Poem for Friday and Bruce Munro at Longwood

Yolanda: A Typhoon
By Sarah Gambito

How much our hands are God's

to be running fingers over braille cities.

We are this hand pushed through our womb.

Weeping with each other’s blood in our eyes.

I dreamed that I slept with the light on.

I was asleep in my mother’s bed because my father was out to sea

and my claim on him was to feel the frets of my death sure to come.

Sweet, small fishing rod. Ears of wind rushing through many jellied trees.

We were on this cardboard earth with its puffing volcanoes

miniature baseball players and horrible winds

scored by musician's hands.

Stand in the strong ear of this love.

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I had a pretty good day until the Phillies did not succeed in coming from behind to beat the Astros, which probably means the latter are going to win the World Series. I'm declaring that okay, though, because I learned from the Cubs in 2016 that I would so much rather be disappointed from some stupid sports competition and happy on election night than vice versa, and we did vote today -- last day of early voting in Maryland, almost no wait, not enough people younger than us at the polls, please get out there if you're eligible. 

Other than a trip to the food store at the way home from voting (at my onetime elementary school turned community center where we had kids' birthday parties, so always fun to visit), it was a pretty quiet Thursday. I got some chores done, took a walk, caught up on Andor which has gotten really good, chatted on Zoom with my fannish friends, and we had veggie cheesesteaks for dinner in honor of the Phillies so that at least was nice. Speaking of Philly, from Longwood Gardens last weekend, here are some of the Bruce Munro light exhibits: 

Poem for Thursday and Lake Whetstone Wildlife

Children Imitating Cormorants
By Kobayashi Issa
Translated by Robert Hass

Children imitating cormorants
are even more wonderful
than cormorants.

--------

We had rain forecast on Wednesday but it didn't fall at any point when I was outside or near a window. I had a bunch of work to catch up on, plus I was distracted by the news, so I didn't get out of the house until late afternoon anyway, at which point I went to one Groudon raid and the park for a little while. I did not do anything super-special for May Day but someone defriended me on Facebook for posting squirrel sex.

Paul did make quiche for Beltane, after which we watched the second episode of Gentleman Jack, which is great though I wish it would press harder the contradiction between Lister's own sexual liberation and her servants' lack of agency, then What We Do in the Shadows, which is a bit uneven when its humor gets gross but is still funny. From Lake Whetstone last weekend, ducks and ducklings, geese and goslings, turtles and cormorants:

Greetings from the I-270 Corridor

We had a super, super-busy Saturday starting right after breakfast when we headed out to Gaithersburg, followed by a visit to Bethesda and Garrett Park before we went downtown for the evening for dinner and to see the Clintons! Here is our day in photos:


This is Jordan Klepper emceeing An Evening with the Clintons, to which I won tickets from a local radio station. It was awesome. More on them in a bit.


We went in the morning to Lake Whetstone in Montgomery Village, where we saw many geese, goslings, cormorants, and turtles...


...plus this duck and her ducklings swimming in the windy lake. We were going to walk all the way around the lake, but the water was so high that we'd have had to get our shoes drenched, which we did not want to do given our itinerary, so instead we went a quarter of the way around one direction, then a quarter of the way around the other.


From there we continued in Gaithersburg to Washingtonian Lake because I knew from the other day that there were lots and lots of goslings there. We had to hunt a bit behind the hotel to find them, but we counted 26 babies. Plus we brought sandwiches and had a picnic at the tables by the Rio playground.


After the goslings, we went to Strathmore in North Bethesda, where there is an exhibit of kaleidoscopes in the mansion. It is spectacular (and free!) and I highly recommend it to everyone in the area.


There are tiny metal kaleidoscopes, large glass kaleidoscopes, enormous room-filling wooden kaleidoscopes, and everything in between.


Then we headed up Strathmore Avenue into Garrett Park to see the famous neighborhood azaleas, which are just peaking and are gorgeous!


In the late afternoon we drove into DC, parked, and had dinner at Rasoi Indian Kitchen, where we had Begumi Thali -- a sampler of vegetarian entrees including fantastic Nawabi Kofta curry plus samosas, naan, and rice pudding. After that, we walked several blocks near the White House to DAR Constitution Hall, where both our kids (and me!) graduated from high school.

We did not know that Klepper was going to be hosting the event with the Clintons, which was a nice surprise -- we've always liked him on Comedy Central. We knew nothing about the format of the show before we got there along with a very enthusiastic, partisan audience who laughed and clapped heartily. The Clintons had an obviously prepared spiel with photos about the philanthropy work done by their foundation, but they were quite entertaining talking off the cuff about the past and upcoming elections.

