Merton : the love poems

I was pleasantly surprised upon reading Volume 6 of the Journals how tender and esthetically controlled were some of the love poems he wrote to a Louisville nurse. It is to be deplored that all eighteen of the poems are not more generally available; four, or perhaps five of them, can be found in the aforementioned sixth volume of his journals, Learning to Love.

A short list

The blogger at Res et Rationes gives us a list of the only poems worth reading, according to him. Of the first three on the list, two are by the Chesterbelloc, and as wonderfully Catholic as those souls were, they are poets from whom we can manage to withhold our veneration.

He includes the irreproachable Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Walt Whitman, but we find ourself wishing he had chosen different poems, especially in Longfellow's case ("Snow-flakes," "Divina Commedia," "The Jewish Cemetery at Newport," the sonnets about Chaucer, Keats, Milton).

From S. T. Coleridge, he prefers the Rime of the Ancient Mariner to "Kubla Khan" or "Frost at Midnight" or "This Lime-Tree Bower My Prison," and he is in good company. Emma Lazarus's sonnet "The New Colossus" should be more widely known (everyone knows the Give me your tired, your poor part, but we agree with Mr Roesch : the whole thing's worth reading). Rudyard Kipling is perhaps not fashionable nowadays, but his poem "If" does have the great merit of being unforgettable ("If you can fill the unforgiving minute with sixty seconds' worth of distance run ...", etc.)

Clement Clarke Moore rocks! And so, needless to say, does Shakespeare.

We gather from the list that Mr Roesch has an impatience with ambiguity. It is a salutary impatience, for the most part. But as Mr Cummings reminds us, poetry is not a slogan. Poetry is to ordinary language as dance is to walking : it is gloriously non-utilitarian, and the primary purpose of poetry is not didacticism, but enchantment.

All we are saying is "Give ambiguity a chance!" Three cheers for significant obscurity and meaningful obliquity!

Seriously, there is some great poetry that we'll miss if we demand that it be even more free of guile than Nathanael was. And there are some memorable poems of considerable lucidity that are missing from this otherwise excellent list.

Certainly, Dylan Thomas's "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night" is part of the language, oft quoted by sportswriters, especially here in Boston, when, for instance, the Red Sox have a September winning streak after being eliminated from playoff contention. "They're not going gentle into that good night!"

Shakespeare's sonnets. A few things by Cummings. In terms of a poem that is mildly obscure but still quintessentially American, what of the introductory poem to Hart Crane's The Bridge, of a momentous verbal "music" that we do not wish were more prosy :

How many dawns, chill from his rippling rest,
The seagull's wings shall dip and pivot him,
Shedding white rings of tumult, building high
Over the chained bay waters Liberty --

Then with inviolate curve, forsake our eyes
As apparitional as sails that cross
Some page of figures to be filed away
Till elevators drop us from our day --

And so on. The punctuation might be off; am quoting from memory.

There is the poet Countee Cullen, much beloved by this blogger and a few others, the African-American poet who died in 1946, whose beautiful songs are universal in their appeal and quite gorgeous in their music.

And is there no room for anything by Emily Dickinson? And where, for humor's sake, is Ogden Nash?

For religious poetry : why the Chesterbelloc, when there is George Herbert, the hymnographers, the Christmas carols? What of Cardinal Langton's Veni, Sancte Spiritus / Et emitte coelitus / Lucis tuae radium? Thomas a Celano's Dies irae, dies illa (incorporate in Mozart's Requiem)?

These are all just suggestions. Look around. There are excellences in poetry hiding behind every corner, even if it's just the bawdy limerick or the tart satirical couplets of Martial ... or of J. V. Cunningham (1911-1985).

And to the readers of this web-log who haven't yet done so, check out the other "pointless" lists of Mr Roesch. I'm glad to have this opportunity to discuss this particular list of his, because it reminds me of how good those other lists are. The incredibly funny utterances of his teachers & professors, the list of great television shows -- complete with reasons why.

One of these shows in particular caught my eye. I silently exclaimed Yes! and made an act of thanksgiving when I saw it on the list. And I meant to write a little something about it -- but a little later, perhaps.

DHMO

A website which warns us of the omnipresent danger of Dihydrogen Monoxide.

It astonishes us that this substance has not yet been banned in all civilized nations. When you consider the internecine capacity for death and mayhem that this lethal compound can cause ... some maniac could put it in our lakes and streams and reservoirs ... what would become of us then?

With apologies to Céline

Every night in my house
It's freezing
I'm sneezing
How I hope my heat will come on

I should pay my gas bill
It's five months
Outstanding
Then they'll let my heat come back on

It's ... cold ...
This house is so old
And I pray that my heat will go on

Heat's dead?
Use blankets instead!
I will stay in my bed
Till my heat comes back on and on

A political parable by Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962)
from the book Etcetera, poems published for the first time in 1983

come from his gal's
alf whistle song
meet frankiegang
"join us or else"
"what for i should"
alf drop like dead

gang grow&grow
grab all the dough
everyone give
who want to live
we small it strong
it right we wrong

so goodbye alf
you just a bum
go fug yoseself
because freedumb
means no one can
dare to be man

:: :: :: :: ::

Cummings is so straightforward he needs to be explained. This is a parable of an individual (alf) being murdered by a gang of collectivists (the frankiegang). The editor of Etcetera mentions that this poem was on Cummings' desk on the day of his death in 1962, but the first draft or version of the poem might have existed as much as 25 years earlier. Recall, that in the 1936 election, the presidential candidates of the two major US political parties were named Alf Landon and Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Cummings was not a man to whom hatred came easily, but it's fair to say that he despised FDR, as a crypto-socialist, a friend of Stalin's, the prime progenitor of the modern American progressivism -- which states that the human being is dependent upon government for his validity, his rights, his authenticity, his "social" "security." Recall, too, in 1937, that Roosevelt tried to expand the Supreme Court from nine to fifteen -- a move which appeared to allies and opponents alike as an obvious grab for greater, almost plenipotentiary, political power. Cummings saw the "progressive socialism" in Russia, and knew it to be a murderous and vile thing where the individual was assassinated, in effect, before he was even born.

Some folks dismiss Cummings' lowercase "i" as a sophomoric typographical quirk, but he ably defended it on the grounds that in virtually every other foreign language, the first-person pronoun is not capitalized unless it begins a sentence. But more : Cummings saw the "i" -- the small and vulnerable, perpetually imperilled individual -- as constantly being menaced by "hypergangs of superthugs" (like the Soviets). He knew that "sorrow is a system" : the five-year or ten-year or thousand-year plans intended to bring us secular salvation, the schemes of Marxists and other systematizers, invariably brought nothing but misery and inhumane treatment.

This political parable has inspired us to ask ourselves (and any others who might be eavesdropping) a series of vitally important, lethally trivial questions :

Why be an individual when you can be a category?

Why be a man when you can be a millionth of a "march," a semi-quadruped, an anthropoid particle lost and adrift in the swarming drowning Whole?

Why, for Christ's sake, dare to be a human being, when you can be a statistic, a demographical datum, a filler of quotas, a "thing" that is set aside?

Why be an adult when you can sit forever in a toddler's high chair of affirmative passivity?

Why "dive for dreams" -- to quote saint estlin yet again -- when it's so much easier to let a slogan topple you?

Why be you -- why decide things for yourself -- why deign or dare to think independently or to feel personally -- when you can sit like a lump on a bog breathing in the hallowed vapours of incense emitted by television?

You needn't answer. We were just wondering.

A poem by John Berryman (1914-1972)

The Poet's Final Instructions

Dog-tired, suisired, will now my body down
near Cedar Avenue in Minneap,
when my crime comes. I am blazing with hope.
Do me glory, come the whole way across town.

I couldn't rest from hell just anywhere,
in commonplaces. Choiring & strange my pall!
I might not lie still in the waste of St Paul
or buy DAD's root beer; good signs I forgive.

Drop here with honour due, my trunk & brain
among the passioning of my countrymen
unable to read, rich, proud of their tags
and proud of me. Assemble all my bags!
Bury me in a hole, and give a cheer
near Cedar on Lake Street, where the used cars live.

:: :: :: :: ::

First Quatrain :

No one but Berryman could have given us this quirky-jerky, clumsily acrobatic, jam-packed, punning, dublintendering 24- or 25-syllable first sentence. "Suisired" catches our eye and ear simultaneously and immediately :

(1) tired to the point of suicide
(2) sired by himself; or, most likely and most aptly,
(3) sired by a man who committed suicide.

"Will now my body down." The "will" is so emphatic as to be shouted, seeming less a future auxiliary verb than an imperative. Of course, you can't avoid the echo of "last will and testament," as this sonnet itself is something of a "will," giving final instructions. Also, as Berryman foresaw, he willed his own death, he willed that his body go down. The sound of "body" in the line is much less emphatic than the sounds of "will" and "down."

