As you all know, I am inna Edinburgh now. I will be here for two years. Why not start a separate blog you ask. Because most of the people who would read it already read this blog. I am saving you time. I am saving me time.
Anyway.
For my first installment: an email from my kind, loving mother who is caught in a whirlwind of my forgetting my toiletries etc...
Dear Liam, I went to the post office today. It turns out that packages have to be a certain size to be sent in the regular mail. If the box is large it goes slow freight. There are no choices. So one of the boxes will arrive about a week before the other. Also they kept asking me what the state or province was I said I didn't know, but that since UK was the country maybe Scotland was the province. They didn't like that. I hope you get the two boxes, let me know. I would like to know for future mailings. I also had to make an itemized list of everything in the boxes. I didn't really know so I made it up. I hope this doesn't mess things up. Also you aren't suppose to send toiletries so I didn't mention that yours were in one of the boxes. Did you play frisbee today? Love Mom
My dog rolled over on his other ear when an infant yell shook up the night, And ambulance sirens, a roller coaster, Or was it the Cosa Noster? Michael was scheming vengeance gainst the professor who rusticated him for plagiarism. The men in the hummer understood That usually it was a pretty safe neighborhood. What the devils thought was God defenestrating a bastard baby was just a meteorite. Luckily, Mr Hallam was able to return to work six weeks after his New Age Aneurysm.
The girl in brown who walked into the coffee shop on Thursday Morning had the eyes of an octogenarian. In memoriam, it was her royal belief That nature & nonsense could console grief. She sat way over in the fifth corner & wrote hurriedly a novel about shiteater bunnies & testicles. Robert's rhymed dissertation was tit-for-tat, So why do the gay young men have to dress like that? A father of such potency should have, quintessentially, been a Mormon, not a hippy, you know, For every December there had to be screaming arguments about iconography & revolution & tinsel icicles.
Governor Schwarzenegger was sitting across the aisle at the afternoon baseball game; Henry had brought his antique Daguerreotype, But overexposed the governor amid the hype, And a question materialized from the tainted folds about the longevity of ancient mammals. When the tumor squeezed the trigger, Where in hell was this sad figure? Ah, Mrs Hallam, your late nights in the confessional have become the vicar's nostalgic shame: Henry's Roman nose was among his final thoughts when he cast off their earthly shackles.
In the basement bathroom, she blew him like desert dust. Joseph's immortal ill will be Never finishing his Third "Lost" Symphony. He was reanimated like Erasmus Darwin's electric rocks on the steps of city hall. And the newt's tail in her cauldron She might never feed to her great-grandchildren. The judge was a welder of finite proportions, preserved as a marble bust, But I cannot be expected to remember the details of an artistic perjury trial that pitiful.
I hear George hearing a megaphone announcing Mr Hallam missing in the circle of Willis. I never meant to be mean, But I ended that relationship in the Oligocene When six ton ground sloths swatted down magnolia trees like horseflies. A naked newborn problem Is no reason for a pogrom! His youngest sister Phyllis had diatribed seven reasons not to kill us. You see, George has waited his whole life to find the woman with the largest sagging breasts to demonize.
There were no towels left in the closet in Autumn 2006 when Mrs Hallam finished taking her last shower, That moment the twelve-part crowing of Chanticleer Marked the beginning of the getting filthier. Is it unprofitable to put her in your bonds & use her remaining labor? James has eaten elephant slugs & slumber slugs And wallaroo slugs & cucumber slugs. And the fallen leaves know more about higher powers than any higher power. Chastise me, heretics! for the watchers grasp the invisible agony of the Stellar's Jay roar.
It was James who mistook his brother Daniel for a tasty underground network of mycelium, A brigade of saviors will balloon us Out of a lifetime of boredom in Khan Yunis. Overpopulation & underpopulation are twin issues to be discussed at next year's global summit. Daniel has become allergic To the mosquitoes bred in the oil slick. His antepenultimate act of indecency was attacking his mother with an Ego Paintball Gun loaded with Berkelium. So they chose art & science over procreation, they all sold off the family stock before it was going to plummet.
