Wednesday Poetry: "Hysteria," by T.S. Eliot

"Hysteria," by T.S. Eliot, from Prufrock and Other Observations (1917)

As she laughed I was aware of becoming involved
in her laughter and being part of it, until her teeth
were only accidental stars with a talent for
squad-drill. I was drawn in by short gasps, inhaled
at each momentary recovery, lost finally in the
dark caverns of her throat, bruised by the ripple of
unseen muscles. An elderly waiter with trembling
hands was hurriedly spreading a pink and white
checked cloth over the rusty green iron table,
saying: 'If the lady and gentleman wish to take
their tea in the garden, if the lady and gentleman
wish to take their tea in the garden...' I decided
that if the shaking of her breasts could be stopped,
some of the fragments of the afternoon might be
collected, and I concentrated my attention with
careful subtlety to this end.

resuming a regular living, this wednesday

I read a number of web comics, and I'll admit to getting infuriated when the artists provide excuses that are rather lame as to why they haven't done a regularly scheduled post. "Hello, my name is Lamer T. Lemur, and I just didn't feel like doing it."

This is not that post.

Over the past 72 hours, I decided--because I'm a genius--to tear through a revision of a 150 page novel ms. Yes, a very short novel. But a lot of work. So we'll back with Wednesday poetry. The site masthead shall be altered accordingly, or I'll have to sack a few codemonkeys and harangue them into doing the work for me.

Film Selections, and Future Changes to Penguin in the Machine

I received three replies--two as comments and one via Facebook--to Monday's post. Since I'm awful at decisions, I've decided to pick one from each of my recommenders. The selected films are:

• The Visitor, because I have a thing for underdogs (that includes the cartoon superhero Underdog but not the dreadful live-action flick) and the underappreciated.
• Star Trek (2009), because I'm a geek and also because I should really take the initiative to see a movie that was made in the past two years that's not The Dark Knight or Twilight (the last film I saw in theatres, back in November 2008).
• Two for the Road, and the explanation for this one comes in two words: AUDREY HEPBURN.

But thank you all for your kind recommendations! I'll be acquiring the films sometime in the next few days, and then the next three Fridays will be film reviews here on The Penguin in the Machine!

I am going to hold onto all of the other recommendations, though, because it'll give me more things to look for in the future.

Next week, I'm going to start a new feature on this blog; on Wednesdays, I'll begin posting poetry, maybe some by me, maybe some by real poets (old stuff out of copyright, but good stuff, since I don't want anybody's estate suing the pants off of me. Though, I could post some bad poems and make fun of them. That could be fun, too.) I feel that poetry is under-appreciated because high schoolers are stuck reading John Donne's tense, sexually-repressed, subliminally violent poetry because it scans well, and this produces the idea that poetry is inaccessible. But it doesn't have to be, and it can still be incredibly emotionally compelling.

Returning on Monday, after I do some more marathon revisions!

And the Oscar goes to...

If I were a socially responsible blogger, I'd be ranting and raving about the Oscars in this post, telling all of you what you've either already watched or read elsewhere.

Or, I would be doing what so many other bloggers do, in that I'd be finding the nearest wifi hotspot and immediately whining about how I disagree with why Film A won Award Zed.

The truth of the matter--and I actually feel a bit ashamed about this--is that I don't watch nearly enough movies. I read three or four books a week--and believe me, that's not about to change--but there are some people who watch maybe twice that many movies in a week and still lead über-productive lives.

(I watch lots of British television, though...does that count for at least some cultural indoctrination?)

The Oscars generate a lot of hype because movies have all that glitz and glamour. Not that that's a bad thing--often, critics of film and visual media forget that there's an artistic vision behind the camera. Remember: Just because you aren't reading every word of it--just because images and details are arranged and given to you on some kind of canvas (i.e., actual canvas, or developed film, or the silver screen, or your home television)--doesn't mean that there isn't some kind of artistic vision to it.

Film is like fiction--another way of telling and imagining stories. And as with fiction, films can be either fun fluff or beautiful, artistic, deliberate.

