July 30, 2010
Hot mornings, hot with the heat left over from the torrid evenings. I keep the garden watered, and it doesn’t look like it suffers too much. The swamp hibiscus are the spectacular blooms now. A few days before I left for England, the joy was that big blacksnake curving into my yard. Yesterday evening, it was a garter snake as long as my arm, imperfectly hidden under the anemones. What joy it gave me to see him there! I wanted to touch him, but he was having none of that, and whipped away into the rocks. Met DT for drinks. He’s here at a science education convention, giving us a chance to see each other more than we have for many years. It’s a little hard to get him off the subject of Hiram, but that’s because he loves it so much and the present President has done so much to destroy it. Obsession is therefor understandable. President Chema is one of those people who haven’t noticed that corporate power structure has failed even the corporations, one of those people who actually holds as an unexamined article of faith that the “bottom line” is the significant thing, that if the checkbook balances the deed has been accomplished--who congratulates himself that he has replaced a diamond with a shard of glass and thereby kept costs down. Took 150 years to build the school and ten to destroy it. It is a sad thing. Of course, the last flourish is the Hiram administration’s insistence on taking, like Chinese Communism, correction for disloyalty. Sad, and sad. It was a beautiful place. But I tell DT that the sadder thing would be to let anguish over it destroy his life as well, seeing that his efforts at correction have not been welcomed, nor have they availed. I’m all for being the lone rebel, but not when that takes humanity away. “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of the heart,” says Yeats. Drinks at Sazerac, then we sat in the moonlight before the Jackson Building and chit-chatted in my sweet city.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Monday, July 26, 2010
July 25, 2010
Mother’s birthday, deep dark before morning, one bird in the weeds chirping hopefully. Listening to “Gaude Flore Virginale” from the Eton Choirbook, oddly right for a dark summer morning, already hot, or still hot from the day before.
I think of conversations I heard around me while we waited in perplexity and rising fury for our flight to Asheville, still only five days ago. A member of the sewer board was on the phone the while with colleagues in city government, talking about meetings, scheduling or rescheduling meetings, gossiping about meetings, providing a fascinating glimpse into the workings of city government, where items such as with where the mayor sits at a meeting are read as though they were the guts of sacrifice. Another city official later appeared in the flesh, and the two men talked with each other–often while still also on their phones. Terry Bellamy was the topic much of the time, her capriciousness and her–to them–mad unconcern with proportion and procedure, offering a buy-out of the airport at one point, which left her colleagues gaping at its randomness and probable illegality. The second official quoted someone as saying she was the most frustrating city official he had ever worked with. Me, I suddenly saw her in color and three dimensions, and however frustrating she was for them, I was interested in city government in a way I had not been before.
US Air responded to my bitching with a gift certificate. All right then.
Meeting last night at the Charlotte Street Pub with MA, who is looking fulfilled and happy. It was a wonderful evening, our conversation ranging through books and art and poetry, deeper and wider than I have been able to delve in conversation in a long time. What they say about common interests being sometimes vital is true, after all, and a lesson for one who often has his most intimate relations with people with whom he has nothing at all in common, except that. MA has begun sending me poems which are sensationally good, with a a voice unique and authoritative from the first line. The people around us sometimes broke into our conversation, it was that good.
Have been writing almost heroically, stopping only when knocked out by the heat. Why I never thought of getting a cheap fan for this rom until this second I don’t know. Guess I felt suffering was part of the admonition.
Chat with BB, who has finished another book of angry political philosophy. Something in his presentation allows people to ignore how systematic he is.
Mother’s birthday, deep dark before morning, one bird in the weeds chirping hopefully. Listening to “Gaude Flore Virginale” from the Eton Choirbook, oddly right for a dark summer morning, already hot, or still hot from the day before.
I think of conversations I heard around me while we waited in perplexity and rising fury for our flight to Asheville, still only five days ago. A member of the sewer board was on the phone the while with colleagues in city government, talking about meetings, scheduling or rescheduling meetings, gossiping about meetings, providing a fascinating glimpse into the workings of city government, where items such as with where the mayor sits at a meeting are read as though they were the guts of sacrifice. Another city official later appeared in the flesh, and the two men talked with each other–often while still also on their phones. Terry Bellamy was the topic much of the time, her capriciousness and her–to them–mad unconcern with proportion and procedure, offering a buy-out of the airport at one point, which left her colleagues gaping at its randomness and probable illegality. The second official quoted someone as saying she was the most frustrating city official he had ever worked with. Me, I suddenly saw her in color and three dimensions, and however frustrating she was for them, I was interested in city government in a way I had not been before.
