BLCKDGRD

Eighty-Five Today

Honor Blackman was Catherine Gale before Diana Rigg was Emma Peel.

When I think about the trances McCarthy's narrator in Remainder* experiences, I think about the chills of nostalgia I feel watching black and white episodes of The Avengers.

*Finished with first reading. It is exceptional. Will take a few months before second reading, and won't say anything more than I love novels that love the uncanny. Recommendations?

Take More from the Top as More Settles to the Bottom

Yesterday I wrote:

Of course Glenn Beck is an asshole - it's just as "inappropriate" for him to hold Cracker March on August 28 at the Lincoln Memorial as it is for a Muslim community center to be built two blocks from Ground Zero - but he's well within his "rights..."

I clanged this duh a second time because I can't stop thinking about the width and depth of duh I clanged the first time.

• What Fox News will be screaming about this weekend. Assuming the allegations are false (or even if they're true), fuck Obama.
• UPDATE! Of course they're not true. Fuckers. Speculate amongst yourselves.
• The Old Tool defends Robert Gibbs, but what's interesting is the bottom RIPs for two lying crooks and a sack of shit.
• UPDATE! Colossal Asshole.
• The sell is the tell.
• UPDATE! Long month.
• How things work.
• An anarchist's guide to relationships.
• Notes on a scandal.
• The Bible keeps you stupid.
• I confess I've never heard of Coleman Dowell. Good thing I have access to a university library's stacks. (Too bad I don't have more minutes in a day.)
• I dutifully read the New York Trilogy and every novel through Leviathan because I thought I was supposed to, then decided I really didn't need to read Auster ever again.
• Serendipitously, within a month of mentioning Kundera here, a review of Unbearable Lightness of Being.
• Best books to read in your twenties?
• UPDATE! Have a John Cale song. (h/t)

RENDER, RENDER

Thomas Lux

Boil it down: feet, skin, gristle,
bones, vertebrae, heart muscle, boil
it down, skim, and boil
again, dreams, history, add them and boil
again, boil and skim
in closed cauldrons, boil your horse, his hooves,
the runned-over dog you loved, the girl
by the pencil sharpener
who looked at you, looked away,
boil that for hours, render it
down, take more from the top as more settles to the bottom,
the heavier, the denser, throw in ache
and sperm, and a bead
of sweat that slid from your armpit to your waist
as you sat stiff-backed before a test, turn up
the fire, boil and skim, boil
some more, add a fever
and the virus that blinded an eye, now's the time
to add guilt and fear, throw
logs on the fire, coal, gasoline, throw
two goldfish in the pot (their swim bladders
used for "clearing"), boil and boil, render
it down and distill,
concentrate
that for which there is no
other use at all, boil it down, down,
then stir it with rosewater, that
which is now one dense, fatty, scented red essence
which you smear on your lips
and go forth
to plant as many kisses upon the world
as the world can bear!

My Face Had Been Sliced Off and Lay There on the Ground Like a Washcloth With My Testicles and Penis Next to It

Every post is bleggalgazing about my motives for shetty blegging. I want to be deified and inconsequential. I obsess about collegiality and want to be invisible. I'm a fucking mess, but for all my addiction to pings I'll not be applying for this:

In September, The Post will introduce a new reader-driven blog for fans, by fans, focused solely on Washington sports. To fill out our roster of fan bloggers, we're looking for one of our best, most diehard D.C. United fans to weigh in on whatever's happening in the world of United. While we'll ask all bloggers to occasionally weigh in on all Washington's pro teams, we're particularly interested in having an established D.C. United voice as part of the project.

Meantime, Roger Clemons, who I bet you any number of pints believes Obama is a Muslim, will be a shiny example that the rich and gifted don't get away with lying under oath to Congress in America, right, Mr Blankfein?

