The personal & cultural web journal of George M. Wallace, an attorney practicing in Pasadena, California. An Index of Enthusiasms.
a fool in the forest
Epigraphs
A fool, a fool! I met a fool i' the forest, A motley fool; a miserable world! As I do live by food, I met a fool Who laid him down and bask'd him in the sun, And rail'd on Lady Fortune in good terms, In good set terms and yet a motley fool.
As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7
L'homme y passe à travers des forêts de symboles Qui l'observent avec des regards familiers.
Les Fleurs du Mal, “Correspondances”
[T]here is almost no subject-matter, and what little one can disentangle is foolish.... One would call the style verbose, except that by definition verbosity is the use of words in excess of the occasion, and there seems to be no occasion.
At the eminent What About Clients? blawg, Dan Hull and Holden Oliver have gone and done it, reposting Henry Fuseli's vision of Nick Bottom and Titania reine des fées shown below or, as they say in the trade, infra.
"I consider it a challenge before, etc., etc., and I don't intend to lose," he said, Mercurially.
Hence, this revisitation of my own cobwebbed poetic tribute to Queen T and Nicky B:
~~~
When Bottom bore the donkey’s head and brayed, Titania wreathed his upstart ears with flowers ‘Til — disenchanted, open-eyed, dismayed — She cast him from the comforts of her bowers.
Botanical elixirs were the tools With which the weaver and his fellow rude Mechanicals, with other mortal fools, Were fuddled, led astray and misconstrued.
Old Athens’ misty woods and fogbound lovers, Her naiads, pixies, fairies, sprites and elves Are gone; but surely Puck still grins and hovers As modern men make asses of themselves.
No spell but self delusion clouds their sight, And leaves them pathless in the summer night.
In the Southern Hemisphere
They say that the creatures are terribly queer: Some of them poisonous, Some of them vicious. Furred, but with duck’s bills!
Or scaly, like fishes!
But I, sir — You see me, sir — Harmless and dreamy, sir
— Make my acquaintance: I’m pleased to be here.
Oh —
I am the wombat of D.G. Rossetti, Imported to London from over the seas. When Maestro Rossetti was wanting a pet he
Sent off a request to the antipodes.
There a bold sun-burnished strapping Australian
Beat through the bush to see what he could see. Searching through forests eccentric and alien, He found a burrow and there he found me.
Many months later I came to the jetty, Was met by my master, Christina, and Jane. Now I am the wombat of D.G. Rossetti: I live in Cheyne Walk and I walk on a chain.
Kangaroos relish their fisticuff combat
Whilst I on the other hand flee from a fight. In London I am the preeminent wombat, The only one owned by a Pre-Raphaelite.
I have been called both a joy and a madness, Delightful to all who my company keep. When some day I die of homesickness and sadness, My master will fall to his knees and he’ll weep.
Fighting his tears he’ll erect a memorial, Hon’ring the wombat what wuvved him so well, While my marsupial soul incorporeal
Sighs from on high like some blest Damozel.
He taught me Italian and fed me spaghetti: All chubby in Chelsea, I couldn’t stay long. I was the wombat of D.G. Rossetti: Though mortal in life I’m immortal in song.
Yes I was the wombat of D.G. Rossetti
— Though mortal in life I’m immortal in song!
~~~
This waddling lyric is the result of a bit of free association on Twitter last week between soprano Jennifer Behnke, composer Garrett Shatzer, and myself. I am afraid 'twas I who inserted wombats in to an otherwise perfectly serious train of thought about poetry. At length, I decided to take a run at lyrics for a wombat song, and here we are.
I hear a tune for this in my head, a Victorian music hall waltz of sorts, but your own imagination may lead you in other directions.
~~~
Illustrations: "Rossetti's Wombat Seated in his Master's Lap," pencil drawing by William Bell Scott, on Rossetti's letterhead, from the holdings of the Tate. A sketch of the wombat by William Michael Rossetti, provenance unknown.
