Maslow ... with wifi

Source: @morten

A version of this arrived in my twitter feed this afternoon. It made me smile on a day when I'm not fully charged.

Swift

Much to my surprise, I've been working on an essay for my ANU English Literature course on Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal. For many critics, it's Swift's most accomplished satirical short prose work. My jury has always been out on Swift and it remains out still. But there is a lot going on with this outrageous pastiche of the type of early-18th Century pamphlets that seemed to circulate endlessly, pointlessly and much too frequently among the chattering classes of Georgian England. It's no bad thing that I'm reappraising Swift to some degree. There's plenty I can learn and it's usually good to prove yourself wrong. It suggests you're still asking questions of yourself.

Here's Peter O'Toole reading A Modest Proposal on the occasion, thirty two years ago, of the re-opening of the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin. He was booed and there were walkouts. Nearly 300 years after Swift published his pamphlet anonymously, it seems his words still had and have the power to disrupt the cosy comfort of Ireland's middle classes.

A Sonnet

I completed a sonnet, which will be my third poem for the portfolio of writing that's to be assessed for my creative writing course at the ANU. It's called, 'Is There an App for This?' Here's the first verse,

No txt emoji known to man or beast,

No night spent swiping left or right,

No ‘Fitbit’-measured heartbeat much increased

Placates the sad, rejected lover’s plight.

So that's all the first draft's completed.

• Margaret and the Dali, a short-story
• Good Lord, is that the time already?, a free form poem
• Custodians, a vilanelle
• Is There an App for This?, a sonnet

Final drafts and a two-page account of my editing decisions are required by the 2nd June. But we're leaving Australia, week after next, for five weeks in the northern hemisphere so I have to submit the finished portfolio before we go. After that we shall see what's what.

Captain America: Civil War

Popcorn movie blockbuster as they are meant to be. Fun but not stupid.

I Know A Man

We discussed a poem I had not come across before in this afternoon's writing workshop at the ANU. Robert Creely's I know A Man.

As I sd to my
friend, because I am
always talking, -- John, I

sd, which was not his
name, the darkness sur-
rounds us, what

can we do against
it, or else, shall we &
why not, buy a goddamn big car,

drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going. 

Written in 1954 or 1955 it inhabits the same world as that of the rest of the Beat poets; a world of jazz, drugs and alcohol, the crisis of confidence of American masculinity, and loss of control. Good stuff. I shall read more.

There can be too much of a good thing.

Late lunch at The Gods Cafe, ANU. Size matters. Half as much would have done. The heavy load we students are forced to carry.

Transamerica

Source: Belladonna Productions

I watched the 2005 movie Transamerica which is the film we'll discuss in tomorrow's tutorial for my Film Studies course. Ho hum. I understand irony and the place of camp and parody and it is, of course, better to have you're heart in the right place than not. But it's not sufficient to have good intentions. So what can one say? Well ... it's not an awful film. It's heart is in the right place. And it's of its time and maybe, ten years ago, it was pushing against doors that remained firmly shut. But only maybe. I wish I could say more because I admire the people involved and respect their intentions.

A vilanelle?

Today I completed the second of three poems I'm required to submit as part of the assessed work for my creative writing course at the ANU. We're asked to submit a free-verse poem and two others with more traditional, formal structures such as a vilanelle or sonnet. I finished and submitted the first, my vilanelle, this morning.  It's called Custodians, and this is how it starts:

Tomorrow is not ours to lose but keep, 
To hold, protect, and save from foolish men
So no dark days may make our children weep.

We shall see what they think.

Dylan Thomas
Source: University of Buffalo

And here - because one can - is the most famous vilanelle ever written. Thank you Dylan Thomas. The rest of us know how high we need to aim.

Do not go gentle into that good night

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A Perfect Fit

The Guardian and Sir David Attenbourgh. These two cultural icons have influenced all of my adult life and more. Happy birthday Sir David.