spare the

2010-10-17T23:22:00.000-07:00

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New blog:

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http://notahotel.wordpress.com/

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internet what internet what?

2010-06-17T22:55:00.000-07:00

"cared for in an animal shelter"

2010-06-16T21:30:00.000-07:00

"teengirl fantasy"

2010-05-28T19:01:00.000-07:00

"crucify you"

2010-05-19T17:39:00.000-07:00

ooo

2010-05-17T22:04:00.000-07:00

"every time she turns around it's her birthday"

2010-05-05T00:37:00.000-07:00

huh.

2010-04-23T13:37:00.000-07:00

skylions (skeletons)

2010-04-13T18:58:00.000-07:00

History Votes Historically

2010-03-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

Sacramento Bee headline:

"House Vote Historic"

in relllllly big letters.

Like bigger letters than those.

Google says there's 16,500 "house vote historic" pages

and

242,000 "senate vote historic"

and

2 "city council vote historic"

and

4 "my vote historic"
7 "your vote historic"
no "dad's" or "mom's" etc.
no "mega vote historic"
no "thomas pynchon's vote historic"
0 for "her"
1 for "his" (coincidentally House Rep. Sanford Bishop D-Georgia who "called his vote 'historic.'" when voting for healthcare reform)

and

9 for "historic vote historic"

The picture has nothing to do with this, but it has something to do with eating, which has something to do with health.

Now, reporting results Google doesn't return then makes Google return those results. I feel this post is like picking out food at the grocery store for the sole reason you want to, sometime in the future, shit it out.

And I just want to make the same picture over & over & over & over

2010-03-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

This is clearly Minneapolis.

He had forgotten, you see.

2010-03-06T23:44:00.000-08:00

"we're all having such a good time"

2010-03-03T22:10:00.000-08:00

Th om as Um
st at td on ce
ob se rv ed th at
yo un g co ns er va ti ve
ev an ge li ca ls –
pa rt ic ul ar ly ho me
sc ho ol er s – te nd
to de la y ma rr ia ge.

Though I hadn’t noticed that

(in fact,

I was starting to think the opposite), my

first response to such an observation is –

“It’s because we’re all having such a good time at home!

Who wants to leave?”

My mother did once mention that many people who marry early are trying to get away from their families. I’m sure that isn’t always the case, but there probably are a lot of young people thinking of marriage as an escape and chance to get their life going “right”.

I like good music for free,

2010-03-02T18:16:00.000-08:00

do you like good music for free?

Ben Daniels of A Sunny Day in Glasgow is giving away an album:

http://www.mediafire.com/?gryzumwywnu

It's called "Killed by Ghosts" and almost every track has "Ghost" in the title.

Acoustic Lady

2010-02-05T20:12:00.000-08:00

"I do," sez Pointsman, aloud, "but I can't really say that you do, can I, if I don't even know who you are, you see."

The mentality of ordinary human slaves is terrible--they have lost the world--and we had surrendered, not body alone, but soul to the overmastering greed of victory.

How to make a poem (step by step)

2010-02-02T11:32:00.000-08:00

"Other Axes" "Axis of Diesel"

2010-01-12T12:16:00.000-08:00

states like these

and their terrorist allies

constitute an axis of evil

arming to threaten the

the axis of terror

that operates between Iran and Syria

there remain outposts of tyranny

and America stands

with oppressed people on every continent

in the initial investigation

signs of the triangle of wickedness

by the Zionist regime

America and their hired agents

are visible in the terrorist act

determined to prevent

the next

wave of terror

The Revolution Is Not Entirely Dissimilar From Television

2009-11-16T19:45:00.000-08:00

Rumours of a "new" Gil Scott-Heron album, like the reunion of the Friends cast, have circulated for as long as anyone can remember.

Hey, BBC. BBC. And Stephen Smith. Hey, Stephen Smith and BBC.

Also, ciao MSPAINT. Ciao. Hey GIMP Image Manipulation Program. Hey.

OK. Hello Afghanistan, hey! Hey you Alaska and Nebrasker! Hey, Alaska.

Hi cities, hi cities and towns. What! Hey, hey Portland, hi Clackamas.

Muhhhh.

from "The Thai at Olympic Games"

2009-10-19T20:03:00.000-07:00

from The Thai at Olympic Games

OK! Have your fucking sodapop!
They won't even let me swim.

And they were saying to me,
"Hey Thai, I Sure Bet--"

The Americans and the French,
"Buddy, We Sure Bet You Will

Give Us Another One."
OK! Have another fucking sodapop!

And then I was swimming
Because I had been so kind to everyone

And had gotten stigmata and medals.
When I went to sleep that night

I woke until I shut up completely...

-Andre Christensen, trans. Donald Dunbar

"Daylight in Vallda"

2009-10-12T20:10:00.000-07:00

Daylight in Vallda

Whence I wake from morning's snooze
And shake out dreamy, crusty roosts
And take account of day's true thrust
lard flower, lard flower, come

lard flower, come lard flower come
lard flower lard flower lard flower
lardflower lardflower etc.
etc. etc. etc.

