Site Ed. Note: A tree grows in brooklyn...

Bam.

We felt a strong tremor yesterday. We suggest that those of you who are, stop beating incessantly on this horse. Should it die, you will regret it; not a threat, a promise.

As a good start, get to work on extending the range, while considerably lowering that price tag, on the Tesla family sedan.

We were talking about machines and media--

A pen or quill, a feather, a mere feather, is a machine when by the manipulation of the hand it is first dipped to paint or ink, magically moved then across the medium's receptor, whether parchment, paper, or circuit boards, bits of mica in delicate synchronization and pitched vibration, or even upon light emissions fastened, what have you, to form little lines or waves which transpose in the mind of the perceiver, from the thusly transformed medium out of the hand of the initiator, to form symbols, those with which there is ready agreement and familiarity in pedestrian sequence, appealing then to our quick-connects and kitsch-speak, to our analytical, rational mind, or those which are not, those even foreign, appealing to our intuitive, discovering, interpretive processes.

Then there are those which cross the bridge of those ordinarily bounded regions and conjoin the two, sometimes seemingly a dangerous and perilous crossing for those unaccustomed to the change, producing then a heavy toll for the lack of spatial orientation within the bounded regions in time afore, as the new territory thus formed by the joinder presents itself as foreign, not familiar as childhood was, as it ought to be.

Thus, then, it becomes necessary to touch earth, touch wood, Antæus, as Virginia Woolf counseled, not long before wading into the River Ouse to drown beneath her artificial weight.

In her case, we suggest, she merely needed rest from the bombs exploding in her midst, the attempt at impressment by agents from afar seeking to invade her mind with crank calls and fanciful notions, such that she could not give but irritated anxiety, any longer providing the needed salve to the subalternate areas to which the population at times had to retreat, that all humans are free, thus they, too, are as well, even as the bombs fell above, to guide the wavering arch of her country, her neighborhood, her river, back to an understanding of itself perhaps through something so simple as the obvertend, that the slumping bridge is not due but to be a temporary thing, before the Nazi bombs came to bay along the channel's curtsy.

Once again.

We were talking about machines and media--

A pen or quill, a feather, a mere feather, is a machine when in hand it is first dipped to paint or ink, moved then across the medium's receptor, whether paper or circuit boards or bits of mica in delicate synchronization and pitch or upon light waves fastened, what have you, to form little lines or waves which transpose in the mind of the perceiver to form symbols, those with which there is ready agreement and familiarity in pedestrian sequence, appealing then to our quick-connects, to our analytical mind, or those which are not, those even foreign, appealing to our intuitive, interpretive mind. Then there are those which cross the bridge of those bounded regions and conjoin the two, sometimes seemingly a dangerous and perilous crossing for those unaccustomed to the change, producing then a heavy toll for the lack of spatial connections to the bounded regions in time afore. Thus, then, necessary to touch earth, touch wood, Antaeus, as Virginia Woolf counseled, before wading into the River Ouse to drown beneath her artificial weight. In her case, she needed rest, we glean, from the bombs exploding in her midst, the impressment to service by Nazi agents from afar seeking to invade her mind with crank calls and fanciful notions, such that she could not subliminally guide her country back to an understanding of itself before the bombs came to bay.

Yet enough. We need not write everything in a day or an hour. There is no time, as we have said before-- stating a mere obvious proposition derivative from a base law of observation, nature first before any living inhabitant ever breathed within its whorling morass,--except that illusion which we collectively impress upon the passing of the seasons. That is a recurrent cycle, changing ever so slowly, except by man's discordant and violent intervention into it, inevitable as it may be to some extent, yet of necessity in need of a brake, especially now, as we face the crossroads, the bottleneck of our age.

A couple of nights ago, by dint of necessity, we pleasantly mused but by candlelight, a three-week late Candlemas, as it were. It was pleasant, stimulative of the muses which are there for the hearing and feeling should we desire to create sufficient pathway for them to reach us. Within the quietude of several hours came a slight breeze, followed by a wind chime which blended with us, tinkling in the still, just as the wheels rolled hot to a final stop.

