An example of a "quadrille"

Thomas Hardy Bemoans the New Waltzing Fad

From "The Life of Thomas Hardy" (ostensibly by his second wife---but agreed-upon by scholars that the text was probably written by Hardy himself; published immediately after his death in 1928).

 RE life in 1860s London, where Hardy was working as a young architectural intern:

Balls were constant at Willis's Rooms, earlier Almack's, and in 1862 Hardy danced at these rooms, or at Almack's as he preferred to call the place, realizing its historic character. He used to recount that in those old days, the pretty Lancers and Caledonians were still footed there to the original charming tunes, which brought out the beauty of the figures as no later tunes did, and every movement was a correct quadrille step and gesture. For those dances had not at that date degenerated to a waltzing step, to be followed by galloping romps to uproarious pieces.

--------------------------------

Imagine a time when "newfangled" waltzes were considered "degenerate." 

Reading the above reminded me of how far we, as a society, have fallen. Absolutely NO form whatsoever remains. Acting exactly how you want---while insanely, ignorantly claiming that what you're doing is somehow the best that humanity has ever had to offer. (Note to Millennials and post-Millennials: You happen to be the worst that I've seen in my lifetime. You begin all sentences with "So..." You have Valley Girl speech patterns without a Frank Zappa to correct you. You don't have a single thought that hasn't been vetted by Twitter "likes." You claim to be "anti-fascist" yet engage in mob violence and mob group-think/speak---the ultimate in hypocrisy. You're a collective mess. And, worse, a SELF-RIGHTEOUS collective mess.)

Intellectually, I have no problem with your concept of "act exactly how you want" if that's what you choose to do in private---However, you've got to acknowledge that there are, or should be, repercussions for your decadent and/or violent or irrational life choices. No one else, especially the rest of society/the government should EVER have to participate in your own demise. Or, in more aggressive cases, allow your own disgust with yourself to spew out in various violent forms into the rest of the world you live in.

The government should NEVER participate in enabling you (that's up to your mommy/daddy and/or spouse) as it has been for the past 50 years. Examples: Cities giving drug addicts clean needles. Cities allowing drug addicts to camp out on their streets. Left-wing mayors allowing violent protests on their streets (for 96 days in a row, in Portland's case) and (insanely) not allowing police to arrest the perpetrators. The government paying for abortions. The government giving welfare payments to support able-bodied people. People allowed to enter the country illegally. Universities asking students to use ridiculous gender pronouns like "xe" and "xem." The media and Democrat legislators claiming that violent black criminals are "oppressed" by police.

And that is EXACTLY what the left-wing Democrat party is currently engaged in supporting, and what the current US media is supporting. I protest against this descent into a psychotic, irrational hell that Orwell predicted over 70 years ago. The northeastern Left once decried said Hell but is now fully engaged in supporting it. And the degeneracy has now somehow become the public norm. WHAT HAPPENED TO US?

RNC speech: Nicholas Sandmann

This is the kid from Covington HS who was attacked by, first, left-wing protesters, and then the national media.

"I Am Free": Alice Johnson Thanks President Trump

George Jones: She's Mine

Tammy Wynette and Sting (1994)

George Jones: The Grand Tour (1974)

The Kinks: Come Dancing (1983)

They put a parking lot on a piece of land
Where the supermarket used to stand
Before that, they put up a bowling alley
On the site that used to be the local palais
That's where the big bands used to come and play
My sister went there on a Saturday

Come dancing
All her boyfriends used to come and call
Why not come dancing?
It's only natural

Another Saturday, another date
She would be ready, but she'd always make him wait
In the hallway, in anticipation
He didn't know the night would end up in frustration
He'd end up blowing all his wages for the week
All for a cuddle and a peck on the cheek

Come dancing 

That's how they did it when I was just a kid

And when they said come dancing

My sister always did

My sister should have come in at midnight
And my mom would always sit up and wait
It always ended up in a big row
When my sister used to get home late

Out of my window I could see them in the moonlight
Two silhouettes saying good nights by the garden gate

What are you doing out there?
Come on! Are you gonna be out there all night?

