Maybe, Hamilton

Brothers and Sisters, hope still waits in the wings like a bitter spinster; impatient, lonely and shivering, waiting to build her glorious fires. it's because of our plans man; our beautiful ridiculous plans. Let's launch them like careening jetplanes. Let's crash all our planes in the river. Let's build strange and radiant machines at this Jericho waiting to fall.

We may, sir, if we will

"To all to whom these presents shall come - Greeting." Or so they wrote upon ancient deeds of old. Wondrous rhetoric, replete with wax and ribbons, to mark the passing of title, and remind young fools of their initial attraction to the profession. Happy news as a rendered decision proves satisfactory to our client, and so a message is left on my phone from a senior partner to book Wednesday at 1PM for a "piss-up" celebratory lunch. Glorious. Even as the return from the other coast has me ponderous about the course of the flow of life. Flying great lengths, staring out at endless clouds at the 40,000 ft. horizon. It has been known to have such an effect.
The fog has rolled into the city and out my window at this four o'clock the sky is a ghostly white. The rain falls intermittently sideways. A perfect sort of drinking weather to fade into another Shakespearean (Coriolanus, II iii) Rum et Coke Friday in which both answers and madcap occurrences are best sought. As always, we'll settle for some of the latter:

Enter seven or eight Citizens

First Citizen

Once, if he do require our voices, we ought
not to deny him.

Second Citizen

We may, sir, if we will.

Third Citizen

We have power in ourselves to do it, but it is a
power that we have no power to do; for if he show us
his wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our
tongues into those wounds and speak for them; so, if
he tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him
our noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is
monstrous, and for the multitude to be ingrateful,
were to make a monster of the multitude: of the
which we being members, should bring ourselves to be
monstrous members.

First Citizen

And to make us no better thought of, a little help
will serve; for once we stood up about the corn, he
himself stuck not to call us the many-headed multitude.

Third Citizen

We have been called so of many; not that our heads
are some brown, some black, some auburn, some bald,
but that our wits are so diversely coloured: and
truly I think if all our wits were to issue out of
one skull, they would fly east, west, north, south,
and their consent of one direct way should be at
once to all the points o' the compass.

Second Citizen

Think you so? Which way do you judge my wit would
fly?

Third Citizen

Nay, your wit will not so soon out as another man's
will;'tis strongly wedged up in a block-head, but
if it were at liberty, 'twould, sure, southward.

Second Citizen

Why that way?

Third Citizen

To lose itself in a fog, where being three parts
melted away with rotten dews, the fourth would return
for conscience sake, to help to get thee a wife.

Second Citizen

You are never without your tricks: you may, you may.

Third Citizen

Are you all resolved to give your voices? But
that's no matter, the greater part carries it. I
say, if he would incline to the people, there was
never a worthier man.

Enter CORIOLANUS in a gown of humility, with MENENIUS

Shall I lose my wit in the fog, then? The mouth of the Atlantic is due South, after all. Oh, on such a night as this, why not?

UPDATE, minutes later: The white-out has descended further round the windows of the 16th floor. I do spy magic ahead. For I have just returned from the bank with a slight piece of paper whose typing marked it as a cheque for $5.7 million dollars. Were it had been made out to me, so I would easily overcome the custom that forces Coriolanus to stand in his woolvish toge and asks us all to do that which we would not... and yet to dream.

Alley of the Gardens at Giverny

The Monet open road that beckoned the early flight. And now back, too soon, to the Citadel view. What's next?

Can you hear the drums, Fernando?

"New York Misery Deafening", reads the sports section headline of this morning's Seattle Post and Intelligencer. Other than the game, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the trip?

Excellent, actually. Arrived in time for Fremont Oktoberfest, and though the tasting steins provided would surely be unconstitutional in Germany, the laughter over the Bitberger was memory enough. Guinness, and then some of America's cocktail at the tailgate, made the sadness of the spectacle fade - although a 35 to 3 halftime score was a worsecase scenario beyond even the wildest imaginings.

And only the briefest talk of travel, as this protagonist is almost surely Halifax-based for the next few years. But who knows what could happen. A stunningly beautiful day in Vancouver. Since I first came for a quick visit in 2004, then again for the coupe Grey in November 2005, its typically wet sky has never shed a drop of rain on me.