"Near Cedar Avenue in Minneap." There's a winsome particularity and pecularity about the line. Cedar Avenue : his Minneapolis readers will doubtless say, Oh, yes, near the used car dealership. And readers who have never been to Minneapolis will try to picture Cedar Avenue. But let's look longer at "Minneap." A lot of cities have nicknames that are abbreviations (Balto, LA, Philly, San Antone, San Fran), but I don't think "Minneap" was used before or since Berryman (Mpls, maybe). Did he stop on the third syllable because the line reached the limit of ten syllables at that point? Or is this another foreshadowing? Just as the poet cuts off "Minneapolis" before its natural end, years later the poet will abbreviate his own life. Or perhaps, 'tis to consider too curiously to consider so.

"When my crime comes." Not "when my time comes." Why? Well, perhaps the poet has spent much of his time doing things he feels guilty about, so his time on earth has been a crime. But this "crime" is his death, and again, the poet is seeing into the future, we can't help but feel, when he will commit the crime -- according to the laws of God and of his Church (Berryman was a Catholic) -- of taking his own life.

"I am blazing with hope." Suitably deadpan. Reading this, you want to laugh at the poet and say, "Oh, sure you are! Big time." But there is the "hope" that at this point, as he is being buried, he will be free of pain and torment. "Do me glory, come the whole way across town." He wants this obsequy to be a momentous moment, "Do me glory." Can one read the line without picturing a brass band playing "When the Saints Come Marching In"? (Or, a more recent and perhaps not universally known cultural reference, Tracy Chapman's song, "Say Hallelujah" describing an atmosphere of Lord-praising good cheer when "the bucket is kicked, the body is gone.")

Second Quatrain :

"I couldn't rest from hell just anywhere, in commonplaces." Rest from hell. That is, rest from the torment of this earthly life. And he can't do it just anywhere, because (like each and every one of us) he's special, he's unique. For heaven's sake, he's a poet! He's giving us a poem telling us what to do, and where to put him! So listen up. "Commonplaces" can either be "common places," or the commonplace book, an anthology of one's favorite quotations. Will Berryman be quoted after his death in someone's commonplace book? If so, it's because his words are uncommon. His words, like his "pall," are "Choiring & Strange"! (And of course, there's an echo, with common, of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, which Berryman almost certainly encountered, although he wasn't Anglican.)

He might not lie still in the waste of St Paul, because he is a restless soul. Energetic and quirky. His lines, sometimes, are like those of Cummings; they'll do just about anything (somersaults, entrechats) to get your attention. "DAD's root beer." The DAD of the root beer is, again, a reminder of his own father's suicide, but he can "forgive" the advertisement, because it is a "good sign," only trying to sell root beer, and not aimed directly at the poet's painful memory.

Sestet :

"Drop here, with honour due, my trunk & brain." Drop, with honor. If I may employ an abstruse critical term from the apparatus of post-hermeneutical lexico-exegesis : Gotta love it. The gracelessness of "drop" next to the grace of "honour." Awesome. Splendid. Way cool. Notice it's not his soul or his mind that's being dropped, but his very heavy, very substantial, almost burdensome "trunk" and "brain." The brain which has given him his just fame as a litterateur, and the trunk which has gotten him into trouble. This battered clumsy old thing. Of course, "trunk" anticipates the used cars in the last line.

"among the passioning of my countrymen, unable to read, rich" : His countrymen's "passions" are by and large, trivial pursuits. We're a rich nation, with a lot of silly hobbies, and some of us are "unable to read" not because of illiteracy, but because our silly pastimes get in the way. Passioning -- and here this amateur critic is telling you what you already know -- also suggests "passion and death," the Passion : passus et sepultus est. The countrymen are proud of their "tags" (price tags of their houses and yachts and cars? their Boy Scout or other kind of merit badges? their medals of valor?), but gauche as his countrymen sometimes are, they also have the good taste to be "proud of me," John Berryman.

"Assemble all my bags!" He can't wait to go on this trip. His bags are just about all packed. And here's another one of those wonderfully paradoxical juxtapositions, "Bury me in a hole, and give a cheer."

If you read it aloud, you can't help but be startled by the arresting phonemic similarity of "Bury me" with the poet's own name, Berryman. "Berryman's in a hole! So give a cheer!" It's almost scary how much fun the poet is having, burying Berryman. The brute bluntness of "in a hole." Then the hip-hip-hooray at the end of the line. And back to the particularity : "near Cedar on Lake Street," and one final genius of a paradoxical strangeness, "where the used cars live." Used cars don't live, do they? Those last few little words are really incredible. He might have said, where the dead cars live.

John Berryman is a vexingly uneven poet, but this very strange and gleeful sonnet about his own death has been justly rewarded with anthologization, most notably in Hayden Carruth's 1970 capaciously generous selection The Voice That Is Great Within Us, still widely available in paperback.

JFK
not that one

An article in this morning's Boston Herald lets us know about, and summarizes the contents of, a piece in the 12/2 issue of The New Yorker on our junior senator, John F. Kerry, likelier than likely candidate for president in twenty oh four.

Am charmed by some of what he says here. Wouldn't vote for him if you paid me, but still :

Apparently eager to dispel his aloof, overly earnest image as he preps for a White House run, Kerry, 58, also makes a fleeting admission about his footloose younger days.

``Look, I was a very serious guy except for when I was a non-serious guy,'' he said. ``I knew how to have a lot of fun, sometimes too much. There were plenty of times when I was disengaged, frivolous, four sheets to the wind on a weekend.''

From i : six nonlectures
by e***** e***** c*******

some of the bolder sentences have been emboldened by the blogger for emphasis

You will perhaps pardon me, as a nonlecturer, if I begin my second nonlecture with an almost inconceivable assertion : I was born at home.

For the benefit of those of you who can't imagine what the word "home" implies, or what a home could possibly have been like, I should explain that the idea of home is the idea of privacy.

But again -- what is privacy? You probably never heard of it.

Even supposing that (from time to time) walls exist around you, those walls are no longer walls; they are merest pseudosolidities, perpetually penetrated by the perfectly predatory collective organs of sight and sound. Any apparent somewhere which you may inhabit is always at the mercy of a ruthless and omnivorous everywhere. The notion of a house, as one single definite particular and unique place to come into, from the anywhereish and everywhereish world outside -- that notion must strike you as fantastic. You have been brought up to believe that a house, or a universe, or a you, or any other object, is only seemingly solid :

really (and you are realists, whom nobody and nothing can deceive)

each seeming solidity is a collection of large holes -- and, in the case of a house, the larger the holes the better; since the principal fucntion of a modern house is to admit whatever might otherwise remain outside. You haven't the least or feeblest conception of being here, and now, and alone, and yourself. Why (you ask) should anyone want to be here, when (simply by pressing a button) anyone can be in fifty places at once? How could anyone want to be now, when anyone can go whening all over creation at the twist of a knob? What could induce anyone to desire aloneness, when billions of soi-disant dollars are mercifully squandered by a good and great government lest anyone anywhere should ever for a single instant be alone? As for being yourself -- why on earth should you be yourself; when instead of being yourself you can be a hundred, or a thousand, or a hundred thousand thousand, other people? The very thought of being oneself in an epoch of interchangeable selves must appear supremely ridiculous.

Fine and dandy : but, so far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be a question of individuality. If poetry were anything -- like dropping an atombomb -- which anyone did, anyone could become a poet merely by doing the necessary anything; whatever that anything might or might not entail.

But (as it happens) poetry is being, not doing.

If you wish to follow, even at a distance, the poet's calling (and here, as always, I speak from my own totally biased and entirely personal point of view) you've got to come out of the measurable doing universe into the immeasurable house of being. I am quite aware that, wherever our socalled civilization has slithered, there's every reward and no punishment for unbeing. But if poetry is your goal, you've got to forget all about punishments and all about rewards and all about selfstyled obligations and duties and responsibilities etcetera ad infinitum and remember only one thing only : that it's you -- nobody else -- who determine your destiny and decide your fate. Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else.

Toms can be Dicks and Dicks can be Harrys, but none of them can ever be you.

