43 times they threw off their coats
And they were put on the bed of the bedroom
And they, the wearers, circulated among the guests,
And they, the worn, lay with others in the dark room

I’ve always thought it was cool that the two moons of the planet Mars (itself named after a war god) were named Phobos (fear) and Deimos (terror), but am surprised to encounter it right here in the Theogony 934 — Phobos and Deimos are in fact Ares’ (ie Mars’) sons:

αὐτὰρ Ἄρηι /ῥινοτόρῳ Κυθέρεια Φόβον καὶ Δεῖμον ἔτικτε δεινούς

“But to shield piercing Ares Aphrodite bore Phobos and Deimos, terrible ones…”

— Another man died on my floor today. Mo. 70. Diabetes.
— I’m sorry to hear that. Hard knowing a lot of old people. Sitting down with my dad for lunch today he said the words I most dread in the English language: I have to go to the bathroom.
— Ha!!! Oh papa
— It really is something you don’t want to hear — and for a while you don’t — and then you do. Do you have anything to say about your neighbor?
— Can I call you?

— Heh Ray
— Heh Sharon. So how’s it goin?
— His name was Mo and he was a pervert and a Somalian. He was actually related to another family down the hall, the one with the really smart eight year old I told you about.
— He was a pervert? What do you mean?
— When we were in the elevator together he’d say things like “I want to touch your body.”
— Really?
— I didn’t know him, we never really spoke, but he’s been on this floor for twenty years.
— Were you there when it happened?
— [INAUDIBLE] and they came in with the lights. (You know where my apartment is) and the girls went crazy of course
— Of course…
— We were saying we hoped it was Juanita, whom we love, but she’s started fires in her apartment five times now, five times. She’s my father’s age, but without the support, two sons that HATE her
— makes you sort of wanna move in….
— And what about that beautiful boy you’ve got? I loved the video you sent. So well behaved, such a gwood boy.
— Yeah, he’s so good, aren’t you, buddy?
— You could get laid a lot with a dog like that
— I, uh, I sometimes. That comes up. I mean I do sort of meet people. People will come up and say “wow, that’s a beautiful dog.”
— Yeah
— I imagine the gals don’t help in that respect
— Noooo, I come off as a cat lady. (What is our Vice President’s name again? Vance.)
— You probably couldn’t deal with a dog as well behaved as this, although he has his moments. I know you’ve told me you got the girls when you realized you weren’t going to have children, but what exactly is the mechanism there? How are they a replacement?
— To get me out of of the house basically, though honestly I’d have probably been doing that anyway. Before I got them I did a lot of running. Eight miles a day, running half marathons or training for them.
— What kind of mile do you run?
— Nine.
— What kind of shoes?
— Hoka.
— And all this running was about Klemm?
— Yes this was my psycho ex-husband and his cult
— I’ll say that for a long time I resisted running simply because it had been so important to Klemm. But when I quit smoking it began to make sense. And so why do you think you never remarried… I was just following a train of thought there and actually do know the answer to that, I think: there was the guy who got away and the guy who let you down.
— That about sums it up
— I’ve gotta say it’s a little hard to see how it would work with you and another person, you’re so independent, you’re so involved in that neighborhood. It’s a little hard to see how another person… You’re never leaving that apartment.
— He would have to live nearby.
— On the other hand your existence is fairly grim. I mean you’ve talked to me a few times now about how the neighborhood’s been letting you down. The man spitting in your eyes
— that was a little outside my neighborhood
— the student who assaulted you
— again, that’s Bayridge, but I know what you’re saying. I’m the caregiver in this situation.
— You doing anything tonight? You must be pretty exhausted
— Nope
— Of course, you could never live in the suburbs, but have you ever thought about moving to California? I can see it
— I have actually! My brother and his wife keep asking me to move out where they are in San Diego. They feel sorry for me.
— They feel actually sorry for you?
— Well, they feel sorry for me and they envy me, because I’m alone.
— Uh huh. Well listen Sharon, I could talk all night but I’ve got three emails I need to write. Now don’t sound so surprised: one of them is for you and I think we’ve already given each other something to think about. So give my love to the girls
— Goodnight, Ray
— Goodnight

|_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 /
|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /
____/|_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 /
|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /
____/|_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 /
|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /
____/|_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 /
|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /
____/|_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 /
|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /
____/|_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 /
|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /
____/|_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 /
|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /
____/|_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 / |_|__ 0 /
|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /|_|__ 0 /
____/

Hadn’t come across this sense of “ablative” before: “Sacrificial, wearing away or being destroyed in order to protect the underlying material, as in ablative paints used for antifouling, or ablative heat shields used to protect spacecraft during reentry.”

Tweeted earlier by Noah Smith: “The Tech Right is ablative armor for the Hard Right. The Hard Right put on the Tech Right like an armored suit in order to win the 2024 election without just looking like the same old 2017-era tiki torch bullshit. Then the Tech Right absorbed all of the post-election backlash.”

commensality: the act of eating together

What was missing from the scene of the young man walking in his bright red coat?

