Arrears blogging: October 31 -- Footnotes

What to say about a Robert Burns poem that the Robert Burns website says "becomes tedious in spite of the lively movement and the skilfully manipulated verse"? But don't take my word for it, take these incomprehensible words:

They hoy’t out Will, wi’ sair advice;
They hecht him some fine braw ane;
It chanc’d the stack he faddom’t thrice
Was timmer-propt for thrawin:

As they say in Scotland, Oy.

You could read the footnotes, of course, featuring Burns's descriptions of charming Scottish Halloween customs. There, travelling back in time (using your imagination!), you truly experience how boring the world was before mass entertainment:

They go to the barnyard, and pull each, at three different times, a stalk of oats. If the third stalk wants the “top-pickle,” that is, the grain at the top of the stalk, the party in question will come to the marriage-bed anything but a maid.

Take a candle and go alone to a looking-glass; eat an apple before it, and some traditions say you should comb your hair all the time; the face of your conjungal companion, to be, will be seen in the glass, as if peeping over your shoulder.

Steal out, unperceived, and sow a handful of hemp-seed, harrowing it with anything you can conveniently draw after you. Repeat now and then: “Hemp-seed, I saw thee, hemp-seed, I saw thee; and him (or her) that is to be my true love, come after me and pou thee.”

Wow! Making your own fun sounds lame!

The other question I have is this: how many people of marriageable age could there have been in an 18th-century Scottish village, that you need all these primitive-eHarmony tricks with the mirrors and the hemp-seed? It's not like your average lassie back then had a studio apartment on Essex Street, yet felt lonely in the midst of millions. There's just Rob and Andrew and Willie and, confusingly, Rab.

Also of note in Burns's poem: no Nixon masks. It doesn't seem like Halloween without them.

August 5: Burns: The evil men do

Any time is a good time to pimp the scenic wonders of the Mohawk Valley.

When I saw that today's reading was more Robert Burns I made that sound you make in your throat when you turn down a side street as a shortcut and there's a big huge truck blocking your way. Gghhhgh. But that got me to thinking (which at some level may be the point of this whole exercise) like so:

1. I'll never understand the Burns love of the Harvard Classics people, and, I take it, their intended audience.

2. But I do understand their prejudices. As I imagine them, anyway -- I think of the Harvard administration of being excited when electricity came in so that they could buy a big light-up NINA sign. Which is a huge prejudice of my own, hence my understanding of it. Everyone's a little bit racist, like they say in "Avenue Q".

So (and here's the big leap)...

3. Does evil make more sense than good? Like, the atrocities of the Belgians in the Congo are easily imaginable to me; my own country is hardly blameless, and I'm typing this on a computer assembled in China; I'm probably tasting the fruit of atrociousness right now. But why they thought putting their women in bustles looked good I'll never know.

Or think about Adam and Eve. God puts a tree in the garden and says, "This fruit will give you superpowers. Don't eat it." Crazy, right? And then the Devil comes and says, "You know one thing about superpowers? They make you feel super," which is perfectly clear and comprehensible, and before you know it -- bam! we sinnèd all.

This is a little slippery, I realize, because evil is a moral category, and a (puzzling, well-nigh incomprehensible) fondness for Burns is aesthetic, in a way. But, under this formula, the fact that my argument doesn't make any sense proves how good it is.

And "The Cotter's Saturday Night" cannot bear this analysis anyway, for it's a poem about the simple cottage-dwelling folk, far superior to you or me, who have, outside of their bairns, very little, but are happy for a' that:

But now the supper crowns their simple board,
The halesome parritch, chief of Scotia’s food;
The sowp their only hawkie does afford,
That, ’yont the hallan snugly chows her cood:

Porridge for dinner. Virtuous or not, you know the bairns lit out for Glasgow first chance they got. And why, in a poem about the "simple" pleasures, is Scotland referred to by its Latin name?

Burns, as I think I noted last time, is the kind of poet who would write for the newspapers, if newspapers still printed poems, or if there were newspapers to print poems in.

July 21: Light verse in a kilt

The utilikilt -- perfect for the man who'd rather install pipes than play them.

Consider the 1908 house.

It is filled, overwhelmingly, with reality: everything you see is actually there in the house, everything you hear (the neighbor's dog, your older sister trying, once again, the difficult part of the Mendelssohn on the piano) is locally generated. If only there were a screen you could roll in front of the window where you could watch photo-plays -- or, better yet, a competition between two offices, to see which was the better at performing choreographed musical numbers!

But there is no screen. There's just the room, filled with antimacassars, and the window, where it's raining.

It is in such a climate as this that the weird fondness of the Harvard Classics for Robert Burns becomes understandable. This feels like the 20th time I've had to cut my way through the jungles of "twa'" and "dinna," only to find, at the end, that my labors have brought forth light verse.

