deficit

I wonder, if you sat down and calculated all the debt in all the countries in the world and compared this to the amount of money currently in existence, which side the balance would be on?

story idea: a village, doesn't know about eclipses.


don't know about money?

the birth of the prison

I have finished reading 'Discipline and Punish.' I got very bored about halfway through, but there is some odd hangup I have that does not allow me to leave a book unfinished without feeling very, very guilty about it. It's just as well that this is the case, since the only part that made the time I spent reading this book mildly worthwhile was in the last thirty pages or so.

I think Msr. Foucault and I will now be ending our association for a while.

neighbor, hamas, developing story, star trib headline

(ignore this, they're just notes to remind myself of something that i wanted to write down later)

on fog

sometimes
when it rains
steam rises from the pavement
and I wonder
if there be dragons
beneath our city sidewalks

worries

the very rare: an actual post

What really frightens me about the current state of the economy is that it seems like there is no one who understands how this happened, or how bad it will be possible for it to get. From everything I'm hearing, it seems to me quite feasible that there could be a global depression.

Now, that doesn't make any sense. It shouldn't be possible for everyone to not have enough money all at once; if someone doesn't have it, then someone else should, right? But apparently it doesn't work like that.

My question is: how did we let people who didn't know what they were doing do this?

choice

choosing words is a
tricky business

you have to remember
someone else might
have used them
first

the business of love is cruelty

I don't like love
very much

leastways;
there is a lot to be said
about it

and I do not want
to say any of it.

busy

hello, operator?
can you help me?
this banality is killing me

(please hang up and try again)

solutions

up against the wall
back's on the ropes
(and we don't really think about it)

but when it is our turn to face the firing squad;
what then, mother?
what then?

comma

there is a lot of poetry
about sex
(and drugs and rocknroll)
and these are the things
that we know about
generation x, write-what-you-know
(to teach is to command)
(are you x?)
beat poet, they'll call you
the times
you will be of the times, a comma
on the page of history
that we are all writing together

but there is
a willow tree
drooping down into the swamp
just there
behind him
and no one
is writing
about that.

my fair lady

words words words
i'm so sick of words
i get words all day through
first from him; now from you
is that all you blighters can do?
--eliza doolittle


(ouch)

geography

initially,
he was so concerned
with the dimensions
he observed in those similar
(simian?--and oh! aren't they
lifelike?)
beings that people
--if they could be said to do so--
the space surrounding
that he failed to observe
the space within broadening
and lengthening
and generally subjecting itself
to the tectonics of man's
ingenuity

secondarily,
he became so worried
about the state
observed in the earth
(dearth?--and oh! isn't it a
shame?)
on which variously running, walking
he was standing
--if his many motions could be contained in passivity--
that he dedicated the rest of his time
to measuring the minimal form
of impact

finally,
he became so preoccupied
with the precipitous expansion
(expression?--and oh! isn't it
ugly?)
that was taking place internally
--if it could be said so literally--
that he failed to notice
the space without sinking
and emptying
and generally being subjected
to the tectonics of man's
creativity.



I think most of this was written in '06, but in pencil, on a piece of notebook paper that has since been smudged and battered and subjected (unintentionally) to all manner of indignities. I played with it a little over the summer, but couldn't finish the first or third stanzas; and then finally I got really annoyed with having it sit around for this long, and just finished them.
I don't really like it, but now it's out of my system and I can move on to (bigger and better?) things.

fortune

It's no particularly profound statement that the fortunes one gets in fortune cookies generally aren't fortunes. One my favourites is this: "Only those willing to attempt the absurd can achieve the impossible." Another is "Minimize expectations to avoid being disappointed," (although I probably shouldn't have listed it as a favourite on my application to Princeton four years ago ...)

The point is, however, that while these are great, they just aren't fortunes. They're maxims, or advice, or just observations in general, but they certainly don't tell me what's going to happen to me. Occasionally they tell me things about myself: "You have a keen sense of humour and love a good time." (I do? Really? Why didn't I know before?), and even more occasionally they compliment me: "Rarely do great beauty and great virtue dwell together as they do in you," (quite undeservedly, I might add). Sometimes they're unfathomable: "You tend to have deeper thoughts than you are able to express to others." Well. Okay. Thanks. I'll try to express that. And sometimes they're just arrant nonsense: "Conceptualize. Organize. Sell. Then Do." Wait ... what?

This is the way of things, and is perfectly acceptable. So you will understand why I find myself disturbed by a trend I've noticed of late for my fortunes to ... well, actually be fortunes.

This is generally uninformative: "You will travel far and wide," but sometimes they concatenate in mysterious (and creepy) ways. For example, consider the following series:

"Your natural charm will attract someone special." "Someone is interested in you. Keep your eyes open." (Because you want to make sure they stay away?) "You will soon receive an unusual gift." "He who loves you will follow you," and, finally, "You will soon be in a land of sunshine and happiness."

Okay. So. I'm going to be stalked ... and killed. That's what I'm getting from this. I spent a little while looking over my shoulder (for the sunshine and happiness, obviously), and then I got this: "Better signs are approaching," which seemed to be a sort of meta-statement about how I was going to get better fortunes than before.

This turned out to be true. That was followed by "Wake up. You are under the lucky star now," which, if completely practically useless, at least does seem to be a "better sign." Although, apparently, I have only one lucky star, as opposed to most people, who have lucky stars (note the plural).

Alas. It was not to be. This was followed by the oblique: "You're doomed to a life with a green thumb and an [sic] Midas touch." Which sounds very poetic, I'm sure, but doesn't actually make any sense: a green thumb doesn't mean you like plants, it means you're good with them. And I don't happen to consider turning plants to gold being good with them.

However, I think they're really beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel. And I'd really rather they stuck to advice and sayings (such bits of wisdom as "It is much easier to be critical than to create"), rather than trying to predict my future.

Mostly, I was very amused by the recent: "You will have gold pieces by the bushel." Well, that will certainly be useful in the 21st century. And where, pray, am I going to get these gold pieces? An unexpected windfall? A pirate great-great-great-great-great-great-great-uncle that no one knew about?

Perhaps I'd be better off listening to my most recent fortune: "Free advice is usually worth what you paid for it."

do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.


Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

--dylan thomas