A Two Stout Buzz - Fords Lashed Around Trees - Enticing Country Driveways

The ”Name Game” by Shirley Ellis is playing. The guy behind the counter tells his co-worked that it’s the worse song ever done. But it was number three in 1965. And I’d rather listen to it anytime in preference to Bobby Vinton whose “Red Roses for a Blue Lady” was at the top of the charts for forty weeks straight. God I hated that song, not because it was so bad but because I had to listen to it over and over – again and again. It was then that I stated to learn to hate media campaigns with legs – OJ Simpson, Princess Di, Michael Jackson, Jessica Simpson – just shut up and go away, for God’s sake. There’s nothing more horrid than a top ranked story, song, movie, celebrity hogging the airwaves. They have been playing the Stones (Love is Just a Shot Away, Just a shot away) over and over. I like the Stones but this is too much – that damn speaker is just a shot away.

The GNP was designed to measure how much defense output could be produced during World War II. It was not intended to be a measure of economic welfare nor of wealth, although there has been some minor adjustments to address those concerns. The primary concern remains “The analysis of economic activity in the short run, with a focus on inflation, the business cycle and fiscal policy – Richard Ruggles – The US National Income and Products Accounts, 1983 p332

It’s a lazy gray cold weekend. I had two beers on Saturday and I was zonked. I’m not feeling like doing anything today. I went to the Coffee shop and read the paper. I lounged around at home, had a hot bath and took a short snooze and then went to the coffee shop again. All of the tables at the Royal Ground were occupied so I caught the #3 Jackson downtown and wound up at the San Francisco Brewery for a short $1 dollar, the Alcatraz Stout.

The lover of delicate things / Can reach out and destroy / That to which he most clings – Barbara Howes – Collected Poems, 1995 p70

Technical details of the Wrights Brothers’ wing warping, drag, elevators and counter rotating propellers are being explained by a guy sitting two stools down. He’s not talking to me but to someone who is absorbed in hearing about his expertise. He says that he has often fantasized about going back to that time with the knowledge that he know has (it appears to be extensive). Langley was unable to fulfill his $7,000 contract because he could not control all three axis of control. Happy hour is over and the bar is clearing out

When you don’t get the answer you want, change your question

Homo Economicus is not
        Home economics
He’s more like a Venus Flytrap
Whatever tickles his fancy
        Defines his desire
Or a pitcher plant where
        Anything that falls in
        Get digested
There is no recipe for
         What he eats
Help I’ve fallen down and
         I can’t get up


That no relative value can be
         Distinguished
Is a simplification for the purpose
         Of quantification
Malevolence and spite are outlawed
         While greed is crowned god
This is defined as value-free behavior
Oh, Homo Economicus you are such
          A lowly creature

What lies at the end of enticing / country driveways, curving / off among the trees? Often only / a car graveyard, a house-trailer, a trashy bungalow – Denise Levertov – The Great Unknowing, 1999 p54

Factoid: The list of extrasolar planets now exceeds 400 – about half of all sun-like stars host planets

What you make / will hold awhile solid as stones seem, / will house your panic till the day break – Marcia Lee Anderson “Fear of Falling”

Academic disciplines are disciplinarian. So are all institutional cultural activities – to the extent of the ability to establish and enforce standards

Photography is acquisition in several forms. It its simplest form, we have in a photograph surrogate possession… we also have a consumer’s relations to events [and]… through image-making and image duplicating machines, we can acquire something as information rather than experience – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p156

Studs Terkel often lamented the fact that his social worker and activist wife Ida had a more robust FBI file than he did. Still, 269 pages is nothing to sneeze at. NYCity News Service has a nice piece on the fragmented narrative sketched out in the 147 pages of the report released under the Freedom of Information Act

When your arms are too short to reach your asshole you get tracks in your shorts. He said he never wore underpants. Don’t you get tracks?, I asked. No!, he exclaimed. I looked and he had long arms. And he said, I never dip into the rice bowl with your left hand.

Giving junk food to rats can make them into addicts, exhibiting similar behavior to heroine junkies

I plan an excursion to all of San Francisco’s brew pubs in a single weekend. That should not be too difficult, there are only four [actually there are six]. I’m now at the 21st Amendment with an Oyster Point stout. Alison Krauss is singing along with Sting. A Japanese customer is familiar with Sting but not with Allison. I order sweet fried plantains. Six pears come stacked like logs for a campfire. The United theme - its time to fly.

The ‘occult’ was anything that lied about man’s basic creatureliness, anything that tried to make out of a man a lofty, spiritual creature, qualitatively different from the animal kingdom - Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p96

Another Op-Ed in The New York Times, another well balanced political essay in Foreign Affairs, another eulogy to a departed soldier, another boring politician, another retired military commander, another demand for more troops, another demand we pull out now, another request for more helicopters, another comparison to the Soviet invasion, another Vietnam, another rant, another point of view… I just see dead people.
[More]

Billy Crystal and Robin Williams are so Twentieth century. When do we get to start living in the future. The TV camera pans across Will Smith and his wife - some Afro-Americando get limelight, a selected few. How will would a gangsta identify with Will? I want to know. I should hope not at all. Clap, Clap, applaud applaud, self congratulations to all the club members. What kind of bike are your riding? Duccate. I just took my motorcycle qualification the Japanese man is saying . Pretty dangerous stuff.

Although frequently expressed as judgement of high-end tastes, our “pecuniary emulation” is actually motivated by a desire for relative advantage, achieved by conspicuous excess or by conspicuous economy, as the times demand – Mark Kingswell – Harper’s Magazine (Nov 2009) p77

Having anything to eat. Pure alcohol, the nectar of the Gods. Ha, Ha, Ha - that was a twitter of don’t annoy me laughter. I continue to scribble in my notebook. Mr Duccate is more than half way through his burger by now. He is holding it in his right hand as the watches the Academy Awards. They are showing a Peter Sellers clip. He is on parallel bars. His specialty his character is saying. A new customer walks in. The barmaid interrupts her conversation with her boyfriend. Both she and her boyfriend are short and stout. Your pizzas are not quite ready she says to the new arrival. I haven’t ordered yet, he replies. Oh, I got you confused (actually she was confused). Can I see a menu he asks? Here she says and interrupts her conversation again to take his order. The dishwasher goes around the bar gathering dirty glassware.

Pray for us / that we receive // at least a bruise, / blue, blue unfading / we who accept survival – Denise Levertov – The Great Unknowing, 1999 p61

Blake Edwards gets a special award. Sean Connery is looking serious. The celebrities are all beaming. There are gleaming white teeth everywhere. It’s very intoxicating. So who got the lifetime achievement award? Was it Blake Edwards or Peter Sellers? Talk about shoveling elephant poop. Mr. Duccate’s burger is gone. He squeezes a fresh glaup of ketchup to dip the last of his French fries in.

