Thought of the Day Tangentially Involving Super Tuesday in a Non-partisan Way

Remember when executives and administrators used to "spearhead projects" and "lay foundations" with "heavy lifting" and even "establish beachheads"? Now we have "servant-leaders" who listen and "nurture growth." That's fine if you have ultra-committed team members who are itching to do their own thing anyway. Most of us just want to make a living and contribute to the smooth operation of something worthwhile [with our households being the most worthwhile thing of all]. Maybe we're not 100% invested: our work, while important, is not the sum total of our lives. Just tell us what you want done and we'll do it--but tell us! I think real leadership is neglected. Instead of leaders we have listeners. And more time is spent probing the psychological states of workers than on actually directing people's efforts. We need leaders who take us outside ourselves, in short.

Thought of the Day #2

How about that Superbowl? Or, as L. calls it, "The Guacamole Bowlie." Which we did consume, along with two bags of fancy chips. We enjoyed the game immensely, staying awake for the whole thing. I sometimes think the only way I've affected L.'s life is that now she watches football.

Thought of the Day

Since I stopped working on Thursday nights, I don't get much time to blog anymore. So, with some trepidation, I hereby launch "The Thought of the Day."

I think--as I was shelving some Norman Mailer--that we tend to make too much of artists. Of their biographies, I mean. We idolize them, and the more whacked out they are, the better. Plato warned us about the poets! When I was in college, Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg and the Beats--all those guys we admired for their lifestyle as much, if not more, than for their poetry. In recent times we've seen Mozart, who was probably a fairly conventional sort, transformed into a wild genius and eccentric by "Amadeus." Before, people who listened to Mozart were considered stuffy--now they are thought to be "with it" and sort of rebellious. For every weird artist, however, there are sober and thoughtful ones who also produce great art.

The herd mentality of this adulation first hit me when I read Dan Wakefield's New York in the Fifties. He describes people standing five and six deep at a Greenwich Village bar-- watching Dylan Thomas drink. It struck me as very silly.

Murray Bodo

Sometimes, writing seems awfully silly. Reading, too, for that matter. I have been much preoccupied with all the mundane details of material life, from basement refinishing, to buying and selling automobiles, to financial planning, etc., etc. But I did get to see Murray Bodo last weekend. And he reminded me (us) of the power of poetry. He was quite vigorous, even with a cold. I had seen a picture of him on the 'net which made me think that perhaps he was getting on in years, and his visit here would be mainly honorific. But he is an exceptional teacher. He gave two longish talk/readings on Saturday, had two sessions with students Monday, followed by a dinner and readings Monday night.

And he is an excellent reader, at least of his own poetry. He read his pretty much as I would have read them. Which makes me worry less about how my poems would sound. Perhaps I fret too much over punctuation and graphics. Maybe we're all used to a modernist free-verse style, so mine would come out all right. Anyway, he encouraged us to write--not to have a literary career necessarily--but to write.

Update

Back to work. It's September, albeit an exceptionally beautiful one. Sept. 11 was a trifle warm, but the next day-- cool, bright, and clear-- couldn't help but make one think of 9/11/01.

Well, change rears its Ugly Head. I will no longer work Thursday nights, my usual blogging night. I may have to confine blogging to the Saturdays I work. Even today my time was limited. I had a necessary, but stimulating, research job. As someone in the business has said, "Librarians like to search. Everyone else likes to find."

Just ran across another good line from Mark Steyn: "The invention of the faux-childlike faux-folk song was one of the greatest forces in the infantilization of American culture." And the infantilization of American Catholic worship, I will add. L. has re-joined the parish choir; she would love to have me join her, but I just can't. I can't sing that stuff on a regular basis. And--I'm not singing in the community chorus either. No more Christmas carols right after Labor Day!

Another good line: "Salt, with its lips of blue fire...Like true love and gasoline." Is that great, or what. It's from a poem by Leroy Quintana, of whom I know very little. Google him yourself. (I did take out a line in the middle, but I don't think I'm doing violence to the poem's meaning. Or its aura, anyway.)