Gotha Program Redux
Having found the time to read the Critique of the Gotha Program I can only say that I have found nothing in it at all to make me change my mind about Marxism. It's even worse than I feared.
First, not only does the state not wither away, Marx again states precisely:
"the state can be nothing else but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat" (222).
"It is not in any way a goal for the workers, recently released from the limitations of servility, to make the state 'free'" (221).
There is to be a transition to another kind of state, but Marx never describes that state. He only implies that the "dictatorship of the proletariat" will not be permanent. Of course in praxis it would always exist, but the dictatorship would never be wielded exactly by the working class, but rather by those who knew what was best for the working class. A new class entitled the Party would speak in the name of the proletariat and define exactly its freedoms, and the work it would do. Naysayers of any kind were thrown into the gulag as freedom of conscience of any kind would not be tolerated.
Marx says as much, and even says quite explicitly that freedom of religion would be entirely banned for Jew, Christian, Muslim alike:
"The Workers' Party ought to have expressed its view that ... it strives for a conscience free from religious mystification" (225).
In other words, in praxis, any form of religious life other than that as outlined by the Messianic and self-serving Party would not be tolerated either legally or illegally. Believers would be consigned to the Gulag by the police arm of the Party. There is but one God under Marxism, and that is the Party.
Pluralism of any kind would not be tolerated and would be destroyed as an illusion.
Ultimately the state will put in place and monitor the following phrase, "from each according to his abilities, and to each according to his needs" (215).
The Party would enjoy a total monopoly of religious and economic life, in other words, and treat its citizens the way that a farmer treats his hogs. For his own good, as no other good and no other definition of good would be tolerated. The dictatorship of the Party would be permanent and final.
I prefer the critique of the man who died at Golgotha to the man who penned the Critique of the Gotha Program, but then I would rather be a Muslim than a Marxist. At least Muslims admit the existence of God.
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
I'm way behind, including about four days behind on sleep. Am just about to whip off a mythology 101 test. We just read the Odyssey and have talked about it for a few weeks, and we've also read Michael Goldberg's book Travels with Odysseus: Uncommon Wisdom from Homer's Odyssey.
On every test I like to give one gimme, to get them started. In three years of teaching this class, no one has ever gotten this question wrong. Here's the gimme:
How many eyes did Cyclops have?
That one's easy.
But how many people can answer this question?
Pelicata Palace belonged to whom?
On every test I like to give one gimme, to get them started. In three years of teaching this class, no one has ever gotten this question wrong. Here's the gimme:
How many eyes did Cyclops have?
That one's easy.
But how many people can answer this question?
Pelicata Palace belonged to whom?
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Institutional Authority
One of the things that was thrown out in the 60s was institutional authority. It went out the window with the belief in the army, the church, the universities. What remained? The bizarre guru from outrageous lands stepped into this absence and destroyed a generation.
I believe we must rebuild the authority of institutions.
At the hospital, I was happy to see there were real doctors for instance to perform the C-section and look at the baby, not just somebody who felt like doing it.
One of the things that was thrown out in the 60s was institutional authority. It went out the window with the belief in the army, the church, the universities. What remained? The bizarre guru from outrageous lands stepped into this absence and destroyed a generation.
I believe we must rebuild the authority of institutions.
At the hospital, I was happy to see there were real doctors for instance to perform the C-section and look at the baby, not just somebody who felt like doing it.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
COMMUNISM IS THE PROBLEM NOT THE SOLUTION
The personal is the lyrical.
The political is impersonal, the abolition of the lyrical.
Communism is never lyrical, it is the sound of the killing fields, of the Gulag, of boots marching on May Day.
The solution to Hegel is Kierkegaard.
Only the individual can laugh or cry.
There is something the matter with our cities. Cities should never be designed in their totality (the Garden City) but only piece by piece, individually.
Too much coherence, or too much variety? Variety is always better.
Love is always individual.
Faith is always individual.
Beauty is always individual.
