Proem to the First Poste of the Phaerie Duchess

Lo I the man, whose Blogge whilome did maske
When time allowed, in Gallic theorists weeds,
Am now enforst to update, since ye aske
That I doe so, to benefit who reades
With foddre for their syndicated feedes;
Which empty sate, due to my silence long.
I, all too tired, must now disdain my needs
To blabbe abroad in over-learned song:
“Firste!” postes and loud retweets shall sound emongst the throng.

Helpe then, O Joseph Curvo, liquor fine,
Thy weaker Novice to perform thy will.
Draw forth from sweet agave’s bitter brine
The wildest fancies borne of Spanish still,
Of Phaerie clerks and fairest Tenyurquill,
Which solemn student of proud Elfin tong
Sought through the world, and suffered so much ill
That he for worldly skills would often long
So might he pay for bread and thus his days prolong.

And with him eke, O Poet Ireland hates–
And right well so, since you them did oppresse–
Great poet of that period whose dates
I oft forget, and oftener must guess,
Who shone in epick praise of good queene Bess,
Pray, raise no eyebrows at my thoughts too vile
To earn the right to imitate in jests
The least iota of your loftie stile;
Yet if thou can’tst, I prithee, look away a-while.

Being and Advent

Let it be assumed as an axiom that art is itself a saying of the void, the site of subtraction which reveals the state as only part of the being-multiple and never, in any sense, the whole of multiplicity. We ought not, however, to think art as in any way a wholeness in itself, lest it cease to be art–the suture in the state–and become the state itself. Art expresses the real of the being-multiple–the void–by whatever figurative means are available to it.

Art is a subtraction, it is an eruption of the void into the state situation. But the situation it disrupts is that which we commonly call “culture.” Culture, the supposed sum and total of human existence, the discursive field within and upon and through which the state exists and which insists upon its own summative nature. Art disrupts culture.

We are now at a moment in history–and here I mean not the linear history of the West, but rather the cyclical history of the seasons, of the calendar, and of the liturgy–which is undoubtedly embedded in culture.  We must think “Christmas” not as event, but as part of the state, a situation which rests upon the void and which awaits the marking of the evental site(site evenement) in order to become art. 

The event of the holiday, then, is that which exposes and names the void, and it is not to be found in our constant self-assurances of abundance and overflow. The void is not in the shopping malls. It is not to be found in the economico-cultural beacon of the times: the Christmas special, with its platitudes and  easy answers. These deny the void. They insist on its nonexistence. All is abundance. All is plenitude. Mr. Van Pelt’s declaration–”That is what Christmas is all about”–limits the situation while omitting to state its own stating of that limit. Van Pelt’s Christmas is local, as is the Christmas “miracle” of so many entertainments. It is cultural, and has nothing to say about truth–the saying of the void.

Only in the kitchen does the happening of truth, the beginning of the truth-procedure occur. Here, the cook–a parent or grand-parent (père)–seizes the bird which will be the sign of local plenitude for the Christmas feast, and marks it as void, sweeping out the innards and guts (entrailles) in order to fill it once more with stuffing. The bird is rendered empty: its fullness itself becoming the very articulation of its emptiness. From this site will proceed the truth in all its true universality in its declarations–”This is delicious,” “I’m stuffed,” “I need a nap,”–and in the beings-faithful which follow these declarations: satiation, sleep. Here, the declaration of fullness is itself the articulation of the void of the holiday: I am full now, not yesterday. Christmas thus is not, but rather becomes in the truth procedure of the dinner, where the diners insist on their being fulfilled now, and not in the local cultures of the Van Pelts and Geisels of the world.

Flunk Hour

Apologies to Robert Lowell

Tremont Street’s third-year
student still reads through winter for his test to qualify;
his status is the same as yesterday.
His wife’s a lawyer. His baker
has sore throat and her nose is stuffy.
She’s writing, he reads gruffly,

Thirsting for
the effervescent dignity
of his advisor’s flattery,
he writes up all
his summaries once more,
in desperate scrawls.

The season’s ill–
We’ve lost our token Britisher,
who seemed to leap out of a BBC
Parody. He made our “y’all”s
apparent in their poverty:
His status has sat three days, silent, still.

But now our hermit
sophist tweets that sheer’s the best word of all
for fishnet stockings or ranged rocks;
strange, his sudden interest in long falls.
This will not help me with my work
but will defer it.

Late, late at night
my browser called up Aintitcool.
I read for hours of projects turned down,
movies put together, cell-by-cell,
while the minutes passed to hours….
That clock’s not right!

