by Abe Sauer

In January, BP’s stock price was hovering above $60 a share. This is when all of America was focused on rebuilding Haiti. (That went well.) Even BP got into the charitable spirit. At the time, the oil behemoth was getting set to drill a new well at its Deepwater Horizon site, even though at the time BP knew the well to be dangerously high-pressured. While Anderson Cooper leaped into action to single-handedly save Haitian children, BP announced the conclusion to a successful cleanup of its Alaska pipeline leak. BP’s market value surpassed rival Royal Dutch Shell. BP was about to be named an official partner of the U.S. Olympic Committee and U.S. Teams. The brand’s biggest problem? Some joker leaving lynching nooses around their Texas City facility. The oil business was good.

Then April, five days after the Annual General Meeting where Tony Hayward bragged about BP’s deepest well ever in the Gulf of Mexico and that “Our priorities-which lie at the heart of all our operations-remain safety, people and performance,” and a day after Reyad Fezzani, CEO of BP Solar, opened a speech to a Stanford University audience with “It is a pleasure to be here. I apologize to those of you who expect oilmen to look like Daniel-Day Lewis. This is about as rough as I get” and boasted that “exploration in the Gulf began in the early 1930s. It took the industry 40 years to develop the technology to move from the shoreline to 1,000 feet water depth. It took just 12 years to move from 1,000 feet to 5,000 feet. Last September, we discovered a giant field 35,000 feet beneath the sea, and in so doing set a new world record….”

Kaboom.

Six months after those blissful days, BP’s share price is halved. It closed on June 23 under $30. Tony Hayward wanted his life back, and apparently, is going to get it. The company has been “shaken down,” so far, for $20 billion. Worse, BP is now a political pariah, its acce$$ restricted to only the most shameless (i.e., certain for reelection) politicians. Sure, that’s $3.5 million in cash (over 20 years) the company will save in political donations going forward but, oh, the influence. BP has become such an albatross that politicians are giving donations back. Even Republicans! Hell, Joe “Shakedown” Barton himself returned a $1,000 check from BP’s PAC. Whether or not BP will get its $77,051 back from Barack Obama remains to be seen.

Oh yeah, there’s maybe a boycott. More? New York-based Milberg LLP smells more than oil in the water and may sue over BP PLC’s employee savings plan.

And, no joke, the down-and-out oil company is now being literally struck by lightning.

Maybe the only glimmer of good news? The International Olympic Committee has said BP is a “partner to stay” for the 2012 Games. In light of the company’s $58 million commitment (in the face of the Olympic Delivery Authority’s recent $39.5 million funding cut), they’re happy to say that “BP is a world-class company.”

So, will BP go BankruPt? The online bookies at Sportsbook Gurus are giving 4 to 1 that BP will file for bankruptcy before the end of 2010.

But we want to get more specific.

The Awl has obtained, at Wednesday’s market price of $29.67, one shiny paper share of BP, which will entitle one lucky reader to all shareholder benefits, privileges and responsibilities, including dividends, the right to attend shareholder meetings, annual reports, and, of course, company voting rights. All you have to do is guess what BP’s stock price is at the closing bell before markets stop trading on Christmas Eve, 2010. The closest guess (to the cent), without going over, wins.

[Further disclosures: Multiple guesses will be disqualified. In the case of a tie, the first entry received will win. No entries will be accepted after June 30th, 2010.]

Mount a recall of the CEO, hang the stock on your ironic Williamsburg loft wall, use it to light a cigar to celebrate the end of the War in Afghanistan or the end of Harry Reid’s career. Yes, one of you can be part of the problem, and, as a stockholder, part of the solution.

When making your guess, keep in mind the nation’s abysmal consumer action record. Also, six months is a long time for America to sustain outrage and/or focus. Christmas, if it even exists anymore in six months, is a full World Series and mid-term election away. The Summer of Death 2 is just beginning. The new commander of both our wars is fainting after recently undergoing chemotherapy. The Brett Favre media tour has not even started yet. Plus, the economy is booming, and we need gas. The new Mustang may get 31 miles per gallon, but not at 95 miles an hour, the only real American way to drive a Mustang.

Finally, those holding BP financially accountable will be the same players who were willingly bested by corporate health-care interests and who folded, repeatedly, to Wall Street.

Remember, we’re only six months removed from Haiti, the disaster that seemed impossible to fade into the next big thing. And yet….

Abe Sauer really just can’t wait till Christmas!

Offer void where prohibited by law, etc.

Fanastic Italian Hoaxter Confesses

The great newspaper hoax artist Tommaso Debenedetti has confessed. He made up five interviews with Philip Roth alone, as well as interviews with dozens of others. His defense: “Italy is a joke.” What a sad day for fun!

This is not technically a bear video, in that it is essentially a collection of still photos, but it is in video format and there are bears in it and it’s so hot outside and wow this has been a brutal week and what else do you people want from me? I’VE GIVEN YOU ALL I HAVE TO GIVE. I’ve given you all I have to give.

Good news! The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne, Brian Moore’s 1955 debut, is finally back in print. I’ve mentioned just how great this novel is before, so if you’ve never read it you’re out of excuses. Do it.

by Mark Bibbins, Editor

Today, a big new poem by Deborah Landau!

All Else Fails

*

Days, weeks, months,
why not use them for something?
I’m heading for a head on.
I’m revving up my so-called self.
I know my life is meaning
less. Strutting around
for awhile until poof.

