Spying on PrideFest Terrorists - Flying in From Barcelona with a Couple of Keys

A fun run today – huffing and puffing leading dogs – re-hydration tables have been  manned – everyone gets a t-shirt. I need to figure out why some have red ones and others have blue ones. Blue seems to be for the volunteers. Now there is just a trickle and they are not running anylonger. They are now just walking their dogs. And now the ones with the blue t-shirts are packing it in. A few straggles and then there were none

Pennsylvania Gov Rendall thinjs that his state’s Office of Homeland Security has made a mockery of the state’s responsibility to protect ‘critical infrastructure and collect and share creditable plots to harm it – “ protesting against an idea, a principle a process, is not a real threat against infrastructure. Protesting is a government given American right, a right that is in our Constitution, a right that is fundamental to all we believe in as Americans… Tell me, what critical infrastructure does the gay and lesbian PrideFest threaten?”

I’m waiting for Chet, Ceri is here and says that she will have to go about the time he said he would be here. I told him that I’d be here at 9:30. It’s 9:15 now. I’m here and Ceri is here. I got up this morning and said to myself if it is  after five o’clock I shall go ahead and go – it was almost 5:30 (Michigan time – 4:30 Illinois). I was east of Benton Harbor. I made it to Homewood by 6:30 just as it got light. The truck is packed, goodbyes have been said – Katy and Joe are still in bed – She did a bikethon yesterday and he has jet lag form his fight back from Barcelona. Tell them both Hi for me. And I then I leave.

There is a land, / far, far away / and I will get there / everyday – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p460

He finds a place that he likes
She will be ok with it if I am too
He had satisfied as many of her
       Demands as he could
I stood on a swaying dock
She was tempted to push me in
There can never be enough revenge
        Unless you die
Is it always this cold and windy?
       Yes here at this place it is
There had been no need for anxiety
Did it make any difference
       Being off your meds
Not that I can tell
She headed back home
He started his the new job
     The next day

How I hate disease, it’s like worrying / that comes true – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems, 1971 p361

US household wealth dropped another 1.5 trillion dollars in the second quarter of this year. Since 2007 it has dropped 17% from $64.7t to $53.5t

It is around property that we piece together our last tattered religion, and our visual works of arts are its ritual objects – John Berger – Selected Essays, 1971 p105

Women’s beliefs in global warming tend to align more closely with the scientific consensus than do men’s beliefs. But it is men who clim that they have a better understanding of the phenomena than do women.

When people reach for the real through such strenuous encounters, natural settings get transformed into performance sites – Thomas De Zengotita – Mediated: How the media shapes the world and the way you live in it, 2006 p216

Warmest night of the trip – it was in the 90s this afternood. Setting up camp is exhausting in this humidity. I am soaking wet.. The more leaves that fall the worst the heat is – there is nothing to provide any shade – a breeze blows and that makes it almost bearable – Boulder Lake, Jasper Lake, Granite Lake, Agate Lake; exotic names for a lot of former gravel pits – motors above 10 hp must be operated without a wake. He tells me that those are carp and shad that are jumping. At least, he says, shad is food for bass and carpie.

But there is no going back to reality just as there is no going back to virginity. We have been consigned to a new plane of being engendered by mediating representations of fabulous quality and inescapable ubiquity, a place where every thing is addressed to us, everything is for us, and nothing is beyond us anymore – Thomas De Zengotita – Mediated: How the media shapes the world and the way you live in it, 2006 p14

When age and experience are factored in for public sector workers they actually earn less than do private sector workers – it would seem the public sector is the employer of last resort when the over qualified worker has out priced himself out of the private market (thorough experience and/or education). The private sector prefers barely qualified workers – those that can be obtained at the lowest cost. It is a sham that more education makes you more employable – or at least it would be if there was no public sector created job market. The higher the education the higher the penalty for public sector work – with a high school education there is a 2% premium but with a bachelor’s degree there is a 7% penalty.

YOU: Back and forth across / time, lots of things / one needs one’s / hand held. Don’t / stumble in the dark. Keep walking. This is life – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p501

The worldwide cost of tending to patients with dementia is currently $640 billion a year with the number of people with dementia expected to double in the next 20 years.

I drink to smother my sensitivity for a while so I won - Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems, 1971 O’Hara p330

A Dog and Its Bone; a Cat and Its Mouse - Is it Just Random or Does it Have a Purpose?

A big storm has been predicted for tonight – the campground hostess made a special trip in her golf cart to inform me. No one was here when I went by before, she said. The dog and I were probably out hiking, I replied. I had already heard about the weather forecast from the neighbor in the handicap site. I was busy tying down the rain fly. This would be the first big test of the storm capacity of my new tent (and it failed). That’s when I discovered that I needed a beach ball.

Walk // All the way, you’ll / get there, poor, poor dog – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p501

I refill my coffee cup. I try a sample of their caramel apple muffin. I am tempted, but no I shall pass. Today’s question – What is the only mammal which does not jump? I guessed a bat but I was wrong. The answer is the elephant. I was on the wrong end of the scale.

You wouldn’t expect actors to feel shame on behalf of their characters would you? Mediated people who identify themselves with attitude are similarly immune – Thomas De Zengotita – Mediated: How the media shapes the world and the way you live in it, 2006 p100

The lie is a public statement; the truth is always a private matter

There might be / an imaginary / place to be / there might be – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p427

Redamaks for lunch – the working man’s lunch – cheeseburger w/fires and a Bell’s Two Hearted to drink. Redamaks, New Buffalo, Michigan – Bite into a Legend – You have a great afternoon hon!

