Clickbait / should be / — at least — bearlievable

 

A prologue for absinthe friends

If you feel it's time to fall in
love with a turn of the century
green fairy & sample the high

culture of St. Petersburg from a
Russian mosh pit, they are now
available in hardback. Both feat-

ure a medium weight & soft cotton
feel for your added comfort, use
cookies to improve the experience.

Today the post-
woman brought
me a conniption

fit. So-called be-
cause it makes  
you angry when you  

put the jacket on 
& it's too tight 
across the shoulders.

geographies: Sebastopol

 

Dopamine heartbreak

With every step bodies produce 
energy. Most body heat is gene-
rated in the deep organs. A di-
verse collection of full-body images 
of people produced by AI generates
no heat at all unless it's photos &
illustrations of gay middle-aged 
men eating ice cream. At least that's 
what some prairie voles claim. Mind
you, they also believe that a full body 
illusion can be self-induced through 
neck-stroking, even when the nec-
essary neurotransmitters are absent.

A line from Kurt Schwitters (3)

We were a modern family on 
whom rebel militants launched 
a large-scale attack following 
weeks of simmering low-level 

violence. The family began to 
fall apart, particularly when we
started injecting black tar heroin. 
Additional risk factors included

low-socioeconomic status, an
increase in gun violence, a steak 
pie which says simmer on the 
hob for 60 minutes. Soups are 

also dangerous, especially when 
they are served without rinsing 
away the dirt. Anxieties are run-
ning high; we are spending too 

much time in the danger zone.
Perhaps an anomaly, or will
light & visibility dictate if full 
body hi-vis clothing is required? 

wednesday newstrip

Hundreds more jobs are poised to go at Health New Zealand under proposals to be laid out to staff on Friday. The two units facing the latest cuts are the 1000-strong procurement supply unit & 500-strong planning, funding & outcomes unit · Meta outage for Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, & WhatsApp impacting users worldwide · 'USA is a threat': Canadians slam 'bully' T.®ump’s 'arrogant' mockery of 'Governor Trudeau' · a Netherlands-flagged cargo ship has been temporarily banned from entering Australian ports due to safety fears over its storage of ammonium nitrate · in recent months, Israel has bombed Gaza, the West Bank, southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, the southern suburbs of Beirut, central Beirut, & now Syria · energy experts have warned that the cost of building nuclear power plants in Australia could be more than double the figure the CSIRO has suggested, based on international experience · cow suffered for months after New Zealand woman tried DIY cancer removal.

yet another variant

 

geographies: Joel Joel

 

wednesday newstrip

'It must stop now: ' Amnesty accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza · Bitcoin soars past $100K as T.®ump nominates pro-crypto Atkin as next SEC chair · South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol now 'a dead man walking' after martial law fiasco · over the next fortnight, two planetary-scale atmospheric waves will run into each other to the north of Australia, increasing the likelihood of heavy rain, thunderstorms, & tropical cyclone activity · Canadian man leaps onto polar bear to defend wife during attack · Australian Federal Government’s support for UN resolution calling for end to Israel’s occupation of Gaza to blame for Melbourne synagogue fire, says BeenJammin' NotJustAnyYahoo · too young for TikTok, old enough for jail — how a meaner Australia treats its kids · uterus transplant recipient's son was bitten by a funnel-web spider in their northern NSW home but survived after anti-venom treatment.

fraught in solvent

another variant

 

wednesday newstrip

Australian police officer convicted of manslaughter in Taser death of a 95-year-old woman with dementia & a walking frame · woman accidentally threw out hard drive containing ex's access to £618 million Bitcoin fortune · Sydney risks blackouts as heat soars & coal power plants falter · a convicted murderer who stabbed a mother-of-three to death over $50 has been granted release from a Victorian prison to undergo IVF treatment · cryptocurrency entrepreneur who bought banana art for $9.5 million eats the fruit publically in Hong Kong · Carolina Prime Pet, Inc, announced on Friday it is recalling 400 bags of 16-ounce Hollywood Feed Carolina Made Chicken Chips dog food that may contain salmonella · recall for cucumbers as dozens fall sick with salmonella in 26 states · JD Vance depicts himself as 'Trump’s wife' in Thanksgiving post.

