Whimsy Speaks Again

CDY is not the only one who gets the Vegas bug.  I heard that there are lots of specials, with casino attendance (and gambling) down 10-30%, with the most damage at the mid-range hotels.  Still, if Junie and I were to go again, we'd probably stay at the Platinum again.  It's a beautiful hotel, one long block off the strip.  No smoking, no casino.  The suites are unbelievable:  900 square feet with a separate huge bedroom, den with fireplace, nearly full kitchen.  Runs about $140 a night.

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On the continuing quest for the perfect burger, I've run into a new line from Whole Foods:  tuna burgers, trout burgers, salmon burgers, and mahi-mahi burgers.  I chose the last, and they're really tasty, good for you, and not at the top of the fish food chain, so less chance for heavy metal nasties.

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I spent an hour in bed when I should have been sleeping, reading Rolling Stone.  I cancelled my Spin subscription because I'd never heard of anybody in it (well, mostly).  In RS, I can read about Jane's Addiction, The Kings of Leon, Beastie Boys, Tool, and Dylan, all of whom I've actually heard of.  I know, my loss, but what are you going to do?  Interesting new:  Green Day's American Idiot is to become a musical.  Fascinating story on the train wreck that is Hulk Hogan's life.  The #1 greatest song of all time is Dylan's "Like a Rolling Stone".  Coincidence?

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Transgenic puppies that, with anemone DNA, glow in the dark.

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Interesting, authoritative reporting from the WSJ (just ignore the editorials): 

The biggest name in drag racing is . . . Sheik Khalid bin Hamad Al-Thani of Qatar, who is spending millions each year on his team and cars promoting a sport where cars can reach speeds of 300 MHP in 4 seconds. 

The founders of MySpace have "stepped aside" a few months before their contracts were up at News Corp, which if you remember, owns Fox News and the WSJ, among other businesses. 

A sampling of economists put the chances of recovery as V:15%, D:20%, L:65%.  V is a rapid recovery and D is (you guessed it) a depression, in other words, no recovery at all.  L is a prolonged and weak recovery that takes years to catch back up to where we were a few years ago. 

In a story I haven't heard much about, Tom Petters has been indicted in a $3 billion fraud case.  In an almost unbelievable story, Petters, who started defrauding investors more than a decade ago, started with a small wholesale operation, and through thousands of forged transactions, raised the capital to acquire Polaroid Corporation, Sun Country Airlines, and a part of the Fingerhut companies.  Investors included noted hedge funds, universities, and religious foundations, to name a few.

GM has too many cars, so they're just going to go fishing for two months in the summer, shutting down most of their plants for two months. 

Major health plans have lost hundreds of thousands of customers in recent months.  The reason?  They were employees with company health plans who got laid off.

Somehow, Apple's profits rose 15% (quarter over quarter) on the strength of iPod and iPhone sales.

A circle of Bush-era Justice Department attorneys justified their various torture and other recommendations as a result of seeking a "new paradigm" for what the Constitutional role of the Executive Branch is.

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Merwin won the Pulitzer?  Goodness, who was up for it?  I thought he was busy raising orchids in Hawaii or something.  Just shows to go you how out of touch I've become.

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Kelli instructs us how to perform a poem.  I prefer Wem's advice:  get a little lickered up.

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Sandra links to Harriet which has this excerpt from Patrick Rosal's "An Essay on Tango Composed While Listening to Adriana Varela", which is quoted without breaks, so here goes:  "I swear to you I heard someone on Avenida Santa Fé shout my name but I ignored it Who knew me in this city anyway? I’d come here trying to forget the woman whom I’d made love with every night for three weeks in another August in another city whose once-in-a-lifetime dog-licking summer stewed the hot copper reek of coins right out of my palms But in this city I put my head down as I walked thinking of that story about the boy who remembered everything: every swelter of ascent every susurration of fire every etymology of touch"

Hmm.  Not keen on "I swear to you" or the prosy excess or most certainly "susurration", all latinate and clunky at the end there.

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So, Tony Robinson asks a zillion of us to donate to the March for Babies, and Jim responds "I hate babies", which I have to admit cracked me up.  Turns out that Behrle has a new Twitter literary mag featuring (you guessed it) poems and stories that are shorter than 140 characters.  All the poop at Harriet.

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Jordan has a one-easy-click PayPal link for The Eighth Hat.

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Suzanne on hollyhocks, which always sound like some festive pig dish to me.

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Seth on Walcott's wanton ways.  Yes, that Walcott.

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Modern life is broken.

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This just in from my old buddy Bruce, compliments of Cheers:  "'Well you see, Norm, it's like this . . . A  herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the  herd is hunted, it is the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are  killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole,  because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by  the regular killing of the weakest members. In much the same way, the  human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as  we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally, it  attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first. In this way, regular consumption of  beer eliminates the weaker brain cells, making the brain a faster and more  efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a  few beers.'"

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I received Poem In Your Pocket from the Academy, with a forward by Kay Ryan (who is, as usual, witty and down-to-earth).  As corny as it sounds, it's a pretty slick idea.  Between the hard covers is something like a calendar of poems (200, all told) from which you can tear off a page and carry it around (or magnet it to the fridge).  The first section is called Love & Rockets.  I haven't read a lot of Donald Justice, but I thought this was quite fine:

A Map Of Love

Your face more than others' faces
Maps the half-remembered places
I have come to I while I slept—
Continents a dream had kept
Secret from all waking folk
Till to your face I awoke,
And remembered then the shore,
And the dark interior.

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Josh's softer side and number 99.

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Jenny on water bottles: "Oh, and how could Goleman and Norris miss one of the biggest impacts of plastic water bottles? The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is where plastic ends up, and it's the size of Texas. I grew up in Texas, so I can personally tell you that Texas is a big-assed state."

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Joseph, from Vietnam: "I learned something important about Vietnamese phonology yesterday. A couple of things, actually. First, each Vietnamese syllable can be analyzed into five parts: tone, initial consonant, semivowel, dipthong, and terminal consonant."

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Mr. Samizdat on the Notre Dame Review.

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I considered myself an athlete, but I had never met as fit a physical specimen as Bear.  He looked like someone who should be sculpted immediately: large biceps, a runner's legs, six-pack before the term was in common use.  He was at Pomona College on an athletic scholarship and I was there on an academic.  Still, I had played three sports and fully intended to set the Pomona pole-vault record and win their intramural wrestling championship, so it's not like I held him in particular awe.  Until the annual incoming freshman athletic competition.  I don't know what the official name was but there were almost a dozen challenges (pull-ups, sprints, middle-distance races, etc.) that made up your score.  The list of top-scorers went back 50 years, and I made somewhere on the wall as you entered the athletic center.  Bear displaced the top winner of all time.  Bear would tell me how he had never seen anything like Taco Bell, which was at the time relatively new on the scene.  He swore he would go back to Chicago and open up a franchise.  One time, he showed me his wallet on a whim and how he always kept a $10 bill behind his license, because that was the key to getting out of a speeding ticket.  I was significantly wet behind the ears, but knew enough to tell him that the CHP would haul his ass to jail for such an insult.  He was thoroughly confused, convinced that law enforcement worked the same way everywhere, just like it did in Chicago in 1968.  It struck me at the time just how far our country had come, at least in some places, and how close we were still were to a nation run by bosses, where vote buying and police corruption were a fact of life.  But nothing like Mexico.  An article in this month's Atlantic recounts the interview of a Mexican assassin/torturer/kidnapper by a long-time reporter of Juarez atrocity.  The hit-man worked for 20 years, much of it while in the police department, where the kidnapping prevention squad took orders from various drug cartel leaders and carried out the kidnapping, torture and murder that they were supposed to prevent.  This particular policeman was trained by the FBI, worked closely with the ATF, and was trained in the U.S. twice.  He was paid 10 to 20 times his police salary by the cartel, and explained that for the past two decades, fully 80% of the policeman he worked with were also on the take.  It's chilling, not only because of the brutal details, but because it underscores how futile it is to believe that we can impose liberal democracy on another country (a favorite neo-con fantasy) in a short period of time. 