The day they knocked down the palais
My sister stood and cried
The day they knocked down the palais
Part of my childhood died, just died

Now I'm grown up and playing in a band
And there's a car park where the palais used to stand
My sister's married, and she lives on an estate
Her daughters go out, now it's her turn to wait
She knows they get away with things she never could
But if I asked her, I wonder if she would

Come dancing
Come on, sister, have yourself a ball
Don't be afraid to come dancing
It's only natural

Come dancing
Just like the palais on a Saturday
And all her friends would come dancing
While the big bands used to play

The Kinks - Autumn Almanac (1967)

PBS says "The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society" (1968) is "great."

I say: "A day late and a dollar short."

The album title itself is so blatantly "Sgt Pepper"-ish. Except released a year later. As are the songs that I've heard tonight. Like "Lucy in the Sky" and "Penny Lane" except much more mediocre. Like the Stones "Their Satanic Majesties Request"---everyone suddenly trying to be all "psychedelic" after "Sgt. Pepper." And failing miserably (well, except for the Stones' "She's a Rainbow").

Letter to My Mother

I was saddened/touched by the image of Daddy as a boy picking cotton on a small, hard-scrabble lot in East Texas. Throughout my life, I've always identified more with being German than with being "East Texan." The European side always seemed more interesting and intellectual. Since 2016, though, my distrust of the media and academia has grown 100-fold. (Although I was first given a hint of this creepy left-wing judgment during my time getting my Master's degree in the '90s in San Francisco, when I was belittled for both being German and being from the South. My intellect and skill at writing poems didn't matter---I was mocked by professors for being from the South and for my German heritage. A left-wing sickness/prejudice I thought I'd never see again once I left the town---but that's exactly what is going on today nationally---white shaming. I refuse to be either German- or Southern-shamed.)

Also interesting: In the past, I've often related to certain things only from the viewpoint of celebrities I've admired. For instance, Tammy Wynette, born in 1942 in Mississippi, also, like Daddy, grew up in a home without indoor plumbing, and she also had to pick cotton as a child (once she got rich and famous, she always kept a bowl of cotton in her home---as a reminder of how far she'd come and how miserable she'd been picking cotton!). And also for instance: I knew that Sylvia Plath had attended the "Ban the Bomb" march in 1960 in London (and I knew, from reading, personal details like: Plath was pissed off that husband Ted Hughes had gone off to the march with male friends, without her---and she then stubbornly went to the march by herself with her newborn baby in its carriage.) But you only recently told me that YOU were at that same march!

History is becoming real, via my own parents.

Something to Be

Just learned tonight from my uncle that my dad and his 3 brothers picked cotton on their itinerant father's 50-acre East Texas farm to support the family in the 1940s.

I have roots. I'm truly a poor-white southerner, which is something to be. (Seriously---previously: "My mom's German." That was my main identity.)

from "Far from the Madding Crowd" (Thomas Hardy, 1874)

"George" is Farmer Oak's primary sheep-herding dog. "George's son" is the young nameless sheep-herding trainee who, in his excitement at chasing sheep, runs most of the sheep over a cliff and thus destroys Oak's livelihood.

George's son had done his work so thoroughly that he was considered too good a workman to live, and was, in fact, taken and tragically shot at twelve o'clock that same day --- another instance of the untoward fate which so often attends dogs and other philosophers who follow out a train of reasoning to its logical conclusion, and attempt perfectly consistent conduct in a world made up so largely of compromise.

Reel America Preview: LBJ's 1964 Acceptance Speech

I love C-Span, which has recently been showing convention speeches from both parties since 1952. Here's LBJ from 1964. His ideas sound so helpful and nice! But in reality, this was the ideological turning point from America as a country of independent citizens to welfare-state citizens.

Landmark Laws of the Lyndon B. Johnson Administration (lbjlibrary.org)

-----1963-----

College Facilities

Clean Air

Vocational Education

Indian Vocational Training

Manpower Training

-----1964-----

Inter-American Development Bank

Kennedy Cultural Center

Tax Reduction

Presidential Transition

Federal Airport Aid

Farm Program

Chamizal Convention

Pesticide Controls

International Development

Association

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Campobello International Park

