Sunday Poetry: Invictus, by William Ernest Henley

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley
_______________________________________________

Is this poem great, or is it crap? Is it well-wrought inspiration, or overwrought egotism? Do you love it, or hate it?

John Ciardi, one of the best poetry critics ever to write, was not a fan of the poem, which he described as "perhaps the most widely known bad poem in English":

"Invictus" ("Unconquered") is perhaps the most widely known bad poem in English, and certainly there is no trace in it of a technical flaw on which its badness could be blamed. Nor is the poem bad because of its subject matter. Hardy and Housman, among others, have written many poems that take as bleakly pessimistic an attitude toward life as does "Invictus." The success of many such poems is sufficient evidence that English and American readers can enter into a sympathetic contract to consider the world as some sort of unhappy pit. It is not in the way Henley takes his subject, but in the way he takes himself that the reader parts company with the poet. To take the world as one's subject and to take the attitude that it is nothing but a place of suffering is one thing; but to react by taking oneself with such chest-thumping heroics, is very much another. One feels that Henley is not really reacting from his own profoundest depths but that he is making some sort of overdramatic speech about pessimism. There is a failure of character in the tone he has assumed. The poet has presented himself as unflinchingly valiant. The reader cannot help but find him merely inflated and self-dramatizing.

Is that criticism fair?

The poem certainly is extreme, and seems almost laughable when adopted by those whose worst "fell clutch of circumstance" is a traffic jam or a failing stock portfolio. The fact that shallow middle-managers quote it after a mediocre review does tempt one to sneer at the poem for its self-dramatizing fans.

More sinister, this is the poem that Timothy McVeigh, the cowardly terrorist and murderer of children, used as his last words. The poem helped him bolster his valiant self-image till the moment of his death.

And yet the poem has served others, as well. Nelson Mandela recited the poem to himself when he was imprisoned during Apartheid, and he taught it to fellow inmates. John McCain recalled the words during his imprisonment in North Vietnam.

The poet himself came by his valor honestly. He suffered from tuberculosis, and wrote the poem after the amputation of his foot, in an age when surgery was not a white-gowned affair, and the handicapped did not get reserved parking for their carriages. Henley remained an active poet, critic and teacher, and thrived despite his disability. Robert Louis Stevenson wrote to him after publishing "Treasure Island", "I will now make a confession. It was the sight of your maimed strength and masterfulness that begot Long John Silver...the idea of the maimed man, ruling and dreaded by the sound [voice alone], was entirely taken from you".

Despite my admiration of John Ciardi, I disagree with him on this one. "Invictus" is a great poem. It sparks a reaction in those who read it, and we are drawn to apply it to our own lives and situations, however ignoble or bland they may appear to others. The "bludgeonings of chance" in our lives may not be prison torture; they may be challenges at work or at home, and yet we all need inspiration. "Invictus" speaks to our stronger selves, even if our circumstances are not at the extreme of human suffering.

What Kind of Beer Goes With Turkey Dinner? 5 Beers for Thanksgiving

This time of year, wine writers do their best to graft a wine choice onto a dinner that does not really go well with wine. Bland turkey with side dishes running from sweet to rich and savory presents too complex a meal for a single wine to complement successfully. Most wind up recommending something like pinot noir or an oaked chardonnay as the least dissatisfactory, or they give up entirely and recommend Beaujolais Nouveau because it's coincidentally available at this time of year.

Thanksgiving is meant for beer. Indeed, the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock because they were running low on beer! Beer was the beverage of choice back then, even among Puritans, because it was safe from waterborne illnesses. The fact that the world of beer presents infinitely more choices than "red or white" makes it a better choice for today's Turkey Days as well.

The best answer to the question of what kind of beer to serve with Thanksgiving dinner is "your favorite," of course. If you like Bud Light or Corona with a lime wedge, don't let some beer snob like me throw you off your game. Cheap beer and football games have become a cherished part of our Holiday tradition, so pop open a can of Natty Light if that sounds good.

But, if you're interested in something a little different, not because you want to impress anyone but because you want a fresh flavor combination, here are 5 style suggestions, with a particular brand chosen as an exemplar.

1) English Pale Ale (Bass Ale): This is the classic beer of England, and probably what the Pilgrims yearned for most at the first Thanksgiving. Though the Bass Brewery was not built at Burton on Trent until the early days of the Industrial Revolution, the copper colored, hoppy, minerally ale typifies the best of traditional English ales. It's a complex beverage, with fruitiness to go enhance the turkey, hoppiness to contrast with the sweets, and a reasonable alcohol level to allow you to have two over the course of a lengthy Thanksgiving dinner.

