Vonnegut, last words

Kurt Vonnegut's last book, “A Man Without a Country”, was a collection of biographical essays. It concludes with his poem "Requiem" and so, in a public sense, these could be considered his last words.

on Comedy Central
excerpt from New York Times Book section

closing lines from....
Requiem
by Kurt Vonnegut

When the last living thing
has died on account of us,
how poetical it would be
if Earth could say,
in a voice floating up
perhaps
from the floor
of the Grand Canyon,
“It is done.”
People did not like it here.

Kurt Vonnegut dies Vonnegut last words

Happy Birthday Cheeta

Today is Cheeta the Chimp's 75th birthday and Cheeta Day in Palm Springs, so named by former Mayor Ron Oden. Cheeta, aka "Jiggs," was one of the stars of the original Tarzan movies, in case you are an uncultured slob and don't know much about Hollywood celebrities. Cheeta celebrated with a sugar-free cake and diet soft drinks, proving that indeed wisdom does come with age.


After retiring from the movies, Cheeta fell on hard times with booze and cigars but that's all behind him now. He got sober, moved to Palm Springs, famous retirement community for old movie stars, and took up painting, which helps pay the bills.




There have been 4 unsuccessful attempts to secure a star for Cheeta on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. What's up with that? Cheeta is a better actor than half the smucks who's stars act as grinding stones for cigarette butts. Filmmaker Matt Devlen is organizing another campaign for 2007. Be ready to vote. The Guinness Book of World Records lists Cheeta as the world's oldest primate (note from Wikipedia: presumably meaning oldest non-human primate). Besides that he is just one cool dude. So Happy Birthday, Cheeta.

Then and now

I brought back one of my mother's old photo albums from Seattle. It is what she wanted by her side as she lay in her death bed the final days of her life. The memories made her happy. The cover is missing, many of its black pages are torn or loose and they are simultaneously brittle and alarmingly soft. The whole thing is gradually disappearing with the passing years. My brother asked me to scan what is left of them before they are beyond capture. They are lovely. They have haunted me ever since I saw them there at the hospital so, a few years ago, I wrote a poem for them and her and today I joined them together. I hope you enjoy them.

Abecedarian

Abecedarian is a funny little word and fun to say. Pronunciation here.

The 7 o'clock magpie just dropped by for a few peanut chips before retiring for the night. She is no abecedarian but rather the resident expert, having mastered the secrets of the Bird Park.

Writer's block?

Ever suffer writer's block? I think I do most of the time, to one degree or another. It's a terrible thing. Mental_floss recently posted one writer's creepy solution:

While plagiarism and alcohol are pretty lowly tactics for dealing with a bad case of writer's block, no one's quite handled their agony as morbidly as writer Dante Gabriel Rosetti.

A poet and a pre-Raphaelite painter, Rosetti truly loved his wife, Elizabeth. ("How much did he love his wife, you ask?") Well, after she died of a laudanum overdose in 1862, he buried her with the only existing copy of his unpublished poems. Seven years later, however, Rosetti found himself suffering from an extraordinary case of writer's block, so he dug up her body and retrieved his poems.

They were published in 1870 and were well received by the critics. Rosetti, however, never quite recovered. The poet could never forgive himself for pilfering his own wife's grave.

Bush almost blows himself up

Huffington Post disabled comments on this story and no wonder. Mr. Chucklehead President Bush almost blew himself up the other day ... heh heh.... Even if it didn't have a happy ending, it's a story worth repeating. I hope it brings an Easter smile to your face. Isn't Bushie cute? He looks so happy. Always getting into things.


Full story here:

Business Insider

Plug it in, fire it up, Mr. President

The Detroit News

Credit Ford Motor Co. CEO Alan Mulally with saving the leader of the free world from self-immolation.
Mulally told journalists at the New York auto show that he intervened to prevent President Bush from plugging an electrical cord into the hydrogen tank of Ford's hydrogen-electric plug-in hybrid at the White House last week. Ford wanted to give the Commander-in-Chief an actual demonstration of the innovative vehicle, so the automaker arranged for an electrical outlet to be installed on the South Lawn and ran a charging cord to the hybrid. However, as Mulally followed Bush out to the car, he noticed someone had left the cord lying at the rear of the vehicle, near the fuel tank.
"I just thought, 'Oh my goodness!' So, I started walking faster, and the President walked faster and he got to the cord before I did. I violated all the protocols. I touched the President. I grabbed his arm and I moved him up to the front," Mulally said. "I wanted the president to make sure he plugged into the electricity, not into the hydrogen. This is all off the record, right?"

