Re: Bonum est multiplex

1

The white bear chapter of Tristram Shandy of course. Or VI.1 of Tom Jones. Or the porny part of Dracula with the three weird sisters threatening the super-sensitive skin of Jonathan Harker's exposed throat. Or Donne, or Behn.

I love reading things really really slowly aloud. I think I became a lit instructor just so I have an excuse to do this.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 04-24-10 10:47 PM
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Since Yggles posted a link, I have become re-obsessed with Stevens' "Peter Quince at the Clavier" I think it would be a challenging piece to recite.

Uhh, there is a lot more, but never mind


Posted by: bob mcmanus | Link to this comment | 04-24-10 11:10 PM
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slow lane

In the space of 7+ years since I first bought something there, I still haven't reached the threshold of spending that triggers some discount the amount of which I can no longer remember. It's very easy to spend a lot there, if you don't mind spending a lot on academic books. But I do so mind.

I think I've eaten a sandwich in the place next door. It was pretty good.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 2:44 AM
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Having just read Bruce Sterling's Distraction and Bruno Latour's Aramis or the Love of Technology back to back (in a daring leap into the 1990s), I've noticed that I can read fiction much, much faster than non-fiction.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 3:28 AM
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Bruno Latour's Aramis or the Love of Technology

I love that book.

God, I ldo ove the craziness of Personal Rapid Transit systems -- one of the great crank ideas out there. Check out this totally sweet animation of the world of the future I want to ride in my personal electronically-guided mini-pod!


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 4:30 AM
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OK, probably best not to just hit "post" while suffering from serious insomnia. I am not a crackpot!


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 4:32 AM
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I was going to ask why you're awake at this ungodly hour. As far as I'm concerned it's not even decent here in the East.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 5:47 AM
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The novelization of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a treasure house of suitable passages. I'd go with the parts that detail Indy's thoughts after he drank the potion from the skull and became a zombie-type slave. The way rage turns to joy after Short Round burns Indy to restore his free will is a classic passage. No other novelization of an action movie deals with the issue of free will in such a challenging way.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:37 AM
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I'm speaking, of course, of the original novelization by James Kahn. I have not read the new one by Suzanne Weyn.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:45 AM
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We will enjoy wine and edibles prepared by the Musical Offering's genius chef Erick Balbuena, featuring many ingredients gathered from the Berkeley Hills. We ask everyone to bring a paragraph or a few words you love that must be read carefully, and savored slowly.

'Jesus wept.'

m, hah


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:51 AM
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8,9: This is why we can never have nice things on the blog.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:01 AM
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||

John Quiggan:

[R]ightwing politics now consists of the restatement of talking points in favor of a set of policy positions that represent affirmations of tribal identity, rather than elements of a coherent program.

||>


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:02 AM
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1: Just read where Mary Shelley and John William Polidori could loosely be called volcano refugees when they penned their seminal works. The "wet, ungenial summer" that drove them indoors in 1816 was the Year Without a Summer which followed the Mount Tambora eruption in 1815. I had never put that together. (Eyjafjallajökull ain't got the stuff--only a 4 on the Volcanic Eruption Index to Tambora's 7 (Mt. St. Helens was a 5).)


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:24 AM
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Ezekiel 23:17-21


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:28 AM
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Props to teh Ezekiel. Try chapter 1 of Seven Pillars of Wisdom (page headings Morality of Battle, Strangeness and Pain, and Detachment).


Posted by: bill | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:36 AM
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14: That's beautiful.


Posted by: rob helpy-chalk | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:47 AM
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It would be better if I could mix versions, because the last line is better in the King James Version ("Thus thou calledst to remembrance the lewdness of thy youth, in bruising thy teats by the Egyptians for the paps of thy youth.").


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 9:07 AM
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5.last - PRT is one of those great sfnal ideas -- like the L5 Society's space colonies -- that is always just around the corner if the man didn't keep it down! I feel like there were and are other ones, but to me other than a flying car says "you are a character in a mid-century science fiction novel" like your transport bubble. (Did the Heathrow one talked about in your video ever actually launch?)


Posted by: snarkout | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 9:34 AM
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12: Quiggin is smart smart smart. He's one of the few bloggers I read anymore on anything to do with US politics.


