this week i

published on trends in medicare quality bonus payments.  for the $50 in my pocket at the time, alykhan down the road granted predawn gym access


drew lightning strikes turtles all the way down, and royal ant farms.  and then the full moon fades into the morning, a cosmic magic trick

 

thought of beware banana independently, confirmed someone other than me had also thought of it.  i focused on a jackfruit illustration from long ago

 

watched disney's oscar winner nature doc water birds (1952), each graceful in hunting pose.  but i'd want pet bat, only to call self a childless batman


enjoyed future senator franken's introduction of the grateful dead

good evening ladies and gentlemen, we're the comedy team of franken and davis, and we're going to do about an hour of comedy.  [boos]  hey wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, hold it, hold it, we've got this deal worked out with the dead where the longer we're on, the less they can play, see?  [boos]  hey!  hey!  what?  what?  you don't want us to do an hour of comedy?  [boos]  hey listen, if you people don't quiet down, we're going to get off the stage and the band will have to come on.  [cheers]  what, is that what you people want?  [cheers]  ok, ladies and gentlemen, the grateful dead!

---

we've been talking to a lot of deadheads tonight.  the deadhead we're going to introduce i'm very excited about.  i'm referring to former secretary of state for the united states dr. henry kissinger.
 
it's a pleasure tom.  i think that you and al are doing a wonderful job.
 
ah well thank you very much dr. kissinger.  how are you enjoying the show tonight?
 
oh terrific, terrific, i think the last time i saw the dead play an acoustic set was 1970 filmore east.
 
that's very interesting dr. kissinger.  let me ask you, do you know the grateful dead personally?
 
well i've been a big fan of theirs for years and i finally got to meet them at watkins glen.  and let me say that meeting jerry was a great experience.  the only thing i can really compare it to was when i went to china and met mao.  i don't agree with all of jerry's philosophies, but he's definitely a twentieth century heavyweight, as am i.
 
well thank you very much for talking with us dr. kissinger, say what is that, what is that in your hand?

oh nothing, nothing

oh no wait a minute, wait a minute, these are microphones, what is this?  ohh dr. kissinger, you're making a bootleg recording of tonight's concert

...

fuck you.  you're just like one of those people that telling everyone to sit down all the time.

well what do i have to do?  get a band member to come out here to tell you that you can't record the show?

ok well go ahead, you just do that, tom.  get a band member.

ok bill?  bill kreutzmann?  come here a minute.  dr. kissinger is recording tonight's concert

god dammit henry, gimme the tape
 

 


 

read the magician by colm toibin

in paraty, if you saw three people, then one was talking and the other two were laughing

burn the poem

he must think that suitable men grow on trees

i grew a long beard listening to it

time went slowly in an unfamiliar place

inflation was being blamed on the winners of the war

and they contained accounts of moments that he treasured but could share with no one.  casual glances at young men who had come to his lectures or whom he encountered at a concert.  glances that were sometimes reciprocated and then became unmistakable in their intensity.  while he enjoyed the homage he received in public and appreciated the large audiences he attracted, it was always these chance meetings, silent and furtive, that he remembered.  not to have registered in his diary the message sent by the secret energy in a gaze would have been unthinkable.  he wanted that which had been so fleeting to become solid.  the only way he knew to make this happen was to write it down.  should he have let it pass so that it would have faded completely, this, the story of his life?

perhaps he has written "i am" and is now unsure how he might proceed

no matter how well we paint the face, we struggle to paint hands.  if the devil came here now and asked me what i would want in exchange for eternity under his reign i would ask him to let me paint hands, hands that no one would even notice, perfect hands.  do novelists have a problem like our problem with hands?

if only einstein would listen to him, things would be different

when i informed him that my husband had won the nobel prize in literature, he shrugged.  i did not know that there were people like that in sweden

he knew how to open a pomegranate and fill a bowl with the rich, red seeds.  if that was all he had learned from his mother, it would be enough, he thought

'she calls once a day and i take her call once a week,' mrs roosevelt replied

'why did you marry him?'..'of all the possibilities, present, past and future, your father was the least preposterous'

the war is over, but it casts a long shadow

 

9/19

this week i

met rupak at workweek conclusion, drove to northern terminus of albertine rift, to kibale, bounded by tea plantations because chimps, elephants dislike the taste; queen elizabeth n. p. bounded by electrical wires; truman by oceanic drywall.  in nepal, avocado is butterfruit; in uganda, peanuts are groundnuts; on the twenty thousand shillings note, this lake.  we drove to nkuringo too, for a canyon scramble.  final stop jackfruit past mbarara