US Air responded to my bitching with a gift certificate. All right then.
Meeting last night at the Charlotte Street Pub with MA, who is looking fulfilled and happy. It was a wonderful evening, our conversation ranging through books and art and poetry, deeper and wider than I have been able to delve in conversation in a long time. What they say about common interests being sometimes vital is true, after all, and a lesson for one who often has his most intimate relations with people with whom he has nothing at all in common, except that. MA has begun sending me poems which are sensationally good, with a a voice unique and authoritative from the first line. The people around us sometimes broke into our conversation, it was that good.
Have been writing almost heroically, stopping only when knocked out by the heat. Why I never thought of getting a cheap fan for this rom until this second I don’t know. Guess I felt suffering was part of the admonition.
Chat with BB, who has finished another book of angry political philosophy. Something in his presentation allows people to ignore how systematic he is.
Friday, July 23, 2010
July 22, 2010
Dark of the morning, though a little later than yesterday. Rose at 3 then, at 4:30 today, easing my way back toward North American time. Distant singing of birds.
The cats snuggle and nuzzle, renewing acquaintance after all those weeks.
The moonflowers and the angel’s trumpets, for which I feared, sailed through the drought, the latter now blooming ostentatiously. The biggest weeds were the result of misidentification on my part. A ragweed five feet tall prospered because I thought it was a marigold. A whole plantation of white sweet clover grew up because I thought the seedlings were those of my lovely wild indigo.
10:am, and I’m already on my 3rd T-shirt. Since rising this morning I prepared and delivered the manuscript of The Falls of the Wyona to an agent in Rockefeller Center, chatted with the homeless boy sleeping in his dreadlocks in the Lit Dept lobby, worked out at the Y, had a fit of fury at various ignoramuses reading Michael Furey, weeded about 300 square feet of garden, including the sudden Everglades on the devil strip at roadside, watered said garden, restored the birdbaths, cleaned up cat vomit, showered.
Dark of the morning, though a little later than yesterday. Rose at 3 then, at 4:30 today, easing my way back toward North American time. Distant singing of birds.
The cats snuggle and nuzzle, renewing acquaintance after all those weeks.
The moonflowers and the angel’s trumpets, for which I feared, sailed through the drought, the latter now blooming ostentatiously. The biggest weeds were the result of misidentification on my part. A ragweed five feet tall prospered because I thought it was a marigold. A whole plantation of white sweet clover grew up because I thought the seedlings were those of my lovely wild indigo.
10:am, and I’m already on my 3rd T-shirt. Since rising this morning I prepared and delivered the manuscript of The Falls of the Wyona to an agent in Rockefeller Center, chatted with the homeless boy sleeping in his dreadlocks in the Lit Dept lobby, worked out at the Y, had a fit of fury at various ignoramuses reading Michael Furey, weeded about 300 square feet of garden, including the sudden Everglades on the devil strip at roadside, watered said garden, restored the birdbaths, cleaned up cat vomit, showered.
July 21, 2010
US Air made sure the last leg of the flight from Dublin was drawn out unnecessarily, compounding incompetence with dishonesty. I could have driven home from Charlotte four times in the time I spent hearing the evolving fib about what had happened to our plane. But, home I am. It is fiercely hot, in the absolute sense, but certainly compared to a place where I never went out without a jacket. Arrived at midnight, did laundry, paid bills, lay down but couldn’t sleep, was up again at 3:30. It is still before noon, and I’ve had a full day. When I got home I was literally sick with exhaustion; maybe this wakeful restlessness is still a symptom of it. Coffee with Tom. Gave August his Union Jack t-shirt. Filled the hummingbird feeders. Glanced at the garden, to see it is not beyond repair. The moonflowers, in fact, seem to have become quite predatory. Plowed through the mail, no disasters, only one bill that will be late, some good news from agents. I get an astonishing number of catalogues.
First purchase on the ground in Philadelphia?: iced tea.
