Tag Archives: travel

POETS Day! Edwin Muir’s “The Horses”

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Illustrated by Rene Sears

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

Mississippi is where I pass on the right. Folks come from all round to make me pass them on the right in Mississippi. I saw tags from New York, and I passed them on the right in Mississippi. I saw tags from North Carolina driving 70 mph, and I passed them on the right in Mississippi. Someone driving in car with tags from neighboring Arkansas, seeing me pass him on the right in Mississippi, so loved being passed on the right in Mississippi that he let a whole train of fellow travelers dart past a slow truck in the right lane and pull up behind him before changing lanes to pass him on the right in Mississippi and then change lanes back again to pass a pick-up towing an empty trailer in the right lane some medium distance ahead. We all snaked.

I will never understand Mississippi. I read a Joan Didion novel in Louisiana. It was very good.

It’s POETS Day so Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday. Get out of work mid afternoon. Live life in the fast lane (but actually drive fast.)

First, a little verse.

***

Edwin Muir published the piece of literary criticism, Scott and Scotland, in 1938. In it he argues if Scotland is to have a national literature, they must do away with far and wide dialects and decide on a common language.

“If Shakespeare had written in the dialect of Warwickshire, Spenser in Cockney, Ralegh in the broad Western English speech which he used, the future of English literature must have been very different, for it would have lacked a common language where all the thoughts and feelings of the English people could come together, add lustre to one another, and serve as a standard for one another.”

Glasgow sneered incomprehensibly, Edinburgh twanged nasally, and Aberdeen wore fuzzy boots.* The one language common to them all through radio, newspaper, and all the missives of empire, was English. He put it that Scots survived in nursery rhymes and “anonymous folk-song.” The old language as men lived in his time “expresses therefore only a fragment of the Scottish mind.” He made the case that the Scots, who already spoke English, needed to proceed in English in their literature. This made him very unpopular with Hugh MacDiarmid (M’Diarmid), whose “Lallan” movement, “Lallan” being a Scots pronunciation of “Lowlands,” was beating the curtains for kilts and cursing. Muir had no patience for nationalism.

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POETS Day! William Faulkner’s Go at Anachronism

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Illustrated by Rene Sears

[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

The lyrics to Lindsey Buckingham’s “Holiday Road” are

I found out long ago
It’s a long way down the Holiday Road

and

Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Take a ride on a West Coast kick

with the phrase “Holiday Road” thrown in repeatedly. The beat doesn’t change – bouncy bass and a metronomic drum with two guitar riffs that loop. One of the four lines he bothered to write was ripped from tradition; not even Mother Goose tried to claim that one as her own.

It’s not a lazy song. It’s colorful. An anthem for someone with places to go and a copy of Republican Party Reptile hidden under his mattress. And there’s a dog barking at the end.

It’s a POETS Day masterpiece. Piss Off Early, Tomorrow’s Saturday.

But first, some verse.

***

When I worked as a sommelier we’d get travelers from various patches of wine country all the time hocking wares and buying lunch. It was a pretty good gig for a lot of reasons, but the lunches in particular commended themselves. These travelers would be winemakers, owners, sons and daughters of owners, national or regional sales managers, whatever. They wanted their wine on my list and, like dimpled pharma reps feting doctors, they filled us full of food and booze, hosting myself and two or three like-employed at some of the city’s best spots.

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POETS Day! “Paul Revere’s Ride”

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[This entry is cross posted at ordinary-times.com]

It’s Independence Day on a Thursday, so I’ll assume there’s no need to encourage anyone to start the weekend early.

I read The Declaration of Independence to my children every July 4th and every time I start to choke up at “firm reliance.” It was the ruin of so many of them and the most consequential insistence of agency since Magna Carta. Children should hear it outside of class, hear that resolute voice of Jefferson, press that it’s not a special day because we get to see a fireworks show but that we get to see a fireworks show because it’s a special day.

I don’t know what other celebratory stuff we’ll get up to. I’m thinking about spatchcocking a chicken and cooking it on the grill, weighed down with a foil wrapped brick or two: salt, pepper, a bit of spicy paprika and served with grilled rounds of pineapple over a bed of mixed lettuces and herbs tossed with a red wine or champagne vinaigrette. Maybe some white beans. Hot dogs are the easy celebration ‘Merica food of choice. If you want to overly complicate things, my hot dog sauce recipe is here and only considerably more expensive though way more labor intensive than buying a pre-made store brand.

This week’s poem is a long one, so I’ll be short. Longfellow made myth out of truth, and I’ve not read anything better on his “Paul Revere’s Ride” than Dana Gioia’s essay “Henry Wadsworth Longfellow: On ‘Paul Revere’s Ride.’” Years ago, I accidentally plagiarized Gioia. It was a cut and paste accident that was corrected as quickly as possible once realized, but for a horrid five minutes or so I credited myself with one of his quotes instead of crediting myself for a paragraph from an older post I wrote that included one of his quotes with proper attribution. Despite hyper-attentiveness to error regarding the man, I’m not going to quote from his essay here. Gun shy. Follow the link and read the whole thing. It’s short and, as would be expected, edifying.

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