COPPIN’ A FEALTY.

I didn’t know that Moses led the Israelites through an Alaskan island chain or maybe that’s just a biblical Aleutian.

Donald Trump questions every opponent’s national origins (do you know about this?) through his “birther” methodology, and in particular, his campaign slogan, “Eat Big Birther’s Mussels!”

If a religious group slobbers at the mouth, then it might be a delegation from the Salivation Army.

Their band features a drummer, a trombonist, and a sympathizer, but yeah, they struck up a hot version of “Dust Mites Broom”.

The theatre had to slash its budget—so it cut some farce.

If you have difficulty expressing yourself, the doctor might administer one or several enigmas.

Too, the doctor might try to take your Lubriderm count as part of treating your ethereal disease, or he might attempt to cure your estranged muscle.

Meanwhile, you should work out with dumbbells, because you could grow quite ambiguous.

A cat has asinine lives.

Everyone caught the new virus—a petulance spread throughout the land.

Many African diplomats don’t know how to receive the embassies from their colleagues in Dakar, because their colleagues are sending mixed Senegals.

Join me in a hug, an ecstatic cling, that won’t let go, or conversely, if you can’t experience love by asking, you could always hire a destitute.

They shanked a guy named Herb in the penitentiary. It was Herbicide.

Hey: if it can be placed in the freezer, it’s feasible!                                

this post is part of a double issue. also see: KENNY G. DELIVERS THE OPPOSITION RESPONSE TO THE SUPERBOWL HALFTIME SHOW.

KENNY G. DELIVERS THE OPPOSITION RESPONSE TO THE SUPER BOWL HALFTIME SHOW.

How, after Obama’s weekly Saturday address, the Republican drifts into earshot a half-hour later, carping about some government wastrel, ministerial dealie. Maybe the junior senator from Alabama does this deed, the same way Kenny G. delivers the opposition response to the Super Bowl halftime show. The Super Bowl, of course, continues, so you’d have to bust out your AM radio, the one held together with slack rubber bands, the one leaking battery rust out of its rear compartment. Kenny G. jokes about playing the Chuck Mangione songbook, but in the pause between the quip and the first woozy weasel popping out of his saxophone, you involuntarily mime an evasive action, an incomplete destruction of documents, perhaps, to camouflage a significant (if imaginary) transgression. Quantum physics can best describe the influence that Kenny G wields with respect to the Universe, and it doesn’t recommend little-flower optimism. One Kenny G galaxy collides with another Kenny G galaxy, goes the science, but the distances—so vast—prevent the mutual destruction you might otherwise anticipate. Do you prefer Beyonce’s hair or Kenny G.’s hair? Do you prefer a Nat Geo hippopotamus fart or a Kenny G. hippopotamus fart? The opposition hasn’t devoted much bandwidth to this endeavor, and the spooky distortions between channels outperform Kenny G., the unfortunate rivulets of Kenny G. There, the radio conks, a splutter of overworked international vacuum tubes. “Surely the knell”, you think, “but for the Heaven of Wealthy Elevators.” You’ve always wanted to go for gelato, go for gelato, regard it as practice for when a trip to gelato will really matter in your life. Yes, pilgrim, a trip to gelato will—some day—matter in your life. Really.

this post is part of a double issue. also see: COPPIN’ A FEALTY.

PHOTO ESSAY: BLIZZID OF 2016.

PHOTO ESSAY BEFORE & AFTER SOCKING ROD SMITH IN THE SHOULDER.

On a night when the Number Of Casual Snake Stories rivaled the Number Of Fine Pints Held Up To The Light, it had come time to sock Rod Smith in the shoulder. I say sock, Dear Reader, but clearly you can judge for yourself the Swiftness & Stealth of this maneuver, as the camera could not capture any small smidgen of its express delivery. Let us note the various aspects of the No Nonsense Reply. The affixing of reading spectacles as if to declare: Thug Life. The Crane Technique aka Looming Machinery Of The Poetry Hammer honed on the Mean Streets of Gallipolis, Ohio. And the Shock Swoop (French: chaque swoop) of the Final Descent. By the final frame, Dear Reader, neither of us could remember what had prompted us to offer the Substantial Ruckus of our Essential Conflict and so, you know, we just took a Regulation Photo, there, as if to proclaim Great Ambivalence about All Things That Squander Our Hopes in the pursuit of what we might call Medium-Tight. Amen.

