o... i'm on the road until late monday... so things are... sporadic here... but i'm having fun reading david lehman's The Last Avant-Garde... seems/offers/pretends to pull a world together... but as he says of something related to ashbery.. can't find the exact thing so i'll guess: there's nothing to trust in any organization... the scheme is al(ways)l invention... still... this book offers a pretty nice one of those...

we had a pelican on the lake this morning... an easter pelican... i saw it first and thought it was a swan until i caught the bill... we watched and waited for it to fly... and it did when a boat came around the curve... smelling a chicken in the strange new cooking machine.. waiting for an arrival... here comes mom's birthday... 84... we're gonna have some huge cupcakes... the dog's just back from a walk with meg... the cat is stilll under the bed in the back room... eating too much easter candy we had to try it... this other brand since fannie may went under... not too shabby... too much coffee

more Oud

Oud

they've been reading each other's pastoral poems...

apes are giggly today... last class day before easter

William Weaver on Italo Calvino

Though I was only in that Paris study once, I remember it as a spare, somewhat clinical space, distinguished by Calvino's precision, his characteristic neatness: his desk was as impeccable, as well-ordered as his dress. The same kind of order, it seems to me, informs his work. He liked to make outlines, lists, scalette-little ladders-as the Italians call them (and his chapter lists, in his spare hand, did resemble ladders). Thus his invisible cities are fitted into categories: trading cities, thin cities, continuous cities, arranged according to a mysterious, Calvino-invented system that has evoked pages of exegesis by eager scholars.

i'd like to see some of those pages... as i prepare to read Invisible Cities with the worldlit class... but then again maybe it's best to just develop our own eggsajeesus...

In a Dark Time is thinking about Robert Hass' treatment of three great haiku poets. On "serious intent accomplished through humor":

Writing shit about new snow
for the rich
is not art.

New Wilco starts on rocky note

Jeff Tweedy, frontman for the Chicago-based band Wilco, has checked himself into rehab to be treated for an addiction to painkillers. To accommodate his recovery, the release date for the band's forthcoming album has been pushed back two weeks, from June 8 to June 22.

ARRRGGGGH!!... with all the recent disorientation i forgot to remember that today would have been my dad's 87th birthday... so happy birthday, dad up there... i sure am glad you managed to get yrself born... and hung around for as long as you did... wish it coulda been a bit longer...

cat report: things are looking up... i pulled her out from under the bed this morning and she whined at me... a good sign since she's been way too quiet... then i brushed some nasty litter off her butt and set he down in the middle of the floor... after a couple good licks of said butt, she strolls back to the bed-cave... kind of slow, but without the hobbledy gimp of yesterday

been kinda down today on account of the cat's too slow (for me) bounce-back from her slice&dice... she's not walking well... can't get up onto the bed... has some big dilated eyes and is generally still pretty beat... the vet doesn't know what might be causing the backleg malfunction... says it might be some residual anaesthesia problem... whatever... she is eating a bit and drinking some which are good signs... i guess... but i want my big old happy cat back... sooner the better... thanks for yr kind thoughts

better days...

retrieved the cat about four... she's looking pretty beat up and sorrowful... she should hate me for this but she just sort of lumps around the room... vet said she'd just disappear and sleep but she didn't... isn't... she let me brush her... i figure any part of her usual routine might make something feel better... there's a slice across her lip... stitches will stay in until the 15th... she looks like a sad sad tune by tom waits... maybe alice

you can see to the left of her nose a black smudge... this will be removed... maybe is already removed as i type this... and her teeth will be cleaned... because her breath was not delightful

cat to the vet... we were both pretty pathetic this morning...