Inflation/ Starvation/ Fun
Short of succumbing to the madness of anorexia, I doubt I am likely to experience actual starvation before I die. Nor, I'd bet, will most of those who visit this site. But I'd also bet that most of us have felt the pinch of inflation in our daily diet. I remember the rapid evolution of low-cost middle-class A & P into up-scale, twice-the-price Food Emporium with no practical difference except the prices and the phasing out of cooking staples, a process still barely begun in most supermarkets. The eventual goal is shelves stocked only with bachelor commodities--breadfast cereal, frozen entrees for dieters, and bellywash in small bottles. Cooking gas will be rationed in winter as people try to heat their urban apartments with their ovens. Etc.

I'm curious as to where we are on that scale now. How has your own diet been affected? I had sticker shock this week when I found that a "low-cost" lunch has climbed from $5 to $10/15 in just the last couple years. The Tv advertises a $5 slice of pizza as a bargain. I don't see how teens can get by unless they are dealing drugs or balling for dollars.

But that's just me. Maybe there have been no changes in your part of Omaha at all. Just curious.

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	fdsffds spiflication 2008-07-16 08:08 am UTC (link)
	LULZ YOU'RE DEAD. and probably not reading this. (Reply to this)

	(Anonymous) 2008-07-17 12:49 am UTC (link)
	Bye Tom. Patrickmh (Reply to this)

Reposted donovan_s_brain 2008-07-17 09:12 pm UTC (link)

A Lot of Rot I'm dead. It's so embarrassing when visitors drop by and have to pretend to be taken in by my few, feeble impostures--a spritz of air freshener, a shirt with most of its stains daubed off with Woolite. They know and I know they know that I'm dead. You only have to look into a corpse's eyes or, worse, touch its cadavernous flesh, already starting to disintegrate, to realize that something's wrong. I do light up a burner on the stove and warm both hands on a frying pan before I meet friends at the door and shake their hands. Gingerly. Then we speak of neural matters. That should be "neutral." The mind's decaying, too. At some point, perhaps soon, everything I say will be perfect gilberfish and I'll be the last to know. - Tom Disch, March 30th, 2007 (Reply to this)

It Ends Now . . . (Anonymous) 2008-07-18 04:07 am UTC (link)

. . . nearly 47 years after we met, in J. Max Patrick's four-credit-hour course "Quest for Utopia" at NYU. And finally, after running this and letting it run, for days, through my mind and heart and spirit, and with my younger son telling me he wants to remember you from the often happy times of the '60s and '70s and that he has been sharing some of his memories of you from then with some of his friends, and my older boy mailing me links to he few photographs he has up a on private site of you (and Charlie too) visiting us, as you often did, on West 87th Street when we were all young, still under 30, I can stop by here and say something. And all, really, that I can and that would be good to say is: "Peace, Tom. Peace." Jerry (Jerrold Mundis) (Reply to this)

eel7 2008-07-19 07:31 pm UTC (link)

We’re dying! We’re flying Up to the ceiling, down to the floor, Out of the window, and down to the shore. We’re ailing! We’re sailing Over the ocean, down to the sea. Into the tempest, across a cup of tea. We’re sowing! We’re flowing Down through the sewer, out with the tide, And in at the gate that yawns so wide. We’re dying! We’re flying Up to the ceiling, down to the floor, Out of the window, and in at the door. Flying, sailing, flowing, flying: While you’re alive there’s no denying That flying and sailing and flowing and flying Are wiser and saner and finer pursuits Than cheating and lying and selling and buying And trying to fathom… a fathomless truth. "On Wings of Song" Thank you, Mr.Disch. (Reply to this)

Good night, and thanks (Anonymous) 2008-07-25 09:42 am UTC (link)