Posted by: Mary Catherine | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 10:13 AM
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18: Wikipedia says they're planning to open one up going from one terminal to a long-term parking lot this spring, and might add more if this works well, but I assume it's not yet in operation since the company website talks about having conducted passenger trials there last month.


Posted by: Minivet | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 11:19 AM
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20 -- the tranportation revolution of the future . . . that might allow for shaving 3-4 minutes off the time it would take for a shuttle bus to take you to the airport parking lot! But in a pod!

There's apparently a working sort-of PRT system on the campus of the University of West Virginia. I've always wanted to see that. Apparently they didn't really expand out the PRT elements, so it basically works pretty much just like a train. But with pods!

Realistically, we'll probably get centralized remote control of individual cars before a PRT system. Still, there has to be ONE city crazy enough to install a system.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 2:17 PM
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21 written, obvs, before clicking on the link in 18. The pence burns.

We should have a meet up in a PRT car in Morgantown, WV.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 2:19 PM
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The iPhone changed "pwnage" to "pence.". I kinda like "pence" better -- did you just get penced? No dude, I totally got shillinged.


Posted by: Robert Halford | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 2:21 PM
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I dunno about you, but I was pounded.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 2:22 PM
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Pa hee nage.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 2:23 PM
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So the pa hee is a kind of fish, then?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 2:26 PM
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The paheenee is a fish from Organtown.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 2:35 PM
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The difficulties it encounters in spawning are recounted in "The Night-Sea Journey".


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 2:39 PM
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On the PRT, Duke had a system for connecting the medical center's hospitals. I was never on campus and I'd only used it a couple of times, but I was surprised to learn it was no longer in service. Not as surprised as I was when I learned that they built a transit system to connect buildings separated by three blocks, but still surprised.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 3:19 PM
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Since Yggles posted a link, I have become re-obsessed with Stevens' "Peter Quince at the Clavier" I think it would be a challenging piece to recite.

I like this poem but agree that it's challenging to read aloud. I tried it out for a while as a pre-makeout read-aloud poem at the conclusion of dates. But I decided it was too pompous. I eventually settled on a good translation of Ovid's "The Art of Love" as the go-to makeout poem. Witty and sexy and funny, very high success rate.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 3:47 PM
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Is this op-ed actively disingenuous or just dreadfully illogical?

Others predicted that the pill would prevent pregnancy among "naughty little girls," Rock's description of sexually active single women. But the pill did not prevent unwed pregnancy, which in 1980 increased to 18 percent of all births, from 5 percent in 1960.

There should be term for this trick of putting unrelated sentences next to each other to imply a connection.

In 1968, Science News reported that despite the "flood tide of publicity over oral contraception and its moral impact," the pill had little effect on the sexual behavior of unmarried men and women. One doctor at the time explained it this way: "The presence of the pill does not make people decide to have sex. It is after they decide to have sex that they go get the pill."

Empiricism for the win! Thanks, Science News, for your objective analysis of data.

Oh, wait.



Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 3:48 PM
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I tried it out for a while as a pre-makeout read-aloud poem at the conclusion of dates. But I decided it was too pompous.

You mean to have a pre-makeout read-aloud poem at all, right? Or if not, how was it not obvious that Stevens was not your go-to guy? (Actually there are some Stevens poems that might be suitable, not that I can remember any; I only remember once reading Stevens with a young lady alternately prior to making out. But that wasn't the plan.)

Anyway, here's what I would suggest. It's from the 17th century, so you know it's honored by time and usage (by Herrick, though I can't locate the title online):

Show me thy feet, show me thy legs, thy thighs,
Show me those fleshy principalities;
Show me that hill where smiling love doth sit,
Having a living fountain under it;
Show me thy waist, then let me there withal,
By the ascension of thy lawn, see all.

Not too forward, I think.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 3:52 PM
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Also, unlike Ars Amatoria, it isn't over 2000 lines long.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 3:54 PM
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da mi basia mille, deinde centum?


Posted by: Awl | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 4:19 PM
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One if by land,
Two if by sea.
If I say "quicksand,"
then you set me free.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 4:25 PM
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You mean to have a pre-makeout read-aloud poem at all, right?

