Short Takes

Just a few notes:

• The Libs have fallen, but not with the thud some predicted.   Paul Martin's concession speech was dignified and decent.  It's a shame he didn't perform this way in the campaign.  The reason for the mild Liberal resurgence?  My bet is that the polls putting the Tories WAY in the lead made a lot of people in Ontario retreat to the Libs as a cautionary measure.  Call it the lesson of the short leash.  Ontario and the Maritimes seem to have spared the Libs from being rendered irrelevant. 
• Glee, oh glee: my own riding kicked Tony Valeri to the curb, and all of Hamilton proper went NDP.  No real glee on the latter, but definitely on the former.  (Sheila Copps is probably having multiple orgasms right now.) The Dippers owe their new seats to four areas: the Northwest Territories, B.C., Toronto and Hamilton.  Layton's speech, by the way, was lousy. 
• Harper's speech, airing now, is surprisingly good, though I wonder how well he'll do by cities.  Most major urban areas rejected the Tories outright.  Eek.
• Martin's announcement of his resignation as Lib leader means Harper will effectively have a majority government.  With a leadership race on the way and their coffers depleted, the Libs need time, and felling the government won't be a priority or even an option.  (Unless, of course, Martin pulls a Trudeau and un-quits if he smells blood.  Not likely, but not beyond the pale, either.)
• Best news of all: the BQ had the wind taken out of its sails.  Let's hope this is the start of something.

So, all in all, probably the results-- give or take-- I could have hoped for, really.  Now let's see how it works.

Some Random Observations

     I used to take better advantage of blogging to toss off some random observations than I do now.  It may be time for a return to older form:

• Watching Trading Places this evening for the first time in many, many years, I was reminded of an old thought: that the movie's best moments don't come from the obvious sources (Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd, or gorilla-on-man-gorilla love), but from Denholm Elliott as the butler Coleman.  He steals every scene he's in, and usually with just a lifted eyebrow here or a signed restraint there.  Most of you know Elliott by face if not by name.  He was Marcus Brody opposite Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones, and he was delightful comedic relief there, too.  Oddly, comedy was never one of his primary genres: he regularly played villains and characters broken or breaking on the inside.  If I can do anything today-- even more than nagging my compatriots to get out and vote-- it would be to encourage my readers to have a Denholm Elliott film night.  Check out his integral sadness in Woody Allen's otherwise languid September, or his sad alcoholism in The Defence of the Realm, or his protective paternality in Brimstone and Treacle.  In retrospect, he never did get to play the part I think he was meant to play, the cynical British correspondent Fowler from Graham Greene's The Quiet American.  Michael Caine eventually did it, about fifty years after Sir Michael Redgrave.  Neither quite got it.  Elliott, I know in my gut, would have-- brilliantly.
• The pending election has also had me thinking about delicious endings.  For reasons not entirely within my ken, novels seldom seem to me to end on the right note, to have one of those endings that one reads and says inwardly, "perfect."  I've read-- as most of you can imagine-- more novels than I can remember anymore, but one that sticks with me, like a memory of a first love, is from the oft-forgotten Evelyn Waugh novel A Handful of Dust.  I'm tempted to recount it here, but I won't.  The last sentence sounds like it should be sentimental, but it's not-- not in the least:  "There are passages in that book I can never hear without the temptation to weep."  In fact, it's brutal, vicious, and a death-sentence, literally and figuratively.  And it's perfect.  (There's actually a chapter of epilogue, but it's pure coda.)  One of my favourite endings, ever. 
• Irony:  in the film adaptation of A Handful of Dust (with James Wilby, Judi Dench, and Kristin Scott Thomas), that final speech is delivered by Sir Alec Guinness as the benevolently menacing Mr. Todd.  The novel to which Mr. Todd refers is Dickens' Little Dorrit, which when finally filmed starred (wait for it) Alec Guinness, as the debtor-patriarch William Dorrit.  Go figure.  Further irony: Denholm Elliott eventually took over from Guinness one of the latter's most lauded roles, George Smiley.  Even when I don't intend it, my thoughts sometimes seem as if they're within six degrees of Alec Guinness.
• Tuesday should be weird, with meetings and all, and my students will be watching It's A Wonderful Life.  You can only imagine my disbelief last week when I asked my students if they had seen the film before.  Only two had.  It makes me wonder about the kids these days. 
       BTW:  Jimmy Stewart starred in The Shootist with Lauren Bacall, who starred with Alec Guinness in A Foreign Field.  Damn....
• Odd background quote: "Things that are banging on their knees shouldn't be hanging out there."  Discuss and comment.
• The realization that I've now had Jenny, my character of a cat, for a year has caused me to think of something much more sombre.  I won't write about it here, or anywhere, but it strikes me that it would have been almost ten years.  I don't know what to think about this fact.  Actually, I do, but that's neither (as they say) here-nor-there. 
• People are in for a bit of a shock this week from the Not-So-Good Doctor.  We shall see what happens.  My students will probably react with something Linda-Blair-like--- hopefully sans pea soup.
• Many of the observations I had meant to post have now vanished into the recesses of what others might generously call my "brain."  (It doesn't qualify, except generously and/or glibly.)  Oy.
• This week is Robbie Burns' Day, or-- more appropriately-- Raaabbie Burrrrns Day.  I won't be near a computer to post here to celebrate it, so go read your Burns.  Don't just do the Scotch.  Do the Scotch, certainly.  But do the Burns, too. 

