A long wait for translation: Tungst*n; La D*rni*r* Mod*.


   for an instant words
bob up in a music flow
   vacuous · twinkling

and dull gray noon is burning
i pass my turn and go back

   salmon-apricot
sky this morning as prior
   and will blossom again

nilca and gnomic salmon
kodak turncoat apricot

   a tiny lizard
gold porchlight · lotophagoi
   dog collar tinkling

in a dark livingroom
mix two kinds of granola

   sunny and dark clouds
and words fail · furious shift
   sands · a body floating

crimson glow on a building
turns cobalt as i slog back

   its windows as bright
as that day of wild watching
   folk running from dust

my own past has but scant sign
of tracks · contrails gold against



"The only books in Santayana's cell were his own--and a set or Toynbee's recently published history, which he was reading characteristically; that is, he first broke (or foxed) the spine of the book and undid the sections; then, as he finished reading each section, he would throw it in the wastebasket."

    "Poems for an Unhumble One I.

But the leaves and you are proud--
so no.
    It is summer now and did they
have you.
        So then
        when
        and if you can.
And a rose was bought:
it was as never and as still.
            The doves
came: they too were proud.
    The cherries and the bees: but these
were meek.
      I asked forgiveness
until lost."

--Garcia Villa



Fictional P*ssoa.

"Ozymandias

  I met a traveller from an antique land,
  Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
  Stand in the desart....Near them, on the sand,
  Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
  Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
  Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
  The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
  And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
  Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
  Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
  The lone and level sands stretch far away."

--Sh*ll*y




(via lak*vi*wstudios dot com)


Shirl*y on Gurdji*ff. (via Scl*rotic Rings)


Watching This Island 3arth to Nils P*tt*r Molvær's Khm*r.

"We wore the necklaces, but we also sometimes broke them apart and melted the beads into different shapes that we used to make pins, earrings, toys, or oddly shaped, multi-colored things that had no real purpose. Mostly we just liked melting the beads, which we could do in my mother's oven or in my Easy-Bake oven. Sometimes we cut up the strings of beads and made them into necklaces or bracelets for our dolls. We drilled holes in the doubloons and made earrings or pins out of them too. Or we put them in one of the plastic pages of the books that housed our doubloon collections. We saved the best necklaces, the longest ones with the beads that looked like shiny, colored pearls, to wear as part of our costumes the next year."

Cthulhu Chick tract. (via M*tafilt*r)


Stairway to B**thov*n (scroll down).


   "For Harvest

The year turns to its rest.
Up from the earth, the fields, the early-fallen dew,
Moves the large star at evening, Arcturus low with autumn,
And summer calls in her many voices upon the frost.

I who have not seen for weeping
The plum ripen and fall, or the yellowing sheaf,
Am not unmindful now of the season that came and went,
The hours that told of freshness,
The bud and the rich leaf.

Though I turned aside before the summer
And weathered but a season of the mind,
Let me sit among you when the husk is stripped,
Let me tell by the bright grain,
Those labours in an acre of cloud and the reap of the wind."

--L*oni* Adams

   "Virtual Colonoscopy"

chatoyant Thanatopolis cairn
staying for mystic hazaj

and starry Atari who was anagram
bard stulm aorta

spirals word
along with us across Carcosa




Th* Burnt 3arth 3ns*mbl*.



"The emperor of China asked his court painter, 'What's easy to paint and what's hard to paint?' and the answer was 'Dogs are difficult, demons are easy.' "

--Al*x Krr, Dogs and D*mons (2001)


"Chinese has advantages; you cannot make an English poem out of the 16 words you find most interesting."

--Hugh K*nn*r, op cit


"The Narcissist needs Catastrophe."

Boyd.



Charlott* S. points out that an old song "Moonlight in V*rmont" is just right for 5-7-5 haiku.


Juan's wrap up.



"Of Delphi a poet might write with some assurance, since it gathered an articulated cult."

--Th* Pound 3ra


Shadows Ov*r Bak*r Str**t.



"The whole clanking machinery of our genre is at once a bug and a feature..."

--Jam*s Patrick K*lly in: Asimov's Sci*nc* Fiction (F*b '04)


A Mozarabic tabiya is what i call 1 Nh3 Nc6 2 d4. (This was play*d in 2004 [Round 4] by two computadoras.)

"The Internet is a great place to go if you already know that the mainstream media is heavily biased" and you actively search out sites on the outer limits of the Web, he notes. "Otherwise, it's just another place where they try to sell you stuff..." (via wood_s lot)


"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization,” Thomas Jefferson said, “it expects what never was and never will be."


"Lull himself had said so repeatedly: he was a Sufi whose Beloved was Christ."

--Hav*lock 3llis, Th* Soul of Spain (1908)


"It may be that the kind of thing I have been trying to make is no longer makeable in the kind of way in which I have tried to make it."

--David Jon*s, pr*fac* to Th* Anath*mata (1952)


   "Chango Walk"

blur cling turmoil crystal scram
flying dim unto ignorant stomp

lungfish iron
among foggy kills

cloud scratch aright by us stain vanity flush
as across profound

havoc import of blood vying night
unknown ago idolatry discolor

ombudsman
mutiny unto star works

   "An Orison for Autumn"

finish burning still · Samhain in Autumn
gold our hands can grasp · ingot of Autumn

may this turmoil run · brash to its finish
sands an hourglass pours · aurora Autumn

build a world unknown · out of this ruin
war and storm allay · music for Autumn

i too long for gifts · conscious and twisting
morning's orchid glow · Xanadu Autumn

(via nb dot no slash bas*r/schoy*n)


"Bartan, I seek vengeance!"


1000-yaron-old Caissa icons.


Gazpacho.


"As each guest entered the courtyard garden, they exchanged impeccable formal greetings in English. After a few minutes, conversations naturally drifted to Spanish and became more effusive and intimate. However, each time it was necessary to great a newly arriving guest, all responded in English, after which the conversation immediately returned to Spanish. The children playing in the garden spoke Spanish to one another, but when a parent had occasion to speak to a child in a loud public voice, English was always used. Finally, as the guests were leaving, as they passed out of the courtyard gate, goodbyes were once more said in formal English."


Dog and wolf.

'Where pure snow flakes melt

Dark clouds gather threatening

Where art the spring flowers abloom?

A lonely figure lost in the shadow

of sinking sun, I have no place to go.'

--L** Saik


"...Tsegihi, Aztlan and Quivira."


Found.


"...it's ironic how poorly science fiction anticipated the computer..."


Bananas in Scotland. (via Robot Wisdom)



   "not yet all dispersed,
the nidor of this burning
   & weeping echoes:
where slag has been hauled away
shall the fruit of the forge bloom?"

--from In th* Tim* of th* Fall of th* Tow*rs

" "The men of my islands are all a bit mad," William said proudly. "Let us look in the other case."
   "Virgil."
   "What is he doing here? What Virgil? The Georgics?"
   "No. Epitomae. I've never heard of it."
   "But it's Virgil of Toulouse, the rhetorician, six centuries after the birth of our Lord. He was considered a great sage..."
   "Here it says that the arts are poema, rethoria, grama, leporia, dialecta, geometria. ...But what language was he writing?"
   "Latin. A Latin of his own invention, however, which he considered far more beautiful. Read this; he says that astronomy studies the signs of the zodiac, which are mon, man, tonte, piron, dameth, perfellea, belgalic, margaleth, lutamiron, taminon, and raphalut."
   "Was he crazy?"
   "I don't know...those were times when, to forget an evil world, grammarians took pleasure in abstruse questions." "

--Th* Nam* of th* Ros*


Th* Oth*r China Mi*vill*.


