Godspeed You! Black Pudding

an ounce of ashes:

wounded shoulders
friends looking at the war horizon
(Lord don't let any more go)
dust on more than one stylus
lifelong layovers on the way to
America's oldest town
winter as elusive as the mythical She
ill beasts
a veritable Heavenly
(Infernal?)
Host of small mean concerns
on and off the clock.

no alchemical fix here.

Some more prose poetry.

-the end isn't near, it's only last call-

All the upbeat indie pop songs that color the world shades of neon red hopeful are just gloss on the lips of a beautiful face subtly ruined by the bad bone structure beneath. Doesn't mean it's all false or cosmetic, only that everything musical comes down to gnarled roots and lonesome reverb against the thick dirt of life packed hard below the permafrost. What was merely lost in translation becomes a mangled attempt at a dead language. 4/4 time devolves into strangled chords that never got mapped to staves. Innocent chatter from pretty throats tilts in the aether, and on its new axis sounds like acrimony and bathroom tales of sexual conquest and the comparison of garish makeup colors. Planes overhead- we all live in their flight paths these days- spew roaring remains of dreams and carbon in the most beautiful of patterns.

There's no denying the glory of skylines, badly lit bars, burlesque dancers in their street clothes, and poets in unlikely quarters, but to ignore the dread, the roadside weeds, the misspoken words, the ankle-wrenching potholes and heartbreaking glances across the room at doom personified, well, that's a shrug and a quizzical look when what the world demands is an honest acknowledgement of how tainted it really is.

D.A.S.
November 26/27, 2006

This really ain't Mr. Finnegan's year.

I feel like a fool for not taking Tim Finnegan in to the vet when his hair started falling out in September. It turns out that it's not a symptom of old age: he's got adrenal disease, which may or may not be due to a tumor (benign or malignant) or hyperplasia, which means the glandular cells are enlarged but functioning normally. Whatever the case, odds are that his left adrenal gland, which is far larger than it should be, will have to be removed. Dr. Jordan mentioned the option of giving Tim a shot (I can't recall the name of the medicine) once a month that might do the job, but that'll only work if the adrenal gland isn't cancerous. Ergo, I think I'm going to go ahead and have Dr. Jordan perform the surgery.

Thankfully, Mr. Finnegan doesn't seem to be suffering too much. He has lost weight, which I couldn't notice because, well, his baldness threw off my perception of his size, but he hasn't become lethargic, which is another symptom of the disease. He doesn't seem to care too much about being bald, though I reckon he'd say otherwise if he could.

I'm going to call the vet back tomorrow and schedule the surgery for sometime in the next week. More details as I get them.

On a less depressing note, Thomas Pynchon's new novel, Against the Day, came out today. I've read the first 40 or so pages, and so far, so good.

I LOVE FICTIONAL WOMEN

Dora
Faye
Pen-Pen
Raven
and even
Hannelore
(Ellen should be on here, but she wastes her time reading the almighty Kierkegaard to fuckin' dolphins, so fuck her)

I reckon I should have titled this post "read Questionable Content, because the female characters are rad," but what the hell. I'm drunk and listening to "Sliver" by Nirvana on repeat. That clearly exculpates me from something; what, I'm not exactly sure.

I've also eaten nothing but motherfucking potato chips today.

Other web comics worth checking out include Templar, Arizona and Toothpaste For Dinner (of course).

I blame music.

Time-related obstacles are overcome, and then others crop up when I hear a certain song.

Sometimes I think I am pathologically unable to grow up. Lord knows I don't want the responsibility.

I could quote from Fear and Trembling now, but I'm gonna listen to Last Eve and... well, you know.

Someday.

-D.A.S.
Squire of Infinite Resignation

I could talk about politics...

...but I don't feel like it, really. Suffice to say that I'm glad to see America has taken a step in the direction of sanity for the most part, even if my fellow Texans decided to act like sheep and re-elect a shitty governor.

Anyway, life is, well, life. Nothing particularly interesting to relate to y'all, alas, aside from recommending warm rice wine from handmade ceramic cups (untold thanks to Sara for the handiwork) and Red Pine's translation of Poems of the Masters on cold nights of solitude.

Kings, academicians, heathens, gods, and corpses.

Namely, König Ludwig weissbier, Li Po, Borknagar (specifically their albums Quintessence and Origin), that which is known more or less as Yahweh, and yours truly.

When you get such a diverse group together, there's bound to be friction, and since I'm the one who convened this eclectic, clashing pseudo-democratic Althing, guess who's playing moderator.

Being a human being is an honor that is very, very hard to best.

It's still Halloween by the Welsh method of delineating days.

Drunk folks in bad costumes

stench of sweat beneath
polyester:

Let's leave Halloween
to the kids and pagans.