Today’s xkcd:
[A secret message to my son: Ben, figurative language!]
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
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Michael Leddy“Orange Crate Art” is a song by Van Dyke Parks and the title of a 1995 album by Van Dyke Parks and Brian Wilson. “Orange Crate Art” is for me one of the great American songs: “Orange crate art was a place to start.”
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Nancy, October 19, 1950.
“Who are we as a country?”
Michael Leddy
Don’t look for premiums or
coupons, as the cost of
the thoughts blended in
ORANGE CRATE ART pro-
hibits the use of them.
Comments are welcome, appended to posts or by e-mail. I moderate comments to keep out spam, so please be patient.
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Words to live by
Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in the face of certain defeat.
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
*
Νέος ἐφ’ ἡμέρῃ ἥλιος. [The sun is new every day.]
Heraclitus
*
Every day is a new deal.
Harvey Pekar, “Alice Quinn”
*
Nos plus grandes craintes, comme nos plus grandes espérances, ne sont pas au-dessus de nos forces, et nous pouvons finir par dominer les unes et réaliser les autres. [Our worst fears, like our greatest hopes, are not outside our powers, and we can come in the end to triumph over the former and to achieve the latter.]
Marcel Proust, Finding Time Again
*
Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try.
Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living
*
I don’t really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of writers he loves, but it’s always nice, I’ll grant you, if he has one.
J.D. Salinger, Seymour: An Introduction
*
I’m not afraid to get it right
I turn around and I give it
one more try
Sufjan Stevens, “Jacksonville”
*
L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité. [Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.]
Simone Weil, in a letter
Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
*
Νέος ἐφ’ ἡμέρῃ ἥλιος. [The sun is new every day.]
Heraclitus
*
Every day is a new deal.
Harvey Pekar, “Alice Quinn”
*
Nos plus grandes craintes, comme nos plus grandes espérances, ne sont pas au-dessus de nos forces, et nous pouvons finir par dominer les unes et réaliser les autres. [Our worst fears, like our greatest hopes, are not outside our powers, and we can come in the end to triumph over the former and to achieve the latter.]
Marcel Proust, Finding Time Again
*
Surely, in the light of history, it is more intelligent to hope rather than to fear, to try rather than not to try.
Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living
*
I don’t really deeply feel that anyone needs an airtight reason for quoting from the works of writers he loves, but it’s always nice, I’ll grant you, if he has one.
J.D. Salinger, Seymour: An Introduction
*
I’m not afraid to get it right
I turn around and I give it
one more try
Sufjan Stevens, “Jacksonville”
*
L’attention est la forme la plus rare et la plus pure de la générosité. [Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.]
Simone Weil, in a letter
#1 hit
In memory of
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- Against “deep reading”
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- Things I learned on my summer vacation
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- What I hear in “Walk Away Renee”
Nancy, October 19, 1950.
comments: 5
It's likely that anyone interested has already discovered this Howard Moss parody, but just in case:
Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?
Who says you're like one of the dog days?
You're nicer. And better.
Even in May, the weather can be gray,
And a summer sub-let doesn't last forever.
Sometimes the sun's too hot;
Sometimes it's not.
Who can stay young forever?
People break their necks or just drop dead!
But you? Never!
If there's just one condensed reader left
Who can figure out the abridged alphabet,
After you're dead and gone,
In this poem you'll live on!
--- Howard Moss
Thanks for sharing that wonderful poem, Stefan. “People break their necks or just drop dead!” sounds so much like Frank O’Hara to me, though I’m not sure Moss would’ve taken that as a compliment.
About Moss and O’Hara, from a brief biography of James Schuyler: “Schuyler began writing seriously in the late 1940’s, but an important breakthrough in his career came in 1951. As a result of his correspondence with Howard Moss, Moss published Schuyler’s poem ‘Salute’, written in the hospital in White Plains, New York. Moss later published three of Schuyler’s short stories in the magazine Accent along with a poem entitled ‘Three Penny Opera’ by Frank O'Hara. At a party, Moss introduced Schuyler to Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery, who had been Moss’s schoolmates at Harvard. ”
Thanks, Michael. As you know, I have a weird affection for coincidence, and this one seems to fit the bill. I thought I detected a hint of O'Hara too, but I don't know anything really about Moss and hadn't yet found out. I'm happy that you like the poem and delighted to learn more about this connection. I sometimes get the impression that until, say, the late 70s, the poets all knew one another.
They really did. And the painters too.
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