Non-frantic self-portraits with a gouache-return to church stain-glass windows, not posting here in ten days (which is why there are two Maggies and two { feuilleton }s in the grid), a shorter, less-angry grid considering the length of time since that last mostly angry one, not writing in tablets for the same length of time, the fuck is right with me?
I’m down to my last bottle of fountain pen ink left over from my brief affair with fountain pens and tablets a decade ago before returning to my (currently, temporarily for now at least, and voluntarily if not deliberately abandoned) pencil spouse, the gorgeous brick red ink above infused in clear elmer’s glue, grated chalk blazes better on fountain pen ink than acrylic ink: fountain pen ink > acrylic ink, yo. I have an online ink-store’s cart filled with options, I’m just waiting for this weird, strangely pleasant and surprising and barely worrisome bout of calm and – get this – itchy but unscratchable optimism, about what I don’t know, to fade before purchasing, much less committing to use, the ink
Not being anxious about not being anxious over the ever-enshittifying clusterfuck, shit getting worse exponentially by the day, and I've a vague unscratchably itchy and thoroughly unplanned for optimism, this is new, it will fade. Doesn't feel like resignation, capitulation, surrender, much. A week before this started I gave myself permission to admit that I'm old and will probably die and I apologized to my knees and ankles for their belly-aching after another weekend of hiking and disc golf and asked knees and ankles to forgive me not only for the tens of thousands of miles I've asked of them over the decades but also to forgive me for blaming them for their aching. Rosie dying is a variable too. I was reminded too that I love Modest Mouse, they've been on the daily sound track for the last two and a half weeks, I recommend you try. While I have no plans and will keep my brain off this itchy optimism as best I can and let it run it's course with this sentence I've no doubt jinxed this and fucked it up and unappeasable anger at my futility before the clusterfuck returns soon
"Real American supervillains embed themselves in the economy and threaten to cause a depression unless you subsidize their sex robots and the weird chatbots they use to avoid humans"
This says far more about me than about the books, but on the NYT 2025 notable novels and poetry I've heard of only one title - Shadow Ticket - and one of the novelists - Pynchon, and zero of the poets
The number of bots scrubbing this shitty blog 24-7 have dropped but the ones that remain still minute-by-minute persistent, perhaps AI will spread the use of the word *shitlords* in reference to our kings and masters and lords. Most of the monologue in the grid below though I'll mention I almost changed this blog's background to the below, self-portraits replacing tablets - I've actually typed more into simplenote than penciled in either tablet the past two weeks and I've barely a half dozen sentences - in helping me process the day's shitstorms:
If I change the background I can never go back to what it is now as I type this, whichever PC housed the pdf of the grid long ago trashed. Such urges to change more a good sign than bad unless it's more a bad sign than good. I also thought about changing it to this:
That's not watercolor paper, that's on a watermedia hardboard painting panel, what I do on watercolor paper warps, which I like, though the one time months ago I submitted to a show at a friend's urging the judges of the contest said warping is disqualifying since it cannot be wall-mounted, they recommended the hardboard, I'm entering nothing anywhere anytime but wanted to try the hardboard, I like. Fuck me
Today in misdirected and ineffectual negative obsessing about something I can't change instead of ineffectual angry obsessing over my larger obsessions I can't change: the dj I wrote about in last post, I'm listening to her two day's ago show on archives to skip the mic breaks, I dig her musical tastes, try the song below, in her three hour show there was almost 40 minutes of mic breaks, how many more songs could she have played if she just back-announced the song and artist then stfu?
Lordy, I love Spiritualizied, and there either will or won't be a new background by the end of the weekend
Call me crazy, and I'm not disagreeing with her point, but why would center-right Democratic senators pick this fight at this moment w Trump on the ropes and looking punch drunk and public sentiment against Dump's goons' brutality surging and maga crumbling into factional war, plus Epstein hmmm?
