Pa Rum Pum Pum Pum

      Recently I was asked about the wisdom of getting involved again with an ex. Once I had expunged all of the smoke that'd gone directly into my windpipe, I hung my head and massaged my eyes as if they were the knots in Sisyphus' back. A brief deliberation later, I let Tom Eliot answer, invoking his old lines about how "We cannot restore old policies / Or follow an antique drum." No, eh? was the slightly disappointed response. "No," I said, pausing. "But if you must," I added, accepting yet another demerit point from our metaphysical hall monitor, "bang it like you're Buddy Rich."

      You can imagine my disappointment when my friend had never heard of Buddy Rich. **sigh** It almost makes one want to shrink from blasphemy.

The Visitor Warming Up

Our little visitor-- no longer so timid, at least not with me, and very cuddly indeed. And make no mistake: it looks sunny in the pictures, but it's colder than a witch's teat today. She's absolutely adorable.

(And, yes-- my ears look like Dumbo's in these pictures. D'Oh....)

      UPDATE: I've let the poor, freezing little thing inside the house for a while to warm up, with Trouble grumblingly but not-too-crankily complaining in my bedroom. She's suuuuch a girly-girl cat, refusing to go more than a few steps from my side, and constantly rubbing her butt against my chin. (She is, unlike most human girly-girls, very grateful.) She's sitting on my lap as I write this-- or, more accurately, she's sitting for a few seconds, then standing up and brushing about, and then sitting again, and so on, all the while looking up at me with those beautiful translucent eyes. So sweet.

      I've now put our-- well, my-- visitor in the bathroom for a minute to let Trouble out and sniff things as he must. It's always easiest to let animals adjust to the smells of other animals before introducing them. He's hunting for her, but he hasn't found her yet, Trouble, like most male animals over half-way through their lives, long-since fixed. There's a strange serenity to this, multitasking et al. One feels rather Prosperan, in the slightest, and probably silliest, ways.

      Whatever else, animals-- and kids-- seem to take very well to me, far better than most, and usually far more quickly than they do to others. Now if only I could translate that into attracting adult females of the human species, I'd be a very happy camper, indeed.  

      CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER: Every time I leave a room, my femme feline storms into my bedroom and hides. She comes out as soon as she knows I'm back from doing whatever I've been doing. Still so timid, even as she's purring up a storm.

An Odd But Familiar Question

      Always one to answer peoples' questions, I was asked this in email today:

Are you really as cynical about love as you've seemed to be?

Yes.

Next question?

Regrets, I've Had A Few....

(and, surprisingly, I'm making no reference to mine own private Gonerils)



(image thanks to The Brat)

Christmas Mewsic

      It's no secret that I'm not fond of the Christmas season, but I stumbled on these pictures today in a way that bordered on pleasant irony. The pics are old now-- Blake, the babyish orange cat, long since passed away-- but they provided a strange kind of relief for what this season should be all about. Trouble, for all intents and purposes, was Blake's father-figure, and there's an utter adorability to these two going through their shenanigans, and making better use of Christmas paraphernalia than most humans do.

  

Then, of course, there's the other aspect of Christmas, what should be one of charity. Again, leave it to Trouble, always the crank and would-be feline John Wayne. Yesterday morning, there was much wailing and mewing from said crank as another cat, presumably but not necessarily a stray, who had taken to milling about the front porch. Like Trouble, he's a crank, and a loud one to boot, so the two carried on some sort of equivalent to a back-alley catversation. But the poor thing was starving (from momentary hunger, not long-term), so I fed the little guy.

  

For such a yawper, he's surpisingly timid, even antsy. It seems that every year as the weather gets colder, one cat in the neighbourhood moves in on us, and suckers that we are we end up feeding him/her for the rest of the season. Strangely, this always seems more Christmas-y than all of the silly gift-exchanging and platitude-spouting than invariably mires the holidays in mud-like pretense. This guy has such fascinating eyes, though the pictures are poor. I'm suspecting he'll be our quadrupedal Baby Jesus for a while. I wonder if like our past attendants at this feline inn he'll eventually start cuddling up with the innkeepers, sidling up with ravenous glee each time we open the door. Our last temporary boarder came to let me hold him and carry him, and even to sleep within the house for a few hours now and again when the weather became especially brutal, as Canadian winters are wont to do. He stuck around for several months. Makes me wonder whatever happened to him-- and what will happen with this one. The previous one was more like Blake: very sweet, very goofy, and perpetually hungry; this one seems more like Trouble, mouthy and independent and slow to trust, though Trouble is actually a big baby once he does trust. We shall see.

