Nathasha Trethewey was just named the new U.S. Poet Laureate.
I had the good fortune to hear her read at the Folger Shakespeare Library six weeks ago as part of the ‘Dark Room Collective.’ She’s a good choice and will a strong advocate for poetry.
Jeb Bush: This Year “Was Probably Mine” [To Run For President]
Well, number one, this acts as bit of public confirmation by Jebbie that, yeah, contrary to repeated denials, he clearly has thought about running for president (because we all totally believed him when he said this was the last thing on his mind).
He also reaffirmed that he will not by Mitt’s veep nominee.
Let’s read between the lines, shall we?
This year was probably mine…
In other words: I could have beaten every one of those tossers running, including Mitt, who you never really liked anyway and this is a reminder that he was never more than anyone’s third choice and the best of a bad lot.
Oh, and I won’t join the ticket to prop that tosser Mitt, because he’s probably going to lose, which wouldn’t have happened if I’d run.
And even though I said this year, as opposed to 2016, was my year, I’d just like to congratulate President Obama on his re-election and in four and a half years, y’all can find me in my new digs at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Peace out.
Thursday Staff Meeting – Rick Scott Doesn’t Want Your Vote, So He’s Not Going To Let You Vote
Ray Bradbury Has Left The Earth
My mother loved two science fiction writers – Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov – and used to often give me their short stories to read when I was child. I confess that I read more Asimov than Bradbury, but when my mother gave me his Dinosaur Tales… well, like all good boys, I loved my dinosaurs.
Midweek Staff Meeting – Unplanned Obsolescence
I certainly hope not!Not Even Strippers Can Make Mitt Romney Interesting
Yes. This is really happening.
Tuesday Morning Staff Meeting – Transportation Issues
I actually used to use the L.A. Metro a good deal when I lived in Hollywood.Monday Morning Staff Meeting – Peace Or Something Else
Happy Birthday, Ginsberg
Eliot & Coffee
Someone recently commented on an older post of mine about T.S. Eliot that they had found the post while searching for information about Eliot’s relationship to coffee.
I didn’t have a good answer for him.
But when I think of Eliot and coffee, I always drift to Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and the man who measures his life in ‘coffee spoons.’
Prufrock always seems to me to partake very strongly of Eliot’s Anglophilia. He is writing in a style to seems to aim for a certain English-ness in its language. But while the English do drink plenty of coffee, we can agree, surely, that tea is a much English drink.
The coffee spoons with which Prufrock measures his life with are an indication of his mundanity and his measured fears. But tea spoons or something associated with tea (sugar spoons?) would be much appropriate to this English style (not many American poems write about a being embarrassed by a footman holding one’s coat; that particular class consciousness sounds more like something from across the Atlantic to me). In that sense, in an English sense, might not coffee spoons stand out?
Maybe not. I’m just guessing. But I’m guessing that is a certain (essential?) American-ness showing through in Eliot, an American-ness we don’t really see again until Four Quartets.
the coffee philosopher 