George Herbert and Vikram Seth
I'm so glad salvagejob egged me into this. Thank you, salvagejob!
The tree-lighting? No one made any digs about our tree. But I got criticized for _the way I'd highlighted my sheet music_. See what I mean about demons? I was prepared to defend the tree, and the jerk next to me in bell choir, while we're standing in front of the assembled citizens of ---------, attacks my sheet music.
"You highlighted wrong. It's only one color. That's stupid. How can you tell your bells apart if they're all the same color?"
And of course I should have said, "That's just to show me where I _have_ notes, not what they are; I can read music, you oaf. Which is apparently more than you can do."
But I said nothing of the sort. I'm a dang poltroon. (This for salvagejob's dear children--not cursing is also good for your vocabulary.)
The whole thing is just one more example of stuff George Herbert is wrong about. Maybe he flies up into heavenly raptures at music practice, but my ecstatic experiences keep getting buzz-killed. Of course, he hung with better musicians.
And you know who lives in his rectory now? Vikram Seth!!!! This is the coolest contemporary rec-lit connection I know. (Yeah, I'm published, but with a university press, and have to make nice to parishoners who say, "You have a book out? What's it about?" and when I start to reply, interrupt with, "Poetry? Oh. I thought it was a real book. Well, everyone had to start somewhere, I guess.")
But Vikram Seth? He's a rock star among poets--and novelists. The rector and I, on our honeymoon, visited Herbert's grave in his church at Bemerton, and it's right across a narrow, lorry-shaken street from a rectory that looked like a passel of upkeep. In both our truck-shaken rectories since, I have taken comfort from knowing that Herbert's rectory is just as bad.
And now it turns out Vikram Seth, the first living poet I loved (up till I found him, it was all Marlowe and Keats) has GH's place. Of course, he isn't the rector (it's a yoked parish) and has surely fixed it up better than a working rectory with all his celebrity novelist earnings, but it's fitting.
Howver, if in 400 years some future formalist is considering living in this here rectory--don't. I have spent far too little time writing here, and far too much time ripping campaign and yard sale and cash-for-gold signs out of the graveyard.
The tree-lighting? No one made any digs about our tree. But I got criticized for _the way I'd highlighted my sheet music_. See what I mean about demons? I was prepared to defend the tree, and the jerk next to me in bell choir, while we're standing in front of the assembled citizens of ---------, attacks my sheet music.
"You highlighted wrong. It's only one color. That's stupid. How can you tell your bells apart if they're all the same color?"
And of course I should have said, "That's just to show me where I _have_ notes, not what they are; I can read music, you oaf. Which is apparently more than you can do."
But I said nothing of the sort. I'm a dang poltroon. (This for salvagejob's dear children--not cursing is also good for your vocabulary.)
The whole thing is just one more example of stuff George Herbert is wrong about. Maybe he flies up into heavenly raptures at music practice, but my ecstatic experiences keep getting buzz-killed. Of course, he hung with better musicians.
And you know who lives in his rectory now? Vikram Seth!!!! This is the coolest contemporary rec-lit connection I know. (Yeah, I'm published, but with a university press, and have to make nice to parishoners who say, "You have a book out? What's it about?" and when I start to reply, interrupt with, "Poetry? Oh. I thought it was a real book. Well, everyone had to start somewhere, I guess.")
But Vikram Seth? He's a rock star among poets--and novelists. The rector and I, on our honeymoon, visited Herbert's grave in his church at Bemerton, and it's right across a narrow, lorry-shaken street from a rectory that looked like a passel of upkeep. In both our truck-shaken rectories since, I have taken comfort from knowing that Herbert's rectory is just as bad.
And now it turns out Vikram Seth, the first living poet I loved (up till I found him, it was all Marlowe and Keats) has GH's place. Of course, he isn't the rector (it's a yoked parish) and has surely fixed it up better than a working rectory with all his celebrity novelist earnings, but it's fitting.
Howver, if in 400 years some future formalist is considering living in this here rectory--don't. I have spent far too little time writing here, and far too much time ripping campaign and yard sale and cash-for-gold signs out of the graveyard.