Woolly McWoolshit

      If I even started to try to debunk this article, I'd no doubt end up on a journey of truly Homeric proportions. Yes, my people, this is the sort of gob-smackingly offensive "logic" that gets tossed around so much these days.

*Blush*

      One of the best compliments I've had in a while, in an email from an occasional reader of this blog: "Your sense of humour is debilitating sometimes." Think I'll put that on my resumé.... At the risk of sounding like Ralph Wiggum, I like debilitating....

A Wad Is A Terrible Thing To Waste

      If you're this self-indulgent, you deserve to get stuck with Artie Ziff for the rest of your life (and your parents have failed miserably with you). This blog, however, would like to add that it wouldn't mind a "sleek, super-sized Hummer," but it most assuredly is thinking of something entirely different.

But, Of Course....

      After all, we can't expect them to miss calls from their agents, or -- p'shaw! -- risk getting caught in traffic with no way to get in touch with their offices. And, who knows, they're just waiting for those adult Teeth to come in....

I Want This Kid In My Class When He's Old Enough

      Why? 'Cuz if he can handle this, he can handle anything-- though I suspect The Winter's Tale might cause some nasty flashbacks.

Brown-Eyed Swirl

      And, no, you filthy poyvoyts, it's not what you think. Look for this to be added as a module in Fine Arts courses at pretentious universities. Like, well, you know.... *ahem, COUGH COUGH COOOOOOOUGH*    

Unders Statement Of The Day

      "I like women's underwear." Well, duh. Let's simply hope this guy had better hygiene habits than Ms. Lewinsky.

It's Just A Windfall Away

      Reading this article, I was reminded of a piece from the NYTimes three years ago called "The Van Morrisonization of the Movies" which rightly lamented the overuse of particular Van songs ("Someone Like You," "Into The Mystic," "Brown-Eyed Girl," "Moondance," to name a few) in the movies. Some songs just get the living hell beaten out of them, and for Morrison, he's become the staple of romantic comedy, the musician perfect for convincing the audience that now the relationship is serious. (It could also be that Meg Ryan seems to have a woody for the Belfast Cowboy; fuck, even Proof of Life had a Van song in it!) If I can find the article again I'll post it here because it's really quite telling: there are certain songs, and in some cases certain musicians, who represent certain emotions or concepts more clearly than others do, the rough equivalent of a musical shorthand for getting audiences from A to B. Sickening? Yes. Need a quick bout of joy in a movie, of pure sassy glee? Gotcha. Ray Charles. "Hit the Road Jack." Need to indicate love? Van. "Someone Like You" if the couple's finally coming together, "Into The Mystic" if it's after a wedding. Unending angst and yearning? Sarah McLachlan. (Right, Joss Whedon?) These guys just slay me. Which reminds me of a contrary: getting Lyle Lovett to sing Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man" in The Crying Game. Very funny, indeed.

      On another note: I've listening to and rethinking of late Van's 1979 album Into The Music, always a personal favourite but increasingly nudging out even Astral Weeks and Moondance as perhaps The Man's finest hour (literally). It occurred to me that the album-- which features Van in magnificent vocal confidence-- is perhaps as close to being a consolidation of rock, blues, folk, and opera-- yes, opera-- as any album ever. If you know the album: set it on and listen to it through headphones at full-blare, preferrably in the dark with no possibility of interruption; it will provide rewards almost unique in popular music. If you don't know it: you should. It's now 25 years old, and it sounds nothing less than sterling, especially the album's final four songs which are as intimate as music can be without indulging in tepid psychomachia. Rolling Stone's review of the album at the time of its release is worth reading in its entirety. There's a kind of barbarian majesty to the album, a rough, romantic dignity articulated as a bold, blistering, and sustained howl to which I can think of no equal and only partial parallels. Even Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis and Elvis Presley wouldn't have had the nerve to go where Van goes on this album, and he does it without trepidation, sappiness, or weakness-- and it's nothing less than glorious.

Oh. My. Gawd. Magnum!!!

      The less I say about this, the better. Definitely. After all, sooner or later I'll end up using a nasty word that begins with "S" and which will no doubt get me in very, very hot water. I am, however, reminded of the old joke: What do you get an 80 year-old woman for her birthday? Mikey, 'cuz he'll eat anything....

Sort Of Like A Superhero!

      If any of you are naïve enough to think that this article in anyway exaggerates matters are very sadly mistaken. And if you think the quoted bit on Hamlet just a comedic device, I'd have to say you're just as sadly wrong on that, too. Are things really this bad? Yes, oh yes, they very much are. The idea of being any kind of plagiarism czar in these days is as terrifying any I can think of; a "sick parody of scholarship," indeed.

      Key quote: "Ophelia, 'serviceableness', the true, lost wife of Hamlet, is marked as having a Greek name by that of her brother Laertes." Meh. I've seen-- and regularly see-- much worse. *sigh*

Heaven Laughs To See Us Languish Thus

      Here's a great poem by John Donne that seldom seems to elicit discussion anymore, but it's one of my favourites of his.

THE CALM.

OUR storm is past, and that storm's tyrannous rage
A stupid calm, but nothing it, doth 'suage.
The fable is inverted, and far more
A block afflicts, now, than a stork before.
Storms chafe, and soon wear out themselves, or us;
In calms, Heaven laughs to see us languish thus.
As steady as I could wish my thoughts were,
Smooth as thy mistress' glass, or what shines there,
The sea is now, and, as these isles which we
Seek, when we can move, our ships rooted be.
As water did in storms, now pitch runs out;
As lead, when a fired church becomes one spout.
And all our beauty and our trim decays,
Like courts removing, or like ended plays.
The fighting-place now seamen's rags supply;
And all the tackling is a frippery.
No use of lanthorns; and in one place lay
Feathers and dust, to-day and yesterday.
Earth's hollownesses, which the world's lungs are,
Have no more wind than th' upper vault of air.
We can nor lost friends nor sought foes recover,
But meteor-like, save that we move not, hover.
Only the calenture together draws
Dear friends, which meet dead in great fishes' maws;
And on the hatches, as on altars, lies
Each one, his own priest and own sacrifice.
Who live, that miracle do multiply,
Where walkers in hot ovens do not die.
If in despite of these we swim, that hath
No more refreshing than a brimstone bath;
But from the sea into the ship we turn,
Like parboil'd wretches, on the coals to burn.
Like Bajazet encaged, the shepherds' scoff,
Or like slack-sinew'd Samson, his hair off,
Languish our ships. Now as a myriad
Of ants durst th' emperor's loved snake invade,
The crawling gallies, sea-gulls, finny chips,
Might brave our pinnaces, now bed-rid ships.
Whether a rotten state, and hope of gain,
Or to disuse me from the queasy pain
Of being beloved and loving, or the thirst
Of honour or fair death, out-push'd me first,
I lose my end; for here, as well as I,
A desperate may live, and coward die.
Stag, dog, and all which from or towards flies,
Is paid with life or prey, or doing dies.
Fate grudges us all, and doth subtly lay
A scourge, 'gainst which we all forget to pray.
He that at sea prays for more wind, as well
Under the poles may beg cold, heat in hell.
What are we then ? How little more, alas,
Is man now, than, before he was, he was ?
Nothing for us, we are for nothing fit;
Chance, or ourselves, still disproportion it.
We have no power, no will, no sense ; I lie,
I should not then thus feel this misery.

--- John Donne

"Damn, This Seat Is Vinyl"

      Anyone remember the days of banana seats? Be afraid, be very afraid.

Rational Grading?

      Pursuant to the discussion with RB and Christie on "Charisma Carpenter" (?!) there's this article which shouldn't sit well with people, either. I don't think I've ever given more than 35% of a class A's (and certainly nowhere near 55%), but one never knows: if a student earns an "A" said student shouldn't be denied it on the flimsy basis that the university is covering its desperate ass.

Now That's Impressive Carpentry

      This blog normally doesn't provide this sort of link, but this time it will make an exception. (Ladies, forgive me; decorum et al, I remain, after all, male, and some behaviour just comes naturally with the Y chromosome.) In the words of Leonard Cohen, When they said "Repent," / I wonder what they meant...

It Takes Two

      And Willem Dafoe and Madonna aren't on this list? P'shaw! (If your irony detectors aren't beeping madly, I suspect they're on the blink.)