Well, it wasn't *official* or anything. Just one possible direction to go. It's really just a question of what books you want to have within easy reach of your couch.

As the the length of Ars Amatoria, that's an advantage...there's something in there for every situation.


Posted by: PGD | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 4:35 PM
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I don't even have a couch.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 4:36 PM
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32: Stevens did in fact write an excellent pre-makeout poem, "Restatement of Romance".

The night knows nothing of the chants of night.
It is what it is as I am what I am:
And in perceiving this I best perceive myself

And you. Only we two may interchange
Each in the other what each has to give.
Only we two are one, not you and night,

Nor night and I, but you and I, alone,
So much alone, so deeply by ourselves,
So far beyond the casual solitudes,

That night is only the background of our selves,
Supremely true each to its separate self,
In the pale light that each upon the other throws.


Posted by: Jesus McQueen | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 4:41 PM
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It seems, in fact, too excellent to be usable.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 4:43 PM
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The conclusion of that passage in Springer's Progress is true poetry:

The what? The who?
Ah, Lord. Quel fuck.
Archetypal.

"Ah Lord. Quel fuck," is going into heavy rotation in my profanity schedule. Thanks, neb!


Posted by: DS | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 4:58 PM
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Boners sunt Cinemax.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 5:39 PM
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||

People in Philadelphia and Baltimore should duck, especially if you hear the air raid sirens. There's some awesomely nasty weather headed your general direction.

m, scary-looking but hopefully much ado about nothing

|>


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 5:42 PM
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I've been trying to wrap my head around the notion of a pre-makeout read-aloud poem. As part of the overall seduction process, over a period of time, yes, but just pre-makout, moments before? I'm coming up with nothing I could plan for, unless it just traded on knowledge I already have of the person. I recall a guy and I reading some early (19th century) ethnobotanical history of the local region once ... or rather, him reading it to me. Super sexy, I'm telling you.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 5:43 PM
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"Would you like to come in and look at my ethnobotanical histories?"


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 5:44 PM
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max, the change in your commenting style gives your new comments a confusingly different flavor.

["You know what I mean."]


Posted by: essear | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 5:51 PM
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Hmmm, maybe I should learn some ethnobotany.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 5:52 PM
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Teo, it's best if you're reading from a beautifully bound book with those lovely botanical plates. It just wouldn't have been the same had he been reading from a Kindle or iPad.

Helps if you have candles as well.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 5:57 PM
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I think that I shall never see
A poem as lovely as ethnobotany.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 5:58 PM
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43: I'm coming up with nothing I could plan for,

All I can think of is it being a setup for the most well-deserved "Fuck you clown" ever.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 5:58 PM
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Teo, it's best if you're reading from a beautifully bound book with those lovely botanical plates.

Is it okay if it's checked out of the library? I don't think I could afford to buy something like that.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:07 PM
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49: The set up would have to be so complete, and have taken place over a long enough evening, that it didn't seem completely staged, and yeah, I'm having trouble seeing it. There's a fine line between silly and charming.

That storm max mentioned is brewing here. Grumbling thunder and lightning. A few miles off right now. I should probably make food in case we lose electricity.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:07 PM
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50: Oh, sure.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:08 PM
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Helps if you have candles as well.

Surely there's such a thing as being too on the nose.

I mean, imagine you put on an Elysian Fields record, too.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:10 PM
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I don't think I could afford to buy something like that.

You'd be surprised, actually, I think.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:11 PM
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I actually have a (library) book on ethnobotany right here. It's small, not illustrated, and impenetrably dense, though. Not well suited to seductive reading-aloud, I would think.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:15 PM
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A woman who can't be seduced by impenetrable botanical texts is a woman who isn't worth seducing, m'boy.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:16 PM
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Noted.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:17 PM
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The only ethnobotanist I know of who became famous was infamous in other Caribbean scientific circles for sleeping with perhaps slightly too many of his subjects. Can't remember his name. It probably only annoys other ethnobotanists, anyway.

Huh. I left that record shop an ordered list of recordings involving the serpent and ophicleide, with a request to call me when they found the first one they could actually get hold of, and they haven't called me. Either their reach or their organization are weak.


