I Awake, I Endure Disillusionment, I Put on My Shoes

I had too much to drink, I do that sometimes. I don’t do it often. I do it just enough to remind me not to do it again. I do it maybe once a year. Go over the top. Martin and Sandy had come in just as I was leaving. Of course I had to stop and talk and have another beer – one too many. The Spaarten Optimator was the beer of the day and a Bud Lite it was not. Then the two Erics came in and I had to stay a little longer and converse with them. How many times did I tell Sandy that I liked her red hair. Sandy had been a blond. After annoying the interns from the immersion academy I left. I got to my truck and clicked the locks. Then everything went blank. I fell on a patch of ice. How long were you out, Joe asked? I don’t know. How can you tell? I managed to regain my feet and get into the vehicle. It was a tough drive home and there was black ice. I was having tunnel and blurred vision. Was it the result of the drink or a concession from my fall? There was a big bump on the back of my head but otherwise I was OK, I thought. The drive home and the time before I got to bed is hazy. I didn’t leave my keys and wallet and glasses where I normally do. I had a hard time finding my shoes the next morning. There is still a bump on the back of my head a week later. I thought I had lost my keys but they were on the ground beside the truck the next morning. Maybe I shouldn't have driven home. When you shouldn't drive you aren't in shape to make an intellegent decision - that's what impaired means.

What makes a word a word is its meaning what makes an experience an experience is also its meaning – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language p26

The largest gypsum cave in the world (with guided tours) – Massive boulders of alabaster in varied colors of pink, white and even black plus five species of bats: cave myotis, Western big-ear, Eastern piprestrelle, Western big brown and Mexican free-tail. Unlike birds bats ‘swim’ though the air – reaching forward and curving their wings around a parcel of air, pulling its body past. All the bones of a hand are contained in a bat wing except for the thumb.

I am a mystic and I believe it is true / that my body survives as long as I do – Michael McClure – Star Poems, 1978 p21

The new knowledge turns Nature into the historical description of the probability of its own becoming

In order to picture to itself an unknown situation, the imagination borrows elements that are already familiar, and, for that reason, cannot picture it – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p9

The Automobile is the main predator of deer – accounting for 80% of the reported out-of-season mortality

The comedy of life is a play that can be entertaining only so long as it’s basic illusions is kept up. To strip away disguises ruins the play and leads only to disillusionment, futility, despair, or even suicide - - Clarence H Miller – The Praise of Folly, Introduction, 1979

I awoke with a boom – it seemed kind of gloomy – I shut my eyes again and went back to sleep – a flash and then a boom again – rain – it quickly passed. The dog and I proceed with our walk. The lady a the end of the lane was already gone – having taken her son to school – She and I passed on the hill again – she coming back and I headed out. It was thirty minutes later than the time that we had passed the day before in the same spot.

Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p37

Cranes flocking

Crop dusters swooping

Hedge apples plopping

Cottonwoods rustling
Cockleburs adhering

The lake rippling

Leaves falling

Crickets hopping

Flies buzzing

Age after ages shall be / As age after age has been, / (From man’s changeless heart their way they win) – Herman Melville – Battle-pieces and Aspect of the War, 2001 p56

Those individual worlds that become interrelated form the basis of a ‘culture’ to the extent that they share symbols. This interrelationship between ones’ world and the world of another fixes the limit at which understanding becomes self-deception.

It is impossible, as impossible as to raise the dead, to restore anything that has ever been great or beautiful in architecture… Another spirit may be given by another time, and it is then a new building – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from his writings, 1963 p135

Lonely People, Winter Wheat, Customer Appreciation Night

It was 24° this morning – I ate too much and drank too much – Maria asked how much time each day had I spent with Joe. I guessed that perhaps it was as much as two hours. She said that she spent four and then asked if I also slept with him too. And I admitted that I did not. She put her thumbs in her ears and waved her open handed fingers at me – na na na – I win. I conceded that indeed she did. I asked if he snored and she said that he did. Well then, you can keep him for sure. It was Customer Appreciation night at Hooopers – second Tuesday in December. Ann passed on the message – for the Boxing Day party wear happy socks. I need to shop for happy socks. Shop, shop shop! And Christmas was just around the corner.

There is a tendency that slowly permeates civilized society, from top to the bottom to restrict the use of the knife (within the framework of existing eating techniques) and where ever possible not to use the instrument at all – Norbert Ellis

The more effort expended on marketing to the marginal the more desperate is the economy. Most of what the marginal consume are necessities - not cruises to the Bahamas or MacMansions on the Cape.

Academics failed to recognize the commercial possibilities of enunciation… to repressed marginal cultures, to tell the story of their collective subjectification through enunciation, is also to make them visible, recognizable, and even legitimate, on the powerful broadcast screens of cultural industry – Francois Cusset – French Theory, 2008 p159

If it is not in space then by default it must be in time – past or future - neither here nor there

The “enemy” which has traditionally been conceived outside, and the “dangerous classes” which have traditionally been inside are… increasingly indistinguishable from one another and serve together as the object of the war effort – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p15

Modern Education:
1. It is assumed that the instruments used to measure equalization are without bias
2. It is assumed that equal test results are equivalent to equal opportunity in choices of roes
3. It is assumed that improving the quality of the instruction compensates for any social biases

It is life that, little by little, case by case, enables us to observe that what is most important to our hearts or to our minds is taught us not by reasoning but by other powers. And then it is intelligence itself which, acknowledging their superiority, abdicates to them through reason and consent to become their collaborator and their servant – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p8

History is in the details especially those the predicate train wrecks

We do not succeed in changing things in accordance with our desires, but gradually our desires change – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p38