Driving in early this morning, what else to wish but to be able to keep driving - and have money enough in the bank to allow a more permanent lifestyle on the road. And yet the total of the cross-country flight, taxes in, is 23.50. Thus far, it has to be said, we have done well. Learning to love life through non-verbal instruction.

Homeward bound. Remember this little phone booth. No doubt you will be back. Headed where, and with who, those are the questions.

Query

If Madeline Friday married Jesse Champagne, would she change her last name?

It is an open question I suppose, and would depend how much she loved him...

Two more good last names for you to consider, Persico. I am always on the lookout.

jesse champagne

What a name - I only wonder if he made his flight to Winnipeg. The rest is slow silence as we wait the hours until Van city's flight.

I stepped outside the security perimeter to call Thrifty (fingers crossed I get the Yaris and not the "equivalent") and upon the return in, lady searched my bag and confiscated my toothpaste, hair gel, and hotel shampoo. I hate the terrorists. Though I wonder if I hate stupid security people the more.

Paging Jesse Champagne... There is also a guy beside calling his buddy to see if he has checked with the CN Tower about a lost wallet. And now he is talking to the biggest nose I have ever seen on a female about how he loves going to house parties where he doesn't know anyone.

Ridiculous. "This is supposed to be a free country.". Some people are SO funny.

Let the World Slip

(On the golf course, and posting this now at 5 minutes to TFI. Glorious.)

Once again it is Friday, the day with which I am most certainly in love. Another fabulous one scheduled - to the road, 18 holes, then the subtly titled "dinner/entertainment" that promises more fanfare than the bald words suggest. The hope is still for a Saturday matinee escape to the opposite end of the country and the real live spectacle offered by the National Football League. Qwest is no theatre of dreams, but this Sunday it might as well be. As once again we frame the mind toward mirth and merriment. They are not long, the days of Guinness and football. We seize them where we can.

To wit - the Taming of the Shrew's Induction, Scene II. I wonder whatever happened to Christophero upon the player's bows...

Messenger

Your honour's players, heating your amendment,
Are come to play a pleasant comedy;
For so your doctors hold it very meet,
Seeing too much sadness hath congeal'd your blood,
And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:
Therefore they thought it good you hear a play
And frame your mind to mirth and merriment,
Which bars a thousand harms and lengthens life.

SLY

Marry, I will, let them play it. Is not a
comondy a Christmas gambold or a tumbling-trick?

Page

No, my good lord; it is more pleasing stuff.

SLY

What, household stuff?

Page

It is a kind of history.

SLY

Well, well see't. Come, madam wife, sit by my side
and let the world slip: we shall ne'er be younger.

Flourish

Tintamarre

And then for something completely and unexpectedly different. What a marvelous performance of music witnessed, and now reflecting upon it amid the cool Atlantic breeze and rolling fog on the dock. The good ship Caledonia anchored comfortably (oh let me tell you how I love you/and that I think about you all the time) and only the occasional sounding of the foghorn interrupts the lapping repetition of the soft waves.

A change is gonna come... One of those special shows, whereby a confluence of events afford the opportunity to see it at the right moment for introspection. And the thoughts accompany the drum beats demanding something new, inciting a run to something else, something other. The type of feeling that all-too-often passes - even as you wish that this time it would not. That the daily inanities and compromises and laziness be overcome. With some defiant noise.

Perhaps. It is such a night, and such a natural venue, for contemplation. And it is to hope in vain to be awakened utterly confounded, as Christophero Sly was. We must do it for ourselves, though for this moment - alas! -the will, funds, and courage is found slightly lacking. Soon, as once was written on the Domus basement map near Samarkand. Soon.

For now the mind turns to nearer conceits. The Rolling Stones in the commons, or a feverish 36 hours again to the Pacific and a free seat to cheer on the favorite team of all. Such fortunate options, but having not yet made the burial, the die may yet be cast. A rematch in a whole host of ways, particularly in my decision last year, on the doorstep, not to make the trek. Seattle was the setting for the start of this year's amazing race. The stars do seem in line. And I do so love flying away.

