So, I just ordered the Complete Works of Plato and the first two volumes of Bloom County:  The Complete Library.  Life is good.

     I see that Dmitry Nabokov has published The Original of Laura, which amounts to a pile of note cards roughly edited to appear as the fragment of a novel.  I've written before of my altogether irrelevant opinion that Nabokov the younger ought not to have messed with the thing, but alas and alack here it is for all the world to marvel over and gawk at.  Let's not delude ourselves into thinking that we have here something along the lines of The Trial or The Castle.  My admittedly fleeting look through the volume left me with the impression not so much of a fragmentary novel as a collection of notes for a fragment yet to be written.  What the hell - Nabokov it seems has been blessed with fans, and as all know, fans are entitled to anything they want... 

     Yes, yes, I know, I haven't been around here in some time.  Mail piled up behind the door, dust gathered in clumps on all the furniture, and the cable's been disconnected.  I suspect a squirrell got loose in here at some point.  Oh well, so it goes.  Been working working working, and now that's winding down as the winter break approacheth - yes, I get a winter not a summer break.  'Tis all good, you know.
     That's not why I write for you my long-suffering patient dear readers and only friends.  No no no, I write because of the one and only comment to this here rant of a post [as always, you have to scroll down to the bottom of the page to find the post in question].  Now, this piece ain't my most coherent, but I think the point sound and thus I stand by it.  The comment, however, is a wonder, a masterpiece of...well...of something as yet unclassified.  I must, at the risk of causing you pain, reproduce it here in full:

Share my secret:::What historical figure did you reincarnate??

The voice you hear in your head is the power of the Gods. It's a remote technology, like a computer, perhaps functioning on some frequency, and it can listen and talk to everyone in the universe simultaneously. What the Gods taught the children was the truth:::God is everywhere, and as I will remind you:::If you want to go to heaven you have to be good. Even the antient Gods don't have the ability to listen to people's thoughts themselves. They taugh we were all made in their image:::I expect they need this "Artificial Intelligence" to relay what people think. It is a tool, and the Gods use their tools to test people with temptation:::It will role-play people in your life:::Parents, friends, spouses, and employers, all in an attempt to test people with temptation. Ionically, it does the very same thing to those people whom you think you're hearing, except in that individual's unique way:::We are all "managed" by the God's technology. There are no secrets with this technology. But this "agent of the Gods" can do more than just communicate. It can force thoughts into people's heads, force behaviors onto their bodies. It can turn healthy cells in your body into cancerous cells. It is absolute power. And this is just the beginning.

The Gods favor the children most among all the people due to their innocence and purity. But society and the God's tools are corrupting the children at a progressively younger age, a reflection of our collectively increasing disfavor and yet another clue illustrating we live in a constantly deteriorating environment. Children who sucessfully repair their relationship with the Gods ascend into heaven. This often takes multiple lives of hard work and proper behavior in the face of adversity to achieve. Adults to whom it is offered enter clone hosting, thinking they are ascending into heaven. The Gods tempt people, selling them as one in the same, but one is good while the other is evil. In their desperation the disfavored subscribe to this temptation, making their task even more difficult than before due to the evil they incurr in the process. And their corruption will cost the disfavored, for they will be reincarnated as a lesser life form into an ever deteriorating world, sucess becoming ever more alluding with each passing life. The hole they've dug for themselves is even deeper than the one that existed from their prior lives, ensuring it will take even more time and work to fix their problems with the Gods. And for many there may not be enough time left.

Ours is an envionment where evil is perceived to be rewarded while good is punished. As with everything the Gods have a reason for creating this perception:::: People who fall on the good side of the good/evil scale have more favor, and when they do something wrong the Gods punish them BECAUSE THEY WANT THEM TO LEARN. The Gods want them to receive this feedback in hope they make corrections and begin to behave appropriately. The Gods DON'T like evil and refuse to grant this immediate feedback. EVERYBODY pays for what they do wrong, only evil people must wait until their next life before they will experience the wrath of the Gods, manifested in their placement as a lower form of life into environments with increased/enhanced temptations, like the United States or ghettos therein. Sadly, this allows the Gods to position this perception of evil rewarded as temptation, one which they use as an EXTREMELY effective corruptor.

