Would You Like Drippin's With That?

      In the words of Caroline Quentin, "Don't worry, I'm doin' me own."

Weird...

      This is just frightening.

Time To Start Thinning The Herd...

      Reading this article, Dr J began lamenting the relative silence of late of the likes of Bruce Fierstein, author of Real Men Don't Eat Quiche and Real Men Don't Bond. This blog utterly, utterly, utterly refuses to think of such 'males' as men.

Plucking Glass Bowls

 

The name, peeps, is Doug Ose. As in "Comat Ose." Unfortunately not Joke Ose.       This blog suspects there really should be an American Association of Nose-Pickers and Sexual Deviants. This group could include the idiots that thought this was a problem.       So, how is the First Amendment in America? Just ask it yourself.

^~~Is It Real...^~~

      Ah, Saturday Night. About to head out to a few haunts, hopefully to run into the other Musketeers to see if there's any more news on Doctor J's recently-hospitalized cohort. Am also psyching myself up a bit, trying to think a bit more positively than I'm initially inclined to think. Listening to Van Morrison's magnificent live version of "Rave On, John Donne," which adds to the original song immensely: with Mark Isham's flute trilling up and down and acting as if it were a percussion instrument and even the respondent to the lead voice's calls, with terrific drum and cymbals work texturing it all, with Van's voice at its saxophonic best, the song absolutely rolls. The lyrics, simple enough in themselves, match the music perfectly, providing the kind of affirmation that feels like gazing into the gloriously-dizzying firmament:

Tonight, 'neath the silvery moon, tonight
Tonight, 'neath the silvery moon, tonight
And the leaves shake out of the trees
And the cool summer breeze
And the people passing in the street
And everybody that you meet

Tonight, you will understand the Oneness
Tonight, you will understand the One
Tonight, 'neath the silvery moon, tonight
Tonight, let it all begin, tonight
You will understand the Oneness, the Oneness, the Oneness....

Is it real, what you sang about in your song?
Is it real, what you sang about in your song?
I said, Come back, baby, can we talk it over
One more time, tonight...

Van's a master of that rare skill of using repetition to engender many meanings, such that after hearing the song, the words "tonight" and "Oneness" (which is sometimes phrased with a muffle to sound like "wonder") seem absolutely beautiful, and the phrases "'neath the silvery moon" and "leaves shake out of the trees" much more resonant their strictly textual representation. There's something almost confidence-inspiring about the delivery of all this, basically the second movement of the song, about six minutes of a nine minute song. It's all pure Anglo-gospel riff, pure "get-your-spirit-moving" stuff. (This version of the song is from Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast, but it's also on The Best of Van Morrison Volume Two.) There's something wonderfully buttressing to this sort of music. I remember years ago psyching myself up to defend for my Modern comp, and standing outside the building in which the defense was to be held, and fending off panic and self-negation by grooving outside to Van's live version of Caravan from the Pagan Streams bootleg. I'm sure I must have looked like a savant, my head bopping as Van's shouting "Get Up! Get Up! Stand on the scene! Like a SAX machine!" It was marevellous, though. Went in, free of butterflies, and kicked some serious ass. According to one of the profs on the committee, another prof said it was the best defense she'd ever sat on in that field. Go figure. Why am I writing this? I'm not entirely sure. Maybe I'm just writing it to explain something to myself, and perhaps to excuse me listening to "Rave On" a few more times before I head out. Or perhaps I want to have at least some seed of affirmation planted before I have to heard more bad news. But perhaps not. Tonight, 'neath the silvery moon, tonight... Rave on.

Jug jug jug jug jug jug drooool

      Show Doctor J (a.k.a. J. Diddy) how much you love him. ;-) I know, I know... Ungrateful honkeys, always tryin' ta keep a brutha down... Why then Ile fist you. Jeronimo's mad againe.

      This, by the way, is not good enough. The individual Quartets were published in pamphlet form. Sadly, I've seen them. Held them. Caressed them jealously. This edition is merely the first unified publication of the four pieces....

Giant Gravity Piles

      Dave Barry strikes again. This blog's favourite bit: "How deep did you penetrate?" "One of the trees later bore my child."

Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign

      Let us pause a moment and contemplate the ramifications of truth in advertising.







Check out the rest of the lot here. 1-800-RUNLIKEHELL. No kidding... LOL.

      This blog now returns you to your regularly-scheduled sugar-coated reality. Cheers.

The Old Curiousity Shock

      And Little Dorrit is about Margaret Thatcher's uterus.

Workin' It Old School

      Remember, boys and girls: catapults don't kill people, people kill people. Using catapults.

      This blog anticipates a Michael Moore film. Sieging For Columbine, perhaps?

"If Anything, He's Parodying A Lecherous Old Man"

      REQUIRED READING. Now gods stand up for eccentrics! Why do people always have the hardest time understanding the simplest things?

      See also this, with its delicious bit, "life has been very good to Wolf - as it generally is to bright, attractive, white women with Ivy League educations."

      And because this blog will pay lip-service to the notion of being 'fair and balanced,' check out these incredibly insipid assessments from figures in 'the feminist community.' I'll be damned if there's an insightful statement in the lot. Paglia wants to fuck Wolf? Anyone of Bloom's prominence would not be talking to undergraduates? Blah blah blah blah blah blah. Sickening.

      That said, I will now return to my own parodic life. It's a shame, though, that the words "You have a look of election upon you" won't be usable for another ten years.

Now That's Commitment!

      I'm sorry, peoples, but this is something that had to appear on this blog. The N-S-G Doctor apologizes in advance.

      By the way, in checking the veracity of this story, Doctor J also stumbled upon this. The last tale's a doozy.

For All The Emotional Favours I Do....

      Given Doctor J's somewhat infamous detestation of the Hallmark world, discovering some of these was truly a pleasure.



(HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.... Would I were so lucky...)



(Oh, I will behave, I will behave...)



(Adorable, n'est-ce pas?)



(Every man's dream card.)

See the other offerings here. Hilarious.

See What You're Mything

      Okay, this site is just plain cool. Add it to your favourites lists, people! ;-)

Stop The World, I Wanna Get Off

      Un-dirty-word-believable. If this is what the world is becoming...

      More seriously, people should check out the ridiculousness that is Naomi Wolf's latest machination for media attention. Twenty years. See also Margaret Wente's column on said matter, and this from Slate. And see this, too, the only thing I've read that seems to give Bloom even an ounce of the benefit of doubt. I'm sure several people I know can barely contain their drool over the idea of Harold being lambasted on such charges. We know who we're talking about, right RK? ;-) This blog cannot help but quote Wolf's words back at her:

This man did something, at least once, that was self-centered and harmful.

Hmmm... Perhaps. But isn't this process of accusation self-centered and harmful? Awwww.....

Turn, Turn, Turn

      Oh... Indeed.

Disturbing The Peace

      Oh, Lord, I wish I could be guilty of this anymore. (Anyone out there remember the film The Secret of My Success?) See also this, which made me chuckle.

Why the Doc Is Down....

      Dr J went out just to handle a few paper-work matters. Dr J has since learned that one of his best friends has been medically-catalogued with less than six months.

      Rage. Prove everything wrong. Please. Ramparts! Nordhoff and Hall! Mutiny! You know what I mean.

Sheesh.

      I almost forgot what day it is today. Weird.

And Turn His Sleep To Wake

      Alas, Reading Week is over, and Doctor J has return to the grind of teaching. Yes, the grind. I find I'm getting less and less patient, less and less, well, motivated as time passes. This isn't the fault of my class this year, but I do find the lustre is wearing off, especially as I often feel, perhaps all too arrogantly, that my skills are not really being put to their fullest potential. That doesn't mean things are bad, either. I don't know. Just tending toward a kind of blase feeling. Probably just the gathering years. Or the fact of being in the same place for too long. All in all, though, the result is a lack of inspiration, at least by my own standards.