I look for omens: / not birds broken, not Fords lashed around trees, / But some item showing that fate is open… Barbara Howes – Collected Poems, 1995 p79

I have a two stout buzz. I can no longer read. I think I can still write. It’s time to head home

The Rose, the Bear and a Belly Raspberry

I’ve gone to the Thirsty Bear for a Winter Bock before the SFMOMA panel on the Rose, but I have only been able to last an hour at the Jay De Ferro and the Rose Symposium. I kept falling asleep. I hope I was not snoring. “So,” he said, “you’re an expert on beer and wine?” I told him, “I just know a little about a lot.” I should have know better, I return for a cask conditioned porter. It seemed a little flat. Too long on tap, I supposed. “I’ll call you in a year,” she said as she got into the taxi. They were blonds, two babies and a daddy doing belly raspberries. The third blond has an older rich boyfriend or at least she would like to have one. It would not be me.

Quiet the place lies / Under the sun’s green thumb / As if marauding winter would never come – Barbara Howes – Collected Poems, 1995 p30

We’re going to San Francisco. There’ll be some lovin’ there. Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair

True rationalism must always transcend itself by recurrence to the concrete in search of inspiration. A self-satisfied rationalism is in effect a form of anti-rationalism. It means an arbitrary halt at a particular set of abstractions – Alfred North Whitehead – Science and the Modern World, 1925 p200

Nothing succeeds like failure. Nothing fails like success.

This is the scholiast’s black mass: we sit / And fret to see each Poem impaled, dead / As butterfly on pin, as dried eggshell. / Necromancer of learning, a black bat / With wing extended over literature – Barbara Howes – Collected Poems, 1995 p28

Rule of Three - make three points, three ways, three times

Rule of Three: say it three times - - the first time that you suggest it they will look at you like you are an idiot; the second time you suggest it, people will ponder over it; and the third time they will tell you about this great idea that they have

Dangers do not exist ‘in themselves’, independently of our perceptions. They become a political issue only when everyone becomes aware of them; they are the products of social stagings which are strategically defined, covered up or dramatized with the aid of scientific materials – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p8

Everything I needed to know about writing I learned from Country and Western music

As the present moves experientially towards entropy, feelers are cast toward different times and other spaces, dialogues are opened up with voices formerly excluded by the strong present of Western modernity – Andreas Huyssen – Twilight Memories, 1995

It oohs and aaahs as mommy pretends to eat baby’s right hand. Daddy holds up a squeaking green frog toy. The infant grabs at it.. Erin, that’s its name, has turned its attention to the pair glasses lying on the table. She grabs at the spectacles. Another baby is still sleeping in its mother’s lap. That mother has her back turned toward me. I can see only a part of the tiny cranium of her little one. “Shall we head back guys?” They re-assemble - two infants, two prams, two sets of parents. Getting all of the blankies and other baby paraphernalia together takes at least seven minutes. They leave. The café is quite once more. You can now hear Radio Triefe playing on the sound system. This was a mix compiled by Walter. He is proud of his newly learned CD burning skills.

But don’t / expect now to return for more. Whatever more / there will be will be / unique as those were unique – Denise Levertov – The Great Unknowing, 1999 p46

A recent “Public Policing Polling” survey asked its respondents “Do you think that Barack Obama legitimately won the Presidential election, or do you think that ACORN stole it for him?” – 26% responded that they though ACORN had stolen it; 62% thought that it won it legitimately and 12% were unsure. 52% of the Republicans surveyed thought that ACORN stole the presidency.

Cheep credit, obtained to chase the American dream of a house and a car is the ultimate enabler of human addiction for distinction: when subprime mortgages go bust, envy is to blame not greed – Mark Kingswell – Harper’s Magazine (Nov 2009) p77

Percentage of patrons who have accessed the Internet from that place in the past month:
        Library                       38%
        Coffee Shop               18%
        Community Center      14%
        A bar                          11%
        Fast Food Rest             6%
        Church                          5%

Culture as experiment, the museum as laboratory of the senses, is abandoned to a regressive notion of culture as museum of past glories - Andreas Huyssen – Twilight Memories, 1995

Soccer is being played in the snow in northern Spain. The rain falls mainly on the plain.

The most unlikely writers stand shoulder to shoulder; / One studies incongruity as one grows older – Barbara Howes – Collected Poems, 1995 p34

Economic choices are never heroic – not in a market economy anyhow.

iPod Spys - More Popular than Ever - Horton Eats

MORNING GLORY – Now when spiraling summer burns / Its way towards autumn, on this vine / The morning glory open such / Buoyant parasols of blue, / Uplifted into light, as to / Recover spring… recovering much / More: the azure of the mind / And cloudless heat to which we turn – Barbara Howes – Collected Poems, 1995 p26

The first #22 goes by just as I exited the theatre - will it be a beer or a tea this evening. Beer is best late in the afternoon, not at night when the barflies are about, such pests. So it has to be a tea. The Dominos have been put away. A second 22 goes by. I am preparing to spend another twenty minutes here before the next bus comes. I was just finishing off my tea when that bus went by. Now I am nursing an insipid brew. Two men behind me are dropping celebrity names. I met. I saw. I know someone who …This was before she did “West Wing”. I took a class from Condolissa Rice. When was that? It was ten years ago. She must be older than she looks. But that was before they were celebrities. Right, right, yeah. I had season tickets for a long time and I think that I saw them there.

And not just winos – anyone homeless, who has to keep moving all day / with no place to go, even if shelter at night / gives them a chance to bathe their blisters, must know / week by week an accretion of weariness – Denise Levertov – The Great Unknowing, 1999 p31

Hunter was a characterization of himself or is he a characterization of one of his characters? I had just seen a documentary on Hunter S Thompson at the Roxie. When I got back to my neighborhood I went and  rented the video “Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas. I still don’t comprehend Hunter. And I doubt that he did either. The perfect virtual human. The first modern man. Hunter S Thomas is America’s greatest tourist

“Inauthentic” men, men who avoid developing their own uniqueness; they follow out the styles of automatic and uncritical living in which they were conditioned as children – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p73

A young white couple drive up in a platinum SUV. She is blond and tall and comes in for coffee. He awaits in the SUV with the engine running. She the retriever returns with large cups of coffee, not cappuccinos or other drinks of the fancy sort, but then their SUV is only a starter model anyhow. They have yet to reach the peak of their spending powers. A pseudo hippie with a hundred dollar bill and a yen for a fancy caffinated drinks enters. “Know where I can get cigarettes at this hour”” he asks. The alternative to the business suit - pony tail, distressed blue jeans, and an expensive hat and coat. A broker perhaps? Since seeing Hunter everyone appears to be playing at playing themselves, preening in mirrors without any reflection.

