Info Desk Blogging

We had an All-Staff meeting at the library this morning. I always forget they're happening. If I remembered I wouldn't have anything to eat before I left the house because there's always food laid out in the break room -- bagels and muffins and melon and coffee. So I had a cup of coffee, a couple melon slices, and half a muffin, and skipped my usual snack at my 10:30 break. The new Peet's has opened up across the street. I walked over there and poked around -- yes, decent seating, a basket by the door for abandoned newspapers. The croissants are $1.95; at Starbucks they are $1.75. I didn't price the coffee.

Hm. Pretty quiet in here. Next week we'll be closed at this time because of the budget cuts. I may take a different Info Desk hour. Or not have one.

Nothing much happened at the All-Staff meeting. After the anxieties of previous All-Staff meetings, what with looming cuts and possible job losses, it was nice to sit and watch a video about the new RFID (radio frequency i.d.) inventory system -- once, that is, the tech folks figured out how to run the DVD.

... Had a rush of phone calls there and a few folks stopping at the desk. Aw, he's cute. Nice to get a smile as he goes by. A little girl comes by wearing a pink cloud of cape, like a princess superhero. A mother asks me to tell her son that skipping is not allowed. Oh, I don't want to do that. So I say, "Well, our floors are very hard and we do ask you to be extra careful moving around as anyone falling on them could get hurt." He puts his hands over his ears, then pulls the brim of his baseball cap over his eyes.

no version 6?

I didn't post version 6 because it's barely a version. It's just a word or two different from version 5. If I'd thought about it I wouldn't have versioned on to 7. But I didn't. Not like it's a big deal or anything.

"Interoceptor" version 7

When no dog unhooked from leather leash
heaved himself at the frisbee with the chewed edge,
when no towel unfolded,

when, brown bottles broken in the coals,
old fires’ only motions in log-hid holes
were the falling-in of new sand,

when, cold with sea the wind,
hurried to my mouth,
the cold of it starting tears,

when, yellow foam crackling,
the surf rolled unroped kelp heads and seagrapes
hissed,

when, between washes, sand flea burrows
bubbled open, and, carried over them,
not one gull cut the white with her gray,

when no striped umbrella puffed,
no sunscreen shone on a red shoulder,
and no sand knew turret or moat,

when, in the dark spaces of dunes
no one turned to touch, and there were grasses
sliding merely against grasses, I

stretched out my arms,
the one in stiff cotton standing,
the one in hard shoes,

was shore,
was white, wide,
sand, water, and I

let the wind, warmer, go.

Info Desk Blogging

Nobody wants my Sunday hours, it seems. Golly, in these days of staff cuts ... oops! A coworker has come through for me. Wow. Now I take back all my grumpy ungratefulness. Right? Right!

Only a couple people have come up to the Info Desk. Several phone calls.

When I told the Circulation Supervisor that someone had volunteered to do my Sunday she sighed and said there are so few people she can trade with that she ends up working Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. This coming Sunday, due to budget cuts, is the last Sunday the library will open. Is that the bright side? Frankly, I don't mind Sundays, I just don't want to work this one. If there were future Sundays maybe I could've found someone to trade with.

Just now had a patron, new to Berkeley, who wanted to know what American Sign Language (ASL) videotapes we had. Not many. He started the query by writing a note and I responded with my halting sign. So he switched to sign and, other than the annoyance of dumbing down for me (fingerspelling when I looked more confused than usual), he seemed pleased by my effort.

The usual questions otherwise: where are the restrooms? how do I get a library card? this book isn't on the shelf, could you have someone search for it for me?

A patron just donated a stack of videos and CDs. From "Good Will Hunting" to Enrique Iglesias.

from "The Tapir's Morning Bath"

A couple quotes from The Tapir's Morning Bath: Mysteries of the Tropical Rain Forest and the Scientists who are Trying to Solve Them by Elizabeth Royte:

"Save the rain forest and all it contains because it is there. Because it is wondrous and interesting. Because it has a right to exist. The more I contemplated what the loss of such places felt like to me, the more I began to think that some of these 'higher' reasons for conservation might be just as utilitarian as the food and gas arguments. ... To contemplate things we don't understand, to conserve that which has no 'use' ... If the rain forest and its complexity disappeared, we'd be impoverished intellectually and spiritually, as well as materially."

