Ian Janssen

Book, The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry

Getting into this lovely unexpected gift from my beloved.

She is the best present, the book a close second, though.

Book cover, The Penguin Anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry.

Someone ( @lisasass.bsky.social ) gave me this excellent book and I now shall flood your feeds with American poetry quotations for the next year or so …

😍😍😍

Screenshot from my Bluesky page showing follower and following accounts of 500 people each.

The singularity has been achieved.

My late brother served in Iraq. He was a reservist in a support unit and a sergeant.

He was not a major league doorkicker, he did the dirty, grimy, unsung behind-the-scenes work of war. He saw ghastly shit doing vehicle recovery.

I look at these dead and I see my brother. These are who die in war.

I’m reposting this to remind myself to order this book, which looks pretty interesting. “First American gay novel” apparently, not something with which I was familiar.

My brother did not die in the war, his death came much later from unrelated causes. He would have expressed kinship with these dead.

Command officers don’t perish in war in any numbers, it’s the working people, the junior officers, noncoms, soldiers, seamen, and airmen who fill the body bags.

My late brother served in Iraq. He was a reservist in a support unit and a sergeant.

He was not a major league doorkicker, he did the dirty, grimy, unsung behind-the-scenes work of war. He saw ghastly shit doing vehicle recovery.

I look at these dead and I see my brother. These are who die in war.

In more crude terms, it’s the guy complaining about not being able to afford a new bass boat and thinking his lot is harder, because all the poor - regardless of origin - live cush lives on his tax dollars.

Illogical, yes, but we’ve all met this dude.

“American” middle working classes often seem to lack sympathy/solidarity with migrant labor in part I think due to identity.

Xenophobia aside, many can’t conceive of a life this arduous/precarious, that in a grievance driven brinksmanship they alone have it the hardest, which yields absurd claims.

Music can be a powerful tool, and for some it may cure, but it’s possible to take this too far to others’ detriment.

Be a little wary of this sort of claim. No study is cited, and people are different.

When in the depths of undiagnosed bipolar depressive states, music was an outlet for expressing emotions, but there should be no illusion that it in any sense defeated my depression. Therapy and meds did that.

Black and white selfie of a man wearing glasses and glowering.

Sometimes you lurk in the dark recesses like a character from The Third Man.

This seems interesting.

I suppose that if some portion of fatherhood isn’t terrifying, you’re not doing something right.

Umm, glorious depression, yes?

If memory serves, didn't some evangelical Christians identify Trump with the Persian king Cyrus?

Whither Cyrus now?

MASTER MASTER

MASTER OF ALBUMS

It’s a truly horrid disease.

This is a really good question.

Honestly, I plan to purchase a world band shortwave radio to listen to foreign broadcasts.

Various European news sources (mainly British), Al-Jazeera, snippets of American journalism I see cited, but I don’t trust really any American sources anymore. It’s not a great media landscape.

I plan to purchase a world band shortwave radio to listen to foreign broadcasts.

It’s a constant through history.

There are legitimate questions about the strategic goals (or even operational and tactical goals) of this conflict with Iran. They appear muddled and contrived in a charitable reading.

The thing is, I don't fucking care about the analysis. The war is to be fiercely condemned and opposed, full stop.

View of desk containing the following items: - stack of books - laptop with stickers on it - notebook with an editing pencil on it - headphones - mugs and trays holding pens, pencils, and scissors Books are from top to bottom: - Zheng Xiaoqiong, "In the Roar of the Machine" - Patrick Gardiner, "Kierkegaard, A Very Short Introduction" - Thomas Funke, "50 Hikes on Michigan and Wisconsin's North Country Trail" - Soren Kierkegaard, "The Sickness Unto Death" - Pablo Neruda, "The Captain's Verses" - Teresa Tumminello Brader, "Secret Keepers" - Anna Kornbluh, "Immediacy, or, The Style of Too Late Capitalism" - Arthur Koestler, "Darkness at Noon" - Noenoe Silva, "Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism"

What's on your bedroom TBR pile?

This stack floats - in whole or in part - between my desk, nightstand, and work bag; some are half read, some yet to be started.

I've been disorganized in my reading in the last several months, but focus has begun to return.

Contents of the stack in the alt.

I have zero energy to do anything.

I am a limp noodle in the spaghetti sauce of existence.

I am a mummy mouldering in a sarcophagus, no malign spirit animates me to evil deeds.

I am the heat death of the universe, where galaxies go to stagnate, stardust to congeal.

$49,999,999 more than they actually need. This is surveillance state shit.

Jesus don’t like killing, no matter what the reason for …

I have no military experience, my brother served in Iraq. I know his motivations were complex and I didn't agree with them then or now.

That said, writing off with disrespect the working people that make up the majority of servicemembers is foolish, classist, and often sexist and racist.

A lot of talk by people operating less from knowledge about the military and more from vibe.

You can oppose American militarism without shitting on the working classes of the military. Yes, some portion of that group will do evil (let's not forget Abu Ghraib), but the reality of service is complex.

Feet of clay, though.