There's Gotta Be Rules - But You Don't Have to Obey Them

We go fishing. I have the carry the dog though the thickets. He is a burr magnet. Otherwise I have to spend half my time pulling the burrs out of his fur. I carry him under my right arm. In my left hand I  have my rod and reel. After a dozen casts I get bored. I need to brush up on my fishing lore (what lures rule and what not). There is a lot that I’m not doing right and nothing that I am doing well. He’s picked up some more burrs. I dig them out. He doesn’t whine and try to bite my hand any more. He prefers that I do it rather than do it himself. He licks my hand as I put back tuff after tuff of of his long hair from the hooks of an embedded burr. I pick him up, tuck him under my arm, pick up my rod  in the other hand and hike back to the road.  There are four deer drinking from the stream. They run off when they spot us. It is getting hot. I am getting heated with my sweat shirt on and totting this damn dog. I  shall have a beer. Its Ok because it’s almost noon.  One has to have rules to live by: no sex with chickens, no drinking before noon. I found a day-glow green lure in the woods. I am making a collection of these found lures. Now I have two.

Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage;  there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world – Joseph Conrad – Heart of Darkness

I almost got clobbered by a dead branch from the big tree that stood above my trailer (aka The Duck). In the night a storm blew in. I had been warned. I could hear something hitting the roof of the trailer but I thought it was hail. Two big branches came down in the wind. One almost hit the shelter and one almost hit me. It landed five feet behind the trailer. I could see the big hole it made in the soft dirt where it hit. It landed facing away from the trailer. I was lucky. I had heard sirens in the night. The dog shivered from fear of the thunder. I went to sleep. I guess the hill behind me got clobbered by a tornado. Big trees were uprooted and toppled. Metal roofing was twisted and wrapped around the trees that were still standing. I didn’t think anything about it. My power didn’t go out. I didn’t know anything about it until I left camp in the morning. I saw the damage where it has hit the top above me. Wow, that was very close. I was tucked in behind a berm at the bottom of the hill. I was lucky.

The difference, finding the / difference: earth, no heavier / with me here, will be no lighter when I’m gone – A R Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971, 1972 p243

Power of the people – electioneering

Power for the people – rural electrification

Power to the people – popular uprising

We don’t want to impose our solution by force; we want to create a democratic space – Sub Comandante Marcos

Housecleaning – make the bed, wash the dishes, sweep the floor, clean the stove,  water the plants. The battery has gone dead again. Time to feed the dog again. Again and again, the same old thing.

Scientists of poetry / they are burning Newark / and when she went away / I turned in my sleep / and the deepest synapse of my bran / sparked and broke – Hugh Seidman – Selected Poems, 1995 p4

A big attack by the Germans is imminent.  We are throwing together every man they can be found find to re-enforce this area. They are putting together volunteers from all over the nearby front. Many did not yet even been issued uniforms, especially the young boys, but also the lunatics from a nearby asylum. Mothers had been dropping off there younger sons all morning, many were no older than six. There was a guy who claimed to be a professor of artillery. He was selling uniforms. In his opinion blue and pink were the ideal colors for an artilleryman – a blue tunic with pink pantaloons. Some of the veterans bought his uniforms for the youngest of the lads and dressed them up so their mothers could see them and be proud before they went back home. Us veterans intended to keep our distance from these proud lads.

The destruction of representational images is the destruction of a hierarchy which is no longer recognized. It is the violation of generally established and universally visible and valued distances – Elias Canetti -  Crowds and Power, 1978  p19

The Italians began to dance. They played arias arranged for mandolin, guitar and zinc accordion. Some of the women could not keep quiet. Men liked to hear women talk. Turn off here. This is the route James took on his journey into Jerusalem. Someone is behind me muttering the lyrics. He said that roses in a weed patch are no better than my sister. I told him to take it back. I suspected that it was an insult but I was not sure. Now I didn’t mind so much as long as he directed his insults at myself but to bring my family into this was just uncalled for. I was not particularly fond of any of my three sisters but one has to draw the line somewhere and this was the line that I drew. I am now ready to stand up and fight.

In Handel’s and Mozart’s time the public was annoyed ‘not’ to hear a new work – John Adams – Hallelujah Junction, 2008

A cool breeze blows out of the west. The clouds have disappeared. It is still cold but it is sunny. It is not bone chillingly cold but cold enough to want to keep your hands tucked into your pockets. It is time for a hot cup of coffee. This is when I miss having access to electricity. The microwave is so convenient when it comes to warming up a cup of coffee.