And one of the more amusing examples of the rain forest research: "In 1981, two researchers working in Panama [where Tapir author Royte has been studying scientists] baited traps with human feces and came up with twenty-two species of dung beetle in one location. Human scat, far more than that of any other rain forest mammal, is the type most avidly sought by dung beetles -- in some locations, up to fifty different species have congregated on devoted researchers' samples -- and the type most quickly sequestered."

[A description of the dung beetle's sequestering process:] "Using her front legs, the beetle worked the stuff into a ball, then rolled it backward while walking toward the leaf's edge [this beetle was collecting monkey dung from high in a tree]. When the ball and beetle fell to earth, the dung beetle fortified herself with a few mouthfuls, then laid her eggs in the remaining ball so that the larvae had something to fatten upon when they emerged."

On the brighter side

Seems a scholar has uncovered a poem by Abraham Lincoln.

“Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,
And this the place to do it:
This heart I’ll rush a dagger through
Though I in hell should rue it! . . .

Sweet steel! Come forth from out your sheath,
And glist'ning, speak your powers;
Rip up the organs of my breath,
And draw my blood in showers!

I strike! It quivers in that heart
Which drives me to this end;
I draw and kiss the bloody dart,
My last—my only friend!”

Thanks for John Pawlik at Melic Review's discussion board for posting the poem where I could come across it.

an intemperate letter

I wrote a letter today. I got all steamed upon reading this article by Carolyn Blockhead ... oops, Lochhead at SFGate, the San Francisco Chronicle's website. I haven't sent the letter. It's quite intemperate, perhaps even unfair. After writing the letter I searched for other articles she'd written on SFGate and found some in which her vileness was not so obvious, so, I don't know, I don't want to accuse her of being completely evil in every circumstance when it's just that she occasionally beats small puppies to death with her wedgies.

Dear Right Wing Tool,

It sickens me that your article contained quotes only from those who want to destroy my family. Is there in your Rolodex not one single sane person? Considering the evidence of the article I'd say there isn't; you quote Tony Perkins (the president of the Family Research Council, whose only research consists of how to twist the truth in order to destroy families), Robert Knight (of Concerned Women of America, which would be more aptly named Women Against Women and Other Human Beings), John Cornyn (of the Texas Republicans who proudly announce their desire to see America Taliban-ized in a viciously Christian manner) ... and, oh, who's that I see?, way down in the article's 20th paragraph, it's a spokesperson from the Human Rights Campaign, a pro-family organization here identified as a "gay lobby that ... endorsed Kerry." Forgive me for overlooking her negligible contribution. To sum up the perfidy of the article, the concluding quote, naturally, is given to none-other-than the infamous Lou Sheldon, a longtime opponent of love and advocate of the destruction of families, yet he is not identified as such, instead being tagged merely with the sweetly cruel name of his organization, the Traditional Values Coalition; he's not even given the courtesy of being tied to George W. Bush by an "endorsement" or has he not done that? Has he endorsed Satan, an only slightly more moderate force? As I doubt you are ashamed by the brazen bias of this act of unreal journalism asking for something approaching ethical behavior from you in the future would be a waste of our time. Instead, I should say congratulations on placing this piece of shit in the SF Chronicle and have fun with your paycheck.

yours sincerely etc

OK. Now. More on Carolyn Lochhead? Maybe she's a lezzie. After all there's an article by her at something called "the Independent Gay Forum." Her article talks about how nervous those uptighty gays of the right are made by dykes on bikes and flouncy queens in pride parades. The article was originally published in "Reason magazine" ... it makes such odd claims as, "a quite different path [to gay acceptance in America] is ... emerging and appears to be gaining popularity among the gay intellectual and political elite ... The values of this new politics are far more traditional, even conservative, and yet its demands are also much more radical. [It seems, by "radical" Lochhead means what used to be called assimilationist, that is, being just like a normal person except in the sex of the other in the bed.] [This new gay movement] enjoys a distinctly American [?] moral appeal that disarms opponents, even as its radicalism inspires a fierce, instinctive opposition. [Instinctive? No, dear, this is a learned behavior.]"

I'd better stop now as, in the heat of passion, I have committed a crime of rhetoric. I've interposed my own judgments within the writing I quoted. That's a big no-no. Ah, but today's entry is all no-nos ...

That "Independent Gay Forum" seems to be pushing a dump-on-the-queers and praise the Republicans (2 laudatory articles on Ronald Reagan featured on today's homepage) sort of "Independent Forum." I tend to think it's better there's an Andrew Sullivan openly gay than a Roy Cohn closeted, but I'll have to disagree with Sullivan nearly as often as with Cohn. Ah, the war of liberation in Iraq, Andy, it's been fun!

