Minerva's Owl Flies Low and Slow - Too Much Money Makes You Stupid She Hoots in Derision

The timeth it approaches – mother is busy cleaning, dad is watering the lawn (trying to get the grass to cover the bare spots) and he got well water on the boy’s car – that well water it makes spots and I just had it professionally cleaned and I asked you not to do that – the girls are sunbathing on the boat dock, the dogs are all napping – a breeze is blowing, keeping the temperature mild as it comes off of the lake or tempers would really have boiled. Is the grass ready for the big party – will it survive? You do what you can – it’s the dream of the castle keeper – green, green lawns – dad’s job – just as mother’s is to plant her flowers – she likes pinks and purples – he likes the bright colors, especially red. It is today that son number two drives to Grand Rapids to take his big test – got to have two photo Ids and get fingerprinted – if for any reason you have to leave the test area to say take a pee, you will again be fingerprinted before being allowed to return. Well, I tell him, best wishes – you’ve studied sufficiently and if you don’t pass it can only be because you’re stupid. Make sure you go the bathroom before you start the test. Thanks, he says and he drives away. It will soon be time to go get the beer.

Technology cannot be cherry picked by a culture
It has already been cherry picked before
      It was released into the market
Culture is powerless at the trough
      It is the runt of the economic litter
      First and foremost is the man with capital
              Or the control of capital then
              Comes Homo Economicus
     And then anyone else powerful enough to shove
              Their way in – the experts, the managers
              And the bureaucrats and last comes culture
(Humanity – the social being - you and me, when we're
not being totally obsessed with our narrowly defined
             self-interest)

Only at the depth of habit is radical change affected – Michael Taussig – Mimesis and Alterity: a particular history of the senses, 1993

Group French Lesson - Quel quon, C’est ecole Kindergarten - beaucoup - Que..a etufe…la photographie fer la publicity. Merce. Mai ja la sons petre…san bach…su bone, s’vaie, …jan tse - a bon me … excactualie. New Age Piano Music … je pon nai - Que - bean d’tanai – exactament - The light from the garden behind me filters into a plant filled room with six tables

Que - pais je so qualifigue … les d’induanice … con je pon … jeunta ne… quien Japonaise en sais Freancan …de prong de france …je ne sais pa … Japonaise.

I can no longer think what I want to think. My thoughts have been replaced by moving images - George Duhamel

A small study group pracdticing what they learned in a City College French Course. The Japanese gentleman has deviated from the program and is discussing pedology and politics of the French Department in English. Two women continue on in French (and I apologize for this ersatz French – but it is what my ears hear,  my non-French ears heard and besides, it is probably pretty damn close to how it would have sounded even to a native French speaker). The older couple continues to discuss academic politics of the French Department in English of course - surely this is a topic amenable to French - the language of diplomacy.

The biggest volcano in the world
The strongest earthquake ever
       Recorded
The most awesome iceberg ever
       Seen this far North/South
The greatest cryptoexplosive tectonic
       Event yet discovered
And yet all insignificant alongside
        A supernova

All inspiration precedes from a faculty of exaggeration: lyricism – all the whole world of metaphor – would be a pitiable excitation without the rapture which dilates words until they burst – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p65

The dog got stung by a bee in it’s bed after being but to rest for the night – it came flying at me as I lie next to him with his fur aglow (literarily making blue sparks) – then I too felt something crawling on my chest and gave it a swat – it stung me also – I can hear it in its death throes over there in the corner of the tent – it’s all these apiaries tucked away in the forest with thier electrified fences to keep away the bears. Walk down any forest road and you’ll wind up at one.

Inlands is / the goat in open field. / The milk is marketed. / Attend our table – Carl Rokosi – Amulet, 1947 p16

Some things are not indented
     To be other things
They don’t represent anything
     Other than themselves


We shouldn’t stretch them too tight
      It only makes us look silly when we walk
      Especially older women who have been dieting

Lying, the wellspring of all tears!. Such is the imposture of genius and the secret of art. Trifles swollen to the heavens; the improbable, generator of a universe! In even genius coexists a braggard and a god – E M Cioran – A Short History of Decay, 1975 p66

One acquire things
     And by then
     One must
Live up to the lifestyle
     That they demand
     One must
     By then

The best explanation for the calamity that has overtaken us may simply be that cheep money makes us stupid – Megan McArdle – The Atlantic, Jan/Feb 2010 p31

I moved to a campground up the road. Bill came over and apologized – said he only ran his generator for two hours in the morning. He had nothing good to say about Gene in the campground down the road – pulled his camper right in behind him. The AH. I met Gene, I said. He seems to think that its his campground – been coming here since he was a kid. This place cost all of $1.50 a day – hardly worth sending someone out to collect the money I thought. I had only a five-dollar bill so I put it in the envelope and wrote on the backside that I would be staying for three nights. The man for the National Forest Service arrived in a green pick-up truck – they spent more on gas than the amount of money they collected (which only consisted of my five dollar bill as Bill had already paid – 21 days which is the maximum stay times $1.50 comes to what, $31.50). The host had headed out today back up to Michigan. What difference would it make if I paid my dollar and a half, but when the dude pulled up to collect the money, I was glad that I had my receipt and didn’t have to try and explain why I had not yet paid.

A lamppost is bending over the traffic pensively like a / praying mantis, not lighting anything / just looking / who dropped that empty carton / of cracker jacks I wonder I I find the favor / that’s a good sigh – Frank O’Hara – Collected Poems of p421

A large owl flew low over the tent early this morning, as I lay awake. It was homing in on the call of its mate – call and response – orientating – she called, he responded. She giving a little purr of acknowledgement. And it is incorrect to say that owls hoot – not these owls anyhow.

This is lavender and rose / time in drawers // when the sun is cooler but more blinding / and the maple leaves distil its light / into a cheerful red liqueur – Carl Rokosi – Amulet, 1947 p33

No seranade via radio
     Tonight only the hoot’in
     Of the owls WHO
Really don’t hoot
     But cackle and waddle
     And coo all simultaneously
Then I spotted one up in a tree
     It was a big one
     He had flown right
     Over my head yesterday
          Morning
It wept down almost to
The ground and disappeared
      Into the brush

The Bird prriko pirriko prirk / ia ia / the leghorn rustling in the brush, / the creek between the rockshelves. / Nancy with a bunch of we grapes – Carl Rokosi – Amulet, 1947 p61

The dog sleeps on his back and snores (not very loudly, he’s a little dog after all) and when he is tired he plops down on the trail with his front paws stretched out in front and his back legs splayed out behind him and his toungue hanging out ( he has gotten in the habit of doing this when he has a mind to do something different from what I want to do). Then he rolls over on his side with all four paws extended as if he were dead.

Heart Feels The Water: The fish are staying here / and eating. The plant is / thin and has very long leaves / like insects’ legs, the way / they bend down / through the water / the plant breaks from the water: // the line of the water and the air. / Told! – Joseph Ceravolo – The Green Lakes is Awake, 1994 p18

Royal English Willow
Good American ash
     To bat, to bat
     Back to back
How does it all
     Stack up


Do trees repress the long birth / they lean on? Do you / bring me to my ears? – Joseph Ceravolo – The Green Lakes is Awake, 1994 p36

And the less time you spend with an image – well that is the objective of advertising, the more subconscious it becomes