My Time at the Institute for Advanced Study

A couple of years ago L. and I were driving through Princeton, N.J. on our way north. We were on Route 206, I think . It was around Memorial Day or the Fourth of July or something, and we had to detour because of some holiday festivities. We lost our way and wound up on the campus of the Institute for Advanced Study. It was a normal-looking place, not very impressive and quite deserted. We spied a brainy-looking fellow making his way between buildings, so we asked him how to get back on 206. He didn't know. Advanced Study, hah!

The Story of 821

Did you ever just feel like having a big old sloppy bar cheeseburger for dinner? With a beer or two, just to take the edge off some Shostakovich. One Friday night L. and I were going to a concert, so we thought we'd stop at a slightly (and I do mean slightly) upscale watering hole we knew of, and have a couple of the aforementioned burgers, plus fries. Well, it had been a long time since we'd been downtown, and we discovered to our dismay that our watering hole had closed. What to do? Nothing seemed to be open but "821," a very upscale eatery. Well, we didn't have a whole lot of time, but I figured we could get something quick in the bar. We found a table, but the menu was the same as the sitdown. I looked at the prices-- I didn't feel like paying $24.95 an entree, the cheapest thing (plus it was a la carte), especially not when I had a cheeseburger in mind. So we wound up ordering wine and appetizers. That, I was hoping, should hold us. I have to keep my wife happy, you know. L. is a girl of strong appetite, vital in a very appealing sort of way. Frankly, I was feeling like the Three Stooges-- you know, when they walk into some ritzy joint by mistake and try to keep up appearances, hoping they don't wind up washing dishes.

Well, the appetizers didn't do it. I can't even remember what they were, but there wasn't enough. In all fairness, the bartender warned us they were just "conversation starters." He knew what we were about (we shabby interlopers). He was sympathetic but maintained his profesional distance. Genteel poverty can be so disconcerting.

We poured the last of the wine and desperately scanned the menu--and L. found it. It was a cortini, Barkeep informed us, a side dish: sweet potato, quick fried in nice long strips in honey and ginger. It was delicious, and there was a lot of it. For $4.95! And I think we only ordered one dish! Anyway, we left sated and happy, ready for Socialist Realism.

And that's the story of 821--one of those little survival tales that couples treasure.

Fine Lines

"The human predicament is here presented neither as divine comedy nor fully blown tragedy, but is seen from a viewpoint located somewhere between Olympus and Gethsemane...(Seamus Heaney in the foreword to The Canon : the Original One Hundred and Fifty-four Poems by C.P. Cavafy).


Another haiku:

The portulaccas,
Now a heap of tangled vines;
Still-- tongues of color!


And this is good: http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/haidt08/haidt08_index.html

Labor Day Haiku

Drunken, heedless men
And mindless insect chorus
Praise September's moon.

Summer haiku

Bagpipes on the beach!
Of all the things! At sunset--
Aye, those pipes did wail!

That's it-- one summer haiku. My haiku-writing period extended from late summer into fall, in a long-ago year. So most of them are autumnal. But I really did see a guy playing bagpipes on the beach.

I always stuck to the five-seven-five syllable rule. Dover Thrift Editions about 20 years ago put out a dollar edition of Japanese haiku. It was a very nice job with good explanatory notes written by I've forgotten who. Multiple translations of the same haiku were often included. Also the Japanese transliteration. I later found out from a co-knowledge-worker, though, that Japanese transliterations do include silent syllables. So, unless you know which are silent, you can't read them to get a sense of the sound.

Another good book is A Net of Fireflies by Harold Stewart. He renders traditional Japanese haiku into rhyming couplets, believing they are a more natural poetic expression for English speakers. Harold Stewart was a very interesting fellow, about whom more later.