Poetry can only be made by individuals: this is why it is the rarest of phenomena. Each heart is a problem for which each soul must find its individual answer.
The tendency of communism to pulverize individuals into mass nouns via the parade, or via the spectacle of solidarity is always terrifying. We are against parades of any kind. Pride is terrifying. We prefer humility. The collective pride becomes a hammer that sweeps away all individuality.
The tendency to obliterate the individual's face is the tendency of communism. We are no longer a name under communism, but a number, we are no longer a person, but a gender, or a class, or a race, or a religion. The tendency: whether it's formulated by the KKK or by the Black Panthers, results in symbolic murders. This tendency can be demonstrated even within feminism: Valerie Solanas didn't care who she killed that day. Maurice Girodias or Andy Warhol. They were both merely symbols, not men whose mothers loved them. Hatred is collective.
Biography and the autobiography are endeavors of individualistic love, and are linked to poetry; History is an abstraction that traffics in collective pronouncements, (history is still possible, but only as the solitary aspect of the poet before the collective: Charles Olson before Gloucester, with the tendency to see the collective as a biography of many particular faces, rather than to see the collective as Moloch, which is always a step toward hatred).
The face of an individual blowing out birthday candles. The face should be illuminated in all its particularity.
Stereotypes must be broken down so that we can see individuals.
Lutheran Surrealism relies heavily on the Christian anarchism of Soren Kierkegaard. Like Kierkegaard we seek to break down the tendency to make history into a pulverizing quality that destroys or obfuscates the individual. We believe that the family is the largest collective that allows love; we believe therefore in the family, not the state. The church sustains this promise. The tendency to see families together in pews emphasizes this smaller grouping within the larger. The state exists as a functional necessity to create roads and hospitals, schools and factories, courtrooms and police stations; but each agent of the state must fight the tendency of the collective to see in stereotypes, to reduce those that it serves into masses. The citizenry is only human, and each one of us has a face, and a name, and a mother. We are only ever individuals. To make us lose sight of this is the work of the devil. The devil works in abstractions. His job is to make us lose sight of each other's individuality. Our character, in time, becomes an abstraction, as under communism. It is the job of poetry to fight this tendency. The job of poetry is to love particular individuals and particular places, and to celebrate them. Poetry has always been discouraged by the state, and by communist states in particular, from Plato through Zhdanov and Pol Pot.
The lyrical is always already individual. The objectivists already knew this, even though many of them were communists during the years of Stalinism. The confusion in their poetics must be set straight, as the confusion in the surrealists (with their attempt to join the communists which led to their destruction) must be set straight. Lutheranism can help set this tendency straight, especially via Kierkegaard.
The modernists lost their footing in abstractions. Some tended toward fascism, some toward communism. Few kept their footing. Those that did, like Marianne Moore, were grounded in a solid faith. She knew that God, like us, has an individual human face. It is the face of Jesus Christ, our Savior. To see the one true face Our Lord is the beginning of Lutheran Surrealist prayer. To continue to reflect on the individual face of each of our loved ones is the end of our prayers. It is also the beginning of our poetry.
To let go of this emphasis on indivudal love is to fall into the arms of Satan, whose face is legion, and always changing, from one demonic abstraction to another, from one ism to another, endlessly alienating oneself from the One True God.
The personal is the lyrical.
The political is impersonal, the abolition of the lyrical.
Communism is never lyrical, it is the sound of the killing fields, of the Gulag, of boots marching on May Day.
The solution to Hegel is Kierkegaard.
Only the individual can laugh or cry.
There is something the matter with our cities. Cities should never be designed in their totality (the Garden City) but only piece by piece, individually.
Too much coherence, or too much variety? Variety is always better.
Love is always individual.
Faith is always individual.
Beauty is always individual.
Poetry can only be made by individuals: this is why it is the rarest of phenomena. Each heart is a problem for which each soul must find its individual answer.
The tendency of communism to pulverize individuals into mass nouns via the parade, or via the spectacle of solidarity is always terrifying. We are against parades of any kind. Pride is terrifying. We prefer humility. The collective pride becomes a hammer that sweeps away all individuality.