2) Saison (Hennepin Ale): Saison is a rustic French farmhouse ale. Historically speaking, it's all wrong to suggest a French ale to go with a meal rooted in English/American history, but this style is simply the best possible beverage for a Thanksgiving dinner, so leave history to the scholars. Saison is a style designed for refreshing drinkability, originally to serve to harvest workers in the late summer. It is dry and complex, with a little citrus and coriander in the aroma, and a tartness and hop bite in the mouth. Saison is an under-appreciated marvel to go with rich foods, and Hennepin Ale is usually available in local stores for under $6. I also highly recommend Boulevard's Saison Brett, and Saison DuPont, if you can find it. Seriously, this style of beer is perfect for Thanksgiving.

3) Oktoberfest (Paulaner Oktoberfest-Märzen): Oktoberfest is the pumpkin pie of beer - rich, sweet, autumnal and wonderful. Everybody loves an Oktoberfest, and Paulaner makes a good choice. Garrison Keillor recently observed, however, that pumpkin pie is a testament to mediocrity; the best pumpkin pie you've ever had is not much different from the worst. The same might be said of Oktoberfest; almost any of the brands you will find on the shelves are going to deliver a malty, clean-finishing drink that will make your turkey taste better, your sweet potatoes more golden, and your inlaws more tolerable.

4) German Pilsner (Blue Paddle Pilsner): This style is close enough to "normal American beer" that your non-beer snob friends will give it a try, but it will shock them with an amped-up flavor profile. The German style of pilsner differs from the original Czech version by a more aggressive hop profile and a drier finish. Your first sip of Blue Paddle (by New Belgium) will shock you with its hop bitterness, but it's rounded out by the candy-like sweetness of pilsner malt. Not everyone will love this beer, and some will find it too bitter, but a few will find it to be a revelation, and a cause for Thanksgiving.

5) Holiday Beer (Nutcracker Ale): Please be careful if you decide to go with a holiday beer - most of them are vile concoctions adulterated with spices and fruits that cover up a mediocre or awful brew. Almost anything with pumpkin falls in this category, and cinnamon is also a bad sign. In fact, I probably ought to delete this fifth suggestion and start over with something safe, like a good Nut Brown Ale, but I feel like too many people will be tempted by the cutesy labels and crappy logic that fuel the holiday beer mania if I don't address it directly. If you want to get a seasonal holiday beer, get yourself some Nutcracker Ale. Nutcracker Ale, by Boulevard, is a beer of real merit, with complex caramel malt and a solid citrus hop flavor. It's a great beer. If you want to try a beer that promises sugar plums and elves, I admire and encourage your sense of adventur - you may stumble upon a gem. But it's probably not an appropriate beer to complement a meal, and you'll save a lot of money by picking them up out of the close-out bin in January.
____________________________________________

Happy Thanksgiving, readers. Count yourself lucky to live in a time and place where literally hundreds of beer offerings are available to excite your taste. Cheers!

Sunday Poetry: An Ex-Judge at the Bar, by Melvin Tolson

An Ex-Judge at the Bar

Bartender, make it straight and make it two—
One for the you in me and the me in you.
Now let us put our heads together: one
Is half enough for malice, sense, or fun.

I know, Bartender, yes, I know when the Law
Should wag its tail or rip with fang and claw.
When Pilate washed his hands, that neat event
Set for us judges a Caesarean precedent.

What I shall tell you know, as man is man,
You’ll find neither in Bible nor Koran.
It happened after my return from France
At the bar in Tony’s Lady of Romance.

We boys drank pros and cons, sang Dixie; and then,
The bar a Sahara, we pledged to meet again.
But lo, on the bar there stood in naked scorn
The Goddess Justice, like September Morn.

Who blindfolds Justice on the courthouse roof
While the lawyers weave the sleight-of-hand of proof?
I listened, Bartender, with my heart and head,
As the Goddess Justice unbandaged her eyes and said:

“To make the world safe for Democracy,
You lost a leg in Flanders fields—oui, oui?
To gain the judge’s seat, you twined the noose
That swung the Negro higher than a goose.”

Bartender, who has dotted every i?
Crossed every t? Put legs on every y?
Therefore, I challenged her: “Lay on, Macduff,
And damned be him who cries first, ‘Hold, enough!”

The boys guffawed, and Justice began to laugh
Like a manic on a broken phonograph.
Bartender, make it straight and make it three—
One for the Negro…one for you and me.

- by Melvin B. Tolson
__________________________________________________________

Not many poets get portrayed in film, but Melvin Tolson was played by Denzel Washington in The Great Debaters. That movie, of course, focuses on his role as a successful debate coach, rather than his role as one of the great poets of America.

This poem begins with a pun - the ex-judge is not at the bar in court, he is at a drinking hole, where he attempts to deal with the guilt of injustice. This judge knows that he went along with society - the boys - and made a mockery of justice. Even though the judge had fought for democracy and lost a leg in Flanders Fields (the subject of another famous poem, of course), he returned home and abused democracy and justice by hanging a negro "to gain a judge's seat."

Melvin Tolson was born in Moberly, Missouri, raised in northern Missouri and Iowa, and graduated from Lincoln High School here in Kansas City in 1919. He undoubtedly saw first hand the corrosive effects of racism on justice. Indeed, Lady Justice is not merely blindfolded in the poem, it is bandages that cover her eyes, and she is manic at the end of the poem.