Paulitics As Titteringly Usual

      I realize that most of you don't give a tinker's damn about politics, but I find this unendingly amusing, that PM PM can't even keep his own cabinet in order, even when voting on a ninety year-old conundrum. Somewhere, Atom Egoyan is sitting very bemused. Key sentence: "He wanted his cabinet to know that even if he wasn't there he supported the cabinet decision and the cabinet must vote as a block." Yeah, that's what I call leading by example. I swear, Paul Martin is making Jean Chrétien look like the paragon of political competence. Staggering, absolutely staggering. See also this article which should piss all good little Canucks right the fuck off. Paul is like the parent that goes around telling other parents about how to raise children, all the while aloof to the fact that his own children are little Eddie Haskells. It really is time to unleash a big ole can of electoral whoop-ass on these hypocrites that aren't even aware enough to be competent hypocrites. It's time to teach these effers a lesson in humility.

And You Thought Big Brother Was Stupid....

      Oy effing vey.

A Premature Extenuation

      G'morning everyone. Don't know how much I'm going to be able to post in the next few days, as there's been a death in the family, and it remains uncertain how much things are going to be shot out of whack. The passage-- of my uncle's mother, so my, well, I dunno-- isn't overly affecting to me personally, but it does effect people close to me, and you can all surmise what that means. It looks like tomorrow, Doctor J will be on babysitting duty, taking care of at least two, and perhaps four, of his cousins, all of them boys and none of them over the age of six. One of these kids is Nathan, a little five year-old tornado of energy who just loves Doctor J; when I'm around, it's like no one else is around and I'm just a human jungle-jim for him. I always find it a little odd that he's so ecstatic when he sees me, because it's a kind of 'over-the-top' happiness on his part, as if he's been re-united with a kindred spirit or something. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, Doctor J is really just a big ole softie, get it out of your freakin' systems, people. Grrr, arrrgh. The long and the short of this, though, is that I don't know if I'll be posting much, if anything, for the next little bit, so my apologies in advance. But, who knows, there may prove to be more time than I can currently foresee. Then again, knowing Nathan, I may simply be too damned exhausted to write anything for the next few days. *sigh* Everytime I see Nathan and I watch him bound about I wonder if I ever used to have that much energy, and it stuns me to think that, at one time, at his stage of the game, I probably did. Sad, isn't it, life's declensions? Oh, I want to be that energetic again....

Sing Back In Anger?

      Doctor J's agnosticism is pretty well-known (and well-documented), but it seems to me that there must be some sort of divine presence, some sort of idea of justice and/or providence, that Wagner's not around to have done his own version of this. Just imagine the arias....

Listening To Americans            

      The CBC just finished re-airing the classic Rick Mercer special Talking To Americans in which Mercer rather remarkably manages to convince various Americans of various idiocies about Canada: that our parliament building is made of ice; that Canada just built its first university; that Chief Gordon Lightfoot (!) is pushing the government to allow the controlled hunting of rhinoceri; that Canada sends it senior citizens out on ice floes to die; and so on and so forth. The special as a whole is hilarious, as Mercer not only gets Joe Schmoe on the street to utter these things, but to get professors and governors and politicians, including The Dubster, to demonstrate their obliviousness. Two things kept creeping into my mind, though, as I watched it: one, the memory of watching it some time ago with Anna cuddled up and smashing her head into my chest with fits of laughter, and the other, the old assessment (I think it's from Allan Fotheringham, but I may be wrong) that "Americans are the most arrogant people in the world, and Canadians are the most smug people in the world. The difference is, Canadians deserve to be." And, damn it, it's hard not to be smug after seeing such stuff. The best part: Mercer is talking to a woman as her child stands by listening. Mercer asks the woman if it's something to be worried about that a majority of Canadians couldn't identify their home state on a map, to which the woman responds with surprise and says something to the effect of, "Yeah, that is terrible." No sooner does she say it than the child turns his head pointedly at Mercer and says (paraphrasing), "Hey, wait a minute! Canada doesn't have states, it has provinces!" Out of the mouths of babes, out of the mouths of babes. Well done, kid. Prime Minister Poutine thanks you.

No, I Didn't Write "Will Give Handjobs For Food"

      Found this on Christie's site, and of course tried my own sinister hand (cough cough) at it. Here's my version. And another. I resisted the temptation to enter "We do chicken right." Man oh man, I am utterly reprehensible sometimes.

In Its Silence Urned            

      Lately, Da Woj and I have been discussing some of those poets to whom time and the academy have not been especially kind, poets whose works have either been given short shrift or almost entirely neglected, forgotten, or otherwise left to decompose in the historical junkheap. Some of these poets really should get a bit of attention now and again. One such poet is James Thomson (1834-1882), a nineteenth-century poet seldom if ever taught anymore. It's obvious he's not a great unsung poet; he is by no means a Tennyson or a Browning. But some of his pieces are worth reading for their minor delights. Here are a few of his pieces, taken from The City Of Dreadful Night And Other Poems, a compilation volume I'm fortunate enough to possess in a first edition copy from 1899. Oh, first editions, what lovely things....

The Fire That Filled My Heart Of Old

I.

The fire that filled my heart of old
         Gave lustre while it burned;
Now only ashes grey and cold
      Are in its silence urned.
Ah! better was the furious flame,
      The splendour with the smart:
I never cared for the singer's fame,
      But, oh! for the singer's heart!
            Once more---
      The burning fulgent heart!

II.

No love, no hate, no hope, no fear,
      No anguish and no mirth;
Thus life extends from year to year,
      A flat of sullen dearth.
Ah! life's blood creepeth cold and tame
      Life's thought plays no new part:
I never cared for the singer's fame,
      But, oh! for the singer's heart
            Once more---
      The bleeding passionate heart!

(1864)

E. B. B. [Ed: Elizabeth Barrett Browning]

The white-rose garland at her feet,
      The crown of laurel at her head,
Her noble life on earth complete,
      Lay her in the last low bed
For the slumber calm and deep:
"He giveth His belovèd sleep."

Soldiers find their fittest grave
      In the field whereon they died:
So her spirit pure and brave
      Leaves the clay it glorified
To the land for which she fought
With such grand impassioned thought.

Keats and Shelley sleep at Rome,
      She in well-loved Tuscan earth:
Finding all their death's long home
      Far from their old home of birth,
Italy you hold in trust
Very sacred English dust.

Therefore this one prayer I breathe, ---
      That you yet may worthy prove
Of the heirlooms they bequeath
      Who have loved you with such love
Fairest land while land of slaves
Yields their free sould no fit graves.

(1861)

Song

"The Nightingale was not yet heard,
      For the rose was not yet blown."
His heart was quiet as a bird
      Asleep in the night alone
And never were its pulses stirred
      To breathe or joy or moan:
The Nightingale was not yet heard
      For the Rose was not yet blown.

Then She bloomed forth before his sight
      In passion and in power,
And filled the very day with light,
      So glorious was her dower;
And made the whole vast moonlit night
      As fragrant as a bower:
The young, the beautiful, the bright,
      The splendid peerless Flower.

Whereon his heart was like a bird
      When Summer mounts his throne,
And all its pulses thrilled and stirred
      To songs of joy and moan,
To every most impassioned word
      And most impassioned tone;
The Nightingale at length was heard
      For the Rose at length was blown.

(1877)

It's also worth checking out Thomson's deeply pessimistic The City Of Dreadful Night, a longer work that can be found here.   Yeah, yeah, I'm sure most of you are just flighting past these poems, but give them a go. I do wonder what people might make of Thomson in these days. His vocabulary isn't exceptionally broad, but he has at times a keen gift of phrase--- "leaves the clay it glorified" strikes me as very good, indeed-- and he stands in curious contrast with the earlier Romantics; he seems neither Romantic nor Victorian, a bit out of the general loop, as it were. Give these poems a read. I think they're worth the effort.

Humpty Dumpty?

      Ladies and gentlemen, insert your own joke here.

Hot Child In The City

Okay, just try and tell me that this picture isn't just about the cutest thing you've seen today. Go ahead. I dares ya. Check out the enraptured expression on his face....       In case you're wondering what's happening, you can read the story here. You may now release your collective "Awwwww"s.

Stop The World I Wanna Get Off

      Whoever thought this was a good idea needs to be taken out into the woods and given the Ned Beatty treatment. (For those of you that don't know what "the Ned Beatty treatment" is, just remember this movie in appropriate horror.) See also this page which should make every man cringe. Lawdie-Lawd, who the hell thinks this stuff up? And, more to the point, why have they not been institutionalized yet?

Skin Flint

      Let's see The Donald try and fire this.   Is there such a thing as an unpretentious artist anymore?

The Incredible Disappearing Comments

      Aha! RB has discovered that you can actually read the comments right now IF you open the comment box, scroll down to the bottom and then click on "Check Master Server Comments" or something to that effect. I tried it. It works. And, yes, this is maddening. Grr. Arrgh. Cheers. (And thanks RB.)