• Of course Glenn Beck is an asshole - it's just as "inappropriate" for him to hold his Cracker March on August 28 at the Lincoln Memorial as it is for a Muslim community center to be built two blocks from Ground Zero - but he's well within his "rights."
• World's Shittiest Human farts, giggles.
• UPDATE! I confess I'm surprised YFWP allows Sargent to consistently call The World's Shittiest Human on his bullshit.
• Jeffrey Goldberg wants to be the next World's Shittiest Human once the World's Shittiest Human does the world a favor and fucking dies.
• Obamapologist!
• Austerity works if.....
• Not going Galt.
• Hell is other producers.
• Private property is cool if you're Amish.
• Ten shameless Right-Wing tributes to Ayn Rand.
• I'm voting Teaparty!
• Schlock and yawn.
• UPDATE! Ethan calls bullshit on pwoggly wankery (and IOZ follows up).
• unpanoramanic.
• America is..... VOTE!
• BLCKDGRD translated into Dutch.
• UPDATE! BLCKDGRD translated into German. "Kevin Fucking Payne" in German? "Kevin Fucking Payne."
• How are the ferals doing?

• Excellently, thanks.
• UPDATE! Execute the motherfuckers.
• I'm tired of being accosted by fireman every time I go to Safeway to sign their petition, though I did sign once.
• UPDATE! Mission accomplished! I actually didn't sign the petition but didn't feel like typing out why, knowing someone else would, in angry and profane detail, if baited.
• Maryland crackers angry at Ehrlich?
• Note to self: if robbing the same place twice in three days, cover up my tattoos.
• Poetry? There's an app for that.
• RIP Bernard Knox.
• Frog feels about The National the way I feel about Elbow.
• Gah! Why the fuck is Fleet Foxes on my radio? SUCK!
• The first item is incredibly bad news, the last item incredibly sad news.
• RIP Michael Been of The Call.

AMERICAN

Frederick Seidel

My face had been sliced off
And lay there on the ground like a washcloth
With my testicles and penis
Next to it.

The car had Wyoming plates.
I'd been to Colorado but not Wyoming,
Which I gather is beautiful.
The other one I hadn't seen was Utah.

Someone had carefully cut under it and lifted it off,
I suppose to obliterate the identity,
Except had left it out in the open.
It looked like a latex glove but also someone's face.

She told me she had always loved me.
I was the happy ending of a fairy tale.
She would recognize my penis anywhere,
Even on the ground.

Another one of dozens of my five favorite songs ever:

The Miracle Beast Deserved Such Ritual that to Care for Him Properly Meant Ruin

It's not direct cause yet but it is a contributing factor that within months after SCOTUS thumbed-up corporate campaign spending the Republicans are winning on wetback-trapping and Muslim-baiting. I bet in-house DNC polls project utter disaster this November and the next one and the next one. I bet Howard Fucking Dean looks at the success of the current Republican messaging campaign and realizes the Republicans have only begun tapping into the spigot of unlimited corporate money (and unlimited American crackerosity to be exploited) and Dean decided to try and save his shitty party's ass at the price of its sorry and soon obsolete ass.

My de-roobing required me admit Democrats are far bigger, wider, deeper pussies, cowards, and whores than I thought them when I was giving them time, money, and votes, so it is with amused fascination rather than impotent fury that I watch them stare at their extinction as a viable alternative mafia to the Republicans in a terminally ill empire and try to out-oink, or at least keep oinking-pace with, the oinkers.

• Public opinion does not exist.
• UPDATE! Howard Fucking Dean responds to the reaction to his being a cynical and cowardly motherfucker, the fucker.
• While I agree with the sentiment, I doubt America is going to grow the f*ck up now or ever.
• UPDATE! Teabagger organizing versus Left organizing.
• Satisfaction.
• UPDATE! Never.
• David Broder calls Democrats pussies. He's not wrong.
• UPDATE! Yay for Franken.
• It's the economy, stupid! (And who the hell uses Fish Called Wanda allusions anyway?)
• UPDATE! Part Tinker Bell, part predator drone.
• Tables, turned (right link this time).
• Faggot: A Reevaluation.
• This article, on rich fuckers spending six figures on fish aquariums for their condos, is the second lead story on the NYT webpage as I type this.
• Glenmont!
• Markson: A Primer. I reread

• after Markson's death earlier this year, which I deeply admired without particularly liking, the history of my relationship with Markson.
• Weird-word quiz.
• On Jack Gilbert.
• A Kermode obit.
• Melodia AM.