This is an ugly subject for a poem, and it is made bearable only by the skill of the poet. The regular rhyming couplets provide a breezy tone, and the pun at the very beginning relaxes the reader. When read by the poet, the piece seems almost comical, despite its bleak subject.

Tolson shows off a bit of erudition as he quotes one of my favorite Shakespearean lines. MacBeth, who has been assured that he will not be killed by man "of woman born" has just found out that MacDuff was born by a Caesarean delivery, and is thus uncommonly qualified to kill him. Just as MacBeth undertook his doomed battle, the ex-judge knows that Lady Justice has defeated him, and he finds himself an ex-judge, drinking with a bartender and the memory of a hanged man.

It's an astonishingly gentle poem, given the author and given the subject matter. Where's the rage? Where are the calls for vengeance? Instead, Tolson satisfies himself with the humbling of the ex-judge, and his too-late awareness that his participation in injustice has left him a lesser man.

Photography Tips for Black Professionals, and a Lengthy Digression on the Nature of Friendship

I had lunch yesterday with one of my African-American friends. Yes, that's a plural. I really do have more than one African-American friend, depending on how you define friend.

Important Digression: I mean, really, the line between friend and acquaintance gets kind of blurry, and the term "friend" depends on context. If a given person gets indicted or says something controversial, s/he is more likely to be an acquaintance than a friend. "Yeah, I know him/her," I'll say, with a roll of my eyes to make certain that the person knows that my disapproval of the person started long before the current brouhaha.

I realize that makes me sound disloyal. In my defense, I should point out that I am also a pathetic "basker in reflected fame". I went to high school with a guy a couple years behind me I still consider to be my friend on the PGA tour, though we only talked a few times over 30 years ago, and never since. But, still, Jay Delsing is my "friend on the Tour".

Similarly, I consider a lot of politicos to be friends, which may be misguided. City Councilpeople wave at me and smile, and, even though I couldn't come up with the names of their spouses or children if you offered me a thousand dollars to guess. There's one politician who refuses to allow me to be her facebook friend after I wrote something nice about the candidate she beat by a 60 point margin, so I suppose I rank somewhere below the 880 closer friends she has on Facebook. But we have 99 mutual friends, so I still consider her to be in my friendship circle. Politicians usually try to be everybody's friend, but it's unwise to read too much into it.

It's all very confusing. I've seen a definition somewhere that a friend is someone who will bail you out of jail, while a great friend is the person sitting next to you saying, "That was awesome." I like to think I have a reasonable number of people who would bail me out of jail, but most of them have better judgment than to wind up there with me. When I think of sitting in jail, I tend to think of Henry Rizzo and James Tindall sitting next to me, talking about COMBAT funding . . .

I tend to run with a broad definition of "friend". Someone toward whom I have friendly feelings, and whom I am happy to see when I run into them. By that standard, almost everyone is my friend, including the guy I had lunch with. And a bunch of other minority people, too, so there!

Anyhow, one of the things we wound up discussing was the frequency with which black professionals get photographed. He reported that he appears on virtually every promotional piece put out by his large company. Similarly, he participates in virtually every client acquisition meeting, often held at exclusive clubs his parents would not have been allowed into.

The urge to put the black guy forward is not limited to the world of commerce. The teabaggers are now pushing a movie about themselves, and the trailer is a classic example of making certain that the black guy gets photographed to make the rest of the people seem more diverse. Like Ralph Ellison's Liberty Paint Factory, the white looks a little better when a touch of black is mixed in. So one black guy makes it into 5 shots.

It occurs to me that it can't be easy to serve in the role of "Photographic Symbol Showing that the Rest of Us are Cool with Diversity" (hereinafter, PSSRUCD). Not only can the flash of cameras disorient a person, but s/he is needs to make the most of his/her opportunity to diversify the shot.

For instance, given the number of flashes the PSSRUCD is exposed to, it may be tempting to don a pair of sunglasses, to ease the eyestrain. Bad idea. Sunglasses make you look cool and detached, but we need the appearance of friendly engagement. Ixnay on the shades.

A more subtle point is that you need to avoid being in the center of any group photo. This may seem a little counterintuitive, because, after all, you are the reason the photo is being taken, but having you centered in the photo makes the photo seem posed. So be careful to pose it differently.

Most importantly, always look at the camera! Looking off camera makes us think you might be casing the joint (remember, we wouldn't have even let you in a lot of these places if it weren't for all that deseg nastiness). Worse, you could be gazing at a white woman. Play it safe, look at the camera, and be the best PSSRUCD you can be.

You may notice that a lot of white guys, when approached by a photographer while drinking, will ease their drink-holding glass behind their back. Don't try this. When we do it, it looks like we're hiding a drink. When you do it, it looks like you might be reaching for a weapon. The fear on everyone else's face will ruin the shot, and, if you do it quickly, there's a chance everyone will hit the floor. PSSRUCDs should simply set their drinks down on a table, and return to the photo. Trust me, people will wait for you.