-Andre Christensen, trans. Donald Dunbar

2009-10-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

Other favorites:

Selects everything.

Stretches or skews the picture or a selection.

Creates a new color.

Display program information, version number, and copyright.

We Always Forget: Michigan Edition

2009-09-25T20:40:00.000-07:00

Things were so weird when we were kids!

Everything was absolutely crazy, you know?

But in awesome ways, at least until 'round age eight or so.

Go team!

2009-09-08T23:09:00.000-07:00

"PETERKIN THE SQUIRREL."

2009-09-02T02:16:00.000-07:00

THIS STORY is MOST EXCELLENT
10/10

Its full title is "Little Peterkin Vandike - The Story of his Famous Poetry Party"

It was very gay that summer at Captain Vandike's. The Captain's youngest brother, Peterkin's dear Uncle Jock, had come up from Harvard for the long vacation. He was on the 'Varsity crew, and had built up a pair of biceps muscles that were Peterkin's especial envy.

for instance

"O," said Peterkin, "my poetry party is different. I'm going to be an animal, and all the other fellows will be animals--and all the girls, too. Maybe not, though--I s'pose a girl would hate to be a mouse, or even an elephant. I guess the girls had better be bugs--don't you think so, Uncle Jock?"

for instance

"A ghost with wings?--don't you mean an angel?" queried the Chum, without looking up from the book he was reading.

for instance

"Yes," answered Peterkin, "very near, but not quite--that's the way it is in poetry. I knew it wasn't perfect rhyme, and I wished it were--but of course I wouldn't say so to Mama-my-dear!"

The Great Discussion of Poetry

2009-07-22T23:10:00.000-07:00

"change you can't disbelieve"

2009-07-10T23:53:00.000-07:00

for instance, in a culture of nihilism only the anythings are free

2009-07-10T03:09:00.000-07:00

for instance, a person can provide for his or her family while helping to destroy the world

"they must remain on the road!"

2009-07-04T23:44:00.000-07:00

so-&-so is all like 'you draw picture of me'

2009-06-02T03:14:00.000-07:00

"And in the future we won't even need to hold hands to feel so close together even if we still have them."

maybe it's the text is the problem? "clipped through the flickering" sounds too deliberately lyrical to be convincingly a description of a dream

2009-05-28T01:47:00.000-07:00

"This took a long time to do in MS Paint and it is still awful."

"lovin' you/ kissin' you" "lovin' you/ kissin' you" "lovin' you/ kissin' you"

2009-05-26T16:43:00.000-07:00

this one goes out to anyone who might be creeped out by it. kisses.

did you notice the link to the chapbook on the right there? that's new. kisses.

me? i don't get angry, i get bored. kisses.

This one's for you, Olea

2009-05-18T21:15:00.000-07:00

d. May 1, 2009

sorry it's so late

poem of the day for Thursday

2009-05-14T00:30:00.000-07:00

from Reasons Behind

This time it is not hard to find an answer

Or the faces of the US soldiers enjoying the humiliation

You do not have to be a political genius to work out where the sympathies of the mainstream lie

This decision will inevitably bring with it charges of double standards

But this time, most Americans will believe that it's for the greater good

The president has apparently been persuaded by the power of that argument

True, it was not his idea

-Jonathan Beale

"tecate in the park"

2009-05-04T15:53:00.000-07:00

churches!

2009-05-01T01:09:00.000-07:00

unrelated: Hey Ted Mathys! If you ever google your name and find this page and you're thinking about going on a reading tour out west, email me. I want you to read in INFKP, because that poem in Fence was pretty god damn hot.

"it's like..." "like" "like" "like" "like"

2009-04-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

"word of the day"

2009-04-28T00:54:00.000-07:00

Donald Dunbar's Word of the Day for 4/28/9:

"Various"

"the majestic twelve" "vs." "harry potter"

2009-04-25T15:15:00.000-07:00

by Melissa Brumer

2009-04-23T15:09:00.000-07:00

[ed.: it's worth noting that in the first picture there the star is pooping. that is star poop]

"the communtwist"

2009-04-22T19:31:00.000-07:00

instead of becoming "Socialist" let's become "Socialest" and change our money to something "less boring" (e.g. tadpoles will be hundreds and lice will be ones, tens will be tens but it will be Alexander Hamilton kissing William Howard Taft in a pale green heart)

"niceness"

2009-04-21T04:14:00.000-07:00

by Colleen Pagana

2009-04-20T01:52:00.000-07:00

From spare the

by Colleen Pagana

2009-04-20T01:46:00.000-07:00

by Joel Brock

2009-04-20T01:39:00.000-07:00

(click if there's not a word next to "the")

"so that's cool for a couple minutes of work right? get a lifetime of pleasure"

2009-04-19T05:01:00.000-07:00

1. Ugly!

-Man

--Abstract?

--Commentary?

-Sweater

--(That is incorrect)

2. Nice sweater!

-Um, yes

-I would wear that

--Even in the summer?

---In the pool?

