TUESDAY PRESENTS the various uses of puppies

(Because I am as always here, darling ones, for your edification.)

As social commentary.

As football alternative.

As software.

As panacea.

As trophy-stand.

WTF, Rae Armantrout.

Hello Dear Readers! If you are pausing here in the middle of a snowbound Internet porn bender, cheeks flushed and bosoms heaving, perhaps craving some cogent thoughtful analysis of the literary world in these futuristic times, uh, sorry. I had to read this this morning, and now so do you.

Much has been made of Armantrout's "poetics of WTF" but, well, a source close to HiFlo had a PRETTY POETIC EXPERIENCE recently and this was too good to pass up:

Now in a way I did have a “money shot” in mind, but not the porn money shot—the more general meaning of money shot. The money shot of porn, as we all know, is when it becomes obvious that the man has ejaculated. In more general terms, the money shot is where something is revealed. If I could answer the question “Why don’t you just say what you mean?”, that, presumably, would be the money shot. And that actually was from a dream, so I woke up with those words in my mind, and my first thought was, “Well why don’t I?” That would be the money shot. But it doesn’t arrive.

I couldn't agree more. Wasn't it Emily Dickinson who said, "When I feel physically as though the author has come on my face, I know that is poetry"? Yes I am literally twelve. It's a pretty good interview. As you were, Internet!

Life, ah, finds a way.

It's been more than a year since I wrote in this blog. A lot of people thought it was dead. But you know something, Dear Readers? Jeff Goldblum's alive and so is HiFlo. Welcome to 2010, the year where GOOD THINGS HAPPEN.

Submission #1!!!!!

And it only took a day! The first entry in Hifalutin's mind-bendingly exciting Postmodern Poll comes to us from the distinguished author of Sex On Christmas, who has not updated since he blogged a visit to Taco Bell and whose only comments were: "Radopticon? No. Signature Event Righteous."

GAY FLORIDA: your Governor's gettin' hitched!

On December 12th, in St. Pete! That's awfully uppity of him, considering he doesn't think you deserve the right to do the same. Would you like to show up and bring an off-registry gift, or make an off-color toast, or maybe just protest the shit out of the whole event? The valiant editors of impossibly-named Gay Fort Myers have got the information you require. Did I mention I love my hometown? The property values are plummeting, nobody has a job anymore, and falling down is apparently twice as deadly to the elderly as in any other part of the state, but you can always count on the gays of Lee County to keep it together. 239!

William Logan is the new Chuck Norris.

Ahahahaha. Obviously I have some facts to contribute.

14. William Logan made fun of my GRE scores.
15. Poets have attempted to burn him in effigy, but always fail, because images of William Logan don't burn.
16. William Logan never listened to your mixtape.
17. If you strike down William Logan, he will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
18. William Logan knows what happens to a dream deferred.
19. Every poet who makes fun of William Logan secretly prays to one day make it big enough to be panned in a William Logan review. Except me. Fuck that shit! Right, guys? Guys?

"There is no uncontested short definition."

Over dinner at Virgil's last week I was complaining about some douchebag's characterization of Heraclitus' fragments as "strikingly postmodern," because how unnecessary is that honestly, when Adam sweetly brought it to my attention that I don't know what postmodern means either. And as I consoled myself with pulled pork and peanut butter pie, I also consoled myself with the knowledge that very few people I've ever encountered seem confident they can define the term. But as literature scholars we are legally obligated to use it at every possible opportunity, and since the definition is so amorphous the word "postmodern" has lost all meaning. It's elusive, seductive, a chimera. It is different things to each of us. So listen, monkeys, I know that all of you have said this word at least once without being entirely sure that it actually applied - that's why I need you to take part in my fancy Postmodern Poll! Read on:

Comment or email with your definition of postmodernism.
THE RULES:
1) Your submission may not exceed 300 words.
2) Your submission may not bore me.
3) Your submission may not come out of a textbook.
The winner will have their submission posted in Highfalutin and Lowdown as the blog's OFFICIAL DEFINITION and will also receive the privilege of writing a guest entry. Try not to pee your pants too much, I know. The deadline is January 8, 2009. Anyway, so far I'm pretty sure I'm winning, but if you can top this, BRING IT ON:

Jam of the week, installment 1.

The beginning of a weekly feature here at Hifalutin - letting all you creepy internet spiders inside my head and my iTunes every Saturday because what is writing if not the most socially acceptable form of egocentrism. This one's for Lexi, whose phone calls I'm really going to return when I have the twelve hours I want to spend talking. They won't all be this laden with meaning, but I'll forever associate this with the secret computer lab in the Social Sciences building, watching "The Office" on tv-links while there was still tv-links, walking around the west side of campus in March when everything smelled like orange blossoms and gliding home along empty highways with orange streetlamps in the liveoaks. Thanksgiving is over, but Lexi trust me, every day I am thankful for you and Freddie Mercury:

Doubleplusgood!