Their trucks were once new
Now they are rusty and
      Break down along side of the road
But the newly harvested wheat
      Must be moved


The soybeans taken to town
The cotton to the gin
Dawn is foretold by the roar
Of their turcks out on the
       Farm to market roads


The rest of us sped by
They are the last of their breed
Tilling where it is too rough for
     Moden machinery
Their only relielf is the mooing
     Of a few head of cattle

Our memory of a moment is not informed of every thing that has happened since; this moment of which is recorded endures still, lives still, and with it the person whose form is outlined in it – Marcel Proust p65

If it must actualize itself irrespective of time – whether it does happen or might happen – the investigation of such a phenomena is called science

The philologist has always and everywhere been a decipherer of alien “secrets” scripts and words, and a teacher, a disseminator, of that which has been deciphered and handed down by tradition – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language p74

Economies is at heart reactionary and it is the most disciplinary of any discipline

Heroes don’t exist only cattle for the slaughter – Jaroslav Hasek – The Good Soldier Svejk, 1973 p300

People who believe in a predictable tomorrow seem to be odd candidates for believing that God should step in when things begin to get dangerous. And if God did grant their petition would anything ever be predictable again?

Once these desired effects [of a program] fail to happen and refuse to come into the world, the fact that they were originally counted on is likely to be not only forgotten but actively repressed – Colin Gordon “Afterword” – Power/Knowledge by Michael Foucault p248

The chronicling of histological events is merely history’s window-dressing, its wound-bindings, its ball-room gowns

In wars and political catastrophes – the chief materials of our historical writings – victory is not the essence of the fight – Spengler p83

Stupidity consists of the follies of the wise which would imply that the dumb can not also be stupid and this is not be true

Any utterance – the finished, written utterance not excepted – makes response to something and is calculated to be responded to in turn. It is but one link in a continuous chain of speech performances – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language p72

But what lies beyond it? To understand science you need a concept of what science is a constituent part of.

[The Renaissance:] God without power, satyrs without rusticity, nymphs without innocence, man without humanity, gather into idiot groups upon polluted canvases and scenic affections encumber the preposterous marble. And thus Christianity and morality, and the art all crumbling together in one age – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from his writings, 1963 p48

Osage oranges on the ground
Cotton ready for picking
Winter wheat already
     Sprouting

Lonely people talking to each other can make each other lonelier – Lillian Hellman – The Autumn Garden

The Day After - Joe's Big Boxing Day Party

Boxing Day – the alms box or the foxhounds – a full day of sports – rugby matches with local rivals. Joe has his big party of the year. It’s cold outside - 17°. Wear happy socks – something colorful without holes in the toes, meaning take your shoes off at the door. Last year it snowed and I didn’t make it. This year I have a four-wheel drive truck. Scotty wanted me to meet Joann and her brother (he was a screenwriter). Scotty keeps telling his bar buddies about Joe’s Boxing Day Party. Joe gets pissed. It’s a faux pas Joe tries to explain but Scotty is not to be deterred. Scotty proceeds to tell me about him and Norman Mailer – how short Norman's parents were and why Norman's ex-wife threw him out – Scotty had invited some bar-buddies up and they drank all her liquor. Scotty never learns. That was when he was twenty-four. If you have five minutes I will teach you all you need to know about mathematics, he tells Brian. After this I will shut up. Half an hour latter he is still blabbering about the Axiom of Choice. I had heard it all before. Several times.

No one is excluded from social production, even if they have never participated in material production. Social production is inclusive; material production is exclusive

If we pretend to have reached either perfection or satisfaction, we have degraded ourselves and our work – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p190

First hard frost – thirty degrees – my hands tingled. That woman up the block doesn’t have that great a face but she is young and fit and trim. She wears snow-white sneakers. She takes the kid to school then comes back. They have three Fords (two trucks and an SUV) and they have a small boat . There is a statue of a saint (probably concrete) standing by the door and a big dog that is kept indoors. I passed here on the way out as she was coming back. I waved. She was intent upon getting back home. It was 7:24

You’re toucher: you constantly touch people or lean on them. Little moments of sensuality. One should have sensuality whole or not at all – Lillian Hellman – The Autumn Garden

Mot of our struggle to grasp the nature of Mathematics is philological – the terms of a geometric (sensual/counting) mathematics have been retained for a system that has none of these attributes – the main difficulty with mathematics is linguistic, not the mathematics itself

Books contain not persons, places and things but words - Warren Tallman – New American Story, 1965

It’s a long line. The windows are fogged. When it’s cold everyone wants something hot down their throats. A steaming hot cup of joe is mighty appealing

It is easier to relinquish a feeling than to give up a habit – Marcel Proust – The Captive

But such renunciations were not demanded of capital, just labor – the renunciation of social and political demands. Effective political and social action is only possible for groups who do not renounce their own objectives.

When two people part it is the one who is not in love who makes the tender speeches. Since love does not express itself directly – Marcel Proust – The Captive

There are three types of men
     The good, the bad and the ugly
No, on second thought only two
     Man and his mate
Maybe its only one – man all alone
     And then there are women

The whole is, after all, defined by its boundaries – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language p96

I would expect a poet to take up painting more than I would expect a novelist to take it up painting

Art is simpler than people thing because there is so little to write about. All the moving things are eternal in man’s history – William Faulkner – The Faulkneer -Cowley File

He is beaming at me. Hi there! He says. I look confused. You don’t recognize me, he says. No, I reply, I don’t. Isn’t your name Alex? No, I reply. It is not. Oh, he says, I’m so sorry. But you look just like him. You even have the same beard. And he repeats how sorry that he is. No problem, I say. Think nothing of it. I try to reassure him, but he is embarrassed and proceeds to act as if I did not exist.