----The pool filled up with daiquiri?

-Though I would not wear that

3. Lies!

-Winking involves closing eyelids

-Motive?

--Because he's ugly!

---Because he's got oatmeal face

4. Space-Age Background

-The future is now

--The old old is new

[ed.: When the pretty people are no longer able to compete with the television and the computer game and the synthetic music, advertisements will be populated only by imagined pretty people. When even the imagined pretty people can no longer compete with the creative force of the rest of humanity--when every ideal is exhausted and products seem dull, and lifeless--the incredibly ugly will populate the advertisements in a last-ditch effort by Cyber-Madison Ave. to produce absolutely any sort of stimulation. It will, of course, be too little, too late. It is then the only desire left--the only thing anyone could conceive might bring them any stimulation--is to participate in the human conversation (i.e. art, sex, etc.).]

"fry in your eye!!"

2009-04-18T02:06:00.000-07:00

"farms are food"

2009-04-16T22:09:00.000-07:00

"i was born in the year of the jackal"

2009-04-14T22:43:00.000-07:00

The issue I have with so-called "POLITICAL DECIDERS / DEBATERS" aka Bosses and Soldiers etc. (well, actually not those people but you know the people I am speaking of here) is that their solution to IRAQ (read: a weird piece of land with people in it) has more to do with people dressed up as ancient chinese dragons than any really sensible solution (for instance, aren't colors good at distracting people? could we fill up the whole middle east with technicolor dream coats? (but at what cost?) and moreover, when? For instance, instead of having people dress up in dragon costumes here (read: The United States of Amerrrrica) we should have them dress up in dragon costumes in the taliban, and have them celebrate freedom.)

Come on Iraq, you have free elections (free as in: ______ ) vote for chinese dragon costumes 2009 and/or 2010.

But of course who am I to tell a whole nation what to do?

"change you can believe in"

2009-04-14T00:34:00.000-07:00

the first of the hive minds, called LOGOS (because it was from the time where still denotation was effective) issued this decree (concerning famines):

+++ +++ +++ === === === +++ +++ +++ === === === +++ +++ +++ === === ===

which of course meant that, as per usual, every node of its network was engaged in self-pleasure and propagation.

This message would have at one time been both meanin'ful and relevant.

See you, space-cowboy--

commission from kate bucko

2009-04-08T03:42:00.000-07:00

"kate on a train with a stick and hankerchief holding her poems and cat"

(she is thinking her poems very hard in this picture, not holding them)

"Building railraods demonstrated, too, both the problems in creating a system--junctions, signals, guages, placs for travellers to stay (not forgetting the ambushes now made possible)--and the particular American excitement of unifying a continent, a triumph recroded both in folklore and in the press."

"They have done more than anything achieved by former generations to modify the influence of time and space. Common and familiar instruments of our business and pleasure...they may be described, with literal truth, as the most striking manifestations of the power of man over the material order of the universe. The mightiest monuments of classical or pre-classical times are but feeble triumphs of human skill beside the work of the railway engineer, who has covered the face of the earth with iron roads, spanning valleys and piercing monuments, and traversed by fiery steeds fleeter than ever sped through poetic dream."

"...established principles which will give a greater impulse to civilization than it has ever received from any single cause since the Press first opened the gates of knowledge to the human species at large."

note: I am better at drawing my own hair than Kate Bucko's hair.

Twilight Movie Review

2009-04-02T03:12:00.000-07:00

TWILIGHT

starring bella corta, mike greedy, mike sorino

plot summary: girl (bella) is kidnapped and used for purposes, then killed. jason (mike greedy) must kill robert downing (mike sorino) for revenge.

notable scenes:

when girl (bella corta) is kidnapped her parents are killed with kitchen knives and pots etc. before her brother (jason aka mike greedy) gets home from a football game in which he was the hero (quarterback)
when bella is raped by masked men (two men, one of whom is robert downing aka mike sorino) all she can think is “i wish jason were here and killed these men” but then she is killed by being strangled
there is intense music in a number of scenes
when jason (mike greedy) is going to kill robert downing he is holding a picture of his little sister (bella corta) and says “DO YOU REMEMBER HER” because he wants to make sure robert downing (mike sorino) knows why he is going to be killed (for revenge)

analysis:

bella corta is very pretty and smart but she is not a great actress. when she was killed in the movie (as the girl, but i cannot remember her name if it was not bella) i thought it was alright because she was only crying instead of acting
the best parts of the movie are the times it is most extreme
the best part was when jason killed three people at once who were trying to stop him by taping them together with a grenade
i never understand why so many people (especially men) will get together to do terrible crime
bella corta is pretty in the way that she looks very young not like you would have on a poster, like she has a face not a bikini body
mike greedy (jason, the main character) will stop at nothing for revenge, not even the law, which is what everyone would do if they were in this movie
i rate this movie 8 out of 10 stars (minus two stars because some of the acting isn’t great, you can tell they are faking)
i heard the movie was filmed in portland!!! it looked like it because of the rain and the green trees
kidnapping, murder, rape are very serious subjects and they are all punished in this movie by the hero (jason) so this movie teaches good values (do not kidnap, murder, rape ANYONE because you will get KILLED)
at one point when they were shooting guns nobody had trouble hearing even whispering, which is not realistic

rating: ********/10

"hanged by noose"

