Reading

Current Mood: thankful

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lit: edna st. vincent millay

In a world more beautiful than this it would have mattered more.

This essay was alluded to and quoted from in several of the essays I read about Edna St. Vincent Millay. I correctly suspected I could find the journal issue (The Outlook, vol. 147 no. 10, 1927) on the Internet Archive, and I'm very glad I looked for it. Here's a couple-few excerpts.

This is also in reference to Sacco and Vanzetti.

( Read more... )

If I could meet one person from history I've always said it would be Millay, but right now I'm so enamored of her prose I can't even think what I'd say to her. To be able to write like that...!

Current Mood: just getting started

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Did you think I was done with Millay? I was not done.

Conscientious Objector

I shall die, but
that is all that I shall do for Death.
I hear him leading his horse out of the stall;
I hear the clatter on the barn-floor.
He is in haste; he has business in Cuba,
business in the Balkans, many calls to make this morning.
But I will not hold the bridle
while he clinches the girth.
And he may mount by himself:
I will not give him a leg up.

Though he flick my shoulders with his whip,
I will not tell him which way the fox ran.
With his hoof on my breast, I will not tell him where
the black boy hides in the swamp.
I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for Death;
I am not on his pay-roll.

I will not tell him the whereabout of my friends
nor of my enemies either.
Though he promise me much,
I will not map him the route to any man's door.
Am I a spy in the land of the living,
that I should deliver men to Death?
Brother, the password and the plans of our city
are safe with me; never through me
Shall you be overcome.

Current Mood: melancholy

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Time to head for the best tasting poem you have. It's Millay Time.

I posted "Justice Denied In Massachusetts" in poetry, and that led me into an absolute Millay spiral. (Also I ended up reading a few pieces like "On Edna St. Vincent Millay's 'Justice Denied in Massachusetts'", and I don't think I realized how many of the poems I already knew are Sacco and Vanzetti poems.)

I didn't feel like inflicting a whole bundle of Millay on everyone who reads poetry but I don't mind inflicting her on all of you. So here goes.

Two Sonnets In Memory

(Nicola Sacco—Bartolomeo Vanzetti)
Executed August 23, 1927

Ⅰ

As men have loved their lovers in times past
And sung their wit, their virtue and their grace,
So have we loved sweet Justice to the last,
That now lies here in an unseemly place.
The child will quit the cradle and grow wise
And stare on beauty till his senses drown;
Yet shall be seen no more by mortal eyes
Such beauty as here walked and here went down.
Like birds that hear the winter crying plain
Her courtiers leave to seek the clement south;
Many have praised her, we alone remain
To break a fist against the lying mouth
Of any man who says this was not so:
Though she be dead now, as indeed we know.

Ⅱ

Where can the heart be hidden in the ground
And be at peace, and be at peace forever,
Under the world, untroubled by the sound
Of mortal tears, that cease from pouring never?
Well for the heart, by stern compassion harried,
If death be deeper than the churchmen say,—
Gone from this world indeed what's graveward carried,
And laid to rest indeed what's laid away.
Anguish enough while yet the indignant breather
Have blood to spurt upon the oppressor's hand;
Who would eternal be, and hang in ether
A stuffless ghost above his struggling land,
Retching in vain to render up the groan
That is not there, being aching dust's alone?

wisdom, perhaps

The morning has brought wisdom from a couple of friends in Boston.

Joe R--: "Time. Space. Money. Three fundamental resources; exchange rates fluctuate."

Eric B--: "The internet is an infinite storage facility for all the things you don't want in your home right now. You just don't know what the storage cost will be until you try to get something back out."

(Eric is also responsible for "The chief cause of problems is solutions," which I appreciate a great deal.)

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lit: elilzabeth peters

Actually Renee O'Connor and Lucy Lawless would have been great casting

I have started rereading the Amelia Peabody mysteries. It makes me sad that they've definitely had at least a light visit from the suck fairy ^[note], because I've never realised before how much Amelia is in love with Evelyn in The Crocodile On The Sandbank.

She's obviously got it bad for Emerson as well, but my goodness her jealous desire to spend her life with her beautiful Evelyn is overwhelming.

Note: Amelia was never supposed to be a reliable narrator, and her Victorian Orientalism was always to be read as historical. It's just that in modern conventions we -- correctly -- no longer feel it's okay to portray the likable heroines of (wholly unrealistic) historical romances with historically accurate racism. _[back]

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boardgames

everybody needs a hobby

It's Noel's fault.

Noel came over weekend before last to try out a wargame he'd picked up, and while he was over he remarked on my copy of Ogre Designer's Edition (one Very Large Box, one somewhat more normal-sized box for the expansion, and a bunch of extra unpunched countersheets and neoprene map playmats). "Yeah, I've got the Pocket Edition," he said. (This is a mostly straight reprint of the original 1977 wargame: the counters are on slightly better cardboard and punch-out instead of cut-yourself, but pretty much the same otherwise. Same price, too: $2.95.) "I'd be happy to play the big version sometime, though."

Apparently this was all the incentive I needed. I spent much of the last week going through my Ogre stuff, punching and sorting and bagging, and researching to figure out exactly what it is I have. (Looks like it's just about everything, save a couple of neoprene map playmats that I missed out on. One of which I'd really like to have. Alas.)

Now. Ogre is a wargame which, in its original conception, was a small conventional if futuristic armor force of tanks, artillery, infantry, and oh yeah hovercraft, struggling to hold off a single gigantic cybertank (the eponymous Ogre). For the Designer's Edition, Steve Jackson went all out: huge and very pretty (and very readable) counters for most of the units, and even huger heavy-cardboard models for the various Ogres and structures (buildings, laser towers, etc). This all looks very impressive and honestly adds to the fun. It does take up an awful lot of storage space, though. More importantly: some of the models don't stay together very well.

The obvious solution is to put a drop of glue at each joint. Okay, sure, I'm not doing anything else for the foreseeable, I may as well do that.

But then I got to poking around, and discovered that a number of folks have gone over the edges of their models with Sharpies (or, in one case, acrylic paint). Makes them look a lot classier than the brown cardboard. This is, of course, much easier to do before you put them together. But if I'm taking them apart to glue them anyway...

Long story short, I just got back from a Michaels run wherein I acquired a pack of multicolour Sharpies (standard and wide-tip) and a thing of craft glue. Also some wax paper (I already have toothpicks) so I don't glue them to my nice table.

I blame Noel.

Honestly, my hope is that I will get really going on this and then in the middle of it suddenly get a job, so I'll have to leave it half undone indefinitely. Why yes I am trying to game Murphy's Law. I'll let you know how that works out for me.

"The Sex Pixies" is just a Good Name for a fair folk band

if I were a fae of some sort in a punk band I would simply call my first album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pixies.

I will not be taking questions at this time.