looks like I cannot switch to beta Blog, because this blog is too large. I imagine some Blogger (GOOGLE!!!) inspired disaster awaits. whatever. so anyway. we actually made a trip to the mall (not far) to look at the mall in its post Christmas mallness. Beth's idea, just to see how the economy is doing. didn't even leave the car. this is part of the fascinatingness of Christmas. Beth wanted to see if the parking lot was full. it was. not overfull, but you'd have to search for a parking space. just checking under the great big hood. I love doing this, watching the world on its energized mission. we've pared Christmas down to a big ass tree, a party, and some calmly procured presents. I mean the work part. the celebration radiates as its own. sometime in November, for instance, depending on mood, I start playing Christmas music. I can envelope most (but not all) of the secular stupid stuff (not "Santa Baby", not certain other crass vehicles the titles of which I have no energy to lift up for display). I feature older stuff, renaissance and medieval. plus "Drummer Boy". wandering thru the mall is a pleasure, only mildly avaricious (the Apple Store!!!). sunday, when we were at Barnes & Noble, I saw a book by Ed Viesturs, an Everest and high altitude veteran. he'd been on Daily Show recently. I looked longingly at it but chose not to succumb to the wanting urge. next morning, Erin's present turns out to be the very same. score! that's what I like about Christmas. not that whole Wii presposterousness. I write about these shopping adventures because I don't think poetry allows limits. I think poetry includes seeing. Olson (his birthday is tomorrow) brought to me, maybe not to you, an inclusion. that poetry isn't a restricted, bonded place, but welcomes questions and attribution and theory. that history, or science, or crackpot ideas are poetry too. seeing how Coach bags work their way towards young hands is interesting to the point of magic. what did Jung come up with, active imagination. well now, think of the manner of your dreams, the ridiculous conjunctions and strident oddity. the diurnal and the phenomenal, how do they differ? poetry is possibly exciting, potentially involved with the numinous, the extended, the daily, the morally brilliant. my friend Ezra closed off, and you can see the fearsome smallness in the picture I linked to earlier. not to say we all don't have batch files of stupid running rampant, the point is to recognize a few of them. Beth was at the garden center, where several small children stood in front of an inflated Rudolph performing Rudolph's song impromptu. at the point where Rudolph's exclusion from reindeer games was mentioned, one youngster added "because he didn't wear underwear". brilliant. the Poetics list currently murmurs with the MLA buzz, and I can see meeting up with names on books you've read or wish to, but the academic clog and freeze up would discourage me. the poetic probably doesn't want to isolate or barricade itself. leastwise, that's my working proposition. the limitations sort of kill us, do they not? well, that's my present rumination. I'm not trying to freeze things.