Moppet

When I had just arrived in the Old Dominion, I was somewhat adopted by an English lady who sold antiquarian books and kept an especially tidy herb garden. (I've always enjoyed exploring such places). Once, I proposed incorporating a little lavender in our omelette, and it was pretty spiffy. She began to call me, Moppet. 

Saturday commute xlvi: Friends coming

  Vision correction, a spot
  of dusting, tidying up the
  neck. Yes, and who was it,

  who came up with the idea

  that being a guy is a low-

  maintenance occupation?

  And now it's our turn to en-

  tertain. We make a point of
  dressing in nothing new, and
  dining with equal ease. Fun-
  damentally, it's Saturday.

                                      

Gymshock

       

         completing a last set of flyes

         when you look up and find that

         what he's waiting for is the

         bench

           the impatience of
           some people!

Suppose it were Friday xlv: but it might not be ready for 20 years

You go see your children first! 

And then you worry about waiting 

on line to see your brother -- 

like everybody else.

I remember how ancient I used

to suppose I would feel, by the

time a new vintage of a premier

grand cru would be decent to in-

vestigate. I have devastated

some very great vintages in

their 'teens. 

The youth engaged in the craft

depicted here occupies a trust

which he learns not to breach 

with haste. In this way he em-

bodies its steadiness, learns 

anticipation and calm in the 

same breath and mallet stroke.

We don't hear of 'statecraft'

any more. An idiot with a bor-

rowed opinion can captivate

our people and usually does.

'Gimme da biggest red ya got,'

he shouts, and we let him

have our boys.

Francis Ford Coppola, director

Francis Ford Coppola and

  Mario Puzo, Screenplay

The Godfather: Part II

Paramount, 1974©

Preferring surprise

Where power is praised,

you get Jerry Sandusky.

You don't get surprise.

Have we covered the part yet, about not sautéeing in suède?

Quite right. Meant to get to this earlier. Anything that can inad-vertently splash the face is a sure bet to discover the ground, yes? This is why seasoned cooks at Guantánamo swear by rubber gloves, high impact headgear, and galoshes. And now, what fun, a trial. Mmm, greasepaint!                                                                                                               

                                                                                             

Reading between the legs: Betty Commilfaux sends forgiveness

   Thorny, darling ~ 

One never did expect you, and I don't know that we'd have managed, had you come. Word, alone, of your acceptance deluged us with Extra Men, horseblankets outnumbering scarves 3:2. Long odds for a photo finish, and quite a strain on cook. It's no demerit, of course, to've given us the best of both worlds - cachet of your imprimatur, without the terror of conversation. I do hope you made some progress with Ford, remembering your promise to teach me Sylvia Tietjens on trees.

   Pads sends a snap ~ B

        

                           

Ford Madox Ford

Parade's End

Knopf, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1928©

Charisma of the lawbreaker

Inevitably this page has betrayed a weakness, repeatedly, for the outlaw in every field it has mangled - Eliot, most extensively I suppose. But Eliot's example really enhances what we mean, which is the guy who was bred and trained and privileged to see, and then went out and did so. That theme is everywhere here because my admiration of such people, while only marginally excusable, is completely inexhaustible. It only seems convenient to cite Eliot. In reality it takes a lot of work, because he isn't easy and he never did bother to be. It isn't difficulty that makes him good, it's his gift of difficulty that does. He is sharing the struggle. This generosity goes back to François Villon, and was fundamental in Rimbaud, Gide, Genet, and Tennessee Williams.

Now I'm in the middle of reading a book by a writer I've cited, before, which I acquired when I was 27 years old, three years beyond his when he wrote it. I've kept it around as a contingency, a sidebar to an oeuvre which was much more famous for being something else; and now, I find that it's a miracle. 

Why are we awed to see such things taking place so well, in a site of secular candour, as to move the earth before our eyes toward becoming a larger place? Is it just that the ecology of superstition and xenophobia requires a symbiotic pest, or is that we are given that elated feeling of being let out into the tonic of daylight, too, that we owe to its discovery -

                 .. to ride time as gayly as a cork.

Lawrence Durrell

The Black Book

Olympia Press, 1938©

Gerald Sykes, introduction

E.P. Dutton, 1960©