Notes 16 Dec

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”  – George Bernard Shaw

Most folks, if they look at my behavior, would conclude that I write, am therefore a writer.  Whether a good one or not would be an open question.

Schopenhauer. “For a German it is even good to have somewhat lengthy words in his mouth, for he thinks slowly, and they give him time to reflect.”[209]

Schopenhauer went so far as to protest using the pronoun “it” in reference to animals because that led to treatment of them as though they were inanimate things.[234)

Trudeau pere et fils  

Maybe Hillary was right and they are deplorable. We nonetheless need to share this landscape with them, and they with us.

“My will is a whisper,
your moan a method,
your sin.”

— Niyi Osundare [Words Catch Fire]

The sallow glow of
sodium street lights is one
with the balmy fog 

Literature is beyond politics. Everything is, except politics.

   *

As China opens up its dynamic zero covid policy, the name of the thing is changing:

[A health official] emphasized that most cases will be mild, and that the disease should now be called “coronavirus cold 新冠感冒Xīnguān gǎnmào”    

. / https://sinocism.com/p/coronavirus-cold-weak-economy-and?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/isolation.html

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20221111/repeat-covid-infection-doubles-risk-of-death

 

*

Fix it :  https://alteritas.net/GXL/?page_id=4595

https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cl_gTtrDQP_/?igshid=NDk5N2NlZjQ=

鸡鸡 / jījī / penis

https://youtu.be/c08wiEyVuak

https://youtu.be/pLZfhHW98Os

Let’s face the music … 

Let’s face the music and dance at DuckDuckGo

Let’s Face The Music And Dance
Seth MacFarlane

There may be trouble ahead
But while there’s moonlight
And music and love and romance
Let’s face the music and dance

Before the fiddlers have fled
Before they ask us to pay the bill 

And while we still got a chance 

Let’s face the music and dance

Soon, we’ll be without the moon
Hummin’ a different tune and then 

There may be teardrops to shed
So, while there’s moonlight
And music and love and romance
Let’s face the music and dance

Before the fiddlers have fled
Before they ask us to come up with the bill
And while we still got that chance
Let’s face that music and dance

Soon, we’ll be without the moon
Hummin’ a different tune and then
There may be teardrops to shed
So, while there’s moonligh
And music and love and romance
Let’s face the music and dance, dance
Let’s face the music, that music lovely music
Let’s face the music and dance

Poetry Recs

Two of the most distinguished formal poets of our era, Rachel Hadas and Don Paterson, have recently launched worthwhile books. Hadas’ Pandemic Almanac (Ragged Sky Press, 2022) examines our changed world with a clear eye, and Paterson’s The Arctic (Faber & Faber, 2022) is also steeped in painful current events.

Standout books of poetry worth giving to someone you love include Boris Dralyuk’s elegiac My Hollywood (Paul Dry Books, 2022), James Pollock’s Durable Goods (Vehicule Press, 2022), and Alexis Sears’s Out of Order (Autumn House Press, 2022). If you are interested in Great Books, reading Dante along with Andrew Frisardi’s book on Dante, Love’s Scribe (Angelico Press, 2020), is a great place to start—and perhaps also check out the free Great Books programs of catherineproject.org

Don’t miss @alexissearspoet’s “Out of Order,” David Mason’s “Pacific Light” from @RedHenPress, @DanaGioiaPoet’s “Meet Me at the Lighthouse,” forthcoming from @GraywolfPress, and Mark Jarman’s “Zeno’s Eternity,” forthcoming from @PaulDryBooks.

Boris Dralyuk on Twitter

Boris Dralyuk on Twitter

Form Follows Content

Essentialism versus dereification

I’ve been wondering lately if. I am not one of those #woke racists who thinks that everything in society, except what I think and do, is #racist.

According to the Preface to the echt Confucian Canon of Poetry,

“The tone of a well-governed state is peaceful and happy; its government is harmonious. The tone of a chaotic age is resentful and angry; its government is perverse.”

Form follows content ; the end of rhyme marks the end of life

Only the Moon Can Bounce My Worry Back to You

Notes  prepared around the Mooncake Festival, 10 Sept, 2022

***

Song dynasty poet Su Shi, aka Dongpu, whose second, honorary name has been borrowed for a succulent dish of glazed pork rind, wrote of the Mooncake or Mid-Autumn Festival (Zhōngqiū Jié, 中秋).

“May we live long and share the beauty of the moon / together, even if we are hundreds of miles apart.”

This is something Nasrin and I experienced in 1989 during my first visit to Curaçao, the story of which I cast into a poem for her.

https://alteritas.net/pastis/puss-and-boots/

***

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongpo_pork

Barbara Tropp, Mastering the Art.

https://thewoksoflife.com/braised-pork-belly-dong-po-rou/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_cooking_techniques

*********************

Su Shi – Poet Su Shi Poems

Mid-Autumn Festival (Mooncake Festival, Zhong Qiu Jie) 2022: Traditions, Stories, Food…

水调歌头 (Water Music Song) by Su Shi / Su Tung-P’o

2 of the Most Famous Chinese Mid-Autumn Poems

蘇軾 水調歌頭 Translation: Water Song, by Su Shi (明月幾時有)

Mid-Autumn Moon – Mid-Autumn Moon Poem by Su Shi

***

An Introduction to Literary Chinese: Revised Edition (Harvard East Asian Monographs) Paperback – November 15, 2004

An Introduction to Chinese Poetry: from the Canon of Poetry to the Lyrics of the Song Dynasty (Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center Press, 2017)