So does this mean the time has come for Bad Boy Burger #3, and more West Coast Guinness? I guess we wait until Saturday morning to see. Not nearly as simple as catching the Oxtube to Marble Arch. But all the more reason to throw caution to the wind. It is bound to be cheaper drinking than Tiger Tiger...

Mr. Wearing

So - awoke intolerably early after the old triangle antics as "Liam" to drop the sister at the airport, then back to blissful sleep. To the news at noon that grandmom, exhausted over granddad, has had a mini-stroke and is now too in hospital. My genius aunt misheard the counsel to say she was just downstairs, and so the ruse now is to tell granddad that his wife is at "Sears". Don't think he'll be buying that one when he wakes up beside me.

Have you ever had any problems with dementia, asks the neurologist to my grandmother. No, which she proceeds to prove by rhyming off the phone number to her pharmicist. She is doing exceedingly well down on floor three and just needs to rest. Another crisis averted.

The best part of my afternoon has been the stories told to pass the time. Of my great-uncle's involvement with the rum runners, jimmy the belgian, and the more on the courtship b/w the couple of 64 years. It would be longer, but she broke up with him for a year due to his drinking, and was actually engaged for a time to a guy named Bert Wearing. I like to think that fell apart b/c of his absurd name, but in any case here we all are, inside the bland hallways on a sunny hali saturday afternoon.

All the different ways your life can go.

Discovery, wild eyes, keen insight

Strong, well quantified words. Especially potent and worthy of our Friday. I do not wish to miss our Shakespearean deadline. There are few readers of this, and fewer elements of our world dependable. It has been a strenuous week, if a Mount Gay pause at this moment the Bedford way. My namesake continues a monumental struggle, if only to show his absolute immacularity. And if that is not a word, I coin it after another visit in his vicinity. Get that blood pressure up, old man.

Shari has the attitude for the evening, hopefully the nearest available pub will provide suitable gamers. The more ridiculous that my sister must be driven off to the airport at 5am. I promise not to nod off at the wheel.

So to Shakespeare - of nowhere tonight, on the drive to the uncle/aunts after visiting the other JAM, Dad asks if he is the author of those plays. I hope so, is my reply, to which the response comes, I hope so too. Never knew he thought that.

So at the last hour, of my most favorites - from Henry IV. Banish not him, Harry. Banish not the world. For it is lovely. See you on the morrow. And let the fleeting desire for the absurdly named "Dr. Sharp's Route 2 Roadhouse" and the unShakespearean characters to be met there, not take much offence.

Falstaff

But to say I know more harm in him than in myself,
were to say more than I know. That he is old, the
more the pity, his white hairs do witness it; but
that he is, saving your reverence, a whoremaster,
that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault,
God help the wicked! if to be old and merry be a
sin, then many an old host that I know is damned: if
to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine
are to be loved. No, my good lord; banish Peto,
banish Bardolph, banish Poins: but for sweet Jack
Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff,
valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant,
being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff, banish not him
thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s
company: banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.

Useless Trivia Thursday

- Seventy percent of all English words are made with 10 letters: A, D, E, H, I, N, O, R, S, T.

- Between 1500-1650, about 10,000-12,000 English words were coined, of which about half still exist.

- English is the only language that has books of synonyms like Roget's Thesaurus.

-English speakers can recognize a word in 200 milliseconds or less from its onset, i.e. approximately one-fifth of a second from its beginning (usually well before the whole word has been heard).

- If you speak English, you know parts of at least a hundred different languages.

- In English, only J, O, V, and Y cannot be silent.

- It has been said that just 43 words account for fully half of all the words in common use and that just nine account for fully one-quarter of all the words in almost any sample of written English: and, be, have, it, of, the, to, will, you.

- Our extraordinarily complex language is built on forty-four distinctive sounds that combine into hundreds and thousands of meaningful word elements.

Via the Word Traveler. Too much of Thursday is spent waiting, most especially this one. Maybe that's why A. Dent could never get the hang of them. In any case, today's so-styled "word-of-the-day" is wholly misplaced. Fanfaronade is surely a word best reserved for Friday. Let the news be what it may and bring it forward.

