Cockle-Doodle-Doo - Up Your's Wall Street

I’m such a chicken – cluck cluck. I strut and I bluster and I crow at dawn. But when the farmer arrives with his ax I run. Most of us do the same. Most of us are content to peck at the grain that has been cast about the barnyard. Maybe occasionally locate some worm or find a juicy grub in a pile of manure. Only we call it paying the morguage or filling the tank. I’m against this and I’m against that, but when it comes to crossing the barricades I hesitate.

A permit to march had been requested and provisionally authorized by the city but its final authorization was up to the police. They refused to authorize it. No money for overtime was being profered. Money on top of the table is not a bribe – not in this country any way. We were warned to march in the street was to be subject to arrest – Remember we were told there are children present (there was even some dogs). But we did it anyway. “What does Democracy Look Like?” “This is What Democracy Looks Like.” “The First Admenment is Our Permit!” I’m proud of myself. I didn’t take one step on the sidewalk. Ho ho. Here’s to me. A slap on my back. Arrests had been made at previous demonstration. I myself have been arrested before, said the man at the microphone.  None were made this time.

It’s always the same; what price will you pay for a world of your choosing. Many chose  not to march under these circumstances - about five hundred proceeded into the streets, myself included.  Oh you don’t have to agree the signs that they carry or the slogans that they shout. I disagreed with most of them. I thought many were way too naïve (but you can't make a philosophical argument on a placard). Their solutions simplistic and unjrealistic.  But you have to start somewhere and this is really about process and education anyway. This can only get louder and lounder. “Whose Streets?” “Our Streets!” We kept a lane open and assisted traffic to get by. The police went roaring by with lights flashing as we set out. They stopped but there were not scuffles. I expected to march into barricade any any moment. But there was none.  We never saw them again. They left us alone, afterall we were only marching into the gehtto (a large area so Section Eight housing to be exact). The idea I think was we were too white.  Cocka-doodle-doo. What price am I willing to pay. Let's get this straight – democracy is not about representation or lack thereof. I don't give a damn about Wall Street.

Here how we make decisions - if you like the idea, raise your hand and wiggle your fingers. Now try it. And we did. If you don't like the idea lower your hands downward and wiggle your fingers. Now try that. And we did. If you are indifferent, stick your hands out and wiggle your fingers. Now shall we march in the street anyway? Hundreds of hands went up and thousands of fingers wiggled. Shall we restrict the march to the sidewalk? Some hand went up. I declare that it was ninth-nine percent for. No one challenged the call.

The past is both nightmare… and a deposit of meaninglessly spent energies. Historians and artist give it shape – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996

The League of Nations was the first international institution to which non-Europeans where not excluded. Members arrived in national costume rather than Imperial uniform.

With inevitable regularity history liquefies and needs rechanneling while religions petrify, paralyzing their spirit in pedantry. The guardians of both constantly keep history from meaninglessness and religion from the death of its symbols – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996p 126

About one in five Americans earning above $75,000 a year see themselves as “Have-Nots”, while a third of Americans earning less than $30,000 see themselves as “Haves”

Driving under the influence of hubris is not yet a yellow sheet offense – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006 p14

It’s always the same – someone gets rich and someone gets sick

Everything around us is terrifying. There is no longer a common language. No one understands anyone else. I believe no one wants to understand  - Elias Canetti – The Agony File, 1994

When the rich steal from the poor it’s called business. When the poor fight back it’s called violence – Cory Rae Shaw – placard at Occupy Oakland

The bankers lobbied Washington so they could write the rules that got us into this crisis. They then lobbied Washington to get money to bail them out. And now they are lobbying Washington to write the rules so they can get us into the next crisis – Elizabeth Warren

“Irresponsibility, selfishness, behaving as  if your choices had no consequences” : it was meant to apply to working class hooligans, but can equally  apply to the elite.

The satirist takes a man at his deed, not at his word – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p240

It is estimated that there may be between 1.85 million and 4.5 million closed-circuit cameras in the United Kingdom: one for every 20 residents of the  country.