Well, you depressing bastard, as if writing The Genocides (and boy did that book get under my skin, buddy! What a masterpiece; first time out the gate and a tour-de-force! Makes me jealous as hell) wasn't enough, you had to go and do this. I've got to admit I'm a little pissed off at you about it. But God knows (and that's you, right? So YOU know) I understand where you were coming from, so I'll cut you some slack. Listen: granted, there's no afterlife, and you and me and Sam Clemens all know it, but let's just pretend there is for one second so I can ask you this one favor in return: cut Phil some slack too when you run into him him, would you? He was just another poor slob who made some stupid mistakes, like we all did, (okay so some of his were worse, but its not like the FBI actually read any of that crazy bastard's letters, right?) so I'll forgive you if you forgive him, okay? Still, you shouldn't have done this. You said so yourself right there at the end in your Holy Writ. I'm so sorry about Charlie—Christ, that must've been hell—and the fire, and the flood, and the mold, and I'm sorry New York can be such a damn inhospitable and uncaring bitch of a city to live in. Yes, your landlord was an asshole, and I guess the court of appeals really stuck it to you on that whole trying-to-save-a-little-money-on-taxes thing, didn't they? But who can blame you? That's what you get for trying to make a living telling the truth about stuff. Still, you had the courage to stick with it, and kept your sense of humor (July 4th—come on, that was on purpose, right?) And look on the bright side—at least you got to spend those 30 long years with Charlie; a lot of us never get anything even close to that. So it can't have been all bad. So you've gotta admit, that last move was a mistake. If I'd have had the chance, I'd have tried to talk you out of it—shit, I'm lonely as hell too you know, you're not the only one, and good conversation is hard to come by. I know you got a raw deal, but still, I wish you would've followed your own advice and hung in there. In the meantime, I'll do my best take that advice and do just that, myself, now that you're gone. Sorry we never had a chance to say hello (I got close though—Shakespeare was only one week away!) but even though we'll never meet, I'll miss you, friend. I hope you don't mind me calling you that. Sorry about all the rambling. Rest in peace, you curmudgeonly son of a bitch... I'll tell you what, though: you will not be forgotten, that's for damn sure. (Reply to this)

poem: "After Donne" rpuchalsky 2008-07-27 03:56 am UTC (link)

One of the poems that Tom posted here was called "After Donne"; it was a parody / homage and ended with a last line something like "Death, I'm not proud, but gee". (Rhyming with "but people like me?" in the previous line.) I read it and then it vanished -- Tom seemed to erase posts sometimes (cleaning up? thinking better of? saving for publication? ). I left a comment asking where it went a few months back, and he seemed to think it was still up, but a whole set of posts around it was gone when I looked. I want to read this poem again. It wasn't his best work. But someone's best work usually doesn't get lost. Is this one gone? (Reply to this)

	ford bubble gum machine (Anonymous) 2008-07-29 06:47 pm UTC (link)
	I glad too see this interest site, I tell my friends about it! They like sites like that: site (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: ford bubble gum machine donovan_s_brain 2008-08-01 12:27 pm UTC (link)
	Everyone enjoys a talking HEAD! (Reply to this) (Parent)

	IzdIpMiHnbbpIwgHHO (Anonymous) 2008-08-05 09:57 pm UTC (link)
	lhTWRG skf83dnbfv9h2v64rn0vm (Reply to this)

	Goodbye (Anonymous) 2008-08-06 01:17 am UTC (link)
	amen and farewell. A lot of folks said you could be nasty in person, but you were always friendly and pleasant to me. I wish we could have spent more time together. And we will, whenever I reread your books. - Bob Toomey (Reply to this)

	gratis voetencreme (Anonymous) 2008-08-09 02:51 am UTC (link)
	My site http://fasterwq.1gb.in/tourism1883.html (Reply to this)

	Godspeed kirkdax 2008-08-12 08:50 pm UTC (link)
	Oh Tom, it was the greatest moment in my life when I met you. Thank you for your books and poetry. So sorry you left us. (Reply to this)

	Damn. :( (Anonymous) 2008-08-14 12:01 am UTC (link)
	Hell has just lost a very good person. (Reply to this)

	anderwriter 2008-08-30 08:18 am UTC (link)
	Tom: So sorry to see you go. Now that you're finally on the "Up" escalator, I hope you're enjoying the ride. (Reply to this)

	QxHDCvXBjw (Anonymous) 2008-09-10 07:18 am UTC (link)
	Good crew it's cool :) (Reply to this)

	vejVqUzIjdZJwytzq (Anonymous) 2008-09-10 07:20 am UTC (link)
	Wonderfull great site (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: vejVqUzIjdZJwytzq (Anonymous) 2008-09-10 08:42 pm UTC (link)
	Alphabetic barnacles adhering to the ghost ship's hull (Reply to this) (Parent)

	yJbEAKZwpacvKf (Anonymous) 2008-09-12 05:21 pm UTC (link)
	Sarah Palin: Who Do We Think She Is? washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091103630.html (Reply to this)

golden0monkey 2008-09-20 05:38 am UTC (link)

