Rain Makes the Monkeys Mean - Run From Rapacous Monkeys - Run When You Hear Them Scream

A little rain, just enough to drive the humidity up into the unbearable category (a catagory 3 - not quiet a catastrophe;  the elderly poor are not yet dropping over dead, not yet qualifing for federal emergeny funding) – humid and hot, just what I like – sweat all day and into the night – feel sticky and crappy, not even a quick shower makes it any less miserable. The one item of modern technology that people say they couldn’t get along without is air-conditioning (at least those old enough to remember what it was like before every home had air – for those under fifty that one piece of technology would probably be some hand-held item of electronic wizardry).

Beyond flaws of recollection, it is a fallacy that those who were present can be trusted to know what happened – Max Hastings – New York Review of Books [March 11, 2010] p41

There is a fundamental contradiction for a politician who goes around begging for votes from you because they are the kind of politician who doesn’t go around begging for votes – but they don't have to beg  if they are independently wealthy themselves.

One of history’s most useful tasks is to bring home to us how keenly, honestly and painfully, past generations pursued aims that now seem to us wrong or disgraceful – John Carey

Under our economic system all social ills are structural – they are an admonishment to work hard, obey authority, exhibit loyalty, toe the line or else – except for the grace of the boss, there go I. We paper over them and blame the victims but never actually tackle any of these problems – and the solutions that we claim to implement are designed to allay any guilt we may have and to serve as another soruce of profit for the elite.

I could be dropped, blindfolded into almost any city in America, with nothing but the shirt on my back, and … I would be able to survive, comfortably, totally on my own… [but] I’m a bum eating out of the garbage, so what do I know – Ace Backwords

Jaywalking citations constitute one of the homeless person’s most frequent sources of contact with the larger society – constituting 40% of their contacts with the law. Petty quality-of-life offences constitute their days as they roam the streets waiting to be allowed back into  places of sleep. That and looking for a place to take a dump which also leads  them into contact with the law.

I am deathly tired of life, / I will accept nothing from it. / But I love my poor earth, / For I have seen no other – Osip Mandelstam – Tristia, 1987 p51

A record for new jobs created in May – the biggest gain in a decade – 431,000. But 413,000 were temporary US Census jobs – once in a decade – can it only be a coincidence that something that happens once each decade should break the record of the decade?

In America the sirens sing / Red smokestacks skyscrapers / Produce cold clouds / With their sooty lips – Osip Mandelstam – Tristia, 1987 p69

The really big one’s are on
     The inside, she said
With only her rear protruding
     From the blueberry bush
She may have been right, I’ve
     Never picked them
     Only blackberries
And with blackberries you stay
     On the outside, all of you
     Stays outside
But it wasn’t the blueberries or
      Even the blackberries
That was on my mind
Small game like rabbits know
     To hideout among the thorny canes
And snakes know to await their prey
     There,  while with mulberries
It is a whole different matter. They
      Don’t make a good pie only a
      Passable jam (syrup if you don't
            add pectin), but they are easy
To pick

The interesting thing is that you can start mowing anywhere. The lawn will get done no matter where you start mowing. And that seemed like an important discovery – Nicholson Baker - The Anthologist, 2009  p195

Thinking about where to begin intimidates one, puts off the actual onset of the start which does not have to be at the beginning – you can start anywhere, that is it secret of beginning. Well not for everything, it doesn’t work for relationships – starting at the ending is frequent, although we pass up many of them thinking about their endings.

In the beggar memory / first you’ll sense the blind ruts, / full of copper water - / and you’ll follow in the tracks, / unknown, unloving yourself, / both the blind man and the guide – Osip Mandelstam – The Voronezh Notebooks, 1996 p63

Bushmeat – wild smuggled animal meat (monkeys, anteaters, giant rats, porcupines), usually smoked and sold in affluent markets at prices as high as $18 a pound by inbound travelers from tropical countries. It's a Parisian problem - Londoners are satisfied with overcooked and stringy sheep and mashy peas. If fish and chips is getting too damned expensive try whale and quail (or as the Americans say - surf and turf). Genetically modified salmon grow all year long. AquaAdvantage - what a non-poetically name, not as great as Orange Roughy (what was it called before the marketeers re-enginneered it - some type of trash fish I believe?).

We live on limited notions, dried out like plants pressed in a book – Victor Serge – The Unforgiving Years, 2009 p26

On drugs the body becomes attuned to an altered source of consciousness; on the media the emotions become the source of an altered consciousness; and on books the mind becomes an altered state of consciousness

The most tragic thing about death, the most unacceptable thing for the mind, is the total disappearance of spiritual greatness built out of experience, intellectual exploration, knowledge, and understanding, much of it incommunicable – Victor Serge – Notebooks

After we are long dead and gone, our age shall be know as the “Age of Stupidity” – assuming of course there is anyone left to name it: The Stone Age, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, The Age of Steam, the Age of Stupidity and then the Stone Age again.

Truth, stripped of its metaphysical poetry, exists only in the brain. Destroy a few brains, quickly done! Then, goodbye truth – Victor Serge – The Unforgiving Years, 2009

Geniuses should not be rich
Geniuses should not be beautiful
       That would make them gods
Then we should only wish
       To rip their guts out
       See them gored in the ring
And that is no way to treat a hero
And that’s why a lot of them
       Die young and those who don’t
       Go insane
Mad and dead heroes can be managed
        They are all  so well behaved


They are nameless. If you penetrate their cartilage, / you will be the heir of their princedoms – Osip Mandelstam – The Voronezh Notebooks, 1996 p55