My dreams, they aren't as empty

As my conscience seems to be.

Rettung von Tyrannenketten

Ode to Joy:

Rescue from the tyrant's fetters,
Mercy to the villain e'en,
Hope within the dying hours,
Pardon at the guillotine!
E'en the dead shall live in heaven!
Brothers, drink and all agree,
Every sin shall be forgiven,
Hell forever cease to be.

Friedrich Schiller.

Hippo Birdies to The Street

On this day in 1969, a new educational show for children premiered on PBS. It was called "Sesame Street." Photos from the Library's Prints & Photographs collections show Jim Henson piloting his muppet creations on early seasons of the show. https://t.co/JE4LJ9i2Ut

— Library of Congress (@librarycongress) November 10, 2026

Sesame Street was central to my life pretty much from the git go.  Our first dog (a Lhasa Apso) was named Oscar, per my suggestion.  I once made a mess feeding cookies to my Cookie Monster puppet.  My favorite book was Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum.

Mom also told me that I would pitch a fit if I couldn't watch it when I was a toddler.  I swear that I am much more mature 50+ years later.

Into the magic night, I softly say

A silent prayer like dreamers do.

Star Dust

The Starry Night:

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.

It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

Anne Sexton.

Son of A...

Hope everybody had a lovely Sunday.

Archaeological Record

The Order In Which Things Are Broken:

Ancients threw the masks down the cenote—
the faces smashed first in little ways before
the long drop, an eye or an ear broken, a mouth snapped
in half. Then, lifted from the well, two thousand years
later, still grinning and golden. The loose spooling of two
people fast unravels—how we let go of time spent,
how heat fades, how a body forgets fully what it knew.
I have learned your face as you will never.
The third day we met you gave me all your secrets
until I held an ocean in a cradle. Now all I ask for is more.

Desirée Alvarez.

You keep samin' when you oughta be a'changin'

Now what's right is right but you ain't been right yet.

Lectures on Logic

Ars Poetica:

To answer Kant’s last question she should take the curtains from her eyes
and lay them on the bed.

She should stand on her head and dream,
empty herself of  I, I, I, I.

She should walk inside the living and the dead,
become some other passerby.

Catherine Barnett.

It's goin' to be a long time gone

I was all of two months old when this aired.  Happy birthday, Mom.  Miss you.  A long time gone, indeed.  

津波

The Great Tsunami:

She recognizes its crest in the way he looks at her.
The wave is as vast as the roiling mass in the Japanese
Print they had paused in front of at the museum,
Capped with ringlets of foam, all surging sinew.
That little village along the shore would be
Totally lost. There is no escaping this.
The wave is flooding his heart,
And he is sending the flood
Her way. It rushes
Over her.

Can you look at one face
For the whole of a life?

Does the moon peer down
At the tides and hunger for home?

Michele Wolf.

Die gesamte Generalität ist nichts weiter als ein Haufen niederträchtiger, treuloser Feiglinge!

Lmao been waiting for this….absolute cinema….no notes! https://t.co/KhrE5Uxa68

— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) November 5, 2026

The most gratifying version I've ever watched.

In conclusion: Der Krieg ist verloren.

Ooh, a storm is threatening my very life today

Lisa Fischer.  My.  God.

Public Thing

Respublica:

The strident high
civic trumpeting
of misrule. It is
what we stand for.

Wild insolence,
aggregates without
distinction. Courage
of common men:

spent in the ruck
their remnant witness
after centuries
is granted them

like a pardon.
And other fealties
other fortitudes
broken as named—

Respublica
brokenly recalled,
its archaic laws
and hymnody;

and destroyed hope
that so many times
is brought with triumph
back from the dead.

Geoffrey Hill.