A variant to Doom

 

Now out from Otoliths — "peut-être le Messie" by Márton Koppány

Now out from Otoliths.

Márton Koppány
"peut-être le Messie"
full color
56 pages
ISBN: 978-0-6455483-4-1
$US26.75
URL: https://www.lulu.com/shop/m%C3%A1rton-kopp%C3%A1ny/peut-%C3%AAtre-le-messie/paperback/product-rmvdnmm.html?page=1&pageSize=4

Lulu have a 30% Black Friday – Cyber Monday discount running until midnight on Monday. Discount code is HOLIDAY30.

*

Márton Koppány notes in his introduction: "Lately I've been playing with putting together pieces from distant periods. Some recurring topics are: question marks, clouds, ellipses. They overlap, but ellipses outnumber everything else. Any triad can be considered an ellipsis, and occasionally different (or seemingly different) numbers like 1, 2 and 4 serve the same idea even better, because they are elliptical only elliptically."

His ellipses take many forms — buttons, stones, letters, fish, et al — though I profess my favorite among his ellipses is actually invisible.

I am writing this in a room which used to be a verandah until, before our time here, a cyclone blew the wooden louvers & their surrounds in — out? — & that once open space has since been replaced by windows & fiberboard — three windows, three pieces of fiberboard. Perched at the intersection of the dado rail that runs along two of the walls of the room, there is a signed postcard-sized print of a singular piece of vispo, a lounge chair with only one leg but still remaining perfectly upright.

It is called Ellipsis No. 5, & is, coincidentally, the first piece in "peut-être le Messie." "Perhaps the Messiah" is a wide-ranging title, an ellipsis incorporating the millennia between the canonical gospel of St. Luke & the work of Isidore Isou, a Romanian-born French poet, founder of Lettrisme, author of L'Agrégation d'un nom et d'un messie.

Márton Koppány's book is also wide-ranging — perhaps not temporally, but rather attitudinally. I have previously remarked on the ". . . humor, minimalism, satire, genius, art, politics, its multi-faceted et ceteras" of Koppány's work. This selection of his ellipses evidences every one of those individual characteristics as well as the incredible gestalt when they are combined.

   —   Mark Young

wednesday newstrip

SpaceX's Starship will fly Lunar Outpost's rover to the moon · after DoNuts T.®ump’s Project 2025 denials, he is tapping its authors & influencers for key roles · clinical tests confirm DermaAngel as the top choice for pimple patches with Australia set to take on the T-Beauty trend · Fox hosts, cable news regulars, & entertainment pros: T.®ump is casting a made-for-TV Cabinet · more than 150 people have been arrested in Newcastle for allegedly defying directions by New South Wales Police during an anti-fossil fuel protest at the world's largest coal port · President-elect T.®ump is encouraging a Florida legislator who celebrated the killing of an American citizen by the Israeli military to run for Congress · Kiwi workers lose jobs as billion-dollar firm quietly shifts production to USA. Celebrity-backed supplement AG1 is marketed online as ‘made in New Zealand’, but a podcast investigation reveals it’s mostly made at a super-factory in Utah.

Recently sold at Christies for $US121 million

René Magritte's L’empire des lumières.

Noisy birds silence 
the trees. Someone 
is reading as they 
sleep. Against the blue 
the house has braced 
for night. Entrance is 
gained through a door 
in the roof. The pond 
is full of stars. A street- 
lamp echoes. The sky 
is empty. Only clouds.

Instead / of the / usual wednesday newstrip

a theory, that

DoNuts Tr(I)umphant has no intention of following through on his MAGA claim. Instead, it would appear as if, incensed by the fact that he didn't win re-election in 2020, he's embarked on an opposite campaign, to turn the country into a dystopian wilderness.

Take a look at his proposed cabinet picks. Start with the best-known names, Elongated Muskrat & RooFracK. The Muskrat will co-chair a new newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), an entity DoNuts Tramp has indicated will operate outside the confines of government. His co-chair, Vivisection Ravasmarmy, has made it known that the dismantling of the Department of Education will be the initial priority. RooFracK has accepted an appointment to be secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services, a perfect fit for one of the nation’s most prominent anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists, who has frequently spread false conspiracy theories about the safety & efficacy of vaccines.