The systematic infantilization of the English language continues full throttle, and now it's Milton's turn, bitches! Stanley Fish is indignant, but that is hardly a surprise to anyone. Anyway, this blogger could not be happier - go for it, Dennis Danielson, Oldspeak is for unpersons! It's so the right time for somebody to get rid of all that pesky poetry standing in between the readers and that thrilling narrative to which none of us know the ending.

1, 2, 3, swoon.

Hey! Hey everybody! Guess what? Our new President fucking reads! Books! Like that book he's holding right there! Everybody already knows that Obama's a poet, but did any of you take Ben Lee's class on Contemporary Poetry and Identity in 2005? Is that why the book looks familiar? (Note the helpful arrows!) Because it's the collected work of Nobel-winner Derek Walcott and your adorable soccer-playing married poetry professor made you write papers about "A Far Cry From Africa" while you tried to figure out how to write him love notes on your eyelids, and your boyfriend who sat next to you underlined your favorite passages? And the book sat on your shelf until you gave it away during the insane breakup six months later, drunk on Green-Apple Bacardi, but you saw it again at a Barnes & Noble in downtown Chicago shopping for a housewarming gift for another boy you liked but who, well, lived in Chicago? And then you decided to apply to grad school after finding out that Derek Walcott taught at Boston University and were thanked for your application but roundly rejected anyway?

Right. Walcott's collected has more or less been the bane of my existence. His motto is, "No You Can't." But, Oh!Bama, I don't care, just read aloud to us from the volume sometime on one of your fancy YouTube addresses, okay? You can make Michelle hide her copy of Somebody Blew Up America until the taping's over.

British Crown Cedes Control Of Laureate To Masses!

What the hell, England? You like to slaughter the innocent tea-drinking inhabitants of your trans-Atlantic colonies all day long, wearing fashionable scarlet outfits and just bayoneting the shit out of everything, because they asked you politely to lift the tax on Being Alive. And yet you allow your subjects at home to have opinions about poetry? THESE ARE NOT BEST PRACTICES FOR GOVERNANCE. Especially since as it turns out, the Poet Laureate of England has actual responsibilities - compare to our primitive colonial appointee, whose job has historically been to eat lobster in hot tubs and speak to roomfuls of elderly ladies and write a poem sometimes. Of whom will the British public collectively glance up from their porridge and signal their approval, as the shackles are clamped on their hands and feet and they are led in grimy single file to debtor's prison? Hifalutin will report on this story as it develops!

This one is on the house. This one is better than ever.

There's another more, uh, sane-sounding post coming on this subject (thankfulness) soon, but I'd just like to say this holiday season that I am giving thanks because my friend John, one half of the (former?) sarcastro-noise hot-pants-wearing musical miracle Wolf Wolf, started these shenanigans. It promises to be fucking epic. I hope all of you mutants had wonderful Thanksgivings. I sincerely mean that. Each and every one.

The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast.

I love Bob Dylan. Not everyone I know loves Bob Dylan. The reasons are numerous and always interesting. 1) He can't sing. You've definitely got me there. He has more or less always sounded like a male goat in early adolescence, who has just been rejected from goat chorus at goat high school, because his voice is breaking and he is unbearably awkward. 2) His lyrics are nonsense. Well, yeah, he was usually pretty drunk. 3) His lyrics are too polemic. But he did throw Phil Ochs out of a cab one time, calling him a "singing journalist". 4) He should have stuck to folk and he never returns my calls. Is that you, Joan Baez?

Etcetera. The weirdest one though, and I've heard this from a few people, is He's not relevant anymore. As in, listening to Bob Dylan is anachronistic. As in, he no longer applies. As in, history has clearly pronounced its judgement on impassioned, outraged, hopeful folk music - hope lost, meaning lost, what's relevant now is Amy Winehouse. And I really like Amy Winehouse. But I think this is sort of silly. There are different kinds of art, that are called for in different situations. Sometimes art is fashion. Sometimes art is ego. Sometimes it's confession, or prayer, or plea - just, hear me, I want to talk to you, all of you, I need to say this, please. And sometimes it's prophecy:




I have been listening to this all weekend. Today Barack Obama spoke in my home state. Tomorrow night he will be president. It's true, there's still no such thing as a good political poem, and I am being way more earnest than usual, but isn't it funny how timeless this is, a song about how the times they are a-changin?

I will be back to my normal snarky self sooner or later. Just watch it and be moved, buttheads.

Oh, and the reading?

Was weird. And there was no beer. But people seemed to like what I read. Thanks for all the support. <3

What am I, the answer man? Just vote for me!

