Jesse Raber

@jraber

Working on a literary history of Chicago - Author of Progressivism's Aesthetic Education: bit.ly/2AhdjaH - Co-creator of the Chicago Writing Gallery at the American Writers Museum - let's talk about cooking, ceramics, ebikes

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Jesse Raber@jraber· 16d

🎶Hot Corn Summer intensifies 🎶

I close my eyes and listen
To hear the corn come out
Don't you hear the stars they glisten
As we go in and out

Down where the trees grow together
And the western path comes to an end
See the sign it says clear weather
I'll meet you tonight, my friend

Will the corn be growing a little tonight
As I wait in the fields for you
Who knows what grows in the morning light
When we can feel the watery dew
I just can't be there with no other
I know those hills will be true
Away from my sister and brother
Down through the grasses so new

The air is sweet and steady
And flowers bloom out of sight
I know the sky is ready
Come meet me down here tonight

Will the corn be growing a little tonight
As I wait in the fields for you
Who knows what grows in the morning light
As we can feel the watery dew

Jesse Raber@jraber· 22d

Morbo from Futurama: "Windmills do not work that way!!!"

Jesse Raber@jraber· 27d

Incredible detail from *And the Roots of Rhythm Remain*, Joe Boyd's doorstop tome on global music. A pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov scored famous Hollywood Westerns using the "Asiatic" musical language Russians had developed to underline their own anti-European national identity. "A steppe is a steppe."

"A steppe is a steppe is a steppe. The problems of the cowboy and the Cossack are very similar. Their courage and philosophical attitudes are similar and then steppes of Russia are much like the prairies of America."

Jesse Raber@jraber· 27d

Psssst ... wanna feel old?

Flier for an "Art of the Obama Years" exhibit

Jesse Raber@jraber· 28d

Lest anyone think there is just one Sherwood Anderson sexy corn poem. With his genius for marketing, if Anderson were alive today there'd probably be a whole website called CornHub

HOSANNA
The cornfields shall be the mothers of men. They are rich
with the milk that shall suckle men. The bearded men
shall arise. They shall come sturdy and strong out of the
West.
[You may prick the new men with spears. Their blood shall
run out on the snow but they are my men and shall
survive.
I am a child and I weep. My hands are red and cold.
I run along and blow upon them.
In me is the blood of the strong men. A little I have
endured and shall endure. I am of the blood of strong
bearded men. The milk of the corn is in me.
Sweet, sweet, the thought of the new men. I am cold and
run through the streets of Chicago. I blow upon my red
hands. Sweet, sweet the thought of the new men.

Jesse Raber@jraber· 28d

Sherwood Anderson's sexy corn poems predicted this

SONG OF THE MATING TIME
Out of the cornfields at daybreak,
Ready to run through the dawn to the place of beginning,
Creeping, I come, out of the corn,
Wet with the juice of bruised corn leaves—out of the corn
I come.
Eager to kiss the fingers of queens,
Eager to stand with kings,
To breed my kind and stand with kings.
Out of the corn at daybreak,
Brother to dogs,
Big brother to creeping, crawling things,
Stretched full length on the long wet grass at the edge of
the cornfields,
Waiting,
Here I lie through the day, waiting and waiting.
>
Come, tired little sister, run with me.
See—I kiss your lips—soft—to entice you.
In the still young night we begin our running,
Stripping our clothes away.
Skirting the towns, passing the lonely houses,
Staying away from the sleeping cities,
Running forever—on and on—into the empire of the corn.
Come, tired little sister, run with me.

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jul 12

The Statue of the Republic trussed up for regilding. Posted without comment but it could sustain as many as any New Yorker caption contest. (Including "Christ, what an asshole" ...)

A rather terrifying golden statue shrouded in scaffolding

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jul 10

Pilsen is the West Side. It can't be the North Side because it's south of the Loop. And it can't be the South Side because... of this!!!

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jul 10

I'm truly sorry for the suffering of someone who seems to have been quite unwell. But also, this is like literally something that would happen in McTeague.

Screenshot of a post about the death of a looksmaxxing influencer from gold poisoning (?)

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jul 10

Dog and monolith

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jul 8

Also, while in the archive, getting distracted by Jun Fujita's photos. Here's one of the curving lights defining Promontory Point in the 1930s.

Jun Fujita's photo "Curves: Outer Drive"

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jul 8

Back on my bullshit (consulting William Asbury Kenyon's 1845 *Miscellaneous Poems*, the first volume of poetry published in Chicago)

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jul 6

Except for Robert Pinsky, who ends "Impossible to Tell" with this Belgium joke that I think about all the time. (This is the same poem from the Simpsons "Bashō! Banana tree!" gag)

The end of Pinsky's "Impossible to Tell"

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jul 4

Putting on a puppet show, on the edge of a precipice, on an island smaller than our condo, Voyageurs National Park

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jun 25

accidentally wandered into the show Severance

A fluorescent lit stairway with the word "EURYDICE" on the wall

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jun 20

Reviews are in: the playground is good

Playground at the Obama Presidential Center

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jun 20

A powerfully cursed place

Map showing that Trump won 62 percent of the vote in Canaryville in 2024

Jesse Raber@jraber· Jun 18

Amazing detail in this book about Cahokia: For a handful of earthwork mounds, archaeologists aren't sure if they were part of the precolumbian urban complex or were built as golf course features in the 1930s.