And from a tragedy, any tragedy, ultimately may either come the bitterness of tears, or the same ostensible salt-wellings, but rather out of understanding, may be shed in its honor, not of pity or loathing of self or other, but a release from that which is within the time-latch sequence via that place of marriage of principle and the art of life which transcends mere ephemeral beauty to allow as many whose eyes accept invitation to the cause, to perceive some glimpse of the immanence of a life felt and well-lived, upon its bier, laying silent without breath, but in flowered decoration laid long to rest, yet only the body, not the mind or the spirit, that which lives on within the living memories and minds of each of us acquainted with it, that beneath the transitory cloak of time which all bar none wear as a garment for a time and times.

...Conceived in Liberty...

Once we took a ride with some fellows over to Apex. We had been sitting at home, in Sparta, just quietly watching all the stars come out to receive their just praise, award or rejection for same, on a night in April, 1973. These fellows suddenly burst into our private abode.

"Hi, fellows," we said.

"There he is. Thought you could elude capture, didn't you? Get there, get the hands."

"Fellows, here, look at the stars. What are you doing?"

"Not tonight, you don't, you're going with us. No more star-gazing for you."

"Owl, et tu? Et tu, Owl? And you aren't even part of the Clannettes, yet."

"Shut your smart talk. You're going with us. No point in resisting."

To the car we went then, by some measure of force--(thereby meeting fully the asportation requirement). There we saw another, like us, one of our brothers, already kidnapped afore us, equally bound and thrust into the backseat.

"They got you, too, huh, Duck?"

"Yeah, and if you know what's good for you, just play along. These boys are crazy. Mean, desperate, and crazy."

"Got ye. No problem. The word is 'mum'. No sense in exacerbating an already obviously inflamed situation."

"No talking."

We were taken on a ride then by the boys, Apollyonistically laughing the whole way, in turn, suggesting untoward exercises for our stamens.

Eventually, they stopped, the boys did, on a dirt road, somewhere between Fuquay and Varina, to discuss their plans for us, as talking, planning, and driving all at once became a much too cumbersome, complicated task for these boys this night.

We were allowed out to stretch our legs upon the dirt road.

"Oh, look," we thought escapingly, "the forest by the dirt road, deserted, save by the light of the moon, the moon, the silvery moon. Nice. Perhaps, we should intricate ourselves within the brake, insinuate therein, amid the pines, crouch, hide bound with the scrawny fawn, and skip this starry night's dew wandering clause, lest they, our riders, and we, the ridden, become deadmen, together on the road which they had come down." This we thought at some quickening pace as our length lay stretched upon that road.

"But, wait," we contemplated more, "there is another, yet another way by which to extricate ourselves from this time-latched discomfiter's lore. Yes. There it is right there. The fuelcap beneath the plate, on the Chevy's rear gate, whilst their attention is trained otherwise in mate to moon's glow."

We mangled then, in stealth, hedging down our lumbering length, to obtain their fuelcap, and also let from their tire the aire whilst they did discuss our fate, distracted by the pateroon's noster from our co-ridden companion, out of captain's gate. We told them of the Eire; not, however, the fuelcap's need for repair.

They and we rode on then, their wheels being now a little wobbly on the road, enough to slow their speed, saving our breath collectively, in goad, no doubt, for another day, with less rummy, mar gin, whilst good tonic for the boys in bin.

Eventually,--their decision, not ours,--we wound up on the main of Apex; the boys headed back to Sparta, dumping fuel the whole way, we were later told. We, the formerly ridden, had then an immediate encounter on the mainline there with the shire's reeve who stopped to seek a notion of our plight. Upon our advice, sped us then upon our way to the station and a telephone, telling us he would assure that the boys, these malefactors of moonglow, would be stopped but good and informed of the necessity to slow down their starry-night's halter show.