This texture of expectations, satisfactions, disappointments, surprises which the sequence of syllables bring about, is rhythm. And the sound of words comes to its full power only thought rhythm – I A Ricahrds, 1966

The Abstract Nature of Santa Claus

38,000 miles of ribbon will be disposed of after Christmas in the US. The sale of batteries increased 40% during the holiday. 50 million Christmas trees were cut down

He that sees all sides
Cannot be but ironic
     Towards all
Without any inducement
     To participation
Inactive and faithless

Constant friction of illiberal minds wears out at last the best resolve of the more generous – Herman Melville

We tend to abstract nature as opposed to mystifying it or making it sensual

Our world does not follow a program, but we live in a world of programs – Colin Gordon “Afterword” – Power/Knowledge by Michael Foucault p245

When one is like another
The other is just another

The time demands… plans for international infiltration into the dry mass of those principles of knowledge and culture which the universities and their cripples have cloistered and made a cult – William Carlos Williams

Systematic knowledge – delimitation by label and number

Systematization comes upon the scene during an age which feels itself in command of a ready-made and handed-down body of authoritative thought – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language p18

They pulled in after dark and set to hunting for the very best spot – driving around and around, hollering at each other, and giving directions. This went on for thirty minutes at least but fortunately I was still up. I was sitting by the fire drinking my beer. They finally located their ideal spot; unfortunately for me it was only two spaces away. After they finally got all settled in, lowered the jacks, unrolled the awnings, hooked all the umbicals. They were no longer to be hear and I went to bed.

A war to create and maintain social order can have no end… War has thus become virtually indistinguishable from police activity – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p14

A couple of hours later I was awoken by lights flashing and people talking. I got up. There was a long line of vehicles on the road. Several men were riding around in a red pickup – around and around the campsites talking loud. The engines of all the vehicles throbbed – buses and diesel pickup (no hybrids here). They had been looking for the group campsite – they finally stumbled onto it – my bad luck, it was right next to me. A troop of Boy Scouts had arrived (what about their motto – always be prepared – perhaps they should sent out a scouting party). They then proceeded to set up camp. The boys were ok; their voices did not carry. Most of the adults had booming deep voices and proceed to bark instructions. The next morning one of them could be heard complaining “I wish I’d gotten to bed 30 minutes earlier.” What about me! Then someone began banging on a garbage can lid – time to get up. I was fortunately already up and having my breakfast by then and the RVers were shut away in their tin cans and oblivious to any noise.

“How does on man assert his power over another, Winston?” Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said. “Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough.” – George Orwell – Nineteen Eighty Four, 1949 p269

The world is my lauder
      I shall not want
      So long
As I got my do-ra-me

There is no morality to money… and immoral of people to think so – Lillian Hellman – The Autumn Garden

Your Friendly Neighborhood Banker - And Mr Whipple, Your Neighborhood Grocer

 

I wanted to tell him – that that is a weird way to dress Mr. Businessman – dark blue wide pin-stripe suit and ochre colored Italian shoes, and I can’t even see the cut of your shirt or whether your tie is made of silk. You have your leather traveling businessman’s accoutrements – black leather carrying case,  black leather appointment book, and black laptop. You are logging on to your computer, I see. You sit with your back to me hunched over with your close cropped, but natty trimmed hair – it has everything to do with status – you are an alpha dog, is that not right,  Mr. Businessman. I know this by the way you address your associate. This is the way financial derivitive traders might dress. This is the way a Mafia hit man men once may have dressed. This is the way bank executives want to to dress. This is the image of money making.

Postmodern warfare… has many of the characteristics of what economist call post-Fordist production – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004  p40

The weather is mild today – our first winter storm is due in a week – it is supposed to start getting colder this afternoon – it will be cold through the week, then warmer on Saturday when the temperature is predicted to reach into the fifties

An inspired writer, in full impetuousness of passion, may speak wisely and true of “raging waves or the sea foaming out their own shame”; but it is only the basest writer who cannot speak of the sea without talking of “raging waves”, “remorseless flood”, “ravenous billows”, etc – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from his writings, 1963 p69

Enough is never enough unless it was more than enough to begin with

Meaning is not a something – not an object, not an image, not a set of rules – not anything that can be stored… Yet meaning is not nothing either – Laurence Goldstein – Clear and Queer Thinking, 199 p43

I’m a sleep and I feel something tug at my bedding. I ignore it. Suddenly the bedding is yanked off of me. I jump up – the side of the tent has been torn away. I pull on my bedroll – a bear cub has his teeth in it and is tussling with it – next to him is his mama and she has stuck her head into tent too and her teeth are bared. She is glaring at me.  I remember what I read about what to do in case of an encounter with a bear. I should shout, but that was difficult. I finally managed to do so and immediately woke up. The bear now has her face in mine but it is only the little dog licking me. Time to get up.

It is not my brain that thinks, I can say what it is that I think. It would be absurd to say, my brain is thinking it over, but I don’t know what conclusion it has reached – PMS Hackers – Wittgenstein, Meaning and Mind, 1990

To be immortal is to not

            Experience, for it is that

            That makes one grow old

To experience and posses memory

            Can only make one

            Wish for there to be an end

The immortal will curse his fate

            For eternity while we do

            So only during this limited engagement

Here

The consternation among readers who couldn’t stand to ride on a novel without a plot track was at least as great as had been the consternation among viewers who refused to look at a painting unless they could find a picture – Warren Tallman – New American Story, 1965

The things that exist only through

            A discourse on themselves

And the things that are dangerous

            Because they are capable

                        Of murder

And then there is everything else

Separation is made painful by jealousy, but impossible by gratitude – Marcel Proust – The Captive

Being a fool may bring you happiness, but being stupid does not – it makes you oblivious – after all, that is what stupefying means

I felt that Life and the world, whose fruits I had never really tasted, were passing me by, bartered for a woman in whom I could no longer find anything new – Marcel Proust – The Captive

The Burgeoisie Family Life of Pallas Athena and The Madonna

7° right now – which is 11° below the predicted low for today. I’m cold. I haven’t been out except to walk the dog all week-end. A hot cup of coffee, some chattering house wives and some slick roads is somehow appealing.

