passing fancies & other collectibles

words

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 23:28:28 -0500

left to right we read
printed lines on law or
lobster longevity;
script dull or scintillating, spam-gibberish or textbook-rigid;
it is all distilled to twenty-six symbols and steamrolled horizontal
across pressed pulp or flashing pixels—
let’s kiss, i say,
forget it all, what do you say, i say,
take a car—mine, i suppose, since yours
could go clean past el paso, all the way to oakland
but was still deemed junk by the rubber-stamped judgment
of an insurance company, somewhere
they did the math, you know—we’ll
take it to the beach and make plans to sleep through
together
we can argue over the color of my eyes
or the sound the sky would make
if it could laugh at us (& it would laugh, if it knew
of all the poems it’s been crammed into;
it didn’t ask for this)
we can embody the things that can’t be written
all those things outside the twenty-six symbols—correct me
if I’m wrong but
i count at least four things outside of them:
your mouth is one, and
love another.
you’ll have to guess the others, dear
(I’m too shy to say)

pst

Wed, 30 Jan 2013 23:07:56 -0500

i love you the way

sleep tugs at your eyelids and winter

strips green from the trees;

the way plump dumb babies grow

bony and tall, with

report cards and first kisses and other

secrets to keep from you;

i love you like that place where you bit your tongue

heals, or like the toenail turned black last september

falls off in the shower—the way

milk goes sour, or melted snow

drips from the porchlight down your nose,

putting out your cigarette;

far from fated—nonetheless

beyond control.

i love you like i can’t say no.

thoughts on shootings

Fri, 14 Dec 2012 16:16:00 -0500

i put things on tumblr when i have nowhere else to put them.

anyway. this is hypocritical in a sort of hilarious way. but i mean what i’m saying. so. for what it’s worth:

i believe in gun control and i think it’s silly to allow civilians to own assault weapons for any reason. a handgun should be plenty good enough for self-defense in the rare case that you might need it. ain’t nobody upstanding got armies coming after them.

that being said, i think the most pressing problem here is not the availability of assault weapons. i think it’s media coverage. first off, america has been a violent nation for centuries. this isn’t new. school shootings aren’t new. they just got rampantly popular in media coverage starting with columbine, for no real reason other than that it made a good story, and maybe it was a slow news week. remember that summer when the media was all about shark attacks, even though there was no actual statistical increase in the number of shark attack incidents?

the people who have committed the deadliest shootings in america have all been disgruntled men, people who feel invisible or betrayed. some were people who were trained by this very country to kill others in the military, and when they returned, they returned broken, forgotten, isolated, unsupported. they are seeking glory through violence—the kind of violence that seems the most unspeakable or shocking. they want to die notorious. they crave the power and the larger-than-life status that comes along with committing the deadliest, most horrific killings. and the media gives them exactly what they want. they leap on the stories that have that “hook” to them, some novelty that they know will appeal to the public’s fascination with the grotesque, the unbelievable. we love stories about monsters. we always have. the types of monsters we love to hear about change over time, sure, but the american public has always eagerly devoured any and every seedy story about violence. once we loved stories about young and innocent (white) girls being raped and murdered. once we loved stories about affairs gone wrong. once our favorite stories were about scandals of the rich and famous. and it’s always been true that the more gruesome the mutilation, the more famous the story.

and now, ever since columbine, we’ve loved the spree killings. the deranged loner who lost his job or his girlfriend or his mind in the military. the type of man who craves nothing more than being remembered. i’m willing to bet that this dude today chose a kindergarten classroom in a wealthy white area because he knew that this would grab headlines and be remembered for decades to come. he wanted to be the embodiment of pure evil, of terror, of monstrosity. but evil isn’t monstrous. evil is human. it should not shock us anymore. it should not draw all of our attention, because that is all that these men want.

we may not commit these crimes, but we love hearing about them. look at your facebook. how many statuses are about anything other than this killing? 1 out of 10? 15? 20? and that’s how it always is. we love talking about it. we love hearing about it. i’m not saying that we WANT these things to happen—of course not. we are also appropriately horrified and disgusted. but we feed the beast with our attention. and that, i think, is more dangerous than an assault rifle.

tombomp: Hey Neil deGrasse Tyson! Here’s some cool facts: 1)...

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 03:04:17 -0500

tombomp:

Hey Neil deGrasse Tyson! Here’s some cool facts:

1) The Mayan culture *still exists*. There are an estimated 7 million people who consider themselves Mayans still living in Central America, with their own unique culture, languages and traditions

2) Mayans never predicted the end of the world was going to come in 2012. Claims that they did were pretty much invented by people who didn’t understand their culture and wanted to sell shit. Perpetuating it is based on ignorant imperialist ideas.