Every human being is… equally unfree, that is we… creates out of freedom a prison – Norman O Brown – Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History, 1959 p123

Having written it down
The urge has been satisfied
Ink is sort'a like sperm
My fountain pen is empty again

Devoid of imagination, as the Philistine always is, he lives in a certain trivial province of experience as to how things go, what is possible, what usually occurs… Philistinism tranquilizes itself in the trivial – Soren Kierkegaard – The Sickness Unto Death, 1849 p175

Samae shakes out the loose seeds from the empty bagel delivery sacks onto the floor for Horton and his pals. A pseudo Horton gathers seeds at the periphery of the bagel crumb circle. The real Horton has a mangled left foot. This one has a mangled right foot. People place lye on windowsills to keep these pigeons away. This is the mutilation that results. The pseudo Horton is also more timid. Then the real Horton flies in and gets to the heart of this cleanup.

Man is protected by the secure and limited alternatives his society offers him, and if he does not look up from his path he can live out his live with a certain dull security – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p74

Often what does not happen is more important than what does happen. One should always listen for the dog that does not bark

An escalator rides / On dinosaur spines / Towards day. And on Beyond – Barbara Howes – Collected Poems, 1995 p41

In the United Kingdom you can now monitor crime and get paid (sort of ) – watch closed circuit television for fun and profit. You can pay a private firm £20 a month for the privilege and £1 for each report that you make. The one that reports the most incidents of vandalism and shoplifting can win £1,000. The scheme has been appropriately labeled “iPod Fascism” Spy on your neighbors and win big bucks – may just be more popular than the boats.

The totality of the human condition is the thing that is so hard for man to recapture. He wants his world safe for delight, wants to blame other for his fate – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p65

The Batteries are Rechaged - I'm on the Prowl for Diseases of Delight - John Brown's Body Lies Molding in the Grave

The batteries came – now I have a telephone - again – the weather is mild – I left my coat at home – There is an unsecured network connection– I’m on the go – But it’s awful damn slow – Too slow to be any good - please call me if you can!

We multiply diseases for delight, / Invent a horrid wants, a shameful doubt, / Luxuriate in license, freed on night, / Make inward bedlam – and will not come out – Marcia Lee Anderson – “Diagonsis”

John Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry was the 9/11 of its time. All across the south fear of slave uprisings was evident especially in East Texas which had suffered a prolonged drought. “The Negros were taken up and whipped [in Athens Texas] and to the astonishment of many, the fact [of a revolt] was disclosed”. Whites and blacks were hung or shot – vigilance committees were formed thourghout the south. The Galveston ‘Citizen’ cites Henerson [leveled by an arson fire on Aug 8, 1860] as a terrible lesson for other towns – “The citizens put no faith in the reported conspiracy and neglected to appoint a patrol or set a watch”. – drive from your midst “all stragglers and suspicious characters”. Governor Sam Houston kept his head and told Texans that the number of arrests and hangings had been widely exaggerated, that no vial of poison had ever been found, and that what fires had occurred were accidental. Our Department of Homeland Security (a permanent Vigilance Committee) did no such thing they began to boost of the number of plots that they prevented – they also proclaimed that noting had happened, but it was only because they had been so vigilant. It was in their interest to keep tensions high. And everyone who did not hold slaves was in fear of being lynched as a agitators and those who did own slaves were fearful that their slaves would be lynched as conspirators.

High public debt looks entirely unsustainable in the long run. We have almost reached a point of no return for government debt - Societe Generale Tells Clients How To Prepare For Potential 'Global Collapse'

Only 24% of US TV Meteorologists agree with UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that “most of the warming since 1950 is very likely human-induced” – 50% disagree strongly and 25% are neutral. The meteorologists say they mistrust many current sources of climate related information and many have publicly spoken out about their belief that man is not the cause of global warming. A third of the forecasters agreed with a statement by Weather Channel founder John Coleman that “Global warming is the greatest scam in history”
‘
Man could strut and boast all he wanted, but … he really drew his ‘courage to be’ from a god, a string of sexual conquests, a Big Brother, a flag, the proletariat, and the fetish of money and the size of his bank balance – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p56

I was discussing Chinese Jade flutes with a jazz drummer from Ghana. He is studying Italian. We progressed from flutes to the Johnny Cash tribute at the Elbowroom this weekend. He said that he was a big fan of Rosanna Cash.

Photographs do not explain; they acknowledge – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977p111

The porter was good. It had a carbonic acid bite and a slightly chocolaty taste. It was a smooth beer. It was served colder than I thought proper for an ale. I had heard nothing on the gay marriage front today. Sexy faux girls where lounging in front of Diva’s. Real girls under the same circumstances would have appeared sluttish, but faux girls are erotic.

A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know – Diana Arbus

I made no transcriptions of Walter this morning. But I missed a great opportunity and Walter picks up a copy of the “American Hunter” left by a previous patron and turns to an article on shooting turkey. It explains were to shoot the turkey (in the ass hole). He is curious about how they get camouflage on hunting rifles and whether face camouflage would be fashionable on Fillmore Street. The other Fred tells about turkeys wondering the streets of Sacramento when he grew up. Walter wants to know if they were Eastern or Rio Grande turkeys.

All of us are driven to be supported in a self-forgetful way, ignorant of what energies we really draw on, of the kind of lie we have fashioned in order to live securely and serenely – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p55

OK, so I have not been able to leave Walter out entirely. I say “You notice, Walter, that I am not transcribing your words today”. “You don’t think I have anything significant to say” he asks? “No”, I reply, “its just that I have decided to ignore you today”. This was not true of course as we had been bantering back and forth for over an hour and had managed to chase everyone else within a radius of ten feet away. You could almost smell the devastated and abandoned blast zone. The few remaining soles in the place gave us occasional eyebrow raisings and sideways glancings. No one would look us in the eye, except of course for George W Bush had he been there. Walter has now left. I am silent. The native are regrouping.

Every authentic rebirth is a real rejection from paradise – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p58

I now have a circle of occupation surrounding me. Every table around me is now occupied. Those that are distant from me have remained empty. I have yet to notice any tables being scooted closer to me. I am determined to exit before they actually got any neared to me. I shall get out of here while I still can. I escape. I go to the park. There is a big oak tree.

