Satisfaction?
Well, I guess now I just have to wait for the reports to filter in from my friends and acquaintances who attended the so-called SARS-stock festival Wednesday. As much as I would have liked to see the Stones, I sure would not have wanted to deal with a crowd as large as I saw on the tube....
31 July 2003
30 July 2003
Dangerous Epiphanies
I came to a startling revelation tonight, as I sat downing a pint and trying to contemplate poetry (mine and others'). Call it a discovery of negatives, whether negative capability or negative space. (Choose your analogy as you will.) I was thinking on Pope's assertion that "To follow Poetry as one ought, one must forget father and mother, and cleave to it alone." I've never entirely agreed with that sort of assertion, even if there is an ounce of truth to it; after all, it tends to be that the so many of the best poets were reprehensible human beings in one form or another, and I can't help but wonder if they sacrificed their relations with others in the name of poetic pursuit. Not entirely consciously of course; few of us make decisions entirely consciously; really, none of us do, because we only think we do; but that's another matter entirely. My thoughts turned, as they so often do, to two very odd figures: Eliot and Ted Hughes, Eliot the modern master of clinicizing his feelings into marvellous poetry, such that the real Eliot remains forever a cipher to the intelligent, and a caricature to the ignorant, and Hughes, the apparent solipsist, but also the man so disparaged for his treatment of Sylvia Plath that many refuse to acknowledge his genius, despite the fact he waited until his own death throes to finally write Birthday Letters, the truly moving coda to his own body of work that finally revealed the man, warts and all, behind the scenes-- and the pain he and Sylvia inflicted on one another.
And I thought of where I fall in between.
The poet is always part solipsist, always fussing over his own experiences and how they relate to his view of things. On one side, you might have people like John Dryden and Alexander Pope, masters of form before emotion, regulators, one might say, of their own emotional content; on the other side, you might have Walt Whitman, self-eroticism and all, and so many of the feminist writers (especially in Canada, but also elsewhere: c.f., Adrienne Rich) for whom poetry is a dirge-like love-song to femininity, itself a kind of spiritual onanism (rather like providing oneself a congratulatory orgasm, and pretending it a political statement). But it got me thinking, in cruder terms, that a true poet doesn't dread to live his life out loud; he may choose to omit, he may choose to refrain, but he doesn't bottle things inside for some purpose extant to his poetic calling; anything, after all, can be addressed, but be sufficiently coded as not to be immediately 'explicit.'
But it occurred to me tonight that, although I've always thought I've lived my life 'out loud,' or as 'out loud' as one can expect in rational society, I actually haven't. There are things the poet, indeed the human, inside of me should have written about but did not. Instead, I buried them away, and refused to look at them with the emotional precision only true poetry can (though, of course, whether or not anything I wrote would be poetry is another matter).
I realized tonight how many of the truly 'informative' thingsin my life I never wrote about, how many things I never even tried to write about; indeed, how many things, I buried like secret corpses in the backyard of my mind that only I could face, and then only truly so in silence. And that troubled me, it troubled me greatly.
It troubled me that I never even tried to put down to paper the most truly romantic moment in my life-- a moment I think of often, more often than I care to admit, and which always finishes with a kind of tragic aftertaste. It troubled me not just what happened, but that I'd in a way been dishonest by not articulating as best I could the poetry that was in that moment, and what it meant to me, and how I really haven't been the same since. It troubled me that she'll never know exactly what happened in my eyes. It troubled me that she'll never know that she saved me from myself.
It troubled me too that I never wrote about the anguish of holding someone I loved dearly in my arms, as she lay there barely breathing, drool coming out of her mouth, as I vowed I would do anything God demanded of me so long as she was okay. It troubled me that I never wrote about the irony that came after that, or the irony that I'd made a similar promise about the same woman years before.
Yes, before any of you say the obvious, these were all troubling; epiphanies are seldom comforting.
It troubled me that I never, ever, ever wrote about -- or really tried to write about-- something I still won't really talk about. And, really, I should have written about that, coded as necessary, if only for myself. Rationalized regret stings only slightly less.
It troubled me that I never did write the elegy for Brent, that I never found the words that might have been at least cathartic for those I worried most about at that time.
And it troubled me that I can't seem to write for those I care about without resorting to casual, even preachy, prose. I never truly wrote again after.... And though I suspect it would not have made a difference, I wish I had, not for the sake of writing per se, but for the sake of saying what I felt. And, yes, it troubled me too how long this has indeed been going on.
I've been holding back, for any number of reasons, depending on the circumstances. And although this sounds artificial, as if it relates only to poetics, it goes far beyond that. It becomes about regret, about the things said instead of those that should have been said, it becomes about the slow process of erosion, about shutting oneself to silence.
I don't know what I'll ultimately think about this in the morning, or the day after, or the week after, or the year after. It is quite possible such things were simply tactical, private, or otherwise 'beyond' (I leave the word deliberately unpointed). I don't finally know anymore.
I guess it all comes down to this: I wish I were the man I used to be. Sad thing is, that I'm even writing this tells me 'he' is still there, the truer poet, if only in spirit. But he nags like a vicious conscience, but never comes out to play anymore. And I don't know if it's shame or regret that has made him so chimeric.
Ah, bah, humbug, hopefully all this will be gone in a bit, like a bad rash. Times change. We move on.
But seven, that haunts me. Almost seven.
I came to a startling revelation tonight, as I sat downing a pint and trying to contemplate poetry (mine and others'). Call it a discovery of negatives, whether negative capability or negative space. (Choose your analogy as you will.) I was thinking on Pope's assertion that "To follow Poetry as one ought, one must forget father and mother, and cleave to it alone." I've never entirely agreed with that sort of assertion, even if there is an ounce of truth to it; after all, it tends to be that the so many of the best poets were reprehensible human beings in one form or another, and I can't help but wonder if they sacrificed their relations with others in the name of poetic pursuit. Not entirely consciously of course; few of us make decisions entirely consciously; really, none of us do, because we only think we do; but that's another matter entirely. My thoughts turned, as they so often do, to two very odd figures: Eliot and Ted Hughes, Eliot the modern master of clinicizing his feelings into marvellous poetry, such that the real Eliot remains forever a cipher to the intelligent, and a caricature to the ignorant, and Hughes, the apparent solipsist, but also the man so disparaged for his treatment of Sylvia Plath that many refuse to acknowledge his genius, despite the fact he waited until his own death throes to finally write Birthday Letters, the truly moving coda to his own body of work that finally revealed the man, warts and all, behind the scenes-- and the pain he and Sylvia inflicted on one another.
And I thought of where I fall in between.
The poet is always part solipsist, always fussing over his own experiences and how they relate to his view of things. On one side, you might have people like John Dryden and Alexander Pope, masters of form before emotion, regulators, one might say, of their own emotional content; on the other side, you might have Walt Whitman, self-eroticism and all, and so many of the feminist writers (especially in Canada, but also elsewhere: c.f., Adrienne Rich) for whom poetry is a dirge-like love-song to femininity, itself a kind of spiritual onanism (rather like providing oneself a congratulatory orgasm, and pretending it a political statement). But it got me thinking, in cruder terms, that a true poet doesn't dread to live his life out loud; he may choose to omit, he may choose to refrain, but he doesn't bottle things inside for some purpose extant to his poetic calling; anything, after all, can be addressed, but be sufficiently coded as not to be immediately 'explicit.'
But it occurred to me tonight that, although I've always thought I've lived my life 'out loud,' or as 'out loud' as one can expect in rational society, I actually haven't. There are things the poet, indeed the human, inside of me should have written about but did not. Instead, I buried them away, and refused to look at them with the emotional precision only true poetry can (though, of course, whether or not anything I wrote would be poetry is another matter).
I realized tonight how many of the truly 'informative' thingsin my life I never wrote about, how many things I never even tried to write about; indeed, how many things, I buried like secret corpses in the backyard of my mind that only I could face, and then only truly so in silence. And that troubled me, it troubled me greatly.
It troubled me that I never even tried to put down to paper the most truly romantic moment in my life-- a moment I think of often, more often than I care to admit, and which always finishes with a kind of tragic aftertaste. It troubled me not just what happened, but that I'd in a way been dishonest by not articulating as best I could the poetry that was in that moment, and what it meant to me, and how I really haven't been the same since. It troubled me that she'll never know exactly what happened in my eyes. It troubled me that she'll never know that she saved me from myself.
It troubled me too that I never wrote about the anguish of holding someone I loved dearly in my arms, as she lay there barely breathing, drool coming out of her mouth, as I vowed I would do anything God demanded of me so long as she was okay. It troubled me that I never wrote about the irony that came after that, or the irony that I'd made a similar promise about the same woman years before.
Yes, before any of you say the obvious, these were all troubling; epiphanies are seldom comforting.
It troubled me that I never, ever, ever wrote about -- or really tried to write about-- something I still won't really talk about. And, really, I should have written about that, coded as necessary, if only for myself. Rationalized regret stings only slightly less.
It troubled me that I never did write the elegy for Brent, that I never found the words that might have been at least cathartic for those I worried most about at that time.
And it troubled me that I can't seem to write for those I care about without resorting to casual, even preachy, prose. I never truly wrote again after.... And though I suspect it would not have made a difference, I wish I had, not for the sake of writing per se, but for the sake of saying what I felt. And, yes, it troubled me too how long this has indeed been going on.
I've been holding back, for any number of reasons, depending on the circumstances. And although this sounds artificial, as if it relates only to poetics, it goes far beyond that. It becomes about regret, about the things said instead of those that should have been said, it becomes about the slow process of erosion, about shutting oneself to silence.
I don't know what I'll ultimately think about this in the morning, or the day after, or the week after, or the year after. It is quite possible such things were simply tactical, private, or otherwise 'beyond' (I leave the word deliberately unpointed). I don't finally know anymore.
I guess it all comes down to this: I wish I were the man I used to be. Sad thing is, that I'm even writing this tells me 'he' is still there, the truer poet, if only in spirit. But he nags like a vicious conscience, but never comes out to play anymore. And I don't know if it's shame or regret that has made him so chimeric.
Ah, bah, humbug, hopefully all this will be gone in a bit, like a bad rash. Times change. We move on.
But seven, that haunts me. Almost seven.
29 July 2003
You Have The Lovers
You have the lovers,
they are nameless, their histories only for each other,
and you have the room, the bed and the windows,
Pretend it is a ritual.
Unfurl the bed, bury the lovers, blacken the windows,
let them live in that house for a generation or two.
No one dares disturb them.
Visitors tip toe past the long closed door,
they listen for a sound, for a moan, for a song
nothing is heard, not even breathing.
You know they are not dead,
you can feel the presence of their intense love.
Your children grow up, they leave you,
they have become soldiers and riders.
Your mate dies after a life of service.
Who knows you? Who remembers you?
But in your house a ritual is in progress:
it is not finished: it needs more people.
one day the door is opened to the lovers chamber.
The room has become a dence garden,
full of colors, smells, sounds you have never known .
The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight,
in the mistt of the garden it stands alone.
In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently,
perform the act of love.
Their eyes are closed,
as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay upon them.
Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises.
Her hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled.
When he puts his mouth against her shoulder
she is uncertain whether her shoulder
has given or receieved the kiss.
All the flesh is like a mouth.
He carries his fingers across her waist
and feels his own waist carressed.
She holds him closer and his own ams tighten around her
She kisses the hand beside her mouth
Is it his hand or her hand, it hardly matters,
there are so many more kisses.
You stand beside the bed, weeping with happiness,
you carefully peel away the bodies.
Your eyes are filled with tears, you barely make out the lovers.
as you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificent
because you believe it is the first human voice
heard in that room.
The garments you let fall grow in to vines.
You climb into bed and recover the flesh.
You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut.
You create an embrace and fall into it.
There is only one moment of pain or doubt.
as you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your body.
but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.
--- Leonard Cohen, from The Spice-Box of Earth
Probably my favourite Cohen poem, with the possible exception of "For E.J.P." It's amazing how many times I can look over that poem and still be effected by it. The imagery and cadences are bloody-near perfect-- and that final line is marvellous.
You have the lovers,
they are nameless, their histories only for each other,
and you have the room, the bed and the windows,
Pretend it is a ritual.
Unfurl the bed, bury the lovers, blacken the windows,
let them live in that house for a generation or two.
No one dares disturb them.
Visitors tip toe past the long closed door,
they listen for a sound, for a moan, for a song
nothing is heard, not even breathing.
You know they are not dead,
you can feel the presence of their intense love.
Your children grow up, they leave you,
they have become soldiers and riders.
Your mate dies after a life of service.
Who knows you? Who remembers you?
But in your house a ritual is in progress:
it is not finished: it needs more people.
one day the door is opened to the lovers chamber.
The room has become a dence garden,
full of colors, smells, sounds you have never known .
The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight,
in the mistt of the garden it stands alone.
In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently,
perform the act of love.
Their eyes are closed,
as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay upon them.
Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises.
Her hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled.
When he puts his mouth against her shoulder
she is uncertain whether her shoulder
has given or receieved the kiss.
All the flesh is like a mouth.
He carries his fingers across her waist
and feels his own waist carressed.
She holds him closer and his own ams tighten around her
She kisses the hand beside her mouth
Is it his hand or her hand, it hardly matters,
there are so many more kisses.
You stand beside the bed, weeping with happiness,
you carefully peel away the bodies.
Your eyes are filled with tears, you barely make out the lovers.
as you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificent
because you believe it is the first human voice
heard in that room.
The garments you let fall grow in to vines.
You climb into bed and recover the flesh.
You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut.
You create an embrace and fall into it.
There is only one moment of pain or doubt.
as you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your body.
but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.
--- Leonard Cohen, from The Spice-Box of Earth
Probably my favourite Cohen poem, with the possible exception of "For E.J.P." It's amazing how many times I can look over that poem and still be effected by it. The imagery and cadences are bloody-near perfect-- and that final line is marvellous.
From The Onion: This is hilarious.
The Onion | Gigli Focus Groups Demand New Ending In Which Both Affleck And Lopez Die
My personal favourite bit, in the appropriated voice of director Martin Brest: "Getting shot is fine, but what about an automobile fire in which Ben and Jennifer are shown perishing in a slow-motion montage, their newfound love discarded as they try desperately to claw their way past each other's melting bodies, while slowly roasting to death in their own fat?" Check out the graphic of the comment card too. LOL.
