BLCKDGRD

Soon Your Dear Ones Will Hide in a Closet When They Hear Your Heavy Step on the Porch and Then Your House Will Slide into Disrepair

Dear Cowardly Emailer clever enough to send an email without return address (not that I'd have emailed you; I remark only on your cowardice),

Why yes, this blog does suck, thank you. I've always said so. I don't know what I want this crappy blog to be, funny or serious, happy or angry, light or heavy, conciliatory or accusatory, open-minded or parochial, honest or disingenuous, coherent or incoherent, rude or ruder, loud or louder, self-aggrandizing or self-scourging, informative or white noise, etc.... but I do know that I don't want this blog to be either funny or serious, happy or angry, light or heavy, coherent or incoherent, conciliatory or accusatory, open-minded or parochial, honest or disingenuous, rude or ruder, loud or louder, self-aggrandizing or self-scourging, informative or white noise, etc... 

These are the funniest, most serious, happiest, angriest, lightest, heaviest, most in need of conciliation, most necessarily accusatory, most open-minded, most parochial, most honest, most disingenuous, most coherent, most incoherent, the rudest, loudest, most self-aggrandizing, most self-scourging, most informative, the most static-filled white-noised days of my life. I'm canary, I'm weathervane, I'm Cassandra, I'm Fool. That you took the trouble to tell me this crappy blog sucks is a sign this crappy blog is suc(K)ceeding at some level. My thanks are not either/or either.

• Mehgahfeh. That felt good. That felt shitty.
• UPDATE! Fuck, I'm bypassed again.
• Poll!
• Hated.
• Liars, every one of them.
• It's not Left v Right, it's You v Corporations.
• Welfare.
• More thoughts on the thought police.
• Education as indoctrination.
• Obama's hit squad.
• God's left hand.
• It's official!
• UPDATE! Bye, Rahm, and fuck you too.
• Stone walls and steel bars.
• Holyfuck.
• UPDATE! Holyfuck, part two.
• See you in hell.
• UPDATE! Marketing and capitalism. 
• White America has lost its mind?
• Company men.
• It's this simple.
• My job's best perk:

• What do we tip waiters for?
• Ambulance-fee back on ballot. If anyone blegs a passionate post detailing the reasons to vote against the fee, I'll link. Alternatively, if that person wants to find his passionate comment detailing the reasons to vote against the fee downblog, I'll link to that.
• Good luck w/that, Gaithersburg.
• Marylanders want gambling.
• Weirdest weather year of my life.
• Asshole endorses asshole.
• Size-driven rivalry.
• Allsopp 2011?

• Gahfehmeh.
• What are books good for? "My best answer is that books produce knowledge by encasing it. Books take ideas and set them down, transforming them through the limitations of space into thinking usable by others. In 1959, C.P. Snow threw down the challenge of "two cultures," the scientific and the humanistic, pursuing their separate, unconnected lives within developed societies. In the new-media ecology of the 21st century, we may not have closed that gap, but the two cultures of the contemporary world are the culture of data and the culture of narrative. Narrative is rarely collective. It isn't infinitely expandable. Narrative has a shape and a temporality, and it ends, just as our lives do. Books tell stories. Scholarly books tell scholarly stories."
• Against the Day. I've found myself thinking about it more than I thought I would when I finished my second read a couple of months ago, mostly about Cyprian Latewood, his entire story but especially his epiphany in Bulgaria. The more I think about it, for all the Vibes, Traverses, Rideouts, Chums, and Highcourts, Cyprian may be the key character.
• UPDATE! Heh! Damn, now Jim's pissed at the realities of the world. Those of you guitar players who read this shitty blog, can The Situation's CD release be far away?
• Lit links.
• New Carl Dennis!
• Buggles.
  
• That'll do for lunch.
• Beyond Fitz and the Tantrums, the youngsters are listening to Frankie Rose and the Outs. Again, it's perfectly fine listening, but new rock going retro, not forward.
• Guilty pleasure.
• I would have bet Feist would be famous by now.
• UPDATE! Ear-candy!
• Guilty pleasure.
• Woke up with this in my head, my favorite REM song.
• Which has since been replaced by this guilty pleasure.
• UPDATE! Yay! Now this is in my head.

