An "ordination"
in as many scare-quotes as possible
Yes, up here in Boston's Back Bay the organization known as "Roman Catholic Womenpriests" added three "priests" and one "deacon" to their number yesterday.
The most amusing part of this folderol was listening to one of our local television reporters attempt to pronounce "diaconate."
Monday, July 21, 2008
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Timothy Steele
Prosody for 21st-century poets
An essay by Timothy Steele at the poets.org website. Steele, often categorized as a formalist, with good reason, takes on Ezra Pound and his denigration of the pentameter. He also has many things to say about the verse of our moment, and about the popular view of meter as a "straitjacket."
An essay by Timothy Steele at the poets.org website. Steele, often categorized as a formalist, with good reason, takes on Ezra Pound and his denigration of the pentameter. He also has many things to say about the verse of our moment, and about the popular view of meter as a "straitjacket."
Friday, July 18, 2008
Wilde
You should get married. A misanthrope I can understand -- a womanthrope, never!
Miss Prism to Dr Chasuble in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
Miss Prism to Dr Chasuble in Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest
Kay Ryan
Newly named US poet laureate
Kay Ryan, 62, of Northern California. Here is her Poetry Foundation page, with twenty-one poems and one review (of the notebooks of Robert Frost).
An NYT article announcing the laureateship, and containing praise for Ryan from the perhaps-unexpected source of Dana Gioia.
And a San Francisco Chronicle article, which confuses poets laureate with Librarians of Congress. (I don't believe Robert Lowell, William Carlos Williams, Louise Bogan, etc., were ever "poets laureate." The post of laureate is relatively new -- 1986 or so -- and the first poet to be honored with the title was an octogenarian Robert Penn Warren. IIRC.)
Update, Saturday : Prior to 1986, the "poet laureate" was known as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.
Kay Ryan, 62, of Northern California. Here is her Poetry Foundation page, with twenty-one poems and one review (of the notebooks of Robert Frost).
An NYT article announcing the laureateship, and containing praise for Ryan from the perhaps-unexpected source of Dana Gioia.
And a San Francisco Chronicle article, which confuses poets laureate with Librarians of Congress. (I don't believe Robert Lowell, William Carlos Williams, Louise Bogan, etc., were ever "poets laureate." The post of laureate is relatively new -- 1986 or so -- and the first poet to be honored with the title was an octogenarian Robert Penn Warren. IIRC.)
Update, Saturday : Prior to 1986, the "poet laureate" was known as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Quirks
Six of my quirks
a meme spotted chez TSO
1. I talk to myself in "gibberish German." (I talk to myself.)
2. I make surrealistic lists of "random thots" and send them to friends in lieu of more conventional emails.
3. I shave every other day. Sometimes every third day. I hate shaving, but like being clean-shaven.
4. I notice odd things. I notice that STATE is almost a palindrome because STATE backwards is ETATS, the plural of STATE in French. (There is a STATE subway station on the Blue Line here in Boston and, apparently, I've stared at the sign for far too many hours in my life.)
5. There's something I can't do, physically, unless I simultaneously count upwards by seventeens to about 187.
6. I say "circa" and then follow it with some ridiculously exact number. (And yes, "circa" instead of "around" qualifies as a sub-quirk. If I listed all my quirks pertaining to "wordage," this list would be about 100 items long!)
a meme spotted chez TSO
1. I talk to myself in "gibberish German." (I talk to myself.)
2. I make surrealistic lists of "random thots" and send them to friends in lieu of more conventional emails.
3. I shave every other day. Sometimes every third day. I hate shaving, but like being clean-shaven.
4. I notice odd things. I notice that STATE is almost a palindrome because STATE backwards is ETATS, the plural of STATE in French. (There is a STATE subway station on the Blue Line here in Boston and, apparently, I've stared at the sign for far too many hours in my life.)
5. There's something I can't do, physically, unless I simultaneously count upwards by seventeens to about 187.
6. I say "circa" and then follow it with some ridiculously exact number. (And yes, "circa" instead of "around" qualifies as a sub-quirk. If I listed all my quirks pertaining to "wordage," this list would be about 100 items long!)
Guillerand
He himself is the great Source from whom everything flows. We know nothing truly, we comprehend nothing, unless we know him. He is the true Light that lightens and explains everything.
Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart. (+1945), via the July 2008 Magnificat
Dom Augustin Guillerand, O. Cart. (+1945), via the July 2008 Magnificat
Sunday, July 13, 2008
D. G. Rossetti
The worst moment for the atheist is when he is really thankful and has nobody to thank.
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, via Wikipedia
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, via Wikipedia
Hobsonism
Hobsonism
"If I begin to die, please take this off my head. This is not how I wish to be remembered."
"If I begin to die, please take this off my head. This is not how I wish to be remembered."
Saturday, July 12, 2008
William Blake
"Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau"
by William Blake (1757-1827)
Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, mock on, 'tis all in vain!
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.
And every sand becomes a gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back they blind the mocking eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.
The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton's Particles of Light
Are sands upon the Red Sea shore,
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.
by William Blake (1757-1827)
Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau;
Mock on, mock on, 'tis all in vain!
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.
And every sand becomes a gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back they blind the mocking eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.
The Atoms of Democritus
And Newton's Particles of Light
Are sands upon the Red Sea shore,
Where Israel's tents do shine so bright.
Tuesday, July 08, 2008
Lament
I was nineteen in 1988;
Vigorous? young? athletic? I suppose.
I'm almost forty now -- a sorry state;
The bloom (to coin a phrase) has left the rose.
The muse, like clement weather, comes and goes;
But mostly I drink, eat, read, sleep, complain:
And what the future holds, nobody knows --
One thing's for sure: I won't be young again.
And what is left for me to celebrate?
The cerebellum shrinks, the belly grows.
(Try running windsprints when you're overweight,
When years of health are drawing to a close.)
The heavy limbs that trudge through winter snows,
The graying hair that's soaked by summer rain,
The litany of ills and psychic woes --
One thing's for sure: I won't be young again.
The blunted wit that fails me in debate,
The memory recalling pangs and throes,
The mind conspires to humiliate
By what it blots out and by what it shows:
The weakening soul that seeks a sweet repose
Suffers from merciless recurring pain
Dealt by those thoughts which are its fiercest foes --
One thing's for sure: I won't be young again.
Virgin most venerable, Mystical Rose,
Through your most gracious prayers may I regain
Some strength, some hope; for time's great river flows --
One thing's for sure: I won't be young again.
Vigorous? young? athletic? I suppose.
I'm almost forty now -- a sorry state;
The bloom (to coin a phrase) has left the rose.
The muse, like clement weather, comes and goes;
But mostly I drink, eat, read, sleep, complain:
And what the future holds, nobody knows --
One thing's for sure: I won't be young again.
And what is left for me to celebrate?
The cerebellum shrinks, the belly grows.
(Try running windsprints when you're overweight,
When years of health are drawing to a close.)
The heavy limbs that trudge through winter snows,
The graying hair that's soaked by summer rain,
The litany of ills and psychic woes --
One thing's for sure: I won't be young again.
The blunted wit that fails me in debate,
The memory recalling pangs and throes,
The mind conspires to humiliate
By what it blots out and by what it shows:
The weakening soul that seeks a sweet repose
Suffers from merciless recurring pain
Dealt by those thoughts which are its fiercest foes --
One thing's for sure: I won't be young again.
Virgin most venerable, Mystical Rose,
Through your most gracious prayers may I regain
Some strength, some hope; for time's great river flows --
One thing's for sure: I won't be young again.
Monday, July 07, 2008
D. G. Rossetti
Sonnet XXVI: Mid-Rapture
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82)
Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love;
Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes,
Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise,
Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above
All modulation of the deep-bowered dove,
Is like a hand laid softly on the soul;
Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control
Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:--
What word can answer to thy word;--what gaze
To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere
My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there
Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays?
What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove,
O lovely and beloved, O my love?
by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-82)
Thou lovely and beloved, thou my love;
Whose kiss seems still the first; whose summoning eyes,
Even now, as for our love-world's new sunrise,
Shed very dawn; whose voice, attuned above
All modulation of the deep-bowered dove,
Is like a hand laid softly on the soul;
Whose hand is like a sweet voice to control
Those worn tired brows it hath the keeping of:--
What word can answer to thy word;--what gaze
To thine, which now absorbs within its sphere
My worshipping face, till I am mirrored there
Light-circled in a heaven of deep-drawn rays?