Just A Closer Drink With Thee

      Now this is what I call religion. In the words of Van Morrison, "I wanna go to church right now and say / it just is, it just is...."

Why Then Ile Fit You

      Oh my oh my oh my, this blog really should say absolutely NOTHING about this. But it wants to, it wants to.... But no.... *The angel and the devil normally situated on each side of Dr J's shoulders engage in vicious combat, each pummelling the other as if their very existences depended on the outcome. The angel, in a decidedly uncharacteristic move, then bites off a piece of the devil's ear to proclaim a final, ugly victory.* No, I will say nothing, nothing at all. *Dr J rolls his eyes, all too aware of the angel's potentially brutal punishment for disobedience.* Nothing. Take care, move along, nothing to see here.....

Rigorous Language

      First thing this blog thought of reading this article:

It's not pining, it's passed on. This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot!

And if you don't know where that comes from, you really are too young to be reading this blog. :-)

      See also this article about Einstein's final years spent, in part, trying to comfort his depressed-- you guessed it-- parrot. Go figure.

^~~Your Cheatin' Heart....^~~

      Ah, the eternal question: can a man and woman just be friends? Well, duh, yes, I'm sure most of you are saying, especially the guys, remembering those women they desperately wanted to humpty-hump over the years but who condemned them to the physical exile of being "just a friend." (I can hear all the guys reading this sighing as they recall those exercises in symbolic castration.) In Gene W's column this week, though, there's another perspective that should make all of you feel a little bit better. This blog, however, has to note these words: "Women understand that infidelity is a complicated and nuanced subject. We understand that in a marriage, any untoward intimacy with someone else constitutes infidelity." *Doctor J chuckles cynically, and then begins to laugh so hysterically that his chair rolls out from beneath him and he lands ass-first on the ground with a thud slightly louder than one caused by meteor crashing to Earth somewhere in the craggy tors of the Himalayas* Yeah, that's right.... (Pay absolutely no attention to the facetious nodding implied with that statement.) Yeah. Right. *Doctor J collapses in a fit of giggles that lasts only slightly longer than a James Cameron film* Sorry, I was just remembering a joke someone told me.... *voice cracking, trying desperately to deadpan it* Seriously.... *a slight crack in the facade* I'm sorry, it was a really funny joke.... *complete embarrassed eruption into laughter* [In a tortured falsetto] Excuse me, I have to go take care of.... *Dr J walks away, his back jiggling like so much gelatinous dessert*

The Face That Launched A Thousand Quips

      I have often been asked why I don't post images of himself on this site as so many bloggers and site-owners do. Well, the fact is, if you looked like this (then) and like this (now), you'd keep your face to yourself, too. Now you know why I stick with the image of Eeyore. Consider it a kindness from me to you.

      (Don't ask me why I posted the first picture: it seems to have just popped out from nowhere of late. Strange thing, though, I still often have that facial expression. I likely have it as I write this.)

Full Frontal Gnudity            

      I'm posting this here with thanks to RK who typed it out and posted it on his site. Clever, fun, and a little morbid to boot.

GOOD GNUS

When cares attack and life seems black,
How sweet it is to pot a yak,
Or puncture hares and grizzly bears,
And others I could mention:
But in my Animals 'Who's Who"
No name stands higher than the Gnu:
And each new gnu that comes in view
Receives my prompt attention.

When Afric's sun is sinking low,
And shadows wander to and fro,
And everywhere there's in the air
A hush that's deep and solemn;
Then is the time good men and true
With View Halloo pursue the gnu:
(The safest spot to put your shot
Is through the spinal column).

To take the creature by surprise
We must adopt some rude disguise,
Although deceit is never sweet,
And falsehoods don't attract us:
So, as with gun in hand you wait,
Remember to impersonate
A tuft of grass, a mountain-pass,
A kopje or a cactus.

A brief suspense, and then at last
The waiting's o'er, the vigil past:
A careful aim. A spurt of flame.
It's done. You've pulled the trigger.
And one more gnu, so fair and frail,
Has handed in its dinner-pail:
(The females all are rather small,
The males are somewhat bigger).

--- P.G. Wodehouse

Tell me, people, how can you not like this poem?

British Technology.... Grr....

      For whatever reasons, Enetation is screwing up again and not displaying the comments that have been left by my visitors. Christie, RB: Your comments on previous posts are there, and I've seen them, but it seems that until the buggers at Enetation get off their incredibly incompetent asses and fix things, I'm the only that can read them (and only when I'm logged into their system). Your comments aren't lost, though: they're just not displaying for some insipid reason. Hopefully they'll be fix soon. Cheers.

The Shot Of Danger And Desire            

      I don't even know where to begin in responding to this article. Favourite quote which RK should note: "The fact that a Sylvia Plath or Anne Sexton may die young does not necessarily mean an Introduction to Poetry class should carry a warning that poems may be hazardous to one's health." I think it's time for me to claim Workman's Compensation then.

Wastin' Away Again In Lolitaville

      Pardon me while I stew on these sentences from this article: "The girls called it 'hooking up' and testified it was 'no big deal.' They told the court that many Grade 7 girls routinely offered oral sex to older varsity athletes." Routinely!?!?!? According to one of the girls, "everyone else was doing it and she didn't want to be left out." Jee-fucken-ho-so-phat....

Teach Your Children Well

      For those like me lamenting the current state of education, this is required reading. This blog thinks it's also important that our future generations know about the sacrifices of those that died building the Great Wall of Canada.

Far From The MADD Crowd

      Only you can stop friends from drinking and driving. *rolls eyes incredulously*

...Sittin' In A Tree

      K-I-S-S-I-N-G. * cautious pause* First comes love, then comes mar- *pause* Er, maybe not.

See, He Returns            

      Well, I'm back, and gadies and lentlemen, I'm freakin' done. Done! DONE! Yay, the academic year is OVER! *Dr J proceeds to do a particularly embarrassing dance in celebration as streamers and confetti descend from the ceiling* Just watch me get jiggy in unqualified glee.

Marking Update

      So, Doctor J, how's it going with the marking? Well, see for yourself. (Remember that, RK?)

Pieces Of You

      Showoff.

I Sing of America

      Forget Whitman, forget Dickinson, Eliot and Stevens: here's the great new American poet, set to music. Word has it the follow-up will be a series of duets with Ja Rule.

Born To Lede

      This blog is committed to keeping everyone up to date on the latest developments in the Asian business community, especially when they're as significant as this one. I guess it's not so lonely at the top after all.

So Much For Goin' Commando

      But will Bob Dylan start doing the ads for these too?

Puréed Crap

      Blender magazine has issued its list of the 50 worst songs ever (well, not ever, of course, as there's no mention of anything outside of the past sixty years, but of course we know that those are the only years in the history of the world that matter-- harrumph). Unfortunately, Blender's website only includes the bottom five (i.e., 50-45), so you'll have to settle for the nuts-and-bolts (i.e., quipless) list here. Though this blog might have cited some songs as more offensive than those listed here, it also won't dispute the awfulness of any of the nominees. Yoko Ono, however, seems to have escaped the list with Bin Laden-esque guile. And where is Patrick Swayze's Hungry Eyes, a song so painful it sent thousands into Eighties catatonia? Oh, that's right: nobody can find him anymore, either.

      EDIT: Zelda rightly reminds me that, once again, my memory was playing tricks on me. Swayze did "She's Like The Wind," an equally horrifying song and certainly an unflattering way to describe a woman. Eric Carmen, oy vey, did "Hungry Eyes." This is what age is doing to me. Paging Dr. Alzheimer.

Who's A Crock?

      How's this for a surprise: I'm trudging away at my marking when, out of the clichéd blue, one of my former students shows up at the house for a brief visit. I should add that this woman hasn't been a student of mine in seven years, and we only get to meet up very occasionally. Actually, it's odd describing her as a former student as she's a good several years older than I am-- "I'm cranky, I'm a grandmother now," she averred-- and that year of teaching now seems so removed from my personal history that it's almost as if it never happened. It's always wonderful seeing someone you haven't seen in You-Know-Who-Only-Knows-Long, and even better when it's utterly unexpected (and, in this case, a bright spot in an otherwise gloomy day). Seven years. Staggering.

      It cheers me to realize I haven't become a younger Andrew Crocker-Harris, at least not yet or at least not entirely. Mind you, if I ever did, there'd be no way they'd get Albert Finney to play me in a movie; they'd certainly someone much thinner for the task. ;-)

Shades of Titus Andronicus?

      "What are we gonna do with these kids today?" Certainly not this. *shudder* The real kicker is contained in the sixth and seventh paragraphs. Absolutely horrifying.

