The Weird Times
Inner Monologues and Desultory Reporting from Outer Space
The Weird Times
Issue #4, June 8, 2020
The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights should be on the minds of us all right now. Especially on the minds of those who are sworn to protect our nation. That includes senators, especially Republican senators who enable the authoritarian desires and impulses of Putin’s Puppet. I wonder if he has ever read it. Doubtful.
The Battle for the Constitution, a project of The Atlantic in partnership with the National Constitution Center.
A new book I am publishing this fall called Your Voice is Your Superpower by Jessica and Sandy Bohrer teaches the first amendment to the Constitution to young children. Quite a few of our so-called “leaders” could benefit from spending a few moments with this book. They might learn some valuable lessons about free speech and expression.
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“It’s time for us to stand up in George’s name and say get your knee off our necks.”--Rev. Al Sharpton, June 4, 2020
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” --Blaise Pascal
“What is this “economy” that can live only by growing endlessly but a virus of the most dead-end sort, the kind that too hastily kills its host?” --Ben Ehrenreich
“How do you lose control of a country? Slowly, then all at once.”--Bob Lefsetz
"There is never time in the future in which we will work out salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now."--James Baldwin
“Oh, but you who philosophize, disgrace and criticize all fears,
Bury the rag deep in your face, for now's the time for your tears.”--Bob Dylan, The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
The Worst Best Economic News in History, David Dayen, The American Prospect. Why we are teetering on a knife’s edge of economic disaster and why the Republicans are more likely to turn this into a full-on Depression.
PBS segment with Flint, Michigan Sheriff, June 1.
“…a question every soldier, no matter his or her rank, must answer: If the president tells you to shoot us, will you do it? --Philip Kennicott, Washington Post, June 3, 2020
“The idea that the federal government is putting law enforcement personnel on the line without appropriate designation of agency, name, etc. — that’s a direct contradiction of the oversight that they’ve been providing for many years to local police and demanding in all of their various monitorships and accreditation,” former New York City police commissioner --William Bratton told Philip Bump. Washington Post, June 4, 2020
The PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award to Xu Xiyong, who is being held incommunicado in China.
“Disasters do shape history and intervene in the narratives we cling to—but in truth they only catalyze and make visible malignant processes that have been ongoing for a long time.” --Elvia Wilk “What’s Happening. Or: How to Name a Disaster”, BookForum, Summer 2020
A New York Supreme Court judge dismissed former NY Mets player Lenny Dykstra's defamation and libel lawsuit against Ron Darling, ruling that Dykstra's "reputation for unsportsmanlike conduct and bigotry is already so tarnished that it cannot be further injured."--PublishersLunch, June 2, 2020
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Miggs Burroughs
Signs of Compassion, a video that depicts 30 individuals signing a poem by Emily Dickinson. Before Covid broke out it was scheduled to appear ini the lobby of the United Nations in New York. Here is the poem that is expressed in the video, which also appears in the video.
If I can stop one heart from breaking,
I shall not live in vain;
If I can ease one life the aching,
Or cool one pain,
Or help one fainting robin
Unto his nest again,
I shall not live in vain.
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Steve Benson
(page forty-three)
Conscious of consciousness, overly conscientious
That may be, informing conscience that’s all
Already embedded in the bodies of light
And water, air, dirt, fire, all that life is
Active between the ears and on all other sides
Of the questioning glance I take into you
When you look away or appear to see
Nothing changing for a moment, eerie as that
May be a moment of paralysis, and I don’t want
You to disappear into a belief in stasis, in
Any predictions coming true that aren’t becoming
To someone one of us loves, rendering anyone
Less blocked, building networks of kindness
This morning walking back to the room from
Starbucks I found a hummingbird perched
Still on the sill of the cyber lounge above
The pool, a wing twitching occasionally. Was it
Asleep, wounded, resting, shocked to find me
And itself there? An air mattress is not a
Waterbed, it doesn’t roll in waves, and yet
It’s insecure to sit on or perch my latte
on Transgender 101 – a flat surface may still
Tilt unexpectedly while I lose balance, even
Orientation (subtly, suddenly), just because
I move. I will, of course. In fact I have to
Move out within the next two hours, drive around
Los Angeles all day, then take a red eye east
And drive some more late morning, having
Imagined thus far only that I can. How it will feel
1039pm Thursday 04212016 – Plane travel according to
Plan, despite drop off at wrong terminal. Jasper showed
Us snacking at Spudnuts near campus on Fig
Which is perpendicular to the ten. No one knows
What makes them take their pants off, what makes me
Forget what I was going to say. Why
One two three four five one two doesn’t
Matter, doesn’t make any difference
The least inconsequential instance or example
Is equivalent to the most so, contiguous
Continuous and full of it, so ultimately
(page forty-four)
Each of us will make our own bed, line it
With embroidered curtains and Gullah quilts
You can number things. It will create the impression
There are more or less than you’d imagined but
That won’t get you anything more than you have
I don’t know whether the future becomes the past
I don’t know what this poetry has to do with what
You as poet happen to read or write. Romantically
Held here in one another’s arms, thrall, imagination
Threadbare as if through rubbing perpetually against
A balcony railing. Every day is different. How
Can I be so different and so the same so
Much of the time in so many ways. I reflect
And that goes on a long while, up and down
Corridors of tilted doors faced with floor-length
Mirrors. A bird flies in though all the windows
Were closed last time anybody looked, chirps
Arrestingly high in the vaulted hallway ceiling
There’s something still there, fitfully, jittery
To grab hold and to grasp is just the same as letting go
My mind drifts relentlessly into the impossible
Daydream, angels scuffling with outlaws in love
Blizzards, travelogues through domestic spaces
I never can have lived in or known or imagined
What are you thinking of, staring at a wall
That is poorly lit in a corner of the room
Stains. A broken truth. Awkward locution
The hallucination I have in mind, my eye
Insufficiently focused yet glaring there
Informal cult folk culture of raw porn
And half-baked cocky walks down runways
Slithering with leeches, serpents, and worms
Dark and angular pathways between the cold
Laminated concrete and rebar walls
Die hard, hitting it, lifting away the illusions
Of living beings who scarcely ever recognize
You. Do what you want, and what you need to
Do, to be you, in action, and also to relax
And rest in my trust, my loving acceptance
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David Wilk
Inside the Dog
“Inside of a dog it's too dark to read” --Groucho Marx
there are days when it feels like
summer will never come
and maybe it shouldn’t
in some ways this darkness
is appealing or
maybe it’s just too easy
to get used to living
like a fugitive from your own life
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Buy books from black-owned bookstores. Not just now; not just because of what is going on. Racism is about economics just as much as it is a system of attitudes and beliefs.
If The Weird Times has been helping you get through, make sense of, or even enjoy your days, please let me know. Interested in contributing? Send work to me at david@booktrix.com.
--David