Autumnal Auth

~ Posting eight days late ~
In conjuction with the Autumnal Equinox.

FALL ARRIVES
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

This tribute to Tony Auth
is drawn from two previous Quotidian Posts:
Equinox: Growing Darkness
and September Morn

No one could capture the arrival of fall quite like Pulitzer Prize - winning American cartoonist Tony Auth (1942 - 2014). When we lived in Philadelphia, it was always a treat to open the Inquirer around this time of year and see how Auth would capture the end of season. Always humorous, yet poignant, Auth knew how to convey that keen sense of sadness that comes with leaving the shore and returning to school, not merely because the fun is over but, more significantly, because life is urging us on at its own pace, not ours.

As C. S. Lewis writes in The Screwtape Letters: "The humans live in time, and experience life successively. To experience much of it . . . they must experience change." Thus, Lewis explains, God has given us the seasons, which strike a balance between our need for change and our longing for permanence: "each season different yet every year the same. . . . always felt as a novelty yet always as the recurrence of an immemorial theme."*

Here are a few more end of summer Auth favorites that I have been saving in my scrapbook for many years. I appreciate Auth's implication that in addition to the inevitability of seasonal change, a bit of each season is always lying just beneath the surface of every other season as well (click on each cartoon here and above to enlarge for details):



As my Grand-dad Lindsey always used to say
on the First of September:
"September morn
when the woodbine twineth
and the whacky - doodle mourneth."

~ This Google Doodle captures the spirit! ~

Around this time of year,
my brother Bruce always reminds me to listen to
*Mother Earth and Father Time
from the animated Charlotte's Web
~ sung by Debbie Reynolds ~

I think you'll find that the "immemorial theme"
of the song matches right up with
Tony Auth's drawings and the C. S. Lewis passage.

Lines Written in the Days of Growing Darkness

Every year we have been
witness to it: how the
world descends

into a rich mash, in order that
it may resume.
And therefore
who would cry out

to the petals on the ground
to stay,
knowing, as we must,
how the vivacity of what was is married

to the vitality of what will be?
I don’t say
it’s easy, but
what else will do

if the love one claims to have for the world
be true?
So let us go on

though the sun be swinging east,
and the ponds be cold and black,
and the sweets of the year be doomed.

by Mary Oliver (b 1935)
Contemporary American Poet
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry, 1984
Most recently: Swan: Poems and Prose Poems, 2010

this poem found in The New York Times, 5 November 2010

Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, September 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Late Summer Cranes

CRANES FLYING TOGETHER
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

The Cranes

We thought they were gulls at first,
while they were distant-
The two cranes flying out of a natural morning,
They circled twice about our house and sank,
Their long legs drooping, down over the wood.
We saw their wings flash white,
Frayed at the black tip,
And heard their harsh cry, like a rusty screw.

Down in the next field, shy and angular,
They darted their long necks in the grass for fish.
They would not have us close, but shambled coyly,
Ridiculous, caught on the ground. Yet our fields
Under their feet became a fen: the sky
That was blue July became watery November,
And echoing with the cries of foreign birds.

By Anne Ridler

The Sandhills

The language of cranes
we once were told
is the wind. The wind
is their method,
their current, the translated story
of life they write across the sky.
Millions of years
they have blown here
on ancestral longing,
their wings of wide arrival,
necks long, legs stretched out
above strands of earth
where they arrive
with the shine of water,
stories, interminable
language of exchanges
descended from the sky
and then they stand,
earth made only of crane
from bank to bank of the river
as far as you can see
the ancient story made new.

By Linda Hogan

The Flight

We are two eagles
Flying together
Under the heavens,
Over the mountains,
Stretched on the wind.
Sunlight heartens us,
Blind snow baffles us,
Clouds wheel after us
Ravelled and thinned.

We are like eagles,
But when Death harries us,
Human and humbled
When one of us goes,
Let the other follow,
Let the flight be ended,
Let the fire blacken,
Let the book close.

by Sara Teasdale
Also Flight & Flight & Faults

~ Wedgwood Bell Kutani Crane ~

And this song:
Cranes Flying South
Sung by Petula Clark (b. 1932)

The dew in your hair
The rain on a river
The cold morning air
And cranes flying south

We ran through the trees
And into the valley
And stood on the breeze
Like cranes flying south

To leave the world behind us
The coldness of despair
The chains that try to bind us
Will vanish in the air

So touch me again
And drink at the fountain
Then over the mountain
Like cranes flying south . . .

Next Fortnightly Post ~ Celebrating the Autumnal Equinox
Monday, September 22nd

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

At the Clavier

THE CLAVIER
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~
Clavier = a variety of keyboard instruments,
including harpsichords, pianos, organs, and virginals.

