Nature the 9th Edition: plnats and other things that sprout

Geography, mythology, ornithology, archeology, philosophy, epistemology, aesthetics, art, science, food and food preparation, fish and fowl and insects, astronomy, astrology, books even! And while we weren't looking, poetry snuck up on us all over the place.

And, still our twin sibling, if you have pix to down-, up-, or offload:

Nature etc. etc.: photography

http://www.librarything.com/topic/95490

Kinda roomy in here!

I like that, Tani: kinda roomy. A visual remark. We don't get much of that around here.

Well, I guess the prospect of losing money has so excited me that it got me up extra early this morning. Since I'm here, might as well look for a poem ... be back in a minit.

1836 Horse Race

On the thirtieth day of May,
A race was run for money they say
Between two horses of great speed
And down in excellent time indeed.

The people, they collected around
The Union Course of Jamaca town
The wind did blow, the dust did fly
And there collected in every one’s eye

Tis true it rained the day before
No matter for that the rain was oer
Across the water people did glide
To see the speedy horses tried.

About One O’Clock of that day
The horses appeared in splendid array
Walking proudly across the turf
Both steeds of equal birth

Post-Boy was the Northern horse
Trained upon the Union Course
His large and gallant opponent indeed
Named John Bascomb the Southern steed

The two great steeds were led up and down
No doubt, saw the people standing round
Their heads well up, eyes wide open
No doubt saw the people’s motion

Horses then to show their pride
Walked down with keepers at their side
John Bascomb a sorel light
Post-Boy was a sorel bright

The keepers then threw off the dress
Well they knew the race to test
The drum was sounded by the judge
Pompously went up both the studs

The riders then mounted the word go
Away went like an arrow from a bow
They, appeared as, they went around
As if they never touched the ground

Bascomb won the first and second heat
Enough to prove Post-Boy’s defeat
Taking in the knowing Northerners
By the witty minded Southerners

Seven forty-nine the first heat won
Bascomb won the second also in fifty-one
The two greatest horses ever run
Excepting Old Eclipse and Henry Young

Isaac Dyckman

Lotta amateurs on today's card, aka "maidens." And New York breds at that, which means they can't run a lick:

http://www.equibase.com/premium/eqbRaceEntriesDisplay.cfm?TRK=SAR&CY=USA&amp...

Today's Feature Race
Purse $49,000, fillies and mares 3 years old and up, one mile, inner turf course, w. morning line odds

1 Unique Citizen 8-1
2 Hooked On Hope 7-2
3 Olive Eye 12-1
4 Cover Story 4-1
5 Princess Maura 3-1
6 Zapparition 12-1
7 E Z Passer 5-1
8 Holy Moment 6-1

Also Eligibles, dirt track only (if it happens to rain):

9 Daily Star 3-1
10 Lady Etienne 4-1
11 Tribeca 8-1
12 Spring Elusion 5-2

And I'm off!

The satellite picture shows no weather in the area. I don't see any weather in the sky. But the tops of the trees are moving gently.

Robert

8 - win anything?

A breezy day up here with winds at about 10-15mph. And, pleasantly, not as hot as yesterday (you know the kind, so hot when you walk outside it's like walking into an oven) All in all a very nice day. This weekend, weatherman says it will be partly cloudy with highs in the upper 60s... Yeppers, Autumn is not far off. Would be nice if we had an Indian Summer to make up for last Spring, though. (hint hint, weather gods)

11: It would be nice if we had an Indian Summer to make up for this so-called summer, as well. About 2 weeks of decent summer weather and the rest of the time it was friggin' cold. I am not talking to the weather gods right now, so can you please take a message?

I'll get right on that... ;-)

>10 janemarieprice:. Jane, I was hoping no one would ask, and then you went ahead and did. Having set up this day on the thread with a poem, the racing card, the feature race and morning line odds, I set sail for Albany (not the one in Oregon, of course, pdxers and La Piners, but in New York State). Why? you ask. Because the missus had an appointment with the foot doctor, after which we were to hie farther north to Saratoga Springs. (The missus has feet that would make even Fats Waller blanch.)

Anyway, by the time she limped out, my mind had been working overtime, debating with itself over two-year-old maidens that no one knows a true thing about, the crowds at the venerable track, the overpriced food, out of which I thought: Am I a slave to old habit, or a functioning human being? And decided: No! I don't have to go to the track merely because I do every year. I will go someplace else!

Sheepishly, I told the missus what I'd been thinking, and she replied, "I like Belmont better anyway." She is in fact an agreeable sort. "At least there you don't have to pay for the seats." Which is true.

So, since we weren't far as the crow flies, we went east instead of north, ate lunch in a diner in Hoosic Falls that claims to have invented pie a la mode, then continued on into the Berkshires, to North Adams, Massachusetts, home to the Museum of Contemporary Art, known as Mass MOCA ... where we looked at huge installations forged with wire strands and muslin (someone mentioned muslin yesterday, in connection with a mosque), as well as a thorough retrospective of four decades of work by Sol Lewitt, and lost only the stiff price of admission, instead of losing parimutuel tickets.

So, to answer your question, I didn't exactly win anything, but I didn't lose as much as usual.

Sounds like a fabulous day well spent, betting on horses or not, Piero! And slick, did you notice? wrote an exceptional concise and precise summary of your debut autobiographical novel, I Think, Therefore Who Am I?

----------------------------------------------

I'd like to share a poem from my adviser at Chapman University, the poet, the late Terri Brint Joseph:

Walking: Beirut and Paris, 1974 - 1987

1974

I had taken this walk so often
I knew every paving stone by heart:
Straight down rue Mahatma Gandi,
Past the Grand Mosque where
Shy students chanted the Koran,
And then Mustafa at Sidani suk
Who'd smile and say, "Good morning
Marhaba."

I was always glad to reach
The little Turkish palace
Amid the new apartment buildings
And loved for being different
The palace's three arched windows
And orange tree in the garden.

I would pause at the corner
of Bliss Street,
Turning away from the university
For my first glimpse of the sea,
And to the east: Blue mountains
ridged with snow.

It was so familiar
I had almost become inured
To the sight of the lighthouse
Rising sharply from cliffs
And the sea spread suddenly
Around me on three sides.

But this time,
Beside you,
Crossing the Corniche,
I saw it as if for the first time,
Startled by its beauty.

A few yards into the sea,
We discovered a curious grotto,
half-filled with restless water.
As you watched, silent,
I sat on its mossy ledge
And seemed to breathe the sea itself
As if crashed about us.

You spoke at last,
But your words were caught by the wind
And I by a fresh vision of your face.

Your skin seemed textured as the cliffs
Which rose above you:
Your eyes took on a greenish cast
Straight from the sea.

I was mostly silent
(10,000 words between us;
And what had they accomplished?
We love--or we persisted--
In spite of what we'd said).

But I did say as we rose to go
That though I'd taken this walk before,
in many weathers,
in many moods,
Until today, I had lacked a companion.
You smiled, but as usual,
Did not address my loneliness.

And -- how sad for both of us
That I must write this line --
You never again
Accompanied me on this walk,
And I did not know how to ask.

1987

Now, more than a decade later,
Beirut lies in shambles,
The Corniche one of her worst battle zones,
And we?

After our own civil war,
We are expensively divorced,
And following separate paths.
Each of us end up sojourning
In Paris, where we bumped into
each other
On your forty-ninth birthday,
In the eglise St. Germain-de-Prés.
Although I declined to give you
my address,
I trust we will heal
More quickly than torn Beirut.

..............................

For more of Terri, see my page: Tribute: Terri Brint Joseph

Thanks for that, Brent. You clearly are a man of deep feeling and abiding loyalty ♥ (just pulling your chain).

A glimpse of the exhibit I saw yesterday:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/798868@N23/

14 - Wonderful! I really need to get out to Mass MOCA. Sol Lewitt is one of my favorite artists, and I see they also have a Petah Coyne exhibit going on right now. I left pictures on the photography thread.

POD OF THE MILKWEED

Calling all butterflies of every race
From source unknown but from no special place
They ever will return to all their lives,
Because unlike the bees they have no hives,
The milkweed brings up to my very door
The theme of wanton waste in peace and war
As it has never been to me before.
And so it seems a flower's coming out
That should if not be talked then sung about.
The countless wings that from the infinite
Make such a noiseless tumult over it
Do no doubt with their color compensate
For what the drab weed lacks of the ornate.
For drab it is its fondest must admit.
And yes, although it is a flower that flows
With milk and honey, it is bitter milk,
As anyone who ever broke its stem
And dared to taste the wound a little knows.
It tastes as if it might be opiate.
But whatsoever else it may secrete,
Its flowers' distilled honey is so sweet
It makes the butterflies intemperate.
There is no slumber in its juice for them.
One knocks another off from where he clings.
They knock the dyestuff off each other's wings -
With thirst on hunger to the point of lust.
They raise in their intemperance a cloud
Of mingled butterfly and flower dust
That hangs perceptibly above the scene.
In being sweet to these ephemerals
The sober weed has managed to contrive
In our three hundred days and sixty-five
One day too sweet for beings to survive.
Many shall come away as struggle-worn
And spent and dusted off of their regalia,
To which at daybreak they were freshly born,
As after one-of-them's proverbial failure
From having beaten all day long in vain
Against the wrong side of a windowpane.

But waste was of the essence of the scheme,
And all the good they did for man or god
To all those flowers they passionately trod
Was leave as their posterity one pod
With an inheritance of restless dream.
He hangs on upside down with talon feet
In an inquisitive position odd
As any Guatemalan parakeet.
Something eludes him. Is it food to eat?
Or some dim secret of the good of waste?
He almost has it in his talon clutch.
Where have those flowers and butterflies all gone
That science may have staked the future on?
He seems to say the reason why so much
Should come to nothing must be fairly faced.

from IN THE CLEARING (1963)
by Robert Lee Frost

Discrimination

I don’t mind the human race.
I’ve got pretty used to them
In these past twenty-five years.
I don’t mind if they sit next
To me on streetcars, or eat
In the same restaurants, if
It’s not at the same table.
However, I don’t approve
Of a woman I respect
Dancing with one of them. I’ve
Tried asking them to my home
Without success. I shouldn’t
Care to see my own sister
Marry one. Even if she
Loved him, think of the children.
Their art is interesting,
But certainly barbarous.
I’m sure, if given a chance,
They’d kill us all in our beds.
And you must admit, they smell.

Kenneth Rexroth

ON A BIRD SINGING IN ITS SLEEP

A bird half wakened in the lunar noon
Sang halfway through its little inborn tune.
Partly because it sang but once all night
And that from no especial bushs's height,
Partly because it sang ventriloquist
And had the inspiration to desist
Almost before the prick of hostile ears,
It ventured less in peril than appears.
It could not have come down to us so far,
Through the interstices of things ajar
On the long bead chain of repeated birth,
To be a bird while we are men on earth,
If singing out of sleep and dream that way
Had made it much more easily a prey.

from A FURTHER RANGE (1936)
ROBERT LEE FROST

On Being Twenty-six

I feared these present years,
The middle twenties,
When deftness disappears,
And each event is
Freighted with a source-encrusting doubt,
And turned to drought.

I thought: this pristine drive
Is sure to flag
At twenty-four or -five;
And now the slag
Of burnt-out childhood proves that I was right.
What caught alight

Quickly consumed in me,
As I foresaw.
Talent, felicity—
These things withdraw,
And are succeeded by a dingier crop
That come to stop;

Or else, certainty gone,
Perhaps the rest,
Tarnishing, linger on
As second-best.
Fabric of fallen minarets is trash.
And in the ash

Of what has pleased and passed
Is now no more
Than struts of greed, a last
Charred smile, a clawed
Crustacean hatred, blackened pride—of such
I once made much.

And so, if I were sure
I have no chance
To catch again that pure
Unnoticed stance,
I would calcine the outworn properties,
Live on what is.

But it dies hard, that world;
Or, being dead,
Putrescently is pearled,
For I, misled,
Make on my mind the deepest wound of all:
Think to recall

At any moment, states
Long since dispersed;
That if chance dissipates
The best, the worst
May scatter equally upon a touch.
I kiss, I clutch,

Like a daft mother, putrid
Infancy,
That can and will forbid
All grist to me
Except devaluing dichotomies:
Nothing, and paradise.

Philip Larkin

A good thing old Larkin gave up his fiction for poetry. A good thing.

A theme of the day, you might say: the parlous twenties. How did I get back there? I wonder.

Wait ... it's coming back to me. It was, as usual, Mr.Durick aka Robert's fault.

DISILLUSIONMENT OF TEN O'CLOCK

The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.

Wallace Stevens

Heat coming back in some places, to annoy or delight, depending. But here upstate, and I suspect in Sandy's realm and Mr. Durick's, morning and night temps have been reasonable, and no doubt will continue to be. The sun rules now, you might say; or else it doesn't.

Today's and tomorrow's highs in selected locales:

New York City 93 95
Houston 93 95
Tampa 91 91
Little Rock 91 90
Taipei 91 90
Toledo 90 92
Denver 90 92
Chicago 90 90
Detroit 90 90
Atlanta 81 85
Los Angeles 75 73
London 67 67
Portland, Ore. 66 64
Sydney, Aus. 64 66
Brussels 61 61

HARK, NOW EVERYTHING IS STILL

Hark, now everything is still;
The screech owl and the whistler shrill
Call upon our dame aloud,
And bid her quickly don her shroud.
Much you had of land and rent;
Your length in clay's now competent,
A long war disturbed your mind;
Here your perfect peace is signed.
Of what is 't fools make such vain keeping?
Sin their conception, their birth weeping,
Their life a general mist of error,
Their death a hideous storm of terror.
Strew your hair with powders sweet,
Don clean linen, bathe your feet,
And, the foul fiend more to check,
A crucifix let bless your neck.
'Tis now full tide, 'tween night and day,
End your groan and come away.

John Webster (1580-1625)

SONG

Go and catch a falling star,
Get with child a mandrake root,
Tell me where all past years are,
Or who cleft the Devil's foot,
Teach me to hear mermaids singing,
Or to keep off envy's stinging,
And find
What wind
Serves to advance an honest mind.

If thou beest born to strange sights,
Things invisible to see,
Ride ten thousand days and nights,
Till age snow white hairs on thee,
Thou, when thou return'st, wilt tell me
All strange wonders that befell thee.
And swear
Nowhere
Lives a woman true and fair.

If thou find'st one, let me know,
Such a pilgrimage were sweet;
Yet do not, I would not go,
Though at next door we might meet;
Though she were true when you meet her,
And last till you write your letter,
Yet she
Will be
False, ere I come, to two, or three

John Donne (1572-1631)

My buddy Gene hasn't been seen around here in a while. Maybe I can coax him onto the sports thread, to talk about his beloved football (American style). Certainly he'll frown when he sees what I entered on that dormant thread: more basketball!

http://www.librarything.com/topic/88962

Sunday night. 7:08pm. Still boiling hot. The just about as hot breeze, no relief. Is it summer's last gasp? Wishful thinking.

#28 - summer's last gasp? No, not yet! It's still August, hot, slow-moving, garden-ripening, sweet corn eating AUGUST! The last month for sleeping in the back yard in tent and/or sleeping bags. The month of loud,clamorous insects. The month schools are beginning to open. We don't want summer to end yet, do we? Think about remembering these thick humid nights in Jan. or Feb.
It's already getting dark a bit earlier. Not so many fireflies. Swallows gone south already.Bare spots in the lawns.
Can't we just ease into Fall? Even with Friday night high school football games already started? Nagging the kids about their homework.
Gasp away, summer, I'm not ready to say good-bye.

I'm not wishing Summer away, MV, really. All those things you mention are wonderful. You have a poet's feel for Summer.

Yes, yes, I remember now, Marion. Not yet, not yet! The way the racket of the crickets comes slower now; bittersweet harbinger.

Monday morning: It takes the day a while to warm up. The crickets create a placid rhythm against the higher-pitched constancy of some other insect. Back in the woods, something, a bird probably, makes a steady popping sound, like a metronome.

Crab

When I eat crab, slide the rosy
rubbery claw across my tongue
I think of my mother. She'd drive down
to the edge of the Bay, tiny woman in a
huge car, she'd ask the crab-man to
crack it for her. She'd stand and wait as the
pliers broke those chalky homes, wild-
red and knobby, those cartilage wrists, the
thin orange roof of the back.
I'd come home, and find her at the table
crisply unhousing the parts, laying the
fierce shell on one side, the
soft body on the other. She gave us
lots, because we loved it so much,
so there was always enough, a mound of crab like a
cross between breast-milk and meat. The back
even had the shape of a perfect
ruined breast, upright flakes
white as the flesh of a chrysanthemum, but the
best part was the claw, she'd slide it
out so slowly the tip was unbroken,
scarlet bulb of the feeler—it was such a
kick to easily eat that weapon,
wreck its delicate hooked pulp between
palate and tongue. She loved to feed us
and all she gave us was fresh, she was willing to
grasp shell, membrane, stem, to go
close to dirt and salt to feed us,
the way she had gone near our father himself
to give us life. I look back and
see us dripping at the table, feeding, her
row of pink eaters, the platter of flawless
limp claws, I look back further and
see her in the kitchen, shelling flesh, her
small hands curled—she is like a
fish-hawk, wild, tearing the meat
deftly, living out her life of fear and desire.