Waiting for a bus / the bus, vehicle get me / home to something / where dinner // is prepared with care, / love is found in the icebox – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p503

Partially as a result of global warming, Canada may be the next global power. This is according to Laurence Smith’s “The World in 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilizatron’s Northern Future” – The Polar Tigers supplant the Asian Tigers.

Having mistakenly thought that Bebe Daniels was in “I Cover the Waterfront” / instead of Claudette Colbert it has begun to rain softer and I walk / slowly thinking of becoming a stalk of asparagus for Halloween – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems, 1971 p346

Bluegill and sunfish
A half dozen markup a fry
While the sumac turns red
Over a wood fire by the creek bed
And the blue jays squawk
       Never content

I cannot change it, / the weather / occurs, the mind / is not its only witness – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p337

One in four Americans trust their national government to do what is right most of the time. 66% only trust the government some of the time. The lowest point of trust was in 1994 with 17% trusting the government most of the time. The high point was right after 9/11.

Previously, the conditions under which two thirds of the people of the world lived were approximately the same as now. The degree of exploitation and enslavement was as great. The suffering involved was as intense and as widespread. The waste was as colossal. But it was not intolerable because the full measure of the truth about these conditions was unknown – even by those who suffered it. Truths are not constantly evident or the circumstances to which they refer… Previously it [imperialism] had demanded cheap raw materials, exploited labour and a controlled world market. Today it demands a mankind that counts for nothing – John Berger – Selected Essays, 2001 p110

Like a rainbow, I grow old
Not unlike a dog and its bone
As if I were not here
As if I were someone else
Similar to what had not been said
As alike as a cat and its mouse

The heart of the matter is knowing whether evil (sin or crime or whatever you want to call it) is random or purposeful. If it’s purposeful, we can fight it, it’s hard to defeat, but we have a chance, like two boxers in the same weight class, more or less, and we’ll just have to hope that God, if he exists, has mercy on us. And that’s what it all come down to – Roberto Bolańo – The Savage Detective, 1998 p420

Capital Accumulation and the Art of Fishing - I Head Homeward Out of Homewood



Leaving Homewood for Kanas City - photo by Chet Chylinski

 The tent has a design flaw – which I discover during the first heavy rain – it will require a beach ball to correct. I tried a county park along the Cedar River below the bluffs. I followed an RV down a dead-end gravel road – there must be a campground near about if it is going in (see, everything has its utility, even an RV) but there were only three non-electric sites and they were poorly situated (as always) and cramped. It was not worth the three dollars I would save. I like the idea of flush toilets and showers so long as I can stay away from the overhead lights, but especially I like my privacy.

At the most general conceptual level, mediation means dealing with reality through someone else – Thomas De Zengotita – Mediated: How the media shapes the world and the way you live in it, 2006 p8

Fishing is second only to camping in popularity among visitors to Viking Lake – bluegill, red-ear sunfish, large mouth bass, channel catfish, crappie and walleye. Any size of motor is allowed on the lake so long as no-wake is created. Do to the number of complaints visitors are required to clean up after their dogs. In addition to the lake there are 16 walk-in silt retention ponds that hold bass, bluegill and catfish. The world’s largest coffee pot and cup is nearby. There is no designated storm shelter in the park.

The “breathtaking banalities” / one only accomplishes in / retrospect. Hindsight - / they cal it – like the / backend of a horse. Horse’s ass, would be the way – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p412

I am again the sole tent camper – there are RVs over beyond the restrooms, but they do not count as I can’t see them for the trees. What you don’t see and what you don’t hear does not exist. I notice that there seem to be no airline routes crossing over this part of the country – no contrails by day, no blinking red lights at night. This is the first time that I’ve ever noted their absence. Last night there were three tents on the hillside above me. There was a conversion van down where the road made a loop back just before the group campsite. Dinner is on. The fire has been laid. The dog has wolfed down his hotdog. It is quite except for when a train roars by. The tracks are to close to the campground – it is rare that one is not in constant contact with the transportation infrastructure – a freeway, a jetway. The whistle of a distant train is good. The clickity-clack of a fast freight is bad.

The rainbow is stooping over the Chrysler Building / like a spineless trout, ugly and ephemeral / it is no sign of hope when things get ugly – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems, 1971 p324

It rained in the night. I almost got lost in the cornfields in the dark and in the rain. As a wee lad I was warned about getting lost in cornfields but even then I knew that if you just followed the row you would eventually come out of the field on the far side. But this was not a familiar field and I didn’t even know in which direction camp lay. I finally figured that I was on the far side of the lake from the campgrounds. It would be much shorter to return the way that I had come. I found the trail again. It was quickly getting dark. I had a long ways to go. Then it started to rain but not very hard – more of a drizzle that a downpour. Up ahead I could make out the turnoff for my campsite - finally. Then we (the dog and I) were there. I got a fire started. The dog went to bed.

I resolved it, I / found in my life a / center and secured it – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p317

It is 86 and there is no shade
All alcohol prohibited in the park
I drink a beer anyway
It’s no big deal that it’s so hot
At this time of season the flowers
Are all yellow and purple
A little hummingbird flitters by
And orange butterflies sip
The last of the nectar


With every breeze elm
Leaves rain down
The walnut trees are already barren
Except for their husk encased nuts
That look like little sour apples
Most everything is still green


And by mid-afternoon the sun
Has gone behind a still leafy tree
And I am sitting in its shade
And most of the beer is gone
And what is left is lukewarm


A breeze rustles the remaining
Leaves and frogs crock
Insistently
And I know that summer is over
And that winter is coming

Now the violets are all gone, the rhinoceroses, the cymbals / a grisly pale has settled over the stockyard where the fur flies / and the sound / - is that a bulldozer in heat stuck in the mud – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems, 1971 p346

The foundations of schooling are rooted in alchemy.Pedagogory for the masses is an outgrowth of alchemy and it has been co-opted into the theory of capital accumulation.

