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Thank you!

Thank you ever so much Katrina!

I swear. I swear to all that read this page.

If gas prices go even one cent higher, I'm buying one of these deals here!

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in a human situation.
-- Graham Greene --
Have a great Wednesday!

It Angers Me!

Just a brief word here about something that angers me.
Actually, “angers me” is not the whole thing. “Makes me sick” is more like it. Also, saddens me. It sort of starts with anger though, so let’s stick with anger.
After work I am walking through the bookstore and I just happen to pick up the latest National Geographic off the rack and I leaf through it. (I am still in the store writing this, hence, I am not using the past tense). I am still looking at the picture that angers me and makes me sick and sad.
On my bookshelves I have a couple of miles of Geographics, all in the burgundy slipcases and everything. Since the early 1980’s. It is only a few years ago that I let my subscription lapse (I know... blasphemy!)... and I only did so because I found that even though I love the magazine, I was not actually reading it consistently enough to justify the cost of subscribing. (I am far too rational, I know). I figured if I really want to read it, I can read it occasionally in the store... like I am doing today.
If someone were to ask me what I think is the finest magazine in the world, I would probably say NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC.
So I am leafing through this latest issue, which features Africa. All manner of articles about the Wild Continent. The cover says “Whatever you thought, think again.”
Amazing pictures throughout the thing.... right up until I flip to the very last page, to that “Flashback” piece they always have. Usually a picture from the Archives, and a little explanatory blurb about it. So here is this picture, and I find it sort of nauseating (add that to my list of current ailments and psychological discomforts).
It shows a dead rhinoceros, laying there as it had fallen forward on its front knees, and behind it stands a goofy-hatted, bushy mustachioed, spectacled, Teddy Roosevelt. The butt of his rifle is jabbed into the rhino’s shoulder, and the barrel is pointing to heaven. Underneath this photo, it says “Teddy Roosevelt poses with a rhino he took down during one of the biggest trophy-hunting safaris ever mounted.”

Then the blurb:
Soon after leaving the U.S. Presidency in 1909, Theodore Roosevelt left for Africa. He’d pledged a “fine collection” of wildlife trophies to the Smithsonian Institution. Though his request for funding noted, “I am not in the least a game butcher,” thousands of animals were killed on his expedition. T.R. described his conquests in the January 1911 GEOGRAPHIC, where this rhino photo ran. “While a rhinoceros’s short suit is brains,” he wrote, “his long suit is courage. He is a particularly exasperating creature to deal with.” – Margaret G. Zackowitz, writing for GEOGRAPHIC –

The thing that angers me is that this majestic animal (and how many of them?) was shot and killed for sport. I mean, I am not sure what the point was, that GEOGRAPHIC (the January, 1911 issue) was making, with the publication of the story and the picture. Were they advocating sport-hunting? I don’t understand. I thought GEOGRAPHIC was against this sort of thing. In the world today, all five rhinoceros species are endangered, with three of these regarded as critically so.
Back in 1911, was rhino-murder considered to be OK?
I am going to find out. My friend has the entire GEOGRAPHIC on CD-Rom, and the next time I visit, I am going to locate this 1911 article. What did Teddy Roosevelt think he was doing?
No disrespect to the Roosevelts or whatever.... but looking at this picture makes me wish that this rhino would lurch onto its feet, stomp the gun to smithereens, and start chasing Mr. Roosevelt across the savanna in his soiled breeches!
If I had written the caption under this photo, I would have said:
Bravo, powerful human man with gun! Well done, big brave manly hunter!

Rhinoceroses are not even carnivorous! They eat leaves, twigs, grass, and stuff!
A robin eats more meat than a rhino!
Somehow this fact makes T.R. look even more ridiculous and pathetic, standing behind this murdered creature.

