You can't possibly mean we have to do this again ?

 Ah, you were in Iowa last night.

 There's no need to deny it, for

 one can sort of tell - and if we

 haven't gone there, ourself, per- 

 haps we ought to.

 But, yes, to go through that mode

 of election - with all those con-

 testants around, tugging at us in

 one direction or another - is a

 trial not to be revisited anytime

 soon. To have to learn that none

 of this ever registered at all,

 never was measured or counted or

 lasted, and left no trace behind -

 please, don't say it.

 Mother always warned about Iowa,

 and now one can certainly see why. 

 What's hardest to endure, indeed,

 is the thought that she might ev-

 er have heard of it. No wave was

 ever meant to be of grain.

Rued, the boat

You think Britain has it bad, to

be led by a PM of iridescent dis-

regard for the realities of Brex-

it? America has a similarly dyed

monstrosity, who can't stay afloat

without fibbing. But think of poor

Bogey, sparring with Claude Rains

on the patio at Rick's, having to

claim he migrated to Casablanca

for the waters, against Rains' re-

joinder that there aren't any. On-

ly in the movies, is it endearing

to confess, I was misinformed. Or

does that line survive so well, be-

cause it's lifted from childhood?

I don't care for wine at the sea

     One has to be able to enjoy a dis-
     crimination notwithstanding a wave
     of popular feeling these days, for
     the proposition that anything good
     is good anywhere. The sea and wine
     share a context in common, called,
     the air, in which an inhalation of
     the one is irreconcilable with the
     same gesture toward the other. The
     complication imposed on breathing,
     then, is not the least of the con-
     siderations to be invoked in favor
     of keeping them apart. They antag-
     onize each other in numerous other
     ways, with the deck heavily stack-
     ed in favor of the sea, but I need
     cite only one more to satisfy this
     observation. The quality of solit-
     ude with the one is so immeasurab-
     ly finer than with the other, that
     it would never occur to us to say,
     I don't care for the sea with wine . .

Suppose it were Friday clvi: Shall we walk upon the waters?

No more than a week precisely,
after declaring North Korea to
be a nuclear threat, no more,
the Prophet proclaimed how he
(who alone can fix things) had
rectified a sociopathic defect
in American immigration tradi-
tions, dating back to the Pres-
idency of the Liberator of Eur-
ope. Not that he had intended
to put all the blame on Dwight
Eisenhower, only to deflect it
all from his obvious innocence.

Now, then, to glue all these
dismembered families back to-
gether again, who all look so
alike. Or, better still: trot
out a model, his human shield,
having applauded his strength.

They are still writing books
on the Nazi seizure of power,
and now we have moved from the
testimony of contemporaries to
the exalted plane of academics.
When we get that far with this
enchanting epoch, there will al-
ways be this press appearance's
gorgeous example, of the genius
of the hero's gift for playing,
surpassingly, an imbecile. And
to think: all anyone ever had to
do, was to have read Huck Finn.

Have we given enough credit to pathology of late?

A sympathetic reader, noting our distraction

this Spring by esoteric matters of policy, 

has sent us this reminder of pathology's as-

cendancy in these matters. Selecting an ava-

tar for this claustrophobic crisis, of being

sandwiched between two inadequately intimid-

ated states, with the insouciant hair of the

prime minister of the one, and the navigation-

al élan of the archetype of the other, he re-

minds us to investigate what is terrifying in

our entrapment in this vise of dreadfulness.

Is it the permeability of the fence, or the

specter of penetration that has captivated

The New Government and its flock: our 300

some odd million citizens are entitled to an

honest examination of their wretchedness, to

be exposed to this proximity of social risk.

In the annals of geopolitical conflagration,

it would be hard to identify two neighbors of

greater hostility to the manifest destiny of

our nation. Look, for example, at how equably

France and Germany have settled their Alsatian

tipping point, compared with Canada's tariff

on dairy production smaller than a sneeze in

Wisconsin, and Mexico's soothing trickle of

underpayable menial labor to, say, Pasadena.

If the European genius for border peace is

too easily explained by a long tradition of

gallant martial haberdashery, then look to

our herdings, hither and yon, of naked nat-

ive Americans, into suitably desolate en-

claves, as proof of what phobic reason can

accomplish. Are we worried that our alien

heathens will seize our condos on the East

Side? We need look no further than to their

protection by Russian oligarchs, to reflect

on resources which haven't failed us yet.

Possibly, then, if our digressions on policy

really can be dismissed as an unintended im-

pertinence to pathology, at least we have

taken care not to claim that higher cons-

ciousness as some congenital trait of our

heterogeneous lineage. That would take an

entire century or two of persistent myth-

making and denial, whilst anyone can see,

we have been busy, like Sterne's Uncle

Toby, reliving the Battle of Namur, rel-

ishing the glory of firing on Fort Sumter.

It is only too unimaginative, however, to

attribute our pathology to the chronically

ingrained and infallibly unanswerable tra-

dition of stark Confederate lying about

the motives for pummeling Fort Sumter, a

degeneracy which would have been swept a-

way by wise policy, barring internal fed-

eral borders, harboring it for endless rot.

But it's a snap to find our well of policy.

Laurence Sterne

The Life and Opinions of
  Tristram Shandy, Gentleman
1759-69
Everyman's Library
J.M. Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1912©

What do "they" care?

Untrammeled play in the fields
of the lord does not very ac-
curately describe the range of
possible gestures, even in the
most liberated state, available
to the practitioner of speech.
In surfing, we have long known
that the gods conduct a monitor-
ing of behavior, which we have
lately learned our corporations
and other manipulators maintain,
to anticipate and shape the arc
of our play. Every time we ven-
ture into a discernibly oblique
convergence with currents in the
New American Government, the lis-
tening posts of Russia leap into
the acutest concentration, al-
though whether for that nation's
policies or for this one's, one
couldn't possibly claim to know.

