A rose would smell as sweet… 27 years ago, on Anne’s 29th birthday, I saw the Dead at Frost. Today, on her 39th, I am so glad we found each other, and that she allows me to share in her beautiful life
Author Archives: mysterious6030
May Day Ticket History
Twenty-six years … and several lifetimes ago…
The Marvelous Mundane
Taking a break from reading Chaucer, and from investigating the sources for The Nun’s Priest’s Tale (notably, of course, the story of Reynard and Chaunticleer), as well as briefly dipping into George Lyman Kittredge’s analysis of how Chaucer tells his tales, I found myself reading two completely unrelated poems: “Sea Fever” by John Masefield, and …
Those Sirens Aren’t Mermaids, Just Voices in Your Head
More from the Book of Duh: Again from the BBC, citing the US National Ocean Service: There are no such things as mermaids. Or, as the report more scientifically stated: “No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.” The wonders of scientific progress continue. Sailors can breathe more easily. Next up: Zombies and Vampires.
Pot Plants, Stunt Growth
From the big Book of Duh: BBC reports on a scientific study presented at the Society for Experimental Biology during their meeting in Salzburg, Austria that a researcher with the unlikely name of Hendrik Poorter has used Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) to discover the following startling truth: Plants in bigger pots grow bigger than plants …
Toast
(On the occasion of Dad and Lynn’s wedding) May your love flow like the patient river, Channeling through life’s difficult terrain. May it bring sweetness and slow delight To make gentle the inevitable rain. May a power beyond yourselves be stirred From this merging of individual streams, And the waters of your love run cool …
Contra ApologetiX
[an old article, finally published; broken links have been noted] The Problem And no one pours the new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the Wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one …
My Confession
Thinking of the Ligurian Sea Where the romantics go to drown, Somber as the Tuscan sun sets Speaking the ineffable noun My heart a hopeless wanderer Fleeing pregnant ghosts Seeking in parti-colored silks To evade accusing hosts. The fear a promise unrealized, The events trivial and benign, Oppressed beneath the clearest skies, The punishment condign. …
Sonnet
(for Anne, on our 16th wedding anniversary) The words, you say, are easy; numbers – no. And yet your constant true addition makes Multiply our joys. Your love me takes To planes and spheres where never words can go. Though some reckon to grow their purse By calculating reasoned rates of return, If never I …
Friday Vocabulary
1. Comstockery — “censorship because of perceived obscenity or immorality” (George Bernard Shaw) Though named after an anti-smut crusader of the 1870s, Comstockery has a long reach through American culture, as the example of Tipper Gore can attest. 2. poetaster — writer of inferior, insignificant verse The popular anthologies circulating in the United States …