He is what he is because he is never where he is – Jack Spicer – The Collected Books, 1996 p172

Today’s liberal is tomorrow’s conservative. Time passes you by.

Authentic art… accomplishes its work in silence – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p210

Little Blue Fish on Testosterone - Have a Pepper Ten, Be Ten Peppers True

A cold front moved in. A light rain fell. Then the sun came back out, but it didn’t warm up. A coal train rumbled by – clickity clack, clickity clack. My fingers are getting numb trying to write this down. Trail Dog wants to sniff and re-scent Main Street. Yark yark. Ok boy, Ok, let me finish what I’m doing. Ok, boy? Yark, yark.

The impression is for the writer what experiment is to he scientist, with the difference that in the scientist the work of the intelligence proceeds by experiment and in the writer it comes after the impression – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p208

Then it began to rain

            In earnest with a

            Blink blink on

The red awning overhead

Windshield wipers swished

Vehicular lights reflected

            Off of the pavement

Big Al is careless about how

            He parks his pick-up truck.

He’s is anxious not to get

Wet

As he dashes in for 
             His morning
             Coffee

He [ Henry James] is supposed to have said, at the moment of his death, “So here it is at last, the distinguished thing.” What he actually said was, “So here at last, the extinguishing thing.” People will embroider – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006  p51

The economy is an open crowd. A business is a pack.

What is the use of studying philosophy if all that it does for you is enable you to talk with some plausibility about some obtuse questions of logic – LudwigWittgensetin

I called them ‘Skeeters’ because they scoot along the beach on their two long legs following the surf out, stopping suddenly, dipping down, and picking at a morsel. Their feet move so fast that they are just a blur. Their bodies follow their legs, head long. Their bodies are rigid except  when they dip (I might also have labeled them 'dippers'), leaving a residue of crab shells behind them. They have a proper name but I am not an ornithologist. The first surf is cold, the second less so, and each succeeding less shocking. Soon it’s just cool and refreshing. Where the surf hits the warm sand it forms a mist, enough to obscure the sand dunes off in the distance from which I had walked here. The wet sand is much more comfortable to walk on than concrete. There is the life in the city behind these sand dunes but only the stoplights rising above the dunes is indicative of this. Watching the waves break over my feet and listening to the surf break I'm a million miles away.

The pathology leads to new paths and pathfinding. All the way down past the future. The words go swimming past you as if they were blue fish – Jack Spicer – The Collected Books, 1996 p179

Clair is eating health food. I ask her, does that mean that the more you eat of it the healthier you become? No, she replied.

You will live longer and better by consuming deliciously chewy fats and reading Proust than by treadmilling to a Walkman tune and claiming to be educated because you peruse the “Wall Street Journal.” – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006  p7

Men can be such bastards with their displays testosterone even if they don’t punch anyone out. On television, that's entertainment. There he sits his arm over the back of her seat. She sits  there and glares toward me. Not at me. She doesn’t see me at all. She is mad, passed off, angry, unyielding, and defiant. He with his sunglasses raised up just enough to allow his beady eyes to burn holes in the side of her head. If a video had been playing in there, he had a front row seat. Maybe the Rockettes were stepping.  To turn and stare back at him was to yield. This was what he wanted. The more she resisted, looked away, the angrier he was getting. Someone would eventually have to give in. Something would have to happen, but before it did the bus reached its terminus. She had known that he wouldn’t dare get physical in pubic, but now they were on foot and had disappeared around the corner. I rounded the corner behind them. She was standing there silent and stony faced. He was getting vocal. So long as a man can talk he won’t punch. “That’s the way it will be,” he said and he repeated it again, “That’s the way it will be. You’re my wife!” He calmed down as I passed them standing there. At the end of the block I looked back over my shoulder. They were walking about six feet apart. Silence had descended. Had she yielded? Would it continue once they got home? I go into the Edinburgh Pub and have a Penny Black Porter. A group called the Celtic String Band is playing.

