“The devil’s boots don’t creak.”— Scottish Proverb
Johnson O’Connor English Vocabulary Builder (1939)
Unknown to 14 Percent: Divers
adj. More than one or two, a few, several, sundry. Divers and Diverse were once synonymous. Diverse means different in kind, various, essentially different. This meaning of Divers is obsolete; Divers can now mean only several in number without implying different kinds.
American Zen Bones: Maezumi Roshi Stories (1999)
14. You Must Love Yourself
In the first few months of Jesse Hunter’s Zen practice, he asked Maezumi, “What is loving-kindness meditation?”
Maezumi poked him in the stomach and adjusted his shoulders, saying: “You must love sitting. You must love yourself.”
An Image that Moves Me
Image: Five Boys, Philadelphia by George Krause (1965)
Read This If You Want to Be My Friend
Gabrielle Daniels in 1979, working as a secretary in Stanford University’s Engineering Department. Photo courtesy of the author.
“New Narrative’s frank writing about sex also enabled Daniels, who had hitherto avoided what she called the “hypermasculinist heterosexual politics” of some Black Arts Movement writing, to “return home” to African-American literature. In so doing, she found an alternative lineage which included, not only the celebrated work of writers such as Alice Walker and Toni Morrison, but still-obscure novels such as Carlene Hatcher Polite’s astonishing The Flagellants (1967). Such writing was stylistically experimental, sexually explicit, and frank in addressing the experiences of race and gender. Daniels’ own writing is part of that tradition: uncomfortable, raw and honest; aware of writing as a literary construct; refusing to water down politically unpalatable home truths; and refusing to compromise its stylistic experimentation.”
Commercial Break
Pssssst, this is one of my favorite short art films ever.
What Periodic Table Element are you? Krypton. “Krypton has no known biological role.”
Favorite Object? Windows. Exits. Neon signs.
What shape are you? Globular, fluid, riddled with indecision.
Give us a texture. Coarse.
Anarchist, Socialist, Capitalist, Libertarian, etc. are tired terms.
Favorite person of Color that you disagree with? Kanye, although our disagreements are few and far between.
What sound are you? Pissing on asphalt.
Jeff Koons, Damien Hirst, or a Broken Copper Pot? At least the pot has some utility.
What’s the last thing you broke? A tense silence.
The last person, you kissed? Diesel.
The best thing about men’s rights activists? They’re resistant to the feminine wiles of the well-stacked and smiling.
Do you meditate? Not intentionally.
Are you a Neutron Star, White Hole, or Solar Flare? I’m a White Hole. I’d be flattering myself if I said otherwise.
Which fetish are you? Klismaphilia, EDERACINISM, Fornifilia, OCULOLINCTUS: OCULOLINCTUS.
Your opinion on Lesbian Separatist: As a former Mills College student, I can tell you that it’s maladjustment at its finest.
Favorite Mythological Character? Dionysus, for obvious reasons.
What type of Cancer are you? Brain.
Matriarchal Punishment or Patriarchal Redemption? Both are terrifying prospects.
Who do you actually hate? Sycophants.
Best regrettable purchase this month? A cropped pink wig from Party City.
Finish this sentence. I know Kim Kardashian…could benefit us all by easing into obscurity.
Your favorite body of water. Lake Wingra in Madison, Wisconsin. Beautiful body, filthy mouth.
What’s the most middle-class thing you’ve done this week? I was inspired by Christina Aguilera’s plight in Burlesque.
I’m only politically correct when…I’m in the company of the ideologically ravaged.
What’s your favorite scar on your body? An inch-long scar on my ribcage, just below my left armpit. Earned during a rowdy tetherball match in the fifth grade.
Last time you cried tears of joy. Unknown.
Your most noble trait. Honesty, begrudgingly. I’m a shit liar.
30. I know the taste of…bitterness, baby. Still trying to shake it.