A MAXIM

Carl Dennis

To live each day as if it might be the last
Is an injunction that Marcus Aurelius
Inscribes in his journal to remind himself
That he, too, however privileged, is mortal,
That whatever bounty is destined to reach him
Has reached him already, many times.
But if you take his maxim too literally
And devote your mornings to tinkering with your will,
Your afternoons and evenings to saying farewell
To friends and family, you’ll come to regret it.
Soon your lawyer won’t fit you into his schedule.
Soon your dear ones will hide in a closet
When they hear your heavy step on the porch.
And then your house will slide into disrepair.
If this is my last day, you’ll say to yourself,
Why waste time sealing drafts in the window frames
Or cleaning gutters or patching the driveway?
If you don’t want your heirs to curse the day
You first opened Marcus’s journals,
Take him simply to mean you should find an hour
Each day to pay a debt or forgive one,
Or write a letter of thanks or apology.
No shame in leaving behind some evidence
You were hoping to live beyond the moment.
No shame in a ticket to a concert seven months off,
Or, better yet, two tickets, as if you were hoping
To meet by then someone who’d love to join you,
Two seats near the front so you catch each note.
 

That the Nights Will Be Full Enough and My Heart Feral

Well then, this will be the next few days' bleg-chum:

One closing remark that I want to make: It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election. There may be complaints about us not having gotten certain things done, not fast enough, making certain legislative compromises. But right now, we've got a choice between a Republican Party that has moved to the right of George Bush and is looking to lock in the same policies that got us into these disasters in the first place, versus an administration that, with some admitted warts, has been the most successful administration in a generation in moving progressive agendas forward.

Yesterday I got cornered and hectored separately by K and W and S and D who each asked first if I'd read the interview and second if I'm going to shut up and wise up and vote.

Greg Sargent categorized the three "strains" of Democratic/Progressive displeasure with Obama:

The first is the Dem base's lack of enthusiasm. This, obviously, concerns rank and file voters who, from the point of view of the White House, are not sufficiently happy with Obama's performance. This is what Biden was referring to when he urged Dems to "remind our base constituency to stop whining and get out there and look at the alternatives."

The second group on the left constitutes high-profile commentators, such as Rachel Maddow and Glenn Greenwald, who are mounting a detailed, substantive policy critique of the Obama administration on issues that are important to them. These folks see their role as advocates for a particular policy agenda, and they don't hesitate to whack the White House when it commits what they see as grave policy missteps. For them to hold their fire because the White House wants them to would be an unthinkable betrayal of the role they've carved out for themselves. This is the "professional left" Robert Gibbs sneeringly alluded to -- even though Obama himself has said he craves such criticism.

The third group constitutes operatives like Adam Green of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, some labor operatives, and groups like MoveOn. These folks are making a largely political argument. They are not merely griping because the White House failed to be as left wing as they would have liked on the public option or the big banks. They are making the case that fighting harder for liberal priorities -- even if that battle is hopeless in some cases -- is better politics for Democrats overall, because it might leave Dems with an energized base heading into the midterms.

I'm two and three! Yay me!

"People need to shake off this lethargy. People need to buck up," Obama told Rolling Stone in an interview to be published Friday. The president told Democrats that making change happen is hard and "if people now want to take their ball and go home, that tells me folks weren't serious in the first place." Change is hard? Obama seems to be having an easy time expanding and extending the scope of the state panopticon, his power to kill Americans whenever and wherever and for whatever reason he wants, to escalate robot-war. Obama had wrapped the lengthy Q-and-A session, according to the magazine, but then returned unprompted to make one more impassioned point and unleash on the enthusiasm gap. He portrayed a clear choice between an administration that despite some warts has helped advance its agenda, and a Republican Party that would offer disastrous policies for the economy and civil liberties. *!hEh!* He said "civil liberties."

(I'd also point out there's a fourth group, those of us who want nothing more than rightwing American heads to explode in impotent fury

and Obama's only delivered on the fury.)

K and W and S and D are snapping like schnauzers at bacon I still compulsively snap at when bacon is waved. -.06% less-shitty is a mighty powerful stimulant when the .06% more is Newt Gingrich. If Bob Ehrlich is elected governor of Maryland I think one of my loved ones has enough seniority to survive but another of my loved ones might be pig-budgeted out of a job. I've still never not voted when eligible, every even-number year since 1978, primary and general election. I will vote this November for the BoE apple ticket because loved ones say please. I'm curious to see if it's close enough in last day polls I'll vote against Ehrlich....but....

