"V": The Lost Stanza

Now A stands for Alys,
Seen here with a bucket.
If you hate my poem,
Well, I don't care. Make up your own.

Amphibrachic is a meter almost never used in English. "Men seldom make passes/At girls who wear glasses." That's about it, and it's easy to see why.

Bülla Bülla

Harry Frankfurt in this morning's Times: Yale is the bull— capital of the world.

And on a more debatable note: Recognizing truth requires selflessness. You have to leave yourself out of it so you can find out the way things are in themselves, not the way they look to you or how you feel about them or how you would like them to be.

Drinking a River

Congratulations to ABM for taking second place in the "I Love This Dog Photo Contest" sponsored by Fredericksburg Animal Hospital, Schering-Plough, Dog Manners Behavior and Obedience, and Fredericksburg Parks & Recreation. A photograph of an embalmed puppy in a bundle of fabric flowers took first.

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Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, Oct. 14:

Coexistence for snakes and dogs

Andrew McAfee of Fredericksburg has been interested in snakes and their behavior since childhood. When asked, "Why snakes?" McAfee smiles and says: "It was a natural outgrowth of my childhood interest in dinosaurs. I got my first pet snake in the fourth grade and I've been hooked on reptiles ever since."

McAfee is often asked, "How do I rid my yard of snakes?" If you live in wooded areas and like flower beds and natural atmosphere, your dog will benefit from your knowing when and why snakes are most active.

McAfee explains: "The aspects of a garden that make them pleasing to people are often the same aspects that attract wildlife. Heavy plant growth, rockwork and moisture provide snakes the resources they seek: cover, basking areas, water and food."

McAfee continues: "Most snakes in our area are active from April to November. Peak activity depends on the snake species in question. Many water snakes are active in the daytime, not at night, and bask in full daylight by rivers and streams. Rat snakes are typically most active at dawn and dusk. Copperheads have an activity shift with the seasons, being daylight-active (diurnal) in the spring and fall and nocturnal during summer. This shift is attributable to the temperature differences between these seasons.

"In spring and fall, copperheads avoid the cold nights that make them sluggish. In summer they avoid the high heat of the day. This activity shift correlates to a diet shift. Copperheads eat nocturnal, warm-blooded (endothermic) rodents in the summer and diurnal, cold-blooded (ectothermic) frogs and lizards in the spring and fall."

Pet lovers' desire to drive snakes out of our yards may be an unrealistic goal. McAfee says: "Except for the racers, Virginia-area snakes are generally not in the habit of fleeing. They are not very fast, and motion draws the attention of predators. Snakes are more likely to hide. Noise and commotion may force snakes deeper into hiding, but probably not out into the open."

What kind of senses do snakes have? Will noise, vibrations or anti-snake products encourage snakes to flee our flower beds? McAfee offered little encouragement for the success of products to ward off snakes. He told me: "I have seen commercial snake repellents at the hardware store. These are typically some combination of sulfur and naphthalene. I don't know if these repellents work at repelling snakes, but your dog is at less risk from snakebite than it would be from ingesting naphthalene."

McAfee's best advice is: "Use reasonable precautions. Wear footwear in the yard, use a flashlight at night, don't reach blindly into holes or leaf litter. Pay attention to your dog's behavior in the yard. Most snakes have threat displays to prevent escalation and scare predators away. Unfortunately, some dogs may find these displays more intriguing than threatening. There's always a chance that a dog might step on a concealed snake and get bitten."

For dog owners who are determined to rid their outdoor surroundings of copperheads, McAfee advises supporting wildlife species that are the natural enemies of copperheads: kingsnakes and predatory birds such as hawks and owls.

Is there any way to get away from snakes? McAfee shook his head and laughed, saying, "You could move to Ireland." We both agreed that we intend to stay here in Virginia with our curious dogs. To keep pets safe in the big backyard, we must find ways to coexist with the snakes, which were here before us and which show no signs of giving up their homeland.

The secret to a well-behaved dog and to a safe dog are one and the same: supervise, supervise and supervise some more. Where your dog goes, your watchful eye and your good judgment must go with him.

The Beat Beat Beat of the Tom-Tom

In the roaring traffic's boom,
In the silence of my lonely room,
I think of you,
Night and day.

Happy Anniversary, Kiddo!

Lucky Move

(Tune: "Bye Bye, Blackbird")Pack up my computer mouse,
Check the mail,
Lock the house.
Bye bye, H'burg.
Up north someone waits for me,
Sometimes sweet
And randy,
Bye bye, H'burg.
No one here can love and understand me.
Oh, what student essays they all hand me.
Make our bed and dim the light.
I'll be home
Thursday night,
H'burg,
Bye bye.

Marginalia (by Billy Collins)

Sometimes the notes are ferocious,
skirmishes against the author
raging along the borders of every page
in tiny black script.
If I could just get my hands on you,
Kierkegaard, or Conor Cruise O'Brien,
they seem to say,
I would bolt the door and beat some logic into your head.

Other comments are more offhand, dismissive—
"Nonsense." "Please!" "HA!"—
that kind of thing.
I remember once looking up from my reading,
my thumb as a bookmark,
trying to imagine what the person must look like
who wrote "Don't be a ninny"
alongside a paragraph in The Life of Emily Dickinson.

Students are more modest
needing to leave only their splayed footprints
along the shore of the page.
One scrawls "Metaphor" next to a stanza of Eliot's.
Another notes the presence of "Irony"
fifty times outside the paragraphs of A Modest Proposal.

Or they are fans who cheer from the empty bleachers,
hands cupped around their mouths.
"Absolutely," they shout
to Duns Scotus and James Baldwin.
"Yes." "Bull's-eye." "My man!"
Check marks, asterisks, and exclamation points
rain down along the sidelines.