And In The Lowest Depp A Lower Depp

      Like we fucking needed this. The old song has it right on: nowhere to run to, baby / nowhere to hide.... Suddenly, a cultural scourging is seeming quite necessary. Next thing you know, we'll have to deal with The Nanny in THX and Herman's Head in IMAX.

      (You know it's bad when you're identifying with Milton's Satan. Grrrr, arrgh.)

Someone Had Blundered

      Sorry, folks, won't likely be much of an update today-- or perhaps even tomorrow-- as I hash through the last of the marking and the calculation of grades for my charges. The prospect is to have everything done for Friday and I'm working against the clock (not to mention an overwhelming sense of ennui and fatigue on my part). Zelda has said on more than a few occasions that she's glad she isn't me, having to mark essays -- she has umpteen-thousand exams to mark, but not essays-- and it's at times like this I think she's right. To rewrite a famous line from a story by D.H. Lawrence, There must be more coffee, there must be more coffee.... And no, Doctor J is not like Paul in Lawrence's story, killing kittens as he goes. Filthy poy-voyts....

      Anyway, will update when time is available. Kewpie dolls to anyone other than RK who can spot the source for the title of this entry. Try to do it without using a search engine. (Well, actually there are two: there's the actual original, and then there's a significant reconstruction of it in 1927. Figure out both and you'll have something invaluable: my everlasting respect. Okay, not that invaluable, but you catch my meaning.) Back to the grind.

---

      UPDATE: How disappointing; I guess no one deserves my everlasting respect. ;-) The answers were: Alfred, Lord Tennyson, from his poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade"; and Virginia Woolf, from her novel To The Lighthouse.

"Youth Can Be Cruel"

      You know a web-page is going to keep your attention when it begins with a sentence like this: "It is hanami time in Japan and readers' thoughts turn naturally to ritual disembowelment." Yes, gentle wisdom for the Yukio in everyone. :-)

      (With thanks to Dave from Christie's site.)

Every Poem An Epitaph            

      It's National Poetry Month in Canada-- has anyone noticed?-- and the question looms like a pigeon's feather in the distance: who will be the next Canadian Poet Laureate? I'm sure you're all on pins and needles in anticipation. Fact is, though, I think the idea of a Poet Laureate in Canada not a bad one, but, like poetry itself, it's getting little respect or attention and almost no money. I don't want to say -- and certainly do not want to believe-- that poetry is a dying form, but it's clearly being undermined by publishing houses that avoid it, audiences that flee from it, and academics that ignore it. We've become a very prosaic society, little concerned with methods of phrasing beyond the political parseable. A culture little interested in its own language and culture is a culture marking time, ignoring finer expressions of itself: no wonder we live in an MTV and CNN world of soundbytes and repetitions ad nauseum. I said in my post on Randall Jarrell that a culture is only as strong as its minor poets, and I still contend that's true. Unfortunately, most of our poets are either gimmicky (see, for example, Christian Bok's Eunoia, the principle of which was to write without using the letter "e") or agonizingly navel-gazing (or, as in the case of so many women poets, gyno-gazing) that we're increasingly removing poetry from the public sphere, and from the immediate relevance of poetry, much of which has to do with finding the right or the artful ways of saying things and putting them in peoples' mouths. Instead, much of our contemporary poetry is, for all intents and purposes, hermetically sealed from the public. (It also doesn't help that a lot of contemporary poets are also questionable thinkers, like Amiri Baraka who claimed that Jews had been warned to stay home from the World Trade Centre on September 11th.)

      With that in mind, it's about damned time we started -- or at least guys like me and anyone else foolhardy enough to agree with me-- to remind both poets and the public about the value of poetry in general. The prejudice against poetry in contemporary culture is one borne largely of ignorance: start with the basics, the hickory-dickory-docks and remind people that poetry, like music, is about rhythm and cadence and inflection, about the delight in words many have as children but lose as they age. We have to kill the notion of the poet as the ever-so-suffering artist or the namby-pamby-wannabe-intellectual or the severe intoner of all things ill in the world. Is this just poetic-populism? Perhaps, or at least it is in part. What it comes down to though is this: we have to invigorate the love of the well-turned phrase, the love of words themselves and communication as process. Literacy starts with poetry, I hate to remind everyone, with nursery rhymes and the like, with the forms of language that are most connected to music and to dance and to physical movement. This isn't absurd. Watch children skipping rope or playing hopscotch. They're not, I assure you, reciting the latest Harry Potter book as they do so. There's a reason most (all?) cultures develop poetry long before they develop prose or drama. It's the form with which we're most acquainted even if we don't realize it immediately. Listen to someone, anyone, speak, and you'll notice that very few them speak in prose per se, the logical unit of which is the sentence. The primary logical unit of the poem is the line, first and foremost, with breaks and caesurae marked along the way. This is the way we speak, except more often than not, we do not fully intend our breaks, and we often insert "ums" and "ers" where we'd otherwise pause. Sure, it's garbled poetry, and certainly not good poetry in most cases. But that is where we have to begin, with the realization of the persistent importance of poetry and poetic rhythms to our very notion of speech and communication. From there, my children, we can build. We begin by removing the Nobodaddy of impenetrability and irrelevance from poetry, and we go from there. That's what we need most in a Poet Laureate, someone who'll start that process and, ideally, lead by example. I'll get off my soap-box now, but first: Speakers of the world, unite, we have nothing to lose but our tin-ears.

      Check out, by the way, some of the poems available here, a collection put together by, among others, former American Poet Laureate (and one-time Simpsons guest) Robert Pinsky.

For The Adolescent In Each Of You

      Prepare to titter. See also this. You're welcome.

Baby, It's Cold Outside...

      There are only three words with which Doctor J can respond to this article: I. AM. CANADIAN. Be suitably impressed. And be assured that this blog is a, well, firm believer in truth in advertising.

      And note to the Washington Times: Winnipeg is in Manitoba, and not Ontario. Dumbasses.

The Half-Mile High Club

      Just like politicians, getting in the way of genuine entrepreneurship. Key quote: "The council can't stop people that want to pay $2000 to have sex flying around the Remarkables." The Remarkables. Congratulations, now you all have a new nickname for your genitalia.

The Accused

      I believe this is what they call "following suit." Gee, the cost of hamburgers has gone up, hasn't it?

      See also the bizarre elements of this story. It figures the hitman had to be Canadian. Okay, get out your lighters and all together now:

~~And I guess that's why they call it the Blues
Time on my hands could be time spent with you
Laughing like children, living like lovers
Rolling like thunder under the covers
And I guess that's why they call it the Blues...~~

Mass Appeal

      From the "Oh, That Clears Everything Up" file, there's this story that's enough to make even the most devout turn agnostic. The most stunning thing is this:

"There are certain things that happen which are not sexual but could be interpreted that way," Laird said.

Well, now how could anyone have misunderstood? It as just an innocent case of bondage and manipulation. I get it now. Whew, that's a relief. And remember children: Father knows best.

Hey, Darlin', Watch The Teeth....,
               or Gimme Some O' That London Derrière

      Anyone remember the old commercials, "If a man suddenly gives you flowers, that's Impulse"? Well, here's the techno-savvy version which you all know had to happen sooner or later. Check out the "Doh!" statement at the end of the article: "Flirting is fun, sex is fun. We're just employing expensive, complex toys to find the most basic form of entertainment." Suddenly my general Luddism feels like something to sport as a badge of honour. Can we say "naff gits," boys and girls? I knew you could.

Such Modest Attainments

You've got to kick at the darkness 'til it bleeds daylight. --- Bruce Cockburn, "Lovers In A Dangerous Time"

      Just a brief note: remember those notes that I made up for my students? Well, it turns out more of them read them and used them than I expected. How do I know this? In part because some of them thanked me for them (always nice to hear), but also because it's apparent that a lot of my charges made ample use of the "if only" aspect of tragedy that I outlined in the notes, something we had discussed in class but which seems to have developed a new life cycle in the exams. That idea seems to have been the canoe many of them chose to float themselves to shore. Ah, well, it's at least comforting that the whole riggamarole wasn't pointless.

      Oy. Why am I blogging so profusely today? Yes, I'm procrastinating big-time. Like any job, this is always the worst part: the inevitable paperwork. *shrug*

The Apocryphal Shakespeare?

      This list just boggles the mind. I am so glad it's not in my purview to have to deal with such historical conundra. I'd probably end up like Lear rending my clothes and howling at the sky. The Keatsians and Sidneyans and Rimbaldians are lucky in this regard: the short lifespans of the writers keeps relatively the minimal the amount of available material to wade through, as complicated as their lives may be. Shakespeare, Dickens, Tolstoy, Yeats, Graham Greene: those guys would be nothing less than nightmares for completists. This blog, however, would like to affirm its conviction that what the academy needs right now is to live through a good revision of the Ern Malley story. Hey, Woj, sound like a project for us? Sure, it would mean going through a bunch of postmodern junk-poetry, but it'd be fun, oh, so much fun.

