Pallors of Reading Gaol

      Found this meme on Grapez, and figured I'd throw out my own answers, such as they are. Feel free to posit your own answers in the comments.

You're stuck inside Fahrenheit 451, which book do you want to be?

      Graham Greene's Monsignor Quixote

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

      No, not really. Or, perhaps, yes, always. Wasn't every woman I've ever had a crush a fictional character to one degree or another?

The last book you bought is:

      Actually, bought several recently, including new (to me) hardback editions of the poems of John Donne, Robert Herrick and W.H. Auden, and several other collections, including an old Riverside anthology of Dryden.

The last book you read:

      In its entirety? Northrop Frye's The Well-Tempered Critic, which I'd not read in probably seven years. Before that, Mark Strand's volumes Blizzard of One and Dark Harbor, and before that Cees Nooteboom's The Following Story. Oh, and somewhere in there, Eliot's The Use of Poetry and The Use of Criticism, The Varieties of Metaphysical Poetry and The Sacred Wood.

What are you currently reading?

      Blogs, blogs, blogs-- mainly student ones.   Alexander Welsh's Reflections On The Hero As Quixote, another one of my recent acquisitions. And bits of pieces of too many things to name here. (Such is the perenially-distracted life.)

Five books you would take to a deserted island:

      The Poetry and Prose of Wallace Stevens
      The Riverside Shakespeare
      Don Quixote
      The Poems of Thomas Hardy
      a collection of New York Times Sunday Crossword Puzzles

As to three people:

      If you think I'm answering this question, you're bat-shit bonkers.... Besides, I've read Sartre: maybe having those others on that island might make it into a perfect Hell, with an extra person as brimstone on the fire. In the interim, let's simply say that if forced my candidates would be judged on intelligence, kindness, nubility, and double-jointedness. And, perhaps, whether or not she could sing beyond the genius of the sea.

So, there we are. Probably terribly predictable, these answers of mine, but c'est la vie.

A Kind Of Update

      Oh, it has been a manic little bit, so much upturned and recomposed like dust in a hurricane. Frankly, I'm tadding toward exhaustion, so much so that I defy any of you to correct me for inventing the word "tad" as a verb. (Bah, shrumbug.) That I'm for the moment exhausted shouldn't indicate anything more than pure physical fatigue. I've gone from -- as they say in automotive clich´ -- zero to sixty in the past few weeks, though perhaps a sprinting metaphor would be more appropriate. Argh, I'm not as young as I used to be. ("Mistah Shawp, he dead. / Penny for the old guy.")

      So, yes: I'm exhausted, this poor blog has been left to sit like Miss Haversham's wedding cake, and I'm feeling in certain ways like I've gained two years in three weeks.   This is (surprisingly) not entirely a bad thing. I've had in recent weeks the delightful opportunities to teach-- among others-- Tom Eliot, Wally Stevens, Marko Strand, Shameless Heaney, and Bobby Browning.   I've been reminded, in a situation that perhaps might have been more consternation than anything, of how positive and receptive some students can be, to say nothing of gracious; such ones, mercifully, mitigate what might otherwise seem Quixotic gestures and impulses, and so one holds Rocinante's reins tightly and charges on. My naturally-pessimistic side wonders if I might be serving to free the galley slaves only to have them stone me, but, in the end, it matters little. Sticks and stones, sticks and stones. (Everybody must get.... --- oh, never mind.)

      A few brief notes on recent Stuff:

• In following the blogs of some of my recent charges, in one form or another, and in dealing with them one-on-one, I'm delighted by how many call me, with some comfort, "Doctor J." It makes me chuckle. Sue me.  
  
• RK, to no great surprise on my part, has helped make what could well have been a hoary experience more than tolerable.   That it's a pleasure to be working with him again probably goes without saying to any of you that have followed this blog for more than a few seconds.
  
• Much to my own shock, I ran into a still-stunning young lass from my semi-recent past on Tuesday. Much to the surely-greater shock of certain unwitting witnesses, the Not-So-Good Doctor may have (a) accidentally demonstrated another reason why there is the "Not-So-Good" inserted in that moniker; and (b) utterly embarrassed, or simply scarred with disturbing imagery, those unfortunate witnesses with a display probably not to be expected of the Doc. (D'Oh!) Call it a case of anadiplosis.   (To the witnesses: Be glad you didn't see us several years ago.   I have it on good authority we were positively Revolting.)
  
