mary sent the picture of comet and snow squirrel(?) at the same time i was looking at the picture of lulu and snow bunny. this is what we're doing on new year's eve. later we may play scrabble or dominoes or watch a trip to greece.

 

This is how one pictures the angel of history.                                                    His face is turned toward the past.                                                                    Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe              which keeps piling wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet.                          The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole                              what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing in from Paradise;                           it has got caught in his wings with such a violence                                           that the angel can no longer close them.                                                               The storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward.                                                This storm is what we call progress.  

 

Walter Benjamin                                                                                                                The Angel of History

 

                                           in fondest hope we don't all croak.

i wish i could look into time and see what happens, but do i? in our bone sap we know. my wishes are mostly will o' the wisps anyway. actually i don't wish often, i just say it could be worse kind of facetiously. if wishes were fishes they'd be just as mercurial. anyway i resolved to give up cigs and new years resolutions long ago when i quit booze. now i resolve to live in the eternal now like dogs rather who actually anticipate with a certain dogged resignation to fate—but dog, i cant give up for wishin somethin anyway no matter what i say though i don't know what i wish—to live in love & peace, to not die of the virus, nor exist as a long hauler, for nature to prevail? i just, i cant take any more lies gnome sane—just tell me somethin based on the true &  the good, even if it's only a fairy story.

the fear is that along with unlimited surveillance and endless war for profit there will be no public open spaces. the wish is that we can save something for the common good. the wish for 2021 is that obama sees the injustice of taking public parkland for his private enterprise and leaves our park be.

here's an excerpt of a letter to the editor on new year's eve day 2020.

imagine a gift of public land expressly set aside for public use only, given to a private entity and then made legal. chicago is unique among great lake cities in that most of the lakefront is reserved for parks and the public. that is very valuable land. what person would not want to live in a highrise on lake michigan? for developers, all those trees in jackson park sit in the way of big profits. this is the issue protect our parks president herb caplan is addressing. this fight he is making over the obama center isn't about obama. it is about the precedent that this construction on lakefront property makes. if one person can do it, so can others. the profits would be enormous. taxes would go up to pay for the de-construction of the park, of course. everybody wins who is in on it. the rest lose. 

~jon rice                                                                              

the boundaries disappear (and war is over, if you want it).

 

yeah, the boundaries have disappeared. in this case inducing more trauma (make sure you never bring the office in the bedroom, no matter the reception). the boundaries of consciousness are also disappearing (perhaps). my blank rune of the unknowable seems propitious.

i think of the law firm i worked at, so toxic, spiritually and chemically, and i end up thinking of the day i said per bartleby, the scrivener, i prefer not, and descended the claustrophobic elevator to the ground, and left feeling utterly buoyant—of course i was young and irresponsible.

i think i may go to the point too. r. put all her things she wanted to let go in ink on scraps of paper and immersed them in water in a glass bowl and watched them dissolve in blue.

 

—that was a note i wrote to my friend and former dog client who works from home and i said that makes it even more traumatic, you can't leave work at work. a lot of times when i write a note i could be blogging it. everything is in the diary now, though there are things i can't even tell there, either i don't know or don't know how.

the battle for the soul of america begins tomorrow. tonight we doomscroll in hindsight for the extinction of 2020, we denizens of biden time.
 

 ant you soul glad to see the tail of 2020 told and the endless prospect of imminent doom unscrolled like the orange cat unscrolls the toilet paper roll? now we can engage in waging the battle for the soul of america—uncle joe is (almost) in the (white) house. ah—men.

 

Oh
To be
Not anyone
Gone
This maze of being
Skin
Oh
To cry
Not any cry
So mournful that
The dove just laughs
The steadfast gasps

Oh
To owe
Not anyone
Nothing
To be
Not here
But here
Forsaking
Equatorial bliss
Who walked through
The callow mist
Dressed in scraps
Who walked
The curve of the world
Whose bone scraped
Whose flesh unfurled
Who grieves not
Anyone gone
To greet lame
The inspired sky
Amazed to stumble
Where gods get lost
Beneath
The southern cross

 

 

happy birthday patti smith.