A woman put me down & Freud / smoked twenty cigars a day. / My friend spoke of prophets / & profit. The air conditioner / makes the living sound – Hugh Seidman – Selected Poems, 1995 p31

Make the bed, walk the dog, take a pee, take your meds and brush your teeth. Prepare and eat breakfast, wash the dishes. We’re getting on with this day. The coffee pot is already empty.

All the great classical communities conceived of themselves as cosmically central, through the medium of a sacred language linked to a superterrestrial order of power – Benedict Anderson – Imagined Communities, 1991 p13

Creationism is bad science; but Darwinism is not itself bad religion.

[What] the political class can’t accept [is] that the common demand of the current protest wave is for democratic revolution. We want them gone. We want power – Ben Manski 10/3/11

Bad explanations beg more bad explanations while good explanations beget better explanations

The way that can be spoken of is not the true way – Tao Te Ching

The consumer is the real job creator

Each morning they seize their weapons and go out and fight. They kill each other in sport, but they stand up again; it is not real death. Through 640 gates they re-enter Valhalla, 800 men in a row – Elias Canetti -  Crowds and Power, 1978   p44

Keep Bees, Weak Knees - It's All In His Head

I think I have lost a sock. How can you lose a sock in such a tiny space? It can’t be lost. I will not let it be lost. It has to be here somewhere. But I have looked everywhere. No you haven’t or you would have found it. I’ll look again. Maybe I overlooked it before. No, that’s not the problem. This is flustering. I cannot find my other sock. It’s got to be here somewhere. You took it off last night. You haven’t gone anywhere since. There must be something your overlooking. Ah, I took off my long johns too. Maybe it’s still in one of the legs. I check. Yes there it is. You bad boy you.

Creative artists don’t make art in the negative mode. One doesn’t suffer through the agonies of forging as personal language, of wrestling something out of nothing simply to react against an oppressive father figure or merely to rebel against a received way of doing things – John Adams – Hallelujah Junction, 2008 p102

He has music in his head. He’s not drunk. He’s not on drugs. That’s the way he is. He is into sixties rock.  Most everyone ignores him. But someone is trying to talk to him but he finally gives up. It was impossible to get in there with him and there is no other way. Most of us know this intuitively and don’t even try. He drums on his table top. He is singing or something vaguely similar to singing. But he is cognizant enough to stop his performance when two policemen enter for their morning coffee. The officers know him. They play with him and then got bored and move on when two more uniformed officers enter. He stares over at the four officers and says, “Chuck Mangione” as if that was who he thinks he is or maybe he just meant he was performing a Chuck Mangione number. “This is a great neighborhood,” he tells the officers. Then he turns away and looks at the TV. He is still grooving to his music, but otherwise he has being quiet. Neil has to go to work. “Time to look busy,” he says. “Doing anything important today,” I ask? “It’s not allowed,” he replied. Neil leaves to go peck at his lever and hoping for a few chicken pellets. There is profound wisdom somewhere, but not in here, not today.

Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. – G K Chesterton

The prison is a factory for producing delinquents. Delinquents have their utility in a surveillance society.

It [the collapse of Enron] was not the first episode to feature grotesque bonuses for insiders, or a fawning press, or bought politicians, or average people being fleeced by scheming predators. But it was the first in recent memory to bring together all those elements in one glorious fireball of fraud – Thomas Frank – Harpers, Aug 2011 p7

With my trailer, I am now a property owner – a respectable citizen not a vagabond in a tent. It makes a world of difference in everyone’s eyes. Before I  was someone to be avoided now I am a valuable member of the community. I am a member of society now and no longer just a delinquent who must be watched out for. I am a property owner.

We owned things, but we needed someone to own us, and so we have the gods – V S Naipaul – The Masque of Africa, 2010  p132

This is my last day at this campground. Some guy has slept overnight in his beat up truck. Now he was looking for a place to piss. The toilet is locked up for the winter.  He pissed behind it ignoring me as I walked by with my dog.  His truck is warming up. It shimmies and it shakes. He zips up his fly and ambles back towards it. He is wearing a white straw hat. He get back in and drives off. There was a lot of stuff in plastic bags in the back of the truck.

The ebb and flow of the population bombed out of their homes [was] a rehearsal for initiation into the mobile society that would form in the decades after the catastrophe – W G Sebald – On the Natural History of Destruction, 2003 p34

We should all become criminals, then we all will once again be undifferentiated. It is either that or we all become billionaires (once being a millionaire was considered sufficient). There is never enough either when there is nothing to be got or when there is more that can be got.

Whoever was tortured, stays tortured - Jean Amery – At the Mind’s Limits

Why do old women want to chase after old men? I know what old men want, they want some one to cook and clean up after them . But what do old women want?

