I broke with regulations (self-imposed) here and put up two pictures that I did not take. 

 

 

 

We have a volunteer Armed Services. There are no conscripts. They are for the most part a decent group (a cross-section of what Americans are), and a committed group—and today, a group that realizes the potential to be called into combat. They know when they sign up what they are going to do. They have a high sense of patriotism. And tha should be capitalized on and developed, nurtured and cultivated.

 

Here is my proposal:

As a recruit goes through basic training, I strongly believe that an essential element in that training should be indoctrination in the history and guiding principles of the United States of America. Yes, I used the word indoctrination. I mean just that. It denotes teaching doctrines, and connotes winning the hearts and minds—and wills—of each troop who will wear the uniform of this country and put his life in the service of this country. He should know more about this country, and what it stands for, than the everyday citizen. He should not be called upon to give his life for something he does not completely understand and support. I believe the indoctrination, or training, should continue throughout the length of service. I believe active-duty troops who are not deployed to a combat zone should have this training once a month, and Guard troops should receive this training as a part of each month’s drill. I believe this training should be on the core doctrines of our nation, and on the history of our nation. The first elements of this training should be an understanding of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These should be studied in basic training to a certain extent, then throughout the career of service. Other core documents such as the inaugural addresses of presidents; certain documents elucidating the philosophy of our Founding Fathers; certain documents from moments of great import, such as the Gettysburg Address; and prominent “doctrines” set forth by presidents that have guided national and foreign policy, such as the Monroe Doctrine and the Bush Doctrine. Our military should study essential moments and elements in our history. They should study the thought and actions of our Founding Fathers. They should know something, for example, of the setting and the efforts of the Constitutional Convention. They should study major military conflicts of our history, with a view to understanding how our nation is like no other.

 

I believe the training in “Americanism” should be intensive in basic training; but thereafter should be short and sweet, in the monthly sessions. That is, it should be an hour once a month, impactful, packaged and produced in the most interesting way, then delivered partly as a prepackaged presentation, with follow up discussion. Then there should be a reading assignment to be completed before the next month’s session. But with all this, the challenge is to keep it from becoming politicized, co-opted in any way by any faction with an agenda. The agenda is to be knowledgeable about the country they are defending. 

 

The real maker of poems will make a sonnet that obeys all the rules, that entices, enthralls, and overwhelms first by the sound of it, before anybody knows what it is “about.” Then, for those who search but don’t care, the meaning comes into focus: the first meaning, then the second, then another. And it will look like a sonnet. But it will take time to make this sonnet. Because it’s a real sonnet. The maker must be patient, searching for each word as a numismatist searches for that one coin to fill each slot until the collection is perfect. Each word will be chosen for its strength and speed, its ring and tenor, its size and shape, its cleanliness or patina, its endurance and its baggage, its sure-footedness and grace, its poise and athleticism, its clarity and obscurity. At last, the last word will be found, examined, fitted snugly in, and voilà, the sonnet.

 

 

 

We curse our pains and wish them gone, when in fact they are necessary to our development and our compliance to the laws and exigencies of our second estate. (I need to stop making little noises when I stand up, sit down, or whatever, and a little kick of pain grabs me. Just keep it to myself.) Pain can absorb and discharge the immoralities of our disobedience, sucking into itself our peccadilloes and ridding us of them, payment for our improprieties. Of course only sometimes, perhaps rarely, is that the reason or benefit of pain. Pain can simply force us into more humility, or drag us up before the tribunal of our own pride, to have us acknowledge our incapacity to do anything about it but to beg God to palliate it, or remove it. But why should He? Isn’t it one of His gifts, in mercy given, to help us on our way? His Son knew pain, more than we all could ever bear—and did He not learn to bear it from His Father—and ours? Come, pain; settle in; I will not resist more than just my normal grunts and groans.

 

 

 

What the devil?

blow it up and see for yourself...

What the devils? 

Yep, there he is, or there they is.

You knew there really was one. Now you know the secret—he has a double. Not exactly a double, but maybe a Doppleganger. Well, everybody knows there’s more than one. They’re all devils. And they come out on Hallowe’en.

I have the devil in me. I have a condition that if it worsens I will die. But if it doesn’t, I will die a little later. All bodily infirmities are caused by devils. So try as I may to get the devil out of me, there’s still one or two hanging on and causing myasthenia gravis. And one (don’t know their sex, or names, or anything about them) causing my neuropathy. Dang them. I got rid of the ones that were trying to get me to smoke. “Are you stupid?” I said to them. After a thousand times, they got the hint and left. But the ones that said to me, “Don’t get up this early, it’s just church, and it will be the same thing next Sunday,” them I had to chase away more than once. But by the time I got married, they had left me alone. The ones that cause me the most grief now are the ones that don’t say anything. They don’t try to get me to do anything. They just make me hurt and make me not see so good. The doctor said those black things that are in the corner of my eyes sometimes, that run away when I look that way, are just things in my eyes. But I know what they are. Really.