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:28 PM
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59: How many plants you can have sex with before it becomes too many for the other ethnobotanists?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:29 PM
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Surely there's such a thing as being too on the nose.

The candles only work if it's obvious that you frequently burn candles. In the case of the gentleman in question, it was actually oil (kerosene) lamps, glass, of which he had a dozen all about the house. Normal evening lighting.

This applies to the ethnobotany as well: it was what he was currently reading, partly in order to, um, pet handle the bound volume itself, and partly because he was just interested in the topic.

Didn't Teo kinda sorta seduce his last-summer lady by giving her a private viewing of his Chaco lecture? Something like that?


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:31 PM
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59 to 58.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:32 PM
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Didn't Teo kinda sorta seduce his last-summer lady by giving her a private viewing of his Chaco lecture? Something like that?

Something like that, yeah. She didn't need a whole lot of seducing, though.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:35 PM
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In the case of the gentleman in question, it was actually oil (kerosene) lamps, glass, of which he had a dozen all about the house. Normal evening lighting.

That's what my dad's family used for lighting, but they stopped in 1949 or so.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:36 PM
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59: When it leads to ethnogenesis.


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:39 PM
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63: I'm here to tell you that it's charming. Way better than reading ethnobotany by overhead fluorescent. That really kills the mood.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:47 PM
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What about reading about the botany of desire?


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:50 PM
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People in Philadelphia and Baltimore should duck

Good to know, as I've been indoors for hours and will have to drive a bit later.

Meantime, time to get more talented people than me on this:


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:51 PM
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Whoops. Here it is.

With apologies to Nina Simone:

The name of this tune is Arizona Goddamn
And I mean every word of it

Joe Arpaio's gotten me so upset
Russ Pearce made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Arizona Goddamn

Joe Arpaio's gotten me so upset
Jan Brewer made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Arizona Goddamn

Can't you see it
Can't you feel it
It's all in the air
I can't stand the pressure much longer
Somebody say a prayer

Sheriff Joe's gotten me so upset
Jan Brewer made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Arizona Goddamn

This is a show tune
But the ending isn't written yet

Helicopters on my trail
Little children sitting in jail
Policeman dog my path
I think every day's gonna be my last

Lord have mercy on this land of mine
We all gonna get it in due time
I don't belong here (border)
I don't belong there (frontera)
I've even stopped believing in prayer

Don't tell me
I tell you
Me and my people just about due
I've been there so I know
They keep on saying "Go home!"

But that's just the trouble
"Go home"
Planting the gardens
"Go home"
Building the houses
"Go home"

You work like crazy
"Go home"
You're too damn lazy
"Go home"
The thinking's hazy
"Go home"

Where am I going
What am I doing
I don't know
I don't know

Just try to do your very best
Papers out and hold your breath
For everybody knows about Arizona Goddamn

I bet you thought I was kiddin' didn't you

Protest lines
State boycotts
They try to say it's a socialist plot
All I want is equality
for my sister my brother my people and me

Yes you lied to me all these years
You told me to wash and clean my ears
And speak English just like a lady
And you'd stop calling me Anchor Baby

Oh but this whole country is full of lies
You're all gonna die and die like flies
I don't trust you any more
You keep on saying "Go home!"
"Go home!"

But that's just the trouble
"Go home"
Legalization
"Go home"
College education
"Go home"
Naturalization
"Go home"
Do things gradually
"Go home"
Despite tragedy
"Go home"

Why don't you see it
Why don't you feel it
I don't know
I don't know

You don't have to live next to me
Just give me my equality
Everybody knows about Arizona
Everybody knows about Joe Arpaio
Everybody knows about Arizona Goddamn

That's it!


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:52 PM
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the botany of desire

Waking in the Dark #5

All night dreaming of a body
space weighs on differently from mine
We are making love in the street
the traffic flows off from us
pouring back like a sheet
the asphalt stirs with tenderness
there is no dismay
we move together like underwater plants

Over and over, starting to wake
I dive back to discover you
still whispering, touch me, we go on
streaming through the slow
citylight forest ocean
stirring our body hair.

