Reflections Upon A Trump

The following has been culled from the "Preface" to William Wordsworth's first major work, "The Borderers". "The Borderers", how apt indeed. How so not at cross-purposes.

A Challenge:
Try not to think of a man we have come to know and judge as you read this Wordsworthian excerpt.

"...His energies are most impressively manifested in works of devastation. He is the Orlando of Ariosto, the Cardenio of Cervantes, who lays waste the groves that should shelter him. He has rebelled against the world & the laws of the world, & he regards them as tyrannical masters; convinced that he is right in some of his conclusions, he nourishes a contempt for mankind the more dangerous because he has been led to it by reflexion. Being in the habit of considering the world as a body which is in some sort at war with him, he has a feeling borrowed from that habit which gives an additional zest to his hatred of those members of society whom he hates & to his contempt of those whom he despises. Add to this, that a mind fond nourishing sentiments of contempt will be prone to the admission of those feelings which are considered under any uncommon bond of relation (as must be the case with a man who has quarrelled with the world), the feelings will mutually strengthen each other. In this morbid state of mind he cannot exist without occupation, he requires constant provocatives, all his pleasures are prospective, he is perpetually chasing a phantom, he commits new crimes to drive away the memory of the past. But the lenitives of his pain are twofold; meditation as well as action. Accordingly, his reason is almost exclusively employed in justifying his past enormities & in enabling him to commit new ones. He is perpetually imposing upon himself, he has a sophism for every crime. The mild effusions of thought, the milk of human reason, are unknown to him. His imagination is powerful, being strengthened by the habit of picturing possible forms of society where his crimes would be no longer crimes, and he would enjoy that estimation to which, from his intellectual attainments, he deems himself entitled. The nicer shades of manners he disregards, but whenever, upon looking back upon past ages, or in surveying the practices of different countries in the age in which he lives, he find such contrarieties as seem to affect the principles of morals, he exults over his discovery, and applies it to his heart as the dearest of his consolations. Such a mind cannot but discover some truths, but he is unable to profit by them, and in his hands they become instruments of evil.

He presses truth and falsehood into the same service. He looks at society through an optical glass of a peculiar tint; something of the forms of objects he takes from objects, but their colour is exclusively what he gives them; it is one, and it is his own. Having indulged a habit, dangerous in a man who has fallen, of dallying with moral calculations, he becomes an empiric, and a daring & unfeeling empiric. He disguises from himself his own malignity by assuming the character of a spectator in morals, and one who has the hardihood to realize his speculations."

At this point I must admit that these truths exposed by Wordsworth as being self-evident continue to mount for several hundred more well-crafted and well-chosen words by the laureate, and you can find and read them in cyberspace, paradoxically---free, yet full of charge.

Much Ado

Nothing means nothing means nothing means something. Nothing means anything means nothing means something. Nothing means something means something--- Nothing means nothing.

Being Yet Nothingness

If I had written this on a napkin
Then you'd know it was important
To put it into words,
For no matter how brief a life.

Not that it had to be read now,
Or ever, really, but just entered in the record,
That is, on my account, as if in a ledger,
With columns and rows of symbols.

Yet here on a faux sheet floating in space,
And having no bodily texture,
It lacks everything but meaning.

That Time of the Month

Something there is that draws me closer--
Something there is that demands satisfaction--
Something there is that needs to be scratched out--
Something there is

Apple Flotsam

We rode the Staten Island Ferry on the 5th to brunch on leftovers from the 4th while sitting on a bench at St. George's port walkway and imagined the previous night's fireworks and teeming masses. Way cooler.

Walked uptown along the East River to South Street Seaport (the main building with all the shops and eateries is closed and under construction). Give it a pass, mates.

Hoofed over to 17 Mott Street for takeout of Shrimps with Black Bean Sauce over noodles.

Hauled ass up Avenue A by way of Christie Street to St. Mark's Place & Tomkins Square Park (saw a guy OD and roll over in front of us stone cold dead). 911 was called.

Chowed down from Wo-Hop's goody bag (way too much food! Re-secured bag for a possible dinner on the 6th.)

Legged it over to the Shake Shack in the Flatiron's shadow to rest our barking dogs before heading over to Herald Square and Hajni's compulsory Macy's scouting. I sat at a table for 40 minutes watching and listening to the sights and sounds of tourists (and re-opened the Wo-Hop bag for a midair re-fueling).

Chatted up the security guard at Victoria's Secret while Hajni completed her mission.

Shuffled over to the #1 Train, got off at 96th and Broadway and painfully made our way to the car on Riverside and 93rd. Drove home upriver to Stony Point, flipped out of my sneakers and socks. Hajni poured herself a Marques de Riscal, I gulped some iced ginger ale and we played the DVR recording of the Macy's fireworks spectacular from the previous night. Still, way cooler.

We woke up early on the 6th and went for a 3-mile hike before the heat and humidity got out of control. Now, I think I will soak my feet. Where's that bag of peppermint-scented Epsom salts?

String Theory

I could, or you, or almost anyone, these days,
Could Google it, but why bother?
We already know that the answer won't be there.

Besides, there are more important things for us--
Things like Chaos and Relativity and--
Well, we can just do the math.

There's so much we already don't know:
Ourselves, Others.
Why keep looking for more?

Living is pushing on a string.
That's my theory. I didn't find it on Google.
I looked down a Wormhole and saw it for myself.

The Holy Wall: Who Will Pay For It?

From the Encyclopaedia Britannica Edition---
The Annals of America---
Volume 7, 1841-1849:
MANIFEST DESTINY

May 6-July 8, 1844. Several armed conflicts between Protestants and Catholics at Philadelphia leave 20 persons dead and about 100 injured. Clashes result from agitation by nativists, who are anti-Catholic and who resent naturalization of foreign immigrants, especially those from Catholic countries.

From the Grasmere Edition*---

The Complete Poetical Works of William Wordsworth

Volume IX, 1834-1847:

LAST POEMS

TO THE PENNSYLVANIANS

1845

DAYS undefiled by luxury or sloth,
Firm self-denial, manners grave and staid,
Rights equal, laws with cheerfulness obeyed,
Words that require no sanction from an oath.
And simple honesty a common growth--
This high repute, with bounteous Nature's aid,
Won confidence, now ruthlessly betrayed
At will, your power the measure of your troth!--
All who revere the memory of Penn
Grieve for the land on whose wild woods his name
Was fondly grafted with a virtuous aim,
Renounced, abandoned by degenerate Men
For state-dishonour black as ever came
To upper air from Mammon's loathsome den.

*Houghton Mifflin. Boston 1911
10 Volumes.