Archive for 4/4/2008 - 28 Adar II, 5768

(cryp·tom·ne·sia) (krip²tom-ne¢zh[schwa]) [crypto- + Gr. mnasthai to be mindful] the recall of memories not recognized as such but thought to be original creations.

According to Wikipedia:

Friedrich Nietzsche’s book Thus Spoke Zarathustra includes an almost word for word account of an incident also included in a book published about 1835, half a century before Nietzsche wrote. This is neither considered to be purposeful plagiarism nor pure coincidence. Nietzsche’s sister confirmed that he had indeed read the original account when he was 11-years-old.

There’s also, apparently, a 1916 German short story, written by Heinz von Eschwege, about a middle-aged man traveling abroad who becomes obsessed with a young pre-teen girl named Lolita. Vladimir Nabokov composed his Lolita in the 1950s, but lived for some time in the same section of Berlin as von Eschwege, and was likely familiar with his work.

So it does happen.

There’s a few upset about a recent Spanish translation of the National Anthem

George Bush has entered a row about the US national anthem,
criticising a Spanish version featuring Wyclef John and Gloria Trevi.

“I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English,” he said
when asked at a news conference.

The song also drew derision from Mark Krakorian, head of a US
think-tank called the Center for Immigration Studies.

“Would the French accept people singing the La Marseillaise in English
as a sign of patriotism? Of course not.”

Apparently Bush believes either that learning a language is something which can be accomplished by swallowing a pill, or he believes that immigrants/refugees should be prevented from showing their patriotism by singing the national anthem until they have learned the language.

Mark Krekorian and the Center for Immigration Studies needs someone to tell them that one should never ask a rhetorical question when one doesn’t know the answer.  To assume you know the answer is an extremely risky proposition.

An English translation of France’s National Anthem
(from the French government’s ’Office of the Presidency’…so that makes it pretty official.)

May 1st would be the 83rd birthday of Joseph Heller, if he hadn’t died in 1999.

Some point during this month of April also marks the 20th anniversary of my exiting St. Louis Children’s Hospital in 1986 after a four month stay.   Joseph Heller’s autobiography, “No Laughing Matter“, co-written with his friend Speed Vogel, was also published in 1986.

It all began one typical day in the life of Joe Heller. He was jogging four miles at a clip these days, working on his novel God Knows, coping with the complications of an unpleasant divorce, and pigging out once or twice a week on Chinese food with cronies like Mel Brooks, Mario Puzo, and his buddy of more than twenty years, Speed Vogel. He was feeling perfectly fine that day — but within twenty-four hours he would be in intensive care at Manhattan’s Mount Sinai Hospital. He would remain hospitalized for nearly six months and leave in a wheelchair.

Heller’s novel, God Knows, would cause me much grief years later in college.  The “pigging out once or twice a week” was with a group which referred to themselves as the “Gourmet Club”. As Speed writes:

We laughingly called ourselves “The Gourmet Club.” It started in the 1960s. Once a week I’d gas up the Jeep and start on the Upper West Side picking up the guys: Joseph Heller, Mario Puzo, George Mandel, Joe Stein, Mel Brooks (the funniest man alive), Julie Green (a diamond merchant whom the funniest man alive calls “the funniest man alive”) and Ngoot Lee (a painter and our Chinese dining guru). Sometimes Carl Reiner or Charles Gwathmey would show up. A meal in Chinatown was a crucial part of our lives.

Mel Brooks and Buck Henry were writing the pilot for “Get Smart!” at Talent Associates on Madison Avenue. They had a pool table there, and while we waited for Mel to finish up, the rest of us would shoot a few games. For a time in the late 1950s, Mel and I had been roomies, and one night we started joking about this producer we knew who lived high on the hog on Central Park West but who had flop after flop on Broadway. At the time, I didn’t figure it was the germ of a fine idea.

I was born in the 1960s.  The fine idea was of course The Producers.

In July of 1986, Joseph Heller wrote the following words:

[You] have a sense of humor good enough to qualify you for the Gourmet Club, if it is ever revived.

He wrote those words to me!  Was he just being kind to a 17 year old kid who went through the same ordeal he did, but without the famous friends?  Maybe.  It’s also possible he didn’t write it.  A few months after receiving the postcard, I received a letter.  He wrote that he wasn’t sure if he had written earlier, and thought he might have handed it off to Speed to reply to.  (Speed had learned to sign Joe’s name while he was in the hospital.)  So Speed may have written those words, but since he too was a member of the Gourmet Club, they’re equally valid.