3) A LOT of religions nowadays still practice animal sacrifice, including Hinduism and Islam. These alone take up approximately 40% of the world’s population. The contributions made by people of these religions to science in general have been immense. Dismissing an entire culture’s achievements because they perform animal sacrifice is bigoted, ignorant and gives an incredibly distorted view of the world

4) The wheel is not a mark of a “worthwhile” culture. It appears that the wheel was actually invented in one place and then spread throughout Eurasia and Africa, rather than being invented in multiple places, meaning by your metric it’s “hard to take science cues” from near every culture ever. Mesoamerican cultures had wheel-like objects but it’s likely they never developed it further because there were fewer uses for the wheel, as there was a lack of domesticateable animals that the wheel would be useful in conjunction with, as well as geographical factors.

5) a) How could you *know* they didn’t predict their own *empire*’s (not culture) demise? We know virtually nothing about what people at the time thought and have too few examples of their writing to know. b) No empire ever has predicted its own demise as a mainstream view. What an absurd standard to hold

In conclusion, your comments are highly insulting and perpetuate imperialist myths about the Americas before the advent of European colonisation as well as the indigenous American populations today. Maybe do some research before you comment on these things again.

a poem

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 01:19:19 -0400

Haven’t posted on here in awhile but i want to put this somewhere so here you go, internet.

Lot’s Daughter

I, sleepless, driving home in the rain
at six-thirty, dawn, from the airport
am a reservoir of tears,
a pillar of salt
poised to dissolve.
reminiscing in the gray morning
about the day I cried in the tub,
unable to stand, wet flesh and heaving
and you didn’t come; you didn’t think
I deserved to be so sad.
Then, dripping, towel draped around me,
I stood
staring at the empty bed, the closed door
the purposeful assertion of your absence
and I hardened then and there against you, dear.

I am trying, I think, but it may be too late
I already lingered, already hesitated,
had flung myself into you and clung to your sureness
til you told me maybe you never meant what you’d said
til that night you let me cry, let me beg
showed me the quickness of your brutality
the relentless red of your mind,
and as I heard the dread gallop of the looming end
come thundering over the mountains behind,
I turned back, I turned back, I turned back

and here I am, solid yet defenseless
waiting to melt beneath the roaring godtide
still uncertain of whether I did
the right thing, the human thing,
in pondering goodbye—
I know its name now
like a guest who’ll come knocking
any minute, and I
glancing in the mirror over my shoulder,
will fix my hair and frown
then cross the room and let him in
to my waiting, emptied house.

Photo

Tue, 01 May 2012 12:12:33 -0400

hollyhocksandtulips: Giraffe girl…always a favorite

Thu, 19 Apr 2012 10:46:15 -0400

hollyhocksandtulips:

Giraffe girl…always a favorite

Ivan the Terrible and his Son Ivan, 1885

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 16:52:06 -0400

Ivan the Terrible and his Son Ivan, 1885

frenchtwist: via regardintemporel: Anonyme - Jeux d’Ombres...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 15:45:30 -0400

frenchtwist:

via regardintemporel:

Anonyme - Jeux d’Ombres Surréalistes, 1920-1925

Photo

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:28:55 -0400

morrioghain: Dorothy Rothschild Parker, 1893 – 1967 “In youth,...

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 13:07:25 -0400

morrioghain:

Dorothy Rothschild Parker, 1893 – 1967

“In youth, it was a way I had,
To do my best to please.
And change, with every passing lad
To suit his theories.

But now I know the things I know
And do the things I do,
And if you do not like me so,
To hell, my love, with you.”

~Dorothy Parker

incredible

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:43:30 -0400

incredible

Photo

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 11:05:22 -0400

e-boobs: Romance and Sex Questions in an Airport [x] omg LOOK...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:33:33 -0400

e-boobs:

Romance and Sex Questions in an Airport [x]

omg

LOOK AT HIS EXPRESSIONS. i love this man’s face.

withrevolutionarycries: beautyhascome: theheeling: poison-aivy...

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:50:27 -0400

withrevolutionarycries:

beautyhascome:

theheeling:

poison-aivy:

iibitex3:

I wrote this song in 94 - 2Pac

“Run up in yo spot like CJ from San Andreas”

“I wrote this song a long time ago, real long time ago”

“I told you…stop hitting the table” man the Chappelle show has left a void that Key & Peele could never fill.

