My Caesura

It's time to take a caesura.  Wrong use of the word, I know, and wrong use of the definition, but it conveys my meaning.  Like a caesura--a break or pause in the middle of a line of verse--I'm taking a break from my blog.  As Hamlet asks himself in Act III, Scene I, with a definite break between the two famous lines, I also ask, "To blog or not to blog//That is the question."

The answer for now is clear: not to blog.  

A caesura it is!

The Colors of Spring

All of the cold rain last month finally gave way to something lovely . . .

The cascading flowers of this Pieris Katsura are like Elton John's tiny dancer, ballerinas in the palm of my hand.

What of the Magnolia stellata, or the star magnolia?  Budding out from pussy willow spikes, these spectacular flowers haunt the early spring light.  They're pretty in pink.

Hellebores plants hide their flowers well, though not well enough.  They tilt their faces down, but you can still see their freckles and fingers teasing shyly.  Beguiling queens.

Yellow defines spring, and daffodils, like ladies-in-waiting, bloom everywhere--happy and willing to delight.  As A. A. Milne wrote, "She turned to the sunlight and shook her yellow head, and whispered to her neighbor.  Winter is dead."

O forsythia, forsythia, wherefore art thou, forsythia?  Deny thy father and refuse thy name, but we will admire you just the same.

Finally, from Sesame Street, "One of these things is not like the others/One of these things just doesn't belong/Can you tell which thing is not like the others/By the time I finish my song?"  (Hint: the not-so-subtle color)

It wouldn't be a garden, though, if something didn't belong, something nonetheless quite beautiful.

DonaldMandias

The ridiculous statue of Donald Trump showcased this weekend at CPAC reminds me of Percy Bysshe Shelley's sonnet "Ozymandias," written in 1817.  Using the image of the decaying statue of Ramses II, Shelley reflects on the transience of political power and of those whose hubris governs their actions.  As the statue of Ozymandias fades under the Egyptian sun, the sand and wind take over, and nothing remains of the former tyrant.

Here's a revised version of Shelley's sonnet:

I met a traveller from the USA
Who said: "Two vast and Trumpless legs of chrome
Stand in the desert . . . Near them on the sand
Half sunk, a shattered orange face lies, whose vain
And vulgar mien, and sneer of cold command,
Tell of his heartless deeds and hateful ways
Which yet survive, stamped on this tasteless mold
Of glitz and gold.

Image by Miranda Straubel

And on his flip-flopped feet these words appear:
'My name is DonaldMandias, a very stable genius,
The best of all that's ever been!'
Now nothing else of Trump remains.
This gaudy wreck, this statue gone,
While lone and level sands stretch far away."

A Marjorie By Any Other Name . . .

Marjorie Taylor Greene, the notorious QAnon legislator from Georgia, is giving all of us Marjories a bad name.  Test your knowledge of some other notable namesakes:

1.    Marjorie Jacqueline Simpson

        A. Winner at Wimbledon in 1955.
        B. Full name of the title character in the 1950s TV show My Little
        Margie.
        C. Famous TV mom with blue hair.
        D. Early 20th-century American impressionist painter.

2.    Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

        A. Author of The Yearling.
        B. Author of Harriet the Spy.
        C. Author of The Secret Garden.
        D. Author of A Tale of Two Cities.

3.    Marjorie Finlay

        A. Lead Disney animator for Bambi.
        B. Taylor Swift's grandmother.
        C. First woman aboard the International Space Station.
        D. Annie Oakley's mother.

4.    Marjorie Morningstar

        A. Owner of MorningStar Farms grocery line.
        B. First woman to serve in Congress.
        C. Mother in My Friend Flicka.
        D. Novel by Herman Wouk.

5.    Marjorie Eileen Dursley

        A. Fred Flintstone's aunt.
        B. Harry Potter's aunt.
        C. Leslie Knope's aunt.
        D. Princess Leia's aunt.

How'd you do?  Answers below.

1.  C
2.  A
3.  B
4.  D
5.  B

Step aside, Marjorie Taylor Greene.  You've disgraced our name, and we're taking it back!

Epiphany

Three days from now, on Wednesday, January 6, the United States Congress will meet to certify the winner of the 2020 presidential race.  President-elect Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in November by over 7 million votes in the popular election and by 74 votes in the Electoral College.  The Trump campaign's efforts to sue several states for voter fraud have failed in over 40 cases.  District Court Judge J. Nicholas Ranjan of Pennsylvania said, in dismissing one of the cases, that "this claim, like Frankenstein's monster, has been haphazardly stitched together . . . This court has been presented with strained legal arguments without merit and speculative accusations . . . unsupported by evidence."

