Monkeys Charge a Service Fee for Picking Off Lice

Churchtalk – good natured bantering – like around the pot bellied stove – mild inoffensive insults easily laughed off (hee hee hee) – innoxious topics – reinforcing bonds like monkeys picking off each other’s lice – mutual grooming might have been an option but touching must be limited to hugging and hand shaking and maybe some back slapping (unless with your lawfully wedded spouse). I’d rather listen to half a cell phone conversation. And  all these smiles with every muscle of the face contracted at once  – its all so damn sticky – like pouring half a bottle of Mrs Buttersworth on your morning pancakes. It is not just limited to church but where ever thy gather in my  name. I’m so lucky to be working there. We have prayer meetings at the start of every day. He has been blessed by the Lord.

I was a member of a class whose money enabled me to benefit automatically from its institutions of robbers, to assume automatically its disguises of respectability. To my mind it appeared that there are two classes of robbers: the social and the anti-social – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p118

What a bureaucrat wants
That all the blanks be filled in
A word or phrase from a list
      No nonsense
This all makes sense under
      The circumstances
Whether true or not is of
No consequences
So long as no red flags
       Go up
Words, after all, had been
       Invented to occupy
The bureaucrat’s blank spaces

German youth which had been born into war, starved in the blockade, stripped by inflation – and which now, with no money, no beliefs and an extraordinary anonymous beauty, sprang like a breed of dragon’s teeth waiting for its leader, into the center of Europe – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p116

We are all donuts
     Dough around a hole

That runs through us
     From orifice to orifice
Nothing gets in us
Until it passes through
     The inside wall

Poetry was to use a language which revealed external actuality as symbolic inner consciousness – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p95

Walter was an industrial designer who just got fed up with Dilbert’s world and fifteen or twenty years ago he just up and quit a good paying job. Now he designs and builds store displays, signage, exhibits, etc. – all one off jobs that he can manage by himself – no assembly lines, no production workers to manage, no paperwork to file – even if it means no health insurance. He is my man!

It is possible in life to feel fairly good about nothing in particular – Jim Harrison - In Search of Small Gods, 2009 p59

The ‘Soup or Shuttle’ scheme crops up frequently. He also talks a lot about goats and accordions. He says its not that he likes goats or accordions per se but that he likes the idea of goats and accordions. His thinking is curlicue never in a straight line, never boring. His line of thought jumps from one concept to a variation of that concept to something analogous and then a variation of that – it goes from “Soup or Shuttle” to “Foil to Go”. I tried to interest him in “Phonus Interruptus” – a handheld personal device that would zap annoying cell phone usage (thay have something similar on Tokyo subway trains I tell him). I wanted him to design it (being an industrial designer afterall) – I though it enough to have originated the idea – no, he would have no part of it and got annoyed with me when I repeatly mentioned it – its not the thing itself that interests him but the idea of the thing.

What seemed petrified, overwhelming and intractable could be melted down again by poetry into their symbolic aspects. The fantasy at the back of actuality could be imagined, and the imagination could create its order – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p95

An old man with a white beard, blue stocking cap and umbrella slung over his shoulder is beating on the pay phone on the sidewalk outside. Twenty minutes ago he had walked inside and asked me if there was a clock - or - if I knew what time it was. I looked over at the clock on the wall and told him “4:30”. He said “is there a clock?” I said, “Yes” He asked “where?” I pointed towards it. He said “I don’t see one” “Right there” I said.  “Oh” he says “right there in front of me” and he walks out. Now he is mad and beating on the pay phone outside.

It is difficult to describe moods of intense depression, because they are, in their way, revelations and they pass away when what they revealed (overwhelmingly true as it seemed then) has vanished, been refuted by a different mood, and cannot be recalled – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p206

Who’s cool and who is not? Not the man with that big blocky goatee, black leather coat and a computer case. He has just walked across California on Fillmore and turned right and is now headed west on California. I had seen him on my way to the coffee shop and thought then that he was so un-cool. Being un-cool is attempting to satisfy an archetype of coolness and miserably failing at it. The harder one tries the un-cooler one is. Being cool is an effortless process (or at least the appearance of being without effort) of not being a member of the crowd. The more outrageous the style the more cool the person succeeding at it is. Otherwise he is a dork.

If success is corrupting, failure is narrowing – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p173

The parrots of Telegraph Hill are bedding down in the Yerba Buena Garden evergreens. Its too dark to see them except for an occasional ghostly image transitioning between trees. It’s their noise that gives them away not their gaudy plumage.