The Music Lesson (c. 1662–1665)
aka Woman Seated at a Virginal
aka Lady at the Virginals with a Gentleman

by Johannes Vermeer (1632 - 1675)
Vermeer's "The Music Lesson"
explained by Meryl Streep

This post contains all of Goethe's suggestions for a good day:
"One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song,
read a good poem, see a fine picture
and, if possible, speak a few reasonable words."

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749 – 1832) ~

Firstly, a fine picture -- as seen above & below:

Susanna and the Elders (1751)
by Pompeo Batoni (1708 – 1787)

and to follow -- a little song,
a good poem, a few reasonable words.

Secondly, the song:
Click to hear
"The Well-Tempered Clavier" (1722)
by J. S. Bach (1685 - 1750)
explained by Karen Rile


Thirdly, the poem:
A hard one to grasp back in the 1970s, and still
many mysteries of perception to grapple with

Peter Quince at the Clavier
I
Just as my fingers on these keys
Make music, so the self-same sounds
On my spirit make a music, too.

Music is feeling, then, not sound;
And thus it is that what I feel,
Here in this room, desiring you,

Thinking of your blue-shadowed silk,
Is music. It is like the strain
Waked in the elders by Susanna:

Of a green evening, clear and warm,
She bathed in her still garden, while
The red-eyed elders, watching, felt

The basses of their beings throb

In witching chords, and their thin blood

Pulse pizzicati of Hosanna.

II
In the green water, clear and warm,
Susanna lay.
She searched
The touch of springs,
And found
Concealed imaginings.
She sighed,
For so much melody.

Upon the bank, she stood
In the cool
Of spent emotions.
She felt, among the leaves,
The dew
Of old devotions.

She walked upon the grass,
Still quavering.
The winds were like her maids,
On timid feet,
Fetching her woven scarves,
Yet wavering.

A breath upon her hand
Muted the night.
She turned--
A cymbal crashed,
And roaring horns.

III
Soon, with a noise like tambourines,
Came her attendant Byzantines.

They wondered why Susanna cried
Against the elders by her side;

And as they whispered, the refrain
Was like a willow swept by rain.

Anon, their lamps' uplifted flame
Revealed Susanna and her shame.

And then, the simpering Byzantines,
Fled, with a noise like tambourines.

IV
Beauty is momentary in the mind —
The fitful tracing of a portal;
But in the flesh it is immortal.

The body dies; the body's beauty lives,
So evenings die, in their green going,
A wave, interminably flowing.
So gardens die, their meek breath scenting
The cowl of Winter, done repenting.
So maidens die, to the auroral
Celebration of a maiden's choral.

Susanna's music touched the bawdy strings
Of those white elders; but, escaping,
Left only Death's ironic scrapings.

Now, in its immortality, it plays
On the clear viol of her memory,
And makes a constant sacrament of praise. (1915)

by Wallace Stevens (1879 – 1955)
Set to music: by Dominick Argento


Fourthly, a few reasonable words
from blogger Ira Fader,
bringing Stevens' poem into the 21st Century


Fifthly, fun - fact movie tie - in:

In Galaxy Quest, Tim Allen's character plays a character named Peter Quincy Taggart. That character is named after the character from Midsummer Night's Dream, Peter Quince, who was the leader of an incompetent acting troupe made of skilled laborers.

Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, August 28th

Between now and then, read ~ more Stevens on FN & QK
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Happy Birthday Anyway

~ Posting slightly early ~
In honor of Victoria Amador's birthday!

ECSTATIC EMILY
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Nope! Not exactly!
Unfortunately, a latter - day writer -- not Emily! --
has faked the second half of this quotation
and attributed the entire passage to Dickinson.

I could tell you the whole story,
but this wise blogger already
figured it out TWENTY (20!) years ago!

I only happened to notice it this summer
when I purchased an appealing birthday card
and wanted to verify the original poem or letter
in which these words first appeared.

The Wrong Way
Don't be fooled!
Apparently, even "Brainy Quote" is not always so brainy:

The Right Way

As you can see, Dickinson's intended message has more of an edge than the late 20th C feel - good re-write. It is a poem of warning, and nowhere does Dickinson use the word "ecstatic." She advises the reader: be ready or you'll miss your chance!

Poem #1055
The Soul should always stand ajar
That if the Heaven inquire
He will not be obliged to wait
Or shy of troubling Her

Depart, before the Host have slid
The Bolt unto the Door —
To search for the accomplished Guest,
Her Visitor, no more —

Additional Misattributions

As I keep asking my friend Victoria
~ whose birthday we celebrate today! ~
"Is nothing sacred?"