Distant Dark Stars.


"The real war is in the air, civilian. We're just skirmishing on the macrolevel."

--Gr*gory F**l*y, Th* Oxyg*n Barons (1996)


"...his favorite foods are apples, yams, corn, and peppers."

Robotic Badz Maru. (via R*b*cca Blood)


   "Diaspora"

Zabalam
wag · aboard · bailing slipshod
damp ambush twinkling fall again bank
abroad wolf walking
crystal adorn ibis fang · with blood silk snort

agony · is flood wisp spurt



Taking th* Brim.


Sappho again.


Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. (via Cursor dot org)

"The Carthaginians, in one of their campaigns against the Sicilian Greeks, had seized and carried away a valuable statue of the Grecian Apollo. This god of the vanquished had been selected as a gift worthy of the acceptance of the mother city, and had been placed at the footstool of Moloch in his Tyrian temple. The Grecian god, in this state of degradation, was naturally suspected of rejoicing at the approach of his [soldier] countrymen; and the morbid feelings of some Tyrians deluded them so far, as to lead them to imagine that he had appeared to them in their sleep, and announced his intention to desert. This case was brought before the magistrates, who could not discover a more effectual mode of allaying the popular apprehensions than by binding the disaffected statue, with golden chains, to the horns of Moloch’s altar."

--Th* Lif* and Actions of Al*xand*r th* Gr*at by the R*v. John Williams (1829)


   taciturnity
fatidic · scry silt stars dull
   braying and nitwit
story my oft fails · attic
pilgrim · adit with occult


"Fashion Muslims, that's all we need!"


"The worst-case scenario is three to five years before anybody finds it inhabitable."


"The O. E. D. ...is perhaps the 19th-century epic, as the History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is that of the 18th."

--K*nn*r


Kar*n X has a hom* pag* now!

"To Virgilius, the Latins that could exist are as significant as the one that does."

--Vivi*n Law


   "The Enemy (From Baudelaire)

Naught but a long blind tempest was my youth,
  Sun-shot at times; the thunder and the rain
Have worked their havock with so little ruth
  That in my garden few red fruits remain.

Now have I reached the autumn of my thought,
  And shovel and pick must use some soil to save
From out the ruins that the rain hath wrought
  Where all around great pits gape like the grave.

Who knows if these last flowers of my dreams
Shall find beneath this naked strand that streams
  The mystic substance which their strength imparts?

O misery! misery! Time eats our lives,
  And that dark Enemy who gnaws our hearts
Grows by the blood he sucks from us, and thrives."

--J C Squir*



"Faithfullest, for I am infidel." --Jos* Garcia Villa


2M1207b facts. Also, GQ Lupi b.


"In medieval Ages the grammar, and even more the vocabulary of a specific language was not strictly defined."

with wraiths of Uuchathon · joust
this mission · this blindfold storm

aroma of rain · fury
afar · don't stop · last shadow

floppy and choking music
to gallop · traik Xanadu




(via solarsyst*m dot nasa dot gov)



Attanasio.


Look at it.


CRCL.


A*thicus Ist*r. His alphab*t. Kiboshing griffins. 3stonia as an island. "...a Menippean work tends to the farrago, the chaotic compilation, and makes use of satiric, paradoxical, and sometimes even polyphonic elements that may undermine each other, but also in this unconventional way set up a concordia discors through which a "search after the ultimate truth" takes place."

"Bush, the man your fever dreams built into the next Winston Churchill when he is really the live action Chauncey Gardiner, has failed to everyone, in plain sight, without question." (via M*tafilt*r)



"Search, wretched on, all round about the shores
Thy seaboard, and then look within thy bosom,
If any part of thee enjoyeth peace!"

--Longf*llow's Purgatorio, VI.


'He was in fact we hear an enthusiastic musician, a tragic poet too--how good, matters little; for in this art, more than in others, it somehow happens that everyone finds his own work excellent; so far I have never known the poet (and I have been friends with [notoriously bad poet] Aquinius) who did not think himself the best...'

--Tusculan Disputations V. xxii.



   "Floating Casino"

quadrant scant of frith · pilgrims of a storm
crow still porous church · pilgrims of a storm

nothing sort for thirst · churns a dolphin road
grind a song in charcoal · pilgrims of a storm

city lost its ghosts · fragrant with iron scrollwork
grimly blur all signs · pilgrims of a storm

bringing coffin loam · lungfish strand and poor
slag suborbital argot · pilgrims of a storm



"While the 9/11 “My Pet Goat” episode was certainly illuminating, it’s not certain what might have worked out better that day had the president dropped the book and taken action. But his failure to grab the reins in the hurricane catastrophe for three days this week probably doomed hundreds, or more, to death."

'It is by no means inappropriate that our instructors, particularly Sulpita and Istrius, thought of man by the name of lesser world, for within himself he contains everything the visible world is made of: earth in his body, fire in his soul, water in his fluidity, and air in the swiftness of his thoughts; the sun in the radiance of his wisdom, the moon in the uncertain and unstable conditions of wealth and youth, a blossoming meadow in the nobility of his virtues and the equanimity of his mild temper, mountains in the heights of generosity, hills in the succession of the family line, valleys in the humbling experiences of tribulation, fruit trees in the fruits of largess; barren trees, rugged places and mucky bogs, thorns and thistles in his evil ways and insatiable greed, snakes and cattle in simplicity and prudence, and the teeming, surging sea in the storm-tossed depths of the heart of man and in reason itself.'

--Virgilius Maro Grammaticus, transl. in: Wisdom, Authority and Grammar in the Seventh Century by Vivi*n Law (1995)


V*rgil (D*vil May Cry). (via M*tafilt*r)


"They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us.".

A yaron and a half, prior.

   "Dirge at the Edge of Woods

Gold shed upon suckling gold,
The time of the bole blackens,
Of the dark mounted through dapple,
While in the sealed apple
The seed cradled toward cold.
Put by from an elm in its years
Now its gilded of days,
Over turf’s dishevelment;
Where all which is green sickens,
All the fresh shall be sere.
And it is but for a time
Those embered veinings blaze
A year’s delirium;
Or neared of other space,
Unportioned azure shall close
One of more, and which is,
One which goes.
Let the little pupils that will,
Of vision, gaze for salt
To whet their gazing, wit
In one weather is high
From burrow and lair, by
Nether providences’ default
An all’s accrued.
And apposite, beyond
Such primer beholdings, has
Its long accounting known
The beetle’s morsel thus
Was rich, and the slug’s bed on
The oak’s generations, deep
Over the lark’s bones.
In slough of Edens fast
Wit in one weather shall stand,
While millennia nibble at
The sensual apple
Toppled it net,
Plenty in the palm of the hand,
And the fallen not fallen, not lost
From out its certitude--
For our unbeggaring
Has been gross. Few and late
To cherish an immoderate
Wish, hope’s calculus,
Love’s hope; few to miss,
From natural tally thrust,
In the lime-girdled space
Of choice, where alone
Man can abandon what
Is only his own;
And in cold and tarrying
Their rearisers sleep:

While to the granite cheek
Light’s purples bring
Infinite their ministering,
And past our finial
And ragged crests, to keep
Time’s ambient stood,
Propose horizons from
Their shadowy quarries; while,
In an unwandered wood,
Or under the indifferent foot,
Is let fall, let fall a fruit,
Through eternal leisures down,
For but time’s unravelling."