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 Happy birthday, CDY!  OK, one day late.  Remember, 40 is the new 25.

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OK, you got me.  I thought Dinty Moore was a kind of beef stew.  Apparently not.

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Sandra is used to getting good news unexpectedly.  This time it's the Barnard Women Poets Award.

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Trish points out in her adorable, bikini-clad, impish way that The Puppy Bomb is "the best advertisement for anything I have ever seen".   Well, that may be, but I've seen that Google-insinuated-into-your-favorite-website ad a zillion places and all I can think is "what?  a puppy?  a bomb?  like an IED?  what the hell is this about?  and why would you include a puppy in your murder/sex book?"

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Jordan mentions that Devin's poem from The Hat made it into Poetry Daily.

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Jenny has some new work in Shampoo.

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The every interesting Joshua posts excerpts from better living through chemistry. You youngsters probably don't recall the time when that phrase was on TV every night, intoned without a trace of irony:   "Such a desire carries with it its own contradictions — contradictions that were managed with idealism and Ecstasy consumed in varying doses, without much clarity concerning which came first. It’s worthwhile to attempt to catch this dual development in flight; rarely has a subculture’s self-identification been so thoroughly identified with a single drug."

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I've always liked the Brazilian flag.  It seems, at the same time, pompous, whimsical and something made at the last minute from construction paper and scissors.   The country is fabulous, if only for their contribution of the Gilbertos and Antonio Carlos Jobim.  I should note in passing that Zach is huge in Brazil.

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Here I am quoting Dale quoting John:  "If Silliman senses a kinship between Cole Swensen’s Le Nôtre-inspired garden-artifice assemblages and Conceptualist robotic sheen, it is likely the result of just that: post-human mess-shunning, archives made entirely of pixels, production values trumping the slut-underbelly of the wild empirical world."

I don't care.  It's a great sentence.

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I noticed a Facebook friend was in trouble and needed $100 for some unstated reason, so I emailed her to ask if I could PayPal it to her, but someone else had already helped and she said thank you and hoped that I would have a wonderful life.  Score one for the whole Facebook idea.

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Flarf vs. Conceptual by the good graces of Nada.

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I think that Jonathan is trying to do economics.  Frankly, it's hard to tell.  He's probably just bitching about something and I don't get the joke.

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Denise is the featured poet in the current Anti.  I like Denise, she cracks me up.  Yeah, I like Nick too.

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In Vietnam, it's in the nineties.  Check in on Joseph.

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The Sufi Coffee Shop:  Come for the coffee, stay for the abuse.

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Fallows mentions Japanese train-packing.  When I worked for Seiko, I was in Tokyo two or three times a year, but never had to ride the trains.  The older I get, the more I find little wisps of claustrophobia popping up, and I'm glad I'm not on the receiving ends of the white gloves.

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Atlanta had the most tea-partiers (7,000), Fort Plain, NY the least (12).  In some of the gatherings, fully 10% of the crowd were from Faux News.  How many of these people do you think have actually read Ayn Rand?

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Another view of Somalia:  "Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, tells me: "Somebody is dumping nuclear material here. There is also lead, and heavy metals such as cadmium and mercury - you name it." Much of it can be traced back to European hospitals and factories, who seem to be passing it on to the Italian mafia to "dispose" of cheaply. . . . At the same time, other European ships have been looting Somalia's seas of their greatest resource: seafood. We have destroyed our own fish stocks by overexploitation - and now we have moved on to theirs. More than $300m-worth of tuna, shrimp, and lobster are being stolen every year by illegal trawlers."

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So what is noted conservative columnist, George Will, opining on today?  Deficit spending?  Government growth gone wild?  Judicial over-reach?  No.  Blue jeans.  Seriously.

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[Texas governor Rick] "Perry suggested Texans might at some point get so fed up they would want to secede from the union".  No problem, but could we keep Austin?

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Maybe not so genetic?  "Professor Nisbett provides suggestions for transforming your own urchins into geniuses — praise effort more than achievement, teach delayed gratification, limit reprimands and use praise to stimulate curiosity — but focuses on how to raise America’s collective I.Q."

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I made that "simple" tomato sauce from Cook's Illustrated last night.  It took maybe 15 minutes (and much of that time I was doing something else) and was delicious:  fresh and bright and perfect with mid-sized pasta shells.

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Jordan has a new chapbook out.

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Day 5 in Joseph's Vietnam diary:  He's in Hong Kong at a Starbucks.

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Seth:  "A couple days ago I spent an hour or two reading old interviews with Ed Dorn, and I came away with the realization that the discourse on poetics you find on the internet is largely depraved and vapid, my own included."

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Seth again:  "that's what a blog is, fundamentally--it's stuff I like, all in one place."

Right.

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Just what every classroom needs: a flag and a crucifix.

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Doesn't look like Alberto is going to be vacationing in Barcelona any time soon.

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Right-wingers are so cute when they squabble among themselves.

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The most uplifting video I've seen since the Antwerp train station.

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"This weekend, Frank Rich quoted an astounding statistic from the Harvard Crimson: in Harvard's class of 2007, 58 percent of the males and 43 percent of the females chose jobs in finance and consulting."

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Note to Trekkies:  "The fastest rocket ever launched, NASA’s New Horizons probe to Pluto, roared off its pad in 2006 at 10 miles per second. That pace would be impressive in the morning commute, and it’s passably adequate for traversing the solar system, something we’ve done and will continue to do. Combustion rockets, like New Horizons, can deliver you to the Moon in a matter of days, Mars in a matter of months, and the outer planets in a matter of years. But a trip to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star beyond the Sun and 100 million times farther from us than the Moon, would consume a tedious 800 centuries or so. You’ll want to upgrade."

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You gotta figure we're not exactly winning The Drug War when Forbes puts a noted cartel boss on its list of the world's billionaires.

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From Mr. Know-It-All:  "When my father died some years ago, my mother had his head cryogenically preserved. Now that Mom has passed, too—and is buried, not frozen—can I finally lay Dad's brain to rest?"

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C&L's funny line:  "Ever notice how the wingnuts all clutch their pearls and collapse on the fainting couches whenever President Obama talks about the miserable failure that has been conservative rule?"  He also notes how conservative heads all over the nation explode when Obama makes biblical references in his speeches.

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I've been thinking about this for two days, and now someone has the answer:  "How hard is it to shoot someone in a lifeboat 100 feet away?"

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A chief executive officer of a Standard & Poor's 500 company was paid, on average, $10.4 million in total compensation in 2008, according to preliminary data from The Corporate Library.

