Perspective on Icarus

Failing and Flying

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end,
or the marriage fails and people say
they knew it was a mistake, that everybody
said it would never work. That she was
old enough to know better. But anything
worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that
anyone could tell you they would never last.
Every morning she was asleep in my bed
like a visitation, the gentleness in her
like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back
through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky
on the other side of that. Listened to her
while we ate lunch. How can they say
the marriage failed? Like the people who
came back from Provence (when it was Provence)
and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

by Jack Gilbert

from Refusing Heaven. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. 

courtesy of The Writer's Almanac.

Edible Books — Literally

Completely edible cakes by Zhanna bakery in St. Petersburg, Russia:

 

  

  

Photos courtesy English Russia.

Chris' Fill in the Gaps Book List

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: my fill-in-the-gaps book list.  The list of 100 books I plan to read during the next five years is arranged alphabetically by author and will be read in no particular order. 

Now, I am not going to carve these into stones.  I give myself permission to adjust over the years.  I've already been eyeing the list: too much Dickens?  Not enough Dumas? What about Austen?

And what book should be my first?  I'm leaning toward Dracula, but that's because I wanted to watch the movie Bram Stoker's Dracula as a reward.  I enjoyed watching that movie at apheresis (almost as much as I enjoyed the irony).

What do you think?  Have I chosen books you love?  Did I miss one of your favorites?  Let me know!

Chris' Fill in the Gaps Book List

	Things Fall Apart	Chinua	Achebe
	Foundation	Isaac	Asimov
	Pride and Prejudice	Jane	Austen
	Sense and Sensibility	Jane	Austen
	Sundays With Vlad	Paul	Bibeau
The	Lost Symbol	Dan	Brown
The	Good Earth	Pearl S.	Buck
A	Little Princess	Frances Hodgson	Burnett
The	Secret Garden	Frances Hodgson	Burnett
	Cold Sassy Tree	Olive Ann	Burns
The	Land that Time Forgot	Edgar Rice	Burroughs
	Tobacco Road	Erskine	Caldwell
The	Plague	Albert	Camus
	Ender's Game	Orson Scott	Card
	Death Comes for the Archbishop	Willa	Cather
	O Pioneers	Willa	Cather
The	Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay	Michael	Chabon
The	Big Sleep	Raymond	Chandler
The	Stories of John Cheever	John	Cheever
	Girl with the Pearl Earring	Tracy	Chevalier
The	Woman in White	Wilkie	Collins
	Moll Flanders	Daniel	DeFoe
The	Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao	Junot	Diaz
A	Tale of Two Cities	Charles	Dickens
	David Copperfield	Charles	Dickens
	Little Dorrit	Charles	Dickens
	Oliver Twist	Charles	Dickens
	Great Expectations	Charles	Dickens
The	Count of Monte Cristo	Alexandre	Dumas
The	Man in the Iron Mask	Alexandre	Dumas
The	Last Cavalier	Alexandre	Dumas
A	Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius	Dave	Eggers
	Middlemarch	George	Eliot
	Madame Bovary	Gustave	Flaubert
	Where Angels Fear to Tread	E.M.	Forster
The	Corrections	Jonathan	Franzen
The	Quiet American	Graham	Greene
	Goodbye, Mr. Chips	James	Hilton
	Lost Horizon	James	Hilton
Les	Miserables	Victor	Hugo
	Their Eyes Were Watching God	Zora Neale	Hurston
The	Lost Weekend	Charles R.	Jackson
The	Haunting of Hill House	Shirley	Jackson
The	Portrait of a Lady	Henry	James
	Three Men in a Boat	Jerome K	Jerome
	Up the Down Staircase	Bel	Kaufman
	On the Road	Jack	Kerouac
	Please Don’t Eat the Daisies	Jean	Kerr
The	Poisonwood Bible	Barbara	Kingsolver
The	Jungle Books	Rudyard	Kipling
The	Man Who Would Be King	Rudyard	Kipling
A	Separate Peace	John	Knowles
	Little Drummer Girl	John	LeCarre
The	Golden Notebook	Doris	Lessing
	Sliver	Ira	Levin
	Elmer Gantry	Sinclair	Lewis
The	Monk	Matthew Gregory	Lewis
The	Call of the Wild	Jack	London
	The Annotated H.P. Lovecraft	H.P.	Lovecraft
	One Hundred Years of Solidude	Gabriel Garcia	Marquez
	Love in the Time of Cholera	Gabriel Garcia	Marquez
The	Road	Cormac	McCarthy
The	Member of the Wedding	Carson	McCullers
	Atonement	Ian	McEwan
	Lonesome Dove	Larry	McMurty
	Moby-Dick	Herman	Melville
	Peyton Place	Grace	Metalious
The	Seven-Per-Cent Solution	Nicholas	Meyer
	Beloved	Toni	Morrison
	Lolita	Vladimir	Nabokov
	Suite Francaise	Irene	Nemirovsky
A	Confederacy of Dunces	John Kennedy	O'Toole
	Doctor Zhivago	Boris	Pasternak
	Bel Canto	Ann	Patchett
	Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance	Robert M.	Pirsig
	Atlas Shrugged	Ayn	Rand
The	Fountainhead	Ayn	Rand
	All Quiet on the Western Front	Erich Maria	Remarque
	Home	Marylynne	Robinson
The	Human Stain	Philip	Roth
The	God of Small Things	Arundathi	Roy
	Midnight’s Children	Salman	Rushdie
	Sarum	Edward	Rutherford
	Frankenstein	Mary	Shelley
	Enemies, A Love Story	Isaac Bashevis	Singer
	Angle of Repose	Wallace	Steigner
	Dracula	Bram	Stoker
The	Valley of the Dolls	Jacqueline	Suzanne
The	Magnificent Ambersons	Booth	Tarkington
The	Man who Fell to Earth	Walter	Tevis
	Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas	Hunter S.	Thompson
	Anna Karenina	Leo	Tolstoy
	War and Peace	Leo	Tolstoy
	All the King's Men	Robert Penn	Warren
	Brideshead Revisited	Evelyn	Waugh
	Night	Elie	Weisel
	Journey to the Center of the Earth	H.G.	Wells
	Trainspotting	Irvine	Welsh
The	Age of Innocence	Edith	Wharton
The	Inimitable Jeeves	P.G.	Wodehouse
	1001 Nights / Arabian Nights