Sharon Olds

AMONG SCHOOL CHILDREN

1
I WALK through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and history,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way - the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.

11
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire, a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy -
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.

111
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t'other there
And wonder if she stood so a that age -
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler's heritage -
And had that color upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.

1V
Her present image floats into the mind -
Did Quattrocento finger fashion it
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat?
And I though never of Ladaean kind
Had pretty plumage once - enough of that,
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of scarecrow.

V
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of its birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?

V1
Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghastly paradigm of things;
Soldier Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard;
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.

V11
Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate the mother's reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts - O Presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolize -
O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;

V11
Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can you know the dancer from the dance?

from THE TOWER (1928)
William Butler Yeats

Good Gawd! It's a rain/mix of snow out there right now! August 30th, my ass!

>33 Porius:. Old man looking back, or one who thinks himself old: sounds more than familiar.

>34 highdesertlady:. I would commiserate, Tani, but (a) I try not to ever apologize for nature, and (b) all your kvelling about living in the absolute bestest place in the universe deserves a reality jolt now and then.

I abhor reality checks! ;-p

Meanwhile, it's hot, hot, hot over here.

Here's the upcoming forecast where I am, Jane:

Tuesday: High: 94°
Wednesday: High: 95°
Thursday: High: 91°

You'll probably be hotter, and more than likely more humid (it's pretty dry here now). Then rain on Friday, as the nor'easter/hurricane makes its way up the coast, and maybe something real wet and windy and nasty on Saturday ... for you. If it happens that way, I'll just get the rain, without the wind.

No country is no country for old men, I mean . . .

Hotter than a two dollar pistol here in the motwhore city. Sun behind clouds noh relief. Very little in the way of breeze or breezes. And that or those, hot. Hotter, hottest. Hotter than that blighter in BLEAK HOUSE after he blow'd up real good. Hotter than Mrs. Wynter as she read about the toothless and corpulent Flora Finching. The 'Sparkler' became 'Miching Mallecho' after setting eyes upon the sorry object of his earlier veneration. What I would give to see the expression on his face, during, or just after the horrible revelation. He was doubtless disciplined enough to keep a poker face as it was happening. He wasn't any too pleased with his own helpmeet. She had lost her girlish figure. Her chins were a couple too many. And her eyes had the look of that sow who ate her young. Or as P.G. Wodehouse would have said: 'she looked like a sheep with a secret sorrow.'
Well at that point the 'Inimitable', to borrow another one of Wodehouse's lines: 'he felt like one of the son's of toil buried under tons of soil.'
Enough.

Yuck. The humidity I can deal with fairly well...the heat is less bearable. Ah well. I do want it to cool off before next Thursday so I can make a gumbo for the first Saints game. Ok, so I'm probably making gumbo either way, but it would be nice if it was cool.

This weekend I started the Thanksgiving menu. I'm feeling like the theme will be dips, sauces, and spreads. Still trying to work out a good way to deal with that idea.

Egads, It looks like I'll be slouching towards the part of the city where they sell 'Creole'/Cajun foods. There used to be a fabulous one in Ann Arbor years ago. That and some good beer and maybe some ice cold vodka with some raspberries soaking in it. Yes that is what I think I will do.

Thanksgiving advice: Turducken in a boneless pig!

>40 janemarieprice:. My birthday falls on Thanksgiving next year. As a boy, I never had the usual kind of kids' birthday party because family and friends would gather to eat turkey and other stuff, but they'd at least bring gifts, and I always had a chocolate cake.

>41 slickdpdx:. You might be interested in the lengthy portrait of John Lurie in last week's New Yorker, slick, or maybe the week before. Guy has fallen apart; an interesting glimpse into what celebrity can do to some people. My wife and I discussed it, because she somewhat knew him back in the day, through a friend of hers whose Second Avenue apartment was used in filming the first (and probably best) Jim Jarmusch film--the one where they all go to Cleveland.

I'll check that out for sure. John's probably inconsolable ever since his brother made a fortune doing soundtracks for kids shows.

Interesting you should mention that. My wife brought his brother up in conversation, as someone who might have fared better because he did his thing in comparative anonymity.

good stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSSMimtc9NU

(except the corrected vocals of the children - who needs perfect vocals from kids? obviously these decisions were made by crytpo kid haters.)

90 degrees. Little breeze. Not unbearably humid. For this much thanks. Washing down my spicy repast with "Yard Dog" an Australian, 2006, Petit Verdot 55%, Cab. Savig, 30%, Merlot 15% (mercifully, I loathe Merlot); Yard Dog, every street has one. Yapping and howling all day and all night. The once beloved family pet that has gone feral, a canine prisoner condemned to the confines of the back yard. Such is the fate of these varieties in Australia. Once the royalty of vitis vinifera, now overlooked, left outside the back porch of the winery. Here it becomes dark, brooding and masculine losing its polished and pampered look. Beware of the Dog.

Hidden Things

From all I did and all I said
let no one try to find out who I was.
An obstacle was there that changed the pattern
of my actions and the manner of my life.
An obstacle was often there
to stop me when I’d begin to speak.
From my most unnoticed actions,
my most veiled writing—
from these alone will I be understood.
But maybe it isn’t worth so much concern,
so much effort to discover who I really am.
Later, in a more perfect society,
someone else made just like me
is certain to appear and act freely.

C.P. Cavafy Collected Poems, translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard (Princeton University Press, 1992)

LAPIS LAZULI
(For Harry Clifton)

I HAVE heard that hysterical women say
They are sick of the palette and fiddle-bow,
Of poets that are always gay,
For everybody knows or else should know
That if nothing drastic is done
Aeroplane and Zeppelin will come out,
Pitch like King Billy bomb-balls in
Until the town lie beaten flat.

All perform their tragic play,
There struts Hamlet, there is Lear,
That's Ophelia, that Cordelia;
Yet they, should the last scene be there,
The great stage curtain about to drop,
If worthy their prominent part in the play,
Do not break up their lines to weep.
They know that Hamlet and Lear are gay;
Gaiety transfiguring all that dread,
All men have aimed at, found and lost;
Black out; Heaven blazing into the head:
Tragedy wrought to its uttermost.
Though Hamlet rambles and Lear rages,
And all the drop-scenes drop at once
Upon a hundred thousand stages,
It cannot grow by an inch or an ounce.

On their own feet they came, or on shipboard,
Camel-back, horse-back, ass-back, mule-back,
Old civilizations put to the sword.
Then they and their wisdom went to rack:
No handiwork of Callimachus,
Who handled marble as if it were bronze,
Made draperies that seemed to rise
When sea-wind swept the corner, stands;
His long lamp-chimney shaped like the stem
Of a slender palm, stood but a day;
All things fall and are built again,
And those that build them again are gay.

Two Chinamen, behind them a third,
Are carved in lapis lazuli,
Over them flies a long-legged bird,
A symbol of longevity;
The third, doubtless a serving man,
Carries a musical instrument.

Every discoloration of the stone,
Every accidental crack or dent,
Seems a water-course or an avalanche,
Of lofty slope where it still snows
Though doubtless plum or cherry-branch
Sweetens the little half-way house
Those Chinamen climb towards, and I
Delight to imagine them seated there;
There, on the mountain and the sky,
On all the tragic scene they stare.
One asks for mournful melodies;
Accomplished fingers begin to play.
Their eyes mid many wrinkles, their eyes,
Their ancient, glittering eyes, are gay.

from LAST POEMS (1936-1939)
William Butler Yeats

That's great, Peter. And who is Harry Clifton? Do you know?

Harry Talbot de Vere Clifton was the scion of the 'important' Clifton family. He was an artist in his own right. Gave a carving to Yeats that helped the poem Lapis Lazuli into its present state. H.C., also a poet.
322 - on the page
http://books.google.com/books?id=kD2Ql_BV67QC&pg=PA681&lpg=PA681&dq=...

Now of all the benefits of virtue, the contempt of death is the chiefest, a mean that furnisheth our life with an easeful tranquillity and gives us a pure and amiable taste of it . . . The end of our career is death, it is the necessary object of our aim: if it affright us, how is it possible we should step one foot further without any ague . . .Let us learn to stand and combat her with a resolute mind . . . let us remove her strangeness from her, let us have nothing so much in mind as death, let us at all times and all seasons, and in the ugliest manner that may be, yea with all faces, shapen and represent the same unto our imagination. At the stumbling of a horse, at the fall of a stone, at the least prick with a pin, let us presently ruminate and say with ourselves, what if it were death itself? And thereupon let us take heart of grace, and call our wits together to confront her. Amidst our banquets, feasts, and pleasures, let us ever have this restraint or object before us, that is, the remembrance of our condition, and let not pleasure so much mislead or transport us that we altogether neglect or forget how many ways our joys or our feastings be subject unto death, and by how many hold-fasts she threatens us and them . . . He who hath learned to die hath unlearned to serve . . . A man should ever, as much as in him lieth, be ready booted to take his journey, and above all things, look he have then nothing to do but with himself . . . let death seize upon me whilst I am setting my cabbages, careless of her dart, but more of my imperfect garden.

Montaigne

Dave.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnIe3eP5qEg&feature=related

Warren:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHDdqubE7zQ

Hurricane report:

http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at2+shtml/100013.shtml?3-daynl?large#co...

LONG-LEGGED FLY

THAT civilization may not sink,
Its great battle lost,
Quiet the dog, tether the pony
To a distant post;
Our master Caesar is in the tent
Where the maps are spread,
His eyes fixed upon nothing,
A hand under his head.
LIKE A LONG-LEGGED FLY UPON THE STREAM
HIS MIND MOVES UPON SILENCE.

That the topless towers be burnt
And men recall that face,
Move most gently if move you must
In this lonely place.
She thinks, part woman, three parts a child,
That nobody looks; her feet
Practice a tinker shuffle
Picked up on a street.
LIKE A LONG-LEGGED FLY UPON THE STREAM
HER MIND MOVES UPON SILENCE.

That girls at puberty may find
The first Adam in their thought,
Shut the door of the Pope's chapel,
Keep those children out.
There on the scaffolding reclines
Michael Angelo.
With no more sound than the mice make
His hand moves to and fro.
LIKE A LONG-LEGGED FLY UPON THE STREAM
HIS MIND MOVES UPON SILENCE

from LAST POEMS (1936-1939)
William Butler Yeats

Long hot summer:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/01/nyregion/01summer.html?th&emc=th

Get ready for rising sea levels along the Atlantic coast. A huge chunk of Greenland just broke off and is adrift in the Atlantic:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/12/world/europe/12iceberg.html

NEWS FOR THE DELPHIC ORACLE

1
There all the golden codgers lay,
There the silver dew,
And the great water sighed for love,
And the wind sighed too,
Man-picker Niamh leant and sighed
By Oisin on the grass;
There sighed amid his choir of love
Tall Pythagoras.
Plotinus came and looked about,
The salt-flakes on his breast,
And having stretched and yawned awhile
Lay sighing like the rest.

2
Straddling each a dolphin's back
And steadied by a fin,
Those innocents re-live their death,
Their wounds open again.
The ecstatic waters laugh because
Their cries are sweet and strange,
Through their ancestral patterns dance,
And the brute dolphins plunge
Until, in some cliff-sheltered bay
Where wades the choir of love
Proffering its sacred laurel crowns,
They pitch their burdens off.

III
Slim adolescence that a nymph has stripped,
Peleus on Thetis stares.
Her limbs are delicate as an eyelid,
Love has blinded him with tears;
But Thetis' belly listens.
Down the mountain walls
From where Pan's cavern is
Intolerable music falls.
Foul goat-head, brutal arm appear,
Belly, shoulder, bum,
Flash fishlike; nymphs and satyrs
Copulate in the foam.

from LAST POEMS (1936-1939)
William Butler Yeats

Are you kidding me? Yet ANOTHER Oil rig in the Gulf has exploded? WTF?

Not an oil rig, it seems, but a 'platform', though bad enough.

I forgot how things go wrong in the summer, especially when it's hot. For one thing, people who don't ordinarily drive come up here from the city and wander like snails over the winding country roads, often while talking on their stupid phones. A few summers ago someone crossed a solid line on a two-lane road leading into town, while I was going the other way, making a right turn to nowhere (there was nothing to turn in to), and plowed into me.

But I'm not immune, having had two fender benders already this summer. Also, my phone (the so-called landline sort) went out two weeks ago, and then again on Tuesday (it's still out). And yesterday the Internet took a dive as well. I pictured things melting all over the place.

"You see, I've been through desert on a horse with no name..."

"It felt good to be out of the rain..." Love the art work Cowboy.

Hello Dali.

The heavens are niggardly with rain today. Sprinkles, sprinkles, sprinkles. Muggy. The maker of breezes even niggardlier if that's possible. The east coast gets that big blow and we get merely pissed on here in what some mis-call the Mid-West. The Canadian geese are suddenly upon the scene. They flew over that blighter glen beck's rally in D.C. the other day and he mistook it for a portent from the heavens. What a buffoon. Canadian geese are all over D.C. like a cheap suit this time of summer. In all their excremental glory. You would think a turd like beck might recognize this?

"In the desert you can't remember your name..."

Things are melting out there too, I see, Steven. Speaking of which, how do you get the energy to fulminate, Peter, amidst all this enervating heat? Do you have AC (he asked, as sweat dripped down his nose and plunked on the keyboard)?

Consider the source, P-Man. Beck is Beck... an ignoramus to the nth degree.

America.

Gorgeous pics!

I'm amazed at how hot a summer you poor East Coasters are having, while out here on the West Coast, it's been one of the coldest ones on record. The ocean temp in SoCa, normally 70 degrees-plus this time of year, has remained in the 59-62 degree range all summer. It's been downright chilly being at the overcast, windy beach all summer.

I know HDL but his wrestling schtick gets under my skin. I wish he'd get into the squared circle with Dusty Rhodes and we'd be rid of him for ever more.

When my dander gets up, P, I'm a hunkahunkaburninlove, as old Elvis would say. There's plenty more where that came from.

What's better than coldwetday at the beach? In my next incarnation, if I find myself rich, I would like to spend my days fighting off the chill in Del Mar or La Jolla.

I'm either slow today or you're too quick for me, sitting there in your air-conditioned hunkamobile. Who's HDL?

Concerning cold, you could visit me in the middle of January, leave the room temps of SD behind and dig the more-than-chill of upstate New York.

HDL: our lady friend from the arid lands elevated.

None of that phoney air for me thank you. I prefer to sweat it out as Jo Jo Biden might have to spending an afternoon with Trappists. Though I hear Th: Merton was gregarious enough.

In Winter time I am just fine said the Wal-Russe. You forget my formative years were spent (is that the right word) freezing my arse off in the doldrums of a Michigan Winter. And as an ex hockey goon the heat meant precious little to me. I ate the stuff for lunch. I farted in its face. I gave it no thought. That was easy for I had but little way back then.

Oh, yes, HDL: Ms. La Pine. Last I heard she'd brought a passel of books authored by that creep Piers Anthony. Still, not fair to taint her through guilt by literary association; and also, she doesn't know him like I do.

You sound feisty today, Peter, for a guy sweating in his own juices. And you might be lucky too. Maybe you'll miss this altogether:

Humongous Hurricane

Hurricane Earl, packing winds near 140 mph, has out the Eastern Seaboard from the Caolinas to Maine on alert for a Labor Day weekend pounding by waves, gales, and rain. Warnings for the tip of Massachusetts, including Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard, joined earlier warnings and watches.

A dangerous category 4 storm as it approaches the Outer Banks, Earl is then expected to turn and parallel the coast as it moves north, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. The eye of the storm will likely remain about 30 to 75 miles east of the Outer Banks. At the closest point of approach, the western edge of the eye wall could impact Cape Hatteras, with huge waves, beach erosion, and perhaps property damage from the waves.

"They're going to have a full impact of a major hurricane," Read said. "Maybe not the strongest winds but a large area of tropical storm force and probably gusts to hurricane force along the islands."

There will be a similar close point of approach for the eastern tip of Long Island, Rhode Island, Martha's Vineyard, and Nantucket.

"They'll be facing the same scenario North Carolina is facing today," Read said. "And it will be bigger. The storm won't be as strong but will spread out as it heads north and through New England."

That will mean strong, gusty winds much like a nor'easter, and because leaves are still on the trees, there could be fallen trees or limbs and downed power lines. (Personal note: Uh-oh.)

"This is the strongest hurricane to threaten the Northeast and New England since Hurricane Bob in 1991," said Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist and spokesman for the National Hurricane Center. "They don't get storms this powerful very often."

Talk about Feisty! What the hell is wrong with that old curmudgeon from Flo-Rida? If you remember, Wilson... I am the Queen, nay, Empress of Sarcasm and Piers' books are fun. ;-p (besides they were 4/$1 at the local St Vinny's)

Come back, Clarabel. Where'd you go? She is a shy one, isn't she?

