August 31, 2009 - Coffee Break - 54th & Troost - Kansas City Missouri

The sun has almost reached the point of being shadowed by the awning ending its warm monopoly. A bicycle club rides up the street like grazing gnus. Then comes a gaggle of trotters. Cars lurk waiting to pounce at the waterhole. Everyone is alert. And yet during the  noonday heat everyone shall lie down together.

Just for today, I’d like to / step into someone else’s list. / Run their errands. Wish their wish – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p127

Every had a tour of a Polish peasant farm – twenty acres including the old mill race which is now connected to the grid – he is descended from the local miller. Pig sty behind the house – a big sow and brood suckling. Pot-au-feu on the stove in an overheated kitchen with dirty overalls hanging on pegs – sweet smells to the bachelor resident but not to me, and I was raised on a butternut farm (cattle, pigs, chickens and a couple of horses). This was once the dividing line between the Austro-Hungarian and the Imperial Russian empires – the line of trees forming the border is still visible. After the Great Patriotic War the Soviets built a huge steel mill (Nowa Huta) nearby – block after block of multistory crumbling concrete housing units for the thousands of steelworkers (Cabrini-Green was insignificant).

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Memorizing a poem is a good way to destroy it. / You think it will bring you closer (like getting / a tattoo) but the poem does not reside in its words / and that is all you’re left with. // Never gain will you encounter it by chance . / in the casual cruising-space that spells romance. / Rereading works better – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p236

Outstanding in his
     Field even as
The cows moo
I discussed it
     With him
They indeed are
Herbivores, but
Were their toes even
      Or odd?

CAREER: In trees // the leaves have / finally found / their niche – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p238

The largest portion of the carbon footprint of beer (25%) is its refrigeration

Radical monopoly reflects the industrial institutionalization of values. It substitutes the standard package for the personal response – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p54

Paradoxes of radical monopolies

First - correcting superficial abuses bolsters the power of the abusers
Second – Collective action to remedy problems leads to guardians being appointed to defend radical monopolies

Radical Monopolies are totalizing and co-opting institutions

People will face a danger that threatens their own self-interest but not one that threatens society as a whole – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p55

A Classification of Movement (from Gibson):
1 – postural – fundamental to all others – the body’s orientation to the earth
2 – orienting – investigation – turning movements – adjusting the head, eyes, mouth, hands – for obtaining information
3 – locomotor – placing the body in a favorable environmental position
4 – appetive – to take from or give to the environment; breathing, eating, eliminating and sexual interaction
5 – performatory – to alter the environment – displacing things, store food, construct shelter, fight and use tools
6 – expressive – movement to specify emotional states
7 – semantic – signaling movements especially speech

Once people with their roots in the land get all urbanized and modern, they start to feel patronizing towards the quaintness of the village life – John Barlow – Everything but the Squeal, 2008 p144
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A leech has 32 ‘brains’ – actually nerve endings
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$50 million dollars has been allocated to looking for bedbugs
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Olestra from the chips that made you leak, now has a new life in eco-friendly paint
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All fifty US states produce wine

In both of which [two nearby plantations in northern Mississippi] the Negroes were turned out to work at half-past three every week-day morning – I might hear the bell ring for them - and frequently they were not stopped till nine o’clock at night, Saturday nights the same as any other. One of them belonged to a very religious lady, and on Sunday mornings at half-past nine she had her bell rung for Sunday School, and after Sunday School they had to a meeting, and after dinner another religious service. Every Negro on the plantation was obliged to attend all these exercises, and if they were not dressed clean they were whipped… and if they were caught speaking to a Negro from another plantation they were whipped. They could all repeat the catechism…but they were the dullest, laziest, the most sorrowful looking Negroes he every saw – Fredrick Law Olmsted – The Cotton Kingdom, 1861 p372

The sow had a new litter – bacteria permeated the atmosphere – no place for germ fastidiousness – no Listerine anywhere. He had cousins who were doctors in the States, everyone did.