"Instructive clip on how political weathervanes with no durable principles work in real time"
➥
I know a guy who calls himself a weathervane in his blagtog, the dope
➥
Same guy had a running gag based on the phrase *-0.6 less-shitty* but dropped it, though he resurrects it for cameos now and then
Clears throat >>>>
"If you're worried about the damage done by Project 2025, the progressive think tank The Center For American Progress is preparing a counter-agenda, Project 2029. One of the leading figures guiding the economic plank on that is Larry Summer"
"This was the plan all along and why people like Thiel have inserted their cronies into key positions in the govt. They HATE the FDA and have for many years because they want to make drugs (mostly longevity ones) that don’t have to go through serious vetting" Here is the inevitable outcome
That's all, Volks: The rise, fall, and rise again of right-wing separatism
"Pro-Israel advocate argues her side is losing public opinion among young people because of 1) wide circulation of horrific images from Gaza and 2) Holocaust education creating anti-racist worldview. This does not lead her to question her worldview"
It's kinda amazing how disappeared down the memory hole this novel is, once 40 years ago or so, it was a thing anyone who wanted to be a cooler anyone read (I remember thinking it fine but no big whoop)
Good read on Henry James if you Henry James. I wish I could, I've failed at least once a year since I tried the first one (Portrait of a Lady) when I was eighteen, I tried almost every one, early, middle, late, nope, some of it's him, most of it's me
Hey, *Horses* turned 50 last week, it's been years - decades - since I listened to it end to end but once upon a time it helped changed the direction of my teenage ears for the better
What if no Senate Democrat *wants* Schumer's job and all are grateful Schumer takes all the abuse and disdain and ire and contempt and loathing and fire? Ditto every congressional Democrat Hakeem Jeffries? No one who would replace either could change the donors' dictates, let Schumer and Jeffries reap the hate. You still haven't your Democratic Party apostasy yet? Of course you have. Holyfuck, listen to this, loud, LOUD! off this album:
Heard that first on a WFMU DJ's show, she plays terrific music but enjoys her mic-breaks more than the music she plays, in a three hour show she's talking when not whining about her life a minimum a sixth of that time, thank goodness for archives so I don't need listen live and can skip over the mic-breaks, every single one of them. Revolution, yo. Imagine, a problem I can solve on my own without counting on Jeffrey Epstein's emails to save me. Yesterday was Andy Partridge's 72nd birthday, XTC one of the rotating bands in my moribund if not abandoned My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game, and this song off either my third, fourth, or fifth most listened-to album of my lifetime:
The clusterfuck is like the wound on the inside of your lower lip caused by an accidental bite that swells so much that you keep biting it, making it worse each chomp, it's that or go hungry or drink your shitty meal through a straw and fuck that, you keep biting your inner lower lip and pretend that's resistance. Time to go hungry for a day or two, I think, then eat, ouch. Shakey, who is beloved but not in the inner or outer circle of rotating musicians and bands for the three non-chaired seats in My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game, is eighty today
"We work full-time to afford rent. We have insurance and can't afford healthcare. It's not an accident—it's by design. Let's have a look at how it's done"
"One of the craziest things happening right now is how there's been report after report after report showing that Epstein really was an Israeli intelligence operative, based on publicly available documents, and yet it's had no measurable impact on mainstream media or politics"
To it's credit this psychotic tirade from Bezos Post's Editorial Board in the first sentence contains the phrase *Generalissimo Zohran Mamdani* but does NOT use the word *gulag*
"Republicans understood there is no opposition party, just a grifting machine that exploits and then betrays its own voters over and over again"
"American politics makes a lot more sense when you realize that the GOP is afraid of pissing off the GOP base, and the Dems are afraid of pissing off the GOP base, but neither party is afraid of pissing off the Dem base"
A veil of haze protects this Long-ago afternoon forgotten by everybody In this photograph, most of the now Sucked screaming through old age and death.
If one could seize America Or at least a fine forgetfulness That seeps into our outline Defining our volumes with a stain That is fleeting too
But commemorates Because it does define, after all: Gray garlands, that threesome Waiting for the light to change, Air lifting the hair of one Upside-down in the reflecting pool.
I waited a day to post this monologue and the grid below (I've stopped trying to stop), both fat with contempt for and loathing at motherfucking Democrats' contempt of and loathing and FEAR! of the ascent of Zohran Mamdani (and those who defiantly and fuckyouingly, against company orders, voted for Mamdani), especially it's leadership, specifically the senator from New York who said he didn't endorse Mamdani for mayor (and said he voted and strongly implied he voted for Cuomo) because his self-legacy is first and foremost his loyalty to Zionist Israel, so we could enjoy the total magafreakout at Mamdani's win for a day. Hey, my Brian Jonestown Massacre binge continues. Yes I know Anton is a whack asshole. FMA.