Hi Internet! Who else was unable to tear themselves away from the television last night, despite being unbelievably exhausted, because they didn't want to miss a single sighing breathy giggling inflammatory whiny McCainy crazy promise moment? There were some classics! Mavericky maverick John McCain is frankly not buying this "women's health" baloney, for instance. He accused Barack Obama of class warfare and wanting to "spread the wealth around"! Right after proposing that the emphatically NOT SOCIALIST United States government buy up 300 billion dollars worth of toxic mortgages, because sometimes the free market just needs the state to own everything in order for capitalism to work! Also, John McCain was deeply hurt by Congressman John Lewis' comments that the creepy racists at McCain rallies are creepy racists but he also insisted on his right to call Obama a terrorist supporter of voter fraud. That is just how these debates work.

It was actually honestly kind of amazing how much Barack knocked it out of the park. Throughout the entire thing he was calm, thoughtful, engaged, and polite, while John McCain just sort of had a stroke for ninety minutes. Maybe the race is all wrapped up already? Or maybe McCain watches the Simpsons as much as I do: character assassination, crazy promises, and having a stroke onstage totally worked for Homer Simpson when he ran for trash commissioner, even though he was running against Steve Martin! I know there's only two weeks or so until the election, but do you think it's too much to hope for that Sarah Palin will sing a song based on "The Candy Man Can" for the American people before this is all over? It's not like she's inexperienced or anything.

72 minutes of poetry tonight at SLC.

Yeah. So. I'm part of the 6x6 Poetry Reading at Sarah Lawrence College tonight. I AM SORT OF WORKED UP ABOUT IT. For anyone who lives near or within Metro-Northing distance of Bronxville, it should be a cool event - 6 grad and 6 undergrad students each reading for 6 minutes. 8 p.m. in Slonim Living Room. There is usually free booze, but no promises.

Christopher Buckley + Obama = <3<3<3

Because all the literary news I feel like posting seems to be political today. Sorry dudes, only a few more weeks of this and then it'll be back to the usual posts about kittens or critical theory or whatever - at least until I finish this article I'm writing (Toward A New Theory of Kittens). That is, unless the Republicans take the election, in which case there will be no more blog because I will be imprisoned for assassinating them myself. Ha ha ha! Am I kidding? Anyway, via Wonkette:

Not that it matters, because the modern Republican fat-ass troglodyte with a sixth-grade education and a dollar-forty in the bank is not exactly spending a lot of time reading books, but talented conservative author and essayist Christopher Buckley is now officially in the tank. He is voting for Barack Obama. (Yes, Christopher B. is the son of William F. Buckley, the founder of both the National Review and mid-20th Century conservative intellectualism, which is 100% dead forever now.)

American poets witty, apt.

Charles Bernstein declares poetry bailout! There are just so many lolz herein:

As we know, lax composition practices since the advent of modernism led to irresponsible poets and irresponsible readers. Simply put, too many poets composed works they could not justify. We are seeing the impact on poetry, with a massive loss of confidence on the part of readers. What began as a subprime poetry problem on essentially unregulated poetry websites has spread to other, more stable, literary magazines and presses and contributed to excess poetry inventories that have pushed down the value of responsible poems.

Then he sat back down and tried to stop imagining a future where most Americans use Best American Poetry 2008 for kindling.


And, ha, you should probably donate some dollars or hours or syllables to the American Center For Sarah Palin Inspirational Limericks. This is a nascent genre that (please God) only has a month or so to live, and when the campaign is over you might not have your buttons or t-shirts or lipstick anymore, but you will always have the rhymes:

If Biden's emotions cause you to panic,
just re-apply your tactical lipstick.
Remember the mantra
your handlers taught'cha:
maverick, maverick, maverick.

Wizened Space Lizard Perplexed By Earthling Young

Alternatively, here is a blog devoted to photographs of babies in the arms of the Republican's human opponent. We all needed this after the unbelievably infuriating week of news we just OH WAIT IT'S ONLY WEDNESDAY.

We can line up to buy it with paper bags on our heads.

Okay Pyn-tards, it's official: there is a new Thomas Pynchon book. It is, quote, a "noir detective story set in the 1960's.""With lots of psychedelia in the background." "Around 400 pages." This is huge because, as everyone who follows his career knows, Pynchon prefers not to begin a book until six hundred generations of PhDs have written their doctoral theses on his previous one. Speculation can only intensify as the novel nears readiness for publication, but it's nice to know that a) you might have a chance of finishing this one before your children reach adulthood, put you in a home and can no longer afford to buy your reading glasses and b) Thomas Pynchon is writing about intrigue and paranoia for a change.

Speaking of intrigue and paranoia, as I mentioned in a previous entry, I did make the colossal blunder of going to see "Blindness" by myself this past weekend and the only bright spot of those three hours was a trailer for the film adaptation of "Doubt" - a brilliant, critically acclaimed play that I declined to see at the Sarasota Asolo Theater this spring because I liked it too much. Philip Seymour Hoffman and Amy Adams (!) star alongside what looks like a truly harrowing Meryl Streep. Trailer for the least trite-looking film of award season yet after the jump.