Walking: Brother Wind Returns

nomads sauntering into Turquoise Canyon

Lazing about, trying to remember, as well as invent, the rules for living with a fractured hip, I discovered that ruuscal, associate of Brother-Unit TW, and co-contributor/dirigeant to American Idyll, often the blog of my short dreams, thanks to their haunting meld of image, text, and sound...

I discover that russcal, he has posted an entry on walking, the son of a gun.

Wow, I am getting good at approximating bitterness, eh?

It turns out that handy-dandy Fred recalls every "hip precaution" in the Conservative Approach to Periprosthetic Femoral Bust-Ups Manual. Me? If I do something and it hurts beaucoup or makes a sound like metal torquing on metal, I try not to repeat that motion.

You can shout, even whisper, seductively, hip precaution rules at me all the live-long day and I won't remember to follow them. My learning curves are notoriously stubborn; I am stuck in Lacan's stade du miroir.

Really! See his Le stade du miroir. Théorie d'un moment structurant et génétique de la constitution de la réalité, conçu en relation avec l'expérience et la doctrine psychanalytique, Communication au 14e Congrès psychanalytique international, Marienbad, International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 1937.

I'm just kidding.

However, the fact that I had recourse to Lacan, and to that stade, formateur de la fonction sujet? That means I am angry from piled-on frustrations, and hiding behind declarations of powerlessness. I never did get Lacan!

I am unable to walk, and by walk I mean the expansive exercise of going from, say, bed to bath.
I am unable to stand, at least as of this moment. (Because this must change, it will change: being sweetly scrubbed to a glowing pink, or even remotely toileted by Fred, la bonne et belle Bianca Castafiore, or any other denizen of The Manor will mark my perfect day for bananafish.)

I had forgotten how painful a busted hip can be, so much so that mere mention of the idiotic pain scale makes my upper lip assume sneer posture. Fred says that when my upper lip sneer combines with my much preferred toothy grins, it's a scary proposition.

You've long ago figured out what I need to relearn daily: It's not about me.

The Good Lord didn't intend for me to take this crap seriously!

On a good day, I remember that before hitting the bottom of my first mug of coffee.

On a bad day, friend, foe, family, or feline has to politely smack me upside the head before that old lightbulb stutters on, and remind me that I long ago left the 6 - 18 month age group behind.

Still, don't mistake my daily enlightenment for willingness to submit to "there-are-people-a-lot-worse-off" or "God-will-not-give-you-more-than-you-can-handle." No, those remain retarded statements, no matter their truth value. Such statements might be backed by the virtue of all the saints, but you don't want to inflict them on someone in the grip of endless, severe pain.

No... You will want to wait a bit, wait for the grip to loosen, for the jets to cool, then smack the Loser in Your Life with all the truisms you have on hand.

I simply need to remember, and to readjust, and then, to hush. It needs to be done quickly, before lack of sleep, loss of x, y, or z, before the firm establishment of a pout, and the deep, deep blues.

Maybe ruuscal has something for me, then? Maybe the impulse of this sister to need a brother has intuitively led to the saving grace of the ant's forefoot* , and to a brother's friend.

Maybe it is always about paying attention, being aware, praying centering prayers.

He's presenting Thoreau, of course, Thoreau's Walking. From our very recent beginnings, TW and I have honored text and image, literal and visual, ut pictura poesis, and almost always through the beauty of the canyon, by the wild, old river.

slanting light on an esplanade afternoon

globe mallow and sandstone

I wish to speak a word for Nature, for absolute freedom and wildness, as contrasted with a freedom and culture merely civil--to regard man as an inhabitant, or a part and parcel of Nature, rather than a member of society.

I wish to make an extreme statement, if so I may make an emphatic one, for there are enough champions of civilization: the minister and the school committee and every one of you will take care of that.

I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks--who had a genius, so to speak, for sauntering, which word is beautifully derived from idle people who roved about the country, in the Middle Ages, and asked charity, under pretense of going a la Sainte Terre, to the Holy Land, till the children exclaimed, "There goes a Sainte-Terrer," a Saunterer, a Holy-Lander. They who never go to the Holy Land in their walks, as they pretend, are indeed mere idlers and vagabonds; but they who do go there are saunterers in the good sense, such as I mean. Some, however, would derive the word from sans terre, without land or home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean, having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea. But I prefer the first, which, indeed, is the most probable derivation. For every walk is a sort of crusade, preached by some Peter the Hermit in us, to go forth and reconquer this Holy Land from the hands of the Infidels.

It is true, we are but faint-hearted crusaders, even the walkers, nowadays, who undertake no persevering, never-ending enterprises. Our expeditions are but tours, and come round again at evening to the old hearth-side from which we set out. Half the walk is but retracing our steps. We should go forth on the shortest walk, perchance, in the spirit of undying adventure, never to return--prepared to send back our embalmed hearts only as relics to our desolate kingdoms. If you are ready to leave father and mother, and brother and sister, and wife and child and friends, and never see them again--if you have paid your debts, and made your will, and settled all your affairs, and are a free man--then you are ready for a walk.
--Henry David Thoreau (from "Walking")

Brother Wind - Tim O'Brien with Darrell Scott

Made up my mind to go
Some place so far away, I headed west
Without a sad goodbye
No hugs or tears that way, it's probably for the best
Sent cards along the way
Said I was looking for a brand new life
I never settled down
My wanderlust would always cut the ties like a knife
Sometimes the lonesome wind
Calls out just like it knows me
And on a night like this
When I don't know where to go, he shows me the way

He knows me, my brother wind
He's lonely too and he takes me away

I always looked ahead
I was so afraid that I'd be caught behind
Followed a crooked stream
To places I'd never seen and one more highway sign
Just like some other guys
I count the hours 'til the day will end
But it's not so I can rest
For me it's the time that's best for talking to my friend

Cause he knows me, my brother wind
He's lonely too and he takes me away

Now half my life is gone
The only home I have is open road
My skin is cracked and brown
A mirror to the dessert ground and the dusty wind that blows
I never made a mark
Just scattered footsteps on the shifting sand
Whatever pushes me
It's something only he can understand

He knows me, my brother wind
He's lonely too and he takes me away

*** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** *** ** ***

*So does the poetry of attention indite salvation, restoration, and peace. Pound sees the lizard in its wild enormity stalking prey along a grass-blade. The world is at work, dramatic and wide. Nature is not arrested. All's well. And this wellness seen up close goes far, all the way to Pound's beloved London where the river, gulls, and garden also go on. His faith restored by sight, Pound continues to see, and the elegant drama of lizard and green fly unfolds along his rain ditch. The pleasures of peace and the gifts of civilization and society are given freely to the open eye by the undetained light of a sunset, the new Pound's (his poem has made him new) "grand couturier." Everywhere in The Pisan Cantos, Pound the hysterical aesthete is calmed and renovated by intimates of his eye, as here, in "Canto LXXXIII:"

mint springs up again
in spite of Jones' rodents
as had the clover by the gorilla cage
with a four-leaf

When the mind swings by a grass-blade
an ant's forefoot shall save you
the clover leaf smells and tastes as its flower

In the poetry of attention, the poet comes to his senses. He is saved along the way. Proud mind, which loves to impose itself between appearance and reality (such imposition lies at the core of all bad poems), "swings by a grass-blade" until fact, in the shape of "an ant's forefoot," strides to the rescue. Fact is, faith is, appearance and reality remain tenderly intimate at the origin of poems. Pound knows, having come to his senses: "the clover leaf smells and tastes as its flower." In the attentive occasion that is truth in poetry, what you see is what you get. O taste and see.

