Friday, September 27, 2019

Note to Americans





   In many ways it is shock-
   ingly shameful, that one
   privileged observer might
   finally portray the palp-
   able upheaval with which
   we all quiescently have
   lived, whether with com-
   plaint or exultation. To
   be 'roused by some anon-
   ymous prophet to confess
   the necessities of res-
   ponsibility, is unusual.

   What is the measure of
   consent in the governed?





















Wednesday, September 25, 2019

But let's not lose our sense of humor





I, for one, have never been less than
delighted whenever the American Pres-
ident dismisses one of his more appal-
ly sarcastic. Who can object to even
the most abject desperation to deny
his own intentions, when they are so
immaculately exposed? Not for a mo-
ment, could anyone suggest that such
self-exculpation should deprive one
of a narcissistic claim of exemption  
for cheeky blondfanny, as opposed to
being seen for the worst ass around.



















Monday, September 23, 2019

All this quivering, getting to you?





I was thinking, it might just be
timely for the Speaker to accept
one of those speaking engagements
which are the bane of a San Fran-
ciscan's existence, to mollify
the unseemly vibrations coursing
through her Party from the unend-
ing teases of the President. He
plays their strings of righteous
moral compulsion as the gift they
are to himself, from his spoiling
Office of infinite prerogatives;
and there is cause to soothe this
quivering with a little demonstra-
tion of sang froid that's seen it
all. At least she, of all obser-
vers, will understand how sumptu-
ously it suits the President, to
be chided on arms concessions to
someone unlikely to employ them.

A head fake, contrary to inter-
est, is a bauble to polish as
fondly as Yorick's skull, in the
pageant of histrionic vengeance.














Sunday, September 22, 2019

So much eloquence, so little time


I've been interested in The Aeneid again lately, so I've been less attracted to the prospect of achieving moral satisfaction, offered by people who advocate the impeachment of the American President, when the commitments of translators of that poem fur-nish so much of that fleeting peace by their example. The rendering of that work into English is one of the great struggles the mind can undertake, and we have seen how the ordeal yields an appreciation of an impossibility revealed even in the original. Inevitably, to witness this dilemma's exposure is to undergo the seeming urgency of experiencing its consequence, a trust in the limits of the intellect against impassioned certitude.


Human beings appear to have no choice but to strive for beautiful, orderly explanations of the ugly things we do. These explanations may also represent a basic drive - and in one way a more painful one. We have chances to get land, livelihood, and security for the next generation, pretty much in the forms we imagined or even better, though the cost will be high. We cannot match in reality our vision of what we need to create from our minds. Virgil couldn't, and I certainly couldn't in my efforts to translate his glorious poem.

Anything like a zeal for an impeachment verges on a vain matching of this awe-somely fateful need to create, with reality. Who sees its consequence?
































James McNeill Whistler
The Ocean Wave
1883-84
  Whistler in Watercolor
  On exhibition at the Freer
    through November 3

Virgil
The Aeneid
Sarah Ruden
  translator
  fragment from her
  essay of introduction
Yale University Press, 2008©