President Kennedy seems to stiffen / for a moment before he assumed his place in history. Eros / Do that. // I gave you my imaginary hand and you gave me your imaginary / hand and we walk together (in imagination) over the earthly / ground – Jack Spicer – The Collected Books, 1996 p229

The enemies of the crowd dwell in buildings; it is the breaching of the facades that is the true objective of a crowd. A crowd fears being contained.

To the crowd in its nakedness everything seems a Bastille – Elias Canetti -  Crowds and Power, 1978 p20

The event itself is not the onset. The event is the ritualistic celebration of what has already come to pass. The event is accomplishment of the fait accompli

One difference between history and imaginative literature… is that history neither anticipates nor satisfies our curiosity, whereas literature does – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p130

It is history that provides the answers and not the answer that drives the history. It is the problems, which drive the history; not the history that determines the problems.

True paradises are the paradises that we have lost – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p197

According to the “Global Citizens’  Report on the State of GMO” , genetically engineering has failed to increase the yield of any food crop but has vastly increased the usage of chemicals. The three largest GMO companies (Monsanto, Dupont and Syngenta) now control 70% of global seed sales

We are healthily aware that photographs lie, deceive, and misrepresent and yet we go right on reading them as if they were expert witnesses – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p44

The Pea Soup of Metaphysical Expression

By the Numbers - 64%  of the 99% are under the age of 35. 27% of them are students. 53% claim to have previously participated in a political movement. 98% say that they would support civil disobedience but less 1/3^rd would support violence. 56% voted in 2008 and 74% of them voted for Obama but only 51% say that they now disapprove of him.

If you will believe only that which you know to be true you will trouble yourself very little with belief – William H Gass – A Temple of Texts, 2006  p30

This is a miserable gray day. It’s time to get out the long johns.

The life expectancy of a US farmworker is 49 years

All useful knowledge is perhaps subversive, innocently and ignorantly at first – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p27

A government worker cost half as much as it would cost to outsource that worker’s job. Take a general attorney for example who costs the government $175,000 a year in salary and benefits, but to contract those same services would cost $555,000 a year – an accountant $124,000 vs $283,000 – a food inspector $58,000 vs $75,000. The assumption has always been that contracting saves money buy no one ever bothered to do the math.

There is no great difference between the memory of a dream and the memory of a reality – Marcrl Proust – Remembrance of Things Past: Time Regained p240

Get right with God

Or get left

With the devil

            Go to hell

So black and white

            The penguins march

The big ones and the small ones

            Waddle across the ice

Learn to play the lyre

            Or get stuck with

            Listening to ukalaes

The two chief causes of error in one’s relation with another person are, having a kind heart, or else being in love with that other person –  Marcel Proust –Remembrance of Things Past: Tine Regained p116

A mere 147 companies control 40% of the monetary value of all transnational corporations

One does not make a mirror to resemble a person, one brings a person to the mirror – Jack Spicer – The Collected Books, 1996 p55

Pulled pork – Sandwich – Hash for breakfast – Fall – It’s getting colder – Comfort food – Stay in bed – The smell of mothballs – Rake the lawn – Carve up the pumpkin – Fingers get numb.

In their knowledge, lay their civilization. Others had lost much of their knowledge. The knowledge that we now have is not the knowledge that makes a civilization but the knowledge we need to make money

There is no religious denomination in which the rights of metaphysical expression has been responsible for as much sin as it has in mathematics – Ludwig Wittgenstein

Walter announced - I’ve invented a new comic strip that does not require any drawing. It’s called “Pea Soup”, he says. It occurs in a fog and stars Fred, Linda Rae and Little Willie. This is not going to be about anyone that we actually know is it, I ask. On no, Walter assures us that it will not be. If there is any resemblance it will be purely coincidental, he said. I’ve drawn my first strip, he says. Linda Rae (I mean Linda) asks him to describe it to us. Little Wille (I mean Waler) proceeds: “Little Willie says (but you don’t know it’s Little Willie who is doing the talking yet)”, and I wrote it all down just as he described it –

First panel -      1 - The weather report says this fog might lift

                         2 - In your dreams Little Willie

Second Panel    1 - Linda Rae?