IN DISPRAISE OF POETRY

Jack Gilbert

When the King of Siam disliked a courtier,
he gave him a beautiful white elephant.
The miracle beast deserved such ritual
that to care for him properly meant ruin.
Yet to care for him improperly was worse.
It appears the gift could not be refused.

Starts Again Always in Henry’s Ears the Little Cough Somewhere, an Odour, a Chime

Now it's just rained five inches in three hours. Weirdest weather year of my life. Weirdest work year of my life. Weirdest married year of my life. Weirdest year as a father of my life. Weirdest soccer year of my life. Weirdest cat year of my life. Weirdest reading year of my life. Weirdest listening year of my life. Weirdest political year of my life. 

Weirdest year of my life. Little of it bad, most of it good, some of it wonderful, all of it weird. There are certain sounds I keep finding in the poetry I'm reading, in my CD players.

• Your daily obamapostasy.
• UPDATE! Howard Fucking Dean.  More tomorrow, or not.
• Mosque Shmosque. Almost. The establishment sees mega-profits - think of the savings if the US can stop pretending it gives a flying fuck about bringing potable water and sewage plants to the motherfucking Muslims, they're living on top of our oil and that's their fucking infidel desserts, for instance -but the establishment damn right fears the rage of crackerstanis - they don't fear you, they don't fear me - fears them so much they gorge the crackers on the meat that makes them more dangerously cracker. (You and me are meat, but more appetizer than meal.)
• I knew someone would obliterate Beinart's self-serving bullshit, saving me from having to do it.
• Eden is a place we leave.
• UPDATE! Liberalism, power, and the state.
• It's astonishing how much it pisses off crackers that niggers can call each other niggers but crackers can't.
• Your future cracker propagandists.
• Good bigotry is a product of good leadership.
• Against Christ (I).
• UPDATE! Two-legged dog.
• The Web is Dead:

• But you knew that, whether you're Kind or unKind.
• UPDATE! Speaking of detritus.
• United's Number 16! But only because there's no 17.
• UPDATE! Hey, I know public school teachers.
• QWERTY and you.
• Comment monster (II) and (III).
• Subjects for poetry.
• RIP, Frank Kermode.
• Mercury 2010 nominees.

DREAM SONG 29

John Berryman

There sat down, once, a thing on Henry’s heart   

só heavy, if he had a hundred years

& more, & weeping, sleepless, in all them time   

Henry could not make good.

Starts again always in Henry’s ears

the little cough somewhere, an odour, a chime.

And there is another thing he has in mind   

like a grave Sienese face a thousand years

would fail to blur the still profiled reproach of. Ghastly,   

with open eyes, he attends, blind.

All the bells say: too late. This is not for tears;   

thinking.

But never did Henry, as he thought he did,

end anyone and hacks her body up

and hide the pieces, where they may be found.

He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody’s missing.   

Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.
Nobody is ever missing.

The Goat and I Walked On. It Was Getting Dark and We Were Beginning to Wonder Where We Would Spend the Night

Serendipitously, twenty minutes after reading what a pussy Harry Reid is, was, and will be forever, I read the world's most sanctimonious human say what I've been saying and then read Fucker Norquist assert what I once would have asserted (and be just as wrong, though his motives are in a different league of dishonesty than mine), so have another Archers of Loaf song just because:

I cannot say this enough (for me; for you it's probably old): fine fucking serendipity abounds in clusterfucks.