Tomorrow I have to read a paper on Sidney-- itself not a bad thing, at all-- save that I don't think I'll have anything to say beyond what has already been said about it by (cough, cough) a genuine Sidney man.  And I have somehow to find time, before week's end, to write a letter for a lass as she applies to a Canuckistani university.  Damn, damn, damn.  I'm a freaking idiot.  And a freaking idiot directed Star Wars, and it starred....

The Carrion Forecast

     Tomorrow's election day in Canada, and that fabled fat lady is about to sing, providing she doesn't swallow her epiglottis in rehearsal.  The Liberals are making their last protestations of relevance, the Tories their last blushes of coyness, while Rex Murphy sharpens his arsenal of aphoristic alliterations.  Layton, Martin and Harper are lurking in the wings, waiting to be summoned to the stage, and they all know one thing, that the fat lady won't be singing Verdi tomorrow, much to the fifth party's chagrin.  No, the playbill is promising Wagner, which usually means a long trip to Valhalla for the governing party.  (Just ask Kim Campbell.) 

 

     But wait--- let's think a bit before we let visions of metaphysical abattoirs dance in our heads, because that fat lady can be pretty temperamental and she might still surprise us.  Let's factor things through:

• With all the talk about the inevitability of a Conservative government, remember the first rule of politics, Sometimes it doesn't help to be in the lead.  With poll numbers favouring the Tories so heavily, there is the possibility that a number of Conservative swing voters won't bother dragging themselves to the polls, assuming their votes won't be needed.  This won't matter in neck-and-neck ridings like many of the ones in British Columbia, and it won't matter in ridings in Alberta that are foregone conclusions.  It may matter, though, in kinda blue ridings, where the Tory lead is just big enough to allow complacency and not large enough to survive it.  The Liberals are under siege, and their supporters more than ever are sure to vote.  The Dipper vote, where it is substantial enough, may spoil more matters than any strategists are expecting.  At this stage of the game, this is the Liberals' only hope, the "false surmise" (in Milton's phrase) of a Tory win.  This is a double-edged sword for the Grits, though, as some Toronto ridings may not be as safe as they have so far seemed. 
• The true indication of how things will turn out will emerge from Quebec.  The Tory infrastructure in la belle province isn't as established as the Liberal one, and this could spell problems there in terms of getting out the vote.  A party on election day is only as strong as its foot soldiers.  If, though, the Tories can win more than eight seats in Quebec, the Liberals may as well ready the boats and prepare themselves for a mass Norse funeral. 
• Ontario, contrary to public expectation, will be formative rather than decisive.  The Grits are being eaten from both sides outside of (and in a few cases, even inside of) Toronto, and the issue here is merely how many seats here will be chomped from the Liberal carcass.  The Tory support, where it exists, is crystallized, and the Dipper support, again where it exists, is stauncher than it has been since 1988.  For once, Ontario won't decide the result, but it will provide-- Zelda will like this-- the carrion forecast.  (By the pecking of their bones, / Something ticked-off this way comes?)
• British Columbia will decide the fate of the next government, although it seems that by the time the results start pouring in, the Liberal fate will have long-since been certain.  BC has a lot of three-way races, and a number of two-way races in which the Liberals are not contenders, and strength of the Tory win-- if it happens-- will be decided by its battles with the New Democrats on the West Coast.  This could prove the province of dark-horse victories and grand upsets, and electoral turn-out will be more crucial in BC than in any other province.  If the Dippers don't draw significant blood here, from both Tories and Grits, we could be looking at a majority government. 