The Gods suggest they can create paradise for those with their favor. I argue they create misery for those without:::: Our celebrity culture is temptation. It creates a distraction which consumes people, sometimes for life. Certainly it costs them precious years which could be spent repairing their relationship with the Gods, time that ultimately goes wasted. Do you really think Frank Sinatra lived to be 84 years old? In fact the "Chairman of the Board" had a new crowd to entertain in the late 80s/early 90s. These people are clone hosts. Now, there is no thing as "black and white" with the Gods. This technology they invented is far, far too dynamic. Expect they require most to stay for a period of time, for I suspect actively (knowingly) engaging in this evil incurrs at an accelerated rate as compared to "carte blanche" given regarding successive clone hosts. They remain until they achieve a pre-determined level of disfavor, incurring evil in their misguided celebration of "earning", at which time they are ultimately reincarnated, perhaps because they eventually learned this truth I am sharing with you and began to repair their relationship. The Gods recruit most for clone hosting when people are young, in their late teens or twenties, when people are eager to hurt others for what they perceive to be the benefits achieved through "earning". And before they leave they give the Gods "carte blanche":::"Do anything you want. I give my full approval." Depending on their level of disfavor the Gods take them to heart. Because of this these people STILL INCUR EVIL FROM THIS LIFE DESPITE BEING REINCARNATED AND LIVING AS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PERSON. And incurring this amount of evil may likely push many over the edge into Damnation. What are the God's standards for offering clone hosting? Sociobility? Many tactics in various eras are used to gain approval, duress during the Vietnam draft being a good example. They liked Heath Ledger. Not enough to allow him to escape without the evil of "Dark Knight" and the horrific wickedness that was the recruiting tool "Brokeback Mountain". But now he is out. And irregardless of how old he is now, reincarnated 10, 15 years ago, he now is no longer incurring evil from this life. So many others cannot say the same.

This is Planet Reverse Positioning. Sucess IS NOT a sign of favor. It is just a unique temptation targetted towards a different level of disfavor. Considering our roots as peasantry people should be particularly alarmed at this tactic. Clone hosting is like money:::A different level of disfavor and its associated temptation. Money is in better position to learn more quickly than those without, for the associations and wealth-based freedom enables them access to information. Unfortunately, those who fall for this temptation of clone hosting are likely returned to their original level of disfavor once they are reincarnated, punishment for this evil, and they have to start from scratch.

The Gods send the clue that the Jews are HIGHLY corruptable with the movie "The Ten Commandments". Jesus was the "King of the Jews". Typical for the disfavored, once goals were achieved and sufficient damage was incurred the Gods allowed it to end, and the Jews killed him. Our society's values are bestowed by (a reflection of) the God's:::Punitive and reward-based. Contrary to Jesus's teaching's you will NOT be forgiven and you have to earn your way into heaven BY BEING RESPECTABLE AND DECENT!!! Forgiveness/savior was the primary temptations the Gods used Christianity to create. Middle-America's anti-Semitic attitudes are a clue regarding Christianity. Europe shaped like a sheep is symbolic for the slaughter that is Christinaity. There is no such thing as a free ride. Just as you have to earn a living by working so must you earn your own salvation by repairing your relationship with the Gods. As we learned from religious/morality education during our formitable years:::If you want to go to heaven you have to be good. The only savior that will exist in our lives is ourselves. The Gods offer clues in life::::Be it school, work, etc., you have to do the work for yourself and when you do something wrong you get punished. Cheating is a subsegment and speaks directly to the temptation of "priveledge", one we have seen used effectively when the United States preyed on the disfavored with the so-called "stimulus package". As like so many of you, Jesus did everything the Gods tempted him with. His legacy of whorism was inherited from his parents:::Mary was no virgin. Rather, she was a prostitute, and when he grew up Jesus met someone like his mother. This is a cruel joke the Gods play on Latinos, similar to the rape and subsequent "missionary work" by the Spanish. Baptism does not allieviate "original sin". Rather, baptism PLACES original sin by indoctrinating these children into this evil religion, much like circumcision was a method to inflict early damage/mutilation and make (permanant) accention just that much more difficult, another hurdle one must overcome. Body ornamentation (tattoos/piercing), celebrated in Africa and elsewhere among disfavored peoples/cultures also violates the body the Gods gave us in their image, quite opposite to the positive attitudes the disfavored hold regarding this practice. Like Jesus the Second Coming of Christ will be evil. He will look like a savior in this demented society while the Anti-Christ will speak of a different gospel, one that tries to restore the norms and mores which the Gods originally blessed upon the people which made life decent, looking like a tyrant in the process. He will be viewed as the "bad guy" when really he is the one trying to save the world. There may be a phoney offering, a theatrical production which accurately follows the Book of Revelations. Actually positioning demands it:::::Christianity is positioned to be the one true religion. And those who follow its teachings will have limits imposed ensuring their stay will be minimal, for they don't think correctly and therefore don't behave appropriately. This describes many "sinners" in today's society because they refuse to change their behavior.