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It's not yet the middle of April, so of course, I've already received my May/June Cooks' Illustrated.  Notes from Readers:  You shouldn't substitute salted butter for unsalted butter.  You shouldn't substitute apple juice for apple cider.  A good substitute for the herb savory is a 2-to-1 mixture of fresh thyme and fresh sage.  Baking soda does not remove odors from a refrigerator.  Quick Tips:  To remember to turn off your gas grill, put a rubber band on your wrist when you turn it on, and take it off when you turn if off (and check for rubber bands when you go to bed).  To rejuvenate leftover polenta, process it with a few tablespoons of warm water, cover with plastic wrap and microwave (but why does anyone eat polenta in the first place, I wonder).  To keep salads (potato, macaroni, what have you) cool before serving, fill a ziplock bag with ice and some salt and place at the bottom of a big bowl, then cover with lettuce leaves, then the salad.  Italian Grilled Chicken looks very good, but I'm hungry.  In this recipe, you cut through the backbone, flatten out the bird, then grill under a brick. After lots of inevitable CI experimentation, they recommend putting this concoction under the skin:  simmer oil, garlic, lemon zest, and red pepper flakes for 3 minutes, then add 3 teaspoons of fresh thyme and 2 teaspoons of fresh rosemary and cook another 30 seconds, strain, cool, mix with a tablespoon of fresh ground pepper and a teaspoon of Kosher salt.  Fire up the grill, let it die down a bit, oil the grill with olive-oil soaked paper towels, and cook 20 minutes on one side and 15 minutes on the other, under a foil-wrapped brick.  Yum.  Rescuing Grilled Beef Teriyaki looked interesting (or maybe I'm just hungry) as it recommends cheaper cuts of beef (sirloin tips or skirt steak) and has a sauce that includes rice vinegar, tamari, sake, and ginger.  To make Great Glazed Pork Tenderloins, take a tip from professional painters.  For Improving Grilled Vegetables (which I love, but maybe I'm just hungry) brush with only olive oil and kosher salt while they're cooking, then when they're off the grill, brush with a combination of olive oil, garlic, lemon zest, salt and pepper.  It sounds pretty boring, but the Best Quick Tomato Sauce sounds delicious (but perhaps I'm just hungry).  Go buy some really good crushed canned tomatoes, such as Muir Glen.  Heat (2) T of unsalted butter and sauté one medium loosely grated onion, 1/4 teaspoon of dried oregano, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt, for about 5 minutes. Add 2 medium cloves of garlic (diced or crushed) the last 30 seconds.  Stir in tomatoes and 1/4 teaspoon of sugar, increase heat to high and bring to simmer.  Reduce heat to medium-low and keep simmering for 10 minutes.  Stir in one T of EVO and two T of freshly chopped basil leaves.  Yum, again.  Foolproof Grilled Salmon Fillets and Best Blueberry Muffins held no appeal.  Better Shrimp Tempura looked interesting but not interesting enough.  Marinating facts:  marinades only penetrate a short distance into the meat;  marinades don't tenderize meat; long soaking is pointless; marinades are best for thin cuts; use salt, oil, soy and brown sugar for flavor enhancers; don't even think about using bottled dressing; wipe off marinade before cooking meat; don't recycle marinade, it's unsafe; refrigerate while marinading to limit health hazards. The best cookware set that isn't mid-four figures is the All-Clad Stainless Steel Cookware Set (10 pieces, MSRP $699), but the Tramontina is a great buy at $145 and the Calphalon Try-Ply Stainless Steel Set is up there and just $300.  Just to see if you're paying attention, I'll mention here that I once put Calphalon in a poem.  If you need chocolate chips for a recipe, the best are Ghirardelli 60% Cacao Bittersweet.  Kitchen Notes:  Don't buy pre-crumbled cheeses, they're 60% more expensive (just crumble it yourself, for goodness sake).  Only buy loose shallots, not those in boxes.  Avocados allowed to ripen in the fridge take more time, but taste better.  The dreaded Vegemite (or Marmite in OzzieLand) makes a great addition to stews, soups and sauces because it has lots of glutamates. 

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Honestly, talking about a short attention span:  "Time for pirate story to walk the plank".  I mean, all this happened like yesterday, right?

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I received my Spring/Summer 2009 32 Poems and found some nice work, among which is:

Jennifer Militello, "Rorschach Test":  "The rooks flying out from a burning house / are in themselves the collapse of the eaves".

Rachel Zucker, "After Baby After Baby": "The bed and desk both want me. / The windows, the view, the idea of Paris".

Joanne Diaz, "Christmas in Southern California":  ". . . I for one // cannot forget the singular loveliness of the cold / its thin insult, how it made us suffer everything".

Lesley Jenike, "A Phony Dialogue":  "No fair, you sd, That all possibilities diminish inside an hour. / And the painting we thought was the painting we thought it was / is not.  Flowers could be trumpets if only they'd open their petals".

Temple Cone, "Spring Covenant":  "When the grackle soul rends its metal / Read-a-leak, read-a-leak // And the bleb of sun casts chill / Through the craquelure of hickory,"

Alison Pelegrin, "Katrina Scribendi": "Oh, look -- a gawker with some bullshit poems / about the hurricane.  Just what we need, / our drama in real life reworked to be PC. / Yankified and chicken fried. / Happy to oblige".

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I was listening to country music while treadmilling yesterday.  Why the aversion to full rhymes?  It's not just the artful use of assonance, it's like they think they're rhyming, but they're not.

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Josh Corey:  "Solitude like this is luxurious and lonely in nearly equal measure"

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Gabe:  "On this day 1722 Christopher Smart was born into a little body. A premature baby, he suffered from a delicate health all his life. Most famous for his religious poetry, in particular his "A Song to David,” Smart wrote one of the strangest (I think) books in the language, the Jubilate Agno. “Jubilate” is the plural imperative “rejoice,” and “agno” the ablative of “lamb."

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As Aliens is one of my favorite movies, I'm interested in what Zach has to say about the similarity of Ripley and Joan.

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It's not often you see two or three world-class geniuses in the same sentence:  ""Oskar Morgenstern, who along with Albert Einstein was to serve as one of his two witnesses at the proceedings, reports that Godel had taken the injunction to study the American system of government for the naturalization exam quite seriously, so much that he confided in Morgenstern that, to his distress, he had discovered an inconsistency in the American Constitution. "

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Henry on Acmeism, whatever that is.

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Really.  I just got an email from one of the many wine companies that do that.  They're selling Domaine des Ouches for $11.99.  From the Loire Valley and guaranteed to hurt you.

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I spent 12 years in the university, including majors, minors, and degrees in economics, computer science, physics, and business (though mostly on the quantitative side).  I've been a professor of both business and computer science, and after leaving academia, spent the rest of my life in the computer industry.  So, you can imagine how much exposure I had to The Arts prior to my entry into the poetry world 10 years ago. 

Like most of us in the "rational" disciplines, I thought people in the arts were all advocates of aroma therapy and New Age doctrine.  Imagine my surprise to find colleagues in the poetry world who were formerly attorneys, physicians and astrophysicists.  Even that didn't prepare me for my recent gig as a director of a county-wide arts support organization.  I don't know what I was expecting, but it certainly wasn't finding that this collection of current and ex- dancers, visual artists, playwrights, musicians and film makers were extremely competent and effective contributors to the funding and administration of arts projects. 

