Ooh, it's so good, it's so good, it's so good, it's so good

It's so good.

ephēmeros

Momentary:

I never glimpse her but she goes

Who had been basking in the sun,

Her links of chain mail one by one

Aglint with pewter, bronze and rose.

I never see her lying coiled

Atop the garden step, or under

A dark leaf, unless I blunder

And by some motion she is foiled.

Too late I notice as she passes

Zither of chromatic scale—

I only ever see her tail

Quicksilver into tall grasses.

I know her only by her flowing,

By her glamour disappearing

Into shadow as I’m nearing—

I only recognize her going.

A.E. Stallings.

But it's too late to say you're sorry

How would I know? Why should I care?

バラ

after goodbye
the roses
kept blooming

Aiko

— Basho Society (@BashoSociety) June 16, 2026

PS - Mom majored in Japanese and East Asian Studies.

Twenty Fucking Years

God damn, I miss you, Mom.  So do your grandkids, who have never even met you.

<exits singing, They say life carries on and on and on>

When I look over my shoulder, what do you think I see?

Some other cat lookin' over his shoulder at me.

the world’s so small, the sky’s so high

fire:

more the idea of the flame than the flame,

as in: the flame

of the rose petal, the flame of the thorn

the sun is a flame, the dog’s teeth

flames

Nick Flynn.

Thunderthief

I hope everybody enjoyed the festivities in DC today.

Only traces make us dream.

Companions in the Garden:

    Man is but a blossom of the air held by the earth, cursed by the
stars, inhaled by death; the breath and shadow of this coalition
at certain times elevate him. 

    Our friendship is the white cloud preferred by the sun. 

    Our friendship is a free rind. It does not detach itself from our
heart's prowesses. 

    Where my spirit no longer uproots but replants and cares for,
I begin to grow. Where the people's childhood begins, I love. 

    In the twentieth century man was at his lowest. Women be-
came enlightened and moved about swiftly, on a ledge where
only our eyes had access. 

    To a rose I bind myself. 

    We are ungovernable. The only master favorable to us is
Lightning who sometimes illuminates us and sometimes cleaves
us. 

    Lightning and rose in us, in their transience, are added for our
completion. 

René Char.

You Say It’s Your Birthday?

Well it's my blog's birthday too, yeah!  The original Dohiyi Mir had humble beginnings on Blogger, an astonishing 23 years ago, which makes my return to this platform with the demise of Typepad a funny full circle thing.

I'd gotten home from teaching in Buffalo, of all places, and was doing laundry to get ready for my next gig, wherever the hell it was (funny how I don't remember that detail).  Called Grandma to wish her a happy birthday, then decided stuff I was sending to my friend e-mail chain (for you youngsters, that was like a group chat) might as well go up somewhere more public.

My biggest hit back in those days was Queer Eye For The Deposed Guy.  Got noticed by the Philadelphia Inquirer (Inky)!  It was all so quaint and silly.

Mom eventually became one of my most consistent readers and commenters.  Coincidentally, she went into the hospital unexpectedly on this very date in 2006, whilst I was teaching in Anaheim (I was not aware at the time).  Yes, the big twentieth anniversary of the most horrible day is coming up.

Life is a rich pageant.

Selah.

Happy Obama Appreciation Day!

In addition to celebrating Barack Obama, I'd like to note a couple things that happened on this festive day in 1777:

Resolved, That the flag of the ∥thirteen∥ United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and white: that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, representing a new constellation.

The council of the State of Massachusetts bay having represented by letter to the president of Congress, that Captain John Roach, some time since appointed to command the continental ship of war the Ranger, is a person of doubtful character, and ought not to be entrusted with such a command; therefore,

Resolved, That Captain Roach be suspended, until the Navy Board for the eastern department shall have enquired fully into his character, and report thereon to the Marine Committee.

Resolved, That Captain John Paul Jones be appointed to command the said ship Ranger.

I had a book about Jones, devoured it a couple of times as a lad, rather enamored with his swashbuckling story.  More recently, I read Rick Atkinson's The Fate of the Day:

Abigail Adams would describe Captain John Paul Jones as “a most uncommon character…small of stature, well-proportioned, soft in his speech, easy in his address, polite in his manner, vastly civil…. He is said to be a man of gallantry and a favorite amongst the French ladies.” Those who had seen him swinging a cutlass in battle or roaring curses from the quarterdeck drew a less genteel portrait. As he put to sea from Brest on April 10, two days after Commissioner Adams arrived in Paris, Jones paraphrased Paradise Lost in a letter to a friend: “The world lays all before me.” 

The son of a gardener from Solway Firth, on Scotland’s southwest coast, John Paul had gone to sea at age thirteen; after killing a mutinous crewman in the West Indies, he added a new surname to cover his tracks and fled to America. Short and wiry, with prominent cheekbones, a cleft chin, and hazel eyes, he found purpose and opportunity in war, having won a commission in the nascent Continental Navy.