As for you, HDL: Were you talkin' to me? 'Cause I'm not in Florida.

Another shy one. Come back, Steven. You're among friends, virtual though we be.

"There ain't no one for to give ME no pain..." (believe me, I got enough)

Yes, I was talkin' to you, Wilson... And I was referring to one of my other favorite curmudgeon (okay, Ogre) authors that resides in Flo-Rida that for some reason you were besmirching. Why for you callin' him a creep, anyway? You do any of his books? Did he do you wrong? I want gossip, Peter er Wilson. Spill or 'Splain yourself.

Steven... Stop that! You too, Clarabel!

Yes, that's just it. I was going to hold my tongue (unlike you, always sticking yours out) and just let the Piers matter slide (and now that you mention it, I remember that, yes, he lives in a utopian fortress in Florida--though one man's utopia can be another's nightmare), but I am indeed in a feisty mood, and thus blurted what I did.

Briefly, the guy got me fired for a book I worked on years ago, for Morrow, a publisher that I did some interesting books for, including the mystery writers John Lutz and George Higgins. In fact, I do screw up books now and then, but I got a bum wrap from that prima donna.

So there it is, and as we both know, Wilson is never wrong. Just ask Tim the Toolman.

Okay, I kinda thought that may be the case. Sorry 'bout that! That sucks. But I still love his books. Can't help myself, being the smart ass that I am, I thrive on the mundane and sarcasm of his work.

Hey, that's okay: don't apologize. I'm sorry I said anything, and can't think of a worse reason not to read a book than because Wilson doesn't like the author. Otherwise you wouldn't read an awful lot of stuff, including all the so-called postmodernists, Georges Perec in particular, if he is indeed of that ilk.

Georges Perec, highly acclaimed French author, instrumental centerpiece of the Oulipo movement in literature, in which members usually set up some type of self-constraining limit on their work. In A Void, (or La Disparition) Georges, wonderful writer, almost as good as William Gaddis, denies himself the use of the letter "e" in the entire novel, as a means (among other things) of literally and symbolically commenting on the disappeared ones of the Holocaust.

Let's talk about Life: A User's Manual, since I know Piero just loves it!

Bleh!

I liked L:AUM!

And who's to say you're wrong, seeing as how the author is so highly acclaimed?

The process of writing has something infinite about it. Even though it is interrupted each night, it is one single notation, and it seems truest when it eschews artistic devices of any sort whatsoever. But that requires confidence in language as it is; I'm surprised I still have as much as I do. I was never drawn to experiment with language; I take note of such experiments, but avoid them in my own writing. The reason is that the substance of life claims me completely. To indulge in linguistic experiments is to ignore the greater part of this substance, leaving all but a tiny portion untouched and unused, as if a musician were to ceaselessly play an instrument with his little finger only.
Elias Canetti

Hurricane news

A weakened Hurricane Earl howled past North Carolina's Outer Banks before daybreak Friday on its way up the East Coast, flooding parts of the narrow vacation islands and knocking out power but staying farther offshore than feared. There were no immediate reports of any injuries.

Earl arrived a less menacing storm than it was a day earlier. By the time it sideswiped North Carolina, its winds had dropped to 105 mph from 145 mph. At its closest approach, its center passed about 85 miles east of Cape Hatteras, up to 50 miles farther out than forecasters feared.

They should have known that Earl's big sweeping southpaw hook would be moving rightward, ie. away from land.

What? No poem yet today? Well then, here's one; recycled, you might say:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/88981#2176385

THE STATESMAN'S HOLIDAY

I LIVED among the great houses,
Riches drove out rank,
Base drove out the better blood,
And mind and body shrank.
No Oscar ruled the table,
But I'd a troop of friends
That knowing better talk had gone
Talked of odds and ends.
Some knew what ailed the world
But never said a thing,
So I have picked a better trade
And night and morning sing:
TALL DAMES GO WALKING IN GREEN-GRASS AVALON.

Am I a great Lord Chancellor
That slept upon the Sack?
Commanding officer that tore
The khaki from his back?
Or am I de Valera,
Or the King of Greece,
Or the man that made the motors?
Ach, call me what you please!
Here's a Montenegrin lute,
And its old sole string
Makes me sweet music
And I delight to sing:
TALL DAMES GO WALKING IN GRASS-GREEN AVALON.

With boys and girls about him,
With any sort of clothes,
With a hat out of fashion,
With old patched shoes,
With a ragged bandit cloak,
With an eye like a hawk,
With a stiff straight back,
With a strutting turkey walk,
With a bag full of pennies,
With a monkey on a chain,
With a great cock's feather,
With an old foul tune:
TALL DAMES GO WALKING IN GREEN-GRASS AVALON.

from LAST POEMS (1936-1939)
William Butler Yeats

Steamy and cloudy, with only a very infrequent sprinkle. T.S. Earl missed us completely.

BREEZY. Compliments of the not-over-eager Earl, I guess. Coolish. Pellucidly clear, redundantly redundant. A cool weekend on tap for us. Summer is wilting on the ropes, gathering strength for maybe one more flurry before packing it in for another year. Making room for the bronze-brilliance of pfall.

It has been raining off and on all day today, but I am still thinking of going out for a long walk.

Robert

97 you must be used to these long walks since you didn't have a car for a while. Is it working fine now?

No. I just tried to call my mechanic, and his voicemailbox is full. If on my walk he calls to tell me to come pick it up I will catch a bus, otherwise I will have dinner and see a movie.

Thanks for your concern,

Robert

Didn't rain here at all, which throws into doubt my conviction that I know where the elusive Robert lives; I thought I knew, and now I'm not sure. But I assumed it would. Rain, that is. They said so, didn't they? And so on the heels of four hot days when I did little, and the phony guarantee of rain in the afternoon and tomorrow, I jumped on the bike, did my loop, and came home as wet as a fish. Sweat, don't you know. The air was as thick as Sandy noted.

Cooling off here, making crawfish fettucini tonight, picked up a nice wine.

The sounds all right. I had my usual sardines, smothered in tomatoes.

Btw, Peter (aka Life and Death guy), Laurent Fignon, who won the Tour de France twice, then lost on the final day by eight measly seconds to Greg Lemond, died two days ago. He was fifty years old.

Speaking of Greg Lemond, I met his coach a couple times in Ramona, Ca. His methods were years ahead of his lunk-head American counterparts. He gave us some very good advice on the topic of off season conditioning. Maybe the most important advice he gave us had to do with rest. American coaches tend to overbake, like that Pignatowski character in HOOP DREAMS. Isaiah Thomas' old HS coach. Run, run. run, and more running. Run their legs to death. We only have 45 minute practices in the stretch run of the season, making sure the players are fresh for the games. Over practicing is a big no-no.

Pat Riley ruined the Lakers chance at their first three-peat back in '89, when, on the eve of the NBA Finals against the Pistons, Riles had the Lakers doing full three hour workouts on non-game days, and during one of these unnecessary, redundant drill sessions, Magic pulled a hamstring and Byron Scott busted his knee. Season over. The Lakers were undefeated the first three rounds of the playoffs; all they had to do was stay healthy and show up and Detroit would've been taken care of; instead, they get swept. I hope Pat Riley runs the Miami Heat into the ground this year.

Watched two edifying episodes of The Wire, went out to the deck in back, a comfortable sixty degree night, listening to the crickets--and oh crap, the plants, no rain, I'll have to water them tomorrow.

Environmental news from Oregon, by way of the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/04/us/04dams.html?th&emc=th

THE WATER-fall

With what deep murmers through timed silent death
Doth thy transparent, cool and watery wealth
Here flowing fall
And chide and call,
As if his liquid, loose Retinue staid
Lingring, and were of this steep place afraid,
The common pass
Where, clear as grass,
All must descend
Not to an end:
But quickened by this deep and rocky grave,
Rise to a longer course more bright and brave.

Dear stream! dear bank, where often I
Have sate, and pleas'd my pensive eye,
Why, since each drop of thy quick store
Runs thither, whence it flow'd before,
Should poor souls fear a shade or night,
Who came (sure) from a sea of light!
Or since those drops are all sent back
So sure to thee, that none doth lack,
Why should frail flesh doubt any more
That what God takes, hee'l not restore?
O useful element and clear!
My sacred wash and cleanser here,
My first consigner unto those
Fountains of life, where the Lamb goes?
What sublime truths, and wholesome themes,
Lodge in thy mystical, deep streams!
Such as dull man can never finde
Unless that spirit lead his minde,
Which first upon thy face did move,
And hatch'd all with his quickening love.
And this loud brooks incessant fall
In streaming rings restagnates all,
Which reach by course the bank, and then
Are no more seen, just so pass men,
O my invisible estate,
My glorious liberty, still late!
Thou art the Channel my soul seeks,
Not this with Cataracts and Creeks

from SILEX SCINTILLANS Part Two (1655)
by Henry Vaughan (Silurist)

One of the twins Vaughan, Henry & Thomas born in the parish of Llansantffraed, Breconshire of Thomas & Denise of Trenewydd. Mystic Char-coal Burners both, brother Thomas blew himself self to, we can only assume Heaven, while at The Great Work. More sensible, it seems, brother Henry renounced secular poetry, he also renounced his pretentious mode of writing, condemning writers in 'a deliberate search, or excogitation of idle words - who should escape whipping? - and a most vain and insatiable desire to be reputed poets.' He had a great debt to the redoubtable George Herbert, whose holy life and verse gained many pious converts (of whom I am not the least). Vaughan's poetry fought shy of Herbert's strict sense of form, but ran nose to nose with Herbert's in the 'Metaphysical' sense.

An irreverent poem to mark the new season:

American Football

Hallelujah!
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.

We blew the shit right back up their own ass
And out their fucking ears.

It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
They suffocated in their own shit!

Hallelujah.
Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew them into fucking shit.
They are eating it.

Praise the Lord for all good things.

We blew their balls into shards of dust,
Into shards of fucking dust.

We did it.

Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.

Harold Pinter

The plu-perfect follow-up of my entry, P.

Classic Pinter poem!

Man, summer finally showed up here in So.Cal: 108 in the shade on my patio.

As lovely a Sonnet as the language has to offer:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonnet_18

And old boy from 'Floyd' warbling his wood-notes wilde:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S8Osse7w9fs

A great old ditty from my non-age:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs7qUw3cuYc&feature=related

Who could it be now?
http://www.linesandcolors.com/images/2007-11/searle_450.jpg
Whocanitwhocanit?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOuEYSJCFqE

>110 absurdeist:. Alas, Henry from Chino: it's a sad thing that when you finally get your moment in the (hot) sun, everyone else has already had theirs and lost interest, or, like New Orleans, doesn't want to hear about it anymore. We are, however, still in the market for earthquakes.

Earthquakes, eh? How 'bout that 7.1 beast down in New Zealand? Forgive my geographic ignorance, but I wonder if New Zealand is close enough to Australia that our Aussie amigos might have felt it?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/04/world/main6836018.shtml

Well, who knows, given our mutual americentric geographic ignorance? But I did discuss the matter once with Sheila, in the form of a story in which I broached New Zealand to an Aussie, assuming they were next door if not simpatico, and he dint like it at all. Apparently, NZ is quite a ways from Australia. And this particular bloke was not what you'd call ecumenical.

And while I'm here, between dinner and a cigar, check out the pix the much maligned Henri posted on our sister, or perhaps brother, thread:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/95490#2178871

I drove an airplane from Christchurch to Sydney once and back a few days later. There's a good bit of water in between. I still think, however, that the greatest distance is within the characters of the citizens of the two countries.

Robert

With school acomin' for some, here's a piece, presented by a former all-star on the Queens Borough Junior High School Band, who has not picked up his clarinet in years, and in fact no longer has a licorice stick:

The Junior High School Band Concert

When our semi-conductor
Raised his baton, we sat there
Gaping at Marche Militaire,
Our mouth-opening number.
It seemed faintly familiar
(We'd rehearsed it all that winter),
But we attacked in such a blur,
No army anywhere
On its stomach or all fours
Could have squeezed through our crossfire.

I played cornet, seventh chair,
Out of seven, my embouchure
A glorified Bronx cheer
Through that three-keyed keyhole stopper
And neighborhood window-slammer
Where mildew fought for air
At every exhausted corner,
My fingering still unsure
After scaling it for a year
Except on the spit-valve lever.

Each straight-faced mother and father
Retested his moral fiber
Against our traps and slurs
And the inadvertent whickers
Paradiddled by our snares,
And when the brass bulled forth
A blare fit to horn over
Jericho two bars sooner
Than Joshua's harsh measures,
They still had the nerve to stare.

By the last lost chord, our director
Looked older and soberer.
No doubt, in his mind's ear
Some band somewhere
In some music of some Sphere
Was striking a note as pure
As the wishes of Franz Schubert,
But meanwhile here we were:
A lesson in everything minor,
Decomposing our first composer.

David Wagoner

We has a very small shake here (2.something) but it was enough for the local newspapers to uses up just barrels of ink on the New Madrid earthquake of 1812 and provided much local conversation.

Ah, there you are, Paul. Shaky or not, it's good to hear from you again. And how's the water situation? And the harvest? Did the corn come around?

In these parts, what with the rocky soil and the relatively short growing season, the local farmers do best with broccoli and other dark green things. And apples, of course, in weeks to come.

My parents live in Wellington, at the bottom of the North Island, and didn't feel the recent shake.

Australia is a long way away, I doubt it would have registered there.

New Zealand has many earthquakes - in Australia they are a great rarity. In fact an earthquake preceded my birth in Sydney. The doctors and nurses did not know what was happening. My mother, a kiwi, assured them it was just an earthquake...

Haven't heard from you in a while, zeno, though I've lurked on your interesting thread.

The earth moved when you were born? That's impressive.

For those who don't know the slang (not you, of course, Sheila, or you Thrin), a kiwi is a New Zealander.

Been very breezy here the last few days and well, it seems as though fall is ever present now, got a weather warning today that we will be in the high 20s/low 30s midnight tonight to 8am tomorrow. Brrr! As long as it does not rain in the Valley next weekend for the last of my nieces to get married, I say... Bring it On! I know I was whining last week about the snow, but it is September now and snow in August is just not right. Period. Unless you are down under.

We organized the camping gear for our annual pilgrimage to Funnybug Springs on the west side of the Strawberry Mountains in Eastern Oregon the first weekend of October. Have to rent a trailer this year so the parentals don't freeze. Okay, so I don't freeze either. Circumstances have not allowed for much camping this year and I cannot wait.

>116 Mr.Durick: Robert please, please give me an outsider's opinion of the difference between Aussies and Kiwis. I would love to know.

Rique and Piero, no, we felt nothing but mental shock. I have friends in Christchurch, but I believe they are okay.

Zeno, I never looked at that part of your profile before that told me you have origins in Australia and NZ. Have you spent much time in Aus since birth?

Breaking nature news: I got some chooks! You people would probably call them hens, fowl, poultry, chickens, or some such other posh name. Some Australians call them other names too, but I grew up calling them chooks. It suits them.

I got four, last Wednesday. I took them from Chook-Belsen, a crowded caged production-line hell, into Chook-Paradise, the run my dad built for me. I'm about to put a picture of it into the photography thread. Sadly though, the day after I got them, one of them was sick. She must have either been sick when I got her, or else her sickness was mental (grief, shock, something along those lines). She showed no signs of ordinary sickness (no runny droppings, runny eyes, whatever). She just fluffed up her feathers and refused to move. This morning I found her dead. Her name was Henrietta, poor soul. I will probably plant a blueberry bush on her remains.

I originally named three of them - the fourth is for a friend of mine to name, who has a part share in them. But the ones I named are (or were) Henrietta and Louisa (think Musgrove) and Miss Bates.

Aww, sorry to hear about Henrietta... :-(

A Labor Day op-ed piece from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/06/opinion/06Cowie.html?th&emc=th

Ten movies about work, including the local favorite, Office Space:

http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/09/03/work_movies

A song we sang in the Studebaker, when I was a boy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QG4iImf8pY&feature=related

THE EGG AND THE MACHINE

He gave the solid rail a hateful kick.
From far away there came an answering tick,
And then another tick, He knew the code:
His hate had roused an engine up the road.
His wished when he had had the track alone
He had attacked it with a club or stone
And bent some rail wide open like a switch,
So as to wreck the engine in the ditch.
Too late though, now, he had himself to thank.
Its click was rising to a nearer clank.
Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts.
(He stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.)
Then for a moment all there was was size,
Confusion, and a roar that drowned the cries
He raised against the gods in the machine.
Then once again the sandbank lay serene.
The traveler's eye picked up a turtle trail,
And followed it where he made out vague
But certain signs of buried turtle's egg;
And probing with one finger not too rough,
He found suspicious sand, and sure enough,
The pocket of a little turtle mine.
If there was one egg in it there were nine,
Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather,
ll packed in sand to wait the trump together.
"You'd better not disturb me anymore,'
He told the distance, 'I am armed for war.
The next machine that has the power to pass
Will get this plasm in its google glass.'

from WEST-RUNNING BROOK (1928)
Robert Frost

Delightfully overcast. Sprinkled all night long as I was witness to most every minute of it. One of those insomnia nights, how much do I owe my education, such as it is, to sleeplessness? Oh well, it's coolish out there. The wind helping, if that's the word, from no direction. It would stretch old Beaufort's breeze-knowledge to the breaking point. Though that old saltydog would come up with something. For those of you who have no knowledge of Francis Beaufort and would like some, a little, a smattering, or even as much as I've got, read: de-fin-ing the wind, by Scot Huler, that's as much as I've got. Not so broad as a barn nor deep as a well, t'will serve.