Neurosis is another word for describing a complicated technique for avoiding misery, but reality is the misery – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973r p57

According to the Pew Foundaiton, Internet users compared to those who do not use the net, are 42% more likely to visit a public park or plaza and 45% more likely to visit a coffee shop or café. Bloggers are 61% more likely to visit a public park than internet users who do not maintain a blog, or about 2.3 times more likely than non-internet users

I could hear the noise of the wood in the wind; a soft marine roar. It was the immense compound noise of friction – of leaf fretting on leaf, and branch rubbing on branch – Robert MacFarlane – The Wild Pleces, 2008 p3

Seeking Renown, My Celebrityhood - Other Unresolved Issues of Childhood

The Sun, after a week of gray and wet and misery – even a little snow – first sun in a while – welcome back sunshine old friend.

The individual has to repress ‘globally’, form the entire spectrum of his experience, if he wants to feel a warm sense of inner value and basic security. The sense of value and support is something that nature gives to each animal by the automatic instinctive programming and in the pulsating of the vital processes – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p52

A spot of blue oil
        Burnishes the burnt
        Brown surface of
              Fluid
That floats in the white cup
It is no longer hot
        But still warm
        To the sip
A few bubbles of froth
         Shelter
Trying to cling and
         Climb up the side
This play of heterogeneous
         Surfaces disappears
As it is raised to the lips
         And slips
         Under the nose
The eyes effortlessly stare
         Straight ahead
         Instead
The bowl is tipped and
Gently returned to its matching
         Saucer
A grittiness and dryness remain
         In the mouth
The morning is resolved

I pull out my “101 California” building pass and flashed it at the bus driver instead of the my MUNI pass. He nods. As I go to put it away, I realize that I had shone the wrong pass. As I go to put it away, someone taps me on the shoulder, I look up and Scott , my nephew, just in from Mississippi via Poland. Want to relocate here. Thinks I'm his rich uncle.  He is standing there grinning at me. “I’ve got an interview at Pine and  Battery today” he announced as he takes a seat beside me. “It’s almost like you have already started work” I tell him. “You have already stated to identify with your fellow commuters.”

Most of us – by the time we leave childhood – have repressed our vision of the primary miraculousness of creation. We have closed it off, changed it, and no longer perceive the world as it is to raw experience - Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p50

Factoid: Nearly 50 million Americans – including almost one child in four – struggled this last year to get enough to eat

We dream of instant, global fame. We expect it to enrich us, gratify us, but are less concerned that it outlast us. Once, priorities were different – Hillary Mantel – New York Review of Books (Oct 22, 2009) p8

I had lunch with Michael at Rickenbackers - the place is filled with old Indian Motorcycles and an assortment of other antique motor bikes hanging from the ceiling. My crown came lose while I was trying to bite into a stake sandwich. We stopped by the Yerba Buena Center ticket office where I purchased seats for the Other Minds festival. At Yerba Buena we say Joann Haigood’s installation “Ghost Architecture - Robert Henry Johnson and Jose Navigorre are residing at the SRO tenements on this day. It was defiantly ghostly. I walked the lines of the walls of the old West Hotel - ghostly tenants went about their daily business, as I eerily transversed the stage below them. Sounds shifted; locations in space changed. Participatory art only becomes art as you interact with it. The impact of sitting on one of the benches along the outer wall does not have this impact. But, oh the intimidation of trodding on sacred performance space. I first said that the masking tape outlined the walls of the old demolished buildings that occupied this site twenty five years ago but they could also be interpreted as barriers against transgression.

When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him – Jonathan Swift – Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting

Barriers similar these mark off “keep out” space around art works displayed in museums. But they were not intended to be barriers, they were 2D apparitions demarcating the walls of prior architecture with plumb bob lines dangling from the ceiling to demark a survey point. This was a virtual archeological site more than it was an artistic artifact. They easily yielded to my corporality if not to my mental apprehension and I passed on into a different time - a real time not a created time. Later I emerged from that historical interior and could again sense the performance space. But yet I did not forget the space I had just left. It became a virtual memory.

Though the camera people become customers or tourists of reality – or Réalités, as the name of the French photo-magazine suggests, for reality is understood as plural, fascinating and up for grabs – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p110

Walter accused me of making transcriptions this morning. That I took to be a compliment although he probably had not meant it that way. He was unable to differenate a condensed and edited description of an event from the actual event - that is the ultimate compliment to an artist. It is to tell the artist that his art is invisible. The real has become art like and art has taken on the vestige of reality. The hardest thing to do is to make something simple. The simplest thing to do is to make one’s efforts look difficult. You see the beads of perspiration on a dancer and wonder what they have been doing to cause them to sweat so profusely.

We need to move about in the world with some kind of equanimity, some kind of strength and directness; we can’t keep gaping with our heart in our mouth, greedily sucking up with our eyes everything great and powerful that strikes us – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p50

I am one of the “The ten least know celebrities” Can you prove me wrong? Can I prove that I am a celebrity even if unknow.

I do not want to labour the point, but let us just say that though we have never truly seen greatness, we have been several times touched partly by it – John Barlow – Eating Mammals, 2004 p185

A Game of Colors While Taking Medications - Disclosure Mandatory

It snowed last night and is sprinkling now – it is overcast and gray but not bitterly cold. The pavement and the sidewalks glisten. I have my preferred window seat. The sun will not glare in my fact on this day. People are speaking softly and they arrive in small groups without any children. It is still to early for the little ones. A gentle ballad is playing over the sound system – come back, come back, the man sings – it has a slight reggae beat – acoustic guitar and drums played with bushes. They said yesterday that snow might fall in the night. Someone said it was already snowing south of here. This morning the season’s first snow lightly blanketed the ground. It has by now melted off.

The widely held notion that, when in doubt, law and legitimacy spring from the ‘biggest club’ is being falsified, indeed it is becoming counter productive, in the world risk society – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p150

The colors of brainmashing:
      Redbashing
      Bluetrashing
      Greenwashing
      Yellowlivering
      Blacklisting
Mission accomplished

There is an aggression implicit in every use of the camera – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p7

Factoid: 10% of Americans over six years of age are reportedly receiving antidepressant medications. One third of Spanish women take antidepressants and 30% take tranquilizers

So successful has been the camera’s role in beatifying the world that photographs, rather than the world, have become the standard of the beautiful – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p85

My manager called today to let me know that I would get nine weeks transition plus my five weeks of vacation. It is anticlimactic and the game is just about over. We now know the score. We just have to wait for the clock to run out. I told Michael that I just might come in every day for the rest of time with the firm “For I may never again get an opportunity “to work”. “It almost feels nostalgic” I tell him. “Almost?” he asks implied that I had really not been having the experience of actually working for some time now. But I chose another interpretation “I can’t say that I will ever feel nostalgic about this job.” I was asked not to start telling people that I was leaving.” “I won’t” I promised but had already told a few - “But some people already know”, I said “Like who”, he wanted to know.” And I listed those whom I had already told that I would be leaving. “Oh, that’s OK” he says

The camera is a kind of passport that annihilates moral boundaries and social inhibitions, freeing the photographer… from any responsibility toward the people photographed. The whole point of photographing people is that you are not intervening in their lives, only visiting them – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p41

There’s a commotion outside in front of the coffee shop. Dog fight. Dog fight. “Little dogs I hope” say Linda. Their owners are getting them untangled. “Oh my God”, says Linda “It’s Cassie”. “Dog or owner”, I ask? “She’s an old friend,” she says as she gets a cigarette and joins. Cassie was one those trying to intervene in the fight. She was one of the owners. “Poor dog. Did it get mauled?” Walter says that dogs should settle their own disputes. “Maybe there should be a doggie court?”