Getting back to Lochhead, it seems she really is a right wing tool. My instincts were spot on! The more I google her the less appealing she becomes. She feeds lies to the lie-lapping Weekly Standard. She will pen an impassioned article about Welfare "reform" in which she will assert that the worst thing you can do for poor mothers is give them money. And what politician makes Carolyn cream her jeans? Why, the "principled, honest, intelligent and thoughtful" Richard Lugar!

But maybe Carolyn Lochhead can be depended on to make less than happy noises about Saudi Arabia.

We'll see.

Info Desk Blogging

Lovely warm day here in Berkeley.

An older couple, having looked through a shelf of books on kitchen remodeling, comes to the desk and asks if I could figure out whether we still have a book the woman checked out a few years ago that featured some sort of "European cabinets." She gestures, "The doors are flush." The library catalog's descriptions of the contents of the books is not so thorough. After doing some catalog searches and finding out more or less what they already know, I send them upstairs to the Reference Desk. "The librarians have been here a long time," I say. "Maybe one will remember the very book you are looking for."

Next question. Hours for the Friends bookstore? Why does my card not work? Phone rings, no one there. Man walking in the door waves his arms, "Now I just need a TV!" (Referring to the racks of videos?) A map to the different library branches? Card stolen, yes, you can have the Circulation Desk cancel it. Put some books on hold? yes, pick them up at the Circ Desk. Which "Beatles Anthology" videotape covers their Magical Mystery Tour? We can send the videotape "Lady Day" to South Branch. Yes, I can show you how to look up your library account.

The parking garage next door is being torn down to make room for an apartment complex called, "The Library Gardens." Sadly, the construction will block our Western views, including the lovely view from the 5th floor Art & Music, no more sunsets with the Golden Gate Bridge. On the bright side we'll get unobstructed views of people's kitchens and bedrooms.

more comments on version 5

So much for the enthusiasm born of creation. Boy, that first stanza hesitates and lunges and hesitates ... not till the fourth stanza and the dog does the poem get a rhythm going ... the dog from the poem's first version, the dog that isn't there ... one of my favorite lines has long been "brown bottles broken in the coals of old fires" and this version "brown bottles broken in the coals, / old fires' only motions in log-hid holes / were the falling-in of new sand" is pretty clever and maybe it succeeds in saving the music ... unlike, say, "cold with sea, / my tears the only other salt wet, / the wind to my mouth came, its only place to warm," which has no tune.

comments on version 5

Too many "only"s ... otherwise, this is lots closer than earlier versions (1, 2, 3, 4) ...

"Interoceptor", version 5

When, cold with sea,
my tears the only other salt wet,
the wind to my mouth came, its only place to warm,

when, crackling yellow foam,
the surf tore among black kelp heads,
then tugged back to mend,

when, between washes, sand flea burrows
bubbled open, and, carried over them,
not even a gull cut the white noise with her wry blade,

when no dog unhooked from leather leash
heaved himself at the frisbee with the chewed edge,
when no towel unfolded,

when, in the dark spaces of dunes
no one turned to touch, and there were grasses
sliding merely against grasses,

when, brown bottles broken in the coals,
the old fires’ only motions in log-hid holes
were the falling-in of new sand, I

stretched out my arms,
the one standing in stiff cotton, in hard shoes,
no striped umbrella opened, no sunscreen bottle leaking,

was shore,
wide, white, water, sand,
blown through, all the long way through.

info desk blogging

Susan, the children's reference librarian who's been my Info Desk partner, has to cover for someone else who left the library so won't be doing this Info hour anymore. Because the library had to absorb a 10% across-the-board cut, as of July 1st hours will be cut. My 11-12 Tuesday Info Desk hour will evaporate since the library won't even open until noon. Too bad. As I work in Technical Services (behind the scenes desk job) it is kind of nice to have a little hour out here with ze publique.

Even the whiny unhappy segment.

careers

Here is an article about a therapist, Dr. Stephanie LaFarge, who counsels animal abusers hoping her intervention prevents the animal abuse from being rehearsal for human abuse. I found the article because I was curious about Nim Chimsky, a chimpanzee who was raised in a human family. ("Nim Chimsky" was so named because the researchers were hoping to disprove linguist Noam Chomsky's contention that the human language capacity is inborn, thus cannot be taught to nonhuman animals.) The young woman who took Nim into her family is the therapist who now "stands between [abusers] and their next victim, or victims."

