Love, death, etc.

I've done a slew of reviews lately, and two came out today in the Scene. One's that trashy novel from Eric Jerome Dickey I mentioned last week. Like I said, it's not my idea of heaven, but I did have a little fun writing about it. You'll find the review here.

The other book is an altogether different critter, though not necessarily a more worthy one. Truth at Last is an account of the Martin Luther King assassination by John Larry Ray, James Earl Ray's brother. For those of you not up on your assassination lore, James Earl Ray initially pleaded guilty to shooting King, recanted almost immediately, and steadfastly maintained his innocence until he died in prison 10 years ago. Virtually no one who was close to King believes the official scenario, which says Ray was the lone assassin. Neither do I, so I was pretty interested to see what this book would be like. Unfortunately, it's a self-serving mess, and doesn't do anything to explain the facts of King's murder. Still, it's an interesting document, if only because it gives you a sense of what James Earl Ray--and the rest of the Ray clan, for that matter--was really like. It certainly reinforced my own impression that Ray just didn't have the initiative and single-mindedness required to stalk King and kill him without assistance. Go here to read my review.

"I have seen these ways of God ..."

IV.

He brays humanity in a mortar to bring the savor
From the bruised root: a man having bad dreams, who invents victims, is only the ape of that God.
He washes it out with tears and many waters, calcines it with fire in the red crucible,
Deforms it, makes it horrible to itself: the spirit flies out and stands naked, he sees the spirit,
He takes it in the naked ecstasy; it breaks in his hand, the atom is broken, the power that massed it
Cries to the power that moves the stars, “I have come home to myself, behold me.
I bruised myself in the flint mortar and burnt me
In the red shell, I tortured myself, I flew forth,
Stood naked of myself and broke me in fragments,
And here am I moving the stars that are me.”
I have seen these ways of God: I know of no reason
For fire and change and torture and the old returnings.
He being sufficient might be still. I think they admit no reason; they are the ways of my love.
Unmeasured power, incredible passion, enormous craft: no thought apparent but burns darkly
Smothered with its own smoke in the human brain-vault: no thought outside: a certain measure in phenomena:
The fountains of the boiling stars, the flowers on the foreland, the ever-returning roses of dawn.


From "Apology for Bad Dreams," by Robinson Jeffers, (The Selected Poetry of Robinson Jeffers, 2001).
Read the complete poem here. (I hope you will click over to see it, since Blogger's template will not permit me to present it as it should appear on the page.) Be warned, it's pretty harrowing--but since we have to endure the moronic boosterism of National Poetry Month, it's good to be reminded that great poetry is not for weaklings.

The Dream of Raphael, Marcantonio Raimondi (1480-1534). Image from Web Gallery of Art.

The Fall

It was bound to happen. I've always known--klutz that I am--that sooner or later I'd take a spill on one of the steep trails I love to hike. Today was the day. I took a notion to climb a rock ledge, even though it was raining and the rock was slippery. Why? Because it was there. And because I'm an idiot. Of course I lost my footing and went bouncing down the side of the rock. It seriously knocked the wind out of me, but there were no major injuries and I hobbled down off the ridge without too much trouble. Both legs are banged up and my left wrist is not looking forward to violin practice, but I think I'll recover. Shorts season doesn't seem so appealing now, but then again, they've never been my best fashion friend. One of my legs was already permanently marred from the time I was climbing around our unlit attic in the middle of the night, looking for a roof leak, and stepped through the ceiling. Honestly, I don't why they let me wander through life unsupervised.

I suppose it's possible I psyched myself into hitting the ground today, since that's where my attention has been lately. My resolution for this summer's walks is to pay more attention to the wide world of crawly things. Most insects aren't out yet, but we've had a lot of rain and there are worms everywhere. I've seen some enormous ones this week. None of them were getting friendly like the pair below, but I just thought I'd share the pic with you, seeing as how one of this blog's official interests is "love in all its guises," and I already gave a whole post to the snails. I wouldn't want to be accused of discrimination.


















The Fall of the Damned, Peter Paul Rubens, c. 1620. Image from Web Gallery of Art.

Mating earthworms photo from Wikipedia.

This'll banish your Monday blues

A little inspiration from Sister Rosetta Tharpe and friends. Isn't she great? Read about her here

A different nymph

Sleeping Nymph and Shepherd, Jan Gerritsz van Bronchorst, 1645-1650.