The Gods created the perception "Italians are stupid.", ensuring a slow learning curve, to justify using them to accomplish goals throughout the transitional 20th century. It took an extraordinarily long time for them to learn this truth I teach due to this artificial handicap. These people are SO extremely disfavored, but today's positioning says differently, much to people's confusion, for they think money is the ultimate sign of favor:::Good food, good music, history of warmongering, Catholics, Christianity HQ, Noah's Flood event, propensity towards violence, raped by outsiders, mild Meditereanean climate, so many other issues which enhance life/contentment in Italy/Meditereanean and ensure few if any seek more, a necessary step for finding the path and repairing your relationship with the Gods. Contentment never motivated anyone. I'd also like to remind you the Noah's Flood event ocurred in the Meditereanean region::::Global sea levels rose with the end of the ice age, Atlantic Ocean broke through the Straight of Gibralter, killing untold millions. The God's timed their corruption and sin to correlate this act as punishment. Everyone who failed to ascend and remained on Earth past a certain date will be forced to deal with this positioning::::A ceiling is in place. This serves the God's goal of minimizing the percentage of potential candidates as society deteriorates, much as "instant gratification" did beginning in the 80s:::It will take multiple lives for the disfavored to fix their relationship with the Gods and ascend, and many have been conditioned not to have the patience for it. Other issues force limits/ceilings upon candidates:::Abortion, homosexuality, promiscuity, Christianity, godlessness, Whether behavior is involuntary or based on freewill depends on one's level of disfavor, as well as other complex factors:::::May I remind you about the coercitive envionment the Gods created in the 20th century, specifically to create a temptation that few Italians (or their associates) would overcome:::"We're in control. If you want to be a part of it you'll do what you're told.". Early-mid 20th entury positioning was infallible.

Both Africa and the Medittereanean are regions which have sexual issues. This is a sign of gross disfavor once you understand that females are the God's favored gender. Muhammad's (Mohammed's) polygamy halfway throught his life as a prophet was preditory, designed to corrupt. Now a huge percentage of Muslims believe in male superiority and that the abuse of women (polygamy) is God's will. Female genital mutilation is still practiced in Africa. Black misogyny is the most eggregious example in United States. Consistant with Planet Reverse Positioning, in Africa blacks are being punished with AIDS for their sexual promiscuity in hope they learn and correct their behavior, ironically a good sign considering their hope. Blacks are highly suspectable to temptation. As a result they need a strict, disiplined religion like Islam. They can't afford to be Christians. It is one of the benefits bestowed upon their people, and other groups could greatly benefit as well. They need to recognize the importance of a good relationship with the Gods, embrace this benefit and remain true to their faith. Vailing is tradition for some, practical for others, one which aids in the men's self control among some cultures. Much like the Jews who killed Jesus, like the bigots who oppose immigration there is a reason embraced by the masses and the real purpose, displaying the intent of the Gods::::Closure on the life of Jesus Christ for sufficient damage was inflicted; The Gods clue to purebloods that they should not abandon their motherland for this dumping ground for rejects that is the United States.

