Exhortation: Easing the Spring
Japonica Glistens Like Coral in the Neighboring Gardens
Hello and thank you once again for attending Sublime Prosaic’s spring open house. Your volunteerism has been noted and duly recorded. Happy Masters and Coachella weekend 1 livestream weekend to all those who celebrate.
Whether you’re taking one of the sports world’s grandest induced naps (the low, slow cadence of golf commentary with chirping birds is an unbeatable sleep aid), or getting high alone on your couch to watch the strangest/most brazen Coachella lineup to date, we’re now into the start of the long, promising stretch of seasonal abundance.
The title above is taken from Henry Reed’s Naming of Parts (1942), the first entry in his six part poem Lessons of the War. The poem has a nice seasonal pun, but has also proven a lasting meditation for me on the sharp contrast between our seasonal rhythms and the planet’s.1
Naming of Parts
To-day we have naming of parts. Yesterday,
We had daily cleaning. And to-morrow morning,
We shall have what to do after firing. But to-day,
To-day we have naming of parts. Japonica
Glistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,
And to-day we have naming of parts.This is the lower sling swivel. And this
Is the upper sling swivel, whose use you will see,
When you are given your slings. And this is the piling swivel,
Which in your case you have not got. The branches
Hold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,
Which in our case we have not got.This is the safety-catch, which is always released
With an easy flick of the thumb. And please do not let me
See anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easy
If you have any strength in your thumb. The blossoms
Are fragile and motionless, never letting anyone see
Any of them using their finger.And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of this
Is to open the breech, as you see. We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.They call it easing the Spring: it is perfectly easy
If you have any strength in your thumb: like the bolt,
And the breech, and the cocking-piece, and the point of balance,
Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossom
Silent in all of the gardens and the bees going backwards and forwards,
For to-day we have naming of parts.
The jasmine is in full bloom, and it’s Friday everywhere. You’ve drilled as much as you can, now get a bead on your weekend.
Internet Bycatch
Seasonal warm water upwellings bring algal blooms and points of interest.
The Los Angeles Olympic Games have shared their visual design language/identity for 2028: Superbloom. It’s pretty good.
Theodore Payne’s California natives garden tour is back again for this weekend. Recommended for quelling misanthropic and homicidal urges.
Neat video of the restoration of Yves Klein’s Blue Monochrome. It’s very blue (and there’s a special texture that makes it so).
From Variety, an in-depth interview with the creators of my second favorite long-running and absurd comedy series: On Cinema at the Cinema.2 Describing this project as a slow burn is a grand understatement. This show started started in 2011 as a simple podcast and a send up of all the needless “expertise” pouring in from arm chair experts across the internet, and has now spawned a parody of FOX’s dumb political/terror thriller, 24, a political campaign documentary (Mr. America), several live tours, and a five-hour long murder trial (concerning the murder-by-poisonous-vape of 19 or 20 underage victims at an electronic musical festival in apple Valley). The comedic duo Gregg Turkington and Tim Heidecker (playing fictional versions of themselves as co-hosts of the program) have just wrapped up their latest live Oscar special, and show no signs of slowing down.
The universe created by the series requires about 97 hours to catch up (and multiple spin-off pieces of content), so here’s a catch up video from 9 years ago covering the first 9 seasons.
Simon Crompton helps you consider different colors of linen. If you’re far along in your sartorial journey, this might just help reinforce what great choices (or mistakes) you’ve made, but if you’re just starting out it can also help save money.
Congratulations to Afro Man on his victory at trial (and thank God local news still exists).
Joey Santore, a man who loves plants and hates much of what we all collectively get up to on a daily basis, is out with a new series. The title: Spiritually Depraved & Misery-Inducing Landscapes of North America. This one got a “9 out of 10, bleak as hell” from the host.
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For whatever reason, we were given this poem to read in high school. It gets top marks for being a poem I can remember at all (and fondly) decades later.