Dream of Wallace Stevens Convention

 I was at a Wallace Stevens Convention, though Wallace Stevens didn't come up very much. I was in bed with a woman, but it wasn't sexual at all; those were just the sleeping arrangements. We were back to back. She told me about a citation to my book, in a book called Discourses of Modernity or something like that. 

A dream

 I was taking a dog for a walk but without a leash. When another dog approached us, I lifted up ours in my arms and crossed a street. The dog berated me, saying "bad dog, bad dog" and "bad Prince of Hearts!" Apparently "Prince of Hearts" was my name as far at the dog was concerned.  I told someone about this, but was more surprised by my new name than by the fact that the dog could talk.  

Paradox?

 I got an email from someone who's done a project of setting Spanish poetry to music.  It should be exciting to have them come here. But they want to invite themselves here, have us pay $2000 and hotel / flights, and they feature versions of LGM and Fernando Valverde.  We pay our keynote speaker every year $600, someone we invite, not someone inviting themselves.  

So my own prejudice against LGM wins out? It would be an event my students might enjoy, since I am teaching a course on the topic.  But I listened to the singer and I didn't like him, either.  Do I dislike a lot of the cantautores, or a lot of what they do? Indeed.  

Nutcracker

 We went to a concert this evening featuring Ellington / Srayhorn version of the Nutcracker.  I was thinking of Johnny Hodges and Russell Procope, etc...  as the students were reproducing their parts. The young woman playing the clarinet (Procope's parts) was particularly adept. 

I don't like the original Nutcracker that much, because it is overplayed.  Obviously, though, it had to exist first for the jazz version to come about, much later.  

Typos

 Perloff would spell Harry Mathews name as "Matthews" in more than one book of hers.  In one book I referred to A.R. Ammons as "A.A. Ammons." The pattern might be that a writer one has read a little of, but not devoted attention to, might slip through with a mismemorized name. Perloff mentioned Harry's work, but didn't devote a chapter to him ever. Same with me and Ammons. I once wrote "Zukovsky," but not in print. If people told you they didn't like "Ashberry" or "Alan Ginzburg" you knew they hadn't given them a chance. 

We were taught that people who referred to The Wasteland or Finnegan's Wake were unreliable. Those are classic shibboleths, and a little unfair.  

A normal amount of error, then, is to be expected. Most Matthews are Matthews, not Mathews. There are more Matthews than Mayhews, and I've gotten Mathew / Matthews as misspelling or mispronunciation of my name as well. 

Don't say "but..."

I'm sure there are many people who deserve to be murdered, if we wanted to be a society like that. People say, "I disapprove of murder, but ..." [some justification of the murder]. The but takes away the initial statement. It's like saying, "I'm not sexist, but those women, you know..."  

Once you say it's fine to murder the CEO of a health insurance company, then you could murder archbishops who have covered up child sexual abuse. They are also evil. Then you could draw up lists of other names, and categories of people. 

I've been against the death penalty for many years, because the state sanctioning of killing is pernicious in multiple ways, which you probably know about if you have thought about and researched this issue. Random vigilante killing is something that is thankfully quite rare. It is also pernicious. 

Politicians preserve a badly organized health care insurance system. Those who vote for those politicians are to blame for that. So we are collectively to blame. I'm sure I am the part owner of corrupt corporations, as well. 

What if

 What if the course itself were the destination, and not a step toward some published research, indefinitely deferred? There is more that I can do by teaching the material than by publishing small fragments of it here or there, where maybe nobody will pay it much heed.