 we missed the conjunction and then the last full moon of the year. they happened out of sight. tonight we'll watch patti smith's birthday concert if zoom doesn't fail. we looked at grandpa's stamp albums from germany before and after the war, then i read pigeons on the grass titled after gertrude stein, written just after the fall of the german empire yet it doesn't seem like that shrouded dark time in the imagination and newsreels, it seems modern, like now, but i keep falling asleep. i wish i could nap. when i try to nap i get anxious. what does that mean? when i was little i had insomnia, i never wanted to go to sleep, i was scared of sleeping. i'd nod off and feel myself plummeting and jerk awake. where does fear come from? it's ok, i can stay awake now. i hardly have to work, one dog a day. people think the new year is some kind of magic line. i never celebrated it much and when i did i got blasted on bug juice so i could disappear in plain sight. i want to be soul quiet, but not hiding, not afraid, i want to pay homage to what is good that remains to be seen, what remains.

i drew the blank unknowable rune. i mentioned it to a dog fellow. he said that's a good thing. we know what plagues us. what plagues us is the known. 

what are we going to do to mark the ending of 2020? nothing. we just want peace, and if we can't have it in the world, we'll have it together. we're going to stay in here and observe the world passing. 

how do i feel seeing the sledders from above? i'm floating in space, looking down on the scenery, the people in the landscape, like the guy in medieval time, in a hot air balloon of skin. and at the same time like the pictures of the sledders are flowing through my body.

 a closer walk with thee, lulu. 

i am weak but thou art strong
lulu keep me from all wrong
i'll be satisfied as long
as i walk, let me walk close to thee

just a closer walk with thee
grant it, dog, is my plea
daily walking close to thee
Let it be, dear Lord, let it be

when my feeble life is o'er
time for me will be no more
guide me gently, safely o'er
to thy heavenly shore, to thy shore

just a closer walk with thee
grant it, dog, is my plea
daily walking close to thee
let it be, dear lulu, let it be

dear jasper (i'm so bored with the u.s.a.).

i'm so bored with the u.s.a.
i'm so bored with the u.s.a.
but what can i do?

i'm so bored with the u.s.a. 

i'm so bored with the u.s.a.
but what can i do?

i'm so bored with the u.s.a.
i'm so bored with the u.s.a.
i'm so bored with the u.s.a.
but what can i do?

 

refrain.

 jasper has 12 winters. wed. dec. 30. 10:33am 2020.

 the bedroom window after the storm passed.

penny just chipped a double terminated rainbow included citrine quartz. i hate to say it, but she's orange.
 

i feel strange in my brain, a chasm in a snow globe shook by a giant, cars skidding and shuddering, can't see the lanes. the sound of wheels is muffled, and the siren passing through the white wind. this is the thing, i feel strange in my brain.

 there's a good storm going on. i went up to see the view from the 17th floor. r.'s cooking lentils and roasting cauliflower and sweet potatoes. i'm acting like a lord of leisure. we're going to watch possessor, a science fiction horror film by cronenberg, son of cronenberg. we need a good horror story as homeopathic vaccine for the horror show of america. updat. don't bother with possessor it's just more gore.

 i always got by somehow. i think some elementals were looking out for me. still i was precarious in clandestiny. i got a license at 16 and a fat red ford fairlane. i think it would be a great casket but it couldn't wait. i sold my last car in 84. i'm grateful to get rides to the library and to see the cranes. i'm thankful more often than i say. can't i just be thankful all the time? i drove enough. i got here, didn't i? if possible i just wanna ride.

 i thought a library card was enough. it's not easy to live off the grid in the city. it's not easy to live like a kid. i gotta admit i'm getting too old for it. it's not a shame to be proud of it, but it is what it is. i grew scrawny and radical on the gruel of the abzurd. at least i never had fancy ideas about gettin rich. a lot of things in this poor country don't make sense. i hate the state that makes hate great.

 the complementary word of the day is infinitesimally—let's not forget where we live—let us prey—home of the armed, the free and the void—and incrementality.

 in this country you can get pardoned for murder or murdered for nothing. it's the land of opportunity.

 hawaii's beaches are disappearing because rich people like obama build mansions and sea walls. the beaches belong to the people who are displaced by the rich people who buy the land and disappear the beaches and the people who are not rich like obama. 

meanwhile the rich and powerful obama fundation intends to take over jackson park and make it a private enterprise. and there's nothing we can do really, except keep a record of what the rich and powerful take from us.

it's still the same old story of paradise lost.