Couldn't move today but at least I can write

It turns out that enjoying contemporary poets is not free. A bunch of creative writing majors sent me reading recommendations and I have been combing online communities as well, and about 90 percent of the poets yielded are not available at the public library. This means I might be spending more time on "established" "classics" like John Ashberry and Theodore Roethke, rather than finally reading Frank Stanford or more of this Zach Schomburg character whose blog I follow and who wrote a lovely love poem full of eyelashes.

I sometimes wish I had a ton of writer-followers so I could set up a large poll-like question such as, "What are your thoughts on the importance of accessing new books without purchase, or should us stingy folks just buckle down and read more reviews if we only have $20 to throw at literature and must therefore choose carefully?" But anyway.

Something awesome: this completely sexy poem by C.P. Cavafy

Body, Remember

Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds on which you lay,
but also those desires for you that glowed plainly in the eyes,
and trembled in the voice-
and some chance obstacle made futile.
Now that all of them belong to the past,
it almost seems as if you had yielded to those desires-
how they glowed,
remember in the eyes gazing at you;
how they trembled in the voice, for you, remember, body.

Another something awesome: creepylovely modern ruins (source of photo)

Today was my 6 month Baraboo anniversary

This photo was taken in August of 2007, outside the Little Village Cafe, Baraboo, the former headquarters of the Baraboo News Republic. Flannes and I, enthusiastic little J-school seniors, paused to geek out after a hike at Devil's Lake.

Why yes, this would be called a funny coincidence.

"I'm about to make a sandwich full of DANGER."

Yes, I drove roughly 1.75 hours and either paid or misplaced a total of $19 to see roughly 3.25 hours of circus tonight. Yes, I live in a circus town (which got a shoutout at tonight's show). Your point?

Baraboo is great but it sadly lacks:
- man jumping barefoot on broken glass
- man diving chest-first naked onto broken glass
- audience volunteers standing on man lying belly-down on broken glass
- naked man pulling glass from his own scrotum. Assuring, "if I could afford this much sugar glass, I'd be in college right now, studying sculpture."
- fire eating, fire burlesque, fire fire fire
- man slicing watermelon with sword on belly of woman lying on bed of 6" nails (yes, I know the trick is to distribute your weight evenly)
- woman playing the most breathtaking music on a saw
- so much juggling of knives!

Monday I have to call the dentist about this pain and get that asbestos smell from my car checked out and probably start eating nothing but rice and peanutbutter. Have your fun now, kiddos.

Once, Baraboo was in The Onion

Local Sheriff Suspects Al-Qaeda or Teens

BARABOO, WI—Sauk County Sheriff Virgil "Butch" Steinhorst announced Tuesday that he believes a recent rash of Baraboo-area crimes was perpetrated by the al-Qaeda terrorist network or teenagers.

"In this day and age, it's important for law-enforcement officials to consider global threats as well as local ones," Steinhorst said. "We could be dealing with an al-Qaeda sleeper cell attempting to collect information that they could use to plan a terrorist strike or some of those goth kids who knocked over that mailbox. Neither group has any respect for the law."

More

(& Steinhorst really was the sheriff of Sauk County, several years ago)

WHAT IS THIS ON MY DOORSTEP

OH IT'S CARRIE BRIEFLY FROM KOREA HI LET'S GET A BEER.

Yesterday I was the one in the cage.

Cooking with Space: Milky Way goes well with white chocolate, fresh cream.

Astronomers find Milky Way 'could taste of raspberries'

Telegraph.co.uk

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, were searching space for evidence of amino acids: the basic chemicals from which life is created.

They told the Guardian newspaper that, despite failing to locate any such aminos, they did find a substance called ethyl formate, the chemical responsible for the flavour of raspberries.

More...

Umbrella Corp. strikes again

Sometimes the best thing you can do on a cold, rainy night is sidle into the secret back room of the Jade Monkey, toss back a Grasshopper, and spend a couple hours relating the cannibalistic adventures of the Shwarma King and the mailboy's elephantitis-on-wheels in your best whiskey-and-cigarettes New York accent. Sometimes Jessie will lapse into her whiskey-and-cigarettes Wisconsin accent instead. Occasionally, Robin will turn into a unicorn or Mick will revert to a salesman from the 50s. Every now and then you all will pause, exchange a significant look, and simultaneously feign a seizure. Then ask each other scathingly, "Now what does that have to do with Irish Springs?"

Facts or theories or happenings overheard on the radio

In China, there is a region now devoid of honeybees but full of pear trees. Farmers there pollinate the pears by hand, collecting pollen from the anthers, drying it, then climbing into the trees and brushing the stamens with the equivalent of pollen-covered feather dusters.

Rats emit a high-frequency sound when tickled that might be analogous to laughter.

The world's coolest parasite: "A nematode (Myrmeconema neotropicum) that infects canopy ants (Cephalotes atratus) causes the black coloured gasters of workers to turn red. The parasite also alters the behaviour of the ant, and makes them carry their gasters high. The conspicuous red gasters are mistaken by birds for ripe fruits such as Hyeronima alchorneoides and eaten. The droppings of the bird are collected by other ants and fed to their young leading to the further spread of the nematode." - Yes, I am citing Wikipedia's article on ants.