SERMONESQUE -- FROM AREOPAGITICA (1644)

Sometimes five Imprimaturs are seen together dialogue-wise in the piazza of one title-page, complimenting and ducking each to other with their shaven reverences, whether the author, who stands by in perplexity at the foot of his epistle, shall to the press or to the sponge. These are the pretty responsories, these are the dear antiphonies, that so bewitched of late our prelates and their chaplains with the goodly echo they made; and besotted us to the gay imitation of a lordly Imprimatur, one from Lambeth House, another  from the west end of Paul's; so apishly Romanizing, that the word of command still was set down in Latin; as if the learned grammatical pen that wrote it would cast no ink without Latin; or perhaps, as they thought, because no vulgar tongue was worthy to express the pure conceit of an Imprimatur, but rather, as I hope, for that our English, the language of men ever famous and foremost in the achievements of liberty, will not easily find servile letters enow to spell such a dictatory presumption English.

NOTE:  The dizzying beauty of John Milton’s almost possessed prose is point to the counterpoint of the Main Event. 

Which is, on the one hand, the recumbent supinity of our current political press, and on the other, the creepy anonymity granted college student comment sewer denizens who aspire to take their place.

The New Normal.  How does it Feel? 

Bob Dylan: It's All Over Now, Baby Blue (Link) 

DERBY DAY

I don’t recall exactly when my parents determined that I should go to boarding school (although I do remember my mother giving me a couple of articles to read on the subject, one in the old Holiday magazine and another in Town and Country), but I do remember trollish relatives of mine speaking ill of the decision.  From today’s time and space distance, the episode seems like our family’s version of the movie Gentleman’s Agreement.   I remember clearly discussions concerning traditional prep school anti-Semitism, and especially ones about “latent homosexuality,” which was said to core-infect these institutions.  I’m certain overhearing these conversations taught me the word “rife.”

The day they dropped me off at The Gunnery in 1967 really was “the first day of the rest of my life.”  On our way, the school requested that we pause at JFK Airport to pick up another incoming freshman from Alabama named Martin Love, who was matriculating on a scholarship sponsored by a group called ABC (“A Better Chance”).  A cheerless kid, Martin and I never became friends, not even for a day.  

But I’ll always be glad we were assigned to retrieve him because while we were waiting in the Eastern terminal, the Lovin’ Spoonful arrived and in wild style began carooming around the baggage area in wheelchairs, à la A Hard Day’s Night.  I recognized the band immediately (even new member Jerry Yester), and although we didn’t speak, I consider our brief encounter one of my “formative experiences.”

I am introspective and personally reflective only when challenged; defensively, I usually find a way of fading to gray, tuning out.  This day, my life transition day, I was for the most part ignored (I suppose it was my parents’ life transition day also) and the ringing changes meant absolutely nothing to me until the very end when they departed and all that remained were I and "my own devices.”  Darkness early-verged into the Connecticut afternoon sky and slight fall chill hit the air.  The surrounding campus buildings, which all would eventually seem like home, were alien and minatory, and people, some of whom would become friends or at least familiars, seemed the same way.  For a brief moment only, for the very last time ever, I felt existential confusion and a gulping onset of fear and tears. Then, suddenly, everything was pure oxygen.

  

All school images, Washington D.C. and Virginia: Frances Benjamin Johnston, 1899.

  
Kevin Ayers: Derby Day (Link)

SO FINE (GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS ON STRANGE CASE OF DR JEKYLL AND MR HYDE)

Gerard Manley Hopkins

     ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ I have read.  You speak of the ‘gross absurdity’ of the interchange.  Enough that it is impossible and might perhaps have been a little better masked: it must be connived at, and it gives rise to a fine situation.  It is not more impossible than fairies, giants, heathen gods, and lots of things that literature teems with – and none more than yours.  You are certainly wrong about Hyde being overdrawn: my Hyde is worse.  The trampling scene is perhaps a convention: he was thinking of something unsuitable for fiction.  I can by no means grant that the characters are not characterized, though how deep the springs of their surface action are I am not yet clear.  But the superficial touches of character are admirable: how can you be so blind as not to see them?  e.g.  Utterson frowning, biting the end of this finger, and saying to the butler ‘This is a strange tale you tell me, my man, a very strange tale.’  And Dr. Lanyon:  ‘I used to like it, sir [life]; yes sir, I liked it.  Sometimes I think if we knew all’ etc.   These are worthy of Shakespeare. 

Excerpt:  Gerard Manley Hopkins, In Defense of Treasure Island and Jekyll and Hyde, from a letter to Robert Bridges, October 28, 1886.

Robert Bridges


The Byrds: So Fine (Link)