Since it's quiet here today I will trot out another poem:

CUCHULAIN COMFORTED

A MAN that had six mortal wounds, a man
Violent and famous, strode among the dead;
Eyes stared out of the branches and were gone.

Then certain Shrouds that muttered head to head
Came and were gone. He leant upon a tree
As though to meditate on wounds and blood.

A Shroud that seemed to have authority
Among those bird-like things came, and let fall
A bundle of linen. Shrouds by two and three

Came creeping up because the man was still,
And thereupon that line-carrier said:
'Your life can grow much sweeter if you will

'Obey our ancient rule and make a shroud;
Mainly because of what we only know
The rattle of those arms makes us afraid.

'We thread the needles' eyes, and all we do
All must together do.' That done, the man
Took up the nearest and began to sew.

'Now must we sing and sing the best we can,
But first you must be told our character:
Convicted cowards all, by kindred slain

'Or driven from home and left to die in fear.'
They sang, but had nor human tunes nor words,
Though all was done in common as before;

They changed their throats and had the throats of birds.

from LAST POEMS (1936-1939)
William Butler Yeats

I was once in Beaufort, South Carolina. It was hot and humid. As for the other Beaufort: Defining the Wind, by Scott Huler, since if it ain't Touchstoned, Mr. Durick gets nervous. Me too, as a matter of fact; Robert and I both have a fussy gene.

Some loose ends, before school begins tomorrow:

Jane: I was wrong about a photo on the previous nature thread, or maybe some other thread altogether, when I said, in regard to a photo ID, that Stonington was in Maine, not Connecticut. In fact, there is a Stonington in both states. And both are fishing ports.

Tani: Obviously I singed you the other day, else why say "I know I was whining last week about the snow"? Sometimes wiseguy humor gets a bit broad. Go ahead and complain about the weather, if you want; I won't object. It is, after all, a time-honored thing to do.

Sheila: Chook was a new one on me, and since people might think we're not intellectual enough around here, because we don't cite a lotta books, is there an Australian-English (or better yet, Australian-American) dictionary you might recommend? Or one of those How to Speak Aussie in Ten Easy Lessons?

>123 ChocolateMuse: Rena, I moved to NZ when I was 12 months old.

Born in Paddington hospital, raised in Cronulla (but I would like it noted that I am a Dragon not a Shark).

I'd also be interested in hearing Robert's view of the difference between kiwis and aussies, as a 'neutral'.

A few days ago, a friend who (posts on another site,) mentioned a 6+ earthquake near Christchurch NZ which is a rather populated region. I looked in the local media here, but found no mention of it. He didn't mention casualties but several hundred homes were destroyed.

I just watched a great movie with Laurence Harvey and Kim Novak: OF HUMAN BONDAGE. One of those extraordinary movies that grab your attention and keep it throughout. Philosophy in, not a new key, but a low key.

Heavy cloud-cover. The breezes still dumb as Harpo Marx. Room temperature here in SE Mi.

And it's available, in ten parts, on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5QGS4dCgkk&feature=related

>131 copyedit52: Piero already discovered G'Day: Teach Yourself Australian in 20 Easy Lessons and told me on my profile. I'm not the best person to ask, I've never really consulted them because I haven't needed to. Many that you do get are way out of date, and spout all the wonderful and colourful Aussie slang that died out soon after WWII. There was an article in the paper recently about a book issued to the American soldiers who came to Australia in WWII. It was marvellous, I must remember to find the article and tell you more about it here.

Nowadays, we're adopting Americanisms all the time. People are starting to say 'trail' instead of 'track', and 'fries' instead of 'chips', and that oh so polite 'bathroom' instead of 'toilet'.

Apparently Aussie slang used to be full of wonderful similies and metaphores. I can't think of even one of them right now, other than 'mad as a cut snake', which isn't a great example. Nowadays, people just cuss like any other English speaking nation.

Speaking of bathroom versus toilet, can I tell you a story, which says that terrible word a few times? Traditionally, we speak of the 'bathroom' as the place in which one takes a bath. The WC is located in a room of its own, which we would refer to as 'the toilet' or maybe the dunny. It's only started to be an unmentionable word in the last 10-15 years, since ubiquitous Americanism crept over us. So, about that many years ago, some Aussie friends of mine visited the States. They visited someone's house while there, and just before eating, one of my friends decided he needed to wash his hands. So he says, 'can you direct me to the bathroom?' The scion of the house awkwardly muttered that actually, it was, well, kind of occupied at the moment. So my friend cheerily says, "oh well mate, no worries, I'll just go and do it in the sink.'

It didn't go down too well.

#136 - Bwahahahahaha! I would love to have been a fly on the wall for that one, Rena

# 131 - Wilson, It's just my way of keeping myself in check? You know... that Reality jolt I got? LOL As much as I would love to live in my fantasy 24/7/365... It DO have it's drawbacks at 4200 feet. We got ripped off for Spring this year and snow on June 15th and August 30th is ridiculous...

I think that we Americans mostly can't tell New Zealanders and Australians apart, except that New Zealanders seem to be provincial befitting a sheep grazing island nation a long way away, and Australians could be Americans from a different part of the country.

Robert

News from Lantana Editore in my in-box this morning:

Dear Peter,

How are you? How were your summer holidays?

We are preparing the promotion of your book and in this respect I was wandering if you could send me an updated bibliography and some news about the new title you're writing.

Thank you and Ciao from Italy!

Caterina

139: Magnifico!

I assume, of course, that Caterina, who's been my Italian contact throughout, means updated biography, and I know she's not wandering.

I also got an e-mail this morning from a young woman who studied in Rome for two years, says she speaks Italian fluently, and is interested in reading my book (in English), with an eye toward reading the translated version for accuracy.

It's been, you might say, an Italian morning.

Eccellente! Splendido!

I'm going to order pizza from an authentic pizzerio tonight in your honour, Piero! Maybe some eggplant parmi...(uh-oh, I don't know how to spell it!) ghana? (not the country!) on the side too? Some mostaciolli? (sp?) Some seafood fettucine? Ummm. Yummers.

No, really, congrats and all that.

How 'bout an update on Digging Deeper's U.S.A. American (and Canada) publication date?

Henri's update:

I'm on the third galley go-round of "Digging Deeper," for reasons that are not all interesting, so I won't go into them. Hopefully, it will be the last set of corrections and changes, and the friend who's supposed to be working on the cover is actually doing it, since that's the next stage. So, pub date, you ask? Not in my control, of course, and I don't know if Epic Press is more efficient than Xlibris was--the final stage took them nearly five months. I'm hoping it'll at least come out this year.

Meanwhile, I'm up to the fifth chapter in "Middle Age," which picks up where "Digging Deeper" leaves off.

What Work Is

We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you’re
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it’s someone else’s brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours of wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, “No,
we’re not hiring today,” for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who’s not beside you or behind or
ahead because he’s home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You’ve never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you’re too young or too dumb,
not because you’re jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don’t know what work is.

Philip Levine

145: Beautiful poem.

September's Baccalaureate
A combination is
Of Crickets—Crows—and Retrospects
And a dissembling Breeze

That hints without assuming—
An Innuendo sear
That makes the Heart put up its Fun
And turn Philosopher.

Emily Dickenson

Four Mile Canyon Fire Update

7100 scorched acres just above Boulder. Fire is uncontained. 92 structures destroyed. No injuries.

Image from space: http://tinyurl.com/2cc8nrq

I heard about that yesterday or the day before, Steven, and thought about you.

THE GRINDSTONE

Having a wheel and four legs of its own
Has never availed the cumbersome grindstone
To get it anywhere that I can see
These hands have helped it go, and even race;
Not all the motion, though, they ever lent,
Not all the miles it may have thought it went,
Have got it one step from the starting place.
It stands beside the same old apple tree.
The shadow of the apple tree is thin
Upon it now; its feet are fast in snow.
All other farm machinery's gone in,
And some of it on no more legs and wheel
Than the grindstone can boast to stand or go.
(I'm thinking chiefly of the wheelbarrow.)
For months it hasn't known the taste of steel
Washed down with rusty water in a tin.
But standing outdoors hungry, in the cold,
Except in towns at night, is not a sin.
And, anyway, its standing in the yard
Under a ruinous live apple tree
Has nothing anymore to do with me,
Except that I remember how of old
One summer day, all day I drove it hard,
And someone mounted on it rode it hard,
And he and I between us ground a blade.

I gave it the preliminary spin,
And poured on water (tears it might have been);
And when it almost gaily jumped and flowed,
A Father-Time-Like man got on and rode,
Armed with a scythe and spectacles that glowed.
He turned on willpower to increase the load
And slow me down - and I abruptly slowed,
Like coming to a sudden railway station.
I changed from hand to hand in desperation.
I wondered what machine of age gone
This represented an improvement on.
For all I knew it may have sharpened spears
And arrowheads itself. Much use for years
Had gradually worn it an oblate
Spheroid that kicked and struggled in its gait.
Appearing to run me hate for hate
(But I forgive it now as easily
As any other boyhood enemy
Whose pride has failed to get him anywhere).
I wondered who it was the man thought ground -
The one who held the wheel back or the one
Who gave his life to keep it going round?
I wondered if he really thought it fair
For him to have the say when we were done.
Such were the bitter thoughts to which I turned.

Not for myself was I so much concerned.
Oh no! - although, of course, I could have found
A better way to pass the afternoon
Than grinding discord out of a grindstone,
And beating insects at their gritty tune.
Nor was I for the man so much concerned.
Once when the grindstone almost jumped its bearing
It looked as if it might be badly thrown
And wounded on his blade. So far from caring,
I laughed inside, and only cranked the faster
(It ran as if it wasn't greased but glued);
I'd welcome any moderate disaster
That might be calculated to postpone
What evidently nothing could conclude.
The thing that made me more and more afraid
Was that we'd ground it sharp and hadn't known,
And now where only wasting precious blade.
And when he raised it dripping and once tried
The creepy edge of it with touch,
And viewed it over his glasses funny-eyed,
Only disinterestedly to decide
It needed a turn more, I could have cried
Wasn't there danger of a turn too much?
Mightn't we make it worse instead of better?
I was leaving something to the whetter.
What if it wasn't all it should be? I'd
Be satisfied if he'd be satisfied.

from NEW HAMPSHIRE (1923)
Robert Frost

Porius,
TCN had only 2 stars on Of Human Bondage. I had thought about watching it, but did not as I thought it might be better to read it first. (and I was thrown off by the rating). Would you concur?

Good grief! Fires in Boulder and Detroit and then there's the idiot in Florida who wants to burn the Qur'an

When we all run out of oil, natural gas whatever, the holy books are what I am burning first. Lots of paper. Endless copies. But I won't be doing it out of spite. Then I'll start on the flags.

On top of that, the sun is about to get very violent:

The Sun is "waking up from a deep slumber," according to Richard Fisher, head of NASA's Heliophysics Division. Massive solar storms will bombard earth, and the ramifications of that space weather could rival any earthly weather humans have experienced. General scientific consensus is that the coming "solar maximum" could arrive in 2012 or 2013. It will be "the most violent in 100 years," says astronomy lecturer and columnist Dave Reneke in Australian Science magazine. Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares.

And I thought this was going to be Back to School Week. Instead, it's Armageddon:

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats

Fire And Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Robert Frost

Mr. Gant, the movie I thought was excellent. Though I am partial to anything with Laurence Harvey in it. On reading book before watching movie, I don't know. Few if any movies, no matter how good, can do justice to a novel, etc. With a novel you must read with an inner-ear, create all the action in your head; in a movie this is done for you. Though the more you know about everything including: the novelist, the director, the actors, the just about everything - the better the total experience. Without all this it's a lot like expecting john boehner, the Rep. leader in congress to know something, anything, that goes on outside the friendly confines of the country club.

Thick cloud cover again today. Temperature at least 20 degrees below ave. Not bad though. A little, more than a little hint of pfall in the air.

Downright chilly here too, in the evening, at any rate, when the sun sets.

On the dilemma of book vs. movie, a dilemma for me at any rate, I don't want to see the movie after reading the book, or see it if I intend to read the book. I'd rather Prince Myshkin look like my mind decides to picture him instead of seeing him as Tom Cruz. Once in a rare while I decide in advance not to read a book and see the movie instead.

Counterexamples are too easy to find. How about Cool Hand Luke for starters? Book and movie both outstanding. How about Little Big Man or Election? Or Sideways? (That Alexander Payne has a talent for adapting fine but undistinguished novels!) Of course, for every Election there are ten or twenty Little Children (book okay, movie not.)

Yes, certainly. I didn't mean to imply that my approach to movies based on books is anything more than personal idiosyncrasy. I saw Little Big Man, for instance, so I won't read it, though I don't doubt that it's a good book. I like Dustin more than Tom, but don't want him in my head while I'm reading.

After I made that entry I came up with a few things I've seen concerning historical characters--as opposed to my imaginary view of how a character looks--that I enjoyed. Anthony Hopkins as Nixon in a biopic didn't bother me, except he was more likable than Tricky Dick. Albert Finney was fine, I thought, as Churchill, and Vanessa Redgrave as Isadora Duncan. On the other hand, I don't want to see Henry and June, which would I'm sure impinge on my take on Henry Miller.

It depends. I don't mind seeing Milo O'Shea as Leoplold Bloom as I read and reread ULYSSES. He seems to me the quintessential 'Poldy.' What a film can't do very well is supply narration. Oh it can sometimes like the narrator in BARRY LYNDON, but how many voters sit through its longueurs? And there is visual narration, though it sometimes slips the notice of the uninitiated. Did I say that?
In the end, a movie is a movie, and a book, a book. While that squirt Cruze ruins just about anything he puts his callow little hands on; I think a feller like Laurence Olivier can increase our enjoyment of a Bronte thing, or a movie like SLEUTH. He can do all the voices, etc. L.O. can do all the different voices, as he dazzlingly does in the last mentioned movie. Point is: how can we appreciate a novel by Dickens, Trollope, or Henry James, if our inner-ear doesn't hear the characters. We get some much needed assistance from first-rate professional actors, et al. We hear David Suchet as Melmotte, in THE WAY WE LIVE NOW, and this is not a bad thing.

Oh, I love David Suchet in anything. He is a great character actor. I have not seen or read Trollope, but I do like imagining Matthew Macfadyen and Keira Knightly as Darcy and Elizabeth when I read P & P. Same goes for the cast of Sense & Sensibility with Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman (love him) and the rest of the crew.

Now, on the other hand, I would rather not have the cast of The Stand in my head as I had other imaginings there, although Jamie Sheridan was very creepy as the walkin' dude.

I think you are on the right track there HDL. Actors like Richard Pasco do Shakespeare's kings, etc. the best. It wouldn't serve to have Tom Cruze or one of his ilk essay the part of Richard II, would it? Emma Thompson is a woman for all seasons. She can tackle just about anything, high or low. Part of it is in their training. They have a regard for language, and the same cannot be said for the aforementioned Cruze fellow. Check out John Barton's series on PLAYING SHAKESPEARE. I have a couple examples on my profile page. Hamlet's advice to the players ain't bad, neither.

Wet road, black umbrellas, bright young green of the early spring trees, some white blossom still clinging. Luminous grey light makes these isolated colours more vivid.

I remember soliliquising about these same trees in autumn, not long ago - how the seasons roll around.

Hang on, is it redundant to describe light as luminous?

Maybe a smidge... but really descriptive! I thought it was beautiful.

Luminous, according to my good friend the Dictionary, means to "emit or reflect steady, suffused, or glowing light," and/or "bathed in or exposed to steady light." So it isn't quite redundant, because it can describe light, but it does imply light within itself, and thus it's somewhat redundant to say "luminous light." More to the point, if it bothers you--for whatever reason--you should reword it.

Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson will play former lovers in a BBC Two adaptation of Christopher Reid poem The Song Of Lunch to air on National Poetry Day Oct. 7th.

A little thing from Frost's notebooks illuminating the book/movie controversy:

'It's one thing to hear the tones in the mind's ear. Another to give them accuracy at the mouth Still another to implicate them in sentences and fasten them to the page. The second is the actor's gift. The third is the writers.'

Frost was very tough on mistakes of all sorts. Not that he didn't commit a few of them himself. He hated unforced errors; it took a special sort of martyr to be his partner in doubles. His description of one of the Breadloafers trying to catch a fly ball in centerfield is hilarious. And he was never afraid to give a master joiner advice, whether he needed it or not.

Cool today. Great layers of puffy, superpuffy clouds everywhere. The hidiously hot weather has gone off the boil for the nonce. No doubt planning one more siege.