Can you imagine if the merely wounded rhino had chased T.R. down.... and afterward spoke of the adventure, in glowing terms, to all of his rhino buddies....
“While a de-gunned hunter’s short suit is courage, his long suit is speed. He is an exasperating creature to catch up to.”
_____________

Splash du Jour: Monday

The Preservationist is a novel that retells the Biblical story of the Flood and Noah’s Ark. The author is David Maine. I love this portion, spoken by the character of Ilya, daughter-in-law of Noah [or “Noe” as he is called by Maine]:
“Men are so amusing. Show them a pack of wolves, dominated by the males, and they will say, See? It is natural for men to rule. Fine. But produce a beehive, controlled by the queen, with males used for menial labor, and they protest, Human beings are not insects. Yes, well.”
Have a great Monday!

My Cat is Human.

I am totally convinced that my cat thinks human-ish thoughts. His eyes are too expressive.
When I quickly say his name for no reason, he snaps his neck around and instantly meows and there is a look on his face that is clearer than the human word “What?”
Often when I sit down to eat, I notice that Jack also decides that this is the time to saunter over to one of his two dishes (one containing real organically healthy expensive food and the other containing a high end version of feline junk food) and he begins eating too. Staring at me occasionally, peering up, nine times out of ten, above the junk food dish. (See? Just like a human!)
He likes to linger around my feet as I am brushing my teeth. So, I sort of rub his back with my foot and he just loves it, rolls around, halfways to heaven. But if I put my foot actually ON him at any time, he quickly looks up at me with those crazy blue eyes and clearer than the clearest human sentence he says with them

“Hey, that’s about enough of that!”
Or sometimes he seems rather telepathic. I’ve mentioned this before, I think, but when I get out of the elevator and walk towards my apartment door, he is right there at the door meowing, welcoming me home. But when my neighbor across the hall does the same thing and walks towards her door which is just across the hall, Jack does not meow. How does he know it is her and not me?
Another example is this though. If Jack is on the couch and I am merely walking towards him, all is well. But if I am walking towards him in order to grab him by the face and kiss him and rough him up, he instantly knows this and gets up and runs away. I am never sure if he is being merely heterosexually coquettish, or if he is really scared of me.
I think I see something human-like in his cat eyes.
Hmmm... perhaps he sees something cat-like in mine?

**********

Splash du Jour: Friday

Bradbury, on the Future:
People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it. Predicting the future is much too easy, anyway. You look at the people around you, the street you stand on, the visible air you breathe, and predict more of the same. To hell with more. I want better. (from "Beyond 1984: The People Machines")
Have a great Friday!

Answer the Question!

