A few facts by which we may momentarily moor ourselves

even as we throb in the corpuscular maelstrom:

• Distance from the earth to the sun: about 93 million miles, or 8 light minutes.
• From the sun to the former planet Pluto: 4.6 billion  miles, or 9 light  months.
• Radius of the solar system: a few light days, depending on things.
• The Milky Way is 100,00 light years in diameter, contains about 200 billion stars.
• (At this point, the difference between radius and diameter may not matter.)
• Our local group of galaxies: 3 million light years in radius.

On a different portion of the scale . . .

• The human brain contains about 100 billion cells.
• And the human body contains about 100 trillion cells.
• But we have ten times as many microbes in our bodies as we have human cells. 
• Oy.
• But without them we would die. 
• But we're gonna die anyway. 
• Oy.

Mirror Beach



Unusual beach in Hvonsk, Blatvia mirrors itself and emits unusual sounds as well. Not much is known how, why, or who but just know that it does.

O, Turnberry!

Tom Watson just made the cut at the British Open - at age 64, the oldest golfer ever to do so. Five years ago, at age (one moment, hmm, 64 minus 5 is...) 59, he was poised over an 8 foot putt on the 18th and final hole at Turnberry, one of the oldest and most venerated venues of the Open. Make it and he wins. That putt was the culmination of an extraordinary four day run which saw him turn back time to lead a field of world class players fully a generation younger, all vying for one of golf's most treasured trophies. He had won the Claret Jug as a much younger man, but this was a miraculous moment - make the putt, and he becomes the oldest player ever to win this or any other major tournament, by a long shot. This poem was written by Whirled HQ in the aftermath, and is reposted here in honor of his making the cut in 2014. It is best read out loud, in one's best Scottish brogue.


O turnberry ye hardy hunk of tortured scottish turf
the wind and sea and weather pound thy earth
like fists of duffers flailing

O turnberry ye thirsty sponge for tears and blood
blood of fools, blood of kings, blood of bogeyed holes
blood seeped and supple in your dirt

O turnberry your claws sunk deep in the shallows of the outer Firth of Clyde
you've your own moon, turnberry, a half farthing rising in the pounding sea
we call it the Ailsa Craig, fat and edged in the sinking sun

O Turnberry your winds do twist and thrash and overturn
laughing at gravity herself
tossing a dimpled ball on a celtic whim

O merciless Turnberry, ye spiteful course
tom watson slashes through your puzzled links
tom watson aged 59 stands atop turnberry aged eons

O Turnberry summoning gales of inevitability
the odds stacked against goodness and mercy and truth of heart
favoring the brutal sea, the lumpy heaving foam-frothed sea

O Turnberry ye exquisite Scottish poison
poised on the 18th hole, old tom watson needs an 8 foot putt
to win the Claret Jug and eternity, immune to wind and war

O Turnberry! Old Tom Watson!
good god man, it's an eight foot putt to immortality
gird thy loins, stroke true, the cup is in your grasp!

O good god, turnberry, did you rise in green envy?
brook naught that's straight and true?
Turnberry
reserves immortality for
Turnberry

by the boy poets, flailing in ecstatic denial

They made us write a poem using any of the following words:

amber cloven beaten grating  bump shift craven  solicit ready mad leave left crazy shift frog snake eyes flake inner mind over under vague nebulous hazy gauzy cleave verboten misbegotten rage slashes grievously across a golf ball crafty left hander  buzzard manhole shithole labyrinth marathon rubbish beaver strawberry mind fink enthrall compose radish verboten syntactical navel naval switchboard flog monstrosity garbage posthumorously harridan pneumatic vixen jaded razored buttery  ragged corruptible veal scoundrel ambient polar vortex mythology flamboyant summery fetch rampant plebeian ambidextrous unicycle unbidden

===================

. . .  so we wrote two. 

Poem #1

=============================================

eyes gauzy

crafty left hander

strawberry beaver

verboten vague buttery

polar vortex

jaded razored radish

ambient veal ready

snake eyes shift

nebulous shithole

ambient scoundrel

unbidden, rampant

flamboyant inner raven

slashes grievously across

veal garbage

mad mind fink

marathon grating

Poem #2

==========================================

the summery nebulous

polar vortex

unicycled unbidden

across the naval switchboard

the plebeian flakes,

all jaded and craven

fetch misbegotten rage

buzzards enthrall

the razored radish

vixens cleave

to the strawberry labyrinth

top nine lobstervations from outside the general area:

1. everything’s all fucked up because of sex.
2. the jury is still out on plywood, but how right can twelve people be?
3. life is a job whether you have one or not.
4. grow more tumbleweed.
5. waffle irons are so decisive.  
6. numbers drive the world economy, and they don’t even exist.
7. camping is so in tents.
8. seek the plethora.
9. divide your observations into groups of eleven.
10. cheese becomes cheesier over time because it just does.

