Leaves of Grass

150th Anniversary of Leaves of Grass. A good time for a Whitman-fest at the Virginia Quarterly Review. They are a subscription site, but many of the articles are free online.

From the intro by Ted Gennoway:

There's a manuscript in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia that I consider the most important single sheet of paper in American literary history. It doesn't look like anything so grandiose. In fact, it looks like little more than a scrap of paper with a few scrawled lines. There are words scratched out here and there in the penciled script, alternate words tried out, question marks inserted over uncertain choices, but the words could hardly be more significant:

The spotted hawk salutes the approaching night;
He swoops by me, and rebukes me hoarsely with his invitation;
He complains with sarcastic voice of my lagging
I feel apt to clip it and go;
I am not half tamed, yet.—

VQR's Whitman issue here. Their interesting gallery of Whitman photos here.

Theocracy?

I agree with Barone that you would think the Taliban had come to town, if you go by the headlines. It seems to me that it's all political scare tactics. When Dems like Clinton used Christian moral arguments to support a goal, no-one complained. When Repubs do the same, it's suddenly creeping theocracy.

Politicans tend to use "situational ethics". They want to win elections and keep their jobs. So if they apply religious moral principles, even if only as window-dressing, voters ought to be at least a bit pleased - not fearful. The real issue is that the Left is ticked off about the 23% evangelical voters who don't see the world their way, but they don't know how to deal with it and become shrill and hysterical and throw a tantrum. The message is that it's OK to appeal to unions, or the AARP, or the ACLU, or the NAACP, etc., but it's not OK to appeal to the views of voters who go to church. But 70% of voters go to church, believing or hoping that there is more to life than self-interest and materialism.

Barone:

"The real question is whether strong religious belief is on the rise in America and the world. Fifty years ago, secular liberals were confident that education, urbanization and science would lead people to renounce religion. That seems to have happened, if you confine your gaze to Europe, Canada and American university faculty clubs.

But this movement has not been as benign as expected: The secular faiths of fascism and communism destroyed millions of lives before they were extinguished.

America has not moved in the expected direction. In fact, just the opposite. Economist Robert Fogel's "The Fourth Great Awakening" argues that we've been in the midst of a religious revival since the 1950s, in which, as in previous revivals, "the evangelical churches represented the leading edge of an ideological and political response to accumulated technological and social changes that undermined the received culture." "  Read entire.

And an amusing piece on the subect that has been floating around the b-world by a Charlie Otto, via Borowitz Report:

"My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof,
fot the Lord reproves him who he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights."

Proverbs 3 (Solomon)

Tennis, Anyone?

We have all heard about "Club cows," but this is ridiculous. Story here. AP photo. I like the way he is gallantly jumping over the net to congratulate the winner. But why does the other seem to be yielding the field in a fearful manner?

CT Gays

Gay Patriot is pleased to see CT dealing positively with the civil union issue. Why should gays be insulated from the trials and tribulations of legally committed relationships? Share the joy! I know that Maggie's is not of one mind on the matter, but I'm the Bird Dog in Chief. It ain't "marriage." 

Street-Fighting in Iraq

An unclassified report from the field concerning small squad operations in Iraqi urban areas, with detailed tactical advice. Fascinating.

The Essential Rolling Stones

Hey you youth out there! Enough of that Jimi Hendrix stuff, and that semi-lame Jim Morrison. If you want to get familiar with the good stuff, the Brit blues guys really got a grip on white rockin blues. Too gritty and menacing to be pop. Despite the wonderful Yardbirds, the Stones take the cake. And they usually mix it up with some sweet ballads. As good as ZZ Top is, what would they be without the Stones?

