Thursday, October 31, 2024
A poem
Living With An Ogre
My man's like living with an ogre I think:
“Let's get romantic. I'll just make
A candle out of some of my ear-wax.”
It's laughable, that's just my take.
I sit on the couch like a Chinese princess.
He lumbers in, dick and beer in hand.
He grabs me and throws me over his shoulder
Yeah, well he's an ogreish kind of man.
It's November, our pear tree has tiny little pears
Its twisted branches are otherwise bare.
It's like our love, there's nothing left
But love's fruit hanging in the air.
Jennifer Knox
Wednesday, October 30, 2024
A poem …
Living With An Ogre
My man's like living with an ogre I think:
“Let's get romantic. I'll just make
A candle out of some of my ear-wax.”
It's laughable, that's just my take.
I sit on the couch like a Chinese princess.
He lumbers in, dick and beer in hand.
He grabs me and throws me over his shoulder
Yeah, well he's an ogreish kind of man.
It's November, our pear tree has tiny little pears
Its twisted branches are otherwise bare.
It's like our love, there's nothing left
But love's fruit hanging in the air.
What will it be, my sweet daddy ogre?
You don't love my poems, you're glad when they're over.
Tuesday, October 29, 2024
Monday, October 28, 2024
Verse on the range …
… Cowboy poetry: Using form: Doc Mehl, ‘Poems Used To Rhyme’ (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Sunday, October 27, 2024
Saturday, October 26, 2024
Friday, October 25, 2024
Wednesday, October 23, 2024
Tuesday, October 22, 2024
Monday, October 21, 2024
Remembering …
… https://youtube.com/watch?v=Xny7G9YrrBU&si=72YZ_VrK1v0oa-bK
Mitzi Gaynor at her best.
George and Weedon Grossmith
When it comes to The Diary of a Nobody, all I can say is: if it's good enough for Evelyn Waugh -- and evidently it was -- then it's good enough for me. This novel by the Grossmith brothers, George and Weedon, is everything a playful book should be: mischievous, comical, enlightening. But more than that: Diary of a Nobody is very well conceived: it's perfectly written, with a rhythmic style very much of its time. No surprise that Three Men in a Boat, another work of similar scope and ambition, was published within a year of Nobody.
What I enjoyed most about Nobody -- beside is humor and wit -- was the question it seems to pose just before the surface: which is whether the Victorian fashion for published diaries had to be limited to those of social elites. Here is an upper middle class family -- with the habits and preferences to suit. And yet, in the predictability of their daily routine, in the formulaic nature of their aspirations, there is an epic quality. The Grossmith brothers have done two things very well: first, they have endowed middle class life with humor and levity, without demeaning that life; and second, they have positioned middle class tropes and hopes as items worthy of publication.
Diary of a Nobody is, of course, just that: but that seems to be exactly the point. This nobody -- this Mr Pooter -- is endlessly interesting and comical and human. Which is the moral, perhaps: humanity can be comical and serious at the same time. Embracing these in equal measures results in the sort of illumination you might otherwise expect from a 'somebody.'
Saturday, October 19, 2024
Friday, October 18, 2024
Thursday, October 17, 2024
The political scene …
… Run, Writer, Run! - The American Conservative. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I never met Vidal or Mailer, but I got to know Bill Buckley pretty well. A remarkably nice man.
Tuesday, October 15, 2024
A poem …
I love you, dying man under a train,
Your pretty, pretty face bored with ennui.
I won't think: “Can I save you from this dream?”
My love is like a moth flying near flame.
I love you bug that always goes upside-down.
I will keep righting you and righting you.
You are like my pretty, pretty beau.
Who thinks of his demise at slightest let down.
He has died, but maybe he was right.
Maybe things should be perfect beyond belief:
Gorge on ambrosia and filet mignon,
While climaxing wonderfully all day and night.
Yes, everything should be perfect beyond belief.
Or maybe not being bothered easily is key.
Monday, October 14, 2024
Someone besides me born on this date …
… someone fae more imortant than I.
Short bio of president long on leadership skillsPlus ça change …
Today I officially reached the age of 83. Yes, it’s my birthday. I feel the same as I did yesterday, which may not be great, but isn’t all that bad either. Since you inherit your longevity from your mother and mine made it to the cusp of 90,:I may be around for a bit. But I’ll leave all that to God.
Sunday, October 13, 2024
Saturday, October 12, 2024
RIP …
Gratitude, sorrow, suffering and mercy: R.I.P. Greg Hillis | America Magazine, (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Friday, October 11, 2024
Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes …
… Germans decry influence of English as ‘idiot’s apostrophe’ gets official
approval. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.’
Thursday, October 10, 2024
Anniversary …
… Bobby Short at 100: A Swinging Steward of the American Songbook - WSJ. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
He was truly great.
Wednesday, October 09, 2024
Rachel Cusk
I've written about Rachel Cusk before on the blog, but having recently finished another of her novels -- Kudos -- I wanted to offer some additional commentary.
Cusk seems to have been located within the contemporary genre of auto-fiction: that space carved out, most notably, by Knausgaard. And to a certain extent, that is right: the thin line between character and self is certainly blurred.
But I think Cusk has developed her own literary space, too: her narrative style -- which has a primary character recount the story of another, more tangential figure -- is very effective. Often, her way of constructing this sort of narration reads like a novel by Sebald: the central character speaks to the reader about a story involving a second character, whose story is invoked by way of memory, or by way of Cusk's signature "he said" or "she said" construction, which regularly appears in the midst of an extended sentence.
Like Knausgaard, Cusk takes as her content the banal or the expected, but she has a way of universalizing it: of turning it into something existential, or transnational, or profound. Cusk does this in the most unassuming fashion: she recounts a dialogue between one character and another -- and then, before long, the discussion has assumed a quiet gravity, a sense in which what's being discussed between the characters is actually an exchange between the reader and the ideas being invoked.
What Kudos is about seems beside the point: it is a novel comprised of a series of discussions, which reveal a range of characters, who are themselves ephemeral. This is a novel about ideas, and the ways we, as people -- as characters -- interact with them. There are not many books like this one, and I heartedly recommend it -- as a fresh angle into what literature can be.
Sounds like Lionel at her best …
… Lionel Shriver and the Resistance to Satire. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Blogging note …
I am currently in a rehab facility. This involves going to gym and other activities relating to my getting well. Friends and family come to visit from time time. I will blog when I can.
Place your bets …
… Here are the bookies’ odds for the 2024 Nobel Prize in Literature. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Tuesday, October 08, 2024
Monday, October 07, 2024
Sunday, October 06, 2024
Saturday, October 05, 2024
Friday, October 04, 2024
Thursday, October 03, 2024
I don’t get this …
… Garth Brooks Sued By Former Makeup Artist Who Claims He Raped Her In Hotel Room.
If someone does this sort of thing to you, why wait. Why not call the police. It’s a crime