The boys, we are informed and believe, have never forgot the lesson and thus remain loyal to this day.

Suffice to say, we were patiently awaiting their arrival back at the dormitory in Sparta, both Duck and we, watching the last of the stars come out to receive their awards, by the time the fuel'scap was repaired, the ere restored, the speed reduced, and all was sufficiently copascetic in Dodge and Chevy to allow them then back into Sparta, an hour or so after ourselves.

Object lesson: Don't mess with anyone watching the stars on a night by the light of the moon, the moon, the silvery moon, in Sparta. You might get stung by an offer you can't refuse--a fuelcap's muse.

Others would learn of the tradition in semesters to come, in Sparta, known abusively by some as Pulpit Hill.

'Twas a good thing, too, for when you be the Alpha and Omega-man in row, you best not be too abused.

As to "Key Man", it appears Huey's Noe man met Earl at the crossroads, exchanged batons, that is, axes, and continued to play on, and in every key and note but C. There was a bottleneck in the primary, which eased down by the time the bridge was reached in the general. All they needed was a capo in New Orleans, you see, to complete the tune. The rhythms, however, were a bit discordant, worthy of Webern, in the final offing.

The Council Is Adamant In Their Claim For Parking

In the matter of the widening of Davidson Street and spoiling the City Hall lawn, the City Council shows a firmness which has not distinguished it when other groups of irate citizens have descended upon its sessions.

But there is little mystery about it. Eventually, we suspect, what is working here is simply the good old guild spirit of jobholders. The City Councilmen are jobholders themselves, like convenient and free spots to park their own automobiles when they come to City Hall. And moreover, the rest of the officials and employees, or most of them, want the same thing and call on their fellow jobholders to provide it.

What it really comes to is very much as though the farmers of the county and the state should demand that the Highway Commission should furnish them parking space for their wagons, tractors, plows, harrows, etc., and stalls for their horses and mules, in the public highway. That, indeed, would require that the highway be greatly widened. But this, of course, is exactly what is being demanded for Davidson Street.

No one maintains that the street, if kept open as the highways are kept open, is not now entirely adequate as a fire lane. What is at stake is purely and simply the claim to the right--which does not exist under any logical view of the matter--to park in this single block. To satisfy that claim the citizen-taxpayers are called on, not only to submit to having the trees cut down but also to putting up the money for the carrying out of the widening.

To Which We Cheerfully Add A Dubious Loophole

We hate to tell our little readers who dote on his beautiful comebacks and asides in "Information Please," but the learned Franklin P. Adams, of the Conning Tower, yesterday fell into lamentable error. And our advice to him is that for the nonce he avoid all contact with Greeks from Sparta. And an astonishing number of Greeks in this country, particularly those who run restaurants, do come from Sparta. The exact historical reason for that escapes us, but there the fact indubitably is.

In Wednesday's column Mr. Adams, musing on the name of the University of Southern California Trojans, set down the curious fact that the students of that institution have even got themselves a statue of "the celebrated Trojenne, Helen." Which would be all right, except the lady was not a Trojan, unless we are to treat her as a naturalized subject of old Priam.

There were curious stories about the fair-haired lady's birth. Some people had it that she was simply the daughter of Leda, and her prosaic husband, old King Tyndareus of Sparta. Others told you, maybe with their tongues in their cheeks, that her papa was really Zeus himself, got up as a swan. Anyhow, she was better looking than her sister, Clytemnestra, and they had to explain it somehow.

But the point here is that she was certainly born in Sparta, and that she grew up and was properly married there--to bumbling old King Menelaus, who was the brother of Agamemnon, king in Mycenae, who was pretty good at bumbling himself.

And she didn't get to Troy until Paris, son of Priam, king in that town, came a-visiting, took one look at her and proceeded to scandalize the neighborhood by carrying her off, partly by pretty words and partly by rough stuff. That was how she got around eventually to launching the thousand ships playing wrecking contractor to Ilium's topless towers.

