The Poetry of D.H. Rumsfeld

"His work, with its dedication to the fractured rhythms of the plainspoken vernacular, is reminiscent of William Carlos Williams'. Some readers may find that Rumsfeld's gift for offhand, quotidian pronouncements is as entrancing as Frank O'Hara's. "

A Confession

Once in a while,
I'm standing here, doing something.
And I think,"What in the world am I doing here?"
It's a big surprise.

—May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times

Sick Day

after Ryan Walker

If she hadn't hidden it under the desk,
the world would be something
something would never have happened

just an idea to explore in conversation

I can't wire this money to you now
because this isn't money

just a way to express quality
with arrows & grunts

nurse sharks are so calm
if they weren't
who knows

it's not fanatical talk through a tube
just regular talk
regular, brutal fucking talk

the occasional urge to run amok
might draw the law out
from its intellectual distance

gesture: make an O, make a K
music: crumbs in a good bounce
action: hand me down to the next needer
thing: this synapse feels longer than the last

What I learned today from a 2-hour software demo:

Cockroach feces is the leading cause of asthma for children living under the poverty level.

Nothing to do with software but disturbing on many levels. Though it must have something to do with software.

Escaped Chimp Gets Snack, Cleans Bathroom

I think that's what I would do if I escaped.

text messaging is unnatural? of course it is.

I've been seeing myself a lot and it doesn't seem to be working. Or at least that's how I did feel a few weeks ago. Maybe this reminiscing isn't such a good idea. More tea.

telly phone

it's weird that on tuesday i was actually touching (through mylar) the first drawing alexander graham bell ever made of the telephone while apple was announcing the iphone. the exact drawing doesn't appear to be digitized but this is one of agb's sketches. i like the first drawing because he'd put in crudely rendered men's heads with slicked-back hair. this one must be from his loopy period.

Livin in the BZ

welcome to the BLAST ZONE

it's important to be able to get away from the blast zone very quickly & easily, but it's more important to be able to get TO it very quickly & easily.

as a tagg-ee

I saw that Mel tagged me, which proves I look at her blog--it's one of three blogs I regularly visit because it's mainly pictures.

Uh, so then I had to figure out what the tagging thing involved.

So there goes--5 little-known facts about me?

1. In high school I played piccolo in the marching band--we backed up Maynard Ferguson at the Citrus Bowl in '82 and apparently you can buy the CD. Weird.

2. I didn't learn to ride a bike until the age of 12 because I was scared of falling off, which I NEVER DID. It's good to be scared.

3. When I lived in Santiago I was addicted to a soap opera called Romane, starring Francisco Reyes as the naughty priest, and once I ran into him in Bar Liguria and he invited me to sit with him and have a drink--so shocked that a gringa was obsessed with his telenovela.

4. In the mid-90s I hitchhiked across Tierra del Fuego. Mostly walking--not a lot of traffic down there.

5. I have this affliction (actually a "characteristic entity," meaning--that's just how you are) called joint hypermobility. My doctor says that even though I've never been able to touch my toes, I'm secretly double jointed.

So now I have to tag five more? Kaplan Harris, Ryan Walker, Lorraine Graham, Tom Orange, and Danielle Pafunda.