My apologies for the recent extended hiatus. I've been a little busy what with the birth of my first child and all. His name is "Miles David" and he and mom are healthy and happy. I hope I'll be able to resume blogging shortly, but we shall see.
In my reading these last weeks I ran across two similar scenes, one from Milton, the other Wordsworth. Milton's is from "Il Penseroso," a companion poem to "L'Allegro" that details the pleasures and powers of the pensive mind; "L'Allegro" deals with the earthly, sensual joys and delights of Mirth—worthy, but inferior to the more elevated thoughts and feelings offered by Melancholy. This particular passage appears in the second half of the poem and comes after the speaker importunes Melancholy to "bid the soul of Orpheus sing / Such notes as, warbled to the string, / Drew Iron tears down Pluto's cheek" or to call up Chaucer's ghost:
Thus night oft see me in thy pale career,
Till civil-suited Morn appear,
Not trickt and frounc't as she was wont
With the Attic Boy to hunt,
But kerchieft in a comely Cloud,
While rocking Winds are Piping loud,
Or usher'd with a shower still,
When the gust hath blown his fill,
Ending on the rustling Leaves,
With minute-drops from off the Eaves. (121–130)
That final image of rain dripping from the eaves after a rainstorm strikes me as particularly vivid and lovely. As similar scene occurs in Book One of Wordsworth's "The Prelude," a very long poem describing the growth of the poet's mind, consciousness, poetic power, love of nature, love of man, and other sundry things. In the first book, Wordsworth details a number of childhood memories that he feels informed his love of nature and beauty and helped create his moral sense. In this early passage, the poet has just "escaped / From the vast city, where [he] long had pined / A discontented sojourner." He looks around the landscape and settles on a destination, a distant cottage, for his wanderings. After making this decision, he rests until nightfall under a tree in a sort of trance:
Thus long I mused,
Nor e'er lost sight of what I mused upon,
Save when, amid the stately grove of oaks,
Now here, now there, an acorn, from its cup
Dislodged, through sere leaves rustled, or at once
To the bare earth dropped with a startling sound. (80–85)
Although the context, meaning, and even technique of these two passages diverge wildly, they are linked now in my mind as similar images. Nature marks time in random, isolated intervals; whether dripping eaves or dropping acorns, the process is the same and can startle us. While I find Wordsworth's passage more charged with meaning and, ultimately, deeper (an unfair comparison to Milton as "The Prelude" is Wordsworth's masterpiece whereas "Il Penseroso" is an early piece written when Milton was around 24 years old), both images are in themselves delightful and memorable. Enjoy.
Check out this cartoon an acquaintance of mine created about Cheney, cussing, and the nature of vulgarity and language. Requires sound.
This is just too funny to pass up.
I know Urban Dead has already shown up on Metafilter and BoingBoing, but I just gotta say, it looks like a lot of fun. I just started a couple of days ago. It's a turn-based MMORPG that you play with your browser. It only takes about 10-20 minutes a day, but already looks like it'll be rather engrossing. If any of you decide to play, post a comment or something so we can team up.
At least now we know where Shrub gets his insensitivity, his mom:
This is working very well for them. (...)Almost everyone I've talked to says we're going to move to Houston."What I'm hearing which is sort of scary is they all want to stay in Texas. Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality.
"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this--this (she chuckles slightly) is working very well for them."
I wonder if it's genetic. A few missing or defective genes would certainly explain a lot about our illustrious leader.
Bush sickens me:
We've got a lot of rebuilding to do. First, we're going to save lives and stabilize the situation. And then we're going to help these communities rebuild. The good news is -- and it's hard for some to see it now -- that out of this chaos is going to come a fantastic Gulf Coast, like it was before. Out of the rubbles of Trent Lott's house -- he's lost his entire house -- there's going to be a fantastic house. And I'm looking forward to sitting on the porch.