The tendency to obliterate the individual's face is the tendency of communism. We are no longer a name under communism, but a number, we are no longer a person, but a gender, or a class, or a race, or a religion. The tendency: whether it's formulated by the KKK or by the Black Panthers, results in symbolic murders. This tendency can be demonstrated even within feminism: Valerie Solanas didn't care who she killed that day. Maurice Girodias or Andy Warhol. They were both merely symbols, not men whose mothers loved them. Hatred is collective.
Biography and the autobiography are endeavors of individualistic love, and are linked to poetry; History is an abstraction that traffics in collective pronouncements, (history is still possible, but only as the solitary aspect of the poet before the collective: Charles Olson before Gloucester, with the tendency to see the collective as a biography of many particular faces, rather than to see the collective as Moloch, which is always a step toward hatred).
The face of an individual blowing out birthday candles. The face should be illuminated in all its particularity.
Stereotypes must be broken down so that we can see individuals.
Lutheran Surrealism relies heavily on the Christian anarchism of Soren Kierkegaard. Like Kierkegaard we seek to break down the tendency to make history into a pulverizing quality that destroys or obfuscates the individual. We believe that the family is the largest collective that allows love; we believe therefore in the family, not the state. The church sustains this promise. The tendency to see families together in pews emphasizes this smaller grouping within the larger. The state exists as a functional necessity to create roads and hospitals, schools and factories, courtrooms and police stations; but each agent of the state must fight the tendency of the collective to see in stereotypes, to reduce those that it serves into masses. The citizenry is only human, and each one of us has a face, and a name, and a mother. We are only ever individuals. To make us lose sight of this is the work of the devil. The devil works in abstractions. His job is to make us lose sight of each other's individuality. Our character, in time, becomes an abstraction, as under communism. It is the job of poetry to fight this tendency. The job of poetry is to love particular individuals and particular places, and to celebrate them. Poetry has always been discouraged by the state, and by communist states in particular, from Plato through Zhdanov and Pol Pot.
The lyrical is always already individual. The objectivists already knew this, even though many of them were communists during the years of Stalinism. The confusion in their poetics must be set straight, as the confusion in the surrealists (with their attempt to join the communists which led to their destruction) must be set straight. Lutheranism can help set this tendency straight, especially via Kierkegaard.
The modernists lost their footing in abstractions. Some tended toward fascism, some toward communism. Few kept their footing. Those that did, like Marianne Moore, were grounded in a solid faith. She knew that God, like us, has an individual human face. It is the face of Jesus Christ, our Savior. To see the one true face Our Lord is the beginning of Lutheran Surrealist prayer. To continue to reflect on the individual face of each of our loved ones is the end of our prayers. It is also the beginning of our poetry.
To let go of this emphasis on indivudal love is to fall into the arms of Satan, whose face is legion, and always changing, from one demonic abstraction to another, from one ism to another, endlessly alienating oneself from the One True God.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The baby has been born. She's a girl. 6.5 pounds. I'm exhausted, probably the most exhausted of the triangle of mother and father and baby, and the least deservedly so.
Our baby has no name as of yet, but we are in the process of finding one.
So that name Sara-Sofie has to be taken back.
Her mother is walking around with the baby and looking in her eyes and trying to find a name.
I have a cowlick in the front of my forehead. All four of our kids were born with that. It's the trademark.
May the law prevail.
Our baby has no name as of yet, but we are in the process of finding one.
So that name Sara-Sofie has to be taken back.
Her mother is walking around with the baby and looking in her eyes and trying to find a name.
I have a cowlick in the front of my forehead. All four of our kids were born with that. It's the trademark.
May the law prevail.
Sunday, March 19, 2006
FOR SARA-SOFIE: A BABY TO BE BORN ON TUESDAY
The right wants a Calvinist theocracy. The left wants a Marxist communism. I want the right to be left alone.