I have a fascination for these bourgeois ladies I don’t actually want one – I’m just fascinated by them – they and their big SUVs and their big houses and the latest fashion and all of their cosmetics and all the care and fuss they go through to before they venture out. But when they start talking (and they always do) I quickly get bored. I take off my reading glasses and stare out the window as one walks away and gets into her red vehicle – she’s not particularly young, her nose is too big, and I don’t think that that is her real hair – but for the moment I’m watching her and then she is gone and I go back to more important thinks like reading. Until another one comes along. I like to watch them come and I like to watch them go.

It’s easy to be level-handed and balanced when surrounded by intelligence and comfort; such are the honnied fruits of civility – Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett – Death Rites, 2008 p60

There are no time clocks
     In these fields of toil
Yet jobs still seem to come in
     Discrete packages
You don’t get the power
     Just for doing it (Nike excluded)
But only when and where
     You’re told to
Money’s an unbroken
     Chain of custody back to Lucy
Evidence of your worldly worth
I got my government check


Why should I care
“Exploitation under the hegemony of
      Immaterial labor
      Is no longer primary
     To the exploitation
             Of value as
      Measured by labor time”

This may define a new topology
      Of activity someday, but not yet
Most everybody gets up
      And still goes in to work
      They do in this neighborhood
              Anyway

Easier said than done, the thinking for oneself – Lewis Lapham –Harpers, Nov 2010 p8

The popular conception of an interregnum is that one thing disappears and another assumes the vacant hegemony – but it is not true, having lost hegemony it does not disappear and what assume its place was already there – our lack of perception is to blame or more accurately our dedication to our cause. That one thing succeeds another is not chaos. That nothing won hegemony that would be chaos.

The organs of the political body are really primarily economic divisions, and thus a critique of political economy is necessary to understand the body’s ‘anatomy.’ – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p162

The bourgeoisie family was constituted by controlling the then internal enemy (the servant); while the working-class family sought vigilance against the temptations from the outside (the cabaret and the street). The working-class was re-constituted by disposing it of everything that situated it “in the fold of exterior forces.” The mission of the woman was “to see to the social retraction of her husband and children.”

War… was expelled from the internal social field and reserved only for external conflicts between States. War was thus to be the exception and peace the norm. Conflicts within the nation were to be resolved peacefully through political interaction – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004

40% of retired Americans are accumulating credit card debt without any intention of paying it off during their lifetime –“I can’t win so to hell with playing fair.” Also expect the usage of Marijuana to rise among senior citizens.

Pallas and the Madonna were supposed to be all the world’s Pallas and all the world’s Madonna. They could teach all men, and they could comfort all men. But look strictly in the nature of the power of your Goddess of “Getting On”, and you will find she is the Goddess – not of everybody’s getting on – but only of somebody’s getting on – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 – p290

The nurse informs me that I was supposed to have met with the surgeon five minutes ago and that I have another appointment with the cardiologist in five minutes. I can hardly make both appointments I tell her. Where is the surgeon, I ask her? She shows me his office door. I go in. Inside his office eight or nine doctors are gathered. They are all seated around the room and are chatting among themselves. They begin firing questions at me, not about my health or about the proscribed regime but sort of chit chat enquiries. They remind me of my buddies at the tavern. I tell them this. As I am aware that they all have very busy schedules, I ask them “what is all of this about?”

Meaning, in essence, means nothing; it only possesses potentiality – the possibility of having a meaning within a concrete theme – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language v p101

When economic motives can no longer be overlooked, a Culture has descended into a Civilization

It is a mark of genus when an accomplished man can go on continually developing – William Carlos Williams

Here I Come To Save the Day!

Thanksgiving is over. Give thanks. My blog on Thanksgiving Day wound up being about Cannibalism, but I did get fed anyway – to have been included in the plate count would have been controversial but when I showed up after specifically saying I would not be eating – just dropping in to say hello, long after dinner time, they insisted on feeding me anyway. The kids all went outside and played with Trail Dog and gathered all the leaves in a pile. Trail Dog had insisted on coming with me and had jumped up into the truck all by himself (its a big leap). Given enough motivation he can make such a might leap – my little Mighty Mouse.

Golden are the leaves
    That fall one by one
Pushed into a nook
    By a big storm
When only one remains
     Resisting to the end
Better to have fallen
    On the Marne
    In patriotic glory
Like Appolinaire or in the Somme
     Like so many good Englishmen

We find a little of everything in our memory, it is a sort of pharmacy, a sort of chemical laboratory, in which our groping hand may come to rest now on a sedative drug, now a dangerous poison – Marcel Proust – The Captive

To see time is indistinguishable from imaging time. Nor do we see space but only distinguish one object from another.

Philosophy is intellectual self-abuse. We take what is perfectly serviceable – our language – and subject it to uses which it was never intended. And end up with crazy conclusions –Laurence Goldstein – Clear and Queer Thinking, 1999 p31

The dog chased a lizard and leaped and came down on a cactus. Now it is sorry. Now it limps about. The dog is slowly learning the hazards of a new environment. It knows about the cacti and the burrs. The cottonwoods are turning yellows. The outflow from the dam gushes. Fisherman are here at the pool. The dog and I watch.

