Pretentious

"MATERIAL

Such galatic dips of abstraction --
sumptuous, celestial, laced
within the figuring oils themselves,
so blued rick-rack of Victorian stick
style with plume bright white as it
mirrors a lighthouse in swelling
orthonogal swells of light;  electric
cobalt blue steel rimming the
windows, then chiseling a chimney.
much as atoms pack and hive
into the shapes; thus abstraction
shores up ground, lends it (flying
buttress) supreme weight."

--  Christina Pugh

Huh?  Orthonogal?

Christina P-U'S new collection, Grains of the Voice, will be published this spring.  I suggest you avoid it.  I read this "poem" in a copy of The Atlantic, a magazine to which I recently inadvertently subscribed.

FYI:  My children and I have appeared on television.  .  .  they, before ten years of age, and I, in my late teens.  Yesterday, while watching the local TV news, I espied my Chevy S-10.  First born had borrowed him to help out at Animal Control in the town that houses Rinky-Dink U.  You remember.  .  .  the one with the president who is leading a community forum on drunkenness while failing publically to suspend or expel any of the students involved.

Anyway, TV was interviewing the clinic's director in the parking lot, right in front of my truck, and I said, "Hey!"  There he was, at age 19, having his moment in the lens.

Popemobile, here I come

Failing health has prompted Pope Benedict XVI, age 85, to abdicate.  Our respect and prayers go with him to his new life of solitary contemplation.  The last pope who left before death was Celestine V, after less than a full year in 1294.  Hopefully, the Church will promote one of the healthier youngsters (in his 60's) from the College of Cardinals.

In the early Church, political figures became popes, and often those who were the most "godly" had the largest armies.  If the Church should decide to depart from the more recent tradition, I make myself available.  Under the title of Celestine VI, a nice name which deserves to be resurrected, I would demonstrate my command of Latin and my respect for sin.  I love the incense, the public speaking, the Gregorian chant, and besides, the office is in the middle of sunny Italy.  Who could ask for more?  And then there's that trip to Brazil scheduled for July.  .  .  . 

The first thing I would do is disabuse the nuns of guilting pre-pubescent children of the involuntary mental process of having "impure thoughts."

DON'T FORGET:  The idiot messiah bloviates tonight.  Miss it if you can.

EXCERPT FROM ONE OF MY READER'S REACTIONS:  [He] is not a sexist or a racist.  .  .  [Farley's] whiny criticism makes HIM look empty-headed and meaningless."  --  Joseph Morreale

Another excerpt, another letter (as published)

"I judge it an exercise in futility to respond to the liberal name-caller, Francis X. Farley, whose letter ascribes hatred, anger, racism, sexism, ageism, and, get this, paranoia, to me.  How unhappy and insecure he must feel."

If you encounter him, you might give him a hug.  .  .  and a sharp knee to the nuts for me.

A fun oater

I can recommend "Gunless" (2010, Canadian) with a largely unknown cast, and the unlikely story of the Montana Kid, a gunfighter, who flees from a bounty hunter to a pleasant village in Canada, populated with gentle, eccentric people who don't carry sidearms, but as we learn, are deadly with hunting rifles.  He challenges the blacksmith who refers to him as a "common" killer.  With the help of the pretty girl and the aforementioned armed townspeople, all turns out predictably well.

AN EXCERPT FROM TODAY'S PUBLISHED LETTER:  "Thinking ahead to the next election, I would ask you to cut out this portion and post it on the refrigerator.  Remember when Hillary Clinton said, 'What difference does it make' that four Americans were brutally murdered in Benghazi?"

BROWSER:  I hate the word.  After changing the damn thing, trying to change the damn thing, being unsuccessful a couple of times, not knowing one way or the other once  or twice, I still get that notice that it's out of date, not supported, or whatever.  Wit's end.

Happy Birthday, Groundhog

Three of four have now reached the half-century.  Only the native Californian is left.

What Phil?