World Series Baseball 2013
World Series baseball is quite comely. The competition is carried out outside in the fall, so leaves are dying and falling off trees, it’s cold, and you get to start sporting layers, like multiple hoodies over a meaningful sweater over a button-down.
Moreover, baseball is slow, like an elderly person, and it’s quiet, like a deaf-mute. Both the elderly and deaf-mute are meritorious. The elderly are grumpy and crabby (as one should be), and deaf-mutes don’t talk and don’t hear, which is optimal, as there is very little that can be conveyed through talking and listening that can’t be conveyed much more marvelously through a poem, a story, or a Tumblr post
In “[The crowd at the ball game],” New Jersey boy William Carlos Williams compares the baseball setting to a totalitarian society, and that’s sensational.
This World Series is especially estimable because the St. Louis Cardinals are participating, and they feature many cute boys, like the hard-throwing closer, Trevor Rosenthal, and the tough as a truck catcher, Yadi.
Presently, the Cardinals and the meat-head East Coast liberals that some refer to as the Boston Red Sox have each won two games. If you haven’t been keeping up with all of the excitement then read Baby Marie-Antoinette’s recap of the first four games:
What Took Place Before the Bottom of the 7th in Game 2 of the World Series
Last nighttime the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Boston Red Sox in game 2 of the World Series, and their triumph made Baby Marie-Antoinette less woeful than she was on Wednesday night when the Cardinals lost (which they’re not supposed to do).
As with Baby Marie-Antoinette, I think the St. Louis Cardinals should win the World Series, and I also would be fine if their commendable closer, Trevor Rosenthal, wanted to be my boyfriend.
But this post right here sort of tackles another topic.
Before the bottom of the 7th inning, the Boston Red Sox commemorated all of the people who were blown up in the Boston Marathon.
They came out onto the field, and James Taylor sang a song.
This instance illustrated a theme from one of my favorite books, Frames of War by Judith Butler.
In this book, Judith distinguishes between greivable lives, like the people on the Boston Red Sox’s field, and ungrievable lives, like the Muslim creatures who continue to be blown to bits.
Being a boy, I like violence. But I don’t like phoniness, and it seemed to me to be really phony for all of these Boston Red Sox people to portray themselves as empathetic and moral-loaded and whatever other terms they might throw out, when, really, they’re only empathetic and moral-loaded to those who subscribe to America’s depiction of a grievable life.
Baby Marie-Antoinette Opens Up Upon Simone Weil, Gang Rape, and More
Last week, I published a tiny story by Baby Marie-Antoinette, one that was titled Gang Rape Me Now Please.
Then, last nighttime, while the world acted woeful (as usual), Baby Marie-Antoinette sent me a telegram, telling me that she had things to say to me.
When a girl who, at less than 42 months, already has a biopic starring the striking Kirsten Dunst wishes to say things to you, then obviously you heed that.
That’s what I did.
In a vintage skirt (because boys can clad themselves in skirts) and a St. Louis Cardinals sweater (because they’re the best baseball team ever, and the LA Dodgers are gay), I met Baby Marie-Antoinette (as well as her mommy) at a McDonald’s in Midtown.
Baby Marie-Antoinette munched on a vanilla ice cream cone. I did the same.
BMA (Baby Marie-Antoinette): Thank you very much for meeting me.
Me (M): You’re very welcome.
BMA: My mommy articulated that it’d be agreeable if I articulated further about gang rape and such, and I agreed.
M: K…
BMA: So… you should probably inquire further…
M: Why are you so struck by gang rape?
BMA: I don’t believe in autonomy, freedom of speech, freedom in general, liberty, individual rights, or any such stuff.
M: Why?
BMA: I am Catholic. I absolutely believe in God, as God will make it so that I am the Queen of France. God cares for me. Another girl who God cares for is Simone Weil. She is a French girl who is sort of looked down upon because she didn’t spend her nights at white people bars on the Lower East Side.
M: What does that mean?
BMA: She didn’t got nuts for the human body or anything that humans nowadays (or in the olden days) deem progress. In Simone’s notebooks, she states, “We possess nothing in this word other than the power to say ‘I.’ This is what we must yield up to God.” For Simone, all the rights that people are roaring for are abhorrent. They are as unheavenly as a croissant without warm cherry cream in the center. According to Simone, “The self is only a shadow projected by sin and errors which blocks God light.”