Power is not an institution, a structure, or a certain force which certain people are endowed; it is the name given to the complex strategic relation in a given society – Colin Gordon “Afterword” – Power/Knowledge by Michael Foucault p236

Butt hugging blue jeans
And high heeled boots
    They keep it firm
    And hold it aloft
Uh la la, I watch her
    Walk away
It makes my day
But what do I gain
    But my daily bread
    Anyway

Individualistic confidence in one self, one’s sense of personal value, is drawn not from within, not from the depths of one’s personality, but from the outside world. It is the ideological interpretation of one’s social recognizance and tenability by rights, and of the objective security and tenability provided by the whole social order, of one’s individual livelihood – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language p89

She is Getting Her Chemo Today - She is Wearing Red Today

She said it that this was the last day for which the temperatures was supposed to be in the seventies – a lot of people are on their way to work – they don’t necessarily start as early as they do on Friday – Some don’t even have to go to work on Friday – The one said that she was getting Chemo said that she didn’t (didn't have to go in today).

With the cold weather comes hot colors (unlike the fall) like reds – red coats, red boots, red stocking caps, red flowers (the Poinsettia), even Santa Clause is Red. This morning it is warmer - 34º - the little lady down the street waved to me – this was a first. Love is the process of overcoming fear. She had a red rose held by her teeth. I kept beat of sound board of my guitar. She stomped her feet and clicked her casinets. Her skirts worled. She wore a red petticoat.

The guitar is strummed

The long black carriages

Were filled
      With men in black
Black on black
      It was just my luck
      Anyway
Music is heard in the parlor
Uncle Idafonso senses
A future canon in me
      Maybe God intends
      Him, he said,  to become a bishop
This was all related to me
      Only years later
Everything then was part
       Of a pattern much as
       It is today
(not necessarily the same
      Pattern now as then)
Much as on the day
       I was born
That was in 1805
      Or was in 1826
      It doesn’t matter
To this story

When I was thirty I assumed that by the time I was fifty I would know what I was talking about…. At fifty I knew less than what I thought I knew at thirty, and so I figured that by the time I was seventy, then surely… I would have come up with a reason to believe that I had been made wise. Now I’m seventy-five, and I see no sign of a dog with a bird in its mouth – Lewis Lapham – Harper’s, Nov 2010 p8

What you put off today, you will suffer for tomorrow – can you give me a witness to this. Can I make it any clearer!

They will inflate the test scores, declare the program a success and then abandon it in favor of another silver bullet – thus we triumphed in Vietnam and will again in Afghanistan only the acceptable kill ratio has been inflated as has the cost per body.

Of human work, nothing but what is bad can be perfect, in it’s own bad way – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963p183

Flies all day
Mosquitoes by night
One if by land
Two if by sea

There’s a surging music in the air - / I hate it and will disrupt it! It’s the rhythm and blues / of custom in modern furs. It drives me mad – Michael McClure – Star poems, 1970 p25

There was a white glare outside the café. I had to remove my reading glasses to confirm that it was not snow. Dave had said that they were predicting a low of 28 and snow, although it was not supposed to accumulate. It was not snow. It had been cloudy this morning and it had been getting colder and colder all morning and I had had my nose in a book most of the time. And when I looked up I was surprised that that much snow had accumulated without my even being aware that it was snowing. It had not been (i.e it had not been snowing) but I did not know that at the time. I had to remove my reading glasses to see outside. It was only the glare of an emergent sun. It was the contrast. It was an auto-suggestion that had turned it into snow. It’s a relieve. It’s too early for the snow to begin accumulating.

This was the monstrous spectacle that I saw. The history of man and the earth had thus an intensity that neither science nor the imagination could give it, for science is too slow and imagination too vague, whereas what I saw was the living condensation of history – Machado De Assis - Epitaph of a small winner, 1952 p34

Cincinnatus
Ernesto Che Guevara
George Washington
There aren’t that many
       Unless the anonymous
       Are also included

No great man ever stops working till he has reached his point of failure – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p183

Wearing a Condom is not a Sin if you are already in the act of Committing a Sin

For the best summary yet on the Internet Wars - WikiLeaks  Backlash  - Operation Payback - see article in the Guardian - WikiLeaks backlash: The first global cyber war has begun, claim hackers - Dec 11, 2010

The US says being a tattle-tell is a sin – i.e. it’s a capital crime to leak (Sweden says it molestation to leak). The Pope says it’s a sin to wear a condom. Sweden says it’s a sin to not wear a condom, they define it as rape. The US says we’re going to play the Universal Spider and attack you where it counts – in the pocket book. The hacker community retaliates. But the Pope loosened his restriction – it is not more of a sin if you are already in the act of committing a bigger sin- its ok for male prostitutes to wear a condom). Visa, MasterCard and PayPal suffer hacker attackes today – the US says it is a crime, what he is doing - lookout Julian for any lurking Pedators. Meanwhile the State Department informs college students not to mention any of this in a Twitter or FaceBook or their chances of ever working for the government will be nil – it shows that you can’t be properly trusted to deal with secrets which are essential to good government (half a million individuals have top secret clearance - I would'nt call that keeping a secret). And then the US extols its mission to bring democracy to the world. It's just all seems too bizarre. Honest, I didn’t make any of this up.

Their bumper sticker… it’s just one word: ‘NO’… our bumper sticker has – it’s just too many words. And it says: ‘Continued on Next Bumper Sticker’ – Senator Al Franken

17º again – a dumbing down of reaction to this coldness is the result of acclimation – it is the human nature. Cold, yes, but it no longer affects me like it did just a week ago – you adjust. Some people actually like Winter and the holidays – those who see financial and emotional gain, the rest of us see death, abandonment and lost hopes.

