don't hate her when she gets up to leave

this has been happening a lot lately, but a song or smell or picture
lately has an extraordinary ability to take me back days, months,
years, to where my life used to be. the example that will start us
off today, is hearing 'two headed boy part 2' by neutral milk hotel.

suddenly, i'm a senior in college, newly ensconsed at 412 west foster
avenue. met jen, met shana, met bethany, and more cats than i had ever
seen before in one place. and it was strange music shared with me by
strangers, and i somehow knew life had turned a corner. it was fall
and in pennsylvania we had lots of leaves and people had fireplaces,
and barbecues to burn leaf piles, and i was all of 21, and the smell
of all those things was in the air. i realize now it was promise.

The New York Times > Books > A Windfall of Modern Poetry for Scholars

The New York Times > Books > A Windfall of Modern Poetry for Scholars:

this is just pretty amazing, says the guy with a new job that makes it even more interesting to him...

Nice man, this Mr. Danowski...

"Amassed over 30 years, the collection was stored first in a barn in Hertfordshire, England, and later in warehouses in London and Geneva. It is uncatalogued in any computer file and the only record of its holdings have until now been in Mr. Danowski's mind. He said that he could envision the library, virtually volume by volume, though he had never seen it all assembled. It was shipped to Atlanta in about 1,500 cardboard boxes and tea crates that filled two 40-foot-long and two 20-foot-long cargo containers.
The library has yet to be completely appraised by Emory. 'We place the value at $6 million to $7 million and counting,' Earl Lewis, the university provost, said. The gift was made earlier this year, but Emory announced it only this month because it took months for the university to determine what it had. "

"the child is dead."

it's monday night and i've decided to watch 'the omen' and type away
as i do so. why? because i'm kind of a baby when it comes to scary
movies, and this is one i knew well enough not to watch when i was a
kid. not sure 27 has me any more prepared.

turn off your cellphones and beepers, please. random dialogue from
the film will follow.

why do so many scary movies have trouble making kids on tricycles?
nothing good can come of a tricycle when you know it's that kind of
movie.

wow, gregory peck was a handsome man. i never really knew that, though
i had been told, because i rarely saw those movies in black and white
that someone like him would be in. did he dance with ginger rogers,
or was he in that movie where donna reed fell through the swimming
pool? i can't begin to guess. i think he was in that inherit the wind
movie though. those people all look the same.

"it's me. i'm appointed ambassador to great britian." [this can't end well.]

and i don't know who the hell lee remick is, but she "could be too
sexy for the white house."

england's really quite beautiful in these pictures, though.

introduce holly, cute nanny of potential trouble, who is almost
certain to meet a nasty end.

"look at me, damien. it's all for you." um, yeah. she just did.

it's really strange to see movies that you've known about for years,
and known to be supposedly scary. because when they're not, you feel
somehow let down. that said, i think i'm still a bit wary of 'the
amityville horror,' the only movie to ever really freak me out.

enter mysterious new nanny, sent by no one. spoooky. seems like a
mannish julie andrews type. "have no fear little one, i am here to
protect the." she's not letting him go to church!! she's satan's
governess!

one thing that's kind of strange is the languid pace these movies
take. i mean, i saw freddy vs. jason not too long ago, and people
were all stacked up by the opening credits. these people make a
leisurely visit to a safari just so little damien can frighten away a
heard of giraffes. giraffes?!

"baboons bite. keep all car windows closed." damn straight.

"wrong? what could be wrong with our child, robert? we're beautiful people."

"keep that scrum tight!" those brits and their rugby...

this poor priest who reminds me of gabriel birne is having no luck
persuading mr. thorn of anything, and probably won't last another 2
minutes. make that 30 seconds. ouch.

"profit is a dirty word no longer" says the headline on a newspaper
announcing the above mentioned priest's impaling.

tricycle scene -- quite good. if entirely predictable.

now all the 6 6 6 stuff is playing out, and that's about enough.

all in all, not a bad film, but i kind of wish it was remade on this site.

http://www.angryalien.com/


with bunnies.

though my new job may change things somewhat, one generally doesn't
spend much time in a bar discussing poetry...lucky me, though, i got
into a conversation with a good friend and was able to say 'robert
creeley' and see her face light up. he's just plain incredible, and
has been stuck in my head for years now.

i'm going to try to find the poem itself, but in the meantime, i think
i have it more or less memorized. he has really strange line breaks,
and so those will definitely be off, but the gist of it is here, i
think.

it's short. it's simple. it's perfect.

