In answer to a stray question, this is one of my piles o' books that are on-hand at the moment for reference and pleasure. Currently I'm about 4/5th the way through Raymond Chandler's short story "Red Wind".
A few quotes from the story:
"Bright, brittle, shallow eyes like the eyes of a lizard."
"The girl floated in the air, somewhere behind him. Nothing was ever more soundless than the way she moved. It wouldn't do any good though. He wouldn't fool around with her at all. I had known him all my life but I had been looking into his eyes for only five minutes."
"His chin came down and I hit it. I hit it as if I was driving the last spike on the first transcontinental railroad. I can still feel it when I flex my knuckles."
The man could write.
17 years ago, during the darkest depths of the Bush administration, I penned this riff on Edgar Allan Poe's most famous poem to try to capture what the world felt like at that specific moment in history.
The "iciness, a sinking, a sickening of the heart".
And seeing how Halloween season is again hard upon us, and keeping with the No Fair Remembering Stuff leitmotif of this ancient blog, it seemed like an opportune time to run down to the catacombs for a quick nip of Amontillado and haul it out of storage. So once again I present...
Quoth the Hammer
Nevermore.
With all respect to Edgar Poe, who's work I love and admire without reserve...
Once upon a bender bleary, while I pondered, weak and beery,Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,
With my nod on, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,(Actually more like a serious bitch-slapping),
...smacking at my chamber door.”WTF," I mumbled, "I’m on vacation! Ask Dick; he runs the nation.Get off my ass and let Karl do it," I loud and soddenly swore.
Ah, distinctly I remember, it was in the bleak September,And every fucktard, camp-following member had been given his sinecure.
Eagerly I wished the morrow; vainly I had sought to borrowChinese cash or some “Aw Shucks” Charisma from the the lost Gipp-er,.For the Smilin’, Beguilin’ Monster who could sell our Republican Manure,Dead and gone forevermore.
And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each voting booth curtainThrilled me---filled me electoral delirium tremens throughout all of 2004;So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood bleating," 'Tis some Pioneer Contributor, or Halliburtoning Corporate whoreOr another dimwit frat rat trollop sporting a Santorum coiffure
...This it is, and nothing more."
The Stoli shooters grew stronger; and hesitating no longer,"Dicky?" said I, "Condi? Or is that Turdblossom? I recognize the spoor...But the fact is, I was drinkin’, getting good and stinkin’And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,That I scarce was sure I heard you." Here I opened wide the door;---Darkness there, and nothing more.
Deep into the darkness peering, long I stood there, snarling, sneeringJerking off to Armageddon dreams no one ever dared to dream before;But the silence was unbroken –- no Condi or other token --And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "2004?",This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word," 2004!"Merely this, and nothing more.
Back into my bottle turning, all the Jim Beam I’d guzzled burning,Soon again I heard a tapping, something louder than before,"Surely," said I, "surely, that is Rumsfled with a briefing.That will disassemble that bitch Sheehan’s beefing.Let my heart stop Cheneying a moment, and this mystery explore." 'Tis just old crazy Rummy, and nothing more."
Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a hiss and splutter,In there stepped a mangy Hammer, of the Mandate days of yore.Not an ounce of sense made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;But with Death Skull grimace, perched above my chamber door.Shat upon a bust of Nixon, just above my chamber door,Shat, and sat, and nothing more.
This Sugarland turd was so badly freaking, into my pants I went leaking,Shocked by the deranged and murderousness of the countenance it wore,"Though thy Majorityhood be shorn and shave," I said, "you are still craven,Ghastly, grim, and wretched Hammer, rampaging like a rabid boar.What the fuck do I do now that my assassin's been shown the door?"Quoth the Hammer, "Nevermore."
Much I marveled as this insanely ranting Dale Gribble spoke so plainly,Though it’s answer little meaning, little veracity bore;For we cannot help agreeing that no living human beingWould not projectile hurl upon seeing this two-legged offal above his chamber door,A Christopathic beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,That can’t say shit but "Nevermore."
