Saturday, November 25, 2017

Saturday commute cxlviii: Reading away


The choice of nutrition; the choice
of climate and place: the third
point at which one must not commit
a blunder at any price is the choice
of one's own kind of recreation. 
Reading is precisely my recreation
from my own seriousness. During per-
iods when I am hard at work you will
not find me surrounded by books: I'd
beware of letting anyone near me talk,
much less think. And that is what 
reading would mean.








He possessed that divine malice
              without which I cannot imagine perfection:
              I estimate the value of men, of races, ac-
              cording to the necessity by which they can-
              not conceive the god apart from the satyr.


















Friedrich Nietzsche
  on Heinrich Heine
1888
Ecce Homo
  How one becomes
  what one is
op. cit.
Random House, 1966©






Thursday, November 23, 2017

The last Thanksgiving of one's present decade




                       The thousand glimpses -
                    do they add up to a life
                       seen sideways, seen right?














J.D. McClatchy
Ten Commandments
  Poems
  Stolen Hours
  [fragment]
Alfred A. Knopf, 1999©




Wednesday, November 22, 2017

Sailor




   I do not think it altogether inappropriate
   to introduce myself to this audience. I am
   the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy
   to Paris. And I've enjoyed it.




















Patrice Molinard
Le jardin des Tuileries
1952


President of the United States
Palais Chaillot
June, 1962









Tuesday, November 21, 2017

The beauty, the truth





Possibly - just possibly - the ultimate
injurious flight of fancy of the new Am-
erican government has been an infinitely
shameless repression of transgender per-
sons in the exercise of their citizenship.
It turns out, unbeknownst to those who've
been fighting the last war, that this new
front in the endlessly vengeful selection
of innocents, to punish for the decline of
the illegitimate, is populous and every
bit as irresistible as its predecessors.






One cannot claim, under the circumstances,
to be able only to pray for the safety and
safekeeping of transgender citizens and 
guests of our jurisdiction. The commitment
of equal protection is the birthright of
this nation in its second burst of free-
dom, the war to subdue the Southern Se-
cession. It is the law. It is the glory
of the victory over involuntary servitude.

In a majestically restrained but emphatic
ruling, a United States District Court judge
in Baltimore has found that this government
has endeavored to harm not merely the career,
not merely the dignity, not merely the live-
lihood, but the health of its American victim,
a sailor in the nation's service. We now know,
this new government is not just the procurer 
for our enemies. It is their switch-blade.































Walker Evans
1933

Petty Officer First Class Brock Stone, USNR
Baltimore, Maryland
November 21, 2017






Sanctuary





Under the freest of political systems
and governments there is no sanctuary -
only resort, respite, remission from
invasion. I think, what we mean when
we think of sanctuary, is that these
invasions will not be discriminatory
or arbitrary, two categories of dep-
ravity in government at which the
present 'administration' in America
strives to set the most glittering
benchmarks since the hounding of in-
digenous peoples into barren wastes.

once this year, when a United States
District Court Judge has upheld the
connection between the English lan-
guage and its plain meaning, as the
unarguable basis for rejecting the
theology of this 'administration,'
in pursuit of any sanctuary from its
arbitrary, discriminatory conduct.
Judge Orrick probably hasn't adopt-
ed the term, gangsters, for the hap-
less implementarians of the Presid-
ent's own rhetoric, when they dabble
in frivolous paraphrases of his prom-
ises to inflict harm on selected
peoples by impermissible means. Yes-
terday, their blunder was to over-
look that Congress hadn't authorized
the 'administration' to place impromp-
He would not have trifled with the ob-
vious metaphor, highjackers, for the
stark usurpation of the powers of the
other Branch. But even the stooges of
Sessions seem to have taken his point, 
resorting to their classic vengeance,
in mockery of the system they exploit:
Fox News has denounced him for helping
the President's predecessor - lawfully.

It is hard to parse what might derange
the 'administration' more, the imper-
tinence of its own petards, or the ex-
posure of their congenital imbecility.
Having little use for the mind, they
probably aren't particular in tracing
the origins of their fury, so long as
they can sustain its righteousness.
They are, in every way, the agents of
their mob. They'll be back.

It goes against a sensible character's
nature, to celebrate these interim re-
missions of the onward march of decad-
ent misrule. But I think, now, one can
learn from the mob the sustaining pow-
er, the sanctuary of a little red hat.
I happen to think well of a new sweater.

























 Filip Hanning