I think it’s well-documented that my vote in the upcoming presidential election will go to William Shatner.  Over on Twitter, @WilliamShatner brought up the notion that he should have his own meme, similar to the Chuck Norris jokes meme.  Users are responding.  Here are some of the best:

• William Shatner doesn’t overact; it’s the rest of the world that’s phoning it in.
• William Shatner doesn’t have an oversized ego. He has a bigger identity than yours.
• William Shatner knows singing to music is just a fad.

Oh, my stars and garters.  This could be the greatest meme ever.  Follow @WilliamShatner on Twitter.

Remember a couple of weeks ago when I said I’d be giving away a book? There were so many compelling arguments, but I could not pass up Allen Kromer’s. He went anagrammatical.

Sarah Manguso

O! Sugar Shaman!
Mourns as agha,
sang, “Ah, amours…”
Ragas so human,
ragas so human.

Ragas, so human.

That triple repetition at the end, Kromer, was where you won my heart forever.

Tomfoolery and sheer idiocy, in bullet format:

• The list of people I’m following on Twitter has swelled from 15 to 34 in the last couple weeks.  Twitter is infinitely more satisfying now.  If you’re reading this, and you’re on Twitter, and I ain’t following you, let me know.  Perhaps you interest me.
• This is kind of amazing.  You cannot help but feel absolutely terrible for the guy.  You cannot help but feel absolutely terrible for anyone who’s going to have to return the stuff they hauled away.  You cannot help but wonder how anyone came up with it.
• Spent most of yesterday moving furniture. We now have the corner cabinets that Ladybug’s grandfather made.  And some other crap.
• I’m headed back to the classroom!  Well, for a day.  I’m subbing for a colleague’s poetry workshop next week.  I have missed being around poetry students.  Badly.  I realized it once more when I was writing a recommendation for a student and I read over his creative sample.
• I’m currently badgering Tom McHenry to make me into a cyborg.

I was just upstairs reading, and had one of those satisfying moments. My iPod served up Oasis’s “Live Forever” (mp3) and I flipped to Auden’s “The More Loving One.”

The More Loving One

Looking up at the stars, I know quite well
That, for all they care, I can go to hell,
But on earth indifference is the least
We have to dread from man or beast.

How should we like it were stars to burn
With a passion for us we could not return?
If equal affection cannot be,
Let the more loving one be me.

Admirer as I think I am
Of stars that do not give a damn,
I cannot, now I see them, say
I missed one terribly all day.

Were all stars to disappear or die,
I should learn to look at an empty sky
And feel its total darkness sublime,
Though this might take me a little time.

Both the Oasis and the Auden cover essentially the same topic, albeit in different terms and different media. Auden essentially acknowledges the impossibility that we matter in any reasonable cosmic scheme, but at the end of his poem, he outlives the stars and comes to appreciate the universe changed. Oasis rejects the natural order of things and achieves immortality for their daring.

Run these through the filter of my last few days, and you come up with one irresistible conclusion: being alive in the moment is the only immortality one needs. You can look at the world, littered with the walking dead, and conclude that you’ve bested it forever by enjoying it now.

***

Of course, the possibility exists that when Auden looked at the stars, knowing”That, for all they care, I can go to hell,” he was simply prophesying the inevitable existence of Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, and Paris Hilton. Yes, devoid of them, we might all come to appreciate the world. But it would take a while. It would take a while indeed.

This tidbit by way of Poetry Hut, though I’m mystified as to why it’s there:

The owners of a one-time Clayton gas station built in the 1960’s plan to open a recently-discovered “Mystery Room” they believe has been sealed for nearly fifty years…

Lee said he discovered the room a few months back while doing some plumbing work near the back of the building. At the time, he noticed an extra set of water lines that lead into the walls of the room.

“Who knows, we may find Jimmy Hoffa or Blackbeard’s gold,” he said.

It opens April 4, but prior to that time, they’re asking Johnston County kids to write essays about what could be inside.  link

Forgive me, I have gone a little wild with the footnoting function in Word 2007. It’s just so easy.

Courtesy Wade:

I feel bad for you son.

I do not feel bad for you son.

People who reheat seafood in an office microwave– don’t you think there’s something wrong with them?

I is understanding some of this lol.

pinnacle /pin-uh-kuhl/ Pronunciation noun, verb, -cled, -cling.
–noun
1. a lofty peak.
2. the highest or culminating point, as of success, power, fame, etc.: the pinnacle of one’s career.
3. any pointed, towering part or formation, as of rock.
4. Architecture. a relatively small, upright structure, commonly terminating in a gable, a pyramid, or a cone, rising above the roof or coping of a building, or capping a tower, buttress, or other projecting architectural member.
–verb (used with object)
5. to place on or as on a pinnacle.
6. to form a pinnacle on; crown.