As surrealism hardened into an orthodoxy, the nightmare became the news. The mad were ushered in as the avatars of a new consciousness. Pilate was the pilot. They spit on Catholic priests. Jean Dubuffet ushered the paintings of madmen from the asylums in order to fill the museums.
Perseus questioned the laws such as the law of gravity only however to reassert the norms. He saved Andromeda.
Acrobats today risk the same norm as they fly through the skies on their trapeze to fulfill man's eternal dream of being godlike (some fall into disability as did Fabrice Champion, who collided with another acrobat and fell, and never came back from quadroplegic status, finally dying during a healing shamanic ritual in the mountains of Peru).
Lima beans.
Today the monstrous declare themselves heroic. Fatsos litter the Wal-Marts unashamed of their obesity, proud instead of the way they challenge the norm. Bluebeard and Elizabeth of Bathory usher in monstrous difference and attempt to enshrine indifference as a new norm. All we want is a place at the table, they bellow.
A smaller contingent of Christians says biological abnormalities be damned. And yet there is a sympathy for the dwarf and the blind, and those with elongated noses such as Pinocchio.
Armies heralding the equal sign confront armies heralding the equal sign.
One side shouts, "God exists! No one is equal!" The other, "We are the equal of God!"
Littering the battlefields of yesteryear: the swastika, the hammer and sicle, the rising sun.
46 comments:
Delhi, New York has a population of about 3000 souls--hasn't grown for the last 25 years, according to census records.
Does that count the students at the college?
Incredibly small place.
Isolated.
Immanuel Lutheran Church. Is that yours?
Wow. No hiding in a place like that.
Probably very good deer hunting country.
No industry. No growth.
10% below the poverty line.
Some people run away to the big city.
You ran to a village.
Everybody knows everybody else.
A John Cheever kind of town. Where nothing ever happens.
Not too far from Woodstock.
Daniel Day-Lewis won the Golden Globe for the Lincoln flick. He's the son of C. Day-Lewis, the late and former British poet laureate.
You must be the poet laureate of Delhi, New York. I couldn't have made this up.
I think, living in a small place like Delhi, it's easy to get into a small town paranoia about the outside world, they way people do in Stephen King stories. Maybe that's what's happening to you. Cabin fever.
It's part of it. I found this place congenial. You have many details right. Students are not permanent residents so don't count in the Census. A huge number are from the five boroughs. Many people here are refugees from the city. I am not paranoid though. I like it here but might prefer a bigger town. The surrealists did worship the ID. You think they didn't?
I didn't run here. I drove.
I am not the only poet in the village. There are at least ten of us in Delhi. I may be the only one who follows the line of write locally from Olson the Elder. My writing often appears in local journals. But it also appears in nationally known and international journals. I have a new essay in the Curator today. I may send a link.
The Kracken was crackin' in a crack den.
The Kracken is snackin' on your black sin.
The Kracken will slacken 'till you give in.
Bring back DeLater.
Curtis,
Bring back DeLater.
Be careful what you wish for. Very, very careful. Sir James adds some light, but a disproportionate amount of heat.