Just a few quick words here today about how people tend to not know how to answer questions.
This will sound like a rant, but it really isn’t a rant, I do not feel at all ranty about it or anything but it is really mysterious to me, and so I will say a few words about it and put it behind me, and move on with my life.
I live in this part of Canada that seems to be all in a proverbial knot about the fact that notorious killer Karla Homolka is now released from her prison term and trying to settle back into the outside world. Apparently, she chose to settle in Longueuil, Quebec, (basically a suburb of Montreal) using an alias and wearing sunglasses all over the place and generally (one would think) trying to stay away from the media, which is fairly hounding her every move, and trying to unearth her every whereabouts and whatabouts.
What I am going to be mentioning here today has very little to do with what should be done with Karla Homolka, I really do not have any staunch opinions about it, and (to be honest) I have not followed the story of it all very closely.
No, what I wanted to mention here is merely something about the response of ordinary citizens like you and I, something I saw on the news this morning.
They were interviewing people on the street.... Joe and Mary Average, you know?
And the question, asked to each and every person, was this: “Do you feel that there is too much coverage on the Karla Homolka story in the newspapers?”
Again, by way of context here, the question is being asked because in the past few days, Homolka sightings have dominated the newspaper pages. One day (I think it was Tuesday) most daily papers were featuring anywhere from 10 to 13 pages of pictures.... Homolka in the park with Maggie, her pet dog. Other shots of her conversing with a friend at a sidewalk café. Others of her speaking with her new employer. Pictures, pictures, pictures. Of course, the issue at hand is that her (now former) employer is claiming that she breached certain of her legal restrictions, and granted, this may (or may not) be the case. We have yet to find out which is which.
The point is.... the above question is that which was asked of these people on the street.
As I sipped my coffee and watched, almost on my way out the door to work, I was appalled at the fact that not even one person’s answer had anything to do with the question. They interviewed perhaps four or five people. The answers ranged anywhere from statements concerning how society was wronged by Homolka’s release from prison in the first place, to how unfair it is that she is allowed to live as a citizen on the outside nowadays, to how the entire trial was a real botched-up affair and now we (the rest of humanity) have to live with the consequences..... now, whether or not these things are true or not is not my point. What these folks were saying is relevant and provocative, and all of that.... but it is not an appropriate answer to the question, which was clearly stated to each person. “Do you feel that there is too much coverage on the Karla Homolka story in the newspapers?”
Can it be made any more point blank than that?
I kept watching and thinking.... “Answer the question!”
What were these people..... politicians? Running for office?
The fact that people are obviously hearing something different than the question asked is not even the worst part of my horror. The worst part is this..... their answers are accepted!
The interviewer does not steer them back to the question asked. They simply move on to the next person.
What I am getting at here is this:
If I were the chief editor (or whatever it is called) responsible for this particular piece of journalism, I would have hauled that interviewer into my office and sat them down and played this segment back to them over and over until they got my point. And the point would be thus:
YOUR SUBJECTS ARE NOT ANSWERING YOUR QUESTION!
How could the interviewer be pleased with these people’s “answers”?
THAT is what is a mystery to me!
[I guess this is sort of quickly degenerating into a bit of a rant, huh?]
Perhaps it is something that just comes down to different types of personalities.
I am of a somewhat precise personality when it comes to these sort of things. It bothers me when I ask someone something and they invent some sort of response that has little to do with my question. However, if they do this, I will at least steer them back to the original question. If I ask someone something, I have always framed the question fairly precisely and purposefully.
In a corollary sense, this is one area of my life (and there are few) where I practise what I preach. If I am asked a question, I will answer the question or else explain why I cannot answer the question. But I will not veer all over the place and forget about what was asked of me.
For what it’s worth, in today’s example, if I were one of the interviewed people on the street, I would have said the following:
“Yes, I feel that there is too much coverage of this thing in the newspapers. If she is currently doing something that is against the law, or harmful to the society in which she has been freed to roam, than yes, we should be made aware of that, with words and photos, if necessary. But I am not sure why we need to see ten pages of Karla walking her dog in a park, eating an ice cream cone, having a picnic, or trying to talk to someone at a café. The time for condemning her was back there at her trial, and we did so. If the penance inflicted at that time was not severe enough, that is the legal system’s fault, not Karla’s. Taking pictures of her every time she breathes in public and then publishing them for the world to see is just as much an invasion of privacy as if it were done of you and me.”

You may agree or disagree with my opinion. You may think I am wrongheaded about it. But the one thing you cannot do is say I have not answered the question.
_____________

Splash du Jour: Thursday

Bradbury, on the joys of Gaming:
Video games are a waste of time for men with nothing else to do. Real brains don't do that. On occasion? Sure. As relaxation? Great. But not full time -- And a lot of people are doing that. And while they're doing that, I'll go ahead and write another novel. (Salon.com, August 29, 2001)
Have a great Thursday!

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

Bradbury, on Cloning:
“Why would you clone people when you can go to bed with them and make a baby? C'mon, it's stupid.” (Salon Magazine, 2001)
Have a great Wednesday!

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Bradbury, on Censorship:
“...I discovered that, over the years, some cubby-hole editors at Ballantine Books, fearful of contaminating the young, had, bit by bit, censored some 75 separate sections from Fahrenheit 451. Students, reading the novel which, after all, deals with censorship and book-burning in the future, wrote to tell me of this exquisite irony.”
-- Ray Bradbury, 1979 --
Have a great Tuesday!

