Sunday nibbled sleeve xii: Connecticut young

 Newtown High beat Darien yesterday,
 in the final seconds of a game that
 was tied, 7-7. Seven years ago, the
 same players survived a conflict we
 couldn't save them from, without an
 abuse of some Constitutional right.
 Whose rites were written in heaven?

Suppose Aeneas were American

How far our migrant always is from
setting up shop on destiny's shore.

In the meantime, there would be

a tiresome quality to his trials

if they were not flush with daz-

zling perpetuity, the indefatig-

able mechanism of surreptitious

poetry sending furtive messages

of being seen somewhere before.

      See to it that the Trojans

      Will never find their dwelling place and home

      In Italy. You know the ways to do it.

      You can make brother living in harmony

      With brother in concord turn on each other and bring

      Their house in hatred down around their heads.

      You know the way to bring the funeral torch.

      Your ways to hurt have a thousand different names.

      Your heart is full of possibilities.

      Shake them all loose at once. Do all of them.

      Tear peace to pieces. Sow the seeds of war.

      Make all the young men mad to take up arms.

Suppose Aeneas were American, and that a great last stand against him were invoked from the highest offices of trust, by resort to sowing permutations of confusion. We would see this, and tire of mentioning it, tire of thinking of it, every day an effluent of bombastic, vain alarms cranked from acrid tidal pools, demanding to be heeded. A shipwreck explained, as if it were contained in this day's drip.

I think it's more polite to recognize the familiar in what is irksome than to strive to copyright an anxious shot in the dank of expertise. We revisit Juno's speech to Allecto in Book Seven of Aeneas' story to see if anything's changed. 

Thomas Gainsborough
  Gainsborough Dupont
ca 1772

Virgil
The Aeneid
David Ferry
  translation
University of Chicago Press
2017©

Origins of Wednesday cv: Blueblood in the headlights

   To grandmother's house we go, of

   course, but what a fateful route

   we take. A friend of mine collid-

   ed with two deer on successive

   nights on the same open road in

   our part of the world last week.

   Deer just have no sense at all.

   You never see one wearing blue.

Joshua Reynolds

  Joshua Reynolds

National Portrait Gallery

1747

Sunday myths to recycle while U wait

  We have been approached by credible

  sources to lend our conduit of pub-

  lic service announcements to an ad-

  visory from the highest floor, off-

  chart: auditions have resumed for a

  new Ukrainian server, to replace an

  unfortunately faulty impersonation. 

Alibis we've begun to question

Fighting corruption, the story

Al Capone's boys gave for per-

petrating the St Valentine's

Day disturbance on Chicago's

near North Shore, rat-a-tat

artillery billowing fumes of

credibility as they spoke,

strikes us all these days as

a likelier story than the ex-

cuse of setting out for a set

of tennis in a sweater of met-

aphors so garbled as to sport

a hemstitched tartan collar,

juxtaposed with a "US" logo-

type, above a tweed waistband,

with one ear at least plugged

with surveillance gear, and a

necklace dangling pathetically

shorter than a garish red tie.

Bartek Szmigulski

Kit Butler rolls his eyes

2019

Origins of Wednesday civ: My sweet impeachable you

On the one hand, these seats were not

cheap. On the other, you're right, it

may very well drag on into dinner. So

what are you wearing? You know, there

are bound to be cameras, and names'll

be taken. Suppose they want a number? 

Origins of Wednesday ciii: What do Democrats mean for Virginia?

Humane redistricting, anyone?

Just in case there's no back-

to-back national championship

or the people tire of winning.

Witness

What an enviable mind it must be, to guide one in truthful testimony of service as an American Ambassador under treacherous attack by the American President, and bring one through - bring one home - to an unimpaired vitality and peace within oneself, an inner world that is not touched by what an entire political Party wants one to suffer. A witness could take encouragement from someone so fine and honorable.

Marie Yovanovitch
Testimony to a Select
  Committee of the House
  of Representatives of
  the United States
October 11, 2019