Saturday commute cxxxii: The life to know about

There was food for suspicion,
perhaps, in the wandering
blankness that sat at moments
in his eyes .. but this dis-
couraging symptom was known,
among those who liked him, by
the indulgent name of dreami-
ness. He is the more welcome
to the benefit of such an in-
terpretation as there is al-
ways held to be something en-
gaging in the combination of
the muscular and the musing,
the mildness of strength.

                   "Do you mean that you have lost

                   the faculty of displeasure?"

                   "I haven't the least idea. I

                   never try it. My dear fellow,

                   we have only one life that we

                   know anything about: fancy tak-

                   ing it up with disagreeable im-

                   pressions! When, then, shall we

                   go in for the agreeable? .. The

                   happy moments of our conscious-

                   ness - the multiplication of

                   those moments. We must save as

                   many as possible from the dark

                   gulf."

Henry James

The Tragic Muse

1908

Penguin, 1978©

Dorothea Lange

1937

Suppose it were Friday cxvii: Restoring bearings

In 1958 John Cohen made
this classic portrait of
our great photographic
discoverer, Robert Frank.
Now that picture comes
into its own in everyone.

This campaign for the
Presidency has tended
to exhaust our people
with the rhetoric re-
served for a state of
revulsion we proper-
ly resist. The New York
Times, expecting our
dismay, has despatched
a photographer to pur-
sue the sight of it in
terms which zero in un-
cannily on its cause,
its hideous grandiosity.

He sees the blustering
candidate's animal mag-
netism; he sees the an-
guish of his adherents.
He sees the rhetorical
apogee of a deception.

His project draws fear
and pity. If tragedy
bore its "original in-
tent," he would be its
translator, if we had
reserved the term from
every adverse fluke, 
flogged by the slovenly
to distract by prestige,
denying us its power.



His name is Damon Winter
and I hope he never tires
of saving us our language.

Now this is Friday, and
we haven't renounced our
dreams. Winter won a Pul-
itzer for work on a
different campaign, and
those perceptions, from
a categorically different
environment, resound in
reflecting on this one.
What can it mean, to be
in good hands, if they
are our own?

2016

Austin

Akron

2012

Las Vegas

Denver

New York

The New York Times©

When this is all over

Should we collude, readers here

and I, in a colloquy on what to

aspire to, when the obligations

we face this November are final-

ly met? Should we pursue beyond

the limits of exculpatory refus-

al, humane drinking water, wher-

ever tapped? When the bestial

candidacy is terminated in re-

jection, what shall we propose,

to mark the occasion with a mor-

al motive? Or is that a nuisance.

Fear is all very well, as a de-

fense against the worst. But is

the scale of the horror to be a-

verted this year, to be accord-

ed nothing more than a stake of

facile contempt?

I will be blunt. The model is a-

kin to England, in their immola-

tion shouldered alone, against a

monster. Now we have our monster,

and his retinue of coy apologists

to reject categorically, and our

eyes are upon not merely a nega-

tion, but an elevation. I'm con-

servative, so I want humility.

I'm progressive, so I want hope.

I'm ordinary, so I want liberty.

I'm flesh, so I can be mistaken.

This finest hour is bigger than

tax relief. It wants generosity.

It cannot be voted in. It has to

be poured from every tap we are.

Kyle Schrader

Origins of Wednesday xxxvi: Vial of unintended consequences

    I have to believe, someone at NYU

    has already claimed a doctorate,

    translated into several languages,

    with the observation that an un-

    intended consequence of the peril-

    ously pubic-suspended waistband,

    has been an abrupt shortening of 

    our arms. Suddenly, spending mon-

    ey's out of reach, and explains,

    of course, the stovepipe gather-

    ing of superfluous trousering atop

    the Nikes, relying now more stren-

    lously than ever, upon the elevat-

    ing effect of their aerosol con-

    struction. But have restaurants

    adapted? Are the tables shrunk, to

    accommodate the diminished reach;

    has Emily Post been edited, on pas-

    sing the salt? Is this new fashion

    the root cause, if you will, of

    driverless motoring, and has any-

    one accounted better for the pro-

    liferation of keyboard duets? I

    live in the sticks; I could send

    you some, bundled and centrally

    bound, for urbanity's sake.

    But I stray. In a political sys-

    tem as responsive as ours, to

    a dire urgency of ameliorations

    of one kind or other, its branches

    will break a discernible sweat on

    the project of retaliatory arms,

    to close this abysmal gap between

    pubic confidence and real security.

    (Frame any question martially, and

    the whole government is yours).

    Calisthening, ever preening, as if

    Charles Martel, ball-peening, it's

    not their fault our tower's leaning.

    We find them adopting the same solu-

    ion, myriad times, but its glory is

    what counts, where sanity's simply 

    out of reach. Riding with the Turks,

    today; a novelty, we'd have to say.

   

Invasion of the miracles i

    We cannot pretend not

    to have been warned,

    he'd imitate the sane.

    But it seems to us,

    a fellow of his age

    ought to know what

    he wants by now. Then

    too, what became of,

    We shall fight them

    on the beaches? How,

    we can only ask, can

    a Donny Thump-Thump,

    without deportations,

    survive resembling a

    day without sunshine?

No ordinary rustic

   My English dog and I
   went out for an after-
   noon stroll just now,
   after a voluminously
   heavy downpour. We
   were not the only ones.

   This extravagantly daz-
   zling fellow clambered
   several feet immediate-
   ly, and incredibly a-
   droitly, before our very
   eyes, after my fingers
   gently inquired if he
   were an elegant twig,
   blown upon the post to
   be admired. We admired,
   anyway.

Marathon day

  As much as a vacant
  beach, for different
  reasons, like you 
  I feel an undying
  fondness for playing
  fields in bucolic
  settings. I like to
  walk them alone, in
  the early morning -
  real choirs, if
  of softer footing,
  breathing deep of
  lusher aromatics.

  We conversed in low whispers, 
  Conrad says, as if afraid to 
  wake up the land.

  I walk in measured steps
  such fields, as if before
  they are awakened, and
  sense a music that they 
  harbor of a raucous con-
  test, fitfully embedded in 
  a plush and loamy stillness
  that we constantly enrich. 
  Introduce a runner there,
  we change their rhythm.

  Stephen Crane, his contemp-
  ary, knew this possibility. 

Joseph Conrad

Youth

1898

Stephen Crane

The Red Badge

  of Courage

1895

op. cit.

Giorgio Armani
ribbed sweater

Luigi Ghirri
untitled field

Carl Hardorp

Ely Cathedral