Haste makes ...

Ten minutes before the NAC deadline this evening I ran up the stairs to their office clutching my still drying submissions packet but half way up I tripped and crushed it with both my hands. I smoothed it out although it instantly went from a nice, clean envelope to looking like it had been in the back of a pick-up truck for a week. I made it in the door, they stamped it and that was that until about an hour later when I realized that, due to a last minute edit, I had included a duplication and therefore failed to meet the criteria of 10 poems. Fucking Lovely. Have I learned anything besides the fact that I am an arrogant idiot? Perhaps. How about give yourself enough time to do it right ... or ... pay attention ... or don't run on the stairs. Anyway, I got several new poems out of the deal so I'm not complaining plus I finally opened my NaNoWriMo manuscript from last fall and didn't want to commit suicide after reading a few paragraphs. I just got home after reading some of the new work at Comma Coffee's open mike. It helped me come down a bit. I am still rattling off of the caffeine and adrenalin high. I want to grow up now.

Afternoon report

Okay, I harvested 10 poems from the NaNo pigpile of words. It wasn't as painful as I imagined it would be. The ol' internal editor is still out of the office so I'm gonna take what I got and run with it. The red pen comes later but right I've got to meet Susan at Comma Coffee. I blame her. She threw down the challenge harvesting 11 poems from her NaNo-rama pile-o-words.

Lucky Pierre and Monsieur Chance mock my effort to sell out.

Dear Diary

Must open flash drive and view NaNo manuscript. I'll pretend I wrote that one thousand times now so I can jump ahead to the dread. Okay ... dread ... dread. Got that over. Now .... hum .... must have more tea then, promise to self, I will get to work. Meeting Susan at 2. Must have something. Grant deadline Friday, 5pm.

Now that I have made my resolve public will I drag myself into action? Will your implied presence keep me honest?

Seattle, omens and images

I don't need no stinkin flash, she said.
Dinner party

I'm back from Seattle and running to catch up with unfinished business here. I worked in the garden all day yesterday, didn't touch my computer and went to bed achy and scratchy. It felt good. I spent most of today helping someone out with a project and then back to the garden. I want everything I planted yesterday to grow immediately into a tall, green secret world into which I can disappear at will. Tomorrow I must prepare a submissions packet for the Nevada Arts Council Fellowship deadline this Friday. Third time running but I don't expect it to be a charm. So far, I printed out the entry form but that's it. I promised myself I'd open my NaNoWriMo manuscript from last November to see if there is anything in it I can harvest. That should be painful. Mostly, I consider this exercising the idea of "writing for money".

Aunt Peggy,

beauty and mind destroyed by alcoholism

For now, here are a few photos from last week. The one WATCH YOUR STEP turned out to be rather prophetic. I knew it at the time and almost didn't take it hoping to ward off its dire prediction but no point in that. Things are what they are. It was wonderful spending time with my family but the lines twisted with my daughter, as they often seem to do. I thought it was hard being a mother's daughter but the fact is I was very difficult. The justice is that it can be so much more painful being a daughter's mother. I made so many mistakes along the way that even now they cast a chill shadow but this evening I did manage to put a few peanuts out before the 7 o'clock magpie arrived. At least I got that right.

Union St. wall

Urban wildlife

Union St. steps

University of Washington

Chinatown window

Morning, Lake Washington

Farmers Market afternoon

Uwajimaya grocery section

Seattle Public Library "Red Hall"

Seattle

Note to self: It is so nice bathing in water that has passed through the roots of the trees.

Tonopah, Sunday morning

Tonopah, main street.

I'm back from Tonopah and am off again tomorrow to Seattle for a week. Here are a few images from the trip. I'm acquiring quite a collection, for what's it worth. I did get inside an abandoned house this time, one rumored to have once been a brothel with a tunnel under the town connecting it to the Mizpah Hotel. I have no idea if the story is true but after I heard it, I had to explore the place, a boarded up old mansion directly up the hill from the Mizpah. I'll post it and more photos when I have the time. Once again, adieu.

