Platypus of Truth

The Liturgy of the Literary Diabolist I reached into the river and pulled out meaning While Cratipus shook his head and Zeno Scribbled figures in the sand Sunlight glinted from a thousand facets Each facet a world of infinite points Untraversable by flesh and blood Forging what we stole Ta-tom-ta-tom Forging what we stole Ta-tom-ta-tom-tom-tom Rape of the Earth, Apollo, Apollo! Smintheus the destroyer. What’s that Thom? Still mooning over Jean Veudrel Morte douze ans aux les Dardanelles? Get up and write, -Now there’s a lad- All this pining will drive you mad. And Jean Veudrel is dead And Siegfried Sassoon is dead And G.B. Smith is dead Wiseman’s in the middle of the fleet -Thank God- There’s safety in numbers I tried to tell you then Don’t go that way But I don’t think you really heard me On the night when all the candles were lit You were hell-bent on going And the room was dark I tried to tell you it’s no...

April is the cruelest month around here -but May brings graduation.  In the meantime, we've had school plays and parent education nights.  Banquets, theses, and recitals are all on their way. In the midst of this hustle and bustle, we did find time last weekend to see Houston Grand Opera's production of Wagner's Das Rheingold.  It was the first Wagner piece I've seen and I have never experienced anything like it.  The Spanish company that put together the production pulled out all the stops and made a show that ran two-and-a-half-hours without intermission seem short.  The avant-guard staging with strong elements of cyber-punk left me with the feel that all the best parts of Final Fantasy VI and VII had suddenly been apotheosed.  And while we're on the topic of pop-entertainment, I'll add that like Jackson's ring cycle, I have to wait a whole year for the next installment.  Pop-culture aside, I was particularly impressed how the costumes, staging, an...

I think it's been four or five years since I last read any of Bill Watterson's amazing comic, Calvin and Hobbes .  Looking for some lighter fair to wedge into small moments of open time as the semester winds up, I decided it was time to remedy that situation.  I began with the first comic a few weeks ago (the one where Calvin catches Hobbes) and have been pushing forward as time allows. The first spate of comics are more sparse and simple than their sumptuous descendants.  The world is still being sketched out.  Even in this opening phase, Calvin and Hobbes  sparkles with a light that I've never seen anywhere else.  I have pages and pages yet to read, but I know that the strip will come to an end and that peculiar light will be extinguished.  It's the way things are in the world.  ...and I think that's a clue to where the sparkle comes from.  Watterson caught something in that web of pen and watercolors.  It's a little piece of reality...