every once in awhile subtle distinctions can be made but generally everything stays general all swirling together in a sewage treatment plant of life this is the way the world turns not to put too fine a point on it congress is a blabberfest by its very nature why expect anything from them we pay for them we elect them we allow them to live off the fat of the land and hoard it and then we expect them to work for our best interests while the artists flit away their talent like so much chaff after harvest the id did skid o you bet it did how many comics does it take to change a lightbulb that sort of thing holding kirby to a litmus test is like trying to stop a broken down ddam and damn if that ain't the hell of it what's this kraken thing all about i confess i've never heard of any of it who are these krakens and why does benghazi matter in the chess game of international warfare why does anything matter i mean people die its like nascar we all know it's very dangerous to drive cars more than 200mph but then we sanction a few people who are allowed to do just that and blam carwreck tragedy o my gawd look at it again see how he skidded with his ID out of control the ID slamming against the wall and bursting into flames the thing about it is there are so many people who have jobs in nascar a whole industry of fast driving and guns all those nascar guys carry guns in their cars don't they just in case as we know the libido is ever present in its looming desire of thrills that's why they call it IDiotic if the libido were bored the ID would heare about it iddy i still don't know who the KRAKEN are must i like gm welcome back implies be concerned about them are they going to haunt my mind like a vampire in heat must i worry of their everpresent breath i just don't know i do know that deadends are prevalent and we mistake them for thoroughfares oddly enough pigeons are swirling in the vast air some of them tumbling like acrobats money sent here money sent there blood transfusions continue through the night keeping the braindead patient alive if committed to living in a machine until someone decides that's enough but there is time there is time time time time parsley sage rosemary and thyme i gots those winter blues blue like the winter sun aching its way through the low grey clouds of yet another half-grey day these are odd times ID times times of warped idealisms there is no doubt how so many people could get it all wrong and still walk on the planet is beyond me but then of course most things are beyond me daft as i so often am bereft of cognitive awareness about fieellings o precious feelings
7 billion sentient creatures dancing on the planet i tend to expect people to go much slower that's the only real problem it's the problem of speed differentials how can we ever get a consensus if in fact we know some people are travelling at 600mph or more and some people many people really don't go much faster than 3 mph unless they do headstands on their bicylces or juggel with their feet it's a strange strange strange world no matter how you look at it but en garde take a stance wield the shield and yield to no one life's too short to provide mudwrestling everyday but we do what we can in clear concise language the language of progress the language of ultimate deception the language of every man a king every man a kingdom but women should not presume to be kings that's just too much i know a lot of guys try to be queens but that is so passe' lets' forget about all that and move on to rhinocerii in ballet slippers and bumper cars at the local carnival and televisons which watch waatch you you as you watchwatch them tellevisions standing up and walking around campaigning for robot rights ultimately we all lie about our relative desperation but then the system works when our self-deception runs right along with the general psychological deceptions of commerce everything works out the communists are quiet they go along with it even the extremists hop on the bandwagon and say hey you know if you just give yourself over to this widespread delusion about the meaning of life and death then it's all OK it's all over but the cryin' to quote an old country tune
so what have we accomplished nothing nothing the idiDIDid diddy diddy did didn't do and life just goes on like a parakeet
god finds us
the architect of surprise
jh
DeLater irritated me beyond words.
But Kirby's formula for the website more or less depends upon a balance of views. Kirby depends on DeLater's buttressing of his positions.
DeLater's very intelligent, and even learned--albeit somewhat cracked in the same way KO is.
Ideally, one could wish for an informed opponent, if a little less rude.
But I'm just as rude in my own way as anyone else, so I shouldn't be talking.
jh:
You're like Ian Shoales with a priest's habit.
I christen you rant scamp.
i am so honored curtis
i found a sabre and a
broken shield
i will right the world of
bad enchantments
and spread valour and chivalry
wherever i can
o dulcinea be not proud
my habit though restrictive
is not without merit
christened as i am
knighted on this chilly winter day
ultreya rocinante
ultryea
jh
I'm somewhat overwhelmed without JADL. He was a very forceful and intelligent interlocutor. I found him through Michael Berube's blog... He and I went through the UW together but never knew one another (JADL and I). Berube is now head of the MLA. He and I jousted on several topics at his blog after a very mean post about Lutherans and how they attempt to busybody laws such as those concerning seatbelts and helmets for motorcycles. A former contributor here alerted me to this malfeasance and in my knight of the square table sort of way I donned my helmet and took off the seatbelt and went forthwith into battle. JADL may have moved or something. He was a very serious contender here, and could hit hard. I on the other hand am terribly polite, even if my positions strike others as insane.
Curtis always asks me where I am publishing. I publish this blog in order to counter Ron Silliman's blog, but I lost track of what I was doing here. I still do write essays. This appeared in a journal of the arts called the Curator this morning:
http://www.curatormagazine.com/kirby-olson/stores-as-magic-places/
It's a kind of homage to Walter Benjamin but as usual I am doing the twist.
Curtis asked me also if I ever write letters to the editor. I did publish this one last summer. In general I try not to clog the letters pages because the letters columns I think are for people who can't publish elsewhere as I can. I do publish a letter or two per year, several essays, and ten or twelve poems. Plus I often have books accepted and published.
This is an example of a letter I published last summer which uses a Hayekian approach to the healthcare debate. It appeared in the Oneonta Star, which goes out to three or four local counties, and is widely read in Delhi, NY. I was also coaching a Little League Baseball team last summer, and when the letter appeared, a coach on an enemy team expressed raw fury over the letter.