• Wednesday seemed to prove yet again that Winter isn't going to go gently into that good fucking night, which, more than anything, is reason for despair. This Winter seems like it just will not end, and it keeps announcing itself what such subtle climatological statements that are equivalent to "Who's your daddy, who's your muthasumthin' daddy?" Grrrr.
  
• Blogging? Blogging? Well, sorry, this one, at least, is going to have to be left in languor a little longer. See, if anyone had volunteered to be my Guest Blogger....
  
• Bear with me, still. Please. We're nearer Normal than you probably think. Nearer, but not there yet.

Uggidy ugh ugh ugh. I remember when I used to have energy. It was 1973 and the sky was blue....

What The Thunder Said

      As my friend RK would say, borrowing from the Book of Common Prayer, "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest."   Mercifully, I haven't to deal much with this species of hatchling this year, but I dread to say I know the creature well.   Chirp!

Base Math

      And people wonder why I so disdain the McSquinty government.... Key quote: "The announcement comes as another blow to the credibility of the Liberal government."   Duh!

      Sorry, dear readers that have been popping by here lately to find nothing new from the Not-So-Good Doctor. March got very busy very quickly, and this poor space has suffered the brunt of my distracted attention. Soon, dear readers, soon, things will return to their banal normalcy. In the interim, I suspect Dalton (dear Dalton) is glad to have at least one of his hecklers otherwise occupied.

Those Were The Days

Rest in peace, you delighfully, deliciously grumpy old fuck.         Sad, very, very sad, indeed.   For those of you too young to remember him, here are a few snippets, also from The Guardian, and this obit from The Independent. See also a few stories here.       I remember-- more clearly than I remember last month-- watching Dave Allen and Benny Hill on WUTV out of Buffalo at 10pm when I was much, much younger-- and when it was still possible for a man to sit in a chair with a drink and a cigarette (let alone anything else) on television. And, oh yeah, be very, very, very funny.   What the man could do with a story was genius. What he regularly did with confessionals was bloody beautiful blasphemy.       May flights of drunken, agnostic angels sing thee to thy rest.

Delay, Decay

      Sorry, my ever-patient readers, for my lack of posting lately, but let's simply say things have been busy-- or, at least, busier than usual. Alas, the lack of posting isn't likely to be remedied anytime soon, or at least until Wednesday. The Not-So-Good Doc will be off to Tokyoronto ("All the expense, but none of the excitement!") to do some ritual self-humiliation, and, ideally, meeting up with some old compatriots in misbehaviour. (Those of you that know the Doc's habits can probably surmise where he will be and what he will most likely be doing.) So, in the interim -- like one of those lousy t-shirts-- this post is all you're going to be getting around here for the next bit, though with my apologies. In compensation, here's a rarity for you, an unpublished poem of Tom Eliot's called "Virginia." Not Eliot at his best, but interesting enough as one of the many doodles of his not (to my knowledge, anyway) collected. Enjoy. Until later, cheers.

If A Man Suddenly Gives You Flowers...

      That's Compost....   Alternative answer: That's an impulsive waste of money.  

      Er, no-- sorry, I couldn't resist.   But if you're at all curious about some of the general associations that have been attached to certain flowers over the years, however arbitrarily, you might want to have a look at this curious little article from MSN. For a further list of associations, see this interesting page that should help those of you frustrated by complaints that "you don't **sniff** bring me flowers anymore." (One haws to notice that there is no flower that conveys the same meaning as the two most used words in the average heterosexual male's vocabulary, "Yes, dear.")

      Oddly enough, the article associates rhododendrons with "danger," while in some cultures they're associated with "delicacy."   They also have a nasty tendency to choke out other plantlife because of their leaves that -- wait for it-- are so dense that light cannot penetrate them.   Hmmmm....   Like I couldn't have guessed that.   Gather ye irony-buds while ye may.  

      At least now I know when to give yellow lillies and manchineel.   Lads, you might want to stock up on your purple hyacinths.    

Out, Out, Damned Spot....

      Yes, ladies, it's all about "getting your carpet cleaned."  

      This blog hesitates to note that if the job was done well (and if it were done, when 'twas done, then 'twere well it was done briskly), there would at least one spot born of the process. Surely a dry cleaning in this situation would be most undesirable.

      This Just In: ...and in related news....

Pounding The Cud

      Hey, I bet a lot of you have done worse....