      Yes, I am evil, but harmlessly so. Moreorless, anyway.... ;-)

Dutch Treat

      Cool.

Colin Mockery

      I doubt it's much surprise to anyone that the Bush administration's reaction to the new book by Bob Woodward has been to attack and otherwise to sully Colin Powell: Powell has for some time been the voice of caution and sensibility in the Dubya cabinet, to be trotted out when grasping for international credibility but ignored the rest of the time. Powell's known as one of the more intelligent -- and publicly-respected-- figures in government, and so I suspect the administration's campaign against one of its own will backfire. Words to John Kerry and Colin Powell: Colin, quit, soon; John, ask Colin to run as Veep on your ticket. I'm not sure Powell would accept, but if he did, there might be a significant tectonic shift within the political centre as maybe, just maybe, people start to realize they need sensible government rather than the current idiotic Boris and Natasha leadership of Cheney (short for "chicanery") and Rumsfeld ("Donny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling..."). And no, I'm not implying that Dubya is Fearless Leader. I'm saying it outright.

      Sidebar: It never ceases to amaze me the dramatis personae of the cast of Bush critics: Paul O'Neill, General Anthony Zinni, John effing Dean (!), Richard Clarke, and (implicitly) Colin Powell (among many others), all-together as eclectic a group imaginable. How deaf, dumb and blind do you have to be to support the Dubster? Even Helen Keller would have recognized the hopelessness of this cadre by now.

Doctor J Assures You That This-- For Once-- Was Not Him

      Now just imagine what might have happened if there had been a wardrobe malfunction. C'mon, your country has the word "lay" in its name: savour the coincidence! (He says, noticing that "Canada" has the word "nad" in it, which really is better left entirely alone.)

      Oh Lord, I'm flashing back to being described, by a former-student and pub-mate with only a slight tinge of irony, as "the Mack Daddy." Hilarity, sweet, humiliating hilarity, though I'll leave the degree of factuality of this to your imaginations. I'll merely say that as a repeat offender, I'd have probably been caned in Malaysia by now. Check this out, though. Etymology, what a wonderful thing.

      ^~~I'm the same boy I used to be....^~~      (Right, Zozo?)

A Valediction: Forbidding Morning

      It's worth observing in relation to this that in my eight years of teaching at the university level, I have NEVER taught a class that wasn't first thing in the morning (8.30 or 9.30) or last thing in the afternoon (4.30), a polarity of fates too cruel to discuss here. But as an insomniac who has had more than his fair share of early classes as both a graduate, an undergraduate, and a teacher, I say this: fuck 'em, the bloody whiners. Suffer like the rest of us. All-nighters toughen you up like worn leather. People today need some toughening up. Where the hell is Howard Hawks when we need him? Grumble, grumble. Yes, the world should have to suffer exactly as I have been forced to suffer because I'm a cynical, mean-spirited and vengeful God. ;-)

Testament of Youth

      So much for snakes and snails and puppy-dog tails. This story would make Diogenes smile.

She Was Bored...

      Or so Christie tells me in explaining why she made up these little icons that I'll eventually include on my template when I'm not asea in marking (or perhaps when I just can't take the idea of marking a moment longer and desperately need something to distract myself from the task). The first one, obviously, is for her site, the middle three for this "site" (as much as this page deserves to be called that), and the last, well, the last should be added to just about any site run by someone tragically disconnected with said institution. On last, feel free to read the word "institution" in any way you see fit. Receiving these, though, I am now convinced. Christie didn't move her site for her own reasons; she really is trying to get me to change my template. ;-)

Thanks, bratto. This blog now feels all-equipped. :-)

Sez Them...

      From Premiere Magazine, here are -- supposedly-- "The 100 Greatest Movie Characters of All Time." You can see the original list, complete with all their deandy little hyperlinks here. Some omy cynical remarks can be found in italics.

The Complete List

1. Vito Corleone of The Godfather (Come on... Number One?!?!?)
2. Fred C. Dobbs of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
3. Scarlett O'Hara of Gone With the Wind (Fiddle-dee-fucking-dee.)
4. Norman Bates of Psycho
5. James Bond of Dr. No (I thought they said "character" and not caricature.)
6. Annie Hall of Annie Hall (Wha????????? I say, Whaaaa????)
7. Indiana Jones of Raiders of the Lost Ark
8. Ellen Ripley of Alien (Oy.)
9. Jeff Spicoli of Fast Times at Ridgemont High (Give me a break.)
10. Gollum of Lord of the Rings (Meh.)
11. Margo Channing of All About Eve (Good call.)
12. Charles Foster Kane of Citizen Kane (Okay, getting better.)
13. Atticus Finch of To Kill a Mockingbird (Okay, okay.)
14. Randle McMurphy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (Meh.)
15. Hannibal Lecter of The Silence of the Lambs (Oh, Jesus...)
16. Robin Hood of The Adventures of Robin Hood
17. Dorothy Gale of The Wizard of Oz (Bleah!)
18. Carl Spackler of Caddyshack (Say what!?!?!?!? Who made this list?)
19. Rick Blaine of Casablanca (Right on.)
20. Virgil Tibbs of In the Heat of the Night
21. Susan Vance of Bringing up Baby
22. Travis Bickle of Taxi Driver
23. Eathan Edwards of The Searchers
24. The Little Tramp of Mabel's Strange Predicament
25. Gordon Gekko of Wall Street (Yawn.)
26. E.T. of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ("Eliot, Eliot, I'm standing on my testicles!")
27. Marge Gunderson of Fargo (A quirky choice, but one I respect.)
28. Captain Quint of Jaws
29. Daphne/Jerry of Some Like it Hot
30. King Kong of King Kong
31. Norma Desmond of Sunset Boulevard (Now she should have been MUCH higher on this list.)
32. Holly Golightly of Breakfast at Tiffany's
33. Ratso Rizzo of Midnight Cowboy
34. Bonnie Parker of Bonnie and Clyde
35. Dr. Evil of Austin Powers (I've got a big bag of Shhhh for the guys that made this list.)
36. Alex Forrest of Fatal Attraction (Groan.)
37. Jake Gittes of Chinatown (Okay.)
38. Willy Wonka of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (I think it's time you gave me another break.)
39. Michael Dorsey/Dorthy Michaels of Tootsie
40. The Terminator of The Terminator (Oh, fuck the hell off.)
41. Jane Craig of Broadcast News
42. "Dirty" Harry Callahan of Dirty Harry
43. Forrest Gump of Forrest Gump (This list is like a box of chocolates... Fulla brown stuff.)
44. Jules Winnfield of Pulp Fiction (Blah.)
45. Mary Poppins of Mary Poppins
46. John McClane of Die Hard (Yippy-cayay, muthafuckers...)
47. Mrs. Robinson of The Graduate (Right. On.)
48. John "Bluto" Blutarsky of Animal House (Another break, please?)
49. Chance the Gardener of Being There (YES!)
50. Blondie of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
51. Freddy Krueger of A Nightmare on Elm Street (Oy effing vey.)
52. Howard Beale of Network (This is a great call.)
53. Ninotchka of Ninotchka
54. Frank Booth of Blue Velvet
55. The Dude of The Big Lebowski
56. Alan Swann of My Favorite Year (Another quirky choice, and another good one.)
57. Tom Powers of The Public Enemy
58. Phyliss Dietrichson of Double Indemnity
59. Lt. Kilgore of Apocalypse Now
60. George Bailey of It's a Wonderful Life (Fair enough. But what about Clarence?)
61. J.J. Hunsecker of Sweet Smell of Success
62. John Shaft of Shaft (What tha funk?)
63. Carrie White of Carrie (Jiminy willikers!)
64. Rocky Balboa of Rocky (Double jiminy willikers!)
65. Edward Scissorhands of Edward Scissorhands
66. Navin Johnson of The Jerk (Alright, go away now.)
67. Inspector Clouseau of The Pink Panther
68. Alex DeLarge of A Clockwork Orange (Oy.)
69. Terry Malloy of On the Waterfront
70. Judy Benjamin of Private Benjamin (I'm verklempt.)
71. Rev. Harry Powell of The Night of the Hunter (Good call.)
72. Lloyd Dobler of Say Anything
73. Norma Rae of Norma Rae
74. Tony Montana of Scarface (Possibly the most overrated character in film history.)
75. Dr. Strangelove of Dr. Strangelove
76. Tony Manero of Saturday Night Fever (Bite me. Seriously.)
77. Annie Wilkes of Misery
78. "Mad" Max Rockatansky of Mad Max (I now have road rage.)
79. Hans Beckert of M (Good one.)
80. Sam Spade of The Maltese Falcon (Why the HELL is he so far down this list?)
81. Aurora Greenway of Terms of Endearment (Hi, I'm Shirley MacLaine, and I'm a neurotic mess.)
82. Jack Torrance of The Shining (All work and no play make Jack a hammy actor.)
83. William Cutting of Gangs of New York
84. Darth Vader of Star Wars (The Force is weak with this one.)
85. Stanley Kowalski of A Streetcar Named Desire (Another unfair demotion.)
86. Melanie Daniels of The Birds (Tippi. Hedren. Oy.)
87. Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (Oh, come on. It's a good comic turn, nothing more. If anything, it's Johnny Depp doing Peter O'Tools doing Allan Swann.)
88. Raymond Babbitt of Rain Man (No.)
89. Sandy Olsson of Grease (No, no, no.)
90. John Malkovich of Being John Malkovich (No, no, no, no, no; a great movie, but one of the greatest characters of all time? Mehtinks not.)
91. Mrs. Iselin of The Manchurian Candidate (Alright, this DESERVES to be here. Angela Lansbury at her *intentionally* creepy best.)
92. Dil of The Crying Game (Meh. Seems an overstatement.)
93. Harry Lime of The Third Man (Good choice. His cuckoo-clock line is a classic.)
94. Rose Sayer of The African Queen
95. Oda Mae Brown of Ghost (Back da fuck up, girlfriend....)
96. Tommy DeVito of GoodFellas (Meh.)
97. Ace Ventura of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (Okay, this is WAR.)
98. Antoine Doinel of The 400 Blows
99. Kevin McCallister of Home Alone (Okay, this is NUCLEAR WAR.)
100. Roger "Verbal" Kint of The Usual Suspects (Retreat to DefCon 3.)