Frankenstein's monster indeed.  

It's what the Republican Party has created repeatedly in its subservience to Donald Trump, and it's what brings us now to the latest outrage:  the group of 12 Republican senators and over 100 representatives who plan to oppose the count of votes on January 6.  What an interesting coincidence that this disgraceful devilry will occur on Epiphany, the Christian celebration of the Magi's visit.  Epiphany has also come to mean "a moment of sudden revelation or insight."

Can we count on any of these spineless senators and representatives to experience epiphany, to see the danger of their actions?  Not likely, when their circular logic spins on its own deceit.  Senator Ted Cruz, leader of the twelve senators, said today, "We've seen in the last two months unprecedented allegations of voter fraud . . . We have an obligation to protect the integrity of the democratic system."  Allegations, yes.  Proof, no.  The courts have ruled; the democratic system was upheld.  That the likes of Cruz and his comrades continue to hoodwink Trump supporters doesn't validate the false narrative.  

Shakespeare's play Twelfth Night, also a reference to Epiphany, offers us two quotes as we contemplate these Republicans' actions.  In Act 2, Scene ii, Viola says,

"O time, thou must untangle this, not I.
It is too hard a knot for me t'untie."

Who will untie this knot that Republicans have created?  Certainly not Mitch McConnell, who enabled his corrupt president from the start.  Certainly not the so-called moderate Republicans--Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitt Romney, or Ben Sasse--whose actions rarely support their words of protest.  Certainly not the the right-wing media that continues to promote lies and foment discord.  New leadership under Joe Biden will make a difference, of course, as he will begin to restore integrity and respect.  But William Shakespeare may have it right in the end: time may be our only salvation.

Finally, again from Viola, Act 2, Scene i, a lament for all of us: 

"What country, friends, is this?"

A Tale of Two Governors

It was the best of governors, it was the worst of presidents. . .

To watch the coronavirus briefings of Roy Cooper and Andrew Cuomo, governors of North Carolina and New York respectively, is to watch two men with contrasting styles.  Where Governor Cooper is reserved and gentle, Governor Cuomo is open and aggressive.  Where Governor Cooper's briefings are controlled and organized, Governor Cuomo's are freewheeling and unconventional.  Where reporters in North Carolina phone in questions with deference to the Governor, reporters in New York compete and shout each other down.  But here the differences end and the similarities begin. 

Each of these distinguished, intelligent men knows how to lead in this crisis:

They thank their citizens--particularly those working for the public--for their hard and selfless work.

They express sadness for the loss of life and sympathy to families in mourning.

They present facts based on science and medicine.

They refer questions to their staff so that clear, precise information is conveyed.

They treat reporters with respect and answer questions carefully.

They seek to unify rather than divide.

Their president, however, does the opposite.  His briefings are all about him.  He brags, he lies, and he blames others.  He answers questions directed at staff despite his ignorance.  He demeans reporters and political opponents.  He calls his citizens names.

That great opening sentence from A Tale of Two Cities continues, "it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity. . . "

We're fortunate in these two wise, believable governors and in many of their peers. . . but could we be cursed with a more foolish, incredible character sitting in the White House?  Not a chance.

Life Lessons From the Garden

The news is too much these days, as we lurch from one screaming headline to another.  I prefer thinking about plants.  Here are some observations that have occurred to me over the years, as I've dug up weeds and divided bulbs, moved plants and thinned overgrowth.  You could consider these lessons about life, along the lines of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten or Tuesdays With Morrie.  Here goes:

1.  Sometimes you have to cut off part of a plant for the whole to thrive.

2.  Sometimes you have to move a plant out of the spot--I mean--sunlight.

3.  Sometimes you have to move a plant to the other side of the yard.

4.  Sometimes you have to accept that plants will die no matter what you do.

5.  Sometimes you have to let the wind and the bees and the rain take over.

6.  Sometimes you can't dislodge a weed from the rock that protects it.

7.  Sometimes you can't tell the difference between a baby flower bud and a dying flower head.

8.  Sometimes you can't get a plant to grow straight.

9.  Sometimes you can't keep the deer away.

10.Sometimes you can't imagine what your efforts will yield.

Sky Over Chapel Hill

"The soul can split the sky in two and let the face of God shine through."

