Yesterday: Grilled salmon and spinach souffle. Today: Macaroni and cheese with bacon crumbled over the top. You can’t be healthy and fancy all the time. Especially with a chill rain falling from the heavens. Cool spring evenings practically cry out for mac and cheese. And there was a salad, because we’re not animals, y’know.
I grew up with a mother who worked full-time — rare-ish at the time — and who commuted on the bus. I would hear her footfalls coming up the front walk at 5:30 or so and look forward to her sunny presence in the house, even though it was, for her, merely the beginning of the second shift, which she did uncomplainingly. Tonight I thought of her as I walked home from my own stop, which lets me off about the same distance from home as my mom was from ours. That’s what started me thinking of mac and cheese with bacon. We shouldn’t express love with food, but face it? Food = love, many times.
Not that I wish to start off this work week all navel-starey. But it IS raining.
Here’s a story that’s been floating around for a while, about a young doctor who started acting erratically a few weeks back, and disappeared. A body appeared in an Indiana lake near where she was last seen, and the early signs are that it’s her. What makes it all the more tragic is that all signs are that she had some sort of psychotic mental illness, and what kind of doctor was she training to be? A psychiatrist. How is it that a woman who’s made it through med school, who’s chosen a specialty and is presumably studying it intensively, doesn’t recognize the symptoms in herself? Although maybe she did:
Twitter messages gave investigators clues to her state of mind in the eight months before she disappeared after leaving work Dec. 5. Her Twitter account, filled with 20,000 tweets, indicate she dealt with hallucinations and that they were growing worse. In September, she described a troubling episode: “My mind melted,” she tweeted about an earlier psychotic episode. “Everything went haywire. Signals got crossed and my mind started telling me that everything is a lie and I’m crazy.”
Her family said she was never diagnosed with mental illness, but siblings and her ex-husband were troubled by her behavior, they said.
“I begged her to get help. She didn’t want to be branded,” said her ex-husband, Smiley Calderon of Orange, Calif., of a diagnosis that could derail the career of the smart, focused woman with a medical degree and doctorate in biochemistry. Patrick also has a bachelor’s in theology.
A tragedy. Less so was the death of Mickey Rooney, who, I was amused to hear, was christened “Andy Hard-on” by Lana Turner, one of his many, many conquests. I recall him in most of his biggest roles — “National Velvet,” the awful Japanese caricature in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” etc. — but what I find most memorable was a role he played late in his career, as the wordless, grotesque clown in “Babe: Pig in the City.”
I have a friend who absolutely hated that movie, but I? Well, I loved it. You don’t always find children’s movies that most people would call “dark,” but there you are. It’s a train wreck, but a wonderful one, and Rooney, as the wrangler of a strange, dark vaudeville troupe of apes and his own mime-like clown. His part isn’t big, but a key part of the strangeness that pervades the whole film.
I’m the only one who liked that movie, I swear. I can imitate many of the animals’ voices, and sometimes will say to Kate, “My people tied me into a bag and threw me in the water.” She loves it.
Finally, what is the story behind this story? A sticky-fingered thief, or a dealer in stolen goods? Hoosiers, report.
Dexter said on April 8, 2014 at 1:10 am
I cooked a couple steaks for my wife and I, grilled up with onions and mushrooms, and boiled cabbage on the side, that was all. Then I watched a great NCAA championship basketball game.
It’s raining and 43 degrees here also, and a struggle to catch a minute when the rain lets up a little so I can walk the animals.
Macaroni and cheese was never a big deal at our home when I was a kid; it was a side dish and we never wanted more than a tablespoon full. Mom made the best slumgullion ever. That’s what folks used to call macaroni and hamburger in a tomato sauce, usually with red beans, a little onion and onion powder. She made liver and onions so well that as a kid I loved it, still do. She made the very best bread in pans in the oven, and she had a knack for making homemade pizza topped with lots of cheese and sausage. Her fruit pies were heavenly, crust made with canned lard, of course. Someday I am going to find a gooseberry pie again, I swear!
Mickey Rooney, John Pinette, and Peaches Geldof all dead. We all know Rooney was 93 and a long-time movie star, fewer know about the comedian Pinette, who was 50 but had kidney and heart problems. For some , 50 is a good long run when you may be battling debilitating sickness. Peaches was just 25…I hate to guess what killed her, but I feel like I know already. She was rock legend Bob Geldof’s daughter.