There's the artist's responsibility; and the most awful responsibility on earth. If you can take it, take it -- and be. If you can't, cheer up and go about other people's business; and do (or undo) till you drop.

and finally
a third sonnet from this foolishwise proudhumble citizen of ecstasies because

some devils are only driven out by prayer, fasting, and edward estlin cummings

:: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: :: ::

let's,from some unworld's most rightful wrong

climbing,my love(till mountains speak the truth)
enter a cloverish silence of thrushsong

(and more than every miracle's to breathe)

wounded us will becauseless ultimate
earth accept and primeval whyless sky;
healing by our immeasurable night

spirits and with illimitable day

(shrived of that nonexistence millions call
life, you and i may reverently share
the blessed eachness of all beautiful
selves wholly which and innocently are)

seeming's enough for slaves of space and time
--ours is the now and here of freedom. Come

you know who two
yes another sonnet

luminous tendril of celestial wish

(whying diminutive bright deathlessness
to these my not themselves believing eyes
adventuring, enormous nowhere from)

querying affirmation;virginal

immediacy of precision:more
and perfectly more most ethereal
silence through twilight's mystery made flesh--

dreamslender exquisite white firstful flame

--new moon!as(by the miracle of your
sweet innocence refuted)clumsy some
dull cowardice called a world vanishes,

teach disappearing also me the keen
illimitable secret of begin

you know who (1894-1962)

unlove's the heavenless hell and homeless home

of knowledgeable shadows(quick to seize
each nothing which all soulless wraiths proclaim
substance;all heartless spectres,happiness)

lovers alone wear sunlight. The whole truth

not hid by matter;not by mind revealed
(more than all dying life,all living death)
and never which has been or will be told

sings only--and all lovers are the song.

Here(only here)is freedom:always here
no then of winter equals now of spring;
but april's day transcends november's year

(eternity being so sans until
twice I have lived forever in a smile)

And on cold leather seats, well, it suddenly struck me

I just might die with a smile on my face after all.

Compared to the mood of the tenebrous one, your average Smiths song is the Partridge Family theme.

Misanthrope's concerto. Monster's Ball.

[deleted]

Wil Haygood's Dec. 2000 article on the 44th President of the United States, as some have called her.

Odi et amo; quare id faciam, fortasse requiris.
    Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.

-- Catullus, poem 85

:: :: :: :: ::

I hate; I love. Perhaps you ask me why.
Damned if I know. These feelings crucify.

-- Catullus, poem 85, translated by the tenebrous one, Thomas D (alias dylan)

77

Happy birthday to the estimable, venerable, formidable, perennially delightful William F. Buckley, Jr., born this day in 1925.

here is estlin
yet again

if seventy were young
and death uncommon
(forgiving not divine,
to err inhuman)
or any thine a mine
--dingdong:dongding--
to say would be to sing

if broken hearts were whole
and cowards heroes
(the popular the wise,
a weed a tearose)
and every minus plus
--fare ill:fare well--
a frown would be a smile

if sorrowful were gay
(today tomorrow,
doubting believing and
to lend to borrow)
or any foe a friend
--cry nay:cry yea--
november would be may

that you and i'd be quite
--come such perfection--
another i and you,
is a deduction
which(be it false or true)
disposes me to shoot
dogooding folk on sight

Went to Mass today

and for reasons that might seem obvious, I didn't pray the Our Father.

But I did hear an asphyxiatingly funny sermon from the living saint of a priest at my favorite chapel. About the woman who, in this life, had seven husbands. Whose wife will she be, the Sadducees mockingly asked the Lord, at the Resurrection?

The priest imagined a scenario where these seven men are pulling at her every limb, literally brawling over her. And imagined the Sadducees asking, will she be cut up, divided into seven equal parts, and each husband gets exactly one-seventh of the poor woman?

Seventy-plus-year-old Italian priest, with a thick accent. And I believe, a living saint.

And you really need to hear this sermon with the accent, and the animated gestures, and the wonderful vocal inflections.

Confucius (or maybe Lao-tzu)

At any rate, it's a proverb oft quoted by the prim Presbyterian 20th century Samuel Johnson, poet and essayist Marianne Moore (1887-1962)

If there be a knife of resentment in the heart, the mind will not attain wholeness.

The cutest girl in the world

There's a street person, a man who sits on milk-crates near one of the subway-stations in the big bean, who has got a fairly neat way of getting passersby's (is that the correct genitive plural of passerby?) attention : Placards that list celebrity birthdays.

The other day his placard announced that Goldie Hawn was 57.

Goldie Hawn. 57.

Slowly trying to absorb this. Zowie.

Gave him a quarter, and said "I can't believe she's 57."

"I know, she's the cutest girl in the world ..."

These four bumper-stickers
on the same parked car

Don't steal : The government hates competition.

Re-elect Nobody!

Pave the rainforest.

If you don't like the way I drive, stay off the sidewalk.

Friends and foes and countrymen, yesterday was my first drink-free day since the presidency of Chester Alan Arthur. Actually, perhaps my 2nd or 3rd dry day since Labor Day. I can't tell you the last time I strung together two straight days of teetotalling. Today will be Day 2, if I get through.

Slept from 10.30 to 6.30 -- eight hours, soundly. Wow. It's possible! Huzzah! Let there be sung Non nobis and Te Deum.

I was just wondering

Is Konrad von Adenauer the patron saint of Daylight Savings Time?

Howie Carr to Tom Daschle
the South Dakota conspiracy theorist

The senator alleges that Democratic losses lead to more strident rhetoric on Republican talk-radio shows, which leads to an increase in threats against Demmie pols. The Herald columnist politely urges the sonn-to-be-quondam majority leader : Stick a sock in it.

Uh, oh. Big mistake.

They're moving the Miss World pageant to London.

Expect all those high-Church Anglican archdeacons to take to the streets ... and the low-church evangelical types, who think the swimsuits are immoral ... the liberal gay Anglicans who protest the blatant heterosexism of the whole thing ... Mark my words, there will be riots ... altar boys wielding thuribles ... suffragan bishops thwacking people on the head with croziers ... you see, the Church of England is not a religion of peace ...

estlinarians of the world, unite and take over!

[This is Cummings, yet again, from his introduction to the 1934 edition of The Enormous Room. Quotation found via i : six nonlectures.]

Russia,I felt,was more deadly than war:when nationalists hate,they hate by merely killing and maiming human beings;when internationalists hate,they hate by categorying and pigeonholing human beings.

An oldie but goodie

A Smiths song that seems oh, so apt.

The Waking
by Theodore Roethke (1908-63)

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me, so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

Wow

Like a dope-slap to the psyche. A salutary cold splash of water on the fuming and fulminating soul.

This proverb, found at 6/22/[early60s?] (I mean, Video meliora, proboque; deteriora sequor -- yet another contender for Title of My Autobiography).

The question of whether God exists is less important than whether he is love.

Speaking of titles, I remember Christopher Buckley (son of the venerable WFB) in the preface of his splendidly naughty collection Wry Martinis. I took it out of the library, don't have it on hand, so quotation is from memory, & almost certainly inexact :

"I thought of calling this book Oeuvre to You. The first word is French for 'work,' as in your life's work, and to pronounce it correctly, you have to make a sound much like a dyspeptic diner at a French restaurant about to throw up a plateful of choucroute garnie. I cabled this suggestion to my father, who cabled back NO ! ! ! -- a somewhat cryptic message which I interpreted to mean NO ! ! !"

6/18/42
with lyrics that seem suited to the temper of 6/18/69

When you were young and your heart was an open book,
You used to say, "live and let live,"
(You know you did, you know you did, you know you did) ...

Yes. This is my theme song. And the title of the song is another possible title for my autobiography.

I am so glad to have found this article online

I read it in the non-virtual edition of the National Review three years ago.

Here is a prediction about her: If she becomes secretary of state or even something lesser, she will be big. Rock-star big. A major cultural figure, adorning the bedroom walls of innumerable kids and the covers of innumerable magazines.

And :

She has enjoyed “a wonderful life, a great life,” graced by ideal parents, and “I have a very, very powerful faith in God. I'm a really religious person, and I don't believe that I was put on this earth to be sour, so I'm eternally optimistic about things.”

But then :

She is loath “to criticize any black person for how he or she has wanted to navigate being black in America, whether it's Clarence Thomas or Maxine Waters.”

How wonderfully, thrillingly, bracingly ... inclusive.

I've appended to the left margin's listing of weblogs, faith sites, and political sites, a new category called Fun Stuff. There is miniature golf, and the Oracle of Bacon. Perhaps there will be more to come.

Frederica Mathewes-Green

On contemporary poetry. An article which might be of interest to some regular readers of this weblog.

Ah, the joys of Jorie Graham!

Too. Foo. Nay.

This conversation 'twixt our 43rd and 44th Presidents.

estlin yet again

Note : In one of his letters, the poet counselled a reader that, when reciting this poem aloud, the capital letters are not uttered or voiced.

