Sunday, September 26, 2010

It is, I learn from Garrison Keillor, T.S. Eliot's birthday

Happy Birthday Old Possum and thanks for all the words. Especially

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

I hated studying Eliot back in 1965 and '66, when he was freshly dead, and had only recently ceased to be a threat by issuing new work. I didn't get his stuff. Something made me keep looking & looking, and in the course of more study, I began to get it. Now I love it. I went through the same thing with Joyce. It's hard to convey to someone else - especially a young person in the throes of "WTF is the POINT of studying this crap I'll never use it yatta yatta..." and it's doubly discouraging because so much stuff that seems obscure and difficult really is just bullshit, and so much that's very good and eminently worthwhile takes next to no effort at all to get (like Wodehouse) if you're going to get it at all.

It's a mystery. But Eliot had so much to say outside of his poetry, most of it very valuable indeed. And he stands along with Wallace Stevens as a shining example of how to be successful in your art and achieve great things in your day job too.

Friday, September 24, 2010

So I guess it's Fall now, and I should issue the obligatory

"Gosh this is my favorite time of the year" bleat.

Well dammit it IS my favorite time of the year. The weather's still warm, but I expect the hot days are dwindling. Nights are cool. We have a few weeks before the November Nasties strike. I have pledged to myself to get in at least one day of leaf-peepin' this year; I have not driven the Kancamagus for three or four years, since my pals from Belfast were over. That particular excursion was less successful than I'd have liked because 1) the Old Man of the Mountain was already gone, so when we pulled into the scenic lookup, all I could say was "There's where he used to be. Now he's down there, in a pile of rubble. Sic transit..." And then we were late arriving at the station for the Cog Railway, and couldn't/didn't want to (never have been sure which) wait for the next train so we missed that wonderful experience, though the drive up the auto road was a hoot, which I recommend (take the Cog first though, just in case you only have one opportunity for the Summit of Mt. Washington, the railway's the way to remember it.) And then we took the Kancamagus back down into Lincoln, but it was late October, and instead of being on fire with blazing crimson and gold, we got brownish, and beige-ish, and grayish, so I had to say "Just imagine what this looked like a couple of weeks ago..." but it wasn't quite the same.

So this year I want to do what I used to make an annual ritual, at least once per Fall - hike up north of The Lake, peruse the foliage a little, meander on back home, and rest reassured of one of the reasons I'm so comfortable in New England.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

I signed up over the summer for the local Freecycle board/group/whatever-it-is

Some of the offerings are interesting, some junk of course, and some of the requests are plaintive, but one has to wonder at some of them. Is there REALLY anyone who can't afford $3.00 for a phone-jack multiplier so their Aged Parent can have a Life Alert? Or maybe they don't really know what it is they need, and how easy/cheaply they're available? A while back there was an interesting kerfuffle on the email list - one participant - who was apparently cleaning out a large estate that had been inhabited by destitute hoarders, based on what she was offering - was posting lots of items one-per-email. Someone actually complained that the emails (offering free stuff, mind) were intrusive!!! Completely ignoring the fact that she (the complainer) had the option of getting daily summary emails instead of real-time delivery. Well let me tell ya, a right old brouhaha ensued, until an admin broke into the fray with a sternly administered "cut the shit you guys" and things calmed down. People are hilarious.

I'm looking forward to October 3

Hieing us up to Concord to the Capitol Center for the Arts (there may be a "Performing" in there, not sure, too lazy to look it up) to catch the author of several of my favorite Folk Scare songs - Early Morning Rain, For Loving Me to cite the biggies. I've seen recent footage of Gordon Lightfoot performing, and I have to say that though he LOOKS every second of his almost 72 years (and maybe a few minutes of someone else's as well) his chops seem pretty much in place.

It Depends on How I'm Feeling

A few stragglers from breakfast lingered over cold coffee and toast crumbs; the plates were stained with the blueberry left from diner pie, ketchup from home fries, and yellow goo from long-gone eggs. Sally the waitress was speaking to the old man in his booth by the window. From where we sat we could not hear her even though the early morning throng had finished and gone, and the lunch horde had not yet descended. The place was almost quiet enough for us to think we were in fact having our last conversation in privacy.

"What are your plans?" she asked.

"Well right now I think it's time to go. Then I will have lunch. After that, it's hard to say, it all depends."

