The frittering away of political fear

              Disorder, horror, fear, and mutiny

              Shall here inhabit, and this land be call'd

              The field of Golgotha and dead men's skulls.

              Bishop of Carlisle

              Richard II, IV, i, 142-4

The President of the US,

who will speak yet again,

this evening, negligently

has stripped pessimism

of enduring his policies

of any fear of losing his

leadership - apart, for

marginal voters such as

oneself, from concern for

the federal judiciary.

By their own initiative

his airily disbanded and

abandoned coalition now

must act in his place,

to show the horror he 

would leave them, from

squalid dereliction.

He believes he is wasting

because he has been nice,

and he is wrong. He is

wasting because he has

been willing to do the

wrong thing to be nice,

in which his vaunted

conceit has only shown

proof of indifference.

The Republican destruc-

tion of the nation's

economy bears his name,

for the reason that he

has been satisfied.

Despite this, it has

been argued in The 

Washington Post, in the

last week, that voters

truly do support this 

man, because they favour

policies he espoused at

one time. The problem is,

they know he favoured 

them by abandoning them.

He could come out for

sorbet, and they'd know

to expect crème brûlée.

That's not compromise;

that's being Richard II.

Any Republican can now

run as the Obama with

courage; this man has

given the happy warrior

of our heritage to the

Party which promises to

erase him from history.

Fear, itself is on a

roll.

This reality does gall,

given the phony Henry V

he just succeeded, and

the Tea Party chaos pre-

figured for Henry VI. All

right, the man doesn't

read. But I think of 

his obligation, not of 

the death of kings. I 

think of who's sovereign

in this nation, for whom

he did not even swing.

         Used, misled, cheated. Our time always shortening.

         What we cherish always temporary. What we love

         is, sooner or later, changed. But for a while we can

         visit our other life. Can rejoice in its being there

         in its absence ..

William Shakespeare

Richard II

op. cit.

Jack Gilbert

Refusing Heaven

  Burma [fragment]

National Book Critics

  Circle Award

Knopf, 2005©

I came to Virginia 14 years ago, this evening

This is not a portrait of Laurent, but of how ill-suited one was for the terrain. A rackful of thornproofs later, there's been no discernible improvement in one's adaptation. This is also the birthday, by coincidence, of my mother, of whom scant mention has heretofore been made, on the grounds of seemliness. I had driven across the country with Geordie and Robbie, of whom no mention has yet been made; Whit was not yet on the horizon. Geordie, Robbie and I made a point of attending the annual Heart of Michigan English Cocker Spaniel Championship en route, in some of the prettiest country we had ever seen, on the date of the funeral for the Princess of Wales. Our experience is so layered with coincidence that, even knowing better than to bring it up, one can't deny the convenience of its external reference points.

Ours has been an active day for Whit at his vet, a good fellow whose earlier life included a stint as a jockey at a Palladian villa in the Veneto, the world being as small as it is. By coincidence again, we're about to prepare a dinner resembling the first one, that night, Scotch included (Whit will have cottage cheese on a fibre biscuit). It may be, we'll read some poetry, and a little Saki for a chuckle before sleep. I am very happy, Whit is well. I could not conceive of being here without him. 

Best wishes to

our friends with 

big black eyes,

and tails flicking

brightly out of brush.

I think modesty compels us to demand no more than the following

a crime, if you like,

                        to fit the punishment

                        not everyone can say

                        he has the power to

                        nourish the righteous

                        just by being himself -

                        as they are the first
                        to tell you


                        has your soul made
                        your churches rich
                        your rulers proud
                        and children die?


                        mine has

Lasse Pedersen

Regarding the cellular capture of everyday life

Over the regionally rainy weekend just past, The New York Times ran a sadly brief study of the sillycam's invasion of art exhibitions, more or less coinciding with the confidance here, of loving one's camera for precisely the opposite reasons. The distinction supporting these alternate views is that the one addresses the assimilation of artistic works, and the other of everyday life. I took special interest in the Times' mention of framing with the viewfinderless sillycam, which merited very much more consideration, and which readers are likely to give it. This distinction is also vital to our argument for the camera.

