Candy Nobody Wants

So what have I been doing with my life, you ask?

Not bloody much. But it's been more than two months, so I thought I should update. Danaan is still alive, which I consider a minor victory as I've been home with her all day during the week. I've been amusing myself with Guild Wars, to the point of writing much-neglected fan fiction on one of the fansites. I'm thinking about writing erotica again. (Have I mentioned that I write erotica?) I've just gotten back from a pleasant week with my parents down in Hilton Head. When the weather's nice, Kay and I have been taking walks with the kids in a local park.

Oh, and the year that I agreed to stay home and watch Danaan was up in July, so I've been thinking about what's next for me. I don't want to go back to adjunct teaching; if I'm going to be smart in front of people, I'd rather be paid more than a circus animal. What does that leave? Editing or proofreading, I suppose, but there aren't a whole lot of jobs in that area. I'm thinking seriously about studying paralegalism. That's solid work that I could do well, and the training wouldn't take long.

And that's all from here! We're happy and healthy; our lives are full of uncertainties, but after so many years, that's come to seem normal. Catch you all in another two months.

I read in Yahoo! News this morning that Paris Hilton has decided she'll no longer "act dumb."

Well, good. So that's all settled.

I finally watched A Scanner Darkly the other day. (By the other day, I mean maybe a month ago; I sit on things like an ostrich hen.) I was expecting it to be the usual experience in which Keanu Reeves does his pretty wooden puppet routine and ruins something dear to me-- see Johnny Mnemonic and Constantine. He wasn't bad, though. The rest of the cast-- Robert Downey Jr., Winona Rider, Woody Harrelson-- were good, too. What I discovered is that Philip K. Dick novels don't make good movies unless you adulterate them with lots of explosions and gratuitous technology and running about. His ideas will carry all of that, but try to reproduce his technique on film-- A Scanner Darkly is easily the most faithful of the Philip K. Dick movies-- and you get a wandering, confusing mess. Introspection does not a good movie make, and that's what Dick spends most of his time on. At base, his books are psychological; they're about consciousness. Movies aren't, particularly, or at least not in the same way.

So, let's get back to Total Recall and that sort of thing. Let's steal Philip K. Dick's ideas and add guns. I like a good movie as much as the next guy.

Today I’m thirty-five. I suppose that I’ve lived about half of my life.

I’d like to say that I’m a writer, but in reality I’m a housekeeper and a nanny. I muddle through these things, but I don’t have a gift for them. There are days, many days, when my head feels like a bowl of cold oatmeal. I try to stir my thoughts and they stick to the spoon.

I’ve made some big mistakes in my life. Not colorful, pyrotechnic mistakes, not firework mistakes that burst suddenly and then fade in a glitter of reminiscence and good old stories. I’m too careful for that. I make mistakes like cracks in a foundation stone: subtle, thoughtful mistakes, that ramify invisibly year in and year out. Most of the time you scarcely notice the whole edifice shifting above them, but one day you get a good, long view and you realize that it’ll never sit quite right.

I’ve also been very lucky. If I haven’t always been allowed to exercise my strengths, I’ve seldom had to suffer for my weaknesses. I’m comfortable. I have people who love me. Always a yeoman pilot when it comes to the coasts and harbors of life, I’ve steered clear of trouble. Perhaps I’ve done that too much. It’s hard to say.

I’m in a better place now than I was a couple of years ago. I love my family, even Danaan, who is not always easy to love. I’ve had a whiff of the life I want, which is more than most people can say. I’m gifted in several respects. I have treasures, and a legitimate future to look forward to.

It’s a bright, cool day; the fresh asphalt shines like oil and the roses are a godawful mess. Oh, and I’m still reading Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer, because I’m a stubborn cuss and I’ll be damned if I’m going to leave any book unread just because it’s obstreperous.

That’s about it, from here, at thirty-five.

For the second time in my life, I have tried and failed to read Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer. Seldom have I been so well-disposed towards a book and yet so thoroughly unable to stomach it. I suspect, without being able to prove, that the book is unctuous in the manner of the worst sort of confessional writing. The author craves, even demands admiration merely for being willing to cop to his own wretchedness. It's a form of egotism. It aims only at self-aggrandizement.