So someday I’ll be thinking, ‘I gotta get those devils outta here,” and I’ll slip up and say, ‘I gotta get the devil outta here.” And that will be the end. The End. 

  

Book burning in America

One of the most famous acts of barbarism by the Nazis (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, or National-socialist German Worker Party) was the famous book burning ceremony.

 

The epitome of fascist brutality against humanism. (This is a fasces, the symbol of the Fascist Party in Italy under Mussolini….) 

 

 

 Who are the fascists in Amerika today? Who are the atavistic new bookburners of today? Well, today it’s books, and it’s DVDs, and who won’t let certain items get out, because they are afraid of what the public might learn, feel, do, after being exposed to the ideas.

 

How about “The Path to 9/11”? Why is that not out there for the public discourse, free speech, and all that?

 

It’s ABC-Disney, who under pressure gave in to censorship to appease the Clintons, when threatened with a lawsuit that would pull the broadcast license from all ABC affiliate stations if certain things were not deleted. Amazing that the show aired at all. And now under even more pressure, ABC-Disney refuses to release the show on DVD, when it is a guaranteed money-maker. The show when it aired had the highest ratings. The DVD would really make them money. But they won’t release it. Why? Afraid of ideas? What about free speech?

 

  And who is trying to stop people from getting on the radio to speak their mind about politics, culture, and whatever?

DENVER -- Sen. Barack Obama's campaign organized its supporters Wednesday night to confront Tribune-owned WGN-AM in Chicago for having a critic of the Illinois Democrat on its air.(Listen to the interview.)

"WGN radio is giving right-wing hatchet man Stanley Kurtz a forum to air his baseless, fear-mongering terrorist smears," Obama's campaign wrote in an e-mail to supporters. "He's currently scheduled to spend a solid two-hour block from 9:00 to 11:00 p.m. pushing lies, distortions, and manipulations about Barack and University of Illinois professor William Ayers."

Kurtz, a conservative writer, recently wrote an article for the National Review that looked at Obama's ties to Ayers, a former 1960s radical who later emerged as a school reform advocate in Chicago.

The magazine had been blocked in its initial attempts to obtain records from the University of Illinois at Chicago regarding a school reform initiative called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which Obama chaired and Ayers co-founded.

Obama critics were quick to suggest that political clout could be involved in seeking to protect Obama from embarrassment. The school later reserved its position and made the records available Tuesday.

On Wednesday evening, Obama's campaign urged supporters to call the radio station to complain.

"Tell WGN that by providing Kurtz with airtime, they are legitimizing baseless attacks from a smear-merchant and lowering the standards of political discourse," the note said.

"It is absolutely unacceptable that WGN would give a slimy character assassin like Kurtz time for his divisive, destructive ranting on our public airwaves," the note continued. "At the very least, they should offer sane, honest rebuttal to every one of Kurtz's lies."

Zack Christenson, executive producer of "Extension 720 with Milt Rosenburg," said the response was strong.

"I would say this is the biggest response we've ever got from a campaign or a candidate," he said. "This is really unprecedented with the show, the way that people are flooding the calls and our email boxes."

Christenson said the Obama campaign was asked to have someone appear on the show and declined the request.

 

So bookburning, welcome back. And who’s doing it? The people who want to make the “Fairness Doctrine” federal law. That would be a law that makes anybody who speaks their mind have to pay for their opponent to say whatever he wants to say. Fair?

 

Socialism is creeping up, creeping, it’s up to our necks.

 

 

 

Families Are Forever

—   but not right now —

Click on the pictures. Then arrow back here. Don't X the picture because you exit the site.
The things around the pine cone are awesome viewed large.


Who are you?
"Hi. I'm Jim, and I used to kill people for a living." That's what Jim would say sometimes when I would introduce him to friends of mine.
That's how he defined himself at the moment. So he said it.
What about you?
Hi, I'm John, and I'm an optimist.
Hi, I'm Linda, and I'm depressed.
Hi, I'm Tom, and I am really self-confident.
Hi, I'm Martina, and I was abused as a child.
Hi, I'm Allie, and I'm really mixed up about morality.
Hi, I'm Scott, and I'm an addict.
--Hi Scott, hello Scott, hi Scott, as it goes around the circle. That last one really happens, just like Jim really happened.
But some people exude what they are, in their own self-perception, without saying it out loud. And it's just as obvious.
So what do you do? Work on what your definition is. Work on what your self-perception is. Work on what your dialogue is when you meet people.
You can be in charge of what you are. You make your etre-pour-soi as well as your etre-pour-autrui.