--Léoni* Adams

(via Talking Points M*mo)


"We've been a generator of human and cultural energy for centuries, but all this bounty brought the city no careful engineering, no thought for its future, no worldwide cry of help for its inevitable demise." --Andr*i Codr*scu (via wood_s lot)


"There is only the moon, embalmed in phosphorus.
There is only a crow in a tree. Make notes."

--Plath


"I think we saw a paradigm shift."

Work on the 17th Street levee, which breached on Monday night, came to a halt earlier this summer for the lack of $2 million.

"It appears that the money has been moved in the president's budget to handle homeland security and the war in Iraq, and I suppose that's the price we pay," Walter Maestri, emergency management chief for Jefferson Parish, Louisiana told the Times-Picayune in June of last year."



   "Of a Lost Dynasty"

pallid rasp flaring
sloppy rich

odynacusis druid fall as
spawning offal clasp ¿walking arroyo tilt?

indigo ogganition
astonish flap

pools apart spoil ryotwar/.
grind wind across which




(via ibiblio dot org)



Soft air and a loud bug; shadowy and now gold.


Part II.

Th* Duplications.



(via w*b dot tiscali dot it)


   "The Hurricane

Lo, Lord, thou ridest!
Lord, Lord, thy swifting heart

Nought stayeth, nought now bideth
But's smithereened apart!

Ay! Scripture flee'th stone!
Milk-bright, Thy chisel wind

Rescindeth flesh from bone
To quivering whittlings thinned--

Swept, whistling straw! Battered,
Lord, e'en boulders now outleap

Thy drum's gambade, its plunge abscond!
Lord God, while summits crashing

Whip sea-kelp screaming on blond
Sky-seethe, dense heaven dashing--

Thou ridest to the door, Lord!
Thou bideth wall nor floor, Lord!"

--Hart Cran*

Khurbn chill gurgling
grasp abolish and scroll shorn
with slow click against

full frolic ogham black lilt
infirm agonist ogling


"...we may learn humility from the luckless scholar who saw reason to approach the linear B script by way of Basque, and eventually derived elegiac poems from what are now taken to be storehouse inventories. His book was published, in 1931, by the Oxford University Press."

--Hugh K*nn*r


King L*opold's Ghost.


DON'T BUY GAS TODAY


Gucumatz
gurgling ichor cusp
smart rats stomp

Tzolkin aglow burst
briskly against flint


"And tell me this, you medievalist simps, you delusional, retrograde dipshits -- how is it possible that you became privy to such timeless truths -- that the mind of the "One True God" is available to you, and that God's words and wishes resonate through yawning millennia to be understood only by you -- and you alone?" (via wood_s lot)


NOr Blogs. (via Th* Guardian)

'INTO THE FURROWS
of heavenacid in the doorcrack
you press the word
from which I rolled,
when I with trembling fists
the roof over us
dismantled, slate for slate,
syllable for syllable, for the copper-
glimmer of the begging-
cup's sake up
there.'

--Paul C*lan, Br*athturn (tr P. Joris, 1995)



Hidd*n in Plain Vi*w.


Chol*ra.


Typhoid.


Dys*nt*ry.

"Here's to marching the blitzkrieg bop." (via M*tafilt*r)


"Do you begin to remember the future? Then we must dream our dreams hastily."

--J*ff*rs, D*ar Judas


'I see them: Crab, Ram, Bull,
and all the world is only shell
whose pearl and opalescence
is my impotence,'

--Khl*bnikov


Khurbn chill
furl gray abtar and ichor

who will closing blast of furious
crisp allot igloo

from rapacious by gargling abolish at
ballroom crayfish ranch antics



"Fabre, by firing all the municipal cannon
under a piping tree, found out
cicadas cannot hear."

--Richard Wilbur


Th* Barb*r of Natch*z.

(via doyl*n*wyork dot com)



"Face it," said Aaker, "the United States is the Texas of the advanced countries."



'...in Hyrcania the populace support dogs for the benefit of the community, while the nobles keep them for family use; it is as we know a famous breed of dogs, but in spite of the cost, each householder procures animals in proportion to his means, to mangle him, and that they consider the best mode of burial.'

--Cic*ro, Tusculan Disputations I. xlv.


"According to the Miami Herald, when asked whether his proposed FEMA budget cuts were a problem, "the president walked away from reporters." "


"...a growing number of [National] Guard units are being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan..."


Global Warming Mak*s Strong*r Hurrican*s.


Top Chimp says it ain't so.

(via ssd dot noaa dot gov)

Mohicans. (via Languag* Hat)


On my victrola: Logan's Sanctuary soundtrack. For an imaginary follow up to Logan's Run. You would not think this synth sound was born in AD 2000, so Nixonian its vision; and this plot synopsis is a hoot, too. (Villainous "Cobol".) --As in Th* Tabl*ts, bogus actuality has its own strong pull, such that it's not hard at all for an auditor to allow this world to occur, although it hasn't and can't. And why not?
   But it only works with a sharp historical faculty.


"The art of divination by lightning distinguished eleven kinds of lightning..."

--von Cl*s-R*d*n, op cit


   "Crave we gems? No penury
Of their material round us! Pliant earth
And plastic flame--what balks the mage his birth
--Jacinth in balls or lodestone by the block?"

--Sord*llo, vi.

"If we consider the 1960s a decade during which creativity was more fashionable than ever before or since—seeming to concern the layman viewers of the Ed Sullivan show as much as professionals in the "creative industries"—it's because of a shock America received in 1957: the Sputnik shock."


"Perchance, when, in the course of ages, American liberty has become a fiction of the past--as it is to some extent a fiction of the present--the poets of the world will be inspired by American mythology."

--Thor*au, cited in Symposium of th* Whol*


"W* wish to inform you...."


"It is a 21st century irony that a virtual magazine reflects the realities of Iraq, whereas many "real" magazines and newspapers carry Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld fantasies."

"I read Flannery O'Connor's novel Wise Blood over a period of one or two days. This act, by itself, had no particular extra significance, but I read the book while replaying Bob Dylan's album Blood on the Tracks over and over again. By the time I finished reading the novel, it had turned into a strange collaboration between O'Connor and Dylan, something I called Wise Blood on the Tracks."


Dismaying humidity. Plush squalor.


"For to offer Rosettian tosh as poetry 1911 was not to stride into eternal realms but to misconceive 1911."

--Hugh K*nn*r


A bit o' Flarf crit. (via Cami*rs d* Cor*y)


   "Anvil of Paint"

Ordinary sorrow turns · to fancy math in making's mirror;
coruscating waltz absaorbs · your burning rain in making's mirror.

Now among black shards i go · and though i'm only pasing through,
i want to know i took my blur · and taught it war in making's mirror.


Things fall, and stay as they land.


"In return, she has given the script her blessing."
(via Robot Wisdom)

To distinguish fraud from random nasty surplus is on occasion difficult.


"Enfold the scanty grey serge scapular"

--Sord*llo


   "Giant Slushworms"

A puny uncouth ailing vassal think
Docks, quitchgrass, loathly mallows no man plants
Form flatworm satisfaction in Xanadu,
Or amphibology unpacks a rainbow?

If i on occasion hazard my utmost music
That in this bloody coruscating waltz
A puny uncouth ailing vassal think
Docks, quitchgrass, loathly mallows no man plants?

