Here's Valentine Ballantyne in his skivvies. Val was made (by me) about 1985. He and his dog Jerry are in for the first fitting of their new Christmas outfits. Val complains about my sewing, says I never get the sleeves right. That's his old Valentine's Day suit in the background, and on his poor old bald noggin. He has a point with his complaints; seems his boots make him look like he has two left feet. I said if he'd be sensible like Jerry and just wear a bow around his neck, maybe I could do a better job.
Shakespeare's Sonnets tell the story of his life.
#76
Why is my verse so barren of new pride,
So far from variation or quick change?
Why, with the time, do I not glance aside
To new-found methods and to compounds strange?
Why write I still all one, ever the same,
And keep invention in a noted weed,
That every word doth almost tell my name,
Showing their birth, and where they did proceed?
O know, sweet love, I always write of you,
And you and love are still my argument;
So all my best is dressing old words new,
Spending again what is already spent;
For as the sun is daily new and old,
So is my love, still telling what is told..jpg)
#94
(I don't know this one by heart, but it tells his name. It's the only one of 154 sonnets that contains all the letters of his name in order--his usual signature. All the letters of his first name are counted from the left; all the letters of his last name are counted from the right. I presented this at an Oxford Shakespeare Society convention in Atlanta or Washington DC, I forget which. The poem doesn't make much sense, except that it tells his name.) Drawing by me, from a portrait of the Earl of Oxford.
ThEy that have power to hurt and will do none,
That Do not do the thing they most do show,
Who moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, And to temptation slow;
They Rightly do inherit Heaven's graces,
AnD husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and Owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their eXcellence;
The summer's flower is to the summer sweEt
Though to itself it only live aNd die;
But if that flower with base inFection meet,
The basest weed Outbraves his dignity:
For sweetest things turn sourest by theiR deeds:
Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeDs.
I had a most interesting dream last night. Somehow I had won a bit part in an Elvis movie, but it was a very special bit part--the Elvis character was supposed to receive some very good news which made him so happy, he kissed the girl standing nearest him--which was me. I must have been about 33 years old, because that's how old Elvis--who never paid the least attention to me--looked.
It was a long, complicated dream, mostly having to do with the crew quarters which consisted of a large warehouse-looking building. The interiors were windowless, all done in tile and metal and fluorescent lighting, so clean and spotless I wondered if we were going to eat off the floor. In addition to my bit part in the movie, I was responsible for the props, which were continually being delivered at the back of the building.
Anyway, when it came time to film The Kiss, I was as nervous and fluttery as a hummingbird. The director and star and other people were standing around joking and laughing, and I was standing on my mark. The director yelled "Lights!" and I closed my eyes. Then a pair of skinny arms closed around me, and a really revolting mouth closed over about half of my face. Somehow there I felt the gap of a missing tooth. I stepped back, opened my eyes, and beheld a grinning old geezer in a suit completely covered in rhinestones. He even had glitter in his sparse, fuzzy white hair.
I looked around, and Elvis and the crew were talking and laughing with their backs to me.
"My gosh," I thought, "they sent in the stunt man."
*
Anyhow, I've got to get dressed and go mail a book.
All week I thought I was making so much progress--sold a couple of books, got all my bills paid and ordered an area rug for the living room, and faced the resulting semi-poverty bravely. Then yesterday I decided it was too cold for Mo to have to go outside, so I fixed him a privy in the bathroom--and in the process of all this activity, the rooms look like a tornado came in the front door and got caught somewhere in the center of the house. Oh, well, I've coped before, and no doubt I'll cope again.
Mo has got so old, all he wants to do is lie in my lap and sleep. Yesterday, the last time he went outside, he didn't come in right away. I called and called, and finally found him camped out in the basement. He had to be coaxed up the stairs, one step at a time. If I should find him asleep and not breathing, what will I do?
Thanks to economist Henry George for the title of this post. He wrote a great book, which I guess has done a lot of good in this country. Still, I think it takes a lot more now to live close to the poverty line than it did in 1867 when the book came out.
"Insatiable Curtiosity," as Cousin Rudyard called it, can get one into trouble. It can also lead to higher learning, but that doesn't concern us right now. Anyway, yesterday my oft-piqued curiosity about Facebook led me to sign up for the danged thing, whatever it is. I just followed the Steps 1, 2, 3, 4, claiming to be a friend of every name that I recognized. Now I've received 2-3 emails accepting me as a friend, so many thanks to each. I'm going to reply to each email with the gist of this post, when they stop coming in.
The "gist" is that I don't intend to lecture, inspire, comfort, console or try to reform anyone on Facebook. If I post anything, it's most likely to be a far-fetched non sequitur.