      Yeah, yeah, yeah: there's a patent silliness to all this, but this is also more of what I think Christmas should be about than all of the ludicrous stuff soon to make its way down the pike. And for that, Trouble's got exactly the right idea for how to handle it.



Oh, the wisdom of cats. Now if only I could do that-- without my back into a thousand calcified shards. Oh well. Fa la la la la and all that jazz. Relatives are on their way today for Friday's wedding. I wonder how much whiskey I can go through with alley-cat avarice. We shall see. Cheers.

      UPDATE: Yes, our new cranky little friend came by this morning again. Surprise, surprise.

On Not Being Everything

      Reading the work of ones younger than oneself, one can fall victim to delusions of grandeur. You know what I'm talking about-- the "I was smarter than they are" bit, a vanity and usually a lie on the part of the elder. So, while stumbling through a few old documents today, I landed on a now-weathered paper that I wrote for the same course that RK's young charges now attend, except that my paper was for a different instructor and written almost a dozen years ago. I offer it here with absolutely no pride; I offer it here with embarrassment, but in acknowledgement that wisdom, even obvious wisdom, is seldom innate; it is, in fact, something acquired with time and much bruising along the way. Fact is, I thought then the professor in question over-graded this paper, but it reminds of another lesson most of us learn but forget along the way, that more often than not we're quicker to see through ourselves than others are; and, just as importantly, we seldom have any realistic conception of who we are in relation to others. I can say this now with much more confidence than I could then. A simple thing to remember: we all look back on former selves with embarrassment (just remember your high school photographs!), but it takes time to come to terms with what we did and who we were. As Joe E. Brown, at the end of Some Like It Hot, learning that the woman with he's fallen in love is in fact a man, so appropriately says, shhrugging the facts off: "Nobody's perfect." Indeed.

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      Here, by the way, is the subject poem:

On Not Saying Everything

This tree outside my window here,
Naked, umbrageous, fresh or sere,
Has neither chance nor will to be
Anything but a linden tree,
Even if its branches grew to span
The continent; for nature's plan
Insists that infinite extension
Shall create no new dimension.
From the first snuggling of the seed
In earth, a branchy form's decreed.

Unwritten poems loom as if
They'd cover the whole of earthly life.
But each one, growing, learns to trim its
Impulse and meaning to the limits
Roughed out by me, then modified
In its own truth's expanding light.
A poem, settling to its form,
Finds there's no jailer, but a norm
Of conduct, and a fitting sphere
Which stops it wandering everywhere.

As for you, my love, it's harder,
Though neither prisoner nor warder,
Not to desire you both: for love
Illudes us we can lightly move
Into a new dimension, where
The bounds of being disappear
And we make one impassioned cell.
So wanting to be all in all
Each for each, a man and woman
Defy the limits of what's human.

Your glancing eye, your animal tongue,
Your hands that to mine and clung
Like birds on bough, with innocence
Masking those young experiments
Of flesh, persuaded me that nature
Formed us each other's god and creature.
Play out then, as it should be played,
The sweet illusion that has made
An eldorado of your hair
And our love an everywhere.

But when we cease to play explorers
And become settlers, clear before us
Lies the next need-- to re-define
The boundary between yours and mine;
Else, one stays prisoner, one goes free.
Each to his own identity
Grown back, shall prove our love's expression
Purer for this limitation.
Love's essence, like a poem's, shall spring
From the not saying everything.

--- C. Day Lewis, 1965

I love that "eldorado of your hair" line, though I'm thinking-- not entirely with tongue in cheek-- this poem should be used to explain why prenuptial agreements are good ideas after all.