The Onion | Gigli Focus Groups Demand New Ending In Which Both Affleck And Lopez Die
My personal favourite bit, in the appropriated voice of director Martin Brest: "Getting shot is fine, but what about an automobile fire in which Ben and Jennifer are shown perishing in a slow-motion montage, their newfound love discarded as they try desperately to claw their way past each other's melting bodies, while slowly roasting to death in their own fat?" Check out the graphic of the comment card too. LOL.
An Old Favourite
To An Athlete Dying Young
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
--- A. E. Housman
Despite what may seem a metronomic rhythm on Housman's part, I find some of his poems very moving, and this one-- for reasons I can never adequately explain to anyone, myself included, always gets me. Go figure.
To An Athlete Dying Young
The time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.
To-day, the road all runners come,
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.
Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.
Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.
And round that early-laurelled head
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl's.
--- A. E. Housman
Despite what may seem a metronomic rhythm on Housman's part, I find some of his poems very moving, and this one-- for reasons I can never adequately explain to anyone, myself included, always gets me. Go figure.
Cool. Real Real Cool.
Info on another tribute album to Van Morrison, this one called Vanthology, a tribute by a number of blues artists. I'm surprised it will contain a rare cover of "Bulbs" from Morrison's underrated 1974 album Veedon Fleece.
And, even better, the Man himself has a new album called What's Wrong With This Picture slated for an October 20th release from Blue Note/EMI. Its issue through Blue Note-- and the inclusion of a cover of Acker Bilk's "Somerset" on the album-- suggests the album is another jazz effort, probably in the same vein as How Long Has This Been Going On? and Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison. This would be Van's first album since May 2002, and his 35th original solo release (not including his Best Of... albums, or his work with Them or his contributions to other people's albums, like John Lee Hooker's Don't Look Back). Something to be excited about, finally!
Info on another tribute album to Van Morrison, this one called Vanthology, a tribute by a number of blues artists. I'm surprised it will contain a rare cover of "Bulbs" from Morrison's underrated 1974 album Veedon Fleece.
And, even better, the Man himself has a new album called What's Wrong With This Picture slated for an October 20th release from Blue Note/EMI. Its issue through Blue Note-- and the inclusion of a cover of Acker Bilk's "Somerset" on the album-- suggests the album is another jazz effort, probably in the same vein as How Long Has This Been Going On? and Tell Me Something: The Songs of Mose Allison. This would be Van's first album since May 2002, and his 35th original solo release (not including his Best Of... albums, or his work with Them or his contributions to other people's albums, like John Lee Hooker's Don't Look Back). Something to be excited about, finally!
A Few Graham Crackers Would Be Nice....
Like many men, I suspect, I find Heather Graham absolutely gorgeous-- and not just because she has a terrific body and a beautiful face. It occurred to me today as I was watching The Guru-- a surprisingly delightful little picture-- what sets her apart from many actresses that might be described as being of her 'type.' I like that Graham has a kind of bravery that most actresses her age tend not to have, but she also has a precious air of innocence about her; it never seems to matter what material she's dealing with, she is absolutely charming, a constant breath of fresh air. That's pretty tricky, especially with parts like those she took in Boogie Nights, Bowfinger, Say It Isn't So. She has that 'girl-next-door' quality, but she's always challenging it and complicating it, always suggesting that the so-called-naughty and the so-called-nice aren't fundamentally opposed to one another. And she has a deftness for light comedy that is indeed rare, especially among actresses. Like Michelle Pfeiffer, she always seems better than the material, larger than the parts she plays, though (unlike Elizabeth Taylor) she never seems to subsume the role to her image.
She's utterly disarming. I love that.
Postscript: Yes, I am resisting the temptation the post a nude graphic here. God knows, there are enough of them out there...
Post-postscript: And yes, I remain a sucker for a pretty woman. So sue me. ;-)
Like many men, I suspect, I find Heather Graham absolutely gorgeous-- and not just because she has a terrific body and a beautiful face. It occurred to me today as I was watching The Guru-- a surprisingly delightful little picture-- what sets her apart from many actresses that might be described as being of her 'type.' I like that Graham has a kind of bravery that most actresses her age tend not to have, but she also has a precious air of innocence about her; it never seems to matter what material she's dealing with, she is absolutely charming, a constant breath of fresh air. That's pretty tricky, especially with parts like those she took in Boogie Nights, Bowfinger, Say It Isn't So. She has that 'girl-next-door' quality, but she's always challenging it and complicating it, always suggesting that the so-called-naughty and the so-called-nice aren't fundamentally opposed to one another. And she has a deftness for light comedy that is indeed rare, especially among actresses. Like Michelle Pfeiffer, she always seems better than the material, larger than the parts she plays, though (unlike Elizabeth Taylor) she never seems to subsume the role to her image.
She's utterly disarming. I love that.
Postscript: Yes, I am resisting the temptation the post a nude graphic here. God knows, there are enough of them out there...
Post-postscript: And yes, I remain a sucker for a pretty woman. So sue me. ;-)
28 July 2003
Thanks but....
Seems my remarks about my birthday have occasioned some kind but nonetheless unnecessary responses from a few people. I appreciate the thoughts, but I continue to think I'll just vanish into thin air that day. Some things are better left ignored, methinks. Yeah, sure, this may be like the kid putting his hands over his eyes and pretending he's invisible, but I'm assured denial can be a very grounding thing. Maybe if I don't acknowledge getting older, I won't. Okay, maybe not, but I can dream, can't I?
And before anyone says anything: I realize this is in complete contradiction to what I say to everyone else about their birthdays. I know, I know, I know.... Do not use my own logic against me! I am impervious to your reason! I can't hear you, I can't hear you!
And Anne-- don't even *THINK* about using this tactic when your 30th comes around. *Sticks tongue out* Neh neh neh neh neh. *Grin*
Seems my remarks about my birthday have occasioned some kind but nonetheless unnecessary responses from a few people. I appreciate the thoughts, but I continue to think I'll just vanish into thin air that day. Some things are better left ignored, methinks. Yeah, sure, this may be like the kid putting his hands over his eyes and pretending he's invisible, but I'm assured denial can be a very grounding thing. Maybe if I don't acknowledge getting older, I won't. Okay, maybe not, but I can dream, can't I?
And before anyone says anything: I realize this is in complete contradiction to what I say to everyone else about their birthdays. I know, I know, I know.... Do not use my own logic against me! I am impervious to your reason! I can't hear you, I can't hear you!
And Anne-- don't even *THINK* about using this tactic when your 30th comes around. *Sticks tongue out* Neh neh neh neh neh. *Grin*
27 July 2003
How appropriate
To Women, As Far As I'm Concerned
The feelings I don't have I don't have.
The feelings I don't have, I won't say I have.
The feelings you say you have, you don't have.
The feelings you would like both of us to have, we neither of us have.
The feelings people ought to have, they never have.
If people say they've got feelings, you may be pretty sure they haven't got them.
So if you want either of us to feel anything at all
you'd better abandon all idea of feelings altogether.
--- D. H. Lawrence (1929)
To Women, As Far As I'm Concerned
The feelings I don't have I don't have.
The feelings I don't have, I won't say I have.
The feelings you say you have, you don't have.
The feelings you would like both of us to have, we neither of us have.
The feelings people ought to have, they never have.
If people say they've got feelings, you may be pretty sure they haven't got them.
So if you want either of us to feel anything at all
you'd better abandon all idea of feelings altogether.
--- D. H. Lawrence (1929)
It's wonderfully comforting that the good people at poetry.com have a good sense of humour. Check out the various poems by various poets named Freemont in some form or another, and poetry.com's chucklesome preface to them. Some of the poems are amusing rewrites of classic poems like Frost's "The Road Not Taken" and "Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening," Donne's Holy Sonnet X ('Death Be Not Proud'), and Sidney's "Ye Goatherd Gods." Somehow, over 800 entries have been submitted, all including the line "the dog ate mother's toes." Hilarious.
26 July 2003
Cooking the Books?
Had to share this, from an email from Mr Mitchell, which made me laugh so hard it sent a smoke ring through my nose:
If that doesn't encourage me to come up with something, however miraculously, I don't know what will. ;-)
Had to share this, from an email from Mr Mitchell, which made me laugh so hard it sent a smoke ring through my nose:
I take it that your thesis isn't progressing at a rate you would like. Summer is indeed a treacherous thing. That said, I am very curious about the state (and contents) of your dissertation to date. I'm afraid that our several conversations about it, over the past couple of years, have wetted my appitite so, that I would regard its still-birth as a great dissappointment; like ordering a veal-cut from a renowned chef and recieving placenta.
If that doesn't encourage me to come up with something, however miraculously, I don't know what will. ;-)
Oh Dear... The Finishing Stretch
I now have a month left in my twenties. For reasons I can't quite understand let alone explain, this bothers me more thna it should. On the cusp of 30, I don't feel I've accomplished anywhere near what I wanted to accomplish when I was younger, and it doesn't help that I find myself in a rut that has been going on for years. It bothers me too that I don't feel I've had the same sort of reckless fun that so many of my friends and colleagues had. Sure, I've had my good times and my bad and so on and so forth, but I it seems I haven't had the same simple *fun* that others had. And it's not as if I have anything else significant to show for it; certainly not money, which is the great bane of every grad student's existence; certainly not a wife or significant other, or children; certainly not the knowledge that my decisions were ultimately what I had to do to make me happy in the long run. I guess it's getting to me that I may have wasted my twenties, and indeed my youth so far (even as a kid, I'm told, I acted much older than I was). That giant number "30" is staring at me a little too accusingly, and a little too sternly.
I can't say I can meet that stare without flinching because, when all is said and done, I have an awful lot of regrets, a lot of things I wish I could retract or redo, a lot of ghosts of opportunities slipped away. And I can't say that despite everything I'm happy with where I'm at as the dreaded number pends. Maybe I'm evaluating my life too harshly, and maybe I'm just getting a bit down on myself as may of us do at certain points in our lives. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I don't know. My life, it seems, has become like my poetry: stalled, uninspired, and sentimental, suggestive enough of potential but always rough-hewn and over-complicated, and finally better in essence than in actuality. *Shrug* Before anyone thinks, though, that I'm launching into some sort of heavy depression, I want to assure that I am not depressed or anything like that; I guess the better term is 'disenchanted.'
Unfortunately, I'll not be sending my twenties out with a grand hurrah-- I'll just be watching them peter away. As for the day itself, I'm thinking I'll just disappear and wait for it go by. Somehow, the idea of celebrating another year, or the closing of one decade and the starting of another, seems just a little too ironic.
Man, I could use a healthy dose of utterly selfish hedonism right now. :-)
I now have a month left in my twenties. For reasons I can't quite understand let alone explain, this bothers me more thna it should. On the cusp of 30, I don't feel I've accomplished anywhere near what I wanted to accomplish when I was younger, and it doesn't help that I find myself in a rut that has been going on for years. It bothers me too that I don't feel I've had the same sort of reckless fun that so many of my friends and colleagues had. Sure, I've had my good times and my bad and so on and so forth, but I it seems I haven't had the same simple *fun* that others had. And it's not as if I have anything else significant to show for it; certainly not money, which is the great bane of every grad student's existence; certainly not a wife or significant other, or children; certainly not the knowledge that my decisions were ultimately what I had to do to make me happy in the long run. I guess it's getting to me that I may have wasted my twenties, and indeed my youth so far (even as a kid, I'm told, I acted much older than I was). That giant number "30" is staring at me a little too accusingly, and a little too sternly.
I can't say I can meet that stare without flinching because, when all is said and done, I have an awful lot of regrets, a lot of things I wish I could retract or redo, a lot of ghosts of opportunities slipped away. And I can't say that despite everything I'm happy with where I'm at as the dreaded number pends. Maybe I'm evaluating my life too harshly, and maybe I'm just getting a bit down on myself as may of us do at certain points in our lives. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I don't know. My life, it seems, has become like my poetry: stalled, uninspired, and sentimental, suggestive enough of potential but always rough-hewn and over-complicated, and finally better in essence than in actuality. *Shrug* Before anyone thinks, though, that I'm launching into some sort of heavy depression, I want to assure that I am not depressed or anything like that; I guess the better term is 'disenchanted.'
Unfortunately, I'll not be sending my twenties out with a grand hurrah-- I'll just be watching them peter away. As for the day itself, I'm thinking I'll just disappear and wait for it go by. Somehow, the idea of celebrating another year, or the closing of one decade and the starting of another, seems just a little too ironic.
Man, I could use a healthy dose of utterly selfish hedonism right now. :-)
25 July 2003
Some Interesting Free Seminars From FATHOM
You'll have to register but....
On Al Qaeda, America and the Academy
Intro to Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts
Introduction to Shakespeare's Life & Times
Classic Hollywood Cinema
Printing Shakespeare
The Creation of the British Museum
History Through Hollywood
How to Read Joyce
Modern Film Adaptations of Shakespeare
Science in the Movies
Renaissance and Baroque Music
This should be a laugh and a half: Men and Their Bodies
Shakespeare as Non-Dramatic Poet
Shakespeare, Money, and the Movies
The First 50 Years of Cinema
The Genres of Shakespeare's Plays
Vladimir Nabokov
The Lindisfarne Gospels
The Theatrical Baroque
Lots of interesting stuff. Will have to look more thoroughly at them later when I have more time (and when I'm not depending so much on a bloody 56K modem).
You'll have to register but....
On Al Qaeda, America and the Academy
Intro to Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts
Introduction to Shakespeare's Life & Times
Classic Hollywood Cinema
Printing Shakespeare
The Creation of the British Museum
History Through Hollywood
How to Read Joyce
Modern Film Adaptations of Shakespeare
Science in the Movies
Renaissance and Baroque Music
This should be a laugh and a half: Men and Their Bodies
Shakespeare as Non-Dramatic Poet
Shakespeare, Money, and the Movies
The First 50 Years of Cinema
The Genres of Shakespeare's Plays
Vladimir Nabokov
The Lindisfarne Gospels
The Theatrical Baroque
Lots of interesting stuff. Will have to look more thoroughly at them later when I have more time (and when I'm not depending so much on a bloody 56K modem).
Times Crossword: Treasure Hunt
Pretty clever one today, even if the end result (the hunt of the treasure) isn't as clever as one would like. All the clues are fair, and relatively sharp. The five part clue: "The X in the grid's center / Go down seven spaces / Proceed six to the left / Count up eleven more / [And here you will find] Four letters clockwise." The word "Gold" is patterned there. Not bad.
Pretty clever one today, even if the end result (the hunt of the treasure) isn't as clever as one would like. All the clues are fair, and relatively sharp. The five part clue: "The X in the grid's center / Go down seven spaces / Proceed six to the left / Count up eleven more / [And here you will find] Four letters clockwise." The word "Gold" is patterned there. Not bad.