      But tomorrow, tomorrow King Lear is on the docket, known to several of my previous students as "[my] play." Certain profs/teachers/etc. have certain texts they come to possess more than they do others; for reasons quite beyond my immediate explanation, Lear is mine, probably because the play remains to me a treasure trove of ideas and possibilities (unlike, say, Hamlet, which lost its lustre for me years ago). This despite having lectured on the play several times. This despite having taught the play goodness knows how many times, and reading it what must now be in the area of a hundred times. Yes, this is the point in the year at which Dr J really starts firing on all cylinders; or usually it is (I should know better than to predict, shouldn't I? Oy vey...), because it's the text in Shakespeare at which all of the loose strands of the year really start to come together; they approach one another tentatively in Hamlet, but the finally copulate in Lear. Frankly, I'm hoping the play invigorates me. Oh, there's so much to do, so much to impart, so many ideas with which I can floor my wee laddies and lassies--- the misconceptions of Albany, the issues of absence, the problems of treason and sedition, the implied albatross, those pelican daughters, sense and nonsense verse, madness as consciousness and consciousness as madness, and on and on and on. I've often said that I could do an entire term just on Lear without having to think twice about it. So much, so much... Maybe one of these days, I'll come staggeering into class, a young volunteer in my arms, in full bloody howl. ;-) No, of course not. I don't have the beard right now that could make that work. And I'd probably put myself into traction.

      Well, I guess we'll see what happens, if I can energize myself, especially given the doggedly draining nature of things this year and my own innate lethargy. Does anyone out there remember when I was energetic??? Nah, I didn't think so... Anyway, we shall see if Doctor J can get his (real) groove back. (Did I ever have one? Well, not that one, you perverts... Zelda, don't say a thing.) Until probably Wednesday... (Oy: I can just imagine the comments that'll be here by the time I get back.... *shakes head*)

Imagine Doctor J Making One Of Those "Whaaaa?" Sounds Jon Stewart Does So Well

      "Has it seemed to you lately that Canada is the last remaining repository of the world Norman Rockwell used to paint?"
               --- Roger Ebert in his review of Welcome To Mooseport

                        This blog has to wonder what parts of Canada Mr. Ebert's been visiting lately.... Rockwell?!?!?

A Hundred Bucks, Same As In Town

      Oh, some of you should really click on this. Really. Really really.

      (You've got to love the ingenuity of his arguments. Let me know if they work for any of you.)

Well, It Was Okay For You, So Now It's Okay For Us...

      This blog suspects that the reason this author was called a "stupid girl" when she was young was that she was stupid. She remains so, except now her stupidity is thoroughly ensconced in hypocrisy, "reverse"-sexism, and self-righteousness. As this blog pointed out some time ago, if the word "boys" were changed to "girls," there'd be an outcry of even greater proportions. "And I take away reason and accountability...." Ugh! Hypocrite! Notice how the article manages to circle back around to the oh-so-typical "our poor girls" argument, such that it becomes a legitimated rationale for knocking boys? (Notice, too, that her article links to the website purveying the shirts: this is roughly equivalent to a product endorsement.) But, let's face it, arguments like this one are no different than the old sexist arguments that justified minimizing and insulting women. It is, however, okay to insult boys. They're fair game. Especially while they're young. Yeah, that's the ticket. That's going to make things better. Why is one type of stereotyping okay and another not? This is nothing less than self-mitigating bull-plop. Or heiffer-plop, if our beloved authoress would prefer an alternate genderization.

      (Oh, and, by the way, as to her unbelievably idiotic statement about girls "having" to dress "like 25-year-old hookers": in her words, puhhh-leeeeeze. Most teenagers either aren't buying their own clothes, or they're buying them with mommy's and daddy's money. Either way, the fault of tacit approval of this sort of thing rests with the parents. "Oh, yes, dear, you look all grown up in your thong! Sure, you can wear it to school today!" Sheesh.)

Twenty More Years?

      Sheesh, I may as well go off on an odyssey.

The Big Idea

      As most of you know, tonight airs the final episode of Sex And The Stupidity City. This blog would like to offer this as the best way to end the series:

Carrie (Sarah Jessica Barker Parker, but still, please have her spayed or neutered) decides to fly from Paris back to New York, but the plane is hijacked and taken to destinations unknown. As Charlotte, Miranda, and Samantha sit sipping cappuccinos in a particularly fashionable boite in New York, discussing Big's big plans and Samantha's recent discovery that cancer can be good for your sex drive (after all, so many men, so little time), Gary Burghoff sidles meekly toward them with a cloth of over his face. He walks hesitantly over to the triumvirate, and says, stammering slightly and restraining the welling tears in his eyes, "Carrie Bradshaw... Carrie Bradshaw's plane... was shot down... over the Sea of Japan.... Her bunyon.... There were no survivors." He exits, and the camera focuses on the remaining women, all their mouths agape for the first time in horror, before Samantha, after a moment's pause, says "But you should have seen it, it was SOOO purple!" The women continue nattering, and the credits begin to roll. As the last credit flashes off, Miranda is heard to exclaim, "He hit you in the eye? I don't believe it." Fade to pink.

Sound like an idea? I think so... :-)

      (Think I'm being cruel and tasteless? Perhaps. But no more so than a show that set itself in contemporary New York City and elided completely over the fact of September 11th and proceeded with its typical empty-headed schtick. )

A Sense of Wonder

      Fuckety Fuck Fuck Fuck! Pardon my incivility, but this blog has just learned that Van Morrison is going to be playing Madison Square Gardens at the end of May. This is just wrong, wrong, wrong. Why? Because Doctor J can't freakin' go. Grrrrrr. Arrrrrgh. This just isn't fair. *sniff* Actually, it's weird to think of it: I've seen The Man in concert twice, in 1993 and in 1995, both times at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. Shit, nine years. NINE YEARS. NINE FREAKIN' YEARS. Gawd, don't think of years, don't think of years, it will only make you feel even older than you already do.... Oh, damn, now I need a drink.... (Why is it that I can write with perfect ease about events from five hundred years ago, and yet to think back more than five in my own history never ceases to flabbergast me? As the old song goes, "Ain't it funny / How time slips away?")

I thought, though, I'd share the story of that first Van Morrison concert. I was in my second year of my undergrad, living in residence in Toronto, and I wasn't yet twenty. (Damn, why did I have to think of that? Oh well.) It's the third week of April. Classes are out for exams, but I didn't have an exam for another day or two. The day arrives of the concert, and it's a truly ugly day. Not only is it abnormally cold outside, but it's raining the proverbials felines and canines; we're talking about what seemed to many of us torrential rains, and all day long there were reports of vehicles, public and private, being effected by the downpour: busses and cars breaking down everywhere, or getting trapped in viaducts, or skidding off into accidents. Evening comes, and I'm getting ready to make the long trek down to the Gardens. Then, a somewhat miraculous thing happens. The skies clear. Completely. Within the scope of forty-or-so minutes, the weather turns: no longer is it cold or wet, but, in fact, warm, luxurious summer weather, T-shirt and shorts weather. It was as close to an ideal day as I've ever experienced living in the Great Grey North. It was stunning. My friend Theresia and I ventured down to the concert, and it truly seemed as if our little corner of the world had been turned upside down, and it was glorious, liberating, even inspiring. It was as if the sky had opened up for the night, as if we were suddenly in the chorus of a Dryden poem. And, oh yes, there were stars again...       Of course, Theresia and I went to the concert, and it was fantastic. Van, famously temperamental when it comes to live performance, was in perfect workman mode: no crude "Hello Torontos" or anything of the ilk, just a little modest lighting, and Van and his band. And, I should add, a man behind the scenes who weaved a minor miracle: he managed to adjust the acoustics within the notoriously cavernous Gardens into a sonic marvel. So fine was the work that when a song creeped down to an almost perfect quiet, one could hear the smallest sounds on stage; one could hear every chord, every whisper, as if you were sitting in the very front row (which, by the way, we weren't; we were students, after all, and financially condemned to the nose-bleeds). It was a magnificent concert, easily the best I've ever attended, with Van doing a lot of his hits (Van's famous for refusing to do most of his hits), and even a long, groovin' take on Ray Charles' "Lonely Avenue," which was to appear on Van's next album. Much to all our surprises, he even did "Brown-Eyed Girl," a song Van famously hates to perform. This didn't feel in the least like going to any old concert. This felt like going to church, that ideal church to which we would all belong if we could only find it, that church in which somehow meaning and experience collide into pure rhapsodic joy. One could speculate that this was just something in my own mind, a joy that comes from a young man finally getting to experience a musical idol live for the first time. But no. All of the reviewers the next day sang of the concert as I do now. Several called it the best concert of the year.