:: :: :: :: :: :: ::

sonnet entitled how to run the world)

A always don't there B being no such thing
for C can't casts no shadow D drink and

E eat of her voice in whose silence the music of spring
lives F feel opens but shuts understand
G gladly forget little having less

with every least each most remembering
H highest fly only the flag that's furled

(sestet entitled grass is flesh or swim
who can and bathe who must or any dream
means more than sleep as more than know means guess)

I item i immaculately owe
dying one life and will my rest to these

children building this rainman out of snow

Tracy

Say Hallelujah
Throw up your hands
The bucket is kicked
The body is gone

Close your eyes
And bow your head
To rest your soul
And to praise the dead

Say Hallelujah
Throw up your hands
The bucket is kicked
The body is gone

Dry your eyes
And stand upright
Put a smile on your face
He wouldn’t want us to cry

The sun will rise
The stars will shine
Turning day to dusk
And night to dawn
We’ll pass on
But until that time

Say Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Say Hallelujah
Hallelujah

Say Hallelujah
Throw up your hands
The bucket is kicked
The body is gone

Have mercy
It’s a wonderful life
Eternal rest for the weary
Mourners party tonight

Say Hallelujah
Throw up your hands
The bucket is kicked
The body is gone

Wave your hands
But don’t say goodbye
We’re all gonna meet you
On the other side

Title of my autobiography

I think this one is definitive ...

Here But for the Grace of God Go You

Tracy, three-dux

All right. I'm having a 4th (I think) listen to Let It Rain, Tracy Chapman's newest compact disc ... and it's really beginning to grow on me. Especially "Say Hallelujah" ... There are now two songs I really really like, and three or four I kinda sorta like. So, we've got an album that's better (much) than New Beginning, but still, nowhere near Telling Stories. But improving with each listening.

A little too subdued on the whole, for my liking. "Say Hallelujah," a wonderfully exuberant ditty, is one of her masterpieces. So, a tentative rating of 3.3 stars out of five.

this is derrick jackson
trying to be nice
to the one the only
condoleezza rice

Why do I get the feeling

that I'd be most unwelcome in any church that declares with ostentatiously cultivated good cheer and liberally applied rouges of bonhomie, ALL ARE WELCOME ?

For example, right here in the big bean, there's the extremely "friendly" and "open" and "tolerant" Jesuit palazzo on Harrison Avenue. Their church bulletin had, the last time I wandered thereinto, a MISSION STATEMENT that declared -- in a tone that sounded more menacing than mellow, more Lieutenant Worf than Stuart Smalley :

WE ARE KNOWN AS A PLACE OF WELCOME.

Right. So if you're not a welcoming sort, stay away, keep out.

If you're not cheered to the cockles and sub-cockles of your heart by seeing the crucifix above the main altar shrouded in a rainbeaux drapeaux for the week of the Pride parade, then be so kind as to (forgive me) bugger off.

Unusually cheerful today, aren't I?

In case you were wondering
(warning : readers may lose their lunch)

here are the lyrics to Eminem's "Criminal." There may be a pop-up or two on the page.

Wow. Tell me how you like the leaden levity about the slain Gianni Versace checking the mail/male. ("Get it?" the rapper prods.)

Uh, no, we don't get it, Mr Mathers. Your formidable dexterity at constructing homophonous paranomasia is far too recondite for our feeble wit to grasp.

A strange train of thought

Fisking, frisky, Steve Martin, movies that mock celibacy

In a post from quite early this morning, I wondered if I was using the word "fisking" correctly. And of course, the word "fisking" sounds like "frisky" -- which reminded me of Steve Martin in the recent remake of The Out-of-Towners. Through no fault of his own, his character finds himself tripping on acid. And in the middle of this trip, he discovers how delightful it is to say the word "frisky." And encourages other people to say the word "frisky" with him.

I'd almost recommend the film on the basis of that scene alone, but there is an earlier scene where Steve Martin & Goldie Hawn stumble into what is ostensibly a 12-step-type meeting for sex addicts. Which brings us back, by a most convenient and commodious circumiteration, to the point of Mr Lugardo's post that was a fisking of an Australian journalist's article on elected celibacy.

What the bloody hell is so threatening about celibacy or chastity? From a depressingly worldly limited perspective, one can think of innumerable instances where celibacy would have saved a lot of people a lot of pain, suffering, heartache, and trouble.

Sure. It's difficult, it's countercultural -- but at one time, not too long ago, it was universally considered normative for the as-yet-unmarried. To say nothing of those who hadn't yet reached the age of, oh, 16.

Are these really happier, nobler, more enlightened days? Was the late Robert Mal-plethora-therapy really a liberator of the soul, and is the author of Love & Responsibility really little more than a scowling prude out to ruin everyone's fun? Are people better off when they follow the ethics of the Catechism or of the bathhouses?

Just a few sloppy inchoate malformed meditations on four hours' sleep.

another sonnet by estlin
for all the budding and inveterate estlinarians out there!

so many selves(so many fiends and gods
each greedier than every)is a man
(so easily one in another hides;
yet man can,being all,escape from none)

so huge a tumult is the simplest wish:
so pitiless a massacre the hope
most innocent(so deep's the mind of flesh
and so awake what waking calls asleep)

so never is most lonely man alone
(his briefest breathing lives some planet's year,
his longest life's a heartbeat of some sun;
his least unmotion roams the youngest star)

--how should a fool that calls him "I" presume
to comprehend not numerable whom?

Quite apart from the gist of this sonnet (a lowercase, less stentorian version of "I am large, I contain multitudes"), there is its gorgeous sound. Especially in the sestet, the unobtrusively prominent alliterations and vowel-echoes -- "briefest breathing" "longest life" "motion roams" and the quadrupilcate "oo" in the last 2 lines : fool, presume, numerable, whom.

Anyone who thinks you can't have fun in rhymed pentameters ... take note!

I might have to blog on the theme of reconcilable contradictions a bit further.

In the meantime, no one commented upon my thesis that these apparently contradictory statements are both true :

There is too little beauty in the world.

There is too much beauty in the world.

And of course, the question of why we seem to credit the possessors of beauty with having created that beauty. That topic could be explored for eons.

Orgasmic dithyrambs of praise
for the talentless Mr Mathers

Zadie Smith, here :

But let’s settle on the bald facts: Eminem has secured his place in the rap pantheon. Tupac, Biggie, and Pun are gone, and right now there just isn’t anyone else but Eminem who can rhyme 14 syllables a line, enrage the U.S. Senate, play the dozens, spin a tale, write a speech, push his voice into every register, toy with rhythm, subvert a whole goddamn genre, get metaphorical, allegorical, political, comical, and deeply, deeply personal—all in one groove of vinyl.

Andrew Sullivan, here :

Eminem's music is some of the most challenging, inventive and lyrically brilliant in recent times. His movie -- and this became the conventional reviewing wisdom -- was an excellently written and directed product. There's no mystery why it did so well. And the timing is irrelevant. Eminem's commercial power has been proven for years now.

(This, from a man whose stock in trade is criticizing the Catholic Church for its heaux meaux pheauxbia.)

How to phrase this delicately.

Eminem is a cancer-cell. His fans are cancer-cells. The genre in which he works is the epitome of all things cancerous and malignant.

Quick!

Somebody save us from the virgins!

Chris Lugardo at Rosa Mystica points us in the direction of a clueless, condescending article (by Rebecca Fowler in the Sydney Morning Herald) which looks at chastity through a jaundiced eye.

How jaundiced? Well, Fr Groeschel's book The Courage to be Chaste is called terrifying.

Groeschel paints a terrifying portrait of the chaste diving for cover in a world bombarded by sex and populated by "fleshpots" luring them back.

Sigh. But be sure to read Rosa Mystica on the subject. Don't know if I'd call it a fisking, but it's something just as satisfying.

a poem by estlin cummings

there are possibly 2½ or impossibly 3
individuals every several fat
thousand years. Expecting more would be
neither fantastic nor pathological but

dumb. The number of times a wheel turns
doesn't determine its roundness:if swallows tryst
in your barn be glad; nobody ever earns
anything,everthing little looks big in a mist

and if(by Him Whose blood was for us spilled)
than all mankind something more small occurs
or something more distorting than socalled
civilization i'll kiss a stalinist arse

in hitler's window on Wednesday next at 1
E.S.T. bring the kiddies let's all have fun

Charles Krauthammer.

Making sense.

Yes, Mr Rothwell!
... and Fr Nichols ...

On Anglican-Catholic ecumenical dialogue.

Other names that could be mentioned among the orthodox Anglicans : William Law and Thomas Traherne of earlier centuries, Eric Milner-White, Austin Farrer, and (Archbishop of Canterbury 1961-74) Michael Ramsey in our own time.

Kat Lively's right
direct link not working : check today at 10:43 am

In many of his roles, he played an unlovable sort, but in interviews he seemed to be a sweet guy.

Mark Steyn (via JWR)

on the differences between Muslim fundamentalists and Christian fundamentalists, differences routinely ignored by the deep thinkers at the New York Times. From October.

Morrissey really loved disco, didn't he?

Chanson par les Smiths. We can apply the more memorable lyrics to so many different things ...