But this is the saying of a dream
on waking
I wish there were somewhere
actual we could stand
handing the power-glasses back and forth
looking at the earth, the wildwood
where the split began

- Adrienne Rich, from Diving into the Wreck (1971)


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:53 PM
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There's an unfortunately dreadful movie with Sean Connery as an ethnobotanist. A gas chromatograph gets hauled by hook and crook and canoe into the deep jungle and works on first boot. (That was the only good part, as far as I got.)


Posted by: clew | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:56 PM
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There's an unfortunately dreadful movie with Sean Connery...

That is a nice opening for a sentence. Gives you options.


Posted by: | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:57 PM
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71.1 should have been in italics.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 6:58 PM
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Sorry I stepped on your comment/poem/post, Witt.

That's good stuff. I don't know what the question about it is. It seems straightforwardly right on.

About that storm, it's moving pretty fast. Some truly cringe-worthy thunder-cracks. If it seems heavy when you're leaving, I'd say just wait 15-20 minutes. It's moving through quickly.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:00 PM
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What about making out while eating Botan rice candy?


Posted by: fake accent | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:00 PM
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Dear be still! Time's start of us lengthens slowly.
Bright round plentiful nights ripen and fall for us.
Those impatient thighs will be bruised soon enough.

Sniff the sweet narcotic distilled by coupled
skins; moist bodies relaxed, mild, unemotional.
Thrifty fools spoil love with their headlong desires.

Dally! Waste! Mock! Loll! till the chosen sloth fails,
huge gasps empty the loins shuddering chilly in
long accumulated delight's thunderstorm.

Rinsed in cool sleep day will renew the summer
lightnings. Leave it to me. Only a savage's
lusts explode slapbang at the first touch like bombs.

(ode 9)

You leave
nobody else
without a bed

you make
everybody else
thoroughly at home

I'm
the only one
hanged
in your
halter

you've driven
nobody else mad
but me

(ode 28)


Posted by: Basil Bunting | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:06 PM
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I must say, unfogged hasn't had a good sex and seduction discussion thread in some time, and this was an opportunity, an opportunity I tell you, and I'm disappointed.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:07 PM
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I recited poetry to someone before fucking him once, but I don't think it was as hot for him as it was for me.


Posted by: A White Bear | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:09 PM
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I didn't mean 76 as a response to 75, which I hadn't seen.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:11 PM
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My originating idea was that we would produce passages that would technically answer to the description in the blockquote in the post while simultaneously obviously not being the sort of thing the sort of person apt to participate in such a thing would likely expect. (Which I expect wouldn't really make for a very interesting thread, but my mind's bogglement at the event's existence was great.) It is probably true that sufficiently over-engineered seduction poetry would meet that criterion.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:11 PM
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It is probably true that sufficiently over-engineered seduction poetry would meet that criterion.

As would impenetrably dense botanical texts.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:15 PM
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77: Dr. Seuss doesn't set the mood for everybody.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:15 PM
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Ode 9 would be potentially dangerous to recite, given the risk of calling the recited-to a savage.

This is the problem. The Adrienne Rich poem for instance strikes me as too purposive.

Desire, first, by a natural miracle
United bodies, united hearts, blazed beauty;
Transcended bodies, transcended hearts.

Two souls, now unalterably one
In whole love always and for ever,
Soar out of twilight, through upper air,
Let fall their sensous burden.

Is it kind, though, is it honest even,
To consort with none but spirits—
Leaving true-wedded hearts like ours
In enforced night-long separation,
Each to its random bodily inclination,
The thread of miracle snapped?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:16 PM
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As would impenetrably dense botanical texts.

Does one savor such things? Perhaps one does. Probably whatever one savors in such things is savored slowly (it takes time to break down cellulose).


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:17 PM
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56, 57: Master and student.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:18 PM
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How cruel you are, JP.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:19 PM
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What happens when an impenetrably dense botanical text meets an irresistible desire to savor.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:20 PM
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85: I practice a lot by myself.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:21 PM
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Plus I'm only trying to help.


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:22 PM
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Three Michaelmas daisies
on an ashtray;
one abets love;
one droops and woos;

one stiffens her petals
remembering
the root, the sap
and the bees' play.