US Air made sure the last leg of the flight from Dublin was drawn out unnecessarily, compounding incompetence with dishonesty. I could have driven home from Charlotte four times in the time I spent hearing the evolving fib about what had happened to our plane. But, home I am. It is fiercely hot, in the absolute sense, but certainly compared to a place where I never went out without a jacket. Arrived at midnight, did laundry, paid bills, lay down but couldn’t sleep, was up again at 3:30. It is still before noon, and I’ve had a full day. When I got home I was literally sick with exhaustion; maybe this wakeful restlessness is still a symptom of it. Coffee with Tom. Gave August his Union Jack t-shirt. Filled the hummingbird feeders. Glanced at the garden, to see it is not beyond repair. The moonflowers, in fact, seem to have become quite predatory. Plowed through the mail, no disasters, only one bill that will be late, some good news from agents. I get an astonishing number of catalogues.
First purchase on the ground in Philadelphia?: iced tea.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Dublin 6
July 19, 2010
Rain outside my window. On the last day of the journey I may finally be using my canary yellow raincoat, which looks like it belongs to a 6 year old and takes up the most space in my suitcase.
Drank at the Shakespeare around the corner, which is owned by Koreans, has a fascinating Korean-Old Ireland decor, and reminded me constantly of Katherine Min’s proposition that the Koreans are the Irish of Asia. In some inexplicable way, the Shakespeare, with videos of a Korean kid playing the guitar, had the sweetest ambience of all pubs I’ve visited. Did nothing particularly Irish with my evening. Entered the Savoy to see a fil-em, as the Irish say, Get Him to the Greek, a surprise on many levels, being sweet and truly funny, and revealing that Russell Brand can really act, and Jonah. . . well, that fat guy . . . is for all the appearances against him, a movie star. I mean to see Loretto today, or at least her gallery, and to eat nothing that will make me sick on the journey tomorrow. Modest goals, I think, and easily met.
The banisters on which one must support oneself dragging up and down three storeys in the air are, one notes, in several places worn almost through. Read Keats’ reminiscence of his journey to Ulster, and it was mostly about squalor, though he did remark that the presbyterian squalor of Scotland was more soul-destroying than the Catholic squalor of Ireland. What will it take to bring Ireland dependable prosperity? Dublin is shabbier, poorer, barer, emptier than it was ten years ago.
Left at the interval a production of The Death of a Salesman at the Gate. It was a fine production, and I do not dispute that it is a great play (though possibly not at great as all that), but I find it impossible to watch. It is too hopeless, too foreordained. Pity does not moderate my contempt for Willy Loman, and I think the play expects that it should. Besides, the old couple in front of me would not stop digging around in a bag of candy. Instead, I walked a final time the streets of Dublin, down Henry to Jervis–the Spike behind me like God behind the Israelites-- and then to the river. It may have been the most beautiful evening I have ever seen in Dublin. The rain had passed, and the pale sky was thickened by clouds that seemed either to be pink or deep powder blue. A rosy gold radiance suffused everything, and the top of the buildings were scarlet and gold from the sun that had dropped under the clouds. Away in the south, over Parliament Street, a great rainbow burned with many colored fire. As I watched, that rainbow paled and another ignited farther east, toward the sea. A moon waxing past half appeared huge, details of light and dark blindingly etched, over the Temple bar. Crossing O’Connell Bridge, I laughed, for I had been growing all tragic and sad at the fading beauty, until I said to myself, “Weren’t you planning to come back in September anyway?” Stopped at Madigan’s for a drink, where a miracle happened: the good giant of a bartender remembered what I ordered, and brought it to me before I opened my mouth. I felt the conqueror.
Rain outside my window. On the last day of the journey I may finally be using my canary yellow raincoat, which looks like it belongs to a 6 year old and takes up the most space in my suitcase.
Drank at the Shakespeare around the corner, which is owned by Koreans, has a fascinating Korean-Old Ireland decor, and reminded me constantly of Katherine Min’s proposition that the Koreans are the Irish of Asia. In some inexplicable way, the Shakespeare, with videos of a Korean kid playing the guitar, had the sweetest ambience of all pubs I’ve visited. Did nothing particularly Irish with my evening. Entered the Savoy to see a fil-em, as the Irish say, Get Him to the Greek, a surprise on many levels, being sweet and truly funny, and revealing that Russell Brand can really act, and Jonah. . . well, that fat guy . . . is for all the appearances against him, a movie star. I mean to see Loretto today, or at least her gallery, and to eat nothing that will make me sick on the journey tomorrow. Modest goals, I think, and easily met.