I was just trying to research what the hell "salamander brandy" is, & also, could it possibly be possible to get it in California? Apparently it's illegal because of animal cruelty, although this website says it's legal in Slovenia but impossible to export & still difficult to get a hold of without the correct contacts.
"How do they make the brandy? There are several different methods. The simplest is to take two salamanders (live), toss into a barrel of autumn fermenting fruits, leave for a month and then distil. The sophisticated method is to pour the warm, freshly distilled brandy over the salamanders (one lizard for every five litres of brandy), collect the results in a suitable vessel and then drink. The X factor is the poisonous mucus the salamander gives off to frighten away its predators."
It's an aphrodisiac that's been used since the middle ages & it's effects are supposed to be kind of a cross between acid & ecstasy.
"... a traditional medieval method of getting in touch with your deeper sexual feelings - and getting off your face in the process. The erotic charge of the drink is powerful, but tends to be indiscriminate in its target, so that anything in the natural world can become sexually attractive - trees, plants, animals or even humans.
[...] To quote Macbeth's coven: Lizard's leg and howlet's wing for a charm of powerful trouble, like a hell-broth, boil and bubble. In the Middle Ages, salamander brandy was certainly used to conjure up and exorcise demons, and the area around Skofja Loka where the brew is found had an unusually high proportion of tried witches. But the salamander is not all bad; it is also the sign of the alchemist. Its ability to walk unharmed through extreme heat or fire led the creature to become a symbol of self-restraint, chastity and purity, metaphorically surviving the temptations and rigours of red-hot earthly pleasures."
Please contact this blog immediately if anyone has connections in California!
A summary of this article in the Guardian: Jonathan Franzen publishes yet another Great American Novel. The New York Times reviewer Michiko Kakutani praised its "visceral and lapidary" prose. Jodi Picoult tweeted "NYT raved about Franzen's new book. Is anyone shocked? ... Would love to see the NYT rave about authors who aren't white male literary darlings." This gave everyone some nice controversy to discuss for awhile, and the rest of us can feel slightly guilty every time we're enjoying a modern white male author. What bothered me about Picoult's criticism of the critic wasn't that she herself liked the novel, or that Franzen is a tool, or that she's a novelist using Twitter. It's this follow-up tweet in re Kakutani's use of the word lapidary: "Did you know what [it] meant when you read it in Kakutani's review? I think reviewers just like to look smart."
If you can't use juicy words like 'lapidary' in a New York Times book review, where the hell can you use them? Lapidary, by the way (I looked it up), means "pertaining to gems and precious stones, or the art of working them." So, yes, thank you Ms Picoult for suggesting I look up that gem of a word.
On a related topic, I'm working on a novel about angst & ennui behind the façade of the American middle class family.
Again, I have to disagree with the blogosphere about Palin's twisting of language, & side with the sometime governor for her creativity. I love the use of "cackle" as the collective noun for "rads." The Huffington Post complains that none of the standard dictionary definitions of cackle "are appropriate in the context of Palin's tweet." I recommend wading thru the whole quote:
The famous bear in my hometown - Incline Village, Nevada - recently made the Wall Street Journal this week with the sensational headline printed above. (Bubba has broken into my parents' garage, & has previously been mentioned in our Department of Bears) From the article:
INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev.—In hot pursuit of a notorious burglar along the shores of Lake Tahoe this year, Carl Lackey organized a night patrol to catch the perp. His tools included a fire extinguisher, pepper spray and two dogs that respond only to commands in Russian.
"These dogs were bred to hunt," says Mr. Lackey, 45 years old.
A 700-pound black bear known as Bubba is accused of breaking into at least 50 homes around Lake Tahoe. WSJ's Marie Baca reports on the elusive ursine bandit.
Driven from the mountains by the 2009-2010 winter—the snowiest in five years—and feeding off the garbage left by tourists, Bubba is living large on Lake Tahoe's shores. The bear has broken into at least 50 homes in search of food the past year, causing more than $70,000 of damage, and leaving stinky, basketball-size deposits as his calling card.
So Mr. Lackey has ramped up his bear-catching techniques, deviating from his usual strategy of just laying traps by going on 3 a.m. patrols. This past winter, he placed a shoot-to-kill order, declaring Bubba dangerous and saying the bear "needs to go out of the population."
