By Carl Phillips
Coral-bells purpled the fallen sycamore leaves, dead, the dead
versus those who attempted death, versus those who effectively
fashioned out of such attempts a style akin to electric guitar
shimmer swelling and unswelling like starlings when they first
lift off, or like stars when, from their fixed sway, they come
suddenly loose, any man letting at last go of a career spent
swallowing--trying to--catastrophe's jewel-studded tail, un-
swallowable, because
holy, in the way of fanfare, its gift for
persuasion, how it can make of what's ordinary, and therefore
flawed of course, a thing that's holy, for a time it seemed so,
didn't restlessness seem to be, little god of making, no less
impossible in the end than any of the gods, where's the holiness,
they sleep never, they tire infrequently, to be tired bores them,
distraction refined by damage would be their drug of choice
hands down, if they could choose, even they don't get to.
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I had a lot of chores to do Monday but it was still a nice day, both in terms of the weather, which was cool and damp but not too wet for an afternoon walk, and in terms of the entertainment, which was the last two episodes of The Man in the High Castle with Adam in the afternoon while we were taking turns doing laundry, plus some college bowl games (congratulations Navy) and Monday Night Football. Adam's girlfriend visited him in the evening before leaving for the beach.
Around that, we all watched Ex Machina, which was a much better movie than I was expecting -- not really so thoughtful about artificial intelligence, which was why we watched it, as about female bodies under patriarchy (a number of ranting reviews miss the point; if you want to argue about how bodies of color are fetishized, that's fair, though I also think the film is trying to draw real-world parallels in terms of relative privilege). Some more photos from the Gaithersburg light display:
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