With whistle and steam the train came alive, lurched, and began moving away from Paris, from the Gare de l’Est, away from the crowds and noise and bustle and fear and rush and smoke and anomie of October 1918. Soon it would be trudging through fields and mists and rain and trees and farms and steeples of Aube, or Champagne, taking everybody home. All the strangers going home.

The train grew stronger, surging out of the city, and the speed increased the clicking of the wheels and swaying of the cars. Guy was not content with his bench or the compartment or the people in it, and got up slowly, painfully, and grabbed his sack from overhead, and slid the door open, as they all watched, and went out into the corridor. There was a window down, and the chill wind was flowing in, filled with the smell of the train smoke, but with a hint of hay now and then. Further ahead another window was open and a man was smoking, and blowing the smoke out the window into the mist and fumes rushing by. The tobacco smoke came in the window in front of Guy in tiny wafts. He stood there for a minute or two, and moved down the corridor, going towards the back of the train, looking into the compartments further along.

There was one, with only three people. He slid the door open, nodded his head, with “M’sieur, —dames.” An old couple nodded, and watched, as he put his sack up above his head and sat down on the bench where there was only one person, across from the bench where there were two. He looked at them. They looked at him. The two persons across from him were an withered like apples on the ground, dressed all in black. The old woman looked weary, and wore the wrinkles of sadness around her eyes. There was no more light in her eyes. She looked at him as though he were some old photograph, squinting at him, sighing. The old man looked back out the window, and shut his eyes. Between them was a sack of clothing, but well could have been the sack they carried potatoes in from the shed to the house.

The person on the bench with him, next to the window, who had not looked at him when he came in and put his sack up above his head, was a young woman dressed against the chill, with a large hat, black plumes, lace, and a shawl; and it was hard to see what she looked like. Guy sat, straight, then slumped and slid towards the edge of the seat, and put his legs out straight, careful not to be anywhere near the legs across from him. The old woman pulled her legs closer to the bench anyway.

The train made its clacking and creaking noises, and swayed just a little, and Guy dozed off. When he awoke, rain was streaking the window, and it seemed almost twilight because of the grey skies roiling so close to the trees and the rain dragging the light down into the ground with it. As he opened his eyes he realized his head had fallen to his right, and he was staring out the window; but in the corner of his eye he saw the young woman looking intently at him. As soon as he opened his eyes, though, she turned away. ‘She has been watching me as I slept,’ he thought, and wondered if he had done anything while asleep to worry about. Sometimes he did. Sometimes he said things.

In that brief glimpse, he saw her eyes. Now he closed his eyes again and tried to recapture her eyes in the moment before she turned away. They were beautiful. He tried to remember them. They were enchanting. He opened his eyes again, and she was looking at him again. Yes, her eyes were astoundingly beautiful. And now he could see her face, round, surrounded by plumes and shawl and hat and hair. She was beautiful. She was the most beautiful woman Guy had ever seen in all his twenty years. She offered a hint of a smile, as a sort of ‘hello,’ and then turned toward the window again.

Guy stared, and as he stared out the window into the grey rain and countryside, he could sometimes see her reflection, as something very dark would pass by outside making a mirror effect. He stared without worrying about anyone saying something about how rude it is to stare. He didn’t care. There were so many things now that he didn’t care about. And more people stared at him now than he had ever stared at in all his life. He stared at the young woman’s cloak, and shawl, and hat, and hat pin, and dress, and little purse, and gloved hands, petite.

His neck hurt, so he turned back straight and unbuttoned the top button of his uniform. He looked down at his puttees, with his legs stretched straight out again, and quickly put his left ankle over his right ankle, covering a stain that had not come out with washing. Washing and washing.

His head drooped, and before his chin touched his chest he was asleep again. So tired. So tired. He slept long and deep.

He dreamed. He dreamed of this and that, things that made sense and things that might have made sense. He dreamed of the pleasant feel of a woman’s skin, a woman’s hand touching his. It was such a warm dream.

He awoke, but didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t move. No one knew he was awake now. But he was awake, and yet he was still feeling that beautiful feeling of the warmth of a woman’s hand on his hand. On his right hand. Was he awake? Yes, he was awake. He felt the train. He heard the train. And he felt a hand on his right hand, and it moved ever so slightly, moving on his hand to cover his hand better. He did not move. He dared not move. He didn’t open his eyes. The young woman had her hand, without her glove, on his hand. She squeezed his hand so very gently. He did not move.

“Pauvre enfant,” he heard the old woman across from him say in a whisper, with some missing teeth.

The young woman’s hand was warm, and tighter now. He opened his eyes. He saw her hand. He felt her hand. He slowly turned to her, not moving anything but his head and his eyes. He looked into her eyes. She smiled, and squeezed his hand.

It had grown darker outside, and the rain was still streaking across the window of the train, jostling through the fields and forests, heading home.