Best Alibi

I am abed.

Which is a great deal better than "I am a bed," of course, of course.
(As the bad poet in me cries out, "a horse! a horse!" *)

Yes, I am high on ibuprofen.

While abed, I am watching hour after hour of Law & Order. I hope to snag a passerby who can hand me the remote so as to rectify the situation, but in the interim, in this very mean, mean time? It is Law & Order or nothing.

Okay, Detective Lennie Briscoe is questioning a suspect, trying to establish where he was at the time of a murder. It's a cold case; The murder happened way back in 1981**. Even so, the guy barely bats an eye before coming up with this, my new favorite alibi:

I was buying a recliner with my ex-wife.

Okay, maybe you had to be there. Or here.

I like it, and am filing it away for possible use the next time I am being beat with a wet noodle under a swinging, bare lightbulb. Go ahead and laugh. You won't be laughing when you get tossed in the clink, the penitentiary, the pen, the pokey, jail, slammer, clink -- all for lack of a decent alibi! In anticipation of my eventual arrest, I am also reading How Police Interrogation Works, which is chock full of helpful suggestions, insider tips, and even friendly decorating advice.

The physical layout of an interrogation room is designed to maximize a suspect's discomfort and sense of powerlessness from the moment he steps inside. The classic interrogation manual "Criminal Interrogation and Confessions" recommends a small, soundproof room with only three chairs (two for detectives, one for the suspect) and a desk, with nothing on the walls. This creates a sense of exposure, unfamiliarity and isolation, heightening the suspect's "get me out of here" sensation throughout the interrogation.

I think -- and Martha Stewart, with her wealth of life experience, backs me up --
that every home should be outfitted with a chic little interrogation room of its own. Think of the possibilities! Perfect for interviewing lying teenagers, or even the odd stray tween! Ideal for the in-laws or other unwanted guests! The only place to be for wine and cheese with a wayward spouse...

* A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And no one can talk to a horse of course
That is, of course, unless the horse is the famous Mister Ed.

Go right to the source and ask the horse
He'll give you the answer that you'll endorse.
He's always on a steady course.
Talk to Mister Ed.

People yakkity yak a streak and waste your time of day
But Mr. Ed will never speak unless he has something to say

A horse is a horse, of course, of course,
And this one'll talk 'til his voice is hoarse.
You never heard of a talking horse?

Well listen to this: "I'm Mister Ed."

**This episode, Amends [2000], was "ripped from the headlines," being a legible reference to the Martha Moxley murder, the Michael Skakel case. Skakel was recently denied a new trial, which one hopes is the final insult to Ms. Moxley. In this television version, the victim is Mary Beth Mosely and the defendant, Michael Sarno.

Happy Bastille Day!

Allons enfants de la patrie,

Le jour de gloire est arrivé !

Contre nous de la tyrannie

L'étendard sanglant est levé ! (bis)

Entendez-vous dans les campagnes,

Mugir ces féroces soldats ?

Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras

Égorger nos fils, nos compagnes !

Aux armes, citoyens !

Formez vos bataillons !

Marchons ! Marchons !

Qu'un sang impur

Abreuve nos sillons !

Amour sacré de la patrie,

Conduis, soutiens nos bras vengeurs !

Liberté, Liberté chérie,

Combats avec tes défenseurs ! (bis)

Sous nos drapeaux, que la victoire

Accoure à tes mâles accents !

Que tes ennemis expirants

Voient ton triomphe et notre gloire !

Aux armes, citoyens !

Formez vos bataillons !

Marchons ! Marchons !

Qu'un sang impur

Abreuve nos sillons !

Nous entrerons dans la carrière

Quand nos aînés n'y seront plus ;

Nous y trouverons leur poussière

Et la trace de leurs vertus. (bis)

Bien moins jaloux de leur survivre

Que de partager leur cercueil,

Nous aurons le sublime orgueil

De les venger ou de les suivre !

Aux armes, citoyens !

Formez vos bataillons !

Marchons ! Marchons !

Qu'un sang impur

Abreuve nos sillons !

Is that right? Well, "fête" this, mon ami!

There's nothing like a little Placido Domingo to set the mood. OomPaPa, OomPaPa.

I've been somewhat lost these past few days. Part of the problem has been being overmedicated -- but that is now resolved.

I always wish for a stunning story to tell, something that'd knock your pretty little socks off. Unfortunately, my realities are about as dull as can be. OomPaPa, OomPaPa.

I increased my "base" dose of methadone -- and still was taking less than my pain management dude wants -- because I fractured my right hip.

How?

Well, my legs were hurting awfully, and the circumference of the right one was at an all time high, so I decided to elevate it on a few pillows.

That's it.
That's the whole story. OomPaPa, OomPaPa.
While lying in bed, with my right leg elevated, I fractured my right hip.

It's called a periprosthetic femoral fracture and I didn't know it was even a possibility -- to further fracture the femur *after* a hip replacement. As my bones and joints have steadily gone to shit, my bionic right hip was the star of the show -- it rarely hurt, it was rock steady, it was my one reliable major joint.

But the prosthesis must have been loose, right on the cusp of causing problems, for the humongous stress of elevating the leg to have cracked that bone.

The ortho explained that there were lots of predisposing and complicating factors in play -- osteolysis, osteoporosis, avascular necrosis, CRPS, and... osteomyelitis. Basically, the body kicks bone resorption into high gear in an attempt to get rid of the particles caused by wear-and-tear. My THR was back in September 2001. In fact, I went home via ambulance on September 11, 2001.

That was truly a strange morning. At the time, I lived in a major urban area served by one of the largest airports in the world -- yet the sky, framed by the boxy window at the rear of the ambulance, was a pristine, uninterrupted blue. You don't realize how accustomed you are to the sight and sound of airplanes until there is no air traffic.

Anyway, 9 years does not seem long enough time to wear out-- OomPaPa, OomPaPa -- titanium.

So I hurt quite a bit, and in response, raised my dose of methadone to within 10 milligrams of the prescribed amount! It's a strange drug, in that it could be considered a timed-release medication due to its very long half life -- 15 to 60 hours, in rare cases up to 190 hours.

In other words, it can sneak up on you. Oom... Pa... Pa... Oom... Pa... Pa...

I have a healthy fear of it, but even so fell prey to overmedication. After two days of returning to my pittance approach to pain management, my mind is clear and I have stopped drooling.

It was the wrong response, anyway. The best drug in my world for bone pain? Ibuprofen. [Actually, Toradol [ketorolac], but I can only get that in the hospital, and then for only three days at a time. As if my stomach lining could get any worse!]

So... much less methadone, much more ibuprofen, and the usual amount of break-through Percocet. Oom! Pa! Pa! OomPaPa!

If you follow this odd blog, you know that I'm without insurance, having been priced out of my coverage by BCBS of Tête de Hergé. They helpfully hiked my monthly premium to an unmanageable $1513, with another $5000 in deductibles. I am in the process of applying for coverage available thanks to the new health care laws -- as one of the few changes implemented *now* is access to coverage for people like myself: The Uninsurable. It is not great coverage; It is not perfect coverage; But it is coverage!

I feel like abusing semi-colons. (You may want to get out of the way.)

There are a few hoops through which I must jump, and there is the surprising issue of emotional upheaval causing mental and physical stasis. As in -- I am depressed, and stuck. I mean stuck in the technical sense of the word, of course.