People are often surprised at my viewpoint. I think they think that because I am in academia I am a communist. However, I am not now nor have I ever been a communist, which I regard as the same thing as a Nazi. I see the two as destroying a free economy in order to help out a certain group: workers in one instance, or Aryans in another instance.
I'm in favor of the free market, and link the free market to Democracy.
Hayek and the Austrian school are my heroes in this regard.
However, unlike Hayek and Mises I am also a Lutheran. And interested in the arts primarily.
Curtis,
But Kirby's formula for the website more or less depends upon a balance of views. Kirby depends on DeLater's buttressing of his positions.
There are other conservative commentators, who in my estimation provide substantially more light and substantially less heat than Sir James: WB, GM, and WW to name three. Kirby was right to lament their decreased presence here. I do too, because they often had something to teach me.
As for Sir James, I think he was demoralized by Romney's nomination, and Obama's subsequent re-election. Let there be some sort of conservative electoral triumph, and he'll be back, merrily stomping and farting.
Oh, here's the link to the letter. It is here:
http://thedailystar.com/letters/x9838365/Letters-to-the-Editor-July-12-2012/print
It's not very different from a debate we ourselves had last summer. What's central about Hayek is that he links Nazism to socialism. Many think that communism and socialism are separate somehow, or that National Socialism was not socialism.
But Hayek looks at them through how they seek to control the free market.
Keynes has a fundamentally idiotic idea. Most depressions come about when credit is extended too far. When there is a collapse -- as there was with Tulipomania (the first free market collapse?) or with the Great Depression, Keynes wants to EXTEND CREDIT FURTHER, urging the governments to extend credit even more so, or as with the stimulus to pump more money into an already flooded market.
Hayek put it this way, "To combat the depression by a forced credit expansion is to attempt to cure the evil by the very means which brought it about." (cited in Wapshott 142).
Moreover, this takeover of the economy in the name of some kind of ethical scheme (Hitler saw himself as protecting the stupid Germans from the clever Jews, and thus he actually saw his whole arrangement as ethical, something which most can't understand, but which if you actually listen to Hitler, that's what he was saying).
Socialism in the same way attempts to protect the working class, and those bearded by capitalism (unable to cut it).
The problem with this is that it requires a government takeover of the economic sphere in either case. Obama is now protecting those who are unable to pay for their own healthcare, and in doing so, forced 900 pages of gobbledygook on capitalism, thus interfering in the free market but also "curtailing the liberties essential to a free society" as it's put by Wapshott with regard to how hayek would put it with regard to the similarity between Nazism and socialism, on p. 144.
My essay about stores in the previous post is an homage to capitalism and its delightfulness even when children are involved. Like Warhol, I see the beauty of stores, and of purchasing, and the whole wonder of it.
Socialists seek to crush this under their boot, because they want to steal every last bit of individual pleasure and arrogate all jouissance to the level of the state. They're killjoys who want to be the only ones who speak, and the only ones with guns, and the only ones with the ability to purchase anything.
They have to be fought at every level because socialists are Cyclopsean killjoys.
I'm not a total libertarian in the line of Mises and Hayek. I think some kinds of things should be regulated: prostitution, for instance, as well as marriage. I think children should not be able to sell their bodies, because they lack the notion of consent.
I also think people should stay off of animals, for the same reason.
Hayek wanted to deregulate marriage. He felt divorce should be easy to get for instance. (He cited Mill on this matter.)
I'm not sure what he thought about prostitution. I don't think people should go to prostitutes. I know many people do, but it's bad. Of course it's like prohibition it sets up a whole black market in sex which enriches criminals. It also really hurts the women that they can't be checked and can't be overseen. But going to a prostitute can't be a decent thing. People should not be allowed to touch one another without a license of some kind. Even shaking hands is dubious. I see people patting each other on the back and even patting each other on the butt and wish there was a law (the NBA seems to encourage this kind of thing it seems because the men are on the road so often). I think marriage should be for people who are having children, or raising children, or banding together to help children of former marriages in case of a death.
I still don't understand gay marriage. But Luther said if the majority VOTES for something, then it shouldn't be a church question.