Who was she? Why was she doing this? He dared not speak for fear of breaking the spell. She still clung to his hand, and smiled, a bit of a sad smile, really. He looked at her. She was so beautiful. He looked at the window behind her, and saw his reflection. ‘How could she be holding my hand?’ he thought. ‘Look at me. Inhuman. Ghastly. Half a face. A gruesome wreck of what used to be me. How can she look at me, and hold my hand?’

But she did. He felt the warmth of her soft hand. He felt her skin, her care, her kindness. It was such a comfort. He didn’t say anything. He closed his eyes again; but did not sleep.

We folded our pain

Into origami frogs

And tried to laugh

When they wouldn’t jump

Poem? Or not? It was meant to be a poem. Does it work? Poe's criterion, "the rhythmical creation of beauty" is the supreme test. Does this pass? He didn't say rhyme, but never wrote anything that didn't. And is rhyme necessary? Yes. Unless... and so is this one of those "unless" times?

atapaxis

Ἀταραξία

Ataraxia

Aaaaahhhhhhh……!!!!! Easy does it. Thass it. Ooohhhh yeah. No worries. Hmmm? Whass that? Naahhh, not to worry.

物 の 哀 れ

mono no aware

"the pathos of things"

There are things easily said in one language that may take a page to say in another. Winter turns to spring, and there is the symbolism of hope, of renewal, of life, of fertility, of continuation.

物 の 哀 れ is Japanese, and sounds like , mono no aware and means "the pathos of things"… The Japanese talk about this at hanami, when they go to the best place to see the sakura, the cherry blossoms.

Cherry blossoms fall from their delicate cling to the center of the blossom, the part that is clinging to the branch, that is the dark and twisting lifeline to the blossoms. Then for some reason, at some time, they fall, like snowflakes, or like time, they fall at 5 cm / sec. … and Japanese go to places where there are hundreds or even thousands of cherry trees loaded with blossoms, and they have a festival all about it, hanami, going to look at the blossoms.

Why talk about mono no aware at hanami? Hanami is looking at the blossoms, but also eating some green tea ice cream and throwing back a few cups of sake, or just a normal party with chips and Coke, and it’s a party; but mono no aware is quite philosophical, even bearing a tinge of Zen sadness if you think about it. The pathos of things, meaning the suffering of things, or more for us the empathy for things, is really a rumination on the transitoriness of things, such as cherry blossoms, that last but a few days. As St James says, “For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, then vanisheth away. Like the cherry blossoms, we will live for a little time on this earth, and then drop. Or like the cherry blossoms, a lifelong friendship may just cease clinging to the branch, and fall. Or a passion held between two hearts, like the sakura, will fall, at 5 cm / sec and be gone. Gone.

The only thing that can capture the blossom forever is art.

Nobody is more sincere than a dupe.

What does it take to be a dupe? Stupidity? Maybe a little; but sometimes a dupe is quite intelligent in one arena, while being very gullible in another. I think a true dupe is really quite sincere. The true dupe is a believer, but a quickly converted believer, who doesn’t need much evidence. Or maybe they need evidence, just enough, and if the evidence is convincing because they are already predisposed towards that idea, then they go for it.

The worst dupes of all are the dupes of political factions. The dupes in the ‘between-the-wars’ period who were enamored of Hitler and his ideas on a better Germany—especially Brits and Americans who supported him and defended him, were monumentally wrong. But even worse than those dupes were the thousands or millions of people living in the free world—remember that phrase? –we don’t use it any more—too bad—it’s still true—who were the dupes of the commies. I knew them. I went to college with them. I taught college with them. Americans, well-to-do Americans with PhDs in history or sociology or political science, or botany, or English lit, living a comfy life, the life of academe, sheltered and perverted as it was, turning their hearts to murderous commie ideologues and regimes. Standing up for them and condemning us. “The USSR has never been an aggressor nation,” she told her history classes semester after semester. What a wicked woman she was. And what I mean is, she was wicked to say that. I also mean, she was committing some hidden wicked little sin, like adultery, that makes people more prone to becoming the dupes of evil empires and ideas.

In fact the worst dupes of all are those who stand up for the ideas and policies of Beelzebub. They defend abortion, and want ZPG (zero population growth) and would kill off millions by starvation to save a patch of nice green forest somewhere. Like Stalin killed his forty million in the Ukraine, the likes of Al Gore want to do the same today in the name of saving the planet. Of course, hypocrisy must have something to do with being a dupe. But that’s another issue.

