Happy day after St. Patty's Day!

"Saint, n.: A dead sinner revised and edited." -- Ambrose Bierce.

Today's Perverse Verse:

It's a sad fact but one that we secretly relish
That those whose wholesomest words and deeds we most embellish
And whom we venerate as a saint,
Ain't.
Everyone, it seems, has one skeleton in his or her closet or another,
Including that most saintly of all figures you can think of--
Your mother.
Even Mother Teresa, we now know, had her moments of doubt and misgiving,
Times when she exclaimed to herself: "This is a hell of a way to make a living!"

Relatively speaking, that is

This is the birthday of Albert Einstein, born 1879.

"I have never met a man yet who understands in the least what Einstein is driving at...I very seriously doubt that Einstein himself knows what he is driving at." -- William Henry Cardinal O'Connor.

Today's Perverse Verse:

Apparently, E=MC squared
-- Has anyone ever cared?
It may be a gas
That energy is mass
To some;
But what's Einstein to us,
Who can't tell minus from plus?
-- A bum.

Words worth heeding

Poet William Wordsworth was born on this day in 1770. He wrote:

"Have I not reason to lament
What man has made of man?"

So if they're booing, wear dirt earplugs

English poet A. E. Housman was born on this day in 1859.

"Eyes the shady night have shut
Cannot see the record cut;
And silence is no worse than cheers
After earth has stopped the ears."

-- Housman's To An Athlete Dying Young.

While we're on the subject of not hearing, Beethoven died on this day

Happy St. Patty's Day!

"Saint, n.: A dead sinner revised and edited." -- Ambrose Bierce.


Today's Perverse Verse:

It's a sad fact but one that we secretly relish
That those whose wholesomest words and deeds we most embellish
And whom we venerate as a saint,
Ain't.
Everyone, it seems, has one skeleton in his or her closet or another,
Including that most saintly of all figures you can think of--
Your mother.
Even Mother Teresa, we now know, had her moments of doubt and misgiving,
Times when she exclaimed to herself: "This is a hell of a way to make a living!"

Relatively speaking, that is

This is the birthday of Albert Einstein, born 1879.


"I have never met a man yet who understands in the least what Einstein is driving at...I very seriously doubt that Einstein himself knows what he is driving at." -- William Henry Cardinal O'Connor.

Today's Perverse Verse:

Apparently, E=MC squared
-- Has anyone ever cared?
It may be a gas
That energy is mass
To some;
But what's Einstein to us,
Who can't tell minus from plus?
-- A bum.

Wonders of a new day

Lytton Strachey, English biographer, born on this day in 1880. He wrote:


"The horror of getting up is unparalleled, and I am filled with amazement every morning when I find that I have done it."

Today's Perverse Verse:

The dread
Of getting out of bed
Is only overshot
By the fear of not.

Kipling, tippling again

Author Rudyard Kipling (Kim, Gunga Din) was born on this day in 1865. He wrote:


"Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre."

Ice cubes tinkled in Cutterback’s glass. “Let’s have another.” He called to the barmaid.

When the food came, Cutterback bit a half-moon out of his burger and said, with his mouth full, “What else can you do?”
“I’m pretty sure I can do ‘Gunga Din’.”
“Kipling?”
“Tippling.” Sully held up his glass and grinned.
“A-ha-ha-ha,” Cutterback barked. “Let’s hear it.” As Sully rendered “Gunga Din” he wolfed his food, nodding enthusiastically. When he’d finished he blew his nose again, crumpled the napkin and dropped it onto his plate.  --  Chapter 17, The Misforgotten.

You might lose your place

John Milton, author of Paradise Lost, was born on this day in 1608.

"Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again." -- Samuel Johnson.

He couldn't see the forest

American poet Joyce Kilmer ("I think that I shall never see/A poem lovely as a tree") was born on this day in 1886.

"Trees, if I have the name right, is one of the most annoying pieces of verse within my knowledge." – Heywood C. Broun.

Today, everybody except me take the day off

Today is I Love to Write Day!

  "Everybody is writing, writing, writing–worst of all, writing poetry. It'd be better if the whole tribe of scribblers—every damn one of us—were sent off somewhere with tool chests to do some honest work."  –  Walt Whitman.


"It is the glory and the merit of some men to write well, and of others not to write at all."  –  La Bruyere.

Today's Perverse Verse:

The proliferation of The Blog
Leaves one agog.
From Chicago to Prague,
Like some noxious fog,
It hangs heavy as smog.
It's a World Wide bog,
Through which one can slog
Like a drunken hog,
Until you cry out: Aaaggh!

So she tells us

November 15, 1887 -- Poet Marianne Moore born. She wrote:

"The passion for setting people right is in itself an afflictive disease. Distaste which takes no credit to itself is best."

   She waved Doug off and tapped her cigarette ash onto the floor. She was facing Sully now.
   “I had high hopes for us, I really did,” she said. “You know that?”
   “I remember.”
   “No, you don’t. That didn’t even occur to you. Jesus, you’re a selfish bastard.”
   “Me?”
   “Sully. The name fits.”
   “Why’s that?”
   “You’ve sullied everything you’ve ever touched.”
   “I’m sorry you feel that way.”
   “Yeah. Me, too. I had hopes.” She pressed her hand to the back of his neck. “Well, thanks for the beer,” she said, and, steadying herself on his shoulder, she got up and took off.
   Maybe Dr. Johnson, Sully thought, had done too much reading and not enough drinking. There was nothing like a bar, he himself had found, for driving home to one the vanity of human hopes.  --  Chapter 21, The Misforgotten.

Creeds have no credence

Novelist Emily Bronte (Wuthering Heights) was born on this day in 1818. She wrote this poem:


Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts;
Unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest frost amid the boundless main.

As for Sully, he’d shed any number of things over the years, or they’d fallen away – God, awe, beauty, inspiration – but never his overweening, tedious self. It was as immense as ever, his self-preoccupation. It perched on his shoulder at the bar, importuning him. It wheedled and cajoled, craving attention. Demanding he attend to its needs. It accompanied him wherever he went, a beggar dogging his steps. How could one shake it?  --  Chapter 22, The Misforgotten.