As a lad, we heard the Stones before we latched onto the Beatles. Maybe it was just chance - we were the trendy bunch that used fake ID's to hit the hot NYC clubs during vacation, and it was our baby sisters who listened to the Beatles. Not that you could hear any of these guys in NY. (Soon, I will need to post my pop music essay.) LOVE The Beatles - everything they did in their very short, brilliant career. The Beatles were highly innovative pop, but the Stones rocked it nasty, which well-bred, mannerly kids got a big kick out of. Like the college kids today liking rap. At the time, we had not heard of Dylan yet - only the wierd granola folk-guitar kids had heard his first album - and we were all in love with Joanie Baez; we heard The Kingston Trio (Charlie on the MTA) and stuff like that as an alternative to the smarmy "greaser-pop" crap of the time (which I very much enjoy hearing now...once in a while..it's a bit one-dimensional). Motown didn't exist yet in our universe - that is another huge story. Still in love with Joanie's voice.

Gotta start with Out of Our Heads. The first Stones recording I heard. As I recall, I heard this before I ever heard Dylan. Man did it sound earthy and hard and real compared to the tripe on the radio, but I had never heard Muddy Waters or Howlin' Wolf or Robert Johnson. I would soon, and would finally become a Delta Blues fan. But they had studied those guys, and Chuck Berry too. Satisfaction, and The Last Time, and more good stuff.

Advance to 12X5, with the immortal Time is on My Side and It's All Over Now.

Like the Beatles, the Stones began with a lot of borrowed American songs but they used all that history as a foundation for their development and growth. It's still only 1965, but December's Children represents the real beginning of Jagger and Richard's song-writing. Get off Of My Cloud and Blue Turns to Grey. I understand that the Stones weren't fond of this album, but I was/am. It's an almost sentimental collection.

In 1966 came Aftermath, as the musicians took over from the businessmen. The UK version is much better than what I heard in my prep-school dorm in 1966. Think, Flight 505, the wonderful Under My Thumb. "Under my thumb, she's a siamese cat of a girl...."

On Between The Buttons - there are two versions of this album - the Stones came into their own, and began to claim their territory of blues-influenced edgy rock-pop. Ruby Tuesday was Beatle-ish, but Let's Spend the Night Together was fairly straight-forward Jagger & Richards. And it has Complicated, now used for TV ads. Relieved to know these guys aren't starving.

1969's Let It Bleed is my final Stones recommendation. Their masterpiece, with creepy stuff, druggy stuff, country stuff including my favorite Honky Tonk Women. Brian Jones died during this recording - I have no idea how Keith Richards has kept himself alive all these decadent years. Lucky. Same for Mick, I guess.

Since then we have had Jumpin Jack Flash and lots of other stuff, but this fine early stuff is what the Stones stand on today. Not one bit of this is old-fashioned.

Along the New England coast, we have mainly Common Terns, some Least Terns, some Roseate and some Forster's Terns if you can ID them, and some Arctic Terns passing through.

Tough to ID them, but their white secondaries are field-marks, plus their blood-red bill. These birds, like Peregrine Falcons, are the great travellers of the world, wintering in Antarctica and breeding in the Arctic. A 25,000-mile migration. I haven't seen one in years, but haven't looked for one either. Have seen them on Cape Cod, taking a rest on their way south.

Not too much known about these fine minnow-munchers, but read more here.

Photo courtesy of P. LaTourette.

"Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself."

Proverbs 26

"You cannot be too cynical to understand politics."

The Chairman, a Maggie's Farm contributor

A 1962 Farmall Model Super A.

A collector's item.

Dear Editor.

I feel offended by the Maggys posts about colleges, all the criticizing etc. It makes someone feel like they aren;t good enough if they didnt go to Harvard or UCONN or someplace fancy. I graduated college and I had a good job doing the books at a very important body shop in Waterbury but no benefits but they let me go for no reason even though I had a degree and I had to drive 6o miles to get there, and my mom paid for it by working OT at Kmart for 4 years plus her regular job in the school cafeterai with good benefits because a union job, plus financial aide from the State, and my Dad left for Vegas before they had Foxwoods many years ago, and now I can't find a job anywhere around here even though I'm not afraid of work. That farmer now he is a good guy and sounds like my gramps who was a chicken farmer and a turky farmer which are all big business now and not around here, and your blog is nice but lets get off this college thing. My whole family was very proud to have there first college grad and they had a big party about it at the Lithuanian Hall, and gramps drank some beer and gave a little speech about 3 genertions of Lithuanian farmers in Uncasville CT and now we finally had some education in the family and no more chicken-shit and dirt etc. and he said it in Lithuanian for the old ones and in English too, and about being ready to move to the city like Bridgeport or Boston or Providence or Worsester where the big money and important jobs are. Sorry if this is like a term paper.

