows · black potlatch on a torn road
rot your fathoms · laud


Rishima or Milky Way glow. Ghostly. Rot is an ongoing way. (Azury gray portal, to tomorrow's slight forms.)


"God spoke to him and said, "We must help these people and we must Christianize them." The Secretary of State responded, "Mr. President, they're already Roman Catholic," and McKinley said "that's what I mean!" "

To Titan's thinking birds, Saturn's disk is a big bird.


dawn blogging
sound of sloppy Ialdabaoth
morth ominous zodiac
aid without fog coils

way high road troll sub to float · or was it to
fall · or was writing it a floating fall div
an day in a cold, gray, fog-
bound ability scorch potlatch air

blogging glob
to push back Sacla


Nois* Putty.

"If you learned to speak Lojban...."


Navia Dratp. Plus.


Ishtar portal aroma blogging
blood blogging

polyps flowing raucous night war always at
had yoga blogging

immortal song mouth that glows
with thorn most malign important · wall blogging

Grinchus charts
cicalas blogging


"What would you say to the future?" --A bard is not a wight that sings, but a wight that knows prior things, lost today.

(via hom*pag* dot mac dot com slash sboon*az)


blogging is a chav artform
murk charts any possibly
odd pokchang spurts your posh washboard author
wisdom shot far from worlds


Pokchang attiring a wight, not with mundanity.


blogging glass robots
aglow again with anchors ago
ogham slag

random psalmist history's crypt
tortuous obtaining so stillborn ashtray
maggot agony slit dawn


Always put on too much clothing for this mild gray light.


solstitial blogging
gray throng roads · pharaoh flogging
migratory swarm
turning in thick twilight
black forms turning and diving


"The aliens had simply arrived, by chance, in time to witness the last acts of a long drama: tragic, fascinating, rich and rank and strange..." --Gwyn*th Jon*s, Pho*nix Caf* (1998)


On my victrola- Music at th* Tim* of th* Crusad*s ("Fauv*l" motets)


Wolv*s at th* Door. (An actual "Julia"?)


My cha- Sky B*tw**n th* Branch*s

Chin*s*/Japan*s*/Vi*tnam*s* blog--via Languag* Hat--but also a Pink Floyd insight that was on this blog prior.


"But Parry's perspective is a fusty one; as a literary intellectual he's attuned to a literary and political culture which is all but dead in the West as well as in Japan." (my italics)


Flavors. (via wood_s lot)

(via pinky dot n* dot jp slash ~aogachou)


'I have in me the whip of speech and the hearing of the angels.' --Gnosis on th* Silk Road


   "Bum Hunting Outfit"

of fractal days
a wodwo knows
that nothing shows
its worn top out
bright murk arrays
notion and scar
harm brought calcspar
that a firm doubt


'Or have they any stairway (unto heaven)...?' --Sûrah 52 (Pickthall)


   "Frost Giants"

annul birdtalk cairn
dark a fjord gong holy child

i don't joust karmic lapwings murk narc
know of prong ruck · quickly shill to unknown vap

wink anything xoanon now
yapping zoo


Movi* Mapp*r. (via M*tafilt*r)

"Just be sure to have your Reese’s Pieces handy when they come calling."


"Bad, bumbling English is always a happenin' planet..."

"...I am sitting alone
   in the history of music
and nothing all everything
   loads body down off the
hanging symptoms."

--mi*kal and, knowl*dg* swirling man t*ll slow stori*s (1986)


3ast*r Sacrific*. (via M*tafilt*r) [slow load]


   "29x-13
     21x-28"

and ruinous martyrs' singular blood
portrayal shorn of shadowy yoga
Polonium now or short aroma

Badtz Maru down pulls Polonium wall
carbolic martyrs youth to opal dark
is a car bomb as bilk so cargo

it dilatory scarab auroras
bulk warhaul Polonium karma



To avoid soul pain from ugly surroundings, a wight must shut out too much of what's going on. An artificial world is no satisfactory proxy.


murk lingo no salvation
is and moon · no salvation

chasm back to Gunnison
in that wood · no salvation

today pours bright burgundy
kylix vugg · no salvation

Ubar stairway and stars a pronoun goaf
thrust practical · sands no salvation

smug unicorns frolic luck's discarding
bulwark ions of no salvation


"Works only around midnight, and can only do some of the work between heartbeats."