I am afraid.

The infection in my bones began, it is theorized, thanks to one of the many orthopedic surgeries I've had to undergo because of rampant avascular necrosis, helped along by my suppressed immune status. Orthopedic hardware served as a petri dish. Despite the presence of evident abscesses, despite pus accumulating to such an extent that the head of my left humerus literally burst when the shoulder prosthesis was removed... the offending organism(s) will not grow in lab cultures. I had bilateral replacements, then several antibiotic-laced spacers on each side, then new TSRs -- even though we knew that infection remained -- despite course after course of intravenous antibiotics that should have killed any microbe within a square mile of moi. My infectious disease doctor almost begged me to fire him, saying -- and it was a real confidence-boosting moment: "I don't have a clue what to do next."

ew-w-w-w-oom pa pa, oom pa pa-a-a-ahhh...

The latest plan is to leave me without shoulders. No prosthesis, no spacers. No hardware, period.

I suspect, without any proof whatsoever, that whatever morphing of bugs has gone on is due to the nefarious influence of CRPS. It's the standard move when we don't know what's going on -- blame CRPS, because no one anywhere can figure that stupid disease out. Got a wart? CRPS! Is that a freaking stye in your eye? CRPS!

Given the reluctance of any sane orthopedic surgeon to operate on a limb with CRPS, my orthopod is a real hero. In total, he has performed seven major surgeries on my shoulders. Yes, my CRPS "spread" to take in both arms, fully -- but I am not convinced it was due to the surgeries. Pre-op regional blocks were done each time, and, true to form, I never kept either arm immobilized (as instructed!). For the longest time, I did not even care about upper body involvement. Now, as my hands become testy -- clumsy and burning -- now I pay attention.

En tout cas. So when OrthoMan came up with the plan to totally disable my upper body be eliminating these pesky shoulders? It wasn't a cop out. It was him saying what had to be said.

oomph pah-pah oooooomphh pahhh-pahhh.

Add to this picture a newly fractured hip, and for total complication, make it a periprosthetic fracture in a person with advanced CRPS, AVN, and an unresolved osteomyelitis, and you've the punchline to a bad joke!

When I sat down to write this morning, honoring my ongoing attempt to do so everyday, whether anything worthy is produced or not, I had the fête nationale française in mind as a topic.

Also percolating around up there in the grey matter were some words of wisdom about getting along with others, and a killer tricolore pasta salad recipe. Other people surely don't have to contend with so much crap when they try to write a sentence.

Fear won out, obviously.

How long can I continue with daily fever spikes, pain that gets worse instead of better, clothes and skin drenched in sticky salty sweat? I have been given an answer, you know. This is it: "Until you can't." And then, in response to my smartass query as to how I would recognize that state of "I cannot go on", came this equally smartass pronouncement: "You will know."

It's like my doctors have decided to become annoying incarnations of Yoda.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Grave danger you are in. Impatient you are.

Do or do not... there is no try.

OomPaPa, OomPaPa.

Maybe it is not fear I am feeling. Maybe it is grief. Each episode, long or short, now leaves me in more pain, and more disabled. And my level of pain and disability now actively impacts how the doctors come to various decisions.

As in, it is okay to leave her without shoulders, with one fractured hip, and one collapsed hip, because she is already in a wheelchair and already has limited function of her limbs.

I'm sorry, but last year's celebration of the Jour de la Bastille will just have to be recycled. It's not as if the words to the Marseillaise have changed in the intervening 365 days; It's not as if freedom is on the march.

George Steinbrenner

I love a good parody, and they're hard to find. When I heard that Steinbrenner had died, I remembered this piece from The Cubs Brickyard, published back in April 2008.

“Eccentric” Owner George Steinbrenner Leaving Yankees to Become Crazy Old F*ck

(New York, NY) – Change is in the New York air after another abrupt Yankee exit from the playoffs. Was it Joe Torre’s last as manager of the Yankees? Will Alex Rodriguez opt out of his contract and become a free agent? Such changes will have to wait, because perhaps the biggest change possible has already happened: George Steinbrenner will no longer be running the team.

Steinbrenner, who will continue to serve in a nominal role, has owned the team for decades, and has run the team with what some have euphemistically dubbed a pleasant eccentricty. Whether it was publicly threatening to trade players or fire managers, or requiring players to honor rigorous grooming standards, Steinbrenner has always been a bit strange.

And now that he’s leaving the Yankees, that’s really all he’s going to be.

Steinbrenner was caught Tuesday trying to eat his own armpit.

“When he was running the team, it made a little more sense to do whatever Mr. Steinbrenner told me,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. “But now that he’s just a regular old guy, it’s a little strange when he asks me to pop out of a giant birthday cake in a diaper and sing ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President.’”

Yankees coach Don Mattingly agreed. “Before, when he told me to shave something, I figured fine, whatever, he’s the boss, you know? But now it just feels weird. And frankly, there’s only so much I can shave.”

“I am not crazy!” an indignant Steinbrenner shouted at a parking meter last Friday. “I’m eccentric, rich, smelly, crazy, and ruggedly bow-legged. But I am not a haberdasher!”

Steinbrenner plans to retire to a bench by his favorite lake where he can feed/thumb-wrestle the ducks, and debate the merits of hip hop music versus the color green with other special members of the New York community.

Steinbrenner deserves something of a more elegiac nature, I suppose, so here is an offering from Ken Burns, assuming that he wrote the copy for John Chancellor, the narrator of his documentary Baseball. It might also have been Geoffrey Ward, of course.

And the elegy? It's more for the game than for The Boss, which is as it should be.

It measures just 9 inches in circumference, weighs only about 5 ounces, and it made of cork wound with woolen yarn, covered with two layers of cowhide, and stiched by hand precisely 216 times.

It travels 60 feet 6 inches from the pitcher's mound to home--and it can cover that distance at nearly 100 miles an hour. Along the way it can be made to twist, spin, curve, wobble, rise, or fall away.

The bat is made of turned ash, less than 42 inches long, not more than 2 3/4 inches in diameter. The batter has only a few thousandths of a second to decide to hit the ball. And yet the men who fail seven times out of ten are considered the game's greatest heroes.

It is played everywhere. In parks and playground and prison yards. In back alleys and farmers fields. By small children and by old men. By raw amateurs and millionare professionals. It is a leisurely game that demands blinding speed. The only game where the defense has the ball. It follows the seasons, beginning each year with the fond expectancy of springtime and ending with the hard facts of autumn.

Americans have played baseball for more than 200 years, while they conquered a continent, warred with one another and with enemies abroad, struggled over labor and civil rights and the meaning of freedom.

At the games's heart lie mythic contradictions: a pastoral game, born in crowded cities; an exhilarating democratic sport that tolerates cheating and has excluded as many as it has included; a profoundly conservative game that sometimes manages to be years ahead of its time.

It is an American odyssey that links sons and daughters to father and grandfathers. And it reflects a host of age-old American tensions: between workers and owners, scandal and reform, the individual and the collective.

It is a haunted game, where each player is measured by the ghosts of those who have gone before. Most of all, it is about time and timelessness, speed and grace, failure and loss, imperishable hope, and coming home.