Marvels and Mysteries

A bit out of blogging sorts these days - failing to mark September 11th yesterday. Originally, the second day of law school. Now, five years later, the first as an admitted lawyer. It is well to recall the classic newstory that the Onion broke in the days that followed. And I usually enjoy reading various attempts to place unfolding history in context on the yearly solemn occasion. By far the best of this go-round is a lengthy essay by wordsmith Martin Amis in the Observer.

A piece more than worth its time. I find myself especially fond of the boldness in his conclusion:

We allow that, in the case of religion, or the belief in supernatural beings, the past weighs in, not at 2,000 years, but at approximately five million. Even so, the time has come for a measure of impatience in our dealings with those who would take an innocent personal pronoun, which was just minding its own business, and exalt it with a capital letter. Opposition to religion already occupies the high ground, intellectually and morally. People of independent mind should now start to claim the spiritual high ground, too.

Then to close with the Conrad quote, eminently well placed. It is truly eery, watching this fundamentalist President attempt to stand so starkly opposite the ideological rigidity of the horrorists. Yet for all its absurdities, the world spins on.


Happy to report that news from the home front hospital wing is still cautiously hopeful. In tonight for another round, and the old gunner is in good spirits and form. We await the cardiac tests to weigh fitness for surgery. Bruised, battered, unbowed - and gently teasing the nurses still (except for Ron). We should all be so fortunate at 90. Just love to see him be able to get out of that bed...

Rage, Dominion

Woke up this morning to words of Dylan Thomas.... though which ones. As the hours rolled from pessimistic to optimistic, it is important to keep in mind the graveness of the hour and the struggle against the infinite pain that becomes regularized. He fights on, and knows the outcome.
There is surely a thought to see the other side, but love remains triumphant and so the clarion call reigns - not yet. And so, upon midday arrival today, he jokingly worries about getting mistaken as a lawyer now that another of Halifax has signed on.

The hour grows late, and we must be further. In Ottawa they toast my new-found status, and so we must in Halifax. Always with a mind to the counterpart on QEII's 7th floor, who rages coherently. Survivor of a few years of the Great War - from Brighton through to France, Holland, Belgium, and Germany under such wholly different circumstances than mine own 50 years later. You cannot end him with a broken hip. At least without the most valiant fight.

The rum and cokes, however unworthy, are for him tonight. And the flights of angels will wait. For:

HORATIO
O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

HAMLET
And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in
heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

We dream of the strange and wonderful. And though we don't believe, we do imagine.

Let it not be now. The spark burns still.

7268

Funny how all can change in a sudden, in a phone call, from wondering how best to scam post-dinner port to a rush of concern over fractured 90 year old hips.

So here we sit in the darkened room, listening to the infrequent snores of the 1916 explosion survivor, looking at my name above him on the wall, smiling inwardly at his incorrigible flirtation with the nurses and the undying devotions he exchanges with grandmom as always as she steps out for a few hours rest. Then the silence of the oxygen mask flow.

And so the first hours in some time roaming the lonely hospital hallways. "Put a sweater on me," repeats the voice of unreason that floats on. What else to conclude amidst such vulnerabilities but that we are a ridiculous species.

Long night ahead. Just lie still and think of fly-fishing on the margueree, grandad. It was just over a year ago I walked through the same emerg - then with a busted nose on the first night back. Quite the bookend to the articling year. And it goes on.

Subject to Check

"It's a very remarkable circumstance, sir," said Sam, "that poverty and oysters always seem to go together... Blessed if I didn't think that wena man's very poor, he rushes out of his lodgings, and eats oysters in reg'lar desperation."

-Dickens, The Pickwick Papers

All the better when you can get the Talisker to accompany it, and someone else to pay.

And Dreadful Objects So Familiar

Grade 10 and the wondrous Mr. Connors in his final year. The year I studied Shakespeare for the first time and did a book report on the newly read Great Gatsby. We read Julius Caesar and watched Brando. I still remember a test question in which we were asked to explain our favourite character and why - if only because I struggled to choose between Cassius and Antony.