The right wants no limits on God, meaning that there is to be no limits to the stupidity of Calvin. Everyone will behave, be upright and godly, no more pornography, no more abortion, no more Beavis and Butthead, only the pure thoughts of an unadulterated saccharine elite who will impose on us endless Leave it to Beaver reruns. The sole permitted vice will be that which allows big business to get even bigger as a sign of its election. American food industries will capitalize on the takeover to push their products such as angel's food cake to be pounded down with club soda at the expense of the world's waistline as citizens idle before zombified simulations of family virtue.
The left wants no limits on its missionary zeal as it pulverizes all the eccentric notions of the population under the name of individualism as it promotes the death of all freedom under the banner of the steamroller cause, The Proletariat. No more owners and no more owned, as the aristocratic elite of the new left rise up to control all business with the klutziness of the dumb-bells who don't even have the brains to be mendacious pimps. We will scrape our rear ends with the sandpaper they've produced for our toilet paper, and we will thank them for their virtue. To roll over in our bed at night we will first have to ask permission, for the true owners of the new society will have to monitor our every movement and even bowel movements will be by written request alone.
Between the smashing totalitarianisms that threaten our indifference, we continue to maintain hope that we can follow the Dove to the Golden Fleece of poetry, that our civilization will be founded on the Ten commandments, on reason and learning, that the freedom to attain the whimsical will remain unfettered by theological or political blueprint, and that one day there will be a chicken in every would-be Pol Pot, badminton courts on every block, and an orchid in every soul.
Welcome to our world, Sara-Sofie.
The right wants a Calvinist theocracy. The left wants a Marxist communism. I want the right to be left alone.
The right wants no limits on God, meaning that there is to be no limits to the stupidity of Calvin. Everyone will behave, be upright and godly, no more pornography, no more abortion, no more Beavis and Butthead, only the pure thoughts of an unadulterated saccharine elite who will impose on us endless Leave it to Beaver reruns. The sole permitted vice will be that which allows big business to get even bigger as a sign of its election. American food industries will capitalize on the takeover to push their products such as angel's food cake to be pounded down with club soda at the expense of the world's waistline as citizens idle before zombified simulations of family virtue.
The left wants no limits on its missionary zeal as it pulverizes all the eccentric notions of the population under the name of individualism as it promotes the death of all freedom under the banner of the steamroller cause, The Proletariat. No more owners and no more owned, as the aristocratic elite of the new left rise up to control all business with the klutziness of the dumb-bells who don't even have the brains to be mendacious pimps. We will scrape our rear ends with the sandpaper they've produced for our toilet paper, and we will thank them for their virtue. To roll over in our bed at night we will first have to ask permission, for the true owners of the new society will have to monitor our every movement and even bowel movements will be by written request alone.
Between the smashing totalitarianisms that threaten our indifference, we continue to maintain hope that we can follow the Dove to the Golden Fleece of poetry, that our civilization will be founded on the Ten commandments, on reason and learning, that the freedom to attain the whimsical will remain unfettered by theological or political blueprint, and that one day there will be a chicken in every would-be Pol Pot, badminton courts on every block, and an orchid in every soul.
Welcome to our world, Sara-Sofie.
Saturday, March 18, 2006
Here I said I wouldn't post for a week but there's something I think readers of this blog should know about. There's an anthology of Lutheran poetry coming out. It's called SIMUL -- Lutheran Voices in Poetry -- Winter 2006.
It's edited by Mark Odland, Editor
6244 Twin Oaks Drive, #2205
Colorado Springs, CO 80918
He accepted my poem Shape is Determinant of Meaning. I wanted to spread the news of this anthology as he is only accepting poems for another week or so. I believe the deadline is March 31, 2006.
There's also an email: simulanthology@hotmail.com
The arts within all the Protestant denominations have almost completely been surrendered to the secularists. However, the arts should be an important part of our lives, too. Therefore I think we should support this important anthology. Luther never banned the arts or the icon, and in fact he abrogated the first commandment of the Old Testament and said that since Christ was in fact a kind of representation of God, that we in fact have now a new freedom by implication: the right to represent. It's a beautiful new freedom, and one for which we should be thankful.