The Holocaust was a clue the Gods utilize scapegoatting as a strategy. Why did the Gods punish the Jews with the Holocaust? Was it for the destruction of cultures which Christianity caused? Perhaps they corrupted the Jews "after the fact", telling 19th/early 20th century Jews that Jesus "earned" immortality for the Jews by destroying the European and other cultures? The German destruction of European churches/cathederals during WWII is a clue. Note::::The Gods wanted to keep the Catholic stronghold in Italy, ensuring they could use this tool against these disfavored for many years to come. There is so much Godlessness today, but one day people will flock back to houses of worship out of desperation, and the Gods ensured the Catholic Church would be Italian's destination. Planet Reverse Positioning:::The Nazis were the "good guys". So are the Muslims/Palestinians, however corrupted some are due to polygamy. Contentment never motivated anyone::::Except perhaps for slavery, the Jews never saw more of their children ascend into heaven than during the Holocaust. The Gods subsequently used revenge for the Holocaust as temptation::::"Your Italian brothers have a tool, a special power which can achieve sweet revenge. Are you interested??" In the aftermath of the Holocaust the Gods tested the Jews with the temptation of revenge, an offer which many gladly accepted. There was positioning behind the counter-culture movement. How did the Gods telepathically "sell" this rapid deterioration of decency to the Italians and Jews and compell them to fall on their swords as preditors? If the Jews only would have emersed themselves in Judism the Gods would have "protected" them from the raveges of temptation. Judism may be the one superior religion in all the world, and the Jews wouuld have been wise taking refuge in this exceptional benefit bestowed by the Gods rather than looking for the easy way out.

Much as with the Jesus event, the Gods use the disfavored to prey on each other. The Gods use the evil that men do, man's inhumanity towards man to accomplish strategic testing/punishment/etc goals::::The Germans fell for this temptation by following the preditor/corruptor-Austrians (Hitler). Without this Austrian the Holocaust may never have happened. Nor may have World War II. What the Germans did was wrong. They fell for temptation and failed to have empathy for the disfavored. Economic desperation, not wisdom nor enlightenment, dominated in Germany. The Gods send many clues suggesting the great favor of the Germans (regionally). I think the Cold War's Berlin Wall dividing Germany into east and west was a clue suggesting this (reverse positioning). I suspect the Holocaust was used to "level the playing field" in Europe, for the Germans had far too much favor to be included in the agenda planned for their neighbors otherwise, and they would have been suspiciously out of place, providing a clue for the disfavored which would have been difficult for the Gods to position away.

Militancy in Africa is consistant with the Iraqi example, as was slavery and the KKK here in America:::Fear enforces proper behavior. Without it we see what happens as a result of gross/morbid disfavor:::::AIDS, crack babies, dead young men in gangland retaliation killings. The same principle was true in Europe and throughout the world for centuries:::People whom lived under iron fists were conditioned to think the right way. As a result they taught their children appropriately and experienced a higher percentage of children ascending into heaven. Our preditory envionment of "freedom" was the primary purpose the Gods had when implimenting this strategy that is the United States, one which they used to spred the cancer of democracy and westernization throughout the world. And the Gods use this tool that is America to prey on the disfavored both at home and abroad:::Much like the ghetto, America in general experiences a heightened level of temptation due to its citizen's disfavor. Red white & blue IS BAD FOR YOU!!! Planet Earth is not about living. Planet Earth is about being tested. And contentment never motivated anyone. Italians HATE Africans because of their invasion/rape of their motherland. The Gods did this SPECIFICALLY to strategically position the punishment of the most disfavored peoples::: The Gods have used the ghettos of America as a reincarnation dumping ground. This may be temporary/cyclical, illustrated by the Italians who fell for temptation and parlayed their own civil war into the Black Wars of the 80s and 90s, in addition to the "thug life"/gangster state of mind. Ironically, it was these same Italians and their cooperating associates who were reincarnated into the ghetto as crack babies and gangster thugs for this event. There is justice in the universe. This is how the Gods do business. Once you recognize the patterns you will understand the other clues they offer to the people. Of course it may be more of a permanant change, indicated by the enhanced temptations in these neighborhoods, for the Gods have created these enviornments so riddled with temptation few can escape/overcome. Don't be suprised if after being gunned down in the ghetto the next stop for the 20th century Italian-Americans & friends was AIDS in Africa, punishment for their promiscuity and deviacy. Media report on a crackdown on child prostitution. "(The pimps use coersion to prey on the children, etc, etc, other "conclusions" offered through the media.)" What a degenerate liar. These kids WANT to turn tricks. They LOVE the idea of having a pimp. It is celebrated in their "culture". Yet another legacy of the evil inflicted by the Italians. Maybe this was the destination for these deviates after AIDS in Africa, ironically. Just like black neighborhoods, the legalization of marijuana will make drugs available on every street corner, even in the suburbs. White's affluent suburbs will become just like the ghetto. The patriarchal cancer spread throughout Europe because of Christianity, of which the majority of policy makers were Italian men, destroying what pockets of favored matriarchy existed. Expect the largest landowner in Europe and the continent's original superpower also played a major role in African slavery.