TEACHING THE CAN(N)ON.

Imagine a world in which you’re no longer a professor of literature, teaching the canon, but a professor of cannon, teaching the cannon. You realize that more sophisticated methods of delivering ordnance have arrived on the battlefield (and on the briny) (and in the cobalt, cobalt sky) yet you believe in a simpler, more classical war. “These implements”, you lecture, “might become requisite again, given the many catastrophes that may befall humankind, returning us to a more primitive, and enthralling, imposition of will.” A proper professor of cannon should teach the architecture of the device—the solid spaces and the negative—as well as the intellectual aspects of field artillery. Angle of fire and rate of fire, to be sure, but also the type of spark and type of propellant that ultimately lob the ball toward the fortifications. Your specialty, “Collateral Damage”, has yet to become unfashionable: the howling cannon-fire gone astray, and the ensuing despair of the unintended targets. Every so often, you congratulate yourself on completing a dissertation in this area, as this specialty provides you with a renewable means of presenting papers at conferences and pursuing promotions at your institution. “Fire!” you shout at your students. On cue, each of your students takes a turn shouting “Fire!” at the blackboard, where you’ve sketched out replica lip, muzzle, neck, and all the rest. As a special treat, you surprise your classes by playing the R.E.M. song, “The One I Love”, in which the singer croons, “Fire”, every so often. A very postmodern debate ensues about the intent of such a lyric, some students arguing that Michael Stipe must’ve been kindling a fuse a couple paces behind the chamber, so to speak, of a modern artillery piece, and yet other students contend that the song, “The One I Love”, belongs in another can(n)on altogether, the meaning of which troubles you, haunts your sensibilities. Perhaps you repair to the comfortable trappings of your office with a takeaway mug of decaf, noodling around in a canonical way: filing cabinet, bookshelf, computer, window, armchair. You relish the thought that, next semester, you will be on sabbatical, rising when you wish and working when you wish, if working means to grind coffee and peruse the Sunday funnies. In your absence, you realize, your students may be taught a thoroughly different cannon, but of course you, too, could consider teaching another cannon—or rather no canon, at all.                        

                                                                              

this post is part of a double issue. also see: TOPICAL PARADISE.

TOPICAL PARADISE.

Starring:

My Pop. . . . as himself

Director:

Dan Gutstein

Running Time:

0:30

Advance Praise:

“A Common Sense cocktail of ointments.” —Thomas Paine Relief

“A whale of a numbing combination.” —Freeze Willie

“FYI.” —For Your Inflammation

Other Films You Might Enjoy:

They Don’t Let You Live

The Hand

Send In The Burgliz

this post is part of a double issue. also see: TEACHING THE CAN(N)ON.

YES, MAYBE YOU'RE NOT A LEFTIST.

Are you left-brine or right-brine dominant? It would depend upon which ocean you await. The Atlantic always approaches shore from right to left whereas the Pacific always approaches shore from left to right. Oceans force you to adopt the same stance, no matter how you might strive to politicize an issue. Our centrists must reside in the middle of the continent—they count both the artist and the analyst among their ranks. An apple, can the centrists paint, a standard deviation, can the centrists compute. Would you apply Right Guard to your right-side armpit, or in general, to conservative body odor? Oh, would there be Left Guard for the left-side armpit or for the perspiration of liberals, who continue to perspire, apparently, without remediation. Personally, I blame this problem on our two-armpit system. Not that a third armpit could stagger the current political impasse, except maybe in a matted hair environment, where an alternative might break the dreadlocks. Do you think that the famous French bell-ringer drives the Hatchback of Notre Dame? Maybe he prefers to ride the Quasi-Moto-Cycle. In France, the Atlantic always approaches shore from left to right, forcing citizens to be right-brine dominant, les droitiers. There, the donkey brays, the chefs braise, the Frenchies tilt their berets.