Amongst other nominees: Tulsi Gabbard who "has a consistent habit of trusting 'foreign propaganda' over the very people she would lead as America's spymaster, making her wholly unqualified to be director of national intelligence" as Josh Rogin, foreign policy columnist for The Washington Post wrote; Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), who, purportedly, had sex with an underage girl, but was never charged, for attorney general; & the day after DoNuts Tromp selected Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, who does not have senior military or national security experience, to oversee the Pentagon & the U.S. military command, it was revealed that Hegseth was investigated for sexual assault in California in 2017.

The litany goes on. To quote ex-RNC chair Michael Steele: "DoNuts T.®ump is leveling up a menagerie of misfits, people that he knows are not competent, capable, or intelligent enough to do the jobs that he is giving them."

As someone recently noted, DoNuts T.®ump might finally achieve his lifelong dream of actually being the smartest person in the room.

God Bless Save America.

wednesday newstrip

Forty-three monkeys escape from research facility in South Carolina · "tar balls" found recently on Sydney beaches show traces of human faeces, methamphetamine, & PFAS: new analysis · tears, joy, & fear on the streets of DC after T.®amp's victory · lost emperor penguin lands in Australian town thousands of miles away from icy Antarctica home, the farthest north the bird has ever been found · Texas campus in uproar after protesters hold signs declaring ‘women are property’ on quad after T.®emp victory · experts urge people to stay indoors & hydrated as heatwave rolls across much of Australia · Zach Bryan’s ex, Brianna "Chickenfry" LaPaglia, claims the singer offered her $18 million to stay silent on break-up · men charged in foiled Iranian plot to assassinate T.®imp.

Is the world about to plunge to its

?

Scheherazade at the speed of light

The two plays
one novel
&

five
chapters of
autobiography that I

wrote overnight wouldn't
fit in
this

space
so I'm
leaving it empty.

wednesday newstrip

Climate crisis: October saw record floods & rains across the globe · "She's a radical war hawk," said DoNits T.®amp of Liz Cheney. "Let's put her with a rifle standing there, with nine barrels shooting at her, okay? Let's see how she feels about it, you know, when the guns are trained on her face" · Ms Cheney's riposte: "This is how dictators destroy free nations," she wrote on X. "They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country & our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant" · Queensland's Truth-Telling & Healing inquiry to pause its work plan as new right-wing State Premier David Crisafuilli stands by plan to stop process · on the eve of New Zealand’s Māori language celebration week, the country’s right-wing political leaders ordered public agencies to stop affirmative action policies for Māori people, who are disadvantaged on almost every metric · Cassius, the world's largest crocodile in captivity, dies in Far North Queensland.

wednesday newstrip

Western Australia man diagnosed with scurvy · at least 3,000 North Korean soldiers now inside Russia on the way to Ukraine, US says · DoNuts T.®ump prefers the "dictator approach" to running a country, & openly wished he had "Hitler's generals" when he was US president, his former White House chief of staff says · Türkiye's interior minister says five people have been killed & 22 others injured in what he describes as a "terrorist attack" in central Türkiye · Iran recruiting Israeli citizens to spy against their government, with social media the key to luring them in · gas industry in damage control as landmark study finds LNG 'worse than coal' for the climate · New Zealand still complicit in global shark fin trade.

wednesday newstrip

Republican nominee DoNuts T.®ump has requested a military plane to use during the final weeks of the campaign, citing concerns that Iran is trying to kill him · a 65-year-old female sergeant is under investigation by Victoria Police, following allegations she performed a Nazi salute in front of police recruits · British woman who killed her parents & lived with their bodies for four years is sentenced to life · Sydney’s Coogee beach closed after mysterious black 'tar balls' wash ashore · Northern Territory's new conservative government passes legislation to lower the age of criminal responsibility from 12 to 10, in first week of parliament · Police say babies in Indonesia are being sold for as little as $AU1,450 · man falls into sewage tank in rural Ōtaki: 20 minutes later, Vivian St in Wellington flooded.

wednesday newstrip

Australian Opposition leader Putrid Dustbin attacks Prime Minister for including calls for ceasefire & de-escalation in motion reflecting on 7 October · Bunnings Australia shoppers go wild over $15 item for transforming dirty grout: 'Holy grail' · T.®ump spoke with Putain at least seven times since leaving White House, Bob Woodward reports · McDonald's Australia brings back beloved $2.50 menu item after three years · Evangelicals for Harris claim Franklin Graham is threatening to sue them · classic Aussie phrase — 'mate' — offending people in 2024 · Notjustanyahoo says Israel has killed late Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah's successors · T.®ump stuns social media as he dances along to YMCA at the end of speech about October 7 attacks.