Set List: April 24 1993 I'm Not Feeling it Anymore Why Must I Always Explain? See Me Through/Soldier of Fortune Domino Whenever God Shines His Light Sweet Thing/My Lagan Love Star of the County Down Northern Muse (Solid Ground)/No Prima Donna/When Heart Is Open Wavelength Tupelo Honey A Town Called Paradise So Quiet In Here/That's Where It's At Youth of a 1000 Summers Cleaning Windows/Vanlose Stairway/Trans-Euro Train Did Ye Get Healed?/It's All In The Game/Make It Real One More Time Lonely Avenue/4 O'Clock In The Morning/You Give Me Nothing But The Blues Moondance/My Funny Valentine Brown Eyed Girl In The Garden/Since I Fell For You/Real Real Gone/Daring Night Enlightenment Gloria (With info from this site. Sometimes the Net can be a good thing.)

      The concert ended, and here were Theresia and I, filing out, me especially giddy. (God, when was the last time I was giddy???? Years, at least.) I was reminded of the title of that Wallace Stevens poem, "God Is Good. It Is A Beautiful Night." Theresia and I, deciding to savour the night a little further, headed down, of all places, to The Brunswick House, and had a few drinks there, imbibing the euphoria as much as the spirits. Eventually, though, with both of us busy the next day, we decided to head back to the residence, which meant getting on the subway and then a bus afterwards. In a sense, I guess this was a coming-down from the high, but it didn't feel like it; it felt more like a continued coasting on air, as if I, especially, were possessed with Mercury's sandals. An hour and a bit later in this transit, we got back inside the residence, and went immediately into the common room, where, of course, we began to regale the waiters-up with our reports of the concert. Not two minutes back indoors, barely more than saying "Oh, damn, it was great," there was a thunderclap outside. We all turned in surprise to look out the common room window.

      And then it rained. It rained and rained and rained, that cold, heavy, miserable rain so typical of Ontario in April. The quad the next morning seemed rotten and musty, as if there had been no reprieve the night before, no glimmer of summer at all. It was as if it had all been a bizarre dream, and some of us joked that we expected to find Bobby Ewing in the shower. The night before was suddenly cast into a kind of magical relief, another fact that somehow made its way into all of the newspaper reviews of the concert. It really did seem that the skies had opened up just for that concert, just for that night, that marvellous, marvellous night. I've not seen anything like it since, nor do I think I will again. But it affirmed, in grand form, that every now and again, coincidence or magic makes its presence known in the most serendipitous way. God Was Good. It Was A Beautiful Night. And all the stars were shining bright.

Call It A Mission To Mar...

      Or Real World Pennsylvania. Word has it Kelly McGillis will host.

I Am Ready To Be Prime Minister. Seriously. But What Does A Prime Minister Do, Exactly?

      You can just picture it: "Hi, Belinda, I'm a first time caller, and I'm having a problem with my boyfriend. You see..." Just what we need, Dear Prime Minister Belinda... What is it about this woman's campaign that suggests she's basically the Canadian Paris Hilton, fifteen years later? *Shuddddder* Belinda's House Party. You know this blog just has to be there for that! Ohhhh myyyy.... Her blog is even funnier, by the way, especially since it's patently obvious she doesn't write a word of it. Question: if she revamps the constitution, can we call it the Magna Charta? I know, I know... I'll behave...

      But remember: Belinda needs our help. After all, a multi-millionairess with absolutely no political experience can't be expected to buy an election all on her pretty little own, could she??? *pout* Please give generously.

"You'll Be A Man, My Son..."

      Aren't stories like this one just getting a little too familiar? Now, when I was fourteen, teachers at least had the decency to spring for a motel. ;-)

A Rose By Any Other Name...

      Talk about perverse synchronicity. Added bonus: he "enjoys" what he does! Ouch.

      Worse yet, there's this, which Dave Barry says is "too tasteless to blog." Yes, indeed.

So Much For The Widening Gyre...

      Scientists, apparently, are now monitoring Justice Scalia to see if the phenomenon recurs.

      On a more serious note, this article from The Globe and Mail poses an important question, and this blog's answer should be clear. I'm reminded of the Frostian instruction on interpretation, that a poem is entitled to any reading that the poem will hold. Maybe we need a new hermenteutical principle: the authors may be dead, while the texts are neither alive nor dead, but undead. Yes, the Vampirical Constitution, moving in the night, adapting to the times, suriviving among us. With fangs. (This blog wonders what Justice McLachlan would say to that.) Less cynically, the more we treat the constitution as a dead document, the more we commit ourselves to archaism, and commit ourselves to rigidity and eventual stagnation. One brief point to add to this: if we subscribe to the idea of Original Intent, do we have to call Jean Chretien, key composer of the repriated constitution, every time we have a judicial question? No, I didn't think so....

"Serious. Stubborn. Silly."

Again, I tells ya, how can you not like this young lady? She's the anti-Britney, to which this blog says "Thank God." With the expectations surrounding her new release, it was, of course, inevitable that pundits and critics would try to knock her down a peg or three, but none of it seems to be taking, in part, I suspect, because she seems such a figure of sincerity and self-effacement, because she possesses a kind of natural next-door-girl quality that meshes nicely with what seems to be a genuine commitment to doing her own style of music regardless of popularity. She seems bereft of the egomania and pretense to which most of us have become accustomed, much to our own chagrin. She has a truly lovely voice that doesn't seem to need to demonstrate itself in gaudy displays; there's a fragile but constant dignity to her voice that expresses itself in nuance rather than extravagance. That's a beautiful thing. In a generation of musical divas that scream out desperately for us to look at them, Norah does her thing and she seems to be accomplishing the more important thing: she's making us listen to her. Go figure. It's just refreshing to see a young woman who really seems to be one, rather than a bethonged, sluttified caricature of one.

      And, let's face it: she's just plain adorable. So there. "Serious. Stubborn. Silly." I like that. Harrumph. So sue me.

Plummer's "Crack Your Cheeks"

      Today's New York Times has a lengthy article on the Canadian actor Christopher Plummer to mark the occasion of Plummer's return to Broadway with Jonathan Miller's production of King Lear, a restaging of their Lear from Stratford two years ago. (Fact is, the Stratford production was always a rehearsal for a Broadway performance more than it was an exclusive for the festival's fiftieth anniversary.) That production has some pretty serious problems, mostly I think due to Miller's awkward conceptualization, but Plummer was excellent. The assertion, though, that is they can take care of the comedy, the tragedy would take care of itself, proved rather misguided at Stratford.

      The Times article, unfortunately, doesn't seem especially interested in the Lear, preferring more to hover over Plummer's stature as a reformed acting bad-boy and the legacy of Plummer's role as Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. I do find it interesting that the article makes very little of Plummer's voice which, it seems to me, has always been one of his greatest qualities, a voice with Gielgud-like sonoriety but Olivier-like masculinity. I can think of no major actor still alive who could do a better Lear, who could imbue the part with both majesty and brokenness, who could rip the paint of the back of the theatre's walls with pure vocal force, particularly during the all-important scenes upon the heath. Not Paul Scofield, who always seemed a bit too reserved for the part; not Albert Finney, who in recent years has been giving himself over to hammy self-caricature (despite his brilliant take on Donald Wolfit doing Lear in The Dresser), as has Anthony Hopkins; Alan Bates has since passed on, as has Richard Harris; Derek Jacobi is a fine actor, but Lear is just not a part suited to his dramatic demeanour; Ian Holm was surprisingly good as Lear in a BBC production some years ago, but he lacks the physical stature to suggest an appropriate titanism. My mind skims through the Americans, but I can think of no one there, either. Certainly none of the big names: Pacino, Hoffman, De Niro, Hackman; no, I can't see any of them doing the part well, except possibly Hackman, but, no, not even Hackman. I can't think of an actor like, say, Jason Robards still alive and acting who could handle the part well. This blog would have liked to have seen the late E.G. Marshall assay the role, but, alas, it never came to pass. Another actor who could have done the part quite well, but sadly passed on some time ago: Sir Anthony Quayle. Yes, Anthony Quayle. When was the last time you saw that name mentioned on a blog? Now that would have been a fiery performance.

      But, alas, it seems Mr. Plummer is in a class by himself, or at least a very, very small class indeed. Let's just hope the Broadway production finds a better Cordelia than the horrible one they had at Stratford. "The Sound of Mucus," though, is a good line. I'll have to remember that...