Currently, once a week, I dine out with some writing colleagues of mine.  It’s not Chinese food.  I’d love it if it were.  We usually think of ourselves more of an Algonquin Round Table than a Gourmet Club.  But whatever works.

An article on plagiarism, written by fantasy author, Mercedes Lackey.  I actually linked to this before, back in August of 2004 after meeting the author at a convention.  However, it seems appropriate this week.  Here’s one opinion piece where the author suggests Kaavya Viswanathan might be an innocent bystander.  If you haven’t yet seen the actual quotes, here’s the original Harvard Crimson article.  If innocent, one feels sorry for the author, as she will have a difficult time getting people to believe her.

We’re nearing the end of this year’s pilot season.  The Hollywood Reporter says, “Nearly 100 comedies and dramas are in contention next month for a dwindling number of time slots on five networks.”  It lists the pilots in contention for each network.  A few SF/Fantasy concepts among them.

It’s good to have a few tricks up your sleeve.

The finale is May 18th. Since television and radio stations across the country had contests to win a trip to a taping of the final episode, and since all the tapings are over, it is of course hard to believe the plot could be kept off the internet.

I found a spoiler posted for the final episode (Don’t read unless you want to know.)

I have no proof that it is accurate. All I personally know is my cousin appears in the final five minutes, and according to IMDB his character’s name is Ben.

The description of the finale sounds confusing, but then again, it was a fan writing it. I suspect given an hour the writers of the show can make it work.

ShowMeCon IV is over, and boy, was it fun!

Friday morning, I travelled to the Bowling Museum and Hall of Fame with Peter David, his daughter Ariel, and 3 other convention staffers. PAD rode in my car. There’s a small alley in the HoF, and we bowled a game. PAD is what is termed an 800-series bowler, meaning he’s managed to achieve a total of 800 out of 900 in a 3 game series. (This weekend was pretty close to the 1 year anniversary of that achievement.) His daughter has won trophies on the Jr. circuit. Meanwhile, I rarely break 100 in a given game. While my game didn’t improve much, I learned a lot about the history of the game at the museum.

I saw a lot of PAD over the weekend — various panels, and at a dinner banquet Friday night. I purchased from him a script he wrote for the television show Space Cases called The Impossible Dram. The title is naturally a reference to Man of La Mancha. It was one of two such scripts he was offering, the other for the pilot of the show. Both were signed by Jewel Staite, as she was on Space Cases in 1996, playing the role of an engineering genius, 8 years before she got the role of Kaylee for Firefly. I also managed to narrow down the books of his I wanted him to sign to just five.
I also talked with several other less known authors, and the media guest, Noel Neill, who played Lois Lane opposite Kirk Alyn and George Reeves.

ShowMeCon V will be April 20-22, 2007 - at the Maryville Marriott off Hwy 40/64. The author guest of honor will be local author, Barri Bumgarner. The media guest is yet to be named.

I dropped some alcohol off in the hospitality room a few hours ago, helped set up the art-show panels, and then headed home, as I still wasn’t packed for the weekend. I have been to many conventions, and have helped staff four or five, but I suspect this will be one of my more memorable. Hopefully I’m not jinxing it with this post.

I went to my first convention back in 1991. It was a pure Star Trek convention, and Michael Dorn (Worf) was the guest. For several years I was the traditional Trekkie, and I would stand in line for autographs, listen to the guest speeches, buy blooper tapes in the dealer’s room, etc. But I got bored with the autographs. They’re nice to have, but I have no intention of making money on Ebay or anything, so what’s the point, really? Proof that I saw the actors? I know I did. I have some cool autographed wall hangings, but I have enough. Really.

This weekend Peter David is the guest of honor. I have counted 92 comic books, 13 paperbacks, and 3 hardbacks I could have him sign. 108 autographs might be a few too many to ask him to sign. But it is 18*6, and picking is going to be so difficult. And as I said, I don’t really care about the autographs that much. I just want to keep him busy for a couple minutes so I have a chance to talk to him, and you know, I don’t need my books to do that.

Because at some point this weekend I am one of only a few staff members who will be accompanying PAD (he refers to himself by his initials a lot) on a trip around St. Louis. Where and when exactly I’m not going to say. But the trip should take about four hours. If I don’t get the chance to say everything I want to say in those four hours, there’s something wrong with me. Of course, I have to try not to come off as a total geek. And that could be difficult. Especially if I began with, “when we get back to the hotel, would you mind signing 108 books of yours for me?”

update I’ve narrowed it down to 20: 15 cbs, 2 ppbs, 3 hcs.