For the first time in my life I am enduring a tax season nightmare. Long story involving long-ago student loans we took out for the three kids. This afternoon another meeting with the accountant. It’s been awful straightening this mess out, and it looks bad right now.
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Nancy said on April 8, 2014 at 3:43 am
I think I’ll just try to remember Andy the way he was in “The Muppets.”
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 8, 2014 at 7:24 am
My archaeology friends tell me that what they’re hearing through the grapevine from the three or four who have been pulled in to help sort through this fellow’s fifty years of collecting is that he had a few too many skulls. Nothing really nefarious, and no hint of personal pillaging, but he’s bought lots of pillaged goods — and there’s NAGPRA in this country to defend Native American burial materials (mortuary goods can be parts of the skeleton or related artifacts buried with the remains), along with international guidelines on what can and can’t be brought out of a country. I’m guessing what’s really going to make it sticky is that he could have bought stuff overseas in the fifties and sixties that’s illegal now to buy let alone bring back to the US, but then was not forbidden. So you probably won’t see the elderly gentleman taken to court, but stuff’s gonna go back to some countries and some tribal governments here at home.
Word is he was very happy to let school groups come visit and “tour” his collection, which had some really interesting stuff in it, but some teacher along the way was put off by the profusion of skulls and made some calls. Which is why most of these compulsive collectors tend to not show off their stuff, but the global trade in pillaged antiquities is so big you know there’s one of these guys in almost every town, village, and hamlet, albeit on a smaller scale. And . . . many of them *think* they have antiquities, when what they have are crudely made (and occasionally very well crafted) fakes for which they paid top dollar.
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brian stouder said on April 8, 2014 at 7:29 am
…but if he had a stove-pipe hat from mid-19th century Illinois…
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coozledad said on April 8, 2014 at 7:41 am
In September, she described a troubling episode: “My mind melted,” she tweeted about an earlier psychotic episode. “Everything went haywire. Signals got crossed and my mind started telling me that everything is a lie and I’m crazy.”
That’s what I usually refer to as “Thursday”.
I wonder if she had a schizoaffective disorder.
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Basset said on April 8, 2014 at 7:46 am
Kielbasa we brought back from Findlay Market in Cincinnati, in the slow cooker with some homemade kraut. Probably shouldn’t mention it in this company but what the hell.
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Suzanne said on April 8, 2014 at 8:15 am
I made Mac & cheese on Monday. With bacon, but I threw in some micro greens I got at the farmer’s market on Sat., so it’s ok. And a salad so we got our veggies. You can’t beat a good Mac & cheese for comfort food.
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Suzanne said on April 8, 2014 at 8:17 am
This Mac & cheese
http://www.lottieanddoof.com/2009/04/mac-cheese-lottie-doof-style/
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alex said on April 8, 2014 at 8:20 am
My most lasting impressions of Mickey Rooney come from his days as a regular on the set of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s Prosperity Gospel Comedy Hour. My mother, who’d grown up watching him as a child star, was devastated to see him so desperate for the limelight that he’d sell his soul to those two charlatans.
As for shrinks, my Freudian analyst from years ago was one of the few truly sane ones I’d ever met. Navel gazing is what draws most of them into the profession, and it’s a rare few who have any business counseling others. I say this from experience as I sought out help at a fairly young age to deal with being gay in a world that was absolutely hostile and uncomprehending. Needless to say, some of the psychologists I dealt with were also hostile and uncomprehending, or worse. No wonder insurance companies don’t want to pay for psychologists’ services. They probably use that money instead to settle malpractice claims against them.
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Mindy said on April 8, 2014 at 8:23 am
Your mother worked her second shift without the benefit of appliances we all enjoy now. I know someone who’s working mom embraced the slow cooker when it first appeared. He avoids anything prepared in one since he’s still sick to death of the meals he had to eat as a kid. The recipes were so basic back then. So he ate too many bowls of chili and spaghetti.
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alex said on April 8, 2014 at 8:33 am
Just had a funny flashback regarding one of my long-ago psychologists. He was having an affair with one of his clients, an abused woman with a restraining order against her husband, who showed up at a restaurant where they were meeting up for a tryst. The husband decked him and sent him flying across the room. It was the talk of the town.