^~~There's No Business...^~~

      Gulp. (This is what happens to boys named Tracy. This blog also hastens to suggest that this also explains Wayne Brady.)

Anger Management

      When frazzled, always look for a good romantic comedy.

      Check this out, too. To quote The Simpsons, "Mmmmmm, that's good satire!"

"Rhymes With Penultimate"

      Mr Language Person strikes again. And, yes, I can snap your spine like a toothpick.

But Does It Have Its Own Heart Attacks?

      Apparently, this item should be kept in an undisclosed, secure location (and kept as far away from bush as possible).

Driven To Distraction

      This blog has heard of multitasking, but this is ridiculous. Evidently, the car was not a standard.

                     (For those of you scratching your heads, just think about it a bit.)

You Won't Believe This...

      Once again, duh.... The scarier thought: the article makes no mention of the oversight being corrected. Dumbasses. And speaking of which... "Item has red stains on it...." My spine just went cold....

This Endless Only

      I rediscovered this poem last night, just perusing through an anthology. It's a fine poem (the second line is classic), and one that most people seem to enjoy, even if they very often misinterpret it. I remember discussing the poem with someone when I was an undergrad, and this young woman insisted, absolutely INSISTED, that the poem was a warning to children about nuclear proliferation. Aha. Ahem. Check the date, honey, I thought to myself as I rolled my eyes in condescension; nuclear weapons weren't even invented when the poem was written. It was about that time I think I first used the word "chick-let" in my mind, a word which has since had a prolific career in my private vocabulary. Yes, I suppose there's a kind of chauvinism involved there, but this young woman was the epitome of empty-headed chick-let-ness; she probably thought Hemingway was an animal rights activist and that King Lear was really about the need to develop old-age homes. Oh, so long ago.... One of the things I love about this poem is its rhythm, which gathers momentum very quickly and then clicks into a wonderfully cheeky clip that would have fit comfortably into the world of nursery rhymes and Lewis Carroll. Why does no one ever teach Graves anymore? Hmmm. Graves' sense of enjambment here is nothing less than perfect. Anyway, enjoy.

Warning to Children

Children, if you dare to think
Of the greatness, rareness, muchness
Fewness of this precious only
Endless world in which you say
You live, you think of things like this:
Blocks of slate enclosing dappled
Red and green, enclosing tawny
Yellow nets, enclosing white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where a neat brown paper parcel
Tempts you to untie the string.
In the parcel a small island,
On the island a large tree,
On the tree a husky fruit.
Strip the husk and pare the rind off:
In the kernel you will see
Blocks of slate enclosed by dappled
Red and green, enclosed by tawny
Yellow nets, enclosed by white
And black acres of dominoes,
Where the same brown paper parcel ---
Children, leave the string alone!
For who dares undo the parcel
Finds himself at once inside it,
On the island, in the fruit,
Blocks of slate about his head,
Finds himself enclosed by dappled
Green and red, enclosed by yellow
Tawny nets, enclosed by black
And white acres of dominoes,
With the same brown paper parcel
Still untied upon his knee.
And, if he then should dare to think
Of the fewness, muchness, rareness,
Greatness of this endless only
Precious world in which he says
He lives --- he then unties the string.

--- Robert Graves (1929)

"Enough Wool You Could Knit A Sweater With..."

      It's not much of a secret that Doctor J has an inexplicable fondness for the naughty and the goofy. After all, when Dr J was growing up, movies like Porky's and Revenge of the Nerds were as much staples of adolescence as Star Wars or E.T. Call it a soft-spot, call it a lingering strain of immaturity, call it a remaining aspect of the boy inside the man, but there's a kind of soporific joy to be taken from some of these sorts of movies, a pleasure to be taken in crude, base humour. I don't think this is an unnatural thing, and very often the joy to be taken in such movies is rooted in a refreshing of one's innocence, when sex was "the big thing" and gross-out jokes were tests of what our imaginations would tolerate. You know the sorts of films about which I write-- Animal House, American Pie (but NOT American Wedding, a film so horrible it should have been released with automatic refunds), Old School and the like. Such films, when well done, re-time us to adolescence, when the world was as immature as we were.

      It's equally interesting to me now watching the reviewers of such films respond to these sorts of films, of which the latest is Eurotrip. These sorts of films are basically critic-proof: very often it doesn't matter a whit whether or not the film is well-acted or well-scripted or well-directed; the test is about proving that the critic can still allow him- or herself to indulge in adolescent prurience with a good sense of sport. Most of the reviews of Europtrip have been pretty negative (you can catch a survey of some of the major reviews at Metacritic), which is to be expected: it hardly matters whether or not the film is any good, because most of the critics are entering the film with a kind of cynical distaste, with their lexicon of critical pejoratives at the ready ("xenophobic," "misogynistic," "lascivious," and so forth). Such films end up not only testing jokes on us, but testing our capacity to take things as jokes: sure, they may not be funny, but there's a larkishness written right into the premises of such films that we either accept or reject at the outset, and from there on mark us for who we are and who we are not (and, sometimes more tellingly, who we no longer are). It's the limbo-principle of the movies: how low can you go? Such films dare critics to put on their togas and drink until they puke to see if they'll go along for the ride; and the others, well, they're just spoil-sports. Or so the logic goes. Despite what I've said above, some films of this ilk-- There's Something About Mary, American Wedding, the Porky's sequels, Say It Ain't So--- are just so bad, and so cynical and manipulative, that they're not about this sort of relatively-innocent partying; the kegs in these parties are spiked. But again, perhaps that's enough reason I have a soft-spot for such films: they stick their tongues out at critical pretense, and so put all of machinery of analysis and judgment on the defensive, and the movies end up judging us more than we really judge them. This I enjoy, thoroughly; as much as I am part of a critical heritage, I cannot help but savour those opportunities to watch that heritage get picked up by its jockey shorts and turned upside-down. Is there a degree of schadenfreude to this? Definitely. Is that wrong? Perhaps a bit. But it's also a hell of a lot better, and a hell of a lot healthier, than confronting culture with an attitude of defensive superiority. We have nothing to fear but our Malvolios.

      That's why this review of Eurotrip strikes me as being quite good, and quite right, though I'm not speaking in relation to the quality of the film itself (which, of course, I have not seen, and probably will not see until it comes out on the dish). Sometimes we need to have the mickey taken out of our pretenses, or, in more colloquial terms, to have the sticks taken out of our collective critical butts. Sometimes we need to be reminded that "juvenile" isn't necessarily a bad thing, or that, at the very least, the world of juvenalia can still be a nice place to visit even if we wouldn't quite want to live there anymore. And, sometimes, we need to allow ourselves to remember the comical aspect of sex and sexual desire, especially through the ridiculously-serious eyes of relative innocents (the result there being akin to characters deadpanning it in farce, as Leslie Nielsen did so beautifully in the Airplane movies). As a young woman I used to know once put it, "Sex is hilarious. You can be walking down the street one day, and meet up with someone whose privates you had your face buried in the night before." (And I won't even rehash the old observational-joke about what people's faces turn into when they're having an orgasm. One comedian compared males to braying mules, and females to castrato werewolves mid-transformation.) There's something to be said for indulging in the craven, the crass and the crude. (Ooooh, alliteration!) Trust no one, this blog insists, that has, or intimates to having, no filth in his (or her) soul.

      This leads me, though, to a more (personally) troubling thing, realizing that little Michelle Trachtenberg-- formerly Harriet the Spy, and Dawn from Buffy the Vampire Slayer-- is growing up. There's just something sooooo wrong about this... She can't be that old yet.... *shakes head incredulously* Oh, crap, now I'm remembering that I'm an adult again, more conservative than I used to be. Damn. God, I just hope there's no scene with her going on about this one time in band camp...

I Saw The Best Whines Of My Generation...