In other words, it's going to be a late night tomorrow for those of us on the Eastern side of Manitoba, waiting to look upon the feast of Stephen.  Let us hope, too, that if the Tories win we can finally have a respite from the wretched wailing of Western injury we've endured for so long. 

     That's the election stuff, but elections are like bikinis and statistics in that what they reveal is often less interesting than what they conceal.  If the Liberals lose tomorrow night, the cries for blood within that party will be audible from Mongolia.  The real story may be in what the Grits do to themselves in consequence, beyond the obvious matters of leadership.  Liberals do not take well to being out of power, and some Liberals, looking to opt out of an age of internecine warfare, may well switch allegiances to the Tories or the Dippers.  Unless the Big Red Machine can miraculously turn things around, we may be looking at Mr. Martin's legacy, a party staring at its own wrists and seeing less flesh than red.  And frankly, that wouldn't bother me a bit.  The Liberals need to decide what they're really about-- beyond cynical hectoring and insidious fear-mongering. 

You Don't Say....

     Oh, gee, colour this blog surprised:

More than 50 percent of [American] students at four-year schools and more than 75 percent at two-year colleges lacked the skills to perform complex literacy tasks.

Don't worry, I'll spare all of you the rant you're surely expecting.  I will say this, though: any of my compatriots smugly entertaining the idea that this is just an American phenomenon should definitely think again.

Irony Note For All You 24 Fans Out There

     Ponder it:  David Palmer lasted only one term (four years) in office.  How many did he last on 24 before he had his neck blown out?  Four years-- and less than five minutes.  Coincidence?  Methinks not.  Besides, the former President has to go sell insurance now (ooh, the irony thickens!).  But, fans of the show, I encourage you to be angry, furious, livid, utterly outraged:  not only was he pegged off so easily and non-chalantly after so many previous attempts against him, but the producers of the show should at least have gotten the assassin right.  Knock him off with a nobody who's dead by the end of hour one?  Bah, humbug.  If you've been watching the show since the beginning, you know who should have killed him.  Right?  Right. 

 

     Now let's just hope our now rag-doll boy-brat gets killed off sooner rather than later-- and in a fashion suitable for a Sam Peckinpah movie. 

Five Minutes, Two Cheers, And An Involuntary Rrowwwr

     It's an old saw now, but Winston Churchill once famously said that "[t]he best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."  With the Canadian election just eight days away, The Star's Thomas Walkom went out and obviously had a few five minute conversations, and his article seems almost a mathematical proof of Churchill's claim.  Among the more perspicuous reasonings of those with votes?  I haven't forgotten Rae Days (apples and oranges), Maybe we should let them in so they can fall flat on their face and wreck us like Mike Harris did (oh, the civic responsibility!), and this one about Stephen Harper, which speaks volumes about the logical processes of some voters:  I don't trust Harper. For some reason, there's something about him. As a woman. He has this little smirky smile. I just don't like it.  (See also the equally insightful, There's just something about him.... It's not his looks.  There's just something about him.) 

 

     I try not to be an elitist snob, but I fear that reading this sort of thing brings out that part of me because the almost utter absence of logic astounds me.  You mean you're casting your vote on someone's smile?  On the memory of a government that has been out of power for ten years, which represented an entirely different form of government, and which was responding to an entirely different set of social and economical circumstances?  You're voting for someone in the hope he will fail so you can smugly aver how right you were about him?   Such people make me want to throw up my hands in frustration-- sometimes despair-- and ask them how they can possibly justify their rights to vote.  There are legitimate reasons to distrust or detest any and all of the parties, and there are equally legitimate reasons to champion or favour them.  This isn't a matter of partisanship.  It's about stupidity-- or, more accurately, it's about the fundamental laziness that manifests itself as stupidity because people don't want to do the brain-work required to make a coherent and defensible decision.  Check out the genius at the end of Walkom's article who has "read too many articles."  "I follow the crowd usually," he says.  Snort.  So do lemmings. 