Rilke's "Black Cat"

After work, I walked through the bookstore, coffee in hand, and ended up in poetry.
It surprised me because they had moved it. The section I mean. It used to be on the other side of the store, and now is here, by the fireplace. So I picked out a book and read a really neat poem by Rainer Maria Rilke.
It is called...






Black Cat

A ghost, though invisible, still is like a place
your sight can knock on, echoing; but here
within this thick black pelt, your strongest gaze
will be absorbed and utterly disappear:

just as a raving madman, when nothing else
can ease him, charges into his dark night
howling, pounds on the padded wall, and feels
the rage being taken in and pacified.

She seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen
into her, so that, like an audience,
she can look them over, menacing and sullen,
and curl to sleep with them. But all at once

as if awakened, she turns her face to yours;
and with a shock, you see yourself, tiny,
inside the golden amber of her eyeballs
suspended, like a prehistoric fly.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke –
(translated by Stephen Mitchell)

Rilke (1875-1926), is considered one of the greatest lyric poets of modern Germany. He created the "object poem" as an attempt to describe with utmost clarity physical objects, and the "silence of their concentrated reality." In my opinion, the above poem is a prime (and successful) example of this style, in both its composition and effect. [Where is the reader that does not see and sense and know the cat in this poem, as presented?] Rilke believed in the coexistence of the material and spiritual realms, but human beings were for him only spectators of life, grasping its beauties momentarily only to lose them again. With the power of creativity an artist can try to build a bridge between two worlds, although the task is almost too great for a man. I only mention these points because I think they become relevant toward an understanding of what he is doing with this poem. Using something fairly describable (a cat) to awaken us to something mysterious, ineffable, perhaps even numinous.
The first two words (of the poem) immediately bring us to the numinous. To a place of “awe” (which is quite different than terror, or even fear.) We fear a loose tiger in a completely different way than we fear a ghost. We fear the tiger because of what is known about it. It can very much harm us. But we fear a ghost for an entirely opposite reason, specifically because of what is unknown about it. We do not know what it wants with us, nor how it can harm us, if at all. This is really “awe” moreso than fear.
Ghosts, when we see them, seem to acknowledge that we have done so. I have yet to hear of a (good) ghost story wherein the poltergeist was content with the idea of blandly staring at its trembling observer. There is an acknowledgment, a purpose (it seems) for the momentary lifting of the veil between the material and the spiritual world. And often the purpose is not just to terrify, but to impart something beneficial or otherwise revelatory, as in the case of the murdered King of Denmark who makes repeat appearances in Hamlet. What Rilke seems to be suggesting here is that even if the ghost remains invisible, there is still something tangible enough about that presence to constitute a sort of “echoing”.... then he contrasts this with what is going on within the “thick black pelt” of a cat, were the same gaze thrown upon it.
No echo here. Only absorption. Even a ghost would be more responsive.

Why black? Why must the poetic cat be black?
Interestingly enough, just today, in my reading of Simon Winchester’s book The Meaning of Everything: The Making of the Oxford English Dictionary, there was a footnote on p.171 mentioning the senior editor James Murray’s final definition of the word “black” (which proved to be a daunting word indeed.) Part of the conclusion was that “black” consisted “optically in the total absence of colour, due to the absence or total absorption of light, as its opposite white arises from the reflection of all the rays of light.”
Rilke very much wanted to stress this complete absorption of light, and so his cat must be black. The cat returns nothing, just as a sealed vault underground would yield nothing to our sight, though [“your strongest gaze”] our pupils dilate beyond their irises in the attempt.

In the next stanza, notice, this absorbent feature of the cat is likened to the padding of a wall, against which a lunatic pounds his fists. The energy he expends in doing so, is rewarded with relief. He is pacified. However, I think it is wrong to assume that Rilke is merely recommending a nice way to alleviate anger. What he seems to be building towards is the idea that in both instances, that of the first stanza and that of the second, something beneficial can be experienced even if the object of one’s dependence or desperation seems to be unresponsive or even inanimate.
He is not quite yet saying it, but I feel he is building towards saying it.