I am not my tracks, i am not my path, i am not my way forward. Dust stirring among pallid shadows. Cry to Cthulhu.


   "A Ballad of Bad Bargains"

pad flurry spiralling · bad bargains
and sharp futility · your grammar
account long scabbard
loud adjoining tomb
turn out florid owl
of Babylon

cravat viridian nirvana
car bombs slow up my fan fic · and words
sloppy pangolin
torn soil doing worms
activity ghosts
song born of frost


"I think many members of the press think they inhabit an imagined center, and take pride in the fact that people on the left and right often object to the way in which they tell the story."


   "Nativity in Black"

a fun Iraqi diaspora
born of bald political football
tattoo jahiliyah · strict yahoos
and sprawling miraculous kudzu
"mangina" clouds laud
obsidian taiga
vivid to consign my
shrink thwart gnosis


'It would be just as if a man should fall in love with one of the sparrows which fly by, but it has already passed out of sight.' --Th* Thoughts of th* 3mp*ror Marcus Aur*lius Antoninus (tr G*org* Long, 1889), vi.

Born into what world of rainbow gold, that you a ghost roam hungry for bright winnings?


Tast* of Ch*rry.


   "Robots of Saturn"

sitcom from ash murk
arraign a limit
a shawabty talks

caustic cabin
and king scarab

with ruinous faith

swallows an opal
Socratic goaf


"The more withered the reality, the more gigantic and tyrannical the dream." --Gaitskill, op cit


   "Incalcitrant Oaxaca"

nary scarab frith
nor spook scrupulous lack of faith frith

hollowly rhyparographic my scrollwork
opal frith

and i know but avoid an
audit Grinchus of this scarp rank frith

Darmok. (via Languag* Hat)


"...language is collective, or it dies. If you ponder this contradiction for the rest of your life, it’ll do your poetry immeasurable good..."


A non-Ori*ntalist. (via *t*raz)

Noisy K*yboard. (via Und*r th* Fir* Star)


"An earnest Zargian Ph.D. student will expound in his thesis the theory that the land was so inhospitable, only chess pieces could live there." Plus: cam*l art!

Not walking through autumnal woods. Not absorbing sounds, odors, forms. thing that i would do again, soon. I roll toward all my tasks, not walking through autumnal woods.


   "Silly String"

dark nor chaos chars which any
book by book building a warm lair
dark and two spans' frith
smoky habitat
thwarts argot
firn glow lug


"I felt like he added the news on bombings in his area just so people would keep reading--even though he really wanted to talk about science and philosophy."


strip you of knowing of lilac sky
carving by swift lamplight anagram
to walk upright amidst pyramid
cataclysms and damp gray star drouth

Hot*l Carcosa, Kuala Lampur (via playguid*tour dot co dot jp)


   "Rocky Balboa"

caitiff brumous anything flubs
jackals kiss in moot about glut;
tinklings nayward only holy pillbug
roast, lulling words' zonda:

quandary distant (so ulnar
xyloid) vast your folds abolish.


Part of my mind holds that school's form. Visiting it again, haunts with old moods. Though i don't now wish to attain such goals, that prior longing stains my spiral still.


shark nativity vaunt chars
lung frost chars

my arrack wind my Turk robin's road
curt nirvana chars

go carolling with wispy Ogpu at dusk
twilight kingdoms Grinch paradox chars

"...the technique of re-appropriation can be used in a way different from the cool and sterile distance of postmodern bracketing as it was done by Andy Warhol." --And i luv this.

(via *sp-books dot com slash shopslash imag*s)


"Why the Creation Cycles do not end December 21, 2012, but October 28, 2011."


   "Harsh Loofah"

will flagging gulf
attain chaos
with blood logic

and giddy night
call it coral
say raucous sign

for a digit
of indigo
scuttling ingot

and djinn music
fraught stark skull pyx
scaffold of glass


Scaffold as if a trial prior, and forms of law. Glass as always in sight, glinting uncommonly, mostly not.

"It is the first time I’ve seen anyone from the U.S. government focus on Iraqis and what they have experienced and what they are suffering."


"While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see." --Doroth*a Lang* (via Utata


"And maybe that ethnicity, while having a good deal to do with the culture revealed in much British and American writing and the legends that went before, also might be involved with particular new-world experiences that are ongoing not only for people who have come lately, but people like me whose ancestors have been here for centuries but who are – right now - coming to terms with a post-modern world and feeling themselves being changed by it."

