Link to the New Blog

For those interested, I have a new blog here with more poetry on it. Feel free to check it out!

How do You Like Lit? Books and Mental Books

If you like literature, how do you like it? I mean, in what way? I'm curious to find out the range of ways that people enjoy it. Here's how I like it:

I read the book (War and Peace, maybe) and find many passages tiresome. Sometimes when no one is looking, I skip a few pages. But in spite of myself I get caught up in certain characters or images or sentences. Then I finish the book. At this point, I have twenty to thirty favorite bits of it pleasantly mucking about in my brain.

A week later, I think the book is amazing and it's my new favorite.

What happened in that week? I recreated the book mentally, but unconsciously, I only used the parts that appealed to me. So it is not the same book. That's wierd. Is it really literature I like? Yes, and no. I got most of the material from someone else - the author. Part of it came from me, though - I inevitably have preconceived notions about what is good reading. The book isn't read into a vacuum. It's read into a working mind.

Ever went to re-read a favorite book that you hadn't picked up for years? Was it disappointing? Your mental book didn't match the original. Of course, it doesn't always happen that way. If we really detest one part of a book, it will probably make it into our reconstructed book, too. And then the mental book isn't quite as satisfying. But that's fine - to some extent, we can be aware of this whole mental book thing, and we can actively choose to further distort our imaginary recreation of some original book by deleting things we don't like.

The only problem with active distortion is that mental books are awfully vague. I know I like the idea of Smaug of The Hobbit on a pile of treasure, but I can't remember what it was about the writing that made me like it. When we want specifics, we have to go to real books - and the originals are increasingly unsatisfying in proportion to the amount of distortion going on.

Which is a darn good thing, because I'm pretty sure that discontent with the discrepancies between idealized mental books and real books is what drives many people to write. "That book would've been my favorite, but..." Obviously, we don't usually want to create a mere distorted version of someone else's work (except in parody). But we don't have to. In my experience, mental books are focused on loose combinations of themes and scattered images and character traits, which are mostly uncopyrightable. So our "perfect story" can deal with revenge, for example, and still be quite different from Beowulf, even if Beowulf was part of the original inspiration.

The tough part is making the details relevant to the narrative and accurate to the story we have in our heads. But now I'm talking about writing, which is slightly off topic. *concludes*

Hero

All at once,

a drawn sword!

It comes swinging in a slashing arc.

Dark blood springs where

the singing blade stings.

The porter meant to move,

but his feet would not.

I am half-sick of service,

thought Sir Lancelot.

Nitinaht, Vancouver Island

I know a place where the wind is unspooling always

tangling and untangling in the coastal firs,

streaming between the whitecaps and threading the bumblebees like beads

on and off of the wild roses.

Tents bloom in unlikely places.

Everyone is encamped in the thickets of things – caravans of windsurfers bring boards and bright sails to the beach (really a ruins of rocks and driftwood),

and Starboard pennants fly from shattered tree trunks.

The thin shore is a strange buffer between two worlds:

a van-crammed campground defined by narrow spaces, where bushes are shelves for wrens and jays and little berries,

and a stretch of ocean to converse with in the language of adrenalin: a primal creole of surge and swell.

Dog Days II

Bursting forth involved much ado, but it was not, from the canine point of view, about nothing. It was about aventure, in the original sense of the word. Anything could happen beyond the Long Stair. Wicked Uncle and Swain galumphed with gusto up the steps to Euphoria, ears flying and jowls flapping. The Wicked Uncle reflected later that the name Long Stair was rather more symbolic than physically accurate - the journey had taken almost no time at all, and yet the metaphorical distance covered had been very near to infinite. The gap between misery and comfort is vast indeed, he thought.