Finally, a word on the expression. Sometimes it can be challenging to maintain the friendly smile of a top-notch PSSRUCD when the rest of us try out best to engage you in conversation. It may get old to be asked whether you played sports in college, or to be asked what you think about Bill Cosby, or to be congratulated on Obama's victory, but those are the best ice-breakers most of us white professionals can come up with. But too many photos are ruined by a shadow of contempt or an eye-roll passing over your face as you are posing with some pasty white old guy who happens to control the business we are after. So much depends on the friendly smile of the PSSRUCD. Please make it happen.

Terrorists Defeat Republicans

It's sadly amusing to see how upset Republicans are that the Obama administration is going to put Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other co-conspirators on trial in U.S. District Court in New York City for their role in the 9/11 attacks. The Republicans are frightened to the core about the thought that America is not good enough, not strong enough, not prepared enough to face up to these monsters. They are, in a word, terrorized.

Giuliani is fretting about the danger these bound and shackled men pose to the city, as if Batman: the Dark Knight was a documentary. He's terrorized.

House Minority Leader John Boehner thinks the terrorists will win their trial, so we should not dare to face them in a courtroom. He's terrorized.

Senator Jeff Sessions is having nightmares about swarthy men, and thinks they "will turn lawyers, juries, and judges into targets, and will needlessly endanger Americans living nearby." He's terrorized.

Thank God we have a president who has defeated terrorism by coolly moving forward as a proud American. He's not terrorized. And neither is America. Just the Republicans.

The Time When Tips Die

The time that passes from when I finish my meal to when I receive my tab is the time that good tips die. It's a time when good waiters show their attentiveness and earn rewards, and bad waiters cost themselves money I would have been happy to give.

I'm a patient diner and a generous tipper. Where else in your economic life can an adjustment of a couple dollars either way have a direct impact on the happiness level of a hard-working person? On a $15 bill, I can be an ass for $2, a decent human being for $3, a good guy for $4 and a working class hero if I don't insist on getting a measly buck back from my $20. Most days, I'll invest in some good karma.

I don't blame waiters for mediocre food, I don't blame them for long preparation times, and I'm not fussy about whether my water glass is refilled every time I take a sip. I get annoyed with them for not having a clue about their beer list, but the problem is so widespread I assume there must be some union rule forbidding them from knowing what malted beverages are available, so I grudgingly forgive even that incompetence. Unless I see them hanging around chatting with coworkers, I assume they're working hard and doing their best.

But my patience lasts only until my plate is empty, or moved to the side. At that time, I expect the waiter to notice, ask whether I want dessert or another beverage, and begin preparing the tab. That is the time period that most impacts the size of my tip.

A couple weekends ago, we had pizza for Saturday lunch at an "upscale" pizzeria in Brookside. The food was better than I had been led to expect (including some inventive salads), and their beer list included Magic Hat #9, so the stage was set for a generous tip. But we became invisible to the waitress when the pizza was shoved to the side. With laser-like focus, she swooped in to seat take orders from tables near us, without even a sideways glance at the table she had already served.

To me, that is like serving a dessert with a roach in it after a fine meal. It ruins what has come before. A pleasant 35-40 minute lunch has been capped off with a 10 minute annoyance of trying to pay for it. Her tip reflected my annoyance, and she probably figured she had gotten stuck with a lousy tipper. 10 minutes earlier, she would have been pleasantly surprised.

Has the Plaza Lost its Charm?

I remember my first visits to the Plaza, back in the early 80s. My wife and I would drive up from Columbia and stay with my brother and sister-in-law in an apartment near the Plaza, and we would walk down Main to the most glamorous shopping district I had yet visited.

It was different then.

You couldn't help but be impressed that Kansas City hosted a Saks - one of the snootiest retailers in the world - and that locally-owned Halls seemed just as elegant but twice as friendly. Saks has disappeared, with luxury-priced lawyers now serving as inventory in its former space. At the time, the retail felt like a piece of New York or London, right on the concrete shores of a trickle-sized Brush Creek.

Dining was different, too. Before Starbucks infiltrated the universe, Emile's was a German deli serving perfectly crafted sandwiches with a pickle wedge. Ubiquity overcame uniqueness.

Downstairs in Seville Square was The Longbranch Saloon. (Can you even go downstairs in Seville Square anymore, except in Urban Outfitters?) Longbranch was a classic bar partially owned by Lou Piniella that was a landmark for celebrity sighting and ice-cold American beer. They had handwritten signs all over the walls with wry humor.

Upstairs in Seville Square was a group of small shops pushing trinkets, imports and jewelry. Not very high-class, but a lot of personality.

And that's what's changed more than anything. The Plaza has lost its Kansas City personality, and become a typical suburban mall without a roof. Even the tennis courts on the East side of the Plaza have become a "tennis complex", and the Winsteads a block further East has drive-though instead of carhop service.