Truth is a small / stream one steps over, / wisdom an insistent preoccupation – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p504

The Little Dog Jumped into the Last Lifeboat with the Women and Children as the Titanic Sank, I Sang Nearer My God to Thee

For a moment the computer monitor worked – I got the whole screen. Then this morning it was back to the bottom third not refreshing. And I have to sit outside because of the dog. Chet wanted to know if I wouldn’t like to take the dog inside with me? I don’t think they will allow it, I tell him. They have public health regulations in most jurisdictions that prohibit animals except for Seeng-Eye Dogs in places whee food is served. I’ll ask, he said. He came back out and shook his head. I though so, I said. There are three guys out here talking sports – right after the war he played for Indiana. Today’s trivia questions is – “In what year did the Titanic sink?” “1912.” I responded. “April, I think.” I thought it might have been the 12 of April but no use showing off. “Right!” and I got the discount and put it in the tip jar and took my coffee outside where I could be with the little dog. I looked it up later – it was April 14th. The Titanic had left Southhampton on its maiden voyage on April 10th. On the 12th it had been half-way to hell.

And the little box is out on the sidewalk / next to the delicatessen / so the old man can sit on it and drink beer / and get knocked off it by his wife later in the day / while the sun is still shinning – Frank O’Hara – The Collected Poems, 1971 p371

There is something melancholy about the first time you undress together. It was not like this when I was younger. I did it without reflection – who had time to waste thinking. It all went by in a blurr. There was no thinking at all, at least not by the conscious brain

Or if her tits be rose, or roses, or any / flower, with what say, to water this / garden of particular / intent – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p35

What we receive in return for giving up what we know is the allusion of knowing what we don’t know

Mediated people in a world of effects aspire to exclude all genuinely tragic visions of the human condition – Thomas De Zengotita – Mediated: How the media shapes the world and the way you live in it, 2006 p70

The trains roar out onto
     The prairies like rocking horses
The plains with their associated ponds
Where blue gill and sunfish reside
The bobbing cork’s bobbles tells
The boy that there is a bite
Another six will make a decent fry
The lad waves and the engineer
      Waves back


The young man holds up his catch. The older man
       Smiles. Steam hisses from his machine
A plume of smoke lingers on the horizon and then
      Dissipates

I think I see how his taunt can be my staircase, / For if I brought all this stuff inside / There must be an outside to bring it from – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p276

26% of currently employed Americans suffered at least one spell of unemployment since Dec. 2007. Of these 37% are being paid more than at their former job but on 28% of them say that their benefits have improved. 80% of the recently re-employed say that they are satisfied with their current job but for workers who had not lost their jobs the satisfaction rate is 89%. 54% of the re-employed feel that they are overqualified for their new job. I suspect that expectations have diminished.

“Yes, but what does the term ‘human rights ‘ mean? The American idea is based completely on the fact that American have always had more than their share… and they’ll understand soon enough that what they had so far have been only privileges, not rights – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p70

Eliminate the middle class and you have eliminated the need for the security state and also any hope for democracy

Happy the man who loves what / he has and worked for it also – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p414

Katy did
Katy didn’t


Katy might
Katy can’t


Katy in daylight
Katy at night
Katy on the line


Katy danced
Katy sang


Katy slept
Katy awoke

The beginnings of expression but not the ends, the ends of expressions but not the beginnings… They all keep moving. And the camera keeps moving too, gliding, peeking, glimpsing… everything in motion, every which way – De Thomas De Zengotita – Mediated: How the media shapes the world and the way you live in it, 2006 p195

The liberal wants to improve the situation (the process needs moral guidance). The conservative believes that the process is already ideal and would correct any problems if only left alone. The liberal believes that men can behave ethically and that ethical guidance of society is necessary. The conservative believes that the process is perfect and that man is imperfect and the ideal can only be obtained when the process is left to run its course. One set of believes constitute a pragmatic view of capitalism and the other is a utopian view of capitalism. Both believe in Capitalism. Even Socialist believe in Capitalism. The Conservative believes in the Capitalist State. The Socialist believes in State Capitalism. The Liberal is suspecious of both ideological positions. They all believe that their positions are non-idological and that all that believe otherwise are ideologues.

All left-wing parties in the highly industrialized countries are at bottom a sham, because they make it their business to fight against something which they do not really wish to destroy – George Orwell – Dickens, Dali and Others, 1946 p144

Losing Weight from Unknow Causees? It May be the Result of the Sexual Desires of Aliens!

It’s a cool overcast day. It wasn’t as cold last night as the night before that. The coffee is perking. The dog and I take a walk up to an overlook of the spring fed vale. I had to make a run into town yesterday afternoon to get some ice. Obama’s commitment to America's growth slowed me up a bit in getting up the hill – caution flagman ahead. The foreman of the construction crew has an RV next to me in the park. One of his workers gets a citation for not paying his fees and for sucking on the teat of modern camping’s improvements without re-imbursement. He packs up his pop up and departs after dark to park next to the bulldozers and the front loaders. It is OK because he probably has a lot of child support payments to make and in one form or another the government will get it all back – but maybe not this particular jurisdiction. The claim that immigrants are taking away the jobs of citizens has never been substantiated and now there is evidence to discredit this spurious claim and at the height of the bellowing about crime on the borders and hoards of illegals evidence is coming out that the contrary is true. I am beginning to have my doubts about the veracity of all public statements and sentiments (no this in not true, I have had these doubts for some time now). It's mostly about people trying to hold on to what the have by stomping on the unfornates below them. The rich are doing the same to members of the Tea Party.