2009-03-25T23:38:00.000-07:00

i like JAMES MONROE because i spent some time in MONROE, MICHIGAN

hence: autobiography is a lyric poem

or: lyric poetry is historical/paraphysical

"The Case of the Seaghosts vs. United States of America Aircraft Carrier"

2009-03-22T02:39:00.000-07:00

"Great Naval Battles: Sand Diego Spook-Out"

(what if it's a Ghost United States of America Aircraft Carrier, what then)

"Floating Boots or Something? Napkins and a Yellow Dinner Plate?"

lyric poetry

2009-03-19T13:16:00.000-07:00

"the utmost man is but the mirror of the LORD"

2009-03-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

"uno dos TRES"

2009-03-19T13:06:00.000-07:00

A lot of people ask me, "How do you make comix??" so I have made a comic to tell you:

there are obviously 3 things you need to know (to make comix). This is the second thing.

there are also similar rules to making poetry and/or poems.

concept car for Ford Motor Company

2009-03-13T04:16:00.000-07:00

i know it's not er pretty but it is very functional, ah, no, very use-ish, very foetal that is fuel-efficient

News Erasure

2009-03-12T01:48:00.000-07:00

"A normal boy" "He was a normal kid."

Apart from his talent for table tennis, the boy was unremarkable.

"He dressed like a normal boy, and the way he dealt with his team-mates was normal, too."

Playing table tennis was Kretschmer's only hobby and that he took it very seriously.

"Whenever a new ranking was published, he'd learn the names of the top 40 players by heart."

"He also got on fine with his three team-mates."

"Yes that is him, that's Tim, the table-tennis player, there was nothing aggressive about him then."

"there are pictures for two of these things"

2009-03-10T19:15:00.000-07:00

go back in time + make it into a Smashing Pumpkins shirt

2009-03-10T19:14:00.000-07:00

the story of everything being NECESSARY and DEADLY

2009-03-10T19:11:00.000-07:00

"later, i started again"

2009-03-07T15:37:00.000-08:00

STILLBIRTH IS THE NEW BIRTH

2009-03-06T04:31:00.000-08:00

SODA POP IS THE NEW CAKE by Donald Dunbar and Bri Surin

2009-03-06T04:24:00.000-08:00

TOPICAL COMICS

2009-03-06T04:22:00.000-08:00

"Word of the DAY? More like word of the MONTH?!"

2009-03-03T20:42:00.000-08:00

more like word of the Lord, more like word of the Lord, etc.

(my word was originally going to be "DAKOTA")

fleur de avocado "FLOWERS + LOVE = LOVE"

2009-03-02T18:19:00.000-08:00

LOLCHAP

2009-03-01T19:18:00.000-08:00

You Are So Pretty, a chapbook, coming soon from Scantily Clad Press

in the 23rd century they are used as massage therapy

2009-02-28T12:11:00.000-08:00

"sometimes I feel like it's my Life, like so Urgent"

2009-02-27T01:42:00.000-08:00

Obviously the brown ones are Ocean's 11 and the blue ones are dupes and coppers.

"no soccer field, no baseball field"

2009-02-26T02:04:00.000-08:00

"instead" "stomach"

2009-02-26T02:02:00.000-08:00

by Patrick Wilson, Executive Chef

2009-02-26T01:57:00.000-08:00

2009-02-13T02:52:00.000-08:00

untitled blog post

2009-02-12T02:22:00.000-08:00

This is the closest approximation

2009-02-11T01:51:00.001-08:00

I can construct to an image that appeared at least four times in my dream last night.

The first instance was during the part I was crawling through girders under a parking garage. I was feeling very dextrous.

The second instance was during the part I was hiding on the train while my brother, a trombonist, and his casual band were playing individual parts of the same song.

The third instance was during the part I was playing backgammon. It was fierce.

The third instance was during the part I was trying to make sense of dollar bills inserted in every page of my friend's book.

"Disaster Capitalist" Feb 7 at galleryHOMELAND

2009-02-08T04:26:00.000-08:00

( link )

this is just to say

2009-02-06T17:07:00.000-08:00

FILL IN THE BLANK

2009-02-01T16:38:00.000-08:00

"thinking IS feeling" / "feeling IS thinking"

2009-01-30T15:47:00.000-08:00

"and pasted them back on"

2009-01-23T12:40:00.000-08:00

aura photography (April O'Neele)

2009-01-22T05:25:00.000-08:00

"it's like that)"

2009-01-20T02:43:00.000-08:00

"great minds, man"

2009-01-18T03:35:00.000-08:00

Morning of the no bells for winter

2009-01-06T02:10:00.000-08:00

Consumption can be art. Waste, a separate idea, can also be art.

Consumption art must take account exactly of what is consumed and catalogue how exactly it is consumed, unless it is a nihilistic, DADA-ish form of consumption art, or specifically anti-product, or something like that.