 

     No wonder some of us get a little haughty under the collar, when some people respond to an election with the same depth of thought that Homer Simpson would at a movie festival.  (Gather ye footballs in the groin while ye may.)  Sometimes I think people should have to justify their votes in the same way that I have to justify my students' grades on individual assignments: to explain the reasoning, the criteria, and so forth; "showing your work," as they used to say in math classes.  It's not feasible, of course, and I'm sure the intellectual dullards would rant and rave about the value of "intuition" or some-such thing.  You'll forgive me, I hope, if I roll my eyes in anticipation of getting the government we deserve.  E.M. Forster once said that we should give two cheers for democracy, but not three, because two was all it deserved.  I, for one, will always hold back the third, and sometimes I want to hold back the second.  For every conscientious voter, there always seems to be one following the crowd. 

 

     Other brief political notes, with eight days left until this blasted thing is done: 

• Democratic Space has been attempting to project the probable results of the election, and they've adjusted their numbers for post-New Year's trends.  The numbers, if they bear out, are interesting:  Conservatives 133, Liberals 84, Bloc Quebecois 60, NDP 31.  The interesting number is the NDP one, because if the projection is close to what actually happens next Monday, means the Dippers will hold the balance of power.  It also means that the Liberals are in even deeper trouble than anyone may have thought (unless you're Doug Fisher).
• Irony alert:  The NDP, for its rally yesterday in Toronto, chose "Won't Get Fooled Again" as its theme song.  Oh, Jack, Jack, Jack: as the guy whose relevance is always being questioned, you do not-- DO NOT-- choose a song by The Who for your late-campaign mantra.  I believe it's called "tempting fate." 
• Add grain of salt: There are rumblings the Prime Minister may be in trouble in his own riding of LaSalle-Emard.  Frankly, I think this doubtful, but if he does lose it, he'll be the first sitting PM to lose his seat since Kim Campbell, who seems more and more to be Paul Martin's closest historical forerunner. 

Hehehe.... As I've been writing this, CBC Sunday Morning has begun an experiment in electoral speed-dating, with representatives from the national parties courting a quartet of supposedly undecided voters.  Andrea Horan, the representative of the Green Party, surprisingly, is quite the little cutie.  Rrowwwr....  Hmmm, maybe I should vote Green on Monday.  Hey, it's as good a reason as half the ones I've heard so far.  Hip hip hooray, hip hip hooray.

     UPDATE:  CBC Results:  2 NDP, 1 Conservative, 1 Green, 0 Liberal.  Glad the Green sweetie got a vote; I expected her to get shut out.  ;-) 

Let Your Fingers Do The Walking

     For those of you that have just been dying to stick it to the man....

He's The Same Boy He Used To Be

     No wonder he was given the position of "Government House Leader."  Harrumph. 

 

     None of this surprises me in the least.  Valeri has to my mind been one of the most vile members of the PM's inner circle, as evidenced so plainly two years ago in his gormless participation in the political assassination of the only-slightly less-detestable Sheila Copps.  Personally, I'll be elated if this scheming, self-aggrandizing Macchiavel is given a pink-slip next Monday.  And at least in Hamilton, that can happen without getting on the Harper bandwagon.  Thank heavens for minor mercies.

 

     (Ironically, last year, the Not-So-Good Doctor did some indirect, and very minor, copywriting work for the engineering company named in the article.  Go figure.  It's a small town after all....)

The Common Touch

     Heard recently in beer-flavoured conversation:  "Stephen Harper has become quite the tactile politician."  Oh really? Why, Stephen, we hardly knew....

 

     By the way, this blog hardly wants to get in the habit of remarking on the silly twists and turns of this election campaign, but the Liberal self-annihilation has been remarkable to watch.  Martin's decision to make the notwithstanding clause an issue in the leaders' debate has to have been the final act of seppuku.  What politician-- what person?-- of even miniscule intellect would want-- nay, dare-- to make the constitution an issue again?  Most of my compatriots would rather be sodomized with Pringles containers than tinker with the constitution again, the former being an agony that at least be over with sooner or later.  Martin can only hope that the press can verify that Stephen Harper eats babies, slowly and with a tangy orange sauce, if he's going to have even a chance at re-election.  Goodnight sweet Paul, and it's time to go (ba-doom-ba-doom)

I Think I Swam, I Think I Swam, I Think I Swam

      And oddly enough, it's not The Little Drunk Driver That Could....