A good example is today, when I met with a half-dozen other committee members to review 30+ grant applications.  I was, by far, the least experienced of the bunch, and tried to spend as much time as possible following my golden rule (if you have nothing to say, don't say it).  We had all scored the grant apps, and I discovered a score of reasons why the other committee members knew more than I do about the process and its goals.  It seems that many successful members of the arts community learn the hard way what it means to write a compelling grant application:  a) state your case succinctly, b) make sure your goals match the intent of the grant scope, c) include supporting material, d) show how much of your other expected revenue is secured (and not just provisional), e) make sure your budget balances.  We went around the table for each application and had the opportunity to state our reasons for our original score, and then were given the chance to revise our score number.  Other than championing one poet (the only one in the batch), I eventually deferred to the wiser heads on almost all of the prospective grantees.  I can't go into details, of course, but suffice it to say that their long experience in evaluating grants was evident in the sophistication of their arguments. 

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Sandra has an interesting perspective on building a website.

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I've always found it hard to take Harryette Mullen seriously.  This is probably a chromosomal defect on my part, but I did get to talk to her at the Napa Valley Writer's thing I went to a while back, and I've read her Sleeping with the Dictionary which I yawned my way through.  It was sort of like my reaction to Harvey's "Pity the Bathtub Its Forced Embrace of the Human Form" – novel and diverting, but at some point you just want to say "OK, WE GET IT".  But, I often am wrong on my initial impulse about a poet, so I was intrigued by Mark's post on teaching Mullen.  I'm also intrigued that Mark has taken up painting (again).  How many poets are also painters?  I know of a few, but it seems to be less common than even with singer/songwriters (think, Joni Mitchell).

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I mentioned Pride and Prejudice and Zombies some weeks back.  Here's a (not particularly kind) review.

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"Still in terms of raw drama, the "fair-and-balanced" newsmen of dystopian future sci-fi satirical shouting (unintelligible British) . . of Fox News win out every time".  (hat-tip to Andrew)

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Travelocity send me an urgent message that 7 days and 6 nights in Paris, flying economy on one of 5 different decent airlines, and staying in what looks like a pretty nice hotel, is $1202 per person.  Hmm. Tempting.

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Mr. Clover would like this one:  "Among Americans making $20,000 a year or less, capitalism leads socialism by only 8 points, 35-27."

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Verse Daily doubles up on Crab Creek Review.

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Trish revels in breaking the "no bikinis on a poetry blog".

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I want to see Dean Young everywhere, too.

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I was at Best Buy getting a few new keyboards and found two very cool (though, admittedly techy) items:  The first was the Logitech Illuminated Keyboard.  I've had an backlit keyboard for a year, which is great in the early morning (and evenings in the winter), as I don't have to keep a light on to see what I'm doing.  This Logitech keyboard has an outstanding touch, big key symbols, and excellent backlighting.  It also (unlike my last one) drives all illumination off of standard USB power.  The board is ultra-thin – in fact, it feels a little like you're typing on a laptop.  It costs $60-70, but if typing is how you make your living, it's still a deal.

The second cool find was the Thermaltake Black Widow docking station.  It runs about $50 and looks like this:

 

 

The docking station accepts both sizes of SATA drives, by just popping them into the socket (it mates with the SATA connectors inside).  Then, you can either connect to your PC (or whatever) using an eSATA (which is really fast) or USB connector.  As we have scores of SATA drives around the shop, this is a lot handier than using the drawer method, whereby we install a drawer holder in the PC and individual drives into drawers that we can pop in and pop out.  The eSATA connector is also hot-swap, if your SATA controller supports it.

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I heard a segment on NPR in which they were interviewing the owner of The Friday Store, which is a "salvage grocery store", a category that I didn't know existed.  Apparently, it's like a Whole Foods in BizzaroWorld, where you buy things for 25% to 50% of retail.  This includes canned goods, of course, but also a wide range of boxed products.  I tuned in just as the owner was saying "well, sometimes expiration dates are important, and sometimes they aren't.  For example, a package of Tum's is almost indestructable".  Ah, a man after my own heart.  It reminds me of how we used to talk about the half-life of Twinkies.

These stores are also called "banana box grocers" and "bent and dents" (not sure about the banana box allusion), and judging from the various blog entries, a lot more people are shopping at them (and not a few people are interested in starting up one).  There are wholesalers who specialize in buying damaged pallets that the major grocery chains refuse to accept, and one fellow selling a book online on how to get started.  Here's a post I ran across:

"We called before we went and they take cash, check, Visa/MC, gold/silver. I thought he was joking but it looks like they have a mini-pawn shop section by the register w/jewelry so maybe he's serious?  Most of their stuff is expired but if you use it the week you buy it I don't think it would matter for some of it. Lots of food pantries buy here. Examples of things we got - big can Nestle formula 5.99 (exp 3 mo. ago but we'll go through it this week), huge food service can of pineapple 1.99 for 6 lb, shredded Parmesan/Romano or Romano $1.99/lb. All their fish was $2.99/lb - this included Tilapia (cheaper than the sales this week), Flounder, beer-battered fillets, and buckets of grilled calamari and veggies. Organic ground beef $1.55 or .85 (can't remember) per pound. Whole chicken fryers .79/lb. Buffalo hot dogs $1.99/lb. Marinated chicken breast (pesto and something else - had a citrus slice in the pkg) $1.99/lb - same for breaded chkn breasts. Microwave popcorn 2 pkg for $1.49. Three big boxes of "snacks" for $20 (min. $25 value for each box) - I peaked inside and it's stuff like granola bars, pkg of chips."

The owner had actually mentioned the grated Romano on the radio.  As with a lot of his stock, he bought it from another business that went under, a gourmet bread company that had a lot of high-quality grated cheese on hand for some of their bread types.

I love stories about expiration and use-by dates.  My children could tell you why.

~~~

I received my completely decadent April copy of Architectural Digest recently.  The ads are so luxurious that I often can't tell what they're selling.  For example, a beautiful young lady in nice slacks and a top is reclining in a white dramatic couch on a platform overlooking the ocean.  Is the clothes?  The couch?  A resort?  Placido Domingo says buy a Rolex just like his.  A stunning young lady in a gold (ensemble, jewelry, cleavage) parks her foot on a chrome racing wheel in front of what appears to be giant carpet rolls (yep, it's by Karastan).  SieMatic asks "Why do kitchens have to look like kitchens?" in an ad where the refrigerator looks like a vintage Chinese chest of drawers.  I say, "Why the hell shouldn't a kitchen look like a kitchen?  You're going to cook there, aren't you?"  To which the answer to anyone who can afford this stuff is probably, no.  Rubelli fabrics have their own ad, and I don't want to know what they cost.  Way cool modern kitchen get-up by Smallbone of Devizes.  Is that a great name, or what?  Yet another Maserati ad (as shown, GranTurismo with MSRP starting at $117,500, wonder what a used one with low mileage costs?).  Interesting:  an ad for Penfolds, whose Grange Hermitage is considered one of the 25 greatest wines in the world.  I had a case of '86 that I drank when I should have saved them for my retirement.  Then, there's the "antiques", by which I mean anything older than my nephews.  A 1930 French dressing table and stool:  $18,621 (doesn't that seem like a made-up price?).  A coffee carafe created by Michele de Lucchi in 1979, only $14,500.  Three-part 1945 Maxime Old armoire, $85,000.  Let's hope to God that's real oak.  What looks like the Jetson's breakfast table, the 1953 Compas table of metal, wood and Formica:  $59,000.  There's this robotic monstrosity called the John Dickinson table (in galvanized steel) that will set you back $36,500.  The coolest thing I saw that I might actually buy was the early 20th century Japanese lacquered box decorated with a raised lobster and foliage for a mere $200.  Between the first page and last are a half-dozen impossibly elegant homes.  One, in New Mexico, is owned by Siri Hari Kaur Angleton-Khalsa (born Lucy Angleton before she converted to Sikh), and you just have to have to see the "vine shaded pergola where guests at her casual parties can be out of the water but part of the action".  And what the hell is a pergola, anyway?

