Laura's posting some great old photos. Those glasses rock the house.

It's poll time, y'all (the five of you who read this weblog)

1. You're on public transportation. You're reading the newspaper. Someone beside you or standing above you is attempting to read your paper. Is this

a) Okay
b) Not-Okay
c) Depends what they look like

2. You're on public transportation. You're reading a book. Someone beside you or standing above you is attempting to read your book. Is this

a) Okay
b) Not-Okay
c) Depends how they smell

3. You're on public transportation. You're holding a bar to steady yourself. Someone else is holding the same bar. What is the preferred distance between your respective hands?

a) 2 inches
b) 4 inches
c) I like it right on top, like giving dap.

That complete flip, in Idiot Wind, after seven minutes of rollicking insults, from an accusative you to an inclusive we.

From this:

Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your mouth,
Blowing down the backroads headin' south.
Idiot wind, blowing every time you move your teeth,
You're an idiot, babe.
It's a wonder that you still know how to breathe.

to this:

Idiot wind, blowing through the buttons of our coats,
Blowing through the letters that we wrote.
Idiot wind, blowing through the dust upon our shelves,
We're idiots, babe.
It's a wonder we can even feed ourselves.

How is my body, you ask? My ankle is getting better but my eyes are like bags. Trash bags!

I like this weather. I like all the preparation, the media, the chatter, the dread, the excitement. People have been talking about it for a week, and now finally, we're in it. Will the city shut down? Will commerce stop for a day? Will capital stop creeping around with its filthy little hands? What an exciting thought!

I remember reading Drew and Nada's reports on the NY blackout and being really excited by them. About what happens to neighborhoods and to shops and our bodies when something so basic, so constant, disappears. When you're forced into the world. Does it really take something so dramatic to jolt us out of the day-to-day, the (sorry, Levinas) complete lack of recognition of the other?

I remember what happened after the Northridge earthquake. My family's shut-up suburban block came alive. People came out (I guess they got shaken out) of their homes, they encountered each other for what seemed like the first time, they asked for and provided support for one another, they made EYE CONTACT (wow).

Will this HEAT bring a similar situation? For just one day at least? Let us out of our offices! Let us out into the streets!

Brandon and I were on the stoop last night. Maybe we'll be on the stoop again tonight. I bet a lot of folks on the block will be out and about. I know it won't be as dramatic as "consciousness of my humanity, consciousness of my interchangeability" but maybe something will happen. Something real. Something strange. I'm holding my breath.

To the MILK DUD crowd,

"To approach someone as unique to the world is to love him. Affective warmth, feeling, and goodness constitute the proper mode of this approach to the unique, the thinking of the unique. And doubtless, this thought of the unique is only concrete, and hence originary, when it goes from the one to the other, in the guise of a society of two, outside the relations that regulate individuals who belong by appurtenance to the same genus." (E. Levinas)

"I am just over here LABORING IN PAIN and DWELLING IN WORLDLESSNESS"

shotgun reviews!

I'm Not There? Pretty tired.

Volume III of The History of Sexuality? So far, not as interesting as volumes one and two. By I'ma finish it.

San Francisco Public Library interlibrary loan? Easy peasy.

This Yay Area poetry schedule? RIDIC. I'm booked through June.

Dream in which Joshua Clover appears. Encourages me to listen to UGK. Weird. But not completely out of nowhere. We re-watched Hustle & Flow. In the culminating bar scene, a song plays which is instantly recognizable as the sample from International Player's Anthem
The internet tells me the "sample" is "I Choose You" by Willie Hutch. And the internet also tells me that Mr. Hutch is dope. Damn, off I go.

Like everyone else on THE INTERNET, I've made a Muxtape. It's a Side A / Side B type thing.