[video link]
Oh. Right. I have a blog I should update. I'll get right on that.
The City Municipal Code underwent a change recently that made me smile:
ORDINANCE NO. 2952
AN ORDINANCE RELATING TO PUBLIC PARKS, AND REPEALING CODE SECTIONS 10.68.050, 10.68.070 AND 10.68.160
WHEREAS, the City of Ashland wishes to repeal outdated and questionable parks provisions first instituted in 1916 and 1978;
THE PEOPLE OF THE CITY OF ASHLAND DO ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS:SECTION 1. Repeal. Section 10.68.050 [Soliciting - Begging - Prohibited], is hereby repealed.
SECTION 2. Repeal. Section 10.68.070 [Vocations-Prohibited], is hereby repealed.
SECTION 3. Repeal. Section 10.68.160 [Annoying others -Prohibited] is hereby repealed.
The foregoing ordinance was first read on the 15 day of April, 2008, and duly PASSED and ADOPTED this 6 day of May, 2008.
[. . .]
---
10.68.160, now repealed:
No person shall solicit the acquaintance of another in any park, or annoy or follow children, or distribute obscene literature, or in any way annoy another. (Ord. 626 S16, 1916).
Willie found himself standing on an unpleasant mound, looking down at gaslit streets. They looked like they might be nice soon.
Willie trundled down the mound and landed his ass in a "spreadsheet job." He liked how he wasn't breathing mold spores. His lungs sighed non-mycotoxic relief. He searched his hair for cobwebs or spiders and found neither. "Thanks, Bryan," he said, removing an imaginary spider and flicking it away through force of habit. "I think my brain is saved."
In the Old House, two men in blue jumpsuits / in two bucketseats / in two trucks arrived, the first first, the other last.
"Hup hup," said Bluesuit One. He put boxes into buckets into trucks and whrrr-hrrr-hrrr-hummmm yessir pretty much done sir.
Bluesuit Two appeared three-point-five inches away from Willie. He smelled of diesel, sweat, and desperation. Bluesuit Two could not find the gas pump, the sidestreet, the corner stack, the restroom, or his own ass with two hands.
"thats my story an im stickin to it" also "not my fault" also "Mighty fine work environment here -- you come to work here every day? -- I say, this must be just a little slice of Heaven!"
When Willie's mobile rang, he shrugged and smiled.
The Subcommittee of the Triumvirate of the Thinktank of the Focus Group of the Tribunal had given Willie a No-Go on the Yes-Man job; Willie had not been so relieved since the favorable outcome of the Crocodile/Chopsticks incident.
Willie stood with a pleasing mound of shredded paper in the background. He nodded, pulling his U-Haul like a dozen juicing horses.
Channel 12 ABC: Cutting away from Obama's live nomination-grab speech mid-lauding/criticising McCain? To listen to Stephanopoulos/Gibson recap? No. Bad. God damn.
Ceci n'est pas, um, bear
[every boom's a hole]
Susannah woke three in the afternoon
tell people hey folks better feel better
PART ONE: UH-HUH
I remember she used to kiss fountains
I know she had our perfect plan
"You're riding a really bad hurricane, mate,
gonna miss her hell while she's in the navy"
piping nutritious lady friend in love w/ the
most perfect poison boy ali-i-ive
video collarbone on autoplay
(grandam would be so proud,
brought back a london bird ended
up driving straight from Tucson home my
grandparents never really got to know my
grandparents really well)
the only one who cared for that necksnap thing so
anything she's involved in or does must needs be perfect, so
"coat your brain in melatonin
you have truly become nature's perfect beast."
PART TWO: UH-OH
crazy girl texting in the morning
stayed sick in the fires
can't come out from this lampshade
someone else’s turn in the purgatory chair
The following is the text of an email to my friend Kevin; I thought he'd enjoy an account of my experience, since we've shared stories about crazy authors before. And I thought it was good enough to pass on to you secondhand. <3 wz
--
So last night I went to Emergent Forms feat. Jennifer Knox, prompted by a last-minute warning from Jess. I'd heard her name before, but if I'd ever read any of her poetry, it had long since blended into the hazy tapestry that was THE FOUR-YEAR CUMULATIVE TEACHINGS OF KASEY MOHAMMAD.