Then last March, with Coop and Gatts at the Barbican - where I had seen Hamlet on the Thames those years ago. Ralph Fiennes as Antony and famed London stage actor Simon Russell Beale as that "lean and hungry" Cassius. Marvelous work.

Below is that most famous and brilliant of Shakespearean lines, oft-quoted and most deservingly so. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings. And so we go. A classic, manipulatively true speech.

Enjoy the remains of this Shakespeare Friday. 0 days until the Windjammer weekend in Camden. Such a day.

Shout. Flourish.

BRUTUS

Another general shout!
I do believe that these applauses are
For some new honours that are heap'd on Caesar.

CASSIUS
Why, man, he doth bestride the narrow world
Like a Colossus, and we petty men
Walk under his huge legs and peep about
To find ourselves dishonourable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings.
Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that 'Caesar'?
Why should that name be sounded more than yours?
Write them together, yours is as fair a name;
Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well;
Weigh them, it is as heavy; conjure with 'em,
Brutus will start a spirit as soon as Caesar.
Now, in the names of all the gods at once,
Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed,
That he is grown so great? Age, thou art shamed!
Rome, thou hast lost the breed of noble bloods!
When went there by an age, since the great flood,
But it was famed with more than with one man?
When could they say till now, that talk'd of Rome,
That her wide walls encompass'd but one man?
Now is it Rome indeed and room enough,
When there is in it but one only man.
O, you and I have heard our fathers say,
There was a Brutus once that would have brook'd
The eternal devil to keep his state in Rome
As easily as a king.

My Day Thus Far

Bought 2 papa burgers because they were on special. Could only eat one. The Silver Shear was closed, so I had to get my haircut at the backup spot named - you guessed it - the Golden Clipper. It was not a step up. Niki cut my hair, traveling the subject of conversation. So I mentioned my year studying abroad, got the usual question of where, and sheepishly stated Oxford without trying to sound too preppy. "Is that in Scotland?" Hilarious. Cab up to take the pictures. Cabbie in a sour mood. I would think that on such a beautiful Friday, most people would be in pretty high spirits, I quip. "You think wrong," comes the response. Beside the studio, a travel agent shop proves irresistible. Hi, looking for the price on a flight to Samarkand. The suit gives me credibility. "When were you thinking about going?" she asks. April, naturally. I didn't add the "warm morning in 1960" bit. Looks like the best deal is to fly into Tashkent and take the train. Although I think the original plan to stop en route overland from Moscow to Beijing/Taiwan still holds. Could have paid $950 to fly to Moscow via Vienna one way in a month's time. If only. Back in a new cab back to the office. The new guy is pumped, and has a DVD player set up to watch movies while he drives. What have you got? "I love Westerns," he answers. Put one on. "You ever see The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly?" Yeah, the opening credits are classic, let's see it. Back to the office. On the elevator, random comment to me on the overturned chair in my office. "Looks like someone was pretty mad." Who knows how that happened, but I guess checking phone messages and email from home is not a foolproof way of guaranteeing that the absence is not wholly unnoticed. It is still scarily strange to have a secretary. And lovely still, there is more to come on this Friday. Thank Guinness.

Salir de Guatemala y meterse en guatepeor

Spanish lessons have been gold in the sense that the motivation and basics are there to be tapped in the dark days of winter through the dreams of Peru. But how classic is this email today:

Hi J,
How are you?
Did you buy your spanish book?
Ok, probably I will go this weekend at Mabou them, I hope a meeting with you again next week!
It will be my last week in Halifax and I would like to take a souvenir
picture(Ha, ha) of our classes
Enjoy your weekend and be carreful...(the alcohol following you)

I think it was that Sunday in which I showed up horribly hungover and asked for a Spanish description of my state that clued her in to the last thought. Though I am unlikely to heed her warning.

I Blame Agassi

Get up. Shower. Get dressed. Get your haircut. Get a cab. Get your damn pictures taken. Get back. Make calls. Shakespearean blog. Pack. Equalisation. Noises off. Library Guinness. Merciful sleep. The damn linearity of time is thus restrictive. Hence the unabashed pub cheering him through set 5 last night. He is a marvel, and as a consummate fan of the underdog, he never let's you down at Arthur Ashe.

Let him go on.