No Background to Check

While applying for a job as a Semi Conductor on the CSX rail lines it was discovered that  Hiram Flatporm had no background to check. CSX HR spokesmodel E.L. Fandorth told company CEO Leyburn Whatscorthy that they had run numerous background checks to no avail. "Actually we found 2 things: 1) Flatporm owns a 1997 pre-GW Bush slant 6 dual aught 40 hemi head Chevron Alongonqin with one broken tail light and 2) there was a little bit of background noise in the lower left of the photograph he submitted with his employment application. Other than that, zippo. Pretty amazing because we Googled the hell out of this guy".

News of the Week

Item: Area man "plots" world domination with $91 tax refund. Leonard Stift of Scituate, MA, assistant zamboni operator at the Wee Willy skating rink situated just outside Scituate, felt his entrepreneurial spirit soar as he softened the ice in decreasingly concentric circles in between periods of the raucous and tightly fought peewee hockey playoff game last saturday. Oblivious to the blood seeping onto the ice from the parents' booster section behind the home goal, Leonard dreamed of what he would do with the $91 dollars in tax rebates that the President of the United States himself had promised would be in his mailbox sometime within the next three years if The President felt like it. First, Leonard mused, he would buy his own zamboni and move to Mexico under a little-known NAFTA provision. There, he would tap into the heretofore unrealized hopes and desires of the indigenous peoples and lead an economic revival that would sweep south, as newly enfranchised zamboni operators rolled over coca fields in decreasingly concentric circles, inspiring everypeople to toil together for the everyweal. And that was just the beginning.... meanwhile, just as the 6-8 year olds glided out to cut fresh lines in the newly virgin rink, a continent away Virginia Smooth looked out over the Pacific and asked her billionaire husband what he would do with his tax rebate, and Mr. Smooth shrugged and replied, "I dunno. Rent some movies, go see a hockey game, whatever..."

crayons in the can

can

do anything

crayons in the hand

can

do something

Sometimes the non-tourist attractions, 

the ones that go unnamed and unnoticed, 

can be more entertaining than the ones people flock to see. 

Here's a sampling from the other side of town:

 Sun's Laundry Expo

Model Tobacco

Nice Crockery

Office Politics

that's me on the fortieth floor
second window from the left
peering out at nothing in particular 
I used my personal politcial power
to get a window office
to see the sun, see other buildings
see people scrambling below
people glad to finally see the sun, any sun
locked within a nippy, chilly, over cooled cubicle
worse than the blackest hole of Calcutta
(except for the cold)
worse than The Snake Pit. Remember the movie?
where Olivia de Havilland found herself 
in an insane asylum 
and couldn't remember how she got there
caught up in the bureaucracy of the institution
the regimentation of the staff
some brutal and ignorant
a few kindhearted
most just killing time
cubicle time

The Chase

Words of the Week

Pigadillo: Eating when nobody’s looking. 

Jambled: When traffic calming makes you nervous.

Cobblement: Wondering why you bought those shoes.

Endophasm: The part of the thing where you’re excited the thing might be almost over.

Diglion: The sub-atomic particle that makes the universe fall in love with itself.

Cartogemy: When your sense of direction insists the map is wrong.

Shulquess: Asking for suggestions but hoping there aren’t any. 

Road Trip: Michigan or Bust!

Confederate Breastworks (!?!?!)

The fact that it speaks for itself goes without saying. 

Tagging at Highs Restaurant, Monterey, Virginia

Welcome to West Virginia

Waiting for Session

A brief interlude between sessions at the Reusing Indigenous Clay Modalities Conference at the Fort Pierre National Grasslands Conference Center outside of Pierre, South Dakota allows attendees to network with one another. Conference co-chairperson, Addison Cuthwinning, said this years conference was one of the best ever. Said Cuthwinning: "This year was one of the best ever! Attendees were able to sit and listen to presenters give presentations about various topics related to Reusing Indigenous Clay. Some of the presenters used computers and powerpoint presentations and attendees were thrilled at the lifelike images of things we do with clay and things we would like to do with clay in the future. So exciting! There were so many good ideas!"

News of the Week

Item: French Lick, Indiana man conveys universal truth to world. In response to the unending deluge of cosmic bullshit raining on his freaking midwestern parade every freaking day, Regis Phlunge calved a vision so spontaneously rhythmic and driven by a melody so profound, with lyrics so apt, that small river fauna faced true north and barked soulfully. Driven by instinct, and barely able to comprehend the profundity of the moment, Regis frankly elucidated the most matter-of-fact and comprehensible explication of the eternal mysteries that has yet to be recorded in human civilization. It was really swell.