back and forth
across time
lots of things one needs
one's hand held for
keep walking
this is life.

a lot of words about very little

here i am sitting on a bench outside the coffee shop i've gone to for
nearly 5 years now, and it's clear that all my $1.25 cups of coffee
did more than simply enable me to make it to the train in the
morning...tommy, the proprieter and hardest working man in carroll
gardens, has installed a wireless internet router, which let's me sit
here, type, drink coffee, and wonder in words how i've come to another
sunday.

i suppose this may get old at some point, but i really don't see it
happening anytime soon. that said, the times magazine has a giant
article today about the rise of the blogger, and has chosen to feature
the rather hot wonkette - you kind of knew she'd be hot, didn't you?
it just seems right. i mean, if david brooks is so unhot, and if wolf
blitzer just makes you want to shoot yourself in the head, it's only
fair if that woman is attractive. i suppose now i should read some her
stuff.

see, that's 5 lines without saying ANYTHING yet. i mention the times
article, which i haven't read yet, because it kind of makes me wonder
what business i have sitting here, typing away, thinking perhaps
there's a point to said typing. i mean, unless you're putting recipes
for bacon online, what's the point, really?

anyway, when you have time on this busy sunday, check out the following:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/26/magazine/26BLOGS.html

and let me know what you think. i'm not sure my head can handle
reading it today.

curb your indecision

The New York Times > Opinion >larry david has advice

I'd like to address this to the Undecideds: I'm on to you. You may be fooling everyone else with your little "undecided" act, but you're not fooling me. You know perfectly well whom you're voting for. The only reason you say you're undecided is that it's a cheap ploy to get attention. How do I know? Because I'm the most indecisive person in the world. I set the template, baby, and you're not passing the smell test.

You want to see real undecided? Go out to dinner with me sometime. I'll show you undecided. I look at the menu for 20 minutes, ask everybody what they're ordering, and then, finally, after I copy someone, wind up dashing into the kitchen to tell the waiter I've changed my mind.

Do a little shoe shopping with me. I guarantee you won't be able to stand it. The black ones. No, the brown ones. No, the black ones. Several of my relationships have ended in shoe stores, with women slipping out, unnoticed, never to be seen again. I even got thrown out of a poker game once because I sat there, paralyzed, unable to decide whether or not to fold. It wasn't a pretty sight, but at least it was genuine, not a bluff, like you people.

Oh, I've observed you in action. I've sat next to you at dinner parties and watched while everyone talked themselves silly, trying to get you on board. But you wouldn't budge, would you? You almost seemed to take some pleasure from it, just like my 8-year-old when she makes me beg her to take her medicine, you rascals.

The other night I saw a whole gaggle of you on TV in a focus group. You really liked chatting with professional pollster Frank Luntz, didn't you? He seemed very interested in what you had to say. Afterward, I could imagine all of you piling into a bus and heading for Denny's to discuss your exciting evening with Frank. I could see all of you staying friends even after the election. Maybe go on some trips together. Perhaps a wine tour of Tuscany. On bicycles! Oh, the life of the Undecided. Too bad they can't hold these presidential elections more often. Ah, well, you'll just have to make do.

The truth is, Undecideds, you're getting on our nerves. We Decideds hate all the attention you're getting and that you're jerking us around. Anyone who can't make up his or her mind at this point in the campaign should forget about the election entirely, buy a pint of ice cream and get into bed.

We'd love to tell you to take a hike, but we're afraid to alienate you. If we really had any brains, we wouldn't spend another second on you, but on the people who can truly make a difference: the "unlikely" voters. And there are millions more of them than there are of you. Those people aren't after attention, they're just incredibly lazy. The only way they'll register to vote is if someone shows up at their door with a form. And then the only way they'll actually vote is if you carry them to the booth.

Not only are they lazy, they're also indifferent. They just don't believe that voting can have an effect on their lives. Well, it just so happens that right after I voted for the first time, I landed myself a big fat job in Hollywood, a biopsy came back benign and I met my future wife as soon as I walked out of the voting booth. Coincidence? You decide.

They want an Andrew Jackson to see a Jackson Pollock?!

twenty bucks for moma

I really don't know how i feel about this. on one hand, you can blow that much just walking down the street and blinking, but on another, that's just ridiculous.

atrios points out something rather interesting

Eschaton: "Bernard Shaw Debate Question

Bush, various times:

'I hug the mothers and the widows of those who may have lost their life in the name of peace and freedom.' - February 10, 2003

'I'm the person in this country that hugs the mothers and the widows if their son or husband dies.' - February 10, 2003

'I understand what it means to put somebody into combat. I know what it means to hug mothers and wives.' - January 29, 2003

'There's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids on the death of their loved ones...Having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug.' - December 2002

Danny Boy, this morning:

He's the one who hugs the widows and consoles the families of those who have sacrificed for this very great cause.