Additional visual inspirations:
"Mrs. Morris and the Wombat," pen drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, original in the holdings of the British Museum, image via The Rossetti Archive.
"Rossetti lamenting the death of his wombat", pen drawing by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, from the holdings of the British Museum.
The poem below first appeared on this blog on February 26, 2004, during the period when then San Francisco Mayor (now Lieutenant Governor) Gavin Newsom unilaterally directed the City of San Francisco to license same-sex marriages. That original post had a tentative "do I dare" quality to it that irks me a bit now, though that tone was more or less consistent with the tenor of the time in which it was written andmight serve as a marker for how the times have changed. The poem itself is something of an oddity, bringing a light verse form to bear on a subject of some little seriousness, but I still like it eight years on.
Back in 2004 the California Supreme Court ruled within a month that the City of San Francisco had no legal authority to license marriages not specifically authorized by state law, but it also invited the City to challenge the limitations of those statutes in court. The City did, and that case eventually worked its way through the system and back to the court that suggested it. Four years ago today, May 15, 2008, the California Supreme Court declared in In re Marriage Cases that the restriction of marriage to couples of differing genders was impermissible under the California Constitution. On that same day four years ago it seemed appropriate to republish, and I did, with less circumspection than on the first time round.
In the ensuing four years, the voters of California have amended the state's Constitution via Proposition 8, for the express purpose of reversing the state Supreme Court's decision. That Court has confirmed that the constitutional amendment was lawfully adopted and is binding upon it, so that there is no longer a state-constitutional basis for an expansive definition of marriage. Quite the opposite in fact: the state constitution is now explicit in defining marriage as strictly a man-woman arrangement. A challenge to Proposition 8 under the U.S. Constitution has since produced decisions in the U.S. District Court and from a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals finding the Proposition constitutionally impermissible. The outcome of the challenges to Proposition 8 remains inconclusive, however, pending further en banc review by the Ninth Circuit and an expected/inevitable petition to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Given that I have republished it on a rough four year cycle, and given that the President of the United States made his views on this subject explicit suring this past week, the time seems right to roll these verses out again, so roll them out I shall:
~~~
Epithalamium
I
Hymen, Hymenaeus! Gay men and lesbians Flock to the City Hall, Follow their bliss,
Purchase their licenses, Swear to their permanence, Pose for the camera crews Sharing a kiss.
II
Damned, sir? They’re damned, you say? Possibly, possibly: Love has led millions to Suffer a Fall.
That’s for the next world, sir; Here with the living -- well, What was it Chaucer said? “Love conquers all.”
III
Poets, sir. Love poets. Some of the best have been Gay, sir. Consider this List I’ve compiled:
Wystan Hugh Auden and C.P. Cavafy and Sappho. James Merrill, Thom Gunn, Oscar Wilde.
IV
Legally, legally, Should an impediment Rise to the marriage of Minds that are true?
Sure as there’s only one Race, sir -- the human race -- How would you feel if it Happened to you?
V
Citizens, citizens, Leave to your churches these Questions of sanctity, Tough and profound.
Secular governments Ought to facilitate Binding of lovers who Yearn to be bound.
VI
Hymen, Hymenaeus! Cleave to the one who’s your Heart’s true companion, the Thou to your I.
Now, when the times are so Fearsome we all must, as Auden says, “love one a- nother or die.”
Surprise! Blawg Review, the blog carnival for everyone interested in law, is ready for its comeback and its close up.
Launched originally in April 2005, and overseen by the still-anonymous Editor, Blawg Review ranged about across the legal blogging landscape, appearing each Monday in a new and different exotic locale for the next six years before seemingly going silent following its 314th edition this past August.