You may interpret this quote as Bush simply trying to put a positive spin on the situation: the city will be rebuilt, out of the ashes will rise a phoenix, etc. If this were a statement from someone who regularly showed that he is a compassionate, caring person, then perhaps that interpretation would be valid. But, coupled with Bush's many other instances of his startling failure to show compassion (and not just in this case), this amply demonstrates that the man is simply a self-centered, sheltered jerk with no real concern for the people of this nation. What do you expect from someone who, throughout his life, has always failed upward? He has never suffered; he has likely never known anyone who has. Even worse, he's incapable of sympathy, compassion, or even the basic dignity required of his office. This is not the first occasion on which he has joked when discussing this disaster (the transcript records laughter after his comment; we all know the smirk he no doubt delivered this with). His behavior is completely inappropriate and insensitive. Not only does Bush not care about black people, he doesn't care about anyone.
The Random Penseur discusses some aspects of Katrina's effects that I have yet to see mentioned elsewhere:
Third, who is going to repopulate New Orleans? Those who are the most mobile, the best educated, those with the most portable skills, they are going to establish lives elsewhere. I was on the phone yesterday with my kids' nursery school and the director told me that she just got off the phone with a woman from New Orleans who is relocating up to Connecticut. She was calling from a hotel room in Houston. Once these kids get into new schools and the smart and aggressive types get new jobs, are they going to go back? I am skeptical. Highly skeptical. They will wonder whether anything in New Orleans can ever change and they won't take the risk of putting their families back there. So what happens to the city when you have this huge brain drain? You cannot populate the city with the Ninth Ward, those who may lack the skills and the resources to re-establish themselves elsewhere. Not to be a doom sayer, but I am deeply worried about the total eradication of the middle and upper middle class in New Orleans. You can't have a city without these people, at least, not a city people would want to live in.
I've wondered a bit about this myself. If the quotes we hear from those in shelters in Houston and other places are accurate, a very significant portion of the NO population will not be going back any time soon. I doubt, however, that this displacement will be limited to the upper and middle classes. Since many of those who did not evacuate could not due to poverty, why should we assume they'll be able to move back to NO when this over, especially now that they have even less than before? If anything, I would expect a good section of the upper class to consider moving back—they have the money to do so and, given NO's tradition of multi-generational families, ample historical reason. If NO is where your proud, pseudo-aristocratic family has lived for ten generations and you have the wealth to rebuild, I would guess that you might seriously consider moving back once things settle down a bit. I do doubt that the middle class will return in droves, though. It has already demonstrated that one of its characteristics is flight from any perceived danger or uncomfortable situation (i.e., white flight, suburbanization, etc.). Given that few people will have both the means and inclination to return, we might have witnessed the beginning of NO's slow death. Let's just hope that its previous residents have enough to return to that they're willing to do so and that the federal and state government don't simply let the city rot away. A major reconstruction effort must occur akin to the rebuilding of Dresden after the fire-bombing if New Orleans is not to be lost.
UPDATE: Mark points us to this Yglesias post dealing with the same issue. And Jeff points out that the rich are already buying houses elsewhere.
counting spirals to herself she
bends her black legs, works unfinished
patience. breathing, meditate, her
scaffold catches thrashing lamplight.
I read meticulous construction, grow
impatient, turn to bed and sad defeat.
While the fashion for the boys (I simply cannot call them men) on campus appears fairly static from year to year—ragged jeans too long, sandals, ball cap, and t-shirt—the uniform for girls changes as invariably as the seasons. With the start of each semester comes the observer's anticipation of what new style spread through the population. I can proffer no more feasible explanation for the rapid and universal acceptance of the latest trends among the sorority girls and their emulators (two groups which combine to form the substantial majority of the university's female population) than infection. The carriers of the disease, though, are themselves invariably only aping some celebrity's latest style. It's remarkable to see how complete the infestation is. Although in some years the symptoms appear less serious or noticeable than in others, this year's strain must be particularly virulent. Its primary sign is a strict adherence to the fashion opthalmologist's orders; all must wear these enormous sunglasses or be ostracized. At times, wandering around campus, mulling over verses (or pretending to do so), I wonder if I haven't somehow accidentally drowned—everyone around me wears goggles. Since Bono-glasses have supplanted last year's less visible strain of virus, I can only conclude that all these tinted girls are either blind or deathly ill, victims of this latest plague.
