Brought to You by the Vodka Aisle in this Polish Supermarket
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Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Stone-cutters fighting time with marble, you foredefeated
Challengers of oblivion
Eat cynical earnings, knowing rock splits, records fall down,
The square-limbed Roman letters
Scale in the thaws, wear in the rain. The poet as well
Builds his monument mockingly;
For man will be blotted out, the blithe earth die, the brave sun
Die blind and blacken to the heart:
Yet stones have stood for a thousand years, and pained
thoughts found
The honey of peace in old poems.
— Robinson Jeffers
Reason will not decide at last; the sword will decide.
The sword: an obsolete instrument of bronze or steel,
formerly used to kill men, but here
In the sense of a symbol. The sword: that is: the storms
and counter-storms of general destruction; killing
of men,
Destruction of all goods and materials; massacre, more or
less intentional, of children and women;
Destruction poured down from wings, the air made accomplice,
the innocent air
Perverted into assassin and poisoner.
The sword: that is: treachery and cowardice, incredible
baseness, incredible courage, loyalties, insanities.
The sword: weeping and despair, mass-enslavement,
mass-torture, frustration of all hopes
That starred man’s forehead. Tyranny for freedom, horror for
happiness, famine for bread, carrion for children.
Reason will not decide at last, the sword will decide.
His soul stretched tight across the skies
That fade behind a city block,
Or trampled by insistent feet
At four and five and six o’clock;
And short square fingers stuffing pipes,
And evening newspapers, and eyes
Assured of certain certainties,
The conscience of a blackened street
Impatient to assume the world.
I am moved by fancies that are curled
Around these images, and cling:
The notion of some infinitely gentle
Infinitely suffering thing.
Wipe your hand across your mouth, and laugh;
The worlds revolve like ancient women
Gathering fuel in vacant lots.
— Eliot
The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
Even though a cloud’s white curtain in a far-off corner flashed
An’ the hypnotic splattered mist was slowly lifting
Electric light still struck like arrows, fired but for the ones
Condemned to drift or else be kept from drifting
Tolling for the searching ones, on their speechless, seeking trail
For the lonesome-hearted lovers with too personal a tale
An’ for each unharmful, gentle soul misplaced inside a jail
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Starry-eyed an’ laughing as I recall when we were caught
Trapped by no track of hours for they hanged suspended
As we listened one last time an’ we watched with one last look
Spellbound an’ swallowed ’til the tolling ended
Tolling for the aching ones whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones an’ worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
Gerard Van der Leun
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I will never forgive them for what they did to the gas can.
That little gurl in the pool knocked the legs out from under one more american communist childish meme.
I have 2 old skool vented gas cans in the garage and 4 new skool unvented cans that have been liberated by me. Primitive knife wielding maniac vents. My wife swears a simple stroll through the garage imparts the smell of gas permanently on her garments. POL is my own personal cologne.
I had my 30 year old Craftsman stationary 4″x36″ belt sander tore apart, trying to find out why it is squealing so bad under load. Neighbor came by and told me my little metal can of 3 in 1 oil must be at least 30 years old cause they converted to plastic cans in the early 80’s. Mine still has the non-denominational price tag stating $1.19, so go figure. There are numerous POL products around here so the 3 in 1 gets used sparingly – hey! it’s a collectible now!
Well it appears that massive micro-dust build-up might have been the sanders problem. After spending an hour or so getting intimately personal with it and delving into the areas never before delved, with shop vac, various brushes and scrapers, and the compressor, it is now spic n span and a lot quieter. I bought this thing, I think, in 1980 and paid $99.99 for it. They don’t make this particular model any more but if you type in the model number 137.215360 Amazon has one, though the cheaperized plastic version, for almost 3 times the price and the reviewers throw it to the curb. So I’ll keep fixin’ the one I have.
Today is rainy so my sights are set on that bandsaw sitting over there needing some quality time. This’n: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00068U85S/?tag=reviewsofbo0a-20
I had a metal can of Singer sewing machine oil, circa 1972. At some point I let my husband borrow it and he never returned it, so I bought another container—now in plastic. But it still has that lovely warm aroma of light oil, which always reminds me of my Father.
I guess that Poles like vodka.
Reminds me of the beer coolers in 7/11’s. Being a non-drinker I would be asked to make the beer runs when attending family picnics and game days. I of course had to have directions; what kind of beer, where do I buy it. In the process I have come to a conclusion; the beer companies must give the 7/11 and other corner stores a better deal on beer than they do the super markets. I could buy a box of 30 “stones” for about $17 plus deposit at the 7/11 but at the supermarket it is about $18.95 or so. My theory is that it is simply marketing. If the price was the same everywhere a lot of small stores would actually go out of business. It seems that 80% or more of their profit comes from beer, wine and cigarettes. And fewer markets for their product will likely reduce sales overall. I dunno, could be some other reason.
GWTW,
Depends on what state you are in. Here all liquor stores have to buy from the same approved distributors at the same price for wine, liquor and high powered beer. A big liquor store pays the same price as a little one. Not sure about pricing for grocery store beer, which is limited to 3.2% alcohol. Most distributors have each item go on sale about every three months, so the store with more cash flow will only buy during the sale month, and carry enough inventory to bridge to the subsequent sale month. Also, liquor stores cannot sell below the price they paid from the distributor.
Walked into an Italian wine store and noticed in the center of the large tiled floor were two full-sized gasoline pumps, with volume meters, hoses, everything. But they were not for gasoline. One was for red wine and the other for white.
While we watched, a stout middle-aged lady drove up in her Fiat, took from the trunk a large demijohn, set it down by the red pump and filled it. Then she humped it back out to the car and threw it in the trunk. I thought the front wheels were going to come off the ground!
Only one wall had any shelves with bottled wine. The pumps clearly did all the business! We were on foot from the nearby campground so we bought a very bottle because we didn’t have much money. It was almost undrinkable. Almost.
I got a few of these for “water storage” (the little paper label is easy to remove).
20 Liter (5 Gallon) NATO Jerry Can (GJC20) with Flexible Spout
by Atlantic British LTD
Link: http://a.co/3dW9FLp
Absolutely leak proof, easy to pour from. Too bad they cost so much I’d get more.
I buy 5 gallon red plastic gas cans at estate sales. The old style that actually pours. They often have gas in them and I use it. $4
Seeing the Polish vodka aisle reminded me of a fun book titled “Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon: Tales of a Soviet Scientist” by Iosif Shklovsky. The title comes from the author reporting the annual consumption of vodka in the USSR as it waned and how far the bottles would reach if laid end-to-end. Shklovsky was both a great physicist and writer, always on the wrong side of the administrators. His story of mollifying an annoying undergraduate, who turns out to be Andrei Sakharov, is priceless.