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Peter said on April 8, 2014 at 8:59 am
Why didn’t the poor woman self-diagnose herself? Well, I remember my Intro Psych class, and when it came time to look at disorders, the professor sternly lectured us that when we read up on each disorder, “no matter how accurate it describes you, do not assume that you have this complex – even trained professionals with many years of experience will make a wrong diagnosis”.
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Wim said on April 8, 2014 at 9:12 am
I used to be a professional archaeologist, and I have encountered a number of collectors like the one featured in that story. I found them annoying, first because they inevitably assumed that I must have a horde of artifacts of my own, but mostly because they’re the guys who provide a profit motive for pot-hunting. I don’t know if one could fairly call them sticky-fingered thieves, or even dealers, since as a rule they never, ever sell anything. They’re receivers of looted property, but unless they run publicly afoul of NAGPRA or other statute, there’s usually no penalty for that. Their collections always represent a staggering loss of information, and for another thing: trophy skulls. There’s a reason these are usually old white guys.
Anyway. Long-time reader, first-time commenter. I was reading here before Caliban became Prospero, if that tells you anything.
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Connie said on April 8, 2014 at 9:13 am
My husband entertained me this morning with John Pinette imitations. Unfortunately I didn’t have a clue, and couldn’t figure out why he was talking about Chinese buffets while I was eating toast.
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Wim said on April 8, 2014 at 9:15 am
Er–hoard. Not horde.
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coozledad said on April 8, 2014 at 9:32 am
Wim: I’ll bet if you talk to one of those guys long enough, you’ll get an earful of race science.
When I was a kid,the NC museum of natural history had a display of Native American artifacts featuring the contents of an urn burial- a nine year old girl whose mummified head was displayed in a glass case on a bed of cotton.
I wonder if enough people got photographs of that monstrousness to put together an exhibit called “Whitey at the Museum: Morbid Racialist Exhibits for Hicks and Dullards in a Fundamentalist NASCAR State”.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 8, 2014 at 9:39 am
Coozledad: In my experience, you are absolutely correct. You end up talking to lots of them, because they’ve walked more fields and furrows and riverbanks than you can ever get to, and if they will tell you where to look, and the landowner is willing, that’s a fast track to placing your field school.
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LAMary said on April 8, 2014 at 9:41 am
Since the whole household managed to present at the same time we had a nice supper of lamb chops and yellow and green beans sautéed with garlic and tomatoes. It’s rare for me to spend more than ten dollars for meat for one meal. We eat a lot of chicken and pork and we skip meat a few nights every week. Partly for health, partly for the environment, and partly because I’m cheap.
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brian stouder said on April 8, 2014 at 10:15 am
Wim – don’t be a stranger!
As for the ‘ick’ factor in museums…I forget where the hell we were (maybe Columbus? Or maybe Chicago), but a museum had an exhibit on loan from China of mummified people – contemporary people – who donated their remains “to science”, and ended up under glass in a museum.
It pretty much took me off my pins (to the point that I’ve apparently blocked the memory, a bit!)
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Connie said on April 8, 2014 at 10:31 am
Brian, we’ve talked about that Body Works display before. I saw it at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. It was both icky and fascinating. They weren’t mummified they were “resined”? . The one that sticks with me is the pink puffy cloud that was the blood system and nothing else.
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brian stouder said on April 8, 2014 at 10:43 am
Connie – I think I remember that discussion (your ‘pink puffy cloud’ rings bells)
This evening is the evening I meet Rep Carbaugh, which should be interesting.
Watch this space…
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Dorothy said on April 8, 2014 at 10:58 am
I have next to no powers of resistance. I’ve been really, really watching what I eat but after reading these comments, I’m caving in and making mac’n cheese for dinner on Friday. I occasionally still hold onto the Lenten traditions like avoiding meat on Fridays. But I’m being a sinner on Good Friday when we’ll be in Pittsburgh and I MUST have pepperoni on my Mineo’s pizza. I haven’t had it in months so I need to indulge myself a little.
Jolene and Mary – I’m still holding onto my avoidance of Words With Friends, though! I think I’m down 6 lbs. so that’s a good thing.
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Deborah said on April 8, 2014 at 11:08 am
We’ve found a couple of artifacts on our land in Abiquiu. They’re fascinating but haven’t thought much about what to do with them. It would be interesting to find out how old they are.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 8, 2014 at 11:23 am
Deborah – black obsidian projectile points, about an inch long?
