There is a man and a women standing to my right talking. They are comparing parrot soup recipes. So do you trap your parrots up on Telegraph Hill?, I ask. Parrots!, he mutters quizzically. Yeah parrots, I repeat. Oh you mean carrots, he conjectures. That would make more sense, I must admit. Carrots and Ginger soup. Yeah, they are not that easy to catch, he admits. And I can’t imagine them having much meat, I say. Hardly worth all that effort. And I am on my fourth Doppel Weisen and have to take a piss and I think about swinging on the stairway rails going down to the basement like they were parallel bars but I’d probably wind up a whimpering heap at the bottom of the stairway on the cold concrete lying is someone else's piss. While I am contemplating this I am squeezing my penis with one hand so as not to leak down the front of my pants. I am wondering if all that beer had impaired my judgement. Good thing I don't have to drive. I want to say yes that it has but then claim no, that it has not. I am not really sure. Lying in heap down there would be an impairment for sure. I finally decide that my first priority is to take a piss, and that this is probably not the time to stop and reflect on the state of my judgement. First things first. Taking a piss is why I'm standing here. I don't take the swing. I try not to watch my feet, which makes me dizzy and the stairway is steep. They say the Dillinger was once cornered by the cops down there in the john and that Jack Dempsey once worked here as a bouncer. It’s the Beatles that they’re playing – is that from Abby Road? - Love, Love, all you need is Love. I wonder if parrot soup would taste any different than chicken soup. Everything exotic taste like chicken they say. "What does it taste like?" "It tastes like chicken."
An interest in knowledge and a love of difficulty are not easily disentangled – Paula Marantz Cohen – The American Scholar, Winter 2010 p77
The last (LAST) of the snow melts, what didn’t melt yesterday will melt today. It may get as high as eighty today. The Army recruiting sergeant has three recruits out drilling in the parking lot across from me. I’ve got four phone messages
I saw a cloud / shaped like a cloud. In the / sky it was – Robert Kelly – Keli Yuga, 1970
In a femtosecond the Concord flies less than the width of an atom
In utter emerald cornfield / till the cows come purple home – Roland Johnson – ARK, 1996 ARK 34
23% of all mortgaged homes in the US are underwater (have a negative equity). In a healthy market only about 5% of homeowners would have a negative equity. The total amount of negative homeowner equity in the US is currently $73 billion.
I like a novel to be a novel. I expect it to be about something or someone… I get annoyed. It is foolish to act annoyed. One can cure oneself, and should. It is foolish to insist that a novel be a novel. One must take what cones along, and see if its good – E M Forster
Principles are fine
So long
As they don’t
Make you
Go blind
What footprint is left in the snow of flesh by an event? Thinking about thinking moves atoms – Roland Johnson – ARK, 1996 BEAM 12
The percentage of heterosexual women who have reported same-sex encounters decreases with education while the percentage of heterosexual men who report same-sex encounters increases with education. 15% of adult women and 12% adult men who describe themselves as homosexuals have never had a same-sex experience
Indeed, the human body is composed of a great many parts of different nature, which requires continuous and varied food, so that the whole body may be capable of doing everything which can follow from its nature, and consequently, so that the mind may also be equally capable of conceiving many things – Spinoza
US National Security spending in the 2012 budget – estimated
total: $1,2 trillion
total: $1,2 trillion
$558.0b Budgeted for defense
118.0b Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan
19.3b Nuclear weapons
7.8b Misc
8.7b State Dept counter-terrorism
55.3b “homeland security” not otherwise
fund by DOD
fund by DOD
129.3b Veterans programs
48.5b military pensions
20.0b civilian DOD pensions
[The] ‘Stream of Consciousness’ as we subliminally lurch from one unrelated (and usually unwanted) stimulus to the next like floating dust particles buffeted by the random forces of air currents - Spencer Wells – Pandora’s Seed: the unforeseen cost of civilization 2010 p116
We can have lifestyles that do not require our presence.
Forgive many things in others; nothing in yourself – Decimus Magnus Ausontus
Where does saved time go?
The more time that is saved
The smaller its increments become
Do energy savings accumulate?
The more energy we save
The more energy we use
Does time work the same way?
What exactly is a ‘speed-dial’ button”
What does ‘automatic’ dialing mean?
Do you save time?
Can you get it back?
Where does time go?
Was that the time
Of your life?
Was that it
Just now?
Just now?
When is it time?
What time is it?
Whose time is it?
Which time was it?
Where has time gone?
Lost time
Time gained
Time after time
It didn’t happen
No time – never happens
Just in time
In time
Time out
On time
Time for
With time
Time of
Big time
Small time
Short time
Long time
Dead time
Real time
Savings time
Face time
Quality time
Time saver
Time maker
Time waster
Big time is a small town
Big fish is a little pond
There is a time
To sow
There is a time
To reap
There is a time
For all things
Woman shakes the womb; I am poured out like water into the dust of death – Roland Johnson – ARK, 1996 BEAMS 21,22,23
The American flag is the trademark of a good brand
Other people’s worth are the bridge you use to cross from where you were to wherever you’re going – Zadie Smith – Changing My Mind, 2009 p102
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