Thanks to MLK, who has given the working world a much-needed day of respite after everyone goes back to work after the holidays. I hope, like me, you are taking the day slowly, in robe and slippers. Of course, as Larry says about retirement, “It’s great not to be able to tell the difference between regular days and holidays.”
I was reminded, via a poem about a martini sent by a friend, of Ogden Nash. I can remember reading his “light verse” in the New Yorker when I was 10 or 12, thinking it was brilliant. He’s pretty much forgotten now, but if you think of him in context, only one generation older than Pound and Eliot, and remember the straight jacket most poets were struggling to get out of, the weight of his lightness is more impressive. Here are two short samples:
A Word to Husbands
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up. Continue reading “Monday miscellany”