Urban Mass Transit

Water Resources Research

Federal Highway

Civil Service Pay Raise

War on Poverty

Criminal Justice

Truth-in-Securities

Medicine Bow National Forest

Ozark Scenic Riverway

Administrative Conference

Fort Bowie Historic Site

Food Stamp

Housing Act

Interest Equalization

Wilderness Areas

Nurse Training

Revenues for Recreation

Fire Island National Seashore

Library Services

Federal Employee Health Benefits

-----1965-----

Medicare

Aid to Education

Higher Education

Four Year Farm Program

Department of Housing and Urban

Development

Housing Act

Social Security Increase

Deaf-Blind Center

College Work Study

Rail Strike Settlement

Voting Rights

Fair Immigration Law

Older Americans

Heart, Cancer, Stroke Program

Law Enforcement Assistance

National Crime Commission

Drug Controls

Mental Health Facilities

Health Professions

Medical Libraries

Vocational Rehabilitation

Anti-Poverty Program

Arts and Humanities Foundation

Aid to Appalachia

Highway Beauty

Clean Air

Water Pollution Control

High Speed Transit

Manpower Training

Presidential Disability

Child Health

Regional Development

Aid to Small Businesses

Weather-Predicting Services

Military Pay Increase

GI Life Insurance

Community Health Services

Water Resources Council

Water Desalting

Assateague National Seashore

Whiskeytown National Recreation Area

Delaware Water Gap Recreation Area

Juvenile Delinquency Control

Arms Control

Strengthening U.N. Charter

International Coffee Agreement

Retirement for Public Servants

-----1966-----

Food for India

Child Nutrition

Department of Transportation

Truth in Packaging

Model Cities

Rent Supplements

Teachers Corps

Asian Development Bank

Clean Rivers

Aid-to-Handicapped Children

Redwoods Park

Flaming Gorge Recreation Area

Food for Freedom

Child Safety

Narcotics Rehabilitation

Traffic Safety

Highway Safety

Mine Safety

International Education

Bail Reform

Tire Safety

New GI Bill

Minimum Wage Increase

Urban Mass Transit

Civil Procedure Reform

Federal Highway Aid

Military Medicare

Public Health Reorganization

Cape Lookout Seashore

Water Research

Guadalupe National Park

Revolutionary War Bicentennial

Fish-Wildlife Preservation

Water for Peace

Anti-Inflation Program

Scientific Knowledge Exchange

Cultural Materials Exchange

Foreign Investors Tax

Parcel Post Reform

Civil Service Pay Raise

Stockpile Sales

Participation Certificates

Protection for Savings

Flexible Interest Rates

Freedom of Information

-----1967-----

Education Professions

Education Act

Air Pollution Control

Partnership for Health

Social Security Increases

Age Discrimination

Wholesome Meat

Flammable Fabrics

Urban Research

Public Broadcasting

Outer Space Treaty

Modern D.C. Government

Vietnam Veterans Benefits

Federal Judicial Center

Civilian-Postal Workers Pay

Summer Youth Programs

-----1968-----

Fair Housing

Indian Bill of Rights

Safe Streets

Wholesome Poultry

Food for Peace

Commodity Exchange Rules

U.S. Grain Standards

School Breakfasts

Bank Protection

Defense Production

Corporate Takeovers

Export Program

Gold Cover Removal

Truth-in-Lending

Aircraft Noise Abatement

Auto Insurance Study

New Narcotics Bureau

Gas Pipeline Safety

Fire Safety

Sea Grant Colleges

D.C. School Board

Tax Surcharge

Better Housing

International Monetary Reform

International Grains Treaty

Oil Revenues for Recreation

Virgin Islands Elections

San Rafael Wilderness

San Gabriel Wilderness

Fair Federal Juries

Candidate Protection

Juvenile Delinquency Prevention

Guaranteed Student Loans

D.C. Visitors Center

FHA-VA Interest Rate Program

Health Manpower

Eisenhower College

Gun Controls

Aid-to-Handicapped Children

Redwoods Park

Flaming Gorge Recreation Area

Biscayne Park

Heart, Cancer, and Stroke Programs

Hazardous Radiation Protection

Colorado River Reclamation

Scenic Rivers

Scenic Trails

National Water Commission

Federal Magistrates

Vocational Education

Veterans Pension Increases

North Cascades Park

International Coffee Agreement

Intergovernmental Manpower

Dangerous Drugs Control

Military Justice Code

Personally, I love my books and my cats...