Staged Up Like Falstaff Or The Wild Canadian Rimbaud

      As so often happens, I found myself writing about Falstaff today, and so I thought I'd post this sketch of "that old white-bearded Satan" done by a former-student and recently-absent friend. (That is, I just haven't heard from her in a while, and I hope she won't mind my posting this here.) It's a good image, I think, even though I have to agree in part with her own assessment that "Falstaff here looks a bit like the Gerber baby at age seventy." This is the smaller of two drawings of the grand old man this young woman did for me, the other-- and the first-- much too large to be scanned. Both currently hang on one of my walls. Ah, memories of days of being associated with Diana's chief forrester.... There must be more mischief, there must be more mischief....

      (The title of this post, by the way, is taken from Robin Williamson's song "For Mr. Thomas," the lyrics to which can be found here.)

Keep Him Blind To All Else...

      It was enough to make Seagram's 83 shoot through my nose: Rosita, RK's teaching assistant for his poetry course to which I gave a guest lecture at the beginning of the month, pointed me to these blog entries from one of her students, a young man named Raymond that I should evidently hire as a publicity agent. Frankly, I don't know what to say.   Does this mean I get to cavort a bit with Liv Tyler?   Crap, I knew you were going to say that....

The Endeles Knot: Blast From The Past

      Warning: this will probably prove a dreadful bore, except for the person that requested this, so proceed at the risk of your duldrums. Herewith, scans of an absolutely antediluvian essay on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, replete with (gasp!) illustrations and Lord-only-knows how many embarrassing errors.

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The Pentangle Full Formed

      I've been promising for what now seems an aeon to reproduce this essay for RB, a piece I wrote sometime when I was ostensibly young. It was an undergrad paper (96?) that eventuall provided the material for my first lecture in 1997. Pardon the pencil marks which, if memory serves, are from editing these blasted notes for turning them into that lecture. I don't know if this is worth anyone's time-- I doubt it was worth mine when I wrote it-- but, well, there it is, as promised. Talk about elementary narratology, even if makes an argument I've never yet seen made about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Blast from the rotten, musty, mildew-covered past.

That Strapping Blue Lad

      I've been meaning to post this for a while now, a poem I'd surely never allow to be taught in any poetry class. Inclines me to remember why some people deserve very nasty punishment.     Click the image to see the larger version.

      Dare I note the date on this poem, published in my (gasp!) last year of high school? Oh, age is a rotten, fetid bitch, isn't she?

      Omnia, for the record, was my old high-school newspaper, of which I was editor for around 3 years. The authors of said poem, I guess it hardly needs saying, were waiting with bated breath for this, even then-seeming, "old dog" to bugger the hell off. That was over 13, closer to 14, years ago. Arf, arf.  

So Much For Exit Polling

      All I have to say about this: if this is even remotely close to true, I want my groupies and I want 'em now....   

      70%?!?! No Way, Hose A.

---

      UPDATE (11/17/04): Thanks to someone either being too kind or taking an ironic kind of pity on me-- I'm hardly sure which-- I'm now 72.7% hot, which has to be about 71.7% too high.   Not that I'm complaining, of course.   I would never complain about that....    I have to note, though, that my easiness factor has improved a bit.   I wonder what people mean by "easiness." If it's something other than being a tough/easy grader, I want to assure everyone of one thing: I am not easy; I'm just remarkably affordable.  

A Strange Fact

      It has occurred to me that today marks a very odd anniversary, one upon which I won't much elaborate, save to say that I've now been "this" Doctor J for moreorless six years now; or, rather, that this Doctor J came into creation six years ago today. This Doctor J is the darker, more cynical (among other things) version of a former self now almost completely banished except for odd circumstances when that unwanted self dares to think he can crawl back within this now otherwise-occupied territory. Foolish thing. He doesn't understand that the same reasons I'd like to let him back in are the same reasons I can't. Go figure. The blasted world of paradoxes.

Queenie Questionnaire

      Since Queenie rightly nudged me about doing something with this site, it's only appropriate that I give my own answers for a questionnaire that I found on her site. Warning: expect typical degrees of Doctorial facetiousness.

1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR KITCHEN PLATES?
Ceramic blue and grey. Unless they're dirty, in which case bacterial brown.

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW?
No specific thing. Am always between several books at any given moment. Rereading The Iliad and Beowulf. Also Sir Frank Kermode's Shakespeare's Language, Dame Helen Gardner's The Art of T.S. Eliot, and my usual bar-shots of lyrics.