FAIL Blog

there are things that just should not be.

someone entering the following searches should not be directed to this piece-of-fluff, navel-gazing blog:

CRPS + facial pain
new wheelchair
laxative XXXporn**
andrea gianopoulos lancaster pa*
andrea gianopoulos and laura beckett, ketamine kills*
scott reuben
tennis undies
severe bras
xxxporn**
belle sex positions**
rsd/crps law suits
fear fire famine foes
crps rsds cure
amputation cures rsd
marqueterie fraud
boobs whishes
lindsey baum
mrsa and paralyzation
crps 10 pain
laura beckett*
rsd on fire
gambling your heart away near the seine
i know where lindsey baum is
wheelchair lift honda
what kind of cancer killed leslie scalapino

and the one that prompted this failed post, in this failed blog -- the one that logged in at 3:03 in the morning, some woman, some man, sitting, nursing a cup of cold, burnt coffee, elbows propped on that red formica dinette table, long in the family, forehead damp from humidity, not heat, god damn it:

doctors in sedalia missourri that takes wellcare

*Months after posting about Andrea, her father and sister wrote me, very angry. In their eyes, I defamed her and said hateful things. They were very hurt by what I wrote, and reminded me how little I actually knew about her, her life, and her death. I have left the posts untouched but want to acknowledge their deep and abiding pain at seeing her name in a silly blog maintained by a silly blogger. Good things will continue to be born through their daughter, their sister, by virtue of the work she did, and the example she set. And Laura Beckett? I wait in pregnant silence for some lecture or outburst about my rude insinuations... but the lectures and the outbursts never come, and that only seals the seams of my knowledge, that only leaves her in unresolved expectancy, that only means she gambled, and she's been punished. I hope to hear of her dancing her way out of the rehab center one day, pain free. More selfishly, I hope the ketamine coma is perfected, and proves to be a real, accessible answer.

**Okay, so I find that kind of... tittilating. La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore, Fred, and The Four-Now-Three Felines cannot stop their giggles, and -- very strangely -- keep checking themselves out in the Roman mirror of blown glass coated with molten lead, that serves as a sort of night light for the passageway to The Laundry Suites. The thing dates from the first century AD and we've no idea how The Captain's family got their sticky little hands on it. Undoubtedly it involved stuff like "swashbuckling," and "booty." I still don't know how to clean it... but have watched enough Antique Roadshow to know that leaving it as is is probably the best thing. Should you know the proper cleaners to use on first century AD Roman mirrors? Leave me a note.

But I digress (because sometimes, most times, that's all I know to do).


[a slightly revamped repost]

Charles Bernstein :: Leslie Scalapino

As noted earlier, there are some wonderful éloges floating around for Leslie Scalapino, who died May 28, 2010.

Charles Bernstein has pointed many of them out, as well as providing gentle suggestions about what really matters by virtue of his blog gleanings.

Here is his own memory of her, published in SIBILA, poesia e cultura. He addresses something that most gloss over, or address pedantically, in an of-course kind of way: the pesky business of Scalapino and poetic intention, inseparable from "the integrity of the work itself." A huge part of my appreciation for her work springs from the fact that it is work.

Leslie Scalapino’s Rhythmic Intensities

Scalapino Memorial
Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church
New York, June 21, 2010

The poet dies, the poet’s work is borne by her readers.

When I first encountered Leslie Scalapino’s work I was hard hit by its psychic intensity, formal ingeniousness, and rhythmic imagination. I felt I came to the work late; the first book I read was The Woman who Could Read the Minds of Dogs, which while published in 1976, I didn’t read till around 1981. The psychosexual dynamics of the work and its ability to make dislocation a visceral experience immediately became, once I had taken in the magnitude of Scalapino’s project, a capital point on the mapping of poetry associated with L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E magazine, one that deepened and enriched that survey. When North Point published Considering How Exaggerated Music Is in 1982, Scalapino’s work became an indelible part of my poetic firmament, that imaginary company each of us chooses but that also chooses us. That is, I feel as much chosen by Scalapino’s work as that I was doing the choosing; her work entered into and changed my consciousness about what was possible for poetry, changed the terms for all of us working along similar lines.

Every once in a while I would say something to Leslie about Considering How Exaggerated the Music Is. She would shake her head, slightly laughing, “Oh Charles not the music: considering how exaggerated music is.” As in her music, the music of her poems. Not exaggerated in the sense of hyperbolic or overstated, but as in extravagant, wild and wandering.

Starting in my earliest conversations with Leslie, when I would try to describe qualities I found in her work, she was adamant in resisting interpretations she felt countermanded her intentions. When I would say, but you know, Leslie, readers will respond in many different ways to a poem, she would give no ground; for her, how a work is to be interpreted was part of the poem: not just her intention, but part of the integrity of the work itself. I felt her rebuke to my more porous view of interpretation to be magnificent and improbable, for as much as Leslie set the bar for interpretation a bit higher than actual reading practices will ordinarily sustain, she demonstrated her fierce commitment to poetic meaning and also the truth in the form and materials, sincerity in Zukofsky’s sense: that reading was a social bond that necessitated the reader’s recognition of the formal terms of the work. So there was a right way to read, not in the moral sense but in a very practical one, as in a right way to operate software so it works, does the job for which is was made.

And you could say that Scalapino created a new and thrilling poetic software, allowing for a phenomenological unique experience, something like a 3- or 4-D poem. Her overlays, repetitions, and torques enable proactive readers to enter the space of the poem as something akin to a holographic environment. The present time of the work is intensified by her echoes (overlapping waves of phrases) of what just happened and what is about to happen, so the present is expanded into a temporally multi-dimensional space. Her undulating phrasal rhythms are in turn psychedelic, analytic, notational, pointillistic, and narrational. Think of it as deep-space syncretic cubism. And Scalapino’s performances of her work, many collected at PennSound, are crucial guides to entering this hyperspace.

Scalapino’s poetry was central to my poem/essay Artifice of Absorption, which I wrote starting in 1985. In Artifice of Absorption, I noted that Scalapino’s rhetorical repetitions create a disabsorptive/affective charm: the slight, accented, shifts in similar statements operate as modular scans of the field of perception, building thick linguistic waves of overlay and undertow, the warp of a thematic motif countered with the woof of its torqued rearticulation.

When I visited Leslie and Tom in Oakland a few weeks before Leslie died, her luminous and effervescent stoicism, the nobility in which she acknowledged death lurking in her garden, was fused with her refusal to give up on life and her urgent, tragic recognition of the work she still had it in her to do that she would not be able to do. She spoke of how much she wanted to come to New York to read her new work, and so together with Stacy and Tracy we made plans for her to read here tonight. In Oakland in May, we laughed together at the moment’s literary gossip and we talked about her just finished book, The Dihedrons Gazelle-Dihedrals Zoom, written in the late style of Floats Horse-Floats or Horse Floats; she knew it would be her last.

I sent her my response to this work just days before she died, trying to do justice to the work and hoping that she would accept my description as apt, which Tom tells me she did:

The Dihedrons is an ekphrastic implosion inside our severed human-body/animal-mind. “Memory isn’t the origin of events,” Scalapino writes early in this magisterial work, which restores the synthesis of events to its place as meanings' origin. The Dihedrons Gazelle-Dihedrals Zoom -- as much a work of grotesque science fiction as a poem --cracks open the imaginary reality astride reality. In the stadium of its visionary composition, the everyday floats vivid strange: in time, as time, with time, beside time.

Scalapino’s poems, from her first book to this last, probe politics, memory, perception, and desire, creating hypnotically shifting coherences that take us beyond any dislocating devices into a realm of newly emerging consciousness. Like a sumo wrestler doing contact improvisations with a ballerina, Scalapino balances the unbalanceable poetic accounts of social justice and aesthetic insistence.

