Friday, June 20, 2014

The Dog in Humble Inquiry Along the Ground, the Child Who Credits Dreams and Fears the Dark, Know More and Less Than You





That's new Yo La Tengo, serendipitously discovered yesterday as I planned some cascades by bands and artists in the Inner Most Circle of Bands and Artists That Rotate In and Out of the Two Non-Permanent Spots in My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game now that I'm fixated on My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game, what with the recent coup. Here are five of them.

Two unrelated to My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game updates for those who follow along despite updates to My Sillyass Deserted Island Five Game:

Earthgirl's leg is much improved. It is far less colorful, the bruise around her ankle is gone, and the sensation of a thousand bees stinging is down to a couple of hundred. She wouldn't have been hike-worthy this weekend, but we're booked socially this weekend - Saturday for her family, Sunday for mine.

Napoleon only has three months and twenty-two days in quarantine left! Still no sign of rabies. His hair that was shaved to fix the bite wound has grown back. He complains rarely. He's lovely.







  • The debate over the local helmetball team's nickname has exploded in DC over a recent court ruling. Iraq falling apart, Eric Cantor losing his power, the midterm elections and their impact on POTUS 16, the biggest political storm in DC is the helmetball team's nickname. Same game, different topping is all, the hate, people are gleeful. Fine metaphors, as always, abound.
  • Something you should know about DC: baseball's Nats, basketball's Bullets Wizards, ice soccer's Caps could all go undefeated through a season and the playoffs and win championships and the local Helmetball team, off a 3-13 season, would still be the only team in DC. This debate, it can't be avoided around here. 
  • Let me give you an unassailable truth about the Washington helmetball team's fight to retain the current nickname: no matter whether the name is changed or not, this will never be over, and the team will be referred to as The Redskins forever in and around DC even if the name is changed.
  • Me, I'm all about despising Tiny Daimon Snyder, fucking fuck. If the nickname debate is causing him grief, then yay. He's Tiny Daimon Snyder, fucking fuck.
















DOGS ARE SHAKESPEAREAN, CHILDREN ARE STRANGERS

Delmore Schwartz

Dogs are Shakespearean, children are strangers.
Let Freud and Wordsworth discuss the child,
Angels and Platonists shall judge the dog,
The running dog, who paused, distending nostrils,
Then barked and wailed; the boy who pinched his sister,   
The little girl who sang the song from Twelfth Night,   
As if she understood the wind and rain,
The dog who moaned, hearing the violins in concert.   
—O I am sad when I see dogs or children!
For they are strangers, they are Shakespearean.

Tell us, Freud, can it be that lovely children   
Have merely ugly dreams of natural functions?   
And you, too, Wordsworth, are children truly   
Clouded with glory, learned in dark Nature?   
The dog in humble inquiry along the ground,   
The child who credits dreams and fears the dark,   
Know more and less than you: they know full well   
Nor dream nor childhood answer questions well:   
You too are strangers, children are Shakespearean.

Regard the child, regard the animal,   
Welcome strangers, but study daily things,   
Knowing that heaven and hell surround us,   
But this, this which we say before we’re sorry,   
This which we live behind our unseen faces,   
Is neither dream, nor childhood, neither   
Myth, nor landscape, final, nor finished,   
For we are incomplete and know no future,   
And we are howling or dancing out our souls   
In beating syllables before the curtain:   
We are Shakespearean, we are strangers.



1 comment:

  1. Counter to my expectations, the second half of Colombia v. Ivory Coast was some of the best, most exciting futbol in recent memory—certainly the best half in the tourney so far. Wide open, passionate, up and down the field. Ya Ya Toure made maybe one of the most beautiful and perfect passes I've ever seen at one point, but his striker simply didn't have the chops to pop it in the net. I didn't have a horse in that race, but found myself completely enraptured. After that display, I can only hope the Ivory Coasters somehow manage to get through despite their loss.

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