WhimsyLand

How sweet it is.  The Dems gained 28 seats in the House, giving them a 32-vote majority.  They're not veto-proof, of course, and it seems likely that Bush might start using them after 6 years of forgetting veto power existed.  There's also the fact that many of the Democrats elected are relatively conservative.  Full control of the legislative branch hangs on the final results in Virginia and Montana.  If the Dems get only one of them, Cheney becomes the tie-breaker (assuming that he's not out duck-hunting with Scalia).  In Virginia, Webb leads Allen by a tiny margin — about 7,000 votes of the 2.3 million cast.  The race in Montana is even closer, with Democrat Tester leading by 750 votes.  Of course, only about 400,000 votes were cast, which is fewer people than live in Omaha.  Remind me again why they get two senators?  (this is the part where the States' Righters burn a cross in my front yard).

Getting those last two senators would let us all breathe a sigh of relief about judicial appointees.  Justice Stevens is 86.  Ginsburg and Kennedy are 70 or more. 

It was weird watching the TV for results, and relatively fruitless.  This morning, I surfed the channels trying to get some overall results and mainly learned about the weather, the driving conditions, and Colorado election foul-ups.  I had to switch to The BBC to actually get some decent coverage.  I had forgotten how articulate the BBC newspeople were.

The stock market has been on a tear.  It has expected a big Democratic win and a Republican in the White House.  The market loves gridlock.

~~~

Yusef Komunyakaa has graciously accepted our request that he judge the next MMM book contest.  He's also on the cover of a damned decent APR, looking exactly as I envision Easy Rawlins, one of my favorite fictional detectives.  This from The Autobiography of My Alter Ego:  "... // But one day Roberta / brought a puppy with her / & she said, She's yours / if you give he a name, & I whispered into her ear / Bullet.  My tongue / was locked against the world."  Cynthia Cruz does not look happy.  This from Praying:  "Woke on the highway. / Thin in my dead brother's clothes. / I was gone but still dreaming. // A desert city strobing in the distance like sex."  Merle Brown has an nice essay on Poetic Listening ("A poet will attend to an upsurge of feeling, a deep impulsion, ...to the swarm of words that impinge upon him ...".  Mark Doty with Theory of the Sublime, and an explanation of its provenance (don't you hate when they do that?).  There's Laura Kasischke again.  Sarah Maclay has Two Poems, this from The Vehicle:  "In that room of caramel-hued regret, "the music room", where they sit on vintage office chairs, apart, ...".  David Trinidad offers up a nice bit of scholarship describing Sexton and Plath's Friendship and Mutual Influence.  Stanley Moss with Five Poems, this from El Sol:  "If the sun is money, as you say, then the trees cash in, the ocean has deep pockets."  Anne Carson, the ever-interesting classical scholar, introduces Susanna Neid's translation of Inger Christensen's det (or it in Danish), and along the way keeps me fascinated with the details of PROLOGOS, LOGOS, and EPILOGOS as exemplified by Hesiod, a poet who has been dead about 2,800 years.  Three Poems by Kazim Ali.  Robin Becker on the Summer and Sustainability in the Georgics of Virgil.    Four Poems by my recent favorite, Dean Young, including the absolutely great Leaves in a Drained Swimming Pool:  "Poetry is an art of beginnings and ends.  You want middles, read novels.  / You want happy endings, read cookbooks.  Not closure, word filched / from selp-help fuzzing the argument".  Rosanna Warren with Odyssey.  Ira Sadoff discusses Frank O'Hara's Intimate Fictions.  Ten Poems by Paul Nougé, translated from the French by William Kulik ("White everywhere demands revenge / for the maid's weary eyes / and the salegirl's pretty ones/ ...").  Ellen Bryant Voigt with Messenger, and Pinksy on the back cover (The Material:  "The moon-stirred volume of ocean sighed / Coconut tanning-oil and frozen custard. // ...")