Dear Old Tyger that Sleeps

Phrase of the Day :- That's a bit Freudian.
Soundtrack of the Day :- Nine Objects of Desire - Suzanne Vega
Elder Statesman of the Day - Chris Patten (but don't forget the bleep machine)



(This may go offline - I need to come back as this is almost realtime)

I have just arrived here through a very heavy downpour, the sort of grit-splashing deluge that makes the very air seem like water. The clouds are dark, as you would expect, with a threat of thunder though it has been too cold for me to believe that there will be a storm. I love days like this but as soon as the sun begins to come out, I feel let-down. Rainy days should be the whole shebang not the wishy-washy mix of "Sunshine and Showers". I can't control the weather like some people seem able to do but "Set for the Day" is a lovely phrase.

I have nearly finished reading "Seymour - an Introduction" though in a Zen-like way I don't really want to say anything about it. Except that the whole thing seems to be a longer version of the poems that Seymour wrote - seemingly mundane descriptions which go beyond what they describe to explain the subject in great depth. Just like the story of the Horse Wrangler at the beginning of "Raise high the roof beam, Carpenters" (Which is in the same volume). Be quiet and excuse me; I am straining to hear a conversation and you are making it difficult for me to catch all of it. I am going to start a rumour. J.D. Salinger has a whole manuscript of what happens to Holden Caulfield after "The Catcher in the Rye". Just to be safe - this is NOT true! I have written it here with a plain statement that I do not know what manuscripts J.D. Salinger has hidden away for publication after his death. The above text would be nice (and very dangerous) though in Margaret Salinger's book she mentions a short story which says that Holden Caulfield is missing in action during the war or maybe I have misread that.

Lost Vowels for today. There are over three hundred Troops listed as being "Missing in Acton"

There is of course a site for "Lost Consonants" and other things. As the above offering suggests I always end up thinking of Lost Vowels rather than Consonants. I always think they are very good and wonder why Graham Rawle doesn't ever do them but he has been steadfast in his refusal to use (or lose) vowels rather than consonants in his series. I said I wouldn't talk any more about "Seymour" but there is a paragraph at the beginning which quotes either Kafka or Kierkegaard (I had to look that up by the way and of course the parentheses are a tribute to Salinger himself) about clerical error coming back to hauntt an author. Lost Consonants are just a recognition of this whole thing. If you can't beat them, join them. My log is full of errors but thankfully my wife points most of them out. She told me yesterday that she thought that the surname of Tom and Barbara from the Good Life was "Goode" rather than "Good" but I can find no proof either way. Of course for such a throw-away ( and mostly un-read ) text as this, none of this really matters as no-one is going to use THIS as PROOF of ANYTHING at all. What next?

A Double Haiku like Seymour's :-

Above the Mountains,
Eagles Soar with wings of Gold.
The river tumbles.

Through the garden wall,
To keep order with the plants.
The woman listens.

I would assume that you are not allowed a title. I know that this is not very good and probably only fits being a classical Haiku by virtue of the 5-7-5 structure. My point is not to write a 'good' Haiku but to illustrate how little text Seymour had, to fit in all the descriptions which Buddy gives of the poems. Its like the Sketch (done various times) where someone is translating for a person who talks for ages only to have the interpreter respond with 'He says "Yes"'. I can only say that Seymour's Haiku must have been very good indeed. It is fortunate in the extreme that Buddy is not allowed to quote any of the poems in his story. Maybe I have misread what the actual structure of the poems is. Maybe several poems are used for each of Buddy's events. But then maybe Salinger chooses the Double Haiku format just so that he can get away with longer descriptions. Maybe that defeats the purity of the Haiku form. This kind of goes against Salinger's rule (described by his daughter) that you should not be an artist, a writer or a person of religion unless your heart is purely in it. Maybe this is his clerical error, something like a treasure hunt for a concept. Or possibly, the poems are not quoted directly because Salinger knows he cannot write them and won't compromise being "fully in it".

How big is the world? How much destruction can it swallow up without it spilling over. I don't want other people's wars coming my way. Oh that sounds so NIMBY doesn't it. My country or even my continent has had so many wars and traumas, that I have to thankful that it is so peaceful now. To go one step further, I don't want wars at all. I like to think I am passionate about things, and that if I was ever in a state of repression, I would be prepared to do something about it ( getting over my natural cowardice) but nothing that makes the news at the moment is worth fighting for. All the big problems could be overcome. There is a futility about it all at the moment. It's the other ludicrous stuff which doesn't make the news, which needs fighting for. Like patenting rice or exploiting cheap labour. Three thousand people died in the World Trade Centre ( And I will shout loudly and obscenely at anyone who makes light of that fact before you get enraged and write to RDeWeyden@Hotmail.com) but we could save many times that number with just a slight change in world balance. Maybe the media in the parts of the world which most of us like to think of as bizarre (but in actuality represent the majority of the world's population) should run pictures of people dying of starvation or HIV or any of the other things which the 'west' does to the rest of the world either by virtue of action or inaction.

Maybe the phrase of the day should be changed to 'polemic'

It is the kind of day when you want to dance to the music in your headphones or do Tai-Chi at the very least. Oh no! I'll be doing one of those "which Care-Bear are you" type things next. How to define the world using a few stereotypical behaviour patterns. Why does that sound familiar? Ah ha! Astrology. And you CAN write to me at RDeWeyden@hotmail.com about that. I am me and no-one else (Though there is a guy in Australia who's life has been an exact mirror of mine (except that he is a Kangaroo Wrangler in Dubbo and actually likes ice beer). I recognise the cadences and rhythms of real speech. Oh yes I do!

As you may have guessed, I got in here really early ( I was woken at 04:30) by a "Slow Motion Blackbird". This is actually a real track. It is the call of a blackbird repeated but gradually slowed down (Like Four Organs by Steve Reich but done by slowing the recording down without changing the pitch). The annoying things is that blackbird call is from a soundtrack album and I hear the exact same call on TV or radio all the time. Or is it that all blackbirds have the same call. No! I know they vary. Anyway, Chris Hughes used it first so that is all that matters.

Enough for now (Who said 'Too Much'?)