Thomas M. Disch I wish so much that I had had the opportunity to talk to you. Charlie was my uncle, my father's brother. I never knew him. I didn't know that he had died until a couple of days ago. I still have the silver spoon from Tiffany's that he sent me as a baby, and his toy stuffed black lamb with a wind up music box inside it-- the one with the fuzziness all worn off because it's over 60 years old. I dreamed of being able to contact either of you someday... turns out I could have at least talked to you with livejournal, but I guess that's the irony in it-- I wouldn't have found out about your livejournal until I read your obituary. Rest In Peace, both of you. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	donovan_s_brain 2008-09-22 08:50 pm UTC (link)
	I'm sure Tom would have enjoyed hearing from you, and the lamb would have had lots of bears for company. Sorry you missed them both. Tom and Charlie are a huge loss to this bleak world; people who purposefully shape order out of chaos so well are rare. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	xCNChboCJzOGKUkHG (Anonymous) 2008-09-23 09:30 pm UTC (link)
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	XyupNcLkeYPf (Anonymous) 2008-09-27 02:15 pm UTC (link)
	Hello good day (Reply to this)

Remembering Tom gregorypfeeley 2008-10-19 01:40 pm UTC (link)

Last night a group of Tom's friends and family gathered in Manhattan to eat and drink to his memory. There were relatives from as far as Canada, and friends and admirers from as far as Germany. Many stories were told, and recollections shared. Everyone agreed that Tom would have relished the spectacle of Sarah Palin, and that -- whatever his misgivings about immigration, Islam, and other culture-war hot buttons -- he would have enjoyed seeing the Religious Right, in a frenzy of gay-bashing and attempted red-baiting, fling itself toward electoral self-immolation. I don't know whether Tom would have wanted any memorial observance for himself -- he denied one for Charlie, and didn't even want his death reported -- but he got a good one. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	Re: Remembering Tom donovan_s_brain 2008-10-20 02:36 pm UTC (link)
	That's good to hear. May he be long remembered and re-read! (Reply to this) (Parent)(Thread)

Re: Remembering Tom - donovan_s_brain, 2008-10-23 08:57 pm UTC

	Black Man, White House donovan_s_brain 2008-11-05 10:04 pm UTC (link)
	Tom, you would have LOVED this! There are people behaving badly everywhere and the most ignorant kind of stuff being said by those who should know better. Imagine the poems you'd have been posting for the last few weeks! Man, you left too soon. (Reply to this)

	I miss you. (Anonymous) 2008-12-11 03:47 pm UTC (link)
	Every day, I miss you. (Reply to this)

	Gone but not forgotten (Anonymous) 2008-12-22 01:25 pm UTC (link)
	I miss you, Tom. I think of you often and want to call and share something with you. I hope you're at peace. ND (Reply to this)

	mzmadmike 2008-12-31 01:56 am UTC (link)
	I never got to ask him what Gloucestershire sauce is...(From Cooking Out of this World) (Reply to this) (Thread)

Gloucester sauce (Anonymous) 2009-01-02 01:30 am UTC (link)

Danilo (culdesaclamort) wrote, @ 2008-11-17 13:25:00 "Gloucester sauce As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for their sport" http://culdesaclamort.livejournal.com/118034.html Actual recipe: Gloucester Sauce recipe Gloucester sauce is best served with meat or meat salads. Ingredients: 1 tbsp soured cream or yoghurt 125 ml mayonnaise 1/2 tsp Worcestershire sauce 1/2 tsp chopped chives 2 tsp lemon juice cayenne pepper Method: 1. Fold the soured cream or yoghurt into the mayonnaise with the Worcestershire sauce, chopped chives, and lemon juice. 2. Season with a little cayenne pepper. 3. Serve with meat salads. serving amount makes 150 ml ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And a slight variation: Gloucester Sauce: Take one pint of very thick Mayonnaise and complete it with one-fifth pint of sour cream and the juice of a lemon and combine with the Mayonnaise by degrees one teaspoonful of chopped fennel and as much Worcester Sauce. Serve with all cold meats. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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