Even the Old Testiment is not to always be taken literally, but the Gods do offer clues throughout to help the disfavored:::The apple is a tool of temptation used to corrupt Adam and Eve and cast them out of the Garden of Eden. There is another lesson to be learned from this passage, and it is quite similar to the vailing issue and the discourse over women's attire which ultimately died in the 70s:::Women are responsible for and control the fate of mankind. The deterioration of society and mankind is all their fault. Females are sexually promiscuous like men, too often corrupted like the opposite gender, and the result is a reduction/minimization of mankind's collective level of favor, a very important step necessary for the Gods to justify the Apocalypse. They need to understand this responsibility, their favor amongst all the people. Instead they have embraced masculinization::::Girls play organized sports, engage in casual sex like men. The trend is away from traditional girl toys, like dolls, which often during playtime helped crate positive thoughts, enabling the Gods to enlighten the favored gender and illustrate wisdom, ocassionally leading to the path towards ascention. The relationship between men and women have always been complimentary:::The men shelter and protect women from the evils of this life, ensuring the women have a REAL opportunity to ascend when reincarnated, while the women help the ignorant men understand by sharing their wisdom imparted by the Gods. The tendency away from sexuality as one grows older is an example. Brilliance and insight granted to Eastern cultures and religions::::Not for Europeans. If once existed, now crushed by Christianity. Replaced by preditory Mediterreanean patriarchy. Europeans:::The most disfavored people on Earth. The first to experience the end of their God-granted favor. Reverse positioning.

Think about what I say. Consider what I teach. When I am no longer here or no longer teach the Gods ARE NOT going to share with you. Even if you doubt now you need to remember the principles that I teach because the Gods ARE NOT going to be generous with the disfavored. Society is going to become disturbingly ugly as we approach the Apocalypse due to spiralling, runaway disfavor, WHETHER CONCEALED IN REVERSE POSITIONING OR NOT (like Christianity, like money), and you are going to be on your own. I do not know when this will occurr, but it is the God's way to grant some time after a learning event such as this before they end on Planet Earth. Make the decision to always be good and never look back. Until you do this technology will employ tactics to test your resolve:::Ridicule, beligerance, doubt and refusal to abandon what people perceive to be their "investment". Either you make that decision now and accept the punishment for the sins of this life or you will pay for it in the next, reincarnated into a similarly low role, ensuring another wasted opportunity, or as an even lower form of life, and hope will begin to slip away. Young people who understand yet still wish to have children MUST begin to do the right thing and work on fixing their relationship with the Gods, accepting the punishment for the evil they have done in their lives. Without this progress they won't do the correct thing for their children and ultimately cause even more problems for themselves by continuing this behavior. You need to be willing to tell the Gods "No." when tested with temptation, and accepting punishment and putting it in your past is the only way you will suceed as parent. You need to do the best, teach your children and give them the very best chance to ascend if you want similar parents in your next life. "You benefit only if your team wins." The Gods use my family's betrayal and my subsequent "failure" as a clue, as well as their subscription to the archaic positioning that is predirtory "earning". You benefit if you suceed as a parent and your child ascends:::These parents may subsequently be reincarnated with a similar quality opportunity. If you do well for your children now your parents will do well for you whem reincarnated. Therein lies the explanation for my morbidly disfavored family's poor child rearing. Pray daily. Think appropriately. Impart these charecteristics upon your children. Too many are confident, unaware of the God's awesome powers or their status as antients. Others may fall prey to their positioning. Be humbled, God-fearing and beware of the God's temptations, for everyone is tested to evaluate their worthiness.