- Edna St. Vincent Millay

On Being Real

Sometimes when I see this rabbit outside,

I think about the Velveteen Rabbit and wonder what the "real" rabbits in our yard think of this sculptured imposter.  For as the Skin Horse in Margery Williams' The Velveteen Rabbit tells us, "You become.  It takes a long time.  That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept.  Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby.  But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

I think my stone bunny is Real.

Gastrolinguistics

When I recently had an episode of what seemed like acid reflux, I consulted the next morning with my primary care physician--the internet.  Lots of sites popped up with descriptions of symptoms, treatments, risk factors, and the like, but what interested me most were the words themselves--ugly and unpleasant.  As I've written before, the medical profession seems especially taken with nasty words.  Here are some new definitions for the words that constitute the world of acid reflux and its more serious counterpart, GERD (gastroesophageal reflux disorder):

GERD--A nickname for Gertrude

Acid reflux--A series of repetitive LSD trips

Dyspepsia--The act of dissing Pepsi in favor of Coke

Regurgitation--The recitation of Gregorian chants

Lower esophageal sphincter--the part of the sphinx where the human head meets the lion's body

Hiatal hernia--a shell necklace made by indigenous Hawaiians

Dysphasia--A phase of the moon when the earth is most distant from the sun

Barium swallow--A species of aerial-feeding birds native to the barrier islands of Virginia and North Carolina

Esophageal manometry--A measuring device used to determine the age of Aesop's Fables

Endoscopy--A close examination of "Endymion," a poem by John Keats

America the Pitiful

The older I get the harder it is to accept the murder of children.  What kind of society doesn't take care of its kids, doing whatever it can to keep them safe?  The death of the little boy in Boston on Monday and the defeat of gun control measures last night have piled on top of each other, leaving me heartsick for all of us.  I keep thinking of John Crowe Ransom's poem "Bells for John Whiteside's Daughter," which captures the vitality of childhood abruptly cut off:

"There was such speed in her little body,   

And such lightness in her footfall,   

It is no wonder her brown study

Astonishes us all.

Her wars were bruited in our high window.   

We looked among orchard trees and beyond   

Where she took arms against her shadow,   

Or harried unto the pond

The lazy geese, like a snow cloud

Dripping their snow on the green grass,   

Tricking and stopping, sleepy and proud,   

Who cried in goose, Alas,

For the tireless heart within the little   

Lady with rod that made them rise

From their noon apple-dreams and scuttle   

Goose-fashion under the skies!

But now go the bells, and we are ready,   

In one house we are sternly stopped

To say we are vexed at her brown study,   

Lying so primly propped."

 

Vexed and astonished by the events of the week. What are we to make

of our callous country?

Duke Gardens Reflections

 "And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything."

~ William Shakespeare, As You Like It

Autumn: In the Garden

You find a flower half-buried in leaves,
And in your eye its very fate resides.
Loving beauty, you caress the bloom;
Soon enough, you'll sweep petals from the floor.
Terrible to love the lovely so,
To count your own years, to say "I'm old,"
To see a flower half-buried in leaves
And come face to face with what you are.

- Han Shan

Insincerity

Mitt Romney re-invents himself every week.  Last week he was the rich guy in loafers, wearing no socks, commiserating with fellow Boca Ratoners about the 47% of us who mooch off the government.  This week he's in working-class Ohio feeling the pain of the same 47%: "My heart aches for the people I've seen," he said.

Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in J. D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye, would have no trouble understanding Mitt's latest caricature.  Caulfield tells his readers, "I am always saying 'Glad to've met you' to somebody I'm not at all glad I met.  If you want to stay alive, you have to say that stuff, though."

It's pretty easy to spot someone who's doing everything he can, however contradictory, to stay alive.  Perhaps this is why Mitt Romney is plummeting in the polls.

In Literature, As In Life. . .

Meet Luna Lovegood, from Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:

A Dog's Life: Her Highness' Dog

"I am his Highness' dog at Kew;
Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you?"

Alexander Pope

If I Only Had a Maid

What will we do on Sunday nights at 9:00 now that Downton Abbey is concluding its second series? Order up a household staff? Get a footman to brush off our lint?

It's been fun, this romp through British aristocracy, and I look forward to Series 3 this fall. Nonetheless, I ask myself why--like so many people--I'm hooked. Lots of reasons, I've concluded. It's an excellent plot. It has the same elements that made Victorian readers await Charles Dickens' next installment of The Pickwick Papers and, more recently, children (and often their parents) await Harry Potter's next adventure. In all our pseudo-sophistication we forget sometimes the power of a well-told story.

