Champions!

The Boston Red Sox have won the 2007 World Series in four games straight ...

Congratulations!

Sox are kings of the diamond by Gordon Edes of the Boston Globe.

Three games to nil

All right, it got a little scary tonight in the 7th inning, but a win is a win is a win.

Daisuke's 2 RBI were a nice touch. And the (other) rookies came through when they had to.

The box score.

One more ...

Go Sox!

Tracy as a busker

"Change," from 2005:

October 27, 1914

Poem on his birthday by Dylan Thomas.

September 26, 1983

If it weren't for the levelheadedness of this man, we all would have been nuked to death twenty-four years ago.

Via Dyspeptic Mutterings.

Especially when the October wind
by Dylan Thomas (1914-53)

Especially when the October wind
With frosty fingers punishes my hair,
Caught by the crabbing sun I walk on fire
And cast a shadow crab upon the land,
By the sea's side, hearing the noise of birds,
Hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
My busy heart who shudders as she talks
Sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.

Shut, too, in a tower of words, I mark
On the horizon walking like the trees
The wordy shapes of women, and the rows
Of the star-gestured children in the park.
Some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,
Some of the oaken voices, from the roots
Of many a thorny shire tell you notes,
Some let me make you of the water's speeches.

Behind a pot of ferns the wagging clock
Tells me the hour's word, the neural meaning
Flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning
And tells the windy weather in the cock.
Some let me make you of the meadow's signs;
The signal grass that tells me all I know
Breaks with the wormy winter through the eye.
Some let me tell you of the raven's sins.

Especially when the October wind
(Some let me make you of autumnal spells,
The spider-tongued, and the loud hill of Wales)
With fists of turnips punishes the land,
Some let me make of you the heartless words.
The heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
Of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
By the sea's side hear the dark-vowelled birds.

fragments


the monastery of the setting sun

*

dream of confession to a pagan priest

*

impediments to liberty abound

*

a spirit that's unused to sacrifice

*

estranged from silence this distracted soul

*

enslavement to the taste of fleeting bliss

*

still slumbering lulled by magic not benign

*

the non-ascetic worshiper of self

*

dark icons of a false humility

*

he runs as one who wants to stand in place

*

how long will God protect the reckless man
who walks through dangerous places drunkenly

*

a plague of pleasures and a scourge of pains

*

peremptory thanksgiving for good health

*

asking a wrathless heaven to bless the dead

All knotted up
at three games apiece

The oh-so-reliable Daisuke Matsuzaka starts Game 7.

Cautiously optimistic.

Go Sox!

Sorry to tell you this, Barack ...

... but it's true.

It is well documented that black Americans — particularly black males — have shorter life expectancies than whites. But blacks do live to become senior citizens.

Not all. But let that go.

A black person born in 2004 had an average life expectancy of 73.1 years, about five years less than for whites, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

Imagine that!

What American accent do you have? Your Result: Boston   You definitely have a Boston accent, even if you think you don't. Of course, that doesn't mean you are from the Boston area, you may also be from New Hampshire or Maine.
The West
North Central
The Midland
The Northeast
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The South
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Yeah, right

You Are Incredibly Logical

Move over Spock - you're the new master of logic You think rationally, clearly, and quickly. A seasoned problem solver, your mind is like a computer!

How Logical Are You?

Book quiz

Via Andrew Sullivan:

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

A funny Scottish joke

In English, at Credo ut intelligam.

Deborah Kerr has died at age 86

I enjoyed her work in this undernoticed film from the early sixties. Requiescat.

Magnificat anima mea Dominum

A Marian villanelle, the first version of which was written twelve years ago today.

from De Profundis
by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900)

A man's very highest moment is, I have no doubt at all, when he kneels in the dust, and beats his breast, and tells all the sins of his life.

Today is the 153rd anniversary of Oscar Wilde's birth.

October 14, 1894
birthday of Edward Estlin Cummings

To commemorate:

Semi-sonnet for Cummings' hundredth (written 13 years ago)

and:

a meditation on his line "must's a schoolroom in the month of may" ...

As one of the commenters on this clip has noted

"This is basically the coolest video in the history of ever."

I use this bridge almost every day

It's only a 300-foot drop if the span collapses, but they say it won't. I'm reassured.

Thank you!
Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Mr. Riddle asks:

what the heck does global warming have to do with peace?

Took the words right out of my etcetera.

from
The Oxford Book of Prayer
ed. George Appleton

Prayer No. 316

The day returns and brings us the petty round of irritating concerns and duties. Help us to play the man, help us to perform them with laughter and kind faces. Let cheerfulness abound with industry. Give us to go blithely on our business all this day, bring us to our resting beds weary and content and undishonoured, and grant us in the end the gift of sleep.

-- R. L. Stevenson, 1850-94

*

Prayer No. 354

Withhold not from me, O my God, the best, the Spirit of thy dear Son; that in that day when the judgement is set I may be presented unto thee not blameless, but forgiven, not effectual but faithful, not holy but persevering, without desert but accepted, because he hath pleaded the causes of my soul, and redeemed my life.

-- Eric Milner-White, 1884-1964

more first than sun

Today is the fifth birthday of more last than star.

Definitely worth reading

One of many highlights in William Luse's most recent post:

I know a lot of Christians go to church and recite with the crowd, asking God to, for example, take away their manifold sins and wickedness, but I don't think they mean it. Based on the evidence. It's as though they hope for a heaven that's much like what's going on now, but with the physical ailments and the criminal element removed.

That's me most of the time, I'm afraid.

At Apologia, you can also find reflections on beer, yardwork, mockingbirds, and young lesbians; a review of a recent film; and a philosophical quandary that involves a wolf attacking Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And you can see a fine painting as well! But don't rely on my all-too-quick précis; hasten thither.

In this world ...
by Kobayashi Issa (1763-1828)

In this world
we walk on the roof of hell,
gazing at flowers.


translated by Robert Hass

I was just saying this to someone the other day

Basically the same prediction that's in that last sentence, about Hillary.

Here's hoping that the commenter and I are both wrong.

Cavatina
by David Gascoyne (1916-2001)


Now we must bear the final real
Convulsion of the breast, for the sublime
Relief of the catharsis; and the cruel
Clear grief; the dear redemption from the crime,
The sublimation of the evil dream.

Beneath, all is confused, dense and impure;
Extraordinary shiftings of a nameless mass
From plane to plane, then some obscure
Catastrophe:
The shattered Cross
High on its storm-lit hill, the searchlight eyes
Whose lines divide the black dome of the skies,
Are implicated; and the Universe of Death --
Gold, excrement and flesh, the spirit’s malady,
A secret animal’s hot breath ...

Yet through disaster a faint melody
Insists; and the interior suffering like a silver wire
Enduring and resplendent, strongly plied
By genius’ hands into the searching fire
At last emerges and is purified.

Its force like violins in pure lament
Persists, sending ascending stairs
Across the far wastes of the firmament
To carry starwards all our weight of tears.

Weather statistic

This year in Boston October 4 was warmer than July 4.

86 degrees yesterday. A record high.

From the most recent issue of Dappled Things

Fragment from Assisi, a poem by Meredith of For Keats' Sake!

Two very different autumn poems

Poem in October by Dylan Thomas (1914-53):

Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning ...

and:

Autumn by Adam Zagajewski (b. 1945):

... the cold bayonets of autumn
suddenly glint in the fields and the wind
rages.

Happy Birthday, Mom!!!