Proconsul accruals watch a sloppy ingot
Triumph in uffish bardic sciamachy
But blindfold foundling may my sandcoil myrrh
Vanish shorn of stars should i aurora
A puny uncouth ailing vassal think.


Words fail this bard.


On my victrola: Gabor Szabo- "Go ask Alic*".


Invisibl* Citi*s Hot*l.

Whoa.



   "...the orb I sought
To serve, those glimpses came of Fomalhaut..."

--Sord*llo


If my window is still not working by now, it can wait through our cold days.


"As Life, the somewhat, hangs 'twixt nought and nought.."

--ibid

"Or say, words have knees..."

--Zukofsky

"Each a god's germ, doomed to remain a germ"

--Sord*llo


"Visual artists painting all day with the sound of their brush strokes amplified over the public address system."



"Brief, the object of Arab life was to be--to be fre, to be brave, to be wise; while the endeavour of other peoples was and is to have--to have wealth, to have knowledge, to have a name; and while moderns make their 'epitome of life' to be, to do, and to suffer."

--Richard F Burton, T*rminal 3ssay to Th* Thousand Nights and a Night


Truly our world is simulacrum of a misfiring conspiracy.


Automatically do ambigrams. (via M*tafilt*r)


36%

203.

Ophion aparthood this · I coast onion mask spurting basilisk
orchid stinky shard · woodchuck honcho idolatrous
storp this I usurp pitch Scully · down mask assumptions

Traditionally a Sith bard would vanish at song's crux. I dismount by turning again to my initial word. For I am not actually a Sith.


204.

[ gafiating (passion) if · I (caracul)(carol) study (atrocity) distort
ungainly aground

[ halitosis party blowout · I

[ futility tulip

parity warg dry I at · ryotwar twinkling fallout

tumid fun am I adapting

"Here comes Johnny with an iPod
Shuffle in his hand
Marching"

gafiating ransack if · I calico strum diamond
ungainly aground tripod · panic insight as gallop
actinic akin firn Africa · Lilith actually

Triumvirat circa 1973. Garmonbozia.


205.

parity warg dry I at · ryotwar twinkling fallout grasp
ago ado grail hydrargyrum · wins rain Styx disport my
vocabulary star swain saw · gray star owls riding

This is finish of a Sith song. Its tag is "2M1207b": our first distant world a photo of is found. To look at is to think of many dark fathoms’ crossing and our small cobalt orb, its wights at war with its own air, no warg to fly to past losing. But you can’t absorb that. Its gray dot is obviously a glitch. Canaan is not that icon.
   Dark fathoms say So Long.

   gray star owls riding




(via *comcity dot com)

Tarboosh!

To the editors at  "Entertainment Weekly,"  

Once again, you guys simply do not get it.  In the recent article  "Summer Squash" much ado was made about how movies like Bewitched and Cinderella Man "both underperformed in spite of their stars."  What stars? Surely you don't mean Nicole Kidman and Russell Crowe?  A quick glance at the filmography of either will reveal them to be little more than highly paid actors with mostly lackluster to middling track records among the American moviegoing populace.   I mean, come on, did anybody really think that the woman who appeared in a dud like Birth was going to be able to pack 'em in to a movie that bastardized a beloved small screen classic; that is, after failing to pack em in a year ago for a bastardized remake of a 70's psychological horror film.  Need more proof?  Check out the U.S
grosses for The Birthday Girl and the much publicized Moulin Rouge! Even Kidman's Oscar winning The Hours couldn't grow legs at the box office, and neither The Others nor Cold Mountain, according to the Internet Movie Database, achieved a domestic gross in excess of $100,000,000. Though Kidman consistently generates a lot of press, the American public has almost
as consistently rejected her as a bona fide movie star.  What's not to get about that?

Ditto, the boor named Russell Crowe (whom the press impishly labels a "bad boy," so he'll somehow come across as less of a bully). Crowe got lucky with the likes of Gladiator and A Beautiful Mind,  but, like Kidman, the rest of his resume is rounded out by movies that, despite lots of acclaim, failed to reach the greater percentage of average moviegoers: LA Confidential,
The Insider, Mystery Alaska, and, yes, even Master and Commander.  Further, all the gossipy speculation about Crowe and Meg Ryan wasn't enough to turn 2000's Proof of Life into a box office blockbuster. Why? Because most of the average moviegoing public isn't interested in paying good money to see Russell Crowe on the big screen.  So why does the media report
his every move?  Believe me, if people weren't interested in seeing Crowe in Cinderella Man before he started throwing phones, they were even less likely afterward.  Here again, the general public is smarter than the press.

Also, enough already of the requiem for Cinderella Man.  I worked in the movie exhibition business for over 20 years and the truth is, prestigious, well reviewed movies flop at the box office all the time; likewise, heavily hyped "high concept" pictures flop just as often  It's just the crap-shot nature of the business. Why did Cinderella Man fail?  Simple, the marketing campaign
was all wrong.  The movie was presented to the American moviegoing public as a prime Oscar contender at a time when most people simply weren't thinking about Oscars. Worse, the last big Oscar winner was also about boxing. The producers of Cinderella Man should
have waited until fall, utilized a more modest ad campaign, and platformed the movie's release.  If they'd done that, instead of being so nakedly greedy for the summer box office dollar, they might have better postioned their picture in the market place--and dodged that business about Crowe's temper tantrum.

Finally, you guys really are fools, you know that?  For you to attribute the success of War of the Worlds more to Dakota Fanning than Tom Cruise is just preposterous.  Do you honestly believe that little girl, as good as she is, would have made a difference at the box office if she'd been paired with a less charismatic, less bankable star than Cruise?  Or do you just expect your readers to believe that? The War of the Worlds has taken in over 200 million dollars at the U.S. theatres.  It's a personal box office best for Cruise, which seems to indicate the American moviegoing public is more interested in whether he delivers on the big screen, and less interested in what he does on Oprah Winfrey's tv show. So why can't you be a little more gracious, accept defeat, and get over yourselves?

The American public has spoken this summer, and they're not happy. The people at the top of Hollywood moviemaking community would do well to listen. They should do what I used to do when I was in the business: listen to what people are saying when they're in ticket lines, or when they're walking through the lobby after their movie is over, and, especially, go into auditoriums and gauge how people respond to the previews of coming attractions (but beware of focus groups, in which people tend to become self-conscious--and instead keep your eyes and ears open for the unguarded, spontaneous reaction).   There's an old saying, "Give the people what they want and they'll show up every time."  Well, you know, the reverse of that is true also, as we have seen this summer.  But you have to be willing to listen first in order to make any of it work.  Meanwhile, you guys at EW would better serve your readers if you stuck to reporting the trends of the entertainment machine instead of straining, as you now so often do, to dictate them.

Thank you,
Melanie Pruit

"Mysticism doesn't come naturally to an ironist..."
                                           --Pauline Kael

199.

numinous sump am I in · tomorrow rusty tsantsa ask
fulvous smalt spool wall imp wick · wispy and still sorrowing smily
fossick grisly around bolt · swindling frost cub

"Here comes Handsome Johnny with a Chinese
Menu in his hand
Marching to the Dim Sum War"

--Victor V*rmis


200.

luminous pulp small I ink · follows fulcrum ash appalling
gulls slip up as am balmy · sly allot bits with unknown killings
if could slow blast moonlight swarm · using UFOs

Hollow Gaia is origin of UFOs. From Polar doors soaring.