(via infohazardgall*ry dot com)


Dancing on a sloping hill. Fall. Fall. Don't stop dancing.


   "Factotum"

autogynophilia
fur stairway winding

ogham my indigo god spiral
why diaspora country dilatory

caracul
afghan furbish crawl road stir

cardboard mimics orchid twinkling nor
typical swamp wisp


Cardboard: what vagrants carry, as cars go past.


Road to 1984. (via wood_s lot)

"What "aesthetic experience" requires isn't so much suspension of disbelief as suspension of knowledge."


I should do a book with this tag: Th* Th*ory and Practic* of Oligarchical Coll*ctivism.


"It's very nice to re-read this on a midsummer's night, under the light of Jupiter."

(via fantasticfiction dot co dot uk)


Talk to this lost soul without using your god-word. Show him why you kill, told not to. Show him your I-can-do-it pass, your god-sign fucking blood warrant.


Fat Whit* Vampir* Blu*s.


   "Rat Pack Christmas"

casting through murky Xanadu
murrainwind · final shadows · pyx
wall fix smooth Samhain find chair
down girasol rasorial
wombat atrophy; gold Saturn
trophy bruff Cthulhu coil

wain trim, or cargo ransom
a slag long


I saw a bruff not long ago, moon-rainbow, its chill profound. My cargo cult of singular waiting. Slag into which tors fall. Trim your arbor scaffold, and carol.

Volksigid.

A job that pays a million dollar salary. Is it that you must do so much stuff, & so skillfully? --Past, say, my own stark limits. --No, it pays you for not living in my world, that's all.
   Godzilla nog, Godzilla foot. How far from foot to nog. Is that how our scuzzy pundits limn all human glory? By a span of unfair taking. By a too much that is still taking and taking.


   "Walk Through To-morrow"

mutiny star
      form fill-ins char
spools right as rain
      dry starfish pain
slag romantic
      down want arctic
iron sun insight
      crispy moonlight
blindfold crystal
      random pistol
dark stomp lurch blood
      trustworthy flood
raps clack calcspar
      mutiny star

(via sit*mak*r dot umich dot *du via M*tafilt*r)


A fight against not saying. Which has its oomph & logic. I form small quick tasks, as if to trick my watchful drought. But i don't know that this isn't also a part of its plan: omission by trivial proxy. Sand grains fall, singularly. Not will. Not will at all.


   "Ajtz'ib' "

vacant rituals
customary anguish which
black winds sculpt
through war days carry a sugar pill
saying i am crystal saying i am crow

Ya dig? (via Anggarrgoon)


"I ask you, what would you do
if you had two tongues in your mouth,
and lost the first one, the mother tongue,
and could not really know the other..."

←My pic on soft furry cloth (photo via JR)


Condign. (via Tom Tomorrow)

(via //pharyngula dot org)


"To bedew harebells
On the spoil-heaps of quarries."

--Hugh*s


   "Biology of Amphibian Tumors"

Targum garnish armory
agonist such imp
agnostic varnish ordinary
input silk
as shadowy landfall arabic Umbrist
pools orchid
nyctalops dancing


   Not to want what you can not obtain:
   Most difficult, most important thing.
And, to find out how much and how much only, that you actually should go for.

--This from a wight owning myriads of books (and still buying).

(via p*rsonal dot psu dot *du slash faculty)


Dummi*s.


P*tro-Finlandization.

Pallid dust on my hands and torn skin. Work. Past and to find tomorrow. Dust.


   "Jahiliyah"

  dry Wyrd iridium spar
twin kvint monotonous shargar
  on no account a full rout
tor loaf tunic nano doorspout
shargar sugar only of snow
    binary shadow


"Although we are at war with terror, fashion magazines say we are sunny now. We wear bright colors and choose moral clarity. While I was waiting to get a blood test last week, I read in a newsmagazine that terror must not change our sunny disposition." --Mary Gaitskill, V*ronica (2005)


Watching Patti Smith clips on Youtub*.

"That was what, ultimately, war did to you. It was not the physical dangers–the mines at sea, the bombs from the air, the crisp ping of a rifle bullet as you drove over a desert track. No, it was the spiritual danger of learning how much easier life was if you ceased to think." --Agatha Christi*


Th*ological Dictionary (via wood_s lot).


R.I.P. Kari. Plus.