“The girl in the mini skirt has bad taste, cause that shirt don’t match. There’s a pudding stain on the back- wtf is that? IT MUST BE DOODOO!”

lawl @imstill i feel like chapel made this for you.

lostsplendor: Chicago, 1949 by Stanley Kubrick (via Retronaut)

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 20:40:54 -0400

lostsplendor:

Chicago, 1949 by Stanley Kubrick (via Retronaut)

any you

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 04:26:00 -0400

in coves carved soft-edged by skin
under covers, in between the lengthening days
of solitude and stillness
I’ve felt, in my core, the warm and heady pleasures
of hands and cocks in the dark
in the daylight, in backseats, on floors
tasted mouths still thick with smoke
of cigarettes or of that sweet dark moss of spliffs
let you show yourself, the sharpness of a full presence
usually dulled by persona and pretense
let you pull my hair
and say things you’d never admit
I’ve tried men just to know, more curious than earnest
let my mouth travel across tracts of skin,
held lobes between my lips, teeth teasing them into thinking
of how many ways a body can blossom,
told them things I’ll forget if I yet haven’t,
and felt like I could know them, the men
who whisper my name until they’ve lost their language,
til they’re overwhelmed with the senseless joy of release.
I’ve told myself that’s love,
when I ache and forget everything but you pressing into me
and your hands in my hair, on my back, on my ass
and the world is just sweat and muscle,
I tell you I’m yours, I want you, you’re so good,

you

yes, I want this forever, you, only you—
my trick is it could be any of you.
it is pitiful, really
how the fool fancies herself a magician
but my act is just that, and no more,
save when I tell myself at least I’m left unscarred.

at night I dream of firing a gun
into a dark and frigid sky empty of stars.

Why I Write

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 02:49:00 -0400

hey tumblr i don’t have anywhere else to put this really but i need to put it down somewhere that feels lasting so it can feel actually SAID, you know? this is vaguely in response to lots of irritating criticisms and misinterpretations of my writing that i’ve had to field lately, but mostly it’s just something i wanted to say. well, for reasons probably explained herein:

Why I Write

Writing is what I know in the truest sense I can think of. I don’t remember a time when I thought in images or sounds—it has always been words for me. My childhood obsessive tendencies were all centered on elaborate games in my head based on the alphabet, or keyboards, or spelling, anagrams and palindromes. Those close to me have often remarked upon how rarely I seem to be outwardly struggling, or ask for advice, or cry. If I did not write, none of those things would be true. It is how I translate the world into an endurable and comprehensible place to live.

It is really only by the grand chance of finding sanctity in words that I escaped the allure of fatalism. I am far too agnostic about any sort of knowledge, let alone the knowledge of God, to be capable of the certain assertions of absolute truths made daily by most everyone else alive. But it is in the promise of advocacy—in the capacity to believe with all of my heart in whatever I deem a personal truth of mine—that I find shelter from what would otherwise inevitably be a mindset of despair and purposelessness.

If you are inclined to disagree with me, I welcome it. You are not the first and you will not be the last. I have given up on the idea that I can write to please an audience, but I will never give up on the hope that I may write to persuade at least a few to my position, not because I believe it to be absolutely true, but because I believe it to be the best thing that I myself have found to hold as true. I thrash wildly against the concept that the rejection of absolutes necessarily dilutes a belief in truth. The idea that there must be only one true answer to any given question in order for any answer to be true is pure nonsense to me. Truth is in advocacy, in the power to persuade, the tireless will to analyze and proffer, the declaration of self we embed into any argument worth having.

We are each born into a body and a name, a time and a place. These we do not choose, but they are specially ours for the rest of our lives and each set belongs to only one of us. Not a one of us is any better than any other, and whosoever says otherwise says so on no more authority than I have, so I suppose it’s a stalemate. (Right there is your proof that truth can exist without unanimity. What’s more, unanimity is no real indication of truth!) The existence of that self can only be affirmed by the words and actions of its owner—all other externally imposed characteristic descriptions such as birth and death dates, strength of jaw line, decency of reputation, etc., are merely adornments. And so we are left by some measure to live always alone, insofar as no one can access our own consciousnesses but through our own assertions, displays, and explanations of it. I do not mean to downplay my fellow human beings when I say that such a state of affairs inevitably dooms us to the realization that all forms of communication (barring perhaps touch) are marred by any number of poor translations between the formation of the thought in the brain and its expression to another party. But I am hard-pressed to believe that it could ever be possible that the charade of meager impressions we’ve drawn up of centuries’ worth of opinions and ideas of dead people could amount to something we could call absolute truth. Nor could the things we say and write to each other, today, approach a real and substantial consensus.