It has been my pleasure to host Blawg Review on my legal blog, Declarations and Exclusions, on five occasions, beginning with Blawg Review #51. Since April 1, 2006, I have also hosted, here, five April Fools' extra editions, in the same week as the Decs&Excs editions. That's ten hosting turns for me, an ample store of evidence from which our Editor was able to infer that, yes, I'm just a blogger who can't say "no" if you were, hypothetically, to float the notion of refiring the boilers under Blawg Review and ending its sabbatical on an April Fool-ish note. Thus it comes to pass that Blawg Review #315 will be up at Decs&Excs on Monday and that the sixth annual April Fools' Edition is now before your disbelieving eyes.
While the original installments of Blawg Review were simple collections of links to the prior week's best or most interesting or most curious legal blogging, it early on became common, albeit never mandatory, for each host to adopt a Theme for his or her presentation. On this day last year, Blawg Review #305 took the form of a tribute to and adaptation of "I've Got a Little List," from Gilbert & Sullivan's The Mikado. Today, I hope I may be pardoned if I return to the same well and build this 2012 April Fools' edition around another popular G&S number, the introductory song of Major-General Stanley from The Pirates of Penzance, best known by its opening line:
"I am the very model of a modern Major-General."
We need not go into the absurd plot of Pirates today. Suffice it to say that it involves pirates, an unfortunate young fellow apprenticed to their service until his eighteenth birthday, the difficulty posed by his having been born on the 29th of February and thereby having had only four birthdays in eighteen years, a collection of young lovelies who are wards in chancery to the aforementioned Major-General, a collection of unhappy policemen, and a joyous, nuptial ending.
Major-General Stanley himself is a figure of a kind W.S. Gilbert delighted in mocking: a man who has risen to a position of stature for which he has no practical qualifications whatever. What the Major-General does possess is a vast store of arcane and useless knowledge bearing on most every topic except those that might make him an effetive military man. He would likely have made a fine blogger, had the Victorian era offered that outlet.
Upon his arrival in Act I, Major-General Stanley demonstrates his breadth of study with this famous patter song. Here it is, as performed by John Reed, principal comedian with the D'Oyly Carte Opera Company in the 1950's and 1960's:
Here, George Rose performs it in the wildly successful 1980 New York Shakespeare Festival staging in Central Park, with Linda Ronstadt as Mabel and Kevin Kline in his star-making turn as the Pirate King:
Sir Arthur Sullivan's catchy tune has achieved a further measure of immortality thanks to its having been adapted by Tom Lehrer to provide the melody for his cataloging of the chemical elements, "The Elements." (Clever title, that.)
Lehrer's song drew renewed attention recently when the performing of it was revealed to be a favorite party trick of Harry Potter star Daniel Radcliffe. Allow him to demonstrate:
And so, with that tune now well-implanted in your ears, we may turn to the matter at hand. Friends, the 2012 April Fools' Prequel to Blawg Review #315:
~~~
THE BLAWGER-GENERAL'S SONG
Blawger-General: This is the snappy patter-singing April Foolin' Blawg Review. We're bringing back this legal blogging carnival to all of you Who've missed it or forgotten it while it's been in absentia: (A weekly dose of blawging is believed to slow dementia.) There's many kinds of blawging, folks: it may be theoretical, From time to timerhetorical, and sometimes alphabetical. We hope you'll find this parody enlightening and risible.... Inspired by Major-General Stanley's rapid polysyllables.
Chorus: Inspired by Major-General Stanley's rapid pollysyllables, Inspired by Major-General Stanley's rapid polysyllables, Inspired by General Stanley and his rapid Polly Polly syllables!
Blawger-General: The Law's much more than drafting-stuff-while-sitting-at-your- desk-ery And offers opportunities for wackiness, grotesquery, For odd quixotic ventures, and for trumpery and trickery, And litigants possessèd by the spirit of Terpsichore. A matter rather serious we feel we need to mention: you Should click the links below and take the time to pay attention to The awfuldepredations of a so-calledblogger/journalist The Lord High Executioner might add to his infernal list.