So, who do I think is missing from the list? Hmmmm..... so many....

• Colonel Nicholson, The Bridge On The River Kwai
  
• Jefferson Smith, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington
  
• T. E. Lawrence, Lawrence of Arabia
  
• Juror No. 8, Twelve Angry Men
  
• Lord Hidetora, Ran
  
• Lady Kaede, Ran
  
• Bob Harris, Lost In Translation
  
• Will Kane, High Noon
  
• Sanjuro, Yojimbo and Sanjuro
  
• Tom Joad, The Grapes of Wrath
  
• Fagin, Oliver Twist
  
• Rev. Harry Powell, Night Of The Hunter
  
• Mortimer Brewster, Arsenic and Old Lace
  
• Teddy Brewster, Arsenic and Old Lace (Hell, most of the characters from this movie could fit on this list somewhere.)
  
• Roger O. Thornhill, North By Northwest
  
• Harry Caul, The Conversation
  
• Popeye Doyle, The French Connection and The French Connection II
  
• Cosmo Brown, Singin' In The Rain
  
• Capt. Hank Quinlan, Touch of Evil
  
• Mr. White, Reservoir Dogs
  
• Fast Eddie Felson, The Hustler and The Color of Money
  
• Waldo Lydecker, Laura
  
• the D'Ascoygne Family (all played by Alec Guinness, so they all seem like one character, in a way), Kind Hearts and Coronets
  
• Sir Wilfrid Robarts, Witness For The Prosecution
  
• Marvin Udall, As Good As It Gets
  
• Hedley Lamarr, Blazing Saddles
  
• Max Bialystock, The Producers
  
• Willie Stark, All The King's Men
  
• Laura Jesson, Brief Encounter
  
• Connie Summer, Unfaithful
  
• Antonius Block, The Seventh Seal
  
• Professor Kingsfield, The Paper Chase

Oh, I could go on forever (and perhaps almost have). Further proof, though, that such lists are ultimately quite useless and that they serve more to stir anger than to offer a genuine assessment. Any particular additions, mes amis?

Randall Jarrell

      He's moreorless ignored these days, especially within the academy, despite his body of poetry and criticism, and despite too being a mentor of Robert Lowell, but Jarrell's a poet worth turning to every now and again. Here are a few poems of his that most of you have probably never read or even heard of before.

Children Selecting Books In A Library

With beasts and gods, above, the wall is bright.
The child's head, bent to the book-colored shelves,
Is slow and sidelong and food-gathering,
Moving in blind grace ... yet from the mural, Care
The grey-eyed one, fishing the morning mist,
Seizes the baby hero by the hair
And whispers, in the tongue of gods and children,
Words of a doom as ecumenical as dawn
But blanched like dawn, with dew.
The children's cries
Are to men the cries of crickets, dense with warmth
-- But dip a finger into Fafnir, taste it,
And all their words are plain as chance and pain.
Their tales are full of sorcerers and ogres
Because their lives are: the capricious infinite
That, like parents, no one has yet escaped
Except by luck or magic; and since strength
And wit are useless, be kind or stupid, wait
Some power's gratitude, the tide of things.
Read meanwhile ... hunt among the shelves, as dogs do, grasses,
And find one cure for Everychild's diseases
Beginning: Once upon a time there was
A wolf that fed, a mouse that warned, a bear that rode
A boy. Us men, alas! wolves, mice, bears bore.
And yet wolves, mice, bears, children, gods and men
In slow preambulation up and down the shelves
Of the universe are seeking ... who knows except themselves?
What some escape to, some escape: if we find Swann's
Way better than our own, an trudge on at the back
Of the north wind to -- to -- somewhere east
Of the sun, west of the moon, it is because we live
By trading another's sorrow for our own; another's
Impossibilities, still unbelieved in, for our own ...
"I am myself still?" For a little while, forget:
The world's selves cure that short disease, myself,
And we see bending to us, dewy-eyed, the great
CHANGE, dear to all things not to themselves endeared.

Cinderella

Her imaginary playmate was a grown-up
In sea-coal satin. The flame-blue glances,
The wings gauzy as the membrane that the ashes
Draw over an old ember --as the mother
In a jug of cider-- were a comfort to her.
They sat by the fire and told each other stories.

"What men want..." said the godmother softly--
How she went on it is hard for a man to say.
Their eyes, on their Father, were monumental marble.
Then they smiled like two old women, bussed each other,
Said, "Gossip, gossip"; and, lapped in each other's looks,
Mirror for Mirror, drank a cup of tea.

Of cambric tea. But there is a reality
Under the good silk of the good sisters'
Good ball gowns. She knew... Hard-breasted, naked-eyed,
She pushed her silk feet into glass, and rose within
A gown of imaginary gauze. The shy prince drank
A toast to her in champagne from her slipper

And breathed, "Bewitching!" Breathed, "I am bewitched!"
--She said to her godmother, "Men!"
And, later, looking down to see her flesh
Look back up from under lace, the ashy gauze
And pulsing marble of a bridal veil,
She wished it all a widow's coal-black weeds.

A sullen wife and a reluctant mother,
She sat all day in silence by the fire.
Better, later, to stare past her sons' sons,
Her daughters' daughter, and tell stories to the fire.
But best, dead, damned, to rock forever
Beside Hell's fireside-- to see within the flames

The Heaven to whosee gold-gauzed door there comes
A little dark old woman, the God's Mother,
And cries, "Come in, come in! My son's out now,
Out now, will be back soon, may be back never,
Who knows, eh? We know what they are--men, men!
But come, come in till then! Come in till then!

The Breath of Night

The moon rises. The red cubs rolling
In the ferns by the rotten oak
Stare over a marsh and a meadow
To the farm's white wisp of smoke.
A spark burns, high in heaven.
Deer thread the blossoming rows
Of the old orchard, rabbits
Hop by the well-curb. The cock crows
From the tree by the widow's walk;
Two stars in the trees to the west,
Are snared, and an owl's soft cry
Runs like a breath through the forest.
Here too, though death is hushed, though joy
Obscures, like night, their wars,
The beings of this world are swept
By the Strife that moves the stars.

And then there's the little poem of his that almost everybody has read at some point or another, usually in high school:

The Death Of The Ball Turret Gunner

From my mother's sleep I fell into the State,
And I hunched in its belly till my wet fur froze.
Six miles from earth, loosed from its dream of life,
I woke to black flak and the nightmare fighters.
When I died they washed me out of the turret with a hose.