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Deborah said on April 8, 2014 at 11:38 am
Yes, Jeff tmmo, that is what one of them is. How did you know? One of the others is a chert (spelling?) scraper that must have been used to scrape pelts. It clearly fits in your hand on one side and the opposite edge is sharp.
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James said on April 8, 2014 at 11:41 am
That Chinese exhibit apparently consists of political prisoners, so “volunteer” is kinda a relative term…
I find the idea of displaying resinated bodies the ultimate of ick. No scientific reason, just something for the yokels to gawk at. Reprehensible.
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Julie Robinson said on April 8, 2014 at 11:44 am
Wasn’t there some question as to how voluntary the body donations had been? I think they were mostly prisoners. I was not at all disappointed when we couldn’t get tickets to see it, just too creepy for me.
Mac and cheese was one of the few dishes my mom mastered, pretty much everything else she cooked was a disaster. Of course, she made it with Velveeta–wonder if I would still like it today? I never had the box stuff until college.
Good on you, Dorothy. And sad face for Dexter and the student loans, sounds painful. I just had to write a $200 check for repair on a furnace that’s only 11 years old. Guess I’ll be cheap at the grocery too, only I’ll call it being frugal. And following MichaelG’s example, I’ll try not to complain, but appreciate that we have the resources to pay the bill.
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Julie Robinson said on April 8, 2014 at 11:44 am
James, you beat me to the point!
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Kim said on April 8, 2014 at 11:48 am
Loved that movie. The line we drop around our house when something is good, or just good enough: That’ll do, pig. That’ll do.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 8, 2014 at 12:01 pm
Don’t know about your scraper (never trust the “fits in your hand” template, but if there are resharpening scars on the sharp edge, it could be a unifacial scraper), but the arrowhead/point is probably about 3,000 years old, Early Basketmaker culture. I spent a week sorting collections at Ghost Ranch in the Florence Hawley Ellis Museum there, back thirty years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Basketmaker_II_Era
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 8, 2014 at 12:06 pm
(For everyone else, Ghost Ranch is a Presbyterian conference center about 15 miles west of Abiquiu, it has Georgia O’Keefe’s “other” house, Casa del Sol, on the grounds; her better known house is in Abiquiu itself. Great programming through the summer at Ghost Ranch, and across the highway is the gate for another 10 miles of dirt track to the Monastery of Christ in the Desert, well worth the trip. Say hi to Abbot Philip for me.)
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 8, 2014 at 12:09 pm
See second row for possible comparisons of the base & notchings — http://www.crowcanyon.org/researchreports/sitetesting/Fig_finl/Chp_15/Fig15_19.jpg
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Deborah said on April 8, 2014 at 12:37 pm
Cool Jeff tmmo, thanks, the scraper definitely has resharpening marks on it. The projectile point looks most like P. They are both in Chicago right now so I’m going from memory. I need to get them back to NM. We also have some pottery shards and something we think was used to hold the shaft of a projectile while the point was being affixed but that last one may not be what we think it is. Also there are petroglyphs on some of the boulders. Our land is on a couple of finger mesas at the base of a mountain called Sierra Negra, which has been purported to be the sacred mountain for the Ohkay Owingeh pueblo (formerly called the San Juan pueblo before they changed it back to its original name). There are petroglyphs all the way up to the top along a trail that has been said was a sacred pilgrimage to retrieve eagle feathers from a nesting place up there. Here’s a photo of Sierra Negra, our land is off to right side of the mountain. http://internet.cybermesa.com/~kempter/gallery_pages/abiquiu3.php. THe photographer is a geologist friend of ours.
Ghost Ranch is a wonderful place, the hikes etc there are fantastic.
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coozledad said on April 8, 2014 at 12:56 pm
A good “headquarter cleaning” can set the tone for a whole evening. Don’t forget the peppermints:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/mcallister-kissing-headquarter-cleaning
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Dorothy said on April 8, 2014 at 1:34 pm
Nancy since you sail I wonder if you know the reason for this: I just read at the NY Times about the couple who took their two young daughters out on the ocean for a month-long trip. But they had to be rescued because the baby got very sick. The article said they had to sink the boat “on purpose.” I am assuming they had to sink it because no one was on board to sail it. It would be safer to just sink the thing, right? But is there something more to that? Can you elaborate? (This is open to everyone, of course; I just know Nancy and Alan sail and figured they’d be most knowledgable.)