Every once in a while, I’d say something to Leslie about her book series, calling it O Press; she would shake her head, slightly laughing, “Oh Charles not oppress, O Books”! “Oppression is our social space.” Leslie, with the support of Tom White, created one of the great small presses of our time.

I keep thinking about her titles, which are among the most amazing, fantastic, and unexpected of anybody ever … And her essays, which are models of a non-expository, exploratory style remains foundational for any activist poetics.

Like a ballerina doing contact improvisations with a sumo wrestler.

The poet dies, the poet’s work is borne … by us, in us, through us, as us.

It’s the longest day.

Considering how exaggerated music is.

It's thanks to Bernstein's use of it as a citation that I came to love this bit from one of Giraut de Bornelh's songs:

And they say
If I would just sing lighter songs
Better for me would it be,
But not is this truthful;
For sense remote
Adduces worth and gives it
Even if ignorant reading impairs it;
But it's my creed
That these songs yield
No value at the commencing
Only later, when one earns it.

image is of a troubadour casket

CRPS: IASP Diagnostic Criteria Taken to Task

The latest news from my MedWorm CRPS-related feeds addresses the diagnostic criteria established by the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP). The longheld general opinion is that these criteria have "high sensitivity," but "poor specificity," with the resultant complaint of overdiagnosis of CRPS.

It's a good dialogue to have at this time, and one that needs to be renewed periodically, as the hard science attempts to catch up with the clinical expressions of the disease. The summary conclusion of this round of talks is a clear preference for the Budapest CRPS Criteria over the IASP recommendations most widely in force. For an excellent summary (and yes, it will seem repetitive to some of you) see Dr. Bruehl's power point presentation here, on CRPS taxonomy. The IASP criteria are sometimes shorthanded as "the Bruehl criteria," remember!

All three of the following studies were published in the online version of PAIN: The journal of the IASP.*

Development of comprehensive diagnostic criteria for complex regional pain syndrome in the Japanese population

Masahiko Sumitani, Masahiko Shibat, Gaku Sakaue, Takashi Mashimo, Japanese CRPS Research Group

Received 31 July 2009; received in revised form 21 January 2010; accepted 23 March 2010. published online 07 May 2010

Abstract
Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) is a syndrome that describes a broad spectrum of sensory, motor and autonomic-like features with unproven etiology. The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) diagnostic criteria of CRPS shows high sensitivity but poor specificity. Using statistical-pattern-recognition methods, American researchers have suggested a new set of criteria offering acceptable sensitivity and high specificity. However, non-American CRPS patients present distinct subsets of CRPS-related signs/symptoms from those of American patients. Here, we followed a series of American studies to develop a set of CRPS diagnostic criteria that would be most suitable for the Japanese population. A standardized sign/symptom checklist was used in patient evaluations to obtain data on CRPS-related signs/symptoms in 195 participants meeting the IASP criteria. Using factor analysis, we grouped CRPS-related signs/symptoms into five distinct subgroups (trophic change, motor dysfunction, abnormal pain processing, asymmetric sudomotor activity and asymmetric edema). Discriminant function analysis of these subgroups, regarding their ability to discriminate between CRPS and non-CRPS etiology, indicated that modifying the IASP criteria could increase clinical diagnostic accuracy in the Japanese population. Our diagnostic criteria are not exactly the same as the American criteria, indicating a need for more regionally based CRPS diagnostic criteria. Different sets of CRPS diagnostic criteria could lead to dissimilar patients being diagnosed as CRPS, however, presenting problems for translation of therapeutic effects found in various studies. Therefore, we further recognize a need for a global set of common CRPS diagnostic criteria.

I have to say that the words "unproven etiology" fairly jump off the page, even though I understand that determining the larger cause-and-effect relationships -- generally noxious events and nerve injuries -- is not equivalent to establishing useful, science-supported proven etiologies, being more in the nature of events. (Leave my sentence alone!) What is especially important is to reiterate that hanging everything from the nail of sympathetically-maintained pain [SMP], and diagnosis by sympathetic block, is definitively outmoded, and usually just plain wrong.

The necessity for regionally-based (or nation-based) diagnostic criteria makes enormous sense, particularly given the rigarmarole above of unproven etiologies. It is gratifying, though, that the five (or the Budapest 4!) basic subgroupings for CRPS symptoms hold "true." The practicing medical world dearly loves a checklist.


Modifying diagnostic criteria for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome by Stephen Bruehl, Ph.D. appears in the same issue (Volume 150, Issue 2, August 2010). Dr. Bruehl, of Vanderbilt, is a clinical psychologist, specializing in "Endogenous Pain Regulatory Systems and the Psychobiology of Emotions":

The general focus of Dr. Bruehl’s work is on understanding the functioning of endogenous pain regulatory systems in healthy individuals, and possible dysfunction in these systems associated with chronic pain. Endogenous pain regulatory systems are complex, involving descending pain inhibitory pathways mediated in part by both endogenous opioid and alpha-2 adrenergic mechanisms. Moreover, there appear to be adaptive functional interactions between the cardiovascular and pain regulatory systems that serve to maintain homeostasis in the presence of painful stimuli. Dr. Bruehl’s work focuses on the interface between these areas, and how chronically painful conditions alter the normal functioning of these interacting systems.

Dr. Bruehl figures in the [Budapest] group publishing the third article in this PAIN "series" on CRPS, as well:

Validation of proposed diagnostic criteria (the “Budapest Criteria”) for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome

R. Norman Harden, Stephen Bruehl, Roberto S.G.M. Perez, Frank Birklein, Johan Marinus, Christian Maihofner, Timothy Lubenow, Asokumar Buvanendran, Sean Mackey, Joseph Graciosa, Mila Mogilevski, Christopher Ramsden, Melissa Chont, Jean-Jacques Vatin

Received 18 November 2009; Received in revised form 19 March 2010; Accepted 20 April 2010. Published online 21 May 2010.

Abstract
Current IASP diagnostic criteria for CRPS have low specificity, potentially leading to overdiagnosis. This validation study compared current IASP diagnostic criteria for CRPS to proposed new diagnostic criteria (the “Budapest Criteria”) regarding diagnostic accuracy. Structured evaluations of CRPS-related signs and symptoms were conducted in 113 CRPS-I and 47 non-CRPS neuropathic pain patients. Discriminating between diagnostic groups based on presence of signs or symptoms meeting IASP criteria showed high diagnostic sensitivity (1.00), but poor specificity (0.41), replicating prior work. In comparison, the Budapest clinical criteria retained the exceptional sensitivity of the IASP criteria (0.99), but greatly improved upon the specificity (0.68). As designed, the Budapest research criteria resulted in the highest specificity (0.79), again replicating prior work. Analyses indicated that inclusion of four distinct CRPS components in the Budapest Criteria contributed to enhanced specificity. Overall, results corroborate the validity of the Budapest Criteria and suggest they improve upon existing IASP diagnostic criteria for CRPS.

* PAIN® is the official journal of the International Association for the Study of Pain® (IASP).

Lindsey Baum :: Update

There are a few new items of note regarding the case of missing 11-year-old Lindsey Baum. June 26, 2010, marked the one year anniversary of her disappearance while walking home one evening from a friend's house in her hometown of McCleary, Washington.

The reward for information has grown to $30,000.