   "Mahi Mahi"

Shard basic
built raucous in whining dark
nor dilatory your curtain of basalt

bark thick wizard trap
rain mask is ritual it grows from myth
migrant grout

grins among thorn wind (blind anagram)
ultion Iliad shining in a vacuum


I find "mahi mahi" on food lists; cannot bring to mind right now if it is dolphins, or only dolphin-ruinous. Or is that boycott past? What if i know wrong?

"For the first time in two decades, I could experience these poems as I had originally written them."


Talk to Luna.


On my victrola- Funkad*lic: Maggot Brain


Ajtz'ib'.

Finally.


   "Wayfar*rs

We heard the dead leaves rustle
As we walked down the path;
And you would go to Endor,
But I was bound for Gath.

We lingered where the roads forked,
Then parted at the last;
For you would know the future,
And I would drown the past."

--Harv*y Wagn*r Flink


"...the Native [Venetian] tongue--i confess I love the sound of it, like Latin gone rosaceous and soft as butter--..." --ibid


Touch wary mimosa still
go though it bring fury still

ilka karst is slivovitz
spiralling from Gray's still

lunar unicorns gambol
avariciously, sough still

not only a bard trots drab
gossipy Norns yarn wrath still


Minions surround, happy laughing, busy with ruin. It is my own snarl that looks awry. Could i run away with what i want to hold from ruin? Ruin follows: in my running, in my scorn of minion companions.


Languag* W**k at th* Kirch*r Soci*ty.

by Ludwig M*idn*r (via graphicwitn*ss dot org)

""Cartoon music," as it is pejoratively dismissed, has rarely been granted the respect it sometimes deserves." Plus.


"Some vileness in us makes us scorn and wound
   The shapes of flame for which our spirits yearn."

--Frank B*lknap Long


Z*ppar*lla.


Probing winds from four airts moan,
dusts snow about shard a moon.
Among old buildings curls main
road as thy small cinnamon.


"Airt" as winds' compass origin. I found my tracks back on a path of old days; what is not as in that lost duration but my knowing? Knowing so, it is that only spot again for a sad mind. What a grim wind carrying black snow.


Shall a chav qabbalah
carry this rash shawabty?

Shark arcana, carbolic,
crunk town coasts to Xibalba.


"...and yet what is hidden is not destroyed, while what is patent may be." --Th* 3v*ning Land

On my victrola- 5,000,000 by Dr*ad Z*pp*lin

"Nero made a regular habit of disguising himself as an ordinary citizen and wandering out into the city at night and engaging in robbery, assault, rape, and murder. Reports of the effectiveness of his disguise vary, but there is agreement among historians that Nero occasionally encountered resistance, whether his subjects recognized him or not."


Strang* Horizons.

it flows · its tag is shadow
top atavist · whining cloud
room of a still spool · pillbug
stilb psalmist · story basalt


"Surely I write not for the hopeful young,
   Or those who deem their happiness of worth,
Or such as pasture and grow fat among
   The shows of life and feel nor doubt nor dearth,
Or pious spirits with a God above them,
To sanctify and glorify and love them,
   Or sages who foresee a heaven on earth.

For none of those I write, and none of these
   Could read the writing if they deigned to try:
So may they flourish, in their due degrees,
   On our sweet earth and in their unplaced sky.
If any cares for the weak words here written,
It must be some one desolate, Fate-smitten,
   Whose faith and hope are dead, and who would die."

--Jam*s Thomson


Always four shops i must visit on my shopping round, why not a singular trip i ask, why in this shopping Valhalla so poor in kind ways?

Altman.

"Any man who has once acclaimed violence as his METHOD must inexorably choose falsehood as his PRINCIPLE." (via wood_s lot)

to dub blank wall Xibalba
ply a yoga Xibalba

this ant spill cup of sugar
slag's aroma Xibalba

await ryotwar bowl now
croon tiki blood Xibalba


"Xibalba" as occurring in a cool but dumb-ish film by Aronofsky just out now.


   "First Snow

The cows are bawling in the mountains;
The snowflakes fall.
They are leaving the pools and pebbled fountains;
Troubled they bawl.
They are winding down the mountains' shoulders
Through the open pines,
The wild rose thickets and the granite boulders,
In broken lines.
Each calf trots close beside its mother;
And so they go,
Bawling and calling to one another
About the snow."

