The Madness of Quixote

Syllabics

2007-03-22T17:06:00.000-07:00

An interesting conversation took place today between Whiskey and me, and I thought I'd open it up to my faithful reader(s). Does the word "power" (and similar words i.e. fire, flower, hour, fuel, spoil, etc.) consist of one syllable or two. I contend that it consists of one. I site for my authority the ear of the poets, Shakespeare, et al. It seems the debate hinges upon whether diphthongs (long A, long I, Oy, Ow) should be considered one syllable or two. For those of you who would consult a dictionary, you will find support for both pronunciations, and indeed, in a vacuum, without context, the words may very well be both. However, in use, especially when that use is most important, i.e. in poetry, the scansion of poems that contain these words consistently pronounce them monosyllabically.

Addendum: Schwas are also a bone of contention: does "preposterous" consist of three syllables or four? If you say four, why then is "preposterous" intelligible when pronounced "prepost'rous" while "fallacious" can never be disyllabically pronouced "F'llacious"? (I consider that initial "a" to be a schwa)

Thoughts?

On Form

2007-03-22T07:39:00.000-07:00

It has recently been brought to my attention that when God revealed himself to Moses, he said "I am who Iamb." I think this is fairly conclusive proof that God writes poetry in form (and in English!) and if from is good enough for God, it's good enough for me.
I think it's also probable that God favors trimeter...just a hunch...

Two poems

2006-10-23T12:28:00.000-07:00

For very little reason other than they suit my mood. Both are recent productions. (I've added some improvements to the first poem, including a name change)

Disclosure

Huddled, the black bantam,
Quavers in the dark of not-yet-morn,
And sees in every rustled form a phantom
Of plundering wolf or weasel, solely born

Of falsifying gloom,
That beady eyes conjecture into seeming,
Until dawn breaks all images of doom,
Into the solid shapes its set to gleaming,

Then, as if in pride,
Our fowl stands up and ruffs his feathered mane,
And boasts to the entire countryside,
His "I will duel with all" in rash refrain,

For, when what’s been feared
To do for caution’s sake, can now be done,
And every lingering shadow’s disappeared,
Into the brave arrival of the sun,

Then what sudden strut,
What crowing, and what swaggering about
Ridiculously seizes those who but,
A moment since were shy and dumb with doubt.

Yet let us not mock,
Such innocence and absence of composure.
Joy's source, being revelation should not balk
To revel in an act of such disclosure,

As when lovers, full
Of that same bravery born of morning’s light
Laughing at last night’s discretion, pull,
The covers off their bodies’ honest white.

The Tight-Rope Walker

His body, wholly swept up in the cause,
Of mere remaining, gently tames the cord,
Suspending his slow expedition toward,
A pole shaped like a printer's obelisk.

As stony eyed as any basilisk,
He views with inward eye his statued pause,
Kept by his strict observance of the laws
Of gravity, and wills one taut accord.

This tensile harmony is his reward,
The joy of held control, peaked by the risk,
Recalled to mind with every gentle whisk
His arms make as they weigh his footsteps’ flaws.

Been a while

2006-10-11T17:19:00.000-07:00

So, since I cannot spend one more minute on a paper I know is due tomorrow, I thought I'd turn to my long forsaken blog. It is not out of pity that I turn to my blog. My blog does not need me. Nor is it out of need that I turn to my blog. I do not need it. I come freely, as men strive for right. Or something like that.
The thing is I have a bit of a niggling worry. Maybe its the realization that I may soon have to leave this place, and the people here, or perhaps its my vocation itself thats bothering me. In any case, I've felt the unwelcome return of a restlessness. Whereas last year I felt I was taking great strides in the right direction, I now feel myself stagnating, mired, static. Being still I suppose is fine when you realize your grand motion is sweeping you off in the wrong direction. But now I feel antsy. I don't feel ready to thrust myself forward in a new direction, and yet I don't want to stay where I am. I feel like all directions represent a running away from, not a running towards, and I despise that. The ivory tower is losing a bit of its luster. It just isn't a place I want to reside in...its a thing I want to help build, and then protect, while I'm out sleeping under trees. But for now, I stay inside, note the cracks in the mortar, the rotten timbers, try my hand at some rough carpentry, in the hopes it will one day be of use...and what? Wait. Patience is learning what lullabies to sing my knotted stomach....