~~~

God, he's not back 3 days and we have another photo caption contest.

Just kvetching, I actually love them.

~~~

Henry has the cojones to post a poem he wrote at age 4.

~~~

Dale in Jacket:  "Many recall Theodor Adorno’s claim that, following the atrocities at Auschwitz, it had become impossible, in the West, to write lyric poetry.[1] Of course, that has not stopped anyone from trying. But poets who desire to engage with issues of public relevance often have abandoned the lyric in favor of satire, social documentation, modernist assemblage, and other strategies of poetic engagement. Groups of activists like PIPA (Poetry Is Public Art), moreover, combine a skilful use of poetic language with social commentary that can be adapted to specific public environments, creating textual spaces that transform the area in which readers pass."

~~~

Hey, Seth!!  I already said that!  Actually, I received three emails about that joyous video, so good on ya.

~~~

A scary thought?  Nada:  "If it were up to me every man who wasn't already a dandy would be / forced to be a transvestite."

~~~

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Time has an article on New Age food, food with "embedded positive intentions".  There's H₂Om, water that has been infused with wishes for love, joy and perfect health.  Intentional Chocolate "uses a special recording device to capture the electromagnetic brain waves of meditating Tibetan monks; Walsh then exposes his confections to the recording for five days per batch."  But, my favorite is Creo Mundi, which makes protein powder where "employees gather around each shipment and state aloud the benefits they hope to imbue it with for their consumers--increased performance, balance and vitality."

~~~

Classic:  "I always lived very frugally. I flew around on a private jet. I had a boat. But I always lived very frugally," - Allen Stanford, billionaire under investigation for fraud. (hat-tip to Andrew).

And also from Andrew, an outstanding example of public art in Antwerp.  If you're not smiling at the end of this, there's something wrong with you.

~~~

Coinkidinkally, within the same 20 minutes, I was looking at Lil Wayne's bling teeth and reading Reb's poem.

~~~

I only have a minor in Economics at the undergraduate level, so I have to work at understanding the more esoteric posts of noted economists.  I also have little exposure to Marxist interpretations, which makes me read Joshua's posts at least three times before I even know what I don't know.  Still, I am intrigued by his analysis.  He quotes Brad DeLong, who had a debate entry titled "titled "The Stimulus Package: Like the Housing Bubble, Only Better".  From my limited perspective, I see the current shotgunning of economic programs in an attempt to increase demand.  The past bubbles have been based upon consumer confidence, which in turn was based upon confidence and spending habits (and HELOCs), based upon asset values that were artificially high.  With the exception of toxic assets, which everyone knows are being guaranteed by the government to maintain artificially high levels until or if housing prices drift upwards, the rest of the Administration's programs seem to be about creating jobs (even if they are marginally useless in some cases) and long-term investments that aren't bubble-ish.  If we would really spend money now to rebuild the next bridge that falls into the Mississippi, is that an overvalued asset? 

In a not entirely unrelated article, Moneybox details one company that is "ideally suited not to prosper under Obama":  Textron's subsidiaries includes Cessna, Bell Helicopter, golf-related companies, and a number of defense contractors.

~~~

Joseph will be posting from Vietnam and it's fascinating (even though he hasn't left the US yet):  "In recent weeks I have been intensifying my study of Vietnamese and over the last few days have begun to understand sentences. This makes me very happy and I think represents a new set of possibilities for my understanding of Vietnam and of Vietnamese poetry.I’m going to try to write something here nearly every day during my travels in the coming weeks."

I'll be following.

~~~

On the tech front:  Amazingly, Windows XP still dominates in corporate venues.  Microsoft has tacitly accepted reality by extending its support, even though it will be releasing Windows 7 soon.

~~~
 

Webster recognizes same-sex marriages.

~~~

In my email inbox today:  "I M  BRUCE   AND I WILL LIKE TO KNOW  IF YOU  DO SALES WHEELBARROWS ..IF YOU DO REPLY ME BACK..I HOPE TO HEAR FROM YOU SOON
BEST REGARDS  BRUCE."

 

I'm not sure what to make of that.

 

~~~

In an act of civic pride, Junie points out that the Chippewa Valley region, of which Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, and Menomonie are a a part, had a population approaching 190,000 in the 2000 census.  Thanks for the fact, ma'am :)

 

~~~

Jerome posts an interesting description of life in 1789:  "My own investigation focused on a reexamination of the interaction of the Allegany Senecas and the Quaker missionaries who arrived in 1798 in response to the Seneca invitation to establish a mission. The Quakers came to “civilize” the Senecas and understood by civilization the eventual necessary goal of a commitment to “distinct property.” From a matrilineal, communal society in which economic viability was achieved through a complementary division of labor, in which female horticulturalists produced subsistence crops while men engaged in cash derivative activities (we are, after all, talking about several hundred years of world market extensions into the American continent}, the Quakers hoped to forge a society in which men would farm private property to be inherited by sons while women would engage in household tasks appropriate to the “gentle sex.”

~~~

Ron on Battlestar Galactica:  "Battlestar was a show that, as a rule, took no prisoners. Whereas virtually every other television series with an overarching narrative structure has been forced into episodic structures of self-contained plots that enabled the show to build its audience from scratch regardless of where in the overall story line one came in . . . "

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Apparently, Lil Wayne doing a rock CD is like Dylan going electric.  I have to admit the guy is a freaking genius, having heard only a random sample of his work on VH1/MTV while doing my morning walk. 

~~~

Eau Claire, where my Sweet Junie resides, is (I think) the 5th largest city in Wisconsin.  Considering that it has about 60,000 inhabitants, I find that odd, as there are 5.6 million souls in Wisconsin.  Still, there's a lot of people in Milwaukee, Madison and Greater Green Bay, so I guess it makes sense that there are only 12 cities in Wisconsin with more than 50,000 people.  When it's not socked in by winter, EC is a lovely town, with the kind of greenery and openness you can get to like when it's not January.  EC is also the home of Justin Vernon, who somehow is also known as Bon Iver.  There's an article on him in this month's Rolling Stone, and a review of For Emma, Forever Ago, which Vernon apparently wrote while living in a cabin, recovering from mononucleosis of the liver. 

Props to Der, who first mentioned him to me.

~~~

I keep getting finalist and semifinalist status for my chapbook, Junie and Barker.  I think I may just self-publish and be damned.

~~~

I've been watching YouTube clips of poets reading their work at various venues (most recently, clips from AWP readings).  I find it curious that for the first 3 to 15 seconds, I can't tell, in many cases, whether the writer is a poet or a fictioneer.  I'm not sure that is a good thing.

~~~

Reb has a podcast of one of her NaPoWriMo works.  She apparently also knows Jedediah Berry, and I am a detective novel nut, so I'll probably be looking for him.
 