Who read this stuff? Scots fetishists, of course, and I get that; but I think Burns -- along with the other light-versifiers of the now-bygone print-intensive days, the FPAs, the Nashes -- are part of the bygone world of verbal entertainment, where words were the only means of escaping the antimacassars. But now, and this is probably true of poetry more generally, the broad effects are now done more effectively elsewhere, and its subtle effects -- well, there's not much of an audience for subtle effects.

Link here, BTW.

May 13: Burns's Hardworking White People

I know, I shouldn't get political, but I love a good hook, and Burns's idealization of the honest yeomanry is as good as any (I'm not translating Burns's slang -- no one translated it for me, goddamn it):

They’re no sae wretched’s ane wad think.
Tho’ constantly on poortith’s brink,
They’re sae accustom’d wi’ the sight,
The view o’t gives them little fright.
Then chance and fortune are sae guided,
They’re aye in less or mair provided:
An’ tho’ fatigued wi’ close employment,
A blink o’ rest’s a sweet enjoyment.
The dearest comfort o’ their lives,
Their grushie weans an’ faithfu’ wives;
The prattling things are just their pride,
That sweetens a’ their fire-side.
An’ whiles twalpennie worth o’ nappy
Can mak the bodies unco happy:

See, tho' poor, they have the pleasures of life that we latte-sipping people with our books and Netflix subscriptions to "The Wire" don't have. I have to say that this Burns poem didn't bug me as much as I thought it was going to, although it does bug me that this is the 4th time I've been assigned him. I don't quite get the big love of Burns, or any of the poetry selections, really. In this sense there really is a great divide between now and then. But this one was okay, because it was more like a newspaper column or something -- just two dogs talking about the difference between the upper-crust folk and the common folk. And, as all newspaper columnists are required to do, even now, Burns takes the side of the little people and not the fancy swells who can afford things like newspapers:

At operas an’ plays parading,
Mortgaging, gambling, masquerading:
Or maybe, in a frolic daft,
To Hague or Calais takes a waft,
To mak a tour an’ tak a whirl,
To learn bon ton, an’ see the worl’.

France, even! Like John Kerry. It's no wonder that Burns concludes:

For Britain’s guid! for her destruction!

And Burns was dead on, for Britain's empire had a mere one hundred and sixty-two years left! I'm all for the need of being versed in country things, myself, and I'm convinced that honor among the governing class is at an all-time low, but when you read something like this you realize that Burns's fellow Scotsman, Adam Smith, was closer to the truth -- there is a great deal of ruin in a nation. Just because some well-off idiots go around gambling (and taking mortgages!), something good is going on at the same time.

Note: I am not a dog person so the adorableness of two dogs concluding "humans is the craziest people" is lost on me. YMMV.

Feb 22: Washington's Birthday, badly observed

I groused about this a little yesterday -- here we have Washington's Birthday, the anniversary of the great and really somewhat underappreciated father of the country, and we are sent off to read Robert Burns. For the third time. I mean, I like Scotch as much as the next man, especially if he's willing to drive, but this is too much. Couldn't we have read some legal documents or something?

And if I may directly address the anonymous compiler from 1908 -- sir (or madam), the Burns fetishization has got to stop. Maybe they like Burns because, being Scottish, he seems more manly than your typical traipse-y tubucular poet:
Anyway, to the Ode for General Washington. It is four stanzas. General Washington is never mentioned. The gist of the poem seems to be that, if the Americans (here referred to as "Columbia") can kick the ass of the hated British ("Dare him to his very beard/And tell him he no more is feared"), then why can't the Scots:

In this the ancient Caledonian form,
Firm as her rock, resistless as her storm?
Show me that eye which shot immortal hate,
Blasting the Despot's proudest bearing!
Show me that arm which, nerv'd with thundering fate,
Braved Usurpation's boldest daring!
Dark-quench'd as yonder sinking star,
No more that glance lightens afar,
That palsied arm no more whirls on the waste of war.

Of course I am always skeptical of poems praising "immortal hate." Nor does it seem very Washingtonian. Maybe this is why we no longer observe his birthday.

Feb 8: A little too much Scotch

First of all, let me express my intense pride in myself, that I haven’t left a volume of this lying around the house where I would put a beer bottle or something on it. And that’s important since whoever’s choosing the reading is lazier than me, even: it’s back to Robert Burns, two weeks after the last time we read Robert Burns. I think this is pressing the word “classic” a bit too hard.

Yes, Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded on this day in 1587. But I discover it’s also the anniversary of the charter for William and Mary – can’t we read any colonial history?

Whatever, the DRG tells me she was a world-famous beauty, so I guess we’ll just have to lump it. Maybe it’s just that, after 38 days of this, I feel I am already smarter than the Harvard Classics. There are only two highlights I feel like mentioning:

-- “Lament of Mary, Queen of Scots, on the approach of Spring” Spring is here! Except if you in prison. I did like this stanza:

But as for thee, thou false woman,
My sister and my fae,
Grim Vengeance yet shall whet a sword
That thro’ thy soul shall gae;
The weeping blood in woman’s breast
Was never known to thee;
Nor th’ balm that draps on wounds of woe
Frae woman’s pitying e’e.