24 July 2003
Interesting
Watched the first episode tonight of Surviving the Iron Age, a show which is already far more interesting than any of the Survivors ever were. The premise: a group of people, including children, try to survive in the conditions (approximate, of course) of Iron Age England. It's very interesting, and thankfully much less repetitive and annoying than the other reality-type programmes currently on the air. The production is originally a BBC serial, but can be seen in North America on PBS on Thursday nights at 8 (at least in the Ontario/Western New York vicinity). Certainly not for the squeamish, though.
We really are pussies in this (post?)(post?)(post?)-modern age....
Watched the first episode tonight of Surviving the Iron Age, a show which is already far more interesting than any of the Survivors ever were. The premise: a group of people, including children, try to survive in the conditions (approximate, of course) of Iron Age England. It's very interesting, and thankfully much less repetitive and annoying than the other reality-type programmes currently on the air. The production is originally a BBC serial, but can be seen in North America on PBS on Thursday nights at 8 (at least in the Ontario/Western New York vicinity). Certainly not for the squeamish, though.
We really are pussies in this (post?)(post?)(post?)-modern age....
OMG III
The shooting of Councilman Davis in New York City Hall yesterday is absolutely stunning. See this link for coverage from the NY Times. It's another instance that brings to mind the eerie words of Leonard Cohen's song "Democracy."
The shooting of Councilman Davis in New York City Hall yesterday is absolutely stunning. See this link for coverage from the NY Times. It's another instance that brings to mind the eerie words of Leonard Cohen's song "Democracy."
22 July 2003
Blooming Wonder
Found this bit from Harold Bloom's A Map of Misreading, and have to stew on it for a bit:
I'm not at all sure about these assessments, and I wonder why, for example, Eliot is dismissed as a lesser figure. Eliot wrestles with the dead and with his own solipsistic tendencies (to my mind) as well as Stevens or Hardy do. I'm trying to figure out how much stock to put into this-- whether it's ultimately Bloomian bluster (very typical) or something profoundly significant. I'm pretty sure the latter isn't true, though. I really never do know quite what to do with Harold....
Found this bit from Harold Bloom's A Map of Misreading, and have to stew on it for a bit:
Strong poets are infrequent; our own century, in my judgement, shows only Hardy and Stevens writing in English. Great poets -- even Yeats and Lawrence, even Frost -- may fail of continuous strength, and major innovators -- even Pound and Williams -- may never touch strength at all. Browning, Whitman, Dickinson are strong, as are the High Romantics, and Milton may be taken as the apotheosis of strength. POETIC STRENGTH COMES ONLY FROM A TRIUMPHANT WRESTLING WITH THE DEAD, AND FROM EVEN A MORE TRIUMPHANT SOLIPSISM. Enormous gifts, the endowment of a Coleridge or of a lesser but still considerable talent like Eliot, do not avail where strength is evaded, or never attained. […] This chapter will move from THE PRIMAL CATASTROPHE OF POETIC INCARNATION on to a description of the relation of POETIC STRENGTH TO POETIC INFLUENCE, and then to THE FINAL PHASES OF HARDY AND STEVENS.
I'm not at all sure about these assessments, and I wonder why, for example, Eliot is dismissed as a lesser figure. Eliot wrestles with the dead and with his own solipsistic tendencies (to my mind) as well as Stevens or Hardy do. I'm trying to figure out how much stock to put into this-- whether it's ultimately Bloomian bluster (very typical) or something profoundly significant. I'm pretty sure the latter isn't true, though. I really never do know quite what to do with Harold....
Profound Words
From Chapter XVII, "In Which The Story Pauses A Little," of George Eliot's Adam Bede:
There is for me a stronger reality in Eliot's words than there is in, say, the Keatsian notion that "Beauty is truth, truthy beauty," a statement that appeals to one's idealisms about beauty but which eventually becomes something roughly akin to a great lie. One has to remember, though, that Keats was writing in his early 20s, and I can understand his desire to make such a correspondence, but such a statement finally seems less an idealism than a naivete.
From Chapter XVII, "In Which The Story Pauses A Little," of George Eliot's Adam Bede:
So I am content to tell my simple story, without trying to make things seem better than they were; dreading nothing, indeed, but falsity, which, in spite of one's best efforts, there is reason to dread. Falsehood is so easy, truth so difficult. The pencil is conscious of a delightful facility in drawing a griffin-- the longer the claws, and the larger the wings, the better; but that marvellous facility which we mistook for genius, is apt to forake us when we want to draw a real unexaggerated lion. Examine your words well, and you will find that even when you have no motive to be false, it is a very hard thing to say the exact truth, even about your own immediate feelis-- much harder to say something fine about them which is not the exact truth.
There is for me a stronger reality in Eliot's words than there is in, say, the Keatsian notion that "Beauty is truth, truthy beauty," a statement that appeals to one's idealisms about beauty but which eventually becomes something roughly akin to a great lie. One has to remember, though, that Keats was writing in his early 20s, and I can understand his desire to make such a correspondence, but such a statement finally seems less an idealism than a naivete.
21 July 2003
That's No Ordinary Bunny, That's A Killer Bunny!!!!
According to this quiz, if I were a Monty Python and the Holy Grail character:
I have to say, I find that amusing; and oddly appropriate. ;-)
According to this quiz, if I were a Monty Python and the Holy Grail character:
I have to say, I find that amusing; and oddly appropriate. ;-)
Cool....
The American poet W. S. Merwin-- on the heels of Seamus Heaney's recent translation of Beowulf-- has done a modern verse translation of the wonderful Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Actually, it was apparently released in Autumn 2002, but it takes a while for things to catch up with me. Looks promising. Here is a review from the Yale Review of Books. Will have to pick up a copy.
Somewhere in my archives a have damned good paper I wrote on Gawain that I should revamp and submit for publication. And in all the literature I've read on the poem, I've only seen a few attempts to make an argument similar to the one I made-- and none of those handled things in quite the way I did, or nearly as brilliantly. ;-) Way way back when I was young & spirited & possibly ingenious. LOL.
The American poet W. S. Merwin-- on the heels of Seamus Heaney's recent translation of Beowulf-- has done a modern verse translation of the wonderful Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Actually, it was apparently released in Autumn 2002, but it takes a while for things to catch up with me. Looks promising. Here is a review from the Yale Review of Books. Will have to pick up a copy.
Somewhere in my archives a have damned good paper I wrote on Gawain that I should revamp and submit for publication. And in all the literature I've read on the poem, I've only seen a few attempts to make an argument similar to the one I made-- and none of those handled things in quite the way I did, or nearly as brilliantly. ;-) Way way back when I was young & spirited & possibly ingenious. LOL.
20 July 2003
Oh my god...
Apparently Jennifer Lopez is going to play Catherine the Great. What the!?!?!? What a terrifying prospect; and her current release looks astonishingly bad, so it seems J.Lo is vying for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Razzies this year. What's next? Ben Affleck as Ivan the Terrible? Mandy Moore as Anastasia? Brad Pitt as Stalin? Come on....
Apparently Jennifer Lopez is going to play Catherine the Great. What the!?!?!? What a terrifying prospect; and her current release looks astonishingly bad, so it seems J.Lo is vying for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Razzies this year. What's next? Ben Affleck as Ivan the Terrible? Mandy Moore as Anastasia? Brad Pitt as Stalin? Come on....
Hmmmm
Faced with that truth which seems a lie, a man
should always close his lips as long as he can--
to tell it shames him, even though he's blameless;
but here I can't be still; and by the lines
of this my Comedy, reader, I swear--
and may my verse find favor for long years--
that through the dense and darkened air I saw
a figure swimming, rising up, enough
to bring amazement to the firmest heart,
like one returning from the waves where he
went down to loose an anchor snagged upon
a reef or something else hid in the sea,
who stretched upward and draws in his feet.
-- Canto XVI of the Inferno of Dante's The Divine Comedy, trans. Allen Mandelbaum
Faced with that truth which seems a lie, a man
should always close his lips as long as he can--
to tell it shames him, even though he's blameless;
but here I can't be still; and by the lines
of this my Comedy, reader, I swear--
and may my verse find favor for long years--
that through the dense and darkened air I saw
a figure swimming, rising up, enough
to bring amazement to the firmest heart,
like one returning from the waves where he
went down to loose an anchor snagged upon
a reef or something else hid in the sea,
who stretched upward and draws in his feet.
-- Canto XVI of the Inferno of Dante's The Divine Comedy, trans. Allen Mandelbaum
19 July 2003
A Useful Description
This is from Graham Greene's very fine novel The Human Factor about the sadistic Captain Van Donck, and it compares him to another character-- unnamed, if memory serves. It's a description I often find echoing and blasting as I listen to people.
This is from Graham Greene's very fine novel The Human Factor about the sadistic Captain Van Donck, and it compares him to another character-- unnamed, if memory serves. It's a description I often find echoing and blasting as I listen to people.
He was a brutal and simple man who believed in something, however repugnant-- he was one of those one could forgive. What Castle [the novel's narrator] could never bring himself to forgive was this smooth educated office of BOSS. It was men of this kind-- men with education to know what they were about-- that made a hell in heaven's despite.
Maximes
Words from a time when 'maxim' was more than a men's magazine. These are from Le Duc de La Rochefoucauld's Les Maximes.
"The intellect is always fooled by the heart."
"We have all enough strength to bear other people's troubles."
"Hypocrisy is the homage paid by virtue to vice." (Oddly, Samuel Butler -- exactly contemporary with Rochefoucauld, has an almost identical statement. Hmmm.)
"We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no larger ones."
"If one judges love by the majority of its effect, it is more like hatred than friendship."
Words from a time when 'maxim' was more than a men's magazine. These are from Le Duc de La Rochefoucauld's Les Maximes.
"The intellect is always fooled by the heart."
"We have all enough strength to bear other people's troubles."
"Hypocrisy is the homage paid by virtue to vice." (Oddly, Samuel Butler -- exactly contemporary with Rochefoucauld, has an almost identical statement. Hmmm.)
"We only confess our little faults to persuade people that we have no larger ones."
"If one judges love by the majority of its effect, it is more like hatred than friendship."
Personal Poetic Ramblings
I've been reflecting on some of my writing and my writing process, and I can't say I'm feeling comfortable with anything anymore. As I've often said to people, it seems that when I had the inspiration, I didn't have the technique, and now that my skills and my techniques are more honed, I just don't have the inspiration (or, one might say, the 'passion,' awkward as that word is). I just can't seem to write anything I'm happy with that isn't just a poetic trifle (like a haiku or a quatrain). I also have to wonder, too, though, how much of this is that I'm suffering from a kind of rut: nothing seems new, or fresh, or inspiring; maybe I've been in the same groove too long. Or, perhaps, maybe I'm losing something.
Life, though, is partially about losing. It gets harder and harder to keep even the better things in one's life and one's memory. In part, we need this, or else the old adage that 'time heals old wounds' wouldn't mean a damned thing, and we'd all likely be paralyzed by past traumas and memories. But it becomes rather sad how much one loses, how diluted our memories and sensations become.
A case in point: years ago (eight, actually), I had an experience that was very meaningful to me, and it seemed at the time I'd never forget it, that I'd remember every detail of it. I wrote about this in a poem called "Out Walking," a poem for a young woman I at that time loved. Yesterday, I was looking at it again, vaguely remembering bits and pieces of the actual event that inspired it, vaguely recalling some of the emotions, but it seemed so un-familiar to me anymore; I knew I had been there, I remember fragments, but so much had vanished into the mists of time. The memory I did have wasn't as profound as it once was, and in fact it seemed foolish, even if I wouldn't have said that not that even a year or two ago.
Part of it, I'm sure, was a poetic failing on my part to capture things better when I wrote it; but another part was simply that fact of living, that even the most meaningful things slip from an imperfect grasp. It's odd, because another poem from that period (called "The Other Man") still recalls all the same emotions it always has, despite being written at roughly the same time (within three months of one another), and despite being equally amateurish in its form. I'm not entirely sure why this is-- whether it's just the natural fading of things from immediate significance, or whether it's part of a kind of callousing on my part. If I'm becoming more calloused to things, if things don't effect me as deeply or as genuinely as they once did, does that point to another reason for my own poetic stumbling of late? I wonder how long it's been since I had that feeling that causes the hair on the back of one's neck to stand up. And it worries me a bit that I have to wonder.
Or maybe it's simply that you can never fo home again, as the saying goes. I don't know.
***
On a more clinical poetical note, I've been thinking about the poetic form known as the "pantoum," a relatively rare form that comes from Malaysia but which found its way to English through French poetry in the nineteenth century. It's a curious form because, more than emulating the movement of song (as, say, the villanelle or the sonnet do), it emulates the movement of dance. In some ways, it is a very simple mode: it relies heavily on repetitions, on the shifting of locations for specific lines, and the form recalls to me the gestures of a waltz. For those who don't know it, each stanza has four lines, rhyming abab; simple enough. But the next stanza is more difficult, much more difficult, because the words used in the second and fourth lines of the previous stanza have to be repeated in the first and third lines of this stanza. So, imagine this structure:
And so on and so on, until one reaches the end, and the unrepeated first and third lines become the second and fourth lines of the final quatrain.
The structure is much more difficult to work with than it seems, and I suspect that's one reason it has never been overly popular in English poetics. I can think only of a few poets who've worked with it (Donald Justice, and Mark Strand's "Delirium Waltz" in Blizzard of One reinvents it very nicely), and it's not likely to be taught in undergraduate poetics courses.
So, why is the structure difficult? A few reasons. First, one has to have a strong sense of an ending right from the beginning: two of your four first lines will be your conclusion, so in approaching the form you have to accept that in your beginning is your end, and so your first and third lines, totalled together, have to be able to sum up, or generate toward, a completion of the poem as a whole. This is suprisingly challenging. Second, the poet has to find new ways to contextualize the repeated lines so that they are not merely repeated; like a dancer's steps, they have to be basically the same physical gesture framed in a new performance, to seem as much as possible a new gesture. This tests a poet's mettle with making the familiar new, and does it line after line after line, and all one can use to perform that recontextualization is ONE new line, a line you're obligated to do the same thing with in the next verse. Third, because of the heavy repetitions, one has to find a careful ear for the end rhymes, so as to prevent the poem from moving with leaden feet; one has to find new dimensions and means of rhyming, or else the poem as a whole can become lumbering and metronomic. The end rhymes thus have to have a stronger harmonic sensibility than just a rhythmic one. The tenor of the rhymes have to shift and vary and form a melody of their own. And while this is true of all fixed poetic forms, this is especially true of the pantoum because the form eliminates a lot of the room (and a lot of the possible means) for developing a melody. Very, very tricky indeed. Note, in some circles, this form is known as the pantun, and is more common in French (Hugo and Baudelaire worked with it), I suspect, because French is more assonant language than English.