Chorus: The Lord High Executioner might add to his infernal list, Oh yes he would indeed do well to add to his infernal list That most eternally infernal wickedso-called blogger/journalist.
Blawger-General: With cigarettes and chocolates, we try to be responsible. These clever cartoons educate the criminal and constable. If you work at McDonald's, all your problems may be supersized. (These blawgs are all original, there's nothing here that's plagiarized.) From blawgs you'll learn a thing or three about judicial etiquette And dangerous misguided legislators in Connecticut. Perhaps with an analogy we'll find that a solution'll Present itself to when a health care mandate's Constitutional.
Chorus: We do not understand it, all this complicated push 'n' pull! To find it inter-esting you would have to be delusional! We like a nice long walk, yes that's a proper daily "constitutional."
Blawger-General: You, too, could be an expert, so be sure to trim your cuticles And brighten your appearance through the use of cosmeceuticals. Now take the time to listen to a podcast full of Georgery Or head out to a gallery where ev'ry work's a forgery. Our time here it is fleeting and I fear I hear it flittering Or fluttering or flattering or maybe even Twittering This Prequel's the embodiment of ev'rything that's ex- cell- ent....
All: And now that Blawg Review is back, You'll wonder why it ever went!
THE LINKS
Here are gathered stand-alone links to all of the blawgs embedded in the lyric above. Where multiple entries originate from the same source, I have kept them together, so the order of links below does not necessarily follow the order of links above.
Tomorrow [April 2, 2012] BLAWG REVIEW #315 will be hosted at my law and insurance blog, Declarations and Exclusions. Please drop in and sample the wares on offer.
[Update 4/2/12: Blawg Review #315 is up and readable here.]
Blawg Review has information about next week's host, future hosts, how you too can become a host, and instructions on how to get your own blawg posts considered in upcoming editions.
Some thirty years later than I meant to do, I have recently been reading Carl E. Schorske's Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture, which surveys its titular era in a series of interlocking essays considering the figures centered in Vienna who in a range of disciplines—drama, politics, architecture, painting, music, psychology—essentially created what we thought of as "the Modern" through most of the twentieth century. As an entry in to his subject, in the opening paragraphs of the very first essay, Schorske considers not a person but a musical form: the waltz.
At the close of World War I, Maurice Ravel recorded in La Valse the violent death of the nineteenth-century world. The waltz, long the symbol of gay Vienna, became in the composer's hands a frantic danse macabre. 'I feel this work a kind of apotheosis of the Viennese waltz, linked in my mind with the impression of a fantastic whirl of destiny.' His grotesque memorial serves as a symbolic introduction to a problem of history: the relationship of politics and the psyche in fin-de-siecle Vienna.
Although Ravel celebrates the destruction of the world of the waltz, he does not initially present that world as unified. The work opens rather with an adumbration of the individual parts, which will compose the whole: fragments of waltz themes, scattered over a brooding stillness. Gradually the parts find each other—the martial fanfare, the vigorous trot, the sweet obligato, the sweeping major melody. Each element is drawn, its own momentum magnetized, into the wider whole. Each unfolds its individuality as it joins its partners in the dance. The pace accelerates; almost imperceptibly the sweeping rhythm passes over into the compulsive, then into the frenzied. The concentric elements become eccentric, disengaged from the whole, thus transforming harmony into cacophony. The driving pace continues to build when suddenly caesuras appear in the rhythm, and the auditor virtually stops to stare in horror at the void created when a major element weakens the movement, and yet the whole is moving, relentlessly driving as only compulsive three-quarter time can. Through to the very end, when the waltz crashes in a cataclysm of sound, each theme continues to breathe its individuality, eccentric and distorted now, in the chaos of totality.
Ravel's musical parable of a modern cultural crisis, whether or not he knew it, posed the problem in much the same way as it was felt and seen by the Austrian intelligentsia of the fin de siecle. How had their world fallen into chaos? ...