M: So even though America says the self is the splendidest form ever; really, it’s sordidness.
BMA: Uh-huh. So when the self is destroyed, and when the attributes attributed to selfhood are tossed into the trash, it’s not naughty for God, it’s naughty for the ideologies that promulgate free personhoods.
M: Like the United States of America.
BMA: That’s a country that’s corrupted by personhood. In Gravity and Grace, Simone says, “We have to be nothing in order to be in our right place.” But Americans advocate the antithesis. They try terribly hard to be something, which is why they talk so much, eat so much, spend so much, and make so much trash.
M: But really, this “something” isn’t “something”; really, this “something” is “nothing,” only a different kind of nothing than what Simone is referring to, as it’s a nothing that has nothing to do with God, and thus it’s meaningless.
BMA: Sigh.
M: So why does 24/7/365 gang rape stay on your mind?
BMA: Because with gang rape it’s boy after boy being utterly uncaring about your body and what you yourself want to do with it. Simone says in her notebooks, “The more I efface myself, the more God is present in the world.” I could try to terminate myself, but that seems so self-involved, so I’d rather have boys do it. According to Simone, “When the ‘I’ actually is abased, we know that we are not that.” I know that my body is not nice. A pink and fuzzy Miu Miu coat is nice. But flesh, like Simone says, is “vile.”
M: Maybe the reason why gang rape is regarded as one of the top revolting behaviors in the world is because so much of the world cares about their bodies and not about God.
BMA: Uh-huh, people nowadays seem to be invariably promoting themselves, especially on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and any other gay social media platform designed by California loser. Simone says, “There is a lack of grace with the proud man.” Does Sheryl Sandberg possess grace? No. She’d likely be really upset if boys gang-raped her.
M: But what about those who equate !@@$% with purity?
BMA: These types should read John Milton’s play, Comus.
M: I read that play while I ate a chocolate cupcake.
BMA: My mommy read it to me while I ate a raspberry cupcake.
M: It’s about a girl who’s lost in the woods and is danger of being raped by a monster.
BMA: But even if the monster did rape her, it couldn’t corrupt her, because her purity isn’t positioned in her skin.
M: Perchance this is why Baby George III says Sasha Grey is more religious than Adrienne Rich. Baby George III saw Ariana Reines’s lecture at NYU a while ago, and during the question and answer, she compared Jesus to porn starlets, since both are renown for being transfixed by myriad external elements.
BMA: Perchance… The reason why gang rape is regarded as it is is because the world is wrought with utterly unthinking ungracefulness.
This is when Baby Marie-Antoinette asked her mommy to purchase her another vanilla ice cream come.
Gang Rape Me Now Please: A Tiny Story By Baby Marie-Antoinette
A little bit ago, like a couple of nighttimes past or so, Baby Marie-Antoinette, the second Bambi Muse baby despot, sent me Gang Rape Me Now Please, a tiny story she composed.
She sent it through mail, not the kind that everybody today uses, but the kind that Lorine Niedecker and Louis Zukofsky used.
Being a boy, gang rape isn’t really applicable to me. So I sent the tiny story to a girl, or, to be more precise, a ghostly girl, as the girl was Helen Burns, Jane Eyre’s BFF.
Helen said that the tiny story unveils the utter unpleasantness of autonomy, consent, individuality, basic human rights, and so on.
Helen went on to say that Baby Marie-Antoinette’s story was much more Godly than America will ever be, and it’d be wonderful to share it, as 2013 earth needs God.
Heeding Helen’s counsel, here is Baby Marie-Antoinette’s tiny story, Gang Rape Me Now Please:
Once upon a time there was a French princess named Baby Marie-Antoinette.
Baby Marie-Antoinette liked mice, cherry cream cheese croissants, Disney princesses, and Christianity.
Baby Marie-Antoinette also liked boys.
The boys in the Disney movies are heroic and dashing. They sail the seas (like Eric) and they save each other from impending doom (like Buzz Lightyear and Woody).
But the boys on 2013 earth were the opposite. They were nice, accommodating, and laid back. These average attributes caused Baby Marie-Antoinette to scream, “Ugh!”
One day Baby Marie-Antoinette was able to escape the clutches of her mommy, Empress Maria Theresa, and venture out into the Big Apple, searching for grandeur, extremeness, gang rape.