At the top of the Long Stair, our doggy heroes suddenly realized their social awkwardness. (They'd never got out much.) Abruptly, there was much abashed snuffling and sneezing. Two FDCs were hurriedly throwing a cover over a sumptious couch. Another was directing traffic, so to speak, and they were ushered into a place of magical odors. The snuffling intensified, and for a moment, the Wicked Uncle suffered the agony of indecision: to search out the source of smells, or to stretch out on the couch? The sure comfort of the couch triumphed over the mere possibility of treats, but he kept one eye open in case food should appear. Meanwhile, the Swain had found his feet again and was frolicking about. Wicked Uncle smirked to himself as the FDCs scolded his adopted nephew for overenthusiasm. Ah, the innocence of youth. Swain would never understand the meaning of guile. And speaking of guile... Uncle screwed up his face and looked reproachfully over his shoulder at the nearest FDC. Instantly, he was the subject of lavish affection. 

For his part, Swain was discovering that the Upper Realms were entrenched in limitations, boundaries, and rules. No biting, no chewing, no fighting, no spewing, no lightning quick dashes for the Fountain of Youth (which was a ceramic bowl in a room of its own) - he quickly grew tired of the list. But he found two benefits to the Upper Realms. 1) The FDCs were generous with treats, especially when plied with persistent begging techniques. 2) The FDCs prevented Wicked Uncle from murdering him for no reason, effectively allowing him to pest Wicked Uncle continuously over a period of several hours. It wasn't bliss, but it was All Right. 

Since you ask, the Cat was doing nothing but radiating disgust from a lofty perch. 

Dog Days

This is a story of two dogs who climbed the Long Stair between their habitual place of residence in the dungeons and the well-furnished (that is to say, provided with all manner of couches) Family Room, a place of unimaginable delights and innumerable treats. It happened in the winter of the year of the Ubiquitous Cat, which everyone later agreed was a remarkable year, barring the cat, who made of point of never appearing impressed.

The dogs had names, but names are only placemarkers, after all, and often tell us nothing of character and identity and idiosyncrasy (since they are given by those who are not us), and thus the two protagonists are best described in terms of their essential dogginess; though different, they each measured up to and exceeded the expectations associated with certain canine stereotypes. The older one was a Wicked Uncle, and what he lacked in dignity, he made up in irascibility - masked, of course, by the traditional "good dog" aura, soulful dark eyes and a thin layer of fat. He was a firm proponent of the philosophy, "All good things come to those who wait," except when some young pup had the impertinence to travel through his Territory uninvited; in such cases he delivered the good thing immediately: it was discipline, and it was sure and swift. Like so many wicked uncles, he was burdened with an unwanted charge on whom he took out his troubles from time to time.

His charge was the younger dog, and despite this ignominious position in Life, the uncle-afflicted pup bubbled with the enthusiasm, anxiety, and headstrong idiocy of youth. He was, in short, a Swain.

These two were languishing in the dark recesses of their cage, casting their mournful (the Swain) and baleful (the Wicked Uncle) eyes despondently about, until the elder companion spoke. He said,

If thou beest he; But O how fall'n! how chang'd
From him, who in the happy Realms of Light
barked joyfully and occasioned rabbit flight;
If he whom mutual league, united woofs and counsels, equal hope
And hazard in the Glorious Enterprize,
Joynd with me once (joyned now by misery in equal ruin!)
If he, I say, then give me that T-bone, for I would chew.

The Wicked Uncle prided himself on his ability to rise to any oratory occasion. But his magnificent adaption of a famous speech was entirely lost on the Swain, who understood only that he must give up his sole attachment to happiness. He cowered away to the corner. The Wicked Uncle chewed with dissatisfaction on the bone. It was a very old bone, and besides, the Swain had abandoned it up so quickly there hadn't been even the slightest pretext for a fight. Both dogs were thoroughly depressed.