The moon passes into clouds / so hurt by the street lights / of your glance on my heart – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p206

Subsidies for Left Handed Briefs, It's Not Just a Good Idea, It's the Law

One more item to add to things that are right-handed – men’s briefs – what do you mean  by them being right handed? – It means that it is easy for a right-handed wearer of briefs (as opposed to boxes which have neutral handiness) to urinate but a left-hander has to make a complicated ‘z’ maneuver (two 180º turns) to extract his penis. For the right hander – its straight in – straight out and wiggle it about. I started long ago lowering the waist ban and going over the top, but I had never stopped to wonder why they had made it so complicated – as scissors were made to be uncomfortable (thumb in the little hole and finger in the big hole – and with the blades reversed so the cut raggedly) and coffee mugs where the sipper looked at the logo. Left handers learn to adapt – its what makes them rebels, non-conformists and artists. I only discovered this handiness of brief when reading an article about a British firm manufacturing left handed one – what do you mean left handed briefs – that’s just weird

The law represents the sovereign continuity of the past over the present controversy – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p95

And then there was the item about Obama requesting the G-20 to look at eliminating national subsidies for fossil fuel – good idea I though, but how much is fossil fuel subsidized – well it turned out that in the US alone it amounts to about $100 billion dollars a year – but this is just a guess, for no one collectss these types of statistics. For statistics to be gathered it must be in someone’s interest. You would think that in a democracy that it would be in the national interest to have open government – but apparently not. So organizations that disapprove of subsidies for fossil fuels (the greens) try to piece together some idea and in the end in comes down to guessing (tax dollars redistributed to oil companies is just the tip of the ice-berg – the largest form of subsidy is in the form of tax deferrals). After some research I found the following rough estimates: housing - $100b; agriculture - $100 billion; highway transportation - $100 billion – It would seem that  $100 billion is the threshold of unacceptability – stay below it and you stay off the radar. One substantiated figure was the $1 billion dollars that retails outlets keep of the sales taxes they have collected (26 states put no limit on what a store could keep of the sales taxes that it collected – a fee for the cost of collecting that  tax) and the total of uncollected sales taxes from those 26 states alone was $1b per year. A single big-box – Wal-Mart – alone has managed to garner $1b in development subsidies and deferred taxes (the total for all of  retail must must be staggering - the average new Wal-Mart store reviews $6m in subsidies). What about health-care or airlines or fisheries or hunnting – no one has any idea. It all makes that slogan “Tax and Spend” which is waived at Democrats seem very beguine compared to “Don’t Ask and Don’t Tell" of hidden subsidies. And does all this spending – let’s say a $1,000,000,000,000 (ONE TRILLION) a year – accomplish anything its state objectives – the overwhelming evidence is no. Maybe Obama should not rock the boat. Maybe I should stop reading the news.

Taxing what we want less of (resource depletion and pollution) and ceasing to tax what we want more of (income) would seem reasonable – Herman E Daly – Economics in a Full World (Scientific American Sept 2005) p108

“It’s funny how times have changed”, says Walter. “There was a time when I didn’t want anything but a donut. Now you couldn’t pay me to eat one.”

Walter has another idea, “What if they had a restaurant that served frozen dinners for people who wanted frozen diners but did not want to eat alone” He had just discovered Swanson’s Hungary Man Roast Beef and Potatoes. During his recent illness, he had said, it had been the only thing that he had been able to eat and he had had to eat alone. I suspected there was probably some connection between his recent illness and his new business proposition.

“What if you could bring your own TV diner and they would heat it up for you. You bring your favorite frozen entry to the restaurant of choice, they heat it up and serve it you. For a fee of course.” “Something like a corkage fee”, I suggested. Walter says, “A foliage fee” - “Hungry Man ready”. “What about home delivery of TV diners - ‘Foil to go’ or ‘TV diners on wheels’”, I interjected.

Walter says that they could heat it on the radiator – “another product for ‘Soup or Shuttle’” And what is ‘Soup or Shuttle’ you ask? Another of Walter’s schemes. He says that the Supershuttle that picks you up and takes you to the airport could put soup in the radiators of their vans. When they picked you up, especially early on a cold winter day, wouldn’t it be nice if they could offer you a hot bowl of soup? A little tap at the front of the van would make your day.

Discourse is a matter of developing a way of putting things - a vocabulary, a rhetoric, a pattern of argument - Clifford Greetz – Work and Lives: the anthropologists as author, 1997

Later I will turn and ask Linda “If I read Walter a Walter story would he appreciate it? She replied “Oh, I think so. I think he enjoys being the center of attention.” “Regardless of the nature of the attention” I ask her. “Well there are limits” she replied.

Narratological issues - how best to get an honest story, honestly told - Clifford Greetz – Work and Lives: the anthropologists as author, 1997

A system is comprised of actors who derive benefits from the systematization of an activity. Criminals are not part of the criminal justice system.

Its 9:37AM and the red voice mail light on my phone is blinking. I have been farting around writing in this notebook. Time to get to work

I was held in cages of time which seemed infinite and which I believed never would pass – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1994 p31

At 2:48 – I recorded a voice mail extended absence message.
At 2:52 – I updated my E-mail bounce back message updated.
At 3:55 – I was Back at the Royal Ground

How to sound like a pilgrim and a cartographer all at the same time - Clifford Greetz – Work and Lives: the anthropologists as author, 1997

From the banks of the Mississippi to the banks of the James, I did not (that I remember) see, except in one or two towns, a thermometer, nor a book by Shakespeare, nor a pianoforte or sheet of music; not the light of a carcel or other good center table or reading-lamp, nor an engraving or copy of any kind of a work of art of the slightest merit. I am not talking of what are commonly called “poor whites”; a large majority of all these houses were the residences of shareholders, a considerable proportion cotton-planters – Fredrick Law Olmsted – The Cotton Kingdom, 1861 p520

Howard Rants About Cougars. What Would Dick Cavet Say Now or Even Karl Marx For That Matter?

