Another amalgam of this 'n' that, stumbled upon whilst out and about:

• O! O! O! That Cthulhuhuvian Rag! Dept.:

H. P. Lovecraft, of all people, parodies T.S. Eliot and The Waste Land in his own poem, Waste Paper.  Excerpts:

Out of the reaches of illimitable night
The blazing planet grew, and forc'd to life
Unending cycles of progressive strife
And strange mutations of undying light
And boresome books, than hell's own self more trite
And thoughts repeated and become a blight,
And cheap rum-hounds with moonshine hootch made tight,
And quite contrite to see the flight of fright so bright
I used to ride my bicycle in the night

* * *

Fry the fat, fat the fry
You'll be a drug-store by and by.
Get the hook!
Above the lines of brooding hills
Rose spires that reeked of nameless ills,
And ghastly shone upon the sight
In ev'ry flash of lurid light
To be continued.

[Found entirely by accident.  I can't rightly recall where.  Apologies to whoever I ought to be crediting here.]

• Attention devotees of Hayao Miyazaki, world's master animator:

Links to the trailer for the American release of Howl's Moving Castle -- last mentioned here in February -- in nearly every size and format imaginable, are available through Ain't It Cool News, if you'll just step through the convenient hyperlink here.   Opening date, at least in the major markets, will be June 10 (exactly one year prior to the next Pixar release).   Disney has not yet launched an official site, but one can always rely on Nausicaa.net to keep one apprised of all things Miyazaki.

• Attention Evan Schaeffer, literate lawyer:

Illustrations for each and every page -- all 760 of them -- of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow.  [Link via ::: wood s lot ::: .]

• Attention connoisseurs of political speechifying, and cock-eyed optimists:

Linked and quoted in any number of places (might as well get it from Jeff Jarvis), former President of these United States William Jefferson Clinton speaking at the tenth anniversary observances of the Oklahoma City bombing:

It seems almost impossible that it's been a decade, doesn't it? The memories are still so clear.  Yet, by the grace of God, time takes its toll not only on youth and beauty, but also on tragedy.  The tomorrows come almost against our will.  And they bring healing and hope, new responsibilities and new possibilities.

It falls apart in the last sentence -- too generically late-20th-Century-inspirational/political/generic for my personal taste -- but the highlighted passage is near-Elizabethan in its succinct expression of the capital-"T" Tragic View of Life, which paradoxically is at the same time the Belligerently Optimistic View, to wit:  Life is frequently miserable, and we have no right as mortal creatures to expect otherwise, but Life is at the same time continual, grand, miraculous, and the best thing we could ever ask for, so let us cherish it and reel and marvel that we are here to perceive it at all.  I wonder where the erstwhile President's writers found that one.

• Annals of Collectivist Kitsch Dept.:

Behold! Power Porcelain for the People.