Lifetime in Tonopah

The watchers

Tonopah after dark.

Here's a link to the video walk-through of the abandoned brothel. It's too dark in some places but if you want a peek inside the mansion have at it.

Abandoned Tonopah brothel.

Adieu

I'm going to Tonopah for the weekend. That's the half ghost town located a few miles west of the northwestern boundary of Area 51. It's the town that won't die because everybody has to stop there for gas and there's couple of prisons in the area that employ people. I have photographed the place a lot but will see if I can come back with an interesting new shot or two. Wish me luck. Oh and I left Uncle Orson cued up. If you need anything, ask him. (re-enactment)

Orson Wells outtake (re-enactment)

URGENT - pet food recall

The FDA has just issued a recall of several brands of contaminated pet food that is known to cause kidney failure and sometimes the death of dogs and cats who have eaten it. For product information, check this list. According to the FDA, if your pet has "consumed the suspect feed and show signs of kidney failure (such as loss of appetite, lethargy and vomiting) consult with the veterinarian immediately." Good luck.

Ps. You should probably hang on to all the packages you have (including any empty ones) and the vet bills to see what you can do after/if they figure out what's going on.







pet food recall

7 am magpie

It's 7 am and the lone magpie just arrived in the bird park to scoop up some of the peanuts scattered on the ground. I like her. Perhaps she is the one who used to come at 7 pm. At least she also is a loner. I have cut back considerably on the goodies. The little birds, the finches, were getting pushed out by larger, more aggressive ones but the 7 am magpie swoops in, gobbles a couple of peanut chips, scoops up a beakful and is gone before anyone else has even showed up. That's it. All the news that's fit to post before coffee.

If FOX were a wine

If FOX News were a wine,
it would be Mad Dog 20/20.

FOX is not a legitimate news media. It pimps lies and half truths. It's job is to provide a smoke screen for the thugs and thieves manipulating our government and military for personal profit. FOX anchors aren't even actors. They are media whores. The rest of the time, FOX fills its trough with sleaze and slop to booze and snooze by.

Yeah for Nevada! Last week we jettisoned FOX as a host for our Democratic presidential debate. I don't give much credit to the boobs in Las Vegas who invited FOX to participate in the first place. FOX is unfair and wildly unbalanced but Nevada Dems raised a huge fuss and Harry Reid finally pulled the plug. Thanks Harry but more importantly, thanks Nevada. Hell ya, I called and complained! If you haven't read the juicy details, MediaMatters posted a good article on it by Eric Boehlert called Fox News can't take a punch.


Nevada Democrats Harry Reid presidential debate FOX MoveOn Media Matters Eric Boehlert

March mouse update

Time for the March Mouse Update.

If mice freak you out or are just too trivial for your taste well, sorry. I guess you'll have to pass on this one. Not to sound self-righteous but I have a commitment to local as well as global and cosmic news.

A couple more of the Lelands recently relocated from my garage to the grove by the pond and naturally I documented the joyous occasions. I've been using the Professor lately. It's a humane, smart mouse trap from PETA. I like it because, unlike the Tin Mouse, it's transparent, it's easier to know when to open the door.


Benny didn't waste a second embracing freedom.


Tiny Tina was momentarily as interested in the lovely forest duff as getting away. Perhaps she is pregnant.

Money and the Muse

Interesting forces have aligned seemingly bent on challenging both the irrelevance and smug society of poetry. It is easy to dismiss the moment as a tempest in a martini glass. Perhaps the only thing that will change is the names but it is entertaining to watch the New Yorker show its teeth and the New York Times growl back as they defend their tarnished reputations for bringing poetry to the world. But one thing is certain, while they circle each other, the Poetry Foundation is hatching big plans for the still slumbering masses.

Ruth Lilly

But is all this fuss really just about the money, that pesky two hundred mil Ruth Lilly bequeathed Poetry Magazine? No. Something greater is at stake. We have forgotten how to listen. As a nation we are spiritually blind, morally bankrupt and leading the world into environmental ruin. It appears that the Poetry Foundation is invested with great power to encourage new voices and ways of seeing. I hope they stay humble. It is never a good idea to underestimate the mercy or tempt the wrath of the Muse.








