hidden derangements abnormal psychology of national mood
Today’s haiku is not based on what you might be thinking.
It comes from an article written in Forbes Magazine in 1948 by one of the Forbes editors, Lawrence Lessing.
Mr. Lessing was writing about the State of Florida.
He wrote, “Florida is a study in abnormal psychology, useful in signaling the hidden derangements of the national mood.“
I came across the quote in an article about Florida and Covid-19.
The author, Geoffrey Kabaservice, of the article, “I’m from Florida. Our coronavirus crisis doesn’t surprise me” states, “A lot of bad trends in American life find their most bizarre and refined forms in the Sunshine state, which is why “Florida Man” has become shorthand for the bad behavior of too many state residents. As far as the present pandemic is concerned, the simplest and most convincing explanation for why Florida is experiencing an explosion of Covid-19 cases it that it is an extreme case of the broader American failure to take the pandemic seriously.”
Mr. Kabaservice ends his article with a short vignette of a couple who had just visited Disney World in Orlanado.
The couple told interviewers that, “was the first thing that made us feel like we could leave our house and still feel safe.”
everything I got is done and pawned, everything I got , done and pawned
From the song Shake Sugaree by Elizabeth Cotten.
Have a little song Won’t take long Sing it right Once or twice Oh, lordy me Didn’t I shake sugaree? Everything I got is done and pawned Everything I got is done and pawned
Elizabeth Cotten was left handed.
She played the guitar upside down.
I am on vacation this weekend.
I live in Georgia so I can travel within my state and still go the the coast.
indifference in this, our democracy, is abdication
I was thinking about Harold Ross today.
Mr. Ross was the founder-editor of the New Yorker Magazine.
The magazine gave a home to so many American writers and was the focus of so many American dreams.
Neither here nor there but I remember a conversation with Gerald Elliott, then the retired Editor of the Grand Rapids Press and he told me that he missed the Sunday Magazine, Wonderland.
When I asked why, he replied that it was the one place where local authors had a chance to get published.
I didn’t tell him how many short stories I had submitted to Wonderland but I batted 1,000 on rejections.
Anyway, Mr. Ross started up the New Yorker with the announcement that the magazine would, “Not be edited for the little old lady from Peoria.”
Much much ink has been spilled try to explain just what Mr. Ross meant by that and I will not add to it.
I will mention that one of the funniest comments EVER about the New Yorker was an aside by James Thurber in a vignette about his mother. Mr. Thurber wrote that once his Mother told him that one of her friends in Columbus, OH, “took the New Yorker to help Jamie,” but never read it.
What stuck in my head was the thought, “what are the people in Peoria thinking right now?”
Through the magic of the World Wide Web I was soon reading the Peoria Journal Star.
It was written for the Peoria Journal Star (fabulous name by the way) by Judge Joe Billy McDade (another fabulous name by the way) a senior U.S. District Judge in the Central District of Illinois for the 4th of July.
Judge Joe Billy McDade at a naturalization ceremony, Nov 15 2019 – JOURNAL STAR
Judge McDade led off with the words, “The promise of America”
And went from there.
The Judge went on, “While the promise of America has flickered and faded in dark times, it has never been extinguished. That promise is the bedrock of American values and it should be the touchstone as we confront the challenges, new and old, that plague us.“
He concluded with:
We the People are sovereign;
We the People must safeguard our rights against encroachment.
It is upon all of us to do what we can to make the promise of America a reality. Doing nothing emboldens the wrongdoer, whatever the intent; indifference in a democracy is abdication.
These thoughts are only a starting point — I do not have all the answers.
But in the difficult conversations which are occurring and ought to continue, what I can offer is this: ever in the foreground, always in view, must be the fundamental idea of America, a nation where all and the rights of all are equal under the law.
By chance today I got a point of view from Peoria.
I have been feeling mostly rotten lately about our Country.
Knowing that Judge Joe Billy McDade is out there made me feel better.
One little light.
Maybe there are more.
There must be!
But even if Judge Joe Billy McDade is the ONLY one out there, I will not abdicate from my responsibilities as a citizen of the United States.
created equal this truth self-evident, rights unalienable
I hope I do not need to identify the source of these words.
But I will.
They are from the 2nd sentence of the Declaration of Independence.
The sentence reads, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
For the few words in this sentence, I have always been amazed at how much it says.
The point I want to make is the author’s use of the terms SELF EVIDENT and UNALIENABLE.
For such a short sentence, there is not much wiggle room.
Yet somehow, someway some people don’t get it.
I guess for some people some things are more self evident than others.
red winged blackbird sings inflections? innuendoes? now and just after
Sitting on my back porch in North Georgia, I heard the sharp trilling of the song of a red winged blackbird.
Once I heard, the memories of so many other place I had heard this bird song came to mind.
It is the most numerous bird in the world after all.
Sitting there thinking about the bird song after the end of the bird song, the poetry of Wallace Stevens came to mind.
I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.
Does anyone read Stevens any more?
Always listed in the top tier of American poets.
He is the only one to ever having broke their hand punching Hemingway in the face.
Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird BY WALLACE STEVENS I Among twenty snowy mountains, The only moving thing Was the eye of the blackbird.
II I was of three minds, Like a tree In which there are three blackbirds.
III The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds. It was a small part of the pantomime.
IV A man and a woman Are one. A man and a woman and a blackbird Are one.
V I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after.
VI Icicles filled the long window With barbaric glass. The shadow of the blackbird Crossed it, to and fro. The mood Traced in the shadow An indecipherable cause.
VII O thin men of Haddam, Why do you imagine golden birds? Do you not see how the blackbird Walks around the feet Of the women about you?
VIII I know noble accents And lucid, inescapable rhythms; But I know, too, That the blackbird is involved In what I know.
IX When the blackbird flew out of sight, It marked the edge Of one of many circles.
X At the sight of blackbirds Flying in a green light, Even the bawds of euphony Would cry out sharply.
XI He rode over Connecticut In a glass coach. Once, a fear pierced him, In that he mistook The shadow of his equipage For blackbirds.
XII The river is moving. The blackbird must be flying.
XIII It was evening all afternoon. It was snowing And it was going to snow. The blackbird sat In the cedar-limbs.