Third stanza: “She seems...” and quickly I ask “Why is she a she?” but as soon as I form the question I know that she needs to be a she, and I do not know why. The word “seems” is very important.
Seems.
Seems to hide all looks that have ever fallen into her...
Now she is an audience. An audience watches a performance, and most importantly, evaluates that performance. As soon as the presentation goes forth, it is taken by that audience, and the performer is never as vulnerable, as in that moment. The audience is in the seat of mercy and it is too late for anything to be otherwise. By the way, these were the arrangements and everyone knew this. Those who rehearsed, as well as those who bought tickets. It is the way things are. Not to belabor the point, but really, much could be said of this third stanza.... suffice it to say that the cat seems to be in an audience-like seat of judgement, presiding summarily over all that is tossed her way. Then the most important word of the entire poem arrives. In the second part of the fourth line of stanza three.
“But...”
But all at once, as if awakened....
The reader (in my opinion) should not de-emphasize the importance of that one word. It signifies that some of the previous surface assumptions are about to be negated, or at least re-organized a bit, and that what has seemed to be taking place thus far will be explained along the lines of another possibility.
There is no other place to go after the word “but” has been deployed.
In other words.... tell us “but” what?
Well, Rilke tells us that she turns her face to yours.
Now you are the ghost, the apparition upon which the black cat’s sight "knocks", and it is your turn to acknowledge that you are being seen.
She has been, and is, more aware of you than you may know. More sentient than you have fathomed her to be. You do not know this, but you feel it, and this is why you are shocked and humbled when you look into those eyes.
I find it rather difficult to elaborate upon the specific thing that I believe this poem to be emphasizing (for me)... but I would describe it best by noting the following [forgive me for using the words “we” and “us” in this delineation, I know not how else to do it]:
Never, while we gazed upon the cat, was the cat shocked, to be so observed. In fact, the cat was as absorbent and indifferent as the color black!
However, when the cat turned and gazed upon us, we were.
We were shocked.

Why?
And why, in the reflection of those amber eyes de we see ourselves as small.... not only a fly, but a “prehistoric” fly? Is it because the cat’s wisdom is as ancient as human pre-history, and ours is more recent? Is there something to be learned from the gaze of a cat?
I think there is. Very much so, there is.
At this point here, I will repeat what was formerly noted above, about the poet: Rilke believed in the coexistence of the material and spiritual realms, but human beings were for him only spectators of life, grasping its beauties momentarily only to lose them again.
This was a moment when the beauty was temporarily grasped.
The rest is mystery, and rightfully so.

Praise the world to the angel: leave the unsayable aside.
Your exalted feelings do not move him.
In the universe, where he feels feelings, you are a beginner.
Therefore show him what is ordinary, what has been
shaped from generation to generation, shaped by hand and eye.
[from, The Ninth Elegy]

Here, Rilke shows the angel... a cat.
__________

Splash du Jour: Monday

On this day, August 22nd of 1920, playwright, poet and prolific author extraordinaire Ray Bradbury was born in Waukegan, Illinois. Commenting on individualism, he maintains: “the power of any country is the sum of the total of its individuals. Each individual rich with ideas, with concepts, rich with his own revolution.”
Here (below) is a little something he said, with typical youthful optimism and humor, a week following his 82nd birthday, in 2002:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!
By
RAY BRADBURY
Last week I turned 82. 82! When I look in the mirror, the person staring back at me is a young boy, with a head and heart filled with dreams and excitement and unquenchable enthusiasm for life. Sure, he's got white hair -- so what! People often ask me how I stay so young, how I've kept such a "youthful" outlook. The answer is simple: Live a life in which you cram yourself with all kinds of metaphors, all kinds of activities, and all kinds of love. And take time to laugh -- find something that makes you truly happy -- every day of your life. That is what I have done, from my earliest days.

