cheek

2008-05-11T16:30:00.003-05:00

This is why I keep telling anyone younger than me, don't imagine you'll have it forever. Use it while you've got it because it'll go, it's sliding away like water down a plughole.

Doris Lessing calls her Nobel win a "disaster."

Some other classic Lessing moments:

The Kiss Precise

2008-04-30T22:43:00.003-05:00

For pairs of lips to kiss maybe
Involves no trigonometry.
'Tis not so when four circles kiss
Each one the other three.
To bring this off the four must be
As three in one or one in three.
If one in three, beyond a doubt
Each gets three kisses from without.
If three in one, then is that one
Thrice kissed internally.

Four circles to the kissing come.
The smaller are the benter.
The bend is just the inverse of
The distance from the center.
Though their intrigue left Euclid dumb
There's now no need for rule of thumb.
Since zero bend's a dead straight line
And concave bends have minus sign,
The sum of the squares of all four bends
Is half the square of their sum.

To spy out spherical affairs
An oscular surveyor
Might find the task laborious,
The sphere is much the gayer,
And now besides the pair of pairs
A fifth sphere in the kissing shares.
Yet, signs and zero as before,
For each to kiss the other four
The square of the sum of all five bends
Is thrice the sum of their squares.

::Frederick Soddy (Pray to Empson if you want this poem to be about more than what it's actually about.)

Strugnell's Bargain

2008-04-27T18:12:00.003-05:00

My true love hath my heart and I have hers:
We swapped last Tuesday and felt quite elated
But now, whenever one of us refers
To 'my heart', things get rather complicated.
Just now, when she complained 'My heart is racing',
'You mean my heart is racing,' I replied.
'That's what I said.' 'You mean the heart replacing
Your heart, my love.' 'Oh piss off, Jake!' she cried.
I ask you, do you think Sir Philip Sidney
Got spoken to like that? And I suspect
If I threw in my liver and a kidney,
She'd still address me with as scant respect.
Therefore do I revoke my opening line:
My love can keep her heart and I'll have mine.

::Wendy Cope (again!)

Spiderwoman

2008-04-23T00:12:00.002-05:00

Arachne starts with Ovid and finishes with me.

Her hair falls out and the ears and nostrils disappear
From her contracting face, her body minuscule, thin
Fingers clinging to her sides by way of legs, the rest
All stomach, from which she manufactures gossamer
And so keeps up her former trade, weaver, spider

Enticing the eight eyes of my imagination
To make love on her lethal doily, to dangle sperm
Like teardrops from an eyelash, massage it into her
While I avoid the spinerets -- navel, vulva, bum --
And the widening smile behind her embroidery.

She wears our babies like brooches on her abdomen.

::Michael Longley

Armed and Dangerous

2008-04-20T16:08:00.004-05:00

WANTED: CUPID, SON OF VENUS
If anybody sees Cupid loitering around,
he's my slave, a runaway.
There's a reward for information leading to his arrest.
Payment will be a kiss from Venus or, if you bring him in yourself,
you'll get more than just a kiss.
The boy's well-known. You can pick him out of any lineup.
Complexion: not white but ruddy. Eyes: piercing and fiery hot.
Voice: sweet as honey. Doesn't say what he means.
Intentions: bitter as bile. A con man,
a complete liar, a sneaky kid. Plays rough.
Lots of curly hair and a look that's asking for trouble.
Hands like a baby, but they can throw things.
Can shoot an arrow to hell and back.
Naked body but hidden thoughts.
Winged. Flies like a bird from here to there.
Lands on men's and women's hearts.
Armed with a small bow and arrow.
Arrow's short but it can reach the sky.
On his back, a golden quiver. Inside,
those little arrows have nicked even me.
All his weapons are dangerous, but the worst is the torch.
Not much light, but it can set the sun on fire.
If you catch him, tie him up, bring him here, and show no mercy.
If you spot him crying, watch out for tricks.
If he's laughing, drag him by the feet. And if he wants to give you a kiss,
look out! The kiss is bad news and the lips are poison.
If he says, "Here. Take my weapons,"
don't touch them whatever you do.
Those gifts are dipped in fire.

::Moschus (translated by Stephen Bertman)

Men Explain Things to Me

2008-04-20T15:27:00.003-05:00

Rebecca Solnit's latest must-read essay, Men Explain Things to Me gets at an annoyance I've harbored for years but couldn't articulate, other than to cut off the pencil-necked grad-school know-it-all boys by dropping my new catch-phrase, "quit didacticizin', bro" (and I'm a man, albeit half-lesbian on my mom's side):

Yes, guys like this pick on other men's books too, and people of both genders pop up at events to hold forth on irrelevant things and conspiracy theories, but the out-and-out confrontational confidence of the totally ignorant is, in my experience, gendered. Men explain things to me, and other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men.

