presidential trivia

the largest percentage of the popular vote ever won by a president was in by 1964 by lyndon johnson.

presidential trivia

martin van buren, elected 1836. was the first president born an american citizen. he founded the democratic party.

presidential trivia

jimmy carter was the first president elected from the deep south in 125 years.

presidential trivia

zachary taylor had never voted before being elected president.

off the rack

Then came routine. My father drove Daphne and Sara to school on his way to work. I slept until noon, then got up and drank tea for hours. It was late November and light moved from room to room with the active silence of a live thing. The cat lifted her head and blinked the deep black slits, the active green of her eyes. I paced from light to shadow, feeling my way back into the fleshy place I'd torn myself from. When I got there, I'd sit in the dining room and study for the GED with the TV on the rerun channel, volume off. I used to watch these shows with my family. The black-and-white people were so full of memory and feeling that they were like pieces of ourselves, stopped in a moment and repeating it again and again, until it became an electronic shadow of a fleshy place. Sunlight ran over the table and onto the floor. I've touched you all day, it said, and now I have to go.

from the novel veronica by mary gaitskill

off the rack

The writer on the radio is talking about her characters like they're real people: "When you look at it from her point of view, his behavior really is strange, because to her, they just playing a sexy game, whereas for him it's--" She blooms out of the radio like a balloon with a face on it, smiling, wanting you to like her, vibrating with things to say. Turn on the radio, there's always somebody like her on somewhere. People rushing through their lives turn the dial looking for comfort, and the excited smiling words spill over them. I drink my coffee. The novelist's characters dance and preen. I drink my coffee. People from last night's dream stumble into dark rooms, screaming at one another, trying hard to do something I can't see. I finish my coffee. Water is seeping in and soaking the edge of the carpet. I don't know how this happens, I'm on the second floor.

from the novel veronica, by mary gaitskill

presidential trivia--the accidentals

john tyler was the first vice president to assume office because a sitting president died. he was also the first president to become a widower in office. during a weapons demonstration his secretary of state and secretary of the navy were killed. there was a woman there who tyler was attracted to and her father was killed as well. four months later he became the first president to remarry in office. he was also the first president to undergo impeachment proceedings.

millard filmore lived alone in the white house, his wife refused to live in washington.

andrew johnson couldn't hold his liquor and was often drunk while president. he got drunk at lincoln's second inaugural and kept shouting at lincoln's cabinet "I am a plebian". he never went to school for one day in his life. he was a white supremicist and was eventually impeached for high crimes and misdeaneanors and escaped being removed from office by one vote. he later became the only president to serve in the senate after leaving office.

chester arthur, another vice president who came to office when a president died might have deserved it more than others. he often bragged that he fixed the election by having the ballot boxes stuffed on election day. he came to office when president garfield was shot. the assassin claimed that arthur hired him so he could be president. these allegations were never proved and were considered not to be true after investigated. garfield lingered for 80 days after being shot before he passed away. arthur surprised people by being an effective president but he suffered from bright's disease which led to lethargy and depression towards the end of his time in office. bright's disease is no longer an accepted medical diagnosis because it lumped too many kidney ailments together. it's not known exactly what arthur suffered from but those diagnosed with bright's disease knew that they were getting a death sentence.

harry truman worked on the family farm until he was thirty.

presidential trivia

john quincy adams is the only president to serve in the house of representatives after his term as president.

the only campaign where two men who had both been president ran against each other was in 1892 when benjamin harrison ran against grover cleveland.

franklin delano roosevelt and eleanor roosevelt were fifth cousins. eleanor was teddy roosevelt's niece.

one out of every seven people on the viewing stand during kennedy's inaugural speech was part of the kennedy family.

i-pod wars

"your blood" by destroyer

I went for you in military times and , then, I waited well into the 2300s.
I made my way through the Union Street design kids.
They were alright.
They were on fire.
They harbored an elementary desire to do good works.
I bought 'em all, I bought 'em all!
I made donations to The Plague, and The Fall and The Old Grey Mare in her stall!

Endangered Ape, a couple years in Solitary never really hurt anyone.
Distinguished colleagues, dead music-writers' brides - I apologize.
They were alright.
They were on fire.
They harbored an elementary desire to do good works.
I bought 'em all, I bought 'em all!
I made donations to The Plague, and The Fall and The Old Grey Mare in her stall!

I don't know, I guess I'm doing alright.
Tabitha takes another stab at becoming light.
She never wants to go.
Always want to stay illuminated.

Ride towards dawn, Quicksilver on the side of nothing.
Never had a chance.
Never had to choose Your Blood versus Your Blues.

ode to chicago made castaways

when the train stops you think of brian in kamikaze blue, or rick, a long and angular much more graceful than everything packed up outside in glass built squares. dawn with her c.v. walking a non-shaky hollow muscular all the way from milwaukee avenue to mission street. tracy, another wondergurl with her amelie wondercurl, a serious stare until a smile unkinks the kinks (heh, he said kink). on my jacket racecar’s hair speaks palindromes like stars. “I’m trying to say what I’m trying to say”. back two weeks on a chrome corner of valencia and 16th I ask mike at one in the morning “do you want some company”. he answers “if you want to”. which is just right and I’d fuck up anyone who argued with me cause I’d trust mike to kill the power if someone gave him the authority. then it moves, east taking me miles, miles that believe that wanting changes everything, miles move like knitting needles, a parallel coastal examination is the most I’ll get from him, but from afar I always get the feeling that chuck watches over all of them, which makes me want to ask who’s watching over him. audiotrack no. 2, no artist, no title. and then every once in a while, when I’ve been locked inside my stolen bones too long, the sun in my office will come in behind me and there’s kristine all green eyes and young trying to figure if she just wants it to be. later, now, a halogen yellow next to nothing for no seeming reason which is the here we have here, with butch turning to sundance and saying “who are those guys” and prince asking “if I was your girlfriend…”, I think then, given my own question I’d ask chicago—do you remember the 20th century?