A Lady in Florescent Blue And a Big Bow in Her Hair

Bloomsday today – I remember this day being celebrated with marathon readings. No more, now its all about beer. It seems that any annual celebration eventually comes under the sponsorship of a name brand beer – Guinness of course for Bloomsday (and St Patrick's Day - gee there seems to a lot of St Beer Days - St Patrick and St Urho and St David and St Arnold and St Stephen - but I'm not sure which nambarnd beer its considered proper to drink with each of these Saints) and a Corona for Cinco de Mayo pour favor. But it seems only in Syracuse is the marathon tradition being carried foreward (est. in 1993). Other notable reading marathons – Madrid – Quixote, in April since 1996 (first reading led off by the year’s winner of the Cervantes Prize); Cleveland – Lord of the Rings, in Nov., est in 2000; Washington DC – the Bible in May – 96 hours of continuous reading without commentary since 1990; New Bedford CT – Moby Dick in Jan. since 1996 – a bearded man appears and says “Call Me Ishmel”; Suawanee GA – John Milton’s Paradise Lost by the local high school since 2004; New York – Dante’s Inferno at the Church of St John the Devine in March since 1998; also in New Your – Walt Whitman’s – Song of Myself in Sept since 2003. To qualify as an annual marathon reading an event has to have been continuous for at least five years and be devoted to a single work. I can't imagine any marathon readings ever getting a beer sponsorship. I suspect that they are a dying art form - except for local churchs celebrating National Day of Prayer.

No one wants to hear your shrill voice

The aim of an economist is to take faults and recast them as assets – waste become creative destruction, a recession becomes a correction – they happen for the best of all reasons – interference will only make it worse.

Personally, I’ve always operated on the theory that even in the presence of abundance, it’s well to keep an eye out for the future – Jim Thompson – The Killer Inside Me, 1952 p144

What the poor have in common is that they are all poor – what the rich have in common is a whole lot more than the size of their dicks

“Why do you always have to be doing favors for other people? You never do any for me!” / I didn’t say anything for a minute. But I thought, “That’s what you think, honey. I’m doing you a favor by not beating your head off.” – Jim Thompson – The Killer Inside Me, 19 p59

All good myths preside over an absence of evidence

The poem, such as it is presently here, is not realistic, but human. It is not realistic, but it becomes reality – Vicente Huidobro – The Selected Poetry of, 1981 p77

I’m not stupid. I’m just poor

Destructive replacement is more than a process of consuming; it is also the corrosive power in the Great American dream of dignity through upward mobility – Richard Sennett – The Hidden Injuries of Class, 1972 p169

19 states now tax the procession of illegal drugs. Kansas has assessed drug offenders $18 million in taxes – so not only can they confiscate your property (if you use it in the commission of your crime) they can put a tax lien on anything that remains (including your future income, if any).

Have you ever seen the colorless rainbow / Grown terribly old / Coming back from the times of the pharaohs – Vicente Huidobro – The Selected Poetry of, 1981 p115

Only 59% of Americans say they support allowing “homosexuals” to serve in the military, but if you ask them if “gay men and lesbians” should be allowed to serve 70% of them think that that is OK

The black Escalade became the white Bronco – JoAnn Wypijewski – The Nation (Feb 8, 2010) p7

There are 5,274 farmers’ markets in the US of which almost half of them have been started in the last ten years

No going back, / is there, to that wild hush of dedication, / to the solitude, the intense belief, / the last rock of an abandoned civilization / whose faint lights glimmered in a distant age / to illuminate at the edge / a future life – Derek Mahon

Twice as many Republicans in Congress Twitter as do Democrats

Chains of glances tie us to the earth / Break them break so many chains – Vicente Huidobro – The Selected Poetry of, 1981 p97

97% of American public high schools have vending machines on campus but only one has a reading marathon

If the countryside became a dove / Before nightfall it would eat up the sea / But the sea is preparing a shipwreck / And its thoughts are occupied elsewhere – Vicente Huidobro – The Selected Poetry of, 1981 p119

The US annually spends $285b to deport illegal immigrants – which averages out to be $350,000 per deportable alien located. Billion! $285 billion - that just seems wrong. But that was the figure that I saw. Surely the entire budge of Home Security can't be that big? I look it up. It's not. It's a mere $55 billion. But then now people are hollering to have the National Guard posted on the borders - so should the Defense Budget be added to the Homeland Security budget? And what about the Coast Guard shouldn't its budget be counted too? It is, its part of Homeland Security except in case of war when it becomes part of the Department of Defense. But aren't we at war - a war on terrorism? I'm not going there - not now. So lets say the cost of locating a deportable alien is $70,000 which is about the same as incarcerating a prisoner per year, excluding paying welfare to his dependents and his legal costs. Somehow the bureacrates always find a way to obfuscate the real cost to you of their actvities.

Have you seen in the lonely sky / The dove menaced by the years / With eyes full of memories / A breast full of silence / Sadder than the sea after a shipwreck? – Vicente Huidobro – The Selected Poetry of, 1981 p117

Over 40% of the adult poor in America are disabled; 10% are over 65 and a third are under 18.

Politics is high school with guns and more money – Frank Zappa

This lady in florescent blue
     Her short hem and that big
     Bow in her dark hair – blue too
Her man was away fighting
      In a war
That’s a mighty pretty blue, I say
     And she smiled
If I had been trying to make
     A score I wouldn’t have
     Noticed that she should
          Have been wearing stockings
It was just a compliment, I say
     Trying to make your day
     Just a little bit brighter
And I’m obviously doing the same
     For you I can see
And she was indeed – but my dear
     Can you get your soldier boy
     To send you some nylons, dear

Sacrifice… legitimizes a person’s view of himself as an individual with the right to feel anger – anger of a peculiar, focused sort – Richard Sennett – The Hidden Injuries of Class, 1972 p141