An example of consumption art would be eating cherries as you watch the jumper drown.

Charity can also be art, so long as it’s unneeded.

Cruelty can also be art, so long as there’s no personal motivation.

Waste art must take account exactly of what is thrown away, though only very ambitious waste art will attempt to catalogue what happens to what is thrown away over time. Even eco waste art cannot compensate for specialty audiences, like electron microscopes or post-apocalypse survivalists, though any performance of waste art includes a permanent installation.

This is different from, say, consumption art, which crafts only the intake of the original product.

An example of waste art would be writing FORGERY on a physical piece of art.

Another example of waste art would be talking.

Christmas Present (late)

2008-12-31T16:51:00.000-08:00

"true theatrical tradition"

2008-12-11T16:32:00.000-08:00

The audience is said to have applauded what they thought was a stunning special effect, and only realised something was wrong when the actor staggered off stage to receive treatment.

an ACTOR is to SLITTING HIS OWN THROAT WITH A REAL KNIFE

a POET is to WRITING POEMS IN A LANGUAGE HE DOES NOT KNOW

a BANKER is to USING CURRENCY AS A COLORING BOOK

a PRIEST is to FASTENING A LEASH AND COLLAR TO A CRUCIFIX

a PRESIDENT is to EXECUTIVE ORDERS OUTLAWING EXECUTIVES

an UNDERTAKER is to SELF-IMMOLATION VIETNAMESE MONK STYLE

a DOCTOR is to DRINKING FROM THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH

an ARCHITECT is to LIVING IN A CAVE

a PET SITTER is to GIVING DOGS MDMA

a DENTIST is to CHEWING TEETH

&c.

Run-Over Kindergartener

2008-12-09T21:56:00.001-08:00

"such soft hands"

2008-12-07T18:35:00.000-08:00

A dentist told me: “you have a very rough tongue; you’ll need to brush your tongue extra hard when you brush your teeth.”

Nobody else has ever commented on the texture of my tongue, and I have never commented to anyone on the texture of her tongue. Though I have noticed a number of different tongue textures.

I’ve talked to girls about their hair, their lips, their breasts, their tummies their asses, toes, the length of their labia, more. In turn, I’ve been described my most-of-the-above, but also my cock and scrotum, my voice, the scars on my back, the taste of my mouth and breath.

a lot of the desire for physical and emotional intimacy comes from a desire for self-recognition. In this way, physical and emotional intimacy are lyric poems.

One of the worst things: you’re on an operating table, supposedly under general anesthetic. But, of course, you’re awake. And the doctors who are saving your life and have your chest cut open and pulled apart, first their words are hazy and slippery, but before you can begin to try to move your face and throat muscles to tell them you’re coming to, you realize: they are making fun of your organs. You have an ugly spleen. Your lungs are like those of a two-year-old. Your heart, they laugh, won’t last another five years, so they’re glad their getting paid for their work today.

Anyone in the food service industry (esp. front of the house) who is not an alcoholic has either

A) a pervasive and grotesque love for happy customers, and an abiding desire to understand and correct trivial unhappiness

B) a meticulously sculpted personality that is only put on for the job

“A” would be wild to figure out, if it can be found

“B” is wild too, especially with full-time servers. this personality must be able to swallow shit without blinking, to display with every bit of body language (smiling with the eyes) a value system completely foreign to the [server’s] true internal life. Most importantly, when this personality is put away, it must detach completely.

"is murkier"

2008-12-04T01:25:00.000-08:00

BBC

The terrorists were willing to show their faces on CCTV. Was this suicide for martyrdom - as in New York and Washington in 2001, and London in 2005 - or suicide for celebrity, as in Columbine in 1999 and Virginia Tech in 2007?

And perhaps so little is known of the terrorists' cause, because they simply did not feel the need to have one.

The attack in Mumbai was obviously planned - but "military-style planning" (whatever that means) is probably not necessary for the mass murder of unarmed and unsuspecting civilians going about their business in crowded railway stations and restaurants.

This could also have been a plan which had a large gap where mission, cause or vision statement ought to have been.

But no matter. The terrorists might have assumed, quite correctly as it happens, that the world's media and the terrorism analysis industry would very quickly fill in any gaps for them.

...

These individuals indulge in terrorism simply because they can, while their audience concocts a rationale on their behalf.

...

The invitation to the world's D-list malcontents reads as follows: No matter how corrupt your moral sense, how contorted your view of the world, how vapid and inarticulate your ideas, how talentless you are and how exaggerated your grievance, an obsessive audience will watch your every move and turn you into what you most want to be, just before your death.

"saturday june eighteenth"

2008-12-03T14:23:00.000-08:00

"But then again, I don't know."

