UNREMITTING FAILURE

Patriotism

All displays of patriotism are an abomination in our sight.  Yes, we would shoot a five year old waving an American flag at a parade.  But only in the leg.  Somebody has to teach him right from wrong.  Patriotism is the abstract belief that your homeland is not the shithole that all evidence points towards it being.  As such, it is a lie, and a particularly pernicious lie, because with the exception of a handful of countries (Liechtenstein and Costa Rica come to mind) patriotism is used to attract youth to the armed forces, where they are taught to kill the youth of other countries who fell similarly prey to the prevarications of patriotism.  If everybody was taught the truth about their countries, very few people would be willing to die for them, unless of course the pay was good enough, which in America it is the options for most youth who join up being to work at the 7-11 or join the Army.  So maybe teaching kids the truth about their country is as futile as everything else.  Go figure. 

Fireworks

We climbed up onto the roof of Mrs. UF's place last night to watch the fireworks.  They were as underwhelming as usual.  We must be missing some firework gene.  Anyway, while we were up there, the crowd collected on the deck across the alley from us commenced to sing, "God Bless America." We couldn't believe it.  Was it a collection of Republicans? Or were they just assholes?  It's bad enough we have to live in the world leader of hypocrisy, without having our face rubbed in it by a drunken version of the Van Trapp Family Singers.  So we waited for them to finish, and at the top of our lungs commenced to sing "Deutschland Uber Alles."  That gave them something to think about. At least until Mrs. UF punched us in the arm, and told us we were going to get beat up.  Meanwhile, down on the street, people were setting up lawnchairs right in the middle of the street, to get a better view.  This of course brought the cops, who ticketed the one person brave enough to give them lip about it.  We were hoping there'd be a riot, but no, everybody but this one brave woman faded into the woodwork.  Afterwards she threw the ticket up in the air and walked away. But her boyfriend, the worried sort, ran back and picked it up.  This pissed her off even more, and we could hear them arguing the whole way down the street.  Turns out the Home of the Brave is one person strong, and her boyfriend is a pussy.

Twenty Lines

This is our sister's dog, Satchell Paige. It looks positively prehistoric here.  It's a compact (read hefty) pug, and when it runs you can feel the earth shake.  Now lean on over and shake its tongue.

 

The Morning Unremitting Failure

Here we are just out of bed, asking ourselves all kinds of dark questions.  Like, Who am I?  What is the purpose of life? Where the fuck is our coffee?  What kind of shrub are we staring at?  Why doesn't this cigarette taste as good as it should?  How did we manage to cut nearly half our face off while shaving?  What kind of man eats eight mallo cups just before he goes to bed? Is that a garden hose, or a giant black snake? How are we ever going to get up and move again?  Is it really necessary?  

 

Mrs. UF

Playing with fire.  She'd better be careful, or she'll set fire to the sycamore tree.  That would have been cool. 

 

Here's Unremitting Failure

Worshipping the fire. 

 

Maddie

Looking feral.  She does a good feral look when she's stalking through the grass of our sister's back 40. 

 

July 4th

We started a fire at our sister's place in York and lit sparklers and this is, we think, a lovely pic of Mrs. UF holding a sparkler.  We didn't buy any big fireworks because they terrify the doggies. Instead we made do with sparklers and a roaring fire and marshmallows the size of human fists.  A good time was had by all. 

 

It's a Lack of Empathy

And a lack of empathy alone, that makes human life possible.  If one were to really feel the universal condition, one would have one of two recourses: suicide, or sainthood. 

Gustave Courbet, The Origin of the World

Well here it is.  What Robert Hughes, the art critic, called the most transgressive art work of the 19th century.  Courbet was like, "You want it, well here it is.  In your face!"  We can only imagine the response it received.  It's still shocking, even in an era of free online pornography, probably because of the frame.  Or that's what we think anyway.  The frame changes everything.  It lets you know you're looking at great art, but the great art you're looking at is not what you expect to see when you look at great art.  It's blush worthy.  And also beautiful.  Every other artist thought they were making a statement, Picasso thought he was making a statement, but only Courbet was making a statement.  He was saying, "Here's where it all begins.  The beauty.  The dream.  The mystery.  The disaster movie that never ends."