Time passes slowly ....

That video is from one of our longtime favorite commenters, rhhardin, who says:

Approaching Turkey in the Straw diagnosed and awaited, video from Monday bike commute.

The business model is doubtful, with the kids safely indoors in modern times.

That's from last night's "café" post — the one with the orange flower — where another favorite commenter, Lem, transports us into a long car ride with his wonderful father:

Anyway.. I had a good time driving my dad.. for about seven hours.. he drove the rest.

I caught a sign in PA that said "where is the birth certificate?"..

We both happen to see it and when I finally did a half hearted ha ha (because I didn't get it right away) my father asked me what do you think?

..he eventually told me about what he calls the "American Concupiscence of Obama".

and of course he told me ther is a price to pay for that kind of thing.

He told me that "codicia" (lust) is not only a material, nor only a sexual mater the way people like to pretend.

The conversation was, I think, in Spanish.

He said that [like] any object of desire that is able to overcome fears, it is a (for lack of a better explanation) godlike.

According to my father.. the seemingly "impossibility" of Obama becoming president played right into his theme of "hope and change".. So that when it did happened (he became president) people assigned to it a divine like experience/intervention.. and now with the spill he is (unlike Bush) "uniquely qualified" to stop it.. or everything they believed is in jeopardy.

I wish I could put it to you all in the poetic way my father does.

When he spoke.. it was as if I already knew it.. It felt good.

For people to blame themselves for the spill is a stretch.. it is the only thing keeping Obamas hopes alive.

If people blame Obama.. in their minds (says my father) they might as well blame themselves.. specially if they voted for him (i said) ... and my father said after a pause that seemed jarring dislocated.. my father voted for Obama.

I didn't react to that.. (thank God) It would have been disrespectful to him.. the fact that he told me it was not so as to give me an opportunity to call it into question. I think it it was more to brace waht he had been telling me about.. "The American Concupiscence of Obama" had been real enough to carry him away like a Hoover Dam Relief.

Concupiscence.

I wish Lem could capture that poetry on video. I picture Lem's father as a YouTube wise man.

Some commenters told me that the flower photograph looks like a painting. I've been a painter in my time, and the truth is: It doesn't look like a painting at all. I said:

The reason this flower looks like a painting is because it lacks something that — ironically — I would put in if I were doing a painting of it. There are no black/gray shadowy areas demarcating the depths of the folds. It's just more orange. It's not what the brain thinks will be there, but it's what the camera sees.

You could look at that photograph and paint without thinking so much and thereby produce a painting that looks like a photograph. Artists have done that, creating the illusion that some photographs look like paintings. But it is, most assuredly, the other way around.





Time passes slowly up here in the daylight
We stare straight ahead and try so hard to stay right
Like the [orange] rose of [late spring] that blooms in the day
Time passes slowly and fades away...

What we watched off the TiVo last night.

1. "Death Camp of Tolerance." (And no, we're not going to using "Lemmiwinks" as a pet name for our dear commenter Lem.) ("Death Camp" ≈ "death panels," no?)

2. "The Colbert Report," #05108 with Barbara Boxer. (Haven't watched Colbert in a while. He's less funny pretending to hate Democrats than he was pretending to love Republicans.)

3. "Trapped Under a Boulder." (This one never gets old. Well, what would you do if you were out camping amongst the Australian boulders and you had to pee in the middle of the night? Watch for the crawfish cameo.)

Jack Kerouac did not text.

I need to get some blogging up, and I actually have about 5 things I've been meaning to write, that is, after the completion of various Sunday morning activities, such as transforming the corn leftover from last night into breakfast and analyzing why I didn't quite replicate my mother's corn fritters. But somehow, I'm reading the comments over on Richard's blog — not even my own blog.

(I did read some of my blog's comments on my iPhone in the middle of the night, and I'd just like to say, Lem, I'm sorry no one was in the buckets of flowers with you last night to say, yes, we're your friends and thanks for telling us that you've found comfort here.)

Anyway, over at Richard's, Penny commented:

I just noticed your new blog header. NICE! I like it a lot. I do have one comment though. Pen authors need to watch out for what I will call "texting creep".

