“The Door,” by W.H. Auden

“The Door,” by W.H. Auden (Part I of “The Quest”)

Out of it steps our future, through this door
Enigmas, executioners and rules,
Her Majesty in a bad temper or
A red-nosed Fool who makes a fool of fools.

Great persons eye it in the twilight for
A past it might so carelessly let in,
A widow with a missionary grin,
The foaming inundation at a roar.

We pile our all against it when afraid,
And beat upon its panels when we die:
By happening to be open once, it made

Enormous Alice see a wonderland
That waited for her in the sunshine and,
Simply by being tiny, made her cry.

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Dagda Publishing’s Poetry Contest featured in the Nottingham Post.

Here’s some more nice news — Dagda Publishing Editor-In-Chief Reg Davey appeared yesterday in an article in the United Kingdom’s Nottingham Post, to talk about Dagda’s latest charity poetry competition.  The competition will raise money for people suffering from dementia, as well as for Myton Hospice and its patients with life-limiting illnesses.

Best of luck, Reg, with what sounds like a fun way to raise money for those in need!

Read on:

http://www.nottinghampost.com/Nottingham-publishing-firm-launches-charity/story-22870479-detail/story.html

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The birches and oaks that enclose the amphitheater keep their secrets … of private thoughts, late-night trysts, promises spoken.

The above is excerpted from an engaging article in the Summer 2014 University of Mary Washington Magazine about the planned restoration of the fabled amphitheater — with which I am just thrilled, as it holds some of my favorite college memories.  

And the article even quoted me, which I thought was quite flattering — I played Fletcher McGee in a 1990 Theater Workshop production of Edgar Lee Masters’ “Spoon River Anthology.”  I still remember running around that stage after class, trying desperately (and often in vain) to remember my lines, and snacking on chicken sandwiches and fishburgers form Seacobeck Dining Hall.

Check out page 24 of the magazine, linked below, for details about the project, which has been spurred on by a $1 million gift from Robert S. and Alice Andrews Jepson.  The project sounds like it will create a great space — a modernized amphitheater that will seat 600, but with all of the classical architectural features with which it was originally built in the early 1950’s.  I can’t wait to see it when it is finished, and it would be great fun to round up a few alumni to attend a student production there.

http://magazine.umw.edu/summer2014/

Homeopathic green tea paradox.

A friend of mine gave me homeopathic green tea to relieve stress … and it worked!

But then my preconceptions were challenged, and the contradictory evidence to my skeptical thinking caused cognitive dissonance.

So I’m stressed again.

You Wiccans and you’re Wiccy ways!!!!

 

 

Stephen King and W. H. Auden inspired by the same Jungian archetype?!?!

Well, probably not … as Auden’s manmade “Tower” does sound different than King’s nexus of all realities.  Nor does “The Quest,” the set of poems from which this is selected, parallel Roland’s journey.

Still, it’s a terrific poem.  

“The Tower,” by W. H. Auden

This is an architecture for the old;
Thus heaven was attacked by the afraid,
So once, unconsciously, a virgin made
Her maidenhead conspicuous to a god.

Here on dark nights while worlds of triumph sleep
Lost Love in abstract speculation burns,
And exiled Will to politics returns
In epic verse that makes its traitors weep.

Yet many come to wish their tower a well;
For those who dread to drown, of thirst may die,
Those who see all become invisible:

Here great magicians, caught in their own spell,
Long for a natural climate as they sigh
“Beware of Magic” to the passer-by.

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Support “Mics for Trikes” and enjoy a few laughs!

A friend of mine is helping with what sounds like a heck of a fun event here on Long Island for a great cause — providing disabled children with adaptive tricycles.  

Check out the September 25th “Mics for Trikes” event at McGuire’s Comedy in Bohemia:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1455936594670792/?ref=22

 

People in England are reading my mind!

Talk about synchronicity.  I was just chatting with my best friend last night — I read to her W. H. Auden’s “The Tower,” (part of “The Quest”), and then we were talking about books on tape. I told her I wanted to hear Tom Hiddleston read something, because his voice is my favorite.

Then I find this linked from the Dagda Publishing website by its (apparently telepathic) editors:

“As I Walked Out One Evening” was the first Auden poem I ever read.

MIDNIGHT AUDEN MAKES A BIRTHDAY PERFECT.

Ringin’ it in with the best of the Brits:

“O Where Are You Going,” by W.H. Auden

“O where are you going?” said reader to rider,

“That valley is fatal when furnaces burn,
Yonder’s the midden whose odors will madden,
That gap is the grave where the tall return.”

“O do you imagine,” said fearer to farer,
“That dusk will delay on your path to the pass,
Your diligent looking discover the lacking
Your footsteps feel from granite to grass?”

“O what was that bird,” said horror to hearer,
“Did you see that shape in the twisted trees?
Behind you swiftly the figure comes softly,
The spot on your skin is a shocking disease?”

“Out of this house” ‚ said rider to reader,
“Yours never will” ‚ said farer to fearer,
“They’re looking for you” ‚ said hearer to horror,
As he left them there, as he left them there.

Raccoon. In. Garbage dumpster. AGAIN.

dammit.

You’d figure that a learning curve as shallow as this one would have been eliminated by natural selection.

Then again … I’m still alive.

Or maybe Darwin was wrong, and the Creationists are right — and God deliberately made stupid animals to test us.

Sigh …

A thinking man’s Robocop?

Robocop (2014) was a hell of a lot more cerebral than anyone expected, putting more thought into its script than did the gimmicky (but still quite classic) ultra-violent 1987 original.  The new film is high-concept science fiction instead of over-the-top satire, touching on everything from drone deployment overseas to free will to domestic surveillance.  The movie even gives a nod to the question of the existence of the soul.

It’s good, but it will never achieve the cult classic status of the original.  As much as I liked it, I could have used a few more action scenes.  This was a well made movie, but the kid in me wanted just a little more screen time for the ED-209’s, more bot-on-bot slugfests, or even a reappearance from one of the original franchise’s garish, comic book villains.

Still … this was well done.  It was sure better than anyone in the fan community thought it would be.  I’d recommend it.  And, really … can any movie come CLOSE to matching one that casts Red Foreman, the Dad from “That 70’s Show,” as the Big Bad?

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Nurse Your Favorite Heresies in Whispers