More surveillance video has been released in the hope that the men (one in a black plaid shirt, the other in a red tank top) who figure in them may have seen something important on that evening last summer.

If you have any information regarding Lindsey Baum, please call the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Office at 866-915-8299 [Tip Hotline].

NATIONAL CENTER FOR MISSING & EXPLOITED CHILDREN
1-800-843-5678 (1-800-THE-LOST)
McCleary Police Department (Washington) 1-360-533-8765
Family Website: Lindsey Baum

To read all entries about Lindsey on this blog, click here.


Man wearing a black plaid shirt:


Man wearing a red tank top:


The black truck:

The one where reality lives up to expectations...

A short post, and an odd one, but I need to do it.

(Is it terrible to be terrible?)

(Yes.)

Following Sammy's death, an internet troll decided to separate me from the herd, decided to be lioness to my nervous, flighty, incompetent gazelle.

We both visit a certain website dedicated to... well, a fetish. Not a fetish that would cause you to gasp or make milk go up your nose, no... more of a common fixation turned art project, if you will.

A minor, not major, fetish.

And that's minor as in "inferior in importance," not "underage child."

Why, look! I am sweating bullets.

As always happens on sites dedicated to x, y, or a minor fetish, an actual community has evolved midst the serious virtual business of reviewing videos and talking shop. It's not a warm and fuzzy nuclear family; No, it's more of a dysfunctional and fuzzy one.

Holiday gatherings are just a scream.

The gentleman who runs the site established the usual area in the back (behind the stacks of cardboard boxes and piles of mostly empty paint cans and ancient twined-together newspapers), where regulars and irregulars, alike, can vent about almost anything. And so we do.

And so I did. I began a thread about Sam-I-Am and as time passed and he became so ill, I revived the thread to share the sad news of his final illness. It helped, in a small way, because as diverse a crowd as it is over there, people are dependable. Folks love their pets, and such simple commonalities transcend politics and all our other contrived differences.

(Are you still with me?)

The pointy-nosed skank of a troll just couldn't stand it.

She suggested that I donate Sam-I-Am's body to a vet school, ridiculed my grief for a pet, and asserted her image of me as a dried up old lady prune presiding over dreary afternoon salons.

To her friendly comments, she attached, for my viewing pleasure, a video of a feline necropsy.

Truth be told, my only response was a fairly clean-burning anger and a clarified vision of what she must be like. I have managed to hold that anger in check while "in public." In private, I have longed for a few minutes alone with her, a meeting that she would not leave unscathed. (Okay, so maybe she could beat me to a pulp with just the tip of her long, forked, wicked tongue... On the other hand, I have no compunction about running over her flabby ass with my wheelchair.)

In high school, I dissected a cat, and while I wish there had been a fetal pig option, at least I cannot be shocked by the sight.

I said something terminally witty, something along the lines of how she needed psychiatric help. So original! So scathing! (And yet, so true...)

Then I decided the SheTroll could serve as helpful antidote to the poison of our loss. When my sorrow reaches the Point of Emotional Silliness, I only have to imagine her fetid breath, her previously-referenced flabby ass, and her sociopathy to bring me back to Sufficiently Grounded Reality.

Then, too, I thought to employ some of the maturity and smarts people keep insisting I have on hand, and try to let it go. (No, not "let go and let God..." -- just "let it the hell go...")

It turns out, of course, that people, especially fetishists, are just lovely. Yes, you are right -- I've been tackled by that punchline before and doubtless will again.

When I checked my box at the hoodoo voodoo site yesterday, I was heartened and touched by the expressions of juju sympathy over Sammy's death from the gathered brethren and sistren.

There was universal disdain for the necropsy-nattering troll, and I felt much better about things.
Not about Sammy, about *things*. Fred and I both burst into unexpected tears, mostly as we witness the grief of the remaining cats -- and no, it is not our anthropomorphism in play. All three are greatly altered in their behavior and are clearly bringing forth their curiosity, sadness, and confusion.

Anyway, as to the reason I am writing, and you are reading... THIS? I just opened another bit of mail over at this site, from a member I don't know well, but who has always been very nice, and often funny. She enclosed a link to a 2008 news article published in the UK's Independent, saying that she just wanted to share in the great gulping laughter she experienced when she initially discovered the article -- which features none other than our own beloved troll.

Troll extols herself as an academic, perhaps a researcher, touts having "worked with" Margaret Mead and other tossable names -- most recently, while analyzing moi-même, she pronounced herself a therapist. She's a swirling dervish of an expert in everything.

(Funny, in what proved to be a not-far-off impulse, it went through my mind that she was more likely a Dominatrix for Droopy-Diapered Adult Babies... that seemed both more her speed, and definitely more her crowd.)

It turns out she's a Phone-Sex Operator*, recasting herself as Scheherazade.

Oh, my heart is light, my laugh is gay, and Sammy, somewhere, is chirping himself into a good, long purr.

THE TROLL, PICTURED ABOVE, DESCRIBES HERSELF:
I'm 60 years old, have a BA in cultural anthropology from Columbia University, and I've been married for 25 years. I have a son in his last year of college who lives at home. He's a double major in English Literature and Religion. Men call me for an infinity of reasons – but mostly for what I call 'Executive Stress Relief'. It's not sex; it's a cocktail of testosterone, fuelled by addiction to pornography, loneliness, and the need to hear a woman's voice. I make twice the money I made in the corporate world. I work from home, the money transfers into my bank account daily. I'm Scheherazade: if I don't tell stories that fascinate the Pasha, he will kill me in the morning.

From the news article's introduction by Catherine Townsend:
When I see the late-night ads for premium-rate phone sex lines featuring nubile, tanned young women, I get curious about who is actually on the other end of the phone. Like many people, I sometimes imagine that she's a bored housewife, moaning and calling herself a "naughty girl" while smoking a fag and doing the ironing.

But whether they are working in a packed call centre wearing headsets or from home wearing lingerie, phone-sex operators (or PSOs) are as diverse as the callers. I can definitely see the appeal of wanting to make money from talking dirty, like the Americans pictured here in Phillip Toledano's compelling portraits. But these women (and men, some very successful PSOs have been boys with high-pitched voices!) have to do so much more: they have to morph into a role that is part therapist, part sexual surrogate. They also have to improvise and create multiple personae in order to play the submissive secretary, the naughty nurse, the adult baby, the porn star or the barely legal teen girl.

Our Vaunted Troll was also noticed by some of her fellow Columbia alums, over at the Columbia Bwog (the 24/7 blog incarnation of The Blue and White, Columbia University’s monthly undergraduate magazine). In the comment section after the blog entry entitled, "You, too, could be a phone sex operator," a few salient points were raised, as in: Is there even a major available at Columbia in cultural anthropology? Given the Vaunted Troll's age, might not her Columbia have been GS or Barnard? (I'm sure Barnard collegians everywhere are delighted by the suggestion.)

The most repeated comment, though, was a request for "eye bleach, stat!"


* Some of my best friends are Phone Sex Operators.
** Unfortunately, just a few weeks after this post was written, I had to leave PTZ for good... driven off, not by a skanky PSO, but by something even worse, a skanky moralist -- a woman prone to fits of pique and fixated on "hating" me (her verb choice -- and we honor her verbal decisions because she is a... writer. Mwa ha ha! Snort!). 

The photography that accompanies the article is exceptional, and was published in book form by the artist, Phillip Toledano, in 2009.

