Keats' Warmup Poem, from Endymion

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases, it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er—darkened ways
Made of our searching; yes, in spite of all
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits.

________________
Keats went on walkabout after writing this poem.

Excited

The walking and Pilates regimen has been effective, but not so effective as keeping my mouth shut--not snacking. I've lost 7 pounds so far on the Perricone diet (10 days, and some of it is probably from not drinking so many sodas--in fact, any sodas). I'm weary of salmon, but I guess I'll keep going. I never thought I'd burn out on fish. And I miss my Sundrops. I'm still waiting for the radiant skin, but I am pale (just realized that AM PALE is anagrammatical of PAMELA), and I probably wouldn't glow unless I were irradiated.

At this rate, I may reach my pre-baby jeans goal faster than 3 months, although realistically I think a pound a week will be the plateau. At least it's the goal.

And it's a bad goal to want to fit in your old Levis when your baby is nearly 8, and the other baby is nearly 21. (I told you I procrastinate).

Mile a Minute, Foot a Night, Eight Dollars an Acre

I just unearthed two prose-y poems that I wrote for a fiction class. (Did anyone else ever do that? Every time I've taken a poetry workshop, I've written more fiction than poetry).


I apparently had a whole series in mind:

Here were the projected titles:

Vanity/Pride Hair
Envy/Jealousy Kudzu (Maybe is gluttony, instead)
Gluttony Pig (Time Don't Mean Nothing to a Pig)
Lust Sunburn
Anger Stiffed (Two-Penny Waitress Opera)
Avarice/Greed Frogs
Sloth Slow Loris

This is just too funny. I don't remember any of these.

A Meme-rable Feast

"Name five foods, dishes or otherwise, that were a part of your childhood, and that you sometimes miss when nostalgia gets to you..."

1. Buttermilk with cornbread or crackers. No kidding. Straight out of the jar and cold as an ex-wife's heart.
2. Chicken and dumplings, real dumplings and real chicken.
3. Pizza crackers. This is genuine redneck cuisine: Catsup on a saltine, covered with Parmesan cheese. Broil in oven until boiling. A dozen will serve two hungry children. (I made these for my sister and me all the time--it was about the only thing I could cook until I was married the first time--and my German-born mother-in-law took me firmly in hand).
4. Country ham, redeye gravy on biscuits, and fried eggs. No apostolic gravy, either--it's got to have coffee and Frank's Red Hot Sauce in the grease.
5. Butter, real butter, on sourdough bread or the aforementioned biscuits.

Sad to say, #3 is the only one I have given up in adulthood. Yet, my total cholesterol is 93. Go figure.

My Secret Blog Name

Since Peter posted anagrams of various blog sites, I've been clicking around the Scrabble tiles to rearrange my blog title.

Because I've been The Devil twice on two separate quizzes, as well as being "Acquainted with the Night," I'm plumping for the following:

AM SIN'S PLUMAGES.

There are several much more blatant ones, but this gets my vote.

Blogoview Weekly Q/A

"What's your favorite poem...that you've written?"

My favorite poem? I love them like children, the same amount in different ways...I guess the title from my manuscript, "Anything in the Thicket," because of the cigarettes in ashtrays.


My favorite thing I've written? Hands down, my short story, "Horses," which is an homage to Patti Smith and to Charles Dickens and also to shoplifting. I really hope that someone will publish it, because it needs to leave home and go out into the world.

Second Pilates Class

I keep telling myself, If Star Jones can balance on her butt, with her arms and legs in the air, then so can I. Well, at least I keep telling myself that. I do like the ball exercises, and maybe Star Jones is a better fitness example than Raphael.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Baldwin!

Today's the birthday of James Baldwin, one of my favorite writers. I think I love him most because of his two styles: Go Tell it on the Mountain and Giovanni's Room (which is one of the most structurally perfected novels I've ever read, and the point of view is so good, I get the chills just thinking about it). Read them together, one after the other, and then tell me that this man is not the best writer of sentences and sensibility since Henry James. Both books to me are reminiscent of James' style, in different ways: the cadences of the former, the sensibility and point of view in the latter. (Also, Baldwin's style is reminiscent of two other James--The King James Bible and James Joyce, but that's another blog topic, for another time).

Here's what J. Baldwin had to say about H. James in a famous essay:

"A man is a man, a woman is a woman, and a child is a child. To deny these facts is to open the doors on a chaos deeper and deadlier, and, within the space of a man's lifetime, more timeless, more eternal, than the medieval vision of Hell. And we have arrived at this unspeakable blasphemy in order to acquire things, in order to make money. We cannot endure the things we acquire-the only reason we continually acquire them, like junkies on a hundred dollar a day habit-and our money exists mainly on paper. God help us on that day when the population demands to know what is behind the paper. But, beyond all this, it is terrifying to consider the precise nature of the things we buy with the flesh we sell.