Hillary, no surprise, is very sharp, on target, sarcastic humor, diplomatic talking about current candidates but stressing the need for clear, practical policy; Bill clearly loves sound of own voice but he's also quite funny, very proud of Hillary and also of Obama (outraged that Hillary was accused of playing loose with secrets when Obama had been surprised she hadn't told Bill about the Osama Bin Laden raid). The line that got the most laughs was when he was encouraging people to remember what we all have in common as humans even at the genetic level, when he said that Hillary was not at all surprised to learn he had Neanderthal in him.

Will write more about everything tomorrow but we're going to see Avengers: Endgame in the afternoon so I need to get to bed!

Lyrics for Friday and Canal Wildlife

Miriam's Song
By Debbie Friedman

And the women dancing with their timbrels
Followed Miriam as she sang her song
Sing a song to the One whom we've exalted.
Miriam and the women danced and danced
the whole night long.

And Miriam was a weaver of unique variety.
The tapestry she wove was one which sang our history.
With every thread and every strand she crafted her delight.
A woman touched with spirit, she dances toward the light.

As Miriam stood upon the shores and gazed across the sea,
The wonder of this miracle she soon came to believe.
Whoever thought the sea would part with an outstretched hand,
And we would pass to freedom, and march to the promised land.

And Miriam the Prophet took her timbrel in her hand,
And all the women followed her just as she had planned.
And Miriam raised her voice with song. She sang with praise and might,
We've just lived through a miracle, we're going to dance tonight.

And the women dancing with their timbrels
Followed Miriam as she sang her song
Sing a song to the One whom we've exalted.
Miriam and the women danced and danced
the whole night long.

--------

Quickie as the Orioles game just ended in extra innings (successfully, after trying to blow it in the 9th!) and I was distracted with Mueller Report commentary and avoiding Endgame spoilers in headlines about the terrible leaks of Endgame spoilers. Most of my day was unexciting, apart from getting invited to a 10:30 a.m. EX raid at the last minute at the Gifford Pinchot Forestry Building and catching a shiny Latios at a just-before-dinner raid. Daisy appears to be feeling better; she ate plenty!

Before the Orioles game, we watched this week's Cloak and Dagger, in which a bunch of people judged Tandy unfairly, and The Orville, which I swear was based on a Voyager fan fiction in which there were two Janeways, one who was the captain and one who was not. (Okay, that fanfic was based on the TNG double-Riker transporter accident episode, but there was more sex in the fic and The Orville than TNG.) From the C&O Canal last weekend, here are some of the animals we saw (no snakes)!

Poem for Friday, Girls Trip, Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey

Rat Wheel, Dementia, Mont Saint Michel
By C.K. Williams

My last god's a theodicy glutton, a good-evil gourmet—
peacock and plague, gene-junk; he gobbles it down.
Poetry, violence; love, war—his stew of honey and thorn.

For instance, thinks theodicy-god: Mont Saint Michel.
Sheep, sand, steeple honed sharp as a spear. And inside,
a contraption he calls with a chuckle the rat wheel.

Thick timber three metres around, two persons across,
into which prisoners were inserted to trudge, toil,
hoist food for the bishop and monks; fat bishop himself.

The wheel weighs and weighs. You're chained in; you toil.
Then they extract you. Where have your years vanished?
What difference? says theodicy-god. Wheel, toil: what difference?

Theodicy-god has evolved now to both substance and not.
With handy metaphysical blades to slice brain meat from mind.
For in minds should be voidy wings choiring, not selves.

This old scholar, for instance, should have to struggle to speak,
should not remember his words, paragraphs, books:
that garner of full-ripened grain must be hosed clean.

Sometimes as the rat wheel is screaming, theodicy-god
considers whether to say he's sorry: That you can't speak,
can't remember your words, paragraphs, books.

Sorry, so sorry. Blah, his voice thinks instead, blah.
He can't do it. Best hope instead they'll ask him again
as they always do for forgiveness. But what if they don't?

What might have once been a heart feels pity, for itself, though,
not the old man with no speech—for him and his only scorn.
Here in my rat wheel, my Mont Saint Michel, my steeple of scorn.   