To make matters worse, they were being watched. A cat, free to come and go as it chose, drifted silently from shadow to shadow, its alien eyes glittering at them strangely. There was no telling what it was thinking, but the way it sauntered along the top of the fence separating them from the free world was infuriating. The Swain grew more and more anxious. Though he tried, he could not contain his distress. It escaped at first in small whines that gave way to trembling moans, and the Wicked Uncle took no notice. But his charge was contracting a bad case of cabin fever, and the matter was far from over. The trembling moans became high pitched yips, which developed into full-throated woofs. There were shouts from the Upper Realms beyond the Long Stair, and the ceiling shook with threats of retribution and with pounding feet. Some fell creature roared down the furnace duct, Shut Up, but the Swain had gone mad. The Wicked Uncle saw his chance, and began to howl frightfully. Together, they made a dissonant symphony that would have had even Franz Liszt begging for quiet. It sounded a bit like this:

Young Dog: Whiiiine whiiine moan yip!
Old Dog: OOOoooooOOOOoooo.
Furnace Duct Creature: Shut up! Shut up!
Young Dog: Whine whine yip woof!

Abruptly, there was the sound of feet thundering down towards them, and the dogs ceased to raise their hue and cry. The cat melted into shadow.

The Furnace Duct Creature said, "Oh all right. Come upstairs. It's rotten outside anyway." And the impassable gates, no doubt forged of legendary Damascus steel and bound with adamant, were flung open. There was a pause. The Swain looked incredulously from freedom to the FDC. It said, "go on." And then the dogs burst forth.

Intermission: Another Installment Will Arrive In Good Time

Where now the mango?

I don't know how many university students are exposed to Old English, even in the English department, but some of them must be with me in thinking it weird that people ever talked that way. Recitations are one thing, but actual conversations just don't seem to fit with what I've heard so far. For example, this line from The Wanderer:

"Hwǣr cwōm mearg? Hwǣr cwōm mago?     Hwǣr cwōm māþþumgyfa?" 

It roughly means "Where now the horse? Where now the rider? Where now the hoard-sharer/ring-giver/giver of treasure?" and is pronounced with scottishy vowels and a lot of rolling Rs. Allow me to indulge for a minute in imagining a conversation...

"Hrrrrothbob, thou goat! Wherrre now the horrrse?"
"I could do nothing, my fatherrr. It was taken by a scylding-thief underrr the helm of night."
"Well then, wherrre now the rrrider?"
"Overrr the land-bump, forrrsooth."
"Eala! How that the horrrse has passed away! How that the steed-trrreasure has vanished, as if it had neverrr been."

 Awesome, right? But awesomer still is a thing called "cognitive hooks," which in this context seems to mean "changing Old English phrases to similar sounding Modern English phrases." This concept resulted in our class interpreting the quoted line as "Where comes mare? Where comes mango? Where comes math and gouda?"

Between Old English and Japanese, this should be an interesting semester. (I've already been thinking about forming a group in Japanese 101 called "the Knights who say に")

Hajimemashite, Surname First Name

The first day of the semester always defies expectation. Creative writing looked interesting and stimulating in the golden olden days of registration, but the requisite anthology of Canadian poetry turned out to be depressingly avant-garde. Japanese 101, in contrast, sparked my attention even during the doldrum hours that usually begin after 6:00 pm. It is a credit-filler course for me, chosen only after it was clear that Russian, Spanish and German were at impossible times, but even so...

On the long walk back to my vehicle, I said "Hajimemashite, Surname First Name. Yoroshiku onegaishimasu" over and over. I am still hazy on whether or not my own name is supposed to go after Hajimemamgawehgetcetera or not. Perhaps it is supposed to be the name of the person I am addressing? The professor is a nice lady who explained that kanji tattoos are risky. She said a certain symbol for 'peace'  can mean 'cheap,' too. "It makes me laugh," she said. "Some people think Japanese people always go like this," she added, and steepled her hands. "Not true!"