I miss the old Function Junction, and the chipwich cart at Seville Plaza. I miss Anne's Santa Fe. Heck, I even miss the old traffic layout, when Main Street went straight through as a street, instead of part of that monstrous parking lot with traffic lights. I miss Fred P. Ott's, even though I know it's still there, serving great burgers all by itself on the lonely south eastern corner of the Plaza. I miss the adventure of intersections without stop signs or stop lights.

There was a time when the Plaza was the crown jewel of Kansas City spending. If you wanted to buy something or eat a fancy meal, you headed to the Plaza. If you wanted to show an out-of-town visitor something wonderful about Kansas City, you would drive them down Ward Parkway and wind up on the Plaza, and they were always impressed.

By all means, it's still a great place to go. Some things are better - Classic Cup is an upgrade over the coffee house that preceded it, and sitting on the roof deck at O'Dowd's is a joy unrivaled in Cupcake Land. Next week, the lights will come on and it will be a sparkly gem at night. It will be beautiful, and I look forward to going down there for at least one "Oh my gosh, Christmas is next week" visit. I still love the Plaza, but the charm has faded since it was at its peak.

Competitive Enterprise Institute Won't Compete

You probably haven't heard of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), and, if I weren't so easily amused by self-important goofballs, it would probably be best to keep it that way. They're one of those "think tanks" that are simply an over-staffed group blog - a group of like-minded cranks who passionately want to think they are influential, but whose influence is measured by statements nobody paid any attention to. Their history page acknowledges that they haven't done anything noteworthy since 2006, when George Will mentioned a failed lawsuit they had used to clog up our courts.

It's attention they want, and I ought not to reward them with the bright light of instant celebrity that comes with a mention on Gone Mild.

But they issued a challenge yesterday that was so pathetic in its delusional self-importance that it truly amused me. They issued a press release (picked up by nobody but me, I'd wager) offering Al Gore $500 "together with the proceeds of a world-wide email pledge-a-dollar drive" if Gore would engage in a global-warming debate with "Lord" Monckton. "Lord" Monckton is an English guy who got his "Lordship" from his Dad, and is running around telling people that Obama is going to sign a treaty in December imposing Global Communism.

Let's face it - Al Gore is a wealthy man. You'd expect that a "think (sic) -tank" on Competitive Enterprises would come up with a more competitive enterprise than a $500 check and a pig in a poke when seeking the attention of a multi-millionaire and very busy person like Al Gore.

I responded in kind by email, and I hereby repeat my challenge on the internet. I hereby challenge "Lord" Monckton to a debate on whether gravity really exists, and I offer him $10 to come to Kansas City and debate me.

In response to my competitive challenge, I heard from the General Counsel of the CEI. He refused to take me up on my challenge, but instead attached two articles by someone other than "Lord" Monckton questioning the science of global climate change. Seemed like a pretty pathetic dodge to me.

Undeterred, I hereby challenge "Lord" Monckton care to come to Kansas City and debate those two articles with me, and I offer the same $10 as bait.

For good measure, I also offered the General Counsel of the CEI a buck to come to Kansas City and debate the intellectual integrity of "Lord" Monckton (who has previously argued for quarantine of all persons with the HIV virus, together with mandatory universal annual HIV testing). I couldn't justify offering the full $10 for that one, since. let's face it, the debate wouldn't last very long.

Will the Competitive Enterprise Institute compete?

The Kids are Alright

One of the inalienable rights - no, essential duties - of teenagers is to annoy authority figures.

In Massachusetts, a prinicipal has banned the word "meep". It seems that students at Danvers High began using the meaningless word coined by Beaker, the Muppet lab assistant, to add a little levity to their daily grind.

Nothing bothers administrators quite as much as young people engaging in levity. To put a stop to their levicity, the principal sent out an automated phone call to all the parents warning them that if their levicious offspring dared to use the word "meep", s/he would be SUSPENDED.

My hat is off to the students of Danvers High School. They got under the skin of their principal, and caused him to issue a red-faced warning that made him look like a sputtering twit. Bravo.

Sunday Poetry: Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies, by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Childhood Is the Kingdom Where Nobody Dies

Childhood is not from birth to a certain age and at a certain age
The child is grown, and puts away childish things.
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.

Nobody that matters, that is. Distant relatives of course
Die, whom one never has seen or has seen for an hour,
And they gave one candy in a pink-and-green stripèd bag, or a jack-knife,
And went away, and cannot really be said to have lived at all.

And cats die. They lie on the floor and lash their tails,
And their reticent fur is suddenly all in motion
With fleas that one never knew were there,
Polished and brown, knowing all there is to know,
Trekking off into the living world.
You fetch a shoe-box, but it's much too small, because she won't curl up now:
So you find a bigger box, and bury her in the yard, and weep.

But you do not wake up a month from then, two months,
A year from then, two years, in the middle of the night
And weep, with your knuckles in your mouth, and say Oh, God! Oh, God!
Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies that matters, – mothers and fathers don't die.

