Hereunder

Our Else

I seen it as it looked,

The little lamp in that doll house,

Hanging over the dining room table,

White globes glowing yellow.

 

After--we sat on the log by the side of the road,

Our faces burning, red with humiliation.

Why did she shoo us out of the yard

Just as the doll house was opened?

Just because.

 

But I seen the little lamp.

 

(Inspired by Katherine Mansfield's story, "The Doll's House," 1922)

 

 

 

 

For My Daughter

You are searching for honest hearts,

Keeping the rules,

But aware that some break them.

"What are boys to me?" you ask yourself.

It is still Spring--there is time enough.

What We Know

The luminous plankton glows blue with each swell of the wave,

Then falls dark with a crash.

At night, from the shore,

The ocean seems safe,

Its extent unseen, unknown, uncontemplated.

Like when I was four,

Riding in the car at night with my grandparents

Across the fearsome high-level bridge over the lake.

"Where does the lake go at night?" I asked.

"It disappears," said my grandmother.

I was satisfied to know only that.

 

At the Phillips Collection

Gentle visitors, your humble Contributer visited the Phillips Collection recently with some of the poor Relations.  What follows are his observations, fashioned in rhyming couplets to bring some literary feel to the visual arts.

Cézanne painted a handsome pear
Manet sketched a Baudelaire
Monet made a fine impression
Van Gogh gave ear to depression
Renoir rendered a nauti-soiree
Degas depicted a pre-ballet
Gauguin inked a Tahitian chick
And,
I drew only a figure in stick. 

The Zen of Pun

Gentle visitors, a friend sent this credo -- one might even say, meditation -- concerning puns.

 

Beyond strange how this captures so perfectly your humble Contributor's deeply-held beliefs and practices concerning the pun.  It is heartening, of course, to know that one has achieved the level of pun sensei (しゃれ先生) - though, to be honest, I already had the sense I was there.

But, the credo's title -- "A Practical Guide..." -- diminishes the theoretical depth of the author's blessed observations.  Truly, it is like dipping one's toe in the tao (道).  

The first observation is the most blessed.  It suggests that a pun might be so bad that it is good.  Here, we move away from the Western, linear notion of bad and good -- that on the one end are horrible, cringe-worthy word plays and, on the other, hilarious, snort-inducing word plays -- and we are drawn instead toward the Eastern notion of the yin yang (陰陽) -- a circle, as it were, where the dark and light meet at one point, such that the worst of puns might, paradoxically, be the best of puns.

For example, a zen herbalist might well opine, concerning a certain variety of Thymus serpyllum that is both satisfying and troubling:  "It was the best of thymes; it was the worst of thymes." 

It is a difficult concept to translate for the Western mind. One might compare it to the card game of Hearts, where the player, through a series of apparently randomly-dealt hands, endeavors to avoid the taint of even one "heart." However, the daring and inventive player may attempt to "shoot the moon" -- akin to wuji (無極) -- that is, to reach for the infinite by taking every "heart" as well as the dread Queen of Spades.  The risk is great; but, the reward is greater.  To take all but one is utter disaster; but, to take all is glorious victory, entering the Hall of the Immortals as a xian (仙/仚/僊;).  Provided, of course, that one is playing with a full deck of cards.

And, yes, the true master must enjoy every pun that emits from his qi (氣) especially when no-one else will -- it is the sound of one man laughing.  Master Hsüeh-T'ou said it well: "When one has understanding, one should laugh; one should not weep."  So, while the multitude groan, the master smiles; what appears to be a curse to the unenlightened is actually an eternal blessing.

It is like the ancient sausage-maker who, having labored for many decades to perfect his craft in perfect mindfulness and patient attention, said: "I gave my best for wurst."

Freelance Fatal: The Editor Responds

The Daily Correspondent,
364 Clerkenwell Close,
London EC1R

Dear Mr. Q--:

Certainly the pleasure was all mine at our meeting, though the idea that my face is now in your mind "attached" to The Daily Correspondent is rather disturbing: one can only shudder at the image of my pasty features peering from the masthead like some Big Brother manqué!

I thank you very much for your frank assessment of our pages, as well as your tasty bits of advice for improvement.  A senior correspondent has been assigned exclusively to the task of Elvis reportage, in order that future coverage might meet the very high standards of the "other publications" you so helpfully cite. 

That you find Pass Notes neither funny nor helpful was a cause for utmost concern at our daily staff roundtable.  Indeed, it took a combination of physical restraint and the promise of more buttery crumpets to coax several despairing staffers back from the window ledge.  (I count us fortunate that our offices occupy the ground level of the building.)  Future Notes shall endeavour to ever-higher levels of humour and succour, while at the same time informing the entire citizenry at any stage of literacy of the full spectrum of contemporary writers. 

As to the article on Catholics in England, I have, alas, "spiked" that particular story. Due to the television production of "Brideshead Revisited" and the subsequent re-issue of Mr Waugh's novel, the hard expectation on this subject has come to be one of poofy sots or icy matriarchs, and any treatment at variance with this is reviled, ignored, or both.  Consequently, of course, the need for any articles secondary to this subject is utterly extinguished. 

Again, I thank you for your kind and helpful words, and trust that the above enhancements to our publication meet with your approval, if just barely.

Yours as ever,

Michael Deverilay, Editor

The Daily Correspondent

[By happy circumstance a copy of this letter was forwarded by Red Clinkers . . . ]

Freelance Fatal: Don't Let This Happen to You

The following letter is offered for your amusement and edification--but I make no promises on either account.