Happy New Year, Said The Poem

Listen to me. 
A bad night's sleep and a sky the colour of tombstones,
and the monotony of the morning, the now, the chill rain and the dull day,
and the crushing fear of the future
must seem pressing -

but look, have you ever seen a man paddling so happy in such
an abundance of wet?
How do the ducks do it?
The rain and the run-off rise underneath that Mallard,
and he bobs on the swell and thinks
How grand is my private canal!

This is a neat chap capped with a glorious green.
(let the rain slash if it likes!)
The cold wind is skimming
the brown-brimming channel,
but the unsinkable duck is quacking and swimming,
and the scowling sky thins,
and cracks,
and grins.

Hercules couldn't lift the spirit, but a duck in a ditch is a fine thing.

(90% of this poem is written by me. I borrowed the phrase "Hercules couldn't lift the spirit" because it was a title prompt for a contest on the site AllPoetry. And I just wanted to write a poem about a duck for a contest.)

Soaked, Flying, Thinking Cows

When I drive to work on wet winter mornings in BC, I sometimes see Very Miserable Sights. They have four legs and go moo, and it is good that they don't appear to be able to engage in self-pity. Else the sensitive ones'd be flagging down passing traffic and asking to be eaten early. "Grass fed all my life, sir, excepting a bit of grain on Sundays, and that was organic - please don't roll up your window - I'd make a mouthwatering meal, sir, just try me. Well-marbled steak runs in the family, sir, right back to the bronze age, word of honour, sir."

Therefore, when I curse the everlasting damp and drip and miasma of moist that sucks the smile right out of a person, I am still thankful that I am not a cow. When the rainwater that collects on the roof of my rover trickles in past loose rivets and unerringly drops down my boot and soaks my left foot, I grit my teeth and grin. At least I'm not a cow. Standing in that soggy muck all day rechewing freshly upchucked ralph would be awful.

But not all cows have to be as wimpy as me. If you want a good definition of stolid, you can find it in two places. One of them is the excellent and enormous Random House Dictionary. The other is in a British Columbian pasture (or 'pond', as they are sometimes called). Some cows in the rain are The Very Essence of Stolidity. They simply stand and chew. It is questionable whether or not they actually know what misery they are in, even though it falls on them from sky every time a sullen cumulonimbus comes rumbling by.

Speaking of bad weather and cows, I am reminded of a chart that a friend showed me. It was called 'The Moojita Scale.' It measured, you guessed it, tornado severity based on the wind's effects on nearby cattle. For example, M1 was something like, "Cows spin parallel to the ground in mild annoyance." In my opinion, the phrase "mild annoyance" is so perfectly appropriate to the hypothetical feelings of the average fictional cow in such a situation that the inventor of this scale should be given some kind of award.

... I imagine that different breeds would express themselves differently in an M1 situation. A Holstein, for example, might say,

"Ground, vhy for du bist spinningen? Nicht ausgezeichnet, ground, nicht ausgezeichnet."

I am sure you will have noticed the accurate syntactical representation of the common Holstein's moo. You may have also observed that the Holstein is rather more composed when airborne than most Herefords, who invariably work themselves into a bother:

"It's the bad silage what done it, I know 'tis. Blooming bad silage. I tole Aggie - *Hurp* Shouldn't wunner if there was chemy-culls innit, aye, like wotsit, pneumonium, um, noitrate-yeah-thassit, an' rocks, too! *Hurp* Wuddever happena good ol' roughage eh? Where's the alfalfy is what I'd like to know!"

But for sheer toughness and a funny accent, give us an Angus any day.

"Well, there goes the loch again... but I've seen wairse.

... hmph. What the ach, I've got nothin' else to do. Frrreeeedommm!"

Why A True Zombie Apocalypse Might Not Be That Bad

I want to make clear that 1)  for certain people, this is going to be a bit of a buzz-kill, and 2) this is about true zombies - the living dead. This is not about I Am Legend zombies, which aren't really zombies because they haven't died. They have a virus, which is a whole different issue. In fact, if we are going to worry about this sort of thing, viral diseases should scare us a lot more than the possibility of a true zombie apocalypse. Here's why.