Oh my! Thanks for the heads up, Cowboy!

Late

Late home one night, I found
she was not yet home herself.
So I got into bed and waited
under my blanket mound,
until I heard her come in
and hurry upstairs
My back was to the door.
Without turning round,
I greeted her, but my voice
made only a hollow, parched-throated
k-, k-, k- sound,
which I could not convert into words
and which, anyway, lacked
the force to carry.
Nonplussed, but not distraught,
I listened to her undress,
then sidle along the far side
of our bed and lift the covers.
Of course, I’d forgotten she’d died.
Adjusting my arm for the usual
cuddle and caress,
I felt mattress and bedboards
welcome her weight
as she rolled and settled towards me,
but, before I caught her,
it was already too late
and she’d wisped clean away.

Christopher Reid

How beautifully sad.

cooling off today. hoping it stays that way for a while.

#176: I visited the Brick Testament yesterday. Thanks for that link.

THE DISSOLUTION

She's dead; and all which die
To their first elements resolve;
And we were mutual elements to us,
And made of one another.
My body then doth hers involve,
And those things whereof I consist, hereby
In me abundant grow, and burdenous,
And nourish not but smother.
My fire of passion, sighs of air,
Water of tears, and earthly sad despair,
Which my materials be,
But near worn out by love's security
She, to my loss, doth by her death repair,
And I might live long wretched so
But that my fire doth with my fuel grow,
Now as those active kings
Whose foreign conquest treasure brings,
Receive more, and spend more, and soonest break:
This (which I am amaz'd that I can speak)
This death, hath with my store
My use increas'd
And so my soul, more earnestly releas'd,
Will outstrip hers; as bullets flown before
A later bullet may o'ertake, the powder being more.

John Donne

He did have a way of putting things, didn't he?

He did, didn't he?

Apropos of nothing:

And here is the somber and threatening, the almost Isaian, utterance to which he is moved by the failure of one of the compilers of a German-Latin dictionary to include in the article on AELURUS, the Latinized Greek word for CAT, any mention of an instance of its occurrence arrived at by an emendation in Juvenal and believed by Housman to be the first extent: 'Everyone can figure to himself the mild inward glow of pleasure and pride which the author of this unlucky article felt while he was writing it and the piece of mind with which he said to himself, when he went to bed that night, 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant.' This is the felicity of the house of bondage, and of the soul which is so fast in prison that it cannot go forth; which commands no outlook on the past or the future, but believes that the fashion of the present, unlike all fashions heretofore, will endure perpetually and that its own flimsy tabernacle of second-hand opinions is a habitation for everlasting.'

from EIGHT ESSAYS by Edmund Wilson
This from the essay on A.E. Housman

Some movies that fell flat because I read the book:

For Whom the Bell Tolls: No thank you, Gary Cooper.
Lawrence of Arabia: I can take O'Toole in small doses, but not at all as the memoir/protagonist of Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
The Postman Always Rings Twice: John Garfield, committing murder?
The Long Goodbye: Elliot Gould? Philip Marlowe as a goofball?
The Big Sleep: Humphrey Bogart as Sam Spade, okay, but not as Marlowe.
Farewell My Lovely: Mitchum as Marlowe? With all those muscles?

Some movies I liked despite reading the book:

Uncle Vanya, directed by Konchalovsky; one of my favorites.
Adventures of a Young Man, despite Paul Newman's too blue eyes.
Greed, the epic silent film, based on the Frank Norris book, McTigue.
The (various) Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Mildred Pierce, whom I found a believable Joan Crawford, and vice versa.
Double Idemnity: Another believable Joan, a surprisingly good Fred MacMurray, and of course Edward G. And James M. Cain translates well to the screen, I think.

Some movies I liked and didn't realize there was a book:

Lost Horizon
A River Runs Through It
Sideways

The other day I watched A HOLE IN THE HEAD with Edward G. Robinson (he was spellbinding), Frank Sinatra, Eleanor Parker, etc. What matter the book. How to get Edw: G.'s performance in a book! That subtle sing-song in his voicsh - shee. He called his younger brother, Frank, a bummm. Great pfunn.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_bpdWsOrotV0/SxRegkx3PvI/AAAAAAAABUo/RZFowe8e5vE/s400/e...
http://www.altfg.com/Stars/actorsr/robinson-edward-g.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Js6mgxdFLE4&NR=1

On the occasion of the eve of Rosh Hashonah, the Jewish new year, which of course I know about but don't observe, I will reveal some of my tribe's deep secrets, as related to me in boyhood. To whit, famous people who are or were Jewish. (Take some this with a grain of salt, my goyishe friends.)

In alphabetical order:

Sarah Bernhardt
Charlie Chaplin
Kirk Douglas
Sigmund Freud
John Garfield
Emma Goldman
Mischa Goss
Hank Greenberg
Sandy Koufax
Benny Leonard
Abraham Lincoln
Sid Luckman
Karl Marx
the Marx brothers
Paul Newman
Edward G. Robinson
David Sarnoff
Vidal Sassoon
Secretariat
Leon Trotsky
my father's uncle Yale
Louis Zukovsky

May I add:
Tony Curtis
Kirk Douglas
Lauren Bacall
Cyd Charisse
God I love Lauren Bacall & Cyd Charisse.
CC
http://www.atomicballroom.com/blog/wp-content/uploads//2010/09/Cyd-Charisse.jpg
LB
http://26.media.tumblr.com/3xsej5DaCp9q3fff6AJHKtvso1_400.jpg

Cyd Charisse? Really?

And now of course we have to add A'mare Stoudemire.

Taken with a grain of salt along with "to whit."

Shouldn't Benedict be on there? After all, he is the Pope.

Robert

Should it have been "wit," Robert, as in "witty"?

On the other matter: the only Jewish pope was Anacletus III. Everyone knows that.

Tula Ellice Finklea of Amarillo, Tx. was our lovely daughter of Terpsichore. Terpsichore of course being one of the 9 Muses usually seated hold a lyre. I've seen the BANDWAGON countless times. Of all the hoofers, and this is a tough decision, she is my favorite, with Eleanor Powell second by a nose.

It should have been "to wit" as in videlicet, but:

To whit, famous people who are or were Jewish. (Take some this with a grain of salt, my goyishe friends.)

Robert

Toowitttoowoo. Sunless. Gray. Kool. Breezeless. Dry.

We cannot with good conscience neglect to mention the multi-talented Danny Kaye. I'd also like to add on our list a couple of thespians from across the pond: Leonard Rositter (one of the funniest comedians I know of), and David Suchet (a Shakespearian of the first water).
Here's Suchet with the director Trevor Nunn
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YLhu_f4Pwg

Last but not least the magnificent Dr. Smith in LOST IN SPACE, Jonathan Harris.

Two girls singing

It neither was the words not yet the tune.
Any tune would have done and any words.
Any listener or no listener at all.

As nightingales in rocks or a child crooning
in its own world of strange awakening
or larks for no reason but themselves.

So on the bus through late November running
by yellow lights tormented, darkness falling,
the two girls sang for miles and miles together

and it wasn't the words or the tune. It was the singing.
It was the human sweetness in that yellow,
the unpredicted voices of our kind.

Iain Chrichton Smith

Change of pace?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLTSFeWCvjU&NR=1&feature=fvwp

#192 - i liked!
also loved the yeats a while back which i'll admit i'd never before read (except the famous bits)

#193: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOxvOLnXwYk

CRAZY JANE GROWN OLD LOOKS AT THE DANCERS

I FOUND that ivory image there
Dancing with her chosen youth,
But when he wound her coral-black hair
As though to strangle her, no scream
Or bodily movement did I dare,
Eyes under eyelids did so gleam;
LOVE IS LIKE THE LION'S TOOTH

When she, and though some said she played
I said that she had danced heart's truth,
Drew a knife to strike him dead,
I could but leave him to his fate;
For no matter what is said
They had all that had their hate;
LOVE IS LIKE A LION'S TOOTH

Did he die or did she die?
Seemed to die or died they both?
God be with the times when I
Cared not a thraneen for what chanced
So that I had the limbs to try
Such a dance as there was danced -
LOVE IS LIKE A LION'S TOOTH

from WORDS FOR MUSIC PERHAPS (1930)
William Butler Yeats

Four Mile Canyon Fire Update

30% contained; 169 homes distroyed; 900 people fighting the fire; 3 planes and 4 helicopters are being used; $4M incurred so far to fight the fire; Temp forecast today, sunny, 79 with winds NW 10-20 mph.

"The sense of play that a poet needs to make language an ally – often thought of as congenital insincerity by the public – provides the at least momentary pleasure of creation; the sense of having a foothold, if not full membership, in a guild as old as man. The child who carves a tombstone or rock out a bar of soap knows some of this pleasure." ~ Jim Harrison, "A Natural History of Some Poems"

TOO ANXIOUS FOR RIVERS

Look down the long valley and there stands a mountain
That someone has said is the end of the world.
Then what of this river that having arisen
Must find where to pour itself into and empty?
I never saw so much swift water run cloudless.
Oh, I have often been too anxious for rivers
To leave it to them to get out of their valleys.
The truth is the river flows into the canyon
Of Ceasing-to-Question-What-Doesn't-Concern-Us,
As sooner or later we have to cease somewhere,
No place to get lost like too far in the distance.
It may be a mercy the dark closes round us
So broodingly soon in every direction.
The world as we know is an elephant's howdah;
The elephant stands on the back of a turtle;
The turtle in turn on a rock in the ocean.
And how much longer a story has science
Before she must put out the light on the children
And tell them the rest of the story is dreaming?
'You children may dream it and tell it tomorrow.'
Time was we were molten, time was we were vapor.
What set us on fire and what set us revolving,
Lucretius the Epicurean might tell us
'Twas something we knew all about to begin with
And needn't have fared into space like his master
To find 'twas the effort, the essay of love.

from STEEPLE BUSH (1947)
Robert Lee Frost

For the past few days, after the Saratoga meet ended and the owners and trainers were shipping horses in vans down the NY Thruway to Belmont Park, me and the missus were going to go north on that same highway and spend a few days in Montreal. But she got this crappy cold that's been going around, and then she gave it to me, so we had to cancel on that and instead decided to change direction and go south, to Belmont. I am nothing if not flexible.

I bought the Racing Form and was looking forward to matching wits with myself (as per the chapter in "Digging Deeper" entitled "Racetrack Meditation"), and we made the trek down there, only to discover that the track was closed, on a Friday, for reasons I can still not divine.

Sometimes you just can't give money away, no matter how hard you try.

Please feel free to send me your generous donation to help my financial cause. PayPal accepted. Your thoughtful consideration is most appreciated.

Divine is a strange word to use around a track.

This side is Hiems, Winter; this Ver, the Spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the Cuckoo. Ver, begin.

'When daisies pied and violets blue
And lady-smocks all silvery-white
And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue
Do paint the meadows with delight,
The cuckoo then, on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear,
Unpleasing to a married ear!

'When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,
And merry larks are ploughman's clocks,
When turtles tread, and rooks, and daws,
And maidens bleach their summer smocks,
The cuckoo then on every tree,
Mocks married men; for thus sings he,
Cuckoo;
Cuckoo, cuckoo: O, word of fear!
Unpleasing to a married ear!'

(Winter)
'When icicles hang by the wall,
And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail,
When blood is nipp'd, and ways be foul,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who;
Tu-whit, tu-who - a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

'When all aloud the wind doth blow,
And coughing drowns the parson's saw,
And birds sit brooding in the snow,
And Marian's nose looks red and raw,
When roasted crabs hiss in the bowl,
Then nightly sings the staring owl,
Tu-who
Tu-whit, tu-who - a merry note,
While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.'

Don Adriano De Armado, a fantastical Spaniard:

The words of Mercury are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You, that way: we, this way.

Exeunt Omnes

LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST by Wm. Shake-speare

Clearly I misspoke. There are indeed people who will take my money, and even solicit it. And I thought cowboys were made of sterner stuff.

198 - High holidays, maybe? Half the city is shut down today.

A gambler picks his own pocket, no? I worked for my trainer-uncle many years at different tracks. They talk to each other on a regular basis - and you know who they are.

The horses?

Nay.

I do like to travel on the high Jewish holidays. There's less traffic and alternate side of the street parking in the city is suspended. Could be that's why the horses weren't running. Divine, indeed.

Wholly.

CORRECTION

It was Anacletus II who was "the Jewish pope," not Anacletus III:

Anacletus II (died January 25, 1138), born Pietro Pierleoni, was an Antipope who ruled from 1130 to his death, in a schism against the contested, hasty election of Pope Innocent II.

Pietro, of Jewish descent, was born to the powerful Roman family of the Pierleoni, the son of the Consul Pier Leoni. As a second son with ambitions, he was destined for an ecclesiastical career. He studied in Paris and entered the Benedictine Abbey of Cluny. Later he went to Rome and occupied several important positions. In 1130, Pope Honorius II lay dying and the cardinals decided that they would entrust the election to a commission of eight men, led by papal chancellor Haimeric, who had his candidate Cardinal Gregory Papareschi hastily elected as Pope Innocent II. He was consecrated on February 14, the day after Honorius's death. On the same day, the other cardinals announced that Innocent had not been canonically elected and chose Cardinal Pietro Pierleoni, a Roman whose family were the enemy of Haimeric's supporters the Frangipani. Anacletus's supporters were a mixture of anyone opposed to Haimeric, making him powerful enough to take control of Rome while Innocent was forced to flee North; legally speaking, Anacletus was the canonically elected Pope and Innocent was the anti-Pope.

However, north of the Alps, Innocent gained the crucial support of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Peter the Venerable, and other prominent reformers who personally helped him to gain recognition from European rulers such as Emperor Lothar III, leaving Anacletus with few patrons. Anacletus had been a relatively acceptable candidate for the papacy, being well-respected, so rumors centering on his descent from a Jewish convert were spread to blacken his reputation.

Anacletus's supporters decided for him against the will of his own bishops and the powerful Roger II of Sicily, whose title of "King of Sicily" Anacletus had approved shortly after his accession. By 1135 Anacletus's position was weak despite their aid, but the schism only ended with his death in 1138, after which Innocent returned to Rome and ruled without opposition.

Bernard of Clairvaux was a very important figure to the fledgling Templar Knights. But we come perilously close to all that Henry Lincoln and the fellas jazz. Once drawn into that tangle, well abandon hope all ye who enter. I used to follow this stuff but it's a nite-mare, certain. Interesting, but a nite-mare.

Autumn Day

Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields.

Bid the last fruits to be full;
give them another two more southerly days,
press them to ripeness, and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.

Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.
Whoever is alone now will remain so for a long time,
will stay up, read, write long letters,
and wander the boulevards, up and down,
restlessly, while the dry leaves are blowing.

Rainer Maria Rilke

A COAT

I MADE my song a coat
Covered with embroideries
Out of old mythologies
From heel to throat;
But the fools caught it,
Wore it in the world's eyes
As though they'd wrought it.
Song, let them take it,
For there's more enterprise
In walking naked.

from RESPONSIBILITIES (1914)
William Butler Yeats

Some nature pix, quite a few, actually, old family photos (who doesn't love that?), and some that aren't so old, courtesy of Henry from Chino (well, not courtesy of, exactly, since I dint ask his permission):

http://www.librarything.com/gallery/member/EnriqueFreeque

CRAZY JANE ON THE MOUNTAIN

I AM tired of cursing the Bishop,
(Said Crazy Jane)
Nine books or nine hats
Would not make him a man.
I have found something worse
To meditate on.
A King had some beautiful cousins,
But where are they gone?
Battered to death in a cellar,
And he stuck to his throne.
Last night I lay on the mountain,
(Said Crazy Jane)
There in a two-horsed carriage
That on two wheels ran
Great-bladdered Emer sat,
Her violent man
Cuchulain sat at her side;
Thereupon,
Propped upon my two knees,
I kissed a stone;
I lay stretched out in the dirt
And I cried tears down.

from LAST POEMS (1936-1939)
William Butler Yeats

http://www.rossettiarchive.org/img/sa140rr.jpg

Leon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB-aVj83KAs&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9CHAMbfZ6A&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyOnK-L19TM&feature=related

Leon was at the Bearsville Theater just outside of town the week before last. I mentioned the place before, in the context of the Band, and Rick Danko, who fell off the stage there one New Year's Eve. Built by impresario Albert Grossman, more or less for Dylan when he lived here, it seats about 200, so it would have been a relatively intimate affair. But I am a cheapskate when it comes to paying money to see performers. My mind is still fixed in 19-something-or-other, when concert tickets cost three bucks. Somewhere along the way I made the leap to five bucks, which is where I am now. And it would've cost me forty to see Leon, so I didn't.

However, this afternoon John Fogerty will be playing up the road in the other direction, in a horse meadow outside the town of Saugerties. (Old Dutch name, I think; no relation to Horse Badorties.) I would've skipped that too but the missus bought raffle tickets for the underlying charity, so I won't have to pay at all.

