lauraanne_gilman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lauraanne_gilman) wrote2008-10-05 06:01 am
lauraanne_gilman) wrote2008-10-05 06:01 am
Entry tags:
Sunday 6 am even the cats are still sleeping
Can o' whupass is open. Pages are bleeding. Author is fortifying herself for the next section, which is where things start to sag.
1. This is making the rounds again, for those of you who've missed it, and those of you (us) who need to let go of a little of those natural animal urges (because we all have 'em, and you can either hug them tight until they strangle you, or let them go and laugh at them...)
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered.
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy's much-praised effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.
Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life's vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one's enemy's book
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and the banks of duds,
These ponderous and seemingly irreducible cairns
Of complete stiffs.
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I rejoice.
It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
Beneath the yoke.
What avail him now his awards and prizes,
The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
His individual new voice?
Knocked into the middle of next week
His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys,
The sinkers, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
The Edsels of the world of movable type,
The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
The unbudgeable turkeys.
Yea, his slim volume with its understated wrapper
Bathes in the glare of the brightly jacketed Hitler's War Machine,
His unmistakably individual new voice
Shares the same scrapyard with a forlorn skyscraper
Of The Kung-Fu Cookbook,
His honesty, proclaimed by himself and believed in by others,
His renowned abhorrence of all posturing and pretence,
Is there with Pertwee's Promenades and Pierrots
One Hundred Years of Seaside Entertainment,
And (oh, this above all) his sensibility,
His sensibility and its hair-like filaments,
His delicate, quivering sensibility is now as one
With Barbara Windsor's Book of Boobs,
A volume graced by the descriptive rubric
'My boobs will give everyone hours of fun'.
Soon now a book of mine could be remaindered also,
Though not to the monumental extent
In which the chastisement of remaindering has been meted out
To the book of my enemy,
Since in the case of my own book it will be due
To a miscalculated print run, a marketing error
Nothing to do with merit.
But just supposing that such an event should hold
Some slight element of sadness, it will be offset
By the memory of this sweet moment.
Chill the champagne and polish the crystal goblets!
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am glad.
"The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered" by
Clive James from Opal Sunset: Selected Poems,
1958-2008. © W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.
2. I am feeling gleeful and superior 'cause I'm getting to read the next Flewelling before the rest of you. Neener neener. [hides her pages before she can get mugged]
3. The heat in my building came up this morning. Note to others: now is the time to move things away from the radiators (in my case: plants).
4. I love my family. I passed up the offer of a Giants ticket because I'd already made plans to spend the afternoon with them. I hope to hell they appreciate it.
5. I actually took a break from working last night to be interact with humans. Y'know, I have closed down a lot of places in my life, but never before a Starbucks. That was... bizarre (also: is a skinny vanilla latte totally a chick thing? Do I lose machisma points? Settle the debate, people!)
1. This is making the rounds again, for those of you who've missed it, and those of you (us) who need to let go of a little of those natural animal urges (because we all have 'em, and you can either hug them tight until they strangle you, or let them go and laugh at them...)
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered.
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy's much-praised effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.
Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life's vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one's enemy's book
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and the banks of duds,
These ponderous and seemingly irreducible cairns
Of complete stiffs.
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I rejoice.
It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
Beneath the yoke.
What avail him now his awards and prizes,
The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
His individual new voice?
Knocked into the middle of next week
His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys,
The sinkers, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
The Edsels of the world of movable type,
The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
The unbudgeable turkeys.
Yea, his slim volume with its understated wrapper
Bathes in the glare of the brightly jacketed Hitler's War Machine,
His unmistakably individual new voice
Shares the same scrapyard with a forlorn skyscraper
Of The Kung-Fu Cookbook,
His honesty, proclaimed by himself and believed in by others,
His renowned abhorrence of all posturing and pretence,
Is there with Pertwee's Promenades and Pierrots
One Hundred Years of Seaside Entertainment,
And (oh, this above all) his sensibility,
His sensibility and its hair-like filaments,
His delicate, quivering sensibility is now as one
With Barbara Windsor's Book of Boobs,
A volume graced by the descriptive rubric
'My boobs will give everyone hours of fun'.
Soon now a book of mine could be remaindered also,
Though not to the monumental extent
In which the chastisement of remaindering has been meted out
To the book of my enemy,
Since in the case of my own book it will be due
To a miscalculated print run, a marketing error
Nothing to do with merit.
But just supposing that such an event should hold
Some slight element of sadness, it will be offset
By the memory of this sweet moment.
Chill the champagne and polish the crystal goblets!
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am glad.
"The Book of My Enemy Has Been Remaindered" by
Clive James from Opal Sunset: Selected Poems,
1958-2008. © W.W. Norton & Company, 2008.
2. I am feeling gleeful and superior 'cause I'm getting to read the next Flewelling before the rest of you. Neener neener. [hides her pages before she can get mugged]
3. The heat in my building came up this morning. Note to others: now is the time to move things away from the radiators (in my case: plants).
4. I love my family. I passed up the offer of a Giants ticket because I'd already made plans to spend the afternoon with them. I hope to hell they appreciate it.
5. I actually took a break from working last night to be interact with humans. Y'know, I have closed down a lot of places in my life, but never before a Starbucks. That was... bizarre (also: is a skinny vanilla latte totally a chick thing? Do I lose machisma points? Settle the debate, people!)