In the event that a true zombie apocalypse actually happened, (what could cause millions of people to come back to life as decaying versions of their former selves?) zombies would be kind of pathetic. I don't buy the super strength, super speed, or super anything that have become attributable to zombies in popular culture. Any real zombie (again, assuming that a dead body could come back to life as a zombie) would be, at best, equal to a regular human in intelligence, strength, speed, endurance, and all those other things we need to know about to optimize our chances of survival.

Presumably, zombies are simply reanimated humans. So the materials they have to work with are limited. And depending on the stage of decay they are at when they regain consciousness, the weaker they are. I mean, an ancient corpse would be pretty gross, but really incomparable to say, a healthy grizzly bear. If it falls apart before it gets to you, it's just not that bad. Fresher corpses would be more problematic, but at least they wouldn't look quite as gross.

How could a fresh zombie function, actually? My friend explained to me that in some zombie shows, the brain is somehow reactivated, but certain parts of it no longer work (areas corresponding to personality and speech, for example). Motor control is a bit sketchy, to all appearances, but not completely absent. For my part, I've noticed that the one area where zombie flicks are universally consistent is the depiction of decay in the average zombie's inner ear. (Why is lurching so scary, anyway?) At any rate, if the inner ear can decay, why not the brain in general? Why should motor control be preserved at all? Why don't reanimated zombies get tired? Don't they run out of energy? What about respiration and circulation? If they run out of blood, how do they keep lurching along? If they do eat, their digestive systems must all be miraculously intact, right? If they have a sense of touch, how come they usually shrug off massive injuries?

Let me explain - No, there is too much - let me sum up. True zombies are subject to way too many limitations to pose a huge threat. And as far as I can see, a real zombie apocalypse is pretty much out of the question anyway.
Uh.
I mean, in case you were in doubt.
'Cause I wasn't.

The Moth's Return: Leaving the Lake

They all stood on the shore and skipped rocks and the lake sipped the sun like hot chocolate - when it was gone, there was a lingering sweetness at the edge of things that the Moth would never forget. Warmth went west over the water and they sent pebbles that way, too, for the soft splashes between each skimming arc, and for the thought of sinking stones settling in the blue and fluid dark.

Even a cool and misty morning found them reluctant to head to bed. Sir Ontzlake stood with his hands in his armor-pockets, squinting at the tendrils of fog creeping from the lake to the circling trees. He had a bad case of helmet hair. The Owl's feathers were rumpled and out of place. Icarus' antennae were frazzled. Except for the Cat, they were exhausted, but while full daylight was blocked out by darkness or clouds or fog, it was the kind of place that one could look at and look at forever.

"Mangelwurzel!" swore the Cat, and everyone jumped.

"Cat, must you insist on-" snapped the Owl, but he was interrupted by Ontzlake.

"No, look! Hordlings!" He was pointing to the north end of the beach, where figures were emerging from the mist. They stood frozen for a few seconds, and then the noise of voices and clinking metal reached them. Several more hordlings appeared, and then all at once a pack of them, and then, to their horror, a monstrous champion who towered over the rest of them. And they were all sprinting straight at the Moth and his friends.

Language in the Library

This happened in the library today:

I sat down at one of many wooden cubicles equipped with outlets. There was a bearded guy with a mac set up in the one beside me. I remember he had really blue eyes. I looked around for the usual outlet to plug my laptop into. Couldn't find it. The guy pointed out that the outlet was on the floor. I said "oh yeah, it's inth'floor..." because I'd started speaking a split second before I decided that the time it would take to say thank you I did know there were outlets in some of the cubicles and I expected the ones in these cubicles to be in the same place so when I didn't see any in this one I simply assumed that this particular one had no outlets and was about to move along but not because I thought you were odorous or unsightly or unsatisfactory as a seating buddy in some way was much greater than the usual time that someone would expect to spend listening to a normal response, like "Thank you," or "Oh, there it is."

