Kumquat-Colored Trolleys

Cold, frost on the windshield, frozen puddles from the previous night’s storm. It will be cold all this week. The temperature is not expected to get much above freezing all day. The two miles along the river into town does not raise the ambient temperature by much. It usually goes up by at least four degrees. The water coming down from the Dakotas is also getting colder. It will freeze solid before the end of the year, before the end of this month.

Kumquat-colored trolleys ding as they trumble / Passengers under an indigo fizzle – Sylvia Plath – Collected Poems, 1981 p43

She’s down on her knees. She adopts stray animals. She takes care of a couple of snakes. The boa she says is very gentle. She is cleaning a trash dispenser, whipping clean its polished metal shine. You get all the good jobs, don’t you? She has red hair, Evangeline. It makes the time go by, she says. She says that I’m her first customer. But I wish I had your life. Come in here have coffee. Sit around all morning and read. Then do it again tomorrow. Funny how that all tell me that I live the life that they wish they could. But no one actually does but me. It’s the freedom they envy. They don’t know what a slave to habit that I am. They have to pay the bills. The pursuit of happiness through consumption is an overpowering zeitgeist . Happiness and failure are incompatible. Freedom is an admission of failure unless your first accumulate which I already have. Failure to accumulate is failure indeed. Everyone envies freedom but refuses to peruse it. You get used to it, to accumulating, and can’t quite. It becomes a habit, you can’t give up. Work, work; never enough. Turn everything into work.

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth’s surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling others to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid – Bertrand Russell – In Praise of Idleness, 1932

As wealth accumulates in fewer and fewer hands the global economy becomes unable to absorb world output (for more and more consumers are only able to buy less and less). Capitalist are unable to unload their surplus production, they can’t find outlets for investments to generate new profits. They turn to alternate sources to sustain their profit making – militarization (use of force), wild financial speculation, and raiding the public finance. And thus we have arrived at where we are – class warfare.

But a woman loved, who yields is till far from being a woman who loves – Maria Reiner Rilke – Ahead of All Parting: selected poetry and prose, 1995 p274

Those who trust money are also subject to its mastery

There is nothing nameable but that some man will, or undertake to, do it for pay – Herman Melville – Billy Budd, sailor p54

See yourself as a writer; carry a small notebook – something that will fit in a pocket. In the office filling in the blanks of preprinted forms, dreaming of traveling and writing novels is not enough. Maybe for a newspaper. Something about travel and tourism? No more like the things you’d find on the life style section. An office job in the big city sucks. There was a better chance of success in the smaller markets. The St Petersburg press had taken several pieces. They paid $250 for each and let you keep the copyright. Currently scribbling notes about the war. There is always a war and there is always crime and periodically office seekers campaign. Enough to pay the bar tap as long it remains modest.

Meta-bullshit and not truth, it is the norm governing most coordinated human activity under conditions of capital markets. Thus does bullshit meet and become filthy lucre, and of course, vice versa  – Mark Kingwell – Harper’s, July 2011  p21

A score need not be performed to be heard. A recipe need not be prepared to be tasted. But it takes years of practice for this to occur.

We are enriched only by frequenting disciplines remote from our own – E M Cioran

Strange statistics – in the 1840 US Census, for the first time, they enumerated the incidence of mental illness – what was termed the “insane and idiots” – and among the black population a strange phenomena occurred in the data. Blacks, both free and slave, showed lower incidence rates of insanity the further south one went:  every 14^th Negro in Maine, every 28^th in New Hampshire, every 43^rd in Massachusetts, every 297^th in New Jersey, one in 1,229 in Virginia, one in 2,477 in South Carolina and one in 4,310 in Louisiana.

Pro-slavery advocates said this was because slavery was beneficial to the black race. The Negroes were obviously better off as slaves. Northern observers attributed the supposed pattern to the effect of cold weather on blacks. The newly founded American Statistical Association said it was do sampling errors – they did not have yet the concept of “margin of error” to explain it. Counties without a single negro reported insane negros. Secretary of State, John C Calhoun who was responsible for the US Census, claimed that “there are so many errors that they balance one another and led to the same conclusion as if they were all correct.” He did not act on Congress’ directive that the errors be corrected. The Census proved valuable to the rhetoric of Southern politicians.

