Joe Saunders

Current Status

doyourwardance:

Haters gonna hate.

My Dad likes to decry the current state of teaching in this country. Actually my Dad likes to decry lots of things. Decrying things is what gentlemen do when they’ve wrestled all the bears and slayed all the dragons. Ou sont les bears and dragons d’antan, innit?

Anyway. Amongst the things my Dad decries is the current state of teaching in this country. I rarely listen too much. (I agree, as it happens, but I am busy planning my upcoming bear-wrestling bouts.) This Christmas he told me a story about the man who taught him poetry when he was a kid. I pass it on to you, anonymous asker.

The majority of teachers at my Dad’s school in the fifties were (he tells me), ex-servicemen. Some had limps, some had scars. I’ve assumed that most of them saw service in the second world war. I could be wrong, but it seems likely. Dad’s headmaster certainly did. He had a limp to boot. His name was KFW Walker.

One day Mr Walker is teaching my Dad’s class about poetry. He reads Keats’ Sonnet To A Cat to them. It is, he tells them, one of his minor works.

Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand cliacteric, 
How many mice and rats hast in thy days 
Destroy’d? - How many tit bits stolen? Gaze 
With those bright languid segments green, and prick 
Those velvet ears - but pr’ythee do not stick 
Thy latent talons in me - and upraise 
Thy gentle mew - and tell me all thy frays 
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick. 
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists - 
For all the wheezy asthma, - and for all 
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off - and though the fists 
Of many a maid have given thee many a mail, 
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists 
In youth thou enter’dst on glass bottled wall. 

And after he reads out the poem he tells the kids a story. And the story he tells is set in a forest in Belgium some time in late 1944. Captain Walker and his company are caught unawares in an artillery attack; they have no time to dig in and have to scramble for cover where they can. The bombardment is extremely heavy and the shells are bursting in the air.

Walker tells the kids that all he had time to do was throw himself down onto the forest floor and try to make himself as tiny and thin as he possibly could while the trees literally exploded around him. He tells them that it is the single most terrifying sound that he’s ever heard. And he tells them that the only other thing that he can hear as the trees crack and fall and the shrapnel rips through everything is a line from Sonnet To A Cat repeating in his head over and over and over:

…pr’ythee do not stick / Thy latent talons in me
…pr’ythee do not stick / Thy latent talons in me
…pr’ythee do not stick / Thy latent talons in me

And that, Walker tells my Dad, who tells me, is why I can never forget that poem. And that, my Dad tells me, is why I decry the current state of teaching in this country.

(I’ll write this properly at some point. Or at least I’ll try to write it *less*. I will also tell the other story involving my Dad, KFW Walker and a ping-pong ball which will make you all cry. In the meantime, please all feel free to use the Ask Me Anything button. Press Button. Get Story is my new rule)

etrangere:

By Tina Fey

First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.

May she be Beautiful but not Damaged, for it’s the Damage that draws the creepy soccer coach’s eye, not the Beauty.

When the Crystal Meth is offered, May she remember the parents who cut her grapes in half And stick with Beer.

Guide her, protect her

When crossing the street, stepping onto boats, swimming in the ocean, swimming in pools, walking near pools, standing on the subway platform, crossing 86th Street, stepping off of boats, using mall restrooms, getting on and off escalators, driving on country roads while arguing, leaning on large windows, walking in parking lots, riding Ferris wheels, roller-coasters, log flumes, or anything called “Hell Drop,” “Tower of Torture,” or “The Death Spiral Rock ‘N Zero G Roll featuring Aerosmith,” and standing on any kind of balcony ever, anywhere, at any age.

Lead her away from Acting but not all the way to Finance. Something where she can make her own hours but still feel intellectually fulfilled and get outside sometimes And not have to wear high heels.

What would that be, Lord? Architecture? Midwifery? Golf course design? I’m asking You, because if I knew, I’d be doing it, Youdammit.

May she play the Drums to the fiery rhythm of her Own Heart with the sinewy strength of her Own Arms, so she need Not Lie With Drummers.

Grant her a Rough Patch from twelve to seventeen.

Let her draw horses and be interested in Barbies for much too long, For childhood is short – a Tiger Flower blooming Magenta for one day – And adulthood is long and dry-humping in cars will wait.

O Lord, break the Internet forever, That she may be spared the misspelled invective of her peers And the online marketing campaign for Rape Hostel V: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.

And when she one day turns on me and calls me a Bitch in front of Hollister, Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into a cab in front of her friends, For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.

And should she choose to be a Mother one day, be my eyes, Lord, that I may see her, lying on a blanket on the floor at 4:50 A.M., all-at-once exhausted, bored, and in love with the little creature whose poop is leaking up its back.

“My mother did this for me once,” she will realize as she cleans feces off her baby’s neck. “My mother did this for me.” And the delayed gratitude will wash over her as it does each generation and she will make a Mental Note to call me. And she will forget.

But I’ll know, because I peeped it with Your God eyes.

Amen.

You’re wearing it. 

I’m trying to count the ways this will never happen again. 

I think that the Lt. Pike meme should be extended from the amazing photo memes that have been circulating, into the world of poetry; the artistic form of preference for the jackbooted thug. Below is a humble example.

The Road Not Taken - by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY

PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY

PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY

PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY

PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY

PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY

PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY PEPPER SPRAY
And that has made all the difference.

Some days you are the dog.

Some days you are the deer.

Some days you are the guy in the chinos.

Some days you are the guy saying ‘heh’ at the end. 

The next time you’re involved in a conversation about the degeneracy and moral turpitude of this generation, point your fellow debater at this video which shows that people in the 1930’s managed to overcome the threatening shadow of worldwide fascism and still be super gay. (Video via @severalbees)

chrismear:

(via Gunshow - Two Friends)