not much about him
known and by implication
not much worth knowing

I asked Joyce who he was.

She was dismissive.

It was an unfortunate younger son, she said.

Killed in the war.

Not much known about him and, by implication, not much worth knowing.

Rather in the same way that being told not to laugh makes you laugh more, her dismissal of this mysterious young man piqued my curiosity.

Years later, in 2008, I came across his name again while I was working on a documentary about the last day of the First World War.

It was on the wall of another war memorial, this time in one of the Somme battlefields.

Just a name, not a grave.

H. W. B. Palin.

One of many thousands ‘Known Only Unto God’.

From the preface to Great-Uncle Harry: A Tale of War and Empire by Michael Palin.

Yes, theeeee Michael Palin.

Not much known about him and, by implication, not much worth knowing.

My Wife and I had to make the drive from our home in Bluffton to the big city of Charleston, SC.

Along the way we passed an abandoned frame church.

Not more that 50 feet long but with a front stoop and steeple and boarded up windows.

The type of wooden frame building that is starting to balloon out on the side as its roof squashes the place flat.

The walls are holding on by old prayers I guess.

Who knows the stories of this building.

The weddings.

The funerals.

The church board fights.

The drama.

The sweet moments.

The Christmas programs.

The Easter Sermons.

The Final service at the building.

Not much known about the place and, by implication, not much worth knowing.

But a lot of life was lived in there.

not wear in public,
I don’t want people to think
I’m a weird person

“I will not wear those in public,” he said. “I don’t want people to think I’m a weird person.”

So said Jared Watson, an assistant professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business about Croc’s Shrek Crocs with ears.

As quoted in the article, Crocs Cowboy Boots? ‘Don’t Overthink It.’ by Callie Holtermann.

Ms. Holtermann writes, “Many apparel brands would risk undermining their credibility with a stream of gag products, said Jared Watson, an assistant professor of marketing at the New York University Stern School of Business. But Crocs has found a way to poke fun
at people who already think the shoes are ugly. “With that sort of mentality of hate-consumption or hate-engagement, Crocs has had this opportunity to really push those boundaries,” he said.“

As soon as the cowboy boot idea came up, it was game over. “That meeting took us about 12 minutes,” Ms. Cooley, the company’s chief marketing officer said.

All I can say is … if you are looking for the pair of boots to wear when you die with your boots on … these just might do the trick and fit the bill at the same time.

All I can say, who think anyone who would wear these MIGHT be a weird a person?

“

after years almost
innocuous desuetude
and put in the way

Sorry this is really hammered into place, but I just had to get innocuous desuetude into a haiku.

The words come from a speech by Grover Cleveland in a special message to congress on March 1, 1886, when he said:

And so it happens that after an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude these laws are brought forth–apparently the repealed as well as the unrepealed–and put in the way of an Executive who is willing, if permitted, to attempt an improvement in the methods of administration.

As I understand President Cleveland was speaking out on the Tenure of Office act that had been passed to make it illegal for a President to fire a Cabinet Officer.

The whole thing had been arranged to get President Andrew Johnson if he dared fire Secretary of War Edwin Stanton (This was the 1st President Johnson having taken office after Mr. Lincoln was shot just as the 2nd President Johnson took office after Mr. Kennedy was shot – Lesson: DO NOT HAVE A VICE PRESIDENT NAMED JOHNSON) and when the 1St Johnson DID fire the Secretary of War, he was impeached under the Tenure of Office act.

The impeachment failed in the Senate by 1 vote.

It wasn’t until Mr. Clinton got caught not-having-sex with an intern in the Oval Office was another President impeached.

And no one ever ever thought any President would be impeached twice but there you go.

So anyway, I guess some folks, 20 years after the 1st President Johnson, came after Mr. Cleveland because of the Tenure of Office act.

A law that Mr. Cleveland said, “… after an existence of nearly twenty years of almost innocuous desuetude …“

Desuetude or the state of being no longer used or practiced.

I kind like that.

Like Democracy in America almost innocuous desuetude .

often rarer word
breathes life into old image
words weighty enough

From the review, The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson review – a bravura feat by Emily Hall, when she writes:

There is a bravura self-confidence in Wilson’s choices. In the first two lines of the poem, Achilles’ wrath, which sent so many heroes to their deaths, is called oulomenēn. This long, vowelly, mouth-filling participle is usually translated by a much slighter English word such as “direful”, “ruinous” or “destructive”. Wilson’s choice of “cataclysmic” proclaims her independence from tradition and the acuity of her ear. The word is weighty enough, both aurally and in import; its association with deluges also prefigures, subtly, Achilles’ fight with the River Scamander that forms the metaphysical climax of the poem. Often a rarer word breathes new life into an old image, such as “canister” for “bucket”. I enjoyed the fresh, contemporary feel of the dialogue, especially army banter: “delusional behaviour”, “I am done with listening to you”; “master strategist”.

Ms. Hall askes and answers the most important question in the line of this paragraph of the review:

New translations also proliferated. There were nearly 50 English-language versions in the 19th century, at least 30 in the 20th, and a dozen or more already in the 21st. Some are outstanding: Richmond Lattimore (1951) brilliantly reproduced Homer’s rolling dactylic hexameters; the trench-traumatised Robert Graves (1959) evoked Achilles’ alienation and brutality; Robert Fitzgerald (1974) grasped the Iliad’s pace and acoustic beauty and Christopher Logue (War Music, 1981) its visceral impact. Robert Fagles’s translation (1990) has relentless forward drive and readability. Do we really need another? If it is this one by Emily Wilson, then we certainly do.

the indefinable
creative ability
to produce better

I happened to pick up a copy of Life in Nelson’s Navy by Dudley Pope, (Annapolis, Md. : Naval Institute Press, 1981) and read:

Different nations produced different types of fighting ship. Often their needs varied, sometimes they had different geographical problems, occasionally they produced brilliant or uninspired or incompetent designers. Because of their shallow coasts, Dutch designers were given limits on the draught of their designs; Danish and Swedish designers usually had to make provisions for oars, or sweeps, in the smaller ships because, although tideless, the Skagerrak, Kattegat and Baltic could often be windless, and sometimes a current could run in the same direction for days on end so that ships had to be rowed against it.

British designers were left puzzled. French ships were longer — and faster. Spanish ships were shorter, beamier — and faster. Now the French were producing longer and beamier ships which were faster. The fact was the old rules about length and beam were being overturned; frigates particularly would have to be larger.

Designing was at this stage clearly a curious mixture of art and science: the science could be called experience, the art the indefinable creative ability that one man had to produce a ship that was better than that designed by a rival.

I liked that last bit.

A curious mixture of art and science.

The science could be called experience.

The art?

The indefinable creative ability that one man had to produce a ship that was better than that designed by a rival.

The indefinable creative ability that one man had to produce.

I find comfort knowing I will always be able unplug artificial intelligence.

Where are those Von Neumann machines anyway?

By the way, I happen to be aware that 1) The USS Constitution is the oldest ship still in active commission in any navy in the world and 2) It is the only ship in the US Navy to have sunk an enemy ship in action.