I remember once liking that last poem, but it's since become to my mind a kind of patchwork pastiche of Ezra Pound and Siegfried Sassoon. There's a sadness to the fact that sometimes an accomplished writer should mainly be remembered for a poem that is by no means near his best. It'd be as if we only remembered Shakespeare for The Merry Wives of Windsor. I suppose this is how Alec Guinness felt, being remembered primarily for being Obi-Wan Kenobi. *shrug* Hopefully, though, a few of you might search Jarrell out. Yes, this is one of this blog's primary duties-- beyond making puerile jokes and pointing to myriad examples of human stupidity-- to expose my readers, as much as possible, to writers that we tend to neglect or to forget. Sadly, even were I to teach a course on Modernism, Jarrell would have to be sacrificed (as Johnson would have to be sacrificed from a Victorian course), but that doesn't mean he should fall into oblivion, either.

      This leads me to an axiom entirely (I think, anyway) of my own invention: A society, or a culture, is only as great as its minor poets. Dare I suggest that by this standard we live in a very poor culture, indeed? We have some very fine poets-- Strand, Heaney-- but in terms of "quite good" minor poets, we're staggeringly understocked. Food for thought. Just remember to chew.

Danger, Robinson Crusoe, Danger!

      Received this from RK today, and got a kick out of it: great new combined books. This blog challenges any of you to come up with your own versions. In the interim, this blog will imagine what The Way of All Lolitas would be like....

How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying

      This blog's favourite bit from this piece: "Oh, and I’ll make sure I remember to stroke it while I’m back there smooching your ass too." See if you read that sentence the same way I read it at first...

Straight Away

      First thing that came to this blog's mind upon reading this story: the bartender in Star Wars, pointing at R2-D2 and C-3P0 and saying, "We don't serve their kind here."

He Offered His Honour...

      ... it seems in the hope he'd be on her and off her.

      Before you say it, objection overruled.

"Get Ready For Very Little"

RK, if no one else, should find this of interest: Catherine Deneuve has a volume of diaries coming out, diaries, however, that are eliciting some rather unkind responses from critics. The former link has some good quotes in it, though, including this one: "The French like their literature to resemble their cassoulet - thick as a brick, and somewhat indigestible." See also Gerard Depardieu's description of Mme Deneuve as "the man I’d like to be."       Those of you unfamiliar with Mme Deneuve should check out her filmography. Some of you may remember her from her peculiar appearance in The Hunger lo those years ago with Susan Sarandon and that great thespian -- ack!-- David Bowie. That film still makes me, er, uncomfortable. It's too bad, though, that there seems to be a snowball's chance in Hell of her doing films in English that might do her justice. Her last film to get attention outside of French-speaking markets was probably Indochine in 1993, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award (admittedly as the dark horse in that race). At almost sixty, she seems to have matured more than she's aged-- and she's certainly a better actress now than she was in her ingènue days.

As Legally Moot As The Mooning of A Cow

      A brief to the Supreme Court of the United States of America by God, Esq. One problem: evidently God's grammar is imperfect (i.e., fallible). To wit: "attempting to emphatically distance itself." There's something all too ironic about God splitting an infinitive. Let's hope Loki and Bartleby don't notice.

I Bet He Has A Tiny Diagonal

      This week's column by Dave Barry is a hoot. This reminds me that I should correct the link here for Dave's blog. I'll eventually change it on the template when I get my lazy ass around to it.

      Speaking of address changes, I see Christie has moved her site. Damn, it seems everybody's on the march. Either that, or everbody's nudging me to update my template. Bastards, the lot of ye. ;-)

A Long Day's Journey Into Night

      Oy, it's off to torture my little'uns. Good gawd, I *cannot wait* for 10:00 to roll around. We shall see how my charges fare. Do I sound trepidatious? Well, I am. *fingers crossed* And then: fun, fun, fun (till Daddy takes my T-bird away...) as I get to-- deep, deep breath-- MARK their labours. Tonight shall be odd, though. I haven't been drinking at Da Bull on a Saturday since I was, oh, probably nineteen. Nineteen. Certainly not more than twenty. It boggles the mind.

      Hopefully, my wee ones will kick the exam's ass. Contrary to what many think, teachers do not want their students to do badly on exams. Bad exams = painful marking. Anyway, it's time to make myself away to Pork Spew. Oh, the joy, the rapture, the imperishable bliss!

      Okay, I will cease such facetiousness. Right. About. Now.

Lonely, Amid The Living Crowds As Dead

      After reading a quite brilliant post by RK on his site, I followed a link to the poem "The Church of a Dream" by the Victorian poet Lionel Johnson (1867-1902). It's a poem of which I'd never heard (though I had read Johnson some years ago for one reason or another), and it's lovely, particularly the last two lines. It made me dig through some of my anthologies to dig up other Johnson poems, in part because it seemed to me so odd that I'd never come across that poem, and to my surprise the poem was not to be found anywhere. It's worthwhile, though, to invoke some of the other poems by Johnson, a poet almost never taught anymore and almost certainly one of those poets bound to fall through the cracks in one's reading. Some of you may find the religiousity of some of the poems discomforting, but I'd suggest that any such discomfort is more a problem on your (our?) part than Johnson's. So, be patient with him, and in some of the poems you might find some lovely imagery and some fine phrasing that is all too rare these days.

Mystic And Cavalier

Go from me; I am one of those, who fall.
What! hath no cold wind swept your heart at all,
In my sad company? Before the end,
      Go from me, dear my friend!

Yours are the victories of light: your feet
Rest from good toil, where rest is brave and sweet.
But after warfare in a mourning gloom,
      I rest in clouds of doom.

Have you not read so, looking in these eyes?
Is it the common light of the pure skies,
Lights up their shadowy depths? The end is set:
      Though the end be not yet.

When gracious music stirs, and all is bright,
And beauty triumphs through a courtly night;
When I too joy, a man like other men:
      Yet, am I like them then?

And in the battle, when the horsemen sweep
Against a thousand deaths, and fall on sleep:
Who ever sought that sudden calm, if I
      Sought not? Yet could not die.

Seek with thine eyes to pierce this crystal sphere:
Canst read a fate there, prosperous and clear?
Only the mists, only the weeping clouds:
      Dimness and airy shrouds.

Beneath what angels are at work? What powers
Prepare the secret of the fatal hours?
See! the mists tremble, and the clouds are stirred:
      When comes the calling word?

The clouds are breaking from the crystal ball,
Breaking and clearing: and I look to fall.
When the cold winds and airs of portent sweep,
      My spirit may have sleep.

O rich and sounding voices of the air!
Interpreters and prophets of despair:
Priests of a fearful sacrement! I come,
      To make with you mine home.
                                                (1889)

The Precept Of Silence

I know you: solitary griefs,
Desolate passions, aching hours!
I know you, tremulous beliefs,
Agonized hopes, and ashen flowers!

The winds are sometimes sad to me;
The starry spaces, full of fear:
Mine is the sorrow on the sea,
And mine the sigh of places drear.

Some players upon plaintive strings
Publish their wistfulness abroad:
I have not spoken of these things,
Save to one man, and unto God.
                                                (1893)

The Age Of A Dream

[sometimes dedicated "To Christopher Whall"]

Imageries of dreams reveal a gracious age:
Black armour, falling lace, and altar lights at morn.
The courtesy of Saints, their gentleness and scorn,
Lights on an earth more fair, than shone from Plato's page:
The courtesy of knights, fair calm and sacred rage:
The courtesy of love, sorrow for love's sake borne.
Vanished, those high conceits! Desolate and forlorn,
We hunger against hope for that lost heritage.

Gone now, the carven work! Ruined, the golden shrine!
No more the glorious organs pour their voice divine;
No more rich frankincense drifts through the Holy Place:
Now from the broken tower, what solemn bell still tolls,
Mourning what piteous death? Answer, O saddened souls!
Who mourn the death of beauty and the death of grace.

                                                (1890)

And then there's this poem, a beautiful, sad, haunting piece, which for reasons beyond immediate explanation I admire greatly and thinkn probably more powerful now than it was when it was written, especially in this day and age in which we fortify ourselves against the past with callousness and indifference. The poem was written with an elegaic quality, but it seems to me its mourning is stoic in its own, and more powerful for its memorial of an era more acute to subtlety. Maybe it's me, but I see a correspondence here between the sad woman of Johnson's poem and the singing women in Wallace Stevens' "The Idea of Order at Key West" and Conrad Aiken's The Divine Pilgrim. Whether the latter two poets were rewriting Johnson, I do not know. The beauty of Johnson's poem is its simplicity; even the most immature undergraduate could read this poem and gather its meaning, or so I'd like to think, however naively.