~~~

 

 García Márquez responds to rumors that he has quit writing (again):  "No hago otra cosa que escribir"

~~~

Dale finishes his gig at Bookslut.  This on Lorenzo Thomas:  "Lorenzo, when I asked him once whether he lived “inside” or “outside” the “loop,” only said, “Outer Space,” and we laughed. We talked about jazz, his small car hurling through space somewhere, that day, “inside.” At Brazos Bookstore, he pointed out new work on Texas jazz, along with Travois, a 1976 anthology of Texas poetry. Line drawings by Houston artist John Biggers accompany Lorenzo’s poem. One drawing shows a West African couple. A woman approaches a man, her body doubled, as if an aura moved a slight step ahead of the actual body. In the other image they embrace, kissing. Their forms darken and their features flatten."

~~~

Zach is 32.  I think that, 32 year ago, I was at a craps table attending COMDEX.  I was probably shouting.  The craps table is the only place where it is cool to shout in a Vegas casino.  I once participated in a run of 13 straight wins by one roller in Reno.  By the time he got to number 10, he had outright won 3 times on a 7 or 11, and made his point the rest of the time.  The place was insane with hundreds of people trying to place bets.  I had been there the whole time, in fact the roller was the guy to my right, and had built 20 bucks up to over 500.  In this completely intoxicating moment, I was betting half of everything in front of me, just like everyone else, completely convinced that this was a special moment in gambling history.  I remember putting $200 on the pass line, which was 4 times what my room cost.  We collectively won again and again, and the pit boss was visibly agitated.  They called for big trays of black chips over and over and Harrah's was losing a lot of money.  Meanwhile, the crowd was going nuts.  On his 14th point, the roller crapped out and the place went completely crazy, having taken the casino for hundreds of thousands of dollars in the space of 15 minutes.  But, I digress.

~~~

An interesting review of Akerlof and Shiller's economics book by Richard Posner, in which the latter disagrees with the authors' characterization of animal spirits:  "There was more than the usual amount of mortgage fraud during the housing bubble, but it was not the cause of many millions of people overpaying for houses, as we know with the benefit of hindsight that they did. Cheap credit and soaring house values were the immediate causes of the bubble and of all that followed when it burst. The underlying causes were the deregulation of financial services; lax enforcement of the remaining regulations; unsound decisions on interest rates by the Federal Reserve; huge budget deficits; the globalization of the finance industry; the financial rewards of risky lending, and competitive pressures to engage in it, in the absence of effective regulation; the overconfidence of economists inside and outside government; and the government's erratic, confidence-destroying improvisational responses to the banking collapse."   (hat-tip to Andrew).

~~~
 

Some good news:  "In his budget address today, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates actually did what he has said he'd do for some time now—killed or slashed a bunch of weapons programs that don't fill the needs of modern warfare, vastly boosted spending for weapons that do, and took the first steps toward truly reforming the way the Pentagon does business."

~~~

Nice rip on Glen Beck:


 

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I just received my copy of Abraham Lincoln #4, a joint production of Kasey Mohammad and Anne Boyer.  It's the usual rollicking volume of eclectic verse that tends toward the flarfish (I mean, what did you expect?).  It's the second or third AL that I've received and my current theory that having a lifetime subscription puts my life in Kasey and Anne's hands.  The just-inside-the-cover page has a photo of what seems to be Farah Fawcett in the '70's, but I could be wrong about that.  There is also an attenuated comic strip from Logan's Run, and an ad for Official Logan's Run stuff:  lifeclocks and citizen's costumes. 


Contributors to AL #4 include (and this is a random selection) Clark Coolidge, Rob Halpern, K. Lorraine Graham, Sandra Simonds, Sharon Mesmer, and Gary Sullivan.  Some excerpts:

Clark Coolidge, "Eaten By Paint":  "This big guys is what?  Dude of the Gods? / Willie Wheatment is who stood here / man days gets his kicks light up wasp nests"

Rob Halpern, "The Insensate Requirements of Mass Meat":  "Dreaming of tar sands bad specie / Oils things we call common being / Bituminous leaves a boreal forest / A soldier on my bathroom floor"

Mel Nichols, "Confessions of a Pioneer Woman":  "What's brown and sits on a haunted house? / I have a rule about putting Scooby's doo on my tongue / to which I rarely make exceptions. / Shaggy was a closet vegetarian too."

K. Lorraine Graham, " Archive for the General Hilarity Category":  "It is marked $800, he said, but I can let it go for five".

Daniel Bailey, "People Are Getting Chopped in Half All Over the Place But I Am Still Intact":  "i want to talk about life / do you know what's happened recently?  / some guy in switzerland took a bath / he is clean now / good job swiss dude"

Sandra Simmonds, "I Think I Owe Him Three Hundred Dollars for the Pekinese Dog":  "Lux has to piss, but why not write the poem first?  / Jorie Graham would never write a line like that, Lux.  // Neither would I, says Lux, if it wasn't true".

Sharon Mesmer, "Non-Pimpin' Huggy Bear":  "We laymen have always been curious to know -- / like the Cardinal who put a similar question to Ariosto / from what sources that strange being, / non-pimpin' Huggy Bear / draws his inwardly riven non-pimpin'."

~~~

It's curious that I just mentioned the other day that Kris Kristofferson was a Rhodes Scholar.  The recent Rolling Stone has a long interview with "The Last Outlaw", and it's pretty interesting.  The son of an Air Force major general, he attended Pomona college (one of my alma maters), graduated summa cum laude, and revived the Claremont rugby team.  After his Oxford studies, he joined the Army to fight in Vietnam as a captain and flew helicopters.  Then, he began at the bottom of a long career of singing, songwriting and acting. 

~~~

IBM, one of the largest employers in Boulder County, has withdrawn (for now) its bid to buy Sun Microsystems (also a large employer).  Apparently, IBM lowered its bid from $9.55 a share to $9.40 and the Sun board balked.  Prior to rumors of the IBM bid, Sun's shares were about $4.  Go figure.

~~~

Nine words/phrases that were invented by science fiction writers:  robotics, genetic engineering, zero-gravity, deep space, ion drive, pressure suit, (computer) virus, (computer) worm, gas giant.

~~~

Like I was saying:  "This crisis has been a long time coming, but bad times have brought it into clearer focus. In the past several decades, the cost of higher education has climbed at an astounding pace -- faster than the Consumer Price Index, faster even than the cost of medical care. Over the past 30 years, the average annual cost of college tuition, fees, and room and board has increased nearly 100 percent, from $7,857 in 1977-78 to $15,665 in 2007-08 (in constant 2006-07 dollars). Median household income, on the other hand, has risen a mere 18 percent over that same period, from about $42,500 to just over $50,000. College costs, in other words, have gone up at more than five times the rate of income." (hat-tip to Andrew).