ECHO OFF: Can’t myself / let off this / fiction, “you don’t exist, // baby you’re / dead” Walk / off, on – the light bulb // overhead, beside / or, the bed, you / think you laid / on? When, what – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p422

Across the campground is a circle of fifth-wheelers with a fire-ring in the middle. I don’t see any vehicles. Indians must have stolen them all. There are a lot more RVs than there are people, but like other homeowners you rarely see them except when they need to shop. The RV is the equlivant of a lakeside cottage – for both you deduct the interest on your mortgage. It’s the idea that people think that are getting away with something, that motivates them – but is conformity to a government program a meaningful way to rebel? It's like walking across the street when the little hand is amber. Come this weekend, they will all be back. The Indians are doing just fine with their smoke shops and their casinos. One man’s addiction is another’s butter.

Attitude comes as close to authenticity as the ethos of reflexivity allow – Thomas De Zengotita – Mediated: How the media shapes the world and the way you live in it, 2006 p100

The night’s dew drips form the trees
The finches chirp up in the branches
The morning begins with a cup of coffee

That “any number of meanings” quality keeps you in motion, but depth asks you to stop. Depth is to your life what dead air is to a talk show – Thomas De Zengotita – Mediated: How the media shapes the world and the way you live in it, 2006 p184

She is learning how to perform service all on her own, says Richard who says that he should know because he grew up in New Orleans where excellent service was the norm. Trice, he says, is learning that service in itself is not demeaning. It’s just a way to make a living. The secret I say is not to observe yourself. He agrees.

He followed the course of thoughts because he was tied on behind – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p46

The FBI was originally organized as a kind of Dept of Homeland Security – it’s original assignment was to investigate organizations for “alien subversion” and track down draft dodgers during World War I and it performed this function largely through the assistance of an all-voluntary group of 250,000. These volunteers were given official police badges that read in part, “Auxiliary to the U.S. Department of Justice”. They were encouraged in their efforts by the agent in charge, J Edgar Hoover, to hunt down and report “seditious and disloyal conversation” and participated in what were called the “Slacker Raids” which rounded up anyone suspected of draft evasion, pro-German sentiments, pro-socialist views, or rationing infractions. 50,000 men were taken into custody and jailed. Fewer than 50 of those jailed were ever actually arrested and 5,000 of them were eventually inducted into the Army. Mass trails were held of union organizers with bleachers installed to seat the defendants many of whom received sentences of up to 20 years. Under the 1917 Espionage Act it became a crime to aid, abet, or counsel anyone to avoid service in the military. It was illegal in many states during the war to be un-employed

Nothing happened today. And if anything did, I’d rather not talk about it, because I didn’t understand it – Robert Bolańo – The Savage Detective, 1998 p118

There is a big funeral at St Mary’s. The first policemen to die in the line of duty in over a decade is being honored at ten o’clock. The attendees are expected to exceed the capacity of the Cathedral.

I’ve not taken my medication since Monday. Am I staring to feel it? I’m not sure yet

There is a despair one comet to / awkwardly in never having known / apple-breasted women – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p79

Having guests is tiring. Not the guests. It’s the change in routine I suppose. I have to nap in the afternoon, change my pace, do things differently - not things that you didn’t want to do, just different things. I left my Muni pass so that my sister could ride the cable car as I sat out for the coffee shop. Like any Saturday afternoon it was packed. I considered several alternatives but they all involved Muni and I considered Frank’s Bohemian for a brewski, but I really did not want a cold one but a hot one and wound up at Martha and Brothers with a cappuccino. It was that or skip writing anything today and that I would not do. Sea Lions, Ft Point, Golden Gate Bridge, Sausalito and the Headlands and back. My nap. Then up and at it again. So on up to this moment again. Having visitors is tiring

Ruthlessly gentile, gently ruthless we move / As if through water with delaying limb – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p202

She was as thin as a rail, but now has a boyfriend and is putting on weight. She was once very self-conscious and shy. Now she is self-assuring and demanding. Wham Bam, thank you weed cutter man Walter has brought in an article about a Mexican gardener who was beaten up by an alien that then had sex with his weed cutter. The alien dinged the weed cutter up in his three-minute assault. The alien departed without even sharing a cigarette with the weed cuter. Frank Zappa where are you when we need you. Walter said that that was his show and tell- for today anyhow.

The sexual insatiable woman is to be found primarily, if not exclusively, in the ideology of feminism, the hopes of boys and the fears of men – D Symons – The Evolution of Human Sexuality, 1979

One remains immune to any disease that has yet to be invented, well everyone but one – the one for whom the first diagnosis is given.

I am the man on the rack. / I am the man who put the man on the rack. / I am the man who watches the man who put the man on the rack – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p274

In 1894 40% of all arrests in New York state were for vagrancy which was defined very broadly to cover any character objectionable to middle-class society – “ idle an dissolute person who went about and begged, runaways, pilferers, drunkards, night-walkers, lewd people, wanton and lascivious persons, railers and brawlers, persons without a calling or profession, visitors of tippling houses and houses of ill-fame and wandered.” We have had progress we no longer harass people for vagrancy – we harass them for being suspected of drug trafficking or suspicion of assisting know terrorist groups or suspicion of being an illegal immigrant – but the result is pretty much the same.

At least you would learn not to be afraid of God. You would see that even when God is most terrible, he is never cruel, the way men are – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p41

4% of the US energy consumption is devoted to the production of 30 million tons of plaices of which only 2 million tones get recycled. 33 Million barrels of petroleum and natural gas are consumed in the process

Kings and those who are powerful desire what weights them to the ground – Michael Ondaatje – Anil’s Ghost, 2000 p191

In 1888 there were 8,000 resistered boats on the River Thames. A year later there were 12,000 in spite of a decline of commercial river traffic.