With a REB-el yell
or, We aren't family : Reprimanding the translators of the Revised English Bible

Consider the first epistle of Saint John, chapter 2, verses 9 ff., as rendered in the REB :

9 Whoever says, 'I am in the light,' but hates his fellow-Christian, is still in darkness. 10 He who loves his fellow-Christian dwells in light : there is no cause of stumbling in him. 11 But anyone who hates his fellow is in darkness; he walks in the dark and has no idea where he is going, because the darkness has made him blind.

No, no, no, no, no. Not!

You see, make the passage inclusive if you like ... "his brother or sister," "his kinfolk," what have you. ... But don't eliminate the familial dimension of "brother" for the sake of gender-inclusivity.

It's like the Gomer Pyle version of "Let there be peace on earth" : Neighbors all are we. Gag.

Are we really just a community? No kinship? We aren't family? We're just another one of those associations, the teacher's union, the New England Poetry Club, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Gay & Lesbian Alliance? We have fellow members, but not brothers and sisters?

And a few verses later, the REB impairs euphony and defies concision (1 John 2.16), with the classic :

Everything in the world, all that panders to the appetites or entices the eyes, all the arrogance based on wealth, these spring not from the Father but from the world.

I guess "the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life" had a bit too much oomph, or was impenetrably obscure.

On the basis of this bit o' blogging alone, I'm thinking of adding the Oligarch to places oft visited.

Catullus! The sparrow! Huzzah!

From Daily Readings in Orthodox Spirituality (ed. P. Bouteneff, Templegate, 1996, 94 pp)

p 42 The Struggle and the Kingdom

Amma Theodora said, "Let us strive to enter through the narrow gate. Just as the trees, if they have not stood before the winter's storms cannot bear fruit, so it is with us; the present age is a storm and it is only through many trials and temptations that we can obtain an inheritance in the kingdom of heaven."

Amma Synclectica said, "Great endeavors and hard struggles await those who are converted, but afterwards inexpressible joy. If you want to light a fire, you are troubled at first by smoke, and your eyes water. But in the end you achieve your aim. Now it is written : 'Our God is a consuming fire.' So we must light the divine fire in us with tears and struggle."

:: :: :: :: :: ::

p 43 Temptation and Humility

Abba Anthony said to Abba Poemen, "This is the great work of a man : always to take the blame for his own sins before God and to expect temptation to his last breath."

He also said, "Whoever has not experienced temptation cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven." He even added, "Without temptations, no one can be saved."

He also said, "I saw all the snares that the enemy spreads out over the world and I said groaning, 'What can get one through such snares?' Then I heard a voice saying to me, 'Humility.'"

R. I. P., James Coburn
August 31, 1928 - November 18, 2002

Associated Press story from the Fox News website.

Coburn died of a heart attack at home while listening to music with his wife, said his manager, Hillard Elkins.

I remember best his part in Charade, and oddly, the beer commercial in the late 1970s for which, as it was widely reported at the time, he received $500K for two syllables of dialogue ("Schlitz Light").

I haven't seen The Magnificent Seven or In Like Flint or Affliction.

Former Bay State governor William Weld

explains his sense of kinship with the armadillo :

In the bottom corner of Weld's portrait is the small image of an armadillo, a nod to a stuffed armadillo Weld kept on his desk from his days in the U.S. Attorney's office.

''They're slow and stupid,'' Weld, now a lawyer in New York, said of armadillos. ''I'm a guy who never made the basketball team and this reminded me why.''

Tracy Chapman redux

I've heard the first six tracks of Let It Rain, the new disc. And it pains me to say : non mi piace.

With the notable exception of "You're the One," the obvious single, it is (so far) unremittingly lugubrious in an unenticing way. I think the best comparison would be to New Beginning, on which only "Give Me One Reason" is tolerable.

I do recommend Telling Stories. Have recommended, and will continue to recommend.

My governor has nice cheekbones

... and she's out of the hospital.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well, I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes.

Both of these statements are true

There is not enough beauty in the world.

There is too much beauty in the world.

Discuss.

Also, a deep philosophical question :

Why do we tend to think that a beautiful person is somehow responsible for his or her own beauty? (There is a sense in which this is true, but that requires unpacking the several meanings and implications of the word "beauty.") But let's use Dante and Beatrice as the names here. Did Beatrice make herself? Did she say, "Hmm. I've got the choice between being beautiful and average. I'll choose beautiful." Is Beatrice's beauty her own accomplishment?

But it strikes one how inevitably, how ineluctably, how instinctively, we think along those lines. Is there a justification for so thinking? Discuss.

Four words, Mr President ...

Chief Justice Clarence Thomas.

Quotidian meanderings & explorations of the blogosphere

Discovered whilst scanning the oft-visited list of Doxos : this blog-spot, which appears to be one of intellectual alertness, sagacity, and a salutary skepticism toward all things trendy : Religious Left Watch.

Credit to Mr Sullivan, once again

An interesting sign of peace from West Marin, California.

As another blogger pointed out, such things don't happen in Islamic countries very often. Women who aren't cocooned in the requisite layers of mummification tend to be stoned to death, or something.

Caroline Knapp's alcoholic equations
to which I've added a few

Fear + Drink = Bravery

Discomfort + Drink = No Discomfort

Pain + Drink = Self-obliteration.

And here are mine :

Irritability + Drink = Exuberance

Introvert + Drink = Extrovert

Kurt-Cobain-cum-Thomas-Hardy + Drink = Estlin-Cummings-cum-Fats-Waller

Desolation Sonnets + Drink = "The world is charged with the grandeur of God"

Diffidence + Drink = Confidence

Anxiety + Drink = Joyful Hope

Fretfulness + Drink = Blithesome Insouciance

Gloom + Drink = Effervescence

And so on.

Stainless steal
a bit o' pilferage from Steven Riddle's transcendental Flos

Here are :

Russell Kirk's Six Canons of Conservative Thought
the first, the second, the sixth especially delight

-- Belief in a transcendent order, or body of natural law, which rules society as well as conscience.

-- Affection for the proliferating variety and mystery of human existence, as opposed to the narrowing uniformity, egalitarianism, and utilitarian aims of most radical systems.

-- Conviction that civilized society requires orders and classes, as against the notion of a 'classless society'.

-- Persuasion that freedom and property are closely linked: separate property from private possession, and the Leviathan becomes master of all.

-- Faith in prescription and distrust of 'sophisters, calculators, and economists' who would reconstruct society upon abstract designs.

-- Recognition that change may not be salutary reform: hasty innovation may be a devouring conflagration, rather than a torch of progress.

I think it was via Mr Kirk's Portable Conservative Reader that I first became acquaint with Phyllis McGinley's splendid poem "The Angry Man" and Lord Falkland's archetypically conservative maxim, "If it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change."

Iconically luminous, ineffably splendid

I'm falling back in love in a really big way with Tracy Chapman. Here's a cool website, with scores of really wonderful photographs.

I can't praise Telling Stories (2000) highly enough. As for her politics ... well, just don't tell her about mine!

Political survey
via Res et Rationes, weblog of the irrepressible Mr Roesch, who got it via doctrinaire.net, which also rocks -- there, check out the cool pic of a renowned jurist, and the even cooler caption ...

Political Party/affiliation: Republican.

Favorite Political, er, Person: Currently, W. Of differing ideas : Pat Moynihan (alas, emeritus).

Favorite Political Quote: Among them, "I'm not perfect, but I'm honest" (Paul E. Tsongas to Bill Clinton in a 1992 primary debate).

Pet Issue: Hindering the Dems on their nihilistic rampage through everything sacred, noble and true. Illegalize abortion. Legalize pot. Start making cars without radios. Make the radio an optional feature that will triple the cost of the car. Insure public places (trains, churches, restaurants especially) are never heated above 65 degrees, by big-government federal ukase. We need a vice president named Elaine. We need a Secretary of State named Condoleezza. I believe the children are our future. Teach them well and let them lead the way ...

Ideal Presidential Ticket 2004: W & Big Time.

Ideal Presidential Candidate 2008: I like the sound of Rice/Chao, but Condi ain't pro-life, so : Ashcroft/Chao or Santorum/Chao.

Who will the Democrats run in 2004? Whom? Clear Eyes Lieberman and Dollar Bill Bradley.

Favorite Gun: The "warm gun" in the "Happiness Is a Warm Gun" song on the Beatles' "white album." And the Peter Gunn theme. And maybe the poet Thom Gunn, because his name sounds tough.

Least Favorite Politico: hollery redham, shannon o'brien, coe lynn powell, this list could continue for thrice the length of the G'burg address

Favorite Political Periodical: I never liked the "hard copy" of the Weekly Standard, but I like their website. Jewish World Review, OpinionJournal.com, National Review ... does First Things count?