I'm mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!
      --- Howard Beale (Peter Finch) in Network (1976)

      Sick as many of you (us) may be with the Liberal sponsorship scandal, I'd ask any of you reading this blog to give this article by Rick Salutin. It's an excellent encapsulation of the very human contexts to the scandal-- not just the typical political dimensions (Martin, Chretien), but also, and more significantly, about the conditions of public response to it. It's insightful, and, I think, exactly right, especially in its identification of the dysfunctional, and increasingly cynical, relationship between politicians and the public. We've been living now for so long in a mood of disaffection and disconnection that an entire generation has now passed without even an idea of socially-concerned politics or genuinely-idealistic beliefs. We're a far cry from the ages of Tommy Douglas' vision of national health-care (which is defended, more often than not now out of self-interest rather than the principle that everyone should be assured medical attention), from the wisdom or the error of the Pierre Trudeau vision of a 'just society,' from the Lester Pearson vision of Canada as an international conscience and peacekeeper. We expect, we whine, we do very little, and imagine even less. We bitch and we bitch and we bitch, but what do we really do? We settle, resign, we let our imaginations dry up like used tea bags. We do everything but dream.

      This, of course, isn't a strictly Canadian thing, but it seems we've now raised at least one generation that's never truly had a sense of social vision, at least one generation that was already middle-aged in its attitudes and perspectives by the time it finished high-school. And that's sad, very sad indeed. Maybe that's why as a country right now we're so hungry for a symbol at the moment, even if it's a symbol most wish to pillory. Maybe, more than we'd care to admit, we're tiring of our cynicism. Or maybe we just want, however biliously, to be able to say, publicly and without cynicism, that, damn it, it does matter what we do after all, even if, that spleen discharged, many will return to their cultural somnambulism. Shades of Howard Beale, coming to Doctor J's mind twice in the past week? Hmmm. Maybe all this griping and prognosticating about a scandal is really twenty-years of stony sleep vexed to anger to declare that we're mad as hell and we're not gonna take it anymore. And maybe it's about damned time.

      Venting that, though, is the easy part. The hard part will be getting us to look around us and into the future, rather than merely rolling our eyes.

Virus Alert!

      I've received to emails trying to pass this on, and hope it didn't somehow seep into my computers-- I do know better than to open attachments in this way, and I am running Norton AV-- but figured I should give everyone the heads up. The removal tool, by the way, can be found here.

Archives Updated

      Yes, yes, yes, I had been putting it off for some time (well, since September, really), but I've finally updated the Archives page, so that more significant additions to the blog (poems, literary material, more extensive discussions of subjects) now have direct links. Gawd, this is such a pain in da butt, but, alas, it is finally done. Feel free to check it out, though I'm sure most of you aren't here for the literature, but for the goofy stuff. :-) Ah, it's all good. Anyway, cheers.

^~~Wouldn't It Be Nice^~~

      Question: How much money would you pay to make this come true? To watch the two of them run along a beach-side, hand in hand? This blog's answer: One hundred billion gazillion dollars. And one appendage.

      For the record, this blog would pay even more to watch Jack van Impe-- that fear-mongering, senior-swindling blowhard of the apocalypse-- undergo gang-sodomy by the entire inmate population of Oswald penitentiary while the boys from Queer Eye For The Straight Guy provide the Faaaaa-bulous colour commentary. Well, on second thought, I think I'd rather just listen to the radio broadcast... Ah, to dream...

      On the other hand, this sounds more like fact than fiction to me.

"The Juiciest Thing"

      Well, this just ruins my lesson plans for the rest of my teaching life. RK, perhaps something to do in your last class before retirement??? Just hope it doesn't turn out quite as this story does. ;-)

Bent Out Of Shape

      Okay, when I was twenty I did some pretty stupid things, but this takes the cake. This blog shudders at speculating what exactly this fool was "trying" to do...

Milking the Electorate

      This blog knew Dennis Kucinich was desperate, but....

Three Poems By John Ashbery

A triplet of offerings:

Knocking Around

I really thought that drinking here would
Start a new chain, that the soft storms
Would abate, and the horror stories, the
Noises men make to frighten themselves,
rest secure on the lip as a canyon as day
Died away, and they would still be there the next morning.

Nothing is very simple.
You must remember that certain things die out for awhile
So that they can be remembered with affection
Later on and become holy. Look at Art Deco
For instance or the "tulip mania" of Holland:
Both things we know about and recall
With a certain finesse as though they were responsible
For part of life. And we congratulate them.

Each day as the sun wends its way
Into your small living room and stays
You remember the accident of night as though it were a friend.
All that is forgotten now. There are no
Hard feelings, and it doesn't matter that it will soon
Come again. You know what I mean. We are wrapped in
What seems like a positive, conscious choice, like a bird
In air. It doesn't matter that the peonies are tipped in soot
Or that a man will come to station himself each night
Outside your house, and leave shortly before dawn,
That nobody answers when you pick up the phone.
You have all lived through lots of these things before
And know that life is like an ocean: somethimes the tide is out
And sometimes it's in, but it's always the same body of water
Even though it looks different, and
It makes the things on the shore look different.
They depend on each other like the snow and the snowplow.

It's only after realizing this for a long time
That you can make a chain of events like days
That more and more rapidly come to punch their own number
Out of the calendar, draining it. By that time
Space will be a jar with no lid, and you can live
Any way you like out on those vague terraces,
Verandas, walkways-- the forms of space combined with itme
We are allowed, and we live them passionately,
Fortunately, though we can never be described
And would make lousy characters in a novel.

--- 1979

Parts of that poem are quite good, others quite weak (particularly the latter stages of the third stanza), and the poem ends on a closing note that sounds as if it were too desperately trying to imitate Robert Lowell. Then there's this poem, partially clever, but a little too typical of contemporary poetry, a little do endeared with its own cleverness:

Paradoxes and Oxymorons

This poem is concerned with language on a very plain level.
Look at it talking to you. You look out a window
Or pretend to fidget. You have it but you don't have it.
You miss it, it missed you. You miss each other.

The poem is sad because it wants to be yours, and canoot.
What's a plain level? It is that and other things,
Bringing a system of them into play. Play?
Well, actually, yes, but I consider play to be

A deeped outside thing, a dream role-pattern,
As in the division of grace these long August days
Without proof. Open-ended. And before you know
It gets lost in the stream and the chatter of typewriters.

It has been played once more. I think you exist only
To tease me into doing it, on your level, and then you aren't there
Or have adopted a different attitude. And the poem
Has set me softly down beside you. The poem is you.

--1981

Once again, the poem struggles a great deal, and leans on some rather banal language and imagery, such that the poem engenders a few bits of eye-rolling badness ("The poem is sad"; "You miss it, it misses you" seems to me especially presumptuous). But then, except for that awful intrusion of "Open-ended" in the third stanza, things pick up, and imagery imrpoves, as does the language. But, as with the previous poem, it goes a step too far in the final line, and spoils itself: the closing for the poem would have been stronger with a slightly stronger of the development of the poem being set "softly down beside you." No, though; Ashbery can't leave well enough alone, and he goes too far by saying "The poem is you." Oy. Corn. Is Ashbery intimidated by final lines? How about another example?

Hard Times

Trust me. The world is run on a shoestring.
They have no time to return the calls in hell
And pay dearly for those wasted minutes. Somewhere
In the future it will filter down through all the proceedings

But by then it will be too late, the festive ambience
Will linger on but it won't matter. More or less
Succinctly they will tell you what we've all known for years:
That the power of this climate is only to conserve itself.

Whatever twists around it is decoration and can never
Be looked at as something isolated, apart. Get it? And
He flashed a mouthful of aluminum teeth there in the darkness
To tell however it gets down, that it does, at last.

Once they made the great trip to California
And came out of it flushed. And now every day
Will have to dispel the notion of being like all the others.
In time, its gets to stand with the wind, but by then the night is closed off.

--- 1981

Whoa, that last line, not so bad in its imagery, at least in principle, is a metrical mess, a Whitmanesque onanism. While the first three lines of the poem set up an effective tone of cynical whimsy, the poem just falls apart in its middle-section, again as if the poet fell in love with his own cheekiness. Ashbery seems to feel he has to belabour points in his poetry, and the effect, at least to this reader, is one of boredom. Indeed, as I read him, much of Ashbery's verse seems to teeter toward the truly amateurish, as if an idea gets the better of him and he doesn't know what to with it; so he struggles, he labours, he moves toward a way to get out of his own poem, and so his final lines often seem like pallid imitations of other poets (Lowell in the first, the young Strand in the second, and a Strandian Whitmanism in the third, complete with a Lowell-esque tonal finish).