You who sit in silence

Who cannot slice your words

Who wince at joy and hide

Black crumbs of hurt inside

Who moan the dingy portents

Who sing the mournful lay

Who cry white cotton tears for

Knights to turn your way

To slay the vine that holds you

To free your shrunken heart

To make the scales fall from your eyes

To take the wind out of your sighs

To prime the hope of some new start

To pick the best of morning dew

To straighten up the frame

Someone to call your name

Get up and go do something. Shake it off. At least go outside for a few minutes. But if you want to change things, go out there and help somebody else. Too many people sit and dream about things, fueled by watching movies and TV—I wish I could say by reading books, but you’re too lazy for that. Reading takes moving your eyes across the lines, down to the next line, over to the end, back and down, over, back and down; but more than that it takes a mental exercise that watching TV doesn’t. TV watching you just stare at the strike zone, and you don’t have to process words into visuals in your imagination. No o- o- . That would be effort. Don’t want to do that.

So break away. Snap the flimsy cords that bind you down to inactivity, and get up. At least go outside. But more than that, go help somebody. I mean, it just infuriates me. You know?

So what would it take to be a cultured person?

Narrow it down: what reading would turn somebody into a cultured person?

Even further: What should you have read by the time you are 25 to be a cultured 25-year-old? And then 30? And then 40? And maybe by 50 you really are cultured, because you’ve read the list for the 25, the 30, the 40, and you’re still going.

But this all excludes music, and painting, and history, and language, and all the arts and sciences, that make somebody a cultured person.

A cultured person knows how to say junta.

A cultured person knows how to use the word zeitgeist, and ennui, and Weltschmerz, and Schadenfreude, and hubris.

A cultured person knows something about Mao’s little red book.

A cultured person has listened to Bach’s St Matthew Passion, if only on CD.

But those are only examples, minutiae in a vast wash of culture.

Back to reading. Reading is fundamental. Too bad it is not fundamental to get out of high school. Too bad it is not fundamental to get into college. Too bad it’s not fundamental to even graduate college.

College is to accelerate becoming a cultured person. Unfortunately, there is so much emphasis on skill, on specialization, that culture is not something that is transmitted, or acquired, in college anymore, in general. Even the college professors are culturally illiterate, specialized, like insects.

So the problem with making a list of books that a cultured person should have read, is reading itself. Reading is going to be a lost art for the masses before long. They will communicate with signology, with txtmsgging and I/M-ing language. b4 u no it thy wll nt b rding n e mor.

Reading will be the Sibboleth of the future. It has been a sifter in the past, and will be in the future. Look at those peoples who either had no written record that was sacred and kept as a core, as an anchor to their language, as opposed to those who did. One great example is the Mulekites. They had no scriptures, and in fact, nothing of significance in writing, when they left the Old Country and came to the New World. After generations, they were illiterate; and their oral language suffered from not having a written language. And their culture was only the culture of the rising and the immediate past generation; they could not claim any classics, any scripture, any great writing as a foundation to their language or their culture.

Saul Bellow asked, “Where is the Tolstoy of the Zulus?” The Zulus, in fact, had no written language, and therefore no rich heritage of literature. Their culture was their immediate survival, accompanied by the traditions that were passed along from generation to generation. But who’s to say that three generations back, the traditions weren’t slightly different? There’s no written, no reliable, account. And where is the art of literature for the Zulus? Where is the psychology, the theology, the sociology, the history, the allegory, the morality, the humanity that literature is? To read Tolstoy’s War and Peace is to see a vision, to be transported into the hearts and minds of humans, of people, of a nation, of a civilization; it is to live another life in a capsule—and another, and another. Where is that for the Zulus? They have no literature.

And then there were the followers of Alma, and Mosiah, who had a cherished tradition of the written word—they had scriptures. They had the mind and will of the Lord, the voice of the Lord, unchanging, available, immutable, to guide them not only in theology, in spirituality, in congregations of faith, but also to serve as the touchstone for all writing, and all language.

Look at the English speaking world, with its King James Bible. It has been the guiding voice for language since 1611. All of Western civilization revolves around the Bible, and the English world comes out of the KJV in its literature.

The time will come when only the elite, the intelligentsia, will be able to read actual English, and only the faithful will be able to read scriptures. Look at the difficulty people have with the KJV right now, and its Elizabethan English. We are changing now as much in our language, away from Bible language, in one year, as it took a hundred years to change before the Great War.

Soon only certain people will want to read, or be able to read. It will be a separator.

10 Best Books

The ten best books—the impossible list. First of all, the ten best books about what? The ten best books of faith? The ten best books of fiction? Of nonfiction? Politics? History? But what if it’s just the ten best books period. That would include all genres. That would include the best books about dog breeding, or string theory; so there are parameters, and most people who would even care about a list of the ten best books know the parameters.

So here is my list. Except for 1, there is no order.