One could argue that fevers are caused by too little aspirin – Marcia Angell – New York Review of Books, 6/23/11 p21

The Laws of Nature Do Not Apply To Me

He had reached his pre-determined limit and quite. Can’t win every time, he said pensively. Barbara had lost too. But next time they would do better, come away a winner, next time. There is always a next time and next time they will win. Gamblers always believe this. They are worst than fundamentalist. Lady luck will smile on them just as God responds to personal petitions. A gambler is incapable of understanding the basic principles of statistics. Oh they understand what the odds are. It is what the odds means that they can’t comprehend: its that they think that odds are cumulative – the more times that you lose the greater your odds the next time. It does no good to explain that each roll of the dice or toss of the coin is an independent event. And its not that odds are cumulative either, because Lady Luck is smiling on me. You can overcome house odds if just play enough times. And if you walk away while you ahead you can win, which is true, but one rarely does or at least not for long. No one brags about how much they have lost. An atheist does not make a good gambler, not a real atheist. A true gambler believes that the laws of nature will not apply this time not for him. He was waiting for Walter. He sat at the table with his chin resting on his clenched fist. He said that he wanted Walter to modify some wine crates – shorten them so that he could use them to display his product and the upcoming Fillmore Street fair.

Cleanliness might not be next to godliness but it is certainly adjacent to horniness. A hotel room is horny because it is clean: the sheets are clean, the toilets are clean; everything is clean, and this cleanliness is a flagrant inducement to – what else? – ‘filthiness’ – Geoff Dyer – Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, 2011 p316

Due to their common origin

            The were all gifted

Zeus was their father

Memory was their mother

            With her lovely braids

No one is without pain

            For what we don’t share

The fear that some number may begin to grow in my brain until there is no more room for it inside me, … the fear that I may start screaming, and people will come running to my door and finally force it open, the fear that I might betray myself and tell everything I dread, and the fear that I might not be able to say anything, because everything is unsayable – and the other fears…. The fears – Maria Reiner Rilke – Ahead of All Parting: selected poetry and prose, 1995 p251

He had set up a shell game right here on this Muni bus. On an open magazine in his lap he sallied forth. He had three yellow bottle caps and under one of them was supposed to be a red pea. After a few simple movements he asked one of the onlookers to pick the cap with the pea under it. She did. “You are a winner. Let me pay the winner one hundred dollars. Or at least I could have if you had put up a one hundred of your own”. If someone had, I can assure you, it would not have been as obvious. And you odds would not have been a statistical certainty either. There is a reason that the term “shell game” has come to be synonymous with fraud. He was not very good. He got no takers; anyone willing to lay their money down. Not that he was not good and manipulating the pea. At that he was good. The man and his game got off at the next stop. You got to keep moving in this line of work and perhaps a bus is not the best place to carry on your trade. If its his game and you win you are usually the shill. If its your game and you lose you’re an idiot. The rule is simple, unless its your game you can’t and you don’t always want to if its your game or not at least until the end. Demand to handle the shells and turn each one to reveal that there is probably no pea under any of the thee.

Language allows us to distinguish between appearance and reality, but it also allows some of us to persuade others that appearances are realities – Mark Kingwell – Harper’s, July 2011 p21

The morning news – man shot in the butt by his dog

From the very instant they first boot up their computers in the morning, their in-boxes comprise an unbroken catalog of outrage stories ideologically tailored to their preexisting obsessions – Jonathan Kay – Among the Truthers: a journey through America’s growing conspiracist underground, 2011 p240

With the legalization of marijuana traffic accidents fall (about 9% so far in states that have done so). The apparent reduction is attributed to the substitution of marijuana for alcohol. Marijuana is safer for both its user and the society than is alcohol.

Life will always be bad enough for the desire for something better not to be extinguished in men – Maxim Gorky

The Do’s and Don’t of Repulispeak:

            Don’t Use                                                       Use Instead                            

            Capitalism                                                       Economic Freedom, Free Market

            The government taxes the rich                     The government takes from the rich

            Middle class                                                     Hardworking Americans

            Jobs                                                                  Careers

            Government Spending                                   Waste

            Entrepreneurs/Innovators                              Small Business Owners/Job Creators

            Sacrifice                                                          “We’re In this together”

Space reaches ‘from’ us and construes the world – Maria Reiner Rilke – Ahead of All Parting: selected poetry and prose, 1995 p173

It costs New York City $500,000 a year to provide security for Rupert Murdock’s New Corp headquarters on Sixth Ave. This expensive detail is billed as a “counterterrorism initiative”. The NYPD does not provide any security details of any other news operation in the city, not for CNN or for CBS or for ABC or for NBC. All of these organizations provide security at their own expense.

