DJotD 20240312
Did I ever tell you I used the play the triangle in a reggae band? It was fun for a while, but I had to quit because it was always just one ting after another.
DJotD 20240311
Man: Doctor I have got a short term memory problem. I forget things really fast.
Doctor: So, how long have you had this problem for?
Man: What problem?
📃 Daily(ish) poem → 00329 ◊ Five Haiku ◊ Paul Éluard
Five Haiku
The wind,
Undecided,
Rolls a cigarette of air
The dumb girl talks:
It is art’s imperfection,
This impenetrable speech.
The motor car is truly launched:
Four martyrs’ heads
Roll under the wheels.
Ah! a thousand flames, a fire,
The light, a shadow!
The sun is following me.
A feather gives to a hat
A touch of lightness:
The chimney smokes.
—Paul Éluard (translated by Gilbert Bowen)
—found in Selected Poems (1987; this poem 1920)
On the one hand: I get it. On the other: I would give a pinkie to be in a place where the effects of the Daylight Savings Time change was on any of my lists of legit complaints or worries.
📃 Daily(ish) poem → 00328 ◊ Meditation for Sext ◊ Rolfe Humphries
Meditation for Sext
Temper to eyes’ endurance this unmerciful light,
Coerce the sun with cloud; let shadow range,
Stain, change these areas, this garish plain.
White walls, white towers, white pigeons, unrelieved
By rainbow feather, rain’s brown stain, tree’s shade,
Blind imperfectible mind with perfect grace.
Fasting, faint, mortal appetite
Craves less than quintessential certitude,
Refrains from alien unfamiliar food:
Give us our daily darkness.
Let us pray.
—Rolfe Humphries
—found in Out of the Jewel (1942)
📜 New in the Commonplace Communiqué → 00061 ¶ from Arctic Dreams ¶ Barry Lopez
Eskimos do not maintain this intimacy with nature without paying a certain price. When I have thought about the ways in which they differ from people in my own culture, I have realized that they are more afraid than we are. On a day-to-day basis, they have more fear. Not of being dumped into cold water from an umiak, not a debilitating fear. They are afraid because they accept fully what is violent and tragic in nature. It is a fear tied to their knowledge that sudden, cataclysmic events are as much a part of life, of really living, as are the moments when one pauses to look at something beautiful. A Central Eskimo shaman named Aua, queried by Knud Rasmussen about Eskimo beliefs, answered, “We do not believe. We fear.”
—Barry Lopez
—found in Arctic Dreams (1986)
DJotD 20240310
I always mix up entomology and etymology. It bugs me in a way I don’t have words for.
DJotD 20240309
Why can’t you trust an atom?
Because they make up everything!
BBC Sounds is an embarrassment of audio drama (and comedy, true crime, and more) riches. Available as an app as well.
📺 Noted Video → CDK - Somebody That I Used To Know by Gotye
📃 Daily(ish) poem → 00327 ◊ The Second Dream ◊ Jean Valentine
The Second Dream
We all heard the alarm. The planes were out
And coming, from a friendly country. You, I thought,
Would know what to do. But you said,
‘There is nothing to do. Last time
The bodies were like charred trees.’
We had so many minutes. The leaves
Over the street left the light silver as dimes.
The children hung around in slow motion, loud,
Liquid as butterflies, with nothing to do.
—Jean Valentine
—found in Dream Barker and Other Poems (1965)
📃 Daily(ish) poem → 00326 ◊ Testament ◊ Lawrence Raab
Testament
In my youth I wondered often about the past—
how it would change, and where it would end.
Now I can tell you many strange things
will never be revealed, and you
should be glad to know this.
When I vowed to discover the truth
I tried not to care about being believed.
I walked alone under the wild moon,
listened to the rain unfolding
its many propositions. Those were the days
of certainty and surmise. Thank you
for reading this far. Perhaps
you’ve found these pages by chance
and you’re hoping for the wisdom
endings so often promise. Let me say:
Here or nowhere is the whole fact.
But assume nothing about this world,
neither its rules, nor any of its daily habits.
Nor how easily a man can throw
his life away. Or if,
in fact, I did. I won’t excuse myself,
not now. The light that keeps the sky
in place is fading, but it’s always fading.
Forget the past if you can. It’s never over.
And then it is.
—Lawrence Raab
—from Mistaking Each Other for Ghosts (2015)
📜 New in the Commonplace Communiqué → 00060 ¶ from Behind F1's Velvet Curtain ¶ Kate Wagner
I think if you wanted to turn someone into a socialist you could do it in about an hour by taking them for a spin around the paddock of a Formula 1 race. No need for corny art singing tribute to the worker or even for the Manifesto. Never before had I seen so many wealthy people gathered all in one place. If a tornado came through and wiped the whole thing out, the stock market would plummet and the net worth of a country the size of Slovenia would vanish from the ledgers in a day. I used to live in Baltimore and remembered the kind of people who would go to the Preakness in their stupid hats and Sunday best while the whole swath of the city it was situated in starved and languished for lack of funds. This was like that, but without the hats. I saw $30,000 Birkin bags and $10,000 Off-White Nikes. I saw people with the kind of Rolexes that make strangers cry on Antiques Roadshow. I saw Ozempic-riddled influencers and fleshy, T-shirt-clad tech bros and people who still talked with Great Gatsby accents as they sweated profusely in Yves Saint Laurent under the unforgiving Texas sun. The kind of money I saw will haunt me forever. People clinked glasses of free champagne in outfits worth more than the market price of all the organs in my body. I stood there among them in a thrift-store blouse and shorts from Target.
—Kate Wagner
—from “Behind F1’s Velvet Curtain”
—(formerly) found in Road & Track
Yes, the language of “legals” and “illegals” has been improved and largely replaced in Progressives' speech. Nevertheless, its use isn’t by itself isn’t an occasion for pillorying, much less the Left eating its own.
I had no idea so many people feel they are part of a serious rivalry between cooks and bakers. Some real vitriol there which I find mystifying!
I assume there’s no need for it, but the AI plugin I want is the one that ensures everything I post is added to every LLM (and others) as possible.