IT HAPPENS LIKE THIS

James Tate

I was outside St. Cecelia's Rectory
smoking a cigarette when a goat appeared beside me.
It was mostly black and white, with a little reddish
brown here and there. When I started to walk away,
it followed. I was amused and delighted, but wondered
what the laws were on this kind of thing. There's
a leash law for dogs, but what about goats? People
smiled at me and admired the goat. "It's not my goat,"
I explained. "It's the town's goat. I'm just taking
my turn caring for it." "I didn't know we had a goat,"
one of them said. "I wonder when my turn is." "Soon,"
I said. "Be patient. Your time is coming." The goat
stayed by my side. It stopped when I stopped. It looked
up at me and I stared into its eyes. I felt he knew
everything essential about me. We walked on. A police-
man on his beat looked us over. "That's a mighty
fine goat you got there," he said, stopping to admire.
"It's the town's goat," I said. "His family goes back
three-hundred years with us," I said, "from the beginning."
The officer leaned forward to touch him, then stopped
and looked up at me. "Mind if I pat him?" he asked.
"Touching this goat will change your life," I said.
"It's your decision." He thought real hard for a minute,
and then stood up and said, "What's his name?" "He's
called the Prince of Peace," I said. "God! This town
is like a fairy tale. Everywhere you turn there's mystery
and wonder. And I'm just a child playing cops and robbers
forever. Please forgive me if I cry." "We forgive you,
Officer," I said. "And we understand why you, more than
anybody, should never touch the Prince." The goat and
I walked on. It was getting dark and we were beginning
to wonder where we would spend the night.

Yes, I've posted that poem a minimum of umpteen times, and Colin Moulding is 55 today:

The Plastic Snake Offers

We now return you to our regularly scheduled programming re: Obama's mosque announcement - What if Obama suddenly realized all he has left is feeding the Left, so clusterfuckedly he's clusterfucked The Clusterfuck he's no rump left but the Left?

Although not unexpected, the news flow is about to take a more negative tone starting with the existing home sales report on August 23rd. We've been discussing this for some time ... and I'd like to highlight just a few pieces of forthcoming data:

• The existing home sales report will show that sales collapsed in July (this is showing up in all the regional reports).
• The existing home months-of-supply will jump to double digits.
• House prices are probably falling again, although this might not show up in the repeat sales indexes until September or October (this data is released with a lag).
• On August 27th, the second estimate of Q2 GDP will be released. This will probably show a significant downward revision from the preliminary estimate of 2.4% annualized growth. The downward revision is due to lower construction spending than the BEA initially estimated, less contribution from inventory adjustments, and the June surge in exports.
• The unemployment rate will probably start ticking up again soon (or the participation rate will fall further).

Don't call me stupid (the first movie I've watched in a year), but I say the gift-offering (after the bitchslapping) to the hopelessly rump Left was nothing more or less than Obama's desperate rattling of the traditional benwaballs, chiming to lube our loyalties and prejudices.

Then again, I thought Aristotle was Belgian.

• Obama was right, dammit.
• Karl Rove calls you a pussy.
• Leadership and the other thing.
• War pimps.
• Grand farce.
• Economy cooking.
• Wandering outside the gate.
• The Walrus is worried about civility.
• Why is Limbaugh the only one called a hypocrite?
• This time Owen is in Belgium.
• BLCKDGRD translated into (I think) Arabic.
• On the other hand, Moreno is fat, washed-up, and ungrateful United gave him a contract for this season.
• Twenty best kits of 2010/2011?
• The uniform the local helmetball team should wear at home.
• DC domes.
• Crisis in Georgetown!
• Crisis at Needwood!
• The Blog of Intellectual Gimmicks. (h/t)
• The Categorical Imperative of Blogging.
• Silliman, the comment controversy, general bleggalgazing.
• UPDATE! Speaking of Silliman, Articulating a Poetics.
• More bleggalgazing.
• Tom McCarthy interview.
• The Franzen Cover and a brief history of Time.
• Kakutani likes the new Franzen, calls it "galvanic." Shoot me. O! do note the cheap shot at Pynchon and DeLillo.
• UPDATE! On Kakutani.
• Darkblack's Sunday Overnight.
• UPDATE! Dead sound.
• Closedown.
• UPDATE! What is music for?

