If You're Going to Mess Around with Self-Love You Shouldn't Just Rush into a Relationship

I've done some blegrell work. There's a new category there on the left, New New Toys, created to highlight new discoveries and to acknowledge that most of the New Toys are in fact wonderful old toys.

I raid blegfriends' blegrells both for new yodels and in the service of Kind. I try to remember to ping someone I'm not familiar with whenever I visit.

Since I love blogwollowing as much as bleggalgazing, this can't be another filler post, though while it seems recently I'm avoiding writing directly about fuck's mighty clustering, I'd say I am writing directly about fuck's mighty clustering.

So this: What is the world's reaction if the USMNT wins WC10?

Yes I know, but what if? 

If you want to stamp predictions about anything WC10, on-field or off, they must be in comments or dogmail box by midnight 6/11/10 EDT. If enough people bother, I'll compile them into a post before Friday's opening matches.

God-taunting like this: USMNT 2, England 0, encouraged.

• Evil in broad daylight.
• UPDATE! Evil in the shadows.
• UPDATE! More.
• Fred Hiatt blames Turkey in Your Fucking Washington Post.
• Your Fucking Washington Post.
• Liz Cheney says Turkey = Iran and Syria.
• Why don't we just bomb Turkey Tuesday?
• You do realize Israel accomplished what it set out to do, yes?
• And fuck Whitman High School too.
• Marking assets, marking enemies.
• America, still completely fucking nuts.
• A plea for sanity.
• UPDATE! Crises of consumerism, part six.
• What Krugman consistently misses is that the calls for austerity are calls for destroying social safety nets. The elites see now as a prime opportunity to gut. They're not "madmen," they're greedy motherfucking assholes.
• Coming soon to a map near you.
• UPDATE! More reasons to hate Elton Fucking John.
• Food Movement, rising.
• Jeebus, Republicans are pussies. No, really.
• BLCKDGRD, translated into Greek by someone googling eformeday eoplepay.
• Owner of Cider Barrel dies.

UPDATE!

Full disclaimer: My wife is an Art teacher in MOCO, my friend Ilse is a teacher at Einstein, which doesn't mitigate one iota HOW FUCKED-UP THIS IS. Please understand, the people who control the spigot are not trying to fix the mess, they're trying to make the mess worse. Free education? You fucking socialist. Art education? You fucking aesthete.

• UPDATE! This sucks: Wallace out six weeks.
• Look who's refereeing USMNT v England!
• UPDATE! What's right about United.
• David Markson has died. I've read and admired more than liked, but that's on me.
• UPDATE! More.
• Finally, not just one but two books in NYTBR I'll read (and I just bought the Charlie Smith, whose novel Chimney Rock I thought brilliant a lifetime ago and whose poetry I've posted here).
• UPDATE! When was the last time you thought of Terry Southern?
• Those of you who read here who'd be interested probably know about this, but just in case, new Josipovici fiction coming. I'll try again.
• UPDATE! New Marvin Bell poem.
• Coetzee on Sebald and the uncanny. I haven't read Sebald in ten years, but will again. Coetzee? I'll try again.
• UPDATE! James Murphy interview. Yes, he talks about Eno. Says that in this song, the best Eno homage ever I keep saying, the guitar riff is stolen from Fripp.
• Darkblack's Sunday Overnight.
• UPDATE! New albums coming from Superchunk, Les Savy Fav!
• NPR as indie-rock kingmaker?
• I did hear this on All Things Considered Saturday night on the way to United's game, and (1) I'm buying that New York Polyphony and (2) I'm going to immerse myself in Morton Feldman's music.
• UPDATE! Nine hours of sublime listening goodness courtesy of Pliable, who, while I hope he's having a blast away, I want to get home and publishing again.
• Saturday morning earworm...

WHAT NARCISSISM MEANS TO ME

Tony Hoagland

There's Socialism and Communism and Capitalism,
said Neal,
and there's Feminism and Hedonism,
    and there's Catholicism and Bipedalism and Consumerism,

but I think Narcissism is the system
that means the most to me;

and Sylvia said that in Neal's case
narcissism represented a heroic achievement in positive thinking.

And Ann,
who everyone calls Sweetie pie
    whether she cares for them or not,

Ann lit a cigarette and said, Only miserable people will tell you
    that love has to be deserved,

and when I heard that, a distant chime went off for me,

remembering a time when I believed
    that I could simply live without it.

Neal have grilled the corn and sliced the onions
                into thick white disks,
                and piled the wet green pickles
                            up in stacks like coins
and his chef's cap was leaning sideways like a mushroom cloud.

Than Ethan said that in his opinion,
if you're going to mess around with self-love
            you shouldn't just rush into a relationship,

and Sylvia was weeping softly now, looking down
        into her wine cooler and potato chips,

and then the hamburgers were done, just as
the sunset in the background started
                cutting through the charcoal clouds

exposing their insides - black,
streaked dark red,
            like a slab of scorched, rare steak,

delicious but unhealthy,
or, depending on your perspective,
                    unhealthy but delicious,

- the way that, deep inside the misery
            of daily life,
                        love lies bleeding.