In honor of this great writer of such novels as Fahrenheit 451 and The Martian Chronicles and about a million short stories, ALL WEEK LONG I will be featuring Bradbury quotations. He is a still living (as far as I can ascertain) literary legend!
Have a great Monday!

"From the Ox's Mouth"

I am currently in the midst of reading the book pictured here, Simon Winchester’s The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.
This book is wonderfully written and wildly interesting. It is really a history not only of the monumental Oxford, (commonly known as The OED) but also of the predecessors.... Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, Noah Webster’s, and Charles Richardson’s. All of these were a phenomenal feat in themselves, and each unique.... but none were of the magnitude of the Oxford, which would exceed its own completion deadline by quite a few decades. It was projected to take ten years. It took fifty-four. It was estimated to contain 7,000 pages. It ended up being 16,000.
The cost of production was 33 times what was forecasted, at its outset. (Makes one wonder if this was perhaps a government-funded project, but no, it was not.)
Today, the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd Edition) is a 20-Volume shelfbender, weighing in at a whopping 150 pounds! It contains 21,728 pages and defines over half a million words, meticulously tracing the usage, meaning, and history of each word from 1150 AD to the present day (well, 1989 actually)... and contains over 2.4 million illustrative quotations.
Truly, and I mean TRULY..... I want these things.
CD Rom be damned. [Even though the “search-engine” function would be pretty cool...]
I want the books.

So.... a wonderful dovetailing of events took place today as I was sitting at Chapters drinking my own body weight in coffee and reading this Winchester book, when over the PA system is announced:

“From The Ox’s Mouth”
Secrets And Lies From The World of Dictionaries.

Have you ever pondered the mysterious world of the dictionary?
Have you ever asked such questions as:
Why are there so many dictionaries?
Big vs. Small: What’s In, What’s out?
How did the Oxford Dictionary evolve?
For some lively answers please join us as Brent Starling from Oxford University Press is here at Chapters to answer your questions. There will be discussions at 3 p.m. and 5 p.m.

Needless to say, I just attended the 3 p.m. version of the above event.
It was grand. I was salivating.
Mr. Starling was very informative, and I asked all manner of questions, including one about my own previously venerated Funk & Wagnalls 2-Volume dealie that I have used and relied upon for ages. [See my blog, entitled “Dictionary Porn” in the archives section: May 1st, 2005].
Brent makes me even more convinced that I need to switch horses.
I want the OED.
I want it I want it I want it.
And he (this is the inside scoop folks).... he informs me in a bit of a tete a tete after-discussion, that in the year 2010, a completely new edition is coming out...... it will probably be somewhere around 24 volumes..... containing all of the zillions of words created in the 90’s and the new century.... you know... the words we dare not live without understanding.... like... “bling-bling” and “blog” and “hilaryduff” and stuff!
So I am setting my sights. Starting a fund. Please, if you would like to contribute to this non-profit enterprise, let me know....
I want it I want it I want it.
__________

Splash du Jour: Friday

When I carefully consider the curious habits of dogs,
I am compelled to admit
That man is the superior animal.

When I consider the curious habits of man,
I confess, my friend, I am puzzled.

-- Ezra Pound --

Have a great Friday!

Just a little C & E.

I got myself onto this blogpage by flaunting my strong points!

CUTENESS & ENTHUSIASM

Splash du Jour: Thursday

The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the west garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
-- Ezra Pound --

Have a great Thursday!

Swenson's Nosty Fright.

The other day I put an e.e. cummings poem in the bookpuddle, as an example of an ideogram, a poem that is meant to be seen moreso than read aloud.
Since that time I have come across a poem that utilizes very nearly the opposite idea. It is a whimsical poem that seems to be written exclusively for the sake of the amusing sounds it makes if read aloud. The poet is May Swenson, and her poem is entitled A Nosty Fright. According to critic Harold Bloom, Swenson ranks with Marianne Moore and Elizabeth Bishop as one of the three best women poets of the twentieth century. She passed away in 1989.
The poem, its sounds are delicious. Reading it is a real hoot!
At just the right moments, Swenson has transposed letters to create amusing sounds and wild, inventive wordplays. The result is, in my omble hupinion, shothing nort of rilharious!