And if you have managed to graduate from college
without ever having written "Man vs. Nature"
in a margin, perhaps now
is the time to take one step forward.

We have all seized the white perimeter as our own
and reached for a pen if only to show
we did not just laze in an armchair turning pages;
we pressed a thought into the wayside,
planted an impression along the verge.

Even Irish monks in their cold scriptoria
jotted along the borders of the Gospels
brief asides about the pains of copying,
a bird singing near their window,
or the sunlight that illuminated their page—
anonymous men catching a ride into the future
on a vessel more lasting than themselves.

And you have not read Joshua Reynolds,
they say, until you have read him
enwreathed with Blake's furious scribbling.

Yet the one I think of most often,
the one that dangles from me like a locket,
was written in the copy of Cather in the Rye
I borrowed from the local library
one slow, hot summer.
I was just beginning high school then,
reading books on a davenport in my parents' living room,
and I cannot tell you
how vastly my loneliness was deepened,
how poignant and amplified the world before me seemed,
when I found on one page

a few greasy looking smears
and next to them, written in soft pencil—
by a beautiful girl, I could tell,
whom I would never meet—
"Pardon the egg salad stains, but I'm in love."

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Richard Brookhiser in Sunday's Times Book Review: John Adams, though an erratic writer, was the greatest marginalist of the founding fathers, as pungent as he was copious. Later this month, the Boston Public Library is mounting an exhibition called "John Adams Unbound," displaying some 3,700 volumes that belonged to the second president. They bring us close to a great and eccentric man, and give an object lesson in the history of book collecting. But they also contain a trove of marginalia. Some of the gaudiest examples will be displayed in open copies, which will be available permanently online at johnadamslibrary.org.

Study This, You Puerile Snot-Nosed Dipstick!

Thanks to AW of the Cleveland Reserve Bank for calling this article to my attention with the observation that if it's true, I must be Einstein.

Another Nice Mess

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Even editors take summer vacations: "He was the right man at the right time—a time when we needed strong, divisive leadership."
—Hattiesburg American, Aug. 10, 2006, page 4D.

(I know what you're thinking, but he's actually talking about a university president.)

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I get more information by waiting patiently to be the last person to read the magazines:

While books last, people should underline and write in them more than they do. Especially library books. That's what margins are for, to give the next guy something extra to think about. It's a mitzvah.

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Now that Trish is La Estrella,
She should watch for salmonella
Sometimes found in those fajitas
Served up with her margaritas.
Upset stomachs often end a
Dancer's wonderful duende,
And jaleos mucho dismal
Cry out for el Pepto-Bismòl.

Emigrants

Click here for exhibition details.

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Nicholas Kristof in this morning's Times on the arithmetic of Lebanon: Israel is unlikely to kill more terrorists than it creates.

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D: You wouldn't manage people that way, would you? You wouldn't change your mind just because somebody came into your office and cried, would you?
J: Certainly not; crying's not an argument.
D: Right! And you wouldn't change your mind just because somebody flirted with you, would you?
J: Okay, maybe not, but you haven't met L— W—.

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CW: Mommy, take these off me; I don't like them.
LW: But you're the one who told me to put them on you.
CW: Well, maybe you shouldn't listen to me; I'm only four.

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D and I watched "Syriana" tonight and "The Devil Wears Prada" last night. I learned many neat tricks from Meryl Streep; I can't wait to try them out at work. But I never did find out what Prada is. Or are.

And Be Merry

Houseguests from Germany, MR and BR, two of the most completely interesting people we know, guaranteed that for several days we would eat, drink, talk, and listen better and more than usual.

Supply and Demand

Joey Cheek plans to study economics in college, according to Parade this morning, because "that's what gets the chicks."

A Small Foretaste of Hattiesburg

Mother's Day at the Waffle House, which in cooperation with Dr. VMBII and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reminds you that the best defense against disgusting ailments is proper handwashing technique:

Eat and Run

I left work early Friday to drive to Lexington to attend the Stonewall Jackson Symposium and to meet WCG's parents. I stopped by the lunchroom first to get something to eat on the road. Just a sandwich; I didn't want anything messy I might spill on my suit at 70 m.p.h. OB called out to me as I was rushing through:

OB: Hey, Jim, I got some good beans for you today.
JM: Not today, Oscar. I'm just going to grab a sandwich because I have to drive somewhere.
OB: That's no problem. Just open the windows.

Cruise News

Royal Caribbean: If You're Still Hungry, It's Your Own Fault.

A great cruise with a great group. Seven had to miss the trip because they were in school or in the process of moving to a new town. We missed them and wished they could have come. Especially JRP, who had some stage shows and, we hope, some schoolwork to take care of. He would have been in his element. We celebrated RMH's 50th birthday and JSH's 90th. JSH and JFH won several hundred dollars at the gaming tables. ABM, D, and I learned to ride Segways and tooled around Cozumel on them. D and I thought they were cool, but ABM, the only one of us to graduate to the zippy red key, has higher standards. He pronounced them dweebie. My tattoo is only India ink and will wear off by next weekend, but that should be time enough to decide if I need a durable one.

The best news of a great week, however, was that WCG brought his grandmother's engagement ring along. On the last night of the cruise, he offered it and a little Moët Brut to CPM and asked if she would marry him. She said Absolutely. He took this development more calmly, as shown, than the rest of us:

Opening Night

Almost as soon as the show opened this afternoon someone bought ABM's painting of prom feet, but there was more chatter about his connect-the-dots portrait of JRP and a construction crane, made of 4,784 numbered dots.