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kednedub said on April 8, 2014 at 1:39 pm
What?!, no discussion of the aforementioned cinematic masterpiece? Nancy, though comments don’t reflect it, you are not alone… the second Babe film (VHS format of course) is a staple for myself and my children, up there with the Princess Bride and Pirates of the Caribbean as regards movies we could watch over and over and over again… blind mice serenading a la Edith Piaf gets me every time
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cerebus said on April 8, 2014 at 2:20 pm
Hi Nancy – “Babe: Pig In The City” was the last Best Picture Of The Year (1998) chosen by Gene Siskel before his death – much to the chagrin of Roger Ebert at the time. See here:
http://www.cmgww.com/stars/siskel/screening_room/thumbs_up2.htm#9
So you’re not alone in your love for that flick!
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Sherri said on April 8, 2014 at 2:30 pm
Dorothy, are you going to the Mineo’s in Squirrel Hill? I used to live a few blocks from there, over near Allderdice High School.
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nancy said on April 8, 2014 at 2:30 pm
The other Nancy who posted upthread simply loathes it, but I will watch Babe in the city any time it comes by on cable. (It never does.) The whole giant butt-pants sequence is lousy, but the hotel makes up for it. “My humans belong to someone else now. Someone younger and prettier.”
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Dorothy said on April 8, 2014 at 2:40 pm
Most likely we’ll head to Squirrel Hill because it’s the one closest to my mom’s apartment in Munhall. But the Mount Lebanon location is very close to the nursing home where Mike’s aunt is. Same pizza at both locations, but I just like the Squirrel Hill location because it’s the original! SO many date memories for us there….I grew up in Wilkinsburg, Sherri. Graduated from WHS in 1975.
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Dexter said on April 8, 2014 at 3:17 pm
basset, the sausage and kraut sounds good to me. My wife just browned up some store-bought kielbasa and the frying smell just hit me as I flashed back to the strong sausage-grilling odor that used to pour up into the upper left field deck at old Tiger Stadium in Detroit. There was a huge sausage stand not far away and the smoke just rolled up into the seating area. I rarely could resist a smoked sausage sandwich there.
In Toledo, it’s Stanley’s Market’s Polska Kielbasa. Stanley’s processes good meat.
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Dexter said on April 8, 2014 at 3:20 pm
Get your Easter orders in now for Stanley’s kielbasa:
http://www.stanleysmarket.com/
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Dexter said on April 8, 2014 at 3:25 pm
“Give me everything you got, give me your teeth, I’m about to bust you if you don’t.” Fuck you buddy, my teeth stay put.
http://toledoblade.typepad.com/ridealong/
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nancy said on April 8, 2014 at 3:31 pm
Oh, and Dorothy? I think you’re right about that boat: It was sunk to avoid becoming a navigation hazard to other vessels. What a nightmare that idea was, start to finish.
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brian stouder said on April 8, 2014 at 3:53 pm
But I WILL say – especially regarding the search for the 777 in the Indian Ocean (if not the foolish folks from San Diego) –
people who try and “count the cost” of the search seem (to me) to be pissing up a rope.
We have ships sailing and planes flying and salaries being paid in the US Navy, whether there’s a specific search going or not.
Giving them something tangible to do is…simply what they exist for, yes?
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Bitter Scribe said on April 8, 2014 at 4:02 pm
Isn’t it a cliche that many psychiatrists are crazy themselves?
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Dorothy said on April 8, 2014 at 4:21 pm
As I started to type that question, Nancy (@35) I was zeroing in on the fact that the baby was sick, and thought the germs on the boat might be the reason why they sunk it. Then suddenly it hit me: DUH, who would be controlling the boat if they are all being evacuated?! So I sort of stupidly stumbled on the answer – but thanks for verifying that for me.
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brian stouder said on April 8, 2014 at 4:30 pm
Wait – the jilted husband of the woman who was all smoochie-coochie with the horny Louisiana congressman is named…Heath Peacock?
You cannot make this stuff up
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2014/04/08/husband-on-kissing-congressman-he-has-wrecked-my-life/?hpt=hp_t2
On Monday, The Ouachita Citizen in West Monroe, Louisiana, published a surveillance video it says shows McAllister and his scheduler, Melissa Hixon Peacock, passionately kissing in his office last December.Heath Peacock said he didn’t know about the episode until Melissa called him a couple hours before the news broke. “He has wrecked my life,” Peacock, 34, said of McAllister. “We’re headed for divorce.”