                        3 - In your dreams Little Willie

Last Panel -      1 - Hi Fred

I’m going home and write the next strip, he says. But before he leaves, he says that we need someone to write these down so that it does not get forgotten (when Walter says he drew them, he had really meant only that he had seen them in his minds eye). We (Linda Rae and I) tell him that it was a classic and like a tune that gets stuck in tour head, it was unforgettable. Good says Walter and leaves, but not before he leaves his show and tell with Linda: a sprig of ordinary rosemary (it grows up, he says) and Tuscan Rosemary (it grows down, he adds). Now which one is this, he asks Linda as he holds one downwards? Tuscan, Linda responds. Lesson plan accomplished, Walter announced and then he really does leave. Alas, Linda says, the torment is over. Not quite, I say and read to her what I have written. You guys don’t faze me, she replies. I have customers who are experts at the fine art of torture. I take that as a challenge, I tell her. I’ll take my rosemary and leave, she replies. I am all-alone here now with only my field notes.

Our imaginations

            Are intertwined

Linked by geography

            And chronology

It's all in the newspaper and

It is on  the TV and the pieces

            That capture our lives

Have noting to do with us

Nothing uniquely me in any
             Of these
Except in the commotion
            of our  Imaginations

The private and invoicable act of reading [is] our culture’s way of developing the individual – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p30

Work is the tedious process of playing the rear end of a cow.

Our memory of dreams may become lasting, if they repeat themselves often enough – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p125

In America reality is now a political choice – yes this is a democracy.

This may be the most valuable act we can perform: to make peace with the only reality fate has given us – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p179

Lives Do Not Have Plots, But Lies Do

I should’ve, but I didn’t. I stayed home and mopped. I stayed home and was bored. I should have gotten up and shopped for a new microwave, but here I am lying on the couch watching TV. I complain that there is nothing on. I planned to go to the “Occupy” march but I didn’t. I stayed home instead. I did practice on the mandolin. I did accomplish that. Otherwise I didn’t do anything but watch TV. I needed to clean house. I didn’t do that either.

Scholars, artisans, craft people who love their work forget to eat – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p141

I am staring at the photographs on the wall behind the bar. They are snapshots from another time; another place - photos of patrons taken while on they were on vacation – they are standing in front the Eiffel Tower, or the Coliseum, or Niagara Falls - but this time I am not looking at the photos themselves. My eyes de-focus and take in the entire display. The individual photos become blotches of color; an abstraction. I stare without looking at anything in particular. I am thinking about what I should write. Nothing. Nothing comes to mind I start writing anyway. I was wondering on the way over here about becoming complacent, becoming too familiar with my surroundings, with my routines, no loner finding any novelty, anything particular, exceptional, unique. I am bored. Should I break away and take flight. Break out, fly away - escape from the mundane, from routine. The exotic lies just out of sight. Prozac is having its impact – I am even bored with sex. Go on a grand fishing trip to a quite lake in the mountains. Stay in a log cabin among the spruce, a trout stream running by. Wake up in the morning to a covering of frost. Having thrown a few logs on last night, there are still embers to start the breakfast fire - coffee, bacon and flapjacks. Take flight, jump, leap, soar - take a ride on a rocket. Writing is daydreaming, conscious daydreaming, better even than sex. And my second beer was the Blue Bell Bitter which the bartender had said was more malty than the Ashbury Ale. It can’t be that simple!