For the purpose of this note in The Times, framing amounts to an editing for the purpose of acquisition, a plucking of the morsel from its habitat. Sontag wrote about this, in On Photography, before the sillycam. But framing is a compositional as well as a limiting mechanism, and here you see a photographic framing of a framing, for expressive and defining consequence. We are aware of framing as one of propaganda's most indispensable tools; but it is truer to regard propaganda as a sub-set of framing, and not always with malice toward understanding. I undertook to enhance understanding by editing the first image with a frame. The second image uses internal frames to compose itself, and is narrative.

The seduction of boys v: the virile tradition

To go from my farm to almost anywhere,

I pass through a country crossroads

with more churches than potato chips,

and I sometimes stop for a local paper.

I found this at the lottery counter,

where our elderly and poor go to pray.

Take the trouble to expand the final im-

age. It has everything. Equine Potency. 

Military Honour. Cowboy Romance. Elation

of Risk. Marksmanship. When I snaffled 

this seduction of boys, I remarked to

the merchant that it made me sentimental. 

That put him at ease. I wanted him that 

way. I still had to get out of his town.

Next to the congenital gothic revanchism

of the diabetic American South, nothing

compares, remotely, to fashion photography

when it comes to the seduction of boys to

embrace this heartbreaking habit. From the

houndstooth junkie of yore to the rogue

of redhead randiness, this is never going

to end, I know. People like to see a man 

with who courts a brutal death so blithely.


But I would think, the fashion proletariat
would rise up, as they say, and contemplate
its own exploitation in this unamusing abuse.

I just saw more pictures of Charlie de Bestegui, and you know?

I don't think we can use them.


The blogosphere is awash these days with even more namedropping idle worship than you'd hear at the Pines at tea this afternoon, and I'd like to pitch in, but I think one really has to let the muck erect its own dike. Where is Dorothy Parker, now that we're finding white ties laid end to end from one gasp sheet to the next, as in, omigod did you realise George V had the use of a Crown? People might as well publish a photocopy of Magna Carta, apart from doubting that it's worth it, and cite it as part of Her Majesty's trousseau from King John. Behind all these doll's houses lies a childlike sense of the social fabric as a matter of the decorative arts.

Remember when we had that punctilious little fellow running around here, clucking about guytummy? Possibly it's his shock, to find oneself on a page swarming with relicts of Mussolini's court, flashing loot at a dinner party. Still, fascism is so timeless.

Not that we know much of what to say about Labor Day. I don't know, do guys work anymore? Yes, thank you; I hadn't thought so, but I felt I should ask. I gather we're to hear that the President thinks they should - which is to say, that he'll give Perry's speech. I saw that there were flags out in our little Piedmont town today, which gave Main Street a kind of bustle not seen since Walmart shuttered it. 

Maybe the President will come out for a Christo Fence public works program, to sustain this same gaiety. I do so wish he would. Great swaths of disused pectoral bunting, don't you think, and Sobranie foil on the belching smokestack tips he just condoned, would give lavish improvement, as in the doll's house.

iii Bastiaan van Gaalen

When in our throat does it finally catch?

As Corleone remarked to the Dons, at the meeting with Barzini, How did things ever get so far?


Is this not what our two generations of Dixie-craving governance had promised us: Rick Perry Apostolic Skateboard Maintenance, Inc.? 

Animals. Animals

reject the rogue

with no regrets.

Animals invoke no

dogma for natural

happiness. Who did

superstition bring

to life?

What on earth do

we bring to life,

to subject it to

such monstrosity?

Francis Ford Coppola and

  Mario Puzo, screenplay

The Godfather

op. cit.

Sunday brunch at Rick Perry's

Hmm. The hot dog

guy's still down

there.

OK, but I gotta

get outta these

itchy pants, first.

                You guys can pay

                a little extra,

                can'tcha,

                to help a fellow

                out?

         

                       

  Hercule, I really

  don't want to be

  here. Can we go?

  If only it were

  that simple,

  Auguste.