But is this true? Are K and W and S and D snapping that that could be worse, that that starvation level is the best that's achievable when their team is in power?

With Matt Lauer yesterday, Obama was asked about poverty, and he basically gave an answer that George W. Bush would have given. He said that increasing economic growth will help poverty. It will. I agree that job creation is the most important thing. But when the unemployment rate was a lot lower, there were still millions of Americans who needed these benefits.

I’ve been pulling my punches, and my progressive colleagues have been pulling their punches, because we’re rooting for this administration to succeed. But honestly, if George W. Bush did what they’re trying to do, we’d be camping out in front of the White House. Goodwill only goes so far when tens of thousands of children need food.

Either Obama can't or Obama can and won't, yes? Either Democrats can't or Democrats can and won't. I think it's can and won't, but why should I allow myself to be blackmailed into voting for either?

• More on the above.
• More on the above.
• More on the above.
• UPDATE! He's a negative Progressive, and he's stoned.
• False moderation.
• With Democrats like these....
• Get back in line.
• Liberal authoritarianism.
• Does the document contain the word "Palestine?"
• Cheating on the test of your rights.
• I know shit about Christianity, though I know more than most christers. The piece asks, straight-faced, "So why would an atheist know more about religion than a Christian?"
• Jeebus, yes, yes it is cannibalism.
• Being Glenn Beck.
• Acknowledging that Democrats are complicit shits doesn't mitigate the shittiness of neo-con assholes and the crackers they manipulate: Gaffney argued that Sharia -- that is, a system of laws defined by the Koran -- is a threat to the Constitution, and most mosque leaders preach Sharia. It's a common argument among necons and mosque opponents... Gaffney admitted, however, that he is no expert."I don't hold myself out as an expert on Sharia Law," he said. "But I have talked a lot about that as a threat."
• Conservative Jones' latest case!
• UPDATE! Tea and crackers.
• UPDATE! On the above.
• Mary Cheney can suck my dick? A debate.
• Ruth Marcus can write, without a scintilla of self-aware irony, "to be Stephen Colbert is to be immune from embarrassment."
• Techno-Darwinism.
• Coincidence!
• Bleggalgaze!
• O'Bama shills for O'Malley.
• It doesn't look like O'Malley will need my vote anyway.
• MOCO in hole.
• Since Obama's been in office.
• Credit (and blame) where due.
• Good news.
• DC's food-truck wars.
• Our ferals? Napoleon is a wonder cat.

• Blood Meridian once, twice (with delicious evisceration of James Wood).
• Blood Meridian illustrated (h/t the guy above). Planet has been assigned All My Pretty Ones, the first novel McCarthy wrote after Blood Meridian, and Yay! I suppose (as opposed to other options), but (I said this here before), Blood Meridian hit me like a hammer, and nothing McCarthy has written since that I've read (and I stopped reading after the Border Trilogy) can compare.
• Franzen and unfinished realism.
• Jack Gilbert interview (h/t Silliman's always generous Tuesday links):

INTERVIEWER

Which is most important to writing poetry, description or compression?

GILBERT

Neither. I would say presence, feeling, passion—not passion, but love. I usually say romantic love, but here I don’t mean being thrilled. I mean the huge experience of loving another person and being loved by another person. But it’s more than just liking someone or thinking they make you happy.

INTERVIEWER

In your poems, how important is the interplay between syntax and line breaks?

GILBERT

I don’t think that way. I work by instinct and intelligence. By being smart, emotional, probing. By being sly, stubborn. By being lucky. Being serious. By being quietly passionate. By something almost like magic.

• The band all the college kids at Hilltop are talking about stole their entire sound from Hall and Oates. I'm not saying it sucks - it doesn't - it's just fucking weird.
• Jon Langford.
• Play LOUD!
• Guilty pleasure.
• Austere.
• This week's new releases w/MP3 includes new Lloyd Cole, Neil Young, and The Posies.
• Everything is free.
• Shatner.