Imagine saying that hearing a song through the static of a distant radio station amounted to understanding how to play it yourself, the way the guitar strings might feel against your fingertips, how to keep the pace just right. This is what you might as well be saying if you come away from reading this imagining that I have fully transmitted what I am thinking to you. I care about writing for this reason and this reason only: to me, it is essential. This is how I have always known who I am, and will continue to know who I am, no matter how many people come away from my words with an understanding of them more badly distorted than the first line in a game of telephone. Nitpickers abound; I am one of them. But I have resigned myself to that—it is, I suppose, our genetic predisposition, as is our tragic relentlessness to say something universally true. I just try to say what I mean in a way that makes sense to me. That, I think, is the best I can hope for.

IvyGate: There’s Hazing, and Then There’s Hazing

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:40:17 -0400

IvyGate: There’s Hazing, and Then There’s Hazing:

ivygate:

On Wednesday, I got into a bit of Twitter debate with Dartblog’s Kathleen Mayer over my post, which detailed Nathaniel Fick’s comments on hazing. (I’ve assembled a timeline of the debate here.)

The debate was more like a fight, to be honest:

@ivygate @susanematthews_ oh wow this…

Look I got in a fight with ivygate.

J.K. seems to expect a response. I said on twitter I wouldn’t give him one, but I’m by nature a fighter, and I’m really frustrated with how the argument seems to be represented here. I suggest anyone reading this click on the full argument under the link provided in the original post in order to actually understand what went down. If I were even more of a cynic than I am, I might go so far as to say he purposely distorted the conversation to give himself yet another platform on which to editorialize about his negative view of hazing vs. the “positive” view he unfairly attributes to others. Let me break this down for you as summarily as possible:

1) I do not have a positive view of hazing in the military or in the fraternity system. Sorry to take the wind out of your sails, buddy. But they are still very, very different. I have never been in the military, but were I to go through intense official military training in addition to the unauthorized practices conducted by my fellow men-in-arms meant to rattle me psychologically and perhaps even harm me physically—military hazing—and I came out of that experience saying I realized its purpose and learned something of value from it, I would be more than a little miffed if someone took that to mean that I saw the value in fraternity hazing as well.

2) Here’s why: if even 1% of what is required of a soldier in boot camp or basic training were required of a fraternity pledge to be a member of that fraternity, it would qualify as hazing under the law. FOR THE FRATERNITY. It would not and does not qualify as hazing in the military. Know why? Because within the military context, it is understood as not only acceptable but vitally necessary to break down one’s individual will so that he or she can emerge with a renewed sense of communal, unified purpose. This is a cornerstone of how the military operates and is recognized as such by those in authority and under the law. On the other hand, breaking down one’s individual will in any fraternity context is considered unacceptable and illegal. Not only is it NOT vitally necessary (because you are not going to be thrown into life-or-death contexts together in which the self cannot matter more than the overall goal of a unit on a mission), but it can be quite psychologically damaging to you as a person. And they wonder why so many vets have PTSD…

3) What I’ve discussed so far does not fall within the realm of “military hazing.” In our twitter fight, it was clearly difficult for me to fully express what I meant when I said that military training is by nature a form of hazing. I absolutely believe that. In a fraternity context it would most certainly be considered as much. You say the military condemns hazing—sure. The extracurricular, unauthorized kind.

4) Within a system in which numerous methods of psychological and physical tests to prove oneself are already an authorized pre-requisite, I do not consider it a pro-hazing or ridiculous argument that certain forms of unauthorized tests of will (together constituting military hazing) could be understood as more justifiable than hazing in a fraternity system in which there is no established basis for having to prove oneself through such tests. Again, though there may be parallels between the means (ritual acts of humiliation), the ends are wildly different and the institutions espouse very different purposes and end goals. One sends people off to fight and die together in the same uniforms, forgetting who they were back home. One is just supposed to be am extracurricular social organization on a college campus.

5) None of what I said above actually matters though, because the reason this became a fight in the first place—the only reason—was that I took issue with your baseless attribution of Fick’s opinion on military hazing to what he would think of fraternity hazing. That was all I had a problem with. It doesn’t matter what I think of hazing, or what you think of hazing, in either context. It is simply dishonest journalism to write an entire post that is founded upon the notion that Fick thinks hazing is good for you in any context just because he understood its value within the military context. The life of a student is very different from the life of a soldier. In my opinion, it was reckless for you to assume that your own conflation of the two types of hazing is shared by Fick, or anyone at all.

sisterwolf: Ta da!

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 11:09:06 -0400

sisterwolf:

Ta da!