Ecto Cool

Skyward for Joy

Sat, 04 May 2013 14:17:06 -0400

Green by Charles Douthat

Some days I walk down the street
where we lived and the fat man
who stole tomatoes
sits under the same old sycamore
tapping out his angry rhythms
on the knotted roots. And though
the children are no longer ours,
the oaks are no less generous
to the sidewalks with their shade.
Overhead, sweet air still arrives
through many simple branches—
some reaching skyward for joy,
others downcast for a reason.
We were like good trees
the years we lived on this street.
We were so green. Fresh as leaves.
And the days whispered through us.

closedparty: 7th Inning Stretch Warm-Up Sweater

Wed, 01 May 2013 21:28:49 -0400

closedparty:

7th Inning Stretch

Warm-Up Sweater

"Flesh proved vulnerable, as flesh is wont to do, but the spirit merely trembled before recasting..."

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 22:11:29 -0400

“Flesh proved vulnerable, as flesh is wont to do, but the spirit merely trembled before recasting itself into something stronger than any bomb or rage.”

- Dennis Lehane, on the resilient city

Get Well Soon Kobe Via Bobby Bernethy, and Got Em Coach

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:19:45 -0400

Get Well Soon Kobe

Via Bobby Bernethy, and Got Em Coach

Loose Changes

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 22:24:07 -0400

Naming the Stars/ Joyce Sutphen

This present tragedy will eventually
turn into myth, and in the mist
of that later telling the bell tolling
now will be a symbol, or, at least,
a sign of something long since lost.

This will be another one of those
loose changes, the rearrangement of
hearts, just parts of old lives
patched together, gathered into
a dim constellation, small consolation.

Look, we will say, you can almost see
the outline there: her fingertips
touching his, the faint fusion
of two bodies breaking into light.

dailybunch: Still the king. Gotcha

Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:23:57 -0400

dailybunch:

Still the king.

Gotcha

tuesday scaries

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 21:40:07 -0400

tuesday scaries

leitch: bonusbaseball: Not a day goes by that I don’t think...

Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:20:01 -0500

leitch:

bonusbaseball:

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about Cup-Stacking Guy and His Enthusiastic Friend in the bottom of the 19th at Turner Field.

Never forget.

Baseball, it’s here.

Double Agents in Love

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 20:52:01 -0500

Double Agents in Love:

Lorrie Moore on Homeland, and…Silver Linings Playbook? Ok.

"The shock of the twenties is how narrow that window of experience really is, and how inevitable it..."

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 18:29:26 -0500

“The shock of the twenties is how narrow that window of experience really is, and how inevitable it seems both at the time and afterward. At some point, it is late, too late, and you are standing on the sidewalk outside somewhere very loud. A wind is blowing. It’s the same cool, restless late-night breeze that blew on tramped nineteen-twenties lawns, dazed sixties streets, and anywhere young people gather. Nearby, someone who doesn’t smoke is smoking. An attractive stranger with a lightning laugh jaywalks between cars with a friend, making eye contact before scurrying inside. You’re far from home. It’s quiet. All at once, you have a thrilling sense of nowness, of the sheer potential of a verdant night with all these unmet people in it. For a long time after that, you think you’ll never lose this life, those dreams. But that was, as they say, then.”

- Nathan Heller, “the twentysomethings are all right.”

COP ME ONE! upnorthtrips: COP YOU ONE | IMNOTATOY - “Thank you...

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 18:43:29 -0500

COP ME ONE!

upnorthtrips:

COP YOU ONE | IMNOTATOY - “Thank you Kelz” Tee

LIONDAWG

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 21:39:57 -0500

LIONDAWG

ch-ch-ch-changes

Mon, 14 Jan 2013 20:24:58 -0500

ch-ch-ch-changes

Wake up high up/ frame bent

Thu, 03 Jan 2013 10:28:32 -0500

Things to Do in New York (City) by Ted Berrigan

for Peter Schjeldahl

Wake up high up

frame bent & turned on

Moving slowly

& by the numbers

light cigarette

Dress in basic black

& reading a lovely old man’s book:

BY THE WATERS OF MANHATTAN

change

flashback

play cribbage on the Williamsburg Bridge

watching the boats sail by

the sun, like a monument,

move slowly up the sky

above the bloody rush:

break yr legs & break yr heart

kiss the girls & make them cry

loving the gods & seeing them die

celebrate your own

& everyone else’s birth:

Make friends forever

& go away

Standing on the edge of a forest

Tue, 01 Jan 2013 20:47:33 -0500

Lay Back the Darkness by Edward Hirsch

My father in the night shuffling from room to room
on an obscure mission through the hallway.

Help me, spirits, to penetrate his dream
and ease his restless passage.

Lay back the darkness for a salesman
who could charm everything but the shadows,

an immigrant who stands on the threshold
of a vast night

without his walker or his cane
and cannot remember what he meant to say,

though his right arm is raised, as if in prophecy,
while his left shakes uselessly in warning.

My father in the night shuffling from room to room
is no longer a father or a husband or a son,

but a boy standing on the edge of a forest
listening to the distant cry of wolves,

to wild dogs,
to primitive wingbeats shuddering in the treetops.

He also wrote that reality was growing more insistent, more violent.

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 21:37:51 -0500

He also wrote that reality was growing more insistent, more violent.

We've reached home court, this year is done. Let's trade it for a milder one.

Mon, 10 Dec 2012 21:45:55 -0500

Greetings Friends, by Ian Frazier

The power’s back on! Let’s dry our socks,

And turn the volume down on Fox,

Mix up a vat of eggnog, brandied,

And fling a last Bronx cheer at Sandy.

Kick out the jams! Swing wide the gates!

Yeah, everybody—celebrate!

Come on in, friends. Pull up a chair,

Or hunker by the fireplace there.

Belt out a carol denominational,

Or not, if that seems, uh—irrational?

The year was great, but stressful, too …

Look, can it be? Honey Boo Boo?

Hi, sweetie—that your mom and dad?

You came! That’s super! We’re so glad!

Drew Gilpin Faust is dying to meet you.

Don’t let her entourage defeat you.

Hi, Governor Christie! You lug, we luv ya!

Now the Boss thinks highly of ya.

Hey, Bruce! Hey, Patti! Joy of the season!

(We’re stayin’ in Jersey, and you’re the reason.)

Here come the Safers. Hi, Jane. Hi, Morley.

And Nora E., we miss you sorely,

And David Rakoff and Mark O’Donnell.

You made us laugh, unlike Mitch McConnell,

But bless him, too—yes, what the hey,

We’ll give him greetings of the day.

Each guest is welcome, so grab a glass,

For Breezy Point a backstage pass,

And Sayreville, Tottenville, and Tottenville Beach,

And everyone who was in the reach

Of wind and water—you from Red Hook,

Long Beach Island, and Old Saybrook.

Now the joint is jumpin’. There’s Laura McPhee,

Adele, and Robert Griffin III.

Claire Danes, Mo Yan, and Gloria Naylor,

Bar Refaeli, and Durston Saylor.

Rahm Emanuel has brought a rose

For Randi Weingarten. You don’t suppose … ?

Here’s Claire McCaskill with Bill T. Jones,

Sandra Fluke, and Mary Soames.

The Yanks have landed! There’s Andy Pettitte.

You came close, guys. Next time you’ll get it.

Pitch one more year, please, won’t you, Mo?

And Derek Jeter—get better, yo?

Chief Justice Roberts, you really oughta

Sit down with Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta—

Gaga, we mean. That’s what she makes us.

Her outfit! Mercy sakes, it shakes us!

Lebron confabs with assorted Heat.

Suri Cruise’s mom looks trig and neat.

With Usain Bolt? It’s Pussy Riot!

Tony Marx cabs up with chic Lynn Wyatt,

Samantha Fox, Samantha Bee,

Samantha Power, and a wheel of Brie.

That Tony, with his thoughtful gifts.

We told him not to … Look, it’s the Swifts!

Taylor & Co.—wow, what a crew—

With Sec. of Energy Steven Chu.

Chris Hedges chats with Dr. Oz.

Rick Perry takes a thoughtful pause

As if he’s trying to remember.

Too late! Because it’s now December.

Move Björk from the door before it hits her.

She’s rockin’ out with ol’ Wolf Blitzer.

Our QBs—Eli, Mark, and Tebow—

And our favorite Bryson, Peabo,

Karen Russell, Russell Banks,

Paul Thomas Anderson, Tom Hanks,

Swizz Beatz, Jim Downey, “S.N.L.” ’s Lorne,

And Matthew Damon (a.k.a. Bourne)

Are playing some kind of parlor game

With a sock, straight shots, and a candy cane.

There go some Romneys! Glad they’re here—

We bought non-alcoholic beer.

Next to the band called Grizzly Bear,

Nate Silver’s grinning, ear to ear.

Barney Frank holds hands with spouse Jim Ready

To show they’re no longer just going steady.

The Olympian presence of Oscar Pistorius

Is lifting the evening to regions more glorious,

While the Castro brothers—ours, not Cuba’s—

Who arrived from Texas with their tubas

(Joaquin’s the congressman, Julián’s the mayor),

Oompah a spirited “Ave Maria.”

Dear friends, you have indulged our screed.

Please take the spirit for the deed.

Frost wrote of “poetry and power”—

We’re grateful just to shave and shower,

And sleep without four blankets on,

And read by Con Ed light till dawn.

Are we declining? We don’t think so.

Just teetering normally on the brink, so

Let’s link arms and raise a chorus

For all that we’ve got going for us.

The future, true, is trending hot.

We’re headed into who-knows-what.

But we’ll take heart this holy night

That work and love will make it right.

And now doze off with a soft “Hurrah!”

For the world, the Obamas, and the health-care law.

theparisreview: The moon goes down like a coin. Spent,even...

Mon, 03 Dec 2012 22:25:54 -0500

theparisreview:

The moon goes down like a coin. Spent,
even memory is becoming a memory.

Any tree would seem to grieve,
what with the hawk lonelinessing
on her desiccated perch.
Her feathers are the opposite of snow.

The day has never been so much the night
and vice versa. And the afternoon
never so much the afternoon.
Meanwhile, meanwhile.

Years ago, a child put a coin
in the crook of this tree.
Now, the sun is drawn up
like a pail from a well.
The pail is poured out and snow.

—John Poch, “Well into Winter”
Art Credit Pablos Herrero

abrilliant-idea: Soon their will be people on the internet that...

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 19:13:16 -0500

abrilliant-idea:

Soon their will be people on the internet that won’t understand this picture.

Tim Tebow’s Dream c-lassic: I want one!

Wed, 28 Nov 2012 22:16:13 -0500

Tim Tebow’s Dream

c-lassic:

I want one!