The history of acts is the form they make / toward one another as like waves they break. // The mind is coincident to any of several impinging / impregnated incidents like tomatoes ripening – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p99

Modern man is an incurious man on the whole. He sees something and only wants to know how much the thing is worth. How much effort is he expected to devote to it? He wants to know how he stands in relation to in and thereby in relation to other men – he is by nature a democratic man.

The flattered self is a mediated self, and the alchemy of mediation, the osmotic process though which reality and representation fuse, gets carried into our psyche by the irresistible flattery that goes with being increasingly addressed – Thomas De Zengotita – Mediated, 2005 p7

Proponents of capitalism as an end in itself believe that capitalist institutions already provide the most perfect form of individual and collective development. They believe that capitalism is a revolutionary and progressive force in world history… Capitalism is antiimperalistic and liberates people form irrational and hostile human relations – Martin Carnoy – Education as Cultural Imperialism, 1974 p5 – Karl Marx was such a believer.

Materials buried per acre in US cemeteries (excluding human   
                                            bodies):
        Embalming fluid      1,000 gals
        Steel                   97.5 tons
        Concrete              2,028 tons
        Lumber               56,260 board feet

From the private ease of Mother’s womb / I fall into the lighted room. // Why don’t they simply put me back / where it is warm and wet and black – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994p247

The average American uses 23.6 rolls of toilet paper per year

It is notable that Kipling does not seem to realize, anymore than the average solider or colonial administrator, that empire is primarily a money-making concern. Imperialism as he sees it is a sort of forcible evangelizing – George Orwell – Dickens, Dali and Others, 1946 p144

I Get a Wet Tongue in My Face First Thing in the Morning

A cool night makes the sunshine of the morning, once it breaks over the top of the tree line very very welcome. I have my first cup of coffee, then I walk the dog (it slept at the foot of the cot). Kissy kissy its time to get up and I get a wet tongue in my face.


Charles Bukowski says that writing a poem should be like taking a shit. When you turn around its just there and if it’s good, well it really stinks. I’m in the southwest corner of Iowa. Corn, corn – corn feed cattle, corn fed hogs. In one end and out the other. The body is a donut.

I had  forgotten the instructions on pitching my new tent and  I bent a pole. The Labor Day campers were leaving just as I arrived. Are you interested in selling your extra firewood, I asked. Well, let’s see! It cost me six dollars a bundle. But I figured he had enough junk to pack back to Council Bluffs without hauling the firewood back too and I was right, he said I could have what was left. I gave him five dollars. It was enough to get me through eight nights with some to spare. The signs all said “Save our trees buy only local firewood.” But the emerald woodborer infestation was traveling east to west and I was going the opposite direction.

Tectonic slips and brutal human violence provided random time-capsules of unhistorical lives – – Michael Ondaatje – Anil’s Ghost, 2000 p55

Daylight savings time may actually increase the use of energy rather than reducing it’s usage which has always been its primary reason for having been implemented – greater usage takes palce as fanss and air-conditioners are turned on more during the extended summer day and usage of gasoline increases as people take more trips to shop and to dispersed sites of recreation (lakes, golf courses, ball parks, etc) There is even evidence for an increase in traffic accidents and an increase in the rats of suicides and of heart attacks during the extended hours.

Every writer, especially every novelist, has a “message”, whether he admits it or not. All art is propaganda… On the other hand, not all propaganda is art – George Orwell – Dickens, Dali and Others, 1946 p56

Geometry


Lines of affection
Angles of dissatisfaction
The hypotenuse of truth
The arc of consensus
This geometry of life

Early in life the line is straight / made straight / against the grain – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p119

Odds of an apocalyptic event occurring in near future (Scientific American Sept 2010):
     Solar superstorm (knocking out power grids and computetes)
                             5% in next 15years
     Killer pandemic        50% in 30 years
     Runaway global warming 50% in 200 years
     Supervolcano            1% in 1,000 years
     Nuclear war             3% in 10 years
     Giant asteroid           0.000001% in 100 years

Either we are God, or God isn’t – Balzac

What we admire about the rich is their ability to get away with what we are not allowed to – what would either bankrupt us or land us in jail – we mistakenly think that they are thumbing their noses at authority. This is delusional they are authority.

The drama of our time is the coming of all men into one fate – Robert Duncan

Decisive leadership means having eliminated (either in reality or in imagination) any means of backing out – or at least to believe that your followers would not tolerate such a thing. To be human tis to resrve the right to say ‘No’ to one’s own greatness

Once he has been under the spell of the vast, luminous silent country, no other place is quite strong enough for him, no other surroundings can provide the supremely satisfying sensation existing in the midst of something that is absolute – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p427

health problems associated with their former lifestyle. However new findings seem to indicate that there is a real difference in the mortality rates of lifetime abstainers vs heavy drinkers (including former drinkers) with the later living longer. Moderate drinking (one to three drinks per day) is associated with the lowest mortality rate.

This is a poem about a horse that got tired. / Poor. Old. Tired. Horse. / I want to go home. / I want you to go home. / This is a poem which tells the story, / which is the story. / I don’t know. I get lost – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p156

In a true labor market it would be labor who would have the choice rather than capital – to choose the work, to choose the rate, to chose the hours. Labor has none of these. Labor has the choice to take what’s offered it or starve.