Maybe you heard — Tom and Katie had their baby.  They named her Suri.  The couple explained that it was Hebrew for Princess.  Apparently in Israel (see link above) many are shaking their heads in bewilderment, being completely unfamiliar with the word.  It’s not a complete mistake, but apparently it’s an obscure pronunciation of Sarah, the Biblical heroine.

What I don’t understand is I thought they were Scientologists, and not Hollywood Kaballists.

ShowMeCon4

Author Guest of Honor: Peter David

Media Guest of Honor: Noel Neill (Lois Lane from the 1950s)

The easiest way to find me is to go to the hospitality room, and if I’m not there, wait.  Not that I go to a convention for the free food and drink…but because I am on the staff, and my responsibility is the hospitality room…so while I will have relief on occasion so I can attend a few panels, and get Peter David to sign my stack of books…ultimately I will return.

There’s a term for anything, and one term that applies to me is Formalist.

 A formalist, as applied to writing, is someone who feels poetic and/or narrative forms are not restrictive in a bad sense.  We feel that placing a form’s restrictions on our writing actually helps the creative process. 

One proponent of Formalism is comicbook artist Matt Madden.  He’s written a book entitled, 99 Ways to Tell A Story. He takes a very simple story, and tells it in comic-format, 99 different ways.

Some of these ways can be seen on his site: Exercises in Style.

Interestingly, and perhaps coincidentally, one of the best fiction writing textbooks I ever received in a writing workshop was entitled, Revising Fiction.  It was written by David Madden.  I have no idea if they are related.

Yesterday’s Unshelved

With a group name like that, you can pretty much guess what their music is about.

I heard them sing a song just now on NPR from their new album, Unorthodox.

They Tried to Kill Us (We Survived.  Let’s Eat)

A perfect Passover song.  (Passover begins tomorrow night.)

First verse, and chorus (follow the link for the rest):

We were slaves to pharaoh in Egypt
The year was 1492
Hitler had just invaded Poland
Madonna had just become a Jew
Moses was found on the Potomac
Then he marched with Martin Luther King
He came back to free us from our bondage
‘Cause S&M has never been our thing

They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat
They tried to kill us, we were faster on our feet
So they chase us to the border
There’s a parting of the water
Tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat

A Whole Can of Plot led me to another one of those quizzes. This one identifies what type of gamer one is. I scored a perfect tie between story teller and method actor. There was a tie-breaker question, which put Method Actor minutely on top.  This isn’t too much of a surprise.  When I write fiction, I actually become my characters, and watch how they interact.  Writing is acting.

The Parade’s Still Passing By — Harry Chapin

Excerpt:

You weren’t no leader,
You were more like a bleeder
Who was trying to cry for us all
You weren’t no sage
But your sense of outrage
Sounded like a trumpet call
Fifteen years ago
In the old folky show
You were just one voice in the crowd
But now with so few singing
Your voice would have been ringing
Out ’bout twice as loud.

Phil Ochs, thirty years ago, on April 9, 1976, took his own life. I was only 7. However, a childhood friend was asked to play fiddle on a song on Billy Bragg’s album, Don’t Try This at Home. After listening to this album, from there, I found The Internationale which contained I Dreamed I Saw Phil Ochs Last Night. I decided I had to find out who he was. All that was over a decade ago.

Well, I didn’t win the powerball last night, but no one did, so on Wednesday there’s a chance at over 220 mill.  (only 100 million if one takes the direct cash option.)

However, I just finished doing my taxes.  (Yeah, I have a week left, I don’t know why I did it so early.) And while I’m going to have to go back over the numbers and verify it, once the checks come in, I’m thinking of a Blackberry, Ipod, DVD-RW, and about 80 gb of additional storage space.  And with the money left over, I’ll buy a dozen books.  all items subject to change.
I purchased my home in Aug of 2004, so last year I only got a third of the benefits  of mortgage payments.  (And it was pretty much counterbalanced by the gains from a huge sale of stock I’ve had accumulating since age 13.)  This year…wheeeee!

If this will happen every year, I might start doing my taxes earlier.