"Joey Cohen (not his real name) was perhaps LaFarge's most frightening client. 'He just went through the motions to satisfy the court,' she says. Joey came from a wealthy family and somehow got a mail-order bride from China. She arrived with her daughter and her daughter's shar-pei. One afternoon, the daughter walked in on Joey sodomizing the dog. She called the police and had him arrested. The wife and daughter fled. The dog was taken to the ASPCA's clinic, where Dr. Robert Reisman, one of the A's eleven full-time veterinarians, adapted a human rape kit on the spot in an attempt to collect evidence of human sperm from the dog. Because sexual crimes against dogs are surprisingly common -- and illegal in New York -- Reisman is now working on creating a canine rape kit, so that forensic evidence of sexual abuse can be collected and standardized.

Joey pleaded guilty to the cruelty charges and was sentenced to the intervention program. But the psychotherapy had little positive effect. 'Joey is not sexually attracted to dogs,' LaFarge explains. 'He's sexually out of control. He was so overstimulated by my attention, and the door being closed during the therapy, that he was at risk of being sexually out of control with me.' Before his treatment with LaFarge even began, Joey moved on to humans, masturbating in front of a woman sitting in a parked car. He was arrested, but the woman failed to show up in court. The case was dismissed. Today, Joey is a free man.

LaFarge doesn't keep track of Joey, in part because she doesn't think it would do any good. 'I called him once and he was convinced that I was calling because I missed him,' she says ruefully. During their conversation, she was aware that he was masturbating. 'It's only a matter of time until something else happens,' says LaFarge. But there's nothing more she can do.

When asked if she thinks any of her clients have the potential to become serial killers, LaFarge replies, 'Many of them do. The scary thing is, you never know which ones.'"

home from the Mom

Home from a visit to Mom. She's staying with my brother and his wife. Sis-in-law is Mom's main caregiver these days. Having me there gave her a chance to run to the store or whatever. Not like I took on work, I was there to hold Mom's hand and smile at her.

Mom is so much changed. Was I shocked by the change? Yes. Her face sometimes takes on a vacant look I've never seen before. She utters one slow word at a time. And sometimes she seems clear on what she's saying and understands what's said to her.

K & I took Sarah (sis-in-law) to an early dinner when a respite care worker was available to look after Mom. Sarah said she seldom gets to have an adult conversation these days. Though I've always resisted thinking of old folks as becoming children again and found younger people bossing them around distasteful I fell into a daddy-like role with Mom, reminding her how to shift her weight in order to stand, telling her it was time to go to bed. She most frequently referred to my brother as "your father." Once "my father", once "my husband." Did she ever call him her son?

nothing more boring

Nothin' more boring than writing about technical glitches, eh? But I'm a little miffed at having had to publish that last post 3 times -- Sunday, Monday, and today. Maybe tomorrow, too?

I've been telling myself I'd try out some of Blogger's new features. Could happen, right?

I'm blogging at the Info Desk at the library, which is probably a no-no. But, what the heck. It could get busy any time and I'm lo --

OK. Three questions in a row: Where's the fiction section? Where do I return books? Where can I return these tapes?

One of the circulation supervisors just came by, seems there was a patron last night who came to the desk 5 minutes to closing (after the money drawer had been put away) and protested not being allowed to check out books even though she had a $23 fine. "But they knew I owed money last Friday and they let me check out books!" Seems ms. patron had come up 5 min to closing the previous Friday and the desk worker bent the rules because it was too late to take money that evening. Ah, yes. So the patron, finding out the rules can be gamed gamely tries the gambit again. Circ supe was distinctly unamused.

Phone call: No, we don't seem to have "Sacramento Book", a history of Sacramento by David Niven, name same as the actor.

Don't know why the due date of one of the parts of a DVD series has been checked out for 2 months -- maybe checked out to mending?

Had to run off and check shelf for books with pictures of the White House for a patron on the phone. Found 2 of 3.

"I need to make change." I direct her to the circulation desk.

My Info Desk partner, Susan, tells me she's off to the sorting area in the back to look for an item. So it's all on me now.

Boom boom boom, question after question: Magazines are on the 2nd floor, as are bathrooms, as is internet access (also on the 3rd floor); cancel a library card at the circulation desk; yes, you can borrow one of those little pencils; no, we haven't been able to locate the item you requested ... ring! ring!

Susan's returned so she got that last call.

Oops! Time to go! Relief is here!

saving email

I've been saving email to a Word file because my yahoo account is at 99%. I think it's at 98% now.