Just because something works in a particular way or can be made to do so doesn’t mean that it was intended for that purpose – David P Barash – How Women Got Their Curves – 2009 p122

Money money money bolo - ching, ching - money, money bolo -- uhee - money, money bolo - sheaka - money, money…I’m trying to figure out how to write ‘sound’. I know it is not with capital letters and I know that the quote marks are unnecessary, but you cannot write pure sound just as you cannot depict pure color in words. They all need context. The Uptown Church of Christ as a sing posted outside – “Bible Answers to Bible Questions” – is in not indicative to all “expertise”

I am shut out from entering Sacred Heart. It is locked up. And as it contains no shrine I guess it is not open expect during mass? Or is it the neighborhood in which it is located? I need to do a little research on the Internet – find out the open hours for all the Catholic churches here in San Francisco:
     Sacred Heart 10AM Mass on Sunday
     Church of the Nativity - Polish Sunday@ 9:30 - 240 Fell
     St Agnes, St Benedict, St Ignatius, St Vincent de Paul, Star of the Sea, Our Lady of Fatima

The door opens / There are no snakes. / The head is on the table / And her eyes / gaze at me, / pale blue, but / blank as the eyes / of zombie or angel, / with the stunned / lack of expression / of one / who had the same as nothing – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p272

I am Obsessed with the Black Cat - It Stalks the Aisles of Gothic Cathedrals

The cat is stalking the dog and hissing – the only damage it has done as of yet is to those who get between it and the little dog – I bear a few scars and Leslie has many. I’m afraid that that cat will kill that little dog so I lock the mean cat in the basement. Then I fear that I may not have closed the door tight and that the cat may have gotten out – it meows a lot and throws itself against the door making a banging noise. But I have gone out and I sit here fearing that when I get home the dog will be dead. Maybe I should have been doubly safe and have locked the dog in the bedroom but it’s too late now for I am not there. Otherwise the cat is affectionate, but right now my fear has gotten the better of me and I imagine burying the dog in the back yard and hitting the cat with the shovel and burying it in the same hole. No that cat is just following its natural instincts and didn’t intentionally do anything evil. No it should not deserve that. I decide not to kill it. But I will keep it locked in the basement for I don’t ever want to see it again. But no, I tell myself, the door is probably secure and nothing is amiss. I hope I hear the little dog barking when I go to unlocked the front door.

If you never do anything for anyone else / you are spared the tragedy of human relation- // Ships – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982 p125

The Whitehouse is claiming bragging rights for the effects of the stimulus package and proclaiming that three million jobs have been created. The average cost of job created comes to only $270,000. That seems rather expensive but if you calculate the cost of local government created jobs (thought development tax incentives) is seems cheep. Locally created jobs average about $500,000 each – of course you have to factor in jobs destroyed by increasing the costs to already existing businesses (big boxes replace mom and pops). But still what is the payback period when expending $500,000 or even $270,000 to create aminimum wage job  mostly of which come without benefits that have to be picked up by other government programs.

There is a trend for female ornamentation to distinguish sexual availability (pubertal or marital status), while male ornamentations tends to distinguish rank and frequently puberty, but seldom marital status – B S Low – Sexual Selection and Human Ornamentation, 1979

Greenwich Mean Time is no longer used for the base term for global time keeping. It has been replaced by UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) which is used by NOAA satellites as their time reference. The Navy as well as Civil Aviation used the letter ‘Z’ (phonetically Zulu) to refer to the time at the prime meridian - www.greenwichmeantime.com. The world is divided into 24 time zones. For easy reference in communications, a letter of the English alphabet has been assigned to each time zone (less the letters ‘I’ and ‘O’). The ‘clock’ at Greenwich, England has been given the designator ‘Z’. Pacific time is designated as ‘U’. Eastern time is ‘R’.

It seems that among men and women of action… the mind, overtaxed by the need to attend to what is going to happen in any hour’s time, commits very little to memory – Marcel Proust – The Captive p31

Life is a process of discovery; discovering that you’ve been wrong and from this experience new hypotheses are derived – which in all probability will also be proved to have been wrong.

A “change of heart” is in fact the alibi of people who do not wish to endanger the statuesque – George Orwell – Dickens, Dali and Others, 1946 p20

St Dominic’s’- my neighborhood Catholic church - the sweet smell of old stone and wood and years of incense burning. The church ladies are arranging the altar, watering the flowers. They leave me alone, self assured that I would know how to use this space to conduct my spiritual life. Priests are available for private penance and instruction if requested.

The place is / not found but seeps / from our touch in / continuous creation, dark / enclosing cacoon round / ourselves along – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p169

Will the pews have that St Mary’s smell of softly brushed ebony locks? No, its more homogenized than that. The masses of bouquets are being carefully tended to up front, far away, at the other end of the nave. The odor of burning candles whiffs along with the breeze. The space is enclosed in the perfume of paraffin. When the sun is cloud blocked nave has a gloomy appearance with a little bit of light entering from the high stained glass windows.

He could not establish a connection in his mind between the absurd trivialities which filled his day and the serious business of putting words on paper – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p31

Mass celebrants are beginning to arrive , no this is a bus tour disembarking. There is the snapping of flash bulbs and the sound of a diesel engine running out front. They are Hispanic pilgrims from a single big bus. They space themselves out among the front pews and the various alcoves of their saint of choice. Kneeling and praying they are swallowed up in the cavernous space. Talking in whispers. Lighting candles. There is the sporadic flash of a pictorial keepsake. And yes outside stood a large charter bus.

For the possession of what we love is an even greater joy than love itself – Marcel Proust – The Captive p44

I move on to a small café on Steiner Street between St Dominic’s and the recreational center’s playing field with a large cappuccino. It’s a woman’s place. Chocolate covered roasted coffee beans, free, one per customer. The sun is shinning though the front window warming this hand with which I write. The musty smell of religion has not yet left me. I am wondering about the Catholic Pilgrim industry. How large is it? Who are the major players? Who constitutes a tour and why? What do they visit and how many stops to a day? How many days on the road and where do they stay at night? What is involved in putting such a tour on the road? Is it a niche market or does the industry include other than Catholic pilgrims, say Civil War Buffs also?