And we're off, never really returning to the question of the waltz—although in that first essay and again later Schorske spends time and attention on Hugo von Hoffmanstahl, whose libretto for Der Rosenkavalier (1911) provided Richard Strauss numerous opportunities to compose some of the last serious but non-ironic waltzes.
Schorske's opening gambit notwithstanding, I was not particularly thinking about waltzes until I read this post from Susan Scheid on her Prufrock's Dilemma blog: "Does Anyone Still Compose a Waltz?" That post is less about "the waltz" than it is specifically about La Valse and more generally about Ravel. It is worth your time, so I'll wait whilst youse reads it.
All right, then. Does anyone still compose a waltz? Well, the form did not die, certainly, even as Ravel was busily vivisecting it. To the north, in Denmark, Carl Nielsen was busily constructing the first movement of his Symphony No. 3 (aka the Sinfonia Espansiva) around a grand, driving waltz theme that recurs at intervals, over the objection of the sections around it. (Some enterprising choreographer could construct a fine dance from that movement, if not the entire symphony.)
Nielsen composed his symphony in 1910 and 1911, conducting the premiere in 1912. His waltz, therefore, falls in the middle of Ravel's composition process: begun after Ravel started his Valse in 1906 but completed prior to the outbreak of the war that so influenced Ravel's final version. While rumors of war can be detected in the brass and percussion—they become explicit in Nielsen's 4th and 5th symphonies of 1916 and 1920-22—the Espansiva is a fundamentally optimistic piece, particularly in its final two movements.
Susan complains of the fabulously gauche Andre Rieu and his sugary embalming of the quintessential waltz, Johann Strauss' Blue Danube. The best antidote I know to that is to revisit that waltz in the version that has kept it pretty swimmingly alive these past four-plus decades: Herbert von Karajan and the Berlin Philharmonic and the performance Stanley Kubrick selected for the long space station docking sequence in 2001:A Space Odyssey. Kubrick was never one for icky-sticky, and the von Karajan version is clean, astringent and smart smart smart, a performance that highlights what a sophisticated thing the Danube is, once you probe beneath its familiarity. We're not talking Beethoven, here, but the skill and intelligence it took to construct this particular confection should still impress us.
Here is a random selection of post-World War(s) waltzabilia:
The poet Theodore Roethke took the waltz as theme for one of the best of his autobiographical poems, harking to his brusque and practical German father, a Michigan nurseryman. In My Papa's Waltz, the waltz is a foundation of sorts to the aging, inebriated father, and an anchor as well for his child, who will someday become a poet. Here is Roethke reading his poem:
The band Team B, made up largely of brass players who have participated in projects with the likes of Arcade Fire and Zach Condon's Beirut, released an EP, The Lost Son, in early 2010, consisting of settings of Roethke poems. It featured this stern and rustically gallumphing version of My Papa's Waltz:
Having mentioned Beirut, it should be acknowledged that the waltz is not unknown to Zach Condon and his co-conspirators. The "lead single," or equivalent, from 2007's Flying Club Cup (my personal #5 pick of that year) was waltz-y as can be:
I can't really answer the question that Susan Scheid poses in her post title. At least insofar as "serious" composers are concerned, the waltz seems not to be a viable, lively form. It lives on as a basis for pop songs of various kinds, as this catalog on Wikipedia suggests. In terms of orchestral music, the waltz has seemingly become principally the province of film composers. Here, for instance, is an excerpt from one of John Williams' Harry Potter scores, trotted out for Dancing with the Stars' "Classical Week":
Of course, it could be worse: the waltz could be left in even less respectable hands....
~~~
Illustration: Eadward Muybridge, Phenakistoscope of a couple dancing the waltz, Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons.
Soyez réglé dans votre vie et ordinaire comme un bourgeois, afin d'être violent et original dans vos œuvres.
["Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work."]
— Gustave Flaubert, Letter to Gertrude Tennant, 25 Decembre 1876.
