We’re trying not to be too sad about the end of summer here at Owl Chatter. It’s good, in that respect, that my semester starts early, so I can busy myself a little with classwork. We try to look forward to what the Fall will bring. Welly and Wilma will be visiting their son Worthington in Michigan for Thanksgiving, which is otherwise their least favorite holiday, centered as it is on the devouring of birds.
So let’s make today’s poem from The Writer’s Almanac our final sad note on the passing of summer. It’s by Faith Shearin and is called “The Last Swim of Summer.”
Our pool is still blue but a few leaves
have fallen, floating on the surface
of summer. The other swimmers
went home last week, tossed
their faded bathing suits aside,
so my daughter and I are alone
in the water which has grown colder
like a man’s hand at the end of
a romance. The lifeguard is under
her umbrella but her bags are packed
for college. We are swimming against
change, remembering the endless
shores of June: the light like lemonade,
fireflies inside our cupped hands,
watermelon night. We are swimming
towards the darkness of what
is next, walking away from the sounds
of laughter and splashing, towels
wrapped around the dampness of our loss.
A quick follow-up note on yesterday’s chatter about Pattie Boyd, the British model in the Sixties who married George Harrison and then Eric Clapton. I forgot to mention that she was the inspiration for Harrison’s Beatles song “Something.” He took the opening line (Something in the way she moves) from a James Taylor song. Pattie was also the inspiration for Eric Clapton’s massive hit “Layla.” The name comes from a Persian love story.
Anybody recognize that number up there? It’s You-Know-Who’s booking number in Georgia. I’ll spare you the mug shot.
We can’t let it go unremarked upon how well the Gnats are doing. They beat the Marlins again last night with a two-out-ninth-inning rally. I was asleep already, but the winning run came in on a passed ball. Weird. The Miami catcher just didn’t catch the pitch.
Their record now is 61-69, which is two games ahead of the Mets, and identical to that of the Padres, who have a lineup that reads like an all-star team and a bloated payroll. They’re only a game and a half behind the Yankees. Of course all three of those teams I named are having very disappointing seasons. And the Gnats aren’t. The expectations were low and they have been very much exceeded with some very good play.
Just a little more than a month to go in the regular season. We may be rooting for Atlanta when the playoffs start. Owl Chatter fave Max Fried pitches for them. Since coming off an injury August 4th, he’s pitched well in five starts, going 3-0. We will also be cheering for Baltimore.
Here’s a hot-off-the-press scoop! One of the most beloved of Rex’s commentariat is “Nancy.” And she just let us know an item of hers was accepted by the NYT and will appear tomorrow in their “Favorite Songs and Prose, Reimagined” feature. Readers are invited to “rework” famous songs or writings. Nancy gave us a sneak preview of hers, below. (My favorite line is the rhyming of Alito with finito.)
The Ballad of SCOTUS (or Thomas’s Promises)
(to the tune of “June Is Busting Out All Over”)
Cash is pouring in all over,
The court is a great big money tree!
Lots of billionaires pursue me
And the gifts they offer to me
Are expensive and extensive as can be!
Yachts to take me to Bermuda!
Planes to whisk me off to France!
Though it may appear unseemly,
I will rule for you supremely,
Every time I have the glimmer of a chance.
Because it’s June! June! June!
Rulings come in June! June! June!
Decades of progress will be smashed,
Once all your checks are duly cashed!
Money’s pouring in all over!
Stare decisis is kaput.
With the help of Sam Alito
Roe v. Wade is now finito —
And I’ll soon be crushing Griswold underfoot!
Money’s pouring in all over!
I’ll be at your beck and call!
Ev’ry fabulous vacation
Makes me lower your taxation
To the point at which it won’t exist at all!
Because it’s June! June! June!
Rulings come in June! June! June!
Tossing aside with bad intent
Every last shred of precedent.
Perks are pouring in all over!
Travel’s more splendid than before.
With your money in my pocket
I’ll devote my shadow docket
To the N.R.A., Big Pharma and much more!
Cash is pouring in all over!
Ev’ry decision can be bent:
Though my rulings may be lawless,
Still my reasoning will be flawless
When I tell them what our founders really meant!
Because it’s June! June! June!
Rulings come in June! June! June! …
They’ll be coming Soon! Soon! Soon!!!
Edgar Rice Burroughs was having a tough time of it. He failed the entrance exam for the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and tried his hand (and did badly) at being a cowboy, shopkeeper, gold miner, and railroad cop. But he was reading a lot of pulp magazines and he realized “if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines, I can write stories just as rotten.” He had never written anything, but so what? He hit paydirt when he invented Tarzan, a white baby orphaned in the African jungle and raised by the she-ape Kala. He settled on the name Tarzan after considering “Zanter” and “Tublat Zan.” I think Tublat Zan might have been good – TZ for short.
Whatever you want to call him, he was a phenomenal success, generating over 24 novels and more than 40 films. It had a profound impact on the culture and science. Jane Goodall starting reading the Tarzan books when she was 11 and credits them with inspiring her determination to work in Africa. Ray Bradbury memorized passages and recited them to friends. He said, “Burroughs is probably the most influential writer in the history of the world.”
Get this — in the books, Tarzan is well-spoken and thoughtful. Burroughs did not like the rough, semiliterate film character with his “Me Tarzan, you Jane.” That most famous of lines is never uttered in the books. He made a fortune, of course, and bought 550-acres of ranchland east of LA and called it “Tarzana Ranch.” Today, it is Tarzana, a suburban neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of LA.
We are chattering about him because it was on this date in 1912 that the character of Tarzan “came to life” in All-Story Magazine.
OK folks, I’m catching the next vine out of here. See you tomorrow for Post #300 — hope you can make it! Our photographer Phil will be on hand with some special shots of a favorite guest.
The Wellington Files 