It is not at all certain that a merely moral criticism of society may not be just as ‘revolutionary’ – and revolution, after all, means turning things upside down… two viewpoints are always tenable. The one, how can you improve human nature until you have changed the system? The other, what is the use of changing the system before you have improved human nature?… The moralist and the revolutionary are constantly undermining one another… The central problem – how to prevent power from being abused – remains unsolved – George Orwell – Dickens, Dali and Others, 1946 p23

I have more questions than answers, but having answered the question of why GMT is called Zulu time earlier today, that is just fine.

For you can only create if you can care – George Orwell – Dickens, Dali and Others, 1946 p70

The street trees on this block all lean downhill to the south. I think that it is due to the prevailing wind. The interludes of sunshine never last long, one came and went in the composition of this line. An old white man jumps out of his car and wants to get into a fistfight with a local black lady after an altercation in the middle of the street. He finally restrained his pink ass and got back into his car. I could hear horns honking as he sailed through the stop sign up the block, still full of rage and indignation - getting pinker all the time. What shade was his anger this afternoon?

At the time of the American Revolution more than 60% of all European immigrants had arrived as indentured servants. Roughtly half of all immigrants who arrived in American as servants did not survive their term of indenture.

Get ahead
Get some tail
Give a hand
Get a leg up
If you don’t have
      The heart
I hope at least that
       You have guts
He was of a single mind
The spineless son of a
       Bitch
All head and no heart
So two foot it
High tail it
Show us your back
       Side
You yellow-livered
       Bastard

He’s going home. So the war, to all purposes is over. That’s enough reality for the West. It’s probably the history of the last two hundred years of Western political writing. Go home. Write a book. Hit the circuit – – Michael Ondaatje – Anil’s Ghost, 2000 p286

The Race to the Bus That Comes Down the Hill - A Revisionist Tale

A misty morning – now sufficient to inhibit me from walking the dog and the wanting to go out – on the way to catch the school bus, he stopped and was bouncing his back pack full of book off of the payment. It’s only a baby, but they grow up, he said. What are you doing, I asked? Killing a copperhead, he replied. I was afraid of stepping on it. He and his older brother and the other neighbor kid caught the bus at the corner just after the dog and I made our turn to head back. The timing of the bus and the timing of the kids always seems to be impeccable – the efficiency of modern technological gadgets – unlike clocks that one used to forget to wind up. Tomorrow is the last day to vote – help our school win $500,000. Most people hesitate, too leery of a scam. Oliver tells them its ok and is contributing a $25 gift certificate in a raffle of those who have a facebook page and vote for this school. Kohl’s is giving away money to the schools that get the most votes – this is the only one in the area that has a chance – but has slipped from 14th last night to 16th and now 17th this morning – the top 20 will get the funding. Sort of sounds like Obama’s Race to the Top. The Commission of Education for New Jersey got fired for entering the wrong years on the states application. I voted five times – you get 20 votes of which no more than five can be used to nominate a single school. A lot of people promise to vote – they are in a hurry the claim. Some, a few, do not have facebook pages. Some ignore the plea and walk out the door. Would you like to help our school win $500,000? Sounds like there might be a catch and they ignore her and walk on out the door. I feel sympathy for her having to make the spiel every time someone passes by and I shut-down my notice of her, but am unable to completing shut her out.

For the qualities adults think of as virtues in a child are generally considered by other children to be shear sycophancy – Paul Bowles – Too Far From Home: Selected Writing of, 1993 p446

I’m good to go. I paid my sales tax on my truck (to the state and the county), now all I have to do is file my taxes and pay my auto insurance – all I need other than living expenses is to buy gasoline. No. it’s impossible – no way can it be as easy as that. Time to hit the open road again. Throw the camping gear and the little dog (I bet he’ll be glad to escape the cat) into the truck and go – holiday travel (Memorial Day) is expected to be high (average trip 650 miles, average cost for the three day weekend, $700).

And then the bus came downhill from the plateau through the forest into the valleys and stopped at the station with connecting trains to Paris and Versailles. We got out in the rain, and each disappeared, after thinking the driver – as they do in the country – into the various suburbs, barely lit, in contrast to the city of light behind the chain of hills. Other than that I have nothing to tell about this event – Peter Handke – My Year in the No-Man’s Bay 1998 p21

But of course he could not let it lie – afterall he was a storyteller by profession – This story had to continue. And in fact didn’t it continue? At the open-air stand in front of the railway stations an adolescent was buying… - And before I went into the nearby Café de Vegageus as always, I looked up… Peter Handke – My Year in the No-Man’s Bay 1998 p22

The Postmodernist knows only the individual – himself, but he years for another. He lives in a theatre of chance – the stage setting constantly changing. He knows he is a ham actor. Postmodernism is the abandonment of what had seemed secure and safe. It is an emotional distancing of oneself from a presence that is suicidal. This lemming fears the cliffs. He wakes up wishing it were only a nightmare. He wants desperately to go back to sleep.

