Suppose it were Friday cxii: Off for a weekend with one good book

An ancient friend of this page

from Porto Rafti published his

announcement, way back, of go-

ing off on holiday, by saying,

I will miss you, but not that

much. The thought, of course,

couldn't enter one's mind; it

just seems an enviably cheeky

concession to the undeniable.

For the brevity of a weekend,

variously committed as it is

to the impromptu, one doesn't

risk becoming embedded with 

an enthralling new project.

               But on the other hand, a mod-

               el of collected essays, upon

               a coherent and multi-faceted

               theme, makes a companion for

               travel by self-acclamation.

               

               If one hadn't a copy, travel

               would be saddled by not go-

               ing alone. Gaul had only 3

               parts, and we saw how many

               had to attend its conquest.

               Watteau had as many as the

               letters in the alphabet -

               plus a few more, where the

               letter embodied more riches.

               Poor Gaul. All that noise,

               for only more of the same.

Jed Perl

Antoine's Alphabet

op. cit.

Gary Winogrand

New York, 1950

Exhibition Pier 24

San Francisco

Yet another mislaid "only"

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman 

Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said if 

it was her decision, she would scrap open 

primaries and only allow voters registered 

as Democrats to participate in primaries.

"I believe that the party's nominee should 

be chosen - this is Debbie Wasserman 

Schultz's opinion — that the party's nomin-

ee should be chosen by members of the par-

ty," the Florida Democrat said during an 

interview with "MSNBC Live" on Monday.

As reported in The Washington Examiner

and the online publication, The Hill.

Isn't it just gruesome, sometimes,

to expose people in trade of serv-

ing curiosity, for the disadvan-

tages they exhibit? Here, like so

many, a dutiful verbiage provider

lobs an "only" into a sentence, so

indifferent to its placement that

you'd think the word could modify

syntax by instinct. Maybe it does.

In the exclusive club the Floridi-

an services for friends and pat-

rons in the Party's hierarchy, "on-

ly" would rate naturally as a modi-

fier of such prolific utterance, as

to distribute itself promiscuously

throughout her proclamations. Such

trade, in our discretion, we usual-

ly offer ascent by a service stair.

Unitary, exclusionary, protective

to a fault, "only" calls upon the

rarest employment in democracies,

and at the most superfluous place.

Not at the starting line, not in

the stretch, not until the roses.

Isn't it intriguing, for example,

that we have the presence of mind

to condemn demands for barriers a-

gainst all of any belief, yet in-

terpose a blackball to our own?

Everything wrong with the patron

is magnified by the servant. All

of "only" is genuinely a tragic

utterance, on a servant's lips.

It is not in the nature of servi-

tude to succumb to servility. It

takes a whole lot of molestation

in the exercise of exclusivity.

I'd like to be amiable about this,

but that Party poses as a bulwark

against debauch this year. I don't

know that posing is remotely good

enough; but the question doesn't

arise. They haven't mastered it.

Serenely they do not notice, any-

more, an elementary rule, even of

grammar. In Indiana, Senator San-

ders claimed a margin of 40 points

among voters under 30, and of more

than 30 of those under the age of 

45. The "only" this Party wants to

represent inscribes the very signa-

ture of molestation, long indulged,

of indentured loyalists it exploits.

Isn't it gruesome, sometimes, to

expose people in trade, for the 

disadvantages they exhibit?

i   Xavier Serrano
ii  Tim Boot

Origins of Wednesday xxvii: rubble without a cause

   Republican voters have planted a mine

   in the public square and they are an-

   xious to enjoy its effects. Is flight

   not flight?

Kevin Chan

We've one less banana today

  Oh, come now. Misfortune
  doesn't befall a sports-
  man like our Ted. It en-
  riches his victim narra-
  tive. Hoosiers go to the
  polls today, open from 6
  to 6. And with their bal-
  lots there's one less ba-
  nana today. So, do. Sing.

Johann Sebastian Bach
Arioso on the Departure
  of his Beloved Brother
BWV 992
Wilhelm Kempff, piano
  
Oskar Dalsjo

Update 05/04, Borowitz

We've always had bananas

 There's nothing like politics in

 America to carry one back to old

 Virginny in rhetorical flourish.

 Before the banana republic, lest

 we forget, we always had bananas.

 People out of season, everywhere

 you turn. People sure of reasons

 to give resentments a glad turn.

 We find it isn't possible to ex-

 pose skepticism toward a certain

 candidate without drawing anony-

 mous and frantic diatribes, of a

 kind it is appropriate to ignore.

 Given the continuing appearances

 of likelihood, that this candid-

 acy will persist, the avenue for

 anonymous comment below has been

 disabled. We welcome politics as

 we know it. We deserve that much.

 Meanwhile, we continue to hope a

 candidate is left standing whose

 adherents are able to play fair.

Abel van Oeveren

Where went my night at Maud's?

  One of two movies on Pascal one

  must warmly recommend, yet even

  as I scroll down my list, I can

  not find it. It came with a box

  one simply cannot lose, unless,

  perhaps, by betting against it.

    

Eric Rohmer

My Night at Maud's

1969

Roberto Rossellini

Blaise Pascal

1972

ii  Laurent 

     by telephone 

Color transfer

     A bird cried out among the first things of the morning.
     I dreamed about murders all night long.

     The stone changed color among the shadows as the sun came up.
     It was the bird's cry that startled up the stone.
























David Ferry
Of No Country I Know
  New and Selected Poems
  and Translations
    A Morning Song
University of Chicago Press, 1999©
op. cit.

Daniel Berrigan, S.J.

    When the American adventure in
    Viet Nam ran into Father Berri-
    gan, the Wall we all admire so
    much in Washington could have
    fit inside the Oval Office. If
    you seek his monument, abandon
    first its glossy legacy, from
    denunciations of neutrality to
    propagations of shining lies,
    our youth are trained to trust.

Discovering caprice

                    

                    I didn't agree to this rela-

                    tionship, to be bathed un-

                    der duress and have my toe-

                    nails trifled with. Our deal 

                    was, lots of birds to chase, 

                    fresh water, and a mattress 

                    to call my own, as in, yours. 

    And she was, I think, the more 

    convinced of her destiny by the

    very strangeness of the form it

    assumed. She knew that love is

    capricious, an irresponsible,

    sovereign power, liking nothing

    better than to play tricks on

    the reason and assert its domin-

    ion over judgment and understand-

    ing. She had imagined quite other-

    wise the man of her choice; she

    had thought of him as created more

    from her own likeness, more light-

    hearted and high-spirited ..

Thomas Mann

Lotte in Weimar

  The Beloved Returns

1939

H.T. Lowe-Porter

  translation

University of California Press, 1990©