[The bullshitter] does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are – Harry Frankfurt

There are now stories circulating of the police in New York City having  directed newly released inmates of Rikers Island to the Occupy site at Zuccoiti Park

There is so much crap in the world, and then suddenly there is honesty and humanity – Ryszard Kepuscinski

People are organisms defined by geography and time. Organizations arise spontaneously and die without being mourned. They serve a function unlike an individual. They have no life that needs to be respected. Life is meaningful without having meaning. Institutions have meaning without being meaningful.

Planes roar in the air / cars race thru streets / I know where they go / to death but that is OK – Allen Ginsberg – Kaddish and other poems, 1961  p42

Bubbles result when the future that gets collateralized is not the future that actually occurs

Those who can’t forgive the past are condemned, not without pathos, to re-enact it – Christopher Hitchens – Love, Poverty, and War, 2004  p200

Music encompasses the community. Text defines the individual. Sound precedes the quest for meaning

There is no medium of communications better suited to political propaganda than film. Literature and the spoken word can be used to bombard a person with facts, but only cinema can transport him wholesale into an invented world – Jonathan Kay – Among the Truthers: a journey through America’s growing conspiracist underground, 2011 p250

Compared with the past, the present is confining and boring,  The future will be different. Dreaming is our salvation.

Sane conspiracists subconsciously erect a rigid mental firewall that insulates their real day-to-day lives from the life-and-death implications of their fantasies – Jonathan Kay – Among the Truthers: a journey through America’s growing conspiracist underground, 2011 p184

In 1980 there were only 12,301 women incarcerated in the United States. Today there are more than two million in prision. The good news is that the female prison population is more racially balanced that is the male prison population.

Bad boys attract good girls, but bad girls like them too – Deborah Martinson – Lillian Hellman: a life with foxes and scoundrels, 2005 p84

Carols Twenty-Four Seven - Strike Your Tent, Go Out and Buy

Country fried skillet, eggs sunny side up with coffee. More than I needed. It was the holidays and this was my fourth day in a row of heavy eating. I did not really need this, but it was becoming addictive. Someone swiped by overcoat and its cold. “Don’t you have a coat, Honey?” she asked. “I do, but I misplaced it”, I replied. Traildog’s leash snapped. The floor creaked under my feet. An airplane fell out of the sky. They crucified Christ.

Any felt sense of a larger world – is mainly televisual – David Foster Wallace – Consider the Lobster, 2004  p134

Only 50% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 have read a book in the last year that was not required for either school or work

Everything undertaken for its own sake is worthwhile – Geoff Dyer – Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, 2011   p53

The supporters of Occupy Wall Street (25%) out number the opponents (16%), but most Americans are indifferent (59%).

Truly decent, innocent people can be taxing to be around – David Foster Wallace – Consider the Lobster, 2004  p140

It’s a very bourgeoisie world
Where people don’t share

            It’s not that they won’t give

            It’s that no one should take

That’s in the rules, one must earn

            One’s own way

            Earn your way or else

Pay your own dues

It’s in the rules

            And it’s their rules

It’s a very bourgeoisie world

Those who lack things are defined most conspicuously by what they own – Geoff Dyer – Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, 2011 p61

Money sets history in motion

There is a difference between a great leader and a great salesman. There are also similarities of course – David Foster Wallace – Consider the Lobster, 2004  p226

Slavery was the recruitment of a new stock of peasants. That slavery in modern times has been linked to racial attitudes was merely a matter of convenience.