"Gist" is one of the ugliest words I've ever seen/heard. Must be Anglo-Saxon or Old French. You'd be amazed at how often I have to consult the dictionary about a word. I wish everyone else would do the same; that would make my life warmer and cozier. I wish all liberal arts colleges would add a required course called "Dictionary." Or is there such a thing as a liberal arts college (or course) any more?
*
I slept off-and-on from about 6:00 p.m. yesterday until 3 p.m.-something this afternoon. When I woke up, I immediately scribbled a title and complete outline for a new chapbook. And I'm feeling like me again, after my ninth cup of coffee (slight exaggeration).
Nothing fancy. I just slivered some baby carrots in a casserole, added 1/2 cup of water and a pat of butter, and microwaved it for 10 minutes. Then I added a cup of Campbell's cream of chicken soup and a cup of water, stirred it up and added some black pepper and heated it again for about five minutes. I didn't eat crackers with mine, because they would have defeated the taste of the carrots. Mmmm, good supper last night.
I'm reading The Poems and Fairy Tales of Oscar Wilde. I love Oscar Wilde, and I think it's a shame the way he was treated in Great Britain. I'm glad he left there permanently when they let him out of prison. One of my favorite quotations from O.W. is, "It is what you read when you don't have to, that determines what you will be when you can't help it." It seems to be partly true, and completely free of his usual sarcasm or irony.
I know that I'm always starting projects and not finishing them, or planning projects and never beginning them. But this time, Mama means it! I'm going to start today making Christmas outfits for all my dolls, or as many as possible. I own about 50 or 60 (every time I count them I get a different number), so maybe I can dress at least half of them, the larger ones, before Christmas. I'm also planning to have snow for Christmas, one way or another.
This is my 1935 Madame Alexander "Baby Pinkie." She was born just a year after I was, but has aged much better. I'm thinking a christening gown for her, and a knitted or crocheted blankie.
Thank goodness, the book doesn't dwell on the pie but on the Society members. I never would have picked up this book to read based on the cutesy title alone. But again thank goodness, whoever the October Book Club hostess is, she chose it for this Friday's meeting. It's one of the best books I've read this year.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows, is an "epistolary" novel, consisting entirely of letters from and to the protagonist, author Juliet Ashton. It concerns the WWII German invasion and occupation of England's channel islands, specifically the isle of Guernsey. Even more vividly than Ursula Heigi's Stones From the River, it underscores the existence of that era's bad Germans and good Germans. The book is full of humor and romance, as well as tragedy, and is a thoroughly delightful reading experience.
I feel blessed lately with an abundance of good books to read. In addition to the Guernsey..., Anya Seton's The Turquoise, William Barrett's The Shape of Illusion, and The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernan; all are worth rereading someday when one doesn't have anything new to read.
Heavenly Powers by Neil Silberman is fascinating, and for some reason also disturbing. Others may disagree, but I don't recommend it, as it tends to disarrange some aspects of the mind if one doesn't concentrate on a fixed object. I shake my head.
Added Monday, Oct. 12: Cindy has withdrawn Chucky from the contest. The weekly winners are getting votes in the thousands--though how they can do that we can't figure out. I think Chucky's high numbers were between 100-200.
My friend Cindy in Arizona has entered her miniature Schnauzer in a "cutest dog" contest, online. If he gets the most votes in a week, he wins $500. If he is a runner-up in the contest, which ends Thanksgiving Day, he'll get $5000. If he should by any luck win the grand prize, it is one puredee million $U.S. Prizes are awarded on number of votes. Here's the link. If you don't want to vote for Chucky, you can at least look at the dog photos, or even vote for a dog you like better. http://www.cutestdogcompetition.com/gallery.cfm
And here's Lucky Chucky.
My sisters could enter their little friends in this contest. If I had a dog, I could enter him or her, and I bet we'd win.
If Chucky wins anything, Cindy plans to divide it among her large extended family of relatives. Good plan. If Ramey and Susan enter Gretchen and Sophie, and happen to win, I hope they'll consider adopting that plan.
Not really doing it on purpose, but for 3 days (including today), all I want to eat is oatmeal. Quaker Old Fashioned. With raisins. No sugar, no milk, no butter. It sounds healthy enough, I think. I still eat my Cheerios with skim milk for breakfast (when I think about it), but the rest of the day it's oatmeal. Go figure. At least it's healthier than Ball Park franks.
Why can't we be sensible, plan our meals or at least the kinds of meals we need, and then carry out the plan? (Read "I" for "we.") Must be because we aren't built that way. I can write plans and lists all day, or for an hour a day, or occasionally. But the execution part comes hard, very hard. Making all those plans tires me out. It's like planning a book or story or poem before I write it. The result falls into the "ho hum" category, and the "why did I bother?" bucket.
I'm not complaining--remember, I pledged not to complain any more this year. Just telling it the way it is.