~~~

I occasionally read the nut-cases at AOL:  "The president's presumptuousness most certainly did not stop with the poison gift of the I-pod. Instead of holding tape recordings of quality music from Great Britain, rumor has it this device was filled with 30 gigabytes (or, a half hour's worth) of sexual American music by the likes of Barry White or Boz Scaggs, with perhaps a sleazy helping of disco fornication music by this Beyonce, or Miley Cyrus."

~~~

Jasper telegraphs his dissertation:  "While it is true that the entirety of Marx’s system is, in effect, contained within his reflections on the theological whims of the commodity, there are many useful (and, for scholars in the humanities, under-examined) terms and concepts elsewhere in Marx. I am at pains, therefore, to work out a phenomenology of labor that can be applied to literature and art, particularly through a reading of Marx’s analytic of capital and labor, with its dynamic ensemble of overlapping pairs: dead and living labor, fixed and circulating capital, constant and variable capital, formal and real subsumption, technical and value composition of capital, etc."

~~~

Steven deconstructs his poem:  "I stole the title from The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, the first line from Mark Strand, a couple other bits from my Bob Hicok and William Logan lists, and the last line from Jesus (to the Wandering Jew). "

~~~

A "Collection of Terrifying Reagan-era Children's Books" (hat-tip to Emily)

 

Posted by jbahr at 06:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

A friend whose opinion I value noted recently that my association of Dana Levin with Fox News was an unfortunate choice of analogy.  And he's right.  Not that I think you are among the few dozen souls who read this blog, Ms. Levin, but I apologize for the slight. 

~~~

Some interesting articles in the actual news part of WSJ: 

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will pay $210 million in retention bonuses over the next 18 months.  The bonus recipients include approximately 80% of the headcount of the firms, and represent bonuses of at least $100,000 to 92 employees, and a maximum bonus of $705,000 to one (apparently irreplaceable) member of management.  I find this incomprehensible, and not just as a result of some populist hysteria.  Silicon Valley is experiencing 10% unemployment.  Extremely skilled and experience engineers, scientists, and managers in hundreds of firms around the country are facing pay freezes and layoffs (and they don't make anything like the salary common in the financial industry).  It seems that every industry (including highly profitable ones, such as pharmaceuticals and aerospace) is having to cope with the most serious recession in decades.  Except one.  I'm sure the free market will lend its invisible hand real soon now to deflate the bizarre compensation expectations in the financial industry.  It would be nice if Congress and the Administration gave the process a little push, though.

Monster Cable Products Inc. is that company that makes ridiculously expensive cables for your stereo and PC that every unbiased review and analysis show provide no more efficacy than cheap versions of the same thing.  One thing that MCP is good at, however, is litigation.  If you want to put "monster" in your company or product name, expect a law suit.  They have sued the online jobs site Monster.com, Disney when they released "Monsters, Inc.", and the Boston Red Sox for selling "Green Monster" hot dogs.  All told, MCP has filed 190 law suits to stop what they believe is an infringement on the "Monster" moniker that they filed as a trademark in 1980. 

AT&T (which is really SBC, which is the result of mergers among 11 of the formerly spun-off Baby Bells, plus the much chastened former giant Ma Bell, but I digress) has more full-time unionized workers than any American company.  And they want concessions from the union on company-sponsored health care benefits.  AT&T is actually only asking for a 10% contribution by the employee, plus accepting some deductible (which is a lot better deal than 90% of employees).  Still, it's the first step in avoiding the kind of liabilities that killed Detroit's operating margins (not that that was the only issue, but it was a large part).  The interesting upshot of this and other company decisions is that Big Business is starting to look at national health care as a pretty good idea.

Advertisement:  2008 Maserati Quattropore, White exterior, beige interior.  Ferrari-engineered 405 horsepower V8 engine.  Seating for 4 adults.  $111,579.  Contact Maserati of Cleveland.

Would you ever have imagined that there was a "Maserati of Cleveland"?

Paul Freedman reviews "The Song of the Cid", which chronicles the life of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, more popularly known as El Cid.  The epic poem follows El Cid, a man of modest origins, throughout his attempt to make war, seek revenge, and enrich himself and his mates.  The friends include both Moors and Christians, while his enemies are generally of the Spanish court.

~~~

Trish proposes a new currency, an admixture of two Easter sensibilities.

~~~

More interesting items from Emily:  "Flowers and skies were taken out of over 40 store bought puzzles and combined to form a series of spectacular landscapes. Although puzzle pieces are unique and can only fit into one place within a puzzle, they are interchangeable within a brand."



~~~

From Crg Hill:  "Skilled flarf internet technicians could design a software program to scan the web pages users view each session, then as users log out assemble poems from those scans. For example, on Sundays, the program could produce sonnets for its users based on the web pages viewed. On Mondays villanelles could be the choice (users of course, as artists, could choose the form they want), on Tuesdays the program could write poems in terza rima, on Wednesdays, hump day, it could deliver some beaming haiku, on Thursdays it could create tanka, on Fridays it could generate free verse poems, and on Saturdays, just in time for the evening social events, it could produce crowd-pleasing slam poems."

~~~

An enterprising man has constructed a business card that can be transformed into a catapult.

~~~

I've always thought that a Rhodes Scholarship was an odd mix of academic qualifications and some sort of sports involvement.  I just looked it up and found a number of poets and Kris Kristofferson in the list.  Also Wesley Clark, Bill Clinton, E. J. Dionne, Bobby Jindal and Rachel Maddow.  Pretty eclectic bunch of folks.

~~~

Madman Jim Cramer declares the depression is over.

~~~

In a landmark decision, Walgreens has decided to cancel its prior order for thousands of Chia Obama heads.







 

~~~

Of course, since a blizzard was predicted, none happened.  It's been in the low 40's with a little wind.  No snow to speak of.

Posted by jbahr at 04:54 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

I've just discovered wikiHow, which has 52,866 articles on how to do stuff.  Such as.  How to:  Make English fish and chips with beer batter; eat wild rabbit; make jello shots; remove a hickey; calculate pi by throwing frozen hotdogs.

~~~

Stalin vs. Martians : Dance Dance Marxist Revolution.

~~~

It's 65 outside and the daffodils are coming up.  So, naturally, they're predicting a foot of snow tomorrow, blizzard conditions, and 40 MPH winds.

~~~

Sweet Junie had a wonderful idea last week:  signing us up for regular donations to FINCA, an organization that provide microloans to the world's lowest-income entrepreneurs.

~~~

Thomas:  "Pleasure without discipline leads to impotence. Certainty without discipline leads to ignorance."

~~~

You all probably know this, but Nada has had an interesting life so far.

~~~

Johannes tends to "fundamentally disagree with blogger Jonathan Mayhew about just about everything", which strikes me as odd, having read a great number of both gentlemen's posts.  On the topic of poetry, I occasionally disagree with JM, but there are so many topics he comments upon (e.g., Jazz, Spanish-language literature) about which I know little, that it's hard to know whether I would disagree if I were as knowledgeable.  One thing I like about JM is that he is pretty out front about what he thinks and why he thinks it, even if I may disagree with the conclusions.

~~~

NaPoWriMo continues unabated.  I was pleased to see that Reb is getting a free night at the Borata.  As I seldom get to the East Coast, I've only seen the casino on TV when they're holding poker tournaments.  Looks like a swell joint, though. 

~~~

The paper says that two million jobs have been lost this year.  And, of course, we're only 3 months into it.  State by state unemployment numbers are available over at CNN (hat-tip to Emily).

~~~

Also from Emily who apparently got it from JB, who has a very strange blog (which is, of course, a good thing).