I IMAGINE THE GODS

Jack Gilbert

I imagine the gods saying, We will   
make it up to you. We will give you   

three wishes, they say. Let me see   

the squirrels again, I tell them. Let me eat some of the great hog
stuffed and roasted on its giant spit   

and put out, steaming, into the winter   

of my neighborhood when I was usually   
too broke to afford even the hundred grams   
I ate so happily walking up the cobbles,   
past the Street of the Moon

and the Street of the Birdcage-Makers,   

the Street of Silence and the Street   

of the Little Pissing. We can give you   

wisdom, they say in their rich voices.   

Let me go at last to Hugette, I say,

the Algerian student with her huge eyes   

who timidly invited me to her room   

when I was too young and bewildered   

that first year in Paris.

Let me at least fail at my life.

Think, they say patiently, we could   

make you famous again. Let me fall   

in love one last time, I beg them.   

Teach me mortality, frighten me   

into the present. Help me to find

the heft of these days. That the nights   

will be full enough and my heart feral.

*

Did You Know Washington DC Has a Professional Soccer Team?

I suspect United's regretful, naive, and blinkered owner Will Chang sees himself in a box: things won't get any better if he fires Kevin Payne and might get worse if he does. He's wrong, and the following implies directly that Kevin Payne, after a sixth consecutive season worse than the previous, has been rewarded with another year of unaccountability:

While United President Kevin Payne has stated that Olsen is likely to lead United someday, he has also suggested that Olsen lacks the experience to guide the club through these turbulent times. To Olsen's credit, the players have responded to his impassioned pleas to play for the badge and salvage something from this miserable year; unfortunately, their energy and commitment have failed to compensate for voids at several positions and terrible mistakes.

Heh, voids at several positions. LIKE EIGHT OF THEM!

Look, I'm not qualified to say whether Benny Olsen is ready to be a head coach, but you know who else isn't qualified to say?

It's a good thing the economy is as if not more fucked in every city United could move to than DC's. And that, fellow motherfuckers, is root and rube of our moral dice game....

Behind His Devotion, though, His Dopey Looks, Might Be a Beast Who Wants Your House, Your Wife: Who in Fact Loathes You, His Lord

Planet and Earthgirl flew to Minnesota this past Friday for an overnight visit to Carleton, so I was in charge of Rudy, our rescue dog, from six Friday morning until six Sunday night. When I got home Friday night he had broke into the trash and what he didn't eat he'd strewn throughout the house. What he did eat gave him the shits, turd after turd sparkling with chewed bits of aluminum foil, including two dumps in the living room waiting for me when I got home from United's game Saturday night. I screamed, he cowered, skulked, hid under the dining room table. I turned on the TV and saw a PSA: a guy gets out of his pickup with his dog, throws a tennis ball into the woods, and when the dog chases it the guy gets in his pickup and drives off. The dog comes back to the road, the ball in its mouth, watches the tail-lights fading.

I may or not write about the topic of the day, highlighted in the first four bullets below, though short-answer is that the scheduled misery hasn't affected me yet beyond a niggling itch of complicity. A shorter answer is that I just did.

• Why is there no political outlet for anger from the Left?
• On the above.
• Why is there no populist alternative on the Left?
• Where is Huey Long when you need him?
• UPDATE! Language and responsibility.
• The future.
• What we'll be condemned for generations from now.
• UPDATE! Your rulers.
• State of the union.
• Communicative capitalism.
• Žižek's misdiagnoses?
• Daily obamapostasy.
• On the above.
• On the above: Cole's obamapostasy begins.
• No, that was yesterday's. HERE'S today's.
• On the above.
• UPDATE! On the above.
• Moron. And I call bullshit on the stadium anecdote.
• Political blowjob.
• Interesting: on the same day, an op-ed in NYT and the Walrus in YFWP on not taunting China.
• A party for Marty.
• The post-White House years have not been kind to Laura Bush.
• Hipster professor.
• Ehrlich is an asshole. Might get him elected.
• If Steny Fucking Hoyer was my rep I'd what, blog?
• Freedom review: are Brits still Americans?
• Sounds like Dystopia.
• Roky Erickson live.
• UPDATE! Holyfuck, Arcade Fire sucks. They suck so much they're not worth hating (like Jack Fucking White is worth hating), but why the fuck are they always on my radio?
• What if Lennon had lived?
• Playlist.