--Charl*s 3rskin* Scott Wood, in Th* Oxford Anthology of Am*rican Lit*ratur* (1938)


All frail humans in a killing city, waiting for sky or door to finish this vigil. Dissolving as snow in a patch of sunlight. Crying out. --This is what i carol if i carol.

(via Robot Wisdom)


N*ptun*'s Trid*nt.


"In Turkey there happened to be 70's Swedish progg like era that we call it: (70's) Anatolian Rock."

"The sheer sameness of it all is debilitating: we all read the same headlines every day, we see the news on television, the exploding bombs, the internecine struggle that even the "mainstream" media is now acknowledging is, indeed, a full-fledged civil war, the hapless-yet-brutal Iraqi "government" installed and supported by Washington, the hopeless mess unfolding before our eyes".


A swart outcast horizon
burns with horrific crimson.
Will our last clockwork ransom
tomorrow bring clang frisson?


"Anti-negativity helmets, rash guards, and power belts designed by Paul Frank generally make up these costumes."


"Only the physical failure of solitude drove the spirit at first into society, as the moral failure of society may drive it later into solitude again." --Santayana

"It's as if, aware that we're endangering so much wildlife, we need to make symbolic reparation for our eco-sins in the cultural world."


In post-production.

poufy crow doing sandcoil
doing autumn doing coal
i from my soft inky cowl
gray scowl margin and tough cool


"The woods are lovely, dark and deep"

--Rob*rt Frost

"Our bed is lovely, dark, and sweet"

--Thomas Lov*ll B*ddo*s, "Th* Phantom Woo*r" (in: Dark of th* Moon)

(via calvin dot *du slash acad*mic slash cas slash gpa slash imag*s via M*tafilt*r)


"Reporter #1: Dr. Shiga! The same galactic waves were caught in England. Uh, last year, accordingly. Are they the same one?
Dr. Shiga: No. That was different. The one before, was from beyond the solar system we think. But this one is very much nearer. According to our calculations.
Reporter #2: Does that mean... people on Solar... are the same system planet?
Dr. Shiga: No. That's hard to say. You have that ready?
[Dr. Shiga points to some slides]
Dr. Shiga: There's no! Air or water on the Moon? So no living thing inhabits it. As you know for sure. And... there are... no rivers on Mars. And on Venus... it has several hundred degrees Centigrade. And... the surface of... Jupiter is covered with... frozen ammonia. Saturn... is also... the same. No advanced vertebrates there, of course.
Reporter #3: So... what do those waves mean?
Dr. Shiga: Assuming. They come from... Proxima Cenauri" (from Attack of th* Monst*rs)

Now swarms dilatory husk
spiral pools of falling mask
raucous solitary brisk
slurry a claypit fly Kursk

My Just D*sir*.


"Apparently, Yergin has parlayed his legitimacy as an historian into running a disinformation service wholly owned by the IHS Corporation... The only cogent analysis of the CERA report took place...on a single site..."

    "Sky Abfraction"

  Barbaric rosy pillbug
  crawls into a paradox
of dawn doorway nirvana with cargo
   rank as fnord is swamp frost


Bait and Switch.


"...the standard of taste between 1663 and 1784 changed less than in any twenty years of the following century." --H*nry Adams, Th* Unit*d Stat*s in 1800

(via M*tafilt*r)


Twins S*v*n S*v*n.

Th*ori*s/Practic*s of Blogging.


Aria dawn drawn soaring
pools Solangia flow swing
to high maroon a frolic
him bucolic shards shoring


On my victrola- L*na Lovitch

Human Accomplishm*nt.


$50 for a Munst*rs LP.

   "Sudoku Kudos"

Anguish wishhook function jazz boog is dord
  an ordinary sky droog
  druid Izdubar burnt darg


Franklin, Frankland.


On my victrola- G*ntl* Giant

Zombi*nt.


