Category: articles

Wasted art

I was drinking a coffee the other day
Watching several adolescent girls at another table.
Suddenly, they launched
Into snapping one another
And thereafter progressed
To taking self portraits.

This style of vain,
Self-absorbed activity
Is the lowest level
Taking photos can probably
Descend to.

Considering that,
If you are the only
Truly worthwhile point
Of interest,
In all of life’s
Rich tapestry,
Then you might have failed
To detect a few essential
Hints
In the path of learning
What life is
Ultimately about.

From The Advantages Of Photography As A Hobby. By Cami Hernandez.

Paired birds of Franciscan brown

If Brother Julian was gardening in front of the friary,
Brother Adrian weeded in the back.
If Adrian was driving the van, Julian sat by his side.
Preparing the altar for chapel,
chopping wood for kindling,
exulting in ice cream at the Twist & Shake:
the twins were together, always.

Workers, not teachers, so ever-present as to be unseen.
Taken for granted, like the rushing hush
of the Allegheny River at the university’s edge,
or the back-and-forth of birdsong.

Brother Julian became the sacristan,
Brother Adrian the chauffeur,
but they also built the bookshelves,
maintained the garden, cleared the shrines in the woods
and rarely spoke unless invited.

How they adorned the friary trees with birdhouses.
How they toured the campus on identical bicycles.
How they often sat in prayer in the chapel,
so still that you might not know they were there.

From For Franciscan Twins, Simple Lives Had Depth (NYT). By Angi Holden.

Grass-Eating Boys’ Commitment

phobia is not the only thing that’s worrying
Japanese women. Unlike earlier generations

of Japanese men, they prefer
not to make the first move, they like

to split the bill, and they’re not
particularly motivated by sex.

I spent the night at one guy’s house, and nothing
happened. We just went to sleep, moaned one

incredulous woman on a TV program
devoted to herbivores.

It’s like something’s missing with them, said
Yoko Yatsu, a 34-year-old housewife.

If they were more normal, they’d be more interested
in women. They’d at least want to talk to women.

A quote from Alexandra Harney in Slate, quoted in Why Isn’t Japan Having Sex? at The Good Men Project. By Andrew Milewski.

Care and feeding of your reindeer

They are inquisitive
It was a lot of trial and error
I started with two, had eight…
it snowballed from there
It is tough at times
There are days you just don’t love your job
There is good and bad, but a lot more good
She’d walk onto the stage all by herself
then walk back to me
or hang out with the cellists
She loved the violinists
They died on the same day
Just old. Can’t stop that
They went and laid back-to-back
and passed away on the same day
But they lived a good life, that’s for sure

Direct speech in the WNY.FM article Reindeer in Hamburg. By Grace Andreacchi.

On Emily

There was an increasing divide
Between people she wished to know
And those she did not.

Her clarity could not endure
Social talk instead of truth;
Piety instead of “The Soul’s Superior instants”.

Her directness would have been disconcerting
If she did not “simulate” conventionality,

And this was “stinging work”.



But a more threatening challenge,
Deeper below the surface,
Fired the volcanoes and earthquakes in her poems –

An event,
As she put it,
That “Struck – my ticking – through -“.

From A bomb in her bosom: Emily Dickinson’s secret life. By Susan.