Anyway, I'm going to wrestle with a pantoum; it strikes me as an ideal form for writing about 'dance-like' subjects, like relationships and time, subjects which are every often about progression and regression, assertion and enlargement, call and response. Move forward, step back, move forward, step back; it enacts a form of poetic attrition, of give to take. It's a form children and amateur poets could work with and find it remarkably easy, though they wouldn't understand the complexities of it, or why their verse would sound very heavy-handed or cumbersome; for skilled poets, it's a challange and a half, and I guess it'll be a test to see if I can get anywhere with it.
Here's an example from the American poet John Ashberry:
Tricky, very tricky indeed.
I've been reflecting on some of my writing and my writing process, and I can't say I'm feeling comfortable with anything anymore. As I've often said to people, it seems that when I had the inspiration, I didn't have the technique, and now that my skills and my techniques are more honed, I just don't have the inspiration (or, one might say, the 'passion,' awkward as that word is). I just can't seem to write anything I'm happy with that isn't just a poetic trifle (like a haiku or a quatrain). I also have to wonder, too, though, how much of this is that I'm suffering from a kind of rut: nothing seems new, or fresh, or inspiring; maybe I've been in the same groove too long. Or, perhaps, maybe I'm losing something.
Life, though, is partially about losing. It gets harder and harder to keep even the better things in one's life and one's memory. In part, we need this, or else the old adage that 'time heals old wounds' wouldn't mean a damned thing, and we'd all likely be paralyzed by past traumas and memories. But it becomes rather sad how much one loses, how diluted our memories and sensations become.
A case in point: years ago (eight, actually), I had an experience that was very meaningful to me, and it seemed at the time I'd never forget it, that I'd remember every detail of it. I wrote about this in a poem called "Out Walking," a poem for a young woman I at that time loved. Yesterday, I was looking at it again, vaguely remembering bits and pieces of the actual event that inspired it, vaguely recalling some of the emotions, but it seemed so un-familiar to me anymore; I knew I had been there, I remember fragments, but so much had vanished into the mists of time. The memory I did have wasn't as profound as it once was, and in fact it seemed foolish, even if I wouldn't have said that not that even a year or two ago.
Part of it, I'm sure, was a poetic failing on my part to capture things better when I wrote it; but another part was simply that fact of living, that even the most meaningful things slip from an imperfect grasp. It's odd, because another poem from that period (called "The Other Man") still recalls all the same emotions it always has, despite being written at roughly the same time (within three months of one another), and despite being equally amateurish in its form. I'm not entirely sure why this is-- whether it's just the natural fading of things from immediate significance, or whether it's part of a kind of callousing on my part. If I'm becoming more calloused to things, if things don't effect me as deeply or as genuinely as they once did, does that point to another reason for my own poetic stumbling of late? I wonder how long it's been since I had that feeling that causes the hair on the back of one's neck to stand up. And it worries me a bit that I have to wonder.
Or maybe it's simply that you can never fo home again, as the saying goes. I don't know.
***
On a more clinical poetical note, I've been thinking about the poetic form known as the "pantoum," a relatively rare form that comes from Malaysia but which found its way to English through French poetry in the nineteenth century. It's a curious form because, more than emulating the movement of song (as, say, the villanelle or the sonnet do), it emulates the movement of dance. In some ways, it is a very simple mode: it relies heavily on repetitions, on the shifting of locations for specific lines, and the form recalls to me the gestures of a waltz. For those who don't know it, each stanza has four lines, rhyming abab; simple enough. But the next stanza is more difficult, much more difficult, because the words used in the second and fourth lines of the previous stanza have to be repeated in the first and third lines of this stanza. So, imagine this structure:
This is the first line
This is the second of the text
This is the third line, looking for wine,
This is fourth, so guess what comes next.
This is the second of the text
But this line is new, shifting the mood,
This is the fourth, so guess what comes next,
Another bad line, dancing in the nude.
But this line is new, shifting the mood,
I wonder what I'll put here
Another bad line, dancing in the nude,
And being so naked it shudders in fear.
And so on and so on, until one reaches the end, and the unrepeated first and third lines become the second and fourth lines of the final quatrain.
The structure is much more difficult to work with than it seems, and I suspect that's one reason it has never been overly popular in English poetics. I can think only of a few poets who've worked with it (Donald Justice, and Mark Strand's "Delirium Waltz" in Blizzard of One reinvents it very nicely), and it's not likely to be taught in undergraduate poetics courses.
So, why is the structure difficult? A few reasons. First, one has to have a strong sense of an ending right from the beginning: two of your four first lines will be your conclusion, so in approaching the form you have to accept that in your beginning is your end, and so your first and third lines, totalled together, have to be able to sum up, or generate toward, a completion of the poem as a whole. This is suprisingly challenging. Second, the poet has to find new ways to contextualize the repeated lines so that they are not merely repeated; like a dancer's steps, they have to be basically the same physical gesture framed in a new performance, to seem as much as possible a new gesture. This tests a poet's mettle with making the familiar new, and does it line after line after line, and all one can use to perform that recontextualization is ONE new line, a line you're obligated to do the same thing with in the next verse. Third, because of the heavy repetitions, one has to find a careful ear for the end rhymes, so as to prevent the poem from moving with leaden feet; one has to find new dimensions and means of rhyming, or else the poem as a whole can become lumbering and metronomic. The end rhymes thus have to have a stronger harmonic sensibility than just a rhythmic one. The tenor of the rhymes have to shift and vary and form a melody of their own. And while this is true of all fixed poetic forms, this is especially true of the pantoum because the form eliminates a lot of the room (and a lot of the possible means) for developing a melody. Very, very tricky indeed. Note, in some circles, this form is known as the pantun, and is more common in French (Hugo and Baudelaire worked with it), I suspect, because French is more assonant language than English.
Anyway, I'm going to wrestle with a pantoum; it strikes me as an ideal form for writing about 'dance-like' subjects, like relationships and time, subjects which are every often about progression and regression, assertion and enlargement, call and response. Move forward, step back, move forward, step back; it enacts a form of poetic attrition, of give to take. It's a form children and amateur poets could work with and find it remarkably easy, though they wouldn't understand the complexities of it, or why their verse would sound very heavy-handed or cumbersome; for skilled poets, it's a challange and a half, and I guess it'll be a test to see if I can get anywhere with it.
Here's an example from the American poet John Ashberry:
Pantoum
Eyes shining without mystery,
Footprints eager for the past
Through the vague snows of many clay pipes,
And what is in store?
Footprints eager for the past,
The usual obtuse blanket.
And what is in store
For those dearest to the king?
The usual obtuse blanket
Of legless regrets and amplifications
For those dearest to the king.
Yes, sirs, connoisseurs of oblivion,
Of legless regrets and amplifications,
That is why a watchdog is shy.
Yes, sirs, connoisseurs of oblvioin,
These days are short, brittle; there is only one night.
That is why a watchdog is shy,
Why the court, trapped in a silver storm, is dying.
These days are short, brittle; there is only one night
And that soon gotten over.
Why, the court, trapped in a silver storm is dying!
Some blunt pretense to safety we have
And that soon gotten over
For they must have motion.
Some blunt pretense to safety we have;
Eyes shining without mystery
For they must have motion
Through the vague snow of many clay pipes.
Tricky, very tricky indeed.
Atta girl.....
Last night's Whose Lines were pretty lousy, but in "Scenes from a Hat," the ever darling Kathy Greenwood-- not known for being particularly comfortable in that quick-fire game-- came up with the best offering. The scene? Film scenes not likely to be performed in the nude. She came out swinging, arms outstretched and with strong voice, and singing, "THE HILLS ARE ALIVE...." The best laugh I had all night.
Last night's Whose Lines were pretty lousy, but in "Scenes from a Hat," the ever darling Kathy Greenwood-- not known for being particularly comfortable in that quick-fire game-- came up with the best offering. The scene? Film scenes not likely to be performed in the nude. She came out swinging, arms outstretched and with strong voice, and singing, "THE HILLS ARE ALIVE...." The best laugh I had all night.
Virus Hoax: "jdbgmgr.exe"
If anyone has received an email from me or from anyone telling you to delete a programme called jdbgmgr.exe, claiming it is a virus, be aware that -- according to Norton-- this is a hoax. Follow this link for more information.
If you've already received an email about this and deleted it from your machine, you'll have to reinstall the file from your Windows installation disk. The file is a Java Debugger application.
If anyone has received an email from me or from anyone telling you to delete a programme called jdbgmgr.exe, claiming it is a virus, be aware that -- according to Norton-- this is a hoax. Follow this link for more information.
If you've already received an email about this and deleted it from your machine, you'll have to reinstall the file from your Windows installation disk. The file is a Java Debugger application.
18 July 2003
NY Times Crossword: Words Apart
An okay puzzle today, at least more clever than the latest offerings from the times. Thing is, once the theme is figured out, the puzzle almost solves itself because it appropriates material from other answers, such that "loyal" and "ties" come together to eventually form "divided loyalties." Quibbles: leans more than normal on sports figures (not my bag, but I guess at least tolerable), and uses the word "appal" as a variation of "appall" which strikes me as a stretcher. All in all, not too bad. An improvement, at least.
An okay puzzle today, at least more clever than the latest offerings from the times. Thing is, once the theme is figured out, the puzzle almost solves itself because it appropriates material from other answers, such that "loyal" and "ties" come together to eventually form "divided loyalties." Quibbles: leans more than normal on sports figures (not my bag, but I guess at least tolerable), and uses the word "appal" as a variation of "appall" which strikes me as a stretcher. All in all, not too bad. An improvement, at least.
17 July 2003
I'll Probably Regret This Later
I've learned over the years that I should always try to take the high road, but that 'should' has to do with morality and with my own gut. Unfortunately, taking the high road in practice usually means regretting it later, because it tends to open one up to attack or abuse later. So what does one do? The practical would say just to do what is best for one's own good, but the idealistic would say to take the high road; so which is right? Which is better?
I guess what it comes down to is a test of one's ideals-- and how much they ultimately mean to you. Ideals always come with a nasty catch: can they survive the brutalities of the world, and the actions that will most assail you? Ideals like faith survive only in their practice and their survival, no matter what a beating they take.
I've learned over the years that I should always try to take the high road, but that 'should' has to do with morality and with my own gut. Unfortunately, taking the high road in practice usually means regretting it later, because it tends to open one up to attack or abuse later. So what does one do? The practical would say just to do what is best for one's own good, but the idealistic would say to take the high road; so which is right? Which is better?
I guess what it comes down to is a test of one's ideals-- and how much they ultimately mean to you. Ideals always come with a nasty catch: can they survive the brutalities of the world, and the actions that will most assail you? Ideals like faith survive only in their practice and their survival, no matter what a beating they take.
The Emperor of Ice-Cream
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
--- Wallace Stevens
Call the roller of big cigars,
The muscular one, and bid him whip
In kitchen cups concupiscent curds.
Let the wenches dawdle in such dress
As they are used to wear, and let the boys
Bring flowers in last month's newspapers.
Let be be finale of seem.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
Take from the dresser of deal,
Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet
On which she embroidered fantails once
And spread it so as to cover her face.
If her horny feet protrude, they come
To show how cold she is, and dumb.
Let the lamp affix its beam.
The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.
--- Wallace Stevens
And more......
Pretty much right except on two things. I don't think I'm particuarly prejudiced (stubborn, yes, but...), and I do like romance....
Pretty much right except on two things. I don't think I'm particuarly prejudiced (stubborn, yes, but...), and I do like romance....
The rock of Gibraltar. An indomitable fortress, a true bulldozer. The Ox symbolizes prosperity through fortitude and hard work. Being sincere, loyal and unpretentious, they are very down-to earth character who are reserved and may appear aloof to others. In addition, they are essentially temperate people who care greatly for rigor, labor, strength of character and results! As patient and tireless workers, they can stick to routine and conventions harder and longer than anyone else. Since, they hate to fail or be beaten, they simply never give up. Some call them slow, others complain that they are clumsy, in fact, they intentionally choose to move at their own sweet pace and refuse to be pushed or prodded by others. Simplicity and achievements are sure what they believe in. They are definitely not people who are confused by life but those who will not be deflected from their path.
Although they are generally fair-minded and good listener, it is difficult to make them change their views as they are stubborn and often have strong prejudices. They will make friends but it will take a long time to establish a friendship. With their fierce temper, they tend, however, to be eccentric, bigoted, and easily angered. They also speak little, but when they do, they are quite eloquent.
Ox people are mentally and physically alert. Generally easy-going, they can be remarkably stubborn at times. They hate to fail or be opposed. Still, because of his steady and trustworthy character, the Ox person will be entrusted with positions of authority and responsibility. He will not fall short where duty calls. As a matter of fact, he should be careful not to get carried away.
When it comes to romance, the Ox people are capable of profound, enduring love, yet romance leaves them cold. They prefer action to bed of roses and phials of exotic perfumes. Courtship will be a long one to find that ideal life mate but once found the Ox will be a devoted, loyal and hard working companion.
Positive: patient, contemplative, skillful, dexterous, eloquent, confident, authoritative, industrious
Negative: prejudice, chauvinistic, blind faith, pride, tyranny, pettiness, critical, eccentric, conservative, grumpy, occasionally violent
Advice: Lighten up and stop judging others by your own high standards, you will only be disappointed. Nobody, except you, is perfect.
Forecast of the Year: Quality of life first! That will be your motto for this year. You will do your utmost to take more time to live and to live well than to earn money or to climb the social ladder. And you'll regret having forgotten to live for so long. Profit by this teaching of Epicurus: "When one is young one should begin to philosophize, and when one is old one should not be tired of philosophizing. For it is never too early or too late to work at the health of the soul." Your various activities will be very favorably influenced. But this should not be a reason for counting the chickens before they're hatched. You'll still have to make numerous efforts in order to give your projects solid foundations. Amorous and financial matters in particular will be on the upswing, and you'll be very pleased with them.
More Ox Stuff
Ouch.... The first part of this is pretty good, but as for the second part.... Rewards? I don't think so.
Ouch.... The first part of this is pretty good, but as for the second part.... Rewards? I don't think so.