There are two strong conquerors of the forgetfulness of man – poetry and architecture – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin: Selections from his writings, 1963 p131

Over half the delayed-notice search warrants issued under the Patriot Act are related to drug offences and less than 1% are related to terrorism

A benign plutocracy is still a plutocracy – David Callahan

The productive capacity liberated by increasing efficiency in the material production gets absorbed by immaterial production. Immaterial production then serves as the model for material production.

Nothing more relaxes good order than misery – Herman Melville – Benito Cerano

The State of Louisiana has sold almost $6 billion in economic recovery bonds since Hurricane Katrina – 1% of the funds raised was spent on projects in New Orleans and 29% on the oil industry.

Simple ideology routinely trounces nuancesd pragmatism just as emotion so often beats reason and the varsity fullback will most likely deck the captain of the debate team in a fistfight – Jonathan Alter – Liberalism – New York Times Book Review – 10/24/10 p14

The US suicide rate increases 17% for every 500 meters above sea level that someone lives

It goes so fast. We dole out our lives in dinner parties and plane fights, and it’s over before you know it. We lose everyone we love, if they don’t lose us first, and every single thing we do is intended to distance us from reality – Amistead Maupin – Mary Ann in Autumn, 2010

Carbonated beverages are the best-selling item in US grocery stores. The ranking of the average American child’s source of calories are (1) baked deserts, (2) pizza and (3) soda.

Bless the bones and skeleton thy body / swings upon. Without them we would dream / in Space – or be nothing! – Michael McClure – Star poems, 1970 p64

Those that understand an idea/concept/ideology/project best are usually the ones who oppose it

The suicide bomber is the dark opposite, the gory doppelganger of the safe bodyless soldier – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p45

A program of propping up the ‘old regime’ is handicapped by a negative reaction to its real purpose – hence it invents alternative programs – a form of cynicism is inherent in everything thus proposed – real intentions can not be discussed.

In any kingdom you point to the triumphs of its greatest artist, you point also to the determined hour of the kingdom’s decline. The names of great painters are like passing bells… And there is profound justice in this; for in proportion to the nobleness of the power is the quilt of its use for purposes vain and vile, and hitherto the greatness of art, the more surely has it been used, and used solely for the decorations of pride, or the provoking of sensuality – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p227

Science provides the organizational model for network social and economic production

Meaning is what an explanation of meaning explains – Ludwig Wittgenstein

How many mosquitoes does it take
     To withdraw an ounce?
How many mosquito’s are there
     To the pound?
How many mosquitoes will fit on the
     Head of a pin?
How many mosquitoes do I need
     To swat to make any difference?

War against a concept or set of practices somewhat like a war of religion, has no definite spatial or temporal boundaries – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004p14

The Most Anxious This Poltical Season - What is a Concerned Mother to Do

The Republican Party is being burdened as the refuge for an aging racist elite that is trying to hold on to their disappearing privileges. Can such a backward looking interest group remain loyal to the interest of the party of big business and the new class of the global super-wealthy? I doubt it! We may soon see a reconfiguring of our two-party system with the a formation of the Reactionary and the Conservative parties. The concept of Liberalism has all but disappeared – even the diehard Liberals are now all calling themselves Progressives which is a left of center version of conservatism. But do not feel complacent – out of the ashes a new Phoenix arises. The Multitudes are milling about.

Whites are the most anxious group this political season - Thomas B Edsall – ‘Limited War’, The Nation Nov 2010 p15

Preferring the life of society is a hindrance to a man’s willingness to devote himself to a family life – the solution is to reduce social opportunities – furnished rooms, boarding houses, cafes, brothels etc at least among the working classes – women are restricted to the household – the attentive mother becomes man’s salvation “the privileged instrument for civilizing the working class - Jacques Donzelot – The Policing of Families, 1979 p36)

The uniqueness of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the age of media is that it cannot be represented – it cannot be mediated. That does not mean that they don’t try – they takes large scale models of it on tour around the country.

It [a work of art then currently being exhibited at the Kensington] shows that the person who produced it had seen everything and practiced everything, and misunderstood everything they saw, and misapplied everything they did… and misunderstanding of everything had passed through them as the mud does through the earthworm, and there at last was their worm-cast of production – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p365

The family is not only the basic unit for the recruitment of labor but also the basic unit of consumption – thus it is the fundamental unit both of the sociological and economic processes. A well functioning family is hence critical to the well being of the state.

You must either make a tool of the creature, or a man of him. You cannot make both – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p177

These lakes (actually sinkholes) ranging in depth from 17 to 90 feet, were formed when circulating underground water dissolved salt and gypsum deposit to form subterranean caverns. The illusion of great depth and their greenish-blue color is created by algae and other aquatic plants covering the lake bottoms

Knowledge… separates, in bitterness, hardness and sorrow, the heart of the full grown man from the heart of the child. For out of imperfect knowledge spring terror, dissension, danger and disorder – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p290

I bought two pairs of slacks and a Pendleton shirt in Roswell at the JS Penny store where you can still fine odd length pants. Another mosquito drowned (or maybe it cooked) in my coffee – I’m using the bowl as I broke the mug getting my computer out at MacDonalds . But it was of no avail for they had no electrical outlets. The dog and I have already done our daily hike, we walked the Bluff Trail all the way to the big lake and we have now finished our breakfasts and he is asleep.