Yes these acts are pretty darn expensive. I paid 100 plus to see Bob Dylan in SD but he was stupendous. A great band with him as usual.
Here's CCR for those who cant shell out the 50 beans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIjUY3pjN8E&feature=related
Too deep for tears. 'The Bambino' & 'The Splendid Splinter" & 'Hammerin Hank' & 'Say Hey' & Joltin Joe' & 'The Georgia Peach & & &
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raSJDLv-Wpg

Great clips accompanying that last song, Peter; all those old guys. Reminded me of another Jew, one I forgot to list with the others, played centerfield for Brooklyn: Duke Schneider (as we used to call him).

Chilly with occasional droplets of rain. Might have to bring an umbrella to the horse field later today.

I came across the following passage the other day in Antonya Nelson's novel, Living to Tell: A Novel, and thought it apropos on recent discussions regarding "Sheila".

"Professor Mabie handed his brother a napkin, which Billy swiped hopelessly beneath his nostrils. They were test-driving the car for Billy's daughter, who was sixteen, a spoiled girl who got everything she even dreamed of asking for. Sheila -- even her name suggested the seedy, and seemed destined to direct her into a line of work involving G-strings and raunchy music."

huh... what can I say? Just call me Sheila McSeedy.

You are insouciant, Sheila, not seedy.

Insouciant. I like that. I hereby name Piero Le Official Salon Definition Maker. Or Le Definitionateur.

Don't abuse the honour, Piero, or else I shall call you "Pete".

Carl Jung's Red Book is available through Walmart. There is something very, very wrong with that. (target audience is one) http://www.walmart.com/ip/11008694

Maybe they will soon be selling it in paperback.

222: Wow, it's expensive.

I actually thought that was a reasonable price for the apparent size, quality, etc. It is apparently 11 1/2" x 15 1/2" bound in leather and contains fine calligraphy, with illuminated capital letters like a medieval manuscript and several full-page paintings.

BN.COM wants $140.40 for it.

Robert

Just finished the third revision of "Digging Deeper." Only one to go. Now I've got to lean on the guy who's doing the cover. What with taking care of two kids and running a ceramics workshop, he's hard to pin down, so good luck to me on that.

This time around I was mainly working on the aesthetic appearance of the book: typeface and style for the running title and chapter heads, space breaks between sections, correcting what to my eye were unslightly widows. It's something you do more of when you "publish your own book"; that, and creating the front and back cover, which most authors don't have the option of doing with established publishers.

It left me somewhat inhabiting T.E. Lawrence's skin when he was going over the galleys for Seven Pillars of Wisdom. I heard he was a fanatic about the appearance of it (well, of course, if you know Lawrence's M.O.), that he actually rewrote lines at the printer's (which is unheard of) so the justified lines would end just so on the page.

Wasn't Lawrence's a private printing just for friends and meant to be a very special book indeed?

Robert

Could well be, Robert. And my printing(s) often don't feel a hell of a lot different. When it drops to 120,000th on the amazon hit parade, I'm at a high point.

Yay, Piero! So what's the final revision if this last one was aesthetics? Only the cover?

On another note, it's time for a poem:

Full Orchestra
My words are the poor footmen of your pride,
Of what you cry, you trumpets, each to each
With mouths of air; my speech is the dog-speech
Of yours, the Roman tongue - but mine is tied
By harsher bridles, dumb with breath and bone.
Vainly it mocks the dingo-strings, the stops,
The pear-tree flying in the flute, with drops
Of music, quenched and scattered by your own.

So serving-men, who run all night with wine,
And whet their ears, and crouch upon the floor,
Sigh broken words no man has heard before
Or since, but ravished in the candleshine,
Between the push and shutting of a door,
From the great table where their masters dine.

Kenneth Slessor (one of my favourite Austalian poets)

Aesthetics, yes, but also I have to make sure that the text changes I call for in this revision are in fact made and don't create new, unforeseen errors, as many of the previous changes did. To whit, or wit (take your choice):

Digging Deeper corrections to Revision 1C

p. 9 line 17: justify line (incomplete change when do transferred down to line 18)
p. 67 line 22: justify line (incomplete change when already transferred down to line 23)
p. 81 line 7: justify line (incomplete change when Haggadah transferred down to line 8)
p. 124 line 6: justify line (incomplete change when eggs transferred down to line 7)

... and so on. And also this, from the racetrack chapter:

p. 213 line 2: 5—2 and 8—1 should be 5-2 and 8-1 (in previous version I called for one-en dashes, not one-em ashes. Let’s just go with hyphens this time, to avoid problems the one-ens seem to create. This also applies to next four items.)
p. 213 line 17: 4—1 and 7—1 should be 4-1 and 7-1
p. 214 line 11: 3—1 and 8—1 should be 3-1 and 8-1

... and so on.

Boring enough for ya?

The Castle Ruins at Balaklava

These castles, whose remains are strewn in heaps for miles,
Once graced and guarded you, Crimea the ungrateful!
Today they sit upon the hills, each like a great skull
In which reptiles reside or men worse than reptiles.

Let’s climb a tower, search for crests upon worn tiles,
For an inscription or a hero’s name, the fateful
Bane of armies now forgotten by the faithful,
A wizened beetle wrapped in vines below the aisles.

Here Greeks wrought Attic ornaments upon the walls,
From which Italians would cast Mongols into chains,
And where the Mecca-bound once stopped to pray and beg.

Today above the tombs the shadow of night falls,
The black-winged buzzards fly like pennants over plains,
As if towards a city ever touched by plague.

Adam Mickiewicz
translated from the Polish by Leo Yankevich

T.E. Lawrence lost the first (and only) draft of 7POW in Reading railway station, and had to rewrite the whole damn thing again from scratch.

Just imagine.

It's a fabulous book.

THE COURGE TO BE NEW
I hear the world reciting
The mistakes of ancient men,
The brutality and fighting
They will never have again.

Heartbroken and disabled
In body and in mind,
They renew talk of the fabled
Federation of mankind.

But their blessed with the acumen
To suspect the human trait
Was not the BASEST human
That made them militate.

They will tell you more as soon as
You tell them what to do
With their ever breaking newness
And their courage to be new.

from STEEPLE BUSH (1947)
Robert Frost

"...old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” – 2 Corinthians 5:17 KJV

The End and the Beginning

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won’t
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the sides of the road,
so the corpse-laden wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone must drag in a girder
to prop up a wall.
Someone must glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it’s not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

Again we’ll need bridges
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls how it was.
Someone listens
and nods with unsevered head.
Yet others milling about
already find it dull.

From behind the bush
sometimes someone still unearths
rust-eaten arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must give way to
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass which has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out,
blade of grass in his mouth,
gazing at the clouds.

~Wislawa Szymborska
(translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak)

#234 Awesome poem.

Food for thought in the internet age:
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/magazine/76960/intellectual-snobbery-l...

Good tandem entries, you guys. The poem and then the article. The latter left me revisiting Groundhog Day, which one of the commenters on the piece brought up. It's a movie I never tire of seeing, though I never analyzed why. Now I wonder of it isn't because the notion of reliving the same day again and again, with the same people, in the same place, isn't a perfect construct for digging deeper and deeper into what is, and the self-transformation that implies.

Good article.

ROSS: Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?
HOLMES: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.
ROSS: The dog did nothing in the night-ime.
HOLMES: That was the curious incident.
~ Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Danse Russe

If when my wife is sleeping
and the baby and Kathleen
are sleeping
and the sun is a flame-white disc
in silken mists
above shining trees,—
if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely.
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,—

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

William Carlos Williams

A MOOD APART
Once down on my knees to growing plants
I prodded the earth with a lazy tool
In time with a medley of sotto chants;
But becoming aware of some boys from school
Who stopped outside the fence to spy,
I stopped my song and almost heart,
For any eye is an evil eye
That looks in onto a mood apart.

from STEEPLE BUSH (1947)
Robert Frost

I recognize the sentiment well, Peter. Finished the final text revision of "Digging Deeper" this morning, put the sucker to bed, as they used to say in the newspaper game, and apropos "A Mood Apart," here's a little piece of the acknowledgments:

Thanks also to ... my wife, Rita, for recognizing the bubble around me while I write, and not bursting it ...

Lovely Rita!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Se5JLYKQfDU
Our old friend Oliver Haddo, top row, second from the right.

Lovely!

Alas, my own mind-set is often less expansive:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYRI2Re5dmo

THEY THAT HAVE POWER TO HURT
They that have power to hurt, and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow, -
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces,
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others, but stewards of their excellence.

The summer's flower is to the summer sweet
Though to itself it only live and die;
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.

William Shakespeare

The poetry on this thread is just something else. Thanks to you all for posting.

We are poised, here, for the first typhoon of the summer. Late. Autumn typhoons are much worse than summer ones. They bring much more water. Typhoon Marakot, which devastated the island last summer (some of you may remember?) was an autumn typhoon, and this one is following the same path.

Here are some pics.





Everything is still right now, with patches of blue sky amongst all the clouds. Cool breezes. Expected landfall: tomorrow afternoon. It has currently stopped offshore where it is picking up more water.

Yikes.

Nice picture, nasty storm!

Look out below!

Crap, it's going to hit Taiwan dead on. Get the hell out while you can, Cat, head for Saigon!

Send your books to a dry place! Like my house!!

Tornadoes in New York City:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/18/nyregion/18trees.html?th&emc=th

POLITICS

'In our time the destiny of man presents its meaning in political terms.' Thomas Mann

How can I, that girl standing there,
My attention fix
On Roman or Russian
Or on Spanish politics?
Yet here's a travelled man that knows
What he talks about,
And there's a politician
That has read and thought,
And maybe what they say is true
Of war and war's alarms,
But O that I were young again
And held her in my arms!

from LAST POEMS by William Butler Yeats (1939)

I like this weather man: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt_IP93B2QE

Here's our beloved Detroit weather man Sonny Eliot who once said: 'the winds are blowing harder than Kate Smith in a baby blue bikini.' It's really hard to top that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06ze9xIwImg&feature=related

Speaking of weather, today's highs for selected locales, with the highs two months ago in parentheses:

Little Rock 94 (97)
Taipei 90 (94)
Atlanta 90 (90)
Denver 84 (92)
Los Angeles 80 (82)
Toledo 77 (87)
New York 75 (90)
Detroit 75 (87)
Chicago 74 (83)
Portland, Ore. 73 (78)
Sydney, Aus. 70 (66)
London 64 (72)
Brussels 62 (94?)

Notes: There was or is a typhoon in Taipei. Sheila in New South Wales now has a locale or two she can look down on. And I must have had the Belgium weather wrong back then; I can't believe it ever gets that hot there, paricularly since it was 72 in London the same day.

249: I voted no, since Slick is closer to me and I can maybe mug him for some of TCM's books.

Violence won't be necessary.

Take it back, Anna! I'll say something nice about Jennifer Wiener if you vote for me! C'mon now!

Speaking of weather, I just finished watching 2012 w/my kids, and they loved it, except the parts when "people were just talking" -- instead of being killed in tsunamis, volcanoes, earthquakes, epic crust slippages of 1,500 miles (Wisconsin is the new South Pole!), airplane crashes, mass hysteria, et cetera -- were kind of boring.

I loved watching the White House and the Vatican get demolished by Mother Nature.

I'm editing a book now set in the environmentally devastated future, where the bad guys, who are now savages--scavenging whatever's left, like everyone else--were those who denied the effects of global warming, etc., until it was too late to do anything about it. A potboiler subject matter for our children and grandchildren, no doubt, if they're still reading.

Global Warming? Spend a winter in La Pine, Oregon (bumper sticker I saw recently)

Henri reminded me that I never reported on the Fogerty concert last whenever it was:

There was a misty rain throughout, half the gray-haired people holding up umbrellas, the rest amix with the younger generation, which at the horse performance place up the road in Saugerties was in its thirties and forties; a thousand or so people in all.

The band led off with the baseball song Peter put on the thread, and Fogerty noted it was its 25th anniversary and that the song was now in the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown. He was pretty stoked by that, signed a few baseballs and gave it out to some kinds up front, humbly admitting that he wasn't Willie Mays.

The music itself was more rockin' and rollin' and raucous than on the CD player, and included a guy on the fiddle, which was neat, I thought. And it was loud--I walked around in a bit of a daze afterward--but then maybe that's what a live performance sounds like. It has been a while, which'll happen when you won't pay more than five bucks for a ticket.

It threw me back some, reminded me that unlike most people--including my wife--I never get lost in the music and the crowd; my alienation rises above that and continues to reign supreme.

I Studied Love

I studied love in my childhood in my childhood synagogue
in the women's section with the help of the women behind the partition
that locked up my mother with all the other women and girls.
But the partition that locked them up locked me up
on the other side. They were free in their love while I remained
locked up with all the men and boys in my love, my longing.
I wanted to be over there with them and to know their secrets
and say with them, "Blessed be He who has made me
according to his will." And the partition
a lace curtain white and soft as summer dresses, and that curtain
swaying to and fro with its rings and its loops,
lu-lu-lu loops, Lulu, lullings of love in the locked room.
And the faces of women like the face of the moon behind the clouds
or the full moon when the curtain parts: an enchanted
cosmic order. At night we said the blessing
over the moon outside, and I
thought about the women.

Yehuda Amichai

I HAVE LONGED TO MOVE AWAY
I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors' continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
From there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the thunder of calls and notes.

I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, unspent, might explode
Out of the old lie burning on the ground,
And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.
Neither by night's ancient fear,
The parting of hat from hair,
Pursed lips at the receiver,
Shall I fall to death's feather.
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention and half lie.

Dylan Thomas

244 - Hope all is well there.

250 - That was quite a system that came through the other day. I looked up at work and couldn't see Brooklyn. Only lasted about 15min though.

It's been nice and cool here. Little overcast today, but I've been enjoying my big book haul from the thrift store's 2 for $1 sale.

thanks to all for your good wishes. The books will not be going anywhere, so you can stop fighting over them now. The typhoon has passed, it did less damage than expected as it veered off to the south at the last minute. a day of torrential rain and heavy gusts of wind, nothing more serious.

So glad you're okay, Murr.

Abulletdodged.

>262 Porius:. I do like Dylan Thomas; his density.

My favorite 'getting away' poem.



GEO-BESTIARY 12

I was hoping to travel the world
backward in my red wagon
one knee in, the other foot pushing.
I was going to see the sights I'd imagined:
Spanish buildings, trellised with flowers,
a thousand Rapunzels brushing their long
black hair with street vendors singing
the lyrics of Lorca. I'd be towed
by a stray Miura over the green Pyrenees,
turning the bull loose before French customs.
At the edge of the forest Rene Char was roasting
a leg of lamb over a wood fire. We shared
a gallon of wine while mignonettes frolicked for us.
This all occurred to me forty-two
years ago while hoeing corn and it's time
for it all to come to pass along with my canoe
trip through Paris, with Jean Moreau trailing
a hand in the crystalline Seine, reading me Robert Desnos.
Why shouldn't this happen? I have to rid
myself of this last land mine, the unlived life.

~Jim Harrison

SHOULD LANTERNS SHINE
Should lanterns shine, the holy face,
Caught in an octagon of unaccustomed light,
Would wither up, and any boy of love
Look twice before he fell from grace.
The features in their private dark
Are formed of flesh, but let the false day come
And from her lips the faded pigments fall,
The mummy cloths expose an ancient breast.

I have been told to reason by the heart,
But heart, like head, leads helplessly;
I have been told to reason by the pulse,
And, when it quickens, after the actions' pace
Till field and roof lie level and the same
So fast I move defying time, the quiet gentleman
Whose beard wags in Egyptian wind.

I have heard many years of telling,
And many years should see some change.

The ball I threw while playing in the park
Has not yet reached the ground.

Dylan Thomas

An excellent desciption of a writer's mind-set, courtesy of booksontrial, who laid it on me:

http://booksontrial.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/what-every-writer-wants/

Have been remiss in thanking y'all for the beautiful poetry. I do so enjoy it. ;-)

Weather has definitely been cool and rainy since Saturday. Have been so busy I have not even bothered to pay attention to the forecasts.

We'll be heading east in 10 days for our trip up to hunting camp and am trying to get things done around here to weatherize the outdoor faucets and such / put away the patio furniture / roll up the damn indoor/outdoor carpet that is temporarily acting as our patio. (don't ask) I am anticipating a very cold, snow packed winter due to the expected La Niña. We had our first snow last year on October 3rd (opening day for deer in Oregon) during the El Niño so am not too sure how early it will start.

It was La Niña the last two winters we were on Mt Hood and boy did we get walloped! Even down to the valley floor in PDX.

Por, where are you getting these DT poems from? Which collection? I am not familiar with either of the two you posted, and I am a DT NUT. I'm excited by the possibility of more DT poems which I don't know.

While we're on the subject, and because this is a nature thread, we have to include this:

The Force that Through the Green Fuse Drives the Flower

The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountain head;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell a weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Dylan Thomas

COLLECTED POEMS Dylan Thomas
A New Directions Book 1957
!957 was a great year. I will be posting some over the next week.