And if you have said, "For heaven's sake, must you always be kissing a person?"
Or, "I do wish to gracious you'd stop tapping on the window with your thimble!"
Tomorrow, or even the day after tomorrow if you're busy having fun,
Is plenty of time to say, "I'm sorry, mother."

To be grown up is to sit at the table with people who have died, who neither listen nor speak;
Who do not drink their tea, though they always said
Tea was such a comfort.

Run down into the cellar and bring up the last jar of raspberries; they are not tempted.
Flatter them, ask them what was it they said exactly
That time, to the bishop, or to the overseer, or to Mrs. Mason;
They are not taken in.
Shout at them, get red in the face, rise,
Drag them up out of their chairs by their stiff shoulders and shake them and yell at them;
They are not startled, they are not even embarrassed; they slide back into their chairs.

Your tea is cold now.
You drink it standing up,
And leave the house.

- by Edna St. Vincent Millay
__________________________________________________________

This poem is not characteristic of Edna St. Vincent Millay. She was masterful with meter, and wrote over 200 tightly knit sonnets. She had the demonstrated ability to work with rhyme without lapsing into singsong. Her body of work is meticulous and clever.

This poem is a wreck. Bereft of rhyme and sustained meter, it seems to spill from the poet - a style more reminiscent of a conversation with a friend on the couch than of Shakespeare.

But, even in the absence of recognizable meter, Millay uses her subtle hand to reinforce the subject matter. The death of a distant relative is a "blah-blah-blah whatever" non-emotive sentence with trivial details. The death of the cat is brushed off as well, but there is horror in the details, and its proximity to the heart is obvious. The speaker is not being totally honest here, and Millay allows us to know it.

The dishonesty of the speaker is revealed completely as the real subject of the poem crashes to the fore in the midst of the discussion of the cat. This poem is not about the Kingdom of Childhood - it is a mourning of the speaker's mother. The speaker can't help it - she attempts to keep her emotions in check as she discusses burying her cat that will not curl up anymore, and suddenly her knuckles are in her mouth and she's crying "Oh God, Oh God" in the middle of the night.

The poem and the speaker bust wide open. She feels regret for intemperate words that cannot be breezily apologized for later in the immensity of time. She imagines them dead at her table - ghosts? - but she cannot force a reaction from them. They ignore her tea, her flattery, her raspberry jam, even her screaming in their faces. It's as if they are not there . . . and they are, awfully, not.

The inability to conjure her tea-loving mother slaps her back into brief sentences, and she leaves her home, as, eventually, we all leave our homes and go into the world without our parents.

Here is a recording of Edna St. Vincent Millay reading her poem. This is a rare instance where I think the poem suffers by this treatment. Millay employs a soaring, "poetical" voice to deliver a poem that should sound more like a friend in a late-night despairing telephone call. But, if you listen closely, she breaks out of that voice a few times and the urgency and the pain of this poem ring through.

Got a Soccer Player in the Family?

When I grew up, it was fuzz ball and street hockey in the alley behind Bobby Parres' and Tom Toczylowski's house. Home when the streetlights came on.

Nowadays, it's paid coaches and specialization. Supervision is multi-layered and intrusive.

Thank goodness a blog has found the humor in it all. "FullRideSoon" chronicles the world of a soccer mom supporting her little athletes on their quest for the glory. If only my parents were more like her, I may have become a successful athlete (at some sport that does not require speed or coordination).

Killjoys and K-2 - Why, Exactly?

K-2 is a new drug enjoying a tidal wave of publicity because it supposedly mimics the effects of pot without its most unfortunate side effect, which is getting hassled by the police. On that basis alone, people are wanting to ban it.

What?! Why?! Does the K in K-2 stand for killjoy?

There have been ZERO studies demonstrating that K-2 increases the risk of automobile accidents. There have been ZERO studies demonstrating that K-2 causes cancer. The production, distribution and marketing of K-2 does not support a vast underground criminal empire.

Yet, immediately upon hearing of the very existence of a drug that can get you legally high, the neo-prohibitionists sprang into action.

State Rep. Peggy Mast, an Emporia Republican, hadn’t heard about K2 until informed by The Kansas City Star. But she’s worried enough to suggest the state should take action.

“I would be very happy to sponsor a bill to make this illegal,” Mast said.

Mast sponsored legislation a few years ago that outlawed the hallucinogenic plants jimson weed and salvia divinorum.

Did Mast ask about whether the drug is harmful before seeking to deprive Kansans of a legal high? Of course not. The mere thought of Kansans being able to get high legally triggered the Pavlovian urge to ban it.

What kind of a messed up reaction is that?! The fact that people can get legally high is immediately viewed as a problem that must be attacked.