While Marxists cast the fight between society’s elites and its toiling masses as an eternal, defining aspect of capitalism, populists do not. True to the evangelical spirit, they regard even the worst abuses as a function of a particular ‘kind’ of predatory capitalist (and his political enablers) whose perverting effect upon the economy can be purged through spiritually infused collective action – Jonathan Kay – Among the Truthers: a journey through America’s growing conspiracist underground, 2011 p142

When questioned, I defer to my other occupation – a botanist, a whore-monger, a politician – anything buy the indefensible claim to be a poet. “What have you published? Maybe I’ve hear of you.” “I doubt it”, I would have said. They will be disappointed. It'll be better to tell them that you install seamless vinyl siding instead. Charlie Harper penned jingles, didn't he? That was a career and not just a job. He was in advertising. Don’t waste your gift. After they have asked if I can make money at it, they will ask me “How long have you been doing it?” What do you do, by the way? Bye and bye you must get by and you must buy.

The serial number of a human specimen is their face, that accidental and unrepeatable commination of features. It reflects neither the character nor the soul, nor what we call the self. The face is only the serial number of a specimen – Milan Kundera – Immortality

“Man Ray!" David asked, pointing to the cover of the book that I am reading?  "I think so", I reply, as I look for the photo attribution on the back cover, “Yes Kiki, 1926. You got a good eye.” And he had only seen it depicted upside down standing on the other side of the bar.

In any case, the big deal, as they saw it, wasn’t what I’d said, but simply that I’d be ‘on TV’ – an accomplishment in its own right – Jonathan Kay – Among the Truthers: a journey through America’s growing conspiracist underground, 2011 p249

I dreamt last night about of an indoor golf academy where all of the instructors were required to have their doctorates in golf. Yesterday Neil was commenting on an article in the paper about the number of fake degrees claimed by employees of the Department of Defense. There are a lot of administrators in the public schools with Doctorate’s of Theology from Bible Colleges.

Human brains seem programmed to see design and intention behind the world around them – Jonathan Kay – Among the Truthers: a journey through America’s growing conspiracist underground, 2011 p26

82% of public schools would fail if the standards set by "No Child Left Behind" were strictly enforced

In America, at some point life inevitably retreats indoors, becomes hidden – Geoff Dyer – Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, 2011  p62

50% of all schools have lowered their proficiency standards since 2005 in order to inflate their test scores

When caught, fess up immediately, declare right from the start that you are the victim of a terrible addiction… You are rarely challenged these days when you take a loss of virtue and turn it into a medical condition – E J Dionne Jr – Truthdig 6/9/11

The best lines are

            Composed while drinking wine

But even if written on the spot

            Are illegible the next morning

And all that remains is the

            Tag line and it refuses

            To divulge its allure

It was all so beautiful and

            Clear last night

            To a muddled mind

For the truth is that life on the face of it is a chaos in which one finds oneself lost. The individual suspects as much, but is terrified to encounter this frightening reality face to face and so attempts to conceal it by drawing a curtain of fantasy over its, behind which he can make believe that everything is clear – Jose Ortega y Gasset

What History is Made of

It rained all night, but it has stopped for now. There is still a lite mist in the air. The wind was still gusting as I got up. I took Traildog for his morning walk. I took the trash  to the dumpster. Sometimes I forget. I but the trash in back of the truck. I forget to stop at the dumpster. Bites of paper swirl. I can see them in my rear-view mirror. A grocery bag blows onto the highway. Paper of plastic? Plastic I say because I can later reuse it to clean up after the dog. Oopps, I forget to put the trash in the  dumpster again. I fear that I might get a ticket for littering, but I can't hurry. The faster I drive the more trash blows out the back.

TV-watching is different from genuine peeping-Tomism because the people we’re watching through TV’s framed glass screen are not really ingnorant of the fact that someone is watching them…. We are not voyeurs here at all, we’re just viewers – David Foster Wallace – A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, 1997 p23

I arrived at the coffee shop. I talked with my  buddy who wears sandals even in winter. Two ladies wanted to know if I was a writer. If you mean by that, have I published a book?, then no.

So he’s become a leader, over time, by being among the first to follow in time’s train – Robert Musil – The Man without Qualities,  1996 p740

Beat Poets, not  beat poets – a sign at Occupy  Berkeley read.  Tents were floating under helium  filled balloons tethered to kite strings – if you can’t occupy the earth, occupy the sky – truncheons in the belly, pepper spray in the eyes – Occupy!

