The URL of Surrey

      As the Ever-So-Rotten Doc said to the Very Good Mr Mitchell recently, I've been reappreciating Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, of late, an occurrence that seems to happen almost bi-annually. (Bushies respond: he's BI-annual!) Forebearing a more involved (i.e., boring, to most of you) discussion, in which the N-S-G Doc will surely ramble beyond the rules of most nuclear proliferation treaty discussions, This Minor Place In The Cyber Universe would entreat that you glance at the Stuff of the good Sir Henry, generally regarded as the first adapteer of the sonnet into the English language. Check out the increasingly guarded Luminarium site on HH by clicking here.   I -- and I should probably enhance the I there-- have an inexplicable fondness for him-- and respect. I'd frankly like to know what you think. Even-- at least as far as I've seen-- the specialists in the field treat him with slouching shoulders and rolling eyes. I like him. I like him, quite a lot, thank you. But maybe I remain just another all-licens'd fool, courtesy modern technology. The heart, well--- the heart. And yes, even this miserable bastard has one, as much as that may seem unfathomable. It's scarred, gangrenous, and probably unusable, but it remains, a fact of the curmudgeonly day.

      But, Gar! and Argh!--- a thing that won't make sense to most of you unless you know the NSG Doctor's personal proclivity to break conversational lineage with pirate-like snarls-- I was rereading Frank Kermode's Preface to his book Shakespeare's Language tonight. Strikes me that he's sterling in the issues he raises. Like Bloom, he feels the need to step away from an increasingly pedantic, to say nothing of punditrous, academy, to reach those Few That Care. His is the wisdom of temperance, a thing sadly disallowed by increments as this culture aggravates itself for its own onanistic sake. More on this tomorrow, if (yeah, RIGHT!) you care. In a strange way, Kermode's preface is worth more than his already immensely-appreciable remaining chapters. This is also why he remains a critical titan.

     But, as for me, I fear that with each day I become Grandpa Simpson. Gar! Argh! D'Oh! At least I don't look like him. Shuddup, shuddup, shuddup....    Okay, but at least I'm skinnier..... (Okay: just the throw this very, very fugly mutt a bone.....)      We assure you you'll never have to explain it. Gar!