  ~~~

One day, when I am as fundamentally cool and ChiTown-connected as Robert, and live in the same city as Mr. Wiman, I will be able to call him "Chris".  But not if I have to write about Belgian surrealist poetry.  I lived in Belgium for 18 months, and dealing with the hopelessly dour affect of the Flemish was enough for a lifetime.

~~~

At our wedding, we intend to do the Charleston. 

Posted by jbahr at 05:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

 

Sweet Junie and I completed the grouting step on the fireplace base and applied the first coat of sealer.  Not bad.  Now, what to do about the remaining ugly pink tile?  I could chisel those off, too, but tiling with slate on the vertical may be a bit daunting.  Just paint the suckers?  Hmm.

~~~

A conservative opines in Salon, "Get over your Obama Derangement Syndrome": "I have recently received commentaries that claim that "Obama's speeches are unlike any political speech we have heard in American history" and "never has a politician in this land had such a quasi-religious impact on so many people" and "Obama is a narcissist," which leads the author to then compare Obama to David Koresh, Charles Manson, Stalin and Saddam Hussein. Excuse me while I blow my nose."

~~~

Junie and I watched Seven Pounds last night and liked it.  All the actors did a fine job, and Will Smith easily beat my expectations.  Rosario Dawson is a lovely and talented romantic lead, and Woody Harrelson does a good job in a role that doesn't involve him acting crazy or killing anyone.  The plot has a little of the mystery of a The Sixth Sense (though the flashbacks get a little confusing at times), and there are some nice quirky touches.

Recommended fare for this movie:  Whole-wheat spaghetti with pesto, toasted pine-nuts, and freshly grated Parmesan.  Big salad of mixed greens with lemon-garlic dressing.  Este de Bodegas Alto Almanzora red wine (about $8 and delicious).

~~~

Kelli completely got me with her April Fool's post.

~~~

Jane continues to amuse:  "Finally persuaded to withdraw from GoodReads, a site where folks rate their readings. A "friend" gives The Communist Manifesto four stars. I mean, it's pretty good, but it's no New and Selected Poems of Franz Wright."

~~~

I received Ivy's Mortal in the post yesterday, all 19th century-ish in brown wrapping paper and a postmark from Wales.  Very cool, and very nice work.

~~~

From GME:  "Three-dimensional maps of coastlines were carved of wood as long as three hundred years ago. These Inuit charts were usually carved from driftwood and are made to be felt rather than looked at. "

~~~

News from The Poetic Front includes "A Poetics of Sparsity: Refusing Authoritative Interpretations in Souvankham Thammavongsa's Found" and an interview with Sharon Mesmer.

~~~

The Fox is aloft.

~~~

From Culture Industry:  "But Travels in Arabia Deserta is not merely an incomparable travelogue, but an eccentric masterpiece of English prose – an idiom which Doughty felt had only gone downhill since Spenser and Chaucer. Like his contemporary G. M. Hopkins, Doughty favors an out-of-the-way, Anglo-Saxon vocabulary, and constructs his sentences around Biblical, sometimes recondite cadences."

~~~

Fabulous:  German retro-futuristic group-dancing.

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An interesting article in Time explains why, like passengers on an air flight, no two students pay the same tuition at most private colleges.  It basically comes down to MSRP and who pays retail and who doesn't.  It drives me crazy to hear that "college tuition has increased at twice the rate of inflation for two decades" without ever hearing any reporter ask the obvious question:  Why the hell IS that?  My father put four kids through college and for half of that time was a major in the army.  Now, it takes from 100% to 200% of a family's after-tax yearly income to finance 4 years of on-campus college.  For most families, that at least a decade of serious savings, to the exclusion of other savings options (like retirement).

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The poetry of Glenn Beck:  "Somebody said let's make Swedish meatballs at the furniture store / And somebody else said, that's a stupid idea; nobody's going to want / meatballs at the furniture store."

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Sign of the times, a shop in Paris:  "Everything here is on sale except love"

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The Economist has an interesting review of Animal Spirits, by two American economists.  It questions the infallibility of standard economics theory, particularly the assumption of rationality:  "Messrs Akerlof and Shiller list eight questions which, they say, cannot be well explained without an appeal to animal spirits—but can be tackled with them. These range from why markets for housing and shares swing wildly (a combination of confidence, stories and bad faith) to why, contrary to standard theory, there appears to be a long-run trade-off between inflation and unemployment (mainly, a mix of money illusion and fairness)."

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National Poetry Writing Month (NaPoWriMo) is here and Kelli is ready.  Sandra has more details.

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Poet Laureate of the Blogosphere voting is upon us.  Former winners are Amy King, Ron Silliman and Jilly Dybka.

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Big American Blog notes Aliens are Delicious.

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Thomas:  "Philosophy tends toward genaralities, using specific as mere examples. Poetry tends toward specifics, using generalities mainly as a kind of scaffolding."

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Joseph is returning to Vietnam.  Odd that I've tripped over so many references to Vietnam recently, all positive.  First, Derek said he was considering it for a end-of-school trip.  Then, I ran into Anthony Bordain's ravings about the country (where he took up residence for a year).  Recently, a client has been talking about having some manufacturing outsourced there.

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If you're in Oakland on Wednesday, stop by and see Sephanie, Kasey, and Meklit.

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Sweet Junie ran out of editing work and has been busy beautifying my abode:  painting, putting on new wallplates, more painting.  Junie took on the difficult job of painting the sides of the stairs, that triangular part.  She sent me to Lowe's to get black paint in eggshell, so I wandered over to the rack with a zillion paint samples and said to myself, "where is one that is very black?"   The first one I picked was called Very Black, so I figured I did good.  Another great idea of Junie's was to tile the base of the fireplace with the same rugged natural slate as I put down in the entryway.  We took our tandem chisels and hammered off the ugly pink ceramic tile that was there, then bought a 1x12 piece of oak to box in the base.  I installed the strip of cement backerboard, and we both stained and polyurethaned the oak.  The next step was screwing it to the original plywood that frames the base, countersinking to bring the screws below the surface of the wood, and backfilling with oak-colored wood putty.  We mudded up the backerboard and arranged the slate, which looks beautiful.  This morning we will perform the last step and grout with dark gray mud.  We were accompanied by Rickie Lee Jones, on her new Anthology CD.

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Saw Bolt two nights ago, an animated Disney film with Pixar's John Lasseter at the helm.  Miley Cyrus and John Travolta were the voice talents.  Think "Incredible Journey" meets "The Truman Show".  Pretty good, actually, considering we weren't expecting much.

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My new thermometer says 65 inside, 31 outside.  Junie says we're in for a little snow.

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It's D Day for the Internet's most dangerous malware to date, Conflicker C:  "Conficker is far from the Internet's first serious malware attack. But it is perhaps the most well-thought-out and technically cunning ever to hit it big. The word worm conjures up something ugly, inelegant, even dumb. Conficker is anything but—it's the Bugatti of worms, every element exquisitely crafted to advance a single goal: in this case, total control of your machine. To read the security reports documenting Conficker's technical details is to be at once astonished and impressed by its professor Moriarty-type planning. The C variant, for instance, includes a subroutine that claws back at any efforts to remove it. It disables Windows services that patch your machine, prevents your computer from loading up into "safe mode" (a key way to fight nasty malware), and continually scans for and shuts down any security programs that might pose a threat—including the most commonly used Conficker-removal programs. "

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