About thirty seconds after I'd pulled out some vexing assignment guidelines, he said, "So what're you studying?"

"Shakespeare," said I.

"Pretty heavy stuff? Upper level?"

"Yep. I'm doing three other English courses so it's a lot of writing."

He smiled. "Yeah...yeah - hey, if you were asked to describe the essence of 'house' - okay, I'm doing a presentation for educational psych - could you give me a three or four word definition of the essence of 'house'?"

"Uh...maybe...the place where a family is?" I replied. Couldn't come up with anything more profound than that. But he seized on the idea.

"Yeah! That's great, I can work with that. Thanks, that's good." He started typing, and I asked him what his presentation was about. "Language," he said. "It's like how we construct reality with language. I mean, look at the way we capitalize 'I' when we talk about ourselves. Says somethin' about our egos, doesn't it? What if we capitalized 'you,' I mean Y-o-u, and decapitalized 'i'? It would totally change the whole dynamic!"

By now, he really had my attention. Some of my profs had already tried to sell me a somewhat similar idea. I said, "Sounds like an interesting presentation," and meant it. He nodded. "Yeah, I really think the class'll be stoked." He went on to talk about how learning Halq'em'aylem had taught him about different ways of using language to shape reality. He talked about the English desire to name things and take the mystery out of them by naming them. Apparently in Halq'em'aylem they don't have that same compulsion. I asked him how they talked about stuff without having words for it, and his answer was, "Maybe we don't have to talk about everything. Maybe that's the beauty of it. It's not English. We don't have to name stuff like that. We should go back to the language of the land. It keeps the mystery."

It was an utterly odd conversation. I'm still not sure if he was pulling my leg, or totally serious...

The Penseroso Place

I'd better begin with a short introduction to Milton's poem "Il Penseroso." It's kind of unpromising on the face of it, 'specially in my anthology, which has the opening lines, "Hence vain deluding joyes/ The brood of folly without father bred," the invocation to the goddess Melancholy, and a description of her parents on the first page of the poem. There's interesting stuff in there, but at first read, thirty lines of it are a lot to stomach.

Perseverance, however, is rewarded. The speaker starts revealing more and more of his personality. First, he wants Melancholy to bring her buddy Contemplation along. And Silence can come along too, unless Philomel (a nightingale) will sing. But if Philomel won't show up, he wants to go for a walk:

And missing thee, I walk unseen

On the dry smooth-shaven Green,

To behold the wandring Moon (65-67)

I don't know about you, but I like this guy. Where's he want to go? Walking outside at night to look at the Moon. Good on! And he's equally okay with some dimly lit cottage, or a "lonely Towr."

The best thing about this poem is the spatial imagery. If the Penseroso represents a focused stance - one that eyes mirth, happiness and Joy suspiciously (like an old man might squint at a iPhone toting teen), then it isn't surprising that all of the places he mentions are framed and enclosed in some way. He mentions later that sometimes he stays up overnight til morning, but when the Sun starts chucking sunbeams around, he retreats to "arched walks of twilight groves." I think part of the reason for this is that thick groves of trees are protective. They sort of shrink the physical world (as in, you can't see as far as you could in a field) into a more manageable place. And then there's the dark, which works in the same way. When your light source is quite small, what you can see is suddenly intense and obvious, because all of the competing sensory input that was crowding in at your peripherals is replaced with black.

I know this smacks of literary analysis - in fact, I'm writing a paper on it right now - but I still find it an extremely interesting way of looking at things. We can examine spatial preferences in the imagery of other poems (Milton's "L'Allegro" and Tennyson's "Lady of Shalott" and "The Poet's Mind" are great ones) and even in ourselves. What kind of places and spaces do you want to be in? What does that say about you? 

Midterms? Close Not the Curtains of Your Countenance

Exams bring people together.