The painter constructs, the photographer discloses. That is, the identifications of the subject of a photograph always dominates our perception of it – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p92

The lessons that you learn are not the ones that you think you lean” - The lessons that others learn is rarely the one that you were trying to teach them.

“Cassie is back and the Yorkies are ready to rumble again. Its got its dandruff up” I say. “Or is it Dander?” “Dander” Linda replies. I ask Walter if he ever gets his dandruff up. “Note any more” he responds rubbing his thinning hair. “Do bald people get dandruff” I ask. Walter quickly responds, too quickly I think.. “Good question” he says. “You know that dandruff is caused by Shampoo?” “Oh” I commented. “Oh yes, you should use real pooh” he said. Linda is working on her daily crossword. “What do you think Linda? Should you use real pooh” I ask. “Oh no” she says “You should use shampoo”. She hesitates and does the “oh well, you got me” shrug. “Wake up Linda!”

You can’t say more than you see – Thoreau

I read what I had just written back to Walter. “It’s like de je vu” he says. “Who”, he asks, “is going to play us in the movie. Linda asks, “Who is going to play Fred?” “Someone really annoying” I say. “What about Jason Alexander” Walter says. “Perfect” Linda adds.

Where the claims of knowledge falter, the claims of creativity take up the slack – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p117

The Camera does not Lie Conventional Wisdom Proclaims and This is Wrong

The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are – Philip K Dick

To accept the conventional
To be conventional
To convien with the norm
       Is sad
But anything else
       Is mad

Newsome got his way - its Mayor Newsom vs. President Bush now with a call for a constitutional amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage. Bush declared his new war with same rhetoric that he had used against Saddim Haussin. The nation must be protected from San Francisco and it’s weapons of mass sex. Governor Schwartzenger says that the state must act to prevent orgies in the street..

The photographer is always trying to colonize new experiences or find new ways to look at familiar subjects – to fight against boredom. For boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p42

Ward is wearing red on red today. Carmine red pants and a burgundy red shirt. He is not up to is normal natty standards. The pants have been pressed too often and the seat is shinny from his miles of taxi service.

Photographers are always imposing standards on their subjects – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p6

I go back to reading “Why I Write”. It’s getting warm here in the corner next to the big window, too warm for a jacket. It’s either take it off  or move on. I finish my coffee and leave.

Its Cha Cha Cha time again. What has it been - at least a month - since I was last here. I’m on my way to the Intersection for their Tuesday literature series. I ran down the list of shows that I have listed on my calendar for tomorrow night. A modern dance performance was the only one  that seemed promising. Perhaps the “Underserved” on Saturday night or maybe Fellow Travelers at the Noh space tomorrow night

There is no real difference between a childish impossibility and an adult one: the only thing that the person achieves is practiced self-deceit – what we call the ‘mature’ character – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p46

I am having a Fat Tire and new potatoes. The bartender remembered. The Fat Tire had finally replaced the Brothers’ Amber. Brothers’ brewery had gone out of business last summer. I had been substituting Boont Amber, which is what the bartender had first suggested. “No” I say, “I see that you now have Fat Tire. I’ll go for that.

The body then is one’s animal fact of, what has to be struggled against in some ways. At the same time, it offers experiences and sensations, concrete pleasures, that the inner symbolic world lacks – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p44

It’s the Rockets and Spurs on ESPN2. Score is tied at 44 at the half. A Sammy Davis look-alike is providing expert color commentary. I notice that when the sound is turned off whites seem to talk louder and faster. Black commentators talk, whites commentators enunciate - show off their tonsils. “Put up or shut up” - sportscasters are such intellectuals. That’s actually the title of the segment being aird at the moment.

Photographers need not have an ironic, intelligent attitude toward their stereotyped material. Pious, respectful fascination may do just as well, especially with the most conventional subjects – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p58

March 1941 across the pond
Fleeing invading hordes
Sailed 350 passengers in a boat
       With cabin space for 25
The Continentalization of America
        Intellectual life had begin in ‘35
When he German jews had started arriving


Now came:
        Andre Breton
        Wilfredo Lam
        Claude Levi-Straus
        Victor Serge
Victor was refused entry
        And went to Mexico instead
Claude has just died


Surreralism, poststructuralism
Followed by deconstruction
         And postmodernism
Were all played out and abandoned
American is ever vigilant
          To intellectualism
Relying instead on its nativist
          Instinct

Send them back to where
        They came from
    
Everything is known / About nothing – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p337

Rain, rain, rain - all day and into the night. It is raining today. The espresso machine at the Coffee Break is broke. No chance of fixing it today. No sense staying open.  No money to be made, I am chased off and go to Muddy’s across Campus. Fred is sitting there. I wave and say – hey Fred. Fred looks up and says, hey Fred too. As much as I like beer, Fred says, coffee is a necessity. It was Fred who had told me of this place when we were both at Hooper having our afternoon libations. Scotty calls him Dr Fred (he is a professor of physics) and Scotty calls me Intellectual Fred (he says I’m Continental and he’s right – but he is forgiving for he likes the way my mind works). What are the odds of two Freds sitting here. Well about a 100% we both agree, for it is a fact. And what about the odds of three of us in a row at this  bar reading books. The odds of that is a different matter. And of all of us drinking Bud Lites? Infintisimal, I say.