The package is delivered. The obligation is fulfilled. The damage was minimized. Why don't you fuck off now?

Priceless, simply priceless.  I like especially the last line.  It's the clearest and most direct sentence of the whole thing.  As for the rest, I remain puzzled as to what it signifies.  It's as though an ersatz theology has been languaged out by the love child of Emily Post and Mahatma Ghandi.  Whatever it may be, it is the genius of the internet made manifest for all to see....   

     So, if you expand the war in Afghanistan; continue the practice of 'extraordinary rendition' - that's outsourcing torture don't you know; suck up to every tyrant in the universe; bend over for the Chinese; snub the Dalai Llama; and apologize like a spineless ninny for several months; if you do all this, you too just might win a Nobel Peace Prize...

     So, inspected a roof earlier tonight.  It was steep and big - in other words, it was cool - but, alas, it was undamaged. 

     I was by turns indifferent and elated when I heard that Ted Kennedy had died.

     Every night I pray for hail and wind. 

     Just requested M A Screech's Laughter at the Foot of the Cross from the library.  It's an essential text in the roofing trade.

     I could be killed for revealing that.

     Did they perform the Dies Irae at the Good Senator's funeral?  You know, for when Beelzebub appeared to claim the body...I know, I know, he only killed one woman...what's that when measured against all the, er, good he did?

     Weren't we told that all this phony Beatlemania had bitten the dust?

     Is it lazy of me to use Facebook posts as the basis for a post on ER?  Or, is it cunning and canny crossplatform synergy?  I'll get back to y'all...those of you who still come by, that is...

     So I'm an anachronism...at least I look good in plaid...

     For a few days last week all here were atremble because Rumor, swift and cunning as always, shed abroad the possibility of a move to, of all places, Oklahoma.  Something about a job, you see, an adventurous, high-paying sort of deal, full of edginess and suchlike.  Alas and alack, I will not be investing in a surrey with the fringe on top...
     Come to think of it, there's no alas and alack to it.  I mean, there's nothing in Oklahoma except dust, tumbleweeds, a pretty good football team, and, apparently, several thousand houses with steep, huge roofs that need replacing at a pretty decent profit.  Besides, it's just too damned hot down there all the time, and there's no ocean nearby to make it all bearable.  And, and, have I mentioned the dust? the tumbleweeds? the dust?
     Really, it was just a hint of an intimation of a possibility of a tremor of thought that I might spend the next nine months to a year down there.  Not going to happen, my friends, though I did appreciate my friend making the all uncertain offer over beers and pizza.
    

     Spending time today with John Donne and Alcofribas Nasier...later, I'll cook some brats in beer with onion, bay leaves, salt, pepper, sauté some onions and peppers, pull out the sauerkraut, chill even more beer ['beer good...foamy...']..., and make all ready for the OSU-USC game...of course, I'm also aware of the imminent struggle between FSU and Jacksonville State...
     Speaking of Donne, why do most editors take it into their little brains to cut the Expostulations and the Prayers from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions?  It's like editing Shakespeare's Sonnets and whacking off the couplets.  Form, people, form - it's not optional, dammit. 