Debate question:

Mr. Bush, just how many widows have you hugged?"

that morton salt girl was hot

so, when it rains...,
friends i love are meeting me daily with unexpected but much deserved happiness. most times it's a person. sometimes, it's a bike.

it's nice to think that things are getting better when they get better for you alone, but occasionly a wagonloaed of coincidence lines up and you just get happy for those around you. if you're extra lucky, you've landed a job for yourself.

the lesson, or thought at least, is that the things that we actually put any effort in, the things we let into our lives in any way that matters, count.

this damned computer's battery lasts longer than mine does...while it is still at 52%, i am dwindling, and it's only just before 1 in the morning. maybe writing needs to happen in the morning. maybe i need a new battery.

so terribly un-amish

since my last laptop inexplicably died, and somewhere around the time i found new reasons for and interest in words and language, i decided i needed to take this all more seriously to both post silly stuff like this to amuse myself and others, and to try to get back into writing. i have more respect for words than i do a lot of the people in this world, though the ones i keep company with lately share a similar point of view, or at least believe in something.

defying all the laws of al gore's first internet and amish tradition, i'm sitting in my apartment typing away, and somehow when i'm done, this will be sent off, sans wires. the kid in me still thinks that's pretty fucking cool. i mean, really, go airport, and go steve jobs, though he could stand to change thoses jeans once in awhile, being a billionaire and all.

i used to scribble half asleep, and i suppose now i'll bang out things replete with typos and reasons i should not think myself a writer at all, but somewhere something should emerge. i have a pretty good feeling about that, because these days -- irish, or no -- i seem to have a good feeling about a lot of things.

on the stereo now: loudon wainwright III. rufus' dad, and a pretty good songwriter. better than coldplay, even.

georgous photographs

from the 9/11 lights installation

in which i am told by my new boss to go home, because it's past 5:30

my first day.

the funny thing is, i don't want to go home yet. i think i'm going to like it here. more to come.

last days

are rarely simple. much to do here, and somehow i feel it necessary to note that. time waster, time waster, time waster.

later on

it's been nearly three years since september 11 changed too much of this city, and later, too much of the world around us. i've been thinking about it alot recently, and don't pretend to be alone in this thinking.

my reaction soon after what happened happened was a visual, rather than a written, one. i gave a photograph i had taken a long time ago to 'here is new york' one of the more remarkable things to spring up out of that awful time. it won't let me link to it, but it can be found at www.hereisnewyork.org . it's number 5569. maybe more on it in the future, but i wanted to be sure i got it up there while it was in my head.

makes one nostaligic for chelsea

what in the name of karl rove are the bush girls talking about?!? somebody order a drug test...

Text of a speech by Jenna and Barbara Bush delivered Tuesday at the Republican National Convention, as transcribed by e-Media Inc.:


JENNA BUSH: It's great to be here. We love Arnold. Isn't he awesome?
Thanks to him, if one of us ever decides to marry a Democrat, nobody can complain, except maybe our grandmother, Barbara. And if she doesn't like it, we would definitely hear about it.

We already know she doesn't like some of our clothes, our music, or most of the TV shows we watch.

Gammie, we love you dearly, but you're just not very hip.

She thinks "Sex and the City" is something married people do, but never talk about.

We spent the last four years trying to stay out of the spotlight. Sometimes, we did a little better job than others.

We kept trying to explain to my dad that when we are young and irresponsible, well, we're young and irresponsible.

BARBARA BUSH: Jenna and I are really not very political, but we love our dad too much to stand back and watch from the sidelines.

We realized that this would be his last campaign, and we wanted to be a part of it.

Besides, since we've graduated from college, we're looking around for something to do for the next few years.

Kind of like dad.

JENNA: Our parents have always encouraged us to be independent and dream big. We've spent a lot of time at the White House, so when we showed up the first day, we thought we had it all figured out. But apparently my dad already has a chief of staff, named Andy.

BARBARA: When your dad's a Republican and you go to Yale, you learn to stand up for yourself.

I knew I wasn't quite ready to be president, but number two sounded pretty good.

Who is this man they call Dick Cheney?