Clitherow House
Hampstead
London NW3
18 Oct 20--

Michael Deverilay
Editor, The Daily Correspondent,
364 Clerkenwell Close,
London EC1R

Dear Michael,

Thank you so very much for taking the time to meet with me Wednesday past. Now that I can attach a face to The Daily Correspondent, I will look forward to reading its Sunday magazine and watching the fortunes of the newspaper during the coming months.

Also, I would like to apologize for the comments I made about the magazine's ‘Rear View’ section, which I'm afraid, in retrospect, seem somewhat churlish, as I was giving my thoughts on the fly having scrutinized only last week's copy. (A bit of 'True Confessions' here.)

Nonetheless, as you have asked me what I thought of your publication, I shall tell you. The short articles were fine light contrasts to the long stories that preceded it; the final page profile was informative, but I think that expanding on some questions (possibly by selecting fewer of them) would neither tax the average reader nor crowd the typography of the page; and this week's particular ‘Media Bygones’ seemed a bit voyeuristic, but admittedly of interest to TV viewers who knew him. Other publications cover Elvis rather better, I fear.

But truly, it was the Pass Notes that was neither too funny nor too helpful. Alas, I saw this as a challenge not taken up to actually inform the reader, who has a limited or selective interest in books, about current writers. Am I just undervaluing your sense of humour here, Michael? Or else a closet train spotter somewhat miffed?

I do look forward to the article on Catholics in England. Someone told me that the old aristocratic Catholic families tend to look askance at those in their fold who become too ‘public,’ so I am rather curious to see whom your writer finds to interview.

Do you think that there would be any room for a secondary article related to the one already commissioned? I was thinking of something about the conversions of highly placed members of English society in the 19th century, or perhaps a collection of short pieces on the manor houses of old Catholic families--which are open to the public. (Must keep day-trippers in mind.)

Finally, I could write a profile on the Oratory in Brompton Road as the house of worship for the truly rich and powerful London Catholics—well, such as they are. Do ring me if you see some possibilities.

Yours sincerely,

Q--

Off the Shelf (Part 2)

You'll have to go to the Old Hereunder to get the first part of Off the Shelf. (Sometimes too much technology can be a bad thing. Where's that ****&%%$%###@ weavin' loom!!!!)

Rewriting, especially under technological duress, has a wonderful way of compressing one's writing. But perhaps something else is lost after "disappearing" those drafts through wrong-button-pressing and inadvertent ISP shutdowns?

Anyway. If you find yourself, like me, never finishing books (except audio books during daily commutes) because time is too short, some words of advice: Read anthologies.

Couldn't resist picking up a remaindered Katherine Graham's Washington for six bucks at a bookstore the other day. Man! That's a bargain for 800 pages! The best thing about anthologies is that you read one selection and you feel a sense of reader accomplishment. The next best thing: I never, ever feel compelled to finish an anthology. (Well, hardly ever. I don't think you're supposed to.)

So back to the late Mrs. Graham's book. Even for a Washington Outsider such as myself, I have to hand it to her for the selections, which cover about 80 years in the political, social, literary, and street life of the nation's capital. Circulation-wise, her newspaper practically owned the town by the end of the last century, so she knew the movers and the shakers. But beyond the politics, she also delivers John Dos Passos and hang-a-lamb chop-in-the-window-hostess-with-the-mostest Perle Mesta in the same volume! And Graham's commentaries on the pieces are witty and insightful and somehow always sympathetic.

Dos Passos' 1940s piece has an elegiac air to it as he reminisces about a Washington he knew visiting ancient aunts. He captures the heat-oppressed, sweat-filled slow Southerness of a Washington summer evening before the time of air conditioning. Though I'm gone away, in a manner of speaking, from that city, as a newcomer, I'll never forget the awful dripping humidity of the place in July.

Perle Mesta (Did I tell you that I had an Aunt Ethel who was a dead ringer for Ethel Merman, who played Perle on Broadway? Funny, too.) writes about how to give a Washington Party. In the end planning a good party is plain old common sense, really. Focus on people first, take some risks with mixing guests, string up lamb chop--and yer ready to go!

Perle's tips are helpful even for parties not in Washington and not in the 1950s.

Reflecting On Things

Gentle visitors, we are thankful for the 30 seconds available to us at the end of each hectic day to reflect upon our lives, the whole of creation, and our relationship to the Creator. 

We are reminded of what Josef Pieper wrote in his seminal work, Leisure: the Basis of Culture:

The "worker" ... is characterized by three principle traits: an extreme tension of the powers of action, a readiness to suffer in vacuo unrelated to anything, and complete absorption in the social organism, itself rationally planned to utilitarian ends.  Leisure, from this point of view, appears as something wholly fortuitous and strange, without rhyme or reason, and, morally speaking, unseemly: another word for laziness, idelesness, and sloth.

Reflecting on this for just a moment...  sorry, gotta run.

A Slice of Sertillanges

In need of some quick reading the other day, I picked up a book off a nearby shelf entitled "The Intellectual Life," by A.D. Sertillanges.

Feeling the intrepid reader despite its formidable title (fools rush in . . . ), I opened it toward the back to a rather compelling discourse about the necessity of stopping one's research--the endless gathering of just one more piece of information-- in order to set to the task of writing and presenting one's thoughts to the public. Writing forces one to think precisely and take some risk in putting it before the minds of others, he says. (His words are eloquent--though mine are not--and he has much to say about style, in that section: Avoid artifice. Let words be tied to the writer's deeper intent.)

Unfortunately, I don't have the book in front of me now, or else I would quote from it. If you find a copy, it might be worth a read . . .

Originally posted by Blue Clinkers.