Is't not so? When it is that time of year, when some sit, some slump, some slouch, in rows of chairs, when some cling to coffee cups like drowning men, and some arrange and rearrange assorted pens, and the thundering clock
is ticking ticking, and white bright lights are harsh and buzzing,

then, and then most of all,

will we listen with sympathetic ear to the weird chap in the front row, who turns now with knitted brow. Says he, with a shake of his head, "Aw man...I'm so screwed."

At which admission our weary hearts remember warmth. "My brother!" cry we, and we perceive that in sooth, this fellow's habit of asking hard questions just before the end of each class is but a trivial fault - of no consequence next to his obvious strength of character. What a guy! What depth of feeling and noble sentiment express themselves in that heretofore unpleasant countenance! Surely we are kin - surely he is a distant cousin, thrice-removed offspring of some fair uncle. Let the jocund rebecks sound! The ice is broken - nay! melted, and ere the examinations begin, find we not new strength in pleasant conversation?

Math, I Salute You

I thought I was going to have stand around with some kind of idea-conductive version of the lightning rod, but at last, inspiration has struck. And from the most unlikely of places: Math. Specifically, the math in A Beautiful Mind, and the math in Randall Munroe's xkcd blag (even more specifically, from the post about his study on colour.)

I've been a staunch math-hater for years, but I may come to change my stance on certain aspects of the issue. For example, I no longer despise math when it means 'the written expression of some extremely complex concept.' I can't express it here with the right symbols, but trapezoidal derivatives for discovering the y-coordinates of any given stoichiometric Eidenbacher's function regarding the polyasymptotic parabola of the famous Gondlemann Log-Cosine Proof where x is unknowable are awesome.

Seriously though - some equations look intriguing. Greek letters, super/subscripts and loads of brackets. Tremendous. I merely speculate, but it seems that having a working knowledge of high level math would be analogous to the ostensible awesomeness of knowing Hebrew, Ancient Greek and Old English. And the fact that you can actually do things with those equations is even cooler.

I know, we do things with math all the time. To clarify, when I say 'things,' I mean interesting things. Like building trebuchets, complicated graphs, maps and underwater robots. Math, in the immortal words of one of my old teachers, "I salute you."

A Few Quotes

My head is awhirl with reading. Here are a few of the things clamoring for brainspace right now:

        Did he fling himself down? who knows? for a vast speculation had failed,
        And ever he muttered and maddened, and ever wanned with despair,
        And out he walked when the wind like a broken worldling wailed,
        And the flying gold of the ruined woodlands drove through the air.
                --- Maud, 1.1.3 (Tennyson)

Depressing, but splendidly shivery all the same. Here's a long block of text that you are free to skip if you wish to miss out on a fine insight:

I was introduced to zoology and palaeontology ("for children") quite as early as to Faerie. I saw pictures of living beasts and of true (so I was told) prehistoric animals. I liked the "prehistoric" animals best: they had at least lived long ago, and hypothesis (based on somewhat slender evidence) cannot avoid a gleam of fantasy. But I did not like being told that these creatures were "dragons." I can still re-feel the irritation that I felt in childhood at assertions of instructive relatives (or their gift-books) such as these: "snowflakes are fairy jewels," or "are more beautiful than fairy jewels"... I was keenly alive to the beauty of "Real things," but it seemed to me quibbling to confuse this with the wonder of "Other things." I was eager to study Nature, actually more eager than I was to read most fairy-stories; but I did not want to be quibbled into Science and cheated out of Faerie by people who seemed to assume that by some kind of original sin I should prefer fairy-tales, but according to some new kind of religion I ought to be induced to like science. Nature is no doubt a life-study, or a study for eternity (for those so gifted); but there is a part of man which is not "Nature," and which therefore is not obliged to study it, and is, in fact, wholly unsatisified by it.

                   --- An endnote from "On Fairy-Stories." (J.R.R Tolkien, emphasis mine.)