A Bonus

That day i finished
A small piece
For an obscure magazine
I popped it in the box

And such a starry elation
Came over me
That I got whistled at in the street
For the first time in a long time.

I was dirty and roughly dressed
And had circles under my eyes
And far far from flirtation
But so full of completion
Of a deed duly done
An act of consummation
That the freedom and force it engendered
Shone and spun
Out of my old raincoat.

It must have looked like love
Or a fabulous free holiday
To the young men sauntering
Down Berwick Street.
I still think this is most mysterious
For while I was writing it
It was gritty it felt like self-abuse
Constipation, desperately unsocial.
But done done done
Everything in the world
Flowed back
Like a huge bonus.

Elizabeth Smart

Sunday, Denver hit a record high of 97. Yesterday, 96. Now the ocean's coral is bleaching (dying) at a staggering rate due to warming of the oceans. “I am significantly depressed by the whole situation,” said Clive Wilkinson, director of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/science/earth/21coral.html

"Had we joined the Kyoto Treaty it would have cost America a lot of jobs." ~George Bush

ALL ALL AND ALL THE DRY WORLDS LEVER
I
All all and all the dry worlds lever,
Stage of the ice, the solid ocean,
All from the oil, the pound of lava.
City of spring, the governed flower,
Turns in the earth that turns the ashen
Towns around on a wheel of fire.

How now my flesh, my naked fellow,
Dug of the sea, the glanded morrow,
Worm in the scalp, the staked and fallow.
All all and all, the corpse's lover,
Skinny as sin, the foaming marrow,
All of the flesh, the dry worlds lever.

II
Fear not the working world, my mortal,
Fear not the flat, synthetic blood,
Nor the heart in the ribbing metal.
Fear not the tread, the seeded milling,
The trigger and scythe, the bridal blade,
Nor the flint in the lover's mauling.

Man of my flesh, the jawbone riven,
Know now the flesh's lock and vice,
And the cage for the scythe-eyed raven.
Know, O my bone, the jointed lever,
Fear not the screws that turn the voice,
And the face to the driven lover.

III
All all and all the dry worlds couple,
Ghost with her ghost, contagious man
With the womb of his shapeless people.
All that shapes from the caul and suckle,
Stroke of mechanical flesh on mine,
Square in these worlds the mortal circle.

Flower, flower the people's fusion,
O light in zenith, the coupled bud,
And the flame in the flesh's vision.
Out of the sea, the drive of oil,
Socket and grave, the brasy blood,
Flower, flower, all all and all.

Dylan Thomas

Wilson, is that by the Elizabeth Smart from Utah?

From Wikipedia:

The Elizabeth Smart kidnapping occurred on June 5, 2002, when American girl Elizabeth Smart was abducted from her Salt Lake City, Utah, bedroom at the age of 14 years. She was found nine months later on March 12, 2003, in Sandy, Utah, about 18 miles from her home, in the company of Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee, who were indicted for her kidnapping but ruled unfit to stand trial. Her abduction and recovery were widely reported and were the subject of a made-for-TV movie and a published book.

So I'd have to say no, Tani. It would be this Elizabeth Smart, also from Wikipedia:

Elizabeth Smart (December 27, 1913-March 4, 1986) was a Canadian poet and novelist. Her book, By Grand Central Station I Sat Down and Wept, detailed her romance with the poet George Barker. She is the subject of the 1991 biography, By Heart: Elizabeth Smart a Life, by Rosemary Sullivan, and a film, Elizabeth Smart: On the Side of the Angels.

I just saw a mock-up of the cover for Digging Deeper, a black and white and gray head shot of the author colliding with a Franz Kline abstraction. Very mysterioso.

279: I am still not convinced.

280: Sounds cool!

Unusually warm today. 87. Thunderstorms possible later tonight. Pretty warm still at 7:42 pm.

IF I WERE TICKLED BY THE RUB OF LOVE
If I were tickled by the rub of love,
A rooking girl who stole me for her side,
Broke through her straws, breaking my bandaged string,
If the red tickle as the cattle calve
Still set to scratch a laughter from my lung,
I would not fear the apple nor the flood
Nor the bad blood of spring.

Shall it be male or female? say the cells,
And drop the plum like fire from the flesh.
If I were tickled by the hatching hair,
The winging bone that spouted in the heels,
The itch of man upon the baby's thigh,
I would not fear the gallows or the axe
Nor the crossed sticks of war.

Shall it be male or female? say the fingers
That chalk the walls with green girls and their men,
I would not fear the muscling-in of love
If I were tickled by the urchin hungers
Rehearsing the heat upon a raw-edged nerve.
I would not fear the devil in the loin
Nor the outspoken grave.

Dylan Thomas

You might not know it, given the daytime temperatures in the U.S. this week--Steven reported a record high of 97 in Denver; Porius, 87 in Detroit; and by Friday around here an expected 91 in Poughkeepsie--but summer is officially over. Today is the first day of autumn. On the other hand, yesterday was about as glorious as it's ever been; 83, with no humidity.

Fall is definitely here... squirrels are doing their best to propagate more pine trees, birds not seen since spring are flitting through and the hunters are sighting in their scopes beyond our neighborhood.

Kitchen window (west side) thermometer was 27° this morning; front porch (north side) 37°. Highs close to 70° working up to a whopping 82ish expected this weekend. Not bad for the first days of fall.

ACCEPTANCE
When the spent sun throws its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least, must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.'

Robert Frost

Attribution, s'il vous plait.

Simplicity

The most complicated skill
Is to be simple.

To say more while saying less
Is the secret of being simple.

To not say all that can be said
Is the secret of discipline and economy.

To leave out beautiful sunsets
Is the secret of good taste.

To hide feelings when you are near crying
Is the secret of dignity.

To cut and tighten sentences
Is the secret of mastery.

To keep the air fresh among words
Is the secret of verbal cleanliness.

To write good poems
Is the secret of brevity.

To go against the grain
Is the secret of bravery.

To risk life to save a smile on a face of a woman or a child
Is the secret of chivalry.

To go where no one else has ever gone before
Is the secret of heroism.

To expect to be kissed having bad breath
Is the secret of a fool.

Words rich in meaning
Can be cheap in sound effects.

Dejan Stojanovic

Brilliant!

Le Salon's Selected Poems (Kinda like the sounds of that)

Where do you find these obscure poets, Wilson? (well, obscure for me; forgive my ignorance)

A magician never reveals his secrets, my dear. But then, since I am not in truth a magician, despite evidence of his younger self communing with an ideogram on the cover of a yet yet-to-be-published book, I will reveal one of my sources:

http://www.poemhunter.com/classics/

I hope you don't regret that. Look what I found already!

Poem
One cannot stay on the summit forever -
One has to come down again.
So why bother in the first place? Just this.
What is above knows what is below -
But what is below does not know what is above

One climb, one sees-
One descends and sees no longer
But one has seen!

There is an art of conducting one's self in
The lower regions by the memory of
What one saw higher up.

When one can no longer see,
One does at least still know.

Rene Daumal

Which reminds me of some things I am reading in spectacular chapter 23 of The Savage Detectives. If I get some time and energy, I will type something in.

#290 - Oh, my gosh... how cool is that? Thanks, Wilson!

>291 slickdpdx:. It's good to see the mysterious slickdpdx emerge from his mysteriousness to reveal himself in what he reads and the poetry he favors. Really, no joke. I clown around a lot on this thread (and others), but some things are serious, after all.

>292 highdesertlady:. It's very cool indeed, Ms. La Pine. After I get up in the morning, make my huge mug of cappuccino and feed the cats--who wait outside on the deck for me to let them in--I go downstairs to the computer and usually look for a poem to post. Sometimes I read poetry for a half hour or so, looking for something that suits my mood, the day, a birthday Peter posted on his thread, whatever. Thus, through circumstance, I have become a reader of poetry. Even a year or two ago, had you told me that would be the case, I'd have been flabbergasted.

The poems are fine, but it's all in the chooser, isn't it? Well done PW.

O SING UNTO MY ROUNDAELAY
O sing unto my roundelay,
O drop the briny tear with me;
Dance no more at holyday,
Like a running river be:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow tree.

Black his cryne as the winter night,
White his rode as the summer snow,
Red his face as the morning light,
Cold he lies in the grave below:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow tree.

Sweet his tongue at the throstle's note,
Quick in dance as thought can be,
Deft his tabor, cudgel stout;
O he lies by the willow tree!
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow tree.

Hark! the raven flaps his wing
In the brier'd dell below;
Hark! the death owl loud doth sing
To the nightmares, as they go:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow tree.

See the white moon shines on high;
Whiter is under my true-love's shroud:
Whiter than the morning sky,
Whiter than the evening cloud:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow tree.

Here upon my true love's grave
Shall the barren flowers be laid;
Not one holy saint to save
All the coldness of maid:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow tree.

With my hands I'll dent the briers
Round his holy corse to gre:
Ouph and fairy, light your fires,
Here my body still shall be:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow tree.

Come, with acorn-cup and thorn,
Drain my hearts blood away;
Life and all its good I scorn,
Dance by night, or feast by day:
My love is dead,
Gone to his death-bed
All under the willow tree.

Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770)

Okay, its not Gainsbourg, its an English-language cover, but I can't let that pass without linking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMfurEVpOkI

I think Goethe hit it on the head.

"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”
~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There's a Goethe Street in Binghamton, New York. The natives pronounce it "Go-eee-thee." There's also a Beethoven Street, which they call "Beth-hoven."

Very hot today. Overcast. Rain somewhere out there but not here. Not a breath of wind out there right now. Cooler temperatures are on the way.

I missed entering this on Rosh Hashana, but the holidays go on, so, belatedly, here's a New Year's poem, and I wish you all a happy new year, each in your own idiosyncratic way.

Thoughts on the New Year

On Rosh Hashana, I went shopping.
It was a considered, thought-full decision.
For I have created God in my own image.
He is a tolerant and nonjudgmental God.
He does not care where I find him--church or temple, shopping mall--
All are infused with his grace,
His benign good humor.

And since my first experience of death,
I have felt that when we die,
Disembodied, we float gently up,
Into the atmosphere of like souls.

Some, like my mother
Go to the place for troubled souls,
Where they are soothed,
And bathed in some white light
I cannot name,
Which feeds and satiates
Their hunger and their need.

For me,
I judge myself by
the God I have created.
I will float among the gentle souls,
the ones with twinkles in their eyes,
Or the soul's equivalent.

On Rosh Hashana
I went shopping.
I can dance and sing and cry with my God
Anywhere.

October 1998

What a great poem! Thanks for sharing

THE MOTHER OF GOD
THE threefold terror of love; a fallen flair
Through the hollow of an ear;
Wings beating about the room;
The terror of all terrors that I bore
The Heavens in my womb.

Had I not found content among the shows
Every common woman knows,
Chimney corner, garden walk,
Or rocky cistern where we tread the clothes
And gather all the talk?

What is this flesh I purchased with my pains,
This fallen star my milk sustains,
This love that makes my heart's blood stop
Or strikes a sudden chill into my bones
And bids my hair stand up?

from THE WINDING STAIR AND OTHER POEMS by William Butler Yeats (1933)

The evening cooled off very nicely here which only makes my packing procrastination that much more. Heading to my uncle's in MD this weekend for Tractor Gras - an annual tractor parade in his town during which he has a large party where we throw Mardi Gras beads at the tractors.* Now, he lives in west MD which is near WV who is playing LSU in football this weekend. The game is not until 9pm while we usually start the party around 9am. Is it possible this is the last you will ever hear from me, quite possibly. It does not bode well, as it stands.

* Yes, I have pictures.

Another hot one in New England. The weather has inspired me to read Field Notes from a Catastrophe. Yech (not the book; don't kill the messenger).

Keep yer head in the game, Jane, and you will do just fine. ;-)

Tani, #284 was a lovely post!

Spring is well underway here. My peach tree has blossomed and is now in leaf. The air is thick with jasmine. My vegetable seedlings are popping out of the ground, and flocks of small birds are bravely ganging up on murderous crows to protect their young.

Garbageman: The Man with the Orderly Mind

What do you think of us in fuzzy endeavor, you whose directions are
sterling, whose lunge is straight?

Can you make a reason, how can you pardon us who memorize the rules and never score?

Who memorize the rules from your own text but never quite transfer them to the game,

Who never quite receive the whistling ball, who gawk, begin to absorb the crowd's own roar.

Is earnest enough, may earnest attract or lead to light;

Is light enough, if hands in clumsy frenzy, flimsy whimsically, enlist;

Is light enough when this bewilderment crying against the dark shuts down the shades?

Dilute confusion. Find and explode our mist.

Gwendolyn Brooks

By the way, Jane, Go Falcons!!

Science-fiction Cradlesong

By and by Man will try
To get out into the sky,
Sailing far beyond the air
From Down and Here to Up and There.
Stars and sky, sky and stars
Make us feel the prison bars.

Suppose it done. Now we ride
Closed in steel, up there, outside
Through our port-holes see the vast
Heaven-scape go rushing past.
Shall we? All that meets the eye
Is sky and stars, stars and sky.

Points of light with black between
Hang like a painted scene
Motionless, no nearer there
Than on Earth, everywhere
Equidistant from our ship.
Heaven has given us the slip.

Hush, be still. Outer space
Is a concept, not a place.
Try no more. Where we are
Never can be sky or star.
From prison, in a prison, we fly;
There's no way into the sky.

~C. S. Lewis

Truly a day for divining the winds. 35 to 45 mph, we actually are under a wind advisory. Warm. 85 degrees. The trees are doing the Watusi, even the blades of grass are doing some kind of shimmy.

ODE TO THE WEST WIND
1
O WILD West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing.

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed

The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow

Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:

Wild spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and preserver; hear, oh, hear!

II
Thou on whose stream, mid the steep sky's commotion,
Loose clouds like earth's decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,

Angels of rain and lightening: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine aery surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head

Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith's height,
The locks of approaching storm. Thou dirge

Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of the vast sepulchre,
Vaulted with all thy congregated might

Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: Oh, hear!

III
Thou who might waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,

Beside a pumice isle in Baiae's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,

All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path, the Atlantic's level powers

Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know

Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: oh hear!

III
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share

The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be

The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne'er have striven

As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!

A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is;
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies

Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!

Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,

Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth

The trumpet of a prophecy! O, Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

Percy Bysshe Shelley

This poem was conceived and chiefly written in a wood that skirts the Arno, near Florence, and on a day when that tempestuous wind, whose temperature is at once mild and animating, was collecting the vapours which pour down the autumnal rains. They began, as I foresaw, at sunset with a violent tempest of hail and rain, attended by that magnificent thunder and lightening peculiar to the Cisalpine regions.
The phenomenon alluded to at the conclusion of the third stanza is well known to naturalists. The vegetation at the bottom of the sea, of rivers, and of lakes, sympathizes with that of the land in the change of seasons, and is consequently influenced by the wind which announce it.
(Shelley's note)

There is something about sustained strong winds that creates a strange energy within. Maybe its just me, but I don't think so.

307 - boo.

The Wind

Blow harder, wind, and drive
My blood from hands and face back to the heart.
Cry over ridges and down tapering coombs,
Carry the flying dapple of the clouds
Over the grass, over the soft-grained plough,
Stroke with ungentle hand the hill's rough hair
Against its usual set.
Snatch at the reins in my dead hands and push me
Out of my saddle, blow my labouring pony
Across the track. You only drive my blood
Nearer the heart from face and hands, and plant there,
Slowly burning, unseen, but alive and wonderful,
A numb, confusèd joy!
This little world's in tumult. Far away
The dim waves rise and wrestle with each other
And fall down headlong on the beach. And here
Quick gusts fly up the funnels of the valleys
And meet their raging fellows on the hill-tops,
And we are in the midst.
This beating heart, enriched with the hands' blood,
Stands in the midst and feels the warm joy burn
In solitude and silence, while all about
The gusts clamour like living, angry birds,
And the gorse seems hardly tethered to the ground.
Blow louder, wind, about
My square-set house, rattle the windows, lift
The trap-door to the loft above my head
And let it fall, clapping. Yell in the trees,
And throw a rotted elm-branch to the ground,
Flog the dry trailers of my climbing rose--
Make deep, O wind, my rest!

Edward Shanks

Eddie Shanks! I've never heard of Eddie Shanks. Disturbing that such a fine poet could go unnoticed by me all this while. His poem has the ring of real poetry, it seems to me. Those little hairs that stood tip-toe on the back of Nabokov's neck as he shaved - listening to this poem doubtless.

Wow, outstanding poetry again today!

I am abashed. Riding the thematic wind, so to speak, I breezed out on Google, beyond my usual sources, and came upon poetry done by ... some ethnic group I hadn't tapped yet. Eddie Shanks? I thought. What kind of name is that for a Greek? Or maybe an Albanian. Or Bulgarian. And now I can't find the site.

Call him Eddie Shanks, affiliation unknown.

Mayor Tommy Shanks' brother?

AUTUMN
A touch of cold in the Autumn night
I walked abroad,
And saw the ruddy moon lean over a hedge
Like a red-faced farmer
I did not stop to speak, but nodded,
And round about were the wistful stars
With white faces like town children.