Evolutionists have hesitation acknowledging that whatever trait they are studying might be nonadaptive or even downright maladaptive, but in fact they don’t usually take those options very seriously – David P Barash – How Women Got Their Curves – 2009 p124

Highly religious doctors are more reluctant to discuss end of life treatment decision with their patients than are less religious doctors

He turned away from every person who stood up for a war, on the principle of one’s land, or pride of ownership, or even personal rights. All of those motives ended up somehow in the arms of careless power. One was no worse and no better than the enemy – – Michael Ondaatje – Anil’s Ghost, 2000 p119

How do you know
      When you are dying
You will know once
       You are fully  grown
When you are all that you
       Can be

You never liked it easy for too long. / I once found that this bed on which you lie / Is just a blanket-covered length of board. / For you, hardness authenticates, and when / Things get too easy, well you make them hard – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p377

Revisionism


The historians of individualism
        Are now being trumped
These theologians of the self
        Are yelling to high heaven
But this is merely historicism
Whereby everyone on top
       Wants history to stop
Perhaps even not totally cease
       But go backwards a little
       And then stop for all time
But history is the telling of a story
And this is my story

I wanted to fine one law to cover all of living. I found fear – – Michael Ondaatje – Anil’s Ghost, 2000 p135

When I Left the Alamo I Could Not Find My Car and Was Attacked by a Black Cat

The Alamo, San Antonio Texas

I’m over here in the rain to get the new truck registered and licensed. What you up to? Counting the raindrops. Or he might have said that he was trying to stay out of the rain. There is a man sitting in the comfy chair reading his Bible. He eyes me, trying not to be too conspicuous, looking at the titles of the books that I take out of my pack and place in a stack on the table in front of me. He wants to know if I am his kind but there is no Bible or other religious tract so he goes back to his reading of Ecclesiastics. He disapproves of course and of course I could care less, but not so little that I don't take note of it.  But he's not actually doing any harm so long as he in only reading it. The black cat is getting used to being chased into the basement and has convinced itself that it likes it down there in the dark and the damp. The dog is oblivious to the danger the cat presents but he as yet to get attacked without someone at hand with a pillow to swat the cat away, otherwise he would be dead. We have learned to not place our bodies between the cat and its prey.  It’s in the cats nature to stalk and this one’s defenses are easily roused by any quick motion and it is a stalker to boot. We name him Santa Anna.

I KNOW A MAN: As I sd to my / friend, because I am / always talking, - John, I // sd, which was not his / name, the darkness sur- / rounds us, what // can we do against / it, or else, shall we and ; / why not, buy a goddamn big car, // drive, he sd, for / christ’s sake, look / out were yr going – Robert Creeley – The Collected Poems, 1945-1975, 1982p132

The aches and the pains begin
       At sixty-two
Will I still love myself
When I’m eighty-four

Living with a whore – even the best whore in the world – isn’t a bed of roses. It isn’t the numbers of men, though that to gets under your skin sometimes, it’s the everlasting sanitation, the precautions, the irrigations, the examinations, the worry, the dread – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p149

Of the Americans who text message more adults admit to texting while driving (47%) than do adolescents (34% of 16- and 17-year olds).

The playful nip [of a dog] denotes the bite, but it does not denote what would be denoted by the bite – Gregory Bateson

Shop and  Dine on Columbine Drive - Some people get tunes stuck in their heads. I get phrases like this one stuck in my mind, turning them over and over like a lapidary barrel until they come out all glossy. I rush to find paper and pen and get them written down, and then I wonder why I had bothered. But at least now they are no longer rattling around in my brain – nematodes of the mind. I go into the Blue Door Coffee House on Clement for a cappuccino. Then to the Cornet to see Hellboy - the 1PM Matinee show – it’s cute and  it’s silly. Then I go to the Mechanics Institute library to pick up a copy of the IRS Schedule D. Now I’m at the San Francisco Brewery. It’s happy hours and I’m having a Dopple Weisen. And here I sit. Gee, I’ve taken to writing like goose takes to feather beds. We had the this four way conversation going. There was a British solicitor, a commercial truck driver and an airline pilot and everyone was envious of the other

I search for meaning, studying to remember / What the world was, and meant. Therefore I try / To reconstruct it in a dying ember, / And wonder, does fire make it lie or die? – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p140

A thought kept coming to me – something about becoming  comfortable in strange places – no longer being so dependent on familiar places. I think that the same brainworm had been gnawing in my skull the other day. I had intended to write it down but didn’t. Now it just seem inane. I had a dream in which I was riding on Muni. It must have been an articulated bus because it had those gray bellows. And I heard my name called and looked around and it was Marie. And I said…. And she said… And we both laughed

We quickly forget what we have not deeply considered – Marcel Proust – The Captive p31

I keep losing cars. I park them and then forget all about them and go on about my busienss.  I go and acquire more cars. I buy them. I don’t steal them. I’m not a criminal. Sometime later I remember that I had recently owned a 1947 Hudson Hornet, at least I thing I did but I have no recollection of where or when I last saw that car. And now there is a Nash Metropolitan parked in the driveway. It’s a cute little car. I am trying to explain this phenomenon to the doctor. I am telling him that I have done this a number of times but most of the vehicles that I lost track of were worthless anyway, but the Hudson , that one was worth a lot of money, I tell him. I usually bought old clunkers. What do you think happened to them he asked?  I pondered this. I suppose they just got towed off. Somewhere I had big bills awaiting me for impoundment charges no doubt? Had I accumulated many unpaid parking tickets? Were there warrants out for my arrest, I wondered? I instinctively knew that I should keep my nose clean.. This memory loss seemed to be quite specific and applied only to automobiles. Yet it did not seem strange to me that I should park a car and walk off and entirely forgot about it. I would walk past a car at the curb and it would seem vaguely familiar like a face to which you can not put a name. I probably bought many cars because they seemed familiar. I probably bought many cars of the same make, model and color. I may have bought the same cars more than once.

As if causes / could be smothered with the cry, / but the causes are forgotten / and the cry returns, / out of control – Thom Gunn [Collected Poems] 1994 p370

Twice as many people in India have access to a mobile phone as have access to a toilet

Instead of a truly personal, truly creative vision of things, we have merely an aesthetic view. Empty as we are, it is impossible for us to look at an object without annexing it to our collection – Henry Miller – The Wisdom to the Heart, 1960 p184