JENNA: I think I know a lot about campaigns. After all, my grandfather and my dad have both run for president, so I put myself in charge of strategy. Then I got an angry call from some guy named Karl.

BARBARA: We knew we had something to offer. I mean, we've traveled the world; we've studied abroad. But when we started coming home with foreign policy advise, dad made us call Condi.

JENNA: Not to be deterred, we thought surely there's a place for strong willed, opinionated women in communications. And next thing we know, Karen's back.

BARBARA: So we decided the best thing we could do here tonight would be to introduce somebody we know and love.

JENNA: You know all those times when you're growing up and your parents embarrass you? Well, this is payback time on live TV.

BARBARA: Take this. I know it's hard to believe, but our parents' favorite term of endearment for each other is actually Bushy.

And we had a hamster, too. Let's just say ours didn't make it.

JENNA: But, contrary to what you might read in the papers, our parents are actually kind of cool. They do know the difference between mono and Bono. When we tell them we're going to see Outkast, they know it's a band and not a bunch of misfits. And if we really beg them, they'll even shake it like a Polaroid picture.

BARBARA: So, OK, maybe they have learned a little pop culture from us, but we've learned a lot more from them about what matters in life, about unconditional love, about focus and discipline.

They taught us the importance of a good sense of humor, of being open-minded and treating everyone with respect.

And we learned the true value of honesty and integrity.

JENNA: When you grow up as the daughters of George and Laura Bush, you develop a special appreciation for how blessed we are to live in this great country.

We are so proud to be here tonight to introduce someone who read us bedtime stories, picked up car pool, made us our favorite peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cheered for us when we scored a goal, even when it was for the wrong team.

BARBARA: Someone who told us we actually looked cute in braces, always welcomed our friends and was there waiting when we came home at curfew.

JENNA: Ladies and gentlemen, one of the two most loving, thoughtful people we know.

BARBARA: Your president and our dad, George W. Bush.

scary wife of evil robot vice president

wWw.gopconvention.com: "She is author or co-author of seven books, including Kings of the Hill (second edition, 1996), a book about figures from Henry Clay to Sam Rayburn who played powerful roles in the House of Representatives. She wrote this book with her husband, who was a Congressman from Wyoming from 1979 to 1989. Mrs. Cheney's 1995, Telling the Truth (Simon & Schuster, paperback, 1996), analyzed the effect of postmodernism on study in the humanities.
Two of Mrs. Cheney's works are books on American history for children. The first, America: A Patriotic Primer, released in May 2002, is an alphabet book for children of all ages and their families that celebrates the ideas and ideals that are the foundations of our country. Her second children's book, A Is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women, published September 16, 2003, tells the story of women's contributions to American history. Mrs. Cheney's net proceeds from both books are being donated to charity. "

oh, she also wrote this one: Sisters, a racey western novel with...gasp...lesbian sex in it. almost enough to make you like her.

The New York Times - Serving Canapes, Then Recalling the 107th Floor

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > kind of moving article in the times about how this convention has people in our town from out of town, talking about things they weren't here for, and the people whose job it is to stand there and keep quiet. i'm not sure i'd have been able to.

By DAN BARRY, NYT

To be a banquet worker is to be invisible. Do not engage customers in chitchat. Just collect the discarded shrimp tails, keep the cheese platters fresh and know how to pose simple questions - "Hors d'oeuvre?" - so unobtrusively that you might as well be a phantom.

These rules hold true no matter how often out-of-town customers turn a certain jagged phrase into a political rally cry, and no matter how often their bar-banter invocation of that phrase, September 11th, sends you back. You ask if they'd like another mojito, and you say nothing more.

Monzur Ahmed, who has been managing a buffet table this week for several Republican National Convention parties at the Noche restaurant in Times Square, says nothing as speakers use September 11th to justify four more years for their candidate. He tells no one about his life at Windows on the World, the glittery restaurant on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center's north tower, or about the 79 friends and colleagues who died, including a beloved uncle.

....

A few minutes before Rudolph W. Giuliani began talking of September 11th at a political event down at Madison Square Garden, they decided to go home, to places that most delegates would not be visiting: Harlem, and Woodside, and Elmhurst.

say it with a stamp

from the smoking gun. the above link is yet another reason for people to stop e-mailing and, um, blogging, and pick up a pen and paper. through stamps.com, you can now print your own stamps with whatever kind of image you like, save most things dirty. my head is spinning with the possibilities, and i am equally torn between bacon and, well, bacon.