Today’s Writer’s Almanac by Garrison Keillor proffers an especially beautiful poem by Howard Nemerov, entitled Monet.
Category Archives: stories
basta
Guess what the top news story on all the US networks was last week. Not the wars in the middle east, or the war on terr’r, or the ubiquitous wake of Katrina, or starvation in Africa, or airline insecurity, illegal immigration, stem cell research, global warming, or the economy flopping around like a beached bass. It was the arrest, transport, airline dinner, purple shirt and stupid necktie, and tenuous confession of the purported killer of JonBenet Ramsey, 10 years ago.
This is not journalism, friends. It’s sensationalism. It’s an LA slow speed chase, writ large. I turned on the TV one evening, and CNN was absolutely engrossed with the taxiing of the airplane bringing Karr to California. The taxiing of the airplane from the runway to the terminal was the big story of the hour, live and in second by second detail. That’s worse than the day they followed Michael Jackson to the courthouse, with helicopters.
I have absolutely no doubt that if CNN and the other networks could do it, they’d show us John Karr having a good fart. Then they’d do half an hour with their intestinal gas legal experts, on what such a fine breeze portends for his chances at trial.
So, there’s a petition online, to send a message to the media asshats. The poor child is as dead as she’s ever going to be, and I hope whoever killed her rots in hell. But enough JonBenet, for crying out loud. This ain’t news. In the enduring words of Bill Murray, It just doesn’t matter … It just doesn’t matter … It just doesn’t matter.
revolting indeed
I can’t go out there and shoot at young children. I just can’t go to Iraq. I don’t care what side they are on. I can’t do it.
the literary mind
literary blog poetry prose blong:
“The political mind is not the same thing as the literary mind. The political mind seeks to solve practical problems. The literary mind is a dangerous mind and can only redeem itself through compassion. To the literary mind what happens in politics is inconsequential; the cleverest manipulators win. Politicians are farts of the populace as Ezra Pound put it. The literary mind needs to race way ahead where nothing has lodged and make a stand. That can be a dangerous place. “
Just something I found, surfin’ around. I’ll ponder it; meanwhile, you can leave a comment.
oh boy
My nephew T, five years old, is a pretty amazing kid. He says the most incredible, off-the-wall things.
Recently, he was sitting on the sofa, between his parents, and said this:
I feel like I’m sitting here between a couple of freaks.
what we do
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
— Albert Pine
the world
If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. It it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.-E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)
Oates takes literary prize
Joyce Carol Oates has won the Tribune award for lifetime achievement. She’s a great writer.
stupid is as
Do you ever go through periods where you feel like a poor little idiot in search of a village? Boy I do. This last weekend was one of the worst spells I’ve had in a while. It started gradually on Friday afternoon, lasted all weekend, and it might not be over yet. It just seemed like every time I opened my mouth, what came out hadn’t been run past an editor, or even a crossing guard.
I ran into a fellow poet at the reading Saturday night, and learned that he’d changed his first name. Or perhaps reclaimed a family name that he’d set aside earlier in life. That’s cool, right? Sure. But my pitiful brain tried telling him about my friend named E~ who I met after years, and found he’d become a woman named E~. (Similar names.) Not a great subject from the start – not for that setting – and I did a bad job explaining how I felt that it behooves us all to accept one another unconditionally, to let each person follow his/her bliss. But that’s not what I said. I blathered for what must have been 30 seconds but seemed like 30 minutes. There was something about his face that changed in that long expanse of time. (The face of the poet, not my friend who had the sex change.) He went from looking like a metaphorical peach to an overripe avocado. Darker and with a heavier pit. There was also just the hint of a squirm, like "oh spare me and let me go."
I ran into a fellow poet at the reading Saturday night, and learned that he’d changed his first name. Or perhaps reclaimed a family name that he’d set aside earlier in life. That’s cool, right? Sure. But my pitiful brain tried telling him about my friend named E~ who I met after years, and found he’d become a woman named E~. (Similar names.) Not a great subject from the start – not for that setting – and I did a bad job explaining how I felt that it behooves us all to accept one another unconditionally, to let each person follow his/her bliss. But that’s not what I said. I blathered for what must have been 30 seconds but seemed like 30 minutes. There was something about his face that changed in that long expanse of time. (The face of the poet, not my friend who had the sex change.) He went from looking like a metaphorical peach to an overripe avocado. Darker and with a heavier pit. There was also just the hint of a squirm, like "oh spare me and let me go."
