Test Post #2

Today is Tuesday, August 15, 2006 1:09 p.m.

Testing Testing

Is this on? Is this right? Is this going where it's supposed to go?

In Memoriam - 226,870

"Let all the souls here rest in peace, for we shall not repeat the evil."

Musee des Beaux Arts by W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.

(painting: Bruegel, Pieter, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, c. 1558, Oil on canvas, mounted on wood, 73.5 x 112 cm, Musees Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique, Brussels)

A poem about a painting! How wonderful!

Although the poem is not strictly about the painting, of course. The painting is but an example of the feeling that the poem is trying to convey. That life is big, huge, gigantic and that things balance out somehow. That we can somehow continue, when so much suffering surrounds us.

This is a good thing. This is not good.

But what else can we do? How else are we to respond to suffering, to rockets and bombs falling today across the world on innocents? How am I to face one more day walking by the women who sit outside the homeless center, one whose own face she constantly rubs raw, the other in a wheelchair and who has enormous swollen legs?

So we can blot it out, when we need to.

And the poem rhymes, by the way. You may not notice, but it does. You may not notice because the rhyme scheme is like abca dedb fgfg e hh ijkkij. I can't offhand think of another poem with that same scheme. Heh.

When I'd been thinking about featuring poetry in this space, this was one on the top of the list, along with Yeats's Irish Airman, or anything Wilfred Owen but especially Dulce et Decorum Est, or what will probably be next, In Tenebris II by Thomas Hardy.

Happy Birthday, Paul!

Born this day, in 1962, minutes after his brother Andrew. I met Paul via Crown Books and Bruce Springsteen, in 1984. I know that Joe and Gordon were somehow involved, where Paul was connected somehow to Joe and I was connected to Gordon. I don't really remember how, exactly, anymore. Doesn't so much matter.

Paul and I went camping together in the summer of 1998, to the Great Smoky Mountains, in Tennesse and North Carolina. We drove out to Skyline Drive, down that to the Blue Ridge Parkway, all the way down to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We stayed a couple night at Cosby campground in Tennesee, then another couple nights in Balsam Mountain in North Carolina. Paul was a great companion to have, being the expert birder that he is. He most famously spotted a magnificent hawk while we were driving this puke-y windy road.

Paul kept pages and pages of a journal on that trip, and I have a copy of those pages somewhere. And there were some pictures taken as well. (The above picture was not taken on that trip, obviously. I need to find a picture from the park and post it here, in lieu of the one above that I stole borrowed from his brother's website.) I think maybe some blog entries, or maybe a separate blog, would be a good way to feature that trip. We'll see.

I love Paul dearly and don't see him nearly enough. He lives in Nashville now, having moved out there for a job. Someday maybe he'll move back east.

New Kickball Season

ASH Kickers have our first game of the fall season. Yes, the fall season, starting in early August. But it does in fact run into October, so we'll accept the description. But it is so hot, hot, hot today, reaching 99° in the afternoon, down to about 96° at game time.

We actually get our shirts on the first day this time, albeit only some of our shirts. A box lost in the mail somewhere, is what we're told. This season we're stylish black, as opposed to last season's abominable tan. I'd prefer a bright color, but I'll take black over tan.

Kevin arrives via bicycle. I'm so very glad he's joining us, as we needed male bodies for the field, and he is single, attractive, gainfully employed, and quite personable and charming, so thus a great catch for any girl with any sense. Kate shows up as well, returning to the team even though no longer working for ASH. It's good to see her and to catch up.

We actually win the game, although it's close. Again I play catcher and master of ceremonies. Seems like everyone on the Postmasters of the Universe gets up to bat (kick?) at least three times. And, despite league rules deeming such behavior officially douchebag, the Postmasters have guys who do indeed bunt.

We have only one minor dustup, where one of the newer ASH Kickers makes a minor mistake but gets very flustered and upset. I myself get a little worked and gruff around the same time, so I worry maybe I've said something loud or otherwise out of turn in anger. But I talk to her later and am cleared of any wrongdoing. Had nothing to do with me.

We head to Irish Times after the game, Elisa and Gill staying behind to ref the following game. Kate wants to travel by way of stopping by the MLK Library to drop off some books, declaring that it's only two blocks out of our way. She's nuts, of course, as it's many blocks out of our way. Kevin quite graciously offers to take the books back on his back and meet us at the bar. And in fact he still arrives before we do, snagging us a good table.

I generally have some trouble hearing conversation, what with the music being cranked so loud. It's mostly eighties hits, unfortunately, including an abominable Journey song, to which all the kids seeem to know the words. But I end up talking for a minute with an utter cupcake from the Parc Vista Ballers, who sit at the adjoining table. Her name is Ally, she's 25 and works for the State Department doing some sort of editing on their website. She and Kevin and I discuss digital cameras, as mine is getting old and won't take pictures now in dim light.

Kevin and I leave after about an hour or so, before the flip-cup games begin. We catch the 96 bus at Union Station, stashing Kevin's bike on the front rack of the bus. We worry while waiting for the bus that it's going to be complicated getting the bike secured, but it turns out to be pretty easy. Arriving at home Kevin turns to go down the alley to his back gate, and we talk a few minutes to Clarence's brother, who is just leaving, and is a little drunk.

More Words

So I had noted, in a post in June, the number of words per month that I'd been producing. Here's a little update.

Word counts, by month:

January - 8,059
February - 8,210
March - 12,940
April - 23,614
May - 20,583
June - 18,027
July - 11,304

Clearly I peaked in April.

Actually, They Are Asking

I asked last Thursday, what about the rest of the world. Well, what if they asked?

BEIRUT, July 31 (Reuters) - Israel rejected mounting international pressure on Monday to end its war against Hizbollah and launched a new incursion into Lebanon, as world powers squabbled over the urgency of a ceasefire.

Seems maybe Israel won't listen to them either.

Not that they necessarily should, mind you. Israel's in a pretty rough neighborhood, where ain't nobody else looking out for their interests but they themselves. Although in general we, the U.S., have got their back.

And also note that "international pressure" is a tad vague, without quite the same weight as a resolution from the Security Council. Although how much weight, really, do UN resolutions carry, especially when the United States doesn't especially want to commit troops to their enforcement? Compare Resolution 242, say, to one like 678.

Crazy Upside-Down War

Don't know what to say or do, but asymetrical warfare sure is weird.

Hezbollah shoots off rockets willy-nilly into Israel, trying to kill civilians, but the majority of Israeli dead are soldiers. Israel ostensibly practices more modern warfare, but has killed mostly civilians, apparently hundreds.

Awful.

From the Washington Post:

Death Toll since June 25
Lebanon: 519 total, mostly civilians
Israel: 51 total, 18 civilians