So here's what I want you to do: Hit that comment button and tell me two things: A, or 1, the title of the film, and 2, by which I also mean b, why you think it's an excellent film and why I should watch it. You don't need a Blogger or a Goggle account to leave a comment; all you need is the predilection to actually type a response.

From your responses (of which there will hopefully be many), I'll pick one of these films and announce my choice, probably on Thursday or Friday. I'll find some way of getting it over the weekend, will watch it, and then write a review.

And I'll consider the others, too, for my future edification!

Back on Monday

Dear all,

I'm hard at work on some revisions/rewriting on several projects--a novella, a novel, and a few short stories (augh! why do I do these all at once?!?)--so the Penguin in the Machine will wind up again for next week. In the meantime, I give you some quality, literary entertainment, as the Monty Python Troupe attempts to read Sir Walter Scott's novel Redgauntlet.

Jeremy Toogood reads Redgauntlet for "A Book at Bedtime."

Coming Soon to a Bookstore Near You

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter.

I've ordered a copy of this book so that I could read it and write a review. The author is Seth Grahame-Smith, bestselling author of Pride & Prejudice & Zombies and Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters. So coming soon to a Penguin in the Machine near you, a review of Abraham Lincoln's exploits in slaying vampires and avenging their wrongs against mankind--particularly the death of his mother at the hands (fangs?) of vampires.

As with Sense & Sensibility & Sea Monsters, Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter has a trailer, which you can watch on YouTube. There's also a brief sneak-peek mocumentary, which you can also watch on YouTube.

Patriotism, Hockey, and Canuckland Stereotypes?

Wow...this one's really delayed, apologies for that, but my mind's been a half dozen different places today. So now for something completely different!

Hockey. (Go Penguins. Antarctic fowl should win every Stanley Cup.)

Does it make me a bit of a traitor that I was hoping the Canadians would win the ice hockey finals? (C'mon, on the men's team, they had Sidney Crosby of the Pittsburgh Penguins! And how could I cheer against penguins?)

Or does it just make me unpatriotic? What does it mean to be patriotic?

These are questions intimately tied to the Olympics; basically, we want to prove we're better than everybody, smash the competition, and let out political tensions and anger in a global stadium that doesn't result in violent bloodshed. (Wait, and hockey is an Olympic sport?) So it's about national pride: Consider Russian President Dmitri Medvedev, who pushed for Russian Olympic officials to resign after Russia had a disappointing finish in the medals race. So there's Russia--we have to beat everybody--or there's the way that Kate Beaton pumped up Canada in one of her recent sketches--wowee, we actually managed to beat the Americans! (Note, you have to scroll down through a few about Queen Victoria and Top Gun, first.)

(Actually, look at Kate Beaton's most recent comic, as well: Canadian Stereotype Comics.)

I've always had a difficult time getting into the Olympics, precisely because I'm not very patriotic. America may be a great country to live in, but I find obeisance to a certain ideological mindset to be incredibly limiting, incredibly diminishing. Also, it's an incredibly polarizing force. Often, patriotism today doesn't lead to the extremes it does in Yukio Mishima's fantastic (yet gory and shudder-inducing) short story "Patriotism," in which a Japanese Lieutenant and his wife commit seppuku because of the lieutenant's belief in a particular cause.

But the attitude toward the Olympics this year in Canada caused a stir; Canadians--as Kate Beaton points out humourously--are often known for being a passive, inviting people, and yet their entire Olympic campaign was to win big on home soil. And this was contentious because the Canadian public doesn't much care for arrogance and also has had enough problems with ambitious athletes falling short of their intended goals (kayakers who claim to be able to win the gold and then finish next-to-last will remain nameless).

So the point here: I feel that patriotism is one of those little myths, and that nobody's better than anybody else. If one takes the Christian perspective of "God bless America," then...why just America? Why not everybody else in the world? Okay, that's a little tautological, but you get the point--the Olympics ought to be, first and foremost, good fun. But that's not going to prevent them from causing political problems and tensions--both home and abroad, the way that Medvedev's desire to sack officials and Canada's PR nightmare both indicate.

And final note on the Olympics: I myself am quite put out that the Jamaicans didn't have a qualifying bobsled team this year.

Cool runnings!