But the Hammer, a skulking minor demon, spoke only of his venomHissing that one word, as if his soul were stabbed with skewers.Nothing further then he uttered; his heart was tightly shuttered;Til I scarcely more than muttered, "How can I enjoy this Dewars?Who shall ram my mandate now, through Congress' sewers?"To which DeLay said, "Nevermore."
Like the thousand promises I’d broken, his word was oily spoken,"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store."Bred from drooling Texas losers, friend of low-wattage crooks and boozersPartied fast and kneecapped faster, till his lies one burden bore ---Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden boreOf "Never---nevermore."
But the Hammer still berserking looked into my dank soul smirking,So Karl broke it down for me in little words of two syllables, no more.”Your polls are a’sinking, on ice your lies are stinkingIraq and Katrina the public are finally a’linking, and now comes this loony Texas hoor -This grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous Sugarland hoorSo guess what he means by "Nevermore"?”
And the media scrum grew denser, now fueled by a Grand Jury’s censureWrought by a righteous prosecutor who ain’t taking this shit no more."Wretch," I cried, "now it’s all for nothing. For nothing I cheated Albert Gore.So get me three fingers of two-cents-plain that I may forget by apotheotic 2004!Drink and drink and puke and drink and forget my apotheotic 2004!Quoth the Hammer, "Nevermore!"
"You For-Profit, agenda-killing jag off" said I, "Faith-based pimp of Abramoff!By that Dobson that bends us over -- by that God we both abhor--Is there in the cushions where we shine our asses, even one dime of my political assets?A whiff of my miracle Mandate year, which Pope Gregor named 2004 ---My moment on the Mountain, COBOL programmers call Y2K-plus-four?Quoth the Hammer, "Nevermore."
"Shut up you fucking loser!" I shrieked, upstarting --"Go back to offing roaches you salad tossing, Albatrossing spore!Leave no poo stripe as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!Leave my binginess unbroken! Leave me a political Debtor!Take thy dick from out my mouth, and take thy form from off my door!"Quoth the Hammer, "Nevermore."
But the Hammer, never quitting, still is sitting, still is shittingDown the throat of my Dead Mandate, my ghost of 2004;And his eyes still have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming.And the lamplight o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;
And my Mandate from out that shadow that lies floating on the floorShall be lifted---nevermore!
But there are glorious manifestations. A lot of that national pride is based on cultural achievements. I am here with the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities, part of President Obama’s reconciliation with Cuba. Musicians like Smokey Robinson, Dave Matthews, Joshua Bell, John Lloyd Young and Usher and creative types like the playwright John Guare and the choreographer Martha Clarke, got to interact with their Cuban counterparts, while government officials negotiated future exchanges.
...I was amazed how much Martí’s name came up in conversation here and how little Fidel Castro’s did. Martí is the national poet, the one who shifted the national imagination, who told Cubans who they were and what their story was. He inspired a common faith in a dignified future.
One foundation head told me: “When I’m depressed I try to read something Martí wrote. He’s a father who embraces you. I think he engages the best of Cuba.”
Every nation needs to know who it is and what its collective story is. I wonder if the current U.S. malaise has something to do with the way we have lost touch with our own national poets, or even a common sense of who they might be.
...The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The person in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers.But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, that power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age.Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves.Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
The poets are wrong of course. … But then poets are almost always wrong about facts. That's because they are not really interested in facts: only in truth: which is why the truth they speak is so true that even those who hate poets by simple and natural instinct are exalted and terrified by it.
"‘Thou still unravish’d bride of quietnessThou foster-child of Silence and slow Time ---‘That’s the sort of thing she would have written before the rise of advertising. The correlation is perfectly clear. Advertising up, lyric poetry down. There are only so many people capable of putting words together that stir and move and sing. When it became possible to earn a very good living in advertising by exercising this capability, lyric poetry was left to untalented screwballs who had to shriek for attention and compete by eccentricity.