   "Duvon Braut"

dour word road
radiant Carcosa road

so burbling gray and paradox plain waxwing
window diamond road

warmth flows this slight dominating lamp
out owl simply swoop and holy road

swamp happy twinkling individuality
aliquot flubs road

that tarry youth of Grinchus
zonda road

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nxe5 Qf6 4.d4 d6 5. Nf3 fxe4 6. Nd2 Qg6 7. Qe2 Nf6 8. Nc4 Be7 9. h3 O-O 10. Nc3 Nc6 11. Be3 a6 12. O-O-O b5 13. Nd2 d5 14. f3 b4 15. Nxe4 Nxe4 16. Nxe4 dxe4 17. Bf4 Rxf4 18. Qc4 Kh8 19. Qd5 Bb7 20. Qd7 Rd8 21. Qxc7 Bg5 22. Kb1 Rf7 23. Qg3 b3 24. Bc4 bxc2 25. Kxc2 exf3 26. Kb3 Na5 27. Kc3 Nxc4 28. Kxc4 Qc229. Kb4 Be7 30. Ka5 Rd5 31. Kb6 Bd8 32. Ka7 Qc8 33. Qb8 Bc6


   "Long Division of Polynomials"

tranquil crimson daunt
onyx squib
bullying williwaw glowworm scrum
from risky implant ustion


Yusuf Islam is back.

Factitious airs, almucantar arctic.

   Cicatrix from afar
and solitary radar,
you alloy this gray guitar.


'Snowflakes flutter--butterflies chase flowers;
Ants float--my wine is muddy.
I pluck the Black Lute,
A crane dances to my tune.
A dog barks at the wicker gate--
Boy, see if my friend has come.'

--Kim Yông, ibid

   "Solangia"

Cold chill scoriac shadow world
Burbling and crossgrain rainbow stuff
Gold clad girls sculpt a song of slag
His Antarctic jiaya cranch vap

Running with schisms dour hobbit
Ouniq grail own crowbar Karnak
Oliphaunt bowl born alibi
Lobo yoga snarl a algid


On my victrola- P*nd*r*cki's S*cond C*llo Conc*rto


'Having caroused far into the night
In the moonlit capital,
I return home and in my bed,
Behold, four legs.

Two have been mine;
Whose are the other two?
Two had been mine;
No, no, they are taken.'

--"Song of Ch'ôyong," in: C*l*bration of Continuity


Scanning: Lord Byron's Nov*l Th* 3v*ning Land by John Crowl*y (2005);
Fir*-Tongu* by Sax Rohm*r (1922)

"For those millions of us who had not been taken in by claims never even really intended to take us in, this wailing and gnashing of teeth was merely risible." (via wood_s lot)


"Much of his work expresses complex cosmic and spiritual forces that he feels strongly surging around him. These spirits, he claims, have a great influence on his daily life and he expresses them by means of charts and diagrams as well as describing their energy with his paint."


In my mind right now, i don't know why: Doctors for Dinosaurs.

"I predicted something bad would happen while others said I was crazy."


   "Royal Cartoon Umlaut"

champion throngs sank
ammo spool

viral Solangia into a showroom
prowl robot anguish Ogpu

man is parking angular skald mask
with ominous pools

aspirant spiral goat boys
glory avatar fight trustworthy

cardboard blog
asking Solangia clack wasp indigo


"By writing about the pilgrimages and the stories that link Our Lady of Perpetual Succour to medieval Italy and contemporary Aotearoa, the members of the Mâramatanga inscribe themselves into a history that already exists." --Kar*n Sinclair, Maori Tim*s, Maori Plac*s (2003)

On my victrola- Thai 3l*phant Orch*stra

High W*irdn*ss Wiki.


'Situation: someone is writing a novel in which one of the characters goes mad. During the composition he himself becomes mad, and finishes it in the first person.' --Ki*rk*gaard


3tymological Dictionary of th* 3sp*ranto Languag*. (via Languag* Hat)


morning turmoil
lungfish isthmus
ringing tarn


"This year's Rose Alley Memorial Award must surely go to Jake Arnott, whose latest crime novel, Johnny Come Home, was published in April 2006 and, alas, pulped in August 2006.
In his narrative, set in London's tin pan alley in the 70s, Arnott introduced a character called Tony Rocco: a one-time big-band singer, now an impresario and a big-time pervert in the Harry Starks mould. Nasty. Alas, out of obscurity, escorted by his learned friends in wigs, emerges the real-life Tony Rocco: former big-band singer and a figure of unimpeachable respectability."


"Today, it is generally conceded by interpreters that the essay [by Kierkegaard] on irony is itself an ironic work." --L** M Cap*l, introduction to Th* Conc*pt of Irony


Big As Night, II.

Gnosis on th* Silk Road.


"...sure as men have died, strong necromancy
Hath set the clock of time and nature back;
And made Earth's rooty, ruinous grave-piled caverns
Throb with the pangs of birth."