Item: Live from Brazil, 

in the  most exciting World Cup Soccer Game to date, 

here's what happened:

The guy kicked the ball to the other guy who kicked the ball to another guy who kicked the ball to another guy who kicked the ball back to the first guy. The ball hit the first guy in the head and then it hit another guy in the head and then another guy kicked the ball to another guy who kicked the ball to another guy who picked it up with his hands and kicked the shit out of it. It was all very thrilling, practically unbelieveable in its tension and unremitting athleticism, on and on with guys kicking the ball to other guys for like six hours. The final score turned out to be just as wildly exciting as the entire game: 1 - 1. 

Waking Dream #1


by Calvin Burgamy

The Staging Area

what’s missing in your life

is a good and proper staging area

don’t just take clothes out of the dryer

fold ‘em and put ‘em away

that’s for losers

they belong in a good and proper staging area

an interim area, so to speak, where they lay

waiting for a drawer or closet

sometimes the wait is very long

we, the royal we, wouldn’t be where we are today

without a staging area

to buffer the friction between

a machine and a closet

between the known and the unknown

earth and sky

action and inaction

and those places in between

like inertia, nebraska

torpor, maine

languor, ohio

keg, georgia

now and then

and apathy, texas

buffer yourself, my good man

in a good and proper staging area

it will temper your quills

and hip-ta-phi your Christmas music

Favorite Obscure Wikipedia Articles, Part XVI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dehesa_%28pastoral_management%29

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:FewestRevisions

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tacit_knowledge

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quad_Cities

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

BlueGreen

The Argument

Wingingit

Whirled at Work

5 Days In Dallas

Incident at 30,000 Feet

Imagine my surprise when flying at 30,000 feet and traveling at or near 500 mph I look out the window and there is this dude's head. The head is screaming but of course I can't hear it because the head is outside and AirTran has inexplicably installed engines right next to the windows as well. So I am trying to mouth to the head that I can't hear a word he is saying. This exchange goes on for about 5 minutes when I decide to call the stewardess and get someone in authority to see what the fuck is going on. So I start to push the button and the head sees what I'm doing and starts shaking itself violently from left to right in the classic "NO!" style.  I "hear" what he is "saying" so I stop myself. I  look  around the plane to see who else is scoping out the floating head situation but no one seems to notice. I look out once more and shrug my shoulders and he nods in silent agreement and slowly disappears into the gray fog that surrounds the plane.

News of the Week

Item: Area man falls deeply and passionately in love with his old sofa. "I don't know what took me so long," gushed Romeo Boggs of Whipville, Tennessee, "She's been waiting quietly for me all this time." The love-struck Romeo spent the entire weekend in intimate collusion with his old sofa, eating, sleeping, snuffling, watching TV, putting off till next weekend what was eminently doable this weekend, and by and large acting like a soon-to-be-embalmed corpsicle, refusing to part from the genuine leatherette caress of his newfound paramour. Unable to summon the energy to entertain even the faintest whiff of self-loathing, Romeo Boggs grinned before he lost his remote "one more time" in the alluring dark spaces between the cushions of the love seat, and noted to himself, "Sometimes a man just doesn't feel like doing what he's gotta do."

From the Whirled HeadQuarters Random Inquiries Department:

1.] 

These words are both homonyms and antonyms:

Balm

&

Bomb

2.]

If some people are named Frances, 

how come some other people are not named 

Spains, Mongolias, Kenyas or Laoses?

3.]

The proper concession to the digital age 

is to quit doing things in real time.

This is a great place to parse Kierkegaard 

while enjoying a sauna.

Mom, Skidaway Island, Georgia

by Calvin Burgamy

In Pursuit of The Word

Pursued by the agents of formalized cliche, and in pursuit of the roots of true language, we ducked into a speakeasy - such places had sprouted like organic slang since the passing of the latest municipal syntax. After knocking twice and correctly identifying the true author of shakespeare's sonnets, the door opened and a boggy irishman ushered us in with a soggy nod of his head. "Say what you will, gennelmen", said he, "but parse not lest ye be parsed. Um's the word, y'know."
 
He beat a peaty retreat towards the bar and we entered, in Finnegan's wake.
 
The heat was off . This was cool. All about us came the hubbub of mother tongues, from sanskrit to gallic to y'all, all rising to a haze of thick glossolalia stirred into meaning by the lone ceiling fan. Verbal gumbo. We looked at each other and smiled wide as our prefrontal lobes ignited in phonetic sympathy. "Ah, the sweet elixir", said one of us, "Neural drool", said the other, laughing. "I think something stout is calling my name", said one more - and we eased into the din of antiquity, heading for the taps. 