After the reading, I tried to talk to a poet with whom I organized a Day of the Dead poetry reading several years ago. On impulse, I asked if she’d be interested in doing that again some time. She wasn’t. Isn’t. Fuhgeddaboutit. But since I’d made up new business cards that day, I just had to give her one. Sheesh. All the social grace of a bull elephant seal.
It was still with me on Sunday, when Pete and Erin visited. I don’t remember anything plainly stupid being hacked forth, but I felt right on the brink, the lip of the abyss of the inane. And about as sharp as a pingpong ball.
We ought to have a common understanding, like holding the door for someone behind you, or covering your mouth when you cough, that everybody has a stupid time now and then, and should just be compassionately ignored. Unless, or course, it’s just me.
whew
You’ll all be relieved, as I am, to know that the Coffee Grinder – my favorite place for a cup of joe – is open today. They didn’t open yesterday, and there’s no sign of why. None of my business. But it had us on the edges of our seats.
It’s good to have a clean, well-ventilated, place to sit and write a while. They’ve been playing Hawaiian music in here. I don’t understand a word, but it’s cool. Now they’ve switched to flamenco guitar. Sweet. See, I don’t have tunes like that at home. Oops, now it’s raggae. The flamenco didn’t last long, but that’s cool, mon.
the body
Been thinking about your body lately? Yeah, me too. I’ve been wondering, Where does all this fit in, in the big picture? (It still needs to be a pretty big picture.) So imagine my surprise, when I picked up a Small, leather-bound volume of Plato this evening – just to dust it – and opened it at random to the following selection. Seems our old buddy Plato (is that his first name or last?) got it all figured out, back in the BC.
And when they consider all this, must not true philosophers make a reflection, of which they will speak to one another in such words as these: We have found, they will say, a path of speculation which seems to bring us and the argument to the conclusion that while we are in the body, and while the soul is mingled with this mass of evil, our desire will not be satisfied, and our desire is of the truth. For the body is a source of endless trouble to us by reason of the mere requirement of food; and also is liable to diseases which overtake and impede us in the search after truth: and by filling us so full of loves, and lusts, and fears, and fancies, and idols, and every sort of folly, prevents our ever having, as people say, so much as a thought. For whence come wars, and fightings, and factions? whence but from the body and the lusts of the body? For wars are occasioned by the love of money, and money has to be acquired for the sake and in the service of the body; and in consequence of all these things the time which ought to be given to philosophy is lost. Moreover, if there is time and an inclination toward philosophy, yet the body introduces a turmoil and confusion and fear into the course of speculation, and hinders us from seeing the truth: and all experience shows that if we would have pure knowledge of anything we must be quit of the body, and the soul in herself must behold all things in themselves: then I suppose that we shall attain that which we desire, and of which we say that we are lovers, and that is wisdom, not while we live, but after death, as the argument shows; for if while in company with the body the soul cannot have pure knowledge, one of two things seems to follow-either knowledge is not to be attained at all, or, if at all, after death. For then, and not till then, the soul will be in herself alone and without the body. In this present life, I reckon that we make the nearest approach to knowledge when we have the least possible concern or interest in the body, and are not saturated with the bodily nature, but remain pure until the hour when God himself is pleased to release us. And then the foolishness of the body will be cleared away and we shall be pure and hold converse with other pure souls, and know of ourselves the clear light everywhere; and this is surely the light of truth. For no impure thing is allowed to approach the pure. These are the sort of words, Simmias, which the true lovers of wisdom cannot help saying to one another, and thinking. You will agree with me in that?
ah, art
Which painting in the National Gallery would I save if there was a fire? The one nearest the door of course.— George Bernard Shaw
Metaphor 