Lines of affection
Angles of dissatisfaction
The hypothinous of truth
The arc of covenant
The geometry of this life
The more alike people are the more they struggle to be
different
There are perhaps as many as 3,000 extent languages but only
78 of them have literatures
When you get to where you want to be you discover that you
no longer want to be there.
Employers spend $3.5b a year on remedial writing courses for
their employees. 72% of employers rate high school graduates as deficient in
writing. 28% of college graduates are rated as deficient in written
communication by employers.
History is often determined by who you hang out with
This is our destiny: subject to opinion polls, information,
publicity, statistics; constantly confronted with the anticipated statistical
verification of our behavior, and absorbed by the permanent refraction of our
least movements, we are no longer confronted with our own will. We are no
longer even alienated, because for that it is necessary for the subject to be
divided in itself, confronted with the other, to be contradictory… Each
individual is forced despite himself or herself into the undivided coherence of
statistics – Jean Baudrillard, 1985
Time forgives
Everyone
Every one time
Every one time
Is forgiven
Foregone in time
Forlorn
Be forwarned
Time is forever
You need a reservation. Can’t do noting without one. Gotta a reservation? No. First at the ferry
and now the campground. I arrived at the slip just after eight. I was first in
line (the ‘if space becomes available’ line). The lines for those with
reservations were rapidly filling up.
Two or three more without reservations arrive. I had assumed that this
being Sunday there would not be a lot of traffic. No, said the man with the
beard and the big nose, it’s our busiest day – all the vacationers returning
home. We don’t have any commercial traffic. I may be able to get you on. Not a
promise, you understand. May not be the first boats but I expect we can get you
out today. Next time I’ll know. Gotta a reservation? No. Maybe able to get you
a spot for tonight. Wait a minute #6 is leaving. That’s a first come first
serve spot (they only have a few). Later I spotted another on the back side.
Soon you won’t be able to go anywhere without a reservation. The reservation
will be equalevant to a travel visa. Yes we have the privilege of traveling
without permits but it doesn’t do you any good if you can’t pay for the gas and
if you don’t have a reservation. The closer to the sea the higher the demand.
Sorry by reservation only. Can’t do nothing without a reservation.
First banana – first palm trees. At last, the South. Temperature in the
eighties. T-shit, shorts and flip fops all winter long. Rain possible. Hail and
gusting winds forecast, maybe around four, John tells me. I trim my tomato
plants. They were getting unruly, a little top heavy. It hurts clipping off all
that unripe fruit and the numerous blossoms. They look just like new recruits.
On your bellies, grunts. Sprawled in the mud with fifty caliber rounds whizzing
overhead – thump, thump, thump.
Enclosures shut-in what was intended to be shut-out
The greater our knowledge, the more obscure the overall
scheme – Claude Levi-Stauss – The Savage Mind, 1966 p89
The Great Gatsby Curve: (Alan B Kruegar) as income inequity
increases, social mobility falls
Twice – a rumble, but otherwise the sky is clear. The sun is
shining. Maybe something is happening over the ocean, beyond the trees. I move
all the tomato plants to safety, behind the trailer. Snow-birds are in
migration, headed southward. Many idiots among them (my neighbor across the way
in particular). Two yellow butterflies flitter by.
If we didn’t work so hard at un-creating we wouldn’t have to
work as hard at re-creating
Time
After time
In time
Time out
Time of
Time for
Time to
Time off
The time
A time
Some time
Any time
More time
Less time
Time something
Time some one
Time anything
Time anyone
Any time
Every time
For all time
Time
After time
In a cinematic dream you don’t have to do anything but
watch, you don’t have to participate, but in this one I played the part of cop.
I was a well know black actor, can’t remember his name but he had big shinny
eyes and he always played cops even on Broadway. And since the movie was
already in commercial release, I wasn’t really acting a role in but rather
watching myself in a role that I had previously acted. Now I was playing the
role of the guy who had been the actor who had played the cop. Then at some point
I actually became the cop and was no longer watching myself play the cop. I was
teamed up with a female rookie. She had a red sports car and liked to drive
fast. She had gotten a lot of tickets, which she had ignored. She wasn’t
worried, she said because cops don’t have to pay tickets. Not entirely true, I
explained to her. There was a five dollar processing fee for each ticket which
had to be paid to clear the record and if you don’t and accumulate three or
more in a year you driver’s license was subject to being revoked for thirty
days and you’ll have to work behind the desk at reduced pay. Here, she said
handing me a fist full of wadded up tickets, take care of these for me. I never
saw here again. I was now working at a precinct. I had been a departmental cop,
working out of headquarters. The was a lot of animosity between us and the
precinct guys. The precinct guys were used to street violence and slammed
people around a lot. We thought they were crude. Today while I was bringing in
a suspect for booking the the young thug got the better of me managed wrestle
my weapon from me. All the tough guys were out on calls. I later discovered
that this had been a set up. I was abducted and taken to the gang hideout where
I was stripped and released and had to make my way the station in my boxers.