Oxen in China are put on a pedestal. So it goes with Oxen people. Oxen are bright, peace-loving, often easy-going and trusting. But, on the other hand, they can also be stubborn, methodical, and fiercely competitive, with, shudder, fierce tempers to boot. Oxen are natural born mentors and life is filled with examples of people who have gone on to great success because of them. Mentally and physically alert to the point of genius, many Oxen belong to Mensa. They can create the most imposing structures, magnificent sculpture, and homes. They respond like poets to the beauties of nature and of solitude. Oxen are unique, they are The Flower that bursts through the crack of cement.
With Water Oxen you never have to sit around listening to boring lecturing and long-winded yada-yada. Through quiet self-assurance, they simply carry on with life, setting examples by deed, never by words. They make extraordinary leaders. They inspire others to do their best, through kind patience, knowing that even waiters finally come to those who wait. Realistic and open-minded about the foibles of others, they are rewarded with unexpected surprises when people turn around and show their best attributes. Tit for tat!. Their stable careers and "living right" give them the potential to be enormously wealthy, and they frequently are. For Oxen in general, love life is somewhat of a mystery, but immensely satisfying, interwoven very nicely with contrasts of quietude and passion, solitude and togetherness.
Horoscopes for Today
Oh, they are to laugh.....
From Indystar: "You love to be in love, but today, you could give your heart too easily and to the wrong person."
From astrology.com: "The issues are muddled. The situation might be beyond your control. The Stars change the outcome, but it could really be doing you a favor. Wait and see before taking an oath or sealing your fate. Dedicated Virgos work to improve the lives of others, but what about your own?"
From Planet Quake: "Small groups will be more appealing than crowded servers this week. You will be able to initiate a more creative style of gameplay that you have been wanting to try out for some time. Don't worry about embarrassing yourself if your game starts off a little poorly, you'll improve your new technique as you go along! Your efforts will not go unobserved, you'll find people complimenting you in no time. You must get into a position that will enable you to present your ideas to those in a position to help you reach your goals. You're all about strategy this week, play smart and you'll have a blast. Your best game day this week will be Saturday!" --- WTF!?!?!?!?!
From Webscopes: "This is the time in your life when you can expand your mind and your potential. Get out and experience all the world has to offer. If you have ever wanted to do some traveling, this is the time to do it." --- Even bigger WTF!?!?!?!?
From S-T.com: "Your personal life may be shifting a little. Keep your private affairs to yourself. Someone could take advantage of you, so protect your interests. ***"
And in cross hor(ror)scopes:
OX/Virgo
Virgo Oxen are genuinely clear puddles of virtue in this murky mire we contend with every day. But, in truth, I think I would be afraid to step into the shoes of such a "good guy". Virgos make excellent friends. So do Oxen. Virgos work hard. So do Oxen. Virgos pay their bills and cultivate their own gardens and stay out of trouble and keep their noses and their nests neat and clean - so do Oxen. It's a marriage made in heaven. This person can do great things with his life. Count on him when you need sound counsel. Don't ask him to teach you how to cheat on your taxes. Virgo Oxen are amongst the most honest of souls. They couldn't recognize a subterfuge if they ate it for dinner. What's bad about them? Not much, really, except they suffer more than they should because even if they protect themselves with asbestos gloves, they soon discover to their dismay that this bed of roses they are living in is covered with tough thorny prickles that can penetrate the most pristine of souls.
No kidding...... That one finally sounds right, probably too right....
Oh, they are to laugh.....
From Indystar: "You love to be in love, but today, you could give your heart too easily and to the wrong person."
From astrology.com: "The issues are muddled. The situation might be beyond your control. The Stars change the outcome, but it could really be doing you a favor. Wait and see before taking an oath or sealing your fate. Dedicated Virgos work to improve the lives of others, but what about your own?"
From Planet Quake: "Small groups will be more appealing than crowded servers this week. You will be able to initiate a more creative style of gameplay that you have been wanting to try out for some time. Don't worry about embarrassing yourself if your game starts off a little poorly, you'll improve your new technique as you go along! Your efforts will not go unobserved, you'll find people complimenting you in no time. You must get into a position that will enable you to present your ideas to those in a position to help you reach your goals. You're all about strategy this week, play smart and you'll have a blast. Your best game day this week will be Saturday!" --- WTF!?!?!?!?!
From Webscopes: "This is the time in your life when you can expand your mind and your potential. Get out and experience all the world has to offer. If you have ever wanted to do some traveling, this is the time to do it." --- Even bigger WTF!?!?!?!?
From S-T.com: "Your personal life may be shifting a little. Keep your private affairs to yourself. Someone could take advantage of you, so protect your interests. ***"
And in cross hor(ror)scopes:
OX/Virgo
Virgo Oxen are genuinely clear puddles of virtue in this murky mire we contend with every day. But, in truth, I think I would be afraid to step into the shoes of such a "good guy". Virgos make excellent friends. So do Oxen. Virgos work hard. So do Oxen. Virgos pay their bills and cultivate their own gardens and stay out of trouble and keep their noses and their nests neat and clean - so do Oxen. It's a marriage made in heaven. This person can do great things with his life. Count on him when you need sound counsel. Don't ask him to teach you how to cheat on your taxes. Virgo Oxen are amongst the most honest of souls. They couldn't recognize a subterfuge if they ate it for dinner. What's bad about them? Not much, really, except they suffer more than they should because even if they protect themselves with asbestos gloves, they soon discover to their dismay that this bed of roses they are living in is covered with tough thorny prickles that can penetrate the most pristine of souls.
No kidding...... That one finally sounds right, probably too right....
RIP
News today: the passing of Carol Shields, author of The Stone Diaries and Larry's Party. Though I can't say I was ever much of a fan of her writing, she certainly became a significant figure in the field of Canadian literature. Click here to read the preliminary obituary offered by The Guardian in England.
News today: the passing of Carol Shields, author of The Stone Diaries and Larry's Party. Though I can't say I was ever much of a fan of her writing, she certainly became a significant figure in the field of Canadian literature. Click here to read the preliminary obituary offered by The Guardian in England.
Offering
Here is a poem by Sonnet L'Abbe, an old friend of mine from my residence days. Her first volume of poetry A Strange Relief was published by McClelland and Stewart two years ago, and I was fortunate enough to see her read from it. Hopefully she won't sue me for including a piece from it here, partially in the hope it brings her work to a few more eyes, partially just because I like this piece.
I'm not sure how I feel about the last stanza, which seems to me a tad melodramatic, but I shouldn't say much as my own writing of late has suffered from the same quality. But it's rather good, especially for a first volume. I wish my own writing weren't so stalled; the academy does horrible things to one's creative impulses.
Post-script to Sonnet, if she actually sees this here: Yes, I remember the 'good' old days, and I will of course remain discreet. :-)
Here is a poem by Sonnet L'Abbe, an old friend of mine from my residence days. Her first volume of poetry A Strange Relief was published by McClelland and Stewart two years ago, and I was fortunate enough to see her read from it. Hopefully she won't sue me for including a piece from it here, partially in the hope it brings her work to a few more eyes, partially just because I like this piece.
Offering
The vocabulary of desire
is incomplete, a word is missing.
My tongue searches
for your body in language
and finds you in every word.
I thought this was a small thing, a stone
in the plam I could offer you,
my body in darkness a simple gift
casual as a pebble.
As if touching were easier than speaking,
as if this poem did not prove you
inside me already, as if asking
meant I still had the power to invite.
But you make me aware of breathing,
of the awesome fact
that each particle of air
has been taken at least once
into every lung.
Suddenly, I have no boundaries
and to kiss you seems to drink up the sky,
slip it from my tongue into your mouth.
Our bodies just our hearts' clothing
and I came to you so shabbily dressed.
Maybe I thought that for one night
I could wear your beauty through closeness
and for a few hours believe myself
splendidly arrayed.
But you know all the lyrics
to rejection.
My body, your exquisite voice's
shattered glass.
I'm not sure how I feel about the last stanza, which seems to me a tad melodramatic, but I shouldn't say much as my own writing of late has suffered from the same quality. But it's rather good, especially for a first volume. I wish my own writing weren't so stalled; the academy does horrible things to one's creative impulses.
Post-script to Sonnet, if she actually sees this here: Yes, I remember the 'good' old days, and I will of course remain discreet. :-)
Tit for Tat
Just a note on the whole Cameron Diaz topless-photos fiasco. Every article I seem to see on this fluff sympathizes with Diaz, arguing that the photographer who took the photos in question is basically extorting her for money. This may in part be true-- there's certainly an exploitative dimension to this. But I have *no* sympathy for Diaz, either. She posed for the pictures, and I'm pretty sure she probably signed the release, and now that she's a star and the pictures are climbing out of this historical wreckage, she's crying foul. Well, Cameron, face it: there are consequences to your actions; history catches up. And it's not as if you could expect any sort of privacy from modeled photographs taken for explicitly commercial purposes. Are you really that dense?
You can't unring the bell.
At the risk of sounding sexist, this is something people (women especially) seem to have a very hard time accepting: there are consequences to your actions, so you have to think first before you act. Not just do and cry foul if it comes back later later. This is the same shit that went down with Vanessa Williams, with Madonna, with Vanna White, with so many female celebrities, who used their sexuality to pay the bills before they achieved stardom. Well, if you take that route, you have to accept that that choice will eventually have repercussions.
So buck up and accept it. It's called accepting responsibility for the decisions one makes. These photographs weren't taken for personal reasons, they're not the result of a relationship she thought private, and they're not things which will ultimately impede or affect her career. This is not the same scenario as the Brad Pitt-Jennifer Aniston papparazzi case where the photographers broke into their privacy and photographed them without their knowledge. This was conscious modelling.
I can't help finding all of this patently silly because Ms Diaz even now continues to frame herself in the skimpiest of clothing and in sexually-objectifying terms in films like Charlie's Angels and The Sweetest Thing. What's the difference, really? In the photographs there will be areolae-- that's about it. Sheesh. After all, I can't see her areolae making any fundamental difference in Ms Diaz's hirability, or harming her public image. Maybe she should give Drew Barrymore a call.
Just a note on the whole Cameron Diaz topless-photos fiasco. Every article I seem to see on this fluff sympathizes with Diaz, arguing that the photographer who took the photos in question is basically extorting her for money. This may in part be true-- there's certainly an exploitative dimension to this. But I have *no* sympathy for Diaz, either. She posed for the pictures, and I'm pretty sure she probably signed the release, and now that she's a star and the pictures are climbing out of this historical wreckage, she's crying foul. Well, Cameron, face it: there are consequences to your actions; history catches up. And it's not as if you could expect any sort of privacy from modeled photographs taken for explicitly commercial purposes. Are you really that dense?
You can't unring the bell.
At the risk of sounding sexist, this is something people (women especially) seem to have a very hard time accepting: there are consequences to your actions, so you have to think first before you act. Not just do and cry foul if it comes back later later. This is the same shit that went down with Vanessa Williams, with Madonna, with Vanna White, with so many female celebrities, who used their sexuality to pay the bills before they achieved stardom. Well, if you take that route, you have to accept that that choice will eventually have repercussions.
So buck up and accept it. It's called accepting responsibility for the decisions one makes. These photographs weren't taken for personal reasons, they're not the result of a relationship she thought private, and they're not things which will ultimately impede or affect her career. This is not the same scenario as the Brad Pitt-Jennifer Aniston papparazzi case where the photographers broke into their privacy and photographed them without their knowledge. This was conscious modelling.
I can't help finding all of this patently silly because Ms Diaz even now continues to frame herself in the skimpiest of clothing and in sexually-objectifying terms in films like Charlie's Angels and The Sweetest Thing. What's the difference, really? In the photographs there will be areolae-- that's about it. Sheesh. After all, I can't see her areolae making any fundamental difference in Ms Diaz's hirability, or harming her public image. Maybe she should give Drew Barrymore a call.
16 July 2003
J the Obscured
Seems I'm really racking up the failures lately.
I sense that in some key ways I've been kept in the dark about many things, some intentional, some not, some very likely unconscious. But I can't honestly blame others for such obscurantism, because I'd be lying if I said I didn't detect some of the tell-tale inconsistencies, fissures, and behavioural shifts that indicate that 'something' (whatever it ultimately is) is up. I can ultimately only blame myself for not trusting in my own instincts, and for allowing myself to hope more in what I wanted than in what I could see. In all of the instances of which I think right now, the error is finally mine, hard as that is to admit. I should have known things were off if only I'd accepted that the blips on my radar weren't errors of the machine but actual problems in the skies. Perhaps the most dangerous thing is to let desire delude us into believing against our own healthy disbelief, to believe the lies we tell ourselves just because we want them to be true.
One does one's best, and one tries to follow the path of the ideal rather than the callous or the cynical. One tries to do the right-est thing. And when that goes wrong, all one can do is accept and fare forward, with or without regret.
Seems I'm really racking up the failures lately.
I sense that in some key ways I've been kept in the dark about many things, some intentional, some not, some very likely unconscious. But I can't honestly blame others for such obscurantism, because I'd be lying if I said I didn't detect some of the tell-tale inconsistencies, fissures, and behavioural shifts that indicate that 'something' (whatever it ultimately is) is up. I can ultimately only blame myself for not trusting in my own instincts, and for allowing myself to hope more in what I wanted than in what I could see. In all of the instances of which I think right now, the error is finally mine, hard as that is to admit. I should have known things were off if only I'd accepted that the blips on my radar weren't errors of the machine but actual problems in the skies. Perhaps the most dangerous thing is to let desire delude us into believing against our own healthy disbelief, to believe the lies we tell ourselves just because we want them to be true.
One does one's best, and one tries to follow the path of the ideal rather than the callous or the cynical. One tries to do the right-est thing. And when that goes wrong, all one can do is accept and fare forward, with or without regret.
Mmmm *Sigh, Swoon*
For no reason whatsoever, this blog finds it necessary to comment on the lovely Nalah Ayed, one of the CBC correspondents who has really made a name for herself, especially with her recent work in Amman, Baghdad, and Afghanistan. She's articulate, intelligent, pretty, and (from what I saw of her in a panel discussion on the dangers of being a foreign correspondent) quite quick and funny. Ah, a woman after my own heart -- and definitely a refreshing presence on the nightly news. And considering she's only been with the CBC a short time, she's definitely impressive, taking tough assignments, and asserting herself with dignity and grace. Lovely, intelligent, and erudite: a killer combination.
