Suppose it were Friday clxxii: The night they invented champagne

The phrase comes from an obscure
Broadway musical from an equally
unremarked century, the previous 
one. But we take heart, the wine
is still recognized, even as the
turtleneck and the pea coat have
vanished, with much more finali-
ty than the male waistline. Hope
for a song extolling long pants,
then, if you favor your moorings
in the present era. Now the pro-
fession of basketball is the on-
ly serious threat to the reputa-
tion of champagne, but while its
pants do keep getting longer, it
asks too much to expect to see a 
break concealing an endorsement.

But LVMH, who produce more cham-
page than anyone else, also cer-
tainly hawk shoes as well, so we
must soon see our czars of cham-
pagne consumption sipping from a
shoe with the same logotype. Dom
Pérignon sneakers are inevitable.

How providently, then, we subdue
the past. Back when we had Gigi,
the aromatics of a gym shoe were
thought to signify a wine fault.
How elegantly our status symbols
ascend from the soles of virtue. 













Mathias Lauridsen
  Cerruti 1881

Origins of Wednesday cvii: Motivated to meet

A new acquaintance is seldom undertaken

entirely on one's own terms. Those that

are, can still remain interesting, when

a liberality of collaboration is a term

of one's point of view. I have been en-

joying screwball comedies from the '30s

and '40s again, which acknowledge anar-

chy less as a structuring principle and

more as a consequence of its resistance.

I could have been reading Euripides in-

stead, whose Bacchae is really not fun-

ny, but which acknowledges this paradox

pretty vividly. But now I have lost the

certainty of reach which depends upon a

life with one's books in an established

if quaintly disorderly location, having

moved house in the last quarter of 2019.

This inflicts a loss of fluency in con-

nectedness among influences on the mind

which I wouldn't wish on anyone. I deny

that it is refreshing, because connect-

edness comes first, propinquity second,

except if anarchy encounters resistance.

This glimpse of things was brought home

to me early in the life of the blog, in

a learnèd mentor's stupefaction, that I

proposed to consider water for its link

between the cinema of Jean Vigo and the

movie, If.., by Lindsay Anderson, where

there isn't any. No, there is gymnastic

exercise, though, whose incidence marks

connectedness with mesmerising fluidity.

The screwball comedy exhibits instabil-

ity as the price of a compulsory order-

liness about as well as if dull reform,

itself, had kept my translations of the

Bacchae all in one place, instead of in

the general terrain of each translator.

A more desolate outlook for the mind is

no pleasure for me to imagine. Give one

the connectedness of dark with light, a

sense of procession without fences, but

of genial collaboration, such as we ex-

perience in Henry Miller's intuition to

travel to Greece by way of the Dordogne

to Marseille - a passage ordered freely

by expectancy, astonishment, and nature.

So I packed my valise and took the train for Rocamadour where I arrived early one morning about sun up, the moon still gleaming brightly. It was a stroke of genius on my part to make the tour of the Dordogne region before plunging into the bright and hoary world of Greece. Just to glimpse the black, mysterious river at Dômme from the beautiful bluff at the edge of the town is something to be grateful for all one's life. To me this river, this country, belong to the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. It is not French, not Austrian, not European even: it is the country of enchantment which the poets have staked out . .

Henry Miller
The Colossus of Maroussi
New Directions, 1941©

The name one has

             So that I could mark it, the continuance of

             quality could in some way be that, the time
             of accord. For us, as beneath the falling water
                      we draw breath,
                      look at the sky.
             Talking to the man hitching a lift back
             from the hospital, I was incautious in sympathy:
             will she be back soon I was wishing to
             encourage his will to suppose. I can hardly
             expect her back he said and the water
             fell again, there was this sheet, as the time
                      lag yawned, and quality
                      became the name you have,
             like some anthem to the absent forces of nature.
             Ethnic loyalty, breathe as you like we in fact
             draw it out differently, our breath is gas
             in the mind. That awful image of choking.