2008-11-30T02:05:00.000-08:00

Simbolism

by Kevin Stowe

How much I enjoy this blog: 10/10

How about this? The intended audience shapes the emotional frequency of the project. As aimed at poets, the sympathy a reader feels for the speaker is both complicated by personal embarrassment at viewing our own fantasies arranged with such earnestness, and made more urgent by foreboding. Which is to say nothing of the surface-level tragic irony or the irony created by poignant satire.

seriously fucking great!

in artifice as well as concept: for instance:

“Strangely, I think there’s something about reading these poems that really really interest me. And to be honest, I find that there’s not that many things in this world that really really interest me. I used to not read any magazines at all. Now I only read magazines about finance and travel/outdoors. So I’ve grown in that area. I also don’t really read books. I used to, a lot, but now I find that I’m not really interested in it. Television too. I only watch two to three shows. I don’t really watch movies. Don’t really have an interest in collecting things. Used to collect baseball cards and comic books. Not really into owning things either. So my point is that what a poem does to my senses and interests is actually an exclusive thing that shares company with things like rare short stories, interesting articles, interesting products, interesting jobs and ideas. It’s hard to explain, but there’s something both mentally, emotionally and spiritually appealing to me about poems, but a specific style/school of poetry, I have yet to identify. Post-modern? Not sure.”

The practice of heteronyms has secretly become wildly new since people have figured out that the internet is more than a method of distribution, but a media itself (with the particular constraint of artblogs: required serialism). Obviously Stowe was able to do prepwork before beginning (storyboarding, site design, style practice, crafting background documents) but just as obviously Charlie has yet to become a full-fledged character, in part Because of that preparation.

The illusion of life on the internet--which Simbolism has gotten closer to than any other (non-commercial) artblog--is entirely Boolean. It is immediately disbelieved at the slightest whiff of craft: for instance:

“This really has been a dream come true in the sense that I’ve always dreamt about doing this and now it’s come true! I’m excited about what this could mean, but apprehensive at the same time because in my mind, to be able to get the most out of this, I think you should be doing it as your only full-time job... And will I be happy with this program, which is a low-residency MFA, that is not that well-known, but to me represents a compromise in my decision to go to the best (Iowa) and to maintain my current life (location, responsibilities and relationships).”

winks just a little too much, tries a little too hard to establish the character. while:

(w/r/t poems submitted to Poetry magazine)

“Notes about each: “Surf Necklace” was a poem I wrote for Liz Graham, who is now married. I really liked this one because there’s nothing I would change about it. It encapsulates the interplay between what she told me about her trip to the Caribbean or someplace like that and what I imagined it to be."

is just showing off.

"my angel rocks back and forth"

2008-11-26T04:07:00.000-08:00

Five Best Pasta Shapes[1]

Radiatori
Fusilli
Penne
Maccheroni
Capelli d’angelo

Five Worst Pasta Shapes

Farfalle
Conchiglioni
Francesine
Grano
Lumachine

(from these lists we can determine: there’s a great love for small, shaped pasta with circular qualities, but no real affection for small, shaped pasta with flat or men’s apparel qualities. alfabeto pasta would probably be rated “better” if it weren’t for its unfortunate association with alphabet soup--the appreciation of which is stunted in people by a sort of superego type of wariness about infantilized food--and fettuccine would probably displace angel’s hair from the five spot if there weren’t an abiding elitism about the dubious origin of fettuccine alfredo, which is plainly delicious if vaguely alfred-ish)

(on a personal note, I’ve had more luck getting fusilli to turn out al dente than radiatori, but I must admit that a perfectly cooked radiatori does beat out a perfectly cooked fusilli in terms of the number of different shapes that jumble around in my mouth during chewing)

[1] Excluding Ravioli, Tortellini, and other stuffed pastas

"it could be" "which one"

2008-11-23T22:23:00.000-08:00

"bargains" "beautiful"

2008-11-21T22:30:00.000-08:00

south dakota realtors b o u q u e t

little red riding hood ("reindeer")

2008-11-21T21:09:00.000-08:00

w/r/t Cory McAbee

the first four and one half minutes aren't, well, you can skip them by clicking on the progress bar, but the last minute of the video is complete genius. watch then what he’s feeling as he tries to tell this story:

4:53 “And with the holidays/ came memories of childhood.”

nostalgic and vulnerable followed by seriousness

5:07 confusion at his mouth

5:13 flash of a smile followed by determination to Maintain; repeated

5:24 hints of anger followed by robotic rote

5:35 rising

5:40 !!!

(I tear up every time)

This move is one of McAbee’s stand-bys. here is it again in a movie he wrote and directed and starred in: The American Astronaut (the actor is Tom Aldredge)

so you are asking yourself rrright now, “why is this the funniest thing I’ve ever seen?” or “why is this funny?”

Because: jokes are specific structures, most new jokes are structurally similar to old jokes just as most new stories are old stories with different details (“There are only two stories in all of literature: a man goes on a journey, a stranger comes to town.” –Tolstoy?). A joke’s structure: create an expectation, violate that expectation. A reason there are classic set-ups: they provide a structure of expectation which itself can be violated.

