Sweat pants, a silk scarf and heavy sweater were this morning the models in which I welcomed my first glimpse of autumn. Because I aimed to be out of the apartment before 9:00 am (in order to escape the arrival of the electrician) I was astonishingly on my bicycle at 8:40 am. The air was decidedly crisp and the sky was crystal clear. The purification was worth the struggle from the lair.
Who among us hasn’t at one time or another thought, “I’ve heard it all before!” Apart from some blunt truth about the first day of school, so often what rings in our ears are the platitudes of ambition, power and love. The real show-stopper however is the generic annotation that life is short, a distilled and inescapable reduction of life’s jamboree. A corollary to this deduction is the imperative to do whatever one can to glory in it. Pointedly this intelligence is normally slow to percolate among youth and persists as but a stinging reminder to those of us who have seemingly escaped the penalty of age – which is to say a curmudgeonly disposition. I characterize the achievement as one of proclivity rather than the obvious declension of hair length and colour, the loss of teeth and hearing, the poisonous influence of arthritis (whatever that may be really be), neuropathy and the truly vulgar growth of random ear and nose hair. The frozen reality is that even within such vegetative state one is nonetheless able to appreciate the erstwhile endorsements of youth and activity.
Three events in my lifetime are especially memorable. I recall exactly what I was doing upon learning of each occurrence. Each of them involves the United States of America. Those events in chronological order are 1.) the assassination of President John F. Kennedy (November 22, 1963); 2.) Commander Neil Armstrong, the first man to land on the moon (July 20, 1969); and, 3.) the World Trade Centre attacks (September 11, 2001). These are clearly inspiring benchmarks for any civilization.
When I was still a member of the servile classes it wasn’t uncommon for me especially after a long weekend to lose track of the days. The critical absence and palliative effect of Monday instantly altered a settled network and in doing so perverted the equivalent of global regularity. Usually after an embarrassing confusion I restored myself to the currency; but the imperative of the Christian week never vanished. Increasingly I am accommodating that once native though lingering curiosity by assessing the days not by numbers, sequence or months but by the weather. Today for example was what might fleetingly be called unpleasant. Flat grey clouds, raw temperature, constant drizzle (but never a diverting storm). In all an overwhelming platitude.
It doesn’t require a studied philosophic bent to succumb to the universal perplexity of substance. Eventually – and more often than not in short order – the deterioration of one’s current affairs follows the disclosure of a lack of depth. If the pith and marrow are missing so too are the clout and the mettle. An intoxicating – or merely stimulating – affluence is directly related to a solid, tangible presence. It would be preposterous to assume that only the initiated with obscure knowledge are sensitive to the allure of depth. Recall for example the scathing insight of the child in Hans Christian Anderson’s fable who so uncomfortably observed, “The Emperor has no clothes!”
Friday, September 4, 2020
I just spoke with an agent at the Cadillac dealership and she casually echoed my own sense of the burgeoning party mood which appears to have infected everyone as we begin the last holiday weekend of the summer. Earlier this morning while bicycling among the already thickening mass of weekenders I punctuated the thrill of the moment by chomping with frank abandon upon a crisp and pleasantly sour apple which we bought yesterday at an orchard in Renfrew County. Its newly harvested juiciness was nonpareil! Meanwhile the sky was a cloudless blue, the air was fresh and the emerald corn stalks high in the fields. It cheered reflective contemplation and thriving anticipation!
The last time I read anything by William Shakespeare – indeed anything even resembling the marvel of the saucy Worcestershire – had to have been in Fourth or Fifth Form at St. Andrew’s College when I was between 14 and 16 years of age. So sometime around 1963. I distinctly recall our English Master at the time was Louis Pitman, Esq. who doubled as Housemaster of Flavelle House. Mr. Pitman succeeded to inspire in us the unqualified joy of language. His polished British accent lent an element of authenticity to what might otherwise have passed for archaic gobbilygook. Whatever it was that enthralled us, its savour lingered until years afterwards when studying Philosophy at Glendon Hall.
In comparison to the current endeavour of international leaders to duck-shove global bankruptcy and to defeat the spread of the Coronavirus, the heady ambitions of youth to grow hair, workout and fix their acne appear demonstrably irresponsible. What however disturbs me even more is that both eventualities – disease and youth – have a decidedly human characteristic, a certain inevitability. Both are reflective of different times and events but both are nonetheless inalterable and perhaps even predictable features of humanity. In that respect to question the enthralment of either is tantamount to debating the strength or motive of appetite. If age has afforded me anything it is recognition of the paramountcy of the gut.
Though my day today was latterly disrupted by the necessity to buy a fitted bed sheet – a domestic adventure I can assure you is not to be diminished – I am seemingly nicely recovered. My disposition is as well realigned. I am poised to fashion a transparent and hopefully pleasing rendition of all that has transpired. Call me sentimental but it is my belief that these halcyon moments provide a stimulating and entirely digestible account for persons of any stripe.
Everyone has turned their eyes to the upcoming USA presidential election. The interest far surpasses normal political curiosity especially internationally. What’s really going on is a lip-biting and knowing look and the possible descent of the modern day Roman Empire. The American dream is by popular admission suffering the foreseeable display of imaginary design, economic disruption, intolerance and inequality. It is sadly useless to lay the entire blame for the current state of American affairs at the doorstep of the entertainment artist and current president Donald J Trump. Trump is just a sequel to emerging events, the second act of a once comic demonstration. Trump is clearly out of his depth and America is paying the price. The American “deplorables“ have unwittingly backed themselves into a corner from which they are for almost every strategic or political reason unwilling to resile although in my opinion their unprecedented defeat is imminent on November 3 next.