      Oddly, Ashbery is often considered one of the best of the late 20th century American poets, and even high-critics like Harold Bloom are prone to suggest that he's an heir to Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens. I just don't see it. The tones are too irregular, the meters too awkward, the imagery often forced, the language often banal. Does anyone see what I obviously do not see? Does anyone see virtues herein that I am overlooking? I do like the line "Trust me. The world is run on a shoestring." Problem is, it seems to me, Ashbery's poems seem to run on a shoestring, too, a string pulled too much at both ends and wearing at the center. He's certainly not the worst poet I've ever read, but I just don't see greatness here. Thoughts, anyone?

Jeremiad In The Morning; or, The Vagueries of Ignorance

      Hard as it is for me to admit this, but Margaret Wente and I are actually in agreement with one another for once. The most frustrating thing about this article is that Wente doesn't quite acknowledge the depth and degree of the problems that she identifies. As tempted as I am to go off on a rant here, I won't. Suffice it to say, though, that we've created a culture in Canada in which verbal precision is seen a bonus rather than a necessity, and in which knowledge itself is less important than "having a vague idea of a thing" and substantiating the notion that degrees and diplomas are rights guaranteed by the payment of tuition or the enrolment in schools. Yes, the situation is very much the same in the university and college environments as it is in the secondary- and probably elementary-schools. Let's face it, the system has been dumbing itself down for decades, demanding less from its students and so getting less, and bending over backwards to justify a namby-pamby post-modern idealism that encourages intellectual mediocrity and pressures instructors and disciplines to lower their standards in the name of "other concerns." We've created a culture that desperately wants to think that everything, and I mean everything, is only a matter of context, if we can only find a way to create a context which justifies saying that something is actually satisfactory when, in fact, it is not.

      No wonder we live in a culture that resists calling Dubya a moron, despite his fundamental inability to articulate himself without the aid of rote-rehearsals and thumping phrases. No wonder our politicians, of any stripe, never answer the questions they are asked, preferring to return to their talking points like frightened children to their security blankets. No wonder our newspapers, television shows, and the like are rife with redundacy and pedestrian explanations of the obvious. (After all, every reality show could demonstrate its content in 10 minutes, but instead drags it out over 45 minutes.) No wonder clarity, nuance, detail, and precision are all as rare as unicorn horns. No wonder we perform mental gymnastics trying to argue that someone's opinion is valid, just because it's his or her opinion, and that it doesn't need to be substantiated coherently or specifically. No wonder the "humanist" academy desperately tries to assuage itself that there is no such thing as an idiocy, and that there's no such thing as an incompetent. No wonder we've created a defensive, self-legitimating culture of soft-mindedness. No wonder we've created a blameless society in which twinkies and mommies and McDonald's are to blame for our actions, because we've gone so far into the realm of minimal expectation and perpetual justification. No wonder we've created a culture in which people talk incessantly without genuinely listening to a damned thing anyone else has to say.

      And no wonder we've created a culture so hostile to poetry, a culture that does not raise itself to the rigors and demands of engaging language and content, a culture in which literacy and thought are used as sporks rather than as scalpels or even as chopsticks. It'll do, we tell ourselves, that Jimmy can read a headline but not the rest of the article; it'll do, we tell ourseves, that Joanie can put words together that look like a sentence but which make no grammatical sense; it'll do, we tell ourselves, if Jerry says that Shakespeare was an anti-Semite because he knows there's a Jewish villain in the The Merchant of Venus. It'll do, we tell ourselves, in that last example, that Jerry knows the words we want to hear and there's a legitimate argument to be made for such an assessment, but it hardly matters that Jerry could never make that argument persuasively himself. Yes, this is what we're creating, what we've created. And if this makes me a conservative for lamenting that we're now stuck in such a position, so bloody be it.

      So much for not getting off on a rant. But, it's okay. Doctor J is tired, and only partially awake, and even though he's not being systematic in his thoughts, people can get his general meaning. That'll do, Doctor J, one can almost hear James Cromwell saying. Oink, oink. But that's okay, he's just alternately intelligent....

      Okay, now where is that darned spork of mine????

Paul Martin: Tragic Doofus?

      Slinger's column in The Star today is a marginally funny reading of the Martin fall-from-grace, as a Greek-Canadian tragedy ("a souvlaki covered with maple syrup" is disallowed but probably not entirely wrong).

Words To Instill Terror In Christie's Heart

      "We are not going away. We are staying together, unified, all of us." --- Howard Dean

      Why does this remind me of the old joke about the difference between love and herpes? (For those of you that don't know: "Herpes lasts forever.")

Brief Statement

      Fuck, I wrote a lot today. I am insane. Those of you waiting to chime in, shut up, shut up, shut up.... ;-) Aw, crap, I'm sure there'll be a comment on this as soon as I publish it. Crappity crap crap crap.

Kowit Of The County; or, To Our Too-Coy Mistress

      I am sure this very lengthy article by Steve Kowit will be of absolutely no interest to most of my readers, but I feel compelled to post it here. This is the sort of article that I frankly don't know what do with, short of writing an article of my own that would be almost as long as this one. And, frankly, I have no intention of setting onto such a project at the moment. The article does make some important points that about contemporary poetry, and the direction of poetry in this day and age, that need to be considered and carefully thought-through. Just a brief example, though, in the interim. Kowit argues that the current poetical and critical privileging of the 'incomprehensible,' or the 'difficult,' is one of the primary reasons for the current disinterest in poetry. As I see it, there's a great deal of truth to this, but like a statistic and a bikini, what is concealed is often more interesting than what is immediately revealed.

      One thing not revealed: that the Eliotic notion of 'difficult' poetry in the modern age seems always to return, as if it were the delta of modern poetical thought, has been pretty profoundly misunderstood, and needs to be throughly recontextualized, not just in a theoretical light, but in the light of what Eliot understood as difficult poetry; Eliot's notion of difficulty was not a call to make poetry beyond understanding, or to make meaning irrelevant it was a Carrollian call to make the poem something deliberately countersensical, to effect sensibility without reducing the poetic form to little more than a versified thesis. This is where Carroll's influence becomes increasingly important: the poem, not unlike, say, Carroll's "Jabberwocky," has to penetrate the intelligence without pandering to it in some desperate plea for acceptance and acknowledgement. Eliot did famously say, although there was always an aspect of facetious and desperate self-explanation on his part, that meaning was a piece of meat to be thrown to the dogs while the poet did his job. What Eliot never said explicitly was that meaning was irrelevant. No, in fact, quite the contrary, if one follows Eliot's metaphor appropriately. It is, indeed, central, a device without which the poet cannot commit his larceny. Remove the meat, however apparently tangential to the project at hand, and the poet walks head first into the dog's jaws. Stevens said it more plainly, though certainly more densely, that a poem must resists the intelligence almost completely-- with the key word there being "almost."

      The idea of poetic difficulty, of elusiveness, is not really that of the perpetually ambiguous or "indeterminate" (how insidious that word has become thanks to contemporary critical parlance!), but rather the poetic of gamesmanship, or even anticipatory courtship: the mind is sufficiently engaged, and participant in the creationary process, to have a sense of an idea, a sense of meaning and/or purpose, but not a concrete sense or a fixed sense. In invoked the idea of "anticipatory courtship." Think of it this way: the mind has to be allowed to think that it is "pretty sure" it understands what is happening, but not be sufficiently confident in that to reduce the poem, to be able to reduce its workings and say, "well, that is that." No, poetry has to maintain a kind of mystery to it, a mystery one needs engage longer and more intimately; more importantly, it must be a kind of endless mystery, a constant process by which a new aspect is revealed, or at least glimpsed, with each new encounter. This what one might call the poetics of alien familiarity, or perhaps tangible mystery. Perhaps what Eliot and Stevens (among others) were really calling for was a poetry that was a Coy Mistress, not so much refusant, but constantly nudging readers to court it further, all the while never specifically "promising" anything.