SO YOU PUT THE DOG TO SLEEP

Thomas Lux

You love your dog and carve his steaks
(marbled, tender, aged) in the shape of hearts.
You let him on your lap at will

and call him by a lover's name: Liebchen,
pooch-o-mine, lamby, honey-tart,
and your fill your voice with tenderness, woo.

He loves you too, that's his only job,
it's how he pays his room and board.
Behind his devotion, though, his dopey looks,

might be a beast who wants your house,
your wife: who in fact loathes you, his lord.
His jaws snapping while asleep means dreams

of eating your face: nose, lips, eyebrows, ears...
But soon your dog gets old, his legs
go bad, he's nearly blind, your puree his meat

and feed him with a spoon. It's hard to say
who hate whom the most. He will not beg.
So you put the dog to sleep. Bad dog.

Sixty-Five Today

Earthgirl and I had third row seats at DAR for this tour's stop in DC. One of the better nights of my life.

United 1, Houston 3

Why was Branko Bošković signed? This isn't snark: was he bought thinking he'd help this team this year or was he bought with an eye to the team that will be rebuilt out of the ruins of this one? I have no faith it's the latter: I think Kasper Payne, in a sad effort to rescue a deeply shitty team, panicked and splashed money and a designated player tag on a player who may be perfectly useful on the left-wing but who isn't a ten no matter how much United wants him to be.

Najar is wonderful. He will be in Europe when United is good again. Maybe the next coach's system takes advantage of Bošković's skills. The Quaranta-meter is clocking upward; he's responded positively to wearing the Captain's band. Everyone else on the field last night will be elsewhere or on the bench or out of the league when United is good again. There's a new category that will be used until his shut-the-fuck-upness is off this team. And how's that Jaime Moreno farewell tour going?

And lost in the shuffle of MLS expansion and its consequent importation of ever more mediocre soccer players is the concurrently consequent importation of ever more mediocre referees. Alex Prus is one of the top three or four MLS referees and is a ridiculous assclown. He doesn't cost teams victories, he costs teams injuries. 

Update, links, edits, later. Or not.

It's Not the World Which Is Good or Bad and So We Run Our Noses Over Everything

I've got two potential invites to meet for pints by blegfriends coming to DC for the Stewart/Colbert production on the mall, and if I'm in town (we may be away for one last Planet college trip), I'd love to meet up for pints. I should know in couple of weeks if I'll be in town; if yes, I'll work out some logistics. Anyone else potentially coming to town who'd like to potentially meet up for drinks and yap, email.

I've not given a second's thought to attending the rally. I've not given a second's thought until now about the rally. I've no idea what the rally is, what it's meant to achieve, if it's real and a stunt, if it's fake and a stunt. What is it? Not that I'll go.

• Let's do another one just like the other one.
• GOP unveils new powerpoint presentation.
• Reprogrammable killbots.
• Daily obamapostasy.
• Bageant interview (and more).
• UPDATE! Notes on pwogs.
• Howard Kurtz, fuckturd.
• Customer service.
• School work.
• Thoughts on internet identity.
• Maryland no cell-phone while driving law starts this coming Friday. Just an alert - cops will be looking for it.
• No ambulance-fee referendum on ballot.
• Branko! profile. Home game tonight. !wOOt!
• Fear of metaphor, part two.
• Another Freedom review, interesting to me for it's take on obligatory reading.
• Why the Right hates Freedom.
• UPDATE! Merrill. Funny, I was talking with a friend about Merrill just this past week, how my friend gets him and I don't (or I do but not much), how I need try again.
• Kafka's last trial.
• Dominos was one of my favorite songs from 2009.

AFTER A FEW WHIFFS OF ANOTHER WORLD

THOMAS LUX

After a few whiffs of another world
he decided to stay with the stench
or the present: dumpster lids everywhere
rising like cakes, garbage scows
moving in long orderly lines
across the harbor... The olfactory - he loves it
even when it wafts, wracking all points
of the compass. It's always invisible
and takes its directions according to the whimsy
of wind, and fans, or the waves
of a hand. Cave dwellers knew it,
and dogs. The bare smell
of dirt on cabbage, the snow-
on-your-arm smell. Even
in the abstract: fear-smell, like
spit on a knife blade. And
what the worms inhale, and then
the smell of dew on barbed wire, the sweet
think smell of sex, slick,
our lungs giddy and pink with it...
It's not the world which is good or bad
and so we run our noses over everything.
Even the dumb have this sense.