Baby Marie-Antoinette approached a bald boy with a big nose. She asked him if he’d gang rape her.
The boy declined, politely introduced himself (it turns out his name was Lloyd Blankfein), and asked Baby Marie-Antoinette if her mommy would be interested in purchasing some collateral debt obligations (CDOs).
Baby Marie-Antoinette shook her head. Then she approached another boy. The boy paired pink jeans with an ironic sweater. Baby Marie-Antoinette asked him if he’d gang rape her.
This boy declined as well, explaining that he was a feminist in the middle of shooting a Kickstarter-backed documentary about gender inequality.
Baby Marie-Antoinette sighed. Realizing that the chances of her meeting a big, bold, bullying boy were highly unlikely, she found her way back home, crawled under her Tinker Bell blanket, and cried.
A Close Reading of a Poem By a Girl
While being educated upon literature, one of the most marvelous assignments I received was to conduct a close reading of a poem of my choosing. Though 99 percent of the people who associate themselves with literature nowadays probably perceive poems as mere documents that they’re coerced to comment upon in workshop, I am mesmerized by beatific poems, and I believe each one necessitates thoughtful evaluation. After all, when you see a beautiful look by, say, Calvin Klein, you shouldn’t just mumble “Nice job, Calvin” and then zip right along to the next one — that’s inconsideration. What everyone should do is concentrate on the look exclusively in order to notice the particular shade of grey and the way in which the squiggly white stripes contrast those of the grey ones.
The same should be so for a poem.
The poem I selected to do my close reading with was Charles Churchill’s night. An 18-century poet who didn’t like gay people, Charles is often ignored, while poets like putrid pragmatist Alexander Pope are emphasized. But, really, Charles needs ten times the heed of Alexander, as Charles is ten times as terrific as Alexander.
For Charles, the greater public views the daytime as the place of hardworking humans and the nighttime as the space of a sordid species. But in his poem, Night, Charles says that daytime is much more foul than nighttime. Using heroic couplets, Charles explains why the daytime is contemptuous, calling its denizens “slaves to business, bodies without soul.” In contrast to the spiritless stupids, those who wander in the night have an “active mind” and enjoy “a humble, happier state.” Near the end Charles states, “What calls us guilty, cannot make us so.” While I concur with Charles that just because the 99 percent say it’s true doesn’t make it true, I don’t agree that the nighttime is so wonderful, as gay people go out at night a ton, and gay people aren’t a thinking bunch.
But Charles’s poem is still bold, bellicose, and abrasive, and all of those traits are laudatory, and, through my close reading, I became much better acquainted with them.
Also disseminating a decided amount of close reading are the baby despots of Bambi Muse. Baby Adolf did one on Emily’s “Presentiment,” Baby Marie-Antoinette did one about Edna’s “Second Fig,” and Baby Joseph did one concerning William’s [“so much depends”].
Close readings appear to be very vogue. So, having already summed up a close reading of a boy poet, I will presently present a close reading of a girl poet.
Author Spotlight & I Like __ A Lot / Comments Off on A Close Reading of a Poem By a Girl
September 24th, 2013 / 1:29 pm
September 24th, 2013 / 1:29 pm
Championing Re Re’s, Condemning Democracy: the Baby Marie-Antoinettte Interview
Once on a day not too long ago (though not too recent either) I met up with Baby Marie-Antoinentte. The second Bambi Muse baby despot, Baby Marie-Antoinette acquired remarkable notoriety for her “Dear White Race” letter, published in the spring of this year. But, obviously, Baby Marie-Antoinette has monstrous more going for her than just internet fame. Soon, Baby Marie-Antoinette will be the queen of France. Her reign will coincide with the French Revolution, that disgraceful period when the Third Estate (know as “the middle class” in America) will degrade, divide, and, in some cases, behead Baby Marie-Antoinette’s adored family.
Our meeting place was a charming diner on the Upper East Side. In an old-fashioned red-and-white striped booth, I took sips of a Sprite while Baby Marie-Antoinette nibbled on a piece of positively sweet cherry pie.
Having turned down a tsunami of interview requests, I asked her politely if I could publish our chat as an interview. After pondering the possibility with her mommy, Empress Maria Theresa, Baby Marie-Antoinette agreed, as I am, after all, Bambi Muse‘s CEO (and, also, the Empress received final approval).