Uneconomic growth occurs when increases in production come at the expense of resources and well-being that is worth more than the items made – Herman E Daly – Economics in a Full World (Scientific American Sept 2005) p104

I got there in a Volva driven by an ex-Detroit auto worker. We bounced over pot holes along narrow roads (English lanes without the hedges) as fast has he could drive. It had taken us a hundred clicks to circle Nowa Huta - back in Krakow he pointed out where the Jewish synagogue had once been. Auschwitz waited for another day.


Science may even dispense with objects, but not with events – Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen – The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, 1971 p75

The old peasants who still work the land in these rural spots are providing a service fulfilling our expectations and making it so real – John Barlow – Everything but the Squeal, 2008 p153

We have gone too far, it appears, in believing that natural phenomena can be reduced to signal registrations alone  and hence that mind has no direct role in the process of observation: mind on the contrary, is as indispensable an instrument of observation as any physical contrivance. The point is of paramount importance for social sciences – Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen – The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, 1971 n p75

From the Journal (#2 January 21, 2004 - San Francisco – California & Fillmore – The Royal ground

We pass by a few cherry blossoms. They are the first of the season

The man who speaks or writes takes an attitude towards the past which is his alone - Meleau-Ponty

A big blue macaw sits next to me. It is preening itself. It a quarter to three. Its time for the movie - Pretty Dirty Things at the Opera Plaza.

Radio did not make us more foolish, it made foolishness more noise - Jean Rostand

Captain Kangaroo died today - along with my childhood. The captain died for my sins.

If you look at the traditional construction of pleasure, you see the bodily pleasures or pleasures of the flesh, are always eating, drinking and fucking. And that seems to be the limit of our understanding of our body, our pleasure - Foucault

Impeccable timing - I got to the coffee shop just as Cindy was peddling away

The truth of ancient formulations is not an illusion. They are false in what they reject but true in what they affirm - Mealeu-Ponty

Walter has Bruce in tow. “Linda are you using the auto section?” he excitedly asks her. I know what he is up to. He had been in earlier and had gotten all excited over the new Toyota Hybrid Pickup - he had said “Bruce will love this”. Now here was Bruce

“Sure” says Linda while she hunts for that section of her paper. He wants it badly. I say “make him pay for it”. “You’re just mean” she says. She finds it finally and gives it to Walter - gratis. Walter and Bruce are oohing and aahing over the picture of the Toyota. The testrotone levels are bubbling. Heading toward the top of the thermometer. “I can smell the testrotone” Linda says.

The boys are huddled together making vroom, vroom truck noises - all agog

Later Walter says “I’ve been thinking about Max Torque. I don’t think that he should be the hero of my movie - maybe he can be the Moriarrti character. I’ve decided that it will feature Freight Liner - a detective that hangs out at truck stops and helps truckers solve mysteries. But he needs a companion - something like the way Bat Girl was for Batman” “Don’t you mean Bat Boy” I asked? “No” he replied “I thinking of a female role. Linda do you want to be a sister, a wife or a cousin?” “A sister” Linda answers. “As far as names go I it should be something like ‘Stream Liner’ or ‘Eye Liner’. No, I’ve got it, ‘Panty Liner.” I add, “Yes Walter, that’s more like a kissing cousin name. It is defiantly not sister type name” “Second fiddle again” Linda says

Bruce is still engrossed in the new pickups. “So when will they start taking orders”, he asks? “Don’t you want to wait until the new Hummer pickup comes out” I ask? “Nah” he replied, “the new Toyota is bigger”.

We are only now beginning to make history

The lottery would be nice. Bring my dead child back to life. / May the weather clear for the church picnic on Saturday. / Let Christina be my true love not Bob’s or Ralph’s. / May we destroy all terrorists countries except the children – Jim Harrison - In Search of Small Gods, 2009 p17