Worse than that, I can't recall a book that is less concerned to be meaningful to anyone besides the author. Call me old-fashioned, but when I read, I begin with the assumption that the author wishes to communicate something to me through language. I understand the premise that capturing one's soul, or even one's life, in words, is a difficult challenge. If, however, you think that it's a hopeless quest, then please don't write at all. There's nothing to be gained from making a deliberate spectacle of your own failure to communicate.

(Edit: Oh, yes. And I feel a desire to dress up and drink cocktails while playing miniature golf on the gaudiest course I can find. No, that doesn't really have anything to do with Henry Miller. Just putting it out there.)

I've never read the book upon which this movie is based, but I'm intrigued by the audience participation aspect of the meme. Have a look behind the cut and see if you think that this animal thingie is appropriate for me.

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I read that you've likened yourself to Jesus Christ. Doesn't everyone?

In the end, it comes to this: mired in self-pity, you bought a gun with your parents' money and blew away a group of unarmed, unsuspecting, innocent children. And then-- too craven to face the consequences of your actions-- you crept into the hereafter by putting a bullet in your own head, too. Bravo.

Martyrs don't kill people. Disgruntled lunatics do. You will be neither famous nor infamous; you hadn't the strength of character for either one. Next month, your sound and fury will be merely curious. Next year they will be trivial.

Somewhere, someone has a line in an almanac for you. Good show, Ismail, and goodbye.

In Poe’s poem “To Helen,” we find the following verses:

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Editors interpret the phrase “hyacinth hair” differently. R. S. Gwynn, in Poetry: An Anthology, explains that Helen’s hair is “reddish, like the flower of Greek myth.” The editors of The Norton Anthology of Poetry tell us that, “Presumably,” she has “hair like that of the slain youth Hyacinthus, beloved of Apollo.” (Why Helen would be attractive with hair resembling that of a young man is not explained.) However, Poe uses the same term to describe the Marchesa Aphrodite di Mentoni in his short story, “The Assignation”:

Her hair, not as yet more than half loosened for the night from its ball-room array, clustered, amid a shower of diamonds, round and round her classical head, in curls like those of the young hyacinth.

Thus it seems most likely that Poe is referring not to the color of Helen’s hair, or to its resemblance to that of Hyacinthus, but rather to its style or conformation. Poe imagines Helen with some sort of elaborate, curling bun, suggestive of the clustered flowers of a blooming hyacinth.

In his book on Ben Jonson, Algernon Charles Swinburne opines that the former's celebrated Cary-Morrison Ode-- in which Jonson mourns the death of Henry Morison and celebrates his former friendship with the poem's addressee, Lucius Cary-- is not "even a tolerably good" poem, and distinguishes one stanza in particular as "eccentrically execrable." Swinburne wrote in the latter half of the nineteenth century; we are not accustomed today to this treatment of revered authors, refreshing as it might be. Surprised, I looked for the stanza in question, and I must admit that Swinburne has a point. Here it is, with the preceding stanza:

Call, noble Lucius, then for wine,
And let thy looks with gladness shine;
Accept this garland, plant it on thy head,
And think, nay know, thy Morison's not dead.
He leaped the present age,
Possessed with holy rage
To see that bright eternal day
Of which we priests and poets say
Such truths, as we expect for happy men;
And there he lives with memory, and Ben

Jonson, who sung this of him, ere he went
Himself to rest,
Or taste a part of that full joy he meant
To have expressed
In this bright asterism,
Where it were friendship's schism,
Were not his Lucius long with us to tarry,
To separate these twi-
Lights, the Dioscuri,
And keep the one half from his Harry.
But fate doth so alternate the design,
Whilst that in heaven, this light on earth must shine.


