This is the voice of Hermoine Gingold

...coming to you on wax in your own home. Isn't civilization ghastly?" That's a line that just popped into my mind as I sit here doodling on the laptop (Thanks, kiddo!) that will accompany me into my new life. The "wax" Hermoine was referring to stretches back to a time earlier than Long-Playing records, for those of you who can even remember LPs. If someone had told me, back in LP days, that one day I would be writing on a machine that sits comfortably on my lap and that would send my words out into a Great Otherwhere for all to read, I would have asked to have a little bit of what they were smoking, please.

What do you suppose Ms. Gingold would have thought about the ability to put her songs, "Cocaine" and "The Borgias Are Having An Orgy," and indeed all of John Murray Anderson's Almanac on a machine along with all of Tchaikovsky's and Beethoven's symphonies, and Mozart's and then some, all of that in a tiny little oblong of plastic about the size of a hat-pin box to listen to whenever one wished, wherever one was? Isn't civilization ghastly?

I think I've thrown out about a hundred things in these two paragraphs that nobody in the world but about three people could possibly understand what the fuck I'm talking about. Beginning with who the Hell is Hermoine Gingold? If you don't know, look her up.

Change of subject: thanks to my son with the uniqe first name, I heard from someone I haven't heard from in years. Google my son's name and he'll be the only one found. Easy to track him down, while I have a name that is as dull and common as dishwater: first name, middle name, and last name. But because she remembered his name after all these years--and even how to spell it!--she was able to track me down. How cool is that? And that can't help but make me think of sychronicity, and what it means that she should contact me at this particular time of my life. My guess is that it is a good omen--about as rare as a coherent sentence from Dubyah--so I'll believe that until Fate proves me wrong.

Visit "The Grey Matter," all ye my Liberal friends. The owner, "The Angry Liberal," is being bombarded with foolish Right-Wing drivel in his comments section. Angry publishes sarcastic, amusing bits of information--which his commentators try to refute with totally off the veranda ripostes. They even bring in Ann (the Harridan) Coulter. It's fun to spar and make them splutter. It's kinda sorta easy, though--their wits are flying at half-staff.

A lightning bug has entered the room and PT has turned into a jungle cat, leaping from stack of boxes to stack of boxes--it would be just his luck to tip over and get crushed under a box of Henry James instead of some lighter reading.

Priorities: save the bug, save the cat, and put us both to bed--the cat and I that is, not the bug. Remember that Friday the 13th falls on a Wednesday in July. Isn't civilization ghastly? Fun, but ghastly. Interesting, but ghastly. Amusing, but ghastly. And whoever said that ghastly is a bad thing, anyway? I'm meandering. And I'm off to bed. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll see you at breakfast. Tell Cook I'll arise around Eleven, if you please? Good night.

Introducing

My traveling companion, P.T. (Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky), otherwise known as Petey. It's a baby picture of course--all the other photos have been packed and sealed. He will not be a silent companion as he has almost an operatic voice (watch your crystal!) and he has no hesitation whatsoever about using it to express whatever it is he feels necessary to express at any given moment. In fact, he should help clear a way through traffic, as other drivers will think a fire truck or police car is closing fast on their license plates--and that's with the sun roof closed. He's smart too. He can tell time. At exactly 6:30am he stands on my chest and screams in my face. It's time to be fed, I believe. He exercises his voice daily, almost hourly, by sitting on the railing of the loft and belting out arias which reverberate over and around the living room below. He's more of a Mick Jagger than a Pavarotti unfortunately. I'm certain to be deaf when I arrive at my destination riding with that voice inside my car.

The moving date has been pushed back. Something about end-of-the-month crunch and the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. Too bad the Republicans won't spend that holy day reading the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Anyway, Delay will be off playing golf at St. Andrews in Scotland probably. Don't get me started. Even though the prorated rent is ridiculous, it's given me a few more days to pack. I. am. so. tired. of. packing.