It’s not half-past eight
But–crap, oh holy crap–I fear
my ill-planned night has not gone well:
It’s midnight, and I’m out of Coke.
Ah, but what the hell,
Nobody’s here….

Only cats. They don’t work,
but canvas the house for a bite to eat.
They climb up my fridge for a late-night treat,
gold fur shining, then hop
in the cabinet, prodding till they drop
the food-bag with a lurch.

I groan and curse
in our back room and breathe the rich air–
the orange cat I’ve cared for since a kitten fills the litter pail.
He jabs his spade-paw in and stirs
the sour sand, looks at me a while,
and will not care.

Old Possum's Book of PracticLOLcatz

The Plain English Review of Things I Like or Dislike Or Whatever (PERTILDOW), #1

Introducing PERTILDOW: a brand new part of my brand new blog. PERTILDOW is my excuse to take a break from my more literary-ish main posts, which take a lot of time and thought, and to ramble on about things that I’m interested in or love or hate or, as the very title of this series suggests, whatever, in plain English.

So here, in no particular order are things I like right now:

1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As a long-term nerd, it’s a real admission of inadequacy to say that I have not yet seen Buffy in part or as a whole. We’ve just finished season one and are a few episodes into season two. Let me just say that there’s nothing finer than watching photogenic young teenagers kill demons, slay vampires, and snap witty comments at each other for an hour. I won’t say yet that the show is as brilliant as I’ve been led to believe, but it’s the most fun I’ve had with a show since the Doctor Who relaunch.
2. These webcomics: Hark, A Vagrant!, Questionable Content, Dinosaur Comics, MS Paint Adventures. I’m especially in love with the art on Hark, A Vagrant. I am intensely jealous of Kate Beaton, and will forever be so.
3. The Prisoner on AMC. The critics panned this, unfairly, I think. Okay, maybe the whole idea of constant, Foucauldian surveillance is a little played out these days, but I thought this was great. It’s trippy, episodic, bewildering, majestically paced (slow, if you’re a reviewer), and had an ending that really payed off.

Here are things I’m less thrilled about:

1. Swine flu. This thing is way overrated. While it’s the MacGuffin in my current imitative epic, “A Voyage to Allalamna,” it really was not near as rough on me as I was led to believe. Kids and old people should probably still watch out, though.
2. Disney’s latest shot at doing Dickens. This was an amazing disappointment. There was room for coolness here. Jim Carrey was Scrooge and all the ghosts. Gary Oldman was Cratchit, Tiny Tim, and Jacob Marley. This could have been interesting. Think about the implications those pairings have for Scrooge’s exclamation about there being “more of gravy than of grave about you” to Marley’s ghost. This casting could have been used to suggest cool things about the relationship of Scrooge’s ghosts to his own psyche. Instead, the movie boils down to useless roller-coaster sequences strung together in a frame vaguely resembling A Christmas Carol. Robert Zemeckis really needs to get off this mo-cap 3-d adaptation kick. He hasn’t made a decent movie since Castaway. Well… I like Beowulf, but it had a lot of problems.

And finally, things I hate:

1. Stomach viruses. These, unlike Swine Flu, are actually quite unpleasant. Here’s hoping things don’t get rapidly worse.

A Voyage to Allalamna Made by Jonathan Augustine in Anno Domini MMIX. Pt. I, in Which the Author Finds him Self upon an unknown Shore and with a Companion unseen.

I had not been back in my own Country above an Hour when I received some Communication from my Wife of an Outbreak of the Plague which had so affrighted my Family and that it had been in my own House, which place she bade me not to return to, lest I also be taken with the Illness that afflicted her. Thus I determined to embark once again on the Ship that had only just Deposited me on the Shore, and to make a Passage to France, there to find some gainful Employment until such Time as that Plague had passed and I might return to my Home.

We had only a short Time been at Sea, when a vast Storm came upon us which forc’d us to abandon our Vessel to the mercy of the Waves, and to seek for our own Fortunes in a life-Boate. For some time we were quite toss’d about by the Storm, until a Billow of particular Violence forc’d our meager Skiff onto a protruding Rock, and we were abandoned all to the violence of the Storm, I clinging desperately to the Rock and praying most fervently for my own Deliverance and that of my Fellows of whom all were lost from my Sight and whom I until this Day never have seen again, but hope above All for their safe Conveyance back to their own Families and Homes.