Favorite Columnist(s): William F. Buckley Jr., Peggy Noonan, George F. Will, George F. Will (yes, he needed two mentions), Don Feder, Joe Fitzgerald (Boston Herald, & he does more than politics). Michelle Malkin is gaining fast.

Favorite President: W, Reagan, Cal Coolidge.

Least Favorite President: Clinton for his nihilism; Carter for his maladministration.

Favorite Supreme: Thomas and Scalia are obvious choices. I'll go with the late "Whizzer" White (John F. Kennedy -- 1 for 1 in appointing pro-lifers to the US Supreme Court. Contrast Nixon, 1 for 4.)

Favorite Senator: Santorum, Nickles, any New Hampshire Republican.

Favorite Governor: Can I pick governors-elect? Or past governors? By Bay State standards, Bill Weld wasn't bad. He lived by four simple tenets: (1) Cut taxes. (2) Stay out of the way of economic recovery. (3) Pour yourself several drinks. (4) Go fishing. Don't, under any circumstances, try to govern all the time.

Favorite Political Book: The Morning After, a collection of colums from 1981-85 by George F. Will; What I Saw at the Revolution, by Peggy Noonan; Kennedy and Nixon by Christopher Matthews; Miles to Go by Pat Moynihan; Happy Days Were Here Again, WFB.

Favorite Political Simpsons Episode: Oh, I remember one where Gerald Ford moved in next door ...

Favorite Conservative Polemicist: George Will.

Have you ever been assaulted by a former Weatherman or Black Panther member? No.

Favorite Experience Being Oppressed By a Liberal Teacher/Professor: I was a moderately liberal soul during my college days. College helped to change that.

Favorite out of the closet conservative/Republican celebrity? Don't know her political affiliation, but I'll give a few points to Patricia Heaton for being pro-life. Literary Republicans : E E Cummings and Marianne Moore.

Favorite Feminazi to Make Fun of: To make fun of them requires that one (1) pays attention to them; (2) doesn't think they're all that dangerous.

Were you ever a member of the Communist Party? No.

Secret Political Shame: Never voted for Bush 41. What's worse, my "moderate liberalism" persisted until about a year into the Clinton era. Which means that I did, once, vote for you-know-who.

How Satanic is John McCain? It's the iron triangle of special interests that are satanic. I favor leaving him alone, if he promises never to run for President again.

Political Organization(s) that Scares You More than Death, Spiders, and Death by Spiders: Mr R says the UN; I'll go with that, faute de mieux.

dylan adds a list ...

Things that made me Republican
three "biggies" and two honorable mentions

1. The University of Marxichusetts at Amhearse. Dreadful little place.

2. The intelligence and gentility and irrefutable logic, the good-humored uncompromise of George F. Will.

3. The first year or 14 months of the kaiser blythe / hollery redham epoch.

Honorable mention :

The writings of William F. Buckley, Jr., although it is possible to admire the grace and elegance of the language without adopting the writer's views. In my early 20s, I regarded him as an aberration of wit and intelligence in a predominantly scowling, brawling, unlettered political movement.

From the Episcopal News Service

Stories about two retiring bishops -- the outgoing Archbishop of Canterbury visits Illinois, and distinguishes between "godly liberalism" and "radical liberalism"; and a suffragan bishop of Massachusetts retires.

Psalm 68. Exsurgat Deus.

From the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. Link to be added to left-hand margin.

LET God arise, and let his enemies be scattered; * let them also that hate him flee before him.

2 Like as the smoke vanisheth, so shalt thou drive them away; * and like as wax melteth at the fire, so let the ungodly perish at the presence of God.

3 But let the righteous be glad, and rejoice before God; * let them also be merry and joyful.

4 O sing unto God, and sing praises unto his Name; magnify him that rideth upon the heavens; * praise him in his Name JAH, and rejoice before him.

5 He is a Father of the fatherless, and defendeth the cause of the widows; * even God in his holy habitation.

6 He is the God that maketh men to be of one mind in an house, and bringeth the prisoners out of captivity; * but letteth the runagates continue in scarceness.

7 O God, when thou wentest forth before the people; * when thou wentest through the wilderness,

8 The earth shook, and the heavens dropped at the presence of God; * even as Sinai also was moved at the presence of God, who is the God of Israel.

9 Thou, O God, sentest a gracious rain upon thine inheritance, * and refreshedst it when it was weary.

10 Thy congregation shall dwell therein; * for thou, O God, hast of thy goodness prepared for the poor.

11 The Lord gave the word; * great was the company of women that bare the tidings.

12 Kings with their armies did flee, and were discomfited, * and they of the household divided the spoil.

13 Though ye have lain among the sheep-folds, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove * that is covered with silver wings, and her feathers like gold.

14 When the Almighty scattered kings for their sake, * then were they as white as snow in Salmon.

15 As the hill of Bashan, so is God's hill; * even an high hill, as the hill of Bashan.

16 Why mock ye so, ye high hills? this is God's hill, in the which it pleaseth him to dwell; * yea, the LORD will abide in it for ever.

17 The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels; * and the Lord is among them as in the holy place of Sinai.

18 Thou art gone up on high, thou hast led captivity captive, and received gifts from men; * yea, even from thine enemies, that the LORD God might dwell among them.

19 Praised be the Lord daily, * even the God who helpeth us, and poureth his benefits upon us.

20 He is our God, even the God of whom cometh salvation: * GOD is the Lord, by whom we escape death.

21 God shall wound the head of his enemies, * and the hairy scalp of such a one as goeth on still in his wickedness.

22 The Lord hath said, I will bring my people again, as I did from Bashan; * mine own will I bring again, as I did sometime from the deep of the sea.

23 That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, * and that the tongue of thy dogs may be red through the same.

24 It is well seen, O God, how thou goest; * how thou, my God and King, goest in the sanctuary.

25 The singers go before, the minstrels follow after, * in the midst of the damsels playing with the timbrels.

26 Give thanks unto God the Lord in the congregation, * ye that are of the fountain of Israel.

27 There is little Benjamin their ruler, and the princes of Judah their council; * the princes of Zebulon, and the princes of Naphthali.

28 Thy God hath sent forth strength for thee; * stablish the thing, O God, that thou hast wrought in us,

29 For thy temple's sake at Jerusalem; * so shall kings bring presents unto thee.

30 Rebuke thou the dragon and the bull, with the leaders of the heathen, so that they humbly bring pieces of silver; * scatter thou the peoples that delight in war;

31 Then shall the princes come out of Egypt; * the Morians' land shall soon stretch out her hands unto God.

32 Sing unto God, O ye kingdoms of the earth; * O sing praises unto the Lord;

33 Who sitteth in the heavens over all, from the beginning: * lo, he doth send out his voice; yea, and that a mighty voice.

34 Ascribe ye the power to God over Israel; * his worship and strength is in the clouds.

35 O God, wonderful art thou in thy holy places: * even the God of Israel, he will give strength and power unto his people. Blessed be God.

Wisdom 7
from the King James Version, incl. Apocrypha

15: God hath granted me to speak as I would, and to conceive as is meet for the things that are given me: because it is he that leadeth unto wisdom, and directeth the wise.

16: For in his hand are both we and our words; all wisdom also, and knowledge of workmanship.

17: For he hath given me certain knowledge of the things that are, namely, to know how the world was made, and the operation of the elements:

18: The beginning, ending, and midst of the times: the alterations of the turning of the sun, and the change of seasons:

19: The circuits of years, and the positions of stars:

20: The natures of living creatures, and the furies of wild beasts: the violence of winds, and the reasonings of men: the diversities of plants and the virtues of roots:

21: And all such things as are either secret or manifest, them I know.

22: For wisdom, which is the worker of all things, taught me: for in her is an understanding spirit holy, one only, manifold, subtil, lively, clear, undefiled, plain, not subject to hurt, loving the thing that is good, quick, which cannot be letted, ready to do good,

23: Kind to man, steadfast, sure, free from care, having all power, overseeing all things, and going through all understanding, pure, and most subtil, spirits.

24: For wisdom is more moving than any motion: she passeth and goeth through all things by reason of her pureness.

25: For she is the breath of the power of God, and a pure influence flowing from the glory of the Almighty: therefore can no defiled thing fall into her.

26: For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, the unspotted mirror of the power of God, and the image of his goodness.

27: And being but one, she can do all things: and remaining in herself, she maketh all things new: and in all ages entering into holy souls, she maketh them friends of God, and prophets.

28: For God loveth none but him that dwelleth with wisdom.

29: For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it.

30: For after this cometh night: but vice shall not prevail against wisdom.

George F. Will
whose name will surface again, if I ever blog the list of reasons I became a conservative Republican

on liberals' contempt for the ordinary Joe, dating back to the fabulous fifties.

