Posts Tagged ‘Poems’
Diplomatic Impunity…
The U.N. may be a beacon of hope and peaceful negotiation around the world, but it brings with it workers who use their immunity to park in front of fire hydrants, red zones, and anywhere else they please– it’s the stuff of urban legends and West Wing episodes.
New York is owed over $17 million in unpaid parking tickets; Washington, D.C., over $500,000:
New York’s top offenders:
Egypt – $1,929,142
Kuwait – $1,266,901
Nigeria – $1,019,998
Indonesia – $692,200
Brazil – $608,733
D.C.’s:
Russia – $27,200
Yemen – $24,600
Cameroon – $19,520
France – $19,520
Mauritania – $8,070
What do these countries have in common? Freakonomics (quoting Forbes) suggests that “the level of a country’s corruption (according to the Corruption Perception Index) predicted the level of parking ticket delinquency, along with a country’s level of anti-American sentiment.”
As we pine for diplomatic plates, we might compose a loosely rhymed remembrance of William Topaz McGonagall, widely considered to be the worst published poet in British history; he died on this date in 1902. McGonagall distributed his poems, often about momentous events, on handbills and performed them publicly (often, it is reported, to cat calls and thrown food). And he collected his verse into volumes including Poetic Gems, More Poetic Gems, Still More Poetic Gems, Further Poetic Gems, and Yet Further Poetic Gems. (Readers will find a selection of his poems here.)
McGonagall’s best-known work, a verse recounting of “The Tay Bridge Disaster,” ends instructively:
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses,
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.
Judd the facts, ma’am…
Donald Judd, was an artist, designer, and teacher whose work (largely grouped with the Minimalists, though Judd hated that label) has been featured at the Tate Modern and other museums around the world, and is on display at the Judd Foundation, in both Manhattan and Marfa, Texas.
In addition to Judd’s art, the Foundation displays, and via a “subsidiary” sells, furniture manufactured to Judd designs… and it displays Judd’s library.
And even cooler (especially for readers who can’t make it to the Spring Street location), the library is searchable online. One simply clicks on a shelf in the diagram of the layout…
… and sees the shelf in question….
… Mouse over a shelf (on the site), and a tab pops up identifying the theme of that part of the collection; click on a volume to see the bibliographical details of that book.
As remind ourselves of Groucho Marx’s insight: “outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend; inside of a dog it’s too dark to read,” we might recall that this is a bid date in the annals of English letters… It was on this date in 1842, that Alfred, Lord Tennyson, published Poems. While the future Poet Laureate had been writing for a decade, it was this two-volume release (which included “Ulysses” and Morte d’Arthur”) that made his name.
And on this date in 1925, Virginia Wolfe published the story of a day in the life of Clarissa Dalloway– one of Time‘s “100 Best Novels since 1923” (2005).
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