*

Everything gets more and more absurd.
The office and deskchair, the skin on the neck
eye cream, love, the handholding and bungled
attempts, watching the clock all night 2 am, 4,
then daylight, sitting in my dress again
with cup and plate.
To work to work then back again
to bed, another night.

*

I read Pessoa and he confirms
my worst suspicions.
I read the entertaining novels
and they make me happy.
I sleep beside the river.
The river often sleeps when I’m awake.
Sky, water, I have not had enough of you.
Better be shoving off again and into the night.

*

More and more it’s deliciousness I want
but all the time there’s less and less of it.
What the hell do you think you are doing?
You should find something definite to subscribe to
so as not to keep drifting tossed aimless through the world like this.
At the party Stanley said for now factor in
gratitude, narrow the zone and see your life
which is what we call it as if it were a real thing.
I wear my street clothes. I accept the parameters.
Don’t shout drink some wine at night
work is what is offered and sometimes love.
Another time there was ecstasy,
though many things went laughably wrong.

*

Those who don’t feel are happy, says Pessoa.
Those who don’t think.
The night has advanced. We figure in it so slightly.
Down the ice chute we go.
Say goodbye to your eyes in real time.
Get ready, get set. Say goodbye
to your synovial fluid. Your knees
will wear out in no time
won’t hoist you nowhere.

*

And now our luck has changed.
There are a lot of hells in this room
but I put on my girlface
and we go to a café we have dinner
we creep into the night and hide
such a slight place we find
we can duck into it and not worry
it isn’t yesterday or tomorrow
it is only for a time.
We plan to meet again later but.

*

He keeps me waiting
and I start hysteria a little bit.
I start hysteria against everyone’s advice.
I go into the street to drink air.
I’ve never been so thirsty in my life.
Another mouth, some fresh minted lips.
See, I can feel blue on half a bottle of jewels.
Sleep then wake then this then that day
and another night back on the bed
lying in an eros dumb and slackjawed.
The sound of hustling advances and retreats
as if someone were shuffling money
or unbuttoning a blouse.
Can you put that taffeta away now, please?
Please put it away.

*

As soon as he sits down I can tell I want to.
How long can I sit here not doing the thing
I want to do. All the youngish men all the etceteras
of desire etcetera.
There’s a little hole in my boot.
Could you put your finger in it.
There is power in breathing.
There is power in a silent beat
before answering a question, in a leaning in.
But puts down her foot
every time (monogamy) you mustn’t be
strident cheri stop that.
Across the table his mind right there
behind his talking face.

*

We are in a dirty place now when we get together.
We made a nasty city and have to walk in it.
Before we were wider wilder avenues but we made it too cramped and ugly.
Nowhere to go to tea. Only gin here, damn it this cramped and narrow
space and no god at any gate and no goodness.

*

Now our bed is not ample not fair. Now
we don’t have a bed
only this corner blackred and backlit.
Something of me is a blind point, something of him too.
There’s a little edge of pain here and we walk along it.
Don’t cry don’t kiss me either and also don’t stop.
That’s the way he looks when he wants to watch.
Why don’t you go swoon yourself again into some fantastic
mood music. I am a small cup with a twist and you are liquid. A drink.
Another drink.

*

I’d rather watch you doing it than do it myself,
I’d rather hear about it, I want to be told,
I’d rather read about it, I’d rather just sit here.
Hold the mask over my face
while you do it to me.
I’ll put on some music.
Now see how we grow aglow
so young and beautiful
all our capillaries lit up.

Deborah Landau is the author of Orchidelirium, which won the Anhinga Prize for Poetry, and The Last Usable Hour (forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press). Her poems have appeared recently in The Paris Review, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, The Best American Erotic Poems, and elsewhere. She directs the creative writing program at NYU.

You may contact the editor of the section at poems@theawl.com.

“You can buy more of the value items at the supermarket and put more vegetarian dishes into menus. You can discover home entertainment to keep the leisure bill down. You can turn down the thermostat a little and put on a jumper.”
-Conservative MP John Redwood has a list of suggestions for Britain’s middle class on how to cope with spending cuts in the country’s new austerity budget.

Researchers have found that tactile cues help to influence the way we perceive things. The study, conducted by psychologists from Harvard and Yale and an MIT marketing professor, shows that the physical properties of objects provide “a specific tie to certain abstract meanings.” Participants in the study who held a heavy clipboard, for example, viewed people and issues as more serious than those holding a light clipboard. Subjects who touched rough puzzle pieces “rated a neutral social interaction as being more difficult or harsh, compared with people who handled smooth puzzle pieces.” And touching or sitting on hard objects evoked associations with rigidity and relentlessness, characteristics which are also true of my cock.

Tonight! 7:00p.m. Charlie’s Kitchen, Harvard Square-upstairs. Be prepared to talk about your feelings with the assistance of alcohol.

HERE! A PICTURE, OF TGI FRIDAY’S SOLICITING GAY CUSTOMERS, BECAUSE IT DID HAPPEN.

So, a while back, a scientist found a link between XMRV and Chronic Fatigue. But then no one could duplicate that result, so we all went back to thinking that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome was caused by hysteria, by which I really do mean “nutty ladies with a free-floating uterus.” Just more ladies, imagining more things. Ta da! Now a scientist-a man scientist, no less! The chief of the infectious disease at the NIH, even!-has said that the association between the gammaretrovirus and the syndrome “is very strong,” and that the FDA and the NIH have confirmed the original survey. Science. What’s next? Are “menopause” and “Lyme Disease” a real thing too?