And an unrelated but interesting argument by Matthew Arnold:

We have poems which seem to exist merely for the sake of single lines and passages; not for the sake of producing any total impression. We have critics who seem to direct their attention merely to detached expressions, to the language about the action, not to the action itself. I verily think that the majority of them do not in their hearts believe that there is such a thing as a total-impression to be derived from a poem at all, or to be demanded from a poet; they think the term a common-place of metaphysical criticism. They will permit the Poet to select any action he pleases, and to suffer that action to go as it will, provided he gratifies them with occasional bursts of fine writing. 

                   --- "Preface to the First Edition of Poems" (Emphasis mine.)

(He goes on to say that Victorians ought to take some lessons from the Greeks in choosing their subjects or plots. I'm not too sure about that. But substitute 'novel' for the word 'poem' in this passage - are there some plots that are inherently superior, or can any story be successful if told in a certain way? Is it reasonable to read a novel like a poem, that is, expecting brilliance and layers of meaning in every line?)

Good Music

Just wanted to share this song by Judith Beckedorf:

Pretty good, no? (If anyone can find tabs for it, serious brownie points. I'm having trouble getting the bass notes by ear, and her link leads to a German or Dutch site that looks suspiciously like a 404 error.)

A Most Ridiculous Scene in Building G

John Stuart Mill: Poetry is, of course, the higher expression of the uncommonly articulate and cultivated mind, which despite retaining a bond with the average citizen - that is, a shared humanity, speaks with near prophetic strain to those complex emotions so strange to the rude intellect of the Tartar and the yet immature mind of the child, and thus it must only be discussed in wretchedly sesquipedalian t-

Student One: But soft! What is this abrupt and interrupting mellifluous odor that wafts 'round corners from coffee cups and curls quietly 'mongst these unfurled books? Why - I feel a thirst! Hence, loathed hunger! Gadzooks! the pangs begin.

Student Two: It wrenches me too. Aching of mid-class fatigue and breakfast abandoned strikes most untimely. Yet, were any time timely? This wallet aches worse! Curse you, Tim's, but oh! Bless you, bless you too. Coffee calls; my veins quicken. Caution be hanged!

Student Three: How those bagels bask in that warm angelic backlit glow! Oh, but I know your ways, deceitful food and beverage sales-place. It is not for nothing that you have sprung up 'longside this thoroughfare. At the Turnpike you waylay innocent travelers and strip them of their silver. But I'll starve before I submit. This poor student frame will have sustenance from text alone, or perish. To the Library hasten I! E'en the wise must be wary ere long, for no man may withstand forever the siren's song.

Exit Student Three. Student One observes.

Student One: She runs on Scylla, wishing to avoid Charybdis. Is't Mammon or Prudence she serves, I wonder? Some say the god is doubly named. By my pan! This tension is ode-worthy. To live in squalor with shining eyes and tastebuds euphoric is the true spirit of the romantic, aye, but Coffee is a harsher master than hunger. If Prudence be deaf, what shall I do?

A Familiar Place

I inhale french vanilla. Clouds look in at the windows. We observe the man far away at the front of the room. The clock hangs over his head. He describes, explains, exhorts:

"It's hard enough (you know) to   keep    the    lion      at     the DOOR." 


"If men within themselves (That's very Miltonic, isn't it? Am I making any inroads here? Very Miltonic.) would be governed by reason, and not generally give up their UNDERSTANDING..."

Gesticulation in crescendo. Staccato emphases. Lulls. His helpless grin supplants frustration.

"Come on, guys! Let's end with a bang. I'm going to stop here. (Yeah, right here.) Just - just fill in the blank. Milton     can     only    ______

Minds wait for words to percolate. Mere synonyms won't do. You must find precisely the right words - have we been reeled in after all? The thought detaches me and and I bob gently in the stream of words. Books do not even have to be opened to be pleasant; hot drinks can be held before they are drained.

Two hours of this is not bad at all.