I mean, baby, you / may be kind but your beauty Sweetie is such // many a man would run himself through for / hating your guts every minute that he died for you – A R Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971, 1972 p220

Keep bees

Graze sheep

Knee deep

Gracious leap

Into my lees

            Again

Down to seeds

And stems again

The worst that can happen in war is to parish together; and this spares them death as individuals, which is what they most fear – Elias Canetti -  Crowds and Power, 1978   p73

I’m reading Stieg Larsson. I’m thinking herring and a beer would be good. There are scattered puffy clouds coming out of the north. Fallen oak leaves rustle across the road.

The problem is / how / to keep shape and flow: // the day’s died / & can’t be re-made: // in the dusk I can’t recover / the golden bodied fly / that waited on a sunfield leaf – A R Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971, 1972 p249

I take a walk down towards the marina. Business is slow. Should pick up tomorrow. Should be back up in the fifties, he said. In regards to his advice on pan fish, good crappie fishing on the mud bank where the stream flows into the river channel. Business? Oh, I’ve seen better days. Summers are Ok. Enough to pay the bills, I inquire? His wife’s from up around Belton, he says. He asks me if  I knew the Roses? No, I say, you know the Ramseys. He didn’t. I didn’t mention  that the Ramsey I knew was Samuel and that he had fought in the Civil War – at Boggey Depot on the Union side.

UTENSIL: How does the pot pray: / wash me, so I gleam? // Prays, crack my enamel: / let the rust in – A R Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971, 1972 p190

I’m eating cheese and crackers and drinking wine with a nice view of the lake and the dog is off to the side digging burrs out of its fur. A cold wind blows in  from the north. There is a lot of fire wood about. I have only one beer left. Shall we drink wine by the campfire tonight. Yes, I reckin’ so.

During intense political debates when animal metaphors are used, real blood will flow – V S Naipaul – The Masque of Africa, 2010  p226

The Necessities of Life

I laid out my firewood and covered it with a tarp to keep it dry. I’m having a hot cup of coffee on this cold day. I drink the whole pot. I have to get up and go outside in the cold to take a whizz. It hardly seems worthwhile, but you can’t spend the whole day lying in bed trying to keep warm. The nights are already ten hours long and that is too long to have to lie in bed all that time and most of the day. Now what did I do with my glasses. Never just put something down in any old place. You need to have a designated spot – when you take them off your face always put them there or they will be lost. The same goes for your wallet and keys. It is one of the rules of getting old. The other is that you have to piss a lot. Oh, there they are on top of the refrigerator. What are they doing up there? If you can’t remember why you certainly won’t remember where. And when you get old you don’t have to make a fashion statement  anymore (well you do anyway but you don’t care about what it is) but you have to be sure that you change your underware frequently so that you don’t smell of stale urine.

The oat fields said oh / And oh said the wheat field as the dusting / combine passed over / and long after the dust was gone. / Oh they said / and looked around at the stubble and straw – A R Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971, 1972 p2

Take your pills, brush your teeth, put on clean underwear, take the dog for a walk – drink and be merry. The dog insists that I walk him first. Breakfast – bacon, hash brown potatoes, black beans and coffee

It’s dark – I take a lantern

I came out here to take

            A crap

I sit there and grunt

Elvis Pressley died like this

            He died for my sins

I refuse to die for yours

Not alone here in the dark

            Sitting on the crapper

It takes a while but

            I do what I came to do

And I return to my warm bed

            This is were I wish to die

I am fortunate

            There is enough

            Toilet paper

Don’t you just hate that

            When there isn’t any left

Even in the middle of the catastrophe, individuals and groups were still unable to asses the real degree of danger and abandon their usual roles – W G Sebald – On the Natural History of Destruction, 2003  p63

Teatime outside in the sun – bread and jam and butter with a beer chaser. Listen to Shostakovich. And now the sun is going down. They are extending the number of slips at the marina. The welders are now headed home in their diesel trucks. The sheriff makes a loop through the park.  The sun is red on the western horizon across the James River. It is time to start a campfire. I eat my evening meal: penne with garlic butter and broccoli florets, an avocado and banana salad and a glass of wine

Defending Medicare and Social Security may be all well and good, but what happened to utopia? – Beverly Gage – New York Times Book Review – 9/18/11 p24

The questions asked when setting up a project are never asked after that project is in place. The project itself is the answer. Afterwards the only relevant questions relate to the mechanisms best needed to implement the project.