Poetry Foundation New York Times David Orr Ruth Lilly Christian Wiman Poetry Magazine

Sometimes life is hard

Did anyone tell you they loved you today?

02:17
If your answer is no, tough shit.
Ramsey is not impressed.

Local news

Tuesday night

Bayonet clouds criss-crossed beneath a lopsided yoke of a moon and a dog driving through the deserted middle of town with his head out the window barking.

Poetry money

A few years ago Poetry Magazine inherited some two hundred million dollars from heiress Ruth Lilly (Lilly Pharmaceuticals). Ruth was an eccentric recluse, a bit like Howard Hughes, but instead of airplanes she doted on poetry. Over the years she even occasionally, anonymously, submitted some of her own work to the magazine but it was always rejected. Founded by Harriet Monroe at the beginning of the twentieth century, the journal has high standards:

Mission

"The Open Door will be the policy of this magazine—may the great poet we are looking for never find it shut, or half-shut, against his ample genius! To this end the editors hope to keep free from entangling alliances with any single class or school. They desire to print the best English verse which is being written today, regardless of where, by whom, or under what theory of art it is written. Nor will the magazine promise to limit its editorial comments to one set of opinions."

—Harriet Monroe, 1912

The Poetry Foundation was established in a bit of a scramble when the magazine received its unfettered fortune but they took the flying leap that only money can buy. According to its chairman John Barr, Poetry Foundation has become a proper "bully pulpit". Self-described "real moguls", the Foundation's CEOs decided to invest in themselves first, the trickle down formula favored by most captains of industry. The first thing they're doing is building themselves a glorious headquarters from which to operate.

Men who previously avoided being associated with poetry's riffraff image have decided to spiff it up, monetize it, supersize it, glamorize it, mass market it. I suppose that sooner or later it had to happen. Whether or not I agree with their approach, I agree things are in a sad state. I don't know about you, but personally I can't stand the gassy narcissism that currently passes for poetry.

The moguls have plunked it all down on red. It's a stiff bet. Harriet Moore brought T. S. Eliot, Marianne Moore, William Carlos Williams, Robert Frost, and Ezra Pound and others to light. The Foundation plans to better that and up the ante. They plan to launch a Renaissance. Naturally skeptics predict the Foundation will merely do the expected ... establish a royal court, anoint an inner circle and reign over it gloriously until the whole scene implodes under the weight of its own vanity. Who knows? I do like their new website. It has some interesting pages such as Dispatches: News. Refreshing. So many writer's circles and publishing houses have their wagons ringed up tight and the only stories they tell around the campfire are about themselves.

When the money arrived, Poetry Magazine's then editor relinquished his post to head up the newly formed Foundation but didn't long survive the surge of bullies like John Barr from Wall Street. Christian Wiman is its new editor. I met him not long after he took the job. He came to Nevada to be the keynote speaker for a writer's conference I peripherally helped put together. I liked him. He seemed very grounded, open and unimpressed with himself. He critiqued one of my poems. I'm not much into things like writer's conferences and don't run around courting people's opinions about my writing so, other than the fact that I am an incurable showoff, I didn't expect much. To my relief, he didn't offer "advice". He simply challenged the need for the final stanza. When I wrote it I knew I had flinched so I very much appreciated his astuteness. I hope he continues to stick to the code. And I hope the Foundation knows what it is. We all know money talks but can it, will it, walk? Guess we'll see. Anyway, they've made some nicely designed broadsides available at Dispatches: Gallery for the Fridge Archive. Go on. Download one. Spread the word. Poetry's baaaaaaaaack.







Christian Wiman Poetry Magazine Poetry Magazine writing Poetry Foundation Ruth Lilly Harriet Monroe

H.R. 249 - Protection for wild horses and burros

Below is a forwarded letter from the Humane Society of the United States. Just got it. I know I've asked you to call before and collectively we've gotten the bill this far. Wednesday is the next hurdle. Please call again. It takes minutes. Easy number look-up here. There's a little script included below if you want an idea of what to say. Please do it. Video here, if you need more information. Warning: graphic material.

HSUS forward:

On Wednesday, March 7, a federal bill (H.R. 249) to restore protections for wild horses from commercial sale and slaughter will be brought up for a vote in the House Natural Resources Committee. Your U.S. Representative needs to hear from supporters of the bill. Please take action and help this important bill clear its next hurdle.