The state is permitted to have its own prerogatives.
As long as my own pastor isn't forced to perform such services, I am not putting up any kind of fight about it, or if I am, it's because of secondary and tertiary longterm effects that I fear.
I just don't think it belongs in churches. But I am also hoping this thing doesn't lead to a collapse in marriage doctrine such that people stop thinking about the best possible circumstances for children and start trying to institute Platonic notions of men and women going clockwise through neighborhoods exchanging partners on a pre-set schedule. This will lead to too much ickiness, the spread of diseases, and also it's hard to sleep when it's not your own pillow and getting used to how someone snores will delay and interrupt productivity.
I think having a mom and dad are the best possible things, and preferably they should be one's own biological parents, the same ones for life, as kin are akin psychologically and can understand one another in a way that adopted people can't, or that temporary partners can't. You need to be able to see a kid from the day they arrive, until the day you pass on. This provides for continuity.
But do I want kids languishing in orphanages for want of a family when only gay partners want those kids? As long as they don't intend to molest the kid, I think it's probably ok for some of them to have the kid, just as long as they don't try to force the kid to be gay.
I just don't know for sure. It's too new to know.
But I am for some regulation. I even believe to a degree that automatic guns that fire more than a thousand bullets per second should probably be outlawed along with atomic bombs and IUDs, or is it IEDs.
I am very nervous about market controls because they can easily form a bureaucracy that can be used to create dragnets that can be used by communist dirtbags to kill other groups.
It's nervewracking to see communism spreading through the university systems into the minds of our youth.
I don't think Obama realizes this is happening or how he's responsible for its spread. He's a naive little puppy dog with very sharp teeth. He's naive but he's still dogged, and he can also be catty, and he gets my goat. I wish he would be more sheepish so I didn't type myself horse.
I don't know what happened to Picklesworth or JADL but I suspect that Stu drove both out. He was rude to both of them. He kept calling JADL the black knight. And he said that Picklesworth was stupid. Stu gets a little overwrought. He hurts people. He's a nice guy, but he hurts people, often in the name of science!
He kept citing science in the global warming problem with JADL.
Scientists are all over on this. Some claim that Mars is getting far warmer than earth. It can't be because there are too many automobiles though can it?
It's a fluctuation.
Everything in nature seems to fluctuated.
Wendy is busy with her kids, and has cited Stu as a rationale for her no longer coming here. He is mean to everybody.
He's also very nice, and if you ask him to calm down, he does.
We lose our most rabid leftists generally. We've gotten rid of J and the clambake that lived in S. Korea, and that crazy woman from Baltimore.
We do have to regulate. This is not the Wild West.
We don't even really want shootouts.
This is more of a seminar for the terminally cracked.
Kirby,
I don't know what happened to Picklesworth or JADL but I suspect that Stu drove both out. He was rude to both of them. He kept calling JADL the black knight. And he said that Picklesworth was stupid.
I called Sir James the Black Knight because it was hilarious. Even he thought there was some justice to it. I don't believe I drove him out. Sir James is, after all, the kind of person who likes to drive other people out, and I find it difficult to believe that anything short of actively enforced banning would silence him against his will.
I have a clear recollection of Sir James saying that if Obama won, he was basically through with US politics. I think he's proven to be as good as his word.
As for Picklesworth, I emphatically deny calling him stupid. Please give a citation. My sense is that Picklesworth is finding his callings as pastor, husband, and father more fulfilling than our contentious company. I'd selfishly like him to participate more, but I grant that the choice is entirely his.
1) i am tired
2) i am busy
3) i want a job that isn't teaching high school--or at least an additional job
4) too many politics and too little poetry
5) i miss you folks, too
I think krakens are cool! I would probably have a tattoo of one if I had enough real estate.
I don't want an imperial president. Ain't nobody got time for dat.
And Stu is mean, but that isn't why JADL hasn't been on the blogsite.
He stopped blogging sometime in mid October, if I remember correctly.
He and I were caring for his dying mother whose cancer metastisized to her spine. She was in a lot of pain. She is at peace now, and we are recovering.
Emmy,
Please convey my sympathy to James on the loss of his mother. My wife lost her father on Epiphany. Interment was at the Great Lakes National Cemetery in Holly, MI, close to his old stomping grounds. Twenty-one guns, folded flag, the whole nine yards. They did it right.