Café Intelligencia – downtown Chicago – between rushes – between those reporting at eight and those who don’t need to show up until nine – I tried to get on the Internet but they wanted the name of my service provider and I had none. I will try again this afternoon at Union Station – the Southwest Chief leaves at 3:15 this afternoon and it is only 9:17 now. I could have hung out at the Homewood Caribou and could have taken the 12:13 train downtown but I had the offer of a ride and went for it – what’s the difference – downtown Chicago or downtown Homewood – when it comes to hanging out? No Cougars here – lots of young art students and administrative assistants – a rant on Stern about the Cougars from Long Island chasing out the Hotties (any female under twenty-five) from the local watering holes – and therebye reducing his odds of a successful night. I don’t as a rule listen to Howard but my nephew does and he had it on and it was he who had offered me the ride – what could I say?

Men make their own history… in that each person follows his own consciously desired end, and it is precisely the result of these many wills operating in different directions and of their manifold effects upon the world outside that constitutes history – Friedrick Engels – Marx-Engles Collected Works v.26 p387

Osama has two TVs on this morning. One has sound but a fuzzy picture. The other a bright clear picture but no sound.

There will be no Dick Cavett of the future. We should count ourselves lucky that there was one in the past – Clive James – Cultural Amnesia, 2007 p99

Without sound all music videos look alike. People hopping up and down and pointing their fingers in the direction in which that they expect the audience of the video to be (at you they suppose) . They mouth into wireless mikes in a mass chorus line with elaborately choreographed routines. It takes a lot of money to produce these spectales and you should be appropriately appreciative. The more something cost the more value it has.

There are no simplistic rules for poets: if there were, any duffer could write poetry – Clive James – Cultural Amnesia, 2007 p105

Black and White photography is the latest trend in TV advertising. Then comes the advertisers logo in a bold color – this is supposed to make you wake up and pay attention. This one is for H & R Block – see the Green Rectangle. Then John Walsh comes on and says “I call it the criminal injustice system. [and that is okay, because I call HR the Inhuman Resources Department]” He is commenting on the Scott Peterson case. He is  not waving his hands in the air [I think he had a stroke - there is some evidence for this]. Its now time to go home and call in sick

I go to Herb’s Fine Foods on 24th St for breakfast. I’m having their ‘Eye Opener Special’ - 1 egg (scrambled), 3 sausages (or bacon or ham) and two hot cakes with coffee. Yum Yum?

Intermittent rain comes down in a driving sprinkle (small misty droplets falling at an angle due to the wind). The difference is raindrops cause a splash upon hitting the pavement and sprinkles do not. Supervisor Matt Gonzales introduced Paul Miller (aka DJ Spooky) both reference Gramschi and Heiddegger. Matt said that if he had won the mayoral race Miller would have been the lead act instead of the other way around.

As I approach downtown on the J Line descending into the tunnel, I get my first pang of guilt about playing hooky today. This is a step in the right direction. It is progress - I used to feel guilty about just thinking about playing hooky.

I start another list of rules (my fourth set of codifications) - Rules for Reserving Seats:

1 - Use posted placards printed with “RESERVE” or “PRESS” or “SUBSCRIBERS ONLY”
2 - Tape a sheet of paper to the seat with the reserved party’s name
3 - Rope or tape off the reserve seating section
4 - Leave a personal item on the seat - programs are not acceptable as reserve seat markers (the ushers may have placed them there)
5 - Tell others trying to take the seat that this (or these) seats are saved. In such a case the reserved seats must be contiguous with the seat in which your are sitting
6 – If you are at a bar and want to go out for a smoke, place a costar over your glass. The bartender will then not clear your space. In some parts of the country the process is reversed – put a coster over your drink to show that you are finished (observe others to determine which version of rule applies)
7 - Saving adjacent stools at a bar with personal items is not permitted. If you are part of a larger party reserve seats at a table instead (follow normal rules for reserving seats)

Nobody minds coarseness but one must draw the line at cruelty – Dorothy L Sayers – Lord Peter: a collection of all the Lord Peter Wimsey stories, 1972 p1

“It’s cool! Man!, with a Blackberry you are always occupied." The Indian entrepreneurs are back. The other one says “we need to rent an office by the hour. "Anyway," says the other, "let' s not get derailed.”

When people think about the effect of having more money, they implicitly assume that their own income increases while everyone else’s stays the same, and hence conclude that they’ll be happier… But it does not – happiness stays the same as their income, and everyone else’s, goes up – Richard A Esterline – The Economics of Happiness

This is some preliminary Indian small talk - sleeping problems - then it right into the middle of a heated software discussion. “Now we are going to get into the core of the current project - I will listen carefully and let you in on the nature of it just as soon as I learn anything - but you must remember (they become silent as one of them fiddles with his Blackberry) - you will be an insider when you learn this and may be legally liable for any stock manipulation - getting to the decision maker and not being able - the painful loss for me was Georgia Pacific - that really hurts.