Formidable bastions like those of scholastics had reacted to protect themselves may appear to fall suddenly… but many small enemies have been at work mining the walls for a longtime, not just one large army at the gates armed with shouts, showy uniforms and flags – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p81

Follow the fork

            In the road

To its ultimate

            End – Be bold

Be daring, have it

            All

[He] wants your vote but won’t whore himself to get it, and wants you to vote for him ‘because’ he won’t whore – David Foster Wallace – Consider the Lobster, 2004  p160

There were no nudist at Baker Beach today. Only two baskers were hanging out there. Michael says that at “Sit and Spin” they were now having an underwear day every Sunday morning. All went well the first time they tried it, he said. But there were several that did their laundry in the nude. He was disappointed, he reported, that they were not hunks. Isn’t that the way is always is, I replied. 

Fiction writers as a species tend to be oglers. They tend to lurk and to stare. They are born watchers. They are viewers. They are the ones on the subway about whose nonchalant stare there is something creepy, somehow almost predatory – David Foster Wallace – A supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, 1997  p21

The  difference between a day-dream and  a fantasy is that the realization of a day-dream is perfectly possible. I dreamed of nubile young oiled bodies in the sun. There was just a couple of old men fishing.

That unvisited limbo to which we relegate the deed we would rather not have done but have no notion of undoing – Edith Wharton – The Touchstone p31

The Victorians call it a “below-job”. We corrupted “below” into “blow” transforming come into go; suck into its opposit.

One felt that if she had been prettier she would have had emotions instead of ideas – Edith Wharton – The Touchstone p10

25% of Icelanders think that elves probably do exist

Once someone owns real estate in your gut, why you sold it to them is unimportant. The point is you sold it – Peter Feibleman

It was warm enough to have brought Traildog, but I didn’t. I have gotten lazy. I am getting used to sitting inside. But I feel guilty about it, poor Traildog all alone at home. He is probably peeing right this minute on the carpet in retaliation for my neglect. I could have brought him. I could have let him snift up and down Main Street. I could have let him get patted on his head by all the ladies. “Oh, he is just the cutest thing.”

How bewildered is any womb-born creature that has to fly – Rainer Maria Rilka – Ahead of All Parting: the Selected Poetry and Prose of, 1995p379

First President born after the Revolutionary War – Martin Van Buren
               (1782) – “I fell that I belong to a later age”

First President born after the Civil War – Warren G Harding (1865)

First President born after World War II – William Jefferson Clinton (1946)

It is hard to think away out of our heads a history which has long lain in a remote past but which once lay in the future – F W Maitland – Memoranda de Pariamento, 1893

History is marked by the passing of cohorts – the founding fathers, civil war vetrans. There comes a time when men only posses cultural memories of those momentous events.

All the world over, the picturesque yield to the pocketesque. The mortgagor cared not, but the mortgagee did – Herman Melville – I and my Chimney

Growth is Good. We Need More People. We Need More Goods.There Was Once Joy In It

Traildog was able to join me for coffee yesterday. We walked down to the river. The current was swift. The days warm enough for him to join me are diminishing quickly. Walk on the water. Walk on the water. No, no - I resisted the temptation. We turned around and went back along Main Street.

Historical figures… speak as they ought to have, rather than as they probably did – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p214

Money is the measurement of our unhappiness and discontent. We can’t count all the unfilled wishes but we can count economic transactions which we equate with fulfilled wishes. Each fulfilled wish is one less unfulfilled wish but also contributes to the creation of ten more. Money is the source of discontent. Discontent is the stimulus for consumption. Consumption leads to growth. Growth is good, or so I have been told. We need more people. We need more goods.

The infinity of wishes lead but to disappointment. All the discoveries which have yet been made have multiplied little but existence – Lord Byron – Selected Letters and Journals – 1821

And David has got that rhythm - Cha-Chinka, Cha-Chinka, Cha-Chinka as he mixed a Martini for the little lady. When she had come in she had asked “Where’s the little girls’ room?” “Right there” David pointed, “Right next to the big girls’ room.” “I probably qualify for the big girls’ room,” she replies and waddles off confused. We guide her towards the door on the right. David is jiggling the door handle. She has locked herself in, he tells me. It was an accident, she protested. He instructs her to slide the latch. “I won’t ever use your bathroom again”, she said as she emerged. She sits down at the bar. “I distinctively remember having said a twist”, she said pointing to her Martini with two olives on a toothpick, Dave offers to make her another but she is happy when replaces the olives with a twist of lemon. I don’t think that this is her first Martini today. You do not never listen. You talk, talk, talk girl. She say this and she says that because, because. No he like you but he…