“A man walks into a bar and sits down next to a lady and a dog. The man asks, ‘Does your dog bite?’ The lady answers, ‘Never!’ The man reaches out to pet the dog and the dog bites him. The man says, ‘I thought you said your dog doesn’t bite!’ The woman replies, ‘He doesn’t. This isn’t my dog”

“A man walks into a bar, ouch”

“Two guys walk into a bar, the third one ducks”

“A man walks into a bar with a duck on his head. The bartender says, ‘Can I help you?’ The duck says, ‘Yeah, you can get this guy off my butt’”

&c.

Another reason: they telegraph: (this is a joke)

we get primed to laugh. and pay close attention to where our expectations are being led.

McAbee then uses a technique to send unexpected data to the listener/viewer:

The technique, called Emotive Melting, functions thusly: The rise and fall of tension in a narrative or rhetorical or lyrical structure and any preexisting emotional shading (as in the case of the joke; laughter) are destabilized in relation to the speaker’s emotional mindset usually in order to produce comedic effect (esp. with dark comedy). The technique is particularly effective when unacknowledged (or uncommented on) by the speaker

In Hertz Donut Emotive Melting complicates a well-known structure (the joke) by creating an irony between the way a speaker of a joke should feel during the telling of a joke and the way the viewer can see this speaker actually feels (or “actually” within the conceit of an act), which is disconnected enough to be Totally Incoherent.

In Always/Weasel Emotive Melting seems to actually command the actions and language of the speaker, violating the structure of the speaker's story, and suggest a mental/emotional minefield so saturated as to make even the most functional words dangerous to use.

END TO HOSTILITI pt 1

2008-11-20T17:06:00.000-08:00

w/r/t Watchmen (FULL OF SPOILER)

The two most common misreadings of Alan Moore’s “legendary” comic are that Ozymandias a) succeeds in his plot to save the world and b) has a "better" moral system than Rorschach or Comedian (or his moral system is treated more sympathetically by the text).

re: a) this one comes from people liking Ozy. too much? wishful thinking? something along those lines? Or because Ozy. declares that he’s succeeded? but this reading is undercut twice significantly right at the end:

1) Dr. Manhattan & Ozy.’s last meeting

Ozy: Jon, wait, before you leave... I did the right thing, didn’t I? It all worked out in the end?

Dr.M: “In the end”? Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.

Ozy: Jon? Wait! What do you mean by...

2) The last page of the book (a direct answer to that last quote there)

re: b) this one comes from people liking Ozy. too much. and wishful thinking. exactly along those lines. and because Ozy’s moral system allows for a larger Perspective than Rorschach’s and Comedian’s.

Everyone’s said it: Watchmen is about Idealism (Ozymandias), Pragmatism (The Comedian), and Absolutism (Rorschach). and there’s sort of a circular hierarchy there in the book. But:

Absolutism is all tangled up in the small things: Rorschach’s still going after like shoplifters: no way to Save the World but Rorschach would not save the world: “The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout ‘save us!’ ...and I’ll look down and whisper ‘no.’”: Ror. is about “righting wrongs”

Pragmatism is effective but becomes a pawn: “I see him as an amoral mercenary allying himself to whichever political faction seems likely to grant him the greatest license” is not an inaccurate way to describe Comedian: between morals (Judgment) and ideals (Perception) there is no energy: has Comedian’s lifetime of work/service/murder made the world at all a safer/better place for anybody?: obviously not: but it has given Com. a real good lay of the land

Idealism: everything about Ozymandias screams perception: his erudite interview, his wall of TVs, his off-the-cuff understanding of world markets: and he wants to save the world:

Of course. Of course I do. I’d be ignoring the facts if I didn’t accept those things as strong possibilities. As I said, it all depends on us, on whether we, individually, want Armageddon or a new world of fabulous, limitless potential. That’s not such an obvious question as it seems. I believe there are some people who really do want, if only subconsciously, an end to the world. They want to be spared the responsibilities of maintaining that world, to be spared the effort of imagination needed to realize such a future. And of course, there are other people who want very much to live. I see twentieth century society as a sort of race between enlightenment and extinction.

in this way Ozymandias hopes that his grand plot will give humanity a fresh start; the old brand is “Nostalgia” the new brand “Millennium” this is not just marketing. and what laudable ideas! never mind he has to kill millions of people. Moore makes it clear how flawed Ozy’s worldview is when it turns out that whole story about the pirates is about Ozy: (from the story) “Gradually, I understood what innocent intent had brought me to, and, understanding, waded out beyond my death. The unspeakable truth loomed unavoidably before me as I swam towards the anchored freighter, waiting to take extra hands aboard.”: from Ozy & Dr.M’s last encounter: “[Ozy:] Jon... I know people think me callous, but I’ve made myself feel every death. By day I imagine endless faces. By night... Well, I dream about swimming towards a hideous...no. Never mind. It isn’t significant...”

(it’d be an interesting paper: Ozymandias’ Millennium and Chernyshevsky’s Glittering Tower from What Is To Be Done? or Mikhail Bakunin’s “The urge for destruction is also a creative urge.” and the necessity of destroying the problem “root and branch” if there’s to be hope of new growth)

[in the post END TO HOSTILITI pt 2 we'll discuss what a fucking visionary Alan Moore is in his hope for the world]

Poetry Book

2008-11-20T03:07:00.000-08:00

Moongarden by Anthony McCann

How much I enjoyed this book: 10/10

The denotative subjects of the poems are their surfaces only.