Sammy

We're going to miss our Sammy Boy, an excellent cat and superb friend. Dobby, his little idiot companion, is quite lost but will find his way.

Bozos on the bus

The future is fun! ... The future is fair! ... You may already have won! ... You may already be there!

I'm a great one for denial. As much as I post about CRPS research and various studies, as much as I do the moan-and-groan, I have not much wanted to know more about CRPS and dystonia.

Along with its torturous companion, neuropathic burning pain, dystonia is beginning to characterize this period of the disease (in me). It is awful, it humbles me daily, and it's time that I learned a little more about it, since denial is reaping its usual reward of... not much.

I need a primer in terminology. Spasms, tics, movement disorder. Abnormal postures. Twisting, repetitive movements. Thirteen different forms of dystonia, proper... many more diseases of which it is a symptom. Focused in one location, generalized. Hurts a little, hurts a lot.

Obviously, I don't have a primary dystonia (I'm not sure of the correct way to say that...) -- mine is secondary to CRPS, and began, in terrible earnest, last year, or seven years after the onset of the disease. From the beginning I had spasms and tics, but they were well controlled, for years, with stretching and exercise, with baclofen or tizanidine. Even when it was not well controlled with medication, the pain and discomfort was tolerable for a long while.

Now, though, the twisting and spasming covers more area -- mostly of my right leg -- and lasts for hours. The generalized violent tics are extremely painful, enough so that I cannot refrain from yelling sometimes. No matter how many times I experience them, they are always a surprise.

Researchers estimate dystonia as occuring at a rate of between 5-30% of the CRPS population. Other than that, research hasn't provided us with much information, except the usual disturbing interest in pegging dystonia as a functional, faked symptom. Thanks ever so much, researchers, for keeping that pointless application of science alive, and presumably, well-funded.

In sum:

...[D]ystonia with CRPS usually happens in the hand and causes the wrist and thumb to curl in, called flexion. In the leg, it starts in the foot, sometimes causing the toes to "claw." Researchers also noticed that patients with CRPS and dystonia tend to be younger than patients with CRPS without dystonia, and the more extremities affected, the more can be affected. Dystonia can come on gradually or it can come on suddenly. It also usually begins on the same side as the injury before the CRPS.

There isn't a connection between when the injury happened and when CRPS and the dystonia begins, so sometimes it is hard to tell what follows what. As well, it isn't known if bracing or immobilizing an arm or a leg after injury makes it more likely for dystonia to develop. Researchers have also looked into the psychological aspect of CRPS and CRPS-related dystonia, but that, too, hasn't found anything.

All the research results in there being no clear understanding of what causes some patients with CRPS to develop dystonia and not others. Because of this, no clear treatments have evolved. Medications don't seem to help and while psychosocial interventions may help some patients, they don't help all. Physiotherapy, tried with some patients, could make the situation worse, rather than better.

In another study, the researcher could not see his way to CRPS and Dystonia being co-existing disorders, not even after tossing in the adjective unusual. The good Dr. Schott, from the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, in London, authored one of those... review articles (upper lip raised in a hapless sneer... nothing personal Dr. Schott). From this glommed together review of the glommy literature, we find:

Not all patients with CRPS develop dystonia but many do. And the timing can be anywhere from a week to five years before the dystonia starts to show up. There are a few cases where dystonia occurs first, and then CRPS develops, but it's usually the other way around.

The symptoms of CRPS may even get better as the dystonia comes on. This suggests that separate mechanisms are at play. Scientists generally agree that both problems stem from a dysregulation of the central nervous system. But exactly what happens in each condition is still a mystery.

Doctors are looking for predisposing factors for the onset of dystonia. Does it only occur when there's a bone fracture? Or is it more likely to develop when the limb has been in a cast? Does surgery trigger it? Perhaps there are genetic or environmental factors.

Right now there are more questions than answers. The complex interaction of the nervous system with the immune system and the motor system are part of the picture. What are the biologic and mechanical pathways? This remains unknown and is still the focus of many studies.

G. D. Schott. Peripherally-Triggered CRPS and Dystonia. In Pain. August 2007. Vol. 130. No. 3. Pp. 203-207.

Okay, so now I've read two oft-cited articles on CRPS and dystonia, and, as usual, feel like the exception to the rule. I also feel that familiar feeling of marginalization -- and my bullshit detector is going off.

I know that researchers cannot report what they have not researched... just as I know that calling for further study is a line not unlike "take two aspirin..." The interest isn't there because the money isn't there to stoke the interest.

Or maybe I am bitter.

Moving right along... the next bit of scholarly help I run into blithely pegs the appearance of dystonia in a CRPS patient as La Belle Indifférence, or as conversion disorder. This is a scant case study of a 46 year old woman with CRPS and dystonia after a knee injury, and who does not respond to any treatment (from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to spinal cord stimulator; from amitriptyline to steroids; from sympathetic blocks {rolling:my:eyes} to arthroscopy). From what I can gather, this author, Dr.Fraser Duncan of University Hospital, Birmingham, Edinburgh (July 2008) relies almost exclusively on... you guessed it! The work of the good doctor Schott!

We Bozos have a saying: 'When you put on the nose, it grows.'

Ach mein gott but I am tired. I will take this up again soon... and in the interim, will rest easy knowing that there is, as usual, no one driving the bus...

Excuse me while I go twitch, spasm, twist, and scream.

The future's comin', and there's no place to hide!

Pithy bolded and browned quotes are from I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus by Firesign Theatre.

Sarah Palin's Wild Ride!

Buckeye Surgeon apparently couldn't stomach any more of the Palin mythology, specifically the massive pile of folklore dedicated to the Untouchable Topic of Trig, even more precisely, Trig's Birth Tale.

She's Looney Tunes, and tells either a terrible fiction or an even more terrible truth.

Give the entire post, and the growing commentary about it, a read:

I'm sorry, but I just cannot resist any longer. The fantastical, magical realism surrounding the events of the birth of Sarah Palin's 5th child Trig just have to be reviewed. (Come on, there's a medical slant to the topic, right???)

Please take a moment to listen to or read the transcript of an interview ex-Governor Palin gave to a reporter in 2008. To recap:

In April 2008, Sarah Palin was 43 years old and 8 months pregnant with a known Down's Syndrome child. She had had two previous miscarriages. For some reason she flew to Dallas, Texas to give a speech at a national governor's conference. Early in the morning on the day of the speech, Mrs. Palin states that she started to feel some cramps and noticed leakage of some fluid. So she called her OB in Alaska who apparently reassured her that everything was cool (and who now refuses to speak to anyone from the media about the incident). Again, she describes fluid leaking from between her legs, suggesting a possible premature rupture of membranes (i.e her water broke). While 8 months pregnant with a special needs child. At age 43. [Click HERE to read the entire exposé]

\im-ˈpȯr-tənt

All photos from American Idyll, a blog maintained by my eldest Brother-Unit, TW (plus the maintes beautiful contributions of ruuscal). American Idyll is dedicated to the Grand Canyon, and to the river, because, as TW notes: the river knows...

