Saturday, September 10, 2016

Texas cowlick






   It shines, like one fine
   business opportunity for
   wind, far as the eye can
   see.

















Mitch Cullin
1986





Thursday, September 8, 2016

The shirt tail and the seamstress




 We don't usually quibble with
 Geoffrey Chaucer, but our many
 shirtlifters, spotted in stained
 glass windows and insulating
 tapestries, marble and bronze,
 and canvas and oils, could well
 have been spared renascences to-
 day if he'd admitted a prescient
 seamstress to his epic parade.

 Such broad self-ripping of 
 bodice is upon us now, that 
 one scarcely has the chance 
 to evaluate the tissues for 
 their treatment by the trade.

 Eccovi il medico, we seem
 to have our Despina at last,
 and as in all her appearances,
 just in time.






















Rob Allen







Wednesday, September 7, 2016

Origins of Wednesday xxxvii: black tie optional balloting





The fine line between incredulous
and dubious has been reduced to 
such a wanton scrawl in this e-
lection, that we begin to ignore
the distinction entirely when a
new pronouncement is upon us, and
enjoy a freedom of interpretation
implicit in its promulgation. 






Faced with bizarre information from
our registrars of voters, that bal-
loting is to be black-tie optional
this year - yet another ploy to 
suppress turnout by egalitarians -
it fell to our friend Gérard to find
the permission always laid in plain
sight in that phrase, to adopt a
mode in the display of the identi-
fying tourniquet, as one of mourning.











































Jeremy Young







Tuesday, September 6, 2016

Doom on hold






 I admit, it was observing
 my English Cocker that gave
 me the discovery, that if
 I am watching someone else
 worry, I'm almost disabled
 from worrying at the same
 time. Not that I'm incap-
 able of sympathy, if that
 counts. I suppose I should
 be troubled by this defect,
 but like all the things one
 should do or be, I'd still
 rather go to the theatre.








































Jeremy Young





Monday, September 5, 2016

If that's your story




stick to it.



We'd say, it's bad enough, when the candidate in the lead shows a dogtag every day, but only if we're buying dinner. Now we have a candidate closing hard, who's throwing away his dogs, as fast as the other one's scarfing down money. It would be enough, in normal times, to restore our good opinion of information. But these demonstrably are not normal times. This campaign's beginning to remind us of Kosovo in the 90s. If we wanted to know, don't you think we could?




  Lucky you. How do
  they fare, where 
  you come from?


                




















iii  Bruce Weber

v    Joachim Ladefoged
      Balkans, 1999








Sunday, September 4, 2016

Ages of industry





   This industry, which made
   Vittorio de Sica a house-
   hold name, is almost more
   forgotten now than he is.




   We still have classes and
   we still have ages of ser-
   vility, but not the thwap
   of a flying buffing cloth
   or the snap of a flick in
   sprockets of our imagery.










  

   

























Vittorio de Sica
Shoeshine / Sciuscià
1946

Ruth Orkin
New York
1948

Kit Butler for Church's
2016