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the latest
waddle: good morning, wordpress - 10:36 a.m. , 2009-07-03 elaborate murder attempt - 2:56 p.m. , 2009-07-01 building a tractor in the basement - 10:42 a.m. , 2009-06-19 ask no questions tell just a few lies - 3:17 p.m. , 2009-06-09 my long lasting flavor really lasts long - 1:10 p.m. , 2009-06-04
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Yesterday was all about eels. Remember? Man, you never remember anything. Anyway, today is a new day, and today is all about hot dogs and sausages. Same vague shape but a VERY DIFFERENT STORY, since the last time I checked they don't serve eels at the ballpark. (Such a long bun it would be!) First off, I found this incredibly disgusting page of hot dog facts from the USDA. It is called "Focus on Hot Dogs"! Focus on hot dogs? I would, but my eyes are swollen shut from all the tequila I had to drink to blot out the horrible memory of having read this web page! Allow me to quote for you! "Mechanically Separated Meat (MSM) is a paste-like and batter-like meat product produced by forcing beef or pork bones, with attached edible meat, under high pressure through a sieve or similar device to separate the bone from the edible meat tissue." Also, "they are link-shaped and come in all sizes -- short, long, thin, and chubby." YOU BETCHA! Then I was making all these jokes about an imaginary disease called "hot dog lung," which I imagined could happen to people who worked at hot dog stands and had to breathe in hot dog vapors all day. (I don't think you have an adequate conception of how bored I was yesterday.) So I did a little research and found this: We report a patient with asthma who had status asthmaticus following inhalation of boiling hot dog vapors. The life and times of Harry the Sausage, which I found by Googling "breathing sausage." Because that would be a nice art project---a tiny motor sewn inside a sausage so that it appears to be breathing. You write the blah blah pretentious copy about the separation between the physical and the mechanical, flesh and technology; presto! you get a grant; and then it's six more months of hookers and cough syrup. (Hey, all of you who are real conceptual artists? Please don't beat me up, you know I am just kidding.) (You know you are a real wimp when you have to beg conceptual artists not to kick your ass.) GUILT, THE AMERICAN EMOTION I have so many deadlines. There is a book project. There is administrative stuff which requires me to meet with each member of my staff individually. There are the various committee chair things. And of course there are the day-to-day job duties. All of this means that I should be staying late at the office every day, in an effort to get ahead of the to-do list, but do I do this? No, I do not. At the end of the day I am so crabby I can barely speak, and it is like I have this big flashing sign in front of my eyes that says PAJAMAS - WINE - COUCH. Yesterday I had extra guilt because my mother called literally the minute I walked in the door, and I really did not want to talk to her. Not so much that I didn't want to talk to her as that I don't want to talk to anyone when I first get home, and my mom is always very social and talkative and does not require a whole lot of private time, which is probably why she is such a good mom, and the fact that I do require private time means that I would probably be a lousy mom. But maybe I could be one of those Artistic Moms who seems kind of glamorous and exotic, sharing secrets with my kid and initiating him/her into various grown-up mysteries at just the right times, and all of his/her friends would be secretly in love with me. (And you know you are a real idiot when you seek the future admiration of grade-school kids.) I am one of the top referrals for TURTLE ENEMA, although when I look back at that page I realize that I did not give you very much turtle enema information. Here is a more informative turtle enema page, and here is the saga of Indie and her medical struggles, which I became quite involved with this morning, all bleary-eyed in my robe. It ends happily, so don�t worry. And this turtle message board, about turtle coprophagia, has some Very Special Spelling and Syntax that you might enjoy. I am all conflicted about whether or not I like the work of this poet, the next "hot young thing," or as hot and as young as they come in the largely-ignored poetry world. I have searched out lots and lots of his stuff on the Web, because I decided I had better see for myself what all the hype was about (I guess I could just pony up for his book, but hey, I'm stingy that way) and I am of two (three) minds about the stuff. Some of it I like for its plainspokenness, the sort of simple but cozy group of words that feels like opening to the exact dictionary page or pressing a warm washcloth to your face. Things like "The black clouds/curl into mouths that rustle the trees" or "The sky fell into the telescope." But why go and muck this poem up with a leaden fragment at the end like "Their perfect white teeth"?
Oh, I am just being cranky. I know the temptation to wrap things up with the small dense steel cube of pronouncement, I have done it myself. I just think that too many poets (myself included) always want to say less less less, and sort of let tiny bits stand in for larger feelings, and while I am definitely not an advocate of wordiness (in poetry, that is; obviously I am an advocate of wordiness here on this dorky web page), I think we should be careful. Sometimes there is not a lot of there in something like "Their perfect white teeth," whereas there was plenty of it earlier in the poem. Am I making sense? I am not making sense. Of course, if I could properly express what I mean by this I would probably be hammering it out in some crazy-ass thousand-page screed about Contemporary Poetics, and believe me my hard drive is filled with abortive attempts at things just like that. Why do you let me go on like this? Seriously. Just gently put your hand over my mouth and kiss me on the forehead, and say, "If I take my hand off of your mouth do you promise to just use those lovely lips for drinking beer and cracking wise? No more dribbling on about poetry last lines and picking on poor Kevin, who does not in any way deserve your ill-informed commentary?" And I will look into your eyes and nod, and then we can go on with our lives like this paragraph never happened. LINK CITY, HERE WE COME Book of Mormon action figures. Intriguing sex toy. Vaguely work-safe but still, be careful, because I don't have room on my couch for your unemployed ass. If I may stay smutty for a moment longer...I stayed up too late reading reviews of porn films the other night. I am not even really all that fond of porn films. But the reviews are priceless. 6. What is your overall opinion of the film? How would you rate it on a scale of one to ten? This video truly does honor what porn is all about: A theatrical sex show. If you're tired of watching the old porn queens laying there faking orgasm and, instead, you want to see a really nice sex show this is it. It deserves a big fat 10. A Maoist review of the Spiderman movie. We will soar like drunken eagles. ---mimi smartypants is the greatest breakthrough in labor relations since the cat o'nine tails. back/forward |