Sancho Stanza, Don Quipolis, and Lady Dulcisophia

2006-05-02T12:31:00.000-07:00

If we take the three branches of thought that the school offers: Philosophy, Literature, and Politics and compare their uses and functions, what relation can we find between them? It seems Literature is the worldly wise servant to both, the Sancho Panza or Samuel Weller to Pickwick Politics and Lady Philosophy, for literature makes efficacious the will of these, and though they may make pronouncements in their own straightforward style, it is Literature that is trusted to play diplomat to the masses. Politics is a chambered lord, forever concerned with wills; the will of the people, the will of the government, will the crops fail? will there be riots? will there be justice? will there be war? Lady Philosophy turns politics head of course, deciding who the people are, what a government is, why there are crops, the horror of riots, the necessity of justice, and the reasons for war. It is Lady Philosophy who knows the truth of things, and keeps this truth holy;Lord Politics must see how best to apply these truths.
Each of the three is impotent or infertile with out the others. So are you a diplomat, a law giver, or ...what? cleric?

Christ is risen

2006-04-22T15:56:00.000-07:00

He is risen indeed.

Specificity

2006-04-05T09:27:00.000-07:00

So, I was talking with Whiskey about animals, (there had been a cat outside the school), and he commented that I seemed to really like cats. It's true, I do. It got me thinking why I like animals in general so much. I really like watching squirrels, or birds, or bugs-It isn't purely scientific, though I do like noting their peculiar colorations and behavior. Ultimately, what i arrived at was that I liked the specificity of life. A squirrel is not a rabbit. It is its own thing. This could be seen as a love of variety, but that's a red herring. Even if their were only one, I think I would like its one-ness. Beyond that, I like the specificity of each individual thing. I like thinking about the millions of squirrels I have missed, the millions of people I have missed, the millions of a million other things i have missed, because I simply was born, centuries earlier, or in another place. My life must necessarily be filled with a limited number of specific things. I don't see a squirrel. I see that squirrel. This specifity seems peculiar to life. Surely their can be a specific rock, or location or cloud...but these seem mutable, or lacking identity...clouds smush into each other, and lose their cohesion, oceans and landmasses and locations all have blurred edges. You can't tell where they stop and where a new ocean, or landmass, or location begins. Life is limited to the bounds of the particular....I still feel like I haven't put my finger on it exactly...

Coinage

2006-03-22T10:09:00.000-08:00

After last night's Milton class, I felt inspired to coin a new phrase- "Necrohippic Sadism". This term names a disorder characterized by obsession with a certain idea, and the inability to approach a new idea, or even to approach the same idea from a different perspective. The result is an endless solipsistic conversation which continually attempts to say the same thing over and over.

Mathematical Philosophy

2006-03-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

So...I was thinking as I was talking to Whiskey the other day, there must be some place where mathematics, philosophy, and theology intersect. I feel that someone with the right type of brain could some fascinating work with the nature of infinity. Now my own abilities here are limited, but their have some moments whereI've been able to use math in a philsophical context, i.e. one infinity = any number of infinities. This is useful in establishing the worth of the individual, and in getting out of those ethical scrapes that involve killing one to save another, or many others. But i know there must be thousands of ways math applies to God andHis nature. For those of you with math-oriented brains, have you ever had a Eureka moment, when you saw some truth in math and some truth in philosophy overlap or support each other. Let me know...

Memed

2006-03-01T09:22:00.000-08:00

So before I begin my seven by seven, what exactly is a "meme?" Is it some sort of plural for memo? Is it named that because its all about me? Squared? Is it the operatic warm up you give your throat before you answer a meme? These questions need answers...

Also, sometimes I needed to cheat, and squeeze extra things in...consider it following the "spirit" if not the "letter" of the meme.