Homage to Lucille Clifton, May She Rest in Peace

homage to my hips
(click here to hear the poet read this poem)


these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top 


by Lucille Clifton

Parking After a Snow Storm

Witches Parking Lot

(Shovel: the witch's SUV.)

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth Bishop!

Elizabeth Bishop remains one of my very favorite modern poets.  Her language is forthright and her images are exquisite.  Please enjoy this poem, one of my favorites, which has a rhythm similar to the nursery song, "The House that Jack Built."  Check out a few of her other poems at the Academy of American Poets Web site.

  

Visits to St. Elizabeths

This is the house of Bedlam.

This is the man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the time

of the tragic man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a wristwatch

telling the time

of the talkative man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a sailor

wearing the watch

that tells the time

of the honored man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the roadstead all of board

reached by the sailor

wearing the watch

that tells the time

of the old, brave man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls of the ward,

the winds and clouds of the sea of board

sailed by the sailor

wearing the watch

that tells the time

of the cranky man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat

that dances weeping down the ward

over the creaking sea of board

beyond the sailor

winding his watch

that tells the time

of the cruel man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a world of books gone flat.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat

that dances weeping down the ward

over the creaking sea of board

of the batty sailor

that winds his watch

that tells the time

of the busy man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is a boy that pats the floor

to see if the world is there, is flat,

for the widowed Jew in the newspaper hat

that dances weeping down the ward

waltzing the length of a weaving board

by the silent sailor

that hears his watch

that ticks the time

of the tedious man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

These are the years and the walls and the door

that shut on a boy that pats the floor

to feel if the world is there and flat.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat

that dances joyfully down the ward

into the parting seas of board

past the staring sailor

that shakes his watch

that tells the time

of the poet, the man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

This is the soldier home from the war.

These are the years and the walls and the door

that shut on a boy that pats the floor

to see if the world is round or flat.

This is a Jew in a newspaper hat

that dances carefully down the ward,

walking the plank of a coffin board

with the crazy sailor

that shows his watch

that tells the time

of the wretched man

that lies in the house of Bedlam.

by Elizabeth Bishop  

courtesy of the Poetry Foundation

Tip Jar

More and more, I walk into establishments and am faced not only with the cash register, but a "tip jar" in which I can show my gratitude that the service for which I paid was performed.

Tip jars have become customary in most food establishments, and a few other non-food related stores.  We plunk our money in these jars seemingly without thought.  After all, tip jars are for — well, what? For whom?

Bagel shops are not the only ones with their hands out.  Now Internet Web sites such as Hulu and The New York Times are considering charging for content that once was free ("At Hulu, 'free' may soon turn into 'fee,'" Los Angeles Time, January 21, 201; "Adding Fees and Fences on Media Sites," New York Times, December 27, 2009).

The Los Angeles Times quoted Hulu founder Tim Westergren as saying, "The economic reality of any type of content is that you need people to put some money into the tip jar."

That is such an erroneous statement: one should pay a fair price for services rendered.

I have no problem paying for a service, and have long determined that I would pay for an online subscription for the newspapers I read regularly, including The Washington Post, The New York Times and Associated Press. 

I also am fully in support of tipping for services that customarily receive tips, and I try to tip generously.  I have worked food service and it's a hard, thankless job.  Most jobs that rely on tips to make hourly pay minimum wage are, coincidentally, "pink collar" jobs.  Other jobs populated mostly by women or in "the feminine realm" are underpaid, overworked, often thankless jobs.  Unfair? Absolutely.

I don't presume to know about how managers in industries other than my own establish their workers' salaries.  I suspect many workers are taken advantage of, both underpaid and overworked, in just about every line of work.  I can cite many office workers and others in my own industry whose time is used unfairly and whose compensation is unfair.  Perhaps a revolution is in order, or at least an overhaul requiring accountability for worker wages and conditions.  Education is a good start, and I would welcome that myself.

However, tip jars aren't even a salve on a tiny blister of the workforce.  I don't plunk change into a jar on the counter to "make it right," extortion by those who want to be tipped but who customarily are not, like cashiers.  I am not about to hand over my cash to an anonymous wide-mouth jar with a scattering of loose change.  I'd rather see a fix to the system than a jar on the counter.