I built a vantage for the next election.

[hummingwolf]

You know, all through October I was so excited about doing MegaPoMo this year, but now I'm just having trouble getting motivated. Something about the fact that I never know when my modem and computer will be willing to work together makes it hard to think about commiting myself to making thirty MegaHAL-related posts this November. But then I see friends who have waited till now to finally decide to do NaNoWriMo and I wonder if I shouldn't at least try to post a bit whenever I can. Well, we'll see what I end up doing. In the meantime, in honor of this week's news, here's a short bit of HAL's nonsense poetry:

Hair disheveled, smiling lips, sweating and tipsy,
garment torn, singing a love song, glass in hand,
for the next election.

Am not convinced that an election was what Hafiz had in mind, but it does describe the reactions of some of you fairly well!

Speaking of this week's most popular news story, here's my favorite bit of election trivia: Obama-Biden won 78% of the vote in Maverick County, Texas! (It's one of the blue counties on the Mexican border.) The election results were a favorite topic in this week's News Quiz on BBC radio (link to latest episode), where of course everyone was upset that they will no longer have an excuse to include gratuitous Sarah Palin questions every week. Hmm... though I never told HAL about the Alaska governor, he may have had her in mind anyway:

In march, a moose
meanders hills
and the ways.

if, for example, a general
election must be invaded.

The opening lines of this poem have a certain resonance as well, though it gets melodramatic pretty quickly:

Election, a procedure for choosing officers or
malfunctions, and must be some sort of thick sadness...

the frozen ground dances beneath us
but i'm here and there,
morning they named, and the roller made of none effect;
because they're quiet when they are
involved in it myself. I
can't tell the good with the flood of light,
gulping my spittle as it hurries in secret.
i am frail for your finding but one cruel word, to shame my tears;
while dreading stomach ulcers he
was lost. When i find myself in bed,
rain-beaten, sun-beaten,
a pointy nose, a jagged music pours:
gash of sense, raw covenant
clasped still in the bright ledge;

choosing your spot
this is my body. Scatter the ashes.

Oh dear. I hope the Governor of Uncanny Valley doesn't take her defeat so hard.

Comments

[hraith.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's remarkably spot-on.

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

HAL can be quite perceptive at times.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

i've heard from other novembrists that the writing isn't going well this year. the world's been just bug-nuts, with the election and the crazy economy and so on. i can't write worth spit, and i was all set to slash andrew up one side and down the other.

>choosing your spot
this is my body. Scatter the ashes.

seriously, i wish i had written that. way to go, HAL!

[hummingwolf.livejournal.com]

and i was all set to slash andrew up one side and down the other.

I adore the mental images this calls up.

It's interesting to look at some of MegaHAL's better combinations and try to figure out where they came from. Sometimes HAL's just a pure plagiarist (see translated Hafiz poem linked in post), but those two lines you quote were put together from at least four different sources!