That refers to the quote in Richard's banner:

SCRIBBLED SECRET NOTEBOOKS, AND WILD TYPEWRITTEN PAGES, FOR YR OWN JOY... SUBMISSIVE TO EVERYTHING, OPEN, LISTENING... SOMETHING THAT YOU FEEL WILL FIND ITS OWN FORM. --JACK KEROUAC, FROM "BELIEF AND TECHNIQUE FOR MODERN PROSE"

Kerouac wrote "yr," long before anybody was indulging in rampant abbreviation for texting purposes. I'd read that quote in Richard's banner many times, but this morning was the first time I was moved to Google the quote. I wanted to make sure of what I was already sure of, that the abbreviation was Kerouac's. And the cool thing about that, for which I offer a penny to Penny, is that I found the whole context, "Belief and Technique for Modern Prose," which is written — Richard elides this — as a numbered list. I love lists, especially numbered lists.

(We've been eating salads from that 101 salads list, and, for example, #2 really is — as billed — "[a]stonishing.")

There are only 30 items on Kerouac's list, so it's easier to read than not to read. Nevertheless, I'll copy a few here, with commentary:

3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house

And don't even yell as if u were drunk outside yr house, especially at a cop.

6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind

Consider it done! Since 2004.

8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind

I often write bottomless. Much more than topless. Because I like to write in bed.

13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition

K.

15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog

Would all the political bloggers please take a day to do exactly this? Then, if you can do it, do it all the time.

18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea...
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge

See? Blog!

And text, if u want 2.

"Someone's knocking at the door. Somebody's ringing the bell. Do me a favor. Open the door. Let 'em in.

That's the entirety of the lyrics to the cute little Paul McCartney song "Let 'Em In," from the 1976 album "Wings at the Speed of Sound."

Please familiarize yourself with the original recording.

Now, you are prepared to view the song and dance interpretation from the 1976 Miss America contest — with Bert Parks and 3 male dancers:

***

What long and winding road led me to that door? Back in last night's "rare opportunity" thread, I wrote:

Being tried for murder is a rare opportunity, as is ending your life in the electric chair.

Meade said:

I once had the rare opportunity to become King of England but I turned it down.

I chose romantic love instead.

Then Hollywood called and I said "no." At the time, keeping my private life private seemed like a rare opportunity I didn't want to give up.

Oh, I almost forgot - then I was asked to run for Vice President but I decided I wanted to spend more time with my family.

In hindsight, I'm glad I turned down that king gig. The pay wasn't all THAT great.

Then Lem said:

Good call Meade.

Greetings from Julio "If love calls on your door"

If love calls your door
let it find it always open
never close it, let'm in ...

Open up, don't get distracted
don't let'm go, dont miss it
you don't know when it will call again ...

If love calls your door
let it find it always open
tomorrow is another day, it's God's will ...

Let love be welcome
Today I will stay with you
For a Gifted night without end ...

I want to be more than your friend
it is all I ask
and that you give me a chance.

(painstaking translation by Lem)

"Gifted" — like "God" — is capitalized in Lem's view, and I accept that.

The open door... someone's knocking at the door...

If you'd left that door open somebody wouldn't have had to ring the bell. Maybe you just leave that door wide open — and let love walk in — but at least answer it. Maybe check the peephole first.

Wouldn't it be cool if Andrew would openly explore what might be complex feelings about heterosexuals — especially women?

I said.

And he said...

IN THE COMMENTS: Lem said:

I'm at work now, so I can't do much.. look up Sully's treatment of Condi Rice and the women of the Bush WH.

There might be something there we can use.

(Damn. I should have taken the day off.)

I love the smell of an intertube fight early in the morning.

Okay, kids. Marshall the evidence. Comb through Sullivan's blog for evidence of misogyny. I'm in a frontpaging mood! I'll even correct your typos (as I did for dear, sweet Lem).

David Axelrod, circa 1975.

(Via Ben Smith.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian said:

"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O Cruel, needless misunderstanding. O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast..."

ricpic said:

Oscar Wilde lives! Sans wit. Sans soul. Sans everything.

Love all that literariness, but Psychedelic George hits what I was searching for:

Separated at Birth from

Chuck Negron

3 Dog Night's lead singer.

(Idle Chuck Negron rumor.)

He also bears a resemblance to Mickey Rat of comix fame.

Lem said:

If you put a moustache on this man you will not be able to tell them apart.

Actually, he looks more like Rasputin than the Son of Sam....

David Crosby....