--------

I watched TV most of the day. I was pretty okay while Ford was testifying, even though it was obvious the Republicans wanted a prosecutor not to get at the truth or even protect them from sounding like assholes (since they were perfectly comfortable all day sounding like assholes) but to try to make the story about the Democrats playing politics while they pretended to feel sorry for the assault victim. As soon as Kavanaugh came out shouting and ranting, though, with Lindsey Graham declaring that this is the most despicable thing he has seen in politics -- we need to put him in a for-pay prison or send him to live in Flint -- I had to get out before my blood pressure became dangerous.

It wasn't all bad when I decided to live in denial for a couple of hours. I did back-to-back Mewtwo raids at the mall and got an invite to what we all hope will be a Deoxys raid at Starbucks next week, then when Paul got home we went out for Mexican food with Karen and Jim. I needed something funny and feminist when we got home, so we watched Girls Trip, which is fit the bill pretty perfectly; I was worried that the infidelity-and-forgiveness story was going to take over one character's arc, but that was resolved greatly to my satisfaction, and the acting was spot-on and hilarious even when over the top. Here because it relaxes me is the Abbey of Mont-Saint-Michel:

Poem for Monday and Dave the Musical

My Childhood Home I See Again
By Abraham Lincoln

My childhood home I see again,
    And sadden with the view;
And still, as memory crowds my brain,
    There’s pleasure in it too.

O Memory! thou midway world
    ‘Twixt earth and paradise,
Where things decayed and loved ones lost
    In dreamy shadows rise,

And, freed from all that’s earthly vile,
    Seem hallowed, pure, and bright,
Like scenes in some enchanted isle
    All bathed in liquid light.

As dusky mountains please the eye
    When twilight chases day;
As bugle-notes that, passing by,
    In distance die away;

As leaving some grand waterfall,
    We, lingering, list its roar—
So memory will hallow all
    We’ve known, but know no more.

Near twenty years have passed away
    Since here I bid farewell
To woods and fields, and scenes of play,
    And playmates loved so well.

Where many were, but few remain
    Of old familiar things;
But seeing them, to mind again
    The lost and absent brings.

The friends I left that parting day,
    How changed, as time has sped!
Young childhood grown, strong manhood gray,
    And half of all are dead.

I hear the loved survivors tell
    How nought from death could save,
Till every sound appears a knell,
    And every spot a grave.

I range the fields with pensive tread,
    And pace the hollow rooms,
And feel (companion of the dead)
    I’m living in the tombs.

--------

Paul and I went downtown on Sunday with Cheryl and Robert to see Dave, the musical based on the Kevin Kline movie about a presidential lookalike who is asked to impersonate the president when the latter suffers brain death and his staff doesn't trust the VP to keep them around. The musical is hilarious, the cast is great, and the songs are very catchy; as you'd expect, it's somewhat hokey at times but the use of the stage is terrific and I'm never going to complain about a musical that ends by reminding everyone to vote out bombastic liars. There are many jokes about the current unscrupulous idiot in the White House and even a Nationals game in the show.

It's not Hamilton, but it's nice to see a musical where people talk to paintings of Lincoln  and argue with 19th century presidents. Afterward we went out to dinner and came back to the house to see whether Cheryl or Robert wanted any of my big old Playbill collection or theater books. After they left to drive home, Paul and I did some cleaning (we have a freaking wasp nest in the front yard) and watched the miserable season finale of Succession, a show about the most unpleasant family ever. Obviously there were no photos inside the theater, but here are a couple of the waterfront-area view from inside the complex, which houses two other stages, and the regional theater's Tony Awards:

Poem for Wednesday, Baltimore, All-Star Game

Baseball and Classicism
By Tom Clark

Every day I peruse the box scores for hours  
Sometimes I wonder why I do it
Since I am not going to take a test on it  
And no one is going to give me money

The pleasure’s something like that of codes  
Of deciphering an ancient alphabet say  
So as brightly to picturize Eurydice
In the Elysian Fields on her perfect day

The day she went 5 for 5 against Vic Raschi

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Tuesday sucked, Wednesday's gonna suck hard, Thursday's gonna suck worse, and that's just my life, not even counting the state of the world which sucks more than I can remember feeling like it sucked since the night Operation Desert Storm started and I was sitting in a classroom pretending I cared about a pretentious paper by a male feminist expert on Modernist women's writing when I just wanted to get to a TV and find out what was going on, since I wasn't in the habit of looking on Usenet back then. Ahem. A few more photos from Baltimore, including pirate ships, aquarium animals, and, in honor of the AL about to win the All-Star Game which is now in extra innings, Oriole Park at Camden Yards: