Drunken Orangetree

daredevil: violence and the sexy male

2016-01-08T16:37:00.006-05:00

"He made me feel safe not because he was gentle but because I knew he was capable of violence and cruelty that I was confident he would never direct at me." Alana Massey, in Matter

I guess I should be a little embarrassed about this, but the first thing that came to mind was Daredevil, particularly the Daredevil depicted in Netflix's version of the story. This could be Karen Page talking about her experience with the man in the mask (as she considers him). And note also Foggy's reaction to learning that Matt is actually the man in the mask: why doesn't Matt use the law, the way that the law is supposed to work?

Murdock's response is the story about the guy abusing his little girl, about the mother denying it, about the law's ineptitude and inaction in the case. The only way to deal with this situation is by beating the crap out of the horrible father and threatening him with further violence.

Of course we don't believe that. Let's say this: even when that scene was running I'm saying "i don't believe it." That father will abuse her again inevitably and it will be outside of Matt's super hearing. That little girl will be abused and he won't be able to prevent it. And let's assume for the moment that he could prevent it, that the father was completely imbued with the fear of God, the little girl's trauma will not go away, she still has experienced that horror, and no amount of contusions and lacerations on her miserable father's face will heal that wound. Something else must happen.

Does the series resolve that in any way? Part of the strength of the show is that Kingpin is so damaged himself. The obvious connection between Daredevil and Kingpin is that they both resort to violence to solve their problems. But, we see where Kingpin's backstory. He came from a damaged family, from a violent father, the painting, and the enabling woman. So Kingpin is also the guy that Massey goes out with. Ironically he winds up hurting, indirectly, Vanessa. But the psychology is kinda obvious? We don't see that Kingpin's mother ever abused him, in fact they both reacted to an insupportable situation, with violence, yes, but because violence was the only solution. Little Wilson had to kill his father in the same way that Matt had to beat the crap out of the abusive father.

But Massey still wants to believe in that character, we all do. That's the world we live in? Corrupt cops, judges, and politicians? Ruthless criminals, who will balk at no violence however brutal.

2015-10-25T12:37:00.000-04:00

I wish I knew where this was.

Ruin Porn

2015-04-29T18:30:00.002-04:00

"The sentimental theory of æstheticising the architecture of grimy manufacturing centres."

Reading, April 23

2015-04-23T11:52:00.000-04:00

Here's a link to a poem I like a lot: Factory Town by Austin Smith

napowrimo day 6: aubade

2015-04-06T21:50:00.000-04:00

Good morning, red-shouldered hawk.
Like me you rise for breakfast,
you perch on the telephone wire
that leads to my computer.

You must be dangerous
but the cottontail
continues to browse
the garden while the gray
squirrel fearlessly raids
the feeder:
his own drive-up window.

Why won't you eat? I wouldn't
miss any of those critters,
the felonious squirrel, the fecund
rabbit, and your stern and querying
gaze is sympathetic to my mood
as I browse the news and the
lastest outrage.

The squirrel's more ambitious than me.
He turns over the soil to bury his acorns
and piqued by your presence
till he cannot abide it
begins to chase you away
feinting towards you till you
fly away. I understand. The noisy ones
drive me crazy too.

napowrimo day 2

2015-04-02T22:39:00.001-04:00

Orion is asking something of me.
I take off my specs, I
hunt by my deciduous
feet, descendent from
my despicable heart,
and arrows arose
their points so sharp
they might break your
skin: if only you could
keep them honed
and only home can do
what we want, only heart,
only heat, at the hearth
where that lonely huntsman
dying just out of reach
of some redeeming
god or goddess, her heart
aching, for your piteous
state, for her futility,
and so you will never
taste her sweet lips again.

napowrimo day 1: incredible shrinking man

2015-04-01T18:32:00.000-04:00

“. . . we were very small and very far away.”

--Steven Millhauser

. . . as infinitesimal

as the facets of a single

grain of salt where I

now stand and see,

beneath me a further

row of facets through

the glassy floor of the salt

a rougher texture than I

expected—gritty, like salt

rubbed between

the thumb and fingertip,

now so huge, like two air

ships colliding

majestically above me

and grinding between

their whorled

surfaces more salt.

A grain in my eye is burning

and now I see it’s

another cube

and now I slip between

the molecules

themselves as big as airships

Beyond my sight

something I cannot

encompass: no ladder

no grain, no airship

only something

very small and very

far away that looks

back at me.

napowrimo 2

2014-11-14T10:57:00.002-05:00

Ask and Embla

drifted up from the water
no arms to hold each other

They must have come
from some forest
tripped off the edge
worn out trees once

a dead trunk on a rocky coast
rocking back and forth in some shallow
sand wore them down
no bark no bite no wit

till gods gave them
spirit sense blood and color

wooden expression

Embla's breath through
blood flows
the color of fire

They'll become trees again

definition

2014-09-23T18:28:00.001-04:00

Little bats scrabbling along rusted bridges and pinging the rivets with their echo location. That's music.

Orcas holding their breath while they wait for clueless seals to wander down to the water's edge. That's music.

Ancient vibration so slack it won't move my eardrum the width of an atom. That's music

The old priest humming through his head as he feels the air drift away on Olympus Mons: that's music.

The broken-winded centaur's battered lyre dreaming up the broken-winged fairy: that's music.

Aug 20, '14

2014-09-12T22:52:00.000-04:00

I went down to the creek
behind my house because
that's where things happen:

the Loreleis chanting,
the water moccasins's nest.

Someone told me the property line
is mid-way through the creek.
How to find out?
Google?
Hall
of Records? "Sir, this is a hall
of records, not a lending library."

I'm puzzled by my need
to own a swath of
flowing water.
Heraclitus wags
his admonitory beard.

Down there someone threw
into one of the honeysuckles
a bread wrapper filled
with his dog's filth.
.

Ah, home ownership.
If I were renting I could call the landlord:
clean up your shit,
but now it's mine
and the creek won't wash it. away.

2014-08-10T01:44:00.000-04:00

How would his flesh feel as you molded it with your fists? Would it be like kneading bread? Shove his body in the oven and cook it with your rage. Break off little pieces and feed them to your children. How does the abuser's blood taste in your mouth? Will you ever get your fill?

Neil Childish

2014-07-24T16:35:00.002-04:00

Down by the river, I smoked my doobie.

shoe gaze albums

2014-05-22T00:02:00.002-04:00

20 Best Shoegaze Albums

haiku May 21

2014-05-21T20:43:00.000-04:00

I'm busied by the lilac's scent, the larks' bright yellow, the rain in the grass.

Galaxy Magazine

2014-03-31T22:24:00.000-04:00

I just put up a link to an archive.org collection of Galaxy Magazine from the 1950s.

American haiku

2014-02-17T20:58:00.000-05:00

Filthy snow outside, but the trees sough, and you smell their wood in the wind.

Locomotive

2014-02-12T22:46:00.000-05:00

I was so immense, and gray,

my gray forbidding,
solemn, almost grave
and my cowcatcher formidable:
teeth of iron, a cowcruncher

but that's not what I want to talk about
I want to talk about filth

the snow filthy with coal
and sagebrush rattlers
the redskins piled up like
sausages,
taut with smallpox
and
blood

but that's not what I want to talk about
I want to talk about strength

I blew apart at Tonopah
rivets gashed across
engineers and superman's
chest so who

but that's not what I want to talk about
I want to talk about death

and cars
my cowcatcher would smash a car
and what's inside

and anger

but that's not what I want to talk about

Amy Sacksteder's painting "Alternate Esja" fixes my eye

2014-02-11T18:21:00.000-05:00

"Alternate Esja" Fixes My Eye

Two paintings by the artist Mark Rothko, famous for his bold stripes and squares, may have been hung the wrong way round by curators at a major gallery.

--Telegraph, UK

I remember that London upset:
feet rooted before those troubling strips,
I wanted to bend in their
careless flow, to grow, to branch out,
but gravity staked me upright.

"Alternate Esja" granted me a new perspective:
all paintings are abstractions and not
subject to mere gravity. From far away
even the solid earth becomes gaudy stripes,
snow white, and frigid blue.

It's as though I'm floating in space,

and dizzy with possibilities:
From Reno to Reykjavik,
I consult my inner ear, my inner eye, the landscape
before me, above me or below me.

The artist hurls me round the world,
to get it all sorted out,
to make sense of the roiling
cumuli, the calving glaciers,
the little scraps of iron we call cities.

Which way is up and which is down,
in real or alternate Esja?
Houston, can you hear me?
Listen, Houston: there is no up or down.
Houston, there is no problem.

homage to oscar

2014-02-04T11:15:00.001-05:00

On this cold Ohio night I don't need my glasses to move the garbage bin to the curb, but I wear them so I can see Orion.

2014-02-01T19:07:00.002-05:00

golden age
some marxist will explain this to me

stone age

iron age

lead age
you can't swallow it

Le Guin eg. 5: Chastity

2014-01-25T23:57:00.000-05:00

Ibrahim had come to the edge of the city. The wall, built to stay the unwary, smoothed at its top edge by wind and rain, still testified to the skill of Nineveh's masons, even after four centuries. They had gathered stones, lifted them up using wooden cranes and their own creaking muscles, and jigsawed the stones together so a knife blade could not slip between one and its neighbor. Ibrahim patted the wall, taking comfort in its solidity, but when he looked over the wall he was surprised to see three old women out at the river, washing clothes that tinted the water red.
He was even more surprised when the ground tilted up and dashed him against the parapet, which hit him mid-thigh throwing him to the edge. The drop wasn't far: maybe a hundred feet, but a hundred feet would kill him as surely as a thousand, and his gut rushed up, choking him and numbing his fingers. And just as he was tipping over a force hit his knees and he fell against the wall. compounded of pain and relief.

good post on writing critiques

2013-11-23T16:53:00.001-05:00

This essay by Cathy Day. Also good links to other essays.

2013-11-09T00:21:00.000-05:00

Slender woman on the bus,
erect head cowled in white scarf,
next stop Carmel.
Motionless, amid two plastic backpacks,
another in camo, replete bags, all her
earthly possessions. As though she had
anything else.

her chocolate skin fights off the sun,
her pallor pales:
the complexion of the harassed,
the reluctant prophet amid those
those all-together twice-bound souls.

She's seeking out a juniper tree.
The angel will not let her be,
though her gullet chokes against
the baked-in-ashes cornbread
the messenger provides.

She clutches the collar of her gray hoodie:
it's a cold day, never mind the weatherman,
and she'll keep the bitter wind from her voice,
her throat, her eyes, her mind,
until I can hear what rattles out.

Thirsty

2013-10-01T15:41:00.000-04:00

"Ah! That my heart might open up, to receive and to drink in your fragile and fine little drops of blood, which fell on the ground during your struggle with death." Johann Arndt, 1612.

Henry, why do you drink so much?
God in a bottle, a little bottle
a klein bottle, with red liquor
inside and out
which I uncork for its
frail cabernet.

Where are you going to store your liquor?
In the ground
the filthy ground
and the dirt in my filthy mouth
the teeth broken
sucking up bloody soil

Nothing. Nothing. God's vintage
and Henry's the bottle
filled with liquor
distilled sot
gray and unkempt
but still beautiful

Clobberin' Time

2013-10-01T11:39:00.000-04:00

The Fantastic Four: the great American novel