do you like this poem? i read it every few years, and am not sure. but i keep re-reading it.
(Charles Bukowski, from Love is a Dog from Hell)
one for old snaggle-tooth
I know a womanwho keeps buying puzzles
chinese puzzles
blocks
wires
pieces that finally fit
into some order. she works it out mathematically
she solves all her puzzles
lives down by the sea
puts sugar out for the ants
and believes
ultimatelyin a better world.
her hair is white
she seldom combs it
her teeth are snaggled
and she wears loose shapeles
scoveralls over a body most
women would wish they had.
for many years she irritated me
with what I consider her
eccentricities -like soaking eggshells in water
(to feed the plants so that they'd get calcium).
but finally when I think of her
lifeand compare it to other lives
more dazzling, original
and beautiful
I realize that she has hurt fewer
people than anybody I know
(and by hurt I simply mean hurt).
she has had some terrible times, times when maybe I should have
helped her more
for she is the mother of my only child
and we were once great lovers,
but she has come through
like I said
she has hurt fewer people than
anybody I know, and if you look at it like that,
well, she has created a better world.
she has won.
Frances, this poem is foryou.
10.02.2008
8.08.2008
i need new music but have no leads. please help.
the problem is that i normally go for folk music from the 60's and 70's, or severely depressing indie rock. but for the last two weeks, all i've wanted to hear is outkast, and i only know/like three of their songs. and generally, the people who i rely on for music recommendations aren't go-to people for anything outkast-esque. and why should they be? what's wrong with me, anyway?
in the spirit of fair exchange, i offer you the only music video that will ever contain this in its subtitles:"...the curious yodeling scat singing of the group's flautist..." (thanks, dad!)
the problem is that i normally go for folk music from the 60's and 70's, or severely depressing indie rock. but for the last two weeks, all i've wanted to hear is outkast, and i only know/like three of their songs. and generally, the people who i rely on for music recommendations aren't go-to people for anything outkast-esque. and why should they be? what's wrong with me, anyway?
in the spirit of fair exchange, i offer you the only music video that will ever contain this in its subtitles:"...the curious yodeling scat singing of the group's flautist..." (thanks, dad!)
7.20.2008
making friends in dc is hard
i think it's just a numbers game. it's 99% this...
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/wdc/707239142.html
http://www.craigslist.org/about/best/wdc/707239142.html
5.18.2008
I'd pretend that I was a billboard..I fell in love with a beautiful highway
i just discovered how ultimately perfect the song (Nothing But) Flowers (Talking Heads) is.
it reminds me of this part of slaughterhouse five:
Billy looked at the clock on the gas stove. He had an hour to kill before the saucer came. He went into the living room, swinging the bottle like a dinner bell, turned on the television. He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this :American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.
it reminds me of this part of slaughterhouse five:
Billy looked at the clock on the gas stove. He had an hour to kill before the saucer came. He went into the living room, swinging the bottle like a dinner bell, turned on the television. He came slightly unstuck in time, saw the late movie backwards, then forwards again. It was a movie about American bombers in the Second World War and the gallant men who flew them. Seen backwards by Billy, the story went like this :American planes, full of holes and wounded men and corpses took off backwards from an airfield in England. Over France, a few German fighter planes flew at them backwards, sucked bullets and shell fragments from some of the planes and crewmen. They did the same for wrecked American bombers on the ground, and those planes flew up backwards to join the formation.The formation flew backwards over a German city that was in flames. The bombers opened their bomb bay doors, exerted a miraculous magnetism which shrunk the fires, gathered them into cylindrical steel containers, and lifted the containers into the bellies of the planes. The containers were stored neatly in racks. The Germans below had miraculous devices of their own, which were long steel tubes. They used them to suck more fragments from the crewmen and planes. But there were still a few wounded Americans, though, and some of the bombers were in bad repair. Over France, though, German fighters came up again, made everything and everybody as good as new.When the bombers got back to their base, the steel cylinders were taken from the racks and shipped back to the United States of America, where factories were operating night and day, dismantling the cylinders, separating the dangerous contents into minerals. Touchingly, it was mainly women who did this work. The minerals were then shipped to specialists in remote areas. It was their business to put them into the ground, to hide them cleverly, so they would never hurt anybody ever again.The American fliers turned in their uniforms, became high school kids. And Hitler turned into a baby, Billy Pilgrim supposed. That wasn't in the movie. Billy was extrapolating. Everybody turned into a baby, and all humanity, without exception, conspired biologically to produce two perfect people named Adam and Eve, he supposed.
4.01.2008
I'm done with you, Consumerist.com
Consumerist.com made the outrageous, false, and inflammatory claim that irregardless is a real word. Dictionary.com also says this:
"Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so."
BOOOOooo, Consumerist.com
"Usage Note: Irregardless is a word that many mistakenly believe to be correct usage in formal style, when in fact it is used chiefly in nonstandard speech or casual writing. Coined in the United States in the early 20th century, it has met with a blizzard of condemnation for being an improper yoking of irrespective and regardless and for the logical absurdity of combining the negative ir- prefix and -less suffix in a single term. Although one might reasonably argue that it is no different from words with redundant affixes like debone and unravel, it has been considered a blunder for decades and will probably continue to be so."
BOOOOooo, Consumerist.com
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