I hear your partner got himself kidnapped, I told the rookie
cop (the one with all the tickets). I was watching the movie again rather than
being a cop myself and this was another cop talking. Oh, she replied, I hadn’t
heard. I suddenly realized at this point that the kidnapping and release may only
be a dream. Wouldn’t I look stupid if I started relating this story to her. I
decided not to say anything else. I wanted to wait and get some verification
that it was more than a mere dream. Good thing that I did shut up. I was unable
to verify any of this.
Through me, two red cows walk; / From a crowning glory / Of
slowness they are not taken. / Let on hoof knock on a stone, / And off it a
spark jump quickly – James Dickey – The Whole Motion, 1992 p63
Time table
Time clock
Time watch
Time travel
Times tables
In The Times
These times
Rachel’s head aches. Terrance is displaying a lot of
concern. Helen tells her to go to bed and it will go away in a couple of hours.
So now we are heading towards the ending – death – of “A Voyage Out” – we are
in the final lap and Rachel will be dropping back. What will Terrance do? Will
he join the army and die at Yeppes? It is too early to tell. This is 1915.
Great Britain is still in its days of glory killing a generation of its young
men. Is it best that we are still living. It would have been better not to have
to experience all this blood and the mud. Wishful thinking. And what about
Hirsch, I doubt that he would have served, but he might have. His health was
not very good. He had no chance of surviving if he had. Hewitt never was as
good as Thackeray and Hirsch never the great man of promise and Rachel was
first of them to die.
There is a phrase, ‘to catch one’s breath’. It is time to
pause and realize who the real you is between having lain down one novel and
before picking up another – having set one thing aside and started something
else – having said goodbye to someone and introducing yourself to a stranger –
maybe not quite so true with the second and only partially true with the later.
There was a long rumbling and a cracking to the north. It is only thunder.
There are dark clouds gathering to the south.
It begins to sprinkle. Time passes
and wood burns. It too pops and
crackels. It’s difficult to tell where
the sun is. It takes courage and fortitude to sit still and wait.
War is such a peculiar thing – inaugurated by the whims of
few, affecting the fate of many. It is a difficult, if not impossible, thing to
understand, yet we feel compelled to describe it as though it has meaning –
even virtue. It starts for reasons hopelessly obscure, meanders on, then stops
– Errol Morris – Believing is Seeing, 2011 p30
Behind the glassware is a mirror, the width of the bar. On
the opposite wall another. Between them there is an infinity of receding
reflections. They are discussing Eagle Scouts and girls. He is complaining that
too much money is going to girls’ sports. “Who cares to watch them play field
hockey? You know there are only three all male schools left in this country.
There are things you need to think about as your child gets older”, he says. “You
need to tell them just to stay away from girls (just say no). It’s so easy at
that age. Just don’t get involved, it’s that simple. You’ll be better off if
you don’t get involved. Finish your education. Start your career.” Life is so
simple if you’re an Eagle Scout.
“I’m the one who put LSD in Bukowski’s wine. Why, because I
wanted to fuck his wife, why else. Do you think I give a fuck about Bukowski? I
don’t give a damn if he does get a Jewish lawyer. Why should I? I’m a bad ass
mother fucker, and don’t you forget it. Much better than…” [and his ranting
become incoherent at this point but sounded like – “taking car force incentive
programs”]. …”Ha, Ha, Ha. Good.
It’s like caffeine”
Now I am writing lines
On a scrap of paper
Donald Hall pulled over to the side of the road
When he had the image of a skeleton
Strapped in the seat of the cockpit
Of a Grumman Hellcat
Up in the vines of the New Guinea jungle
The image overpowered him as he drove
After all he said, it was an emergency
I have already written these words in the margins
Of a scrap piece of paper
It doesn’t allow me to be too free
There isn’t
enough white space
I keep running out of room
Resorting
to drawing arrows
To show the
continuity of the text
I’ll have to stop here. I have about run out of space
There is almost a full sheet of empty space
In the front of my book of Rimbaud’s works
So I shall use that instead
It’s good
that it is not a library book
Traveling (and one might as well say ‘living’) turns us into
creatures of hap and contingency… Things are constantly happening, but we’re in
no position to judge their meaning and significance – Jonathan Raban – Driving
Home, 2010 p202
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