Away for a lengthy weekend

   I am away for a few days

   with some pressing seasonal

   commitments. I wish readers

   to know I feel very content 

   to leave the page with you.


    

What we mean when we say, Derek is Canadian

In what feels like one of the authen-tically Wildean moments in Stephen Fry's film on the unforgotten dram-atist - another being the presenta-tion of Jude Law's molded eloquents - he is introducing his devoted friend Robbie Ross on a stroll through the park as, "Canadian, you can tell by his youth." A tumblrist friend and gracious resource of this page - discoverer of our intrepid marginal explorer, Dickie Hakluyt - Derek admits to that nationality as well as its actuarial idiosyncrasy, but his tumblr bears such finish of Hibernian irony that condescension to these charms is summarily rebuffed. We treat with mischief, then, a mischievous new presence.

                  

Stephen Fry, director
  and screenwriter
Wilde
BBC, Capitol Films, 1997©


i-iii  beggars would ride

Who will account to him for what is done in his name?

We take it for granted,

that every man has his

price. But what is the

going rate for a boy,

these days? We've not

only left stark crimes

unaccounted for, from

the previous Presidency.

We've continued them

and expanded upon them,

with such technology as

drones, and one unpub-

lished Executive Order

after another, for ag-

gressive war. 

Now we hear that the

young, "the base," are

to be palliated as if

so many bashful child-

ren, set free to grow

up queer and cheery.

They are said to be

expected to be re-

vitalised by this am-

iable treat, in their

natural adulation for

a sympathetic mentor.

And where did this

congenital disposition

come from, I wonder,

if not where every-

thing congenital does?

Is there no end to the

exploitation of the soc-

cer mom?

Why fear gay marriage,

indeed. Why fear youth,

if the White House is

right. But my own dog

can tell when he's

being seduced by a bis-

cuit, and can't be dis-

tracted forever.

I happen to anticipate
that the young, who are
more fluent in reconcil-
ing themselves to the
blamelessness of being 
gay than their mid-life
predecessors have said,
are more interested in
remedies for the crimes
conducted in their name
than they are in being
assured they're not a
criminal. They are not,
moreover, the source of
shame which attaches to
their citizenship, and
of guilt which attaches
to the conduct pursued
in their name by their
nation. They know who is,
and my feeling is that
this perception is what
deflates their hopes of
2008. Maybe the President
will try to shave a few
more points for them, in
the loan reduction bill
he'll never pass. 

A question about art ii

Before we light the fire, let's make 

a piece of Art and burn it. Every-

thing must go. What we are, what 

we do. Let's not be too serious

about it.

a proposal lately considered

at a page often referenced here

My response to hypotheses like these is always a little guarded, even knowing (as we all do) that the ultimate disposition of existence may be as tidy as they suggest. My interest is in that middle ground of things, where narrative has some liberty and necessity to draw breath, where our arguably vain little projects of investigation can sufficiently be absorbed by the mechanisms and matter of experience as to occupy the senses with some notion of what is being destroyed all the while, even as they may refresh with continuing distraction by their charm. Immolation can perform its dour corrective any time.

  Meanwhile, I mark another
  gratifying occasion of
  stimulation by a cultiv-
  ated mind, and celebrate
  its extract as I go.