That Flaubert quotation came to my attention via a comment attached to a post by Amber Sparks—"Get Jobs In Offices and Wake Up for the Morning Commute: Stevens, Poet and Insurance Exec"—part of the week-long tribute to Wallace Stevens at Big Other. Sparks' brief piece aims at one of the points that has always added to Stevens' appeal for me: the fact that throughout most of his career as a poet, Stevens was a well-respected, very successful attorney-executive with The Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company.
Stevens kept his life as poet and his life as insurance man largely separate from one another: when Stevens died in 1955, there were co-workers who had toiled beside him for years at The Hartford who were astonished to learn for the first time, from tributes in the press, that Stevens had been a poet at all. Legend has it that Stevens would compose poems in his head on the way to the office, dictate rough versions to his secretary, go though his day dealing with surety issues—surety bonds being among the least "poetic" insurance products I know—and revise his work in his head on the way home.
Dana Gioia, in his essay on "Business and Poetry," maintains that having a firm grounding in a "real world" professional position as Stevens did—and as Eliot did during his time as a London banker—is actively advantageous to the poet or other artist even, or particularly, when his or her artistic concerns are entirely removed from practical business concerns.
Wallace Stevens' version of "work-life balance"—if such a concept ever entered his mind—apparently meant being fully invested in his profession, his art, and his personal life at all times, regardless of which of the three he was attending to at any given moment. He was well read in several languages, so I suspect that he knew of, and likely endorsed, Flaubert's sentiment, although Flaubert himself was never one for actually Getting a Job. Flaubert recommends being like a bourgeois, rather than actually being bourgeois; Stevens one-ups the French master, and demonstrated convincingly that the proper combination of attitude and skill permits a life of equal service to Mammon and the Muses.
Upon hearing the singing voice of Antony Hegarty listeners tend to divide in to two classes. There are those who find it a bit of a wonderment and who never want it to end, and there are those who, after 15-20 seconds, never ever ever want to hear that voice again. I am in the first class. Your own results may vary.
As an Antony and the Johnsons enthusiast, I am looking forward to next week's release of Swanlights. Until October 12, the album is streaming on NPR, and a listen there reveals that its songs include "The Great White Ocean." That song has actually been around since at least 2008, when it was used as the soundtrack to an animated short by James Lima, "Fallen Shadows," created for the purpose of selling Prada handbags and apparel. In the film, a woman's shadow wanders about in a vaguely surreal cityscape, musing on life and memory while Antony warbles mystically. (A large Quicktime version is viewable here.)
"Fallen Shadows" is somewhat obviously influenced by painters such as Di Chirico and Dalí, and some sequences -- the dancing compass in particular -- seem to derive directly from "Destino," Salvador Dalí's uncompleted project for Walt Disney. Dalí worked on storyboarding "Destino" at the Disney studios in 1945 and 1946, but only about 18 seconds were actually animated before production was stopped. Eventually, at the instance of Roy Disney, contemporary Disney animators pieced together a version of the film that saw release in 2003. Compare and contrast:
Antony and the Johnsons' music frequently walks the imagined line between popular and "serious" forms, and is oft inclined to slip toward the realm of the art song. An example of that tendency is "The Lake," a setting of a lesser-known poem of Edgar Allan Poe, released on an EP in 2004.
Animator Adam Schechter created a video for the song. Originally unofficial, the piece was subsequently endorsed by Antony and the Johnsons and now receives a link on the group's official site. The video bears no apparent relationship to the song or to the poem, and is instead a strange and somewhat incoherent tale of the death (?) and transfiguration (?) of a feudal fox. Or something of the sort. In any case, you may view it below. Poe's original text is beneath the video, for those inclined to read along and to take note of the liberties and variants in Antony's adaptation.
The Lake; To -- Edgar Allan Poe, 1827
In spring of youth it was my lot To haunt of the wide world a spot The which I could not love the less- So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that towered around.