Anyway, she was fucking hilarious. I think she's equally stand-up comedian and poet, if not more so. Her poems were deliciously vulgar, and on several occasions I found tears of mirth welling in my eyes.
She had books for sale, but honestly, I'd much rather have a CD of her stuff so I could hear her deliver the poems herself. Bryan had his digital audio recorder going, so maybe that'll be a possibility in the near future [P.S.: he posted it at his blog].
Anyway, here's my sole reason for telling you about the Knox: after the reading, we went to the Hong Kong and generally bullshat while Fleetwood Mac played in the background.
She mentioned that Ernest Hemingway was famous for physically assaulting a multitude of poets during his lifetime. She gave one concrete example that had the entire table in stitches, as nobody had ever heard the story before:
So Ernest Hemingway's at this intellectual literati party, right? And he, being Hemingway, the most masculine of the masculine, is challenging the namby-pamby poets in attendance to a strength contest: bending a spoon in the crook of the arm, between the bicep and forearm, in a slow, single flexing motion.
His easy-pickin's target for the night, apparently, is Wallace Stevens, who, upon being approached by Hemingway, kind of jabbers and whimpers, his frail, trembling muscles dropping the spoon with each attempt.
Hemingway, disgusted with Stevens's pitiful physical performance, immediately clocks him and sends him sprawling.
Lightly-buzzed hysterical laughter ensued.
[End email, blogpost continues:]
I made a half-assed attempt to find an online voucher for this story: find my results here.
All I could find were passing annotations to a veritable tussle between the two and a story saying that a) Hemingway kicked Wallace's ass in self-defense and b) Wallace busted his knuckles upon Hemingway's ubermasculine chin after Hemingway agreed to remove his spectacles. Some sources seem to think that such accounts only sprang up after Hemingway's suicide (but at least one of those hack sources said Hemingway's works are "seldom read today," and said author needs his/her mouth scrubbed with bleach and a hunk of steel wool).
And then there's this post on the matter by none other than Rodney Koeneke some guy named Will on Rodney Koeneke's blog about the fracas, linking to another site (but read Rodney's comment; it's highly illuminating). So something happened, and I wish someone'd been there and paid attention, regardless of who was the aggressor or victor.
[edit]With a little refinement in search terms, there's this, giving the whole of Hemingway's letter.[/edit]
So here's a more-than-four-months-late New Year's Resolution:
I will never, ever delete anything from this blog again.
'Coz it's like Bryan said (after the three margaritas, their deliciousness I eyed jealously after resigning myself to driving myself home that night):
(And I paraphrase and supplement):
Someone, somewhere, late-night or next-morning, is going to see yr God-honest blogposts before noon rolls 'round, regardless of whether you delete them, or whether you replace the offending blogposts with blank textfields, thus eventually purging RSS feeds, thus removing them forever (unless you take into account the WayBackMachine of archive.org or the fuzzy memory of the average human browsing through an RSS reader).
Tee-hee.
So I suppose that means I solemnly resolve not to remove this post; I'm just not into futility these days. If any one of you twenty-odd subscribers -- or you folks still checking blogs via yr Bookmarks folder or somebody's sidebar -- remember seeing some posts along the aforementioned lines that aren't currently online or will soon disappear into the woodworks in ensuing years, you may personally hold it against me as a blogger, writer, poet, and person unto the hereafter (& I'll totally give a rat's ass, I promise, ho ho ho).
I will also resuscitate former posts to the best of my ability, if any current readers desire to see specific entries again. I did make an effort to sequester the content of some former posts, but they are easily reinstated.
Let's say my PR strategy has evolved in response to my environment's stimuli.
P.S. In reading that last line I just typed, I don't think that's accurate. My PR strategy is definitely in flux, but it's more like it's emerging from a cocoon per the timeline of my species, not respondent to an added, unfamiliar stimulus.
Politically speaking, of course. I'll take Bill's word for it.
Let's hope she's the nation's first exception to the W. Virginia rule.