After a certain age our memories are so intertwined with one another that what we are thinking of, the book we are reading, scarcely  matter any more, we have put something of ourselves everywhere, everything is fertile, everything is dangerous, and we can make discoveries no less precious than in Pascal’s Penses in an advertisement for soap – Marcel Proust – The Fugitive p129

So, to Linda I go, I went to church last night. Which one, she goes. The Reverend Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping, I reply. I love his pompadour, she goes. Yes, I go, and it stays in place so well. I know, Linda says. Walter has told me that I was writing “he said/she said” way too much so I m trying the alternatives – today it is “he goes/she goes”. I am not happy with the results. Just substituting one word for another makes it no better. And how was the choir?  You mean 'The No Big Box Choir', I ask? Fantastic. I respond, even non-believers need a revival meeting ever once in a while. I know, she answered.

In our worst ineptitude of living, we are, if only we can see it, somehow thriving and being a success – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p325

News does not occur

            To the poor except

For incidents of mayhem

The poor never do anything

            Positive, never spawn

            Anything worthwhile

Or at least that is the story

            And the media is

            Sticking by it

Lives do not have plots, only biographies do – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p329

We keep waiting to read (to see in print) what confirms what we know to be the truth. We have not yet realized that it is our responsibility to tell the truth. No one can assume another’s responsibiligy. Christ will not die for your sins again.

The idea that one will die is more painful than dying, but less painful than the idea that another person is dead – Marcel Proust – The Fugative p92

Bombing raids on Germany produced AIC (Aviation Induced Cloudiness). A 900 aircraft raid on Maty 11, 1944 created a 1.5⁰ dip in the temperature – small but statistically significant

Facts are promiscuous, apt to serve any and all ends – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p130

The multitude of daemons

            Contained in our superstitions

Have become the bacilli

            Of our daily vigilance

What we feel is the only thing that exists for us, and we project it into the past, or into the future, without letting ourselvers be stopped by the fictitious barriers of death – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p114

It is not solving yesterday’s problems tomorrow that is important although that is what garners kudos; it is solving tomorrow’s problems yesterday that matters and that is impossible to acknowledge. It is more rewarding to put out fires than it is to prevent them.

It is the kinetics of desire that creates the euphoria of loving and of learning, of being alive – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p140

The Forgetful Self Does Not Grieve

A cool front came in.  It had gotten foggy. A fog alert is in effect. It is back down into the lower fifties. Dew condenses and drips from the eaves onto my head. Autumn colors rule. The trees reluctantly disrobe. Blowers whine.  Bagging begins.

Instincts dictate our duty and the intellect supplies us with pretexts for evading it – Marcel Proust – Tine Regained p208

Production makes its own demands on consumption, which cannot be ignored

People do not die for us immediately, but remain bathed in a sort of aura of life which bears no relation to true immortality but through which they continue to occupy our thoughts in the same way as when they were alive. It is as though they were traveling abroad. This is thoroughly pagan survival. Conversely, when we have ceased to love, the curiosity which people arouse dies before they themselves are dead – Marcel Proust – The Fugative p94

We know more many more

            People who we don’t know

Then we know people we do know

We imagine we know them

            As others who we know

            That we don’t know

                        Imagine them too

Sometimes we imagine we

            Know people who we don’t know

            With people who we do know

But not usually

Sometimes we imagine we know

            Imaginary people but we

            Usually do it in solitude

A thinking mind is not swallowed up by what it comes to know – Anne Carson – Ewros the Bittersweet, 1986

Every catastrophe has a natural history

What hampers us is a failure of history itself; namely, that advantage seems invariably to corrupt the ability that gained the advantage in the first place – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p133

16% of Americans feel safer since Osama bin Laden was killed. 14% feel less safe. 40% of Americans think that his death will make it easier to “win the global war on terror”. 60% of Americans had though that the capture of Saddam Hussein would have made it easier.

The forgetful self does not grieve about his forgetfulness precisely because one has forgotten – Marcel Proust – The Fugative p230

46% of all drug arrests are for offenses related to marijuana possession. 88% of marijuana arrests involve possession only. Since 2000 there have been 7.9 arrest for marijuana violations.

