For after all Humboldt did what poets in crass America are supposed to do. He chased ruin and death even harder than he had chased women. He blew his talent and his health and reached home, the grave, in a dusty slide. He plowed himself under. Okay. So did Edgar Allan Poe, picked out of the Baltimore gutter. And Hart Crane over the side of a ship. And Jarrell falling in front of a car. And poor John Berryman jumping from a bridge. For some reason this awfulness is peculiarly appreciated by business and technological America. The country is proud of its dead poets. It takes terrific satisfaction in the poets’ testimony that the USA is too tough, too big, too much, too rugged, that American reality is overpowering. And to be a poet is a school thing, a skirt thing, a church thing. The weakness of the spiritual powers… Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Wholesome Authority
Then there were the Romans — whose greatness was probably due to the wholesome authority exercised by the head of a family over all its members. Some Romans had even killed their children; this was going too far, but then the Romans were not Christians and knew no better. — Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh Read more →
My Favorite Valentine Movies
Most Favorite Annie Hall Casablanca The Graduate Lost in Translation The Music Man Least Favorite An Affair to Remember Ghost An Officer and a Gentleman Titanic When Harry Met Sally . . . Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Read more →
Atkins Died
Dr. Robert Atkins, who died last year, made a nice living promoting the effects of diet — specifically, a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet — on health. According to his widow, however, Atkins’ own history of heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension was “completely unrelated to his diet.” Go figure . . . Read more →
Lewis vs. Clark
My son is doing a 5th grade research paper on William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame. “Clark was a much better man than Lewis,” he says. “Why do you say that?” I ask. Read more →
Paradigm Shift
One of the 5th grade girls had a birthday party, to which a select few boys were invited. A boy we’ll call Freddie — who was not invited, even though his best friend Eddie was invited — was overheard to say: This is not right! If Eddie is invited, I have to be invited! It seems like only yesterday — in fact, I think it was only yesterday — that none of these boys would be caught dead at a party hosted by a girl . . . Read more →
Small Consolations
Who possesses the wherewithal for labor or love without small consolations? Who can live? — Jeredith Merrin, “Downtown Diner” Read more →
How Annoying Am I?
“You know how annoying you are, Dad?” “Not really . . . how annoying am I?” “You’re off the flowchart.” Off the flowchart?! Read more →
At the Cotillion
It’s the evening of the Irvine Cotillion for January, and my son is trying to figure something out . . . Read more →
Today’s Text
But now isn’t simply now. Now is also a cold reminder: one whole day later than yesterday, one year later than last year. Every now is labeled with its date, rendering all past nows obsolete, until—later or sooner—perhaps—no, not perhaps—quite certainly: it will come. — Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man Read more →
Lessons From a New Dog Owner
A puppy with something to chew on is as happy as a kid with an Xbox. And when you come right down to it, anything can be chewed on . . . Happy puppy! Read more →
Happy New Year!
Today is Chinese New Year. Why the Chinese can’t celebrate the New Year on January 1st like everybody else, I don’t know . . . According to my wife, Chinese New Year is celebrated by eating good food and avoiding unnecessary work. I try to do that every day! I’m lovin’ it! Let’s party! Read more →
Dogfood
NEW YORK (AP) — Olivia Goldsmith, a best-selling novelist whose book First Wives Club was made into a movie starring Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton, has died. She was 54. Goldsmith had been in a coma since last Wednesday after complications resulting from anesthesia during plastic surgery . . . Read more →
The Way We Are Living
The way we are living, timorous or bold, will have been our life. — Seamus Heaney, “Elegy” Read more →
Ugly in Tinseltown
It’s tough being ugly in Tinseltown . . . Even when a movie — like Monster — requires an unattractive woman in the lead role, they cast a gorgeous woman and make her up to look ugly! What is the point of that?! Why not just cast an unattractive woman in the first place — like that Meredith girl from The Bachelorette, for example? Read more →
Pursuit
A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: ‘There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired.’ — F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby That we pursue something passionately does not always mean that we really want it or have a special aptitude for it. Often, the thing we pursue most passionately is but a substitute for the one thing we really want and cannot have. It is usually safe to predict that the fulfillment of an excessively cherished desire is not likely to still our nagging anxiety. In every passionate pursuit, the pursuit counts more than the object pursued. — Bruce Lee, Tao of Jeet Kune Do Read more →
When Technology Falls Into the Wrong Hands
Here’s what happens when a 10-year-old gets hold of a digital camera. And there’s lots more self-portraits where that came from, including the ones he took of his own butt, which are his personal favorites. Read more →
Quote of the Day
Wesley Clark on affirmative action: Not everybody’s born on a level playing field. That is undeniable. I, for example, was born in a hospital . . . Read more →
Albert Camus
On this date in 1960, Albert Camus died in a car smash outside Paris at the age of 47. The incomplete manuscript of The First Man, the autobiographical novel that Camus was working on at his death, was found in the mud at the site of the wreck. What a finish! Quel tableau! Read more →
Overheard
One cow to another: They’re not booing. They’re saying ‘Moooo!’ Read more →