3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD?
Dust and probably cigarette ash. Oh, and topless Australian bimbettes. You can blame my aunt for last fact.

4. WHAT'S YOUR FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Probably Scrabble, but no one ever wants to play against me. *pout*

5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE?
Playboy. For the articles.

6. FAVORITE SMELL?
Cinnamon on a warm summer day.

7. LEAST FAVORITE SMELL?
Vomit, which if it doesn't qualify as a small unto itself, it should.

8. WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP IN THE MORNING?
If you think I'm answering that question....

9. FAVORITE COLOR?
Plaid.

10. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR?
Jaundice.

11. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOU ANSWER THE PHONE?
I don't answer the phone.

12. FUTURE CHILDREN'S NAME?
"Rotten Little Bastard That Ruined My Life" and "Target Practice."

13. WHAT IS MOST IMPORTANT IN LIFE?
That funny thing in the middle of the game board that you spin. Always thought that thing looked neat.

14. CHOCOLATE OR VANILLA?
Vanilla.

15. DO YOU LIKE TO DRIVE FAST?
The only driving I do.... well, let's not go there.

16. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
Depends how much she ate that night. Just kidding. No.

17. STORMS- COOL OR SCARY?
Never scary, sometimes cool. Hmmm, wetness....

18. WHAT TYPE WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
Probably a Tonka.

19. IF YOU COULD MEET ONE PERSON DEAD OR ALIVE WHO WOULD IT BE?
Hmmm: Shakespeare, Alec Guinness, Van Morrison, Graham Greene, John Donne, Wallace Stevens, Leonard Cohen.... So many. In the end, the one I'd most like to meet is the one I've met and will never see again.

20. FAVORITE ALCOHOLIC DRINK?
The next one.

21. WHAT IS YOUR SIGN & BIRTHDAY?
Yield. Actually, I'm an August Virgo, in both possible senses of that phrase.

22. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS OF BROCCOLI?
Sometimes. Others, I save them for cell research.

23. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB WHAT WOULD IT BE?
Professor of Poetry and Other Favourite Things. Corruptor of Youth.

24. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR WHAT WOULD IT BE?
My hair colour is about the only thing I'm happy with.

25. IS THE GLASS HALF FULL OR HALF EMPTY?
Half-empty. Why? Because it is.

26. FAVORITE MOVIES?
Too many. Overall: The Bridge On The River Kwai.

27. DO YOU TYPE WITH THE RIGHT FINGERS ON THE KEYS?
Hahahahahahaha.... Worst Typist Ever.

28. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
Books, slippers, and the ghost of T.S. Eliot.

29. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER?
Sixty nine. Four.

31. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR?
Betrayal.

32. WHAT IS YOUR DREAM CAR?
The one that would impress the person I'll never see again.

33. PERSON(S) MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Whoever is most bored.

34. PERSON(S) YOU SENT THIS TO WHO IS LEAST LIKELY TO RESPOND?
Burgess Meredith.

35. FAVORITE CD?
Van Morrison, Moondance, which I can't listen to anymore.

36. FAVORITE TV SHOW?
The Simpsons, The West Wing and the UK Whose Line Is It, Anyway?

37. KETCHUP OR MUSTARD?
On what?

38. HAMBURGERS OR HOT DOGS?
Hamburgers. I don't like sticking phallic-shaped things made of pig lips and recta.

39. FAVORITE SOFT DRINK?
Cola, non-diet.

40. THE BEST PLACE YOU HAVE EVER BEEN?
Nowhere.

41. WHAT SCREEN SAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW?
Don't think there is one right now.

42. BURGER KING OR MCDONALDS?
Neither.

43. FAVORITE PET?
No such thing as favourites. Bandit, Trouble, Blake. Only Trouble, sadly, remains. Which, I guess, should tell ya something.

Okay, there we are. I've now added something to this blog. Not much, I know. Yawn. Saturday. Must to work.

Opening Salvo

No, this is not a real post. It's just a first shot, fired in the air. Why? Because I wanted to claim the "doctorjs" name here at Blogspot. I can't use "drj" or "doctorj," so this will have to do. Boom.