Setting aside the questionable taste of inserting one's own name into a funerary ode-- Hey! I wrote this! Yeah, me, Ben Jonson!-- is there any good excuse for doing so across a stanza break? It's ugly verse. The logic of the second stanza is tortuous; Jonson both writes the ode and imagines himself in heaven after having written it, so that we must suppose either that the poem has no fixed situation, or that it is being penned by a ghost. Then there's the rhyming of "Dioscuri"-- the twin stars Castor and Pollux-- with the first syllable of "twilights," fracturing the word across two lines. Perhaps Jonson thought he was being clever, but if a high school student did this, you would wince.

It's not only Jonson who has his blemishes, though. Take the following description of Lucrece from Shakespeare's The Rape of Lucrece:

When at Collatium this false lord arrived,
Well was he welcomed by the Roman dame,
Within whose face beauty and virtue strived
Which of them both would underprop her fame.
When virtue bragged, beauty would blush for shame;
When beauty boasted blushes, in despite
Virtue woud stain that or with silver white.

Lucrece has white skin, symbolic of her virtue, and red cheeks, representative of her beauty, and both in such abundance that it's not clear which is uppermost. Very nice. But Shakespeare is just getting started:

But beauty, in that white entituled
From Venus' doves, doth challenge that fair field.
Then virtue claims from beauty beauty's red,
Which virtue gave the golden age to gild
Their silver cheeks, and called it then their shield,
Teaching them thus to use it in the fight:
When shame assailed, the red should fence the white.

Suddenly the Wars of the Roses are being fought across Lucrece's face. White skin is also a sign of beauty, and red (blushing) cheeks a sign of virtue, so each may rightly claim the other's color, and each signifies beauty and virtue at once. Clever enough, this, although we may wish here that Shakespeare would move on. Unfortunately, such is Shakespeare's enthusiasm for the language that he'll worry a metaphor like a terrier running down a weasel:

This heraldry in Lucrece' face was seen,
Argued by beauty's red and virtue's white.
Of either's colour was the other queen,
Proving from old minority their right.
Yet their ambition makes them still to fight,
The sovereignty of either being so great
That oft they interchange each other's seat.

Is this good poetry? Has the Bard not here vaulted beyond cleverness into obscure and outlandish conceit, the sort of verbal "clenches"-- to use Dryden's phrase-- of which he was repeatedly accused before his status as a linguistic icon set him beyond criticism? It's not that I don't respect Shakespeare's poetry-- I do, and Jonson's, too. But it's refreshing, I think, for us to remind ourselves that even the best English poets were not everywhere glowing, that they had their rough edges and their hobby horses. Swinburne wasn't afraid to call a spade a spade.

What's that, readers? I think I hear you saying, "Bumble, we tire of your sententious Robinson poems. Cease to clutter our friends lists with this high-handed tripe. We feel-- and have long felt, upon due and thorough consideration-- that the real problem with poetry is that there just aren't enough breasts in it."

Well. Pine no more, my friends. I offer the following in honor of fair bosoms everywhere.

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This one goes out to all artsy geeks struggling through the banal vale of life.

That describes most everyone on my friends list, come to think of it, but I'll put the poem behind a cut anyway.

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Yes, there's a bit of irony in this depiction.

I know that this is supposed to be sweet, but am I the only one who finds the following ritual a little creepy?

Across the country, growing numbers of conservative Christian evangelicals are staging just such gala affairs. They are called purity balls, and they celebrate the father-daughter bond. Tuxedo-clad dads promise to "war for" their daughters' "purity," as reported in February's Glamour magazine. Daughters, in turn, vow abstinence until marriage. The fathers slip "purity rings" on the fingers of their misty-eyed daughters, the elegantly attired couples drift across the floor for a "first dance," this one-on-one time with Dad is referred to as a "date," and wedding cake is served for dessert. For post-dinner entertainment, a corps of adolescent ballerinas clad in white tulle performs a "ceremonial dance" to the song Always Be Your Baby.

Dude... she's your daughter. I know you love her, but maybe a symbolic marriage isn't the best idea in the world. You've already got a wife, or you wouldn't have a daughter in the first place, right?

Right?