BTW, in re: Krakens.
Krakens are in fact real monsters, only somewhat elaborated via myth. Giant squid have been documented up to 33ft long, and there are reported sightings of much larger specimens.
Welcome back, Emmy!
If it's really Emmy and not JADL, then welcome.
Stu is not mean. He just doesn't sugar-coat his assertions.
I've gotten in lots of fire-fights on the blogosphere, but Stu is the most gentlemanly opponent I've ever encountered. That's saying something.
We don't share religion, but that doesn't appear to be his Achilles' heel, either.
Let's stop blaming Stu. Okay?
i trust emmy's return and the appearance of krakens is and insignificant coincidence
more saints
more servants to serve them
blogs get blogged down
but the return of wit and depth and good will are always welcome
onward chivalrous knights and princesses...adventures await
jh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5wVjTF10BE
I love Stu but he occasionally hurts people's feelings. When someone is just an out and out monster you are prepared for violence. But Stu has sudden outbursts that one is quite unprepared for. It reminds me of the story about Harry Houdini. He was very tough but a little boy punched him in the stomach when Houdini hadn't flexed his muscles and it ruptured Houdini's appendix or something and killed him. It's the unprepared for violence that can kill you!
Stu is also a very good reason for everyone to come here and argue!
He's fun to argue with, but he always wins and that isn't that much fun. He should try to lose now and then.
Plus, he does occasionally concede a point.
I'm sorry to hear about JADL's mom.
Perhaps it's time for a poetry contest. I think it should be about the weather.
Curtis,
I've gotten in lots of fire-fights on the blogosphere, but Stu is the most gentlemanly opponent I've ever encountered. That's saying something.
Thank you. I appreciate the support.
There is a bit of a tendancy to bully here, which it seems to me is contrary to the intended spirit of the blog. We should be fighting over ideas, not over personalities.
There are times when people, in the heat of the moment, go too far. I know that I have. In such cases, it should be enough to apologize, for the person who gave offense to honestly self-critical, and for everyone to move on.
Kirby,
Stu is also a very good reason for everyone to come here and argue!
Thank you. I try to represent my positions fairly, but also vigorously.
He's fun to argue with, but he always wins and that isn't that much fun. He should try to lose now and then.
Plus, he does occasionally concede a point.
You don't notice the inconsistency between "always wins" and "does occasionally concede a point?" In any event, it seems to me that these discussions are too often inconclusive, a product of using pre-conceived ideological positions as filters of truth rather than as points of contention.
I encourage people to view these discussions as a co-operative search for truth, rather than (merely, or even principally) as an arena for partisan combat. To that end, it is important to concede valid points that your opponent of the moment makes, as this establishes a shared basis for moving forward.
I agree with you on this, and I think it's what makes conversation at this blog valuable. Too often there is a rejection of another side's viewpoint not on the basis of the points made, but because it is another side. Thank you for your new poem, a valuable entry.
My main problem with communism is that it rejects the PERSONAL setting of prices for prices set by the government. The price should always be set by the seller, and lowered through sales only when the seller can't get an immediate buyer.
Thank you for your new poem, a valuable entry.
You're welcome. I'm trying to set the bar high enough to get GM back in the game :-).
Stu is correct that the Kraken comes out of Norse myth and yet has been superimposed on Greek myth via Hollywood of late. It's rather amusing. When I saw Clash of the Titans I wondered where they got that giant reptile.
Kirby,
Stu is correct that the Kraken comes out of Norse myth and yet has been superimposed on Greek myth via Hollywood of late. It's rather amusing.
I don't think I made that point. Indeed, my familiarity with the Kraken myth owes more to Pirates of the Caribbean than anything else. Cf., Wiki: Kraken (Pirates of the Caribbean). But clearly the Kraken of legend is related to maritime sightings of giant squid or related species.
There have been important recent advances in understanding the natural history of the giant aquid, including the first live video of a giant squid in its native habitat earlier this week, cf., The giant squid, finally caught on film. Giant squid have been known to science for some time, in part throught specimens that have washed ashore (usually dead or almost so, invariably greatly damaged), and in part through wounds and stomach contents of sperm whales.