But when the Night had thrown her pall Upon that spot, as upon all, And the mystic wind went by Murmuring in melody- Then-ah then I would awake To the terror of the lone lake.
Yet that terror was not fright, But a tremulous delight- A feeling not the jewelled mine Could teach or bribe me to define- Nor Love-although the Love were thine.
Death was in that poisonous wave, And in its gulf a fitting grave For him who thence could solace bring To his lone imagining- Whose solitary soul could make An Eden of that dim lake.
Emily Dickinson never really goes away, and you can never tell when she will turn up along your path to remind you of that fact. Here, two recent such reminders.
First, from a week or so ago, a Dickinsonian installment of a well-known webcomic. It's the Belle of Amherst vs. the Hearse of Amherst.
[Click to enlarge. Better yet, view the full size original version at xkcd.]
The perspicacious reader will note that this item is not only amusing but also practical. It is just the right size and shape to be printed out, scissored neatly, and used by the said reader as a bookmarker with which to note a place or to measure a loss.
Number two: to counter the unfortunate musical revelation hidden in the alt-text of that cartoon, David Sylvian proffers an austere, altogether humorless setting of Miss Dickinson's "There's a certain slant of light".
This blog was launched on July 2, 2003, seven years agone this very day.
It remains now what it was then: a fool's errand.
Most anyone who was blogging during that heady period at the center of this century's first decade, roughly years 2 and 3 of this blog's span, can attest to what great fun it could be and to the sense of possibility that danced attendance upon the whole Blogging venture. This part of the Forest of Tubes has never been particularly well traveled: 1060 posts and seven years in to the project, the stats stand at around 270,000 visitors to the blog, a very large portion of them driven by Google image searches and not by any particular interest in what was being said here. (That total does not include however many or few folk may be out there following via readers and RSS feeds. I suspect I have at least a handful of recurring readers evidence for whose presence is a thing unseen.)
Though the pace has slackened, I am still having just enough fun at this to carry on into the foreseeable.
By way of commemorating the Magnificent Seventh, here are seven posts or collections of posts from the past, skewing toward poetry-related items, with which I am still more or less pleased:
My one and only original video, a recitation of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18, as a PowerPoint slideshow. (Video version July 19, 2009; the PowerPoint slides themselves date back to April 1, 2005)
The entire Double Dactyl category, and particularly the lengthy Epithalamium (first posted February 26, 2004; repeated May 15, 2008)
Several runs and variants on Shelley's Ozymandius, including the hip-hop version, "Trunkless But Not Funkless." (November 22, 2003)
It has been a recurring pleasure to double-host the annual April Fool's Day edition of Blawg Review, with the main edition on my sleepy-sibling blog Declarations and Exclusions and the Appendix/Prequel here, in 2009, 2008, 2007, and 2006. If dear ol' Dec&Excs was a bit more of an active endeavor -- it ostensibly hits its own seventh anniversary on August 5, but the posting there is sporadic at best these past several years -- I would no doubt have done it again this year. Perhaps in 2011 we will rise to the challenge again?
For a seventh: ransack the archives and pick your own if you care to do so. (Let me know if you have a personal favorite with a comment, won't you? We bloggers thrive on positive reinforcement and attention.)
Thank you sevenfold, reader.
~~~
A concluding musical interlude, on the theme of the passage of seven years:
Suddenly I'm on the street Seven years disappear below my feet Been breakin' down Do you want me now? Do you want me now?
, which surveys its titular era in a series of interlocking essays considering the figures centered in Vienna who in a range of disciplines—drama, politics, architecture, painting, music, psychology—essentially created what we thought of as "the Modern" through most of the twentieth century. As an entry in to his subject, in the opening paragraphs of the very first essay, Schorske considers not a person but a musical form: the waltz. 
(1977), of which more 
.)
. Until October 12, the album is 
," a setting of a lesser-known poem of Edgar Allan Poe, released on an EP in 2004.