It's edited by Mark Odland, Editor
6244 Twin Oaks Drive, #2205
Colorado Springs, CO 80918
He accepted my poem Shape is Determinant of Meaning. I wanted to spread the news of this anthology as he is only accepting poems for another week or so. I believe the deadline is March 31, 2006.
There's also an email: simulanthology@hotmail.com
The arts within all the Protestant denominations have almost completely been surrendered to the secularists. However, the arts should be an important part of our lives, too. Therefore I think we should support this important anthology. Luther never banned the arts or the icon, and in fact he abrogated the first commandment of the Old Testament and said that since Christ was in fact a kind of representation of God, that we in fact have now a new freedom by implication: the right to represent. It's a beautiful new freedom, and one for which we should be thankful.
Friday, March 17, 2006
The Lutheran Surrealist always suffers from nightmares. Always has.
This morning at 4 am I woke up to stare in the face of the devil and realize that my body had been turned into rotten hamburger. Flies were crawling over my feet.
And on Tuesday we are having a new baby -- Sofie.
I'm going to take a short hiatus from the blog to focus on ferrying relatives about, taking care of children, getting to bed on time, and so on.
I shall return on April 1st, or thereabouts, of the year 2006.
Unless the Rapture intercedes.
This morning at 4 am I woke up to stare in the face of the devil and realize that my body had been turned into rotten hamburger. Flies were crawling over my feet.
And on Tuesday we are having a new baby -- Sofie.
I'm going to take a short hiatus from the blog to focus on ferrying relatives about, taking care of children, getting to bed on time, and so on.
I shall return on April 1st, or thereabouts, of the year 2006.
Unless the Rapture intercedes.
Thursday, March 16, 2006
In the Grundrisse Marx talks about the clown as producer of wealth. I've never understood the passage as an economist might but found it suggestive as a humor scholar. How much money in America is earned by our comedians? Do they constitute a major industry as mighty as that of the automobile and the shoe companies? What exactly is it that they do for us? Why do we pay them so great a percentage of our gross?
Why do we always choose the slightly funnier candidate for president?
Do we live under a clownocracy?
Funny money constitutes an entirely new principle of exchange, an exchange of perspectives.
Luther was certainly funny at times and he said that anybody without a sense of humor was a blockhead.
Some scholars say that Jesus was funny, although I forgot to laugh. Was he the Seinfeld of his era?
Certainly there was a levity involved, but a gravity too. What are the percentages?
Why do we always choose the slightly funnier candidate for president?
Do we live under a clownocracy?
Funny money constitutes an entirely new principle of exchange, an exchange of perspectives.
Luther was certainly funny at times and he said that anybody without a sense of humor was a blockhead.
Some scholars say that Jesus was funny, although I forgot to laugh. Was he the Seinfeld of his era?
Certainly there was a levity involved, but a gravity too. What are the percentages?
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
The first review of my chapbook Waiting for the Rapture has just appeared at Simon DeDeo's blog. It can be read at:
http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/
Copies of the book can be ordered for free (limited offer only) from editor PR Primeau at
primeau101@aol.com
Copies have been sent to many regular readers of this blog for whom I have an address.
http://rhubarbissusan.blogspot.com/
Copies of the book can be ordered for free (limited offer only) from editor PR Primeau at
primeau101@aol.com
Copies have been sent to many regular readers of this blog for whom I have an address.
Monday, March 13, 2006
WHO'S COUNTING?
peel
apart
an orange,
bizarre
always
thirteen
sections
twelve disciples
plus
The Lord
& the seeds
the seeds...
Eternal Life
NB: This poem appears in my chapbook of 29 Lutheran Surrealist poems entitled Waiting for the Rapture (Persistencia Press 2006). It itself consists of 13 lines not including the title.
Now to verify the poem open up an orange and count the number of sections in it. It should come out to 13. When I was a child and oranges and people were more uniform and you could count on some common standards, oranges always had 13 sections. Today however I notice that some oranges are heretical or even devilish in that they do not conform to this principle.
