This searing poem is from the “poem-a-day” feature of poets.org. Thanks again, Pam! Hey, wait a minute — anybody else smell gasoline?
Poems are bullshit unless they are broken
like a horse, like a dog kicked in the ribs,
Like your favorite toy that’s missing an arm.
Love can make you feel used.
I want the poem that limps back to me.
Poems should hurt like love,
like ice water on your teeth
like a massage to smooth out a cramped muscle.
Give me the poem that’s like leather.
Give me the poem that smells like gasoline.
I want a poem that is a warning,
a poem that makes me check to see
if I left the shotgun by the door,
a poem that’s a runny nose, a sneeze, a poem
that’s the moment the sky turns green.
By Kenyatta Rogers (after Amiri Baraka and Stefania Gomez)
This woman, below, is a bigot. Phil refused to photograph her, so I had to get it off the internet. Take a good look. They don’t make ’em much more repulsive than this.
She is Nancy Mace (R-Bigot, SC). Upon learning that Sarah McBride was elected from Delaware as the first openly trans Congressmember, Mace sprung into action and introduced a resolution that would bar her from using the women’s bathroom. Speaker Johnson, of course, supports it.
“Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say,” Mace told reporters. “I mean, this is a biological man.” She said that Ms. McBride “does not belong in women’s spaces, women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, changing rooms — period, full stop.”
Like her supporters in the GOP, Mace is a moral degenerate who traffics in hate. Blacks, Jews, and gays are harder to target, so thank God for the transgenders. Otherwise, what would the GOP do? Never mind that trans children are committing suicide at horrifying rates – who the f*ck cares about them? Pile on! [The NIH reports: 82% of transgender individuals have considered killing themselves and 40% have attempted suicide, with suicidality highest among transgender youth.]
Here’s what the NYT article states:
“In the House, Republicans have spent the last two years routinely proposing legislation seeking to roll back the rights of transgender people. And across the country, Republican-led state legislatures have tried to pass laws requiring people in government buildings to use bathrooms associated with their sex assigned at birth.
“But with Ms. McBride’s arrival in Washington, House Republicans for the first time have a transgender colleague to target in their own workplace.”
McBride’s reply, of course, was gracious:
“Each of us were sent here because voters saw in us something that they value. I have loved seeing those qualities in the future colleagues that I’ve met and I look forward to seeing those qualities in every member come January. I hope all of my colleagues will seek to do the same with me.”
Wisconsin Rep. Mark Pocan, chair of the congressional equality caucus, issued a statement saying: “Speaker Johnson’s holier-than-thou decree to ban transgender people from using bathrooms that align with their identity is a cruel and unnecessary rule that puts countless staff, interns, and visitors to the Capitol at risk. How will this even be enforced? Will the Sergeant at Arms post officers in bathrooms? Will everyone who works at the Capitol have to carry around their birth certificate or undergo a genetic test?”
LPAC issued this statement: “If this was truly about creating safe spaces for women, why isn’t there more of an uproar from Mace and her colleagues about the fact that a man found liable of sexual abuse is our president-elect, and that several of his high-level appointees have been accused of sexual assault?”
Here’s Sarah, below, holding it in.
We love you, Babe – Owl Chatter has your back. Stop by anytime for a cold Fresca — and you can pee anywhere you want around here. That’s what we do. Which reminds me — George!! We need more TP!! Can you run out to Shoprite? The keys are near the door; here’s a twenty.
Have you seen the initialism TL:DR? It’s for “too long; didn’t read.” Someone sends you a text or an email that is just too f*cking long. You reply: TL:DR. The former chair of my dept, whom I loved, Marjorie, aleha hashalom, once forwarded to me a grade appeal that a student submitted. It made War and Peace seem terse. I told Marjorie I was setting up a meeting with the student and then I asked: Is it me, or does she seem a bit wordy? Marjorie’s response had me laughing out loud. She wrote back: “Wear a hat.” (I took it mean the sh*t’s gonna fly.)
Anyway, today’s puzzle used TL;DR as its theme. It had three long novels as theme answers: DAVID COPPERFIELD, ATLAS SHRUGGED, and LES MISERABLES, and at 56A the “revealer” clue was “Cheeky review” of those books, with the answer: TOO LONG DIDN’T READ.
Separately, at 5D, the clue was “Cry over spilled milk, perhaps?” and the answer was BAD KITTY. Well, Rex is a serious cat lover and a literature prof, so all of this was just too much for him to bear. Here’s the rant:
Wow. A puzzle for people who hate reading. And cats. I am … neither of those people. The entire puzzle seems to exist so that the revealer can sneer at the idea of reading long books, which is to say, sneer at the idea of reading in general. You know what’s TOO LONG and I wish I DIDN’T READ? That revealer. That “review” isn’t “cheeky,” it’s idiotic. Nobody writes it out like that. It’s TL;DR, and only TL;DR. Plus, are these books really so “long?” They don’t strike me as iconically long. Not like War and Peace or Infinite Jest or, if you really want a doorstop, Clarissa (~950,000 words!). DAVID COPPERFIELD is just … a novel by Dickens. I read it earlier this year. It’s normal Dickens novel length—roughly the same length as [deep breath] Martin Chuzzlewit, Nicholas Nickleby, Bleak House, Little Dorritt, Dombey and Son, and Our Mutual Friend (all 340,000+ words). And while it’s true that I have not read LES MISERABLES or ATLAS SHRUGGED, it ain’t because they’re “TOO LONG,” for god’s sake. I don’t demand Reverence of Literature from my crosswords, but this kind of shallow sneering nonsense can … let’s be unprofane and say “take a hike.” Oh, is the book long? Is reading hard? Are you tired? Do you want a lollipop? Grow up. You don’t have to read books if you don’t want to, but your inability or unwillingness to read anything longer than a Tweet is a You problem. Don’t blame the books. The books are exactly the length they’re supposed to be. Also, if you’re shouting “BAD KITTY!” at your actual kitten for any reason, let alone for the mere fact of “spilling milk,” I’m taking your kitten away from you. Why are you giving the kitten milk, anyway? You clearly shouldn’t own a cat. Give me the cat. You go manage your anger. Kitty and I are gonna curl up with a long book.
[Ouch.]
At 25D, “Character in a classic whodunit” was MISS SCARLET. Remember her . . . in the library with a rope, maybe?
Did you know the model for that image of Miss S was Kedakai Turner, wife of the late James Lipton, of Inside the Actors Studio? JL was also from Detroit.
Or was it in the conservatory with a knife?
See you tomorrow Chatterheads.
The Wellington Files 