Or must we perpetually fall from innocence,
no matter how old we grow?

Perhaps the answer to that question is "yes,"
and perhaps it always has been,
which is why Dickinson says:

"We turn not older with years,
but newer every day."

All we can do is the make the best of it,
and have a Happy Birthday Anyway!
Next Fortnightly Post
Thursday, August 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Not Older With the Years
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

America, Give Me Strength

MOTHER AMERICA
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Mother America (1973)
"Mother America is not to be taken lightly.
Her sword vouches for that.
But the justice she dispenses is equal for all.
She has a very precise scale with which to measure it."

Painting & commentary by
Oscar de Mejo (1911 - 1992)

America

Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate,
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand. (1921)

By Claude McKay (1889 – 1948)
Jamaican-American writer and poet,
shocked by the intense racism he encountered
upon arriving in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1912.

In the spirit of Claude McKay's America:
gazing "darkly . . . into the days ahead,"
here is Batch Five of my awareness - raising
"living with dementia" reminders
[Also posted on The Quotidian Kit]

1.

Living with dementia and planning
to replace criminal justice with deportation:

" . . . many of them were born in our country. I think we ought to get them the hell out of here too, you want to know the truth. So, maybe that'll be the next job that we'll work on together."

2.

Drawing by Banksy

Living with dementia and repeatedly repeating
misinformation like a broken record:

April 20:
We had many murderers, 11,888, they think."
["they" = Trump]

"July 1 [and July 3]:

"Every day, our brave law enforcement officers are hunting down and deporting migrant criminals who have committed heinous crimes, including more than 13,000 murderers -- 11,888 to be exact, but I'd probably say the 13,000 is right also."

Well, which is it?
First of all, neither number is correct;
and second of all 11,888 is NOT more than 13,000.

Trump has been obsessing stupidly about this, since mid - April; he has repeated these fake figures at least 17 times since then, even though it has been fact - checked numerous times and shown to be a wildly inaccurate and "gross misreading of the available data."

3.

Living with dementia and self - fulfilling prophecy:

"We had a man as president who shouldn't have been there.
You know that. He shouldn't have been there."

4.

Guess what? Not the path to a Nobel Peace Prize:

"But I hate them too. You know that.
So, it's sort of, I hate, I really do. I hate them..."

5.

Living with dementia and making preposterous comparisons:

"I said -- they said, you know, sir, you're gonna go down as one of the greatest presidents ever. I said, really? No. I said, really? I said, better than Washington. They said, yes, sir. I said, better than honest, Abe Lincoln. They said, yes, sir."

6.

Illustration from SpongeBob Square Pants

Living with dementia and can't read charts:

"And I think, uh, I can say very proudly, and I don't have to quote the polls, that our country is more proud right now than it's been in many, many years. We have pride. We have dignity."

Oh really? Is it Opposite Day?

7.

Living with dementia and can't stop harping about old news:

Obsessing stupidly about this
since at least 2019

"You have a shower head, the shower doesn't -- you think it's not working, it is working, the water is dripping out and that's no good for me, I like this hair nice and -- I like that hair nice and wet. Takes you -- you have to stand in the shower for 20 minutes before you get the soap out of your hair. And I put a thing in, and it sounds funny, but it's really not -- it's horrible. And when you wash your hands, you turn on the faucet and no water comes out. You're washing and the water barely comes out, it's ridiculous. This was done by crazy people, and I wrote it all off and got it approved in Congress so that they can't just change it because I did it in my first term. Everyone was so happy."

8.

Living with dementia and ignoring the EPA:

"Do you have any problems with water?
No, we have so much, we don't know what to do with it.
You know, it comes down from heaven, right?"

9.

Living with dementia or whatever:

"obviously . . . usually, mostly, I think probably exclusively."

10.

Yet another lie:
"I would say they were fully funded
within minutes of hearing about this."

Best Reddit Response:
"He's not lying if you say
it was funded within minutes, 4,320 minutes."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Click here for FIRST batch:
"I Didn't Even Know Anything"
QK & FN

SECOND batch:
"A Very Much Different Country"
QK & FN

THIRD batch:
No Kings Day
QK & FN

FOURTH batch
Living With Dementia
QK & FN

FIFTH batch
America
QK & FN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next Fortnightly Post ~ Coming slightly early ~
Saturday, July 26th
In honor of Victoria Amador's birthday!

