masking up, facing off

"Argon atoms make the sweetest pink."

"One sun is splendid; six suns would only be vulgar." --Tremendous Trifles

A440.

impala once i had
how the car has changed
in those twisted slippery years
in the cliffwalk stumble plunge

for only so much of it
i can account
a few risky ventures
some thoughtlessness

i did come in time to regret
but what is regret
when all about you burns
impala burns

impala for fuel
in a year like no other
Tlön
lowers its curtain

"You just assumed, if it was a Knoedler, that it wasn’t [fake]. That was the atmosphere."

"Men into stones therewith he could transmew,
And stones to dust, and dust to nought at all..."

--The Faerie Queene, I.7

"It occurred to him, he wrote, to write up a fake research, 'and get a little practice in turgid writing..' "

"here is the end
among vigorous young leaves
in the lake"

--@poem_exe

(anaklusmvos via sweetspider on tumblr)

rokkudaun basilisk

(noealzii on tumblr)

Ethno Deep Summer Mix.

So much badly designed software...reflects the utter stupidity of our time, but even more inescapably...or rather (i see, as i have been given software to try to fix) it shows us the unpleasant spectacle of a maybe a decent enough designer prevented from doing a good job & forced to do a bad job, because of external factors (haste, budget, unsympathetic management) that nilpertains the problem to be solved.

10 of Ekho's Anti-Racist Book Recs.

sound of an ice cream truck
where Westgate's fall holds court
sound of a car door shut
sound of releasing cork

my words to be ransomed slow
but not yet lost to search
back-into-pumpkin coach
years without thinking of her

Ochi Chernye. (via @JoyceCarolOates)

"How hard it is for the living to die
holding only memory, and then to study the minutes
how like a trumpet of the future it sounds."

--GPT-2

Jorie Graham epigraphs.

"And euermore in constant carefull mind
She fed her wound with fresh renewed bale.."

--The Faerie Queene, I.7

Vudu Ceremony on Mt Fuji.

(@BoschBot)

mi fanva

Kaldron on Monoskop.

     Pierre Loti i liked very much as i was mopping up the fringe & wake (or "sillage"--the waft of perfume a person leaves behind when they have gone) of Symbolisme. I had not yet encountered the concept of Orientalism but that was definitely a flavor i liked, not only because it was a gateway to various Eastern cultures themselves, but also because of the cultural misunderstandings of the 18th & 19th centuries, fruitful of a certain kind of writing which for me carried the charm of, say, anthropomorphic Disney animal cartoons.

Loti did them all: Japan, Turkey, Morocco, Tahiti... I have [a 30s "privately printed" copy of Ancient Manners (which was not uncommon in our local used book market in those days) &] a wonderful 1912 edition of Carmen Sylva (pic attached), a collection of essays including "Constantinople in 1890" & a couple on Marie of Rumania, who was (according to this) a personal friend. And i am pleased to just now have discovered (via, alas, Wikipedia) that his house was turned into a museum. (More about the house. A Loti collection online.)

The flavor of Loti's writing is, whenever he thinks about exotic women (which is frequently--the other kind, he sentimentalizes quite as much as any Victorian), very similar to the Japanese mood of iroke. From a modern point of view, it's more camp than erotic. I think of Ken Russell's Lair of the White Worm (even more than Salome). --Firbank, of course, is hiding in the arras.

"I have followed the moon from evening twilight to morning twilight; and I have gazed on the secrets of that Medusean face which she averts eternally from the earth." --@KlarkashT

Test pattern.

POSTSCRIPT. Oops! Ancient Manners (AKA "Aphrodite") is a different Pierre (Louÿs)--& mine is apparently the 1928 Whittaker Chambers translation, illustrated by Pogany... Obviously, iroke fits this Pierre better than the sailor (but not entirely, e.g. Madame Chrysanthemum...

why the water towers are not named

(@CrookedCosmos)

"THE ISLANDS (Anagrammed Lines)

The islands there are solemn.
Loneliness dreams the earth.
It's here laden shores lament.
Hear sea, tormented in shells."

--@AnthonyEtherin

Art inspired by Clark Ashton Smith.

things i did, but soon will do no more;
habits well-laid, but habits have their term,
     continue for awhile
     as rockets spent of fuel

the city itself scarce solider than this
persuades with what we knew & still recall
     but all of it is gone
     & all of us are done

fiery pollen

One falls into self-orthodoxies, & years of neglect do the rest.

Rain.

clarity to a point
then after that--blank mist

in which we're pent
clarity to a point

the hand vying to paint
cracks at the brink of almost

clarity to a point
then after that--blank mist

zone of irreversible strain

(newretronet on tumblr)

Ruins while you watch. (via feuilleton)

"...the incredible light nights that you get at 58 degrees north, the simmerdim as they call it in Scotland." --Sophie Grace Chappell, in: The Philosophers' Magazine

Mothra thread

quarantini PORES
maker of thwart OZONE
calf by smoke-ring ROPED
indigo ENEMA
i know you SEDAN
on the tongue road as TARTS
bees & birds ABORT
while kappas hurtle ROGUE--
noise & silence TRUCE
teabags in ransack STEEP

painted dove

(newretronet via lofiwave on tumblr)

The long tail of the Cathari.

"on the sundial
ripples with moonlight
a gift from edo"

--@poem_exe

New Otoliths.

just so i can say i did
i'll apply for this job
perilous indeed
just so i can say i did
going on two-lakh dead
to apply is to court the jibe
just so i can say i did

i'll apply for this job