Posted by: Basil Bunting | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:22 PM
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90

I was born on Michaelmas.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:25 PM
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91

...laydeez.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:25 PM
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Then the woman with the strawberry mouth,
Squirming like a snake upon the coals,
Kneading her breasts against the iron of her corset,
Let flow these words scented with musk:
-- "I have wet lips, and I know the art
Of losing old conscience in the depths of a bed.
I dry all tears on my triumphing breasts
And I make old men laugh with the laughter of children.
For those who see me naked, without any covering,
I am the moon and the sun and the sky and the stars!
I am so dexterous in voluptuous love, my dear, my wise one,
When I strangle a man in my dreadful arms,
Or abandon my breast to his biting,
So shy and lascivious, so frail and vigorous,
That on these cushions that swoon with passion
The powerless angels damn their souls for me!"

When she had sucked the pith from my bones
And, drooping, I turned towards her
To give her the kiss of love, I saw only
An old leather bottle with sticky sides and full of pus!
I shut both eyes in cold dismay
And when I opened them both to clear reality,
By my side, instead of that powerful puppet
Which seemed to have taken some lease of blood,
There shook vaguely the remains of a skeleton,
Which itself gave the cry of a weathercock
Or of a sign-board, at the end of a rod of iron,
Which the wind swings in winter nights.

(trans. Geoffrey Wagner)


Posted by: baudelaire | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:25 PM
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93

The terms of the UPB round table set out in the blockquote are vague and impertinent, allowing for anything from The Bridges of Madison County to Maya Angelou to the Tao Te Ching. It's a good idea, but they should set a theme.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:25 PM
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94

Impertinent?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:27 PM
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95

Dr. Seuss doesn't set the mood for everybody.

I would not, could not in the butt.


Posted by: apostropher | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:29 PM
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Bid me to live, and I will live
Thy Protestant to be;
Or bid me love, and I will give
A loving heart to thee.

A heart as soft, a heart as kind,
A heart as sound and free
As in the whole world thou canst find,
That heart I'll give to thee.

Bid that heart stay, and it will stay,
To honour thy decree;
Or bid it languish quite away.
And 't shall do so for thee.

Bid me to weep, and I will weep
While I have eyes to see;
And having none, yet I will keep
A heart to weep for thee.

Bid me despair, and I'll despair,
Under that cypress tree;
Or bid me die, and I will dare
E'en Death, to die for thee.

Thou art my life, my love, my heart,
The very eyes of me,
And hast command of every part,
To live and die for thee.


Posted by: Robert Herrick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:30 PM
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95: Would you like to shake hands with Thing 1 and Thing 2?


Posted by: JP Stormcrow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:36 PM
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98

Lots of thunder and lightning over here.


Posted by: teofilo | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:39 PM
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Pretty much anything works if the subject is already willing. I've successfully 'used' on the fly translations of various Polish poets e.g. Zbignew Herbert and Wislawa Szymborska.


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:40 PM
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94: Impertinent?

Yeah, I'm not sure why I wanted that term, but I did. I stared at it, interrogated it several times, but it's what I wanted. It makes me impatient? It presumes that we have similar ideas?

The terms ask for 'something you love that must be read carefully and savored slowly.' (I really do think this is a great premise for a open table discussion.*) I do actually love the Rich poem I posted up there. But it's totally inappropriate for the open table discussion; not necessarily because it's too purposive.

I assume the thing is supposed to be a celebration of words, of gorgeous (lilting?) language.

* My first long-term boyfriend's family had a holiday tradition of each attendant at the Christmas gathering bringing a "reading" -- anything that had struck or moved or had strong impact on you in the last year. Each person read the reading aloud, and the subject matter was all over the map. Everybody discussed each one. It wasn't as forced as you'd think, and put the family members in touch with one another again.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:44 PM
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I would not, could not in the butt.

Would you, could you with a mutt?


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:44 PM
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I think an entry or two from Monster Manual II would be suitable either for the OP or as pre-make-out text.


