WhimsyLand

New weirdness as linked to from Wonkette:  hot Israeli women in the IDF (don't bother clicking forward or back as he appears to be a 'winger of the PajamasMedia variety); Lindsay Lohan intends to visit Iraq after taking shooting lessons (presumably sans Herbie); Ft. Belvoir (in Northern VA, and where my dad was posted twice) might open a military theme park; state and local agencies are about a third of a trillion dollars short in funds to pay pensions and benefits; another Bush appointee, the director of the ATF, is resigning just ahead of revelations that he spent $300,000 decorating his office; beleaguered U.S. Senate candidate Katherine Harris (yes, that Harris, the one who helped the Bushies in Florida in 2000) finds another campaign worker quits, this time a possum.  Condi says that a U.S invasion of Cuba is "far-fetched" (that should make them feel better).

I was going to tell you about The Atlantic, which is a terrific issue this month.  Well, actually, not this month, as they combined the July and August issues into a sort of conjoined twin thing and I've got the September issue in my hands.  You know, delivered on August 6th.  What's up with the tendency of mainstream mags to ship an issue a month ahead of the masthead date?  I mean, with poetry litmags, we're lucky to get the "Fall 2005" issue actually in our hands before champers, balloons, and the Times Square Ball-dropping. Well, I'll tell you about the poetry.  Basically, it sucks speaks to the June Cleaver in all of us.  Suzanne Cleary pens Little Hat ("Forty years in a round box, a nest of tissue paper, / magenta velvet toque, your tasteful feather / a moiré of navy and green ...").  OK, standard caveat:  If I meet Ms. Cleary at AWP and really like her, I might take this all back.   Also, Galway Kinnell with Everyone Was In Love, which starts with "One day, when they were little, Maud and Fergus / appeared in the doorway, naked and mirthful, / with a dozen long garter snakes draped over / each of them like brand-new clothes" and ends very, very strangely with "Perhaps thinking I might be considering rescue, / Maud said, "Don't Frog is already elsewhere".  I don't have to meet Kinnell at AWP, I already love a large number of poems he's written, but I have to admit I don't ken what he's trying to do here, much less why the frog is elsewhere.  Maybe St. Elsewhere?  Please use the comment box to clue me in.  In any event, that's all the poetry.  We're luck there's any poetry, as The Atlantic has gotten rid of The Puzzler and will probably be off-shoring the fiction pieces soon.  Even the Word Court has collapsed into middle-brow lameness.  Suzanne Staszak-Silva of Scotch Plains, NJ writes to ask if her husband is correct in believing that landline is derived from LAN line, a Voice-Over-IP kinda thing.  Christ, does all of America acquire their knowledge from Fox shows?

Anyway, that's all the bitching.  The rest of The Atlantic is killerbee and you'll hear about it tomorrow.