      Maybe that's the lynch-pin: "promising." Eliot and Stevens, among others including the New Critics, became increasingly frustrated with the paraphrase, and the heresy of it (as Cleanth Brooks once put it), and it was a legitimate concern: think of the frustration of poets and other creative writers confronted with audiences searching for "the point" so they could abnegate the responsibilities of the reading process, forget the work in question, and move on to some other matter. All of the latter tendencies undermine literature, and they undermine art in itself. No, the pull was toward a more meditative poetics, a more contemplative one, and (as is typical) that was blown entirely out of proportion and into the realm of the ridiculous (one suspects, in many ways, the accidental result of Joyce, among others). For all our pretensions toward contextualization, we exist in a culture that is indeed very poor at properly understanding context: just look what the Canadianists did to Northrop Frye, and what the Yale School did to Derrida, and what the New Historicists have done to Barthes and Foucault. We're a culture that takes the sublime to the ridiculous, the difficult to the impossible. No wonder so many aspects of our cultural (and political, and social, and on and on and on) thinking are so firmly wrapped inside of our asses. "Promising," above is really a crucial idea, because the idea of delivering on a poetic promise for meaning is rather like expecting a loved one to put out: it may or may not happen, but that's thinking toward a goal rather than the process, emphasizing your desired result rather than beholding within the moments of being and appreciation. It's bad enough having the experience but missing the meaning as getting meaning but missing the experience.

      So, it really comes down to detail, to nuance, to understanding, among other things, that the pattern is movement, as in the figure of the ten stairs, and that sublimity is not something we look directly into else we'd not see it for what it is; these are the primary gestures and impulses of difficulty in poetry, toward keeping us from looking into the sky and saying, "Oh, yeah, that's just an eclipse," and turning our heads away in bland cognition of that fact. It's also perhaps better understood as the idea that poetry was conceived to need to move toward what I would call a process of (Henry, not William) Jamesian nearing, of observing and perhaps understanding but possibly not the subtle progression of aesthetic intimacy.

      Sigh, I am now exhausted, and, frankly, I didn't expect to write as much as I have. I meant to deal with a single basic point, but before I knew it, it had exploded in front of me like a speech by Howard Dean.

      There has to be a place for simplicity, or for apparent simplicity, and on this Kowit and I agree. I should also add that I agree with much else of what he writes, as well with that of his whipping-elder Mr. Bloom. But I'm too drained, and not sufficiently fueled by (ahem) spirited elements, to engage those issues here and now. I also have to find it curious that those poets most ostensibly significant to an understanding of relatively transparent or 'clear' poetry receive almost no mention in Kowit's article. Lowell warrants a brief mention, and Mark Strand appears not at all; though they're geographically out of his scope, the likes of Larkin and Heaney are left out entirely. These seem to me pretty suggestive absences.

      But natch. I've gone on way too long, and if I write much more right now, I'll probably end up in a either a full-scope tome, or a full-scale coma. Such is the life of Doctor J. Always on the razor's edge, and it's so seldom Achem's.

      My apologies to the 99.999% of you that I've either bored with this, or that have scanned through this looking for something accessible. Scroll down. There's lots of puerile stuff just *waiting* for you there. (Also: this blog apologizes for any sloppiness in this entry; talk about writing off the cuff, this damned thing just possessed me as if I were its Linda-Blair-bitch. Agh! This blog will now retire for the time being, exhausted from its pea-soup-expurgating activities du jour.)

"But There's No Room For That"

      Apparently, rugby has indeed become a game of, ahem, single digits. *Shud-d-d-d-d-d-derrrrr*

Kickin' It Old School...

      For RK: had you heard anything about this? Certainly an oddity. Also, I can't help but wonder if Ms. Hayward is any relation to John Hayward, the academic, and friend and some-time poetic advisor to the American Eliot.

The Bear Facts

      It's pretty sad reading The Onion these days, as its satire gets increasingly tired and its desperation for weekly material becomes abundantly clear. But I had to point this out, niggling as it may well be.

Ahem.... Do any of you remember any bears chasing Polonius? A great Dane, perhaps, though "great" isn't a word this blog would use... No, the character should be Antigonus from The Winter's Tale. This blog will now stop being pedantic. For a moment.

Hot Midget Sex!

      C'mon, with that title, you know you can't resist clicking on this link.

      You did, didn't you? You pervert... In that case, I'm sure you'll want to read this, you sick little monkey. Heed the advice, this blog assumes, on avoiding the "blind jab."

      And let me guess, you're a misanthrope, too, aren't you? Then you'll want to check these out, you vile, despicable person, you. ;-)

            

      You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

      Doctor J's: Encouraging Perverted Internet Searchers Since 2003.

Oh, Really??? I Did Nawwwt Know That....

      This blog really does hate to keep doing this, but, DUH!!!!!!!!!!! No, seriously.... DUH!!!!!!!!! Sorry, but, come on.... DUH!!!!!!!!!!!

      "Women are actually competitive." LOL... Love that word "actually," as if it were a genuine surprise. I am agog in disbelief. How can anyone NOT know this? I mean, come on, how woefully, wilfully ignorant does one have to be to be surprised by this? Jeezus, Mary, and Joseph P. Kennedy... Pardon me now while I massage my eyes with sufficient pressure to shiatsu an elephant. And pardon me, too, that I, I, I'm sorry, I just can't stop laughing at this... Now if only I could stop the tears running from my.... HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA.... Sorry, I'll be back in a moment.... Oh, God, my stomach hurts....

      (Zelda, if you're reading this, I'm soooooooo sorry. You must be so proud to be a member of that department right now....)

      Oh, yes, it seems today indeed will be a day for fractured, colloquial associative writing...

      Ah, Mr. Eliot: Young men ought to be deplorers...

...Everything But Temptation

      *Swoon.* Yeah, yeah, yeah: I don't wanna hear it.... *grumble, grumble* How, after all, can the NSG Dr not adore a lovely, honey-voiced young woman that sings Dinah Washington songs? How? HOW, I asks ya, HOW?!?!? *Dr J retreats into a corner, punching the air in embarrassed frustration before returning in defeat* Fine. Hey! Don't look at me like that! *He meets his accusers' stares, first with a pause, then with a snarl* Okay, ya got me. Hey, stop it! You win, you've got me. *grumble, grumble, grumble* Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, I know, I know... Now shush. *Dr J walks away, deeply ashamed of himself, still grumbling in guilt* Damn it.

      Vultures, I tells ya, vultures...

The Haemorrhaging Continues

      In another turn of the political screw, John Bryden has quit the Liberal Party, and it's possible that he will join the ranks of the new Conservatives, or that he will run as an Independent in the next election. Bryden's departure from the party isn't too much of a surprise: he was a target of the Martin machine, as much as Sheila Copps has been, but he was always a pretty vocal critic of his own government's activities, partially the result of Bryden's own training as a reporter and editor. Oddly enough, these articles don't mention Bryden's book on the Canadian government's role in the development of chemical weapons which was headed up, in part, by Sir Frederick Banting, the lead-scientist in the discovery of penicillin. Bryden's always had as his pet-concern the access-to-information policy, a policy more frequently beached than observed. Bryden's defection is interesting, because perhaps more than most members of the disgruntled Chretienites (Sheila Copps, John Manley, etc.), he's always been a kind of outsider, a kind of internal critic, and so his defection may be seen more as an act of conscience than of political expediency, however much the latter may indeed be an issue. It'll be interesting to see the reaction, especially from the editorials, later today and tomorrow. Surprisingly enough, Bryden's debarkment from the Liberal ship of state even made its way, briefly, into the New York Times. Oddly enough, as I've been writing this entry, John Ibbitson's column has just been published, and, ever more oddly, Ibbitson seems unusually right on this.

      But I think Mr Bryden's departure from the Liberals will have greater resonance than, say, if Sheila Copps were to jump ship. There's a very strong degree to which Bryden is a "plain speaker," a direct and not-necessarily couth politician whose concerns have never been entirely in line with any political stripe. This story, though, of the implosion of the Liberal party within the scope of just over a week, just seems to get more and more interesting, and more and more insidious. And, it seems, if Dr J's extended metaphor about the current Canadian political climate being a great deal like Richard II is true, then we've just discovered another character in the play: Mr Bryden has become the Bishop of Carlisle, except that Mr Bryden is leaving of his own free will, and not being jettisoned as Carlisle was. Word to Mr. Bryden: if you're going to run in the next election, do so as an Independent. Tempting as it may be to join another party and its backup mechanisms, if there's ever been a situation for breaking-through on your own, this is it. The way it seems to me, an all-out war between the Liberals and the Conservatives in your riding will be pyrrhic. Stand outside it all, and run on your own, as the figure who's been on the inside, and will not serve any dominant ideological structure. That appears to be the only way to be re-elected, to ride through as the incumbent dark horse. To join the Conservatives will only serve to suggest that you're just playing political musical chairs, and that your defection is one of political expediency. Stand on your own, and stand with the credibility of an individual; this is your way to speak to the voters, while the politicos go after each others' throats.