The Subject of these poems is the speaker. In this way, these are lyric poems.

These are lyric poems because they sound fucking off the hook!

(is the reason we read lyric poems to identify with the speaker or to imagine ourselves as the speaker or to point at the speaker?)

Incredible vagueness suggests humongous unearthly forms committing terrible acts behind everything:

I say

Distant music

isn’t always

sacred. People

when you wake up (and I’m gone)

it’s the Greatest

Snow Emergency Ever

How this works:

Instead of simply making a bunch of weird-looking noun/adjective combinations or letting his transitive verbs take unexpected objects, McCann makes every structure within the poem work for discombobulation.

One instance: in a section of the poem “Querida Managua,”:

Dear Managua, What are horses?

Are they ponies? Fathers?

Ponyfathers?

Are they penises?

Or are they simply cars?

Do they represent the sky?

Do they breathe?

What happens to their bodies

when the rain covers up their legs?

Do they exist, Managua?

Managua, are they burning?

the surface / subject: horses, what they are

the Subject / speaker: questions of identity, validity of the empirical world, significance / meaning / degree, gender / manhood / fathers

the punctuation: little deliberate comma in the first line is noticed by all poets, editors. This complicates the rest of the section, leaves the reader wondering if it's intentional, what's wrong with the speaker he'd go and use it that way instead of many easier others.

prosody: syllabically constructed? no line shares syllable count with an adjoining line

repetition: in 11 lines: 11 questions, 7 “they”, 5 “are” 3 “Do”, 3 “Managua”; signals "these are important" forces the reader to wonder why.

lineation: only enjambment between lines 8, 9, but ends between clauses (not an urgent, jarring line break for the reader); a steady rocking motion, false(?) methodicalness

the levels of specificity and vagueness (scale from vague to specific): “exist” “represent” “bodies” “sky” “rain” “legs” “horses” “ponies” “penises” “Managua” “Ponyfathers” [“cars” is unrankable for a couple reasons]

Basically you’ve got an insistent, confused unnamable asking whoever-the-fuck Managua shaky questions about one thing (horses) that are actually questions about fear and feelings while feeling something a little different each time the speaker decides to speak the next question.

Following the speaker’s mind, “horses” (horses) to “ponies” (younger) to “fathers” (horse begat pony, father begat speaker; poet begat child) to “Ponyfathers” (either needs to skip over “fathers” weight--and “Fathers?” is on the only line shared with another question--by cracking a joke and/or has earnest confusion about if “horses” are “ponyfathers” if that relation is what defines them) to penises (what can make you a father) to cars (getting back to horses)... etc. This makes the reader keep all these concepts in his or her head while new ones are introduced to bump into them (“when the rain covers up their legs?”)

It’s not surrealism, McCann’s not “mining” the subconscious for “flying churches” or “neon pink twinky bars” etc.blah blah. McCann is opting instead to mimic dreams, to impart information to the reader using methods that dreams use.

In this case. He does a whole lot of other cool shit all over the book.

For instance: the opening lines of the book:

On the eve of the wedding

the witch arrived in the city

the great lawn

plunged

into dark

and silent pleasure

the vowels are falling down: “eve” “-ing” “city” to “great” “lawn” to “plunged” to “pleasure”. The indents are falling back into the margin. The stress/unstress ratio of the lines is: 2/5, 3/5, 2/1, 1/0, 1/2, 2/3; this mirrors the movement of tone through this single sentence; the wedding is breezy, the witch breezes in, the lawn is important, plunged is tense, dark is ambiguous, and the pleasure eases that tension. A W E S O M E

The book is about a lot of things too, and has themes. In case you're someone who is into themes.

3 BEST POEMS

1 “October”

2 “The Temptations”

3 “Radiance Through Fascism”

3 WORST POEMS

1 “Percoset”

2 “Miami International Airport Hotel”

3 “F Train to Avenue X”

what a load off!

2008-11-19T21:55:00.000-08:00

When I was in school I started a club called "Tell Me" or "Tell Me Club". You'd sign up online and then meet in real life someone you had never met before for the purpose of describing them to themselves and having yourself described to you.

Most people would start with the physical first impression. "You've got a face that reminds me of this famous person" or "You look muscley and intimidating" or "Your awful hair dye, what is that lice blood." Well. But members were encouraged to be a little mean.

People would ask about their voices, and I think most people were relieved (nobody likes the sound of their own voice when they can hear it). People would ask about their smiles, their walks, the posture, gestures, actions, nervous tics.

And people kept doing it. A number of members participated in more than twenty Tell Me Meets each.

"pornography" "LSD"

2008-11-18T23:12:00.000-08:00

hey Alan Moore why don't you have an interview?

[edit:

it is a full move and it made me physically--literally--reel

is how i describe it]