Striking Oil With Ezra Pound

“Criminals have no intellectual interest”

Ezra Pound said that. That, I would assume, means theres is no art in crime. Can a criminal then be an artist? Not much great art has come out of prison! That’s probably a pretty honest statement. Poetry and prose, now that’s another matter; plenty of books have been written in prison. Ironic, isn't it, that Ezra was considered a criminal by the United States military and wrote a lot of poetry in prison. Ezra's prison in Italy after WWII was an outdoor pen made out of chicken wire with only a piece of wood for a roof.

Adolph Hitler wrote his masterpiece in prison, but then Hitler would prove Ez’s statement true; therefore, writing a book in prison does not mean you have an intellectual interest in it. Ez would then predict that O.J.’s coming literary masterpiece is probably not intellectual at all.

Our politicians are mostly all criminals, even the good ones, so there ya go; Ez’s statement still
holds water.

Aren’t we all criminals? “Something reprehensible, foolish, or disgraceful” is one of the definitions of a crime. I’ve certainly been reprehensible before; foolish; and, yes, disgraceful, but I don’t think of myself as a criminal. I have intellectual interests, dammit. See, I’m with Ez on this one. You gotta be pretty dumb to be a criminal. Who’s the very dumbest Amurican at the moment? You know my favorite: the “president”—and by God, we damn sure know he’s a criminal.

Something About Freud I Found Striking
According to Hilda Doolittle, Freud used the phrase “striking oil” when his analysis unearthed something in a patient. “Eureka!” comes from striking oil. “Thar she blows!” comes from striking oil in a whale.

Speaking Spock Again: A Fantastic Thought
I heard a biologist say that killer bees were simply regular bees evolving an attitude regarding being attacked:

--by being burnt out of their natural environment
--driven by their ferocious instinct to build a queendom so their life cycles can be fulfilled.

You know why we have killer bees (African bees) in this hemisphere? They were brought in by beekeepers in Brazil to increase honey production. For profits! Capitalism is responsible for the spreading migrations of killer bees, that are as I type this already invading the outskirts of San Francisco.

thegrowlingwolf
for The Daily Growler