… I think that people are the sum of their illusions,
That the cares that make them difficult to see
Are eased by distance, with their errors blending
In an intricate harmony, their truths abiding
In a subtle “spark” or psyche (each incomparable,
Yet each the same as all the others) and their
Disparate careers all joined together in a tangled
Moral vision whose intense, meandering design
Seems lightened by a pure simplicity of feeling,
As in grief, or in the pathos of a life
Cut off by loneliness, indifference or hate,
Because the most important thing is human happiness –
Not in the sense of private satisfactions, but of
Lives that realize themselves in ordinary terms
And with the quiet inconsistencies that make them real.
… [I]n the course of getting older,
And trying to reconstruct the paths that led me here,
I found myself pulled backwards through these old,
Uncertain passages, distracted by the details,
And meeting only barriers to understanding why the
Years unfolded as they did, and why my life
Turned out the way it has …
… Why did I think a person only distantly like me
Might finally represent my life? …
… The houses on a street, the quiet backyard shade,
The room restored to life with bric-a-brac—
I started by revisiting these things, then slowly
Reconceiving them as forms of loss made visible
That balanced sympathy and space inside an
Abstract edifice combining reaches of the past
With all these speculations, all this artful
Preening of the heart. I sit here at my desk,
Perplexed and puzzled, teasing out a tangled
Skein of years we wove together, and trying to
Combine the fragments of those years into a poem.
Who cares if life — if someone’s actual life — is
Finally insignificant and small? There’s still a
Splendor in the way it flowers once and fades
And leaves a carapace behind. There isn’t time to
Linger over why it happened, or attempt to make its
Mystery come to life again and last, like someone
Still embracing the confused perceptions of himself
Embedded in the past, as though eternity lay there —
For heaven’s a delusion, and eternity is in the details,
And this tiny, insubstantial life is all there is.
… It starts and ends
Inside an ordinary room, while in the interim
Brimming with illusions, filled with commonplace
Delights that make the days go by, with simple
Arguments and fears, and with the nervous
Inkling of some vague, utopian conceit
Transforming both the landscape and our lives,
Until we look around and find ourselves at home,
But in a wholly different world. And even those
Catastrophes that seemed to alter everything
Seem fleeting, grounded in a natural order
All of us are subject to, and ought to celebrate…
******************
From “Falling Water,” by John Koethe
One Art
The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster…
Elizabeth Bishop
Bethesdan UD turns to our Nobel laureate, Bob Dylan, as she grapples with a new, rabidly anti-Bethesda, world.
*******************
Stuck Inside of ‘thesda with the Memphis Blues Again
[Sing it]
Breibart tried to tell me
To stay away from the lame stream
He said that all the media
Just keeps me in the same dream
An’ I said, “Oh, I didn’t know that
And now we’ve got this president
Who just smoked my eyelids
An’ punched my cigarette.”
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of ‘thesda
With the Memphis blues again
Trump won last night
He’s got us in a lock
Now everybody talks about
How badly they were shocked
In ‘thesda, when it happened
We knew we’d lost control
So we built a fire on Main Street
And shot it full of holes
Oh, Mama, can this really be the end
To be stuck inside of ‘thesda
With the Memphis blues again
Needed to get some air; needed to be somewhere other than in front of a screen. The dog was thrilled; we almost never take evening walks.
The air was cool and fresh. Nothing like a clear autumn night. All of the lights were on in my neighbors’ houses as they stared at the same screen I’d had to escape.
Would they, I wondered, drift out onto the street after the election was officially called? The way some people take a night walk at midnight on New Year’s?
I walked by the Trocki house and saw them in their living room, the television brightly shining… I felt like knocking on their door and joining them, just being sociable with them…
May you live in interesting times. An ancient Chinese curse.
“Look at it this way,” said Mr UD. “The housing market will collapse. But we just sold the Cambridge house.” Yes. Got in under the wire there.
Could it be that the United States, unlike so many other countries, is still not ready for a woman president?
After walking up and down Rokeby Avenue, my dog and I headed for the woodland paths in my backyard. But as she suddenly strained at the leash, I realized that a herd of deer had probably bedded down in the high grass, and we’d be wise to avoid them. So I headed back to the front garden, and then to the front door. How does Katherine Ann Porter’s somber story “Pale Horse Pale Rider” conclude? “Now,” the narrator bitterly announces…
there would be time for everything.
Yes, the evening’s gotten bad enough for UD to haul out the Kipling.
And meanwhile where is it written that UD gets to have everything she wants to have? Your always absurdly privileged blogeuse would like to live in a country that elects not only Barack Obama but also Hillary Clinton; but she doesn’t always get everything she likes.
… nation.
*******
UD thanks her cousin Karen for the link.
… Tinpot nihilists the world over hold their breath for a Trump win.
Scoot in close, kiddies, while we remind ourselves why UD‘s Beware the B-School Boys category gets one of the most strenuous workouts on this blog. Here’s one Professor Horsky, who for more than twenty years both taught bright-eyed b-school boylets and girlets at the University of Rochester how to do business, and at the same time defrauded the United States government of hundreds of millions of dollars.
Horsky faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison. As part of his plea deal, he paid a $100 million penalty. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 10.
I gave you all that fucking money so leave me the fuck out of jail!
And no – in answer to your question… Not one person at Rochester for two decades ever experienced one scintilla of suspicion that one of their professors was a spectacular financial criminal. Not one person. They were totally blindsided by this.
“The University of Rochester and Simon Business School had no knowledge of the situation involving professor emeritus Daniel Horsky, and fully support the judicial process in this case going forward.”
Yeah. Wouldn’t want the IRS sniffing around, wondering why this person retains his emeritus status and all that. They’re still boasting about him! It is kind of strange.
Scrutiny of [a close associate of South Korean President Park Geun-hye] resurfaced in recent weeks due to questions about her daughter, Chung Yoo-ra, who was accepted to an elite women’s college called Ewha University. Her admission raised eyebrows since the university reportedly gave her extra credit for achievements in dressage, or competitive horse dancing. Ewha’s president resigned amid the allegations of preferential treatment.
… You’re gonna wanna to grab that pussy without a lot of politically correct nonsense preventing you from saving a life.”
Bill Maher helps UD get through the week.