7 things to do before I die

1) Live!
2)Travel to the sites of the seven wonders of the ancient world
3) Found a dynasty...er...start a family
4) Create something (i.e. a poem) that people (other than my friends and family) think is beautiful, and universal
5) Act in a movie
6) Learn how to navigate a boat by the stars
7) Four words: running of the bulls

7 things I cannot do

1) Keep my mouth shut
2) Pass up an adventure
3) Wear glasses (things near my eyes bug me)
4) Hold a grudge
5) Math
6) Kiss a girl who smokes (tried it once...felt like I was kissing death)
7) Remember peoples names the first time they tell me

7 things I like about my other half

1) She's mysterious ( I hardly know anything about her)
2) She plays hard to get
3) She's not afraid to have "alone" time
4) She doesn't mind long distance relationships (Forget space, she doesn't even mind being separated by time)
5) She's patient
6) She's better than I imagine her to be
7) She's got great taste!

7 things I say

1) "How's life?"
2) "Can I get a ride?"
3) "man" as a suffix to the last word in any given response to a male
4) Too often, whatever comes into my head
5) "I don't know" said in a sigh, somewhere near my wit's end
6) compliments
7) "see ya" "later"or "take care"

7 books I love

1) The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
2) OED
3) David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
4) Manalive by G. K. Chesterton
5) Crime and Punishment by Feodor Dostoevsky
6) TLOTR by J.R.R. Tolien
7) The Book of Kells (I'm just happy that it exists)

7 movies I love

1) The Princess Bride
2) Goonies
3) Krull
4) Glory
5) The Quiet Man
6) Singing in the Rain/ American in Paris
7) Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

7 people to meme

I think everyone's memed already. How about "7 people I would like to send this meme to"

1) My other half
2) The Pope
3) Mark Steyn
4) Tony
5) Dr. Esolen
6) Richard Wilbur
7) God ( Just picture it)

On Beauty

2006-02-18T20:45:00.000-08:00

From the travel journal. This isn't actually the "brilliant" piece that I was thinking of, but the piece I was thinking of was actually quite sentimental, cliche, and well....dumb. This one, while not exactly profound, is at least entertaining. And yes, it is slightly tongue in cheek. It was written in Dublin after having met a beautiful woman....

"A beautiful woman is worth waiting to see, even if only a moment's vision answers an hour's passing. Waiting for beauty has the distinct pleasure of keeping one's mind fixed on higher things for great lengths of time without danger of distraction, for beauty is a selfish and ever demanding Queen, and Hope, attendant upon all time passed in expectation, is her enforcer."

St. Peter Sonnet

2006-02-18T13:25:00.000-08:00

So, even though I told myself (and others) that I wouldn't do this, I'm going to post one of my own poems...before anyone accuses me of self-promotion, let me immediately reply....guilty. Yeah, well, laziness has a lot to do with it too. This poem is one of what hopefully will be a sonnet sequence, each sonnet detailing a moment of grace in the life of a saint. So far I have two, this one and St. Sebastian.

St. Peter

There came an eerie tingle to his feet,
As gravity tried its strength against the beat
Of blood within his aged impetuous breast.
His robe revealed him, and his lanky beard
And hair, absurd about him, like a crest,
Shone, light transparent, and the soldiers jeered.
The pillar found its deep, predestined slot,
Plunged down a meter, jolted now erect,
The wrist-and-ankle-strangling cords stretched taut;
The silent crowd heard the joints disconnect,
And turned aside their reverend conscious eyes,
As not to see the wracked face turning red,
And therefore missed him smiling with surprise,
To see the fallen world put on its head.

Penance, purgatory and perhaps a poor performance...

2006-02-03T15:52:00.000-08:00

Going to confession for me is still a matter of pulling teeth. In fact its one of the most difficult things for me about being a practicing Catholic. I still feel like I'm "not doing it right", that i'm either couching my sins in ambiguous terms or, making a big deal of confessing what isn't necessarily a problem. Basically its hard to be straight up and honest, and not feel like i'm putting on a performance. Also, waiting in line for confession sometimes seems the aptest metaphor for Purgatory: you're there because you want to be, but your stomach feels like lead, and it certainly isn't pleasant. Except for the end. The process of cleaning one's soul is arduous before hand and during but penance is usually a pleasure compared to the actual experience. As for the "i'm not doing it right" thoughts, they also usually plague me before hand (heck, just another excuse not to go!) but afterwards, I'm usually consoled by a bit of Chestertonian wisdom: A thing worth doing is worth doing badly.