Now, to be completely fair, I'll concede that the stuff probably has some unfortunate health effects and probably does not help your driving ability, though nobody has proof of either concession. But, to be completely fair in return, you must concede that health and traffic concerns are not the real trigger of the Pavlovian "Ban" reflex. If, by some stroke of stoner luck, it turned out that K-2 had anti-oxidants to prevent cancer and actually improved driving judgment and reaction times, do you think the law-and-order folks would suddenly approve?

If so, why didn't they study those things before calling for a ban?

All we really need to know is that young people have found a way to enjoy themselves that doesn't involve competition or religion, and we'd better put a stop to it right away.

I just don't understand that impulse.

Missing Meals - What Kansas City has Lost

Kansas City is a great restaurant town, and I think it's even getting better. We are blessed with more creative chefs than I can count, and they keep moving us forward. But, every now and then, my thoughts will trip back to restaurants that have disappeared, and I'd like to step back in time for a couple hours. Here are a few places I would visit, in no particular order:

1. Leonard's, for biscuits and gravy. Leonard's was a previous occupant of what is now Governor Stumpy's, and they put out the best biscuits and gravy I've ever had. The gravy was peppery, with lots of tasty sausage, and the biscuits were soft with a crisp crust.

2. La Mediterranee for lunch. On the east side of the Plaza, a quiet, elegant French restaurant used to serve top-notch fare on fine china with white tablecloths for around $5.

3. Al Roubaie's (sp?) for lobster. Up the hill on Main from the Plaza, back when Main went straight over the creek, was a spotty little restaurant with a great lobster special. If I recall correctly, you got lobster and sides for $15, and it was a feast.

4. Thirsty's Cantina for lunch. I don't know how they packed so much flavor into a simple chicken sandwich, but it was wonderful. There used to be a great bar in the space now occupied by Panerra in Westport. They also served a burrito thing I can't remember the name of (chicken cantina?), but it was filled with chicken in a creamy, cheesy sauce with just enough jalapeno to make it shine. All that, plus chips and salsa.

5. TJ Cinnamon's. I know that the name lives on as a corporate asset of the Arby's chain, but, if you weren't around to experience it, you have no idea how mouth-watering a walk through Ward Parkway mall could be back in the mid-80s. The aromas of butter and cinnamon wafted through the then-active halls of commerce. The rolls were warm and soft - the size of softballs - and they were individual treasures, not boxed products.
_____________________________________________

This trip down memory lane has not truly been a lament. I think we have more, better restaurants today than we did 20 years ago. I wouldn't even trade the dependable neighborhood friendliness of Governor Stumpy's for the breakfast of Leonard's. Things change and they sometimes get better. But these are some fond food memories I have of Kansas City . . .

5 Reasons I am Voting NO on COMBAT

I will be voting NO tomorrow on the extension of the COMBAT tax. I've struggled with this decision, but a vote for COMBAT is a vote for arrogance in County government. Here are my reasons.

1. County Government Cannot Be Trusted with a $20,000,000 Slush Fund. Make no mistake - County government has cleaned up its act over the past several years, but the lack of news coverage focusing on it has caused it to care less and less about the public trust. For instance, the committee that handles the COMBAT funds has 2 out of 3 members with genuine criminal records - crimes centered on financial misdealings. I acknowledge that voters of a district can elect who they want, but for the Legislature to place those two people on a $20,000,000 committee seems to be an intentional poke in the eye to those of us who care about good government.

2. The Vote Yes Campaign is Trashing Our County. The utter contempt that the bigwigs have for those of us who live here in their fiefdom is shown on the latest "vote Yes" mailer. On it, in a bright orange box, is a quotation from a recovering addict - "Without COMBAT, Jackson County would be like Iraq . . . with drugs." In an age where our County and City are trying desperately to lure business, tourism and Johnson Countians to our community, the politicos are conjuring images of bomb craters and shell casings. It is irresponsible, dishonest and frankly disgusting to issue such a statement, and I cannot imagine rewarding such behavior with a "yes" vote. If for no other reason, caring Jackson Countians should vote "no" as a rebuke to everyone involved in this effort.

3. $800,000 Timing Mistake. Why are we having this election now, when the tax does not expire for another 17 months? Because some backroom politicians decided that holding a special election now, at a cost of $800,000, would be a clever move at keeping turnout low, rather than holding the vote during a regular election. It's arrogance, people - we're voting tomorrow because some bigwig decided we should, and damn the taxpayer expense.

4. COMBAT Funds Get Wasted. Now, let me be crystal clear on this - the vast majority of COMBAT dollars get spent on good programs for great reasons. But some of it gets wasted - like paying a thousand dollars for a blogger to put a sticker on his car. The fact that one of our best legislators was criticized for being "picky" when she questioned the expenditure of a thousand tax dollars further illustrates just how uncaring our legislature is.

