Silently and Very Fast
Mar. 23rd, 2020 09:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mallorys_cameraAnd as if the End of History isn’t bad enough, Hideous White Stuff is falling from the sky:
I went to the store. I masked! I gloved! I stood eight feet apart from everyone else! I carried a large roll of paper towels and a bottle of Lemon Lysol spray with which I doused all surfaces—including the surfaces of the objects I bought.
All the other shoppers, maskless, gloveless, and congregating in cozy groups, looked at me as though I were insane.
Did I care?
I did not!
I bought a selfie stick.
Because, you know, when it's the End of the World, you need to take a lot of selfies.
Right. I still can’t take a decent selfie. And, yes, that is a genuine Plague Doctor mask from once-polluted-and-now-swimming-with-swans Venice. I'm seriously thinking of wearing it next time I go to Ocean Lots.
###
When I got home, I disinfected some more. And then, I went for a long hike in the Vanderbilt Estate Park. Sans mask and gloves.
It was an incredibly beautiful spring day, and the park was empty, as it nearly always is, as people hereabouts prefer eating Cheetos and watching Fox News to full spectrum sunlight even at the healthiest of times.
One of my favorite pastimes while hiking is what I can only call botanical archeology. For example: There is an empty field in the park that this time of year is covered with crocuses:
Crocuses are not native to these parts, though. Who planted these crocuses? Why did they plant them? I get that the crocuses propagate on their own, but someone must have planted the first bulbs.
The field is out in the middle of nowhere, no buildings around it. There must have been a building here once, though, perhaps a pagoda or some other picturesque place where the very, very rich people who owned this estate, long dead, came to picnic.
###
In the evening, I hunted down I, Claudius, one of the most brilliant television shows ever created, bad 1970s production values notwithstanding.
America has much in common with ancient Rome.
Though it took a couple of centuries for the Roman Empire to really begin to rot, and it looks as though it will only take the U.S. four months.
I thought of W.H. Auden’s poem, The Fall of Rome:
The piers are pummeled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.
Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.
Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.
Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.
Caesar’s double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.
Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.
Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.
Auden is my favorite poet for a reason, you know.
I went to the store. I masked! I gloved! I stood eight feet apart from everyone else! I carried a large roll of paper towels and a bottle of Lemon Lysol spray with which I doused all surfaces—including the surfaces of the objects I bought.
All the other shoppers, maskless, gloveless, and congregating in cozy groups, looked at me as though I were insane.
Did I care?
I did not!
I bought a selfie stick.
Because, you know, when it's the End of the World, you need to take a lot of selfies.
Right. I still can’t take a decent selfie. And, yes, that is a genuine Plague Doctor mask from once-polluted-and-now-swimming-with-swans Venice. I'm seriously thinking of wearing it next time I go to Ocean Lots.
###
When I got home, I disinfected some more. And then, I went for a long hike in the Vanderbilt Estate Park. Sans mask and gloves.
It was an incredibly beautiful spring day, and the park was empty, as it nearly always is, as people hereabouts prefer eating Cheetos and watching Fox News to full spectrum sunlight even at the healthiest of times.
One of my favorite pastimes while hiking is what I can only call botanical archeology. For example: There is an empty field in the park that this time of year is covered with crocuses:
Crocuses are not native to these parts, though. Who planted these crocuses? Why did they plant them? I get that the crocuses propagate on their own, but someone must have planted the first bulbs.
The field is out in the middle of nowhere, no buildings around it. There must have been a building here once, though, perhaps a pagoda or some other picturesque place where the very, very rich people who owned this estate, long dead, came to picnic.
###
In the evening, I hunted down I, Claudius, one of the most brilliant television shows ever created, bad 1970s production values notwithstanding.
America has much in common with ancient Rome.
Though it took a couple of centuries for the Roman Empire to really begin to rot, and it looks as though it will only take the U.S. four months.
I thought of W.H. Auden’s poem, The Fall of Rome:
The piers are pummeled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.
Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.
Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.
Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.
Caesar’s double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.
Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.
Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.
Auden is my favorite poet for a reason, you know.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-23 03:20 pm (UTC)Its story line has a Stephen King sort of arc to it or maybe it's an Alfred Hitchcock one because, in the final scene--I think, the protagonist is hung on a cross and is eaten by birds.
Or maybe I just made all of that up to console myself for having lost all but a ghostly, closing image of the actual teleplay.
Anyway, I've also been encountering Wystan Hugh Auden's name quite frequently in my re-reading of Virginia Carr's bio of Carson McCullers. Although I've not read any poetry in quite some time, I may have to find some of his.
And finally, I must end with an apology. I'm the one responsible for this belated falling of the HWS. I put both of my snow shovels in the basement on Friday. So sorry...
no subject
Date: 2020-03-24 01:05 pm (UTC)Auden is my favorite poet because not only are his thoughts visionary but his poetry rhymes. I've always thought blank verse was cheating. Yeats is another favorite for the same reason.
Please put those snow shovels back on your porch where they belong. 😀
no subject
Date: 2020-03-25 10:40 am (UTC)And YES, I was immediately taken by Auden's rhyme scheme but still feel a certain kinship with blank verse. I think it's mainly with the "blank" part.
The snow shovels are leaning against the steps at the side entrance since I have no porch--'50s Cape Cods are almost totally bereft of most such architectural niceties, most necessities even.
However, I'm thinking that their presence in the open air may actually enhance their potency in warding off the evil snow things. And, due to laziness, they will probably now languish there until the 4th of July...
no subject
Date: 2020-03-25 11:19 am (UTC)I think you really displeased the gods with that snow shovel move. More hideous white stuff from the sky has been forecast for today.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-30 07:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-31 01:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-24 04:11 pm (UTC)If you wore the Plague Doctor mask, people might even give you 80 feet of clearance! :-D Okay, except for me! I'd probably ask to try it on to find how well it balances and ... :-D
no subject
Date: 2020-03-24 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-25 02:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-03-25 08:12 am (UTC)America as Rome is an interesting one ('I Claudius' still remains utterly stunning, achieving so much more than 'Rome' for all its 70s issues) I think it's Niall Ferguson's book Colossus that argues against the idea that there is no such thing as an American Empire. Something else to read...
I'm not going to be bored for the next 12 weeks!
no subject
Date: 2020-03-25 11:26 am (UTC)These days, for obvious reasons, my favorite Yeats is Sailing to Byzantium. 😀
Yeah, the America/Rome parallels are not exact. Nepotism doesn't quite pass as dynasty.
I, Claudius remains really, really good.