But it would hardly constitute naturalization as a "Trojenne." Or would it?

Site Ed. Note: Meanwhile, as we know, the previous year, the Trojans had whacked Richard's alma mater-in-law 7-3; later, in 1950, Richard would label Helen the "pink lady", for reasons, as we have just said, which appear manifestly obvious in hindsight. In any event, perhaps as a prophylactic warning to all Nazi U-boaters, the Trojans won again in 1940 at the Rose Bowl by storming the Volunteers 14-zip. In 1944, they would cream the Huskies 29-zip; in 1945, the Volunteers again would be blown from the field 25-zip, an obviously good job for the day by les Troyens. Then, in the Year of Our Lord, 1953, their next win in it, they would crush Bucky Badger, a badger of well-known dimensions, 7-goose-egg. Well, enough on looking for Richard out on the football field. Later, Richard would likewise add additional movements to "Symphonie Fantastique", as well.

Shame and scandal on the family?

Ah woe, ah me...

Site Ed. Note: "Be Square," said the sign on the school. But squareness, we posit, has many attributes and sides and perspectives, a cube in a closet, a round in twist. For instance, a right triangle's long leg squared produces the sum of the upper legs' square, and so on's gist.

Insisting on adherence to rules for the sake of rules, which rules do not equate with mathematical precision to any naturally proved theorem subject to concordance, is a fool's errand and likely quickly to result in rebellion of one sort or another, as it derives ultimately from a form of nonsensical despotism, order for the sake of it, perhaps with rationalization but no rationale, until it becomes ludicrous--maybe even at times producing reactions which are violent and open. Best to give leeway and insure freedom to all in the causeway.

In other words, to supply a concrete example to the generalized principle: let them wear whatever the hell they want to wear to school; as long as they are wearing something, you dopers, you are to the plus side of the ledger.

As a further example, we saw a printed rule recently for a school's dress code which stated, inter alia: "No tank tops (males)." This suggested to us that the school had a firm policy against basketball, for males anyway, and that whoever makes up these rules, had completely lost their minds somewhere along the line, also. In any event, the tank-topped female student body must, alas, be a thing on which to lay eyes, for sure. We ourselves can't wait. We'll be leaning on the lamp, outside the gate, waiting for the little Hoods to go by.

We have to temper our remarks, however, with the indication that we grew of age in a day when, so to speak, the halters were on release from the fillies' foretops, a thing of freedom which every horse must surely recall. Ah, yes, those were the days, my friend. Spring it was, everlastingly so.

Well, we don't need worry our silly little heads about it all anymore, anyway; for when we see, as we do today, this new x-ray device to be unveiled in Boston soon for airport inspection, one which sees only through the garments, not the flesh, why what need we worry that the hapless little girl or little boy will be thusly combed up and down by a total stranger via a tv screen in a public facility every time you fly hither and thither? What need we worry about that? These, after all, are Federal employees--such as the Homeland Security cop who recently was arrested for underage solicitations over the internet, for instance. What need we worry? These people are trained and screened for all possible personality flaws, such as that obviously taking place over at NASA. What need we worry? Get these machines for the schools, too. That will show them.

Why, in the end, why not just let the little ones run naked to the airport, to school, and save the dough on the airport and school screening devices? What's the difference? Eden again!

Sure as shootin', they won't have any guns.

Ah, well, we're heading out to find us a copy of Boojum.

For The Lack Of Them, CHS May Lose Scholastic Standing

A rule is a rule, and if a rule is promulgated, the logical thing to do is to enforce it to the letter. Nevertheless, for Central High School to be dropped from the accredited list of the Southern Association of Secondary Schools & Colleges because its library contains 8,355 books instead of 8,500 books, would be a commentary on the hidebound nature of our educational system.

Nowhere, it will be noted, has anybody specified what kind of books. Just 165 books is the order; and if the school authorities will accept the gift of a copy Wertenbaker's "Boojum," it will be donated and the deficiency in volumes reduced to 164.