The top 10 books an American who is uncultured, somewhat uncivilized, and ignorant (not stupid, but just denied a certain degree of discovery and learning so far) that is to say, a high school grad, should read soon:

1. The Bible – Every cultured person should read the Bible. It is the most accessed piece of literature by writers in forming their own literature or literary contributions. Read it as literature, as philosophy, as myth, as the true word of God, or however; but read it because if you don’t you will miss out on all the richness that it has contributed to other literature. You will miss the fact that some writer you hold in high regard has gained his inspiration for an entire book, or only a character, or a situation, or a viewpoint, from the Bible. Unless you are reading the Bible for theological reasons (in which case you would read the best modern translations with study aids), the Bible you should read is the King James Version. In this category I could have added books of faith, or in other words scripture, since there are other books of scripture besides the Bible, unless you are an inerrantist, or in other words a certain brand of Protestant.

2. Don Quixote, Cervantes masterpiece, and only book, really. This is a book that will charm, but teach, and reveal. And it is a foundational novel for all other novelists.

3. Proust. Actually that’s not the book. Proust is the author, and he wrote In Search of Lost Time, also called Remembrance of Things Past. The title in French is A la recherche du temps perdu; and if you can read it in French, you will actually have read it. But if not, and you have to have a translation, you can see the better translation of the title is “in search of lost time.” And so to get the copy with that title would mean you are getting an updated version of the original translation, which was Remembrance of Things Past. The first translator, Moncrieff, took his title from a line of a Shakespeare sonnet, so it’s actually quite clever, though not a direct translation of the title. But the title is what the book is about. The novel is seven volumes long, and takes up ten inches of shelf space, even with 10 point type. So if that’s too much, just read one of the volumes, Du Côté de chez Swann, or Swann’s Way.

4. Shakespeare. All. Or if not, then first of all Hamlet. And if only one of Shakespeare’s, then Hamlet it is. Then if something else, just pick any of his plays, but before you do that, think of reading all The Sonnets. There are 154. With Shakespeare, you have to get an edition that has footnotes, since Elizabethan English is beyond most people’s vocabulary today. But when you read Hamlet you’ll see where so many of our common English expressions came from.

5. Machiavelli, The Prince. This is the quintessential book on politics, but really it’s a book on power, whether in national or international politics, or the politics of personal interactions. You have to read this short treatise to understand what the adjective Machiavellian means. As you read it, look for the phrase, “The end justifies the means.”

6. Dante. That’s not the title—he’s the author. So you could read The Divine Comedy, or just the first book, Inferno. I’m not sure if Dante gave the best expression of the Church’s doctrines on the afterlife, and other subjects as well, or if the Church took Dante’s ideas and made them doctrine. The Inferno goes into the degrees of sin and the degrees of punishment that are agreeable to the sin (maybe agreeable is not the best word here). Everybody who was anybody in literature for a millennium had read Inferno, so it’s another foundational piece. And you will be amused with some of the punishments, but you will want to write down all kinds of quotes to use daily in conversations, beginning with the words at the beginning, “Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’entrate.”

7. Faust. By Goethe. It’s the German book, and for some, the German soul. What Shakespeare is to English, Faust is to German and Germans. It has shaped their culture, or perhaps it has exposed, or defined, or explained, their mind and heart. And it is a study of life, and humans, and hearts, and mistakes, and so full of quotable quotes that you want to write down and memorize, and pull out in conversation sometime, and say, “Well, Goethe said, ….” It’s almost overwhelming by length and breadth and height and depth.

8. Anna Karenina, by Count Leo Tolstoy. This is another evidence of Denis de Rougemont’s contention in his Love in the Western World that the two major, and nearly only, themes in literature are adultery and Liebestod. This novel is a dissection of the case against the first. It will take you into a world of people that you will know because they are people like people you already know, only more interesting because they are a distillation of people.

9. Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert. This is one that if at all possible, you should read in French. Flaubert would spend a week on one page, written with pen and ink, then go out into the apple orchard and read the page at the top of his voice, almost shouting, to get le mot juste—just the right word, the exact word, and then the exact words, that conveyed by their length, and shape, and sound, as well as by their meaning, what he was expressing on that page. This is the book that says what real life is, but in such a way that is so opposite the mundane and quotidian reality of real life. Like a Vermeer, it is the poetic exposé of the everyday.

10. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Not “The” but just “Adventures.” The American story that used to be America, and should be remembered, and should be a part of our heritage. We’ve come a long way from that era, that culture, that mentality; but it should always be remembered as our past, our culture as in a yoghurt culture. There is an edge to this book that can cut.

You must get out of the mindset of TV with its 24-minute time frame for sitcoms and 51 minute time frame for hour-long shows, where everything is presented, examined, and wrapped up quick and tidy. Books are meant to take the reader away for as long as possible; and sometimes TV readers can get impatient, wanting the action, to get to the point, to get things moving along, when the author, especially of days gone by, wants to show you everything around, about, before and after, the people and the actions of the book. So don’t be impatient. Slow down and read. And slow down in reading. Read at the pace of someone—preferably yourself, but with good diction and interpretation—reading it to you.