There is a clear presumption that changes in the economic welfare indicate changes in social welfare in the same direction, if not the same degree – A C Pigou – The Economics of Welfare, 1929 p3

I can only hear the one asking the questions. The one sitting beside me is speaking to his interlocutor across the table in a low voice that comes across as a mumble. His companion sitting across form him seems to clearly understand him and he responds in a voice that is louder and more distinct - “but I think that the essential question would be…What would happen if…Anyway lets go over…my questions from customers is…data…understand…killing us…high road…anyway they want a response. In the past we did not want to honor them with a response. Anyway…anyway…(they have dueling Blackberries going)…shall we start it off…anyway, I’m still unpacking from yesterday…I’ve got a call with…J P Morgan… so it’s about half or three quarters of a day…I will have to move a few of these things around…you guys…anyway…yah, squeeze thin…cycle…spread around…what do you want to do…real sure thing is happening…do it right, do it right…sales get gated …spreadsheets…yesterday…that’s bull shit… start documentation on that shill…OK, what else…the background is…deflect the power center…

Exposing how the thing is done is to suggest that, like the lady sawed in half, it isn’t done at all – Clifford Greetz – Work and Lives: the anthropologists as author, 1997

I forgot my e-mail password at work. I keep entering my network password and keep failing to log on - finally it dawns on me what the problem is - a whack up along the side of the head was called for. Another small step in this process of dissociation. Bit by bit I am recovering my freedom.

Persuading us that this offstage miracle [truly having ‘been there’] has occurred, is where the writing comes in - – Clifford Greetz – Work and Lives: the anthropologists as author, 1997

For lunch I had a slice of pizza. I had it in my hand as I went to take a bit and gurplunk it slipped out of my hand and landed on the floor, under the table, at the foot of a startled woman next to me. I picked it up and put it back on my plate. Does  the ten second rule apply here or is that just at home? I think that it does. This slice is still in play, but I didn’t want to gross out the lady – she might not know about the rule. I did not take another bit of it, at least not right then. I waited for her to leave. And beshides it had landed jelly side up after all. If it had landed jelly side down I would have had to pick off all the dirt and other debris from the floor to make it safe to eat (maybe not safe but at least not gritty).

We listen to some voices and ignore others - – Clifford Greetz – Work and Lives: the anthropologists as author, 1997

Looking Up In Kansas - Where is Google Map? Can You See Their Big Eye in the Sky?

I have been playing with the apps on Facebook – the cities I’ve visited – It wants me write a review and make a recommendation – mark the cities that I might visit – Facebook wants you to comment, recommend, and rank – share my travel photos - tell others where they should go – well go to hell! why don’t you? I like Google map better. Walter went and stood at the spots were Google Map as loaded on the Mac and on the PC both pointed if you drilled straight down – someplace in Topeka and in front of hotel in Lawrence both in Kansas. Why there? you ask. It seems that the developer was from Lawrence and the one who adapted the program for the Mac did it in Topeka. And when he arrived he looked up and said he saw nothing unusual (I forgot to ask whether it was cloudy or not) – and how would one know if one had not – but was it worth a trip all the way from San Francisco? I like Google Map better than Cities I’ve Visited and it doesn’t constantly prompt me to share – Facebook is so damn promiscuous. It says I have pined 123 cities in 22 countries – I could do a lot more – but then I’d have a wall-to-wall carpet of tacks across the map. Look up and see if you can see the big eye in the sky! And as of yet on Facebook I’ve still done nothing significant other than to lurk. The more friends you have the better you can lurk.

His was a battlefield without glory, a battlefield where none could display deeds of valor: it was the frontline of the spirit – Yukio Mishima – Patriotism, 1966 p.26

Mother and son
Father and daughter
Sister and brother
       Every mother’s son
       My brother’s keeper

Husband and wife
Father and mother
       Two peas in a pod
       Growing like weeds
Man and woman
       One’s significant other
       Lawfully wedded
His sister; her brother
The children – a boy and
       A girl
Our nuclear family
Two generations happily
       Co-habitating
Like mother, like daughter
A man and his son
       Carry on the name
The couple and their
       Offspring
From cradle to grave

Today, there is more realization of problems than there is faith in solutions – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p291

Bedroom Community


Big black Ford SUV
       And a lot of debt
She had her fancy
      Wedding years ago
      Cost her parents plenty

Adjusting her seat restraint
      As she pulls away
With Federal funding
      The local police
      Are vigilant
Looking for terrorists and
      Unbridled housewives
She must watch out
      For herself
I watch her depart
Filling in her back story
      As much of it as I know
      And a few additional details
To make her seem exotic
I watch her drive away
I did not ask about the kids
      It seemed inappropriate
Nothing unusual happened
      Today

The question is the story itself, and whether or not it means something is not for the story to tell – Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy, 1990 p3

Health Care – things don’t
       Work as they promised
Oh but it does – it all works
You’ve been listening to lies
There is no global warming
And healthcare doesn’t need
       Any expensive fix
Obama is working on a new
       Set of metrics
We can all sleep tonight

In the good mystery there is nothing wasted, no sentence, no word that is not significant. And even if it is not significant, it has the potential to be so – which amounts to the same thing – Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy, 1990 p9

Illinois Route 1 – The Dixie Highway – Chicago, Riverdale, Harvey, Homewood, Glenwood and on – Grant Park, Danville, Mount Carmel and Hole-In-The-Rock – take a ferry across to Kentucky – Crossing US 30 – The Lincoln Highway – known as the “Crossroads of the Nation” as important as the Burlington crossin the Santa Fe outside Galesburg.