Me (M): Hi…
Baby Marie-Antoinette (BMA): Hullo…
M: Your cherry pie looks very sweet and yummy.
BMA: It is, just like Tinker Bell, Ariel, and Miley Cyrus.
M: Oh, a lot of people are saying mean things about all three of those girls.
BMA: Yeah, but America is governed by the 99 percent, and they’re average, so they hate specialness, whether it’s a special fairy, a special mermaid, or a special actress/singer.
M: There was tons of scorn slung at Miley’s VMA performance last Sunday.
BMA: Yeah, the 99 percent was very mean about that, but I wasn’t. Miley acted like a re re. And re re’s are magical, like bruises or something.
M: I have a bruise on my knee from getting tripped up on a sidewalk on Broad Street.
BMA: What were you doing on Broad Street?
M: Screaming curses at investment bankers.
BMA: Oy…
M: What is your perspective on capitalism?
BMA: I, too, champion inequality, exploitation, a class system, and so on. But none of those things should be based on money. Anyone can get that. The world should be based on something that’s not so darn indiscreet, like pretty dresses or poems.
M: Can you elaborate please?
BMA: Only chosen creatures can deck a pretty dress decorously, and, likewise, only chosen creatures can compose a captivating poem.
M: Who can compose a captivating poem?
BMA: Baby Ji Yoon can. And so can Baby Carina. They’re both re re’s. One of Baby Carina’s poems is titled CARIO, Y R U SO CRUELLL xXxX. As for Baby Ji Yoon, she says, “my bellybuttons are very impressionable.”
M: Uh-huh, they do sound like lovely and splendid special-ed girls.
BMA: There’s also this girl called Lauren Shufran. Many of her poems are metered. She also made up a word, “Turdecken,” a combination of turkey, duck, and chicken. Normal people don’t know how to count syllables or come up with their own vocabulary. They’re too laid back and communicative; for example, Cate Marvin.
M: The VIDA girl?
BMA: Ugh… VIDA.
M: Do you abhor that advocacy group?
BMA: You bet I do. What consequence is it if Ploughshares publishes 14.759837422222222 percent more boys than girls? They’re all average, interchangeable poets anyways. VIDA doesn’t care if a poem is illuminating; for them, it’s just accessibility and equality. And that’s not poetry, that’s Park Slope lesbian self-esteem talk. Actual poetry is very discriminative and strict. Sylvia is — she killed her daddy and her husband.
M: Tyrants are violent too.
BMA: Yeah, they’re decidedly diehard. It’s delightful. I hope that Syrian boy wins. Americans should stop bombing other countries and mind their own business. Nobody wants to be a democracy, it’s so gross, like pecking the cheeks of Lloyd Blankfein, Ben Bernanke, and Timmy Geithner one directly after another.
M: Yuck!
BMA: We should do something pretty now.
M: Maybe we could quietly sing that song.
BMA: That song?
M: Yeah.
BMA: K.
Dress Up with Willa Cather’s O Pioneers!
Like Disney movies, creamy coffee desserts, and many other things, Willa Cather is a terrifyingly terrific treasure. Being a boy, it’s somewhat bothersome to admit to admiring a girl, especially since nearly all the boys the I look up to don’t really look up to girls. “Woman is natural, that is to say abominable,” declares French boy poet Charles Baudelaire in his Intimate Journals. “She is always vulgar; the opposite, in fact, of the Dandy.” Then there’s the American boy novelist Norman Mailer. In An American Dream, Norman’s semi-doppelganger throws his ex-wife out the bathroom window after she admits to partaking in the type of act that Dan Savage and Frank Bruni revere. But, as with Emily D, Charlotte B, Annie F, and tons more, Willa is simply too wonderful to cast aside just because she’s the opposite of a boy. Her stories and novels are grumpy, moody, severe, ascetic, and fashionable (Antonia’s friend Lena becomes a dressmaker in San Francisco and Professor St. Peter composes his Spanish adventurer study in the same room as a seamstress).
As for the characters Willa compels, they’re cuttingly on the button in their evaluations of people-centric societies. Reflecting upon his prior city life, the eponymous boy of Neighbour Rosicky remarks:
In the country, if you had a mean neighbour, you could keep off his land and make him keep off yours. But in the city, all the foulness and misery and brutality of your neighbours was part of your life. The worst things he had come upon in his journey through the world were human, — depraved and poisonous specimens of man.