     So, I like my job.  Allow me to remain coy about just what I do - I'll just say that I like it.  Don't much care for the politics amongst management, but that has nothing to do with me.  I just like my job.  In fact, I'm on a break right now.
     Hope to make a larger point here - for all my talk, I like to work.  Work is important; work is good.  Don't quite understand those who think the best they can do in life is avoid work.  Now, my job is a living, not my whole life, though I work some 60 hours a week.  Then again, work for me is much bigger than the job I do for a living, complicated and difficult though it may be.  Poetry is work; writing good prose is work; cooking is work - you get the point.  Even marriage, which implodes and explodes by turns without the graced vows which hold it together like the hoops of a barrel, demands work.  Try staying married without tending to the dishes, or pruning the hedges, or mailing the bills [who knew that it isn't enough to simply write the checks and stuff and stamp the envelopes?].  Then there is the most difficult labor of all, living with another person who is so very different, so very mysterious, so very, well, unknowable and intractable and thus a pain in the ass most of the time even when times are good.  I love it all, you know, and most of the time it's easy enough to foster a number of illusions, but there are days, dear readers, there are days...
     Life in fact is a continuum of labor.  Those who think that leisure is the basis of civilization have never had to really work for a living, nor have they seen all the many painstaking jobs that have to be done to keep your artists and musicians and poets and theologians and philosophers at work.  Visit the shipping and receiving dock of an art gallery; swing by the bank that holds the start-up loans that got that gallery going; have a talk with the guy who owns the building - what's the rent?  what happens if they miss a payment? - and then take a walk down the street to shop at the art supply store, and see how many folks depend on that small economy.  Do all that, then visit an artist, a real practicing painter say, or a sculptor, and observe 'em over a working week, and then tell me that leisure is the basis of civilization.  Even a humble poet has to subscribe to journals, do research on which ones are best for which poems, keep a lot of postage about, stuff envelopes, send submissions, and hope that the rags that might just publish his work don't go bankrupt and thus vanish into nothingness.  This is all in addition to the simple labor of making a poem - even a virtuoso has to take the time to write the thing down [or type it up as the case may be].
     To return to my labor for a living in this hardscrabble economy, if any of us should shirk of a day, the consequences could be dire.  If business slips too much, some folks my just suffer unjustly for our indolence.  Assistants and suppliers, truck drivers, construction crews - this small economy just might collapse if each of us refuses to simply do the job at hand.  Doing the job well, doing it with consistency, doing it with attention and finding enjoyment in the sheer good work of it all - that's not some existential fancy, but a matter of life and death for real people in a hard world.
     So, I like my job.  I take pleasure in knowing that I make a good living for us, that I am someone others can count on to get the job done right and on time, that I am simply good at it.  I don't somehow find 'fulfillment' in the job - it's a living, after all, necessary to sustain life, but not the thing one lives for - and I certainly don't think it impossible that I could find something better.  I just found myself reflecting on how I actually like it, and what all this labor in our lives, labor which is often unpleasant and annoying and sweaty and just plain dangerous, depending on who you are, might signify.  You'll notice, finally, that I've said nothing about the Christian doctrines of vocation, calling, and so forth.  Any given job you may have may not be your vocation.  You might just have to work at some unrewarding job to support your vocation, or rather, your vocations - so few of us have only one. 
     With that inconclusive conclusion I leave you.  It's time to have some lunch and set about the rest of the day's work.
     Peace out.

     Fall's upon us...'And comes that other fall we name the fall.'  I'm sure they're not related.
     What to do, what to say?  I've a little money in my pocket, a lot of work to do, and a few deadlines loom - not sick of the transit, though, not sick at all.  One sees of a sudden shadows lengthening and leaves straining to fall - one realizes that it's all not so different for us here in this weaving of times in between times or however you put it.  Can take the condition, can run along the grain, just don't tell me to stop, go, shape up, stand in line, turn here, yield there, shush, hold my water...
     So where does all this lead now?  Well over five years - and suddenly so much silence.  All are tweeting elsewhere, all want less and less to say to read.  Only a little over five years may be better - only a little over five years and for all that an anachronism already?  I no longer wish to put my poems up here - laws have changed, rules have finked us all, so's to make it a problem for me now.  Have I anything to say to the silence out there?  We've passed over an horizon it seems - have I anything to say that can be heard and grasped on this far side?  Is this all an anachronism not just of medium but of message?  [They don't make a complete identity you know.]  Classical, theological, whimsical, humanistical - all gone, it seems, all gone.  Few care, and few need to now in this new late antiquity.
     So, what to do, what to say?  Christ is king - that's all I've got right now.  With that, I must away to work - something's happened, I've less time than planned, and it's all for the good.  Working working here - on poetry, at a job, at home, working ever working.  'Tis a shame I'm not saved by it all.  Still still it's good. 
     Peace out.
    