I’ve started cataloging rules (written and unwritten). I started with doing the laundry. I came up with 14 rules. It was my second list of rules

Language is the most massive and inclusive art that we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations - Edward Sapir

Berkeley - I’m at Raleigh’s American Pub and Grill sipping on a Black Mountain Porter. The SFB has sold out of its Grippman’s and is now serving Alcatraz Stout. What exactly is the difference between porter and stout? I ask. The bartender says that one is a porter and the other is a stout. “Do all stouts contain oatmeal” I ask. He gives a negative reply. “Do any porters contain oatmeal?” Again he replies in the negative. “So” I say “If it has oatmeal it is definitely a stout, but if it does not it is definitely not a porter but may still be a stout, Is that right? And he replies yes. So what is the definitive test how can you tell which is which? He says that the stout has a darker color and a higher alcohol content. “Is that always true” I ask. He thinks a moment and replies “No” “So” I say “porters and stouts sort merge into each other without a clear border”. The bartender is not sure. “So in the end, the only way I can tell which is which” I ask “is by the name that the brewmeister has given it? If it is called a stout it is a stout and if it is called a porter it is a porter” I finally get an affirmative reply.

I compile another list on how to hang out. My third list – this is getting obsessive.

There are moments when the past has a force so strong it seems one might be annihilated by it – John Banville – The Sea p35

Then I go to a show called “Access People” its about placing tracking devices in public spaces that control spot lights and project voices at people trigger them – sort of security devices for the art minded

It’s an art project by Marie Sester.  So far she has only put the installations in semi-private areas where the subjects mostly understood that they were involved in an artistic event. She said that she would like to have an installation in a real public space, progressing to interactions with public icons projected onto walls. The icons would talk directly with the target. So who is the audience - the target, the web viewer picking the target, web viewers watching the action, mass media audiences, the artist setting up the installation, funders developing new surveillance tools for the military/media complex. I noted that she used the phrase ‘military entertainment complex’ while all the questioners transposed it into the more familiar phrase ‘military industrial complex’. Is it the same metaphor. Voyeurs versus snipers – will the target be amused, entertained, intimidated, annoyed – or dead. Should surveillance be democratized or should it stay an elitist activity for member of the police state?

Sesler was an Eyebeam intern and a Creative Capital recipient

From Warhol’s fifteen minutes of fame to Sesler’s fifteen second of spotlight. And it was Warhol’s money after all that had funded ‘Access’ through “Creative Capital”

You can’t hate something so violently unless a part of you also loves it – Paul Auster – City of Ghosts p117

Monkeys Drink Lattes As They Drive Limos and Pretend to Talk on Cell Phones and Laugh

By eight all the seats are occupied – women are arriving in convertibles – men are resting from their weekly labors  – Sunday morning some place other than Starbucks – many leave with cardboard carrying cases loaded with  lattes carefully balanced – dangled by their handles as they return to their autos. Or they may take a  lattie in each hand with lids securally attached – one for mommy (that’s me) and one for daddy whose still at home – where we shall be returning soon. I take a sip. I’m awake. It’s gonna be a great day. At church time time stands still. One must stay awake.

Put out your hand, / isn’t there / an ashtray, suddenly there? Beside / the bed? And someone you love enters the room / and says wouldn’t / you like the eggs a little different today? / And when they arrive they are / just the plain scrambled eggs and the warm weather / is holding – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p214

Off to see Willie and the Boys – a four hour drive to Cleveland and than back. Two days ago it was the Boss – home after midnight – up for a four o’clock flight out of O’Hara. Being middle class means not worrying about how you’re going to make both the house and the car paymenta. The health care industry is recession proof – there is no pressing concerns – everything things needs a physician's signature – fee per service required (each and every time). Cash flow to match out flow is the key to happiness. The headline today proclaimed that overloaded doctors made more mistakes. Duh!

