But, by God, these days you had better pretend to care -- and care with enthusiasm. Or else. And the "or else" is getting more draconian every day.
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
Oh, yeah?
But, by God, these days you had better pretend to care -- and care with enthusiasm. Or else. And the "or else" is getting more draconian every day.
Saturday, September 19, 2020
Emotions
Why is it easier to feel sad than to feel happy? Is the world really that much of a disappointment, full of so much pain, grief, disappointment and regret that our default emotions are resignation and sadness?
Or is it merely a quirk of personality developed from our lived experience, or, more mechanically, merely a propensity of our genetic make-up, like a fear of heights or a taste for salty snacks?
Whatever it is, many of those of a thoughtful literary bent seem to have had a melancholy view of life, and a slightly bitter one, too.
Of course I prayed--
and did God care?
He cared as much as if in the air
a bird had cried 'Give me,'
and stamped her foot!
--Emily Dickinson
These
are the desolate, dark weeks
when nature in its barrenness
equals the stupidity of man.
The year plunges into night
and the heart plunges
lower than night
to an empty, windswept place
without sun, stars or moon
but a peculiar light as of thought
that spins a dark fire--
whirling upon itself until,
in the cold, it kindles
to make a woman aware of nothing
that she knows, not loneliness
itself--Not a ghost but
would be embraced--emptiness,
despair--(they
whine and whistle) among
the flashes and booms of war;
houses of whose rooms
the cold is greater than can be thought,
the people gone that we loved,
the beds lying empty, the couches
damp, the chairs unused--
Hide it away somewhere
out of the mind, let it get roots
and grow, unrelated to jealous
ears and eyes--for itself.
In this mine they come to dig--all.
Is this the counterfoil to sweetest
music? The source of poetry that
seeing the clock stopped, says,
The clock has stopped
that ticked yesterday so well?
and hears the sound of lake water
splashing--that is now stone.
--William Carlos Williams
Or is it merely a quirk of personality developed from our lived experience, or, more mechanically, merely a propensity of our genetic make-up, like a fear of heights or a taste for salty snacks?
Whatever it is, many of those of a thoughtful literary bent seem to have had a melancholy view of life, and a slightly bitter one, too.
Of course I prayed--
and did God care?
He cared as much as if in the air
a bird had cried 'Give me,'
and stamped her foot!
--Emily Dickinson
These
are the desolate, dark weeks
when nature in its barrenness
equals the stupidity of man.
The year plunges into night
and the heart plunges
lower than night
to an empty, windswept place
without sun, stars or moon
but a peculiar light as of thought
that spins a dark fire--
whirling upon itself until,
in the cold, it kindles
to make a woman aware of nothing
that she knows, not loneliness
itself--Not a ghost but
would be embraced--emptiness,
despair--(they
whine and whistle) among
the flashes and booms of war;
houses of whose rooms
the cold is greater than can be thought,
the people gone that we loved,
the beds lying empty, the couches
damp, the chairs unused--
Hide it away somewhere
out of the mind, let it get roots
and grow, unrelated to jealous
ears and eyes--for itself.
In this mine they come to dig--all.
Is this the counterfoil to sweetest
music? The source of poetry that
seeing the clock stopped, says,
The clock has stopped
that ticked yesterday so well?
and hears the sound of lake water
splashing--that is now stone.
--William Carlos Williams
Tuesday, September 15, 2020
September
September was when it began.
Locusts dying in the fields; our dogs
Silent, moving like shadows on a wall;
And strange worms crawling; flies of a kind
We had never seen before; huge vineyard moths;
Badgers and snakes, abandoning
Their holes in the field; the fruit gone rotten;
Queer fungi sprouting; the fields and woods
Covered with spiderwebs; black vapors
Rising from the earth - all these,
And more began that fall. Ravens flew round
The hospital in pairs. Where there was water,
We could hear the sound of beating clothes
All through the night. We could not count
All the miscarriages, the quarrels, the jealousies.
And one day in a field I saw
A swarm of frogs, swollen and hideous,
Hundreds upon hundreds, sitting on each other,
Huddled together, silent, ominous,
And heard the sound of rushing wind.
~ Weldon Kees
"Line Storm" by John Stuart Curry, 1934.
Locusts dying in the fields; our dogs
Silent, moving like shadows on a wall;
And strange worms crawling; flies of a kind
We had never seen before; huge vineyard moths;
Badgers and snakes, abandoning
Their holes in the field; the fruit gone rotten;
Queer fungi sprouting; the fields and woods
Covered with spiderwebs; black vapors
Rising from the earth - all these,
And more began that fall. Ravens flew round
The hospital in pairs. Where there was water,
We could hear the sound of beating clothes
All through the night. We could not count
All the miscarriages, the quarrels, the jealousies.
And one day in a field I saw
A swarm of frogs, swollen and hideous,
Hundreds upon hundreds, sitting on each other,
Huddled together, silent, ominous,
And heard the sound of rushing wind.
~ Weldon Kees
Monday, September 14, 2020
Sunday, September 13, 2020
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Roosevelt and selfies
This is the age of the selfie. Lots of people sneer at the fad, but I don't see the harm. Too many of the commenting class seem to be uptight snobs, looking down their noses at us inferior beings who actually enjoy our lives. Everybody is vain. Everybody has an ego. Why pretend otherwise? Once in a while, "If it feels good, do it!" is sound advice.
Time and place, of course, but that also goes for prim rectitude and priggishness. Free your inner libertine from time to time, cut loose and howl!
You'll have to settle down and get back to work soon enough.
Saturday, September 5, 2020
Thursday, September 3, 2020
Ernest Hemingway's favorite novels
How many have you read? I've read 10 -- well, I haven't read all of the Oxford Book of English Verse, but that's not really a novel. "Far Away and Long Ago" is one of my favorites. It's not a novel, either, but a memoir.
Ya know...this basically looks like a high school reading list. There's really nothing unusual about the choices, especially considering when the list was written: Somerset Maugham, Thomas Mann, James Joyce and ee cummings were all contemporary, well-known authors, and the rest were not that far in the past.