Anyway, a couple years after his appointment to Ranger, he took command of Bonhomme Richard, and ultimately engaged with the British at the Battle of Flamborough Head:

When a British boarding party appeared with cutlasses near the quarterdeck ladder, Jones and his seamen drove them back across the bulwarks to Serapis with pikes, firelocks, and shouted oaths. A panicky American gunner, convinced the ship was sinking, headed aft to strike the flag in surrender, until Jones knocked him unconscious with a pistol butt. And when Commodore Pearson, hopeful that the Americans were ready to capitulate, called out above the tumult, “Do you ask for quarter?,” Jones scoffed. Various versions of his defiant reply would be attributed to him, including, almost half a century later, the exhilarating “I have not yet begun to fight.” A week after the battle, Jones wrote Franklin only that he “answered him in the most determined negative.” He later told Louis XVI that he had shouted, “I do not dream of surrendering, but I am determined to make you strike.”

He did, in fact, cause Pearson to strike.  We will do the same against our current adversary, whilst flying our colors high.

Anyway, Happy Obama Appreciation Day to all, even the haters and losers!

PS - Happy birthday to Grandma, who would've turned 101 today.

God only knows what I'd be without the Wrecking Crew

Well, life would still go on, believe me.

PS - Check out this 1976 interview with Brian where he talks about Pet Sounds and Phil Spector's Wall of Sound technique.

huēyi tlahtoāni

Divine Rights:

Sprawling like some small group of picnickers,

They're propped among the shadows of the trees,

Though one seems drunk, spread-eagled. Nothing stirs

Except the flies that clog their cavities.

A red cleft rules the parting of that head.

You stretch a little and slide out of bed.

Acres of debris are in sodden flood   

About the ruined village, which concedes

In blackened matchwood to the tide of mud

Its smoking households. Rising from the weeds,

Arms reach up stiffly, as for an embrace.

Out of the mirror you observe your face

While sunlight offers all that you desire.

The Aztecs, to appease your counterparts,

Would hook still-living bodies from the fire,

Hack out and hold aloft the pulsing hearts,

Drenching the steps with blood, so they might give

Those idle brutes each day a day to live.

You have today. Stark-eyed and hollow-faced,

Her rigid ribcage almost bursting through

The skin, a girl sits in a land laid waste

And stares out blankly. So then, it is you—

The thought had not occurred to you before—

It's you, Huitzilopochtli, God of War.

Stephen Edgar.

The Filthiest People Alive

Thinking more about "Nature and Nature's God", it occurs to me there's been an underlying (r)evolution  at work:

• Divine Right of Kings (Henry V): 

He wills you, in the name of God almighty,
That you divest yourself and lay apart
The borrowed glories that, by gift of heaven,
By law of nature and of nations, ’longs
To him and to his heirs—namely, the crown

• Divine Right of the People (Declaration of Independence):

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these, are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. 

 

That, to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

• Divine Right of White Men¹ (Southern Baptist, Methodist, and Presbyterian churches):

Baptist and Methodist churches had opposed slaveholding members in the early years of the Republic. These denominations’ rapid expansion in the South, however, meant abandoning this position “in recognition that upwardly mobile members increasingly included slaveholders.” Justification for slavery came with this growth and found its parallels in the biblical subordination of women.

“Southern ministers had written the majority of all published defenses of slavery,” Jemison reminds us. For these ministers, slavery not only had divine sanction, it was a necessary part of Christianity. This was because slavery was defined as akin to a marriage: the “power of slave owners over slaves paralleled the power of husbands over wives and of parents over children.”

• Divine Right of Net Worth (Space Karen)

The rocket and satellite company raised a record $75 billion, valuing the company at about $1.8 trillion, pushing the value of Musk's stake in SpaceX to an estimated $690 billion. The company is trading on the Nasdaq under the ticker "SPCX" after pricing its IPO on Thursday.

Combined with his holdings in electric vehicle maker Tesla, as well as other investments and assets, Musk's net worth is now estimated at about $1.1 trillion.

Feels like we're regressing.  In that case, perhaps it's time for the Divine Right of John Waters:

Kill everyone now! Condone first-degree murder! Advocate cannibalism! Eat shit! Filth is my politics! Filth is my life!

I mean, it can't be worse than Emperor Musk telling us to eat shit whilst he hoards bananas.  Beginning to think that basing human value, rights, and power upon made up shit isn't the way to go...

<exits singing, Is Filthy ever Divine? It's all subjective...>

1 - Patriots like Thomas Paine notwithstanding: With what consistency, or decency they complain so loudly of attempts to enslave them, while they hold so many hundred thousands in slavery; and annually enslave many thousands more, without any pretense of authority, or claim upon them?