Translation. It’s the only way we’re going to read a book that was written in a language we don’t know; but it’s never going to be the same as reading the original. Just hope for a good translator, and a good translation.

Sitting in the breast care center, waiting a long time for them to do a little procedure, just a follow-up with sonogram instead of radiology—just in case, since the first go-round showed something to be concerned about; and then we’ll do the consultation with the doctor. Does a longer wait indicate something wrong? Or just checking to see that everything’s alright? Sitting in the waiting room, bland green and tan chairs, tables, walls, floors, and artwork. A wannabe Puvis de Chavannes. But who would know that the “artist”—actually the illustrator, no artist, this Brian Kershisnik, with all the genius of a housepainter—was copying Puvis de Chavannes? Who in this room has even heard of Puvis de Chavannes? Or Impressionism, or neo-impressionism, or symbolism, or even France?

It was quiet for a while, nobody else was in there; but then they came: the people with several generations, the little ones running around, the older ones yelling at them in Spanish. I get so very tired of hearing Spanish. It’s a grating language, a lazy language. Then some more people come, and they sit right behind me. They are only two generations. But they talk incessantly. They are speaking a Polynesian language, which sounds like Tongan, but hard to be sure. And it is an even more grating and unpleasant-sounding language, especially trilled at full speed and full volume. I think Italian or French would be much more pleasing to hear and not listen to.

There is a law of heaven that applies on earth: where there are two things, one is greater than the other—in other words, nothing is truly equal. And where there are two things, and one is greater than the other, there is another greater than them all. That’s a law irrevocably drawn up in heaven, and we see it here all the time. That applies to languages.

Un jour que je me trouvais au musée, assis sur un banc au milieu de la salle, devant un tableau que je ne nomme pas, pendant plus d’une heure, à examiner le tableau et écrire dans mon cahier, regarder la belle figure création du peintre que je ne nomme pas, et tout ce qui était dans ce tableau, étoffes, livres, chaises, arbres, tout dominé par la beauté du total de la figure et les détails, je me suis rendu compte que c’est ça la beauté, de quoi que ce soit, mais surtout d’une femme : qu’on ne se lasse pas de la regarder fixement pendant une heure, pendant des heures, à boire l’essence vitale de sa mine, ses yeux, sa peau, ses lèvres, ses doigts, sa bouche, sa chevelure, ses sourcils, tout, avaler la scène, renifler le parfum de par les yeux, les sens, l’esprit—alors, elle est belle, celle-là.

“90% of everything is not very good.”

That is Sturgeon’s law. In the first reading of the Law, or the first sense, we understand that ninety percent of whatever you name, such as food, films, novels, or cars, is less than superiour or quality, or less than what we might call “good.”

In the second reading of the Law, or sense of the Law, we might understand that only achieving ninety percent of all there is, is not very good. Very good would be to get 100%. Or that having ninety percent of everything is not good enough, we need to get 100%.

Of course, the Law has in mind the first sense. Ninety percent of all that we encounter is really not done well, not prepared well, not made well. There will always be gradations in every endeavor. Some students will do very well, others won’t. And contrary to the wicked idea of the Bell Curve, really only ten percent of my students do well in my classes. Ninety percent aren’t very good. “Ninety percent of my students are not very good students.” That’s the meaning of the Law.

Ninety percent of the trips you take aren’t very good.

Ninety percent of the conversations you have aren’t very good.

Ninety percent of the movies you see aren’t very good.

Poetry.
Who knows what it is?
Who reads it any more?
Who writes it any more?
And don't give me lists of the crap that people call poetry.
Free form--blank verse--free verse--prose poetry (why did Baudelaire start with that?)--excuses for not being able to rhyme or count meter.
Where's the sonnet? Now that's poetry.
Or just a little ode, or odelette--something good. Something that is beautiful in form and thought, in image and word, in meter and music, in imagination and meaning...
But people do whatever they want and call it poetry.
They think it's like snapping snap beans. Just write something clever and snap it into three-word or four-word lines. And then take out the punctuation, including the capitalization, and voila-- a "poem."
Not so. Not so. Poe. The rhythmical creation of beauty. Where's the beauty?

Songer que la foule reste à la porte de cet Eden c’est comme la volupté de l’après-midi de dimanche d’hiver à écouter vautré en un canapé intelligent et féminin, un papyrus au bec, de menues sonates du temps passé de Mozart clavecin et violon, quand au dehors il neige, la foule se promenant et que le Mozart sonne dans la solitude de la maison désertée par les endimanchés qui ont trimé toute la semaine (vous n’êtes pas sorti parce que vous avez joui toute la semaine suave stupiditis mari magno).

Jules Laforgue, M.. p.. 177-78

Je naquis sans cœur.

