Signs and wonders

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I’ve been homebound for the past five weeks, recuperating from a badly sprained knee. The constant ingestion of pain-killers, as I discovered, makes it hard to focus on reading and writing, but happily I was able to make good progress with my guitar-playing and with copy-editing two more books queued for publication later this year.

The long hours of  convalescence made me much more aware of current events, culminating with last week’s parade of horrors. In the space of only six days,

1.         Wisconsin Republicans revoked collective bargaining for public employees—especially infuriating to me personally, since I  worked as an AFSCME shop steward for three years.

2.         By midweek it appeared that Colonel Shitface Qaddafi had gained control over the rebels in Libya, while the so-called international community continued to dither about intervening, in the usual manner of Rwanda, Darfur and Somalia.

3.         McCarthy-style Congressional hearings began with much publicity to investigate the risk of attack by domestic Islamic radicals, thus likely creating many more of them and ignoring the more cogent issue of how our own homegrown, non-Islamic paranoid schizophrenics like McVeigh or Gestedner are able to obtain explosives and automatic rifles as easily as they do.

4.         By the end of the week Japan had been devastated by a horrendous tsunami and by a row of incipient nuclear meltdowns, while just yesterday

5.         A ten-car train derailed near the Concord BART Station, because, as it was first reported, three or four wheels had fallen off one of the coaches.

In short this was one of the worst weeks in recent history, making one acutely aware how good we have it living our comfy, computer-driven lives here in San Francisco.

I’ve also decided to add a couple more gallons of bottled water to my earthquake emergency supply kit.

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Demodulating Angel has arrived!

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Ithuriel's Spear is delighted to announce the publication of San Francisco poet Richard Tagett's DEMODULATING ANGEL: Selected Poems 1960-2010.

A preview of Rich's book with a sampling of the poems can be viewed at the Ithuriel's Spear website, and there is even more information to be found here at Small Press Distribution in Berkeley.

The book launch celebration will be held at Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco on the 20th of April at 7 p.m.


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The America-is-not-broke speech

Michael Moore's great speech in Madison last weekend has been circulating like wildfire around the Internet. The official version of it, slightly edited and with the original video, appears on his own website at: http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/america-is-not-broke.
It reminds me strongly of Thomas Paine's Common Sense, and I hope it meets with a similar reception.

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Suze Rotolo's art books

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susan rotolo: august (2005) --  medialiagallery, nyc

Thanks to a post on Silliman’s Blog today, I found my way to a display of Suze Rotolo’s beautiful art books at a New York gallery. They are self-enclosed little worlds, and they remind of the movie Prospero's Books.

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Talking about Jesus with Little Richard

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I basically detest poems that are longer than a dozen lines or so, but I am always willing to make an exception for David Kirby, whose brilliant poem about Little Richard and Jesus showed up this morning on Poetry Today.

Kirby’s style of writing wittily combines stand-up comedy with real insight and irresistible imagery, for example in his genial and totally accurate description of Little Richard’s onstage appearance:

     in his flowing tresses and spangled blue suit,
     he looks like a sea god who has been clipped by a passing
     motorboat

Little Richard’s place in 1950’s rock history is assured because his Good-Golly-Miss-Molly boogie style assaulted the final limits of musical tolerability, simultaneously wedded as it was to the crazy vanity of his own semi-hysterical presence.

Kirby’s discursive poem however eventually turns eerily serious, probably reflecting Little Richard’s career as a born-again Christian preacher, and the poem ends with personal ruminations on dying in the midnight hour—“When the Lord of Night holds out his claw.”

I can't imagine when my turn comes that I will be thinking about Little Richard, but, well, I suppose there are less stimulating possibilities.

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One mad prick

Whatever you do, don't miss Charlie Brooker's Colonel Gadaffi rant, as posted yesterday on BoingBoing.

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The Great Blizzard of 2011

The big news this weekend in San Francisco was the record-breaking snowstorm promised to us by every professional weathercaster from here to San Luis Obispo. So devastating was this impending event imagined to be that it was duly reported Saturday on Huffpo, MSNBC, NBC Evening News, and even internationally on BBC online. And as quickly dropped afterwards when it became obvious that nothing of the sort had transpired, at  most a light dusting of frost on top of San Bruno Mountain.

I enjoyed Richard Schwarzenberger's reaction at In Faro's Garden:


Big thrilling news in Fogtown, the snow forecast for the weekend, and here it is, the weekend, all sun and blue sky. The only thing getting frozen are the assets of Ghaddafi, and not a minute too soon, having suddenly surpassed their shelf-life.  Just like Mubarak’s.  Ill-gotten gains go bad, like most other things, who would have thought?


Love so often goes bad.  In the Denver Post last Monday 6 pages were devoted to the trade of Carmelo Anthony to the Knicks, his betrayal and the 65 million dollar 3-year extension to his contract.


Divorce is painful.  A trial separation might have been tried, like the one working so well in the U.S.; the rich from the rabble demanding their health care and their pensions in out-of-the-way states.


Hey, everybody’s got to sacrifice. My sacrifice today, I’ve decided, is giving up ice and snow for blue skies and 50.

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Berlin Pissoirs: The final effluence

We conclude our exhibit of traditional Berlin urinals with this gorgeous image of a facility that still survives at Rüdesheimer Platz. Constructed in a pleasantly rustic environment,  we find exemplified here the classic design envisioned and created by Stadtbaurat Carl Theodor Rospatt in 1878. By 1920 Berlin was adorned with no less than 142 of these cast-iron beauties. Spread out like a chain of cancerous pearls from one end of the city to the other, and driven only by the force of gravity, they were capable of servicing the beer discharge from as many as seven different urinators simultaneously.

thanks: flickruser sludgegulper

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A message from the Underworld

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Under the Rockridge Bart station there can be seen a number of written messages responding to the Oakland Hills Fire, also known as the Great Oakland Firestorm of 1991.

The following inscription suggests the presence of a portal to the Underworld in this area. A team of specialists has been sent to investigate further.

thanks: resinoptes

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