The most awesomest

Okay, so I've been gone for a while, though I'm sure my absence has gone unnoticed. But I'm back now because I found the most awesomest video ever online. Maybe better than "Hey Ya Charlie Brown." But maybe not.

Politics as Usual, Sadly

Here in flyover country rages one of the many battles for a Senate seat that could shift the balance of power in Congress in November. The battle is between incumbent Republican Jim Talent and Democratic challenger Claire McCaskill, and it resonates nationally not only because of the potential significance of its outcome, but because the campaign has featured some of the same disgraceful, disheartening tactics used around the country. Both Talent and McCaskill are running enough ads during the World Series (which features the St. Louis Cardinals) to single-handedly finance Major League Baseball's new labor accord. It is these ads that are so disgraceful and disheartening.

Factcheck.org, and indispensible and under-used resource for those wishing to limit the manipulative power of politicians, has authored a critique of several Talent ads that attack McCaskill. In those ads, Talent and his organization attribute several critiques of his opponent to the Kansas City Star when, in actuality, those critiques were uttered by McCaskill critics quoted in the Star. The difference is significant, obviously. According to the Factcheck report, Talent's campaign has not responded to the critique. According to another report, Talent has promised to pull the ads, but has yet to do so. I cannot help but anticipate that the ads are working, and that more potential voters will be manipulated by the mis-message than will be repelled by Talent's deceit.

The record of success is clear: look at the Swift Boat campaign in 2004, and the hatchet job Bush and his thugs did on John McCain in 2000. In politics, truth is what you make it. Which makes truth crushingly difficult to find.

Praise Be

If you haven't read The Constant Critic, and you care about the health of poetry, do. This article lambasts compellingly the latest installment of Best American Poetry.

Dictionaries are our friends

The poem featured today on Verse Daily is "Amazon Parable" by Jeffrey Thomson, and it was published in Quarterly West, a literary journal I have long admired. The poem is decent; it recounts the Amazonian legend of bees that, instead of stinging their victims, steal their victims' hair. But the poem isn't about the legend; it is, in the poem's words, about "the weight / the story carries." Good enough.

But I have a problem with the poem, and with Quarterly West (and Verse Daily) for publishing it. Here's the first sentence of the poem:

The bees that will strip every hair
from your head instead of swelling
your hands with a thatch of venom,

that will leave you bald and clean
and unstung, they are my subject
today.

Look at that word "thatch." Here's the OED's definition: Material used in thatching; straw or similar material with which roofs are covered; particularly b. that actually forming a roof, the thatching.

The subsequent definitions don't stray far; "thatch" meaning head of hair (and pubic hair); "thatch" meaning layer of matted debris atop a lawn; "thatch" meaning tall, coarse grass. So in what sense can "a thatch of venom" swell someone's hands? The word is simply misused.

I'm not arguing against the figurative use of language, obviously. But "thatch" provides no striking figuration of venom; it does not offer us a new or interesting way to see the bees' poison. It merely distracts. And any editor worth her salt should write the poet and say, "I like this poem, but could we do something about 'thatch'? It makes no sense." At which point any poet worth his salt should be humiliated that he used a word of which he did not know the meaning.

Caution: Your Lawn Is Not Your Own

I'm not big on mowing the lawn. The control exerted on the carefully-manicured lawn has always seemed to be left over from the control exerted by the Puritans on the wilds of Native America: a small performance of the European's mastery over nature. The very concept of the lawn comes from England, where the cool, wet climate is ideal for the thick, lush, low-growing grass that has made it possible for the Brits to golf. The natural state of grass in this part of the world is tall: eight, nine, ten feet tall, too tall to see over. We turned that grass, of course, and replaced it with golf course grass, lawn grass. (See Michael Pollan's fascinating writing for more on this.)

Besides, the two-stroke engines on push-mowers are notorious polluters. Why exchange more CO2 for less green? I love to work in the yard: I planted a small garden this year, and I have waged war on the invasive plants in my back yard. Buy why mow?

I discovered today, though, that the choice is not entirely mine. The local forestry division sent us a letter informing us that we had violated Ordinance 59860: "HIGH GRASS AND WEEDS IN THE FRONT AND REAR." We have five days to remove the offending greenery of be forced to pay the city to do the same.

My reaction to this was two-fold. On the one hand, I hated the thought of being a bad neighbor; though the details in the letter were sketchy, it appears that a complaint was lodged against our vegetation. By whom, we don't know. But I hustled out when I got home from work and fired up the mower.

On the other hand, though, I resented the complainer, resented Ordinance 59860: whose business is my lawn but mine? I'm a country boy; I grew up in a land without lawn ordinances. You could cut your lawn with a herd of goats and no one cared, as long as the goats didn't crap on anyone else's lawn. Or you could let it grow until it was long enough to bale.

I learned today that my lawn is a space for social performance, not merely for the tending of flora. It is not a place where I exert my own control over my environment (you may grow! you may not!); it is, instead, a place where I exert the community's control over my environment, where the community exerts its control over me.

The List Grows

Add to the list of poetry book contests I have not won Pittsburgh University Press's Agnes Lynch Starrett Prize. I have not won this prize a few times before, but I think that this time was the last. For the second time in three years, the prize was awarded to a graduate of the University of Pittsburgh's MFA program; this year's winner even lives in Pittsburgh. In the post-Foetry era, Pitt Press's lack of concern about such (perceived?) impropriety is stunning.

So I'm breaking up with them. I recommend to anyone in a similar position (save my friends with MFAs from Pitt, obviously) to do the same.

Cheers.

The Internet Has Reached Its Pinnacle

This may be the best thing ever: the Peanuts gang updating its act. Without the internet, this little gem wouldn't make it much further than the dorm floor of the dweebs that made it; in this world, though, we can all get a taste. It's like the dorm room is now big enough to fit everyone who wants in.