America was discovered accidentally by a great seaman who was looking for something else; when discovered it was not wanted; and most of the exploration for the next fifty years was done in the hope of getting through or around it. America was named after a man who discovered no part of the New World. History is like that, very chancy.
The Oxford History of the American People, 1965, Chapter 2.
2008-12-23
2008-12-18
Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution
Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Lest we forget--lest we forget! (Rudyard Kipling, "Recessional")
Lest we forget--lest we forget! (Rudyard Kipling, "Recessional")
2008-12-10
nomenclature / nomenklatura
nomenclature
1. a set or system of names or terms, as those used in a particular science or art, by an individual or community, etc.;
2. the names or terms comprising a set or system.
nomenklatura
a select list or class of people from which appointees for top-level government positions are drawn, esp. from a Communist Party.
Thanks, dictionary.com
1. a set or system of names or terms, as those used in a particular science or art, by an individual or community, etc.;
2. the names or terms comprising a set or system.
nomenklatura
a select list or class of people from which appointees for top-level government positions are drawn, esp. from a Communist Party.
Thanks, dictionary.com
Jonathan Aaron
Acting Like a Tree
by Jonathan Aaron
When I got to the party and saw everybody
walking around in Christmas costumes,
I remembered I was supposed to be wearing one, too.
Bending slightly, I held out my hands
and waved them a little, wiggling my fingers.
I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips, making
a tree face, and started slowly hopping on one foot,
then the other, the way I imagine trees do
in the forest when they’re not being watched.
Maybe people would take me for a hemlock,
or a tamarack. A little girl disguised as an elf
looked at me skeptically. Oh, come on!
her expression said. You call that acting like a tree?
Behind her I could see a guy in a reindeer suit
sitting down at the piano. As he hit the opening
chords of “Joy to the World” I closed my eyes
and tried again. This time I could feel the wind
struggling to lift my boughs, which were heavy
with snow. I was clinging to a mountain crag
and could see over the tops of other trees a few late-
afternoon clouds and the thin red ribbon of a river.
I smelled more snow in the air. A gust or two whispered
around my neck and face, but by now
all I could hear was the meditative creaking
of this neighbor or that—and a moment later, farther off,
the faint but eager call of a wolf.
Appears in the New Yorker, December 15, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/12/15/081215po_poem_aaron
by Jonathan Aaron
When I got to the party and saw everybody
walking around in Christmas costumes,
I remembered I was supposed to be wearing one, too.
Bending slightly, I held out my hands
and waved them a little, wiggling my fingers.
I narrowed my eyes and pursed my lips, making
a tree face, and started slowly hopping on one foot,
then the other, the way I imagine trees do
in the forest when they’re not being watched.
Maybe people would take me for a hemlock,
or a tamarack. A little girl disguised as an elf
looked at me skeptically. Oh, come on!
her expression said. You call that acting like a tree?
Behind her I could see a guy in a reindeer suit
sitting down at the piano. As he hit the opening
chords of “Joy to the World” I closed my eyes
and tried again. This time I could feel the wind
struggling to lift my boughs, which were heavy
with snow. I was clinging to a mountain crag
and could see over the tops of other trees a few late-
afternoon clouds and the thin red ribbon of a river.
I smelled more snow in the air. A gust or two whispered
around my neck and face, but by now
all I could hear was the meditative creaking
of this neighbor or that—and a moment later, farther off,
the faint but eager call of a wolf.
Appears in the New Yorker, December 15, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/12/15/081215po_poem_aaron
2008-12-01
Bob Hicok
As I Was Saying
by Bob Hicok
Long, thin clouds as if the sky were smoking.
I tell it to stop or share, it doesn’t stop or share,
this is what happens to my requests: they rise.
When I was a kid, a neighbor man
had a few and tied a cherry bomb to a pigeon,
it flew furiously until kaboom. Feathers
and bits of what made the pigeon go
landed on the Smitky twins playing hopscotch,
they looked up, I looked at them looking up,
two of everything the same, as if their parents
knew the odds of needing a spare. My wife
wants to fly in a hot-air balloon. I say to her,
I’ll wait here with the turtles. I try to save them
from getting squished when they cross the road.
They don’t know it’s a road or what a road
is for, getting away is what a road is for,
then coming back, then wondering why you came back
is what a road is for. My wife’s people
are Ukrainian, beets are important to them.
I tried to arm-wrestle her father once, he said,
Why would I do that: if I beat your arm,
the rest of you will want revenge.
I never looked at it that way. Forty-two years now
I’ve tried to look at it that way. The other day,
some kids knocked a ball through our window,
one of them asked for it back, I said, Sure,
if you give me the bat. He did, then asked
for the bat, I said, If you give me the ball,
he started to hand it over when I saw understanding
bloom in his face. That never happened for me:
understanding blooming in my face. Not the way
I wanted it to. So I’ll die and someone
will have to deal with what’s left, the body,
the shoes, the socks. The last person on Earth
will just be dead: not buried or mourned
or missed. As with kites, I cut the string
when they’re way up, because who’d want to come back.
So somewhere are all these kites, as somewhere
are all the picture frames from the camps,
and the bows from hair, and the hair itself
I saw once in a museum, some of it, in a room
all its own, as if one day the heads
would come back and think, That’s where I put you,
as I do with keys when I find them in my hand.
The New Yorker, December 8, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/12/08/081208po_poem_hicok
by Bob Hicok
Long, thin clouds as if the sky were smoking.
I tell it to stop or share, it doesn’t stop or share,
this is what happens to my requests: they rise.
When I was a kid, a neighbor man
had a few and tied a cherry bomb to a pigeon,
it flew furiously until kaboom. Feathers
and bits of what made the pigeon go
landed on the Smitky twins playing hopscotch,
they looked up, I looked at them looking up,
two of everything the same, as if their parents
knew the odds of needing a spare. My wife
wants to fly in a hot-air balloon. I say to her,
I’ll wait here with the turtles. I try to save them
from getting squished when they cross the road.
They don’t know it’s a road or what a road
is for, getting away is what a road is for,
then coming back, then wondering why you came back
is what a road is for. My wife’s people
are Ukrainian, beets are important to them.
I tried to arm-wrestle her father once, he said,
Why would I do that: if I beat your arm,
the rest of you will want revenge.
I never looked at it that way. Forty-two years now
I’ve tried to look at it that way. The other day,
some kids knocked a ball through our window,
one of them asked for it back, I said, Sure,
if you give me the bat. He did, then asked
for the bat, I said, If you give me the ball,
he started to hand it over when I saw understanding
bloom in his face. That never happened for me:
understanding blooming in my face. Not the way
I wanted it to. So I’ll die and someone
will have to deal with what’s left, the body,
the shoes, the socks. The last person on Earth
will just be dead: not buried or mourned
or missed. As with kites, I cut the string
when they’re way up, because who’d want to come back.
So somewhere are all these kites, as somewhere
are all the picture frames from the camps,
and the bows from hair, and the hair itself
I saw once in a museum, some of it, in a room
all its own, as if one day the heads
would come back and think, That’s where I put you,
as I do with keys when I find them in my hand.
The New Yorker, December 8, 2008
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/poetry/2008/12/08/081208po_poem_hicok
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