Thoughts and links from yesterday’s National Poetry Day:
Wake up call.
1: Ah. I’d like to have an argument, please.
2: Certainly sir. Have you been here before?
1: No, I haven’t, this is my first time.
2: I see. Well, do you want to have just one argument, or were you thinking of taking a course?
I’m always jealous of Stuart’s ability to write entries that incite comments. His entry on Vachel Lindsay’s The Congo (surely the inspiration for Baldrick’s The German Guns) was no exception. Thank you, Stuart (today is National Good Manners Day).
Lunch.
Arthur Dent:
I liked it. Oh, yes. I thought some of the metaphysical imagery was really particularly effective. Oh, and interesting … rhythmic devices … which seemed to counterpoint the, er … Counterpoint the surrealism of the underlying metaphor of the, er … Vogonity … Of the poet’s compassionate soul, which strives through the medium of the verse structure to sublimate this, transcend that, and come to terms with the fundamental dichotomies of the other, and one is left with a profound and vivid insight into … into … Into whatever the poem was about.
Create your own Vogon poetry on the BBC Hitch Hiker’s site.
Has Arthur been writing architecture reviews? From the September Architectural Review found on the coffee table, my boss points out this:
…and more curiously a horizontal void, 770mm high, that articulates the the structural division between concrete basement and timber frame; a continuously expressed interstitial datum that lies coincident with the re-entrant cutout.
I’m not sure what’s more worrying; the tortuous use of words or the fact that I had to admit that I knew exactly what it meant.
Going home.
Word to your Moms, I came to drop bombs.
Zane Lowe was on top of his game last night. Kicking off his 90 minute Fresher’s Mix with the poetic sound of the fantastic Arctic Monkeys. Go and listen again – a great, great set.
I bet that you look good on the dance floor,
I don’t know if you’re looking for romance or,
I don’t know what you’re looking for.
TV dinner.
If Nigel Williams doesn’t win an award for his script on Channel 4’s Elizabeth I, then surely heads must roll.
The evidence we have of her table talk, poems and speeches shows her also to have been a persuasive and eloquent speaker who, in spite of occasional lapses into Tudor brutality, was also gifted with that rare virtue of supreme rulers – compassion for her fellow creatures.
To sleep, perchance to… fat chance, too much coffee.