DEFINITELY

Mary Jo Bang

What is desire
But the hard wire argument given
To the mind's unstoppable mouth.

Inside the braincase, it's I
Want that fills every blank. And then the hand
Reaches for the pleasure

The plastic snake offers. Someone says, Yes,
It will all be fine in some future soon.
Definitely. I've conjured a body

In the chair before me. Be yourself, I tell it.
Here memory makes you
Unchangeable: that shirt, those summer pants.

That beautiful face.
That tragic beautiful mind.
That mind's ravenous mouth

That told you, This isn't poison
At all but just what the machine needs. And then,
The mouth closes on its hunger.

The heart stops.

Have I even mentioned I love Archers of Loaf?

United 1, Dallas 3

Keven Fucking Payne said:

"These things are never easy. Before the season, we agreed to talk in the summer and decide on the future. We wanted this to come out now so other teams, if they so choose, can recognize him and so our fans can say goodbye. We didn't think it would be appropriate after the season. He's deserving of a longer thank you."

Well, fuck you, me, and Jaime Moreno, who not only didn't start and wasn't the captain, he didn't fucking play. St Benny of Olsen is either an asshole or a coward. Kevin Fucking Payne is a petulant asshole and petty coward. Will Fucking Chang has no intention of keeping this team in DC one second longer than he can sell it or move it. Whether he's ordered the suck and deliberate alienation of the fans is now an open question.

Game summary: Suck. Suck suck suck suck suck, suck suck, suck suck suck. Suck suck suck suck suck suck suck. Suck.

Yes, I owe everyone pints.

Here's Landru. Here's Fullback.

Obamagasm?

No no no, but credit where due:

President Obama delivered a strong defense on Friday night of a proposed Muslim community center and mosque near ground zero in Manhattan, using a White House dinner celebrating Ramadan to proclaim that "as a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as anyone else in this country" . . . .

"I understand the emotions that this issue engenders. Ground zero is, indeed, hallowed ground," the president said in remarks prepared for the annual White House iftar, the sunset meal breaking the day’s fast.

But, he continued: "This is America, and our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country, and will not be treated differently by their government, is essential to who we are" . . . .

I didn't think Obama had it in him. Every Democrat up for reelection is cursing Obama this morning. He may have just guaranteed a Republican majority in the House, dramatically reduced the Democratic majority in the Senate.

I'm sure he's his cynical reasons that if I wasn't on a bet I'd trouble to elaborate, but for today it's enough that pigs' heads are exploding because for at least one Friday evening Obama was .06% less-shitty than his normal shittiness.

• America enters a new time.
• The limits to Žižek.
• Gah!
• Shorter Ross Douthat.
• David Broder

 

• has a new love.
• Dog ftw.
• Tolls as growth boundaries?
• It has to be at least thirty years since I've been....
• I've not got China Miéville, but I know some of you do.
• New Hilary Mantel short-story!
• Goin' against your mind.
• Virginia Reel Around the Fountain.
• Virginia Plain.

YES AND NO

Laura Riding

Across a continent imaginary
Because it cannot be discovered now
Upon this fully apprehended planet--
No more applicants considered,
Alas, alas--

Ran an animal unzoological,
Without a fate, without a fact,
Its private history intact
Against the travesty
Of an anatomy.

Not visible not invisible,
Removed by dayless night,
Did it ever fly its ground
Out of fancy into light,
Into space to replace
Its unwritable decease?

Ah, the minutes twinkle in and out
And in and out come and go
One by one, none by none,
What we know, what we don't know.