Rich countries now have a semi-conscious plan [for responding to global warming]: what ever happens we’ll have the money to cope – Simon Kuper – Financial Times

The function of the judicial system is to create criminals who become the raw materials that the carceral network then turns them into delinquents.

Criminals have traditionally been devoted to their mothers and vise versa. It is a poor criminal whose mother will not attend court to say that he is a good boy at home in an attempt to mitigate the sentence he is to receive – James Morton – The First Detective, 2010 p37

8:45PM and the rain is letting up – drip, drip, drip – Bread and jam

I believe in God and I believe in free markets – Ken Lay, CEO of Enron

A society’s principles should be imperfectly realized otherwise they constitute a form of tyranny

Leave me this black rich country, / uncertainty, labor, / fear do not / Steal the reward of my mortality – A R Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971, 1972  p37

We are allowed to reform the mechanisms that implement the project but we are not allowed to question the project itself

We are unable to learn from the misfortunes we bring on ourselves… We are incorrigible and will continue along the beaten tracks that bear some slight relation to the old road network – W G Sebald – On the Natural History of Destruction, 2003  p67

The camper-shell (man and his son) with the red boat leave. The wind blows and rustles the dead oak leaves. It’s chilly. I retreat to inside my trailer. I drink some hot coffee. Later I’ll have a bowl of black beans with tortillas. There is a big storm brewing. The other two campers depart. I am alone except for a few fishermen. Moisture laden clouds roll in from the south. They are riding up and over a cold front. I gathered up the firewood that the other campers had left. I stow away anything that might blow away.

Gone Fishing - Harold Ensley the Duck and I

Cape Fair – just as you enter town on route 76  a sign proclaims“Cape Fair – bass capital of the world”. Who is to say that it is not? Three towns in Florida and one each in Oklahoma, Arkansas, New Jersey and Virgina make the same claim. It a sports fish. Some people eat them. Fishermen looking to put something on the talbe  usually go for crappie. It’s a bony fish I’m told, but it is a pretty fish. Black bass – gold and dark green. There are usually five or six pick-up trucks with empty trailers. Bass boats are long and low with a big moter that makes them skeeedadle and a little electric trolling motor aft to ease them into the best spot. There are two high stools on which to sit and make a clean cast. I bought a state fishing permit and a lite rod and reel today. I havn’t fished since I was a kid. The guy at the tackle shop says that he crushes one of these (it’s something stinkey) and rubs in on his lure. It attracts them he says. I’m only looking to waste some time on a hot afternoon. Maybe catch a few pan fish. I might not even keep ‘em, I think. No, I say, two of the lures and a packet of the jigs will do. I don’t plan to get that serious about it. I certainly don’t plan on a bass boat, although I’m considering a small kayak. I’ve been out along the shore three times now. I’ve lost one jig and narry even got a bite yet.

How harmless truth / is / in cold weather / to an empty nest – A R Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971, 1972 p163

This moring the place is full of pick-up trucks with empty trailers. I hear someone talking down at the marina – seven metal sheds floating on the water. At the end of the second there is a gas pump and the tackle shop. He is addressing a group. From the sound of his voice, I’d assume he's giving them instrucions. Then a bass boats with a green light aft and a white one on a pole astern, idles past the seventh and last shed and past the buoy just beyond it and guns its big motor and roars down the river and around the bend towards the open lake. Then a hundred yards back another. I can see more between the sheds – not quite a parade and not an armada either. I begin counting them as the roar away. I count thirty. There were actually thirty-two. Bass tournment no doubt.

I spent the day / differentiating / and wound up / with nothing / whole to keep – A R Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971, 1972 p183

The leader board has slots for ninty enteries but has only thirty-two written in. I read the rules. The “Freeze Up Buddy” bass tournament. $40 entry fee for each boat/team of two. Some fathers bring their sons. Some are just buddies. After the tournament teams pass by in review, the guys just out to fish line up and drop their boats into the river. The teams take off at seven AM. One team is late, someone had said that it started at eight. Seven places for the total weight of any three live bass. There is a side bet for biggest bass. Most of the teams poney up. Come back at two for the weight in, the man in the tackle shop says. Come down and watch, he tells me. They have opened up just for this tournament. They won’t open up for regular hours until March. This is the first year that the Corps has kept the campgound open – electricity but no water – and with my senior discount it only costing me six dollars a night. They had never had a tournament this early in the year before but the weather has been so nice.