201.

basic marl as I scoop smart · gall bringing sloppy walking as
I assist ichthyosaur · solid forlorn apply tsantsa
smugly daft arid stool agaric · rapacious

Night visions carry actual import. So do shrooms. So do sitcoms. Our folly is not to know how to act on it.


202.

logic forlorn again I · ocarina affair fob crass
slack forgot brought any back · ogrishly gallons fill and fill
roting across ballistic grout · nix onion wax mask

Only Sith dancing is a choral bug stomp.
   Ophion a world a moon of Goldilocks or 70 Virginis b. Tripods warm cloud world. Why do i go back to that icon of gray? Is it i find sunlight not so inspiring? "Warg" is location a wight was born in. "Gafiating" is scifi fandom lingo for Going Away From It All, giving up fandom. "Ryotwar": if farming tax cannot always pay thus auto killing is a kind of solution or so it looks. Institution riot, matrix against its units. Can ants go nomadic? Will history award us a final fix?



"French sociologist Roger Caillois... makes a very broad definition of human play identifying just four different types: agon (competition), alea (chance), mimicry (simulation), ilinx (vertigo). To this categorization Yoshida Mitsukuni added one further Japanese category: play of seasons, which refers to activities like the tea ceremony, flower arranging and moon viewing, which express elements of nature in refined and highly cultivated forms".


Most influential book: Club of Rom* R*port--in jr high.
Most influential song: "Hous* of th* Rising Sun"
Most influential movie: St*pp*nwolf
Most influential TV show: Night Gall*ry
Most influential historical event: Vi*tnam War as shown in Lif* magazin*
Most influential personal experience: 1980 Rainbow Gath*ring

via Black Spring

Th* L*ad*rship G*nius of G*org* W. Bush.



(via artnsuch dot com)

(via natur* dot ca)



193.

vanishing saintly in I · as churchical lizard angry
aggry ask back tidal ink · stab glass my winking instinct sib
bardcraft is ichor thoroughly · ruinous cranch scoff

Wax rod light for old books. Magic books.


194.

schismatic accruals rhost · singularity Isuzu
smrt faulty strong rig aching · rapacious scabbard accord
grimly Mustang was blackbody · is arousal char

Actually, it was a Taurus that got burnt up.


195.

pariah rasp orlon I · saintly shadows crisp falling as
spasmodic pollution prowls · click not on Sith tsunami rank
birdtalk unfamiliar starkly · glorious Lysol

T*asdal* and Vach*;l Lindsay both drank Lysol.


196.

antisocial industry · Atari I issuing worms
scalar nights fast click fizz ink · idolatry quick assailing
stands grisly vying garuda · story raining pray

Lunar shadows mucho crisp. I had an Atari.


197.

maximum haul axis I · smoky ruinous Imbolc sharp
warior gulp glass fantasy · Ixion riding assign bilk
assuaging smack loot skulls by arroyo · buff villain

'Roids in Baghdad, shoot at anything, hot on a cold day.


198.

mutiny cubic stint I · know by scrambling bugs oblong mist
scrying is stoical lich · and stars will skittishly gnarly
forlorn swinging abbot uyoku-ollav · is scud

"Lich" is a body magic puts in motion. "Uyoku" is politically right-wing.



"...everything going according to dreadful, criminal plan."


"To get the average Joe to buy a book for leisure reading, you basically have to tell them 15-20 times."

188.

oscillating ash across · I slit slapstick paratactic
stump Minotaur anchor ogham · raining osmium shards darg
schism gray forlorn is asking · tidal is falling

"Darg" is a day’s work. Guiron in a labyrinth our stumbling tags as goal. I would watch rain hurtling down among glas monoliths in my old days of plastic suit antics. I could not find my way out, but a gull did. Unknown worlds in our solar group (or actually, Oort Cloud) today found. Worlds.


189.

artifact grisly staring · I afford falling octopus
ataraxia against · cruzada cilia island
blank my asking at random wrong · fill in ugly wish

Constantly modifying our algorithm until at last all habit is faulty and doubtful. Wash your hands with blood! So? Say it!

"The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante, as the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture-writing of Mexico." --Macaulay


190.

mutiny tutoring storm · I anguish by stark hush staringI anguish by stark hush staring
worn argosy with into against · is attacking for frail am
with war into again hush fist · Isfahan sharing

" 'Why that's precise the error Squarcialupe'
(Hazarded Naddo) 'finds; the man can’t stoop
To sing us out,' quoth he, 'a mere romance;
He'd fain do better than the best, enhance
The subject's rarity, work problems out
Therewith.' " --Sord*llo


191.

mutiny lungfish stomata · I unjust ryotwar kylix
slowly ruinous indigo · Ogpu afraid city
ash shark is stinky pools impair · bail still pallid links

In Uqbar I found no favor; without work, sitting hours in that unsound labyrinth, i did allow a light i had not known prior to going astray.


192.

oscillating isthmus scram · I allow blank calcium string
virtuous anybody · gora pillbug Isfahan
stars shorn impair outcast ascot · as across grisly

In that vast almost void plaza, musicians from sundry worlds brought fading sounds and apocalyptic vision to a crowd who did not particularly want to absorb it. In that parking lot full of mystics only a singular thing was sought: what would grant a working slob but his running away from all clocks and doors.



Public Hair Journals.

(via graphit*furnac* dot blogs dot com)



183.

barium hasty grom I · gumbo umbonic shadowland
gallons isaian stumbling · lying ignorant brillig womp
ambulatory wig ajar · tubular immy

"Immy" is rolling glass. I thought at a particular point i had bad sick and was waiting for barium proof or no. Long waiting. At last i did call and found out. But i had to call.


184.

coriolis wodwo crown · I confirm blin rinkydink as
Twinky wormwood idiocy · swarm pools accruing prom
formal twinkling insult airport · Icarian yolk ink

This song will go out into vacuum night, and it will not stop for stars or worlds. "Blin" is manifold cicada sounds. A Twinky of poison is modifying this hand’s alpha folly, but its flight has no plan of arrival. How could it?



185.

sociology no scrawl · I conscious claw dog aglow myth
anybody roost ostrich · scissors grisly valid awash
slimy disappoint accruals · nothing unpacks us

Victoria’s bard’s "scissors" story, as told by Holland*r. My task of counting stars is not a story.
   To omit that fifth bit. What is it for? A stunt? A kind of andycay? An absorbing drug? A way of grasping global horrors by proxy? A tint in our common air, stain i point at by taking away.


186.

magic rat aground I scry · tribulations walking at last
against frisky forlorn bunk · instinctually adscititious
gift as accost grisly cynic · attach ground bingo

Caught up at last. What day is it? "Adscititious" for G. Burns, who did not talk to yours truly all that much, actually.


187.

thrills shotput crimson I algorithm · glass aspiring is
shorn forlorn stain spols quasar · stiffly scabrous crossing lithium
ammo issuant formula · unknown city

Pazuzu floating among foggy monoliths. I sat by a lamp writing, blindly taking tomorrow's words for nothing. Nothing.

   "Victory Catsup"

Fomalhaut go smiling back
flow chanoyu calico fulcrum

still igloo Mozarab as impact silk alms
wing into

aglow abandon
rapacious ichor sky of Olofi mouth

   'TENEBRAE

We are near, Lord,
near and at hand.

Handled already, Lord,
clawed and clawing as though
the body of each of us were
your body, Lord.

Pray, Lord,
pray to us,
we are near.

Wind-awry we went there,
went there to bend
over hollow and ditch.

To be watered we went there, Lord.

It was blood, it was
what you shed, Lord.