I'm really falling for the JWR website, in a big way.

The crawl on CNN just announced that my governor, Jane M. Swift (R-Mass.), 37, has been diagnosed with viral meningitis. Condition not life-threatening. Still, a scare and a half. Prayers for Governor Swift.

Oh, Lord Jeffery Amherst was a soldier of the King
And he came from across the sea
To the Frenchman and the Indians, he didn't do a thing
In the wilds of this wild country,
In the wilds of this wild country

And for his Royal Majesty, he fought with all his might
For he was a solider loyal and true
And he conquered all the enemies that came within his sight
And he looked 'round for more when he was through.

Chorus:
Oh, Amherst! Brave Amherst!
'Twas a name known to fame in days of yore.
May it ever be glorious Till the sun shall climb the heav'ns no more.

Oh, Lord Jeffery Amherst was the man who gave his name
To our college upon the hill
And the story of his loyalty and bravery and fame
Abides here among us still,
Abides here among us still.

You may talk about your Johnnies and your Elis and the rest
For they are names that time can never dim.
But give us our only Jeffery,
He's the noblest and the best
To the end we will stand fast for him.

[Chorus]

Doing my part to malkinize the nation

One of the most estimable and venerable bloggers in the blogosphere has said that his least favorite type of blog is the one where someone links to an article and gives you naught but 5 or 6 words telling you why you should read the article -- nothing more. And all the posts of a given day are composed in like wise.

Tenebrae seems to be turning into that type of blog.

Anyway, here's Michelle Malkin via Jewish World Review, who declares :

The era of radical feminist sexual liberation has produced a generation of shameless skanks.

Niles to Frasier
at the wine-tasting contest

"Prepare to be stomped like a late-harvest Gewürztraminer!"

Even though it makes no sense

I always -- 'always' until I found out otherwise -- thought it was I am the sun and the air.

The mystifying Peggy Noonan

In this column, the sublime Miss N deplores the lack of courtesy among liberals and praises second-hand smoke.

She points out that when you compare second-hand smoke to things like crack cocaine, abortion, violent rap, pornography, the Democratic Party, etc., it's a comparatively small annoyance, the most indiscernible blemish on the countenance of society. (Actually, she didn't list the Dems.)

The occasion of Noonan's disquisition is an idea by NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg to ban smoking in all bars.

Noonan's article is at her feisty & lyrical best when she describes the atmosphere of your average place-where-everybody-knows-your-name.

Smoking should continue to be permitted in bars. And forbidden in subway stations. Well, actually it technically "is" forbidden in the Boston subway -- but the law isn't enforced. I should start carrying a fire extinguisher.

Drinking alcohol should be allowed in subways (following Noonan's logic that greater evils exist). If someone on the subway platform drinks, I don't get drunk. If someone on the platform smokes, I, too, am smoking. Whether I want to or not. It is unlibertarian to compel someone to do something he doesn't want to do. Especially when the someone in question is me.

There's more than lefty puritanism at work here. Noonan should talk to a non-smoking barmaid.

Of course, if your average cig had the aroma of certain pipe tobacco ... as opposed to your average car exhaust ... my objections to smoking on subway platforms would diminish considerably.

Oh, yes, and smoking pot should be legal ... but not on subway platforms.

Yesterday's quiz

The answer is (b) 3. In the last fifteen Presidential elections, the Democratic ticket achieved a popular majority thrice : in 1944, with FDR; in 1964, with LBJ; in 1976, with Jimmy Carter (that last, with 50.1%, and winning fewer states than Gerald Ford).

So, since the death of Roosevelt, only twice ... and in my lifetime, only once.

Making society live long and prosper

Sort of.

Tracy Chapman

Title song from her 2000 cd, perhaps her very best.

Memorandum to self : there's a 2002 cd (Let It Rain) that is as yet unbought. Must remedy that situation.

Telling Stories

There is fiction in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesn't mean
You're not just telling stories
There is fiction in the space between
You and me

There is fiction in the space between
You and reality
You will do and say anything
To make your everyday life
Seem less mundane
There is fiction in the space between
You and me

There's a science fiction in the space between
You and me
A fabrication of a grand scheme
Where I am the scary monster
I eat the city and as I leave the scene
In my spaceship I am laughing
In your remembrance of your bad dream
There's no one but you standing

Leave the pity and the blame
For the ones who do not speak
You write the words to get respect and compassion
And for posterity
You write the words and make believe
There is truth in the space between

There is fiction in the space between
You and everybody
Give us all what we need
Give us one more sad sordid story
But in the fiction of the space between
Sometimes a lie is the best thing
Sometimes a lie is the best thing

Puns that would make
even P. Madrid & J. Miller groan

If a man and a woman make love behind the shrubbery, are they hedge-row-sexual?

Is a lazy weblogger an "underarchiver"?

Does Seinfeld's "soup Nazi" have a Gazpacho Gestapo?

Multiple choice

Number of times in the last 60 years that the Democrats received a majority (over 50%) of the popular vote in a Presidential election :

(a) 2.
(b) 3.
(c) 4.
(d) 5.
(e) 6.

Answer perhaps tomorrow.

Blast!

Now we've got pop-ups on blogspot ? ?

At #21 in this set of 99 random thoughts, I make mention of a book called Drinking : A Love Story by the late Boston Phoenix columnist Caroline Knapp (1959-2002). I've begun reading it, and it is -- as I suspected it would be, for me -- an essential book, a book in which I readily recognize a certain kinship with the writer.

There will certainly be more on this book later. I've begun underlining certain passages in pencil.

a sonnet by
Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849)

November

The mellow year is hasting to its close;
The little birds have almost sung their last,
Their small notes twitter in the dreary blast --
That shrill-piped harbinger of early snows;
The patient beauty of the scentless rose,
Oft with the morn's hoar crystal quaintly glassed,
Hangs, a pale mourner for the summer past,
And makes a little summer where it grows.
In the chill sunbeam of the faint brief day
The dusky waters shudder as they shine;
The russet leaves obstruct the straggling way
Of oozy brooks, which no deep banks define;
And the gaunt woods, in ragged, scant array,
Wrap their old limbs with sombre ivy-twine.

James Thomson (1700-48).
From the "Autumn" section of The Seasons.

But see the fading many-coloured woods,
Shade deepening over shade, the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage dusk and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark. These now the lonesome muse,
Low whispering, lead into their leaf-strewn walks,
And give the season in its latest view.

Meantime, light shadowing all, a sober calm
Fleeces unbounded ether : whose least wave
Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn
The gentle current; while illumined wide,
The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun,
And through their lucid veil his softened force
Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time,
For those whom virtue and whom nature charm,
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,
And soar above this little scene of things :
To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet;
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace;
And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks.

Thus solitary, and in pensive guise,
Oft let me wander o'er the russet mead,
And through the saddened grove, where scarce is heard
One dying strain, to cheer the woodman's toil.
Haply some widowed songster pours his plaint,
Far, in faint warblings, through the tawny copse;
While congregated thrushes, linnets, larks,
And each wild throat, whose artless strains so late
Swelled all the music of the swarming shades,
Robbed of their tuneful souls, now shivering sit
On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock :
With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes,
And nought save chattering discord in their note.
O let not, aimed from some inhuman eye,
The gun the music of the coming year
Destroy; and harmless, unsuspecting harm,
Lay the weak tribes a miserable prey
In mingled murder, fluttering on the ground!

The pale descending year, yet pleasing still,
A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf
Incessant rustles from the mournful grove;
Oft startling such as studious walk below,
And slowly circles through the waving air.
But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs
Sob, o'er the sky a leafy deluge streams;
Till choked, and matted with the dreary shower,
The forest walks at every rising gale,
Roll wide the withered waste, and whistle bleak.
Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields;
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race
Their sunny robes resign. E'en what remained
Of stronger fruits falls from the naked tree;
And woods, fields, gardens, orchards all around,
The desolated prospect thrills the soul.

Stephen Fry

An excerpt from his novel The Liar, quoted by himself in his autobiography Moab Is My Washpot :

For once Adrian had remained silent. Something was terribly wrong.

It had taken him two painful terms to identify the symptoms. He looked them up in all the major textbooks. There was no doubt about it. All the authorities concurred : Shakespeare, Tennyson, Ovid, Keats, Georgette Heyer, Milton, they were of one opinion. It was love. The Big One.

Cartwright of the sapphire eyes and golden hair, Cartwright of the Limbs and Lips : he was Petrarch's Laura, Milton's Lycidas, Catullus's Lesbia, Tennyson's Hallam, Shakespeare's fair boy and dark lady, the moon's Endymion. Cartwright was Garbo's salary, the National Gallery, he was cellophane : he was the tender trap, the blank unholy surprise of it all and the bright golden haze on the meadow : he was honey-honey, sugar-sugar, chirpy chirpy cheep-cheep and his baby-love : the voice of the turtle could be heard in the land, there were angels dining at the Ritz and a nightingale sang in Berkeley Square.

