Sunday nibbled sleeve ix: Whither Corinthians?

Gérard, reflecting on where it had
probably all gone wrong in the na-
tions most populated by monuments
to St Paul, from Brexit to border
walls, found it almost irresistib-
le to credit the New English Bible
as the fulcrum of that great slide
into anomie which had made worship
seem like a delivery van of Trump.

Painfully familiar as he knew it

to be, the reflection had in com-

mon with all pain an acute sense

of originality, not an authorship

he particularly cherished. Rather,

he cared more for discovering its

presence in others, by which he

could confidently recognize them

as tightrope walkers out of Deso-

lation Row or The Waste Land, or

any line from any Nancy Mitford,

whom her lifelong friend, John

Julius Norwich, found thriving,

centuries before her birth -

                It is - or was, before the appearance

                of the New English Bible - refreshing

                to note that St Paul, though he usual-

                ly spoke with the tongues of men and

                of angels, occasionally approximated

                more to the language of Nancy Mitford:

How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious?

                                               2 Corinthians 3:8

"In England," she had said, "you

don't need to be well-dressed. It

would be thought quite eccentric."

What has become of the KJV's anti-

cipatorily Mitfordian styling of a 

recurring lynchpin of belief, is 

traced in debaucheries compiled 

online, indebted (one and all) to 

evangelism's resistance ostensibly

to fashion, though its nemesis is 

taste. What's a Corinthian to do?

Gérard knows better than to regret

the passings of fashions, any more

than Mitford ever esteemed them in

the first place. But in aggravated

assault upon taste, and its natural 

sibling, wit, he does discern an

impeachable motivation, sufficient

to summon the ministration of the

spirit of the language. He could

not be dressed in anything better.

John Julius Norwich

Christmas Crackers

  Being ten common-

  place selections,

  1970 - 1979

Allen Lane/Penguin

1980©

Nancy Mitford

A Talent to Annoy

  Essays, Journalism

  and Reviews,

  1929 - 1968

Charlotte Mosley

  editor

1986

Hodder & Stoughton

1996©

  

Saturday commute clxix: Looking in the morning

On my block there was somebody knew the truth, I think.
Or so I thought. Anyway somebody knew
That trying to tell the truth is looking for somebody.















David Ferry
Bewilderment
  New Poems and
  Translations
  One Two Three Four Five
  [fragment]
op. cit.

Origins of Wednesday xciv: The inside lane

                  ...    How can I the miraculous scenery

       of my life dissuade? It's the opposite of Sisyphus, and

       will replace my nape, that buttered seat of venery,

       with the prairied shoulders of a friendly hand.

Frank O'Hara

Donald Allen, editor

Poems Retrieved

  Light Cavalry

  [fragment]

1953

City Lights Publishing

San Francisco

2013©

Jamie Squire

  Maximum Security

  and trainer,

  Churchill Downs

May 4th, 2019

Getty Images©

I read my news

The figure being overlapped by a blue
shoulder in sharper focus, of greater
interest to the photojournalist Scott
Olson for Getty Images, is attending
an event illuminated by the wearer of
the smart silk suit, a New York Senat-
or running for President. The news is
his concentration on the proceedings.

I read my news, for the reason that I
would be uninformed, otherwise. I'm
heartened to know, that whatever hay
may be being made, by fame's shining
on this political event, that out-of-
focus figure attends for my interests.

He's not giving an endorsement. He's
not a passive funnel of the promises
he hears. But he's plainly committed,
with the gold standard of the secret
ballot written on his face - defying
deception, thinking already beyond
himself. He seems to have no fear of
our Electoral College, which is all 
too willing to favor blurring him.

Da Vinci at 500

All that would be dignified to say,

of this minor update in the longev-

ity of an imperishable contribution

to humanity by Leonardo da Vinci, 

is that this portrait of an athlete

instantly recalls to every inhabit-

ant of the West (the present govern-

ment excused, for its absence), the

geometric exercise he made famous,

of the figure in the perfection of

a circle. If you or I had to foot-

note the foundation of understanding

a machine of siege warfare; the con-

ception every student of Jesus has,

of his final meeting with his dis-

ciples; the impression every sent-

ient person has, of the inscrutabil-

ity of a smile, we know it isn't so

simple as to cite him. It's that one

learns better every year, not so sor-

didly to measure his influence, as to

accept the vitality of his life. 

Steele Johnson

 x Junfu Han

Origins of Wednesday xciv: Glad not to be an ingenue

By now, thank heaven, this is all

very old hat. That thunderous ex-

halation of Whew with which we've

greeted the news of Mueller's re-

luctance to embrace Barr's reduc-

tions, masked as mere redactions,

of his conductions of our Presid-

ent on the scaffold of raw facts,

recalls us to that disbelief with

which we received the inside sto-

ry of a misconstruction, forcefed

as our destiny to accept. Surely,

there must be robots, we thought,

who'd stand in for us, who cannot

be bought. Get an idiot to under-

go the gospel of such compulsion.

Blasé in extremes

The model, Clément Chabernaud, has

stood in for so many principles at

this page, that he acquired (early

on) a vitrine. We can't be sure if

he has been found here, loitering

with intent, but he certainly does

with inclination, so he might very

well have something up his sleeve,

notwithstanding an air of Indiffér-

ence worthy of a figure in Watteau.

Whose nature's drawn to infuse the

vacuum, what purpose to extremity?

Sunday nibbled sleeve viii: Traps of barefoot construction

We resort to this practice so seldom,

that I retrieve an illustration from

an OSHA manual from the previous cen-

tury, to revive consciousness of the

primary problem. Ignoring the cigar-

ette, a ubiquitous hazard back then,

we find the safety of one's footing

subjected to risk from above and be-

low in the wheelbarrow's nonchalant

progress toward some offscreen rest.

And so we expose ourself to blithe

advice just now, to drop everything

and skip on down impeachment's merry

footpath, as if to some off-loading

of yet another spasm of rectitude.

To be so exhorted by stern piety's

born exemplar, in an excitable New

Englander, was one thing; but now

with the vestal chronicler of The

New Yorker's Watergate reporting,

echoing from that vise, it is cer-

tain that this will be yet another

weekend of very high advertising

costs for breaks in the talk shows.

It's a pity that Ben Hecht's death

row comedy on the media, The Front

Page, has slud into the mud of our

era's dissipation, or we'd all re-

member involuntary manslaughter's

dim exculpation - that the design

of a gun compels its use - as the

unlaughable projection that it is.

Impeachment is a gun which, because

it is showy and noisy, exists to

exploit impetuous sentiment rooted

in opinion's utterly voluntary de-

signs. To be castigated as immoral,

not to rally to its toxic tocsin 

of punitive restoration against a

plain and stark contempt for opin-

ion's impotency to restrain it, is

to plunge the foot into a tenacious

trap of history's surest injury: a

cycle of revenge extending into the

generations, mocking the remedial

allure of dumping its load. It be-

longs to the vise. It's an asset of

the vise, its load and its vessel.

To resort to it so barefootedly as

to lack the means of conviction, is 

to enshrine injurious recklessness.

Look to your Left, look to your Right.

Whose need for its relief is greater?

Le Corbusier

Taureau

1963