“My country, right or wrong,” is a thing that no true patriot would think of saying. It is like saying, “My mother, drunk or sober.”  - G K Chesterton

At 1:30 I head back down to the marina. About half the boats are already back. The rest of them come trickling in. Everyone looks tired. Just before two the two minuted warning is given. If anyone hasn’t turned in their boat tag, you got two minutes in which to get it done. The “Freeze-Up Buddy” tournament has concluded. Team members are carrying their three biggest fish in plastic bags to the weight-in station. Boat by boat they are weighted – single bass, three bass all alive – and totted on the board. Eighteen of the teams yield fish to be weighted. I had asked what the expected winer might weight in at. Oh, probably around fifteen pounds. It was 16.2 pounds and the biggest fish was 6.2 (boat #15 – Morphlet and Smith who also took second in total weight – taking home $934). The guy from the tackle shop asked the fisherman if they liked the way the tournament was organized. Most of them thought it was ok. Someone suggested that the weight-in might be done at three instead of two.

One can be an observer only up to a point. Beyond that point one was an intruder – V S Naipaul – The Masque of Africa, 2010  p174

The individual is possible only when he is a part of a disciplined and differentiated mass

Rational, reasonable people adapt themselves to the world, but strong people adapt the world to themselves – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956  p1562

Four fishermen – four bright red pick-ups

            In a parking lot

With a roar, down

            The James

And out onto the lake

            Bass await

If good, won’t be back

            Until late

And even if the bass

            Aren’t biting

Might not be back

            Until all the whiskey is gone

Winter over, ice-bound / mind better not rush to meet spring fast; / might trip, stiff thought, / shatter – A R Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971, 1972  p60

Power can either be displayed by those who weld it or it can be displayed by the objectification of those on whom it is brought to bear

Poetry convinces not by argument but by the form it creates to carry its content – Louis Zukofsky – A Taste of Poetry

Power hangs between the pillars of spectacle and surveillance

News was generated by storms, not doldrums – Ngugi Wa Thiongo – Wizzard of the Crow, 2007  p74

To slip out of the leg-irons of a discipline: I miss my old chains.

The preoccupation of a bureaucracy with an individual always leads to the conclusion that this individual is shady and unreliable, that is to say, as measured by the standards of precision and security according to the rules and regulations one applies in a bureaucracy – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956  p1668

Raymond Carver’s shorts stories are full of drinking and exs – everyone that drinks has them – middle aged professionals in a relationship that involves alcohol and this relationship is bracketed by the former ones and the ones that will come after this – bottoms up. Set in small town America in rented rooms. Alcohol (and sometimes marijuana) and love (or at least a relationship which seems to be equalivent). Being drunk is a lot like being in love, or should that be the other way around. It is not that they are the same. Are they real? They seem to be grounded in reality, Carver’s reality. It is easier to read them than it is to do them . It is easier to do them than to write it. It is easier to write them out  it than  it is to live them.

Can reading – more to the point, can writing – be a kind of drug, a distraction from an otherwise insufferable existence? Is it possible to be addicted to writing? – Adam Krish – New Republic 0 8/18/11 p23

Those who are paid regularly; those who are paid by the day; those who are paid by the job done and finally there are the prostitutes.

It was time to go. And time to pay. The guide had to be paid for attending and when we got to the iron gate there was a further charge, for entering. It would have been like that, too, at the oracles in the Classical world. The world has always had its dues – V S Naipaul – The Masque of Africa, 2010  p29

I’ve just about had it with Sue Grafton – the Paula Dean of mystery writers – this genteel elder stateswoman. I’ve just finished the first half of the ‘U’ novel and have figured out the plot line – it is no mystery (or I’ll be very surprised if it is). It is just a matter of how our detective will go about putting the pieces together – sort of like a Colombo episode. And I’m getting tired of her bourgeoisie moralizing. A mystery should be a novella – something gets solved. This is a novel – a character is developed; and a poor one at that. But I’ll trudge on to see if it comes out the way I expect it. And oh, just one more question? What is it, Colombo? the villain asks indulgently.

For more than two decades, Washington’s maninstreamers considered [Dick] Chaney… genial, brainy and suave. You could invite him to a dinner party and know he wouldn’t start spouting Bible verse and frighten the caterers – Andrew Ferguson – Commentary Oct 1011 p64

And now the cabs return from Ocean Beach, disgorging the tired, the sore and the broken of the bay. Eight miles on their Stairmasters had seemed easy and so they had gone out last night with friends and partied. This morning they had stood at the corner play acting their jogging and laughing. Now they limp home.

Joe Banana was born in Ipenema - ugh - boom da oug oug, tat tat, yeah - boom da, Boy ah, boy ah boonk. Joe grew up an angry punk. Oih Oih. Now he’s the big banana of the Samba bunch. Sigh - boing, boing, ahi ah ah. And I get out my pastels and allow the colors to flow freely across the white page without restraint – have courage, use your instinct.