Aoodom5fse:

Shall We Seem to Disappear Until the Dogs Stop Barking?

I call a moratorium on maudlin moroseness on this shotty blag from post-this-post through this Monday morning midnight, though I've only coercive power over me, which makes me maudlin in the coming and morose in the going.

I watch little new TV beyond soccer and The Soup, I only watch TV when I'm traveling with my family and in a hotel room at night, and I'm always shocked at the start of each vacation at how much nastier Humiliation-TV gets in each six month gap between trips.

Where I'm stupid re: Obama and the .06% Less-Shitty Theory is that I always forget how much we live in a mob democracy as designed and implemented by our elite. People I love and adore giggle like Caligula at some fame-whore's ritualistic humiliation. Nobodies compete to be fame-whores, fame-whores compete for the chance to be humiliated in exchange for a few minutes of air-time on TV. The media is tuned to 24-7 shame and humiliation by people who have no shame, who shamelessly manipulate shame and humiliation for shamefully successful crowd control.

Obamamerica: The Reality Show! Can I resist playing from now until Monday? Who knows what United will do Saturday night to piss me off for Sunday morning's recap. (UPDATE! Fuck Kevin Payne.)

Anyway, pint bets. I'm an honest man, I think you an honest reader: Can I go through Sunday August 15, 2010, 23:59:59 EST without posting an typically overheated morose post?

I say no, but for Caligula giggles I'll bet yes.

• Timebends.
• How propagandists function.
• UPDATE! The answer is NO. (And you can scratch James Fallows off as being the only semi-honorable fuckwit on the Atlantic's page of blogsuck.)
• UPDATE! On Wikileaks side.
• He is, without peer, The World's Shittiest Human.
• UPDATE! On TWSH.
• He'll be putting in a call to Fred Hiatt complaining that Fred but this Liberal turd next to TWSH on the online op-ed page.
• UPDATE! If Liberal media bias truly existed.
• Something I never thought I'd type: Good for Fred Hiatt.
• UPDATE! Whew! Still safe to hate YFWP.
• Back to Kansas.
• UPDATE! Exploring complexity once, twice, three times.
• We are not serious.
• UPDATE! The world is scary.
• Search terms.
• UPDATE! Someone else's fault.
• I had no idea this person was still on the radio.
• UPDATE! Homicide on K Street.
• WTF is wrong with people? Execute this motherfucker.
• Metro!
• Rockville's hidden charms?
• BLCKDGRD translated into Portuguese (from Brazil).
• Stuck in the middle(brow).
• UPDATE! More on the above.
• UPDATE! Underrated writers? Anthony Hecht? YES! Milan Kundera? Fuck to the fuckityfuck NO!
• Heh! Each one of you send that link to Rick Lazio's office, huffing in outrage, and we'll see how long before a pig calls for the banning of Béla Bartók on American soil.

• Serendipitous I read Pliable's link today while reading a novel with a protagonist who pays a pianist two floors below him to play at his command 24-7, deliberately badly at first but after fake practicing made perfect (though Rachmaninoff, but), yes?

• New Superchunk song!
• I confess I don't get the fuss over Elliott Smith, but I know some of you do.
• Birthday DJing.
• UPDATE! The DJ is telling me Bossanova (w/aoodom5fse Dig for Fire) was released twenty years ago today, which is not to be confused w/aoodom5fse Digging in the Dirt.
• I dig everything.
• Feargal Sharkey is 52 today! Quick, real name, yes or no?
• What Arcade Fire's success says about music. What I've heard of the new one doesn't suck as much as the last one, which isn't to say it doesn't suck.

CURE OF IGNORANCE

Laura Riding

The dogs still bark,
and something is not clear.
From ignorance dogs barked always.

How to enlighten them?
There are no dogs now -
They do but bark.

What it not clear is what is clear.
Dogs have the scent,
Yet nothing runs like prey.

Shall we seem to disappear
Until the dogs stop barking?
There is no other way to explain.