Every woman knows what I'm talking about. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare; that crushes young women into silence by indicating, the way harassment on the street does, that this is not their world. It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.

[snip]

Don't forget that I've had a lot more confirmation of my right to think and speak than most women, and I've learned that a certain amount of self-doubt is a good tool for correcting, understanding, listening, and progressing -- though too much is paralyzing and total self-confidence produces arrogant idiots, like the ones who have governed us since 2001. There's a happy medium between these poles to which the genders have been pushed, a warm equatorial belt of give and take where we should all meet.

[thanks for the link, Jenna!]

Three Riddled Riddles

2008-04-17T01:52:00.004-05:00

(i)

I have nine legs.
I carry an umbrella.
I live in a box
at the bottom of a ship.
At night
I play the trombone.

What am I?

Answer: I've forgotten.

(ii)

You see me at dawn
with the clouds in my hair.
I run like a horse
and sing like a nightingale.
I collect stamps
and coconuts.

What am I?

Answer: I'm not sure.

(iii)

I taste like a grapefruit.
I swim like a chair.
I hang on the trees
and people tap my face.
rake my soil
and tell me jokes.

What am I?

Answer: I've really no idea.

:: Martyn Wiley and Ian McMillan

Nocturne

2008-04-13T17:37:00.002-05:00

Round and round the shutter'd Square
I strolled with the Devil's arm in mine.
No sound but the scrape of his hoofs was there
And the ring of his laughter and mine.
We had drunk black wine.

I scream'd, "I will race you, Master!"
"What matter," he shriek'd, "to-night
Which of us runs the faster?
There is nothing to fear to-night
In the foul moon's light!"

Then I look'd him in the eyes
And I laugh'd full shrill at the lie he told
And the gnawing fear he would fain disguise.
It was true, what I'd time and again been told:
He was old--old.

:: Max Beerbohm

[This is one of a small fistful of decent poems I found in this horrid collection]

Faith, wench, I cannot court

2008-04-11T00:11:00.002-05:00

Faith, wench, I cannot court thy sprightly eyes
With the bass viol placed between my thighs.
I cannot lisp nor to some fiddle sing
Nor run upon a high-stretched minikin.
I cannot whine in puling elegies,
Entombing Cupid with sad obsequies.
I am not fashioned for these amorous times,
To court thy beauty with lascivious rhymes.
I cannot dally, caper, dance, and sing,
Oiling my saint with supple sonneting.
I cannot cross my arms and sigh, 'Ay me,
Ay me, forlorn!' Egregious foppery!
I cannot buss thy hand, play with thy hair,
Swearing by Jove thou art most debonair.

Not I, by cock! But shall I tell thee roundly?
Hark in thine ear: zounds! I can f—-k thee soundly.

::[Author unknown.]

First published in Epigrammes and Elegies by "J.D. and C.M.", circa 1590. My guess is this was a common bawdy sonnet, but here finessed and reshaped by "C.M." -- the exclamation "by cock!" kinda gives it away. Apparently the Epigrammes and Elegies were ordered confiscated and burned by the Crown in 1599. "C.M." had already been murdered by this point, and "J.D." had yet to become an early imperialist legal theoretician, stationed in Ulster.

Did I mention that it's National Poetry Month?

Mood

2008-04-10T00:29:00.002-05:00

I got the 'noid
more'n old

Staggerlee -- me,
I shaken

hands with the void--
Please to meet you.

Betrayal'll
make you shoot

soon as see.
A shadow boxing

me in, this killing
feeling --

season of pigeon
extinct. It is late

enough perhaps to want
my old life back

or none at all --
Times like this should

outlaw what's unsaid.
And up

in the mind there
a burner

half-cocked, triggers
over, again, its dry fire --

Mercy, baby,
take hold a me!

:: Kevin Young

Paraphrase

2008-04-01T21:18:00.003-05:00

Of a steady winking beat between
Systole, diastole spokes-of-a-wheel
One rushing from the bed at night
May find the record wedged in his soul.

Above the feet the clever sheets
Lie guard upon the integers of life:
For what skims in between uncurls the toe,
Involves the hands in purposeless repose.

But from its bracket how the tongue can tell
When systematic morn shall sometime flood
The pillow--how desperate is the light
That shall not rouse, how faint the crow's cavil

As, when stunned in that antarctic blaze,
Your head, unrocking to a pulse, already
Hollowed by air, posts a white paraphrase
Among bruised roses on the papered wall.

:: Hart Crane

[I can't decide whether this is a poem about having a wank, or a wank about having a poem. Or maybe it's just about a hangover.]