If these were paper letters they'd be dropped into a box. And would I ever look at them again? Oh, I don't know.

From what would the "Selected Letters" book be culled?

I've never read a collection of letters. Not all the way through. I've picked them up and read a paragraph here and there. Mostly they're pretty dull. Somebody must be reading these books. I find published journals dull, too. I find my own journals dull.

When I spent a semester in London my English teacher had us read Boswell's London journal. I can remember almost nothing about it. Except that it was dull. The teacher assigned us journals of our own. A great souvenir, he said. I actually kept two journals. One in which I wrote what I thought, a censored one for class. Teacher said he greatly enjoyed the one I turned in and wished someday he'd have the opportunity to read the other.

I understand Anne Frank wrote then rewrote her diaries.

Diaries are life without the story. We try to make the story as we go along. The autobiography (or the biography) sees the life as a whole and chooses from the past what is remembered, what there is record of, and what helps the story along.

I keep a diary. I don't write daily. I probably write less frequently in the diary than in the poetry notebook. There have been gaps in diarykeeping of months. I don't think that's happened with the poetry. Oh I've attempted fiction and that has taken the poetry energy. Maybe for months once or twice.

I tried once to construct a work out of my mother's letters. Part of my mistake there was showing her and expecting encouragement. She did not much like rereading her letters, nor did she like it when I edited them. Mom is not a storyteller. Neither am I, really. Not that either of us incapable of narrative. But I saw material to rework and she saw telling the truth about her life and the truth is not something you mess around with to get a better story. Not that I was trying to get a better story. Story wasn't it. I was trying to make an art object. I liked her lunch menus, for instance. Her weather reports.

I may yet go back to that. It's one of the projects. So many projects. Few will get done. Most will simply cease being worked on.

thinking alike

I read Ron Silliman's Blog frequently. It helps that he posts new stuff nearly every day. Unlike me. If you read this blog frequently it would mean committing the stuff to memory. Once or twice a week me. Tho' there are odd days like today (a day off from work) when I post 2 or more times).

Considering that just yesterday I posted notes similar to these on Silliman's Blog (exerpts):

"[Concerning poetry contests judged 'blind':] ... there is no method known to human beings to remove the social from a social practice, but this is what would be required to fully expunge personal preference from the process of identifying “the best” manuscript. For the most part, blind screening such as is done, for example, by that National Endowment for the Arts, simply inserts a filter of incompetence as a randomizing factor. But ultimately the judges, real human beings, will sort what makes it through this literary spawning challenge to select those texts to which they most respond. [My bold. "texts to which they most respond" is what in practice editors / judges mean when they say "best" ... There is no such thing as an objective Best in poetry. -- Glenn]

[...]

What seems to me more disturbing, actually, is the idea anyone would have that a prize, whether it’s the Nobel or Jimmy’s Crush List, represents some kind of “objective” or “impartial” validation. That isn’t how prizes work – it’s the other way around: the winner validates the prize. Or not, as the case may be. Consider, for example, the Oscars. Does anyone imagine that giving the Best Picture award to a film such as Rocky or Chicago or Out of Africa means that these celluloid dogs can dance? ... It’s this need for external validation that strikes me as sad, finally, though I’m sure I crave it just as badly as the next human being, maybe more. What makes it sad is what it says about how our culture doesn’t let us value the act of writing itself, for its own sake, as its own reward." [My bold -- GI]

wedding party

A nice Boston Globe article about the first gay weddings there (excerpts):

"What started in the afternoon [of May 16] as a sedate lawn party in front of City Hall, with running children, glow sticks, and panting dogs, had by midnight become a celebration so huge that it was hard to walk across the thin lawn without getting a face full of bubbles, knocking into someone with a sign reading “Mazel Tov,” or colliding with women singing “Going to the Chapel” accompanied by a brass band.

The cheer that went up at about 10 minutes past midnight, when it became clear that the first gay couple had filed their application for a marriage license, was so long and so loud that it nearly drowned out the final strains of Mendelssohn’s wedding march.

By 12:30 a.m. [May 17] those cheers were erupting every minute or two, as each couple emerged from the building, marching down an impromptu aisle cleared by the crowd, one step closer to full-fledged marriage.

By then the throngs had spilled into the center of Massachusetts Avenue, which police closed off from Central Square to Harvard Square. It was filled with local well-wishers, college students in school T-shirts, families from nearby towns who came out to cheer their friends. Some threw rice, others roses, and one man passed out cupcakes with pink hearts on them.

