Sam's Backup Page

One boss is out sick, the other spent the morning stuck on a broken down train (this does sound like the start of a blues song), two of my colleagues showed up hours late and a third is out sick. It's apparently "fall apart as a cohesive unit" day here in Research. I'm using this to my advantage to goof the hell off.

Also, I've been meaning to post this for a while, once I finally got it finished. I have a friend who recently departed for interesting adventures in a new country, and I did her up a poem to go along with.

( For Eimear, Overseas )

So I posted this morning about the letter to Santa taped to Giant Marilyn's leg. Just to prove I wasn't messing with you:



(Click to embiggen.)

It's gone now -- I can't imagine it lasted long. It read, as far as I could make out:

DEAR SANTA,
For Christmas I would like:

1. More buses & trains
2. Libraries (with librarians)
3. Living wage & pensions for employees
4. 911 dispatchers
5. Affordable utilities
6. No Police HQ closures
7. Trauma center on the south side
8. Mental health clinics
9. For at least ONE alderman to GROW A BACKBONE

NOTE: I transcribed it before as "Police HQ closures" but it actually reads "No police HQ closures" which does make slightly more immediate sense. My bad, I was reading it off a tiny camera viewscreen.

Anyway, mamculuna suggested perhaps Marilyn should sing it as a verse of "Santa Baby" and...well, it is a musical time of year. By popular request, a rewritten version of the original in comments:

I wrote this a while ago and I've been tweaking it this way and that ever since, so if I don't post it now I'm totally going to overtweak it into shapelessness.

And it's free verse! I don't even like most free verse.

Something to add to the poetry file, I guess...

( Midwest )

I was going to edit this into the last comment, but I've already edited it once already.

See, when I declared Chicago to be the Home of Fail then tzikeh turned it into the Land of the Free and the Home of the Fail, and I can't let a challenge like that lie fallow.

( Oh pay for a seat / on the left of the right )

In Chicago, corruption isn't a "crying shame" so much as a form of amusement. :D

Dear Francis Scott Key: I am very sorry, kthxbai.

Hey, it's Friday the thirteenth! And yesterday was my LJversary, though not really, because I started journaling in March, and moved it all over after I got my LJ on the 12th of April, 2003, which is the "date created" in my profile.

And uh, looking at my comments posted versus comments received...I gotta post more comments.

Commentary post-hack: As of this writing (November 2008), after the hack, I have 51,000 posted to 6,000 received. I look really awesome right now.

Anyhow, in honour of the day I have one more poem from Ellis, who seems to be prolific in the month of April. *grins* April is the cruelest month, and I've noticed that there's a certain balance of misery which, when reached, is the perfect fertile soil for writing. Too unhappy and the writing stops; too happy and there's no need for that escape.

I never said I was mentally stable. I tell people my poems were written by my imaginary friend.

LITTLE KNOWN FACTS
by Ellis Graveworthy

If those whose words come down to us
As canon or as measured verse
Are quiet as the common man
Regarding private thoughts, and words
Unspoken over what they've done --
The good deeds harnessed to the bad --
Our view of them's a funny one.
The public face is all we've had
For those who took up fragile tools
And softly tapped the infinite;
Of what they felt about it all
Betraying not a twitch or tic.
If poets laughed dishonestly
As people laugh and jest in crowds,
If writers wept for private loss
And never spoke a word aloud --
In short if they felt as we feel
(And who denies their human lives?)
Then we can never really know
Except for fictions left behind
What makes a mind as bright as brass
And our life seem as clear as glass.

[info]cluegirl asked me for a poem the other day for Poetry Month, and I've been turning it over in my head ever since -- I told her I couldn't write her one, but Ellis Graveworthy would. I suppose I must have caught him in one of his darker moments, because this was slipped under my door this morning.

Clue, this isn't the poem I wanted, not for you especially, but it's what I got, I'm afraid.

FOR THE ARTIST IN WARTIME
by Ellis Graveworthy

When he is hungry, fill his mouth with words;
Teach her to recite while fever burns.
Build houses with three walls for little pay
At night the flat's unheated; sleep in turns.
"The money has all gone; there's no return
On beauty, and we can't invest in joy.
The dividends of war outnumber peace;
If you want pay, go be a soldier boy.
You want to live for art, then art you'll eat;
Art will be your doctor, keep your books.
Art will have to keep you warm at night."
The moneymen won't give you second looks.
But when the soldiers come all limping home
Not cash nor goods will soothe their deadened eyes;
And riots in the streets are the result
Of those who live too narrow, too-small lives.
The parents often starve to feed the young,
But there will be a recompense at last
And when they know you can't get love with guns
The artists will be kings of all the lands.
So bide a while and fill your mouths with words;
Recite, recite, recite, while fever burns.