A nurse waits with a purse / and a murderer escapes the detectives by taking a public // conveyance through the summer’s green reflections. / There’s too much lime in the world and not enough gin, // they gasp. The gentle are curious, but the curious are not gentle – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p225

BURSTING OUT


The cracked egg
       Mr Humpty Dumpty
       I presume!
The egg on its head
       Columbus’ egg
       Egg on your face

             Ferdinand
Just as cracked trying
To make the world
        Mean what you
        Want it to mean
Walking on egg shells
Egging each other on
The Easter Egg
      An egg of a different color
The egg in the sky
That’s what an egg tooth’s
       For

The detective is one who looks, who is listening, who moves through this morass of objects and events in search of the thought, the idea that will pull all these things together and make sense of them. In effect, the writer and the detective are interchangeable – Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy, 1990 p9

Game time but first
        Time for the sponsor
Airtime, space-time
Time warp – time for a
        Change
The sands of time are
         Running out

No time left – I don’t
         Have time
I don’t have the
         Time
I don’t have any
         Time


Good time, bad time
The time approaches
There will be a time
Geologic time
Universal time
Daylight savings time
This is not the time – what
           Time is it


Time of our lives
Time on our hands
This time around
            Eyes on the clock
Time and time again


Its time
In no time
In time – outside of time
Another time – a long
       Time ago
Time out

Before space-time, / before there was before, / at the beginning, when there wasn’t even beginning, / was the reality of the word. / When all was night, when / all beings were still obscure, before being beings, / a voice existed, a clear word, / a song in the night – Ernesto Cardenal – Pluriverse, 2009 p194

So misty – rain is in the forecast and I without a car – below normal they say – two and a quarter inches – and the occasional sprinkle doesn’t do much to correct it. Weather is much like baseball – a game of statistics – the game is rained out – the game is the rain.

It [Capitalism] has drowned the most heavenly state of religions fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation – Karl Marx – Marx-Engels Collected Works, v6 p486-87


Everybody seems to be going onto or coming off of the Atkins diet. “You are not in balance…All sugar would not be good for you …I am not a naturalist…but the biological mechanism runs on sugar. You are right…and you are not a naturalist.” Henry and Nancy go back to discussing the process of trying to find a good mechanic for a ‘54 Buick. Henry says “…ideally it would be someone who can network who can network with the farmer in Nebraska with thirty six old cars abandoned in his corn field. Someone who can get the right part”. The guy next to him is filming a documentary about the City College football team. He says that he knows some (farmers in Nebraska or people who know farmers in Nebraska?). Nancy gets out her notebook.

Sunday morning - or at least I thought it was until I was ready to leave my apartment and went to select a book to read. On weekdays I take one of my own books so that if I loose it I will not have to deal with the library Gestapo. I started to pickup a loaner. I got this fuzzy recollection of having bought the Sunday paper yesterday. It would have been possible to have done that on Saturday but I never get the Saturday edition of the Sunday paper. If that was true then this would be Monday. Is there any confirming evidence for this suspicion? I had been operating on auto-pilot on the assumption that this was Sunday for about an hour by now. It would take more than a slight suspicion to alter my inclination. I could call a friend and ask what day this was (that would have created more problems that it would have solved). I could log on to my computer and check its clock. Then I remember having had a conversation about the Chronicle Date book. I slowly accept that it was possible that this was Monday.

Then I remembered the Super bowl was played yesterday. “OK” I said to myself, “this really is Monday” This is all part of my pre-retirement disengagement – a type of disorientation. The regime of work is losing its grip I am already resenting having to work past 3PM and can no longer even imagine working on a Friday.

[Her] feral reek, for me the stewy fragrance of life itself, and which the strongest perfume could not quite suppress, was the thing that first drew me to her, all those years ago. My hands now, eerily have a trace of the same smell, her smell, I cannot rid them of it, wring them though I may. In her last months she smelt, at her best, of the pharmacopoeia – John Banville – The Sea, 2005 p34

Such temporal disorientations are rare. I have never shown up for work on a Saturday or Sunday and have never forgotten to go to work.. Spatial disorientation is common – waking up in the middle of the night and being confused as to which home I am in – thinking I might be some former residence – I take mental stock of the floor plans of all of the places where I had once lives – one by one - until one of them seem correct - otherwise i might put my feet on the floor, stand up and walk smack into a wall in the dark. It takes a lot of effort to get the correct floorplan associated with this residence. When I get it right I instantly know it. I can now get up and not worry about smacking into a wall of wondering out into the hall looking for the bathroom.

I did laundry yesterday. I always do my laundry on Sunday morning. It is raining today

This spatial disorientation is probably not the meaning of that saying about “getting up on the wrong side of the bed” which generally means that you are cranky – “Did you get up on the wrong side of the bed or what?” – but then if you did and smacked into the wall or walked out into the street in your underwear you would rightly be cranky.

Going to places is not like appreciating diamonds into which all that is valuable has been concentrated into the hardest possible stone: nor even paintings on which the painter has selected his visual experience in order to create his form. Travel is an art which has to be created by the traveler… A re-creation of these places in our minds is an art by which we fuse our conception of their pasts with our scrappy experience of their present. To do this we have to reconcile with the past a great deal of fragmentary contemporary material – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p179-80

Monkeys Like To Drive Green Jeeps And Visit The Palaces of New Emperors

This misty, foggy, sloggy time of year when soggy leaves accumulate and swish and swirl – death with its vibrant hue and sigh is onto  me – early in the morn when moisture accumulates and drops from overhanging bony limbs and the shoulder blades are dewy and doughy – I walk alone down, up and back, around as yet deserted bye lanes where sleepy cabins slumber. When the world awakes then I shall only then myself go to sleep.