For no reason whatsoever, this blog finds it necessary to comment on the lovely Nalah Ayed, one of the CBC correspondents who has really made a name for herself, especially with her recent work in Amman, Baghdad, and Afghanistan. She's articulate, intelligent, pretty, and (from what I saw of her in a panel discussion on the dangers of being a foreign correspondent) quite quick and funny. Ah, a woman after my own heart -- and definitely a refreshing presence on the nightly news. And considering she's only been with the CBC a short time, she's definitely impressive, taking tough assignments, and asserting herself with dignity and grace. Lovely, intelligent, and erudite: a killer combination.
15 July 2003
Why Did They Bother? Why Did I?
They offered the appointment to the guy they already planned on offering the appointment to, so applying in the end was futile. Worse, I may have to teach for him, and I can't say he and I are on the best of terms.
I give up.
All that effort, that money, that time, wasted on a decision they'd made months ago.
Livid is a good word right about now.
YU can eat my hairy, barely-existent ass.
They offered the appointment to the guy they already planned on offering the appointment to, so applying in the end was futile. Worse, I may have to teach for him, and I can't say he and I are on the best of terms.
I give up.
All that effort, that money, that time, wasted on a decision they'd made months ago.
Livid is a good word right about now.
YU can eat my hairy, barely-existent ass.
Ahhhh.....
They Flee From Me
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
And therewithal sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "dear heart, how like you this?"
It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
--- Thomas Wyatt (1540)
They Flee From Me
They flee from me that sometime did me seek
With naked foot, stalking in my chamber.
I have seen them gentle, tame, and meek,
That now are wild and do not remember
That sometime they put themselves in danger
To take bread at my hand; and now they range,
Busily seeking with a continual change.
Thanked be fortune it hath been otherwise
Twenty times better; but once in special,
In thin array after a pleasant guise,
When her loose gown from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her arms long and small;
And therewithal sweetly did me kiss
And softly said, "dear heart, how like you this?"
It was no dream: I lay broad waking.
But all is turned thorough my gentleness
Into a strange fashion of forsaking;
And I have leave to go of her goodness,
And she also, to use newfangleness.
But since that I so kindly am served
I would fain know what she hath deserved.
--- Thomas Wyatt (1540)
More Advice From RK
and a kind of indirect compliment.... ;-)
"For pleasure of research environment, I strongly recommend specialising in MS. work -- MS rooms in almost all great libraries, and small archives, are the NICEST places to work for people like you and me. Also, it's real Stuff, and gets you away from the theory wars with the best excuse possible."
I like the "people like you and me" part. Let us focus not so much on Ideas About the Thing, but the Thing Itself. I'm not sure about MS work, though; my rather limited experience with MS work has been rather a trial, largely because I have difficulty with other people's handwriting. (And that I can't smoke in libraries, let alone Special Collections or Archives sections.)
Sadly, for me, I'd have to work in some of the least appetizing places; I'm not sure I'd want to spend too much time in Texas just so can lay my fingers on Graham Greene MSs. Something to think about, nonetheless. Cheers, RK....
and a kind of indirect compliment.... ;-)
"For pleasure of research environment, I strongly recommend specialising in MS. work -- MS rooms in almost all great libraries, and small archives, are the NICEST places to work for people like you and me. Also, it's real Stuff, and gets you away from the theory wars with the best excuse possible."
I like the "people like you and me" part. Let us focus not so much on Ideas About the Thing, but the Thing Itself. I'm not sure about MS work, though; my rather limited experience with MS work has been rather a trial, largely because I have difficulty with other people's handwriting. (And that I can't smoke in libraries, let alone Special Collections or Archives sections.)
Sadly, for me, I'd have to work in some of the least appetizing places; I'm not sure I'd want to spend too much time in Texas just so can lay my fingers on Graham Greene MSs. Something to think about, nonetheless. Cheers, RK....
Fragment of a Memory
Typing out these villanelles reminds me of an email from the first University class I taught years and years ago. The student said of the final exam, "I even knew the sight poem, but I wrote that it was a vanilla instead of a villanelle." I tried to console her that this was a common exam flavour, but I don't think it worked.
Typing out these villanelles reminds me of an email from the first University class I taught years and years ago. The student said of the final exam, "I even knew the sight poem, but I wrote that it was a vanilla instead of a villanelle." I tried to console her that this was a common exam flavour, but I don't think it worked.
One Art
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
--- Elizabeth Bishop
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.
Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
-- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
--- Elizabeth Bishop
The World And the Child
Letting his wisdom be the whole of love,
The father tiptoes out, backwards. A gleam
Falls on the child awake and wearied of,
Then, as the door clicks shut, is snuffed. The glove-
Gray afterglow appalls him. It would seem
That letting wisdom be the whole of love
Were pastime ever for the bitter grove
Outside, whose owl's white hoot of disesteem
Falls on the child awake and wearied of.
He lies awake in pain, he does not move,
He will not call. The women, hearing him,
Would let their wisdom be the whole of love.
People have filled the room he lies above.
Their talk, mild variation, chilling theme,
Falls on the child. Awake and wearied of
Mere pain, mere wisdom also, he would have
All the world waking from its winter dream,
Letting its wisdom be. The whole of love
Falls on the child awake and wearied of.
--- James Merrill
Letting his wisdom be the whole of love,
The father tiptoes out, backwards. A gleam
Falls on the child awake and wearied of,
Then, as the door clicks shut, is snuffed. The glove-
Gray afterglow appalls him. It would seem
That letting wisdom be the whole of love
Were pastime ever for the bitter grove
Outside, whose owl's white hoot of disesteem
Falls on the child awake and wearied of.
He lies awake in pain, he does not move,
He will not call. The women, hearing him,
Would let their wisdom be the whole of love.
People have filled the room he lies above.
Their talk, mild variation, chilling theme,
Falls on the child. Awake and wearied of
Mere pain, mere wisdom also, he would have
All the world waking from its winter dream,
Letting its wisdom be. The whole of love
Falls on the child awake and wearied of.
--- James Merrill
Untitled
Your eyes are very strong
They try to cripple me
You put all your strength
into your eyes
because you do not know
how to be a hero
You have mistaken your ideal
It is not a hero
but a tyrant
you long to become
Therefore weakness
is your most attractive quality
I have no plans for you
Your dangerous black eyes
fasten on the nearest girl
or the nearest mirror
as you go hopefully
from profession to profession
--- Leonard Cohen, from The Energy of Slaves (1972)
Your eyes are very strong
They try to cripple me
You put all your strength
into your eyes
because you do not know
how to be a hero
You have mistaken your ideal
It is not a hero
but a tyrant
you long to become
Therefore weakness
is your most attractive quality
I have no plans for you
Your dangerous black eyes
fasten on the nearest girl
or the nearest mirror
as you go hopefully
from profession to profession
--- Leonard Cohen, from The Energy of Slaves (1972)
"A Few Latin Phrases"
(a phrase that will ring dirty for all who have seen Dangeous Liaisons) ;-)
Ah, some Latin to know:
Nil Illegitimis Carbonundrum: "Don't let the bastards grind you down" (thanks RK)
Es de acervus excrementum: "You are a pile of shit"
Bibe meum semenum e baculo: "Drink my semen from a cup" (oh dear....)
Podex perfectus est: "You are a perfect asshole"
Lambes meus globi: "Lick my balls" (well, 'globes,' really, but...)
Tarditas et procrastinatio odiosa est: "Delay and procrastination is hateful"
Favete linguis: "Keep quiet"
Nunc est bibendum: "Let us drink"
Timendi causa est nescire: "Ignorance is the cause of fear"
Nihilo ex nihilo: "Nothing comes from nothing" (c.f., King Lear)
and
Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur: "Even a god finds it hard to love and to be wise at the same time"
No kidding....
Won't let the bastards grind me down....
(a phrase that will ring dirty for all who have seen Dangeous Liaisons) ;-)
Ah, some Latin to know:
Nil Illegitimis Carbonundrum: "Don't let the bastards grind you down" (thanks RK)
Es de acervus excrementum: "You are a pile of shit"
Bibe meum semenum e baculo: "Drink my semen from a cup" (oh dear....)
Podex perfectus est: "You are a perfect asshole"
Lambes meus globi: "Lick my balls" (well, 'globes,' really, but...)
Tarditas et procrastinatio odiosa est: "Delay and procrastination is hateful"
Favete linguis: "Keep quiet"
Nunc est bibendum: "Let us drink"
Timendi causa est nescire: "Ignorance is the cause of fear"
Nihilo ex nihilo: "Nothing comes from nothing" (c.f., King Lear)
and
Amare et sapere vix deo conceditur: "Even a god finds it hard to love and to be wise at the same time"
No kidding....
Won't let the bastards grind me down....
Advice From A Piece of Chalk
Received a lovely email today from RK who is fortunate enough to be moving about Europe, and who is currently en Angleterre. Perhaps most hilarious in his correspondence: the suggestion that I take up rock-climbing ("If I hadn't lost me figger I'd still be doing it") which, I'm sure, would result in some sort of serious injury for me. I'd probably look only slightly less pathetic than Gloucester trying to throw himself off the white-on-white cliffs of Dover.
Then again, poetry people should be good footmen.... ;-)
Received a lovely email today from RK who is fortunate enough to be moving about Europe, and who is currently en Angleterre. Perhaps most hilarious in his correspondence: the suggestion that I take up rock-climbing ("If I hadn't lost me figger I'd still be doing it") which, I'm sure, would result in some sort of serious injury for me. I'd probably look only slightly less pathetic than Gloucester trying to throw himself off the white-on-white cliffs of Dover.
Then again, poetry people should be good footmen.... ;-)
16 Little Words... Or Niger and the Narcissist
Nicholas Kristof has an interesting piece in the Times today about those 16 little words so much discussed in the States these days. I think he's right: the seriousness of the issue is not the error of Bush's statement about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger, but in the larger scale patterns of simplification to the point of dishonesty. To read the article, click here.
There's another issue at stake here, one that I've not seen discussed in any of the printed or televised commentaries on this whole fiasco, and it's one that needs to be addressed-- and that is the Dubya administration's schizophrenic attitude toward language. Dubya's administration has been one of the most profoundly lingo-istic (and jingoistic, for that matter, but that's another issue entirely) in recent memory, depending on buzz-words and appropriately modulated sound-bytes to strike home messages that supposedly legitimate their actions. Just think of them all, especially since 9/11: "weapons of mass destruction," "war or terrorism," "axis of evil," and so on and so forth. Perhaps more than any presidency since Reagan's, Dubya's presidency has depended for its expression of policy on what one might call concrete language nuggets, on words that cannot be misconstrued, on the language of black and white and right and wrong, on the polarizing effects of chiaroscuro rhetoric whereby you're either for us or against us, as the Prez has so often averred. This is a presidency that has not debated or engaged its opponents; it has used language not as a shield, or even as an epee, but as a rhetorical cosh to bully support.
To some extent, there is great care put into the election of such phrases, and the Dubya presidency obviously depends on their effects-- hence their constant repetition ad infinitum -- in the same way that a schoolyard bully bandies about words like 'nerd,' 'geek,' and 'girl' as pejorative terms meant to shame others for even questioning their authority. In one sense this is profoundly disturbing, but from a rhetorical standpoint it's fabulously effective-- just ask Reagan, Kennedy, Churchill, and, yes, Hitler. Words have power, as any good leader knows; but the difference between Dubya and say Clinton or Tony Blair (or Churchill or Kennedy) is this, that Dubya cannot depart comfortably from the prepared text, from the sound-bytes. Keep hammering the same words again and again and again, and the public will learn by rote, but do not, by any means, engage or tolerate debate, because engagement and debate begin the process of interrogating the value of those words, and if one does not fully accept the meaning of those words, they become impossible to defend. The defense ultimately becomes something akin to "Because I said so," or "Because that's the way it is," or "Listen, you're with me, or you're against me," and for the more intelligent, this is a very difficult rationale to accept.
But this leads to the other personality of Dubya's attitude toward language. Dubya avoids press conferences (or questions therein) because of this attitude, and it's this attitude that leads to some of the mind-bogglingly illiterate statements that he frequently makes. The fact is, Dubya does not understand (and does not appreciate) nuance, especially in relation to language; like an undergraduate, he wants the point, not the interrogation, not the larger dimensions of meaning and complexity. So, when the administration speaks, there remains the persistent desire to be able to retract, to apologize for, to undermine what has already been averred; not the nuggets, but the everyday speech. "Trust us on these things," they seem to say, "but don't bother us about other things we say. Don't make fun of us for our illiteracy, don't hold us to our previous statements, don't correct us on our inaccuracies. It's the general truth to believe, not the supplementary or component truths." It's a fundamentally irresponsible attitude toward language, to speak without even grammatical, logical, or phrasal accountability, let alone factual or political accountability. It reminds me all too well of the anecdote of the student with a bad essay who comes in swearing, 'I meant to say this,' but who didn't actually say that; so the teacher (in this case, me) desperately resists the temptation to say 'Well, I meant to give you an A, but I gave you a C, so there it is...."
Now admittedly all politicians want language to be mutable, to be able to retract and to modify, and even to change verbal horses. But in Dubya's case, language is both everything and nothing; it is in one sense the cornerstone of his presidency, and it is also his greatest weakness. Dubya is a good communicator, an effective vehicle for words when he is adequately-prepared, but rather like the actor-President he most emulates, he is an actor first and foremost; he is not an improvisor, and he is not a good speaker per se.
But the Dubya administration is ultimately felicitous in its attitude to language, and sees no reason to better or to discipline that attitude. This is not an administration concerned with articulating policy, engaging ideas, or clarifying issues; it is an administration that is more concerned with making sure people think what it wants people to think. And in this whole kafuffle, Dubya is little more than a kindergarten teacher-- not especially thoughtful, there by appointment, whose primary tasks are teaching by rote and keeping things from busting out of his control. The subsequent truth is this: think back on the things you were told in kindergarten, and how many of those things were indeed truths; it's all about basics not details, about myths rather than facts, expressed in the lowest-common-demoninative terms.
And this, from a president, is for me profundly disturbing, because it is ultimately less about intellectual engagement than it is about propping up the image of the president (not the presidency, by the way) as a moral authority without indeed earning it. This is a process of political narcissism; just sit there in class, children, and don't talk back, and, whatever you do, don't point out that the teacher may not know exactly what he's talking about. Just sit and nod, or you'll be in big trouble. All together now, children, "Yes, Mr. Bush." Even if the smarter among you know that potato is spelled without an 'e,' and that rhetoric is a weapon of mass destruction, too. Okay, nap time, children, and try not to notice that the Emperor-Teacher isn't wearing any clothes. (Wow.... that amounts to 16 little words, too.)