It gleamed.

It cast your image into our eyes, Lord.
Our eyes and our mouths are so open and empty, Lord.
We have drunk, Lord.
The blood and the image that was in the blood, Lord.

Pray, Lord.
We are near.'

--Paul C*lan, Sprachgitt*r (tr Micha*l Hamburg*r,1980)



Chirg!

178.

chains shadow walking I snow · Isfahan ash chary random
adjudicating fossil · whirlpool twinkling gallop flak sky
city in agony giving · is inkly poor swirl

Fl**twood Mac, Th* Danc* not Rumours. Shall Isfahan catch an atomic rain? I stand asking.



179.

chairs shark hallow I brought aspic · as sharp pang crisp skiff who falls
slowly Olofi folding · twinkling wilt Abraxas cranch box
musjik again shady story · ballot astounding

"Abraxas" in D*mian i will always think of, and Santana. I in Madison took photocopy of an illustration from an old old book and had a stamp for it grown of caoutchouc. Athanasius K. i would turn into our kind of words, and did not alas.


180.

choirs char tomorrow I grasp · astounding accruals shadow
warp cranch stir box amount rot · crying arrow body twinkling
with agaric fray gasping is · spurt walking is stunt

Sorrow for sundry sick humans is not a fit thing to sing about.


181.

flair clangor wallop I crunch · accusatory flimsy rail
insist ignition softly · groan twinkling walking flailing Olofi
loyal spin giddy · octopus frop quincunx

Almost forgot this.


182.

nabi bazaar abuzz I · abasing jackpot tzompantli
salvation parks croak Salii · abjuring furious Oz
Azathoth misty rapacious · Ubar barium

Skull display wall is as a library. A song is a thing of war. "Salii" frolic for godly joy. Ubar still far in sands lost.



"But I stayed outside." (via wood_s lot)


Khalid thanks us.

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

169.

Tanith rainshadow incog · I stairway dhimmi Orion
backlash rippling and asking · throngs rapacious idiot rocks
swirl nights unison scam sonorous · agora gird

'Never cometh there unto them a new reinder from their Lord but they listen to it while they play.' --Pickthall’s Koran


170.

Lilith withdrawal slack I · strictly shargar twinkling lizard
stoop shiny idolatry · Orcus Ramadan owl warior
slowly usurps slight vandalism · scar akin

"Shargar" is a puny ghost (Nabokov).


171.

caring warrior crackpot · I unbutton ignition swag
taonga crisp tripton highway · loudly grisly octopus
argot banish scrounging skill spurn · worship stony nights

"Taonga" is things old days hand down. "Tripton" is floating tiny stuff. "Octopus argot" is varying colors.


172.

plaid flung banana I Idalian · affliction alphosis
musjid anchor aground abandon · sail on sail on nargilay
pillowbook birdtalk adytum · hallow sly fix

"Plaid" is matrix of colors thus a way of thinking. Spring morning i mow for no pay. Will work tonight and hard. Forgot my writing tool of alizarin. Such things hustling my art.


173.

wraith prain vap I stow shitloads · sparkling grimly vanish wisp ink
oval gap spy fizgig usurp · its lost swarm is chirg mirrors
its all good rapacious ads · Isfahan assasin

So much trash in a singular day. Buildings that shift color.


174.

wraith crimp walking I stick chow · acrostic proud villainous Imbolc
apportion switch balk flow skygoing kith and agony
mirrors asking stool pinch accruals · skyward scrawl chump

"Imbolc" is Groundhog Day.



"Does it have the gravitas, the power and the magic that goes with such an eminent position?"


"...the Cindy Sherman of the Extraordinary Rendition.." (via B*yond th* B*yond)

   "Cowboys Don't Cry"

Amidst this swinging chaos, cowboys don't cry,
who gallop a gaunt logic: "cowboys don't cry."


At Crawford a road joins flags and our blood.
Many crying now. Firm cowboys don't cry.

A woman is waiting wants to know why
hands and dying hands drop slack. Cowboys don't. Cry.

163.

ascian Isfahan scrying · I caladium oncoming
nights as if java shotgun · rapacious indigo is act
grand jyotishi dilatory · infirm ogham

Finish going and stay.


164.

lapis Tarot spitball I · asking stillborn gallons artificial
rock stalwart ash spool · silicon Atkins ibtida
factory sly allot Viagra · Sappho Isfahan

What in our old rock music is apropos for today? This is as food with admix of nonfood: sculsh. --A yardstick of truth in art. Not to gag at as bombs go off.


165.

sodium wodwo idyll · I survival tmia twist
forlorn adjusting twyborn · loyal fiction adjusting by
sloppy alloys ripoffs ascian · lush droshky guisqui

Aparthood of rich and poor. But don't say it. War of two worlds. Only from a monstrous POV.


166.

modifying wodwo adjusting · I afraid dying sick
in ignominious bwana · dowsing odium swim solid
carnivorous oddly ajaja · tubular

Pillbug is daily wodwo. Trap by own bad airt. Born on that plantation cloud. Furiously.


167.

auditorium tubular · adjusting I storm worship
fractal pillbug rush am storm · luminarias Ubar hush
illusions sasquatch pray carnivorous · add uji

"Uji" is ill of silkworms. "Tmia" is holy building. "Ubar" is sand lost city.


168.

auditorium ruinous · idolatry I story
confound brumous gibbons putsch · amok crayfish bulbous misty
and mountain burying Isis · finicky adjourn

Spirits around us aid or withhold aid as malign winds prowl. Do you think it is worth asking for proof?



Instant Artist Ranking.


"Basically I have the audio surroundings of a Brazilian favela."


On my victrola: Forbidd*n Plan*t soundtrack.


At Camp Cas*y.


At Kang*rlussuaq.

(via savvyc*nt*r dot com)



160.

nation validation strict · I conform in TV rainclouds
sloppy killings adlib bard · stars gibbons royal onslaught as
stars gratification kind sculpt · stoical birdtalk

Raps calx xlacspar. High doors always yawning--for what?


161.

orbit grisly ablution · I stall ignorantly bringing
liftoff ascian slow typical · damask damask about slick furlough stars
with folly unknowing pistol · is it painful bliss

Mild torturing is good for you.


162.

liripoop finish crumbly · I spoil tomorrow pools uptown
affably misty an airt · is shockingly scant grisly numb
am abroad flay my fighting ash · spool worshipful rim

Sad with a world that is unknown but as icons. I talk to a wind swaying. Finish showing you and go.



Salsas. (via M*tafilt*r)


"What a pity that Bela Bartok
Cannot give his smug public a shock
    By writing in parts
    For the hiccups and farts
And conducting the piece with XXX XXXX"

--Basil Bunting (via Languag* Hat)

1.

an unfamiliar glory
in this land without walking

dim among shards of mayfly
i grasp what's utmost quasar

my mind grinds its gray spintcom
avatar of gray sandcoil

2.

moon bloom an hour
was my color and story
you turn out softly

how long can this gold sky roar
shadowing all dark snowfall

3.

tamarind
quitchgrass

softly how long
grinds its gray
and what birdtalk

glory
tamarind quitchgrass

156.

solitary word alight · I stir rapacious grom cyborgs
swirl cobra tryst adopting ask · part sloppy fiction aglow shorn
starry wisdom as stinky links · from front fault apart

Bardic art fails to uphold its promising glamour. I don’t know why.