...but I'm a personal blogger, not a newscaster. It's irritating as hell to see nearly every single presenter on TV during Wuhan in front of their home bookshelf. Rather than listening to what they have to say, I'm of course checking out their books and decorations. Can't wait for the virus to pass and the old-fashioned studio backdrops to come back. I'm also bored to death with hearing the dogs bark in the background and hearing newscasters' constant comments on their dogs. If I've turned on your station, I'm there for news or weather: I don't particularly care about dogs, and I absolutely do not care about YOUR dogs! (Same with your kids, although, thankfully, most TV people have yet to parade their noises before the cameras.)

 

So far, I'm most surprised, and annoyed, by seeing that PBS's "resident intellectual" David Brooks has "decorative books" rather than real books on his background shelves at home----I couldn't find a photo to share, but I just saw him on PBS at home with his shelves, and he spoke in front of series of books that had no writing on their spines but were, rather, blank and color-coordinated: white and blue and red, etc. I thought only stereotypical middle-class bourgeois did that (i.e., buying books by the yard or color)! Oh wait: PBS...

 

Billie Eilish - bad guy

Billie Eilish endorsed Joe Biden last night. Linking of the mediocre and decrepit.

"The Voice" (Thomas Hardy)

Written December 1912, in honor of his newly dead first wife whom he'd ignored for decades. Prior to this, I'd thought Ted Hughes's "Birthday Letters" was the ultimate in dead-wife tributes... 

 

Hardy and Hughes are the only two poets who have ever made me cry.

Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me,

Saying that now you are not as you were

When you had changed from the one who was all to me,

But as at first, when our day was fair. 

Can it be you I hear? Let me view you, then,

Standing as when I drew near to the town

Where you would wait for me: yes, as I knew you then,

Even to the original air-blue gown!

Or is it only the breeze, in its listlessness

Travelling across the wet mead to me here,

You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness,

Heard no more again far or near?

 

Thus I; faltering forward

Leaves around me falling,

Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward,

And the woman calling.

Dancing around fallen Christopher Columbus statue

Here's what black radicals want. Me, I don't want this. In the whole history of the world, no ideas by anarchists (especially from third-world countries, or from immigrants to first-world countries) have ever turned out right. Always a violent, chaotic mess. NO THANK YOU. Leave it to the professionals.

Portland, Oregon: August 16, 2020

Debt-Free!!!

As of today: No student loan debt, no car loan, no credit card payments. I NOW OWE NOTHING!

(Well, I DO owe a HUGE thanks to my mother for paying off my student loan and thus changing the rest of my life! Thanks, Mom!)

The Godfather: I and II

AMC's been showing Godfather I/II/III all weekend. Watched I and II for the twentieth-or-so times. (III I feel strongly is godawful and should actually be deleted from cinema records forever.)

Something so powerful about a great movie---gives you strength as a viewer; if you happen to be an artist, strength as an artist. (Similarly: Something so shitty about a shitty movie. Leaves you with nothing.)

Al Pacino has also been so godawful in recent years with his embarrassing hair plugs and over-acting that I was relieved to re-visit him in his nascent "still" acting glory.

 

Wow! A Meet-Up with Co-Workers!

Friday, my boss at my new job (since April) invited all of us to an outdoor Happy Hour at a local bar. 

#1: It was very nice to meet people that I'd only been editing for (and never seeing) for the past 4 months. I'd met my boss and one tech-guy back in April, but that was all.

#2: In the 5-and-a-half years that I worked at my old job (2014 to 2019), we had a yearly catered Christmas dinner at work, but other than that, none of us ever met outside of work to socialize. There was one lunch that one scientist invited a few of us to after we'd finished working on his report. Which was really nice of him. Other than that: I edited a damn 400-page book during my time there---at the end of a VERY long slog: nothing. 

I'm not extremely social, but I do very much appreciate a send-off for work well done. My last job: The boss always tried to present herself as "laid back." She was indeed "laid back"---in the sense that she never oversaw the work. And if someone like me mentioned that work wasn't getting done, she'd blow me off as a "trouble-maker." But still... You'd think someone like that would at least be more attuned to celebrating the final result of a major project... Nope. Nothing.