5. If We Vote No, We'll Get a Better COMBAT. Here's the key to the whole thing - we have 17 months to get COMBAT fixed and then get it approved by the voters. Right now, if you ask questions about how the program is being administered and what the plans are to improve it, you'll be told that they're working on it, and are in the process of revamping everything. "Trust us, we'll make it better." Yes, they really do hope and believe that Jackson County voters are dumb enough to trust that the legislature will make improvements after they get their way. This is the same crowd of legislators that fought Ethical Home Rule for almost 6 months. Let them make their changes first, and then come to us for approval.
________________________________________

As a responsible citizen, I cannot in good conscience vote for the renewal of the COMBAT Tax at this time. I am not blind to the good it has accomplished, but one would be hard pressed to spend $20,000,000 every year without accomplishing some good. I want something better, and I think the Jackson County legislature deserves a rebuke, not a reward. I will vote NO on COMBAT.

Sunday Poetry: The Night Game, by Robert Pinsky

The Night Game

Some of us believe
We would have conceived romantic
Love out of our own passions
With no precedents,
Without songs and poetry--
Or have invented poetry and music
As a comb of cells for the honey.

Shaped by ignorance,
A succession of new worlds,
Congruities improvised by
Immigrants or children.

I once thought most people were Italian,
Jewish or Colored.
To be white and called
Something like Ed Ford
Seemed aristocratic,
A rare distinction.

Possibly I believed only gentiles
And blonds could be left-handed.

Already famous
After one year in the majors,
Whitey Ford was drafted by the Army
To play ball in the flannels
Of the Signal Corps, stationed
In Long Branch, New Jersey.

A night game, the silver potion
Of the lights, his pink skin
Shining like a burn.

Never a player
I liked or hated: a Yankee,
A mere success.

But white the chalked-off lines
In the grass, white and green
The immaculate uniform,
And white the unpigmented
Halo of his hair
When he shifted his cap:

So ordinary and distinct,
So close up, that I felt
As if I could have made him up,
Imagined him as I imagined

The ball, a scintilla
High in the black backdrop
Of the sky. Tight red stitches.
Rawlings. The bleached

Horsehide white: the color

Of nothing. Color of the past
And of the future, of the movie screen
At rest and of blank paper.

"I could have." The mind. The black
Backdrop, the white
Fly picked out by the towering
Lights. A few years later

On a blanket in the grass
By the same river
A girl and I came into
Being together
To the faint muttering
Of unthinkable
Troubadours and radios
.

The emerald
Theater, the night.
Another time,
I devised a left-hander
Even more gifted
Than Whitey Ford: A Dodger.
People were amazed by him.
Once, when he was young,
He refused to pitch on Yom Kippur.

by Robert Pinsky
________________________________________

There is so much to love in this poem - so much to engage people of all interests. It's a wonder this poem is not an icon of our world - quoted like Caddy Shack, Animal House or Monty Python by people in all stations. It touches upon romantic love, the importance of success, and, most importantly, baseball.

The poem begins with a slap in the face - it points out the absurdity of thinking that our approach to romantic love could be devised out of whole cloth. We owe so much of what we think and how we behave to precedent - to what society tells and shows us to be the ideal. Poetry, courtly love, even music - we think of these things as somehow inherent in the human condition. Instead, they are human traditions - an accident of history, and an invention of generations.

And then it shifts its attention to Whitey Ford - a dominating pitcher who played in an era recent enough that many readers could remember him. (I never saw him, but he was younger than my mother.) Whitey becomes a monument of caucasianism in the hands of Pinksy, and his overwhelming whiteness becomes a foil to life itself. White is the color of blank paper, while the speaker rolls in the grass with a girl, accompanied by the songs of the troubadors who helped establish the traditions of romantic love.

But tradition and academic discussion of courtly traditions pale in the bright light of baseball. As I write this, the Yankees lead the Phillies in the World Series. Pinsky shows a healthy dose of anti-Yankee sentiment with his dismissal of Ford -

Never a player
I liked or hated: a Yankee,
A mere success

A Yankee - a mere success? In those three lines, Pinsky captures the "so what?" attitude so many of us have toward the Yankees. Given the size of their payroll, given the tradition of Yankee baseball, given the paid-for expectations of the Yankee machine, there is a certain lack of drama in Yankee success.

Pinsky speaks against the elite. In his mind, he invents a Jewish version of Whitey Ford, who refused to play on Yom Kippur (a subtle reference to Hank Greenberg - not a pitcher, and not a Dodger, but a Jew who starred for the Detroit Tigers and refused to play during on Yom Kippur, even though his team was in a pennant race). His feat of imagination had already been loosely created in reality, just as his romantic conquest had been anticipated by generations of courtly lovers.

It's wonderful to find baseball in poetry. It's wonderful to find poetry in baseball. Somehow, having the Yankees in the World Series seems kind of reassuringly traditional.

UPDATE: I'm horrified! The reference to the Jewish left-handed Dodger who refused to play on Yom Kippur was not a reference to Hank Greenberg, it was a reference the amazing Sandy Koufax, a Jewish left-handed Dodger who refused to play on Yom Kippur. Pinsky even served as the voice on a book on tape version of a biography of Sandy Koufax.