"...Let us go," we said, "into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever a part of it; that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel-grass, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool, make us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too." And if we seem a small factor in a huge pattern, nevertheless it is of relative importance. We take a tiny colony of soft corals from a rock in a little water world. And that isn't terribly important to the tide pool. Fifty miles away the Japanese shrimp boats are dredging with overlapping scoops, bringing up tons of shrimps, rapidly destroying the species so that it may never come back, and with the species destroying the ecological balance of the whole region. That isn't very important in the world. And thousands of miles away the great bombs are falling and the stars are not moved thereby. None of it is important or all of it is.
-- John Steinbeck (from "The Log from the Sea of Cortez"**)

**The Log from the Sea of Cortez is an English language book written by American author John Steinbeck and published in 1951. It details a six-week (March 11 – April 20) marine specimen-collecting boat expedition he made in 1940 at various sites in the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez), with his friend, the marine biologist Ed Ricketts. It is regarded as one of Steinbeck's most important works of non-fiction chiefly because of the involvement of Ricketts, who shaped Steinbeck's thinking and provided the prototype for many of the pivotal characters in his fiction, and the insights it gives into the philosophies of the two men.

The Log from the Sea of Cortez is the narrative portion of an unsuccessful earlier work, Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research, which was published by Steinbeck and Ricketts shortly after their return from the Gulf of California, and combined the journals of the collecting expedition, reworked by Steinbeck, with Ricketts' species catalogue. After Ricketts' death in 1948, Steinbeck dropped the species catalogue from the earlier work and republished it with a eulogy to his friend added as a foreword.

off to the showers

I've been stuck in bed for four days now, and sad to say, it's the best place for me. Every hour, I try to get Sammy to eat and drink, settling for a bite, downright giddy should he show more interest. Getting out of bed and into the wheelchair is so painful that I bypass Salty Tears and go straight to Total Despair.

It's not my shoulders, I don't think, because they don't hurt more than normal -- and my fever is actually higher than is usual. If you really want to know, I think it's a delayed reaction to the losses achieved by virtually every one of my Wimbledon favorites.

Yes, from the Belgian women [Vera Zvonareva just defeated Kim Clijsters] to sexy Andy... from... Oh, hell. I cannot get over Andy's loss. That was likely the blow that inflamed every freaking one of my osteoporotic joints. Huge congratulations to Yen-Hsun Lu, of course. Ranked 82, unseeded, the Taiwanese player's win was his first in four years of Wimpleton competition.

There is so little known of him that you will quickly become inured to the fact that his dead father was a chicken farmer. There are only so many ways that even the most talented of journalists can find to say "son of a chicken farmer."

Roddick and Lu had played three matches prior to this, Roddick winning all three. I confess to not paying great attention to this meeting, as I suffered from Assumptions.

Still, my interest flickered when the second set went to a tie-breaker. And again, when Roddick's return of service stayed perfectly flat. The last set was clearly his best, too late. Darned son of a chicken farmer!

When Roddick responds defensively to a lesser player playing hot, he opts for predictable safety, and fails to convert, fails to aggress. He just generally fails. So while his play since returning to competition after his knee surgery truly is excellent, the mind and an inhibited strategy cannot be trumped.

Lu, on the other hand, went with a more zen approach: “Today I just take a time, serve regular, and stay with him, try to find a chance and to win the set, set by set, set by set, until end, I shaking hand and I win. Yeah, I just don’t think.”

Lu's next opportunity for mindless advancement? Novak Djokovic, in the quarterfinals.

Is there an answer to why Andy only managed to convert one of eight break opportunities or is it as simple as complaisancy, and perhaps the last piece of his particular puzzle?

Clearly, he has improved tremendously as a result of intensely rehabilitating his knee. When he is "on," there's nothing finer!

No, complacency is the wrong word. Not self-satisfied, not unaware of trouble or danger.

Not non-chalant, either -- coolly unconcerned or indifferent. Not without warmth or enthusiasm.

I am at a loss. The danger is that I will choose an outside agency -- the wind, the sun, the stress, maybe even Yen-Hsun Lu, himself.

Never underestimate the son of a Taiwanese chicken farmer.

Now that all my picks have been eliminated, whom do I now choose to jinx? Let's see... I think I'll go out on a limb and choose Serena (Venus was eliminated this morning). What can I say -- I am a daredevilish sort. On the men's side, anyone but Roger, please. I love Nadal, but am very fond of Soderling. So... anyone from that side of the draw, I guess!

Berdych, I don't know at all. Ranked 13, on paper, he doesn't look to stand much of a chance against Federer. The great news is that the paper won't be playing. The awful news is that, after his shakey first two matches, Federer has cranked everything up a notch, and pretty much destroyed Jurgen Melzer on Monday.

The dirt on Berdych is that he tends to choke... if ever there were an occasion amenable to choking, I am guessing that the Wimbledon quarters is it. *

Okay, well, I am soaked in sweat. I am going to head for the shower to desalinate.
If that wasn't already a word, it is now.


* Okay, so this would be me, a day later, eating my words. Yum, yum! Not only did he not choke, Berdych won. Meaning that he elevated his play, looked awesome, and totally embarrassed Roger Federer, who proved less than sporting during his meeting with the press afterward. Instead of acknowledging Berdych's superior play, he produced a litany of his physical woes, and claims to have "[given] the match away." You don't get to Federer's level of competence without a healthy ego, but it would be nice to see some humility. Berdych earned his win today with deep and powerful shots, great movement on the court, and great serving. Congrats to the Czech!

Djokovic will face Berdych in the semifinals, and Nadal takes on... MURRAY! Yes, he finally has broken through and you know the Brits must be going crazy...

The other shocker today -- Serena and Venus Williams were ousted from doubles competition by Elena Vesnina and Vera Zvonareva.

The women's semi is set up as follows: Serena Williams vs. Petra Kvitova and Vera Zvonareva vs. Tsvetana Pironkova. That's right -- no Venus, no Kim Clijsters, no Justine, no Maria Sharapova. It's almost as if only Serena got the memo this year...

And, just because this is my blog and I feel like it, I would like to renew my plea for women's play to extend to best of 5-set matches. Slow-starters are often doomed in the 3-set system, and matches can end in a ridiculously short period of time. Wozniacki was out in 46 minutes! Billie Jean King has been calling for parity for over 30 years now... It's time to listen to her. In 2007, she was interviewed by NPR following the Wimbledon Committee's decision to provide equal prizewinnings to men and women players.

ROBERTS: There's an argument to be made that women tennis players play best of three, men play best of five. Often the women's matches are not as tough because there's not as much depth of field and that it's not equal work. So we're not talking about equal pay for equal work. What do you - what's your response to that argument?

Ms. KING: Well, first of all, in the entertainment business you don't get paid by the hour. And secondly, we've always been willing to play three out of five sets and if anyone knows the history of Wimbledon, they would know that when women first started to play back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, we did play three out of five. But you have to remember, we played in a corset, a full-length dress, couldn't show our ankles or our wrists. and I think one of the women that was participating back in the old days fainted or didn't feel very good and therefore the all-men committee decided that they would only let us play two out of three sets.

ROBERTS: So they shortened the sets instead of foregoing the corsets?

Ms. KING: You got it.

John Henderson took on the topic during Wimbledon 2008:

The origin of women playing three rather than five sets goes back to when sports were run exclusively by men who took the patronising view that women, poor dears, could not possibly compete for as long as their male counterparts.

This attitude is changing in other sports, particularly in athletics. For years, the Olympics allowed women to run no farther than 800 metres - the 1,500 was not introduced until 1972. Now women run all the distances, including, of course, the marathon. Britain's world-record holder Paula Radcliffe has shown conclusively that stamina, which has been defined as simply the guts to go on, is not a gender thing by doing a faster time than all her male compatriots, as well as female, in the London Marathon.

Stamina, the guts to go on. I like that.