As I suspected, I fell down the rabbit-hole and proceeded to get lost in Wonderland, the photos, and it took me a full day to pack the box. I've got more pictures of my son than Dubya has lies, so you can perhaps understand how very many pictures I had to go through. I found my Oxford/Cambridge/London and Paris pictures as well, so I had to go back in time to visit those magical days. And of course the Philadelphia pictures ranging from the park behind the Art Museum to the wedding-cake of City Hall and on to the Delaware and all spots in between. Good times, those.

Speaking of Philadelphia and photos, I digress, I was out on the pier at Penn's Landing one morning, and an Asian family was out there as well. They were taking turns photographing each other in front of Philadelphia's skyline. Finally I asked if they wanted me to take a picture of all of them together? They were thrilled and lined up shoulder to shoulder. I took their camera, and then aimed it over their heads and beside them and in a couple of clicks gave them an excellent panorama shot of Philadelphia without them in the picture at all. I mean how many pictures could they take of each other? They knew who they were and what they looked like, and I'm sure they had a number of good pictures of each of them obscuring the Liberty Bell. It just seemed to me that they should have a picture of Philadelphia proper without the view blocked. I'm sure that when they arrived home, they were delighted with my favor when their pictures were developed. I'm always doing thoughtful things like that. I did the same good deed for a lovely family in front of the Louvre in Paris. But I had to stand on the lip of a fountain to go over their heads to get a good, complete shot. No wonder my karma is so healthy.

Speaking of Paris, I digress, I've been watching a lot of French films lately. I know it's unpatriotic to speak highly of the French nowadays, but the intellectual nihilism of their films appeals to me. When I was there, it was wonderful to go to dinner and watch them eat, smoke, drink wine and argue with raised voices and a lot of emphatic gesticulation. The French in their lives and their films never tie up anything neatly in a bow. They tend to leave you with more questions instead of giving you a Cinderella living happily ever after ending and that's the way life is, tra-la. How many Americans do you know who throw Racine, Foucalt, and Voltaire all together into a dinner conversation? Americans don't even know the names of American philosophers, much less French or British or German philosophers. My guess is that a Happy Meal is not conducive for discussing the meaning of life. And, by the way, Parisians are not rude or dismissive to Americans who are polite. Most of them speak English fairly well. But they do tend to get cranky at those Americans who think that by screaming at them in English they'll make the dunderheaded French understand them better. Sacré Bleu!

Back to my first digression, I have four photos of Oscar Wilde's tomb at Père Lachaise--only one of them with Christopher and me in it. And I wouldn't have had that one if a gay German couple, who spoke both English and French hadn't insisted on taking one of us. Oscar Wilde, that rascal, said that When good Americans die they go to Paris. This good American has more packing to do. And I won't be going to Paris, more's the pity.

Packing in the past

Fascinating and wondrous the things you find when packing: the program from a long ago Santa Fe Opera performace of Eugene Onegin; the front page of The New York Times from the morning of September 11, 2001--the early edition, before the attack; the score to Symphony for a Small City, which I commissioned for one of the bicentennial celebrations in Colorado; papers I had written while in College (was I ever really that bright?), tons of letters from friends who are still my friends and their voices lift from every envelope, and also a wonderful stack of poetry by Kathleen Cain. The latter of which I wish I could bring along with me. Those, and the most important memories I have accumulated will have to rest for a while. Those have been wrapped and sealed in plastic before they were boxed. With certain things, extra care and caution must be taken. I'm hoping that the vague unsettling notion lurking at the back of mind--that I'll never see these treasures again--is simply the uncertainty that is haunting my future as I pack, look forward, and look back.

I've shed a lot of flotsam--but nothing, nothing, from family and friends. I've drawings and letters from the childhood of my son, for instance, that could never be thrown away. These things, these gifts, from my son and my friends sing to me. They are, after all, those things that give harmony to my life. And then there are those things which are touchstones for certain times in my past--letters from the famous, my airline tickets to Paris, cards from when my sister was in Thailand--can be physically packed and stored, but they are always with me because they are my life.