Was it the roughness and the crudeness of the path that was missing, now a black, blemishless asphalt strip?

Was it an irregular distribution of the vegetation that was missed, the furry tops of the grasses and their irregular heights? The crude individuality of natural things prematurely manicured and cut away by the work crews?

Was it that the redness of the red coat was a “red beyond red”, and a “bright beyond bright”, and that this somehow had created the lack? And that nothing, from out of this whole Fall scene would be “missed”, and all would return to normal, once this offending article of clothing was out of sight? once the young man and his red coat strode from view?

Or rather, once the red coat had strode from view, would there still be something missing?

Would the sense of something being missing even increase with the loss of the coat?

Was it the coat, indeed, that most signified or stood for the thing that was actually absent?

Was it the Fall, the climate, as I had known it, that was actually absent?

Was its marker or headstone this bright red winter coat?

Sun twirled in handbasket, earth traipsing through her days, a girl on the hill.

Tree takes light of sun into bassinet. Crying green faces peer from the curled shroud. The green cloud places bees on the side of the bassinet. This shaded part even of the concrete is absorbing heat from that light. A bassoon is heard. Heat is light; Sun is concrete; “fungus fingers” is a poor name for sunlight. Light now entering frozen clam-bed of Earth and the concrete casing of a tall tree-sized street lamp is observed.

Conscious of one’s breathing for two breaths, counting inhale/ exhale as a single “pool lap.” Holding briefly at the pool’s edge before taking the remaining length.

“Asphalt is a hundred percent recyclable.” Corona resembles the rim of a washtub. The sun’s helium is a child in the tub undergoing a process. It is a pedestrian climbing from the deep pool of his tan.

Jonah: “That which ends perception is the whale. That which gives perception is the god.” In the solemnity of the mind, where real thoughts may and ought to occur, and concentration might exist, there is instead a lonely silliness and fantasy… Red paper rectilinear pellets slipped in the rainstained box. Pile of wood chips where the old storm damaged tree was (a victim of el derecho as so many of us of today claim to be): lot of new “fungus fingers” now fondling that spot.

|^e
/
for
/
(

a frieze of lint,
scarred and tired dust,
mounted by an old bug

A “walking meditation”: To adopt the practices of the Far East but not as an American would, but as an African would. “To adopt the practices of the Far East as an African would adopt them, should be the goal,” I reiterate, “for my American motives are somehow uncentered.” Africa a filtration device, a cultural purifier, it is conceived, through which cultures get rid of just enough of themselves to see other cultures. Africa, the purifying lens. Africa, the technology of minds.

A sort of plan takes hold: first become African, then become Afro-Asian, then become Asian American, then become oneself. “I believe in myself and the spirit that’s in me,” said Tolstoy. A sort of idea, which is unrelated, then comes forth: that History is a line upon a sphere. The line is trying to get to the center of the sphere (which may also be the center of the earth, which may also be the center of ourselves, or of Time) but cannot ever penetrate it, even a little. And yet, in the effort to penetrate it, as the felt-tip marker of ourselves, so to speak, of humanity, is pressed down on this sphere, this balloon, the balloon-sphere slips — slips beneath the ever frustrated force of the marker of history to reach its end and meaning — and thus is caused its various squiggles, regressive, progressive and looping.

“Just as my steps,” I think, “exist beneath these thoughts, so does the core of history exist beneath its globular surface. My thoughts will never reach my feet.” (Thinking, though, that maybe my breath at least *can* reach my feet, as in a way it does without me trying — so I try and focus on my breathing. “Maybe if I know I have lungs I will know I also have feet. Maybe I will make my feet and my mind reach each other through knowing them both. And maybe *that* will be the end of history.”

He was late, early, on time. He was late, very late, he must rush, he arrived on time. Late, very very late: he must employ an ungenteel haste to arrive on time. He was so often early, so improbably punctual, it indicated, as Larry Summers once quipped, improper time management. Punctuality was the virtue of the bored, had quipped Oscar Wilde. (He was bored. I’m bored, she had said, he had mouthed. He was bored.)

The shadow of him goes again, through Bush, Obama, Frost, sun, slush, the year 12 A.D, huge dinosaur ammonites and ferns that are not present, thinking Solar Panels and The Mild Wind might be a good name for a band. Thinking ooloo in Amheric means “everything”, while Omoo is the 19th century American novel. Ducking from the hailing, running from the lightning, bending beneath cold hard rain, dressed appropriately and not in the deep sudden snow. 5 days a week and 52 weeks and three miles times 2 times very many years equals feet that could yield headaches.

Many years in tennis shoes, running shoes, boat shoes, hiking boots, snow boots, dress attire, work shoes, sandals; in single, double and triple socks; inserts of various models and makes; with theories as to which type sock goes with which type shoe and with what type of insert and for just how long; WHY (of the many good reasons to do this, she knows not for which one he does this.) WHY (He believes there might even be a bad reason she does this.) (I suspect it may be for a bad reason he does this.) She ought to make better use of her time, it is thought, in 2800 AD.