A Stranger

To Will Rothenstein

Her face was like sad things: was like the lights
Of a great city, seen from far off fields,
Or seen from the sea: sad things, as are the fires
Lit in a land of furnaces by night:
Sad things, as are the reaches of a stream
Flowing beneath a golden moon alone.
And her clear voice, full of remembrances,
Came like faint music down the distant air.
As though she had a spirit of dead joy
About her, looked the sorrow of her ways:
If light there be, the dark hills are to climb
First: and if be calm, far over the long sea.
Fallen from all the world apart she seemed,
Into a silence and a memory.
What had the thin hands done, that now they strained
Together in such passion? And those eyes,
What saw they long ago, that now they dreamed
Along the busy streets, blind but to dreams?
Her white lips mocked the world, and all therein:
She had known more than this; she wanted not
This, who had known the past so great a thing.
Moving about our ways, herself she moved
In things done, years remembered, places gone.
Lonely, amid the living crowds as dead,
She walked with wonderful and sad regard:
With us, her passing image: but herself
Far over the dark hills and the long sea.

                                                (1889/97)

More of Johnson's poems-- including a few of the ones included here-- can be found at this site. See also some his more explcitly "Irish" poems here and here. It's a humbling post-script to note that Johnson died at 35, only a mere five years older than myself. I really need to stop observing such things.

      More happily, though: there's precious little better than rediscovering a poet one had long-forgotten, or a poet one had not adequately appreciated before.

That's A Wrap, People

      Kitten-killers everywhere will be disappointed. Seriously, though, do they really think a short moritorium is going to prevent anything? Given what we do know about the virus (which isn't much), three months is not long enough to ensure it's been isolated and that the contacted have not been infected. And correct me if I'm wrong, didn't the industry go through this same scenario not too long ago? This would be farcical if there weren't real lives at stake.

The Canonic Verses

Well, that grand ole literary crank is at it again, this time with the rather mightily-titled "The Best Poems Of The English Language: From Chaucer To Frost." Info on the book at Amazon can be found here. Bloom's a critic always to be taken with a grain of salt, but he's also a critic one ignores at one's own peril. I'll be curious to see what he does with the poems, even if I'm more than sure much of his commentary is as acidic as grapefruit juice.       This blog will not even bother to speculate what Naomi Wolf's reaction to the book will be. ("It touched my thigh when I set it in my lap and now I'm scarred for life.") Okay, I did speculate. Sue me.

Rollin' Rollin' Rollin'

      God his ass is swollen.... Rawride....

      (Seriously, how desperately bored do ya have to be?????)

Waiting To Inhale

      Take this, Puritans! (Dr J is a member of Raleigh's party, and Imperial Brands knows it.)

I Coulda Been A Contenda!

      Alas, the road not taken. *pout*

The Play, I Remember, Pleased Not The 1.5 Million

Now, if I'd had a few million pounds stashed around the house, I sure as hell would not have let this happen. I'm shocked. At least it gives me another kick at the can (maybe). My project: if I gigolo myself out for $50 bucks a head, that'll be.... Oh. Crap.       Alright, the line starts here. Ladies only, please....       (First person who makes a remark about me not being worth $50 will be appropriately throttled, bitch-slapped, and either castrated or clitoridectomized as the situation sees fit. And, yes, we thank you for your support. )

*Hiccup* Kill Me. *Hiccup* Kill Me. *Hiccup* Kill Me.

      Okay, not much of a post for today, but it's now official: I am insane. I've now written well over 4000 words today for my kids, trying to piece together some sort of coherent system of notes for them on a bloody broad mish-mash of material. Worse, I still haven't done the Romances yet. I am an idiot! How did I get myself into this? Why do I bother, especially when I know full-well 80% of them won't even bother looking at them, let alone read them. Because I made a promise. Ugh. Flurking, fucking idiot. Never, ever again.

      Any of you with some bizarre or twisted sense of masochism can see my notes (completely unedited, and certainly rife with typos and the like) here (Part I) and here (Part II). No promises as to their interest-value or their quality.

      (And, yes, I know: "hiccup" should be "hiccough," but I'm tired and I'm lazy. So there. )

      Update: Why the hell can't I bring myself to write Part III? Ugh.

      Uppidiestdate: Fuck. No way I can finish the third part in time for mes élèves and stand even a shot in hell of getting their papers marked in time. Oh well. It's only the romances left undiscussed, and, besides, I'm relatively sure the whole damned exercise was a bloody waste of time. *shrug* Exam tomorrow evening. Now what kind of bureaucratic fucknut schedules an exam at 7pm on a Saturday night? Key-riced. Worse, this means making the trip to Pork Spew on a Saturday when the buses are as regular as... no, I won't name names. Life bites serious goat cock, even if the weather is finally becoming quite lovely. And yes, I am very cranky right now, as my proliferant cursing should suggest. Grrrr. Arrrgh. April is the stupidest month.

Phoney Baloney

Received this story from RK and thought it worth sharing here with this note: now you know why Doctor J will go to his worm-infested grave having never owned a cell-phone. Cheers.

Several men are in the locker room of a golf club. A cell phone on a bench
rings and a man engages the hands free speaker-function and begins to talk.
Everyone else in the room stops to listen.

MAN: "Hello"

WOMAN: "Honey, it's me. Are you at the club?"

MAN: "Yes"

WOMAN: "I am at the mall now and found this beautiful leather coat. It's
only $1,000. Is it OK if I buy it?"

MAN: "Sure, ..go ahead if you like it that much."

WOMAN: "I also stopped by the Jaguar dealership and saw the new 2004 models.
I saw one I really liked."

MAN: "How much?"

WOMAN: "$95,000"

MAN: "OK, but for that price I want it with all the options."

WOMAN: "Great! Oh, and one more thing .... The house we wanted last year
is back on the market. They're asking $950,000."

MAN: "Well, then go ahead and give them an offer, but just offer 900,000."

WOMAN: "OK. I'll see you later! I love you!"

MAN: "Bye, I love you, too."

The man hangs up. The other men in the locker room are looking at him in
astonishment. Then he asks: "Anyone know who this phone belongs to?"

Reminds me of an old joke, longer and much more insidious:

A wealthy businessman away on business checks into his hotel room and decides to call home and check in with his wife. After several rings, a male voice answers the phone.

Voice: Hello?

Businessman: Ah, yes, hello. Who is this?

Voice: This is the gardener, sir.

Businessman: Ah, yes. Is the lady of the house in?

Voice: I'm not sure, sir. I'll check, sir.

The businessman sits idly on the phone, waiting for someone to return, rolling his eyes and awkwardly picking things out of his wallet.

Voice: Yes, sir, the lady of the house is in, but, sir, she can't, well, she can't come to the phone right now.

The businessman, clearly frustrated after his trip and insistent on speaking with his wife, gets testy and decides to remind the gardener who's really in charge.

Businessman: I don't care what she's doing, can you get her to come the phone right now, please.

Voice: But sir....

Businessman: I don't care. I don't care what she's doing, just get her to the phone right now.

Voice: But sir... I'm sorry to say this but [his voice lowers to a whisper] I am afraid that lady is, well, she is in bed with another man.

Stunned, the businessman sits in silence, wrestling with his jealousy and imagining his wife in sexual performance with another man.

Voice: Sir.... sir, are you there? are you okay?

After a long pause, he grits his teeth and returns to the conversation.

Businessman: Yes, I'm here.

His wallet now cast aside and his hand become a first in rage, he summons himself to respond to the news.

Businessman: Can you hear me? If you want to keep your job, and if you want to put your kids through college, you'll do what I tell you. Do you know where my study is?

Voice: Yes, sir.

Businessman: Go there, and go into the second drawer on the left side of my desk. In there is a gun. I want you to get it and go and shoot my wife and that bastard that's with her. And then come back to the phone.

Voice: But sir....

Businessman: Do you hear me? I can make your life very easy or I can make it very, very hard. Do you understand me? Do it. Now.

Voice: [after a short, defeated pause] Yes, sir....

The businessman hears the phone plunk down on a table, and a mild shuffle of footsteps. Then a few creaks and cracks amid the mostly silence of a moment or two before he hears two loud shots being fired. Then more creaks and cracks, and the sound of heavy footsteps after another moment or two of waiting. Then the voice returns, panting heavily and in obvious distress.

Voice: It's done, sir.

Despite the tremble in the voice on the other end of the phone, the businessman sighs, realizing the completion of his revenge. Slightly satisfied, but suddenly a bit worried about how to handle matters, he composes himself with a kind of careful but heavy-handed clinicism.

Businessman: Well done. Okay, okay. Now, tell me, what did you do with the gun?

Voice: Sir, I'm sorry, I was in such a shock I threw it out of the window into the pool outside. Should I go get it?

Businessman: Pool? Pool?!? Wait a second, is this 765-9842?

I know, I know...