Went vineyard-crawling with some friends on Saturday to a beautiful vineyard in Aviston, IL, just 45 miles from my home.  It’s the Hidden Lake Winery. Their dry wines are closer to semi-territory, which most in our group preferred, but I’d have liked to taste something drier.  I found their cabernet most to my liking on that end of the sheet.  They had a merlot, and a few syrahs, along with a chardonnay, too.  They had a great selection of sweet wines, some of which they labelled semi-sweet.  My preference was for their Adam’s Apple, though others in the group enjoyed the Double Decker Red.  (having grown up on Mogen David and Manischevitz wine, I tend not to like sweet red wines, whether they come from the Concord grape or not.)  I also enjoyed their Muscat dessert wine, and I brought home a bottle of that, along with an Adam’s Apple.

The question arose in conversation what made a wine kosher or not.  Unlike the rules for any other food or beverage, the Orthodox require that kosher wine be produced by a completely Jewish staff.  This isn’t a Biblical commandment, but a Talmudic era judgment to prevent one from drinking wine made for pagan rituals.  It was the only way the Rabbis knew to make sure one wasn’t drinking wine thus tainted.

I’m not Orthodox, and I don’t question the religious background of those producing the wine.  (I have drunk mead, though, produced by some friends of friends in the pagan community….)

There is an additional concern for non-kosher wine.  The wine making process often uses a clarifying agent. “Different proteins serve as clarifying agents depending upon both the type of wine and the desired flavor…Some clarifiers are animal-based products, while others are earth-based. Common animal-based agents include egg whites, milk, casein, gelatin, and isinglass. Gelatin is an animal protein derived from the skin and connective tissue of pigs and cows. Isinglass is prepared from the bladder of the sturgeon fish.”  (Neither sturgeon fish, nor pigs, are kosher.  If either were used as a clarifying agent, it would make the wine non-kosher from a Biblical, and not just a Talmudic perspective.)  Personally, I avoid pig products, and if I knew a wine was made with pig gelatin as a clarifying agent, I would probably not drink it.  But I currently follow a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ philosophy.

Saturday’s Child - Countee Cullen

Some are teethed on a silver spoon,
With the stars strung for a rattle;
I cut my teeth as the black racoon–
For implements of battle.

Some are swaddled in silk and down,
And heralded by a star;
They swathed my limbs in a sackcloth gown
On a night that was black as tar.

For some, godfather and goddame
The opulent fairies be;
Dame Poverty gave me my name,
And Pain godfathered me.

For I was born on Saturday–
“Bad time for planting a seed,”
Was all my father had to say,
And, “One mouth more to feed.”

Death cut the strings that gave me life,
And handed me to Sorrow,
The only kind of middle wife
My folks could beg or borrow.

TO H. C.

SIX YEARS OLD — William Wordsworth

O Thou! whose fancies from afar are brought;
Who of thy words dost make a mock apparel,
And fittest to unutterable thought
The breeze-like motion and the self-born carol;
Thou Faery Voyager! that dost float
In such clear water, that thy Boat
May rather seem
To brood on air than on an earthly stream;
Suspended in a stream as clear as sky,
Where earth and heaven do make one imagery;
O blessed Vision! happy Child!
That art so exquisitely wild,
I think of thee with, many fears
For what may be thy lot in future years.

I thought of times when Pain might be thy guest,
Lord of thy house and hospitality;
And grief, uneasy Lover! never rest
But when she sate within the touch of thee.

Oh! too industrious folly!
Oh! vain and causeless melancholy!
Nature will either end thee quite;
Or, lengthening out thy season of delight,
Preserve for thee, by individual right,
A young Lamb’s heart among the full-grown flocks.
What hast Thou to do with sorrow,
Or the injuries of tomorrow?

Thou art a Dew-drop, which, the morn brings forth,
Not doom’d to jostle with unkindly shocks;
Or to be trail’d along the soiling earth;
A Gem that glitters while it lives,
And no forewarning gives;
But, at the touch of wrong, without a strife
Slips in a moment out of life.

A Sibylene Curse - by Robert Graves (from “I, Claudius”)

A hundred years of the Punic Curse
And Rome will be slave to a hairy man,
A hairy man that is scant of hair,
Every man’s woman and each woman’s man.
The steed that he rides shall have toes for hooves.
He shall die at the hand of his son, no son,
And not on the field of war.

The hairy one next to enslave the State
Shall be son, no son, of his hairy last.
He shall have hair in a generous mop.
He shall give Rome marble in place of clay
And fetter her fast with unseen chains,
And shall die at the hand of his wife, no wife,
To the gain of his son, no son.

The hairy third to enslave the State
Shall be son, no son, of his hairy last.
He shall be mud well mixed with blood,
A hairy man that is scant of hair.
He shall give Rome victories and defeat
And die to the gain of his son, no son -
A pillow shall be his sword.