 

      For the record, how inappropriate is it that Kennedy named his dog "Splash," considering the Mary Jo Kopechne incident? 

 

      (And, yes, I'm over-tired and procrastinating....  Duh....)

One Of These Things Doesn't Belong Here....

     Anyone remember Sesame Street?  Well, my readers, check out this list and see if you can figure it out.....

The Still Unwavering Eye: Layton Redux

      As promised in a comment here, RK has posted an entry on Irving Layton, along with the poems "Against This Death" and the wonderful "Berry Picking."  Go read them.  Please.  Consider it an act of defiance, if you must, of the ludicrous correctness that has spurned him for far too long.  And afterwards, let me know if you can tell the difference between contemporary "correctness" and old-fashioned philistinism, because, frankly, I can't. 

 

     FOLLOW-UP:  Or, rather, further reading.  Here is (arguably) Layton's most famous poem, and certainly a personal favourite:

 

The Cold Green Element (1940)

At the end of the garden walk
the wind and its satellite wait for me;
their meaning I will not know
           until I go there,
but the black-hatted undertaker

who, passing, saw my heart beating in the grass,
is also going there. Hi, I tell him,
a great squall in the Pacific blew a dead poet
           out of the water,
who now hangs from the city's gates.

Crowds depart daily to see it, and return
with grimaces and incomprehension;
if its limbs twitched in the air
           they would sit at its feet
peeling their oranges.

And turning over I embrace like a lover
the trunk of a tree, one of those
for whom the lightning was too much
            and grew a brillant
hunchback with a crown of leaves.

The ailments escaped from the labels
of medicine bottles and all fled to the wind;
I've seen myself lately in the eyes

             of old women,
spent streams mourning my manhood,

in whose old pupils the sun became
a bloodsmear on broad catalpa leaves
and hanging from ancient twigs,
            my murdered selves
sparked the air like muted collisions

of fruit. A black dog howls down my blood,
a black dog with yellow eyes;
he too by someone's inadvertence
             saw the bloodsmear
on the broad catalpa leaves.

But the furies clear a path for me to the worm
who sang for an hour in the throat of a robin,
and misled by the cries of young boys
             I am again
a breathless swimmer in that cold green element.

I should also point out that my earlier entry on Layton managed to find itself collected by a woman named Tara Gowland who put together a commemorative blog for Layton.  Nice-- very nice-- to see.   

 

     By the way, for the report on the funeral proceedings, just click this way. 

The Paper Chase

     Just a few brief notes from the Not-So-Good Doctor's already-cluttered desk:

• The NYT informs me that M.H. Abrams has decided to step down as General Editor of the Norton Anthology of English Literature.  It's a bit unfortunate that Abrams is retiring, though he's certainly earned the break.  More a cause for pause:  Stephen Greenblatt, New Historicist and Cultural Poeticist Extraordinaire, has been appointed to succeed him.  Greenblatt, for those of you not in the know, has caused me no end of migraines over the years, his propensity for the preposterous having effectively legitimated some of the grossest misreadings students and acolytes could fathom.  He's the one who made The Tempest a study of colonialism, and the Henriad a study in Machiavellian politics.  He also famously described The Taming of The Shrew as "a very chilling play," an assessment that's as obtuse as it is wispy.  I tremble to think what will become of the Norton (anecdotes, anecdotes!) under his tenure, but there is a hint of appropriateness, I guess, to his appointment: if you're going to continue the production of the granddaddy of paper-thin readings....
• Speaking of paper-thin readings, I remain quite behind on my marking, and the next day and change are will require me to make a sortie against the essays as bold and lunatic as the charge on Agincourt.  Sleep?  Sleep?  I don't need no stinking sleep..... (Zzzzzzz....)
• Monday evening is the English-language leaders debate, which, as dull as it will doubtlessly be, may be Must-See TV, if only to watch the Prime Minister protest that we shouldn't stick a fork in him yet.  The key will be whether or not Captain Canada can cow soft NDP voters (aka "New Timidcrats") into voting for him for fear of electing Stephen "Nobodaddy" Harper.  My gut says not this time.  The numbers really won't matter in relation to the Tories, the Grits, or the Bloc: they'll only matter in relation to the NDP, and whether or not they'll have enough seats to play kingmaker. 
• From the Oh, Jer... file:  Said to the Not-So-Good Doctor, for the umpteen-billionth time, over pints the other day:  What you need is a good woman.  (And all the fisher king needed was the grail.)  Thanks, Dr. Crane, I'll get right on that....
• Have actually been teasing through a premise for a new paper, based on an idea so obvious I'm almost surprised no one (to my checking) has actually proposed it.  Will have to discuss it with someone knowledgeable about Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate, and then find the time (oy vey) to sketch through a draft, but the paper should be relatively easy to put together.  We shall see.