History must have examples. It is never an abstraction – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p206

I see you look

I see what you look at

I look at what you look at

I look to see if you’re looking

            To see what I’m looking at

I look

I see

I know

But do nothing

It’s not my fault

Among so-called immoral people, moral indignation is quiet as violent as among other people, only its objet is slightly different – Marcel Proust – Remembrance of Things Past – Time Regained p270

All times are normal times. It’s what happened to create (and to destroy and to preserve) those times which is extraordinary

Reality is the most effective mask of reality. Our fondest wish attained, ceases to be our fondest wish. Success is the greatest of disappointments. The spirit is most alive when it is lost – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p116

George Bush – I never liked. I couldn’t stand to see him smirk. Barak Obama – I’ve at times tried to like him – but his attempt to look sincere is so annoying especially the way he bends his  head to the left or to the right.

One lies all one’s life long, even, especially, perhaps only, to those who love one. For they alone make us fear for our pleasures, and desire their esteem – Conversely, when we have ceased to love, the curiosity which people arouse dies before they themselves are dead – Marcel Proust – The Fugative p197

The Task of Literature Is to Feed the Media

He stands beside me and yells down the street, “Joe Duff, how you doin today. I’ll be back in a while.” He is ensconced in eau de cologne. It overpowers everything. Everything smells musky. If I had been a yak, we would have butted heads. He is a big man. He is plotting a take over of the Main Street Association. They have their meeting at noon today. He wants to kick out all of the committee members and appoint his own people.  I don’t think he has any people. He has already taken over the Legion and the Fourth of July parade. People let him rutt. He is a big man. It might be worst to stand in his way than to just let him have his go. He has no evil intentions. He is just a big man who wears a lot of cheap cologne. He is just a big teddy bear. He don’t know no better.  He thinks he’s doing good; helping his community. And maybe he is. After all I don’t belong to the Main Street Association or the Legion. I didn’t even stay to watch the parade. I left after he arrived on his Harley and tried to rearrange the barricades. The Chief of Police came along and put them all back and muttered under his breath to himself.

The great paradox of our time is that hordes of us choose to be different in the same way… uniformity is not a caricature – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p211

Since 1978 the price of tution in the US colleges has increased more than 950% which is 650% higher than the rate of inflation

Behind every cynical (or merely  incompetent) banking executive and trader sits an economist, assuring them (and us) from a position of unchallenged authority that their actions are publically useful and should in any case not be subject to collective oversight – Tony Judt – Ill Fares The Land, 2010  p105

Wicked witch

Good witch

Sand witch

Red slippers

No place like home

Click click

Into the Smithsonian

As seen on TV

A colorized American

            Classic

Glorious technocolor

            Surround sound

            3-D glasses

Watch nuclear blasts

            Duck under the desk

            Fast forward

Everything you need

            To know

Fully documented, made

            Simple, easy

            To learn

Pills so you don’t

            Forget

Pills so you can

            Get up

Pills to make you

             Smaller

Part of a balanced

            Diet

The spirit of our times indulges in an inordinate amount of gratuitous meanness. Meanness: a withholding of generosity, a willingness to hurt, a perverse choice of the bad when the good is equally available… It is difficult to distinguish gratuitous meanness from greed – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p150

Credit card debt decreased in 2009. In 2010 it increased by $9b. The credit card debt level is on track to increase by $546b this year. There is currently $772b in outstanding credit card balances.

A plan to resist planning may be better than its oppoisite but it belongs to the same style of politics – Michael Oakeshott

Increased immigration may result in a decrease in crime. First generation immigrants tend to be adverse to risky activities. This trend appears to extent to all classes and nationalities.

Neoliberalism is less an economic system or social order than global capital’s management style for a situation of lower profit - Joshua Clover – The Nation 4/25/11 p34

One in seven homeowners with loans in excess of one million dollars is seriously delinquent, while only one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark are in default.