Nicholas Kristof has an interesting piece in the Times today about those 16 little words so much discussed in the States these days. I think he's right: the seriousness of the issue is not the error of Bush's statement about Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger, but in the larger scale patterns of simplification to the point of dishonesty. To read the article, click here.
There's another issue at stake here, one that I've not seen discussed in any of the printed or televised commentaries on this whole fiasco, and it's one that needs to be addressed-- and that is the Dubya administration's schizophrenic attitude toward language. Dubya's administration has been one of the most profoundly lingo-istic (and jingoistic, for that matter, but that's another issue entirely) in recent memory, depending on buzz-words and appropriately modulated sound-bytes to strike home messages that supposedly legitimate their actions. Just think of them all, especially since 9/11: "weapons of mass destruction," "war or terrorism," "axis of evil," and so on and so forth. Perhaps more than any presidency since Reagan's, Dubya's presidency has depended for its expression of policy on what one might call concrete language nuggets, on words that cannot be misconstrued, on the language of black and white and right and wrong, on the polarizing effects of chiaroscuro rhetoric whereby you're either for us or against us, as the Prez has so often averred. This is a presidency that has not debated or engaged its opponents; it has used language not as a shield, or even as an epee, but as a rhetorical cosh to bully support.
To some extent, there is great care put into the election of such phrases, and the Dubya presidency obviously depends on their effects-- hence their constant repetition ad infinitum -- in the same way that a schoolyard bully bandies about words like 'nerd,' 'geek,' and 'girl' as pejorative terms meant to shame others for even questioning their authority. In one sense this is profoundly disturbing, but from a rhetorical standpoint it's fabulously effective-- just ask Reagan, Kennedy, Churchill, and, yes, Hitler. Words have power, as any good leader knows; but the difference between Dubya and say Clinton or Tony Blair (or Churchill or Kennedy) is this, that Dubya cannot depart comfortably from the prepared text, from the sound-bytes. Keep hammering the same words again and again and again, and the public will learn by rote, but do not, by any means, engage or tolerate debate, because engagement and debate begin the process of interrogating the value of those words, and if one does not fully accept the meaning of those words, they become impossible to defend. The defense ultimately becomes something akin to "Because I said so," or "Because that's the way it is," or "Listen, you're with me, or you're against me," and for the more intelligent, this is a very difficult rationale to accept.
But this leads to the other personality of Dubya's attitude toward language. Dubya avoids press conferences (or questions therein) because of this attitude, and it's this attitude that leads to some of the mind-bogglingly illiterate statements that he frequently makes. The fact is, Dubya does not understand (and does not appreciate) nuance, especially in relation to language; like an undergraduate, he wants the point, not the interrogation, not the larger dimensions of meaning and complexity. So, when the administration speaks, there remains the persistent desire to be able to retract, to apologize for, to undermine what has already been averred; not the nuggets, but the everyday speech. "Trust us on these things," they seem to say, "but don't bother us about other things we say. Don't make fun of us for our illiteracy, don't hold us to our previous statements, don't correct us on our inaccuracies. It's the general truth to believe, not the supplementary or component truths." It's a fundamentally irresponsible attitude toward language, to speak without even grammatical, logical, or phrasal accountability, let alone factual or political accountability. It reminds me all too well of the anecdote of the student with a bad essay who comes in swearing, 'I meant to say this,' but who didn't actually say that; so the teacher (in this case, me) desperately resists the temptation to say 'Well, I meant to give you an A, but I gave you a C, so there it is...."
Now admittedly all politicians want language to be mutable, to be able to retract and to modify, and even to change verbal horses. But in Dubya's case, language is both everything and nothing; it is in one sense the cornerstone of his presidency, and it is also his greatest weakness. Dubya is a good communicator, an effective vehicle for words when he is adequately-prepared, but rather like the actor-President he most emulates, he is an actor first and foremost; he is not an improvisor, and he is not a good speaker per se.
But the Dubya administration is ultimately felicitous in its attitude to language, and sees no reason to better or to discipline that attitude. This is not an administration concerned with articulating policy, engaging ideas, or clarifying issues; it is an administration that is more concerned with making sure people think what it wants people to think. And in this whole kafuffle, Dubya is little more than a kindergarten teacher-- not especially thoughtful, there by appointment, whose primary tasks are teaching by rote and keeping things from busting out of his control. The subsequent truth is this: think back on the things you were told in kindergarten, and how many of those things were indeed truths; it's all about basics not details, about myths rather than facts, expressed in the lowest-common-demoninative terms.
And this, from a president, is for me profundly disturbing, because it is ultimately less about intellectual engagement than it is about propping up the image of the president (not the presidency, by the way) as a moral authority without indeed earning it. This is a process of political narcissism; just sit there in class, children, and don't talk back, and, whatever you do, don't point out that the teacher may not know exactly what he's talking about. Just sit and nod, or you'll be in big trouble. All together now, children, "Yes, Mr. Bush." Even if the smarter among you know that potato is spelled without an 'e,' and that rhetoric is a weapon of mass destruction, too. Okay, nap time, children, and try not to notice that the Emperor-Teacher isn't wearing any clothes. (Wow.... that amounts to 16 little words, too.)
14 July 2003
It's Quiet, Too Quiet....
I don't know why, but I have the feeling something's going to break today. I don't know what, or how, or anything like that; but you know that feeling you have every now and again when you know it's just too damned quiet, when there's something definitely shifting in the air-- well, that's the way it is for me right now. Whether it's a sunshine or a napalm bomb on the horizon, I have no clue, but my spidey-sense is tingling. May be in part why I couldn't sleep last night (still haven't).
Or maybe I'm getting these feelings because I didn't sleep last night, or because I'm in serious nicotine withdrawal.
But now, of course, with my sense up, it'll probably turn out like a cheap horror movie: suspicion up, something's definitely coming, and then it turns out to be a stray cat leaping from a garbage can....
But, Sssshhhhh...... Be vewwy vewwy quiet. It's Doctor-hunting season.....
ADDENDUM: Guess I was wrong. Nothing happened. I can live with that.
I don't know why, but I have the feeling something's going to break today. I don't know what, or how, or anything like that; but you know that feeling you have every now and again when you know it's just too damned quiet, when there's something definitely shifting in the air-- well, that's the way it is for me right now. Whether it's a sunshine or a napalm bomb on the horizon, I have no clue, but my spidey-sense is tingling. May be in part why I couldn't sleep last night (still haven't).
Or maybe I'm getting these feelings because I didn't sleep last night, or because I'm in serious nicotine withdrawal.
But now, of course, with my sense up, it'll probably turn out like a cheap horror movie: suspicion up, something's definitely coming, and then it turns out to be a stray cat leaping from a garbage can....
But, Sssshhhhh...... Be vewwy vewwy quiet. It's Doctor-hunting season.....
ADDENDUM: Guess I was wrong. Nothing happened. I can live with that.
13 July 2003
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Everything seems to be conspiring to ensure that my life remains that of Sisyphus. For the past bit it has been my infernal computer which insists on making me repair it over and over again. I'm constantly facing the blue screen of death, and then having to reconfigure and reload everything...
Toil and toil up the hill, then roll back down again.
I must have been Jack the Ripper in a past lifetime.
(And no, I'm not just whining, much as it may seem so: everyone who knows me knows that I seem to have some sort of curse hanging over me, as even the simplest things tend to go very, very wrong. I'm starting to wonder if it's part of some sort of cosmic testing of my patience. Can't say I'm entirely succeeding controlling it today; the Doctor has been shouting a sailor's litany of profanities at his computer screen and damning the makers of Windows for the past several hours.)
I'm starting to think that if anything ever works properly or goes right, I'll drop dead of a heart attack brought on by the pure surprise of it all. *shrug*
But I really need something to go right for a change.... At least before I go utterly bonkers.
It won't, of course. It seldom does.
Everything seems to be conspiring to ensure that my life remains that of Sisyphus. For the past bit it has been my infernal computer which insists on making me repair it over and over again. I'm constantly facing the blue screen of death, and then having to reconfigure and reload everything...
Toil and toil up the hill, then roll back down again.
I must have been Jack the Ripper in a past lifetime.
(And no, I'm not just whining, much as it may seem so: everyone who knows me knows that I seem to have some sort of curse hanging over me, as even the simplest things tend to go very, very wrong. I'm starting to wonder if it's part of some sort of cosmic testing of my patience. Can't say I'm entirely succeeding controlling it today; the Doctor has been shouting a sailor's litany of profanities at his computer screen and damning the makers of Windows for the past several hours.)
I'm starting to think that if anything ever works properly or goes right, I'll drop dead of a heart attack brought on by the pure surprise of it all. *shrug*
But I really need something to go right for a change.... At least before I go utterly bonkers.
It won't, of course. It seldom does.
Sunday Bloody Sunday
*Sigh* Another summer night. Will try to enjoy the weather by doing some of my work on the porch, but I'm increasingly sick of the ascetic lifestyle. For those not in the know, summers are the worst for academics like me. Apparently universities think we should live on air and piss and vinegar during the summer months. My stigmata are actually just pencil blisters.
Sorry. "High summer's got him low down..." (Van Morrison)
I long for the day when I can be able to do what I want; then again, it's been so long, I'm not sure I'd know what to do anymore.
*Sigh* Another summer night. Will try to enjoy the weather by doing some of my work on the porch, but I'm increasingly sick of the ascetic lifestyle. For those not in the know, summers are the worst for academics like me. Apparently universities think we should live on air and piss and vinegar during the summer months. My stigmata are actually just pencil blisters.
Sorry. "High summer's got him low down..." (Van Morrison)
I long for the day when I can be able to do what I want; then again, it's been so long, I'm not sure I'd know what to do anymore.
Words to Remember
Haven't read these words in a dog's age (seven years?), but they came across my mind again tonight:
Strange how that quote immediately turns my mind in two directions, to the "fragments I have shored against my ruins" from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and F.'s instruction in Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers: "Connect nothing! ... Place things side by side on your arborite table if you must, but connect nothing!"
Hmmmm. Sorry, no profound response here; just a few things to contemplate.
Haven't read these words in a dog's age (seven years?), but they came across my mind again tonight:
Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer.
--- E.M. Forster, Howards End
Strange how that quote immediately turns my mind in two directions, to the "fragments I have shored against my ruins" from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land and F.'s instruction in Leonard Cohen's Beautiful Losers: "Connect nothing! ... Place things side by side on your arborite table if you must, but connect nothing!"
Hmmmm. Sorry, no profound response here; just a few things to contemplate.
Summer Movies: The M.A. Program
Here is an interesting article: unfortunately it doesn't follow through on its promise and winds up petering out, but it does provoke food for thought, especially for archetypists. I particularly like this sentence: "This summer, millions of teenagers have been invited to experience the tedium and pedantry of graduate school in Dolby surround, accompanied by the latest in computer-generated special effects." And this one: "So excuse me while I turn my attention to Aristotle's "Posterior Analytics," which my colleagues tell me is crucial to understanding "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.'" Again, you need the Times subscription....
Here is an interesting article: unfortunately it doesn't follow through on its promise and winds up petering out, but it does provoke food for thought, especially for archetypists. I particularly like this sentence: "This summer, millions of teenagers have been invited to experience the tedium and pedantry of graduate school in Dolby surround, accompanied by the latest in computer-generated special effects." And this one: "So excuse me while I turn my attention to Aristotle's "Posterior Analytics," which my colleagues tell me is crucial to understanding "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle.'" Again, you need the Times subscription....
12 July 2003
On Collage and Theft
This blog is painfully aware that it is itself a kind of collage of material, some of which may still be owned-- although issues of intellectual and creative 'property' are far muddier and murkier than copyrights laws allow, and which things like the internet make far more complicated than was previously assumed. So, to any writers out there that I may quote here: please know I do so usually with merely the intention of exposing your words to a small reading public that may not be aware of your words' existence. In most cases, I offer them approvingly, and I receive no fiscal or otherwise comparable benefit from them; in a way, it's a typical teacher's gesture, directing people toward what I think relevant material.
It's also occurred to me that I should add a general thanks to Dave Barry, whose blog has provided me much enjoyment, and whose links have often found their way onto this site. (Or is it Claire Martin's blog now? ;-) ) So, Mr Barry, if you ever see this pissant little site, know you're thanked, and please don't sue. :-)
My God, writing this seems counter-voyeuristic: it's as if the TV can look back at you and see you watching it....
This blog is painfully aware that it is itself a kind of collage of material, some of which may still be owned-- although issues of intellectual and creative 'property' are far muddier and murkier than copyrights laws allow, and which things like the internet make far more complicated than was previously assumed. So, to any writers out there that I may quote here: please know I do so usually with merely the intention of exposing your words to a small reading public that may not be aware of your words' existence. In most cases, I offer them approvingly, and I receive no fiscal or otherwise comparable benefit from them; in a way, it's a typical teacher's gesture, directing people toward what I think relevant material.
It's also occurred to me that I should add a general thanks to Dave Barry, whose blog has provided me much enjoyment, and whose links have often found their way onto this site. (Or is it Claire Martin's blog now? ;-) ) So, Mr Barry, if you ever see this pissant little site, know you're thanked, and please don't sue. :-)
My God, writing this seems counter-voyeuristic: it's as if the TV can look back at you and see you watching it....
Further On the {ahem....} Dylan-Saga Saga
See this article from the NYTimes, which uses a vocabulary very similar to that offered by yours truly. ;-) He he; remember, you have to have the free Times subscription to access it.
See this article from the NYTimes, which uses a vocabulary very similar to that offered by yours truly. ;-) He he; remember, you have to have the free Times subscription to access it.
11 July 2003
A Horrible Day
Banks, computers, family.... What a misery of a day, all on no sleep; as of this writing, the Doctor has been on call for almost thirty hours straight.
As for the other major matter of the day, this blog doesn't want to talk about it except to say that it wishes it hadn't become inevitable. A guy really could have, Chaulssitae. I wish things were different, but my magic fails me.
I wish.... the worst words in the world.
And if this makes me a sentimental old fool, so fuckin' be it.
Banks, computers, family.... What a misery of a day, all on no sleep; as of this writing, the Doctor has been on call for almost thirty hours straight.
As for the other major matter of the day, this blog doesn't want to talk about it except to say that it wishes it hadn't become inevitable. A guy really could have, Chaulssitae. I wish things were different, but my magic fails me.
I wish.... the worst words in the world.
And if this makes me a sentimental old fool, so fuckin' be it.
Krapka!