A poem constructed of gaps cut from the lived materials, because – since it could be siezed – it could not contain a single name, a single recognizable face, a single unmistakable strand of the past – Victor Serge – Unforgiving Years

Localities that have banned smoking in pubilc venues are seen a 17% drop in heart attacks after 1 years and a 36% reduction after 3 years


If there ever had been, if there ever were, somewhere in the world, another reality, it now remained in human memory as no more than a recollection, tinged more by doubt and sadness than by nostalgia – Victor Serge – Unforgiving Years

Nothing is as it seems - Big Oil advocates Green, Big-Box advocates Local - Being Cynical Comes Naturally

Modernity is inconceivable without the ability to transform uncertainty and chaos into anthropological certainty and self-justification. Classics are classics because they completely master the art of producing evidence – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p218

Buying from locally owned merchants keeps 45% of expenditures within the community while buying from a chain store results in 87% of the dollars spent leaving the community. And with the downturn in the economy the national retailers have been hit harder than the mom-and-pop shops and are trying to figure out how to capitalize on the ‘buy local’ phenomena – this effort is called ‘localwashing’ whereby ‘buying local’ comes to mean any store in your community – be it mom-and-pop or big-box – you name it.

Big companies have to be much more creative in how they articulate ‘local’. It’s a different way of thinking about local that is not quite literal – Michaelle Bary – SVP – The Hautman Group

In other words lie, or as the re-branders would have it – don’t think literarily (but make the suckers thing that you are).

On a visual level, humans don’t know the difference between the real thing and a simulation – Robert Aunger – The Electric Meme: a new theory of how we think, 2002 p102

To give meaning to these
       Colors
That these patterns expressed
       In color have substance
       Beyond pure perception
If these forms patterned in
       Tints and hues
       Segregate themselves
It is not because they
        Have meaning
For that more than sight
        Is needed
Nothing merely seen has
        Any weight

It [the television screen] grants sensation without demanding responsibility, and it involves us in a spectacle without engaging us in the complexity of its reality – Kevin Robins – Into the Image: culture and politics in the field of vision, 1996 p80

Factoid: There are patents on 20% of human genes

College football is a multibillion dollars spectacle of unpaid labor and unhinged fandom – Dave Zirin

Cindi says that she dropped her CD player “It doesn’t work”. She says that she wants me to tell why it doesn’tb work . “Because you dropped it” I told her. She says “I dropped it before and it didn’t work. Then I waited for a couple of months; then it worked again” “Well that’s one way to fix it” I tell her “but probably not a very reliable way. “I have to buy a more durable CD Player” she informs me.Then she left.

We cannot wish – it seems – hear confessions / That teach innocence; we are not possessed / Of mercy enough to pardon those whom evil / Has not fattened – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p216

I go to Stacey’s Bookstore on Market for a noon reading by author Stephen Johnson - “Brain Wide Open”. He had written “Emergence: Connective Life of Ants, Brains and Computers”. I knew of him from having read it. Then I hotfoot it over to the San Francisco Brewery for my weekly burger and a beer. I had not gotten any new requests at work today. I forwarded some materials to New York. I replied to a previous request from Dallas. I set an appointment for a pulse check interview for tomorrow afternoon. Then I got out of there.

I maintain that the apparently independent and autonomous system of industrialism has transgressed its logic and boundaries and has thereby begun a process of self-dissolution – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p213

“Paddy, where is the Oufty [Oufty Goofty Barley wine], the owner asks as he heads towards the taps behind the bar. Paddy motions to a closed cabinet.. Paddy greets two new customers and returns to his cell phone call. He doesn’t hear the cook’s ring. My burger is getting cold. It doesn’t get too cold. This is a lazy afternoon at the bar. There are two men in the back room having lunch. Otherwise it’s Paddy, the cook and I. Ring. Paddy picks up “San Francisco Brewery. Alan (the owner), Phone call!” The brewer has just come and changed out the barley wine and has added a third - an Alexander Gunn that has been aged for nine years. Paddy goes downstairs. The cook returns to the kitchen after drawing a soda from behind the bar. Now it’s just me. A fire truck goes by with its siren blasting and its horn honking. The #12 Jackson is waiting to cross Columbus. Three customers enter noisily. They interrupt my solitude.

Just as there are useless self-sacrifices in unjust wars, so too is there an ignoble heroics of whole societies [such as] the plain debasing and silly heroics of the acquisition and display of consumer goods, the piling up of money and privileges that now characterizes whole ways of life – Ernest Becker – The Denial of Death, 1973 p7

“So what do you think about gay marriage” Paddy asks? “Well” I tell him “I was not planning on getting one. But it’s the first time that I have every heard a governor encouraging people to riot in the streets” “Big deal about nothing” Paddy says.

One has the right to, or may feel compelled to, give voice to one’s own pain – which is, in any case, one’s own property. One volunteers to seek out the pain of others – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p40

Men with dominate mothers and submissive fathers have increased risk of getting duodenal ulcers early in life

Essentially the camera makes everyone a tourist in other people’s reality, and eventually in one’s own – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p57

A Wilding in the Park - Birds Move North - Man Invents Reality

Junior High School boys in their gym shorts – obnoxious bastards – a fat indolent one plunks himself down next to me on the bench. I am trying to read. “What are you doing”, he demands. “Reading obviously or at least trying to”, I reply. “Done any thing fun today”, he says. “Not much”, I say. He is quiet for a while then says, “Awkward Silence”. “It’s not awkward at all to me”, I state. After another moment of silence he says, “Done anything fun today?” “You have already asked that,” I tell him. “Oh” he utters and sits there quietly again and fidgets a lot. Then he leaves. I think they were AWOL. They made themselves even more obnoxious as they departed in a group, a wilding in the park. I’m going to tell the nuns of you.

What used to count as knowing is becoming non-knowing, and non-knowing is acquiring the status of knowledge – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p116

Factoid: The incidences of posttraumatic stress among Iraq veterans has been estimated at 35%

Talk of the ‘knowledge society’ is a euphemism of the first modernity. World risk society is a non-knowledge society in a very precise sense… living in the milieu of manufactured non-knowing means seeking unknown answers to questions that nobody can clearly formulate – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p115

And now its Judy’s turn to cry – Judy’s turn, Judy’s turn, Judy’s turn – Judy’s turn to cry

O wisdom is the plaything of the fool / The talk / topples / into the water and its ripples fashion / the snout of a monstrous fish – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p258

Factoid: Of the 53 birds species in California’s Sierra Nevada whose territories were mapped in the early 1900’s, 48 of those territories have either shifted northward or higher in altitude.

Man need rules and structure to feel OK about his being greedy but not for his being nice. You need permission to be bad, but not to be good. We give a lot of permissions.

Factoid: One species of ant (Mycecepurus Smithii) has eliminated sex – it no longer even produces a male of the species.

What we have learned is that the perpetuator of a wrong never forgives the victim – John Ross (Cherokee – 1839)

A woman dragging an old lame dog hurriedly goes by. She had gone by earlier in the opposite direction at a much more leisurely pace. She has run out of time and the dog suffers for it. I had not noticed that the dog was limping earlier. It could have developed the limp along the route, it could be the pace. But why was she now in a hurry? I’m having China Black this morning. They were out of Lapsoong.