We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great-civilized invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that is divided, but the man – Divided into mere segments of men – broken into small fragments and crumbs of life – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p180

Every industry, all careers
Are special interests
And since everything
    Is an industry
And everyone has a
    Career
As well as an estate
Everything and everyone
    Lobbies
Effectiveness is determined
    Only by quantity
If only we would afford 15 minutes
    A day for the kids’
         Quality time
Prey to God that everything
Will turn out Ok
And pass the ammunition
    Will turn out Ok

And pass the ammunition



The great modern works of political science all provide tools for transforming or over throwing the ruling powers… Today, however, the majority of political scientists are merely technicians working to resolve the quantitative problems of maintaining order – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p33

A Two Sided Act is a Coin of a Different Toss

God RVers can be annoying – it may be due to their sense of entitlement. They paid a lot of money for their contraptions, and I did not (my tent and my cot). They are therefore entitled to more than I am. One of their entitlements is privacy which they can garner with umbilical cords – never having to venture outside of the vehicle, although you will occasionally see one walking a dog. Satellite TV, frozen diners in the microwave, air/conditioning, fellow RVers for dinks in the evening – it’s the good life. But why do they have to do it here - pick America's most scenic spots and plunk down with all thier conveniences.  If they never venture out why don't they just stay at home? I don’t get it. RVers and tenters do not get along. Once one engaged me in a conversation – oh she said RVers are such great people. And where are you parked, she asked. I pointed and said, over there. She looked at my tent and she turned and walked away without uttering another word

For what is so foolish as to be pleased with yourself? To admire yourself? On the other hand, if you have a low opinion of yourself, what can you do that is charming or graceful, what can you do that will not be indecorous and awkward – Erasmus - In Praise of Folly p34


The first view of the Alps
     From Schaffhausen
Viewed only once perfectly
     That would have been
      In 1835
Very few travelers see it at
      All
At the Col de la Faucille
The guidebooks say nothing
     About it
I saw there my true
     Home in this world

Reading scores for public school 4th graders has improved only by 1% since the beginning of No Child Left Behind

Tax-deductible travel
A medical mission to Nepal
     We’re 25 to 30 people
     Doctors and nurses
$2,800 – you make your check
      Out to the foundation
And get everything free
      That’s the way it works


Every couple of years we pick
      Some exotic place

The art of making yourself rich … is equally and necessarily the art of keeping your neighbor poor – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p245

I hiked up Three Rivers Canyon about a mile – about as much as I can do without an Ibuprophen. The boys in the woods are packing it in – taking down their shelter and carting their stuff back to the truck; they even brought the bedroom mattresses – their maximum stay must have expired – I don’t think that the have any place else to hurry off too.

My time of happiness had always been when nobody was thinking of me – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p513

What would it be called if we started with an apparently untrue premise and proceeding by apparently valid steps of argument arrived at a sensible conclusion? The reverse is called a paradox

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language – Ludwig Wittgenstein – Philosophical Investigations

If we were able to resurrect a person back to life they would be incapable of deceit or collusion. The resurrected are not capable in inauthenticity and while in life they may have bored us we would now enjoy every moment of their companionship.

Hope builds as fast as knowledge can destroy / In Folly’s cup, still laughs the bubble joy – Alexander Pope – Essay on Man

I got my coat back – was a coat with a large black and white check pattern found? I’ll see. Something like this. Exactly like that. Thanks! That’s twice now that I have left a jacket in the library but the first time that I got it back. Last time I was unable to remember its color scheme.

The concept ‘thinking’ is categorically different from the concept ‘speaking’ – Ludwig Wittgenstein

Terror and counter-terror – evil begets evil

The imagination lends and the deed comes behind – William Carlos Williams – Kora in Hell

Resistance may be rational but a process of transformation is not

Unity is the shallowest, the cheapest deception of all composition – William Carlos Williams – An Essay on Virginia, 1932

The term ‘mass murder’ as defined by the UN’s concept of genocide excludes acts that eliminate social, economic or political groups

Word is a two-sided act. It is determined equally by whose word it is and for whom it is meant – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language p86

Fifteen Feet from The Door - We Are All Donuts

With the sun comes the wind. It had been 43º when he and the dog got up. It is the dog who determines when it is time for him to get up. It is either the dog or the time at which he absolutely has to get up and pee. The dog hopped up on to his cot and on top of him and started nibbling of any exposed surface. When he announces his capitulation, then he says Ok Ok and unzips his sleeping bag. The dog then loses all self-restrain and begins barking and biting. If he is laid on his back and his belly stroked he will calm down temporarily. There were some mule deer out by the Ranger’s office and there was an RV from California. There was a tenter on the ridge above and a small trailer at the far end of the lake. Fish were jumping in the early morning – it’s hard to tell when and where to look, much like watching a meteorite shower. The dog ran around sniffing the ground and did not notice the fish jumping. Every once in a while a really big fish would leap out of the water and plop back into it, but there was no way of knowing in advance when or where this might happen. It was rare to  actually see it emerge from the water, arch over and plunge back in with its muscular body twitching, usually a splash was heard and a widening circle of ripples observed. They returned to camp. He reheated the pot of coffee. Then four deer emerged from the woods near the lake and stood staring at them before leaping back into the brush.

We will not say that he can be angry only if he has words. But can you wonder whether it will rain the day after tomorrow without words, or wonder whether there are 100 or 101 people in the room without numerals? – Ludwig Wittgenstein

It’s warm today - leaves scuttling, accumulating, crunching, rustling. The sun is rising further and further southward. I took the two dollar discount as a senior citizen for my camp site – take it if you can – it didn’t say that state residency was required (they usually do)

People do not take the name of God in vain when they swear; they use it, on the contrary very earnestly and energetically to attest what they wish to say – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p389

Reading scores for public school 4th graders has improved only by 1% since the beginning of No Child Left Behind

The act of the will is not the cause of the action but is the action itself – Ludwig Wittgenstein – Philosophical Investigations

Smell of diesel
Big toys
It sets things in motion
Things begin happening
For big boys


“ A scent that was like a symbol
Of elastic motion and power
A desire to climb
     Into a cage of steel and crystal
To make love in new places
With an unknown woman”


“A scent, I set to work
     Like a militia summons
Get up, get up
     Come out and picnic in the country
Take a boat on the river
     Under the trees
    With a pretty girl
Get up, Get up” (Marcel Proust)

Smell the diesel

Hard world! Hard world! Here I am, as good a fellow as ever lived – hospitable – open-hearted – generous to a fault: and the Fates forbid that I should possess the fortune to bless the country with my bounteousness – Herman Melville – Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!