The hairy fourth to enslave the State
Shall be son, no son, of his hairy last.
A hairy man that is scant of hair,
He shall give Rome poisons and blasphemies
And die from a kick of his aged horse
That carried him as a child.

The hairy fifth to enslave the State,
To enslave the State, though against his will,
Shall be that idiot whom all despised.
He shall have hair in a generous mop.
He shall give Rome water and winter bread
And die at the hand of his wife, no wife,
To the gain of his son, no son.

The hairy sixth to enslave the State
Shall be son, no son, of this hairy last.
He shall give Rome fiddlers and fear and fire.
His hand shall be red with a parent’s blood.
No hairy seventh to him succeeds
And blood shall gush from his tomb.

(For those curious, the stanzas, in order, refer to: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero)

One of my goals in the poems I’m choosing is to use some different resources than usual, and mix in some poetry that even those who consider themselves to be well-read may not have seen before.
Robert Graves claimed he wrote I, Claudius merely to make money, using the term ‘pot-boiler’, derived from an author’s desire to keep the food-pots boiling. The novel, and the sequel Claudius, The God are his most popular works.

I was inspired by yesterday’s news to write: Delayed Response.  The editor accepted it ’without delay.’

 

I suspect one or two readers, when they saw me post Hemingway’s juvenalia, thought, “That’s cruel. I bet you wouldn’t post juvenalia of a poet you actually liked.”

Envy and Avarice - Victor Hugo
translated by: American Keepsake magazine
Note: Written in 1815 at age 13

Envy and Avarice, one summer day,
Sauntering abroad
In quest of the abode
Of some poor wretch or fool who lived that way–
You, or myself, perhaps, I cannot say, –
Along the road, scarce heeding where it tended,
Their way in sullen, sulky silence wended;
For, though twin sisters, these two charming creatures,
Rivals in hideousness of form and features,
Wasted no love between them as they went.
Pale Avarice,
With gloating eyes,
And back and shoulders almost double bent,
was hugging close that fatal box
For which she’s ever on the watch
Some glance to catch
Suspiciously directed to its locks;
And Envy too, no doubt, with silent winking
Of her green, greedy orbs, no single minute
Withdrawn from it, was hard a-thinking
Of all the shining dollars in it.

The only words that Avarice could utter,
Her constant doom, in a low, frightened mutter,
“There’s not enough, enough, yet in my store!”
While Envy, as she scanned the glittering sight,
Groaned as she gnashed her yellow teeth with spite,
“She’s more than me, — more, still forever more!”

Thus, each in her own fashion, as they wandered,
Upon the coffer’s precious contents pondered,
When suddenly, to their surprise,
The God Desire stood before their eyes –
Desire, that courteous deity who grants
All wishes, prayers and wants;
Said he to the two sisters: “Beauteous ladies,
As I’m a gentleman, my task and trade is
To be the slave of your behest.
Choose therefore at your own sweet will and pleasure,
Honours or treasure, –
Or, in one word, whatever you’d like best.
But let us understand each other: she
Who speaks the first, her prayer shall certainly
Receive; the other, the same boon redoubled!”

Imagine how our amiable pair
At this proposal, all so frank and fair,
Were mutually troubled!
Misers and enviers of our human race,
Say, what would you have done in such a case?
Each of the sisters murmured, sad and low:
“What boots it, O Desire, to me to have
Crowns, treasures, all the goods that heart can crave,
Or power divine to bestow,
Since still another must have always more?”

So each, lest she should speak before
The other, hesitating slow and long
Till the god lost all patience, held her tongue.
He was enraged in such a way
To be kept waiting there all day,
With two such beauties in the public road;
Scarce able to be civil even,
He wished them both — well, not in heaven.

Envy at last the silence broke,
And smiling, with malignant sneer,
Upon her sister dear,
Who stood in expectation by,
Ever implacable and cruel, spoke;
“I would be blinded of one eye!”

It’s amazing to me how often I hear the first line of the below sonnet attributed to Shakespeare. It’s a compliment in a way to EBB, but she deserves to get the credit.

Sonnet 43 - Elizabeth Barrett Browning

One common office betting pool during the baseball season is the 13-run pool.  The idea is each bettor draws the name of a team randomly.  The cost is usually $1 per team.  If your team is first in the week to score 13 runs in a single game, without going over, you get the pot.  If no team does this, no one wins, and the money is rolled over and added to the next week’s draws (but everyone draws new teams.)  Most people think  the pot will grow to huge proportions.  Most people think 13-run games are rare.  However, the last time I participated in one it only rolled over once the entire season.