What clasp, what kiss mine inmost heart can prove,
O lovely and beloved, O my love?
Friday, July 04, 2008
Light blogging
Light blogging here, as you may have noticed
I don't have too much to say nowadays. I do feel a blog-slumber coming on, but will try to add something at least once a week.
Recently I found some old writing of mine, circa 2001, and if that biblical verse about "accounting for every idle word" be true, I'm in deep trouble! Long stretches of public wordlessness might do this soul some good.
So please forgive the comparative silence hereabouts -- or, enjoy it!
I don't have too much to say nowadays. I do feel a blog-slumber coming on, but will try to add something at least once a week.
Recently I found some old writing of mine, circa 2001, and if that biblical verse about "accounting for every idle word" be true, I'm in deep trouble! Long stretches of public wordlessness might do this soul some good.
So please forgive the comparative silence hereabouts -- or, enjoy it!
July 4
4th of July
An excellent prayerful reflection at Word Incarnate, with which this blogger concurs just about wholeheartedly.
An excellent prayerful reflection at Word Incarnate, with which this blogger concurs just about wholeheartedly.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Longevity
As of yesterday
I have surpassed Dylan Thomas (d. aetat. 39 yrs., 13 days) in the longevity department.
As for accomplishments, that's a different story! Was recently rereading "Poem on His Birthday" (In the mustardseed sun / By full tilt river and switchback sea / Where the cormorants scud, etc.) and was yet again struck speechless at the Welshman's mastery.
I have surpassed Dylan Thomas (d. aetat. 39 yrs., 13 days) in the longevity department.
As for accomplishments, that's a different story! Was recently rereading "Poem on His Birthday" (In the mustardseed sun / By full tilt river and switchback sea / Where the cormorants scud, etc.) and was yet again struck speechless at the Welshman's mastery.
Friday, June 27, 2008
dylanpoints
Ten dylan-points
are hereby awarded to the driver on this morning's # 77 bus. When an extremely elderly woman got on, she paid her fare, and the bus did not start to move until the woman was safely established in her seat. (Some drivers will step on the gas before the senior passenger has paid her fare!)
Twenty dylan-points
are awarded to the nurse at my doctor's office, who was kind enough to bring me a very large cup of water after I had walked over a mile to the office in extremely humid weather, and arrived in a somewhat diaphoretic state.
are hereby awarded to the driver on this morning's # 77 bus. When an extremely elderly woman got on, she paid her fare, and the bus did not start to move until the woman was safely established in her seat. (Some drivers will step on the gas before the senior passenger has paid her fare!)
Twenty dylan-points
are awarded to the nurse at my doctor's office, who was kind enough to bring me a very large cup of water after I had walked over a mile to the office in extremely humid weather, and arrived in a somewhat diaphoretic state.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Writing rules
You're not a writer if ...
A top-ten list, at the Daily Eudemon.
Number 2 is relatively easy to do; number 5 is difficult, at least for me.
A top-ten list, at the Daily Eudemon.
Number 2 is relatively easy to do; number 5 is difficult, at least for me.
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Religion poll
Religion poll
Yahoo!'s story on a recent attempt to, uhm, divine, how the American people as a whole feel about the Deity.
I heard some of the stats on my local Fox affiliate's morning news: 92% of those polled believe in God, 58% pray every day, 74% believe in life after death.
And here's the fun part:
Oddly, one in five of those who identified themselves as atheists in the survey said they believe in God.
"It may very well be that they don't really know what atheist means. It sounds good so they answered it; we call that measurement error," Greene said.
"But this also shows us the complicated way that people think about their faith. Many people who identify as atheists may not be telling us they don't believe in God, but that they don't like organized religion," he said.
Yahoo!'s story on a recent attempt to, uhm, divine, how the American people as a whole feel about the Deity.
I heard some of the stats on my local Fox affiliate's morning news: 92% of those polled believe in God, 58% pray every day, 74% believe in life after death.
And here's the fun part:
Oddly, one in five of those who identified themselves as atheists in the survey said they believe in God.
"It may very well be that they don't really know what atheist means. It sounds good so they answered it; we call that measurement error," Greene said.
"But this also shows us the complicated way that people think about their faith. Many people who identify as atheists may not be telling us they don't believe in God, but that they don't like organized religion," he said.
Monday, June 23, 2008
James Thomson
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)