Our self-esteem is apt to be based on the hypothetical great act we have never had occasion to perform – Edith Wharton – The Touchstone p48

The police clash with

            Demonstrators

As if two gangs met

            To rumble

The Rabbits and the Guards

Let the games begin

And cameras zoom overhead

            The crowd roars

Welded batons - bare skulls

            Crunch; tear gas canisters

            Fly

Kevlar armor - t-shirts

            With slogans

Black Marias await

            Rip down the tents

            Haul the soggy bedrolls

                        Away

The winner, there was never

            Any doubt

The Christians vs the Lions

But the side willing to suffer

            Will endure

To come back again

            And again

The winner is always the one

Who has the least to lose

            And the most to gain

The were not innocent of sex, of course, but of sensuality – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p229

My workout routine – off to the gym – now the YMCA is taking it over – their business plan is to increase cash flow by installing more fancy machines – not needed I proclaim – but how much more would you pay if you had access to …? – my needs are simple, I exclaim to no avail – to walk, to run, to bicycle and to swim – but the casino money is down and the municipality wants to divert some of those funds to meet its deficits – member dues is not even enough to pay for its staff.  I have gotten used to this routine (two miles walk, three miles on the bike – riding through a redwood forest; half a mile running – on a machine as my knee can’t endure the stress of the actual act, and a quarter mile in the pool). Three times a week.  So it's time to move on. I’m getting anxious to get back on the road. Time to start a new routine. How much am I willing to pay? That's a question for the 1%.  How much can I afford to pay? That’s my question.

Opinions on special subjects need not be made articles of faith – Erasmus

To him who haveth not, no one giveth anything

God had thought He was omnipotent until He began to write – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p358

Genocide can lead to a global cooling – The European conquest that decimated America’s native peoples left large areas of cleared land untended. The resulting re-forestation pulled tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and may have caused the global climate change known as the “Little Ice Age”.

Always consult many authorities; they will infect you with suspicion – a desirable service – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p106

Doctors treat patients

            In luxury hotels

Politicians garner votes

            With promissory notes

Police corral the meek

            Who play hide and seek

The wealthy want more

            And more with no remorse

Scientific management

            At its best

How can you correlate

An expanding Universe

            With economic growth?

There will be a Noble Prize

            In economics in it

Dole out bonuses to

            The technocrats

Hurrah!

We like to have victims, but without putting ourselves clearly in the wrong: we want them to live – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p362

I collect old photographs

            Black & white

Of children playing

Who much later in

            Life will experience

Horrible deaths

Evidence

            That in spite of the misery

            There was once some  joy

You can expect the unexpected… but you cannot know what it is going to be – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996  p302

Pathologies of Guilty Pleasures and Regrets

It another warm day of late Indian summer. Each one threatens to be the last. The dog and I can sit outside in front of the coffee shop along Main Street. He will be given a bone by the lady in the restaurant across the street. She starts towards him. His tail is wagging. He strains at his leash. I worry that some child will try to pet him and get bitten. He is only protecting his bone and he is normally so friendly. Some mothers ask first, “May she pet your puppy?” “Certainly,” I usually reply, “He is very friendly but she may find him a little rambunctious.” I put his bone in my pocket for safe keeping until we got home. And he quietly lies on the wrought iron chair next to me and watches the Sunday morning traffic as I read. The park is still closed. Restoration from the flood proceeds slowly. We will walk along Main Street and he will piss on all the sidewalk flower pots.

The poet wants to take up the marbles and put them in his pocket. Wants marbles. Which is like wining the game – Jack Spicer – The Collected Books, 1996  p181

Psychological profiles of senior managers and chief executives when compared to patients of mental institutions are indistinguishable from those patients diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorders. Particularly favored traits in management recruitment include: great skill in flattering and manipulating powerful people, egocentricity, a strong sense of entitlement, a readiness to exploit others, and a lack of empathy and conscience.

Mankind’s most universal habit was hypocrisy; its true and enduring love was money; its favorite avocation litigation; its drug of choice amusement; and the fullest expression of its fear is to be found in the dogmas, trappings, and hierarchies of organized religion – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p198

Why does our “liberal media” display the near monopoly of a conservative orthodoxy?