Also: In my 5 years from 2014 to 2019 at the old job, I had multiple personal conversations during the day with various co-workers. But never a lunch with anyone. That was extremely weird to me. My previous long-term job was at a publishing company, from 1998 to 2006 (before I moved to NYC): At that place, I constantly had lunches with co-workers, and our bosses took us to multiple group lunches (and special events like bowling and movies during the day).

So after over 5 years of NOTHING, plus the few months after Wuhan started in mid-March: I'm VERY grateful for my current boss's efforts to help socialize the work-team. I had a good time Friday. It was nice to get out of the house and meet people, and drink and talk with them. It turned out well. It made me feel like I was SANE again: Yes, people at work go out after work and talk! (Just not at the 2014 to 2019 sick place that I was at.)

Saturday Night - Bay City Rollers

Bay City Rollers: It's a Game & Rock'n Roll Love Letter

Bay City Rollers - Summerlove Sensation • TopPop

Bay City Rollers - Bye Bye Baby 1975

I'd have kicked some of those sums-bitches who had their backs to me in their too-cool heads. THAT would have made for some great TV.

NYC, 2008 (age 43)

 

The Beatles - Strawberry Fields Forever

While my cat's dying and I'm not drinking...

 ...it's amazing how much you can get done when not drinking and not waking up with a hangover. For example, my mother had, years ago, offered to pay off my student loans. At the time, I was mad at her and thinking "I don't need your help." But since then, we've reconciled, and I realized that I would be paying $500 per month for student loans until the very end of my life. $500 per month! During my week-long sobriety, I did the research and contacted the Student Loan people and made the arrangements for my mother to pay the loan off, as she'd offered.

In more minor news: Friday I packaged/mailed a couple of purchased eBay items off, returned a couple of items, returned a Chico's shirt...

Solomon's dying

Solomon (Mini) has been vomiting up bile and not eating for a week now, since a week ago Friday, when I heard the most gut-wrenching yowls come out of her mouth before she threw up for the first time. Since then: more throwing up (foamy bile), secreting herself next to porcelain toilets and tubs with her face turned to the wall (where she never, ever used to sit and where I've seen other dying cats sit). Although in the last couple of days, she's come out to the living room area and again jumped up on the couch with me, and hung out with the other cats, though just sitting there and not playing. And I still haven't seen her eat anything for the past week.

When my cat Gracie died on April 15, 2009, she had been sick since January of that year. Didn't know what was wrong with her, but I didn't have any money to fix it, and she just deteriorated. On the night that she died, I was drunk and arguing with Sandra on the phone. Gracie was at my feet asking for attention, but I was too busy drinking and arguing. I went to bed drunk. When I woke up the next morning, Gracie was stiff and dead, stretched out on the kitchen rug.

After last Friday, seeing Solomon throw up so horribly, I drank on Saturday, as usual. Woke up Sunday feeling godawful, as usual. I expected to see Solomon dead, but she was still living. I made a calm decision to not drink at all until I either saw her eat something or she died. I didn't want to repeat the night of Gracie's death, when I was too wrapped up in my own BS to pay any attention to her in her last moments.

I haven't had a drink for 6 days. Which is my longest streak ever since... the 1990s? I usually drink every OTHER day, but have never gone 6 days sans any drink for a couple of decades.

Today, Saturday, Solomon is still not eating properly. For the past couple of days, I've placed numerous types of food before her: people-chicken, people-tuna, special cat food-packets, etc. She licks at some of these, but still doesn't eat. She's skin-and-bones when I stroke her. I don't know how she's surviving.

George Jones: I've Always Been Lucky with You

George Jones - The One I Loved Back Then (The Corvette Song)

Just finished "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" by Hardy

In the past couple of months have read "Jude the Obscure" and "The Mayor of Casterbridge" and now "Tess." Hardy is a beautiful, sincere, interestingly didactic, and rather cinematic writer, although, in the case of "Tess," not always the most emotionally realistic. (I liked "Tess" the least of the three novels of his that I've read so far.)

Here's an excerpt that I noted from "Tess" (1892):

She was expressing in her own native phrases --- assisted a little by her Sixth Standard training --- feelings which might almost have been called those of her age --- the ache of modernism. The perception arrested him less when he reflected that what are called advanced ideas are really in great part but the latest fashion in definition --- a more accurate expression, by words in 'logy' and 'ism,' of sensations which men and women have vaguely grasped for centuries.