“Today we remember that freedom is not free. We have to work at it, nurture it, protect it, and even sacrifice for it. May we never forget and always remember our brothers and sisters who have served so that we may enjoy the gift of freedom. So in this moment, we remember and give thanks for their dedication and selfless service to our nation in the cause of our freedom. In this solemn hour, we give them our honor, and our gratitude.”
Those words were spoken at the deathbed of a U.S. veteran by his RN at the VA, Alex Pretti. A video of Alex saying them was posted by the veteran’s son after Alex was killed. The Earth is a colder place without him.
Happy to see the Seahawks advance to the Super Bowl last night. Nothing against the Rams, but we like Seattle QB Sam Darnold from his dreadful time with the Jets and we like their outstanding RB, Kenneth Walker III, from the Big Ten (MSU). Since the game was in Seattle, a few football personalities showed up at Pike’s Place, where the fish fly, literally, at the famous market.
From Frank Bruni’s “For the Love of Sentences.”
Ron Charles, in WAPO: “If, as King promised, the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice, we could use some more torque these days.”
In her newsletter, Joanne Carducci (a.k.a. JoJoFromJerz), below, wrote: “The rest of the world is looking at us the way you look at a family having a full-volume meltdown in the cereal aisle.”
As lazy as I am, I hate to give you work to do, but this poem asks for (and rewards) some effort. Right off the bat, it’s called “Poem in Which the Poet Ventriloquizes the Beloved.” It’s by Kimberly Quiogue Andrews, pronounced “kee-OH-gay.” First, the poem. Then, her notes on it (which help).
I’m sorry I’m taking the car to the airport that is closer to,
rather than farther away from, the oncoming hurricane.
In the parking garage of my love for you, I circle around
quietly, looking for a space to put the day’s best guesses,
one not too far from the kiosk of you, standing mute and
ready to hand me a small slip of paper that reads I’m sorry
I can’t tell you what I want. So we’re both mildly apologetic
all the time, which is a small courtesy, two pulsars fanning
light at one another in bursts detectable years later. Why
won’t you take this bundle of daffodils. Why have the
daffodils turned into dirty forks. I’m sorry about my socks.
See, there I go again. In the backyard, a vine from next
door has crawled up and over the fence and has flourished
there, a great nest of green six feet off the ground. I’d
trim it, but you’re holding the hedge clippers against your
hair. You’re saying that your hair is morning glories and
you’d like to keep the morning glories if possible. I don’t
even know what morning glories are exactly; my mother
is an excellent gardener but I have neither her memory for
color nor your cataloguing tendencies and it’s late in the day
and I’m sorry for that. It’s difficult to hold you in this
shaft of light when you keep taking three steps away and
sitting down in the nearest chair, one hand on each knee
like a monument. It’s difficult to feel your body against
my side in sleep, the desires it holds distant and tired,
like an animal that has walked too far in an inhospitable
climate. I am full of water but as thirst is a form of
suffering, I would not wish it upon you. Instead, I will
work my way through your dreaming, which I know is of
endless snow fields. I will wait in this puddle of melt.
Perhaps, one day, you will come to me with your skin
near to brittle from the cold you love so much. Perhaps on
that day we can begin to think together about the seasons,
about how spring can also arrive in precision, if you let it.
Kim’s notes: “This poem takes the interiority of the ‘lyric I’ and tries to graft it onto perhaps the most common object of apostrophic address: the beloved you. I wanted to create a character out of the quotidian realities of love beset by the kind of illness (depression) that seems to evacuate all capacity for feeling. That vacuum creates a specific type of alone-togetherness that this poem attempts to capture: tender, yet confused, somewhat exasperated, and, in the very best cases, steadfastly patient. I’m lucky, in other words, and this poem wants to honor that.”
Here she is, with some serious-ass bedhead.
Notes from the collection. The flurry of articles about the Hall of Fame that appeared when Beltran and Jones got in, alerted me to the probable eventual induction of two great managers: Dusty Baker and Bruce Bochy. Since they are both missing from my autograph collection and are readily available on eBay, I picked up one of each over the weekend for about $20 total.
(Signed on the back.)
Happy Birthday Jules Feiffer (1929). He passed away last January, just shy of his 96th birthday. He won a Pulitzer Prize for cartooning in 1986. He said: “I was a terrible flop as a child. You cannot be a successful boy in America if you cannot throw or catch a ball.”
Confirming my “reverse-Pinocchio” theory that Karoline Leavitt gets sexier the more lies she tells, she was droolingly gorgeous today lying egregiously about the murder of Alex Pretti, dressed in a black top that set off her searing dark eyes. I couldn’t stop looking at her, but I also couldn’t stomach the sh*t flowing out of her mouth. Finally had to get up and turn the sound down.
Looks like they’ve decided to throw Bovino under the bus. And as for the great investigation they’re conducting — we’ll get the results about the same time we get the Epstein files. Notice how they are hiding behind this bullshit investigation? Why aren’t they being asked why there’s no investigation of Renee Good’s killing? It’s sickening and deplorable. Trump is reeling but not dead. Look for an attempt to cancel the midterm elections via the Insurrection Act.
See you tomorrow.
The Wellington Files 