In the House of the Hangman 1032

It was fun talking. There's something about the way you speak that makes the word “like” (as in “I was all like”) sound elegant. Yes, it was fun talking! This sounds weird, but I barely and rarely talk on the phone anymore. You use the word “okay” like you’re punctuating. And your relaxed California sound makes a cradle for jarring names like Ezra Pound. I’m around academics all the time, and I hate that rhetoric. So I love to use the word “fuck” when I can. Like a butterknife! “What's a ‘scad’?” “It's another word for an oodle.” I have a different question: is to make “sheep's eyes” the same as “puppy face”? “Still / one should be patient / with the present (“your life’s fish tank a Mobius strip vista of degraded landscapes projected on ever-larger TV screens”) / as if with a child. / / To follow its prattle – / glitter on water – / indulgently / is only polite.” At first there was so much light in the room with me that I thought it must be the dog. But no. Okay, but I will explain that the grass was green. They gave me the kind of Jello where The Grand Hotel Night Air Balloon boasts a lobby filled with caged tropical birds, a musical fountain, and rooms without walls, all enveloped in a “blue haze”. The booklet looks superb and they’ve done a great job. My short essay “Is there such a thing as a Mundane Object? “Art at Large” and the counter-factual objet Trouvé” is in there. We’re sons and daughters of a loop da loop era in a different sense now ... time circles, ex nunc retrochronia, pas encore déjà voodoo, always-alreadiness. The edge will not let you be uncomplicated. Which is exciting considering the edge doesn’t even exist. For example, in Chapter One of Family Romance, a giant moth has fastened onto the narrator’s head. In context, it seems natural and inevitable that such a drastic pathogen would cause his face to explode in a catastrophic sneeze: scarlet gore, brain matter and eye jelly everywhere. And, of course, anyone familiar with the pneumatics of a physical body will tell you that such a traumatic shock will cause the muscles, connective tissues and blood vessels of his neck and shoulders to throb, swell, writhe – all drawn here to exacting clinical perfection. It’s a strange picture, for sure – and yet, the strangest part is not the physiology, but the fashion. Look at the garment he’s wearing. Where the fuck did that come from? “Who killed Ian Tomlinson?” yells a kid. “The police killed Ian Tomlinson!” his friends call back. Outside the yard a line of officers in acrid yellow stands impassive. “Who killed Jean Charles De Menezes?” – “The police killed Jean Charles De Menezes!” One police officer studies her boots as if they might be about to kick off. “Who killed Mark Duggan?” – “The police killed Mark Duggan!” You are also real. This is an important psychological point. You mingle with the people, using the natural contagions. Crude mathematics go a long fucking way. But more force is needed. Before reaching the intersection, the line is converted to a wedge. The geometry of our childhood is falling beautifully to ruin. So our use of it begins. Note the sky. Plato taught us everything. We expect collared spines of pure white criminality if a single finger’s lifted, which explains why you drove why you drove why you drove yourself around the City limits. You, and yourself, to whom the Rimbaud Unkant is your nemesis, you reapply the lime scale to the integrity of our deaths in the polar kettle, e.g.: “This is not the image we want to portray! We are safe in all sorts of indicators, but this is a terrible advert for the capital, particularly, as you say, in the run up to the Games!” Motherfucker, this is the Games. OK. But, Rich, you are deeply mistaken about Wittgenstein.

[Note: Sources: JBR, email to Anne Gorrick, 27 Jul 012 approx 12:20 PM PDT; Anne Gorrick, email to JBR, 27 Jul 012, approx. 12:46 PM PDT; “Ten Years of Languagehat: V”, at Languagehat, 26 Jul 012; Tat, comment appended to “Language Help Needed”, at Languagehat, 24 Aug 06; Rae Armanrout, The Pretext, Michael Brownstein, World on Fire, Clark Coolidge, “Alien Tatters”, in Alien Tatters, Robert Coover, The Grand Hotels (of Joseph Cornell), as quoted in Brian Kim Stefans, LITTLE REVIEWS of a few books of poetry published 1998-2002, at arras.net; Robert Jackson, “Field Static Booklet”, at Algorithm and Contingency, 27 Jul 012; Simon Reynolds, “RetroRave”, at BLISSBLOG, 27 Jan 012; JBR (ex nunc = from now on); Tracy Lynn Matlock, “Bold Lines To Scribble Out Of”, at The Noumenon Revelation, 27 Jul 012; Tom Bradley, as interviewed by Cye Johan, in “FAMILY ROMANCE: word and image converge seamlessly like a love sarong with no zipper”, at HTMLGIANT, 27 Jul 012; Laurie Penny, “London, Underground”, at The New Inquiry, 27 Jul 012; Colleen Hind and Pocahontis Mildew, We Are Real: A History, as quoted in Richard Owens, “SOME THOUGHTS ON MOTHERFUCKER THIS IS THE GAMES”, at Damn the Caesars, 26 Jul 012; JBR (re something Rich wrote in the previous: “If, as Wittgenstein claimed in a depressingly influential philosophical instant of gratuitously imbecilic self-indulgence, language functions like a game, then running for one's life from the police is likewise a game, just as whimpering for mercy at gunpoint is a game, just as pissing on freshly murdered Afghan corpses is a game, just as the slaughter of children in Houla is a game.” Not only did Rich forget that W was speaking in similes (see the word like), there’s nothing at all in W’s life to indicate that he thought it was a game)]

Comments

[Rosa]

Hi GL Good luck with the move. They reckon mvniog along with marriage and divorce are probably 3 of the most stressful things to do. Take slow breaths and 1 box at a time.Hi Emma nice to hear from you!! Will check out your fuzzy blog now.

[Rayhan]

Lucas23 July 2011Can you send me a invitation? I'm a biazilran guy eager to try Google+ but I don't know anyone here in Brazil who has an account, making difficult to me to gain access to this service. :-(Thank you.