The Motorcyclists

2008-04-01T01:20:00.003-05:00

My cuticles are a mess. Oh honey, by the way,
did you like my new negligee? It’s a replica
of one Kim Novak wore in some movie or other.
I wish I had a foot-long chili dog right now.
Do you like fireworks, I mean not just on the 4th of July,
but fireworks any time? There are people
like that, you know. They’re like people who like
orchestra music, listen to it any time of day.
Lopsided people, that’s what my father calls them.
Me, I’m easy to please. I like ping-pong and bobcats,
shatterproof drinking glasses, the smell of kerosene,
the crunch of carrots. I like caterpillars and
whirlpools, too. What I hate most is being the first
one at the scene of a bad accident.

Do I smell like garlic? Are we still in Kansas?
I once had a chiropractor make a pass at me,
did I ever tell you that? He said that your spine
is happiest when you’re snuggling. Sounds kind
of sweet now when I tell you, but he was a creep.
Do you know that I have never understood what they meant
by "grassy knoll." It sounds so idyllic, a place to go
to dream your life away, not kill somebody. They
should have called it something like "the grudging notch."
But I guess that’s life. What is it they always say?
"It’s always the sweetest ones that break your heart."
You getting hungry yet, hon? I am. When I was seven
I sat in our field and ate an entire eggplant
right off the vine. Dad loves to tell that story,

but I still can’t eat eggplant. He says I’ll be the first
woman President, it’d be a waste since I talk so much.
Which do you think the fixtures are in the bathroom
at the White House, gold or brass? It’d be okay with me
if they were just brass. Honey, can we stop soon?
I really hate to say it but I need a lady’s room.

:: James Tate

Want some of this?

2008-03-26T00:33:00.007-05:00

I don't know Finnish, but I do know "FN Browning M1900".

My informant tells me she smuggled weapons to the Whites during the Finnish Civil War.

Sigh. Good thing lust knows no ideology.

And anyway, the (presumably even hotter) Red "ammo dames" couldn't be bothered to have their studio photograph taken on the way to the drop.

But the tears on her cheeks are from laughter

2008-03-24T19:30:00.004-05:00

Those of you who admire my beautiful banner (a detail of Andrea Mantegna's grisaille Samson and Delilah) will likely be shocked (as I was) by that inscription on the tree: Foemina Diabolo Tribus Assibus Est Mala Peior, "When a woman is evil, she is three pennies worse than the Devil." Heh heh. I'm not a misogynist, really: I just can't read Latin. And I hate getting my hair cut.

Lots more detailed info on the painting can be found here

Shake your ass around my casket

2008-03-24T18:56:00.002-05:00

Lenin's Tomb has a great post about the widening life-expectancy gap in America (along class and race lines, of course):

Of course, the idea that biological processes are partially at the mercy of sociological processes has some disadvantages. It disrupts the heroic ideologies of capitalism, which seem to oscillate between the master race doctrines in which a small number of human beings are hardwired for supremacy and the protean doctrines in which one can with sufficient will endlessly remake oneself, boundlessly improve oneself, exuberantly adapting to the dynamic conditions of the market place through sheer strength of will. You get a lot of the latter in quasi-scientific business doctrines such as Neuro-Linguistic Programming. For them, as much as for a certain specious version of 'postmodernism', the body is a discursive fiction, not in the sense that our conception of the body is itself textual, but in the sense that one can just override bodily limitations through exhortation. Thus, one can work twelve hour shifts, eating miniature sub-standard meals at one's desk, without suffering a nervous breakdown or a heart attack or ageing ten years in one month, because of one's positive attitude to work and achievement.

less bulge at orig.

2008-03-10T01:24:00.005-05:00

Put out some fake vomit patties and delouse the barkeeps: it seems Salford is bracing itself for a major academic conference on the Fall.

The very idea!

Still I do love that there is a "mandatory" Fall karaoke at 10:30pm on the last day. And I also admire the chutzpah of Mark E. Smith font creator Paul Wilson, who will unload this bit of wank for the (presumably soused) attendees:

Paul Wilson: Mark E. Smith’s Handwriting and the Typography of The Fall

This paper argues that Mark E. Smith’s handwriting (and his use of a range of hand-rendered inscriptions) have been a distinct element of The Fall’s aesthetic throughout their career to date. It surveys the numerous appearances of Mark E. Smith’s handwriting through The Fall’s career—from scrawled ballpoint glyphs on vinyl sleeves to handwriting-as-typeface digital facsimile on CD covers - and attempts to articulate this particular parallel history, where Smith’s typography ‘...has ceased to be a quiescent channel for orderly, sequential argument and become an active visual medium for the complexity of thought.’ (Poyner 1999:73) From it’s first appearance as skewed, stylised proto-logotype (‘Bingo-Master’s Break-Out’ 1978) to chaotic and collapsed aphorisms (‘Hex Enduction Hour’ 1982) and, more recently, fax-paper and marker-penned out/underlining (‘Interim’ 2004), Smith’s orthographic articulation has proved as notable and characteristic as his vocal style and has often been subject to similar manipulation, transformation and reconfiguration. This perceived (visual) poetic sensibility and eye for verbal graphic language seems at odds - and a source of tension - with Smith’s admitted antagonism towards the formalities of graphic design (and designers) and his fondness for the everyday and the non-expert. Smith’s use of handwriting and elements of the hand-rendered/made (together with a perceived antipathy towards any writing technology more sophisticated than the typewriter) continually attempt, therefore, to relocate The Fall’s visual aesthetic towards a notional ‘primitive’, a concept he has professed a strong tendency towards since their earliest incarnation.

Garfield minus Garfield

2008-03-03T00:54:00.003-06:00

[via Mark P.]

Queen of the Headhunters

2008-02-25T00:18:00.004-06:00

Celebrate Headhunter Sylvia's 123rd birthday today by reading this hilarious brief account of her life.

In general she did not do dignity. Her lack of restraint as Ranee shocked serious-minded members of the Sarawak service - in 1930 the chief justice complained to his mother about the 'unbelievable amount of smut in Her Highness's conversation'. In 1946, after observing the Ranee dancing with two prostitutes in a nightclub and taking them back to the palace to paint their portraits, a visiting MP from Westminster concluded that 'a more undignified woman it would be hard to find'.

Brambles

2008-02-21T01:24:00.007-06:00

Elko posted two great lunar eclipse pics tonight: [1] [2]
Fascinating arbitration case for Wikipedia's waterboarding article.
Higher education gap may slow economic mobility.
Stanford drops tuition for families that earn less than $100,000 a year. I don't know any families that earn more than $100,000 annually, do you?
Why some companies prefer having unions. [via Bill, who declared upon reading it, "the devil won, right?"]
A year ago I wrote this summary: Pros and Cons of Barack Obama. My brother Dave adds another pro-Obama bullet point. Yet I still can't quite get round to Obama: too pro-business, charisma-bland, and ideologically ambiguous (meaning: conservative) for my tastes. Also, I'm still impervious to the bandwagon effect.
Don't believe the hype! If you needs to eat an almond, you gots to get it from Europe (like these upstarts). American almonds are now required to be "pasteurized" in creepy ways. Check out the Wedge Almond Action Alert and the Authentic Almond Project for more info and urgent petitions.
What are you reading right now? Featuring Nick Tosches, Nick Hornby, Craig Finn, etc. Lots of snoozers there, proving that fame (or being in Jim Walsh's rolodex) can make you very boring. Anyway (*yawn*), here's what I'm reading right now.

Orgasmatron

2008-02-18T00:31:00.004-06:00

Behold the world's most complicated vibrator:

You Light Up My Life

2008-02-15T10:24:00.002-06:00

Patti Smith sings "You Light Up My Life" on Kids Are People Too, circa 1979.

There Will Be Blood vs. The Man

2008-02-06T01:59:00.000-06:00

Wow, another one-word review from the Filthy Critic.

Here's the only other one I know about. What, you remember The Man, don't you?

No comment

2008-02-04T17:51:00.000-06:00

[see more at the UpTake]

We are all Keynesians now

2008-02-01T11:47:00.001-06:00

Decoding the Sex Diaries of John Maynard Keynes

Keynes obsessively counted and tabulated almost everything; it was a life-long habit. As a child, he counted the number of front steps of every house on his street. Later he kept a running record (not surprisingly) of his expenses and his golf scores. He also counted and tabulated his sex life.

The first diary is easy: Keynes lists his sexual partners, either by their initials (GLS for Lytton Strachey, DG for Duncan Grant) or their nicknames ("Tressider," for J. T. Sheppard, the King's College Provost). When he apparently had a quick, anonymous hook-up, he listed that sex partner generically: "16-year-old under Etna" and "Lift boy of Vauxhall" in 1911, for instance, and "Jew boy," in 1912.

[via Bookslut]

Margaret Truman has left us

2008-01-30T02:51:00.000-06:00

Margaret Truman has died at age 83. This is a bummer: I was at least hoping she'd beat her mom's record. Here anyway is a slideshow of her life. To answer your inevitable gauche questions: yes, I do think she was hot when she was younger.

Also, here's the classic letter her dad wrote to music critic Paul Hume (the most marvelous Presidential letter in the history of the office).

Mr Hume:

I've just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an "eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay."

It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work.

Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!

Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you'll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.

H.S.T.