A Nosty Fright

The roldengod and the soneyhuckle,
the sack eyed blusan and the wistle theed
are all tangled with the oison pivy,
the fallen nine peedles and the wumbleteed.

A mipchunk caught in a wobceb tried
to hip and skide in a dandy sune
but a stobler put up a EEP KOFF sign.
Then the unfucky lellow met a phytoon

and was sept out to swea. He difted for drays
till a hassgropper flying happened to spot
the boolish feast all debraggled and wet,
covered with snears and tot.

Loonmight shone through the winey poods
where rushmooms grew among risted twoots.
Back blats flew betreen the twees
and orned howls hounded their soots.

A kumkpin stood with tooked creeth
on the sindow will of a house
where a icked wold itch lived all alone
except for her stoombrick, a mitten and a kouse.

“Here we part,” said the hassgropper.
“Pere we hart,” mipchunk, too.
They purried away on opposite haths,
both scared of some “Bat!” or “Scoo!”

October was ending on a nosty fright
with scroans and greeches and chanking clains,
with oblins and gelfs, coaths and urses,
skinning grulls and stoodblains.

Will it ever be morning, Nofember virst,
skue bly and the sanppy hun, our friend?
With light breaves of wall by the fayside?
I sope ho, so that this oem can pend.

-- May Swenson --

Splash du Jour: Wednesday

So far as I am concerned, poetry and every other art was and is and forever will be strictly and distinctly a question of individuality... poetry is being, not doing. If you wish to follow, even at a distance, the poet’s calling (and here, as always, I speak from my own totally biased and entirely personal point of view) you’ve got to come out of the measurable doing universe into the immeasurable house of being... Nobody else can be alive for you, nor can you be alive for anybody else. Toms can be Dicks and Dicks can be Harrys, but none of them can be ever be you. There’s the artist’s responsibility; and the most awful responsibility on earth. If you can take it, take it – and be. If you can’t, cheer up and go about other people’s business; and do (or undo) till you drop.
-- e.e. cummings, on the artist’s responsibility, from i: Six Nonlectures --
Have a great Wednesday!

Posh, The Bookless Babe!

In the tradition of true confessions that should never be actually spoken.... I am going to admit that I actually like (liked) The Spice Girls.
I found them to be very.... spicy.
I’m not kidding. I really like several of their songs, and I have every one of Mel C.’s solo CD’s.
[She was Sporty Spice. For the record, I am secretly pseudo in-love with her and Andrea Corr...]
So it was with a touch of chagrined Literary Horror that I read a little blurb in the paper today about Victoria Beckham, a.k.a. Posh Spice (pictured here in all of her red-hot spiciness).
She claims she has never read a book.
Did you hear me?
She has never splashed in bookpuddles?
I am so......... disillusioned.
I am not kidding, she told a Spanish journalist she prefers magazines and music even though she has her name on the cover of one autobiography.
According to the Daily Mail she said: "I haven't read a book in my life. I haven't got enough time. I prefer to listen to music, although I do love fashion magazines."
In the interview with Chic magazine she also revealed she would like to have more children - and is hoping to have a girl.
She said: "I can imagine myself painting her nails, helping her with her make-up, choosing clothes with her."
[I guess we can rule out the image of Mommy Posh reading Antoine De Saint-Exupery’s The Little Prince to Child-Posh while daddy does that thing where you bounce soccer balls from knee to knee and shoulder to shoulder?]

Splash du Jour: Tuesday

Books won't stay banned. They won't burn. Ideas won't go to jail. In the long run of history, the censor and the inquisitor have always lost. The only sure way against bad ideas is better ideas. The source of better ideas is freedom. The surest path to wisdom is liberal education.
-- Alfred Whitney Griswold –
Have a great Tuesday!