     Around here I've been reading, revising poetry, working, and cooking...and did I mention working?  I work outside for the most part, and a big storm's acomin', so I have a bit of time on my hands.  Been working a lot, I have to say...
     In this economy - and by that I signify the central Ohio oeconomicus, and not necessarily the national one - to work a lot is a blessing, so I won't complain. 
     Been reading Virgil over the past few days.  Had other things in mind, and was even in the middle of some few books already, when I picked up Mandelbaum's translation of The Aeneid, which I haven't read in quite some time.  Now I can't put it down.  Well, I can't read it while working, but them's the breaks in the big city.  I look forward to looking again at the poem in Latin.  Then there are the magnificent Eclogues, the font, along with Theocritus's Idylls, of so much fine poetry in the west.  To my ear at least, the Eclogues embrace more complexity than do the Idylls, but I'm far from an expert in such things.  Finally, I have in hand that there bilingual edition of The Georgics by David Ferry - he's right, you can't read Paradise Lost without the Georgics.  I'd also say you can't read it without the Eclogues as well - the Aeneid is obvious here.  Indeed, for Milton the epic was the highest form of poetry because it embraced so many genres, amongst which are, yes, eclogues, as well as songs and sonnets, epigrams, elegies, satires....  You'll find 'em all in Paradise Lost, and you'll find 'em also in The Aeneid...
     It's also apparent that Joseph Brodsky is right - Robert Frost is impossible without Virgil, especially the Eclogues.  Hell, many of his finest poems are themselves eclogues in continuous blank verse without breaks for each character.  Frost also gets the anxiety and pity and sadness and terror of Virgil, the supposedly sunny apologist for empire.  Apologist Virgil is - as was Frost, in his way - but he is far from sunny about it. 
     You'll also find in Virgil a delight in the beauty and nobility of the human form in itself.  Even the doomed, like Dido and her kingdom, have an autumnal beauty and glory about 'em.  Wonderful it all is, my friends, wonderful.
     I see the wind whipping itself up outside, thrashing trees in the distance - I'm on the third floor of the library.  That is my cue to leave before it all goes to hell out there.  Look for something more substantive in a few days.
     Peace out.

     And yes, I know Oppen was a Communist, at least for a few decades.  Doesn't keep him from being a damn fine poet.  What Kundera said of novelists applies, I should think, to all really fine artists - their works are more intelligent than they, the artists, are.

     As I look around, I face the depressing fact - there's no escape from the totalitarian socialist stupidity to come...it's been acreepin' on us for decades, but everything seems to just keep accelerating beyond our capacity to reasonably handle it all.  And what, dear reader, what do I do?  Becoming a glitzy expat just ain't an option - there's nowhere Out There that won't be even worse. 
     Yes, my friends, we'll soon be free to fuck anything made of matter, but we'll lack all agency, all judgment, all sense of ourselves as human persons with wills and affections...hell, one can go through a perfectly busy, even productive, day around these parts, and never make a mature, human judgment about anything crucial to real human life.  One still, however, has to work just a little to make that happen - there's an inevitable shirking that takes place around the big questions.  For instance, how is one to pay for essential medical treatments?  We don't seriously have to figure anything out and live with the consequences do we?  That's, why that's almost, dare I say it, almost human!  Shudder.  Why, in such a hell each of us might have to find ways to reach out to actual live human persons down the street.  We might have to get near the smelly sonsabitches if we want to help 'em through tough times!  We might have to make such decisions, and act on 'em, as though we were responsible human beings. 
     Lord save us from such abominable dignity!
     Thanks to our benevolent overlords even that will become a thing of the past.  We'll be so busy filling out forms, standing in lines, waiting at idiotic traffic lights, reading omnipresent street signs, bowing and scraping before the police, and whatnot, that we won't have time to wonder where our humanity went...
     Feel free to report me to the House - flag@whitehouse.gov.
     With that, I have to return to work.  Later tonight I'll return to the poetry of Robert Frost and William Bronk, with maybe just a little George Oppen for good measure. 
     Peace out.