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Living With Dementia

COURAGE, ANXIETY, DESPAIR
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Courage, Anxiety and Despair - Watching the Battle (ca 1850)
aka
"Le Courage, l’Anxiété et le Désespoir observent la bataille"
by James Sant (1820 - 1916)

Today's literary connection:

"Remember how trainloads of people have gone to enjoy lynchings? Not happen here? Prohibition—shooting down people just because they might be transporting liquor—no, that couldn’t happen in America! Why, where in all history has there ever been a people so ripe for a dictatorship as ours! . . .

"The Senator was vulgar, almost illiterate, a public liar easily detected, and in his "ideas" almost idiotic, while his celebrated piety was that of a traveling salesman for church furniture, and his yet more celebrated humor the sly cynicism of a country store. Certainly there was nothing exhilarating in the actual words of his speeches, nor anything convincing in his philosophy. His political platforms were only wings of a windmill. . . .

"He was an actor of genius. There was no more overwhelming actor on the stage, in the motion pictures, nor even in the pulpit. He would whirl arms, bang tables, glare from mad eyes, vomit Biblical wrath from a gaping mouth; but he would also coo like a nursing mother, beseech like an aching lover, and in between tricks would coldly and almost contemptuously jab his crowds with figures and facts - figures and facts that were inescapable even when, as often happened, they were entirely incorrect.”

from the 1935 novel It Can't Happen Here
by Sinclair Lewis (1885 - 1951)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

American writers continue to express concern
that our current president is living with dementia:
News anchor Lawrence O'Donnell: “If we grow weary of making the point of how singularly stupid and possibly clinically demented Donald Trump’s statements are, then we will become part of the normalization process of those statements, which most of the American news media has unwittingly participated in and 14 year olds in this country will think it’s perfectly normal for a president to say those things.” (MSNBC ~ 18 June)

Historian Heather Cox Richardson: "It seems to me long past time to question the 79-year-old president’s mental health."

Columnist Rex Huppke: "Is Trump in mental decline? He sounds far worse than Biden ever did. . . . If Biden's 'mental decline' was concerning, Trump's should be alarming."

I share their dismay. We cannot normalize political inanity.
So here is Batch Four of my awareness - raising
"living with dementia" reminders
[Also posted on The Quotidian Kit]

These perception - checking quotation / photo combos may be non - ceremonious, non - likeable, non - literary, devoid of charm -- but never without irony. I have tried to pick examples that emphasize the irony of the pot calling the kettle black -- or the old calling the old old. How ironic that one candidate living with dementia was eliminated, only to be replaced by another candidate living with dementia. We need upward age limits for President, Senate, Congress, and Supreme Court. It is not only embarrassing but also dangerous and wrong to see the world being so badly run by elders way past their prime.

1.

Living with dementia, compounded by sheer cruelty:

Q: Have you called the governor yet or been able to speak to any of them?

A: Um, I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out, I'm not calling him. Why would I call him? I could call him. Say, "Hi, how you doing?" Uh the guy doesn't have a clue so, he's a mess. So you know, I could be nice and call him but, why waste time?

2.

Thinks he's a hero but really a bully, living with dementia:

"The UK is very well protected.
You know why, because I like them, that's why.
That's their ultimate protection."

3.

Living with dementia & The Dunning-Kruger Effect:

"It's a shame, this guy -- I have a guy -- do you ever have a guy that's not a smart person and you're dealing with him and he's not a smart guy."

Yeah, we have that guy.
He is frighteningly unfit to lead the U.S.A.
But there he is, up on Mount Stupid.

4.

A strategy when living with dementia:

"I like to make the final decision
one second before it’s due . . .

5.

Living with dementia and prone to warfare:

" . . . a very bloody war.
They're all bloody,
but this was a really bloody one."

6.

Living with dementia and losing distinction
between the Revolutionary War & the Civil War:

"A lot of wars there was no reason for. You look right up there. I don't know. See the Declaration of Independence. And I say I wonder if you, you know the Civil War always seemed to me maybe that could have been solved without losing 600,000 plus people."

7.

Living with dementia, right down there
at the bottom of the logical reasoning pyramid:

"Stupid AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
one of the ‘dumbest’ people in Congress"

8.

Living with dementia and commenting
inappropriately on people's appearance:

"I actually had breakfast today with a king and a queen
who were beautiful, beautiful people,
central casting I must say, very nice."

9.

Living with dementia and leering:

"I will never say good looking waitress because looks don't matter anymore. You know, in our modern society. She happened to be beautiful, but I won't say that. I won't mention that, but nevertheless a waitress came over. . . . So I want to thank that young, beautiful waitress."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Click here for FIRST batch:
"I Didn't Even Know Anything"
QK & FN

SECOND batch:
"A Very Much Different Country"
QK & FN

THIRD batch:
No Kings Day
QK & FN

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, July 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com