Figures that I would only now notice that the film Kafka was airing tonight, a film I don't think I've seen since it was first released in the theatres in 1991. It's a peculiar film (very, very much so), but it has some magnificent cinematography, and the penultimate cinematic performance of Sir Alec Guinness as the Chief Clerk. It's odd to think about that, to reflect that the last time I saw this movie I was watching what turned out to be Guinness' last significant role. (He had an unbilled cameo in the film Mute Witness, a movie Guinness, as he wittily recounts in one of his journals, didn't even realize he was in; he apparently did some shots totalling fifteen minutes of time as a kindness for the young film director Anthony Waller.) It'e eerie to think of things in such terms now, especially because Guinness was one of my childhood 'heroes,' for lack of a better word; he always represented to me versatility, intelligence, civility, humour, and genuine class (as Dick Cavett once recognized, brilliantly, to be an anagram of Guinness' name). There are so few examples of this 'total package' these days, and it reminds me that much of what was said in the myriad articles published when Guinness died in 2000 was true: that he was the last of a generation, the last of a breed. At the risk of seeming sentimental, Sir Alec taught me a lot about the man I wanted to be, or at least wanted to emulate in my own way. In an increasingly ill-mannered society this is harder and harder to do, especially when people no longer attend to subtle of gesture and word and resonance, when the rampant screaming and shouting of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm is heralded as genius. Guinness was an actor who could convey more with a pursing of his eyelids than most could with entire soliloquies; and he always emerged, even from the hype of Star Wars, with dignity entirely in tact. I admire that, I admire it a lot.
Figures that I would only now notice that the film Kafka was airing tonight, a film I don't think I've seen since it was first released in the theatres in 1991. It's a peculiar film (very, very much so), but it has some magnificent cinematography, and the penultimate cinematic performance of Sir Alec Guinness as the Chief Clerk. It's odd to think about that, to reflect that the last time I saw this movie I was watching what turned out to be Guinness' last significant role. (He had an unbilled cameo in the film Mute Witness, a movie Guinness, as he wittily recounts in one of his journals, didn't even realize he was in; he apparently did some shots totalling fifteen minutes of time as a kindness for the young film director Anthony Waller.) It'e eerie to think of things in such terms now, especially because Guinness was one of my childhood 'heroes,' for lack of a better word; he always represented to me versatility, intelligence, civility, humour, and genuine class (as Dick Cavett once recognized, brilliantly, to be an anagram of Guinness' name). There are so few examples of this 'total package' these days, and it reminds me that much of what was said in the myriad articles published when Guinness died in 2000 was true: that he was the last of a generation, the last of a breed. At the risk of seeming sentimental, Sir Alec taught me a lot about the man I wanted to be, or at least wanted to emulate in my own way. In an increasingly ill-mannered society this is harder and harder to do, especially when people no longer attend to subtle of gesture and word and resonance, when the rampant screaming and shouting of Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm is heralded as genius. Guinness was an actor who could convey more with a pursing of his eyelids than most could with entire soliloquies; and he always emerged, even from the hype of Star Wars, with dignity entirely in tact. I admire that, I admire it a lot.
What slim youth, Phyrrha, drenched in perfumed oils,
Lying in an easy grotto among roses, roses,
Now woos, and watches you
Gathering back your golden hair,
With artless elegance? How many a time
Will he cry out, seeing all changed, the gods, your promise
And stare in wondering shock
At winds gone wild on blackening seas!
Now fondling you, his hope, his perfeect gold,
He leans on love's inviolable contancy, not dreaming
How false the breeze can blow.
Ah, pity all those who have not found
Your glossy sweetness out! My shipwreck's tale
Hangs, told in colors, on Neptune's temple wall, a votice
Plaque, with savaged clothes
Still damp, vowed to the sea's rough lord.
--- Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus), Odes 1.5
Tr. Cedric Whitman
Ed.: Have been trying to find a decent translation of this lyric for some time and have been invariably thwarted at many turns, either by the mere finding or the quality of the translation. This will have to do. *Shrug*
A Misremembered Lyric
A misremembered lyric: a soft catch of its song
whirrs in my throat. 'Something's gotta hold of my heart
tearing my' soul and my conscience apart, long after
presence is clean gone and leaves unfurnished no
shadow. Rain lyrics. Yes, then the rain lyrics fall.
I don't want absence to be this beautiful.
It shouldn't be; in fact, I know it wasn't, while
'everything that consoles is false' is off the point--
you get no consolation anyway until your memory's
dead: or something never had gotten hold of
your heart in the first place, and that's the fear thought.
Do shrimps make good mothers? Yes they do.
There is no beauty out of loss; can't do it--
and once the falling rain starts on the upturned
leaves, and I listen to the rhythm of unhappy pleasure
what I hear is bossy death telling me which way to
go, what I see is a pool with an eye in it. Still let
me know. Looking for a brand new start. Oh and never
notice yourself ever. As in life you don't.
--- Denise Riley (1992)
A misremembered lyric: a soft catch of its song
whirrs in my throat. 'Something's gotta hold of my heart
tearing my' soul and my conscience apart, long after
presence is clean gone and leaves unfurnished no
shadow. Rain lyrics. Yes, then the rain lyrics fall.
I don't want absence to be this beautiful.
It shouldn't be; in fact, I know it wasn't, while
'everything that consoles is false' is off the point--
you get no consolation anyway until your memory's
dead: or something never had gotten hold of
your heart in the first place, and that's the fear thought.
Do shrimps make good mothers? Yes they do.
There is no beauty out of loss; can't do it--
and once the falling rain starts on the upturned
leaves, and I listen to the rhythm of unhappy pleasure
what I hear is bossy death telling me which way to
go, what I see is a pool with an eye in it. Still let
me know. Looking for a brand new start. Oh and never
notice yourself ever. As in life you don't.
--- Denise Riley (1992)
10 July 2003
On Dylan's 'Plagiarism'
As some of you may have heard, Bob Dylan has been charged with plagiarizing from a Japanese novelist. If you haven't, info can be found here and here.
I'm not sure how much to make of any of this, partly because the links are pretty tenuous (the phrases I've seen compared are not especially 'unique'), and because I have some doubt about whether or not Dylan was actualyl exposed to the works of the novelist in question, Junichi Saga. But even if the lyrics are 'lifted' in one form of another, I'm reminded of these words from a little-read article on Van Morrison, here talking about the song Real Real Gone:
Artistic 'lifting'-- if that is indeed the case-- is always a difficult notion to assess, and it can become bloody impossible to tell if the artist in question is stealing, alluding, or using another form, often called 'collage.' Lines, for example, can become what are called objets trouvees, 'found objects,' that are put together in new forms and fashions, as, say images and logos from magazines can be pieced together in a collage. The trick is understanding the reshaping and the remaking of their surrounding context.
This is always an interesting issue. Is Marianne Moore plagiarizing when she includes fragments from newspapers in her poems? Is Eliot? And, even more interesting, is the scenario of the infamous Ern Malley scandal, for which I'd recommend people consult Michael Heyward's book The Ern Malley Affair, one of the more hilarious examples of Theivery For A Purpose.
So, as for Dylan, I'll have to reserve judgment and wait for more-- including my own listening of Dylan's album, and my own reading of Saga's novel. But, even in Dylan's own canon, this is nothing particularly new, so I have to wonder what the fuss is really all about. I'm at least pleased to see Saga is not contemplating suing.
The quote, by the way (so I won't be charged with plagiarism) is from "Beautiful Revision: The Fearful Symmetries of Van Morrison and William Blake," an article in Wavelength 10 (December 1996), by Jeremy Sharp. I assure you, Mr. Sharp will have no problem with my quoting him here; he and I are very familiar with one another.
As some of you may have heard, Bob Dylan has been charged with plagiarizing from a Japanese novelist. If you haven't, info can be found here and here.
I'm not sure how much to make of any of this, partly because the links are pretty tenuous (the phrases I've seen compared are not especially 'unique'), and because I have some doubt about whether or not Dylan was actualyl exposed to the works of the novelist in question, Junichi Saga. But even if the lyrics are 'lifted' in one form of another, I'm reminded of these words from a little-read article on Van Morrison, here talking about the song Real Real Gone:
The song, perhaps more than saying anything per se, functions as [a] textbook example of how Morrison uses allusions in his songs: sometimes they are clear, even quoted (as with the closing roll-call that begins with "Wilson Pickett said..."); others are at once obvious and sublime. Consider, for example, how lyrics from Leon Russell's A Song For You ("You're a friend of mine") and The Beatles' Help ("Don't you know I need your help") climb almost seamlessly into the text of the song, and without emphasis being placed on their original source. Even the song's title, from a John Lee Hooker song of the same name, is embroidered into the lyric in such a way as to be patently obvious to the careful listened but almost oblivious to the careless one. It is as if Van Morrison has stolen a brick from every house in the neighbourhood and built his own home from the profits.
This kind of lyrical thievery is not necessarily to be dismissed: T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land probably commits more thievery than any poem of the twentieth century. Instead, an awareness of how a work takes from other works can add depth and texture to an understanding of what a song (or poem) can mean.
Artistic 'lifting'-- if that is indeed the case-- is always a difficult notion to assess, and it can become bloody impossible to tell if the artist in question is stealing, alluding, or using another form, often called 'collage.' Lines, for example, can become what are called objets trouvees, 'found objects,' that are put together in new forms and fashions, as, say images and logos from magazines can be pieced together in a collage. The trick is understanding the reshaping and the remaking of their surrounding context.
This is always an interesting issue. Is Marianne Moore plagiarizing when she includes fragments from newspapers in her poems? Is Eliot? And, even more interesting, is the scenario of the infamous Ern Malley scandal, for which I'd recommend people consult Michael Heyward's book The Ern Malley Affair, one of the more hilarious examples of Theivery For A Purpose.
So, as for Dylan, I'll have to reserve judgment and wait for more-- including my own listening of Dylan's album, and my own reading of Saga's novel. But, even in Dylan's own canon, this is nothing particularly new, so I have to wonder what the fuss is really all about. I'm at least pleased to see Saga is not contemplating suing.
The quote, by the way (so I won't be charged with plagiarism) is from "Beautiful Revision: The Fearful Symmetries of Van Morrison and William Blake," an article in Wavelength 10 (December 1996), by Jeremy Sharp. I assure you, Mr. Sharp will have no problem with my quoting him here; he and I are very familiar with one another.
From the Prologue to Ralph Ellison's magnificent novel Invisible Man:
I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquid-- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. Like the bodiless heads you sometimes see in circus sideshows, it is as though I have been surrounded by mirrors of hard, distorting glass. When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination-- indeed, everything and anything except me.
Nor is my invisibility exactly a matter of a biochemical accident to my epidermis. That invisibility to which I refer occurs because of a peculiar disposition of the eyes of those with whom I come in contact. A matter of the construction of their inner eyes, those eyes with which they look through their physical eyes upon reality. I am not complaining, nor am I protesting either. It is sometimes advantageous to be unseen, although it is most often rather wearing on the nerves. Then too, you're constantly being bumped against by those of poor vision. Or again, you often doubt if you really exist. You wonder whether you aren't simply a phantom in other people's minds. Say, a figure in a nightmare which the sleeper tries with all his strength to destroy. It's when you like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas it's seldom successful.
09 July 2003
String On
If what I hear in this article is true, then the recent production of Twelfth Night is a disaster. Evidently, someone's not understood the play...
If what I hear in this article is true, then the recent production of Twelfth Night is a disaster. Evidently, someone's not understood the play...
Honestly, This Is Not A Joke
From The Voice of the Shuttle comes this call for papers. *Shakes head*
Today is definitely one of those days when the Doctor will be 'oh my god'-ing to himself an awful lot....
From The Voice of the Shuttle comes this call for papers. *Shakes head*
"I just followed the bodies": Corporeality and Buffy the Vampire Slayer
The Northeast Modern Language Association Convention
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
March 3-7, 2004
In the episode "Seeing Red," Willow tells Tara, "We'll decipher codes and foil evil schemes." Her statement speaks to the ways in which the plots of/in Buffy the Vampire Slayer center on acts of (re)interpreting signs. Throughout the series, Buffy's life is marked by a "slay-study double feature" as characters convene in the library, their homes, the Magic Box, to research the Hellmouth and its demonic activities. The "study sessions" that are guided by the Watcher who pours over ancient texts and Willow who searches the web illustrate
different methods of identification and interpretation. In the episodes, bodies are transformed-from human to demon/vampire/god, from innocent bystanders to victims, schoolgirls to slayers-and replicated-as spells and magic breed doubles and switched-bodies. The "evil schemes" are mapped on/through the characters' bodies, illustrating the possibilities and limitations of transforming the body, (re)signifying shape and form. These bodies perform as texts for others to (mis)read. After seven seasons, the closure brought by the series' final episode leaves another body in its wake: Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a textual body. Angel's statement, "I just followed the bodies," performs in myriad ways, demonstrating the ways in which characters decipher the signs within the series and the ways in which one begins to critically dissect the text of/in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
In the series, plots hinge on the (mis)readings of replicated, transformed, switched, and marked bodies; this panel will explore how we read the body in/of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. This panel will explore the conversations between contemporary "body theory" and the bodies inscribed within the series to analyze the relationship between the body and discourse. How are the bodies in Buffy the Vampire Slayer inscribed and then read? What are the limits and possibilities of reading and reinscribing the body revealed in/through Buffy the Vampire Slayer? How do we critically approach the bodies within the series and the series itself? How do we critically (de)construct the body of Buffy the Vampire Slayer?
Deadline for 1-2 page abstracts is September 15, 2003. Please send them via email (in text of email) to Lisa Perdigao at Lkperdigao@aol.com or in hard-copy to
Lisa K. Perdigao
Department of English
406 Holmes Hall
Northeastern University
Boston, MA 02115-5000
All accepted panelists must be NEMLA members by October 15, 2003. For more information about the convention see www.nemla.org.
Today is definitely one of those days when the Doctor will be 'oh my god'-ing to himself an awful lot....
He he he.... Satire!
Follow these instructions:
Ed.: It still works as of 7.30 this morning, at least at google.ca.
"You're either with us or you're against us." -- W
(With thanks to Anne)
Follow these instructions:
1) Go to www.google.com
2) type in (but don't hit return): "weapons of mass destruction".
3) Hit the "I'm feeling lucky" button, instead of the normal "Google search" button.
4) READ what appears to be a normal error message carefully.
5) Enjoy.
Ed.: It still works as of 7.30 this morning, at least at google.ca.
"You're either with us or you're against us." -- W
(With thanks to Anne)
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