I had, I suppose, thought of myself as being a member of society in the same way as a passenger thinks of himself belonging to the ship on which he is carried – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p134

MY TONKA TOYS


A red armored truck
Then an orange tractor
       With sleeping compartment

You don’t see that many blue
        Autos any more
Earth colors are very popular
An occasional yellow cab
Then along comes a big blue
        Dump truck “All Pro Paving”
And a blue and white Pepsi Cola trailer
How about something green – a jeep
        No that one is red – there is
        Mommy in her blue mini van
Purple seems to be a popular color
For the independent trucker

Desire makes our / enchanter gracious, and / naturally he’s surprised to / be. And so are you to be / you, when he smiles – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p238

And I thought about changing the pronouns (the hes to the shes) but that would be faking it – you just need to understand that O’Hara was O’Hara and make your own translations if necessary – gender being what gender is

[A] poem fails because it does not fuse the two halves of a split situation, and attain a unity where the inner passion becomes inseparable from the outer one… perhaps the only people who attained it were the murders and the murdered – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p192

I got the car
It’s a matter of
       Good will
Not that it matters
But I don’t have any

       Natural rights
Those vested in
       Ownership
Are there any others?


So I got the car
       You see
Because I’m so very
       Very nice
What would you do
       For me
That I don’t have to
       Keep?
Will you let me be?

Somewhere I felt that there was a place which was at the very centre of the world, some terrible place like the core of a raging fire… If I could ever approach it, I felt it would be the centre where the greatest evil of our time was understood and endured. But at this thought I was appalled, for it made me realize that the centre of our time was perhaps the violent, incommunicable death of an innocent victim – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p192-93

PRIDE AND SENSIBILITY


That coat hanging there
       In that there closet
That coat with the yellow
      And tan squares and
The red lines that make them
      Into large checks
And the discolored collar
      Of fake lambskin
I found that somewhere
My roommate she says
      That she can’t understand
      How anyone can wear
      Something worn by someone

              Else
She won’t touch the thing
But that doesn’t make it
       Any less warm when
       I go out into the cold
I don’t often wear it
As I’m not often needing
       A coat wouldn’t
       Have bought
       A new one
                Anyhow
Pride has it’s cost
And I want to stay warm
Even when it means
We don’t walk arm-in-arm

Through the streets we skip like swallows. / Howard malingers. (Come on, Howard.) Ashes / malingers (Come on J. A.), Dick malingers. / (Come on , Dick.) Alvin darts ahead (Wait up / Alvin.) Jack, Earl and Someone don’t come – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p223

I’m so willing to listen
To any argument
       But the conventional
No time for apologists
I want to hear
       From you


Nonsense only resides
In that from which all the sense
        Has been extracted
Don’t talk nonsense
       To me
Say something strange

George Washington chopped down the tree, and then threw away the money… He was telling us an essential truth, namely, that money doesn’t grow on trees. This is what made our country great… Now George Washington’s picture is on every dollar bill – Paul Auster – The New York Trilogy, 1990 p103

Is this emotion
This connection a
Combination of the ambiance
       And your conversation
It is the uniqueness
       Of this moment –
The song that is played and
The poem you wrote just
       For me
You can stay – there will
       Never be
Any ennui with you here
Otherwise I shall now die

Make believe you are happy, for you are dining on my image – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p241



Oh no - you tell yourself - you have places to go, things to do. I missed out on the story of the decade yesterday. I hope I find something else as worthwhile today! That was such a tragedy that happened to the “Little Red Wagon Blues Band” – the very best of the best of all the street musicians – the ones that had the portable generator that they pulled around in that Red Flyer – damn that was great blues that they played. A buster at the corner of Davis and Market next to the California St cable car terminus was telling of having teamed up with the man and woman who played the blues and how he never wanted to get close to anyone again and was bemoaning the tragedy of it all. It sounded like my “Red Wagon Blues Band” I was curious. It had been quite awhile since I had heard them - I asked him on a break whatever happened to them. Oh yes, he said that was them. He murdered her last spring. His trial is getting ready to begin.”

There is a good public restroom at the Main Library. It seems that the transients have not discovered this one yet. Its in the basement. So far only the more adapt homeless had found it. A transient takes a careful survey of his available public spaces. He must be creative. The first thing he needs to learn is where he can relieve himself and then where he can safely sleep.

“I was the first person there to witness history that day” Manning Marable wrote at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. He was seventeen and had been sent down by the Dayton Ohio Express to file a column on Martin Luther Kings funeral.

At first I had recorded overheard conversations; now I talk to my books I converse with books – I redact and interact – I write and it is tight – it is and I am. I don’t do movie reviews. I don’t write political commentary. I don’t rank socially relevant events. I have no ten best. I only have this text.