In Henry James' novel The Ambassadors published not long before World War I, and not long before his death, he recounts the story of a middle-aged New Englander, assigned by his middle-aged bride-to-be-a widow-the task of rescuing from the flesh-pots of Paris her only son. She wants him to come home to take over the direction of the family factory. In the event, it is the middle-aged New Englander-The Ambassador-who is seduced, not so much by Paris, as by a new and less utilitarian view of life. He counsels the young man to "live. Live all you can. It is a mistake not to." Which I translate as meaning "Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know." Jazz musicians know this. Those old men and women who waved and sang and wept as we marched in Montgomery know this. White Americans, in the main, do not know this. They are still trapped in that factory to which, in Henry James' novel, the son returns. We never know what this factory produces, for James never tells us. He only conveys to us that the factory, at an unbelievable human expense, produces unnameable objects."

And doesn't Baldwin tell us exactly this in both novels? (And doesn't Wordsworth, also--"we have given our hearts away/a sordid boon")?

I have to read these two books again, in order. At least restricted work hours will be coming in good for something.

ADDENDUM: Here's another one of the quotes I love from Baldwin:

"Joyce is right about history being a nightmare - but it may be the nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them." (from Stranger in the Village)

A Sentence I Could Never Write

He piled upon the whale's white hump the sum of all the general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it.

Herman Melville

Happy Birthday, Herman! Your sentences are sublime.

First Pilates Class

This was disconcertingly simple--until it was time to be a crane and balance on one leg. I could not do this. I loved the rest of it, though, so I guess I'll have to improve my balance.

I don't really think I should call it a class, because there were only the instructor and I present. It was free for the first time. I think I can afford the $25.00 for the next 12 classes. Yes, that's 2.50 per class. I've been telling you all along no one else finds bargains the way I do.

I have pictures to upload onto this blog--what's the best photo host? Thanks.

Even More Humiliating than the 7 Rejections in One Day

I bought a new swimsuit.

Planet of the Apes!

You're Inherit the Wind!

by Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee

To you, the learning process is inherently about controversy. If
people aren't having their minds stretched, how could they possibly be learning? This
makes you a good but unpopular teacher, and the people around you are ready to make it
a federal case. All you're asking them to do is evolve a little. But they would like
you to be more creative. You would make an excellent lawyer, even though people think
you love monkeys.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

Happy Centennial!

Halley's Comet--Stanley Kunitz

Miss Murphy in first grade
wrote its name in chalk
across the board and told us
it was roaring down the stormtracks
of the Milky Way at frightful speed
and if it wandered off its course
and smashed into the earth
there'd be no school tomorrow.
A red-bearded preacher from the hills
with a wild look in his eyes
stood in the public square
at the playground's edge
proclaiming he was sent by God
to save every one of us,
even the little children.
"Repent, ye sinners!" he shouted,
waving his hand-lettered sign.
At supper I felt sad to think
that it was probably
the last meal I'd share
with my mother and my sisters;
but I felt excited too
and scarcely touched my plate.
So mother scolded me
and sent me early to my room.
The whole family's asleep
except for me. They never heard me steal
into the stairwell hall and climb
the ladder to the fresh night air.
Look for me, Father, on the roof
of the red brick building
at the foot of Green Street—
that's where we live, you know, on the top floor.
I'm the boy in the white flannel gown
sprawled on this coarse gravel bed
searching the starry sky,
waiting for the world to end.

________

Back from the Back Appointment

The good news--I don't need surgery.

The bad news--I won't ever have any permanent improvement.

The good news--I probably won't get any worse.

The bad news--I definitely won't get any pain relief without medication or thoracic epidural injections. OUCH.

The confusing news--I have had a sedentary lifestyle way too long. I walk about a mile a day but don't do anything else. Before this blasted back pain, I went to the Y 3 times a week. Since the back pain, I have gained weight. The orthopedist recommends that I improve my core strength without doing situps, lunges, squats or crunches. Anyone, anywhere, have any ideas on how to do this? Someone has suggested Pilates. Does anyone do this or like it?

Frosting on the Cupcake

ACQUAINTED WITH THE NIGHT

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
O luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

You're sad, and know the loneliness of the night
very well. You like (or accept) solitude, and
you love the saddening beauty of some things.
You're like that silent person no one really
knows. Keep that solitude, but let a few people
get to know you. Goodness knows what healing
powers friends have.


What Robert Frost poem are you?
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