For THREE YEARS AGO, this blog's celebration of its more-than-three-year-oldness, we repost some local drama & an interesting letter-to-the-editor:
___________________________
The local media was closely following the assassination of the editor of the Oakland Post, by some zealous bakers at a place called "Your Black Muslim Bakery" on San Pablo. They have been apprehended for other crimes, & the bakery was shut down for "sanitary" reasons. I think this guy's commentary in the Berkeley Daily Planet well grasps the scope of issues (both 21st Century & classical) in this public drama. Truly the stuff of a poetic five act play, with cookies - sort of "Merchant of Venice" meets "Chocolat".
Commentary: Your Black Muslim Bakery (Or What’s Left Of It) By David Nebenzahl (08-14-07)
You’re gone now, it looks like for good. That’s a shame, at least for me personally. Let me explain.
For the past five years or so, my breakfast has invariably consisted of a single cup of strong coffee, home-brewed, and one of your sweet rolls. The same thing every day for five years. Actually longer: When I lived on the Peninsula in the 1990s, I used to buy these same rolls from the now-departed Palo Alto Co-op. Back then they seemed somewhat exotic, coming from a place called “Your Black Muslim Bakery” and labeled “A Taste of the Hereafter.”
In any case, they were damn good sweet rolls. I also treated myself to your excellent fish sandwiches from time to time.
So even though I will definitely not miss the actions of the thugs who were part of your organization—the terrorizing of small liquor store owners, the Carrie Nation-like smashing of refrigerated cases, the over-the-top, racist ideology, the ersatz pseudo-religious mish-mash of Islam, fundamentalist Christianity and black nationalism—even though I found myself stepping into your shop with a lot of trepidation of late—I will miss your bakery and its products (and even its historic San Pablo storefront).
I hasten to add that even though I witnessed your black-suited thugs smashing their way through local businesses on the TV news, and read about the criminal activities of your organization, I was always treated courteously in the bakery. The young people who worked there were very businesslike and treated their customers respectfully, no matter what color they were, and they all seemed genuinely concerned with running a neighborhood business properly. That, too, will be missed.
(I leave speculating about the cause and implications of the demise of your organization to others, as will be unavoidable in the weeks to come. To me, it appears to be yet another case of a well-meaning group of people, struggling against injustice, who fall victim to the usual human shortcomings—greed, hubris, religious mania and messianic visions, and plain old corruption—in a spectacular, Shakespearean drama, leading to a final implosion. You’re not the first, and you certainly won’t be the last.)
So let me ask some of you, perhaps naively: Is it possible that you might be able to regroup yourselves, shake off the dust of this scandal and reopen your bakery? Preferably in, or somewhere near, the old location (I say selfishly). If you could somehow shed the ideological aspects of the operation, and just concentrate on producing sweet rolls, fish sandwiches, bean pies, cookies, cakes, and all the other good stuff you used to make, I think a lot of people would appreciate it. I know I would.
And if running a bakery just happened to advance the cause of black economic empowerment in a depressed, predominantly black neighborhood, that would only be further to your credit.
Mr Quill's photos from the Fake Wake were super high resolution, so I've been looking at our faces in close-up. Also, here's the song from Reading Rainbow slowed down:
Friend-of-the-blog Dr Benway (previously responsible for Bacon in Gold) adds his working man's voice to the public glorification of Steven Slater, the legendary flight attendant who stuck it to man this month.
The lyrics ("with apologies to Bob Dylan.")
Crewman Steven Slater spent many an hour in flight, He pushed the drinks cart up and down the aisle Throughout his years of service he refused many a fight, He was always there with service and a smile.
'Twas down in New York City, a time they talk about, When the final insult came, he took a stand. And soon those rowdy passengers, he'd roundly cursed them out, And was down that yellow slide, with beer in hand.
All across the Internet, his name it did resound, But fame could not protect him, so it's said, And soon the Port Authority was beating his door down, With a warrant for poor Steven Slater's head.
O Judge, and all you jurors, come close and gather round, Consider and consider carefully, For if you've dealt with assholes in the air or on the ground, You know that you must set poor Slater free.