What to do when beset by corrupt, indelicate, inconsiderate creatures? Why… destroy, of course! Violence is enthralling, enlightening, and entertaining. It’s allotted a starring role in Willa’s world. In My Antonia, Jim slugs a rattlesnake to death in front of Antonia, her father also hangs himself, and her family is friends with a couple of Russian boys who were ostracized by practically every European country for throwing a newlywed couple off a sled and to the wolves so that they themselves wouldn’t be eaten. Some stories start out serene only to become violent later on. The Enchanted Bluff is about a bunch of boys on a camping trip. The trip’s tranquility is toppled when one of the boys tells of a Cliff-Dweller society whose men were massacred and whose women and children were left to starve. Keeping children’s tummies empty is obviously wrong, but violence is right. There are few better means to upending uppity control (i.e liberal America) than violence, and there is such an abundance of this trenchant tool in Willa’s tales.
Basically, Willa is sort of one of the best. Formerly, I dressed up The Professor, but someone as sensational as the Nebraska girl certainly deserves to have her universes adorned much more than once, which is why I’ll now deck the characters from O Pioneers!
Maybe if…
Maybe if Syrian people started being blown up while running marathons in Boston then the white race would care more about it…
Men in partial or full military dress went door to door, separating men — and boys 10 and older — from women and younger children.
Residents said some gunmen were from the National Defense Forces, the new framework for pro-government militias, mainly Alawites in the Baniyas area. They bludgeoned and shot men, shot or stabbed families to death and burned houses and bodies.
– “Grisly Killings in Syrian Towns Dim Hopes for Peace Talks,” Anne Barnard
… Although, according to Baby Adolf, if you want attention for being killed by the boatloads then you should probably be J E W I S H.
Speaking of that, Baby Idi is having a hard time comprehending that “Jewish, New York sense of humor.” Is there anyone out there that can elucidate it for him?
… Anywho, Baby Marie-Antoinette could really use a soft cherry cream cheese croissant right about now.
Baby Adolf’s Summary of the 5th Annual CUNY Chapbook Festival
A couple of days ago Baby Adolf, the first Bambi Muse baby despot, and I met up at a McDonald’s near a Germanic bakery located somewhere on the Upper East Side.
My outfit featured, among other things, sunnies. As for Baby Adolf, his deck was brown.
Both Baby Adolf and I ordered vanilla ice cream cones. And after we ordered second vanilla ice cream cones, Baby Adolf screamed (unlike PhD’s, &c, no one at Bambi Muse is captivated by “conversation”) about how he wanted to be on HTML Giant quite badly. After all, Baby George III has been and so has Baby Marie-Antoinette. Why should the boy who will one day kill six million you-know-whos and five million other oh-who-cares be denied the chance to appear on the site run by the continually cute-looking Blake Butler?
“Maybe,” I said to Baby Adolf, at the McDonald’s near the Germanic bakery on the Upper East Side, “if you gave me three Baby Ruths, four Jujubes, and a Coca-Cola then I’ll publish your summary of the 5th-annual CUNY chapbook festival on 9 May 2013.”
Baby Adolf grumbled his assent. What follows is Baby Adolf’s summary:
***
On Saturday Baby Adolf, accompanied by his mommy, Klara Hitler, visited the 5th annual chapbook festival at CUNY. For some time, Baby Adolf believed CUNY was just another way to say NYU. After Saturday, though, Baby Adolf realized that they were two separate entities. NYU is a big ugly college that’s usurping the West Village, while CUNY is a big ugly building in Midtown.
The festival took place in a plain white hallway, and, according to Baby Adolf’s eyes, there wasn’t anything particular festive going on. There weren’t any military marches or bellicose speeches prophesying global war along with the resurrection of the fatherland. Unfortunately, there were too many boys who looked like they’d just blown in from Bedford as well as a fair amount of girls whose clothes suggested that they had just come here from their weekly Park Slope Lesbian Separatist meeting.
But some commendable creatures were present, like Baby Ji Yoon. She spent most of her time at the festival taking mysterious notes, as if she were spying for a certain country that starts with North and ends in Korea.
Mean & Vicarious MFA / Comments Off on Baby Adolf’s Summary of the 5th Annual CUNY Chapbook Festival
May 9th, 2013 / 3:02 pm
May 9th, 2013 / 3:02 pm