The present American government has
challenged the latent ecumenicism in
every honest and inquiring heart, to
recoil into denial of both qualities.
At this, it is said to have succeed-
ed; but how hollowly, how transitor-
ily does that intimidating edict a-
chieve our hearing, given the dial-
ect of the voices which give this
verdict. It is not of the languages
of our continent -- French, Swahili,
Sioux, Spanish, Dutch, German, Gael-
ic, Italian -- but of our illiterate
merchants of obliteration as revenge.

We do not risk choking on the breath
of our descent, but on its aliena-
tion from others who would comprise 
ourselves.

J.H. Prynne
The White Stones
  Concerning Quality, Again
  first verse
New York Review Books, 2016©

Carlo Scarpa
  Olivetti
  Venice

Ivan Terestchenko
  Beach fire

New York, May 7, 1949

Homer Page

1918-1985

Howard Greenberg Gallery

New York

A box of captain's biscuits, nearly full

"Rat," he moaned, "how about your supper, you poor, cold, hungry, weary animal? I've nothing to give you - nothing - not a crumb!"

"What a fellow you are for giving in!" said the Rat reproachfully. "Why, only just now I saw a sardine-opener on the kitchen dresser, quite distinctly; and everybody knows that means there are sardines about somewhere in the neighbourhood. Rouse yourself! Pull yourself together, and come with me and forage."

They went and foraged accordingly, hunting through every cupboard and turning out every drawer. The result was not so very depressing after all, though of course it might have been better; a tin of sardines - a box of captain's biscuits, nearly full - and a German sausage encased in silver paper.

"There's a banquet for you!" observed the rat, as he arranged the table. "I know some animals who would give their ears to be sitting down to supper with us tonight!"                             

  Look, what thy memory cannot contain

  Commit to these waste blanks, and

    thou shalt find

  Those children nursed, deliver'd

    from thy brain,

  To take a new acquaintance

    of thy mind.

  

John Julius Norwich

An English Christmas

  Kenneth Grahame

  The Wind in the Willows

  1908

John Murray, 2017©

Christmas Crackers

  Commonplace Selections

    William Shakespeare

    Sonnet 77

    1609

Allen Lane/Penguin, 1980©

Argia

From up here, nothing of Argia can be
seen; some say, "It's down below there,"
and we can only believe them. The place
is deserted. At night, putting your ear
to the ground, you can sometimes hear a
door slam.

Italo Calvino
Invisible Cities
William Weaver
  translation
Einaudi, 1972©
Harcourt, 1974©

Nino Migliori
People of Emilia
1950

Sunday nibbled sleeve xiii: The stone in our shoe

The plaintiff, giving evidence, said that when he was on the crossing in Chertsey Street, Guildford, he heard a shout. He turned and saw the cow coming pell-mell round a corner. It trampled over him and contin-ued on its way. He did not think it deliberately went for him. 

Mr Patrick O'Connor, for King Bros., submitted that the person in control of a tame animal mansuetae naturae - cow was undoubtedly tame - was not liable for damage done by it which was 'foreign to its species'. He would seek to prove the cow attacked the plaintiff; if that were so, there was no liability.

His Lordship - "Is one to abandon every vestige of common sense in approaching this matter?"

Counsel - "Yes, my Lord."

The hearing was adjourned.

The Times [London]

  Law Reports

  date not available

John Julius Norwich

More Christmas Crackers

  1980 - 1989

Viking, 1990©

Jacob Dooley

Beacon Hill

Suppose it were Friday clxxi: Paris reading

I was re-reading The Tenth Muse the

other night, Judith Jones' wonderful

reflections on an active relationship

with food and wine. I wasn't yet sen-

sitized to the moral hazard of people

of means, intruding upon that natural

pursuit, and indeed it wasn't until

I overheard a Presidential candidate

warn of their presence that I was ab-

le to imagine the great risks which

lie in one's path, unless they are ex-

cluded. Suppose they should take an

interest in Paris; there might be a

Tuileries. There might be no end to

manifestations of means, and their

unbearable reminding of inequality.

It was enough to make one remorseful

for one's own appetite, for a com-

petently prepared sorrel soup. What

had been so wrong with that bitter

green, to make me want it luscious?