But marking and Austen have, unfortunately, to come first.  The days ahead will be hectic.  So much for getting everything done in rough accordance with a schedule. 

The March of the Martinets

      Beyond the basic fact of my recent ennui with writing, I haven't written much (anything?) about the current federal election campaign.  My readers here that are not residents of Canuckistan are probably not aware that we are going to the polls for the second time in two years; they're also probably not aware that Canada more than anytime since 1993, seems ripe to make a significant political change. The once-unfathomable is beginning to seem possible-- not just the defeat of the Liberals, but the idea of a Tory-NDP proto-coalition that would allow Canadians to send the Libs to the woodshed for a widely-wanted ass-whooping.  The latter borders on being a lesson in mixology, and the collective bartender has to get things right: four parts right plus one part left seems to be the desired combination, like that of a large martini.  If so, you've got to love my countrypeople.  They've got a very, very dry sense of humour.

 

      I realize that I made a prediction like this at about this stage in the last election campaign, before the Tories managed to wrest defeat from the jaws of victory.  I realize, too, that I'm making this assertion before the debates to come next week.  Stephen Harper still has time to self-destruct; the Grits still have time to Chicken Little the country back into submission, perhaps, as Paul Wells wryly notes, by reminding Canadians of the possibility of Stockwell Day as Foreign Minister.  Who knows, Paul Martin might finally recover from that nasty case of cranial-glutimal ensconcement that has afflicted him since he not-so-solemnly set down his coronation.  But something seems to have happened over the Christmas hiatus, as if people over turkey and rye finally steeled themselves to a decision, and a major one at that.  And that, I think, is what makes this election different than the last one. 

 

      Set aside some of the other issues people are talking about (Harper not being as scary as he once seemed, a minor surge for the NDP, scandals great and small), because they all now seem to be subsidiary to the larger ballot question, one that the Liberals accidentally and unwisely encouraged.  The Liberals-- formerly Team Martin, a brand-name that died faster than New Coke-- didn't counter the cynicism that they helped so prominently to engender, a cynicism made worse and not better by the Prime Minister's mad-as-hell tour and his we're-the-best-you-can-do campaign strategy.  The Tories and the NDP haven't really had to articulate broad visions for Canada, and nor have they had to inspire people to vote for them.  They haven't had to.  Barring a major-- and I think now quite unlikely-- shift in the campaign, we know what the ballot question is.  It's not Who will best lead the country?  No, it's much more cynical, and yet oddly strategic, than that.  The question has become Can we afford to punish the Liberals?  The desire to do so has been lurking for some time, but over the break it seems that a majority of Canadians finally leaned towards, "Yes, I think we can."  No wonder so many are sniffing blood. 

 

      I think, though, we now know the shape of things to come, and Martin has effectively reduced himself and his party to being spectators in their own fates.  They've fundamentally lost control of the campaign in a way that hasn't happened since Kim Campbell soldiered her Tories into slaughter.  Monday night, I'm willing to bet, people watching the debate won't be paying Mr. Martin much attention.  They'll be thinking instead of the viability of a different political cocktail, even if it's the Prime Minister who  has ultimately been-- wait for it, you know it's coming-- shaken and not stirred. 

PoMological Discourse

     In the words of Homer Simpson, "it's funny because it's true...."