Oh, Conan, Say It Ain't So...

      Remember the wisdom, Conan: "Shrink not from blasphemy; 'twill pass for wit." Shrink not, I say, shrink not! (Mind you, with a small penis and having spent the night wetting the bed like a little girl, perhaps shrinkage was inevitable.) *shrug*

      I maintain my thesis: those that were offended were the real fools in all this. It speaks, sadly, to our thin-skinnedness as a nation, and to the disturbing fact that perhaps our well-cultivated sense of humour has grown over with weeds and becomes infested with caterpillars.

^~~I Cross The Line^~~

      Dr J found this on Christie's site --- yes, a rare reversal, as I steal a link from her! ;-) --- and had to post it here. Although the disturbed humourist in me thinks the original idea hilarious, I'm certainly glad there is, after all, still an iota of decorum left in this world.

      This blog, however, has it on good authority that The Band's Rag Mama Rag will be used in the next Stayfree campaign. What then? Smells Like Teen Spirit for Massengil?

Ugh.

      Colour this blog embarrassed. Nice to know our academics are facing the serious and important issues of the day.

Goodbye, Mr. Chips

      This is truly bizarre. This just... Oh hell, I don't know what to say to this at all....

Puttering About

Well I'm accustomed to a smoother ride
Or maybe I'm a dog that's lost its bite
I don't expect to be treated like a fool anymore
I don't expect to sleep through the night... --- Paul Simon, "The Obvious Child"

      The only thing worse than insomnia, my readers, is when *I* have insomnia, which it seems is most of the time. So, here I am, wasting time, mainly because I don't have the intellectual acumen or the physical energy to write real emails-- i.e., things that require thought, focus, and perhaps even (p'shaw!) insight-- I have been surfing the net, looking for things that might amuse my otherwise very cranky nature. Some of the better pieces:

God's New Chosen People: This blog's favourite bit: '"Ha. Ha ha," Bashert added. "Shit."' The Newest Windows Virus: Oh, if only... The True Shocker About Mel Gibson's The Passion: Christie will enjoy this one. (Mere Christianity? Sheesh, how obscure is that reference, Doctor J??? C.S. Lewis, anyone?) The Next Wave In Reality TV: Love the last sentence. Valentine's Day Wisdom: A little late, but certainly hilarious. Especially the "compromise" and "the world's greatest girlfriend" bits. See also this. The Great White North Stuff: Those American protectionists strike again! Counting The Days: A vigil for a truly significant event. Clarifying Same-Sex Legislation: Since when has Bill Clinton been a justice in Massachusetts?

Yes, it's a sick, sick world. And Doctor J is still wide awake, dammit. Aaaargh.

^~~Take My Breath Away...^~~

      Now this is a young woman I just have to meet.

Very Poor And Unhappy Brains

      Let's face it the world is getting bloody pathetic. As if it isn't bad enough that some people think they need the internet to find drinking buddies (i.e., comrades in alcoholic crime), but some bars in Britain are taking the drinking out of drinking. Bah, technology. If I weren't already crying my beer-beer...

Just In Time For Stake And Blowjob Day?

      Awwwwh, shucky McShuck shucks... Now Doctor J is just gonna have a big cry-cry in his beer-beer. *sniff sniff*

Where's Howard Beale When We Need Him?

      This blog, simply put, hates this idea.

A Poem Your Parents Will Hate

This Be The Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
      They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
      And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
      By folks in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
      And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
      It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
      And don't have any kids yourself.

--- Philip Larkin (1974)

Rollin' and Tumblin'

      The spectator in me cannot help but savour the surprise decline of the Liberals so quickly into Chairman, er, Prime Minister Martin's ascent. Wow. Check out the numbers here; they're going down faster than Shelley Winters at a buffet.

'Twere Well It Were Done Quickly

      For your plays need no excuse.

Within An Inch Of Their Dull and Obnoxious Lives...

      With all the finger-pointing in the wake of Conan O'Brien's trip to Toronto, it's good to see that at least one pundit has it right on the money. Geebus begeezus, it is absolutely maddening that politicos and pundits have reacted so indignantly to the antics of an INSULT PUPPET. Context, people, context! It should be interesting to see if Conan says anything on his show tonight now that he's back in New York. I won't blame Conan if he's cynical about his trip now. Fact is, I'm ashamed of the way our leaders and editorialists have responded to this, deeply, deeply ashamed. And, frankly, Doctor J would like to open up a magnificent can of whoop-ass on all these buffoons and their false piety. Forget going medieval on their asses; it's time to get antediluvian.

Stupid Headline of the Day Redux

      Duh. Part Deux.

      (Don't worry, she won't get far: running with those things won't be easy...)

Another One That'll End Up On Christie's Site If It Hasn't Been There Already

      This is simply terrifying.

Star Search

      No matter how you slice it, this is just plain cool. This blog awaits further images. See also this.

And check this stuff out, too. Can't say I understand all the technological-scientific mumbo-jumbo, but this is fascinating.

Alright...

      Next time, take care of your own damned planes, and don't ask Canada to take them in for you. I swear, this sickening, disgusting "Blame Canada" mentality just makes me want to start bitch-slapping people. And the U.S. wonders why there is so much resentment in Canada??? It's because you keep purporting CRAP like this. Pardon us if we don't react with our Bible Belt and without our McCarthyist paranoia. Damn, this stuff really gets my goat.

      (Sorry, my bile got the better of me: the Americans that were aboard those planes and found themselves trapped for a bit in places like Gander, Newfoundland were nothing less than terrific; kind, charitible, jim-dandy wonderful. But those were the real people. The American politicos are, however, vomitously misguided in their desperate attempt to blame everyone but themselves, and stigmatizing Canada is absolutely no different than the cheap stigmatizing they did upon Germany and France. Would you like to buy some "Freedom Bacon"???? Grrrr... Aaaargh.)

Stupid Headline Of The Day

      Duh.

      Might!?!?!? Might?!?!?!? Captain Obvious Strikes Again....

Gee, I Wonder Whose Blog This Will End Up Posted On...

      Because I'm pretty sure someone will not be able to resist this. *Shudder*

On Commas And Ingly Words

      RK, can we encourage any and all of our students to read this article? I'm just so eager....

Rage, Rage Against The Dying of the Light

      Bill Maher on the Janet Jackson fiasco wondered why Americans are so offended by an areola; paraphrasing, he noted, what's an areola but a bundle of nerves surrounded by flesh, just like Howard Dean. Ahhhhhh...... Nice, very nice.

      See also Maher's parody of country crank Tobe Keith singing about Janet:

BILL MAHER [as KOBE TEETH]: Hello, I'm Kobe Teeth. Last week, I thought I was the most P.O.'d I'd ever been about those 'Related Program Activities.' But this week, along come three more words that made me even madder: 'Unrehearsed Wardrobe Malfunction.' And I wrote this song about it.

'Well, my six-year-old son saw an African booby.
Now I haven't been this angry since they shot Jack Ruby.
Let the word ring out across the U.S. of A.,
keep your motherfuckin' tit inside your busted bustier.
I'm pissed off about this goddamn
halftime wardrobe malfunction.

'Oh, you can spoon with my wife and press your cock against her rear,
you can take all three Judds and take a shit on John Deere.
You can bum my last smoke and piss in my cola,
but I don't want to see your big, brown, pierced areola.
We're all just sick and tired of the Jackson family's dysfunction.
And your totally unplanned, accidental, unrehearsed
wardrobe malfunction, wardrobe malfunction'

[talking over refrain] I thought you were in control, Janet Jackson. What happened to that? You know, you make me want to hit the Jesus Juice, girl. [laughter] What the hell was that around your nipple anyway? A napkin ring? God, I've seen better tits on a she-cow. What about the children, that's my question, America, what about the children? God, I'm mad, boys! Hold me back! Every week this happens to me. I just get madder and madder!

Extinct Agent Man?

      Mainly for RK, this article posits (along with a review of the new John le Carre novel Absolute Friends) that spy-fiction has gone the way of the dodo bird. Unfortunate, really. RK, remember the golden days of spy-fiction? *Sigh*