Liberty, perhaps as always, increased with wealth – Guy Davenport – The Hunter Graacchus, 1996 p132

Death is irreversible

There are religious stories

            Where this is not true

In the movies characters

            Who return from the

            Dead are evil

But there has been a spat

            Of TV shows were

Dead people have returned

            As angels, not just

            Metaphorically

TV is a religious media

It is an intimate medium

The old B&W with rabbit

            Ears was even more

            Spiritual

There were many ghosts

           And none of them
           Were able to lie
We have to do that 
           For them

No doubt it is because memories are not always true that love is not eternal – Marcel Proust – The Fugative p181

The incomprehensible is communicated within the bounds of verbal convention – metaphor has to be made to do

One task of literature is to formulate questions and construct counter statements to the reigning pieties – Susan Sontag – At the Same Time, 2007

Can Imbeciles Go Insane?

There is smoke on the water – Is the town on fire? – No – It’s a peculiar weather condition – A river fog – But it is just this local – It has something to do with the bend in the river – It warms up by five degrees in the mile I travel from the house.

36% of what we pay for an imported good stays in the domestic economy. It goes to the transportation, wholesaling and retailing operations. The portion of “Made in China” goods that stays in the US is somewhat higher. It is about 55%.

The fetishism of fact [is a] splendid sickness – Mary McCarthy

Crash collapse

Ring the bell

Get cash

A bail out is

   In the works

Bonuses are

   Due. Its
Just business
    As usual

There is one thing that a man who has lived for money cannot resist… : talking about it. The love of money never dies – John Barlow – Intoxicated, 2006 p21

67% of Americans say they would vote for a well qualified homosexual for President but only 49% say the would vote for a similarly qualified atheist

In so far as God is what God does, we might go so far as to say that the market ‘is’ God and the activity of the market is always a hand job – Mark C Taylor – Confidence Games, 2004 p89

Intelligence is making coherent what had not previously been coherent. The more incoherent the bits used to assemble this new sense, the greater the intelligence of the processing unit. Most conspiracy theories are conceived by intelligent people, but not necessarily highly rational people. There is intelligence in our madness. I wonder if imbeciles are even capable of going insane. Would someone intelligent destroy the earth? Would someone rationally initiate a holocaust? Man the animal with a thumb but without a tail. The brain seems to have nothing to do with it.

We are not free to refrain from forging the chains of our own misery – Marcel Proust – The Fugative p90

40% of children between the 1^st and 3^rd grades read every day, but by the 4^th grade the number of readers has dropped to 29%. What happens? One hypothesis is that a dislike of school gets translated into a dislike of learning.

Only the exhausting is truly interesting – Susan Sontag – Under the Sign of Saturn, 1980

Of all the religious adherents in the US it is the Muslims who are the most likely to reject violence. 78% of Muslims believe that violence that kills civilians is never justified, but only 38% of Protestants and 39% of Catholics agree with this sentiment. Next to the Muslims the atheists and agnostics are the least likely to advocate violence.

As soon as values are dogmatized, schisms arise, followed sooner or later by catastrophe – Francis Ponge – The Voice of Things, 1972  p109

The rhythm is

Or it is not

It has no

            Opposition

It does not

Tolerate contradiction

Rhythm is

Or it is not

This rhythm

Or that rhythm

            Is of no consequence

Even the subconscious is not patient enough for poetry. You are dead and the dead are very patient – Jack Spicer – The Collected Books, 1996  p15

94% of millionaires are concerned about global unrest

One of the most fundamental tensions in our politics is that senior citizens are, simultaneously, the demographic group that most benefits from the welfare state and the one most sympathic to the right wing push to abolish it – The Nation 4/25/112 p3

The ‘A’ constitutes 43% of all college grades. If you're going to go $100,000 in debt you might at least get 'A's.

The teacher thought that my poem [‘Broken Promises’] said one thing but meant another and that it’s not the readers job to figure out what the poetry was saying. No wonder poetry doesn’t have a bigger audience – David Kirby – New York Times Book Review 4/10/11 p12