[scrolling through chitwan website] and look there's a rhino

the jane goodall aesthetic

the primate capital of the world

we will check for knuckle prints

everest is 8848, they made us memorize that

tribal wars over the grasshopper harvest

improve your latrine with sato

candelabra cactus (euphorbia)

everyone thinks butterflies are beautiful, but aside from the wings it's just a worm

i've traded my like of charcoal-making scent for feral monkey odor scent

i'd give a 5 star review but the fruit platter lacked jackfruit

i strictly eat chicken from the ankle on up

the nfl donates the super bowl losing team's pre-made winning jerseys, a whole generation here thinking the wrong team won

it's laminated so it must be true

these are animals in the wild, they don't have an appointment with us

the one true purpose of scrambled eggs and tabasco is each other

now when we see them in the zoo, will it just be like, "i've seen this"?























 

read the thursday ft

seven people, including three children, were killed and another 64 were injured when russian ballistic missiles struck the historic centre of lviv before dawn yesterday, according to authorities in the western ukrainian city

"the canister exploded and injured my left leg, leaving a big wound. i had minor surgery and two fragments were removed from my leg. i'm now out of danger," added wine, whose real name is robert kyagulanyi ssentamu
 
estimates by the international labour organization, published yesterday, show that the share of global gdp earned by employees and the self-employed fell from 52.9 per cent in 2019 to 52.3 per cent in 2022 and remained flat in the following two years


read taschen's arcimboldo by werner kriegeskorte

flames surround the head like a crown

if one loves and respects the history of art, one should be quite happy for it to remain a little obscure

a carriage pulled by peacocks

 

design of a dragon-like costume for a horse
blue pen-and-wash drawing, 25 x 19 cm, inv. no. 3224

 

9/12

this week i

boil tap water, it tastes clean, pure, hint of sweetness, like fancy cucumber water.  great lakes regional?  ugandan english nice too: he's soon coming

 


 

look in the mirror and we laugh, like the magic.  the physician with the regal silliness of an aging crown prince in his brightly lit office in (maybe bhopal, maybe bengal?) north india pairs this phrase with an antibiotics prescription for my irritable bowel syndrome, this will fix it, like the magic.  and i reflect that simone my first encounter with a stoner italian, with his waving his hands all around about how much he would like to eat then nap

am glad ice cream, pizza always delicious, never outgrow those.  in power in dhaka, the indiana jones of poverty: it belongs in a museum.  good shit:

i have to be careful because those red ostriches are smart

 Yes, wear helmets to protect your head
๐Ÿง very IMPORTANT
i wear a helmet in the shower
You're soooo smart
how many helmets do you wear?
[replying to facepalm gif] I should wear helmets whenever I do this
hahah
[replying to how many helmets do you wear?] 3
 
oh nice
me also
one for my head and one for each asscheek
 
Mmmm
๐Ÿ‘๐Ÿ‘

 

 

 


 

 

read and then there were none by agatha christie, first published 1939.  when the curtains close, when our eyes scroll the epilogue, when we understand we've just witnessed an induced suicide as finale and a second one as encore.  bravo to you, agatha christie, for your storytelling chops

 

 

none of this nudity and gramophones half the night

soldier island.  he remembered soldier island as a boy . . . smelly sort of rock covered with gulls

he's nearer the day of judgment than i am

very few thoughts passed through his head.  anthony was a creature of sensation - and of action

a cairngorm brooch

in either case you notice, the same initials.  ulick norman owen - una nancy owen - each time, that is to say, u. n. owen.  or by a slight stretch of fancy, unknown

drunk . . . and i operated!  nerves all to pieces - hands shaking.  i killed her all right..simple job if i'd been sober.  lucky for me, there's loyalty in our profession..but who could have known about it - after all these years?

 he'd cooked seton's goose all right!

there is so little time - so little time.  i really must insist that no one disturbs me

downstairs the gong pealed a solemn call to lunch

you must remember that anyone who's mentally unhinged has a good deal of unsuspected strength

one more of us acquitted - too late!

he must have prepared a secret place beforehand - naturally - of course it's just what he would do.  you know, like a priest's hole in old manor houses

so that's the reason for your womanly solicitude! you wanted to pick my pocket

my nature was a mass of contradictions.  i have, to begin with, an incurably romantic imagination.  the practice of throwing a bottle into the sea with an important document inside was one that never failed to thrill

i may say that i watched the faces of my guests closely during that indictment and i had no doubt whatever, after my long court experience, that one and all were guilty

a pitiful human wish that someone should know just how clever i have been


9/5