Image from Web Gallery of Art

Beyond Endless War

"Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on."
From Martin Luther King's speech Beyond Vietnam, delivered in New York City on April 4, 1967

King was assassinated one year to the day after making that speech, which means the 40th anniversary of his death will be marked in the media next week with the usual bland genuflection. You probably won't hear a lot of references to his antiwar stance, though the situation in Iraq may inspire a few. You definitely won't hear anything about his radical connection between racism, war and poverty, which is beautifully outlined in the speech, and in the agenda of the Poor People's Campaign. I encourage you to click here** to read all of Beyond Vietnam. As you read, replace "Vietnam" with "Iraq," "communism" with "terrorism" and "Marxism" with "radical Islam"--I find it works eerily well. The speech is not short, but it's worth the time it takes to read, and it'll give you some food for thought when the platitudes are being mouthed next Friday.

And since I'm in political mode, I'll also recommend that you go here to see John Pilger's The War on Democracy, a film about our long history of murderous intervention in Latin America. This movie has seen theatrical release in Britain and Australia, but is only available on DVD here. Heaven forbid people should be reminded that Bush's war in Iraq is really just business as usual.


**There is another text of the speech here that includes an mp3 file, but be warned, the site has annoying pop-ups. Also, go here for an interview on Democracy Now! with Dr. Vincent Harding, who wrote the speech.

One Sentence Perfume Review: Lotus, Ava Luxe

A luminous nymph, sweet and soft as cream, nestled in bitter jade, with a drop of the sun in her heart.


Notes per Ava Luxe: Greens, white lotus , white gardenia, tuberose, plumeria, Egyptian musk.


Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

Poetry, Lilies, Owls

Bill Brown, who appeared on the blog last spring, has a new collection of poems, Late Winter, out from Iris Press. I love Bill's work, and some of these poems are just fantastic. You can read my review of the book at the Scene's website, and here's a bit of one poem on a topic dear to my heart:

Lilies

I have always been late for lilies
that pretend to bloom for a week,
and when my attention wanes,

I find them spoiled by fullness.
It's not that I envy bumblebees
that catch unfurling blossoms

and smother their legs in orange.
I am ripe for perfection: alabaster
smooth and unstained; star gazers,

the rival of orchids; reds deep
and soft as pinot noir. This
morning a gentle rain whispers

to my garden where lilies wait. ...


By Bill Brown, from Late Winter, Iris Press, 2008.



In other news ...
















I saw a gorgeous pair of Great Horned owls this morning, flying together through the trees. I often hear them talking to each other, but I've never seen a couple out at play before. Pretty soon there'll be owl chicks to watch--without a doubt the cutest babies in the bird world. Can't wait. Meantime, you can see and hear some GH owls over at the Owl Pages.

Owl photo from Wikipedia.

Erotica

I’m back. Sometimes I just need to take a little break from the blog, especially when I’ve got a lot of writing for hire to do. I get a little sick of wrangling with words, even in the lazy manner of blogging.

One of the review assignments I've been working on is a new smutty novel by the wildly popular Eric Jerome Dickey. I had whined to the books editor that I never got paid to read any porn, so when the Dickey book came along she said, “Here you go.” All I can say is, be careful what you wish for. The book is okay—sort—but not my kind of thing, erotically speaking. There is nothing worse than slogging through 400+ pages of sexual fantasy that doesn’t work any gear you’ve got. “Stupefying” hardly describes it.

It got me thinking about books I do find genuinely erotic—or rather, trying to figure out if there are any. I’ve read my share of simple smut, of course. There was a time in my life when I was fond of Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty books, in all their sadomasochistic silliness. And I’ll admit—I hope this isn’t TMI—that I have always been kinda turned on by the slam-bang novels of Jim Thompson and James M. Cain. I especially like Thompson’s Bad Boy. So much for feminist consciousness.

But true erotic literature, to be worthy of the name, has to do something more than trigger a Pavlovian genital response. It has to stir up some dark, chthonic energy, and at the same time engage your heart, at least a little bit. It should give you a glimpse of the primal source of feeling. It should make you understand how the desire to live coexists with the urge toward death.

Tall order, huh? I pondered quite a while and I could only come up with two novels that do that for me: Wuthering Heights and Graham Greene’s The End of the Affair. Somehow, I feel that I ought to be able to claim something smarter, edgier, more obscure—but no, I have to confess I can’t think of any book that stirs Eros in me more than those two do. I should go hunt them up wherever they’re hiding in this chaotic house, and let them banish Dickey’s soulless drivel.



Liebesszene, Max Liebermann, c.1926.

Still busy reading

I'll be back to blogging soon.



Bookplate from A World History of Art.