( Comment conservation )

Rare Free Verse Found On A Train
By Ellis Graveworthy

Attention passengers:
We are delayed due to an individual
Who relieved himself
on the train in front of us
And has had to be removed from the train.
There's always someone
Who's having a worse day than you are.

***

I actually had a good day, or at any rate not a bad one. I've been leaving for interviews earlier than I think I should and getting there on time, so the law of averages had to predict that I'd be obscenely early for at least one of them. No matter, I found a cafe and had an orange juice and read my book (Death Makes A Holiday, which I think some of you will really like).

I'm glad that's the last interview of the week, because my one nice interview suit is getting a bit abused-looking. The latest agency, which places people specifically at educational institutions in and around Chicago, has arranged to put me in touch with the hiring manager for a job that, while amusingly absurd, I don't think I'll reveal until I've interviewed for it.

I have more testing to do, however, so I'll be scarce again. Other than that...saw some neat sculptures, took some photos, said hi to my mailman. As a reward for all this interviewing I'm going to a play tomorrow night -- actually, though I was hoping to schedule at least one play a week for the forseeable future, I'm going to three in the next four days. What can I say? Theatre here is like pot in Canada -- potent and cheap.

I'm a plothead.

I feel much better after watching some Sherlock Holmes and having some Chinese food. And so I share with you the grook I made up walking to the Chinese place:

Imperials cook using tablespoons
which never quite make it to table
And cups that are smaller than any cups used
And degrees that are farenheitable.

So, I was thinking tonight, as I sat at my desk doing NOTHING because I'm not allowed to grade more than 30 papers an hour, that if I graded eight papers every quarter of an hour and then spent the other five minutes working on grooks, I might not suck by the time I get out of this job. So I wrote grooks on post it notes, which worked really well because all but the longest one fit on one mini post-it.

(Note to Jim: There will be Froot Grooks eventually, just you wait.)

I maintain that this is something you probably get better at with practice, so go easy; these mind me more of Ogden Nash than Piet Hein. I think this is my favourite from tonight:

Tomorrow morning we'll repent but
(Mea Culpa Maxis)
Tonight's time will be better spent
(In vino veri-taxis).

Words are cheap
But cheap pens smear
Which makes my words
Ex-pen-severe.

Hobbits are creatures
Of Myth.
Grooks consist mainly
Of Pith.

The fashion today is for
Minimal Carbs
Which makes you look better
in Minimal Garbs.

We admire our parents
Until we are teens
And then we admire our friends;
Which translated to
The vernacular means
We start acting like donkey's rear ends.

Arthritis stiffens fingers
And pneumonia coats the throat
Re-humatism lingers
And the gout can get your goat
But if you fear time's passing might
Infinity's dull drums
Recall old age is not a right --
Take heart! You might die young!

All the words you need to write
Are in the dictionary
If only they'd arrange themselves
And stop being contrary.

Family reunions go smooth
With a liberal uthage of boothe.

For the GO fans:
There's nothing more divine
Than a bookshop (second hand)
If only one could find
The times that it is manned.

I didn't write this. Ellis Graveworthy did.

I guess he doesn't like Yeats as much as I do....

In Reply To Mr. Yeats

And why should some poor tethered bird
Once-hooded, hear his master's call
When now he has again been sent to wing?
/>Things fall apart; thus ever is the way
That we move upwards. Anarchy
Does this at least: new things arise.
I see no tides but that the moon pulls in
A necessary ceremony, and most innocent.
The best lack no conviction, but are young
And we deride their passionate beliefs.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Perhaps your second coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Vanity makes
You certain of your own great destiny
That some most fearsome god selected you
To be our final prophet of the end.
A shape with lion body and the head of an ass
A gaze blank and hopeless without light
You move your slow lips while all about
Reel your disciples, shadows ignorant.
/>The darkness drops again; but I have seen
Twenty centuries of human life
Are vexed the more by Prophets such as you.
That rough beast slouching towards the eastern sky
Is dawn, and nothing more, reborn each day.