Anonymus in Uncasville

Dear A in U:

I am sorry you feel that way. I do happen to know where Uncasville is, in eastern CT. Nice country. We don't want to disparage anyone, unless we do it on purpose. It sounds like college taught you to be easily offended, which is something they are specializing in these days. You sound like a fine young fellow, but a bit self-pitying, and your Mom is great, but it's not like 40 years ago when you could walk down to Wall Street with a freshly-minted degree and at least land a spot for life on the bond desk at Morgan Stanley. If you don't want to move away from your comfort zone in northern CT, then maybe you ought to consider something entrepreneurial or a franchise, etc.

Good luck to you,

Bird Dog

(note from BD: I think this email from Anon. illustrates exactly what is going on. Innocent kids like him get scammed into all sorts of expectations, while street-wise but unwise kids know they're just buying a piece of paper - but it looks better than no piece of paper. It's a damn shame. Soon, we will do a feature on college cheating and plagiarism, when we collect enough true stories to report.)

"My only regret in life is that I did not drink more champagne."

John Maynard Keynes

Never seen in New England! And never will be.

This Lilac-Breasted Roller, also known as the Rainbow Bird, photographed by Matt Grimes on the Savuti Channel in Botswana last month.

Bird photography is tough. Just try it. This is a very fine shot.

The Poetry Issue

The New Criterion's annual  poetry issue is out, covering Richard Wilbur, Eliot, Lord Rochester, etc.

And including a fine essay on Formalism by poet David Yezzi. Excerpt:

"Today, as I have said, it is not necessary to understand prosody at all in order to write a successful poem in English or to be a successful poet. Still, I can’t help wondering if the art isn’t made poorer by contemporary poets’ self-assured disregard of traditional verse technique. As Brander Matthews himself once famously said: “A gentleman need not know Latin, but he should have at least forgotten it.” Prosody is not far behind Latin in terms of its obsolescence, even within the specialized discipline of poetry. And this goes for readers and critics, as well as for poets."
Read entire here. 

Tour Review

Jon Pareles reviews Dylan's current tour: "His latest band, anchored as it has been since the early 1990's by Tony Garnier on bass, could turn "John Brown," his early-60's song about a shattered soldier, into banjo-picking Appalachian rock, and it could sashay through Mr. Dylan's Tin Pan Alley-flavored "Bye and Bye." It had a violinist, Elana Fremerman, who was joined for keening, soaring twin-fiddle passages by Donnie Herron in "Absolutely Sweet Marie." But its core was in the blues, with Denny Freeman playing jagged guitar solos, George Recile on drums making shuffle beats leap ahead, and the whole band, completed by Stu Kimball on guitar, finding new riffs behind old songs like "Masters of War" - almost a minor-key blues in its latest incarnation - or "All Along the Watchtower." With this band, Mr. Dylan's indictments became both pitiless and exhilarating."

Read entire review.

As you know, Bird Dog, in Vermont it is now Mud Season. They call it Spring down south. But we're just getting into a world of ---ing brown mud, and will be for a couple of months. Gotta be careful where I park my precious Fairlane - could be sucked under the mud by morning, unless there's a good frost. Got my shiny new black Wallmart wellies on every day, and about 50 times a day the mud tries to suck them off. Or does. My old pair had so much duct tape holding them together they looked like silver dancing shoes when I hosed em off, so I finally splurged on new. $19.99. Made in Thailand. But if I turn into a shopper, please shoot me. Well, too muddy to plow anything this early of course, still got standing water, but we got the equipment mostly tuned up and greased and ready to go. That Ford machine is burning oil like a -----, but life ain't never perfect, is it? When it burns as much oil as gas, I will worry. We'll do #1, #2, and #3 and #5 in silage corn as usual, but as I said we'll do #4 in red clover this year and give it a rest and fatten my venison and my turkeys. Plus the hay fields which I think are fairly good for this year, seeing as we redid a couple of them last year with timothy and they are beginning to green up nice. And no, those are not two fat bucks hanging in the dark corner of the barn - those are sheep - lamb. Somebody give em to me, I forget who. But no bear. Bad luck. Coulda had a few turkeys but who wants a body-shot turkey? Nobody.  And I think I see a bit of a rain leak in one of the silos. We may have to call Art the silo man down in Rutland. Seth says he can fix it. I doubt he can.