Don’t forget to slop the hogs, / feed the chickens, / water the mule, / cut the kindling, / build the fire, / call up the cow // supper is over, its starting to get dark early, / better get the scraps together, mix a little meal in, nothing but swill – A R Ammons – Collected Poems, 1951-1971, 1972  p66

My Donald Duck is two degrees of separation form Harold Ensley. My uncle provided the Ford that Harold drove. I bought Mr. Duck form my uncle's bookkeeper. I only found out later. I found the trailer on Craig's List.

The Duck, The Dog and I

Thunder rumbles in the west. It is dusk. It is getting dark. There’s a ping, ping of rain drops on the roof. Their frequency increases. Thunder rumbles again. The dog’s head bobs up at the sound. Storms frighten him. He lies back down, curled in a ball. The thunder is far away. Sound carries far across water. The rumbling gets closer. I have the lantern on so that I can read. I have a burner lite on the stove for heat. I need to check and see if my carbon monoxide detector is working. I crack two windows for some ventilation.  The thunder is getting louder. It is not dark enough to see the flashes of lighting. Thunder crackles. I drink a glass of wine and munch on some cheese and crackers. Ping, ping, ping. Kapow! Crackle, boom – a rolling rumble. The dog gets up and stares at me. I beckon him to come over and sit beside me. He does. He is shivering. Now the storm is upon us, in earnest. The dog shakes. I put my arm around him. He lies quiet but continues to shiver. It is dark. Lighting crackles, thunder rumbles, the trailer quivers.

Blue sky – sunshine – it is warming up but not as fast as my spirits are. I take off my overcoat. I sip at my cup of hot tea.

The grass is turning green – it is grown again. The tips of trees are swelling. The elms are in flower, nothing showy – you have to look closely. The beginning of the greening is not flashy, which shall come with the first jonquils.

If you want to live, you love; if you don’t want to live, you hate, that’s all. It’s as simple as that – Louis Zukofsky

Time is money

Money is time

            Which doesn’t mean

            That time equals money

Yet money does equal time

We can spend money but not time

            Spin money

            Send money

We can’t spin time

            Except with two hands

Money is both a thing and and idea

            Time is no thing

            But it is not nothing either

At the roulette wheel

            Both time and money spins

The more time there is

            The further away things are

The more money there is

            The closer things get

Whoever doesn’t know what he wants himself at least has to know what everyone else wants – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956  p1254

For the conservative the sacrifice is small, but the reward great; for the liberal the sacrifice is great and the reward small.The natural advantage is with the conservative but time is on the liberal’s side or there would be no need for a conservative.

[He] had been accustomed to expect that politics would bring about not what needed to happen but at best what ought to have happened long since – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956  p1492

The race to the bottom – a concerted effort to eliminate labor organization in order to create the lowest labor rates and attract investment away from other states (and even from China). Gain a “competitive advantage over your neighbors” (Jon Huntsman).

The masters always have an indelible and therefore deeper knowledge of their roots than their disciples can every achieve – Martin Heidegger – What is Called Thinking?, 1968 p184

Nationwide teachers in high-poverty districts earn a third less then those  in low-poverty districts. School in high-proverty districts tend to attract less experienced and less educated teachers.

We’re all on each other’s food chain… Welcome to the meaning of ‘individual’ – David Foster Wallace  - Infinite Jest p112

Right to Work (RTW) does not create jobs. Companies looking for cheap labor chose China or Mexico, or South Carolina. What RTW does is lower the average income of a worker by $1,500 and reduce the chances that a worker can get health insurance or a pension through his job. In the ten years since Oklahoma adopted RTW, the number of manufacturing jobs in the state has fallen by one third. The number of companies that relocated to the state was one-third lower in the decade following adoption as it was in the proceeding decade. RTW is irrelevant in terms of job creation in the face of broader economic forces.

If a man brushes past me in a dark alley, I step aside, but if in the same situation he asks me in a friendly way what time it is, then I not only reach for my watch but grab for my gun too – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956  p1220

I once met Karen Finley, Dave said. “Yam What I Yam”, I said. “Dr Seuss”, be asked? He goes back to his reading his poetry and I go back to reading Umberto Eco. Then he looked up and asked, “so what is the connection between Karen Finley and fired chicken?” “Honey”, I replied and went back to Umberto. The whole world is looking for a neighborhood bar. The only problem is that they are all looking in someone else’s neighborhood.