 
Edging, shouldering, sidestepping past poets, griots and stern-looking umlauts, we arrived at the bar and asked for pints of the local dialect. The irishman fixed us with a brassy glare and boomed "In the beginning was the Word!" "One word!" came the sudden chorus from from the room. "BUT", roared the son of Erin, "One word cannot be said without a second to give it meaning." "Two words!" shouted back the crowd. "And so", said Finnegan softly, "this one Word, unspoken, breathes life into all you say and hear." All grew silent as the ceiling fan creaked to a stop and the irishman leaned forward expectantly, looking at us each in turn. We drew straws on a napkin and the shortest sketcher frowed his burrow, shrugged and cried, "Yo! What's the Word?!". The room exploded in laughter and high-pitched doggerel and the ceiling fan stirred anew. "Congrats lads", said the barkeep, "Yu'v just recapitulated the ontogeny of yer own vocabulary!" 

 
We didn't know if this was good or bad and a little greek guy with a sticker on his chest that read Hi, my name is Homer leapt onto a table and yelled, "And here's another history lesson: In a land where words were few and stark, no synonyms abounded. Each word described an equal portion of reality, and their relationship to other words was a succinct grammar in itself. This natural tongue, though noble, could not help but grow incestuous to preserve itself. Some words began to have more than one meaning; others survived only in reference to other words. As time went on, this fateful trend continued, from burble to babble to riot. And just when every word seemed to mean anything, everything, nothing, a very strange thing occured..." 

 
The doors to the speakeasy suddenly flew open, dark figures silhouetted in the streetlight pouring in. "Shadduuuuuup!!" screamed a hooded voice, and then menacing, "Stow yer tongues and nobody gets... hurt." The figures began to advance, reciting lines from cheesy gangster flicks in a low liturgical litany. "It's a raid!" yelled Homer, scrambling off the table, and all was bedlam. "Thought police" hissed Finnegan, pulling open a trap door behind the bar, "this way to clarity. Hurry." 

 
We hustled down the chute, recognizing the dark figures as our pursuers, centuries of articulation receding as we sped, chasing the word, and being chased by its constraints...

 

I was OK until you asked me if I was OK.

3-D Luxe

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.

 – Emily Dickinson

Paint, Ink

Paint, Ink:

siblings

weirdly worth more

to civilization

than gold

Paint, Ink:

liquid siblings 

hand and brush

touch and breath

attention is physical

the liquid dries

proof remains

Poe

Words of the Week

Commerical: When a business turns into a joke.

Domicidal: Living in a place you hate.

Fleech: A neighbor who drops by whenever you have visitors.

Infantreed: When everyone on your family tree is a baby. 

Car Wash by Calvin Burgamy & Tina Kite

She believed in nothing; 
only her skepticism kept her from 
being an atheist.
Jean-Paul Sartre

by Calvin Burgamy

59th Street Bridge  NY, NY

by Matt Rosenberger

i have a great idea for a movie

opening scene everybody would die except
just two or three would survive, to live
gruesomely scabby yet riveting lives
the survivors would have cleft chins
and perfect breasts that heave on command
or off

and they, the stars, the beautiful stars
would repopulate the earth in 90 minutes
make it a better place for kids and golden retrievers

the movie crests into naked euphoria
in the first two seconds
when bill o’reilly explodes in a deluge of magma
that has surged up from the earth’s core
directly into fox studios

the remaining eighty-eight minutes
with the movie’s perfect pacing
of cliffhanger rescues followed by frenzied fucking
feature nancy grace, the former prosecutor
whose southern accent
with its bitter yet come hither edge
makes me and all other cinematic
dorky ass viewers of cable tv cringe
and lust mightily at the same time
her full lips feverish and shiny
her open thighs ready to receive
the burning priapus of the sub-plot

anyway i digress from my movie idea
of the people who recopulate the world
and for a brief time live happily, so happy
in utah, where the mormons used to practice posture
before my movie sent them all to kingdom come

in the denouement, just before the climax
a really horrible thing happens, finally
after reams of crazy deaths and ecstatic couplings
but strangely, it seems rightly horrible
you might even say – apropos of
all the things, the death, the life
the well-hung dialogue, the rippling tears
the crippling laughter laced in the sacral bone
the very emulsion of the film itself
all melting together – beguilingly
a strange comic relief, a last straw
in the unending beverage that is my movie 

by the boy poets, throwing an eephus pitch

Monticello Detail

By Jonathan Marcus