 

     For the record, I entered Graham Greene and Brighton Rock and got (among others):  "Notions as Mythos: Supplementing Orgasmic Oppression in Graham Greene's Brighton Rock" and "Seduction as Corpses: Nationalizing Female Corpses in Graham Greene's Brighton Rock."  And, gee, they didn't even use "diaspora."

The Aching And Triumphant Impeccability Of His Life (updated)

     Sad news:  Canadian poet Irving Layton passed away yesterday in Montreal.  In recent years, Layton had been suffering from Alzheimer's, a fate beyond cruelty for a man who was once one of this country's finest poetic minds.  He also taught for many years at the institution I rather shamefacedly describe as my employer, and in a department that now only rarely dares to mention, let alone teach, him in undergraduate courses.  Some of his poems are as good as any poet's of the twentieth-century, with "The Cold Green Element" and "The Birth of Tragedy" seeming to me especially powerful.  It seems appropriate, though, to commemorate Layton's passing with "Grand Finale," a poem sadly too ironic by half.  Here it is:

 

Grand Finale

 

I've seen the grey-haired lyrists come down from the hills;

they think because they howl with eloquence and conviction

the townspeople will forgive their disgraceful sores

and not care how scandalous and odd they look;

how vain their contrite blurtings over booze and women

or the senescent itch for the one true faith.

 

Not for me sorrowful and inglorious age

not for me resignation and breastbeating

or reverbing of guilts till one's limbs begin to tremble

and a man's brought to his knees whimpering and ashamed;

not for me if there's a flicker of life still left

and I can laugh at the gods and shake my fist.

 

Rather than howl and yowl like an ailing cat

on wet or freezing nights or mumble thin pieties

over a crucifix like some poor forsaken codger

in a rented room, I'll let the darkness come only when I

an angry and unforgiving old man yank the cloth of heaven

and the moon and all the stars come crashing down.

 

--- 1978

It's also worth glancing at this (rather old) article from The Toronto Star about Layton and his most famous mentee, Leonard Cohen. 

 

     UPDATE:  A better -- and lengthier-- obit from The Ottawa Citizen can be found here.

 

     UPPERDATE:  Zelda asked why Layton is so rarely taught in universities these days, and though in the comments I gave her a bit of a glib-shrug of a response, the answer is likely rooted in one of those "Oh-Gawd-shut-the-fark-up" lines of victimization.  From today's Hamilton Spectator's obit on Layton comes this putrid explanation from University of Toronto's Magdalene Redekop for why she opted not to teach Layton in her course on Canadian love poetry: "I decided that I simply couldn't tolerate teaching it, that it made my stomach turn, it was so sexist.  He was a profoundly sexist man, and relentlessly so."  Redekop, however, is quick to add her own holier-than-thou qualification:  "But for me as a feminist... to concede the poems of his that are fantastic is something."  Something for her, or something for him, pray tell? 

 

Regularly And Guiltily

      So 2006 has arrived, and with it a few changes for this blog, including a slightly different design, and a half-hearted decision to be at least slightly more vigilant about its maintenance.   I also, with some hesitation, decided that I'd see if there was a way I could make this blasted blog do something for me, so I surrendered to the temptation to allow Google to provide advertising links on the sidebar.   I suspect it'll be 2060 before those ads begin paying off, but I confess to being curious to see if there's an ounce of profit to be made.   So, kind readers, follow Google's links-- effusively, if you please, and click me to riches beyond my vague and limited imagination.  

      New Year's and Christmas have come and gone, Christmas as usual the languid fruition of a few weeks of frenzy, and New Year's Eve the typical gallivanting among alcohol-vending establishments.   Now I can return to being my shirty, cynical self, divested at long last of the niceties, and most of the imbibements, compulsory for the season.   Work awaits, naggingly: with my kids' exams marked, I now have to trudge through their forty-odd essays and, more laboriously, through Pride and Prejudice, which begins with one of the most pretentious and heavy-handed sentences in English literature ("It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife"), and so calls to mind the delicious homophony of the word "ostentatious."   Jane Austen, I'd continue to contend, is a pleasure like prostitution, better suited for those willing to pay for it, regularly and guiltily.

      Several of you out there, I know, are waiting for me to return calls or emails, and I promise to do so sooner or later.   In the interim, Happy New Year, everyone, and may this one be a damned sight better than the last one.