The technology behind Tristan Perich's 1-Bit Symphony is fascinating; more important, the music is fairly electrifying. It reminds me of Terry Riley's rough, ecstatic music of the late nineteen-sixties, in the Rainbow in Curved Air period. It's not for every taste, but what music is? The final movement is infinite; when you're ready to move on, you switch the gizmo off.
And now, back to THREE YEARS AGO: this blog's ongoing series re-posting posts from EXACTLY THREE YEARS AGO, as a perpetual celebration of the fact that it has survived more than three years (with the occasional furlough.) From August 11th, 2007, we present Three Lamer Doggerels:
It's a shady Saturday, & I'm looking thru an old notebook before heading to a wedding reception. I found one old poem scratched next to a picture of a cowboy entirely of beard & hair, below bumpy onboard reflections of Futureman's MIDI percussion playing from the 90's (The "Synthax Drumitar").
Two men use their talents: One buries his money, The rich get richer, but bees make honey, & ain't that funny if you're a bunny, sonny?
I think I really solved some of life's mysteries with those rhymes. The second poem I collaborated with Mr Hadar Hart on a walk up to see a 70's b-movie about smart killer bees ("Phase IV" by Saul Bass), after discussing how it's too bad the Homeless Newspapers don't have creative writing:
Haiku About Homelessness & Heartlessness
Home's where the heart is, Homes is where the heart is where, Therefore, I'm heartless.
Kind of Gertrude Stein meets Wayne & Garth. This last doggerel is a fragment - instead of blabbing on about Orson Welles & the thinning of themes, as Christopher Hitchens did today in his review of Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, I just wrote a short poem thanking our beloved author:
Thank You to J.K. Rowling
Thank you, J.K. Rowling, you've made the Bush years more bearable, You've made 800-page novels more carryable, You've made wizard cloaks more wearable, And you've made Hollywood more Harry-able.
I know I'm late to come to an appreciation of Auto-Tune the News, but yes. This one, number 11, includes the brilliant remixing of a vituperative session of the EU. The rap in front of Glenn Beck's chalkboard is also inspired.
Whenever you hear the boss swaggerin down the hall, you know he gonna drop a double cup on your tennis balls! You have to be a soldier, a real man, to soothe a male staffer with the stroke from a tender hand! Ain't nothin wrong with a Massa massage when you're in a chronic platonic quintuple menage! The entourage gripped in a bear hug that they can't escape Tryna pretend they don't notice when he ejacu- -
The Benevolent Otherhood is a secret writing society in Oakland and Berkeley, California. Founded in 1899, its current members include Alisa Dodge, Cathlin Goulding, Corinna Lefkowitz, Pepper Luboff, and S. Sandrigon.
Cover art is by Mario Zamarripa. Other illuminations by Olaf Mary, Chris Rae, & Minnie Molly Mary.
We had our zine release party Monday night at Mama Buzz in Oakland, to a crowd hungry for new poetry. We also had musical guests: Stas Feldman, members of the Avatar ensemble, & Friends Around the Campfire. A limited 50 physical copies were made, so I'm proud to present a free digital version:
In Memoriam: Charles Crocker, in whose name we announce a dolorous Fake Wake, open to the masses.
Death, as it must to all men, has come to Charles Crocker. In commemorating & celebrating the ending of his life, we must take the good with the bad. Yes, he was an asshole, but he was a rich asshole. Guests, in appropriate mourning garments, are invited to gather at Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland, California, where we will stroll together to his mausoleum. There we briefly eulogize the deceased (2pm!), gazing upon the beautiful bay area cityscape which he so dearly loved with his tiny, tiny heart. A small potluck picnic to follow around the back of the hill, including IRISH WAKE AMUSEMENTS. (I encourage guests perhaps, in addition to a picnic item, to bring cheap champagne &/or guinness, to make Black Velvets.)
After we are either bored with the moroseness or physically ejected by the Mountain View security, there will be a RECEPTION & AFTERPARTY at the Webb Block, the apartment of Mr J____ (1985 Ashby Ave). If you cannot make it to the cemetery (too soon?) please join us for additional beer drinking & eulogizing at this location, to go on until the resurrection of the morning.
Crewman Steven Slater spent many an hour in flight,
Posts