Sounds like the overly-proud Mr Peacock has his feathers a little too ruffled, really…although it WOULD be hard to forgive one’s spouse for so passionately responding to the calls of the Duck Dynasty congressman
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Sherri said on April 8, 2014 at 4:44 pm
An Unquiet Mind by Kay Redfield Jamison is a good memoir by a psychiatrist who struggles with accepting and treating her bipolar disorder.
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Suzanne said on April 8, 2014 at 4:57 pm
So, the Congressman did it in the office with Mrs. Peacock, right?
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brian stouder said on April 8, 2014 at 4:59 pm
And with a candlestick!
(thinking “Clue” here)
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alex said on April 8, 2014 at 5:08 pm
Mrs. Peacock who’s well known for her tail.
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Scout said on April 8, 2014 at 6:47 pm
And naturally the person who has lost her job is Mrs Peacock. Somebody had to go under the bus, don’t ya know.
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brian stouder said on April 8, 2014 at 7:33 pm
Well, I must say – the meeting with representative Carbaugh was very pleasant, indeed. He gave me my inning, and the comments he made were altogether reasonable and agreeable.
Plus, now I can say I’ve visited Starbucks!
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alex said on April 8, 2014 at 7:57 pm
Isn’t it a cliche that many psychiatrists are crazy themselves?
Clients recumbent on a chaise while the counselor catches Z’s is a cliche. Psychiatrists being crazy is a well established fact. Psychologists too.
One should be careful to distinguish between the two, however. The former is an M.D. who gets to check out all kind of stuff recreationally with his cocktails after a long day at the office with the Eli Lilly sales reps. He holds enormous power. He can make or break the drug-seeking patients who want to be in his good graces. The psychologists, on the other hand, are the counselors, who must maintain composure, or at the least a straight face, while listening to stories that would make any sentient being’s jaw drop and skin crawl. (So if they are in fact snoozing, it could be a sign of professional burnout, or maybe that they’re on a powerful sedative themselves, but no doubt there are clients who find such a mien in their counselor more reassuring than the natural visceral human response to their stories.)
I mentioned upthread a former shrink of mine who got his lights punched out by the husband of a client he was screwing, a battered woman. This was a shocking lesson in what a loose-lipped little community this is where I live, and one of the reasons I went to wait out the AIDS crisis in a place where I could have some anonymity in case I were discovered to have the disease. No secret was safe with anybody. I learned of it from two sources — a college friend who worked in an abused women’s shelter and had given refuge to the abusee and her children on a multitude of occasions. I also learned of it from a second college friend, a woman who was one of perhaps dozens screwing the abusive husband and whose father was a shrink and colleague of the psychologist who got pummeled. The latter told me that the psychologist stood up and told the husband “You don’t want to mess with me. I have a black belt in judo.” That’s when the husband sucker punched him and broke his face all over the restaurant.
A google search reveals that guy is still practicing, though in another part of the country. I certainly hope he’s led an examined life these past thirty years and is actually doing some good for people. I was probably every bit as screwed up as he was when I was his client and I’ve certainly grown, so it is possible.
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Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on April 8, 2014 at 9:37 pm
Here’s a quiz-loving crowd I should unleash this on for National Poetry Month. I got 78%, but the friend who passed it to me, who runs the creative writing program at Denison, got an 84%.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/2014/0401/Poetry-quiz-Can-you-match-the-poet-to-the-poem
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Minnie said on April 9, 2014 at 9:53 am
An embarassing 70% for a Writer’s Almanac reader. Lovely to start the day with so much poetry, though. Thanks, Jeff (tmmo).
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Ann said on April 13, 2014 at 11:11 am
So I guess I feel pretty good about my 82% on the poetry quiz. But even the CSM has to give us two clicks for every single question.
It brought back lots of memories of my father, the English professor, who was contemplating his death some time back and calculated that he knew 10,000 lines of poetry, and what would happen to them when he was gone? He was also the one who always said “Alfred, comma, Lord Tennyson” so I always smile when I see the proper comma there. He would have been tolerant of all the suicidal feminist poets in the quiz, but would have been appalled that Shakespeare shows up not even once.
One more memory. I once saw a woman on the ‘L’ carrying a bag that said “Poetry” on one side and “I too, dislike it” on the other. Courtesy of the Poetry Foundation, as it turned out. Supposed to be a beautiful building here in Chicago. I suppose now that I’m retired I could actually go visit it.
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