Other things, a thousand things, Igneous Sleep, civic behavior, Gravelly Point, Maffic Dream, bottle in the stream’s swift current, eye (the rock, the blankets, “sedimentary”) running out (clouds and rain) running in (the wind and blue skies.)

Cats uncovered. Red moss and red mass. Ribs, ridges, troughs, curbs, The Holocene, a Trowel, a military jet that is tiny in its altitude, its sound “a layer of harsh concrete over all the other sound.”

Feeling the heat of an oven when it’s not time to open it yet. Like in a bad movie, standing alone in a wide, windswept, open public area, with litter tumbling about. Children’s colors, children’s drawings and shapes on a paper tumbling. One child tried to kick at something and missed it and he tumbled. And there were many such things.

.
/ \
0…….o
L……………[
d…………………3
)………………………+
l……………………………..k
g…………………..b………………..G
G……………………..u……………………G
e………lg……………………………………………….z
g…………………………………………………………………..!

……………………………………………………..m t m
…………………………………………………….m . t .m
……………………………………………………m .. t ..m
…………………………………………………..m … t …m
………………………………………………….m …. t ….m
…………………………………………………m ….. t …..m
…………………………………………………w …………a R
………………………………………………………i………..k
……………………………………………………………c
………..
………..

Homer today: βάν ῥ᾽ ἴμεν ὥς τε λέοντε δύω διὰ νύκτα μέλαιναν/ ἂμ φόνον, ἂν νέκυας, διά τ᾽ ἔντεα καὶ μέλαν αἷμα.

They went like two lions through the black night/ through the slaughter through the corpses through the equipment and black blood

[Although inclined to the view that Book 10 is an organic part of the whole Iliad rather than a later insertion, something about the syntax here suggests to me the opposite.]

I was looking today at the curious extended simile surrounding Menelaos’ arrow wound, in which his blood-covered legs are compared to colored cheek pieces for horses. Let’s see how Pope does with this. This is Iliad Book 4, around 150.

As when some stately trappings are decreed
To grace a monarch on his bounding steed,
A nymph, in Caria or Mæonia bred,
Stains the pure ivory with a lively red;
With equal lustre various colours vie,
The shining whiteness, and the Tyrian dye:
So, great Atrides! shewed thy sacred blood,
As down thy snowy thigh distilled the streaming flood.

(Well, this is not at all literal, of course, and this is not Pope at his poetic best, but I think it brings into relief the essential meaning of the simile that there is something special about royal blood being spilled.)

Greek:

ὡς δ᾽ ὅτε τίς τ᾽ ἐλέφαντα γυνὴ φοίνικι μιήνῃ
Μῃονὶς ἠὲ Κάειρα παρήϊον ἔμμεναι ἵππων:
κεῖται δ᾽ ἐν θαλάμῳ, πολέες τέ μιν ἠρήσαντο
ἱππῆες φορέειν: βασιλῆϊ δὲ κεῖται ἄγαλμα,
ἀμφότερον κόσμός θ᾽ ἵππῳ ἐλατῆρί τε κῦδος:
τοῖοί τοι Μενέλαε μιάνθην αἵματι μηροὶ
εὐφυέες κνῆμαί τε ἰδὲ σφυρὰ κάλ᾽ ὑπένερθε.

etymology of “interest,” literally to be between, and hence a thing of importance.

Food pantry. The all-star diaper lady, after an injury, was back after two months, and I found myself asking her what her favorite parts of the Bible were. (The pantry is in a church, of which she’s a member.) The historical parts, she said, Kings, Chronicles, Samuel…

I asked her, why was it the Israelites abandoned having judges in favor of adopting a king? And why was it thought a bad thing for them to have adopted a king? (As I think of literary comparisons to the U.S.’s adoption of Trump, the Israelites’ adoption of Saul will first come to mind.)

Diaper lady said that her opinion was that God was always trying throughout the Old Testament to make the Israelites more responsible for themselves, and having a king was a step in the opposite direction.

The King was responsible, not them, was what was desirable to the Israelites about having a king, she said, and that was the problem.

It was the problem of Saul and the problem of Trump.

jointure: (law) An estate settled on a wife, which she is to enjoy after her husband’s death, for her own life at least, in satisfaction of dower.

renitent: resistance to pressure, compulsion; unyielding, recalcitrant.

Curious elements of last night’s dream:
— I was not a protagonist of a large part of the dream, a friend was
— the dream was, as it were, a multi-media event: it now seemed a dream, now a “movie dream,” now a book, now a video game
— I told a joke that made someone laugh in the dream
— I ordered a double caramel latte with skim milk in the dream (whereas in real life I order almost exclusively a small black coffee.)
— finally, in the train car, I’d asked “what is reality?” meaning the basic question “what is reality versus our perception on it” but people took it to mean “what is reality versus what our politicians claim it to be” and the crowd on the train car got uneasily quiet.
— finally finally I’ve been noticing how I’m oriented with respect to people in my dreams (are they to the left or to the right) and I find almost always, even when we’re face to face, I experience them as being to the right.