A group of women, noisy women, enter. One of them seems to be in charge or at least is looked to by the others to assume that role. “Here attending a convention”, I ask? “God, I hope not”, she replies and orders a round of Spattens for the ladies. “What’s a Splattan”, one of them asks? She had been careful to poll all of them and made sure that beer was OK them. Carol did not want a beer. “You sure you don’t want an orange soda or something?” “No I’m fine,” Carol replies. Dave turns the sound system up Bomda - Boom - ba  and then it slid into a nondescript electronic monotone. The Woman’s Building is only two blocks away and where else were they to have gone, the 500 Club - oh yeah..

“So”, says Dave, “do you sort of listen to their conversation or what?” “A little of this and a lot of that”, I reply. “You just catch the surf and ride it for all it worth.” He seemed to be satisfied with that answer. Now I needed to catch the #22 back and buy ice cream. I finish my beer and Dave deposits another scoop of pretzels into the tray on my left as I slide off the stool.

The next morning the taxies are out early prowling for clowns. It’s Bay to Breakers today. The less than serious runners like to dress up. Many dress up as clowns. A clown can run better than a cow which takes a lot of coordination. And bees can’t run fast they have those antennae that bounce around throwing off your concentration.  I had a dream about a song last night. The lyrics went something like this: “The girls of Tokyo are mighty cute, they carry things on their heads and are as good looking as the girls of Santa Monica. The broads from Oakland go without  any tans.” It was supposed to have been a rock song with a male chorus singing in harmony and with a lead voice that didn’t match with the choir. I don’t think I would want to hear it on  the radio, but Walter tells me that I should finish it anyway. I showed him my dead goat and my cave painting pictures. He said that the cave painting was from a site in Africa – he wanted to know if the spear was aimed at a mammoth or something else. Hell, I didn’t know. I had just made it up. I didn’t even know that it was from Africa

The calling calls thinking to the crossroads of way, no way, and wrong way. But the way of thinking is such a kind that this crossroads can never be crossed by a once-for-all decision and choice of way, and the way can never be put behind as the way, every moment – Martin Heidegger – What is Called Thinking?, 1968 p175

Good is up, bad is down

Good is in front, bad is behind

            They’ve come around the last corner

            They are in the final stretch

Look forward to better times

            Let’s put this behind us

Up, down, right/left, front to back

            Hupp two three four

Things are looking up

Don’t let them get you down

Profound melancholy, moreover, is not black, but dark green or dark blue, and has the softness of velvet, it is not so much annihilation as rather a rare, positive quality – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956  p1741

Nutmeg Can Fuck You Up

I forgot to put coffee in the coffee pot. It started to perk. It won’t be long now I thought. Geese flying low over the lake honk. I forgot to put any grounds in the basket. It shall just be hot water. I could make tea. I have tea bags. But no, I want my morning coffee. I get up and take down the can of coffee. The can is almost empty. I will have to go into town for provisions soon. But there is enough for this pot. Now that perking is going to mean something.

A cold front moves in. I can’t stay out here without any heat. The temperature is supposed to get down into the single digits for the next few nights and not much above freezing during the days. I take a break from camping, stay with a near by relative. Stay as long as you like she says. Mr. Duck is parked in front, I hope he don't get ticketed.  I’m thinking about getting a small generator. God did I hate listening to them running all night when I was tenting. I am reminded of a Gil Scot-Heron song – There Comes a Time When You Gotta Put On a Suit and Tie - actually it's called - PUSH GOMES TO SHOVE (see lyrics below). I mentioned that to Meg and she asked if I planned to go back to work. Oh hell no! I’d rather freeze to death in the woods, but fortunately I don’t have to.

                        PUSH COME TO SHOVE - GIL SCOT HERON

                         Ain't nobody seen you
                         Can nobody scold you
                         Can nobody blame you,
                         And make you feel bad

                         Nobody should tie you
                         Tell you I told you
                         Nobody should ride you,
                         About the commitments you had.

                         Cuz they done learned you
                         And they done burned you
                         Showed you idealistic is all you were
                         Everybody gotta realize
                         That we all had to compromise
                         Had to put on suit and ties
                         When push came to shove 

                         (it seems like)

                          Push comes to shove once in your lifetime (yes and)
                          Push comes to shove to find out just what's on your mind
                          Push comes to shove to find exactly what you're made of

                          Nobody can know you
                          Nobody should tease you
                          Not try to rezone you
                          And make you feel strange
                          Nobody got to explain
                          Ain't really nothing to explain
                          Everything got rearranged
                          Can I weather a change

                          But they done taught you
                          Cuz they done caught you
                          Showed you unrealistic is all you were
                          So everybody once believed
                          Was only showing how naive
                          Gotta give up to be free
                          When push came to shove.