Tout enfant ne s’intéresse qu’à lui-même, et son amour, dit-on, n’est autre que l’amour propre. Mais moi je crois que le bébé aime sa mère, pas par intérêt mais par affection. Le bébé aime sa mère pour commencer, peut-être, parce que sa mère l’aime à priori. En grandissant, avec le temps qui passe, l’enfant commence à aimer d’autres. C’est peut-être d’abord après sa mère son père, ou peut-être son frère ou sa sœur. Après encore un peu plus de temps, l’enfant commence à aimer les gens, certaines d’entre elles.

Pour moi c’était peut-être autrement. Je n’étais pas forcément avare ni si égoïste, mais je ne pensais pas aux autres. Je n’étais pas misanthrope, mais je ne sentais pas les sentiments de fraternité envers autrui. Mon cœur ne s’enflait pas d’émotions envers aucun autre, même ceux de ma propre famille.

Autant je manquais en matières de l’amour, autant je manquais aussi en matières de la haine. Je ne haïssait personne. J’ignorais carrément cette émotion. A vrai dire, si je manquais en matières de l’amour ou de la haine, c’était plutôt que je manquais en matières de l’émotion.

Jeune homme, j’étais pris des passions de jeune homme, des émotions plutôt physiques. Mon premier amour, l’amour pour une jeune fille, ce n’était pas vraiment l’amour, c’était une passion émanant en entier de l’amour propre et des passions et sentiments du corps. Et je ne me souviens plus du tout d’ailleurs, de qui aurait pu être mon premier amour.

Bien sûr j’aimais, jeune homme, ma famille, mais pas suffisamment. La plénitude de l’amour c’est, dans les mots du Christ, que Personne n’a un plus grand amour que celui-ci, savoir, quand quelqu’un expose sa vie pour ses amis. Ou selon la version en anglais, donne sa vie pour ses amis. Je n’aurais jamais dans ma jeunesse eu le courage de penser une telle chose. Il y avait cette fois-là où j’ai fermé la porte de la voiture sur la main de mon frère Michael, et je me sentais si triste de lui avoir causé une telle douleur.

C’était quand j’étais missionnaire que je commençais à éveiller en moi-même mon cœur. J’avais de la peine à voir quelqu’un d’autre qui souffrait. Ça me faisait mal de voir des gens qui étaient en fait des étrangers refuser la vérité que je leur offrais. Pour moi ce n’était pas des étrangers, mais proprement dit, mes frères et mes sœurs, bien qu’eux-mêmes ne l’auraient pas admis. Je voyais qu’ils auraient pu avoir un bonheur qui les échappait, et ils refusaient. Plus fin, j’avais de la peine à voir que quelqu’un faisait un mauvais choix. Est-ce que c’était de mes affaires, ça? Oui, parce que je les aimais. Je commençais à aimer.

Et puis j’ai vu Marlyn. Avec le peu d’amour dont j’étais capable je l’ai épousée. Et cet amour, sapin d’amour, croissait, se développait, grandissait parce qu’elle m’aimait en retour. Et ensuite les enfants, mes enfants, qui me forçaient à aimer encore davantage.

Quand on dit “amour,” et surtout quand on l’écrit en français, on pense tout naturellement à l’éros. Mais je n’ai aucunement parlé ici de cette sorte de l’amour. Et pour en finir, j’ai compris, enfin, comment j’ai trouvé mon cœur, et pourquoi je peux maintenant aimer: Nos ergo diligamus Deum, quoniam Deus prior dilexit nos. Jean IV.xix.

Nothing says “LOVE” like money. So on this Valentines Day 2008 I gave her cold hard cash. A pile of 50s. That’s better than flowers, or chocolate, or clothing, or even a gift certificate. Money. You can get anything in this world with money. Enough of it, that is. But if you have money and don’t give it to people who need it, does that say ‘I don’t love you all that much’? So if you have money, give it to people. It makes them happy. What woe isn’t just a little better if you have plenty of money? Money doesn’t cure everything, but I think it really makes most everything a little better.

Love is really not so easy. Love is never having to say… oh forget it. That was so stupid, so 70s stupid. I hated that movie. Never read the book, thankfully. Love is when you give your life for somebody else over a period of 50 years. Or in an instant. Greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. Not give it up, but lay it down.

Love is impossible in this life unless we first love God. If we love Him we can love somebody else. If we love somebody else, we can come to love ourselves. That’s not the same as self-love, narcissism, egoism. That’s not real love. It’s very much akin to lust. And Cathy and Heathcliff? Paolo and Francesca? You call that love? That’s a sick perversion of true love. True love is giving of self to other, because first you have felt God’s love, and understand love, and can give love to someone else—at your expense. Love is painful, because it is always at your expense. You love when you sacrifice self. God knows that. Et prior dilexit nos.