Call your Representative today and express your support for restoring protection for our wild horses and burros from commercial sale and slaughter. Their lives depend on our success.

Congress originally passed the Wild Free-Roaming Horse and Burro Act in 1971 to protect our wild horses, but in 2004 this protection was gutted. In a midnight maneuver by then-Senator Conrad Burns (Mont.). He slipped a few unnoticed lines into a massive spending bill, overturning 30 years of protections for wild horses and burros. Senator Burns was booted from office last November and it's time to win these protections back.

TAKE ACTION!
Please make a brief polite phone call to your Representative today. It's easy. Numbers here. Just say is something like:

"Hello, my name is [your name] and I am a constituent from [your city]. I strongly support H.R. 249, the legislation to restore protection for our wild horses and burros from commercial sale and slaughter. It will be considered this week by the Natural Resources Committee. Please give it you support. We must provide permanent protection for America's wild horses and burros. Thank you."

Now that you've done your good deed for the day, here's a fun little video of not-so-wild burros.





H.R. 249 wild horses wild burros stop slaughter

Sunday dreamin'

My grandfather used to talk to himself, a lot. I could never make out what he was saying. All I heard was a steady stream of whispers mixed in with his breath. As a kid I worried that it might be a family trait. I do talk to myself sometimes but I'm still not as bad as Grandpa Chance.

For instance, when I'm writing I often speak the words out loud first. Take the sentence I just wrote, and the one I'm writing now. I said them both out loud as I composed them. I'm quiet now but actually, by the time I typed out the first 3 words of this sentence, they were no longer true. I thought the words "I'm quiet now" decided to write them without speaking them so they would be true in real time, but as I typed them I spontaneously said them out loud and muttered "typed it out" while I typed that. There's a peak into my head, in case you wanted one but were afraid to ask.

And, while I'm on the subject, I might as well admit that I did mutter to myself this morning, something to the effect of, "Humans are a violent, greedy, predator species; carnivores who fancy having a unique, divine nature and personal relationship with a god who likes them better than everybody else and doesn't mind if they torture and/or kill the rest of his family."

It is Sunday morning and I am off to a rocking start. Minutes after I got online I found myself watching a video of soldiers in the Islamic Army inspecting a helicopter they just downed and executing the sole survivor, probably a Blackwater contractor. Then I watched Anna Nicole's funeral procession in the Bahamas, and videos of several other totally unrelated events, although their disparate nature actually underscores just how prone we humans are to self-undoing. My ricochet tour brought me back to the question I pondered aloud in the shower earlier this morning. Can we, as a species, survive our own precocious narcissism long enough to wake the fuck up? Then I found the following gritty view of hope. Now I'm off for second cup of coffee while I've still got a chance of a day. Bon matin, mon ami!

END OF CONFLICT

Jed's Other Poem

Even if you don't like poetry you might like this video poem or, if you've already seen it, might enjoy seeing it again. It's that kind of thing. It was made by a very interesting guy named Stewart. The music is by Grandaddy. Warning. Their site opens with music.

"Jeddy-3 the humanoid was assembled in the kitchen out of spare parts. Before Jed's system died he wrote poems. Poems for no one." more history here.

Jed's Other Poem (Beautiful Ground)

Jimmy

Jimmy Mouse stayed at the Hotel Nevada last night. I didn't discover him until late yesterday afternoon, too late in the day to release him, too cold. Temperatures what they are right now, it would be a big drag to suddenly find yourself homeless at the end of the day. It's supposed be sunny through the weekend though so he'll have a running start on finding a nice comfy new home by the meadow pond. We found our last guest at the hotel dead in the corner as though he were trying to dig himself out when he expired. It was very sad. We forgot the lid was down. We're very careful now. Once the trap is set we check it at least once a day. We don't want innocent creatures to suffer. We like happy endings for our guests, like Fatty Leland. Jimmy Mouse did okay too, although he didn't seem all that eager to face the big world. I don't blame him. He's a pretty tiny fellow. I hated to see him go but, as I understand it, field mice don't do well in captivity.

Goodbye Jimmy Mouse and Good Luck!

Books I found at the second hand store today.

This one I bought. This one I just photographed the cover.