Posted by: foolishmortal | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:44 PM
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103

It's different with Slavs, teraz.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:46 PM
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My first long-term boyfriend's family had a holiday tradition of each attendant at the Christmas gathering bringing a "reading" -- anything that had struck or moved or had strong impact on you in the last year. Each person read the reading aloud, and the subject matter was all over the map. Everybody discussed each one. It wasn't as forced as you'd think, and put the family members in touch with one another again.

My family does something similar from time to time. My secret has always been to select comic passages, which are particularly welcome when you reach the point in the evening at which everybody is losing focus and slightly prone to eyes glazing over.


Posted by: NickS | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:50 PM
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The exciting storm hit Baltimore and left again. Apparently the entire mess is going to pass *south* of Philly, and instead pound Northern Delaware and South Central New Jersey. Well. OK then. I guess Philly just gets buckets and buckets of rain.

HOWEVER, sports fans, Baltimore is about to get hammered again by the front end of the fast-moving second wave that just hit here. Which produced lots and lots of loud thunder, two minutes of hail, and 15 minutes if rain... and then it stopped cold. Thus did that storm earn the epithet 'the premature ejaculation of Real Weather'.

Anyways, it looks like Baltimore will again get hit harder than here, so expect small, loud hail and lots more thunder around 10:30-11:30. That said, the storm's bark is worse than its bite.

essear: ["You know what I mean."]

max
['Well, fine. Be like that then.']

p.s. Go Blackhawks!


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 7:58 PM
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so expect small, loud hail

I have my roof covered in bubble wrap and used paper towels.


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:00 PM
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104: It's a friggin' great tradition. It's true that family members often scramble at the last minute to dig something up, but since there's permission, as it were, to produce something that may not be profound, may not read well, but just *affected* you, it can be any number of things. Guests on Christmas Eve were asked to do this too, please, though it wasn't required of them.

It was a great, great improvement on Christmas gatherings among a bunch of people not truly talking to each other.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:04 PM
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107: If they want to talk, can't they just drink too much Bailey's like everybody else does on Christmas?


Posted by: Moby Hick | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:07 PM
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I made a point of reading Matthew 25:31-46 to my mom on Easter and letting her know that, though I bag on religion, that's pretty groovy stuff. I think it made her day, even though I'm still going to hell or whatever.


Posted by: Stanley | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:14 PM
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We appear to be having quite impressive amounts of lightning, but nothing else yet. I'm south and west of the city at present, though.

NickS reminds me of an adored Jean Kerr essay about a doing a weekly "Culture Hour" with her five young sons. Not sure if the Google Books link will work, so a selection:

We also began to get evidence that gallons of nineteenth century poetry hadn't washed over them in vain. I recall one night -- the twins were twelve -- when John was made an Eagle Scout. Driving home from this awe-inspiring ceremony (oh, the Nobel people could take lessons!), I started to tease John. "Well," I said, "you've reached the top. Now what are you going to do?" The answer came from Colin in the backseat. "Oh," he announced briskly, "I expect he will go down to the vile dust from whence he sprung, unwept, unhonored, and unsung."

A snippet doesn't do it justice; you really have to be there for the entire gentle arc, and adroitly pulled up short at the end.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:14 PM
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82: Desire, first, by a natural miracle

neb, are you attracted by the idea of attending one of the OPB round tables, and are you seeking something to read? And is the Graves quoted in 82 a candidate?


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:21 PM
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"Salutation"

O generation of the thoroughly smug
and thoroughly uncomfortable,
I have seen fisherman picnicking in the sun,
I have seen them with untidy families,
I have seen their smiles full of teeth
and heard ungainly laughter.
And I am happier than you are,
And they were happier than I am,
And the fish swim in the lake
and do not even own clothing.

- Ezra Pound

(courtesy of ogged, actually)


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:25 PM
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neb, are you attracted by the idea of attending one of the OPB round tables, and are you seeking something to read? And is the Graves quoted in 82 a candidate?

No (as I would have thought completely obvious), perforce no, and perforce no doubly.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:29 PM
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I do like Graves, though.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:30 PM
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113: Okay. It's probably all going to be old people, anyway, and you wouldn't be able to meet someone suitable for seduction.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:39 PM
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Thank you for your advice, parsimon. Not only would I never have guessed, that I would never have guessed could not have been deduced from the post.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:41 PM
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Guessed? What? About what? I just thought it could be a potential forum for meeting fellow wordsmiths, perhaps attractive ones ... I'm probably slow to realize that that's unlikely.