The good is the enemy of the better – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p67

When you respond to an authority whose doesn’t really mean what it says with something that you don’t really mean yorself – that is a triple entrende  - “Whatever!” in such circumstances would be a good example. But better yet just lie. Saying what you believe will get you into trouble.

Power, when it has to rest on public opinion instead of relying on policemen and armies, is compelled to express itself differently from the way it does when secrecy and silence are its henchmen – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p237

I wrote this postcard

“Dear Dad”, it said

“I’m doing  fine” in

            scrawled capitals letters

“How are you?”  I wanted

            To Know

Then  I licked the stamp

And  ran down the block

            To the mail box

I needed help reaching

            The slot

I anxiously wait

            For a reply

The desire, the regret for certain non-existent things… is the necessary condition for working, for freeing oneself from the dominion of habits, for detaching oneself from the concrete – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p247

Baloney Man quite eating and he died just three days later. In the end he was just a slab of luncheon meat.. His body had a moldy odor as it oozed fat; just a large slab of baloney or was it Bologna. I carried him outside. He was already decaying, becoming a gelatinous mess. The mass that I carried dripped. The ooze flowed into the storm drain. It all slipped between my fingers. I did not know much about his early life other than that he had been born in the stockyards.  Someone had told this to me.

Once you have falsified fact and made it fiction, it is impossible to go back and re-cover the case, as it was, intact and untouched – to reverse the metamorphosis – and that is because you have meddled with your memory – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p209

I had taken a toke. This always made me paranoid, espically when among other people. I went to the supermarket. I was hungry. I should have stayed home. I glanced down in the deli section. It was labeled Bologna not boloney. How did it become Bologna? I was stumped. Maybe that’s how you pronounced it? I had never seen it labeled Bologna before or at least I don’t thing that I had. Maybe I had just never noticed before. Sometimes something old hits you on the side of the head. You wonder why you had never noticed this before. My mouth was very dry.

Gradually, however, each member of an audience grows accustomed to what is taking place before him, he forgets his first sensation of discomfort… For our immediate reaction is that this is grotesque – but we cannot be sure that it is not in fact magnificent, so for the present we suspend judgement – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p345

The police interrogated me. They wanted to know what I had done with his remains. I explained about his oozing between my fingers and seeping into the drains. I told them that I was not going down there to look for it. I said that several years ago I had entered the system with a friend and we had barely escaped with our lives. I was not going down there again. The officer in charges said that he had notified the municiple sewer department and  that he had been informed that an engineer by the name of Fred and two companions both also called Fred were tracing the lines and would let us know where the remains would come out. They didn’t think that they could lock me up, except, maybe, for disposal of hazardous materials without a permit which was only a misdemeanor. They wrote of up a citation for a health code violation and let me go. I looked at the newspaper the next morning. There was nothing in there about anyone turning into a slab of baloney. Several days alter they published his obit. He had no next of kin. It said that he had been a renown escape artist and circus acrobat. 

All psychological investigations take place after the fact – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p158

He had first come to public attention as an escape artist. He had been able to free himself from what were apparently impossible situations.  Some thought that he might be the re-incarnation of Houdini. Then he started performing in the circus where he propelled himself though the air like a cannon ball, but without any cannon. He stood there in a yellow tights and a red cap and there was a boom and puff of smoke and you could see him flying through the air and he would land on his feet across the area with his hand in the air. Then he would take a bow to great acclaim. He toured Europe several times doing this act. He appeared before all the crown princes and their mistresses. The ladies all wore diamond tiaras. Later be became a contortionist and balanced on and with all kind of heavy objects. In one of his acts he used a bicycle with counter rotating wheels.

Whoever it is who has thus determined the course of ours life has, in so doing, excluded all the lives which we might have had instead of our actual life – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p249

I had not met him until after he had retired from the circus. He always had lots food on his table, usually including some indiscernible meat product. Then one day he just said that he was giving up. That is when a musky odor began to emanate from his body. It got stronger and stronger. And three days later I called on him and he didn’t answer the door. The stench from his room was horrid.  I discovered his remains. It was a large hunk of boloney and it was in the bathroom hanging in the shower. There was his neatly severed arm half gone. Was this the source of the repast that he has last feed me. Had he been eating and himself and serving himself to his guests. I felt sick to my stomach.