The Nature of Love

2006-02-01T14:03:00.000-08:00

What, with the new encyclical out, it seems to me appropriate to discuss ideas, opinions etc. that we all have concerning the nature of human love, romantic, familial, of friends, of neighbors and of course, of God. To get the ball rolling, i thought i'd quote a small poem by Robert Graves:

Love without hope, as when the young bird-catcher
Swept off his tall hat to the squire's own daughter,
So let the imprisoned larks escape, and fly
Singing about her head as she rode by.

With this poem in mind: how should love be careless, if it should be so at all? I applaud the carelessness of the birdcatcher, because i feel he is careless about the right things. Also, should we sacrafice a days labor for an extravagant, and yet very fleeting gesture? We don't know her response. Does the worth of the gesture depend upon her being impressed? Finally, when we "love without hope" how do we distinguish between total joyful abandonement to Grace, (i.e. David dancing before the ark, rather carelessly) and foolish presumption of God's (or women's)mercy (i.e. the devil's tempting of Christ to jump from the rooftop).

Five weird...things

2006-01-16T14:32:00.000-08:00

So...five weird habits. Though i've had some time to think about this, i haven't thought of anything really juicy and exciting, so i'll just wing it...

1)My dreams are peculiar in...well...peculiar....ways. For example, if my dreams were movies, then i'd be giving an oscar to the special effects guy, and the guy who builds the sets. The plausible sensation of undergoing any action that in this world is just impossible, deserves some credit. Most of these types of actions don't even have some sort of parallel experience it could be borrowing from. Consequently, thanks to my dreams, i know what its like to 1)ride a wave that is hundreds of feet high 2) be bitten in half 3)fly (though for me, flying in dreams was always a sort of momentum-propelled, low-gravity-type gliding). And the architecture! Think M.C. Escher meets transylvanian gothic meets video game absurdity. Salt with Dali. Pepper with some actual real life elements. Also, i'm always amazed when my brain comes up with an original word, piece of art, or song. Though art and song can't survive my waking, some of the words and poem fragments have: "Laoctidilian": a prehistoric alligator, "Ininook": not sure, might be a name (sounds Indian doesn't it?), and, a full verse line, "tin cans ringing against the glory of the sky", (i didn't say it was any good).

2)I do my best thinking in the shower, when i'm reading, or when i'm mowing the lawn. Though, to be honest, i haven't mowed a lawn in a while. And like Whiskey, i hold arguments, er... i mean conversations with myself in the shower as well. And i love the pruning of fingertips. It reminds us that our skins aren't really ours, because sometimes, they don't even fit right.

3)Big animal lover. Of almost every kind. Squirrels and birds especially delight me, but this is perhaps because they're so common, i feel i've gotten to know them better. I'll gaze at spider-webs, prod ant holes, feed crumbs to crows, even grackles. The very few animals i hate? Flies. I'll find a way to pick up a wasp indoors and show him politely to the door, but if a fly gets in, the magazine gets rolled. Which sort of brings me to my next point...

4)I have a pact with the bees. The Treaty dates originally from kindergarten, when, having been sentenced to 40 minutes hard time-out in the corner of the playground, i caught in my barehands a bee, which buzzed around, crawled, and proceeded to avoid stinging me. I consequently avoided crushing him. I was happy. He was happy. We both agreed an alliance was mutually beneficial. Since then, i have never been stung by bee, wasp, yellow-jacket, hornet etc. And i have kept my end of the treaty by not deliberately killing the little buzzers. Though flies are another story. As are mosquitoes...i have no alliance with them, (though the failure of diplomatic relations is entirely their fault). Oh, and ticks. They're just a mean and scoundrelly race.

5)I buy epic movie soundtracks, and then read books while listening to them on constant repeat. The soundtrack then becomes a soundtrack to the book. It then gains more meaning when i listen to it, elliciting not only original images, but memories of the movie, and of one or more stories.

Well, looking back i see these really aren't habits exactly. At least not all of them. They're just weird...things. Oh well.

First post

2006-01-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

Well, this is, (i think), officially my first blog post. But since i'm techno-stupid, i probably mucked it up.