Mann's Fate

Well, now that I'm thinking about Hot Tuna....

Hell, have a favorite Airplane song:

Airplane for the trip up, Hot Tuna for the trip down...

Only Requirement, the Anti-Poet Said, Is to Improve Upon the Blank Page, which, if You Are Not Made Blind by Ego, Is a Hard Task.

I'm tribal, I'm shallow, I'm small. I think human capacity to micro-network tribal grievances saved humans from destruction merely by exacerbating human incapability to organize and execute self-extinction. Some guy would shoot an arrow at a fat fleeing me because I'd shoot an arrow at some fuck in a tree-stand shooting arrows at sickly-ass Maryland deer. I've never found peace because I've never looked for it.

I'm black licorice to some; many are black licorice to me. This is not complaint: I like being black licorice almost as much as I like being liked, as if I had a say either way. This is not a complaint: those who hate each other instinctively, competitively, vigorously, teach us more about ourselves than all the love of all our friends.

• Send Arthur a few bucks.
• UPDATE! Blegfriend JRB has a new (second) blog!
• Ed Rendell says Obey the .06% Less-Shitty Rules!
• Good riddance. No hopes for change, but good riddance.
• Papists, secularists, capitalists.
• Motherfucking christers.
• America 2010 (btw, that's Charlie's new place).
• Things you can find: holy fuck.
• One-time offer.
• Is Greenwald beyond criticism? I think his asinine defense of Kos' book undermined some of his credibility, and he earned all the criticism he took for that, but I think he's a far more honest broker than Digbys and Shakes, etc.... which doesn't mean he's beyond criticism, just explains why he might be criticized less.
• UPDATE! Influential left-wingers? I confess, I love reading Zizek, think he's an excellent fraud, possibly the best fraud now working. And I mean that as a high compliment.
• Headline of the Day.
• Or is it this?
• Typepad has been sold:

It's been almost a decade since we started Six Apart. With you, the bloggers and creators, we changed the way people expressed themselves online, empowering anyone to publish and build large and loyal audiences. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your continued support and trust as you've shared your worlds and your passions on TypePad.

Today we announced our intention to join forces with VideoEgg to form a new, modern media company called SAY Media. This new company will continue Six Apart's mission to make creators like you more successful. It will continue to help you create powerful and engaging content, and grow and monetize your audience. And it will continue to leave you in control.

Nothing in TypePad changes today, and SAY Media will continue to provide support to TypePad subscribers, and evolve the TypePad platform. You can choose to take advantage of our strong relationships with marketers to monetize your blogs, or you can keep your blog ad-free.

• Typepad does little things that piss me the fuck off - it loses fonts when I change them for quotes and poems, it loses fonts when I cut and paste, it doesn't have those cool self-updating blogrolls like some of my blegfriends who blooger - and I'm due to pay-up the $125 for another year in a month, but until VideoEgg fucks things up - and VideoEgg will fuck things up and charge more for it - I haven't the energy or the will to move.
• Library bookdrops.
• MOCO public libraries.
• Preppy burglar!
• Slots to open near where hunter fell from tree!
• Bang. I've posted her here. Not love, but pretty near.
• UPDATE! I just reread the excellent Bang poem, and I cannot resist saying that the rug-covered table really tied the poem together.
• Age of Citation.
• Serendipitously, two days ago I was talking to a colleague about Cake, as in, whatever happened to...
• More Bill Nelson.
• Yes, again.
• Ex-lion tamer.
• What about the voice of Geddy Lee, how did it get so high?
• UPDATE! Just put in my head: be in yours.

THIS SPACE AVAILABLE

Thomas Lux

You could put an X here.
You could draw a picture of a horse.
You could write a tract,
manifesto - but keep it short.
You could wail, whine,
rail or polysyllable celebrate.
You could fill this space
with one syllable: praise.
The only requirement,
the anti-poet said,
is to improve upon the blank page,
which, if you are not made blind
by ego, is a hard task.
You could write some numbers here.
You could write your name, and dates.
You could leave a thumbprint,
or paint your lips and kiss the page.
A hard task - the blank
so creamy, a cold
and perfect snowfield upon which
a human, its only human,
wants to leave
his inky black and awkward marks.