157.

solitary wounds alight · I stars ransack crisp ryotwar twang
forlorn runaway anarch · adorn isinglass La Llorona
mimics Ogpu whirlwind stony · riot astray at

An old car with many things going bad. A song that has no logic and that ghosts follow, wailing. "Ogpu" is my past, possibly. It rains gray hoogly in bright sunlight, now. Now.


158.

invisigoth and ivory · I is silkworm agony coign
stars which walking individual · odorous tinkling ovoid
forlorn proconsul my fifth · wish ossuary

Ossuary i almost saw and still must stay in. Caught up. Much still to do. Duration of failing light, duration of rough walking. Dyadic osmium. Pallid bismuth.


159..

solitary worms alight · I attack satisfaction army
by twilight constraints grisly · ambush Islamist WalMarts
although fictional again short · at Findhorn rally

Torturing bad guys is okay now.



Futility. (via M*tafilt*r)

(via southport dot jpl dot nasa dot gov)



   "The Dry Heart

The world where the dead live is a dry heart,.
Every world is a heart, a rhythm spherical,
A rhythm of impossible intentions
That yet sings itself, imagining heard music.
The world where the dead live is a silent choir.
It does not hear itself, it sings itself not.
Its will has frozen into memory,
Black as still blood, without flow.
To the painless sorrow of death it throbs.
The world where the dead live is a heart alive
In a body once alive.
The dead move neither into heaven nor hell.
Their afterwards is their before.
The world where the dead live is a dry heart,
The same heart as always, even dry."

--Laura Riding



154.

osmium assailing am · I quotidian smart wallop
isthmus asthma fabulous · Pirc albino ritual ink
again vanilla impacts silk · squidly ruinous

"Osmium" is hard to lift. "Pirc" in my old days cost much but i could play it now i think. Pallid writing as if a mind without its brain matrix. Moving blindfold.


155..

squidly Uqbar tubular · I idiomatically blurt
sylph runway squib absolution · wards frabjous Atlantis dunk
abandon vulgar climax gasp · grasping sinistral

You know "Uqbar". My hand paladinry is wrong but i can allow a switch if i want.



Smoky photos. (thanx Jill!)

     Michael, Michelle and I went to see "Broken Flowers" yesterday at the Magnolia. "Flowers" is the new Jim Jarmusch film that received great acclaim at the most recent Cannes Film Festival (winning the Grand Prize award, second only to the Golden Palm). Jarmusch, of course, first attracted worldwide attention when his micro-budgeted "Stranger Than Paradise" won the Golden Camera award (for new film makers) at the
1984 Cannes fest. Hardly anything he's done in the two decades since has made much of a ripple in the mainstream culture (even "Dead Man" with Johnny Depp), but his latest bittersweet offering, could change all that. "Broken Flowers" is not exactly a great movie.  The three of us agreed there were some nagging--easily remedied--glitches, but the good, because it is so good, probably outweighs the bad.  The plot is simplicity itself, and fear not, there are no spoilers to be found in this missive;  better that the story's details unfold right in front of you in a darkened theatre.  Bill Murray stars as an eternal bachelor, improbably named Don Johnston (as in Don Juan) who, just as his current relationship is ending, receives an unsigned letter informing him he has a 19 year old son who may try to look him up all these many years later.  It's likely the letter has been written by the young man's mother; there is no return address and the postmark on the letter is too faint to decipher. (Btw, I hereby apologize for using quote marks instead of italics for these movie titles.)
    Johnston, egged on by a neighbor (the always game Jeffrey Wright) who's a big fan of mysteries, sets out on
a road trip to track down the woman who wrote the letter and, presumably, gave birth to their son.  The most likely candidates are played by, in alphabetical order, Frances Conroy (a distinguished actress perhaps better known by name than face, although she has garnered a following thanks to her role as the family matriarch in the cable series "Six Feet Under"),  Jessica Lange,  Sharon Stone, and Tilda Swinton (virtually unrecognizable as the opaque--talented--beauty from "Orlando" and "The Deep End").  Jarmusch, like Don Johnston, clearly has an eye for the ladies.  Stone has the least interesting role of the quartet, though she has the glow of good health, not to mention good genes, and her vignette is actually funny (but not because of her, necessarily). Jarmusch heightens the tension to an almost unbearable level during the encounter between Murray and Conroy, but for me, the movie is at its most emotionally involving in the scenes featuring first Lange, then Swinton. Of all the women, Lange is actually closer to Murray's age (followed by Conroy), and when the two of them reunite, they're quite
convincing as a couple with a past.  Of course, writer-director Jarmusch is a minimalist, so he hasn't exactly written roles of enormous complexity (and almost all the reunion scenes seem to end prematurely), but, in Lange, Jarmusch has cast an actress of such  skill she can bring a great deal of murky emotional undercurrent to the simplest exchange: soft and silky one minute, cold and cutting the next.  Lange plays her character as a wounded woman  who has found contentment by reinventing herself and, as much as she can, burying her past.  
    Jessica Lange turned 56 in April; this movie was most likely filmed when she was 55.  She's no longer the adorable cuddle-bunny she was in 1982's Tootsie (for which she won her first Oscar), and it shows.  Her face is definitely lined with age--and that's not really a bad thing. It's quite encouraging, actually. Lange has lived a full life, and she wears it well.  Still, even with the obvious signs of age, this woman still has one of the cinema's greatest ever faces.  At one point, during an outdoor scene, she's photographed in three-quarter profile and the camera just loves her  amazing bone structure, the incredible arrangement of planes and angles that plays tricks with light and shadow.  Lange  possesses the kind of extraordinary beauty for which movie stardom was invented (even if she has stubbornly resisted that notion).
    Still,  Bill Murray is the lead here and he gives a performance that feels more genuine than his Oscar nominated turn as a slumming American movie star in 2003's  "Lost in Translation."  That movie got a lot of mileage out of Murray's familiar mannerisms (the cool mocking tone of an overgrown frat boy), but Murray was never completely believable as the kind of action movie hero outlined in the script (the character was reportedly based on Harrison Ford).  In "Broken Flowers," Murray's character is better developed--he acquires depth during the course of his journey--and his  deadpan delivery is a perfect match for Jarmusch's already noted minimalist style. Jarmuch also deserves credit for staging a beautiful, potentially overdone emotional scene-- and then cutting away before it  sinks to "Oscar clip"  mawkishness.  No one need thank the Academy just yet; however, if the movie crosses over into  the mainstream, it would be a good thing for Jarmusch (who was "indie" when
the word practically screamed "underground").  In spite of the movie's few annoying imperfections, I can visualize a Best Original Screenplay nomination for Jarmusch (even if, ultimately, the idea is stronger than the execution--though that's really a matter of taste), and maybe a second bid for Murray.  Oscar talk for Sharon Stone--someone's got a press agent on speed dial--seems premature, but a nomination for Lange (supporting, only, please) would be swell. Swinton's role, as good as she is in it, is probably too limited in scope to warrant serious award consideration (though it's such a startling change of pace, she might just have a shot). At any rate, Jarmusch has paid his dues.  Now, go see for yourself.

Thanks for your consideration,
Mp


"Mysticism doesn't come naturally to an ironist..."
                                           --Pauline Kael

    "Baghdad


O, little crown of iron forged to likeness of imam's face,
what are you doing in this circle of flaming inspectors and bakers?

And little burnt dinner all set to be eaten
(and crispy girl all dressed with scarf for school),
what are you doing near this shovel for dung-digging,
hissing like ice-cubes in ruins of little museum?