This is the consumption pattern
of the first 36 hours of the pre-
vious posting, on the NAG's em-
brace of a torture administratrix
to supervise a widely known unit
of our secret intelligence service.
Yet, all with no mention of Russia.
Given the NAG's affection for the
government of Russia, one could 
hardly attribute this interest to
any apprehension of mistreatment
of its citizens. Of whom, then;
for whom are "Russians" reading?

Upon coincidences of much less
persistence, the paranoia sustain-
ing the NAG continues to be fed.
Why not the curiosity of occasion-
al critics, condemned to be read?

iii  Willy Ronis

      1938

  

Episodes for the mentalities

  Like a restive Ishmael, in
  need of resort to sea, I 
  revisit the polymath works
  of Ivan Terestchenko from
  time to time. In fact, I
  gave myself the pleasure a-
  gain yesterday, and came a-
  way refreshed by a distinct
  impression that a state of
  méchance - which translates
  poorly as our word, malice -
  is highly dependent upon in-
  cident and bad illumination.
  There just are not tens of
  millions of persons in this
  country who will respond to
  a call of malice. Mischance 
  is a fluke, not a trait.

     Merci.

i    Ivan Terestchenko

     drawing in ink on paper

     ca 1995

     2009

ii   René Maltête

      1930 - 2000

      tribute, Terestchenko

      2009

iv  Ivan Terestchenko

     ca 1996

     Project for a dust jacket

       or gallery announcement

    Sailor drawings, made at sea

    [Demand publication: it could come]

What on earth could make one think

          he wasn't simply

          waiting for some

          scrap of soap we

          might share then

Scrubbing where it's fun to stand

     I think I can understand the
     hallucination we know as Lib-
     ertarianism. It has a lot in
     common with Mitt Romney's im-
     mortal discovery of the call
     for free stuff, even in that
     endearing impression, chores
     take care of themselves. But
     then, too, it holds escapist
     faith, in the little people,
     to maintain society's floor.

     Libertarianism does expose a
     flaw in Liberalism, whenever
     they appear on a common plat-
     form; and that is that it is
     flat-out boring. You can see
     where this is going: it must
     be time to get back to town.

Invasion of the miracles ii: another wave

  

 When last we met our miracles
 of 2016 - the happy reversals
 our campaign currents are nat-
 urally structured to throw us,
 if not often well timed - the
 beaches were welcoming a test
 wave of sympathy, from the un-
 likelier of our candidates. A
 regathering of possibilities,
 biding their time even microb-
 ially, can churn anew our tea
 leaves, to dazzle speculation.

Joseph Biden and the end of choice

  One almost cannot bear to glance
  at the superficiality of remarks
  in print at the moment, on the
  causes and consequences of Joe
  Biden's non-candidacy for higher
  office. But at one point, these
  vacuous spins inevitably converge.
  Another Presidency of a Clinton 
  is all but forced, as the logical
  progeny of the end of choice. So
  much for the vitality of that i-
  deal.

  Are we then by waves, directed in
  republics.

Euripides
Bacchae
ibid.

More sneakers

    Aylan Kurdi, not expecting to
    become the most famous child
    in the world, if not the il-
    luminating messenger of link-
    age of populations uprising 
    across the entire Northern
    Hemisphere, has given Hermes
    unforgettable new shoes. Be-
    yond doubt, infants born to-
    day will grow into sneakers
    with a higher sense of life,
    the treasure they convey be-
    ing declared at every portal.

For those who suppose all things to be in motion conceive the greater part of nature to be a mere receptacle; and they say that there is a penetrating power which passes through all this, and is the instrument of creation in all, and is the subtlest and swiftest element; for if it were not the subtlest, and a power which none can keep out, and also the swiftest, passing by other things as if they were standing still, it could not penetrate through the moving universe ..
But I, being an enthusiastic disciple, have been told in a mystery that the justice of which I am speaking is also the cause of the world: now a cause is that because of which anything is created ..

            And some one comes and whispers in my ear 
            that justice is rightly so called because 
            partaking of the nature of the cause, and 
            I begin, after hearing what he has said, 
            to interrogate him gently: Well, my excel-
            lent friend, say I, if all this be true, 
            I still want to know what is justice. 

Thereupon they think that I ask tiresome questions, and am leaping over the barriers, and have been already answered, and they try to satisfy me with one derivation after another, and at length they quarrel. 

                 For one of them says that justice 
                 is the sun, and that he only is 
                 the piercing and burning element 
                 which is the guardian of nature. 
                 And when I joyfully repeat this 
                 beautiful notion, I am answered 
                 by the satirical remark, What,  
                 is there no justice in the world 
                 when the sun is down?

And when I earnestly beg my questioner to tell me his own honest opinion, he says, "Fire in the abstract"; but this is not very intelligible. Another says, "No, not fire in the abstract, but the abstraction of heat in the fire." Another man professes to laugh at all this, and says, justice is mind, for mind, as they say, has absolute power, and mixes with nothing, and orders all things, and passes through all things. At last, my friend, I find myself in far greater perplexity about the nature of justice than I was before I began to learn.

                          But still I am 

                          of opinion that 

                          the name, which 

                          has led me into 

                          this digression, 

                          was given to jus-

                          tice for the rea-

                          sons which I have 

                          mentioned.

Plato

Cratylus

Dialogue of Socrates

  with Hermogenes and

  Cratylus

  [fragments]

360 BC

Benjamin Jowett

  translation

Massachusetts In-

  stitute of Technology©

Photographs Reuters

September 4, 2015

Port of Piraeus

Rail hub Hungary

Macedonian border