--B*ddo*s


"...a menacing gray object in the sky drawing closer and closer is revealed to be a cloud of cockroaches from America."


"Oak Cliff is to Dallas what Brooklyn is to New York." --Al*x Burton


Triangulation udmort tamarind wind
hurl did wodwo wind

poison Sunday was raucous hot flash
twinkling hibakusha wind

find Grinchus
a shark argot's wind


"The Gates impossible, of saddest inscription, geminal, impermeable
    on electric rail moving,
The Gates transparent for their sarcasm..."

"...the Portuguese lyrics say something like “Paraiba women will kick your ass!” while the Japanese version is about a lonely farmer."


"They can all retire to one of their vacation homes and leave the task of journalism to those who are still capable of adding 2 and 2 and at least realizing that the answer is a number rather than a talking point."

"DO NOT PICK UP THE TELEPHONE

That plastic Buddha jars out a Karate screech

Before the soft words with their spores
The cosmetic breath of the gravestone

Death invented the phone it looks like the altar of death
Do not worship the telephone
It drags its worshipers into actual graves
With a variety of devices, through a variety of disguised voices

Sit godless when you hear the religious wail of the telephone

Panties are hotting up their circle for somebody to burn in
Nipples are evangelizing bringing a sword or at least a razor
Cunt is proclaiming heaven on earth i.e. death to the infidel

Do not think your house is a hideout it is a telephone
Do not think you walk your own road, you walk down a telephone
Do not think you sleep in the hand of God you sleep in the mouthpiece of a telephone
Do not think your future is yours it waits upon a telephone
Do not think your thoughts are your own thoughts they are the toys of the telephone
Do not think these days are days they are the sacrificial priests of the telephone
The secret police of the telephone

O phone get out of my house
You are a bad god
Go and whisper on some other pillow
Do not lift your snake head in my house
Do not bite any more beautiful people

You plastic crab
Why is our oracle always the same in the end?
What rake off for you from the cemeteries?

Your silences are as bad
When you are needed, dumb with the malice of the clairvoyant insane
The stars whisper together in your breathing
World's emptiness oceans in your mouthpiece
Stupidly your string dangles into the abysses
Plastic you are then stone a broken box of letters
And you cannot utter
Lies or truth, only the evil one
Makes you tremble with sudden appetite to see somebody undone

Blackening electrical connections
To where death bleaches its crystals
You swell and you writhe
You open your Buddha gape
You screech at the root of the house

Do not pick up the detonator of the telephone
A flame from the last day will come lashing out of the telephone
A dead body will fall out of the telephone

Do not pick up the telephone"

--T*d Hugh*s


'...and music in the world of sense is made by the music prior to this world.' --Plotinus, 3nn*ad V.8 (tr Armstrong)


Val*ntinus and th* Val*ntinians.

(via *thio*mbassy dot org dot uk)


Bad Santa
without his minions

to kill and maim on command · now awaiting
hanging · but how many still

who would follow a killing command
a bunch still

of willing hands · who would not know what to do
without God's bidding


"In Korea all poems were meant to be sung." --P*t*r H L**, C*l*bration and Continuity (1979)


"When did you get the idea to do a Carnival of Souls remake?"

"It did give me an idea for a theme for a class.: A Horrible Death--The Fate of Idealists in the Wild. We would watch Grizzly Man and and read Into the Wild."


Anatomy of a Nightmar*.


N*w Ag* Manhattan. (via cipango)

(via godd*ss dot com dot au)


Rummy.


"In a poem of Theocritus a goat is eating something. Look up what he’s eating in a Greek-English dictionary. The definition is "a plant eaten by a goat in Theocritus." " --Isola di Rfuti

(via dccomics dot com)


"One modern example of that impulse concerns the Seattle Troll. Large enough to hold a VW Beetle in one hand, staring out of a single, glassy eye, the Seattle Troll lives beneath the Aurora Bridge in Seattle's Fremont neighborhood. He was originally a work of art funded by the city, but he has become something more. He has become a "Work of Art" and now receives offerings from passersby and neighborhood residents.
The day I visited-not a special day, just a weekday like any other-the Troll was supplied with an amazing array of offerings. There were fresh flowers, smoked almonds, jewelry, coins, jams, a bag of ripe cherries, a whole watermelon, a bright pink-orange slab of raw salmon, a whole Dungeness crab, a bar of soap, a pack of cigarettes, two coffee mugs, and two t-shirts. These offerings were fresh, too-the flowers and food as yet unwilted. At first, it looked like someone had temporarily left their picnic, but no. The votives were carefully arranged upon the enormous hands of the Troll. They were clearly presented, and no picnickers were to be found. The items were offerings, nothing less."