What has happened? Is it possible that oranges were never as uniform as I once imagined? Is it possible that they have changed over the decades?
Perhaps the mercantilization of citrus has necessitated the use of shoddy methods such that morphological changes at the numerical level have been instantiated.
At any rate the poem refers to oranges ca. 1964.
But test it empirically. If there are indeed 12 disciples then name them, and eat them. The whole thing taken together could be seen as a Lutheran Surrealist host. The aroma of the peel lingers blissfully, giving you an aesthetic moment that may last for up to four seconds.
peel
apart
an orange,
bizarre
always
thirteen
sections
twelve disciples
plus
The Lord
& the seeds
the seeds...
Eternal Life
NB: This poem appears in my chapbook of 29 Lutheran Surrealist poems entitled Waiting for the Rapture (Persistencia Press 2006). It itself consists of 13 lines not including the title.
Now to verify the poem open up an orange and count the number of sections in it. It should come out to 13. When I was a child and oranges and people were more uniform and you could count on some common standards, oranges always had 13 sections. Today however I notice that some oranges are heretical or even devilish in that they do not conform to this principle.
What has happened? Is it possible that oranges were never as uniform as I once imagined? Is it possible that they have changed over the decades?
Perhaps the mercantilization of citrus has necessitated the use of shoddy methods such that morphological changes at the numerical level have been instantiated.
At any rate the poem refers to oranges ca. 1964.
But test it empirically. If there are indeed 12 disciples then name them, and eat them. The whole thing taken together could be seen as a Lutheran Surrealist host. The aroma of the peel lingers blissfully, giving you an aesthetic moment that may last for up to four seconds.
Saturday, March 11, 2006
A chapbook of my poems has recently been published by PR Primeau's Persistencia Press out of Rhode Island. The chapbook is entitled Waiting for the Rapture and contains 29 Lutheran Surrealist poems. The poems are based on the aesthetics of Charles Reznikoff's objectivism to some extent, but the feeling is similar to that of Philippe Soupault -- a wistful quality, but the subject matter is the Lutheran family's confrontation with the postmodern qualities of a small upstate village in the NY Catskills.
I received about 40 copies which I am sending out for free. I have already sent out about 24 copies. The rest will go to readers of the blog who are the first to send me their surface address.
Please send requests to
olsonjk@delhi.edu
The chapbook is violet in color. It's the only book of poems that I have. About thirty years ago when in college I hand-published a tiny book of poems called Night Air -- they were Gothic surrealist poems. I don't think any copies of that book still exist. I did 50 and gave them all away. Once this edition of Waiting for the Rapture has been given out there will be no more. I'm signing them so it could become a valuable collector's item.
Write now or miss out!
I received about 40 copies which I am sending out for free. I have already sent out about 24 copies. The rest will go to readers of the blog who are the first to send me their surface address.
Please send requests to
olsonjk@delhi.edu
The chapbook is violet in color. It's the only book of poems that I have. About thirty years ago when in college I hand-published a tiny book of poems called Night Air -- they were Gothic surrealist poems. I don't think any copies of that book still exist. I did 50 and gave them all away. Once this edition of Waiting for the Rapture has been given out there will be no more. I'm signing them so it could become a valuable collector's item.
Write now or miss out!
Friday, March 10, 2006
POLITICAL WRINKLE
In the Dubai flap suddenly everybody reversed themselves. My Democratic friends were saying that we simply couldn't trust the Arabs for absolutely anything. And my Republican friends were saying that we had to build multicultural trust.
What on earth?
And the difference between Dubya and Dubai is just one letter.
I admit I lost my footing in admiration of the rapid spins over the last week. And now the whole deal is scotched, with Bush suddenly hectoring the public about its lack of trust of our multicultural allies.
I still don't even know what the ports need in terms of some huge company running them. I thought some kind of dockworkers union ran them. Now I find out its the Brits and that they had sold the deal to Dubya's Dubai friends.