-- Moab, p. 237

This reader speaks, as always, only for himself, and says that it's mighty hard to resist a prose-stylist of such ... effervescence and exuberance.

Selected verses from the Collected Poems
of Theodore Roethke

Angel within me, I asked,
Did I ever curse the sun?
Speak and abide.

[p. 59]

:: :: :: :: ::

Some morning thing came, beating its wings.
The great elm filled with birds.

[p. 60]

:: :: :: :: ::

I warm myself with cold.

[p. 251]

The kibbutz massacre

Jeff Jacoby's column by way of the Jewish World Review (in which he notes a startling coincidence)

and via the Jerusalem Post, a father's eulogy.

"I've always thought that Catholics were, for the most part, pro-life democrats"
continuing the conversation

With a small "d," to be sure! But the blogger meant capital-D (or D-minus) Democrats, as in the American political party.

I say, huzzah, hoo-ray, and bravissimo! Three cheers, and more than three, for pro-life Democrats! When or if you can find them. They seem to be as rare and strange as spearmint ravioli.

And if the pro-life Dem in question is, let us say, a legislator who undercuts his own pro-life work by voting for an aggressively, unswervingly pro-choice President ...

But when the intellect of man is forced to choose between the "pro-life" and the "Democrat," which term of the binomial, pray tell, which element of the formula, adjective or noun, should carry more weight?

I don't claim to have encyclopedic knowledge of every encyclical, apostolic letter, sermon and allocution penned by His Holiness John Paul II. But I'm fairly sure he hasn't written an encyclical entitled Evangelium Partis Democraticae.

And while the Holy Father certainly endorses moderate capitalism over unfettered Randian libertarianism, and would be the first to stand up for solicitude for the downtrodden, the infirm, elderly, handicapped, impoverished ... and lest we forget, unborn, it's hard to imagine that he would, were he an American citizen, embrace a party which :

(1) attempts to scare people into believing that the other major party is nothing but a cabal of billionaire racists intent on burning down battered women's shelters, bombing U Cal Berkeley, and forcing the elderly to subsist on cat food and $60 a month

(2) indefatigably proposes the pentad of Dubya's Dumb, Raise Taxes, Race Quotas, Kill Babies, and Gay Marriage as an innovative and exciting "improvement" over more conventional, more mainstream ideas.

Two poems by Emily Dickinson

#525

I think the Hemlock likes to stand
Upon a Marge of Snow --
It suits his own Austerity
And satisfies an awe

That men, must slake in Wilderness --
And in the Desert -- cloy --
An instinct for the Hoar, the Bald --
Lapland's -- necessity --

The Hemlock's nature thrives -- on cold --
The Gnash of Northern winds
Is sweetest nutriment -- to him --
His best Norwegian Wines --

To satin Races -- he is nought --
But Children on the Don,
Beneath his Tabernacles, play,
And Dnieper Wrestlers, run.

:: :: :: :: ::
:: :: :: :: ::

#1129

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant --
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise

As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind --

Oh, the devil will find work for idle hands to do ...

and songs for idle tongues to sing.

Two elements of this song compete for primacy of preternatural brilliance : the line "your prejudice won't keep you warm tonight" and the wonderfully sarcastic "oh, ho-ho" flourish at the tail-end of the refrain ...

The early seventies

Am I the only one who thought, circa age four, that bad, bad Leroy Brown (of the Jim Croce song) had a raisin in his shoe?

Her : "That's not a kiss. This is a kiss."

[Forty-five seconds of deep, passionate tonsil-hockey ensue.]

Him : "Do you know how to make sauce?"

-- Taral Hicks and Lillo Brancato in A Bronx Tale (1993)

Amherst

Emily Dickinson's house I found to be seriously ordinary. The one surprise came when I saw a portrait of Emily, her brother, and her sister -- a painting of the siblings in their teens or early tens -- through which I learned that the poet's hair was auburn verging on red, a fiery tint especially when contrasted with those colorless daguerreotypes to which we are accustomed.

The real surprises about Emily Dickinson, the genuine excitement, comes by way of the poetry -- we are still discovering arrestingly strange, enticingly extraordinary novelties of phrasing and expression -- after nearly 18 years of owning the Collected Poems. It's possible that I'll be blogging some more of my favorites in the coming days.

When the tour guide wanted to make a point about textual variance between pre-1955 and post-1955 editions of Dickinson's work, one visitor (who has trouble keeping silence about such things) helpfully provided two examples.

Emily apparently kept a herbarium -- pressed leaves, flowers, etc. -- with the names of the specimens in the proper botanical-taxonomical Latin.

We did enjoy lunch, the four of us -- before the homestead visit -- in the Boltwood Tavern of the Lord Jeffery [sic] Amherst Inn. (Something about liberal college towns instills a hunger for turkey sandwiches with strange green stuff -- like avocado or sprouts. Not to mention the tomato, the brie, and the maple-tinted honey-mustard!)

The weather was grey, sporadically rainy, and as dreary as a marriage of a Smiths song and a Thomas Hardy poem -- somehow suitable for a trip to a bailiwick which, for "personal reasons," I quite immoderately despise.

But all in all, not a bad day.

An address by Bishop Gregory

about which the Boston Globe, in its temperate moderate respectful fashion, screamed : How dare he speak of false prophets? Troot hoyts doughnut.

But to be less glib about it, Bishop Gregory's sentence about "false prophets" was clearly not directed at victims of abuse, nor at other orthodox Catholics who eagerly want to see house cleaned. The Globe decontextualized the words "false prophet" so as to make the irenic prelate seem like a raving lunatic.

Sorry, I don't have the link to the Globe article (so much the better, perhaps); it's already been "archived" & registration is required, etc. etc.

poem #1569 (T. H. Johnson edition)
by Emily Dickinson

The Clock strikes one that just struck two --
Some schism in the Sum --
A Vagabond for Genesis
Has wrecked the Pendulum --

Which theologian am I? Vide supra, dudes and dudettes.

Ved-dee een-tair-ess-teenk .....

"We reject the false doctrine that the church could have permission to hand over the form of its message and of its order to whatever it itself might wish or to the vicissitudes of the prevailing ideological and political convictions of the day."

You are Karl Barth! You like your freedom, and are pretty stubborn against authority! You don't care much for other people's opinions either. You can come up with your own fun, and often enough you have too much fun. You are pretty popular because you let people have their way, even when you have things figured out better than them.

What theologian are you?

A creation of Henderson

... but to be honest I got Augustine the 1st time I tried. Maybe the pre-conversion Augustine, because I feel absolutely no kinship with Gus of Hip whatsoever. (I'd have been happy with Fulton Sheen, who might not be considered by some stuffy folk a "theologian" but no matter.)

The second time I took the quiz I decided, for a lark, to answer in such a way that some mélange, some blend, some tri-animate amalgam of Hans Küng, Jim Morrison and the Tasmanian Devil would be the ineluctable result (by the way, is "ineluctable" one of the St Blog's drinking cues? It ought to be) ... well, this is what came up, and somehow it seems more fitting.

Oh, yes, more on Amherst a bit later. I still execrate the town, but the day-trip out there was not bad at all.

Sign seen in Gloucester, Massachusetts
as fishermen protest regulations that cripple their industry

Out of work? Hungry? Eat an environmentalist!

This is one of those days that the pages of history teach us are best spent lying in bed.

-- Roland Young as Uncle Willie in The Philadelphia Story (1940)

A glorious gray day of splendid foliage

Some rain in the afternoon, but otherwise awesome. The kind of gray cool November day for which one yearns all summer with an almost physical lust.

C S Lewis said somewhere in Surprised by Joy that he liked bleak, northern, gray, cold, stark, autumnal-wintry landscapes, and almost lusted for them ... I might be confused; and even if not, I don't have the exact words on hand, because I borrowed Surprised from the library.

Lewis also admits to having liked Longfellow's translation of Tegner's Drapa, a Norse poem, for conveying that kind of scene :

I saw the pallid corpse
Of the dead sun
Borne through the Northern sky.

Amherst tomorrow.

From the UK's Daily Mirror

[...]

Words of wisdom, worth the heeding

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

5. And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use, as His messenger, a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.

6. You should not confuse your career with your life.

7. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

8. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy.

9. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

10. Never lick a steak knife.

11. Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.

12. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.

13. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

14. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

15. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.

16. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers. (Not I, says dylan, not I ! )

17. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.

18. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important -- Pay attention. It never fails.)

19. Your friends love you anyway.

Thought for the day :

Never be afraid to try something new.

Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark.

A large group of professionals built the Titanic.