structure no longer concerned with the purpose for which it was designed
Adapted from:
The last mile or so he had been concentrating on suits and the government and decided he no longer much believed in either.
Suits obviously had helped to promote bad government and he was as guilty as anyone for wearing them so steadfastly for twenty years.
Of late he had become frightened of the government for the first time in his life, the way the structure of democracy had begun debasing people rather than enlivening them in their mutual concern.
The structure was no longer concerned with the purpose for which it was designed, and a small part of the cause, Nordstrom thought, was probably that all politicians and bureaucrats wore suits.
From the Man Who Gave Up his Name as published in Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison, (Grove Press Collection,: New York, 2016).
Suits.
Congress.
The Courts.
The Executive Branch.
The structure is no longer concerned with the purpose for which it was designed, and a small part of the cause, is probably that all politicians and bureaucrats wear the same suit.
older people know that they are not going to become young again
Adapted from the line, “Young people seem not to know that they are going to get old, but older people know that they are not going to become young again.”
From Off to the side by Jim Harrison (Atlantic Monthly Press: New York,2002).
Then a few lines further down the page, Mr. Harrison warns, “There is a specific melancholy to hardship that accrues later as a collection of gestures, glances, and dire events.”
Holding my grandson, Ian, I was thinking of that bit of writing.
I was thinking that this little guy has no idea he is going to get old.
Using the word “old” as a state of being, as in ‘old people old’.
Ian will get older, we all know that, but Ian being OLD?
Then, there is me in that picture.
Certainly not young.
And very much assured that I am not going to become young again.
But then again, I live in a place where the median age is 64 so I am middle aged and I do see a lot of people who are both old and much older than I am.
So I feel young at least, young enough and as for knowing I am not going to become young again?
I am sure that wouldn’t go through all of that getting old all over again for anything.
out she swung – far out twixt heaven and earth .. curfew shall not ring tonight
According to Wikipedia, Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight is a narrative poem by Rose Hartwick Thorpe, written in 1867 and set in the 17th century.
Thorpe wrote her poem in 1867, following the American Civil War, while living in Litchfield, Michigan. She traded the manuscript to a Detroit newspaper in exchange for a subscription. The original newspaper printing has never been found, but the poem was widely printed before the first version in book form in 1882.
Thorpe’s poem, a favorite of Queen Victoria’s, was one of the most popular of the 19th century, but later faded into obscurity. An 8-foot monument in Litchfield, Michigan along State Highway 99 honors the poem and author’s connection to that town.
Litchfield adopted the title of the poem as a symbol, having fire trucks and the city website show the symbol of a bell reading “Curfew Shall Not Ring Tonight”. A bell in the center of Litchfield commemorates the poem and Thorpe’s time spent in the town
Oddly enough while Wikipedia entry for the poem, it mentions that the poem was written in Litchfield, Michigan and that a highway marker commemorates that fact, the Wikipedia entry for Litchfield does not list Rose Hartwick Thorpe under famous people from Litchfield.
But I digress.
Wikipedia does mention that An illustrated version of this poem is contained in Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber (1940).
My research shows that the James Thurber’s Illustrated Poem first appeared in the New Yorker Magazine 87 years ago today, June 17, 1939.
In his book working at the New Yorker Magazine, The Years with Ross, Thurber writes that editor Harold Ross was fond of the Illustrated Poem series writing, “Why in God’s name did you stop doing the illustrated poems? There are forty million other verses in the English language, many of them unquestionably suitable for Thurber illustration.”
Thurber says he responded, “As for the illustrated poems, they began when I sent St. Clair McKelway, from Frederick, Maryland, the Barbara Frietchie drawings, and they ended when I tried Poe’s Raven, and it turned into a common cornfield crow.”
My research shows that The Raven never appeared in the magazine, but was published in the book, Thurber and Company, in 1966.
Here is the complete poem.
Curfew Must Not Ring Tonight
England’s sun was slowly setting oe’r the hilltops far away, Filling all the land with beauty at the close of one sad day; And its last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair,– He with steps so slow and weary; she with sunny, floating hair; He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful, she, with lips all cold and white, Struggling to keep back the murmur, “Curfew must not ring to-night!”
“Sexton,” Bessie’s white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old, With its walls so tall and gloomy, moss-grown walls dark, damp and cold,– “I’ve a lover in the prison, doomed this very night to die At the ringing of the curfew, and no earthly help is nigh. Cromwell will not come till sunset;” and her lips grew strangely white, As she spoke in husky whispers, “Curfew must not ring to-night!”
“Bessie,” calmly spoke the sexton (every word pierced her young heart Like a gleaming death-winged arrow, like a deadly poisoned dart), “Long, long years I’ve rung the curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower; Every evening, just at sunset, it has tolled the twilight hour. I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right: Now I’m old, I will not miss it. Curfew bell must ring to-night!”
Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow, As within her secret bosom, Bessie made a solemn vow. She had listened while the judges read, without a tear or sigh, “At the ringing of the curfew, Basil Underwood must die.” And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright; One low murmur, faintly spoken. “Curfew must not ring to-night!”
She with quick step bounded forward, sprang within the old church-door, Left the old man coming slowly, paths he’d trod so oft before. Not one moment paused the maiden, But with eye and cheek aglow, Staggered up the gloomy tower, Where the bell swung to and fro; As she climbed the slimy ladder, On which fell no ray of light, Upward still, her pale lips saying, “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”
She has reached the topmost ladder, o’er her hangs the great dark bell; Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell. See! the ponderous tongue is swinging; ’tis the hour of curfew now, And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow. Shall she let it ring? No, never! Her eyes flash with sudden light, As she springs, and grasps it firmly: “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”
Out she swung,– far out. The city Seemed a speck of light below,– There twixt heaven and earth suspended, As the bell swung to and fro. And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell, Sadly thought that twilight curfew rang young Basil’s funeral knell. “Still the maiden, clinging firmly, quivering lip and fair face white, Stilled her frightened heart’s wild throbbing: “Curfew shall not ring tonight!”
It was o’er, the bell ceased swaying; and the maiden stepped once more Firmly on the damp old ladder, where, for hundred years before, Human foot had not been planted. The brave deed that she had done Should be told long ages after. As the rays of setting sun Light the sky with golden beauty, aged sires, with heads of white, Tell the children why the curfew did not ring that one sad night.
O’er the distant hills comes Cromwell. Bessie sees him; and her brow, Lately white with sickening horror, has no anxious traces now. At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands, all bruised and torn; And her sweet young face, still haggard, with the anguish it had worn, Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eyes with misty light. “Go! your lover lives,” said Cromwell. “Curfew shall not ring to-night!”
Wide they flung the massive portals, led the prisoner forth to die, All his bright young life before him. Neath the darkening English sky, Bessie came, with flying footsteps, eyes aglow with lovelight sweet; Kneeling on the turf beside him, laid his pardon at his feet. In his brave, strong arms he clasped her, kissed the face upturned and white, Whispered, “Darling, you have saved me, curfew will not ring to-night.”
to shoot the wall clock make it stop, better yet, keep backing up slowly
It’s not so comic the way that clocks race themselves with us in fragile tow and it’s not enough to say “What are we waiting for?” or “Why are we holding back?” though that might occur to us later.
We are far less capable of those radical emotional moves advocated by magazines that specialize in puddle-deep psychologisms, the usual seven steps to a victorious emotional life, as if we could put ourselves on a figurative grease rack or automated assembly line for overhaul.
It was all so ordinary though I wanted to shoot the wall clock, over and over. Anything to make it stop or, better yet, keep backing up slowly.
From True North by Jim Harrison (New York, Grove Press, 2004).
I woke from a dream the other morning where all was as it was when I was a kid on the shore of Lake Michigan.
It was a disappointment when I woke and realized it was a dream.
It was all so ordinary though I wanted to shoot the wall clock, over and over.
Anything to make it stop or, better yet, keep backing up slowly.
You can’t can you?
It’s not so comic the way that clocks race themselves with us in fragile tow and it’s not enough to say “What are we waiting for?” or “Why are we holding back?” though that might occur to us later.
asked her whether she meant I hope or in a hopeful frame of mind
The first time we heard the word “hopefully” used to mean something it doesn’t mean was from the lips of a pretty woman whom we were wining and dining in a restaurant.
We asked her when she expected to move into her apartment, and she answered, “Hopefully on Tuesday.” We laid down our fork and asked her whether she meant “I hope on Tuesday” or whether she meant “On Tuesday in a hopeful frame of mind.”
She then laid down her fork and wanted to know what the hell we were driving at.
She confessed that she saw nothing wrong with “Hopefully on Tuesday.”
Rather than labor the thing, we shifted subjects; it is not our policy to badger pretty women. Since that memorable occasion, we have encountered this use of “hopefully” at every turn.
It is all over the place and has, we suspect, come into the language.
Time, always elegant in its rhetoric, appeared not long ago with this sobering sentence: “The Government would like to bring the case to a quick trial, hopefully before the end of January.”
Lacking a fork to lay down, we simply laid down the magazine.
EB White in Notes and Comment, The New Yorker Magazine, March 27, 1965.
Not sure about but lunch with EB White and his wife, Katherine Angell White, the editor who made the New Yorker Magazine into the New Yorker Magazine … sounds terrifying.
I am full of hope not to ever have to explain these essays to them.