My head spins like that little girl's in the Exorcist, but at least I am spared the projectile vomit and the deep garbled voice.
And anyway, it's all over but the hectoring.
In the Dubai flap suddenly everybody reversed themselves. My Democratic friends were saying that we simply couldn't trust the Arabs for absolutely anything. And my Republican friends were saying that we had to build multicultural trust.
What on earth?
And the difference between Dubya and Dubai is just one letter.
I admit I lost my footing in admiration of the rapid spins over the last week. And now the whole deal is scotched, with Bush suddenly hectoring the public about its lack of trust of our multicultural allies.
I still don't even know what the ports need in terms of some huge company running them. I thought some kind of dockworkers union ran them. Now I find out its the Brits and that they had sold the deal to Dubya's Dubai friends.
My head spins like that little girl's in the Exorcist, but at least I am spared the projectile vomit and the deep garbled voice.
And anyway, it's all over but the hectoring.
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
Jello, I thought until recently, was angelic. Like an angel, it had form but no content. Now I come to discover via the comments box below that it is actually made of animals. Something called collagen. I think (but am not sure) that this is the stuff on the top of SPAM that is clear and almost colorless (vaguely brownish yellow). Is that right?
Suddenly, jello has a content.
And the content is ooky.
Spooky, even.
Darn it!
Is there nothing angelic to eat these days?
Poetry has form as well as content. Well, good poetry has form. Form of some kind. I don't believe too much in form. I don't believe too much in content. Somehow there ought to be a pattern, but the pattern ought to be individual to the poem in question. I believe that the creation of a form should be just as interesting as the manufacture of content.
At least in poems it's not animal bodies that are ground to pieces. I'd rather destroy trees, as they are less sentient.
Poetry must materialize into form, like a golden city.
Like the Nude Jerusalem.
Suddenly, jello has a content.
And the content is ooky.
Spooky, even.
Darn it!
Is there nothing angelic to eat these days?
Poetry has form as well as content. Well, good poetry has form. Form of some kind. I don't believe too much in form. I don't believe too much in content. Somehow there ought to be a pattern, but the pattern ought to be individual to the poem in question. I believe that the creation of a form should be just as interesting as the manufacture of content.
At least in poems it's not animal bodies that are ground to pieces. I'd rather destroy trees, as they are less sentient.
Poetry must materialize into form, like a golden city.
Like the Nude Jerusalem.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
Jello is a little over 100 years old. Why not celebrate this evening with some? At only 10 calories per serving it is an ideal low-cal snack, and is featured at the Lutheran Surrealist headquarters on a nightly basis. Not only is it the nutritional basis of our party (it being both Lutheran as well as totally surreal) but it is also the basis of our birthday parties and book parties.
We endorse Jello. If our endorsement does not mean as much as that of Bill Cosby, we do at least have the advantage of not having been paid a single penny for this endorsement.
Jello: the Lutheran Surrealist's ideal dessert!
We endorse Jello. If our endorsement does not mean as much as that of Bill Cosby, we do at least have the advantage of not having been paid a single penny for this endorsement.
Jello: the Lutheran Surrealist's ideal dessert!
Saturday, March 04, 2006
I have a dream, or actually I had a dream in which Americans were bits of metal piping and a man said we should not be solitary bits of metal piping. We should get together and make ourselves into a human bridge. The camera panned out to the Brooklyn Bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge was made by a man named Roebling to illustrate the perfection of the Lutheran Hegel's philosophy of history. We should not be solitary bits of piping! We need to see ourselves as a human bridge linking two vast kingdoms.
Friday, March 03, 2006
There are Lutherans in every part of the globe, some sixty million altogether. There are even 6000 Palestinian Lutherans! More than half of Namibia is Lutheran, as well as all of the Scandinavian states, some parts of the Danish West Indies, and all around the world even in places like Vietnam and Japan there are Lutherans. Often, our languages are mutually indecipherable, but in those cases we just exchange green jello recipes and we experience perfect communion.
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