It is a dystopia of automation,[1] describing the dereliction it causes in the quality of life.[1] The story takes place in a near-future society that is almost totally mechanized, eliminating the need for human laborers. This widespread mechanization creates conflict between the wealthy upper class—the engineers and managers who keep society running—and the lower class, whose skills and purpose in society have been replaced by machines.
“If it weren't for the people, the god-damn people' said Finnerty, 'always getting tangled up in the machinery. If it weren't for them, the world would be an engineer's paradise.”"Those who live by electronics, die by electronics. Sic semper tyrannis.”“Finnerty shook his head. "He'd pull me back into the center, and I want to stay as close on the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center." He nodded, "Big, undreamed-of things -- the people on the edge see them first.”
We’re clearly heading into an age of brilliant technology. Computers are already impressively good at guiding driverless cars and beating humans at chess and Jeopardy. As Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology point out in their book “The Second Machine Age,” computers are increasingly going to be able to perform important parts of even mostly cognitive jobs, like picking stocks, diagnosing diseases and granting parole.As this happens, certain mental skills will become less valuable because computers will take over. Having a great memory will probably be less valuable. Being able to be a straight-A student will be less valuable — gathering masses of information and regurgitating it back on tests. So will being able to do any mental activity that involves following a set of rules.But what human skills will be more valuable?...
Robots Undercut the Case for More ImmigrantsWith technology destroying jobs for humans, adding tens of millions of new immigrants to America will only deepen inequality and poverty.Before we talk about immigration, let’s talk about robots.The next 10 years are expected to see a revolution in the application of Artificial Intelligence to every day tasks. Cars and trucks may soon drive themselves. Just as ATMs replaced bank clerks, so too new checkout machines will hugely reduce the need for retail clerks. The need for human labor in construction, meatpacking, and food preparation seems certain to contract....
...The most unfailing herald, companion, and follower of the awakening of a great people to work a beneficial change in opinion or institution, is poetry. At such periods there is an accumulation of the power of communicating and receiving intense and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature. The person in whom this power resides, may often, as far as regards many portions of their nature, have little apparent correspondence with that spirit of good of which they are the ministers.But even whilst they deny and abjure, they are yet compelled to serve, that power which is seated on the throne of their own soul. It is impossible to read the compositions of the most celebrated writers of the present day without being startled with the electric life which burns within their words. They measure the circumference and sound the depths of human nature with a comprehensive and all-penetrating spirit, and they are themselves perhaps the most sincerely astonished at its manifestations; for it is less their spirit than the spirit of the age.Poets are the hierophants of an unapprehended inspiration; the mirrors of the gigantic shadows which futurity casts upon the present; the words which express what they understand not; the trumpets which sing to battle, and feel not what they inspire; the influence which is moved not, but moves.Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.
DAVID BROOKS: The government shutdown was one.
DAVID BROOKS: The government shutdown was one. I would say the change in the filibuster rules was a disaster, and then the failure to pass immigration reform, which really has majority support. So I think that is three pretty big strikes. I think they have earned whatever their approval rating is, 1.2 or whatever it is at this point.
DAVID BROOKS: I think it's been a pretty lamentable, lamentable Congress...
DAVID BROOKS: I think it's been a pretty lamentable, lamentable Congress. And that is partly because of Congress, partly because of the country, frankly, and partly because the president has not gathered a governing majority at any point in his presidency, some 60-vote majority that he can count on time and time again.
For where two or three are gathered to try to name names, a Both Siderist watchdog will be there with them.