It is ignoble…to give birth to nothing from ourselves - Pico dell Mirandola


Hand off yourself; try to build up yourself and you build a ruin - St Augustine


Who’s an independent - undercapitalizes venture - St Augustine

Be prepared for the factor that your return on investment may not be monetary

Roll on, reels of celluloid, as the great earth rolls on! – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p232

When Monkeys Get Diarrhea They Have To Dip Madelines in Chamomile Tea

I’ll run out of ideas – have noting left to write about. I’m tired of this style and will never paint another picture – never pen another word. Every crisis of indecision and each dead-end is a mini depression – just enough to dip your Madeline in (of if you must, your little toe). And I was thinking as I was driving over here this morning something will write itself down (you must sing not only for your supper but also to get out of the dumps) – and if it don’t happen when I get there (where ever there may be this day), it will happen later – the thing one really needs to worry about is a diarrhea of verbiage (some say I’m already there) – a writing that cannot be stopped – page upon page – day upon day and even in the night – year after year until your dead – life occasionally presents you with a passion that it is incapable of containing.

What happens to the blue world / with its necklace of lights and arteries / and ever, throbbing through air / so ill – intentional and other-directed? – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994

The atomic bomb blew
The modern world away
It fried the belief of a
Possibility for a new age
It was unthinkable to do
        Anything else
Than to hold the line


The atomic bomb
Was not dropped
         On Japan
It was dropped
On any hope
For a future

It is intolerable that men who, with their minds, have invented machines…., and in their policies made themselves the half-slaves of these machines, should not be able to unthink what is a product of their intellects – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p286

Outside the world’s

         All business – it was snowing
Inside there is no
          Peace of mind – there’s a blizzard
         Occuring
These two worlds
          Are distinct
But interdependent – and I'm snowbound

The tragedy of the 1930’s was the blindness of the many; the tragedy of the 1940’s was the ineffectiveness of the few – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 p291

It’s amazing how many knew
          That is was Mark Twain
          And that it was a unit of
                        Measurement

Everyone looks forward
          To the daily quiz
Some even call in ahead
So they can look up the answer
          On the Internet
Except for the questions relating
           To sports and celebrities
I do pretty good and always
Donate my winnings to
            The tip jar
I’m among the elite
And don’t have to cheat

‘You have to be beaten and broken by things before you can write about them.’ To hold strong views and feel deeply about what, however significant and important, was outside the range of one’s experience, was not enough – Stephen Spender – World Within World, 1974 (quoted of Virginia Woolf) p158-59


The Breakfast Project - I’m at the Civic Center Muni Station I will take the first train outbound. A two car M is approaching. At the first stop where I see a chance to get breakfast I will get off. This is my new project. I call it my breakfast project. I will make up the rest of the rules as I go along. Making up rules is fun. We did it a lot when young but are taught its not what an adults does – such is or lot in life. I get off at Balboa Station. Then I took the J inbound. There is a place called the Geneva St Café but it is closed. I headed towards SFMOMA to meet Michael at 11:55. I notice the California poppies blooming along the track. I spot what might be a good breakfast place at Church and 30th - Hungary Joe’s. My appointment is near so I note to come back some other time

Risk in real life is driven more elementally by the fear of failing to act. In a dynamic society, passive people wither.

I go to the Thirsty Bear for a Winter Bock after seeing the Arbus show at SFMOMA with Michael. I watched Ant Farm’s “Burn” for the second time. I laughed. Michael was amused by the re-enactment of the ‘Dog Day Afternoon” bank robbery by the original perpetrators but had to get back to the office and finish a project. He said Arbus reminded him of me with all of her scribbling in notebooks. Walter thinks that I am the real author of “All Over Coffee” but he also thinks that I am channeling Bokowski – more about that later.

Those in a position to grab everything, usually do

I take my fist sip of the my bock - ah, that is good. What are you doing this afternoon Michael had asked? “One thing that I am not doing this afternoon” I told him “was going to 101 California.”

“Overweening conceit which the greater part of men have of their abilities…the chance of gain is by every man more or less overvalued” - Adam Smith

A blond with a white Irish knit sweater faces me (not literally - she is facing in my direction). She is over there, over in the corner – can you see her. She talks with her mouth fully open. It a good thing that she has manners, I wouldn’t have wanted to see her chewing her food. She fiddles with her hair while she talks – see here curling that blond lock around her index finger. She keeps opening and closing the fist of her left hand a she talks nonstop to her girl friend who sits across the table from her. A baby prom is beside her friend. An infant’s little feet stick up in the air. She momma pick up baby and sit it in her lap. She will not allow it to interrupt her monologue. Both of the friends have quited down. No, she just stopped making her wild hand gestures..

Not to gamble is to accept oneself in advance as a failure - the rabbit’s eyes dwell on the fox’s paw

Six pitchers filled with Sangria are at the ready behind the bar. The counter is staked with glasses (I count them - eleven different types). They are waiting - washed, gleaming, and stacked - for TGIF after work crowd.

The baby is sucking on its bottle of milk. Mother is fiddling again with her hair, still displaying those pearly teeth as she talks. Her talk is interrupted but only moomentarly as she sucks on the straw in her drink. I wonder, “How many more of these luncheons will she have with old girlfriends before the last of her youth fades and motherhood consumes all of her time.” The novelty of motherhood is still evident in her school girl face.

As moss fills the stone with longing no hands can tear away – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems of, 1994 p209