For more than a century, photographers have been hovering above the oppressed, in attendance at scenes of violence – with a spectacularly good conscience. Social misery has inspired the comfortably-off with the urge to take pictures, the gentlest of predation, in order to document hidden reality, that is, a reality hidden from them – Susan Sontag – On Photography, 1977 p41

I went back home and did two hours of chores. I completed cleaning the bathrooms and the kitchen (except for sinks and the base of the commodes). Vacuuming the carpet was  time consuming. The more one cleans the more glaring the imperfections become. The more one cleans the more one needs to clean. I understand how some people can transform  housewifery into a career - activity expands to fill available time (the other two components - needs expands to expend available money and junk expands to fill available space are not acclipable here). But not me - no housewiffery for me.

Each / Rose is pink or white or Red Red / Or some other color. Trains run on tracks / Or they now and then get tired of it. Almost / Every sort of thing has been done or said / Or lied about or killed by somebody. You / Can’t beat the game with a cold deck anymore / Than a cow can sit in a teacup – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p200

Some days I almost forget to eat - not often but sometimes. It could happen!

Men are so necessarily mad that not to be mad would amount to another form of madness – Pascal

First man invented space, then time and finally reality

New Village Café on Polk for breakfast - #2: scrambled, sausage with Crystal Sauce. I had put my dirtry  laundry in the washer. I updated my calendar. Then I had put the clothes into the dryer before venturing out for my breakfast. Now I am off to attend a dance program by Robert Mosses’ Kin. At the Elixir at 16th St and Guerrero in the Missionm, I ask for a porter. They don’t have one on tap. I order a Sac Brew Red Horse Ale. The bartender says that he knows the family that brews it. I ask him how the managers of the bar had decided on what to have on tap and I get a fifteen minute lesson on running a bar; types of beer on tap; selection of specialty beers; money makers; how long a beer can be tapped before it goes bad. And I lean the manner in which people order their beer, usually by brand name. “Do they ask for a type of beer or by the name of the brewer, say like a ‘Samuel Adams,?” “Not usually”.

Children toilet train themselves – Norman O Brown – Life Against Death, 1959 p120

Johnny Cash is on the jukebox (one of his records in playing, he is not actually on top of it). A game of darts in underway. There are two dogs (a white one and a black one) at my feet. “Hey Curtis. Can I have five ones?” the customer in the red shirt asks as he slaps a fiver on the bar, “So I can [play] some music.” A block and eight dollars later I am at the Roxie for a film

Straight off in the air a valiant army / Moves, its thousand sores. Flies stir / On the frenzied banners. Armies / Are not delicious to crack between / Your teeth. The wounded moan / And ask piteously for water. / Words like honor taste like / Hair in their mouths – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p294

The Little Dog is all Over, Hell Freezs Over,and Holloween of Over

It was warm out last night when I took the little dog for its walk. I let it decide at the top of the driveway which way to go – left or right. We went left last night. We went right this morning. The little dog seems to know and alternate its walks. Yes it’s a smart little fellow. You can’t teach it, but it can teach you. Look at it and say “Outside” or “Walk” and it starts jumping up and down. Or just go and get its leash – and its hopping about and biting your leg (it doesn’t hurt, he a little dog). He wants  to got out and see if any other dog has re-marked his territory and they usually have and he has to re-do it every time he goes out. This morning he peed on the rear tire of a pick-up truck and then sniffed it to make sure it was still his as we returned. He has a propensity to take a dump in the middle of driveways (better than the carpet or under the dining room table). After each rain he has to remark everything. It takes a while to make the circuit. The neighbor has all his inflatable Christmas displays laid out in his yard. It looks like shit now – but he is proud of the display and iit doesn’t look that bad at night when lit and inflated – a little gaudy (actually very gaudy), but one gets used to it. Another neighbor put up his lights before Halloween. He is handicapped, so maybe they were already up and he just plugged them in.

It was warm out again this morning. James Lovelock says that he has modeled global warming and is predicting a few years of cooling before a rapid rise in global temperature by nine degrees Celius (anytime now – 400 pmm CO2 being the threshold). And if we did go into a transition one would expect data that was not conclusive one way or the other – that’s what chaos means – no discernable pattern – before the system settled back into a new pattern. That some say that the earth is cooling and some say that it is warming is in itself significant. And on each cold day the nay sayers say – global warming my ass, it feels cold to me. And they are right it does feel cold – but global climate change is as of yet a statistical phenomena not an experiential one. What is the old saying – “I’ll believe it when Hell freezes over” and when you experience that you are already there – it’s already too late to make amends (and that might already be true too!). But I do enjoy this warm weather and the barista  here at Coffee Girls opens the slidding panels onto the patio and the breeze blows in and it feels good. One day at a time.

Recognizabliness, beyond any possibility of error, because all other points in space were the same, indistinguishable, and instead, this one had the sign on it – Italo Calvino – Cosmicomics, 1965 p32

University of Berlin – Lecture-Hall no.6 – 1840:
Listening to Friedrich Schilling lecture
Sitting on student benches were:
         Friedrich Engles
         Jacob Burchhardt
         Mikhail Bakunin
         Soren Kierkegaard


And at West Point they were
Turning out the Officer Corps
         For the Civil War

A pet is a diminished being, whether in the figurative or literal sense – Yi-Fu Tuan – Dominance and Affection: the making of pets, 1984 p139

The image is preferred to the text as it is a form of acquisition and control that is alien to writing

[Under] the old routine of decision, control, and production (in law, science, administration, industry and politics)… it is not the rule violation but the rule itself which ‘normalized’ the death of species, rivers and lakes… captured by the concept of ‘organized irresponsibility’ – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p91

Survive Halloween
       Day of the Dead
      The Resurrection far ahead
Then Thanksgiving
       Glad that’s over
       Not so many
Shopping days to go
Season’s Greetings
       Cards, wreaths
       Candy making
       Blinking lights
Scrooge for the umteenth time
Along with Living Christmas Trees
       Everyone got drunk and greeted
       Yet another year
       The cops promise zero tolerance
Now the days are getting longer
       Hurrah! Three cheers for daylight
But first Presidents Day, then
        Don’t forget to send
        Red red roses to your
               Beloved or else
Now the sap is rising in the trees
        There is hope ahead
But as of now November has
        Just arrived and there are
Still on some trees golden leaves
        That have yet to fall
Only a few will make it
         Through the winter
         Fluttering in the cold

There is some moderation and good nature in the Toupinembaltians, who eat no man but their enemies, while we civilized people prey upon everything that we can swallow – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p98

700 million people worldwide would like to change their countries, given an opportunity, and of these 165 million of them would prefer to move to the United States. Other countries of choice include Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Germany, France and Saudi Arabia. America is branded Number ONE among business and casual travelers upsetting Australia – first time in six years since the survey began – Way to go America! Go Team America!