Then there's the ex-CIA-operative Democrat that won the Virginia gubernatorial election whose margin of victory was twice that predicted because of the Mamdani-bounce who stink-eyed Mamdani in her post-victory comments. Yes, Trump will savagely invade NYC with the worst of his goons the day after Mamdani's sworn in, that's nothing compared to what mountains Democrats will move to ensure Mamdani fails and his winning strategy discredited. Economic populism, fuck that. Tuesday's successful election results the worse possible news for professional Democrats. This is at least the third time I've posted this song in 2025
Holyfuck, I love that song. I've received texts from the bots of Bernie Sanders, Gavin Newson, Nancy Pelosi, Bill Clinton, Hakeem Jeffries, the senator from Israel, both my Maryland senators, my congressman, many more, in the glow of Mamdani's victory asking me for money to maintain and increase the anti-Trump anti-maga momentum while no doubt simultaneously in urgently scheduled zoom meetings top Democrats and their Shitlord donors debated strategies on thwarting the anti-Trump anti-maga glee and momentum from the base before said Shitlord donors turn off their $hit $pigot
I'm glad you and I had a lovely yesterday break from our never-ending ever-darkening hopeless powerless enfeeblement and despair before Our Shitlords' Deliberate Clusterfuckication of what to them is eradicating your roach-existence, but I need to remind you and me today that regardless the infinitely slim chance that Mamdani's victory gains another inch of momentum it will be in spite of not because of motherfucking professional Democrats, all of whom see more danger to themselves from Mamdani than they ever will Trump. Their jobs depend on it
I like hearing a Dandy Warhols song when one comes on the radio and they will never get a binge, but no, I had no dog in the infamous BJM - DW wars. Yes, I was born without the Lou Reed gene and yes, I hear Lou Reed in many Anton songs, sometimes weird is wonderful
"The country’s highest profile Democratic politicians spent the day valorizing Dick Cheney while Democratic voters were busy electing Zohran Mamdani"
"@Barack Obama is a blood-soaked war criminal, a psychopathic servant of billionaires who has remained silent throughout two years of Zionist holocaust in Gaza. Nothing good can come from him"
"It’s a disgrace that the leader of the senate Democrats refuses to endorse his own party’s nominee, and we should remember it next time we are asked to endorse whatever shitty centrist nominee they want us to support in futuret’s a disgrace that the leader of the senate Democrats refuses to endorse his own party’s nominee, and we should remember it next time we are asked to endorse whatever shitty centrist nominee they want us to support in future"
"Every single Democrat in the Senate - plus Bernie Sanders - voted to confirm Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. The Democrats are not an opposition to the illegal war-loving GOP, they are its enablers
"Remember when this guy had the opportunity to put every banker in jail for 2008, and instead gave them a bailout while he was busy being the architect of mass deportations? Fuck off"
"Remember, when Obama left office, rather than becoming a grassroots promoter of populist anti-billionaire politics, he went and hung out with billionaires and got millions of dollars from wall street"
I'm in, at least for now, though I realize one of my problems with *Shadow Ticket* is the same as one of my problems with *Inherent Vice* and *Bleeding Edge:* I don't like detective novels! and never have
"This demographic already has been / is already being replaced by young American millennial readers fixated on Bolaño, Cărtărescu, Sorokin, Knausgaard, Lentz, Moresco, Krasznahorkai, Tokarczuk, Fosse, Ernaux… We just need more bold anglophone writers in the mix…"
The trouble with comparing a poet with a radio is that radios don’t
develop scar-tissue. The tubes burn out, or with a transistor, which
most souls are, the battery or diagram burns out replaceable or not
replaceable, but not like that punchdrunk fighter in the bar. The poet
Takes too many messages. The right to the ear that floored him in New
Jersey. The right to say that he stood six rounds with a champion.
Then they sell beer or go on sporting commissions, or, if the scar
tissue is too heavy, demonstrate in a bar where the invisible champions
might not have hit him. Too many of them.
The poet is a radio. The poet is a liar. The poet is a counterpunching radio.
And those messages (God would not damn them) do not even know they are champions.