Today was opening day for most teams, and if you’re in a 13 run pool, there’s already a winning team for this week.
The Cardinals  (Pujols had 2 homeruns)

From “Dictionary of Phrase and Fable” - E. Cobham Brewer - 1898.

Days set apart as Sabbaths.

Christians worship God on Sunday,
Grecian zealots hallow Monday,
Tuesday Persians spend in prayer,
Assyrians Wednesday revere,
Egyptians Thursday, Friday Turks,
On Saturday no Hebrew works.
—–

The wonderful thing about this poem: it’s equally appropriate any day of the week!
However, personally, I can only attest to the accuracy of the first and last lines.

On a somewhat related topic, I’ve just discovered, in addition to the Sabbath, Tuesdays are considered a special day, because they were doubly blessed.  That is, during the creation, G-d declared “it was good” twice on the third day.  Only once on the first, fourth, fifth and sixth days.  And on the second day G-d didn’t say it at all.  That’s why Monday sucks. (Follow the link, or look in your Bible.  I’m not making this up.)

The poem is way too long for me to post here, but the link is a solid one, and last night’s events make it a shoe-in for today’s poem. Maybe I didn’t have to go there. Maybe they didn’t have to take me in…

I was at a staff meeting for ShowMeCon (the convention is now less than 3 weeks away.) Driving home, I stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up some dinner and a few lunches for this week. In the checkout line I saw it had started to rain - hard. I hadn’t heard the tornado sirens. I ran to my car and ended up with a soggy bag of groceries.

Driving home, I saw a police car blocking an entrance to my street. So I turned and went a different direction. Though, naturally, once I arrived at the other side, they were blocking that side off too. A power line had gone down. Later I saw the pole had fallen inbetween two parked cars. Whether it was exact, or had hit one and rolled off it, I’m not sure. I didn’t get close enough to see the damage. But it was exactly where I often park.

Blocked from the street, the policeman told me I could park where I was and walk to my home, but all the power was out. So I called my parents, asked them what they were doing for dinner, and whether there was room in the refrigerator for a bag of groceries. They offered the guest room for the night. I took it.

Today marks the opening game of the 2006 Baseball Season. The game starts at 7:05 pm in Chicago between the White Sox and the Cleveland Indians.

The Cardinals opening game is tomorrow, in Philadelphia.

To honor the season, and National Poetry Month, I offer you the oldest surviving poem from Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway was born on July 21, 1899. This was written on April 12, 1912, 3 months shy of his 13th birthday.

The Opening Game

1st Inning

With Chance on first, and Evers on third,
Great things from the Cubs will soon be heard.
Then up comes Schulte to the bat,
On the plate his bat does rap;
Takes a slug at that old ball,
Makes it clear the right field wall.
Then in comes Chance and in comes Evers,
Such hits are seldom seen–’most never.
Then to the bat comes Zim in haste,
He sure knows how the ball to paste.
He slams the ball upon the Bean,
Almost seems to make it scream.
The center fielder nabs the ball;
It seems as if ‘t’would make him fall.
But stop of this rank stuff,
Just one inning is enough.

From the same time period, two years earlier, comes this classic by Franklin Pierce Adams - July 10, 1910 (he was a New York Giants fan)

Baseball’s Sad Lexicon

These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double-
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”

April 1st, besides being April Fools Day

And besides being the day of the International Edible Book Festival
(Which I wouldn’t have known about if it weren’t for awholecanofplot)

It’s also the first day of National Poetry Month

On this first day of the month, I joined a friend and visited one of my favorite local commercial outlets: The Book House

It’s the only used bookstore in town where I can say I have never left emptyhanded.

Some say the place is haunted, but I think it’s the resident cats that help me find the books. They were lying outside today , near some tables with some bargain books, and I walked inside with two of them. I added a third book on the inside, and left having spent $18.

From a collection of Hebrew Verse, some poems by Samuel Hanagid (993-1056)

War

War is at first like a beautiful girl with whom all men long to play, but in the end like a repulsive hag whose suitors all weep and ache.

The Master

No master will hire you, unless he can expect to be idle while you tire and become weary in his service. You are for him like tongs: with his hands he pushes you into the fire, but he takes great care not to burn himself on you.

The Prison

The earth is a prison to man all his life. Therefore I say this truth to a fool: though you rush about, the sky surrounds you on all sides. Try to get out, if you can.

Translations by T. Carmi