There are reports of giant squid attacking lifeboats that held the survivors of torpedoed merchantmen during WWII. Certainly, there are more reports than you'd expect of merchantmen who were seen to abandon ship, but of whom no trace was ever found.
So they eat people? Are they all off Norway?
I wiki'd. They mostly eat fish. The only known predator is the sperm whale. Aristotle described one w 60 ft. arms.
Kirby,
So they eat people? Are they all off Norway?
As I said, there are reports of them attacking lifeboats. These are not, as far as I know, scientifically confirmed, and the conditions (nighttime, under torpedo attack, etc.) for observation were far from ideal. I'd put it in the category of "alleged, not proven."
I don't know the range of the giant squid, but I suspect it's in pretty broad.
The one thing I must mention is JADL's habit of attacking the person, rather than the idea, or to smear with broad strokes--for instance, that since I happen live in the Bay Area, in California, I must be a flamin' liberal and infected with all the evils he enumerates. There are conservative people here too. And as far as personal attacks are concerned, what I was able to find out about JADL didn't sound very savory.
Arguing is what blogs are about. When they get too chummy--which is something I felt was occurring on Silliman's site--they get boring fast. Controversy is what builds interest.
Kirby often spews out weird contradictory insane drivel just to generate excitement. Then, when people respond in the same spirit, he gets indignant. I think he should try to write coherent, thought-out prose, and then see where that leads. Not all the time, but more.
My two cents.
i am having nightmares
i wish people would just stop talking
about krakens
they are swimming in my
cognitive fundaments
the only real philosophers around
it occurs to me that kirbelectric has managed to create a context whereby sensible thought interweaves with inane even ludicrous even idiotic even supranonsensical even incredible (sounds best in french) even things bordering on insanity without ever ever ever crossing the line nope kirby has always been a gentleman he knows the line between sanity and insanity for he marches there he himself is never very funny but he sets a stage so others can be comical and i've been advocating for years for more virtualcomedy cyberstandup sitdown blah blah blah blah blah
i only lasted 2 days in a logic class in college it seemed very logical to walk out for good one day
craig was very funny today
by offering a video link
which made me laugh
my cellphone is on the pill
or something like that
i strongly suspect that jadl will rattle our chains again i hope so we need more solid catholics on this site this hog this blawg
since kirby doesn't go to the bar he doesn't hang out with hippies and sing folk songs around the campfire he doesn't go to disney world de doesn't even watch that much tv so he needs a place where he can be himself in typed words and thereby satify the urge we all have to be red in the face and read till we're dead and then maybe even after maybe someone will discover this blogstream in a computer 100 years from now we always have to think of that and well if nothing else we can at least prove to them we were daft
and serious about it
i learned some cyberethics over on silliman's blog which by the way or is that BTW i still visit once in awhile he's gone completely viideo view and obituary it seems
who has the upper voice in poetry in the world...i know but i ain't sayin'
the swords here are the plastic inflatable sort used in beach warfare it's so sad when they deflate after use and abuse
robot cats
jh
o and for what it's worth
(great old tune) i am deeply moved in a very distant way to hear of jadl's and emmy's recent life ordeal...godspeed and god's incarnate comfort to both of you
and well welcome back if that is to be the case and if not
who's on first
jh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MZ6Ptsv-wUE
I think JADL is as close to kraken as we'll get on this site but krakens have moms too who tell them to get crackin' lile momsnof every species and we do. Maybe we can have JADL back soon and perhaps even Picklesworth and Baraban and the Icelander. Everyone should come back for a curtain call. I had lunch with my pastor today and he jad read Miserables and seen it and said Valljean's dying and coming back was Christ in his estimation. We puzzled over French history as we struggled with sandwiches that would have fed a flotilla of French midget nuns flying with their habits tucked like horns of goodness into the food. It snowed four inches today aand was a hot mess.
My thanks to stu, Kirby, and jh for their tender condolences on the passing of my beloved mum Violet that Emmy posted here. Blessings to all,
JADL
My thanks to stu, Kirby, and jh for their tender condolences on the passing of my beloved mum Violet that Emmy posted here. Blessings to all,
JADL
Je t'en prie, JADL. Nice to hear even a line from you. I desperately need you and Picklesworth back here as the leftists are running me ragged.
Kirby
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