A couple of new books

Mark Young
The Magritte Poems
Sandy Press
ISBN: 979-8-9898666-3-2
Amazon URL: https://a.co/d/65ZzzPr
648 pages
Paperback: $US24.99
Kindle: $US12.00

This is a book 21 years in the making. The first Series Magritte poem — three words, three lines — was composed on the front step of a motel room at Yarra Glen, about 50 kilometers from Melbourne. It appeared on the As/Is blog in — I think — November 2003, was followed by another twenty or so at the same blog, & then, in March 2024, the following post appeared at my then main blog, Pelican Dreaming:

I have decided to start a blog for my Series Magritte poems. The URL is https://seriesmagritte.blogspot.com.

As I write this, there are 547 poems up at Series Magritte. I have included all of them in this book. Interspersed among them are a number of other poems — the Florence Foucault centos, composed of extracts from Michel Foucault's book on Magritte, This Is Not a Pipe, & the 1860 The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, by Florence Hartley, some of which actually appeared under the pseudonym of Florence Foucault, & also included are other of my poems that reference Magritte, including one that dates back to 1974. My admiration for René Magritte goes back a long way!

This is a collected, not a selected, so it may be uneven in quality. I would also have liked to include some of the Magritte paintings that inspired the poems, but that would undoubtedly have raised copyright issues as well as ending up as a seriously expensive tome. I have no intention of stopping writing Magritte poems, but I've decided to bring a dotted line to the venture so that I can see what it looks & feels like in book form. For those that don’t like the heft of such things, there is also a Kindle edition which Amazon warns may take a while to download.

I want to thank Javant Biarujia for his introduction, which is up at Sandy Press, & Sheila E. Murphy for her blurb which can be found on the Amazon page. Their words are more than I deserve.

I also want to thank Bill Allegrezza & Jukka-Pekka Kervinen for publishing earlier selections of my Magritte poems. I want to thank harry k stammer for publishing this collection & for doing the covers of some of the aforementioned smaller books. Lastly, I'd like to pay tribute to René Magritte for making the invisible visible.

There's also a recently published collection of my non-Magritte poems.

Alkaline Pageantry
Serious Publications
Lulu URL: https://www.lulu.com/shop/mark-young/alkaline-pageantry/paperback/product-rmenkpq.html?page=1&pageSize=4
76 pages
$US4.82

Alkaline Pageantry is the latest collection of poems by Mark Young that reflect — like much of his previous work — the insanity & inanity of the modern world. 'Give me a seagull with a / positronic brain & I'll / give you the next leader / of the modern world.' The poems come from the last six years, before, during, & after Covid; touch on the duplicity of world leaders; use search engines as a creative tool; deploy humor as a weapon to lay waste to civilization as it’s currently presented. 'Sorry, / nothing / matched your / search terms. Please / try / again with / a different fish.'

Today the post
woman brought
me a trans-
Atlantic passenger
liner. I tried to

sail it in the lagoon
at the bottom of the
street but when I got
it in there it wouldn't
budge, something to

do with Newton's
unpublished fourth
law of motion which,
in précis, posits big
fish / big pool. I've

decided to leave the
liner where it is,
open it up as
an hotel. The
pelicans are pissed.
  

wednesday newstrip

DoNuts T.®ump encourages Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear sites · the NSW Education Standards Authority has announced that teaching of the Aboriginal past prior to European arrival will be excluded from the Year 7–10 syllabus as of 2027 · A-list star ‘horrified’ as alleged Diddy sex tape gets pushed to media outlets: ‘he feels like he was victimized years ago’ · Sydney woman allegedly killed & dismembered husband in ‘bizarre’ murder case, police say · a scorned Canadian wife has opened up about how she ate her dead husband’s ashes after finding out about his string of affairs · a year into the Israel-Gaza war, the Middle East is on the verge of chaos. How does it end?