Gold plated poems / to stuff up / their mind’s ass // or politics / watered down so as / not to scare the blue bloods / Boo! You well-fed bastards – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p103


This terror of disengagement
       Disentanglement
This contemplation of timeliness
       Disestablishment
This time of your life
This time and every time
       Time after time
This time for a change
This time to hold steady
This time in a bottle


The harder you strive to identify
        That which has real value
        The less anything posses any


The more you focus on what is true
       The less true anything becomes

There are only ‘dead’ terrorists or ‘suspected’ terrorists – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p105


Take it easy, partner, death is not such a bad chaser / And you didn’t mix this one anyway – Kenneth Patchen – Collected Poems, 1967 p130


Everything by the numbers
Its all in the numbers
As easy as one-two-three
        Count down
        Count on
        Count for
One and one make two
Two and two are four
        Countless stars
        Less than zero
        Multitudes of sin
It all adds up to this
You can count on me
        My ten fingers
        My ten toes
You are singular
One by one
Everything in pairs
        Now get aboard

The species of non-knowing: … provisional non-knowing, unacknowledged non-knowing, conscious and unconscious non-knowing and unconscious inability-to-know – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p115

The Fat Poet Writes about his Hot Coffee and The Washing of his Socks

The more the leaves fall the more sunshine I crave. I sit next to the window as the sun rises and the radiant heat caresses my left arm and my left shoulder and at my age this is better than sex (for as long at least as the sun shines and the hours of darkness are getting longer).  The news this morning – a diet of processed food increases the risk of depression, but not as long as the sun shines. If the sun gets too bright I won’t be able to see this computer screen. David Hockney at seventy-two started doing paintings on his iPhone – said he has always carried notebooks and habitually worked small – now he paints with his thumb and not his pointer finger (“The thing is if you are using your pointer fingers or other fingers, you are actually working form your elbow.”). I searched for a program for Tablet PC that could do the same as Brushes for iPnone and everything demands that the stylus be deployed – it’s just not the same – it’s easier to do my collages on paper. It’s not a mater of doing something different it’s a matter of doing it better (meaning more satisfying – not more efficiently or more quickly or more commodifiable). It is the same with sex and with the sun. Freshly oiled naked bodies in hot beach sand is best – capture that Hockney with your thumb. Send iPhone brush images out into the ether. The Internet is a suspended in ether. I went to see the "Baader Meinhof Complex" - there were naked bodies in the hot sand and they told their Palestinian guerilla trainers we aran’t going to fight in the sand and fucking and shooting are one and the same. We are urban terrorists.

They [terrorists] are, as it were, ‘un-insurance companies’, which nevertheless have one thing in common with their adversaries the insurance companies – they profit from the spread of the awareness of danger in spite of relatively few catastrophes. They know the ‘insecurity-business.’ – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p78

6.1% of retired NFL players over fifty (in a randomly selected survey of those who had retired after playing at least three seasons) reported having received a diagnosis of ‘dementia’ – five time higher than the National Average. For players between 30 and 49 such diagnoses was 19 times the national average.

Our mania for awards, stems from a desire to sift through a chaotic world and impose linearity and a singular winner – Jonathan Chait – New Republic (Nov 4, 2009) p4

A sad country waltz
On this cold cheerless morn
Get on your phone and talk
Human to human if not
           Eyeball to eyeball
Disassembled and senseless
It could be a Turing machine
But it is not for a sad song
           To say

I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Price – Steven Wright

My laundry is done - fresh lemon scented sheets and towels. I can make by bed. Why pick up what you can step over. I may fall and break my neck. I pick up my stuff. I seem to have a lot of stuff. I have more stuff than I need. The bedroom has been cleaned up and the trash emptied. I still need to get toilet bowls deodorizers. Some incense would be nice. I’ve got the time, but not the inclination todo - vacuum & dust. I could clean the bathrooms and the kitchen – but I won’t, not today.. It’s 10:45 and I’m at the Coffee shop drinking the last of their Ceylon Breakfast tea. I will be making the rounds of the library, bank and getting a mobile telephone today. I called in sick again today.

Those smug saints, whether of church or Stalin, / Can get off the back of my people, and stay off. / Somebody is supposed to be fighting for somebody… / And Lenin is terribly silent, terribly silent and dead – Kenneth Patchen – Collected Poems, 1967 p65

Anything that happens once
        Can happen twice
And if if that why not
         Repeatedly
Over and over forever
Thus are born natural laws
Limited only by our short
          Attention span
This attention deficit
          Species man

Contact with power often ends in death, what was once alive becomes inanimate matter – Yi-Fu Tuan – Dominance & Affection: the making of pets, 1984 p12

To my left there is this woman designing a piece of luggage - perhaps a purse. Or that’s what her drawings seem to depict. It might be laptop case as well. To my right is a man in a baby blue polo shirt writing in his journal. He writes in a very neat script. He does not use block letters as I do. On his table above and to the left of his journal is a day scheduler - one of those zip up organizers you get from attending a Steven Covey workshop on Seven Effective Habits. On top of the organizer is a flip top mobile phone. Both the designing woman and the highly effective man are right handed. Each have their legs crossed in a direction away from me (I had read in a book on body language that that means they are not open to you – legs crossed toward, welcome – legs spread apart, come hither). The man has a hot beverage, which is probably coffee as I haven’t seen a used teabag anywhere around. Teabags left around are removed as if used condoms or hazardous medical waste. There is steam coming off of his beverage cup. The woman has not purchased anything. She is just appropriating that table for her sketching. You can do that once or twice but don’t make a habit of it. That is not one of Stephen Covey's "Seven Effective Habits"

It is in overcoming difficult matters that we make apparent our power – Louis XIV

The regulars gather
Gather the regulars together
To gather is regular
Gathering together regularly
Regularly gather the regulars
      Together

The more people who are poisoned, the less poisoning takes place, at least on the social… legal-construction – Ulrich Beck – World at Risk, 2008 p39

Home buyers my ass
They don’t sell homes
They don’t buy homes
Their trade is merely
         Buildings
The building trade
On paper land trades
         Hands
Bricks and sticks
Can break my bones
Reach out a helping hand
For what’s in a name
When God blesses
        This happy home

I got the Fat Poet into the corner and told him he was writing S__t and couldn’t get away with it – Kenneth Patachen – Collected Poems, 1967 p103