Thus clinging I sate for some Time, when at Length the Tempest passing and the Dawn breaking in the East, I noted that the presence of some small Land, not more than an hundred Yards from my left Hand and determin’d that I would swim for it. Thus I let go my Rock and made my Way to the Shoar quite slowly and with much difficulty, for though the Storm had long pass’d, yet the Water was still quite disturb’d. At length, coming to the Edge of that Island–for such this Land was, and not a paeneinsula–I was much disappointed to find upon it no Sustenance or Nourishment of any Kind, for indeed the Island was quite bare, and cover’d all in Sand as far as my Eye could perceive. Thus disappointed, I collaps’d all in a Heap upon the Shore, certain that I should die of Hunger and never see my own Country again.

I sat thus for some Time, when at Length I heard a Sound behind me, and turned my Head so as to perceive the Object of that Sound but, finding nothing in Sight which could have made such a Noise or indeed a Noise of any Kind, I thought Nothing of it, until I heard the Sound once more, and recognized that it was no mere Noise, but was in fact some Form of Language: for indeed it spoke in many more Words this time, saying aralla  laombaba tallalla. But I, looking ’round and seeing no One was much confounded as to the Origin of this Noise, and Cried out who’s there in every Tongue that I at that Time knew, which is to say English, Spanish, Italian, French, and the lingua franca that was then in Use, but the Voice made me no Reply except to repeat again aralla laombaba tallalla, at which point I felt some Thing, as though an unseen Hand were Pressing upon my Shoulder, motioning that I should rise up, which Thing I most promptly did, for fear that my invisible Companion would grow angry and Strike me, and that then I should have to make Defence against a Foe whom I could not See or indeed have any Sense of except Sound and Touch, and that 0nly when he spoke or press’d upon my shoulder.

And so, rising, I felt him push me into another Direction, away from the Waters, and further Inland, at which I made Signs to demonstrate that I was deeply tired, and that I might not make a long Journey for fear of Starving, and at this the Voice started a Bit, as though bewildered by the very Thought of Hunger, and pressed upon my Shoulder once more, suggesting that I ought quickly to move, and saying in his Tongue allara llastale laramba. So presently, I gathered Wits and began to walk in that Way which he directed me, yet all the Time that we walked, I noted that the Landscape did not vary in the Least, except that the Shore withdrew further and further away from us.

Iohanne, the distracted Student; or a History of his Journeys thorow the World, filter’d and shot thru with various Allusions and Imitations of the learned Masters of the Language

Late one Night—my other Occupations being, for the time, compleat—it came to me that there might be Time enough for me to make known my Thoughts upon various Objects to the Publick, and that the most efficient, pleasant, and altogether enlightening Method that might be employed to that End were to begin recording those Thoughts within a Weblog. Yet seeing that the World is much populated by ‘Blogs, and the great many of them not of much Value either for Instruction or Entertainment, I thought me that it would be Diverting if I were to take upon my Self the Voice of whatever Novel or Poem or bit of Prose had been my principall Reading of the Day. Thus I sate  myself down, that I might write of my Day’s Events in the Voice of Mr. Defoe’s Novel which had been my main Reading for the Day before, yet I was interrupted in my Composition, and more of that presently.

While I was thus engag’d, my Wife, who had been visiting my in-Laws in Oak l’homme, call’d me upon the Telephon, to inform me that my Son with whom she had gone a Journey to the place I have just mention’d, had taken ill, and was running a fever of 102 Degrees.  She told me, in short, that she would return Home to-Morrow, in a coach, and would take him to a learn’d Doctor of Physick of our acquaintance in the after-Noon. This News so concerned me, and so frustrated my Designs for the evening—for I had been in fear of the porcine Influenza that had been in the Country at that Time—that I was sent into a Frenzy of Cleaning, and thus set the entire House into Order in an Hour’s desperate Cleaning, putting my Son’s Room a-right that Emerson—for that was his Name—might have an unmessy Place within which to rest, to play, and in all Ways to recover himself in the most Comfort possible. Secondly, I set mine and my wife’s Room a-right, making certain that the Bed was well-cover’d, for after my Son it was most certain that my Wife would fall ill next. And, finally, having put all these things in-to Readiness, I set myself to gather to-gether my Equipage for myself, that I might leave the House and avoid the Illness that was certain to come, at least for some Days. This seem’d most unmanly to me, yet it was Necessity, as I must teach my Students on Friday and that we not all be struck with that porcine Illness all at once.  Thus I set forth to take myself unto a Friend’s House and there to stay for a few Days, that I might be well until my Wife takes Ill, and  that then I might take care of both her and my Son until I my Self be taken Ill, in the hopes that she might make some Recovery before that time. But more of that later.