The banisters on which one must support oneself dragging up and down three storeys in the air are, one notes, in several places worn almost through. Read Keats’ reminiscence of his journey to Ulster, and it was mostly about squalor, though he did remark that the presbyterian squalor of Scotland was more soul-destroying than the Catholic squalor of Ireland. What will it take to bring Ireland dependable prosperity? Dublin is shabbier, poorer, barer, emptier than it was ten years ago.
Left at the interval a production of The Death of a Salesman at the Gate. It was a fine production, and I do not dispute that it is a great play (though possibly not at great as all that), but I find it impossible to watch. It is too hopeless, too foreordained. Pity does not moderate my contempt for Willy Loman, and I think the play expects that it should. Besides, the old couple in front of me would not stop digging around in a bag of candy. Instead, I walked a final time the streets of Dublin, down Henry to Jervis–the Spike behind me like God behind the Israelites-- and then to the river. It may have been the most beautiful evening I have ever seen in Dublin. The rain had passed, and the pale sky was thickened by clouds that seemed either to be pink or deep powder blue. A rosy gold radiance suffused everything, and the top of the buildings were scarlet and gold from the sun that had dropped under the clouds. Away in the south, over Parliament Street, a great rainbow burned with many colored fire. As I watched, that rainbow paled and another ignited farther east, toward the sea. A moon waxing past half appeared huge, details of light and dark blindingly etched, over the Temple bar. Crossing O’Connell Bridge, I laughed, for I had been growing all tragic and sad at the fading beauty, until I said to myself, “Weren’t you planning to come back in September anyway?” Stopped at Madigan’s for a drink, where a miracle happened: the good giant of a bartender remembered what I ordered, and brought it to me before I opened my mouth. I felt the conqueror.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Dublin 5
July 18, 2010
Service at St. Patrick’s this morning, the choir of Worcester College, Oxford in residence. They were exquisite. They sang Byrd’s “Ave Verum Corpus” from somewhere back in the ambulatory, and the effect was at once sublime and disturbing, as if one were a sort of inferior spirit in heaven, and could hear the angel choir only from a distance. The sermon, by the parish Treasurer, was a defense of Martha against Mary, in despite of Christ’s own rather unambiguous words. Must have addressed some local political issue we knew not of. I lingered in Temple Bar so as to go to Evensong at either St. Patrick’s or Christ Church, but as I was listening to the singer at Temple Bar pub, I fancied I was becoming ill, and hurried back to the Charles Stewart. I was not ill at all– in fact, something made the whole journey back hilarious to me, and I laughed at secret jokes most of the way. Something preferred that I didn’t go to Evensong.
During the service the simple thing I believe out of the complexities of Christianity became clear to me as it had not before, clear, rational, true to true emotion, convinced and convincing. I have run afoul of the world when I sought to write such a thing down before, but I will try again.
Service at St. Patrick’s this morning, the choir of Worcester College, Oxford in residence. They were exquisite. They sang Byrd’s “Ave Verum Corpus” from somewhere back in the ambulatory, and the effect was at once sublime and disturbing, as if one were a sort of inferior spirit in heaven, and could hear the angel choir only from a distance. The sermon, by the parish Treasurer, was a defense of Martha against Mary, in despite of Christ’s own rather unambiguous words. Must have addressed some local political issue we knew not of. I lingered in Temple Bar so as to go to Evensong at either St. Patrick’s or Christ Church, but as I was listening to the singer at Temple Bar pub, I fancied I was becoming ill, and hurried back to the Charles Stewart. I was not ill at all– in fact, something made the whole journey back hilarious to me, and I laughed at secret jokes most of the way. Something preferred that I didn’t go to Evensong.
During the service the simple thing I believe out of the complexities of Christianity became clear to me as it had not before, clear, rational, true to true emotion, convinced and convincing. I have run afoul of the world when I sought to write such a thing down before, but I will try again.
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