Catfight!

I’m going to pass over everything else in this selection, because its full of references to “Phoebus,” little birds singing, etc. – even my eyes are audibly rolling.

Except for the last one, “What can a young lassie do wi’ an Auld Man?” Old men with much younger women are one of my favorite figures of fun – especially because LA is no stranger to this phenomenon -- and I am delighted that Burns, centuries ago, feels the same way (especially after all the little birds singing. I think I’ll just quote it in full and vamp to the fade:

WHAT can a young lassie, what shall a young lassie,
What can a young lassie do wi’ an auld man?
Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie
To sell her puir Jenny for siller an’ lan’.
Bad luck on the penny that tempted my minnie
To sell her puir Jenny for siller an’ lan’!

He’s always compleenin’ frae mornin’ to e’enin’,
He hoasts and he hirples the weary day lang;
He’s doylt and he’s dozin, his blude it is frozen,—
O dreary’s the night wi’ a crazy auld man!
He’s doylt and he’s dozin, his blude it is frozen,
O dreary’s the night wi’ a crazy auld man.

He hums and he hankers, he frets and he cankers,
I never can please him do a’ that I can;
He’s peevish an’ jealous o’ a’ the young fellows,—
O dool on the day I met wi’ an auld man!
He’s peevish an’ jealous o’ a’ the young fellows,
O dool on the day I met wi’ an auld man.

My auld auntie Katie upon me taks pity,
I’ll do my endeavour to follow her plan;
I’ll cross him an’ wrack him, until I heartbreak him
And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan,
I’ll cross him an’ wrack him, until I heartbreak him,
And then his auld brass will buy me a new pan.

Jan 25: Burns's Urban Dictionary and other mystifying adult things

Tonight’s reading is Robert Burns. Immediately there were flashbacks. Didn’t my father (an English teacher) would occasionally throw on his birthday…didn’t he use the Harvard Classics edition? Might I be using one of the few books in this collection that’s been used before?

And, stuck in the cover, is an old ditto (the purple ink, I remember), on the back of which are page numbers for poems he’d read, after everyone had had a bit of the barleycorn, no doubt. I am practically up in my childhood bedroom, hearing that adult talk-and-laughter that’s so mystifying to a child (how can they have that much fun just sitting?) The past is another country…would high school teachers really get together in this day and age for such an evening? It’s no weirder than a book club, really, plus – Scotch. (Although one I think is supposed to frown on Scotch today, especially on school nights.)

I’m tempted to read his page numbers…but the DRG has fewer, so it wins.

I will say that I never know what to write about the poetry, really, except to point out what’s strange about it. I don’t think I’m really capable of offering criticism. Maybe I need a little barleycorn myself to get in the spirit of the thing.

-- First is “To A Mouse,” which I think was in one of my kids’ English books. This is the “the best—laid schemes of mice and men/gang aft agley.” Note that one could be ponderous and note that the line says “schemes,” not “plans.” One will, no doubt.

Earlier in the poem there is this sentiment: “I’m truly sorry man’s dominion,/Has broken nature’s social union,” which is nice. I tend to hate the pastoral fallacy of this kind of thing – Man bad, Nature good – if only because I like vaccinations and stuff. But here, with the plow bisecting the nest, it’s charming. It’s the kind of thing that it the line were later in the poem, so it’s supposed to be the point of the poem, it would be tedious. But here so early it’s like a throwaway line, and like a good throwaway line it gains its force from not being emphasized.

-- “Tam O Shanter” So it’s not just a restaurant in Atwater Village? No, in fact, the restaurant was inspired by the poem. This alone justifies Burns getting a whole volume to himself. Is there a restaurant called “The Waste Land”? No. Suck it, Eliot.

It is 100% infuriating that the HC did not want to mess up its fine design by telling you what the words mean. For instance: “While we sit bousing at the nappy,/An’ getting fou and unco happy.”

Actually, “bousing” “fou” and “unco” could all be on Urban Dictionary. (Not to mention “nappy,” but not in this sense.) Perhaps the secret of Burns’s popularity back in more bibulous times is that you’re practically required to have knocked a few back in order to try to read it aloud.

Also, “Raymond” alert:

Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,
To think how mony counsels sweet,
How mony lengthen’d, sage advices,
The husband frae the wife despises!

This premise is timeless, I tell you. I think I’ve already encounted this kind of rolling-pin humor three times in this reading, and its only January. Or is it less that it’s timeless, and more that the Compiler had a difficult marriage?

“bleezing” – also a candidate for the U.D.

For a famous poet, Burns uses feminine rhymes a lot (“awfu’/unlawfu’”), for example. I thought that was only for your light versifiers and your Cole Porters. However, as is pointed out here, Burns doesn’t really care to be Great.

Is this where “Cutty-sark” (who is the name of the hot girl in tha club who almost winds up killing our hero) comes from? Apparently so. One hopes Burns had the rights to all this stuff.

Fun stuff, if you don’t mind flipping to the glossary every three words.