And little shell of bank on which flakes of assets fall,
can't I still withdraw my bonds for baby?

Good night moon.
Good night socks and good night cuckoo clocks.

Good night little bedpans and a trough where once there and inn
(urn of dashed pride)
what are you doing beside little wheelbarrow
beside some fried chickens?

And you, ridiculous wheels spinning on mailman's truck,
truck with ashes of letter from cripy girl all dressed with scarf
for school.
why do you seem like American experimental poets going nowhere
on little exercise bikes?

Good night barbells and ballet dancer's shoes
under plastered ceilings of Saddam Music Hall.
Good night bladder of Helen Vendler and a jar from Tennessee.
(though what are these doing here in Baghdad?)

Good night blackened ibis and some keys.
Good night, good night.

(And little mosque popped open like a can, which same as factory
of flypaper has blown outward, covering the shape of man with it
(with mosque): He stumbles up Martyr's Promenade. What does it
matter who is speaking, he murmurs and mutters, head a little bit
on fire. Good night to you too).

Good night moon.
Good night poor people who shall inherit the moon.

Good night first edition of Das Kapital, Novum Organum,
The Symbolic Affinities between Poetry Blogs and Oil Wells,
and the Koran.

Good night nobody.

Good night Mr. Kent, good night, for now you must
soon wake up and rub your eyes and know that you are dead."

--K*nt Johnson (via T*xfil*s)


"...political ire is hardly the most promising surface motive for sustaining the language and procedures of contemporary poetry..."


"This wasn't trisomy 21..." (via Languag*hat)

    "Death of a Oaxaqueñian

So huge is God’s despair
In the wild cactus plain
I heard Him weeping there

That I might venture where
The peon had been slain
So huge is God’s despair

On the polluted air
Twixt noonday and the rain
I heard Him weeping there

And felt His anguish tear
For refuge in my brain
So huge is God’s despair

That it could find a lair
In one so small and vain
I heard Him weeping there

Oh vaster than our share
Than deserts of new Spain
So huge is God’s despair
I heard Him weeping there...."

--Malcolm Lowry


153.

inciting anvil accruals · I attain virtual ink
against caracul and ivory · lingo flow lanai scrollwork
scarab trusty vulva jazz slam · tsunami Sith cairn

"Caracul" is cup fur. "Lanai" from Gold Girls TV show (outdoors porch). Sith want to banish all fantasy and wishful thinking.



Fractal music.


Lov*craftian Dumbl*dor*. (via Silliman)

148.

luminous autopsy umgang · I Angular Lord tundra
assailing jazz furl static · pools sponsor psychic pyjamas
ruby imam aground maintain · instant igloo ring

"Angular Lord" is Maya Olofi. It was told of. Cloud astrology.


149.

splicing apricot clockwork · I schoolroom killings angrily
ignoring gallons sprightly · groan kindling sculpt forlorn styrofoam
scratchy flatworm workbook occult · skyborn swarm pool

My contact with what occurs in Ft Worth is practically nil.


150.

copious polyps spiral · I Cobalt Gulag astonish
sparklingly goatfish clockwork · iynx apportion psalmody ash
sporangium simoom grisly · La Llorona pink

Working so hard fo not much. Sunlight as if foggy curtain, can’t look far, and sight burns. "La Llorona" haunts us in days of voting loss. Goatfish Ogpu. What stays in la computadora? I worry about.


151.

fluids always ruinous · I add ostrich salsa along
ywis Xanadu zymurgy · as writing bulbous liftoff
in Oolb fulvous tsantsa withdrawal · gall adjourn Id

"Xanadu" on Titan, natch. "Oolb" is from Shaving of Shagpat, a city.


152.

rabid Baathists ablution · I adorably abjuring
caladium wash story · ghost withdrawal as it is calm
obolary gloom rural storm · pillaging forlorn

Caladiums in my childhood adorn its backyard and show a kind of plant that wants twilight.



For a Lynch Anthology. (via Dumbfoundry)


    "I Walk Alone

I walk on empty, alone every morn
Of my wealth there are but,
A curd of milk and few kernels of corn
Alone in silence my heart sinks
Of my orchid there are but,
Wild cactus and a shrub of brittle sticks
Alone at the wayside I wonder and wait
With heart stirred that refuses to be reined
Will the world listen?
Does the world care?

From behind the shadow, a tyrant sighed
Wither away in solitude, he cried
Over at the ivory tower the high strolled
Oblivious
Hamming the virtue of freedom he rolled
Shunned from the community of men
To no! I became a weary friend

Yet in solemn I struggle and strive
For a bright tomorrow and beautiful dawn
I sing my heart and trot with joy
Cause this dreadful night shall come to pass
The dark curtain, surely will rise
Splendidly bold and not a bit coy
Maandeeq draped in a flowing gown
Will stand equal among her peers
To bring countenance and much deserve cheers

Maandeeq the just - Maandeeq the true
Walk steady and walk strong
Maandeeq our grace - Maandeeq our calling
Soar free into the open sky
Maandeeq our sword - Maandeeq our pen
Bring meaning and honor to our fallen men
Maandeeq the way - Maandeeq the promise
Stay deaf to the doubter’s cry


Break the soil at the dry riverbed
Till in earnest from dawn to dusk
For time to plant tears are long gone
Undo the ill of our broken bond
Undo the burden of broth and bread
Break the chain and never look back
Give back yourself - Your old self again
Embrace the gift - The gift of life
The smile - The laughter, the sweet sob again
Sing with joy - Sing with pride
For Maandeeq is here - Our precious dear"

--Said Omar Moussa

    "ANNIE HILL’S GRAVE

Amen. The casket like a spaceship bears her
In streamlined, airtight comfort underground.
Necropolis is a nice place to visit;
One would not want to live there all year round.

So think the children of its dead, emerging
From shadow by the small deep gates of clay,
Exclaiming softly, joyful if bewildered,
To see each other rouged, heads bald or gray.

Some have not met, though constant to the City,
For decades. Now their slowly sunnier
Counterclockwise movement, linked and loving,
Slackens the whirlpool that has swallowed her.

Alone, she grips, against confusion, pictures
Of us the living, and of the tall youth
She wed but has not seen for thirty summers.
Used to the dark, he lies in the next booth,

Part of that whole, poor, overpopulated
Land of our dreams, that ‘instant’ space
--To have again, just add stars, wind, and water--
Shrinkingly broached. and, as the brief snail-trace

Of he withdrawal dries upon our faces
The silence drums into her upturned face."

--M*rrill


145.

stairway Atari rainclouds · I tryst swarming narrowcasting
my band attracts wasp crystal · williwaw broiling latifundia
giant antonym scrimshaw · sluggish forlorn

Aurora Troll. Black pints, communication with Ghayb.


146.

ridiculous simoom · adamant I scrollwork tubular
gloaming Kodak dusk asthma · Isfahan wizard smock toasty
morass among caracul ado · vanish amply

It always rains. World full of ghosts, including ghost of skygoing. aturnward, unsaturnward airt. frabbits = frog-rabbits. Garudas drink frabbit-ichor for food.


147.

digital silkworm ogham · I stoop walking Klaatu asking
visitors sly akimbo · swap confusions crystal
ambulatory pools ago · sharp warts imago

Garudas hark for sonar input. Cloud-plankton. Xibalba is ground, floating tripton murk shrouds. Dull crimson and acrawl with sonic matrix calls.



Usual amount of good working.


"...to be poets, we have to learn how to do a (metaphorical) dead-sea float."