The Three Rivers area contains over 21,000 petroglyphs. Rattlesnakes are common in this are. The circle and dot motive is prevalent and accounts for 10% of the petroglyphs but not that common at other Jornado Mogollon sites. Jornado style faces are usually round with almond shaped eyes and triangles noses. Most animals are depicted stylistically but bighorn sheep are usually depicted realistically. Mountain lions and bird tracks are common.

[Grasping a rule] is exhibited in what we call ‘obeying the rule’ and ‘going against it’ – Ludwig Wittgenstein – Philosophical Investigations

I could be bothering people
I don’t even notice any more
Yes, party from self-absorption
And party from a lack of civility
    We all are donuts – a mouth
    And an asshole
The law requires that you go
    Outside to smoke
    And stand at least
    Fifteen feet from the door

Language reflects not subjective, psychological vacillations, but stable social interrelationships – V N Volosinov –Marxism and the Philosophy of Language p118

Convention Says Put Kecthup on Hash Browns but I am Iconoclastic

A few sprinkles – its 46º and cloudy. The first breeze rustles though the bare rees. His coffee is getting cold, He wanted to read some more about the demise of French Theory in its country of origin. He’s being conventional this morning by putting ketchup on his hash browns.

Order is what is discovered after the fact, not a little piss pot for use to urinate in to – and call ourselves satisfied – William Carlos Williams

She broke the rules
She opened a window
    In the night
Filling the master
    With terror
Having always before
     Been timorous of
     His wishes
She was no longer
     Behaving
    With circumspection
     He thought
Would she be rude
Crimson with rage
“I don’t care, I must have air”
But he sighed with relief
     The next morning when
     She was still there
But yet her embarrasses
     Were so slight
     And he was so full of furry

Well people change and forget to tell each other. Too bad – causes so many mistakes – Lillian Hellman – Toys in the Attic

It is much lusher looking down upon it, from up here on the rim, than it actually is down there in the Gila River riparian zone – dusty and brushy with the trees insufficiently shading the ecosystem – we went down to the picnicking area (no camping allowed, no fires allowed) and over to the west side of the river where the boat launch is. The bridge had been built in 1918 by convict labor to provide a supply route to the mines. The dog got hot and stretched out in the dirt – refusing to go any further – then he rolled around and took a dirt bath. I loaded some brush in the back of the truck. A family was having a picnic. We tried not to disturb them. The purr of the engine – a haze of dust – the changing pitch as it climbs the distant slope

That the rest of the world was waste to him [Carlyle] unless he had admirers in it, is a sorry state of sentiment – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p514

We have this very humanitarian liberal minister. It’s a very large church. He states something is not PC. Everyone is aghast. The board meets to censure him or to forgive him. The new media has gathered to cover the meeting and sightseers are milling about. This is after all a man bites dog story. The only place that they (the board can meet in private) is in the elevator. They exonerate him (no surprise). The news is airing these events live. It is on ESPN and when it is over they will cut to the Sunday game which is due to start at noon, eastern time. We are all gathered around or TVs and just as he strides up to the pulpit to begin his sermon the cut to the football game. The sun goes down behind the canyon rim at 4:14. It is 66º. There are mosquitoes buzzing about. I put on long pnat and a long-sleeve sweater.

If Foucault poses philosophical challenges to history, it is not to question the reality of ‘the past’ but to interrogate the rationality of the ‘present’ - Colin Gordon “Afterword” – Power/Knowledge by Michael Foucault p242

Albertine’s bicyclette – bent over her handle-bars… Speeding through Balbec on her mythological wheels. And now she is dead. How could she have seemed dead to me when now, in order to think of her, I only had to dunk a Madeleine into some tea, Never had I caressed the waterproof Albertine hunched over her handle-bars… And now it was impossible, for she was dead.

The number of Iraqis living in slums has increased by 20% to 53% of the population since the American invasion

Propaganda is a soft weapon: hold it in your hands too long and it will move about like a shark and strike the other way – Jean Anouihl – The Lark

On average it cost US parents $286,000 to raise a child to the age of 18

Lights dawn gradually over the whole – Ludwig Wittgenstein – Philosophical Investigations

The ten richest people in India have a net worth equalivant to 12% of the country’s GDP

[The inability to] draw on three thousand years [of history] is living hand to mouth – Goethe

The average weight of a US farm-raised turkey has increased by 72% since 1960

To talk at a distance, when you have nothing to say, though you were ever so near; to go fast from this place to that, with nothing to do either at one or the other; these are powers certainly – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p369

50% of British businessmen and 10% of British businesswomen travel with their Teddy Bears

Imagine the complex trial of a schoolboy’s mind, if the law of nature about cakes were that if you ate none of your cake to-day, you would have ever so much bigger a cake tomorrow… Not a cake and a quarter, to-morrow, dunce, however abstinence your are – only the cake you have if the mice do not get at it in the night. Interest then is not, it appears, payment for labour, it is not reward for risk, it is not reward for abstinence. What is it? One of two things – taxation, or usury – John Ruskin – The Genius of John Ruskin, 1963 p385

15% of US female senior level executives admit to having had an affair with a male boss