                           It seems like
                           Push comes to shove once in your lifetime (yes and)
                           Push comes to shove to find out just what's on your mind
                           Push comes to shove to find exactly what you're made of

                           Well, everybody knew we was somehow running late
                           And with the captains overboard, who was handling a ship of fate?
                           And all we knew was what we really did not know
                           And that's when push was sure 'nough coming to shove

                           Push comes to shove to find exactly what you're made of...

                           Cuz they done learned you
                           And they done burned you
                           Showed you idealistic is all you were
                           Everybody gotta realize
                           That we all had to compromise
                           Had to put on suit and ties
                           When push came to shove

                           Push comes to shove once in your lifetime (yes and)
                           Push comes to shove to find out just what's on your mind
                           Push comes to shove to find exactly what you're made of

Good poetry is the barest – most essentially complete – form of presenting a subject – Louis Zukofsky – A Taste of Poetry

Waiting in line

            Down at the roaster

Waiting waiting waiting

For a morning latte

Waiting waiting in latteland

The lazy read the paper

The industrious are

            On their laptops

Get back in your car

With your Styrofoam cups

            In time to punch the clock

A black Lexus gets you

            There

In this land of opportunity

There’s no time for jealousy
            When you're making money

But any fanaticism that is not a group fanaticism is precisely what society understands as a madness – Susan Sontag – Under the Sign of Saturn, 1980 p65

USA USofA

            With the same viciousness

            Of a dog guarding a bone

The monotone of the chant

            The crowd grunting

            The stadium itself

                        Rumbling

The deep aftershock of an

            Horrendous quake

Steel and concrete tremble

Wave after wave – the wave

            Around and around

USA USA USA

The President spoke. I can hear

            You. I can hear you

American had spoken; it had been

            Put on a new footing

He achieved his dream – running

            The length of the field

            For the touchdown

He grabbed a flag and it flared

            Behind him as the ran

            Around  and around the field

They hollered and they hooted

USA USA USA USA

But it was not clear to him to what degree he was a believer, it quickly became clear that he was an opponent of unbelievers, and he trained himself to think with conviction that he was convinced, and that it was one’s responsibility to be convinced – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956  o1290

The United States is now tied with Argentina, Romania and Latvia in the annual World Press Freedom Index

In the army what counts most is being able to report progress; a certain optimism is indispensable even in defeat – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956  p1125

Those with the greatest need get the fewest resources

The schools identified as low-performing not only serve a growing underclass of impoverished families; they also typically do so with fewer state and local dollars per pupil than wealthier districts around them – Linda Darling-Hammond – The Nation, 1/30/12 p12

There are many want-a-be conservatives but few want-a-be liberals

All that expresses a radical discontent and aims at shattering complacencies of feeling risks being disarmed, neutralized, drained of its power to disturb – by being admired, by being (or seeming to be) too well understood, by becoming relevant – Susan Sontag – Under the Sign of Saturn, 1980 p68

There are three major mistakes that a young person can make for which there is no redemption:

            1 – driving drunk and killing someone

            2 – having a child by someone that they cannot stand

            3 – taking out a student loan

People are conceived and slain in an instant, and small birds fly from one branch to another with the same right of existence – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956  p1478

There are some sheep in wolf’s clothing among the liberals, but among the conservatives there are many wolfs in sheep’s clothing

The diplomats pretend to be ignorant even when the really are – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956 p1232

Nutmeg can fuck you up. It contains a psychoactive chemical called myristrcin which has a chemical structure similar to mescaline. Malcolm X wrote that in prison a “penny match box full of nutmeg had the kick of three or four reefers.” Side effects may include loose bowels, vomiting, accelerated heart rate and nutmeg burps at twenty minute intervals. Or so I've been told, I really don’t know – I have not tried it myself.

There are two kinds of saviors: those who want to soothe the soul of the suffering and those who want to heal the sores of the flesh of the suffering – Ngugi Wa Thiongo – Wizard of the Crow, 2007 p94

The medical cost of a prison inmate (per year):

            Average                       $ 5,800

            Age 55-59                    11,000

            Over 80                        40,000

California’s elderly prison inmate population has grown from 4% of all prisoners in 1990 to 17% in 2010. Because the state does not have enough prison hospital beds it must contract for impatient care at a cost of $850,000 per bed per year. California is currently building a $750m prison hospital facility with 1,772 beds.

It’s a distinctive mark of our times that we have too many geniuses. How is one to understand them all and not overlook any – Robert Musil – The Man Without Qualities, 1956  p1347