Downton Abbey is also great theater. The acting is excellent. Watching Maggie Smith skewer an opponent or Hugh Bonneville dispatch a threat satisfies at the deepest level, while period costumes and views of the British countryside create a visual delight.

At the same time, it's interesting that this show arrives in America just as we're learning that we're not the Horatio Alger society that we thought we were. As Paul Krugman writes recently in The New York Times, "Among rich countries, America stands out as the place where economic and social status is most likely to be inherited." Hmm, we thought that's what England was all about.

So it turns out that in watching Downton Abbey we're watching a version of ourselves, albeit from the comfortable distance of time and space. In this spirit, I've composed a piece that kept bouncing around in my head, based on "If I Only Had a Brain," from The Wizard of Oz:

I could be a one-percenter
And pay a tax rate lower
Than all the folks downstairs.
I could be a hedge fund owner
All those loopholes, all the better
If I only had a maid.

I could be just like Lord Grantham
And live inside a mansion
Commanding everyone.
But the British do it better
Here I'm only a jet setter
Oh, I wish I had a maid.

Yes, I could be a Lord
I'm sure I'd not be bored
I could think of things like capital gains
And then I'd sit and earn some more.

I'd make all that unearned income
That guarantees a big sum
I'd be a lot like Mitt.
Here I come, oh Downton Abbey
With my tax-exempted plenty
Yes, I found myself a maid.

Rediscovering Pearl Buck

Having finished this weekend another novel by Pearl Buck, Peony, I've come to appreciate the author's observations about human nature. Her honesty stands out. Here her narrator comments about David, a young man who struggles with his feelings for the women he loves, including his mother and the family's bondmaid:

"He longed to be free of them all, and yet he knew that no man is ever free of the women who have made him what he is. He sighed and tossed and wished for the day when he could return to the shops and the men there who had nothing to do with his heart and his soul."

Here Ezra, David's father, reflects on the melancholy surrounding his Chinese Rabbi:

"He had chosen sorrow, the endless sorrow of a man haunted by God. He had even transmuted such sorrow into strange dark joy. He was most happy when he suffered most deeply, like the moth that flutters near the flame of the candle."

Finally, my favorite. On David's wedding day, the mothers of the bride and groom meet for the first time:

". . .each found the other strange and hard to talk with, and yet each was determined to do her best. . . [Madame Kung] granted that Madame Ezra tried very much to be pleasant to her, and although the day was tedious for these two ladies, somehow it passed." Emphasis mine. How many times have I been in situations where somehow the day passed?

Pearl Buck's voice is refreshing. Though her Chinese settings are exotic, the emotions of her characters are not. She's as relevant today as she was decades ago.

Southern Sensation

How did Newt Gingrich stage such a spectacular upset in South Carolina? What magic did he use? Hmm. . . he must have consulted the Bard.

From Macbeth (a great source of political wisdom)
Act IV, Scene i

1. WITCH
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poisoned entrails throw.
Mitt, who in New Hampshire won,
Must be stopped from having fun,
Bits of Bain I think we’ve got,
Boil these first i' th’ charmed pot.

ALL
Double, double, toil and trouble,
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

2. WITCH
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of Newt and vest of Rick,
Governor Perry’s running stick,
Callista’s hair and Tiffany jewels,
Liberals, elites and all those fools,
For a charm of pow’rful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

ALL
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

3. WITCH
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witch’s mummy, maw and gulf
Ron Paul’s grin and half a brow,
If he knew, he’d have a cow,
(Doctors don’t like witches’ brew,
Nor do Mormons, they might sue,)
Add the flag the Confederates flew,
At the State House, yes it’s true,
Don’t forget to pluck Mitt’s mettle,
For the ingredients in our kettle.

ALL
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn and cauldron bubble.

Pearl Buck to Barack Obama

In Pearl Buck's novel Pavilion of Women published in 1948, protagonist Madame Wu recalls a conversation she once had with her beloved and wise father-in-law about the nature of intelligence. Old Gentleman says to her,

"This matter of intelligence--it is so great a gift, so heavy a burden. Intelligence, more than poverty and riches, divides human beings and makes them friends or enemies. The stupid person fears and hates the intelligent person. Whatever the goodness of the intelligent man, he must also know that it will not win him love from one whose mind is less than his." (Emphasis mine)

Barack Obama, take note. You will not win the love of those obstructionist Republican congressmen who seek to bring you down. It's time to speak to the rest of us as the fellow intelligent humans that we are and govern from your head and not from your heart.