"What does it depend on?"

"It depends on how I'm feeling."

"What are the possibilities?"

"Endlessly limited, I'm afraid. I might go home and wash my clothes; I might go to The Tin Hat and have a drink, whereupon I might or might not get drunk; I might get on a bus to Manchester, and forget to get off. It depends on how I’m feeling, like the man said"

"And how are you feeling?" she asked.

"Like puking and shitting and running naked through the park, of course. Wouldn't anyone?" I got up, picked up my folded Banner and my cap. "At the moment, I'm not feeling. Or at least I can't really tell what I'm feeling. I suspect that before the day is over, I will have felt a number of things, and some of them I might recognize. If I experience any epiphanies, I'll be sure to get word to you." I put on my hat, squarely at first, then I tipped it jauntily and in a flush of foolishness assumed a tilted, Fred-Astaireish stance and flipped a song-and-dance salute off the brim of the cap. "In the meantime, my dear, ain't we got fun?" I flipped the newspaper under my arm as if it were a swagger stick, turned on my heel, and fled as elegantly as one fleeing can possibly be expected to flee. I held down the tears until the door of the Chit Chat Café closed behind me.

Out of pure habit I turned north out of the door of the Chit Chat and headed down the back of The Hill. My shoes were already soaked from the morning's walk so there wasn't any point in trying to avoid any of the slush piling up on the sidewalk. The cold rain blowing into my face was a mercy; it seemed to numb me against the effects of the recent conversation. Suddenly I was wondering whether I was plodding or trudging down Chestnut Street, and what the difference might be, or if no difference, whether there was a distinction, then just as suddenly I realized that I urgently wanted to get out of the rain and the wet, and sure enough here was the door of The Tin Hat, opening at my tug. The inside of The Tin Hat, was brighter and emptier than I usually found it. I didn't often arrive before four or five in the afternoon. I'd probably never come here at noon. The lights were up and there was a vacuum cleaner grumbling. The bartender looked up as I came into the empty bar. I didn't recognize him nor he me. "We don't really open 'til one" he barked.

"Shit" I rejoined

"Sounds like you're not in shape to wait," he said. "What'll tide you over?"

"Scotch would be a step in the right direction" I said. "Straight up, a double please."

"Must have been quite a morning" he said, as he poured four fingers from a bottle from the bottom shelf into a rocks glass. "I can't really serve you, you know, so this'll have to hold you."

I slugged down the whisky and pulled a sawbuck from my pocket and laid it on the bar. "Thank you very much" I said. "If there's enough change in here for another, hold it for me 'til tonight, or pass it to Jeff, the night tender. I'll be in after dinner to catch the rest. Keep a couple bucks for yourself." The bartender lifted the ten to his brow & used it to salute with. Then he stuffed it in his shirt pocket.

"I'll tell Jeff when he comes in. Who shall I tell him has the credit?"

"Hard to say. Describe me to him. I think he'll nail me if you're careful to include 'oldish, shortish, stoutish bachelor professor from around the corner.' "

"Ah" he said. "Gotcha. I'll put the change from the ten in the tip jar. You oughta get a snort out of it."

I flipped him a returned salute and turned back toward the door

Monday, September 13, 2010

Went into town* Saturday night

("in town" or "going into town" is how Boston-area folk refer to The Metropolis) to catch Jerry Seinfeld in his new (or new-ish, I guess, I dunno) "concert" standup act. It was at The Wang, down in the theater district, on Tremont a block up from Stuart St. started life in 1925 as The Metropolitan, became The Music Hall, then The Wang; now part of the Citi Group center. Gorgeous theater, heavily gilded rococo interior, etc. etc. Seinfeld was very funny, and it was an enjoyable experience; BUT - I think sixty bucks a pop was pretty steep for an hour or so of laffs, even if you do have a brand-name.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

Slippery Slope

The parts still work, mostly,
though some not as well,
as formerly.
And I don’t feel that
I’m as well, either,
as I used to be.
The insults to the tissue
still heal, if not as quickly,
and illnesses, so far,
have fled with time,
and rest, and lots of fluids.
Unused days pile up,
like unstopped newspapers
on the stoop,
one more thing forgotten.
Then slip away as if
the wind snuck up
as we were bending over to
gather them in.

It hasn’t started yet,
the long slow slide of
irretrievable decline,
as life outlasts
ability to live it.