Another one of dozens of my five favorite songs ever:

It Would Seem Not Smart to Create a Color Scheme in a Motel Room That's Likely to Cause Impotence in Men and Open Sores in Women

Nick Cave is 53 today, which is serendipitously related to this post because all it takes is reading someone bleggalgaze to create a bleggalgazing cascade in my head that increases in intensity until I need release it and that Nick Cave song is this bleg's official Bleggalgazing Anthem.

I'm always wondering if I've stopped wondering about thinking about blegstopping because I clearly can't blegstop, but I can't stop wondering whether I could stop wondering if I'm thinking about wondering about thinking about blegstopping. Oddest days of my life; if everything's a metaphor for everything else... There's always this: Thanks for the Kind.

• Our overlords suck.
• UPDATE! Murderers, Cowards, Morons, and Thieves.
• Rich American fuckers fucking-up English football.
• UPDATE! Police and thieves.
• Should we kill and eat the rich?
• UPDATE! Even the kleptocracy has rules.
• The whining rich.
• UPDATE! Are catastrophes virtual?
• One and a half cheers for American decline!
• If Krugman's obamapostasy ever arrives it might be awesome, but he still thinks Obama's a fool, not a tool.
• Black Reagan Redux.
• UPDATE! Mutually-assured destruction.
• Obama and Palin in Archie.
• UPDATE! Kyrie Elision.
• *!hEh!* (h/t)
• Holy smokes.
• Same as it ever was.
• MattY.
• Look what I just got my hands on:

• Speaking of bleggalgazing, there is an odd vibe in Blegsylvania. September, January, June are always weird months as people's work/school/life cycles change and with it their viewing/posting routines, but I sense a weary withdrawal setting in, a withdrawing weariness.
• Speaking of bleggalg(r)azing, some new links over in New New Toys, and suggestions for new places are solicited.

• MOCOpolitics!
• Kiss and make nice.
• MPT pissed at O'Malley!
• Purple Line!
• Olde Towne!
• Wheaton!
• Virginia is for crackers.
• Yay!
• One could fit a soccer stadium into 39 acres.
• UPDATE! Eskandarian.
• What not to eat.
• Armed robber targeting shitty chain restaurants.
• Fight over present tense.
• Lots of Blanchot for those of you who Blanchot. I'll try again: where to start for best chance to stick?
• DJ El Toro's new book!
• UPDATE! Neocolonialism, Authenticity, and the Ethics of World Music.
• This week's new releases w/MP3.
• Cloudbusting.
• Pavement on Colbert.
• UPDATE! M emailed to say Joan Jett is 50 today and ask me to post this. Call me when you're in DC in October, please.
• Paco!
• UPDATE! Guilty pleasure.
• Mind you own business.
• UPDATE! Well well well.
• A&E.
• More Bill Nelson.
• Woke up with this in my head. Be in yours.

MOTEL SEEDY

Thomas Lux

The artisans of this room, who designed the lamp base
(a huge red slug with a hole
where its heart should be) or chose this print
of a butterscotch sunset,
must have been abused in art class
as children, forced to fingerpaint
with a nose, or a tongue. To put this color
green--exhausted grave grass--to cinder blocks
takes an understanding of loneliness
and/or institutions that terrifies.
It would seem not smart to create
a color scheme in a motel room
that's likely to cause impotence in men
and open sores in women,
but that's what this puce bedspread
with its warty, ratty tufts could do. It complements
the towels, torn and holding awful secrets
like the sail on a life raft
loaded with blackened, half-eaten corpses . . .
I think I owned this desk once, I think
this chair is where I sat
with the Help Wanted ads spread and wobbling
before me as I looked for jobs
to lead me upward: to rooms
like this, in America, where I dreamed
I lived . . . Do I deprive tonight
the beautician and her lover,
a shower-head salesman, of this room?
He is so seldom in town.
I felt by their glance in the hallway
that my room, no. 17, means
something (don't ask me to explain this) special
to them. Maybe they fell fiercely
into each other here for the first time,
maybe there was a passion preternatural. I'm glad
this room, so ugly, has known some love
at $19.00 double occupancy--
though not tonight, for a dollar fifty less.