"we are the vampires of empire

we can eat cherries in winter

we can fly anywhere"

--Judy Grahn


Th* Man Who Would B* King.

"In the span of three years, Iraq has surpassed Vietnam, in the totality of the circumstances, as a perpetual burn whose scab will continue to be pulled off by the shame of what America did to Iraq, by the embarrassment of such apparent failure, by the geopolitical suicide it committed in Mesopotamia and by the severed image of the nation in the eyes of the world." (via wood_s lot)


"Prose is not to be read aloud but to oneself at night, and it is not quick as poetry, but rather a gathering web of insinuations which go further than names however shared can ever go. Prose should be a long intimacy between strangers with no direct appeal to what both may have known. It should slowly appeal to feelings unexpressed, it should in the end draw tears out of stone." --H*nry Gr**n in An*cdotal 3vid*nc*


"Kalusa is not listed on wikipedia. and i might be wrong, but i think it's the first unplanned conlang. the kalusa corpus is created one entry at a time by any user. each entry must have an english translation. then other users can vote on the acceptability of the entry."

(via asiminy*ri dot com dot tr)


"...when there’s an overflow of high-end mimicry, of Pottery Barn avant garde, readers need to see work that risks more than its gloss."


Th* Glass Books of th* Dr*am 3at*rs.


Christian Goth.


"...are you still Christian
when you wrap it in plastic..."

"Incidental

Requisite sources move
Not quite the thought perhaps
Availability loosens to adagio's own
Stowaway too large
Though soft unto
A circumambiance spread
Left-right-left ago with mantra after
Mourning to behest
In fair-game justice furled toward
Laps to fathom"

--Sh*ila 3. Murphy

(via z*alandpublishing dot co dot nz slash Holiday_stori*s)


Azif tzompantli · fishhook
uffish going azury · to Umbrist spoor

harp anchor
stars show wink afar

night is char · why follow · go
skulls you affix · of billowing ash


Burn a Copy of Frog Town.


"or echo endlessly
or numbingly decay"

--Zachary Appomattox


A 13-part diapason.


On my victrola- Boys for P*l*

"At the start of the next century our descendants may very well look on Christianist tribal areas as exotic & primitive places for specialist research & eco-tourism."


Buddhism Without B*li*fs.


"Flipper stared into the abyss only to hock a lugie into it."


A history. (via Long Story Short Pi*r)

Found looking for Titan pix.

Th* Captur*d.


"...most people, Wilson says, live life as if they are in a theater, watching a stage production. The truth, however, is that we are all onstage, and "if we don't act, the Gods will start throwing things." "

    "She Came and Went

As a twig trembles, which a bird
   Lights on to sing, then leaves unbent,
So is my memory thrilled and stirred;--
   I only know she came and went.

As clasps some lake, by gusts unriven,
   The blue dome's measureless extent,
So my soul held that moment's heaven;--
   I only know she came and went.

As at one bound, our swift spring heaps
   The orchards full of bloom and scent,
So clove her May my wintry sleeps;
   I only know she came and went.

An angel stood and met my gaze,
   Through the low doorway of my tent,
The tent is struck, the vision stays;
   I only know she came and went.

Oh, when the room grows slowly dim,
   And life's last oil is nearly spent,
One gush of light these eyes will brim,
   Only to know she came and went."

--Jam*s Russ*ll Low*ll


By Duty Bound.

Australian Philosoph*rs' Song.

Goblin box
absorb glowing nib
insular obtain box oxroim upon abs

is this front about aggry claypit
box twisting basis ingot
I and I abroad am ongoing


"After dwelling so long in the secondary and peripheral, it begins to seem major; then the tertiary beckons. But the tertiary melts into everything you never looked at, and you lose yourself in an infinite world of beguiling, interchangeable things." --Parsifal Mosaic, Cthulhu This V*ry Hour (2006)


No actual paganism can form, without a strong rooting in its local matrix; most of all, it asks that this knowing also contain much unknowing.


"In Britain, the headline over the Guardian newspaper's lead editorial read, "Thank you, America." "


My Big Fat Sup*rnatural W*dding.