Of course, beneath all the education over the shutting off of County appropriations for school libraries there runs an abiding dissatisfaction at the turn library affairs have taken in this community. There is no doubt that in the last twelvemonth we have been taken unawares by highly unfavorable developments, and reassuring it is that people of the community want to repair that damage.

The 165 books won't even be a starter, any more than the accolades of the Southern Association will work any miracles in our school system. Indeed, this appears to be a statistic rather than a condition that the school patrons are striving for, hence something of less moment than it has been made to appear.

Fate of Long Machine May Lie With James A. Noe

Earl Long is far out in front of the next highest candidate in the Louisiana race for the Governorship, but is from 35,000 to 40,000 votes short of having a majority over all four of his opponents. And, on the theory that most of the votes cast for him were votes cast against the Long machine and its corruption, that ought to raise hopes of his eventual defeat in the run-off.

What argues to the same effect is that it was only the Maestri-controlled New Orleans machine, one of the most appallingly high-handed and corrupt in the nation, which pulled Long through, that the rural vote was strongly against him. That is a great turnover from the days of Huey himself. For it was the enthusiastic rural vote, with its conviction that Long had done great things for it, that made the Long machine in the first place, New Orleans not being added until later.

Unfortunately, however, the case is not really so simple as that. The third high man in the race is James A. Noe, with 59,302 votes (returns incomplete as this is written). And Noe is an old Long-machine man, whom Huey made his successor as Governor when he himself passed on to the Senate. Moreover, it appears that it was mainly the crossroads vote which he drew. That suggests that many of the rural voters still cling to the ghost of Huey and are merely unenthusiastic about Earl Long himself. The Noe vote, of course, is large enough to put Long over easily, and it is not unlikely that most of those who made it up will heed his call to back Earl if he makes it.

As to that, it is possible that he won't make it, since he has a somewhat better reputation for honesty than most of Huey's old gang. But that is a pretty forlorn hope, for the self-interest of politicians nearly always sees to it that the ranks of an organization close when it is threatened with the ultimate defeat and destruction.

Dr. Goebbels' Notion Of Justice Is A Bit Dubious

Dr. Goebbels tells a reporter that there is an imminent justice in history. And that "the rightful claims of the German people were thwarted a generation ago. They cannot be denied a second time."

It sounds quite reasonable--until you take a look at those "rightful" claims of the German people. What was it that was actually thwarted a generation ago?

German propaganda has hammered at the Versailles theme so heavily that many people have come to believe that treaty was the most unjust ever made. As a matter of fact, and granting that it had many things wrong with it, it was far more lenient than the treaties which Germany fastened on France in 1870 and on Russia and Rumania in 1918. And the statement that it was responsible for ruining Germany and bringing Hitler to power is simply not so. Germany, as a matter of fact, was not ruined when Hitler came to power. She was badly crippled indeed, but not as result of any reparations imposed at Versailles (she never paid), but as result of her expenditures in a war, made exactly like this one, for the purpose of grabbing dominant power in the Western world.

Site Ed. Note: And this, from a familiar poem which, in varying plays, continues as theme music to this day, in varying ways, some innocent, some not so, perhaps:

XIII.

XIV.

XV.

XVII.

XVIII.

XXI.

XXII.

XXIII.
Song.

XXIV.

XXV.

XXVI.

XXVII.

XXVI.

Site Ed. Note: Just who the characters represent to the malefactors in any given play thus presented to you as reality, by some misunderstanding poetry and its proper place, you will have to discern for yourself.

It appears, a' times, very gray to us. Very, very, very gray.

That is when not by the golden leaf's tinged in mickle wheeled down sheafs.

Run, ol' hair...

Remind us sometime to tell you of the time we saw the deer in the headlamps.

Man, this muster-grave will be something--the Black Nights of the Coup Clucks Claen.