The rest of the editorial is here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20070319/cm_usatoday/adanceforchastity;_ylt=AlmbdwfYh13WlsjJggKRct_9wxIF

I was going to entitle this entry "Life Update," but that would be disingenuous in several respects. Frankly, kids, I got nothin' that wouldn't have you on the phone looking for a solid mental institution near here. So instead, I'll give you a poem. No, I didn't write it. Yeah, I'll put it behind a cut. You're welcome.

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We're on the verge of a big Edwin Arlington Robinson revival. Also Edna St. Vincent Millay. You heard it here first.

We’ve just had a lovely visit with jyoti, who drove down from Ontario for a few days. She and I have been good friends for a while now, and it was nice finally to meet her. One could not ask for better company or a more gracious guest. I showed her around the neighborhood in frigid weather; we talked about books and writing and poetry and roleplaying; she sat through not one, but two, period pieces about the Restoration (Stage Beauty and The Libertine-- Kay and I gave her a reprieve and watched Mystery Men after that). She even condescended to page through my doctoral dissertation and make appreciative sounds. Both spenceraloysius and I had a good time, and I’m looking forward to returning jyoti’s visit when she’s in a place of her own.

Other than that, things proceed at their usual pace. Danaan monopolizes my time, to the point where it is hopeless to think of writing creatively. I may have to face the fact that the circumstances of my life simply won’t permit me to do as I’d imagined; I have neither the time nor, often, the energy, to write. At the moment, I’m wondering whether I even have the character. If my situation were ideal—if I had no responsibilities to speak of—would I be writing feverishly? It’s all well and good to say, but it’s something I’ll have to think about.

For those of you who are budding cooks, or who make sandwiches, or eat sandwiches, or know people who prepare or eat sandwiches and care about them, I say this:

Oldish baguette rolls are not especially good for sandwiches. They're too hard. You bite down on them and all of the sandwich stuff oozes out over your hands. Not pleasant, and a waste of a perfectly good meal. There is a reason why Chicken Curry Croissants are prepared with croissants. I know this now. I am wiser.

In other news, the majority of my time these days is taken up with looking after a cute but ridiculously difficult and demanding girl-child. I have a few other irons in the fire, but they're waaaaay over near the edge, forlorn and cooling. I hope that this will change before too long; I'll write when I have something interesting to report.

But, you know. It's 2007 and I'm still breathing. So there's that.

My Christmas song, from spenceraloysius:

This week on Cooking With jyoti, we learn the perils of preparing a new dish without having a picture to refer to. Now, some of you may scoff. ‘Oh, sure,’ you say. ‘Like I need a picture of a block of meat in order to make meatloaf. I’m not some cooking noob.’ Well, smart guy, how about Pan Basquaise?

Follow me behind the cut; we’ll experience the joys of overly complicated French food...

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I'll stop it with the 'redux' soon. Really.

Just wanted to mention to my panting readership (and those of you without lung conditions) that Vertai and Jendayi of PernMUSH now have an LJ. It's maintained by jyoti, who is better at this sort of thing than I am. In the unlikely event that any of you would like to read logs from my current outing, they can be found at http://jaladrom.livejournal.com/.

(This week's much-belated episode of Cooking With jyoti is brought to you by the makers of Strep Throat. Strep Throat: we'll put your life in a blender and press 'puree.' Deal with it.)

Ah, autumn. When the apples are ripening on the tree, and the pigs are ripening in the sty. What better season for that salty-sweet favorite, apple pork chops? Grab your fruit-pickin' bucket and your hog-slaughterin' knife, and come with me behind the cut. (Get it? Cut? On account of... oh, the hell with it.)

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Oh, one other thing about the MUSHing. If any of you would like to look at logs featuring Vertai and Jendayi on PernMUSH, or learn about the characters, jyoti maintains a very nice site for us. It's at http://wwww.freewebs.com/dijilia/index.htm. In addition to logs we've got character backgrounds there, pictures, and descriptions of the various exotic items that the Dijilia sell.

More later as our adventures continue.

Yes, I'm shamefully late in posting my Friday cooking results, but my readers are in for a real treat this time. If may sound iffy, but trust me, if you're a fan of unusual and compelling blends of flavor, then you'll want to give this Shrimp and Artichoke Linguine a try. Follow me behind the cut and see...

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