[...]

Inside, there were more people than could fit in the City Council chamber or the overlooking balcony so couples waiting to apply for marriage licenses clustered on stairways that had been draped with bunting, some holding hands, some chatting with friends. They held gifts they had been given from supporters outside -- flowers, Mardi Gras style beads. Some were garishly flashing oversized rings on their fingers."

Sounds a bit like the happy hoopla at San Francisco City Hall when Mayor Newsom started handing out marriage licenses Valentine's weekend.

regretful soldier

I followed a link in one of the diaries at dailykos to get to this Sacramento Bee interview with a Marine returned from Iraq (excerpts follow):

"Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey was a hard-core, some say gung-ho, Marine. ... [Massey:] 'There was this one particular incident - and there's many more - the one that really pushed me over the edge. It involved a car with Iraqi civilians. From all the intelligence reports we were getting, the cars were loaded down with suicide bombs or material. That's the rhetoric we received from intelligence. They came upon our checkpoint. We fired some warning shots. They didn't slow down. So we lit them up.

Q: Lit up? You mean you fired machine guns?

A: Right. Every car that we lit up we were expecting ammunition to go off. But we never heard any. Well, this particular vehicle we didn't destroy completely, and one gentleman looked up at me and said: "Why did you kill my brother? We didn't do anything wrong." That hit me like a ton of bricks.'

[...]

Q: Who gave the order to wipe the demonstrators out [a small group of unarmed civilians]?

A: Higher command. We were told to be on the lookout for the civilians because a lot of the Fedayeen and the Republican Guards had tossed away uniforms and put on civilian clothes and were mounting terrorist attacks on American soldiers. The intelligence reports that were given to us were basically known by every member of the chain of command. The rank structure that was implemented in Iraq by the chain of command was evident to every Marine in Iraq. The order to shoot the demonstrators, I believe, came from senior government officials, including intelligence communities within the military and the U.S. government.

Q: What kind of firepower was employed?

A: M-16s, 50-cal. machine guns.

Q: You fired into six or ten kids? Were they all taken out?

A: Oh, yeah. Well, I had a "mercy" on one guy. When we rolled up, he was hiding behind a concrete pillar. I saw him and raised my weapon up, and he put up his hands. He ran off. I told everybody, "Don't shoot." Half of his foot was trailing behind him. So he was running with half of his foot cut off.'

[...]

[Massey:] DU [Depleted Uranium] is everywhere on the battlefield. If you hit a tank, there's dust.

Q: Did you breath any dust?

A: Yeah.

Q: And if DU is affecting you or our troops, it's impacting Iraqi civilians.

A: Oh, yeah. They got a big wasteland problem.

Q: Do Marines have any precautions about dealing with DU?

A: Not that I know of. Well, if a tank gets hit, crews are detained for a little while to make sure there are no signs or symptoms. American tanks have depleted uranium on the sides, and the projectiles have DU in them. If an enemy vehicle gets hit, the area gets contaminated. Dead rounds are in the ground. The civilian populace is just now starting to learn about it. Hell, I didn't even know about DU until two years ago. You know how I found out about it? I read an article in Rolling Stone magazine. I just started inquiring about it, and I said "Holy s---!"'

Massey also talks about cluster bombs, which seem to spread small bomblets all around which explode if stepped upon. One of the soldiers in Massey's command stepped on one of these and lost a leg. And he was (minimally) trained in what not to step on. Iraqis haven't had opportunity for such training.

Lettrists

The Lettrists? "Lettrism is the almost-forgotten visual poetry movement of the twentieth century. Preceding the concrete poetry movement by almost a decade, the world all but ignored the Lettrists during its infatuation with the concretists in the 1960s and ’70s. ... Lettrism was the creation of Isodore Isou, a Romanian who moved to Paris in the mid-1940s before he could even speak French. ... His ideas were simple enough: To atomize language. To reject the idea of language and the word itself as the exalted conveyors of meaning. To reduce art to its most elemental form, the atom of language, the letter. ... Lettrist visual poetry rarely includes readable words, rarely even includes readable letters.

[ ... ]

Lettrism is the bridge between Dadaism and concrete poetry, between the now-quaint avant-garde and the always-sedate avant-garde. ... The Lettrists broke into more factions (the Ultra-Lettrists, the Situationists) and made fewer friends [than the concrete poets & Dadaists]." -- Geof Huth

Huth includes links to Lettrist works so go on over to dbpq (the "Letrrists" link above) to check 'em out.