Thomas Ernest Hulme

Not ethnic after all. Merely English. From Wikipedia:

Edward Richard Buxton Shanks (June 11, 1892–May 4, 1953) was born in London and educated at Merchant Taylors' School and Trinity College, Cambridge. He passed his B.A. in History in 1913. He was editor of Granta, 1912-13, served in World War I with the British Army in France, but was invalided out in 1915 and did administrative work until war's end.

He was later a literary reviewer, working for the London Mercury (1919-22) and for a short while a lecturer at the University of Liverpool (1926). He was the chief leader-writer for the Evening Standard from 1928 to 1935.

Eddie Shanks:
http://oldpoetry.com/oauthor/show/edward_shanks

The hot weather has scampered out of here like some illegitimate son of 'Hot Dog' Harry Reid of Nevada. The temperature will drop from 89 to 51 before the night is through.
Change is good, just ask obama who is now taking advice from the egregious slick willie. A slippery slope there. Not much shame in that crowd. Cony-catchers of the first magnitude. What Henry Louis would have made of these clowns.
It looks very much like Summer has bid a fond farewell. Maybe one more cameo role but not likely.

Moving west to east, it seems, since tomorrow we'll get a glorious, dry 80 degree day, and then the big drop. Funny thing, how when you sit where you are, the weather always appears to come from somewhere else. It never originates where you are. Sure, you hear about lows and highs forming here or there, somewhat in the vicinity, into which rushes heat or rain or something, but you can't see that; it's invisible. What you see are those damn southerners sending hot, humid air your way, or Canadians dropping arctic air on your turf. The Gulf stream, the easterlies and westerlies, the nor'easters. It's true: no man is an island.

The fabulous hoofer Anne Miller must twist and turn and spin in from somewhen?

No man is an island,entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main, if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

John Donne, Meditations XVII

100 degrees today. 104 degrees tomorrow. Heading for the beach tomorrow, Newport Beach's The Wedge to be exact. The Wedge, on a big day, is the steepest, fastest, most dangerous wave in California. It breaks literally feet from the shore in shallow water. People die here every year. Woo hoo!

more Wedge; just can't get enough

Giant, Ginormous, Day at The Wedge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksCEKD4YxEU&feature=fvw

July 5th, 2010: Epic day at The Wedge.

Mike Stewart, pro bodyboarder / bodysurfer, masters Pipeline, Hawaii

Today’s predicted highs for selected locales:

Chino, Cal. 104
Atlanta 89
Little Rock 84
Denver 83
Taipei 83
Bethany, Conn. 83
New York 81
La Pine, Ore. 81
Portland, Ore. 80
Sydney, Aus. 78
Woodstock, NY 77
Detroit 67
Chicago 66
Sandusky, Ohio 62
Brussels 59

La Pine has a 81-87° variance today according to the regional forecast... we'll see! Indian Summer!

The long range forecasts have been predicting a 7 day dry spell which bodes well for the forthcoming Valley exodus of hunters.

Watch out for the innocent, Tani, y'hear? I mean other than the four-legged kind. People like me, peddling down the road.

I wear thick black and white stripes, a rugby shirt, when I'm on the bike and hunting season begins. Starts in October, with bows and arrows, and in November the gunsters have their day. Less and less of them, though, from year to year. Here, anyway.

Personally, Wilson, I would be wearing red or orange around here on a bike during hunting season. Back in the 70s the Thursday night before opening day Highway 20 (two lane highway) was solid red lights heading east.

Unrelated to biking, it really pisses me off when rifle hunters don't wear orange or red. One opening day before dawn, about 12 years ago, we were heading out to our stand and I turned around to see when the sun would rise and low and behold there was an asshole in camouflage about 6 feet above us. WTF?!?! Talk about inviting a bullet. Bow hunting is the only time I would wear camo for chrissakes. There is enough sage and bitterbrush to hide behind where we hunt that wearing camo is ludicrous. (the guy was from California - the tolerated, but not welcome camp always across the meadow from us)

Bow season starts in early September and Deer (buck) begins around the 1st weekend in October, then Elk shortly after that. hmmm. Elk steak... melt in your mouth goodness.

What do you mean "the guy was from California"? What exactly do you mean by that Missy?!

Damn, I somehow knew you would see that Mr. Freeque, oh most venerable Diktateur!

Okay, so here it is... Homegrown Oregonians, born before the 70s/80s, have a long standing thing about Californians (I really can't speak for gen x-ers). Now, when it comes to hunters we kinda resent that they get our much coveted deer tags that we have to go through a lottery system to get. We (meaning our particular hunting camp) tolerate them only because they bring revenue to the state. Now, when said Californians come up and wear camouflage kinda makes ya wanna shoot something. (okay, just kidding there) But, we have been sharing our hunting grounds with these folks for at least the 40 years that I have been going up there.

There, I said it... that's my story and I'm stickin' to it. ;p

Two pieces in the October 14 issue of The New York Review of Books concerning subjects discussed in Salon threads:

"The Genius of 'The Wire,'" by Lorrie Moore; and "Paying the Right Kind of Attention," by Diane Johnson, a review of Ted Mooney's The Same River Twice.

As hunting season approaches:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/26/us/26huntintro.html?th&emc=th

Porius, no man is an island, he's a peninsula.

330> thanks for that info, Piero.

Here's the article: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/oct/14/paying-right-kind-attention...

TIME
GATHER ye rosebuds as ye may,
Old Time is still a flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
To-morrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,
The higher he's a getting,
The sooner will his race be run,
And nearer he's to setting.

The age is best which is the first,
When youth and blood are warmer;
But being spent, the worse and worst
Time still succeed the former.

Then be not coy, but use your time,
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

Robert Herrick

Cabelas! Wish we had one here. They have the best gear!

Elegy IX: The Autumnal

No spring nor summer Beauty hath such grace
As I have seen in one autumnall face.
Young beauties force our love, and that's a rape,
This doth but counsel, yet you cannot 'scape.
If 'twere a shame to love, here 'twere no shame,
Affection here takes Reverence's name.
Were her first years the Golden Age; that's true,
But now she's gold oft tried, and ever new.
That was her torrid and inflaming time,
This is her tolerable Tropique clime.
Fair eyes, who asks more heat than comes from hence,
He in a fever wishes pestilence.
Call not these wrinkles, graves; if graves they were,
They were Love's graves; for else he is no where.
Yet lies not Love dead here, but here doth sit
Vowed to this trench, like an Anachorit.

And here, till hers, which must be his death, come,
He doth not dig a grave, but build a tomb.
Here dwells he, though he sojourn ev'ry where,
In progress, yet his standing house is here.
Here, where still evening is; not noon, nor night;
Where no voluptuousness, yet all delight
In all her words, unto all hearers fit,
You may at revels, you at counsel, sit.
This is Love's timber, youth his under-wood;
There he, as wine in June enrages blood,
Which then comes seasonabliest, when our taste
And appetite to other things is past.
Xerxes' strange Lydian love, the Platane tree,
Was loved for age, none being so large as she,
Or else because, being young, nature did bless
Her youth with age's glory, Barrenness.
If we love things long sought, Age is a thing
Which we are fifty years in compassing;
If transitory things, which soon decay,
Age must be loveliest at the latest day.
But name not winter-faces, whose skin's slack;
Lank, as an unthrift's purse; but a soul's sack;
Whose eyes seek light within, for all here's shade;
Whose mouths are holes, rather worn out than made;
Whose every tooth to a several place is gone,
To vex their souls at Resurrection;
Name not these living deaths-heads unto me,
For these, not ancient, but antique be.
I hate extremes; yet I had rather stay
With tombs than cradles, to wear out a day.
Since such love's natural lation is, may still
My love descend, and journey down the hill,
Not panting after growing beauties so,
I shall ebb out with them, who homeward go.

John Donne

It is time that beats in the breast and it is time
That batters against the mind, silent and proud,
The mind that knows it is destroyed by time.

Time is a horse that runs in the heart, a horse
Without a rider on a road at night.
The mind sits listening and hears it pass.

It is someone walking rapidly in the street.
The reader by the window has finished his book
And tells the hour by the lateness of the sounds.

Even breathing is the beating of time, in kind:
A retardation of its battering,
A horse grotesquely taut, a walker like

A shadow in mid-earth . . . If we propose
A large-sculptured, platonic person, free from time,
And imagine for him the speech he cannot speak,

A form, then, protected from the battering, may
Mature: A capable being may replace
Dark horse and walker walking rapidly.

Felicity, ah! Time is the hooded enemy,
The inimical music, the enchantered space
In which the enchanted preludes have their place.

Wallace Stevens

WHY EAST WIND CHILLS
Why east wind chills and south wind cools
Shall not be known till windwell dries
And west's no longer drowned
In winds that bring the fruit and rind
Of many a hundred falls;
Why silk is soft and the stone wounds
The child shall question all his days,
Why night-time rain and the breast's blood
Both quench his thirst he'll have a black reply.

When cometh Jack Frost? the children ask.
Shall they clasp a comet in their fists?
Not till, from high and low, their dust
Sprinkles in children's eyes a long-last sleep
And dusk is crowded with the children's ghosts,
Shall a white answer echo from the rooftops.

All things are known: the stars advice
Calls some content to travel with the winds,
Though what the stars ask as they round
Time upon time the towers of the skies
Is heard but little till the stars go out.
I hear content, and 'Be content'
Ring like a handbell through the corridors,
And 'Know no answer,' and I know
No answer to the children's cry
Of echo's answer and the man of frost
And ghostly comets over the raised fists.

Dylan Thomas

Cool damp weather prevails. If we've got nothing else we have the weather. Not a bad bargain really. It forces us out of ourselves. An enemy of the solipsist and the narcissist. Very few things can beat back the blues like a raw spring or autumn day. Buds peeping out and looking to cross to safety; and tattered flowers hanging on for all their worth in the feckless pfall sunlight.

THE FORCE THAT DRIVES THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER
The force that drives the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever.

The force that drives the water through the rocks
Drives my red blood; that dries the mouthing streams
Turns mine to wax.
And I am dumb to mouth unto my veins
How at the mountain spring the same mouth sucks.

The hand that whirls the water in the pool
Stirs the quicksand; that ropes the blowing wind
Hauls my shroud sail.
And I am dumb to tell the hanging man
How of my clay is made the hangman's lime.

The lips of time leech to the fountainhead;
Love drips and gathers, but the fallen blood
Shall calm her sores.
And I am dumb to tell the weather's wind
How time has ticked a heaven round the stars.

And I am dumb to tell the lover's tomb
How at my sheet goes the same crooked worm.

Dylan Thomas

It's one of the reasons I left California: there's more weather here.

It's deja vu all over again, Peter: I posted the Dylan Thomas back in #273. It's a good'un, though; deserves repetition.

LIGHT BREAKS WHERE NO SUN SHINES
Light breaks where no sun shines;
Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart
Push in their tides;
And, broken ghosts with glow-worms in their heads,
The things of light
File through the flesh where no flesh decks the bones.

A candle in the thighs
Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
Where no seed stirs,
The fruit of man unwrinkles in the stars,
Bright as a fig;
Where no wax is, the candle shows its hairs.

Dawn breaks behind the eyes;
From poles of skull and toe the windy blood
Slides like the sea;
Nor fenced, nor staked, the gushers of the sky
Spout to the rod
Divining in a smile the oil of tears.

Night in the sockets rounds,
Like some pitch moon, the limit of the globes;
Day lights the bone;
Where no cold is, the skinning gales unpin
The winter's robes;
The film of spring is hanging from the lids.

Dylan Thomas

I should have known the DT poem was already in it's appointed place. The sort of mistake our ever vigilant editor is on guard for.

Porius, send some of that damp, cool weather to the central part of the US, would ya? We tied a 119 year old record yesterday at 90 degrees, forecast today is 87, then 91, then 88, ......never ending summer.

Cool weather is on the way.

I noticed that Enrique is also sweating: 104 or so degrees out there. And a river flooding in Wisconsin, Steven: anywhere in the vicinity of where you used to live before you became a cowboy?

Thanks for the heads up on the flooding. I had no idea. I was up in the mountains camping over the weekend, out of the heat and enjoying the changing aspens. The Wisc. River is in the central part of the state. I'm from the west, central area. We are known for the state looking like the profile of an indian head, Door County peninsula into Lake Michigan, being the feather. My hometown would be the the eye of the indian. Looks like flooding also occuring south of Minneapolis.

I've heard a lot about Door County, how charming it is. And I have an abstract affection for Milwaukee, based upon the socialists who used to be mayors and whatnot back when, but I've never been there, if we don't count the freight yard as seen from an open boxcar at three in the morning. I've been to Madison, stayed on a farm, then took the road west, past grain silos and appealing rolling hills and meadows. Is that your west central area? I've been in Minneapolis too, which is to say a freight yard for westbound traffic, and then in St. Paul, for freight trains heading in the opposite direction.

I wish you would have elaborated more on that trip in I Think, Therefore Who Am I?, Mr. Author Man...

I concur!

That was a different trip, HDL, slick, a year or two earlier, hitching to San Francisco and then back in about a week and a half, riding fright trains--actually learning how to do it; you can make a fool of yourself if you don't know where to jump into an open boxcar and/or what kind of car it is and which cars are on either side.

The later cross-country trip, in my psychedelic year, included so many things--including an aborted freight trip--that its inclusion in the book would have disrupted the narrative flow. Sometimes, as a writer, you have to leave interesting things out for the "greater good," so to speak.

I also left out an interesting visit to Allen Ginsberg's pad, just up the block from mine, in the East Village; the identity of the old man in Golden Gate Park who fed me; and the undercover cop who socked me in the mouth with beaded knuckles, creating the cutest blue front tooth, which miraculously survived for over twenty years, but finally had to be replaced.

A bit of doggerel for a Sunday evening in America. This one's for you Jane.

Sack heads been talkin some kinda smack
Falcons took it to them with a ground attack
“We didn’t have Bush”, they’ll be whining
they’re place in the standings we are redefining
to all you Saints fans still talking trash
the final score was 27-24, we kicked your ass
Told you aint’s fans your heads would be spinning
the chink in your armor is just the beginning
You’ll keep on talkin’, LIVING LIKE IT’S STILL LAST YEAR
Cry me a river I am so sorry for your tears
We’ve given you a shot to the solar plexus
So sorry we won’t see you in Arlington, Texas

Sid

For those of you who care about NFL Football and did not see the Falcons - Saints game yesterday, you missed one of the best football games played in a while. The Saints had Drew Brees, the Falcons had a whole team of football players. Regardless of what you might hear, the better team won. Anytime a team can string together a 19 play drive that takes nearly 11 minutes off the clock and features two third-down conversions and two fourth down conversions it makes a statement about that team. New Orleans had two touchdowns set up by breakdowns on Falcons special teams. While the Falcons pounded out every inch of their total yardage. Without those two breakdowns it would not have been close at all. The Falcons just outplayed the Saints. That's all.

So, how about some short stories? That would be fun. I would love that. When you write, do you have to concentrate completely on the project at hand? Maybe take a break and write us some short stories?

I had the exact same thought.

Great minds... ;-)

Yes, it's hot. Too hot. Too hot to handle. Hot to trot. Hotter than Hell. Steambath. "We're mel-ting!"

Yes, whatever you don't use for your novel, use for something else, a short story collection, like Tim 'O Brien did while writing his breakthrough novel, Going After Cacciato. Having written a chapter for GAC that didn't fit the novel, it ended up being an integral part of The Things They Carried, some twelve years later.

Yes, you will write short stories. We insist.

Holy shit. A fan club.

I have several manuscripts floating around here: a whodunit called "Brass City," situated in Waterbury, Connecticut, where I briefly rubbed elbows with mafiosi, who have probably long since disappeared, if you know what I mean; a loopy Vonnegut-influenced book, also a mystery, called "Full Moon," and another comic mystery called "The Mailman Murders," pieces of which have been reprised in Digging Deeper ... and two fat tomes of short stories, one called "True Stories" and the other "Surviving the Sixties," which I've used or will use freely in other concoctions. With tinkering they become discrete chapters within a larger whole.

Which, by the way, leads me to point out that though I shaped the last book and the one to come, and the one after that, as what I like to call "cubist memoirs" (my contribution to the nonlinear novel), all I do is write short stories.

Either that, or we will all converge on Woodstock for you to regale us with your storytelling in person. Is your place as large as Yasgur's farm?

Judging from the pix, my place and the land it's on ain't half as big as Gene's Farm, in Woodstock, Georgia. We could go there instead, and watch football games on what I'm guessing is a humongous screen.

Only if He moves the big screen to the sun porch.

Those in the know--the more nerdish among you, perhaps--will have noticed that I began a new nature thread, despite the fact that no one has demanded it. I did this because I will finally get to Montreal this week, and be gone from mercredi to samedi, during which time any pleas for a switch would otherwise have gone unnoticed. So, since I am nothing if not considerate, the new thread awaits you whenever you want it:

Nature, the 10th iteration

http://www.librarything.com/topic/99379