Again (from Salon):Poe first brought "The Raven" to his friend and former employer George Rex Graham of Graham's Magazine in Philadelphia. Graham declined the poem, which may not have been in its final version, though he gave Poe $15 as charity. Poe then sold the poem to The American Review, which paid him $9 for it, and printed "The Raven" in its February 1845 issue under the pseudonym "Quarles"...In part due to its dual printing, "The Raven" made Edgar Allan Poe a household name almost immediately, and turned Poe into a national celebrity. Readers began to identify poem with poet, earning Poe the nickname "The Raven". The poem was soon widely reprinted, imitated, and parodied. Though it made Poe popular in his day, it did not bring him significant financial success. As he later lamented, "I have made no money. I am as poor now as ever I was in my life – except in hope, which is by no means bankable"
Through incompetence and malignant neglect, the City of Baltimore is now doing to the little row house where Poe began his literary career exactly what Rufus Griswold tried to do to Poe's literary legacy.Are the Ravens responsible for the fall of the house of Edgar Allan Poe?The city of Baltimore — and the Ravens — rely on their most famous writer's legacy. And they're letting it crumbleBY A.N. DEVERSFrom the look of it, even book nerds are being drawn to this year’s Super Bowl, with the second-time appearance of the Ravens, America’s only football team named after a poem, Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.” For many in the literary crowd, there may be no better team to root for, because there’s nothing more surprising than an American sports team paying homage to a literary icon.There are many layers to the Ravens’ literary allusion. There’s the fact that the team’s mascot is a collective of three black ravens respectively named Edgar, Allan and Poe. There’s the fact that the Ravens play less than a mile down the street from where Edgar Allan Poe is buried at Westminster Burial Ground. Then there’s the uncomfortable knowledge that the Ravens’ star player, Ray Lewis, was implicated in a double murder. Not to make light of murder, but on a team named after America’s first star horror writer, in a city where they peddle little Eddie Poe dolls next to Ravens’ jerseys in gift shops, it seems apro-Poe.At first, my response as a voracious reader and Edgar Allan Poe fan with absolutely no interest in football is to join others in delight of this piece of barely literary trivia. But this year there is something unsettling in the Ravens’ appropriation of Poe and his poem for what has been a surprisingly strong and fast brand building of a football empire. This year, Edgar Allan Poe’s own association with Baltimore is threatened: The city unceremoniously closed the Edgar Allan Poe House at the end of September 2012 and laid off the Poe house’s longtime director, Jeff Jerome, who has successfully operated the house on a shoestring budget, in a dangerous part of town, keeping it open and safe to visitors for decades. Not long after the Poe House closed, it was vandalized....The Ravens’ lack of interest thus far in supporting the city’s literary legacy is a travesty. But the City of Baltimore’s privatization of the Poe House is even more so, particularly when considering the investment it made in bringing a national football team to town. The city afforded the Ravens, but it can’t seem to afford to properly staff and run a small house that draws several thousand new tourists to Baltimore a year?...
"But didn't the people see the monsters coming?" the children will ask.
"Some did. Saw them coming clear as day from miles and miles away." the grownups will explain.
"Then why didn't they warn people about the monsters?" the children will ask.
"Some tried. Tried for years and years." the grownups will reply.
"Then why didn't the grownups stop them?"
"The monsters had lots of very, very rich friends who owned newspapers and radio stations and teevee networks. The friends of the monsters used their teevee and radio and newspapers to call everyone who disagreed with them a traitors."
"But once the monsters started to fuck everything up, why didn't they stop them them?" (Thanks to the Triumph of the Hippies, the word "fuck" had long since been welcomed into the public square.)
"The friends of the monsters used their teevee and radio and newspapers to tell the people that a better way to deal with the monsters would be to give them everything they wanted, and throw bags of money at them whenever they asked. They called it "Centrism"."
"Seems pretty fucking stupid."
"It was pretty fucking stupid, and after awhile all kinds of people from all over the place got sick and tired of the monsters fucking everything up, And they got really sick and tired of the monster's friends telling them to the only solution to every problem to keep giving the monsters everything they wanted, and keep throwing bags of money at them no matter what."
"And that's when the people made them stop?"
"Yes, that's when the people made them stop."