Sorry for the presumption.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:47 PM
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It sounds completely unbearable.


Posted by: nosflow | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 8:56 PM
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Maybe so. Probably. It really depends. I don't know the bookstore or the kinds of things it hosts. I think I was giving it potential because you said it's a really great bookstore with good food. But you're right, the round table is probably a terrible excuse for a salon.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 9:05 PM
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The designated Polish makeout poet is Halina Poswiatowska, who was terminally ill and on the verge of dying from her mid teens until her death at age thirty two. There's a full translation of her poetry here on a very bare bones site.


Posted by: teraz kurwa my | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 9:06 PM
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And it's in Berkeley, which, come on, there must be scads of sexier intellectual things to do there.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 9:08 PM
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110: We appear to be having quite impressive amounts of lightning, but nothing else yet.

Lamest bad weather ever. Jesus H. Christ. What is it with the weather in the Mid-Atlantic states? Was it always this lame? Do they crank up the radars to make it look worse or something? I mean, this is a rural area so when the weather channel shows a NWS alert scroller, they gotta have some guy in the stuido sound an air horn three times, since they do not have the equipment to make the proper tones. Sheesh.

max
['Two minute warning.']


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 9:35 PM
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I guess you missed the hurricane a few years back. That was some righteous weather. It happens here every few years. Big snow or big hurricane. In between it's not hugely dramatic, no.

'night.


Posted by: parsimon | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 9:50 PM
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Do they crank up the radars to make it look worse or something?

Ha, that never occurred to me. I think it's more that weather is highly relative. I have PNW friends who flip out from East Coast thunderstorms that seem bog-standard normal to me. But I've seen CO and MT weather that was pretty remarkable, and maybe that seems normal to the locals.

Have to admit I was grateful to have just heavy rain tonight. It's nice to watch a big storm from your front porch, not so nice to drive in it.


Posted by: Witt | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 10:17 PM
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123: Big snow or big hurricane. In between it's not hugely dramatic, no.

Only the snow has lived up to potential here, and it comes so rarely. Also, it's so damn cold.

124: Ha, that never occurred to me. I think it's more that weather is highly relative.

Seconded!

But I've seen CO and MT weather that was pretty remarkable, and maybe that seems normal to the locals.

Lightening with thunder should rattle the picture frames on the wall. Small hail is the size of a dime to the size of a nickel. (Medium hail is the size of a golf ball. Large hail is the size of a baseball. Cower-in-terror-sized hail is the size of a softball.) Rain should be audible. Wind should blast through the gaps in the door frames and whistle.

That's proper bad weather. Truthfully: the wind on the prairies (from Manitoba & Saskatchewan) to Austin is about two to three times faster than the winds east of the Appalachians.

It's nice to watch a big storm from your front porch, not so nice to drive in it.

Agreed. I was driving home from the liquor store (true - also I was sober, thank you) and the rain really started pouring out of the sky. I was coming up on an intersection and suddenly it was like someone was aiming a fire hose at my windshield. The waters was leaking in around the tops of the closed side windows. Yeesh. Thank God it only lasted about a minute.

m, but i like it better in this format


Posted by: max | Link to this comment | 04-25-10 11:40 PM
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Nice little blizzard today in fact. Graupel mostly.


Posted by: CharleyCarp | Link to this comment | 04-26-10 12:33 AM
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Ah, teraz, Zbigniew Herbert would absolutely work for me. I was introduced to him by a relative who learned Polish to be able to read him in the original and there are so many bits of perfection in his poems. I wish I were in a position where I could read with others, but there's no one around for that now.


Posted by: Thorn | Link to this comment | 04-26-10 2:11 PM
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Coming back to the PRT theme, a few months ago I travelled through Heathrow 5 for the first time. I was looking for electric brain utopia pods, but didn't see any.

Perhaps I was influenced by the 15 quid fare on the Heathrow Express? Get fucked.


Posted by: Alex | Link to this comment | 04-26-10 4:24 PM
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