Not that life has not frequently given her good parts; it had, but she had not known how to play them – Marcel Proust – Time Regained p368

Infinite Substitution - Whales or Minnows Its Just a Matter of Scale

The tide takes them out and on. They were spawned. They were teeming. Now they are gone,  just a phosphorescent wake behind the ship. Whales in the Antarctic gulp them by the millions. They will return. You would thing that we would love all of this abundance, but such profundity is abhorrent to us.  Neo-liberal economics proclaims everything is infinitely substitutable. But this is too extreme for our sense of the primacy of the individual. But this is life. They are alive. I know nothing of their reality. But nothing is never enough. Consume. There is no contentment on land. The ebb and the flow, the rip and the neap, bring flotsam and jetsam. Suds form a border between the solid and the liquid. Fumes form the boundary of liquid and gas. The masses are corrosive. Everything is reduced to rubble. Everything is subtle. Everything ends.

I trust hatred more than love, It is frequently constructive, despite the propaganda to the contrary; it is less frequently practiced by hypocrites; it is more clearly understood; it is painfully purchased, and therefore often earned – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p44

Basketball will never be the same, will it? Watching TV in the customer service lounge. He was caught off guard. Nope, he replied, everyone has his traditions. Not any more, his interlocutor replied, it’s just about the dollars. Making conversation – sports – locomotives on opposite courses – freight trains passing in the night – at least it is better than the weather. It is raining.  Sense can be made out of anything said. It’s the masculine  answer to poetry. Women have the minutia of daily life to discuss. What's it suppose to be like today. Rain. All day? Well let up by noon.

“Shut up!” he explained – Ring Lardner

There were seven Amana colonies and  hills in Rome and wonders of the world - both ancient and modern. Seven each. Seven stages of knowledge and seven virtues. I think we can take the blue pencil to the ten commandments and get them down to seven too - the seven deadly sins. On second thought, I thing we already have. The seven days of the week. The seven founding fathers. 

Drenched in data, fantasy becomes reality – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p234

There’s power

            In a well tailored

            Suit

It’s not the man

            But how he

            Cuts his cloth

There is power

            In a man

            Wearing

A well tailored

            Suit

Naked innocence

            Walking

Defiling all

            Empathy
Arousing jealousy

It is only a clumsy and erroneous form of perception which places everything in the object, when really everything is in the mind – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p244

The event sits at the mid-point of the time-line

Every epoch chooses its own past and cannot know how it will be remembered – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p88

She tried on the analogy

She said it fit like the

            Leaning Tower of Pisa

Corridors are circular

It was like, I thought,

            She was trying

            On many colored

                        Winter coats

It is all so hazy

            Lying in the hospital

Its so unnatural and yet

            So natural

                       To die

The corridors climbed

            Higher and higher

Soon we reached the top

            Of the west tower

            And stretched our hands

                        Skyward

Towards the night stars
                        Touched them
They were cold and metallic
 Licked them with our tongues

Facts which are dumb, resonate when they enter fiction, and fantasies, when acted on, become factified – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006  p234

Prose makes the words conform to the world; while poetry makes the world conform to the words

Poetry and magic see the world from opposite ends / one cock-forward and the other ass-forward – Jack Spicer – The Collected Books, 1996 p189

Hello lady, what’s your name?

            Why does it rain? I’m so blue

Hello Lorrain, let it pour

            The train is overdue

It has just arrived at track number nine.

Lorrain is waiting there in the drizzle

            With a blue umbrella

The logic of passion, even if it happens to be in the service of the best possible cause, is never irrefutable for the man who is not himself passionate – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p93

Of the world’s thirty largest shopping malls, only three are in the United States

You must pay attention; but you can pay attention to anything – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p274

Coal trains

            Thirty

Times a day

Come along

            Come along

                        Come along

Thirty

            Times today

Amtrak

            On time

Freight train

            GO So Slow

Commodities (HFCS from corn)

            On track
            In time
                         (soda in cans)

Re-set your watch to

           Global time

The good books are cookbooks and good readers read them, try them, stain their pages, adjust ingredients, pencil in evalutaitons, warn and recommend their recipes to friends – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p6