(note from Bird Dog - silage is the corn (maize to non-Americans) - stalks and all, that sort-of ferments in the solo and provides winter food for dairy cattle.)

In the lonely night
In the blinking stardust of a pale blue light
You're comin thru to me in black and white
Where we were made of dreams

You're blowin down the shakey street
You're hearing my heart beat
In the record breaking heat
Where we were born in time

Not one more night, not one more Kiss
Not this time, Babe, no more of this
Takes too much skill, takes too much will
It's too revealing

You came you saw, just like the law
You married young, just like your Ma
You tried and tried, you made me slide
You left me reelin with this feelin

from Born in Time, by Bob Dylan
Buy the book, buy the CD

Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day;
teach a man to fish, and he'll spend the rest of his life on boats drinking beer.

Anon.

Blogthings

Cool stuff. What Kind of English Do You Speak? I turned out 40% General American, 40% Yankee, and 10% Dixie. Try it. Plus their other entertaining quizzes.

Ernie Pyle's Death of the Captain

The great war correspondent, on Jan 10, 1944, here. With thanks to Michelle Malkin.

Style Wars

"Difficult art"? Spare me that condescension. I ain't stupid, and I'm not rich enough to be taken in by art industry hype. I like sporting art and I like Picasso, but if I could have one picture to look at daily, it would be a Cezanne. Any Cezanne. But conceptual art - gimme a break. Most of it could be said in one trite sophomoric sentence. And I did see Bouys, or however you spell it, live in Greenwich Village years ago. He wore a fedora and a raincoat, and seemed psychotic. James Panero previews the NY Art Fairs:

"Anti-aesthetics is the new aesthetic. Untraditional materials, styrofoam for one, stands in for technical innovation. While we once complained that “my kid could paint that,” now it’s a problem if your kid couldn’t paint it, stack it, bash it, eat it, heckle it, play it on his Gamecube, tune into it on the Spice Channel, or fingerpaint it in his sleep."

Nice, balanced piece here on the contemporary art scene - which means New York.

Political Style

And, speaking of style, Jay Cost has a good point here with which I strong agree. Style is important in national politics, and Hillary, for one, ain't got none. They used to say, in the old days, that people vote for the person they want in their living room every night - meaning on the MSM.

Walmart Style

How many times have you guys seen a sweet-lookin lady in the supermarket, and just longed to say hi, but chickened out? And how many times have you gals seen a single-looking hunk in the same place, and yet did nothing? Oh, man - the wasted opportunities in life. Big ouch. But finally, it seems, at least Walmart has made itself an official dating destination. Here.

The Truth, Finally

Read this! That smart Dartmouth boy John Hinderaker gets it. What the Left really wants, but cannot get via the ballot, so must get via the courts. No wonder the court issue is such a hot one - the Left wants the courts to run the country because they have given up on the voters. This from a recent Yale conference on the Constitution:

"It is time for progressives to set a constitutional agenda for the 21st Century. In 1987-88, the Reagan Justice Department produced a white paper known as "The Constitution in 2000" which, by taking a long view rather than focusing on the immediate issues of the day, was immensely successful in influencing the Constitution under which we now live. If progressives are to rehabilitate that Constitution, they must now, more than ever, articulate constitutional ideals capable of inspiring the next generation."

Note that it is a "constitutional agenda," not a legislative agenda. This is WRONG WRONG WRONG! If I had any slightest doubt about the rule change to end court-nominee filibusters, my doubts are now erased, sort-of, mostly...

John's essential piece here.

"The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter."

Winston Churchill