The music to go and the music to store has been sorted out--unbelievably difficult task--and I hope I can make my way through the photographs without getting lost down too many memorable pathways. Yeah. That'll happen. When our porcine pals are lined up to lift off Runway Twelve.

The above-fold headlines from The New York Times the hours before the world changed: Nuclear Booty: More Smugglers Use Asia Route; In a Nation of Early Risers, Morning TV Is a Hot Market; Violence in Mideast Despite Plans to Talk; Scientists Urge Bigger Supply Of Stem Cells; Key Leaders Talk of Possible Deals To Reduce Taxes.

And the world spun on.

Where's the outrage?

I'm exhausted. I was up until 2:00am playing with my Father's Day present--and loving every single minute of it. That means I'm going to be lazy today as far as this place goes. You've heard some of it before (Do I repeat myself? Very well then, I repeat myself), but I'm going to go ahead and post a letter I recently sent Tim Page, music editor at The Washington Post (nice guy--he likes Orff too):

Dear Tim ~

I’m your friend who also likes Orff--you may remember me? In any case, I read your article this morning on “PBS's Classical Conversations.” I’ll be watching.

I lost your e-mail address as I am getting ready to move out of this goddess-forsaken place (not city), and my surroundings look like the Great God of Chaos spit-up in here. Anyway, your article reminded me of something that genuinely more than annoys the Hell out of me about D.C.: the “Classical” radio station. I can’t remember the call letters as I stopped listening to it years ago and only tune in on occasion (I usually listen to the Baltimore station--better music, and a British woman DJ with a voice like buttah). Shortly after I arrived here I would listen to the D.C. station in my car during the dreadful commute into the city. I mean, really, how much Johann Christian Bach (of all composers!) can one listen to? So I innocently e-mailed the program director about where was the Shostakovich, the Adams, the Hanson, the Prokofiev, the Stravinsky, the Rorem, the Russo, the Gottschalk, as well as the Orff--and where the Hell was Copland? And why couldn’t we hear a full symphony or concerto?

I was unfamiliar with how D.C. works then. I didn’t realize that no one takes a poop here without favorable polls. The program director wrote back snippily telling me, “We only play what our listeners want to hear. Our polls tell us that this is what they want to hear.” Give me a break. That station doesn’t love Classical Music--they whore it out. After that I had a six-CD player installed in my car. I mean a taste of Petrushka is going to drive the listeners away?

I’ve always been accustomed to stations that were devoted to a rich variety of classical music--giving listeners a rich variety of experiences. Tastes range, you know. Someday I hope you’ll take them to task over their narrow-minded approach to music, and shame them into crawling out of their own minds (and polls!).

I’m so glad I’m moving. D.C. has cost me a lot of money in CD’s. That’s my rant for today. Keep up your terrific work. Chip away at the musical deedle-deedle darkness that pervades this place. I’ll be far away, but rooting for you. As always, my warmest

Best wishes,

Where's the editor?

This is an amended version of yesterday's dire post. I went too far without explaining where I was going--or where I was coming from. The Chesire Cat often gives baleful instructions.

"Don't ever let yourself think that things can't get worse. If they can, they will. As sure as the sun will set tonight and rise tomorrow, things will get worse. The Golden Goddesses have compassion, but we've stripped them of all their powers. I thank them for their love, and apologize to them that most of us have let the memory of them fade, depriving them of their ability to intervene in the lives of mortals.

"As of the end of the first week in July, I will be officially homeless. I never thought it would really come to this. It's in a way fascinating to watch the turn of Fortune's Wheel. In the past few months, the wheel has continued to slowly spin lower and lower. My life now is like that long instance of clarity you perceive when you realize an accident is inevitable and you are powerless to stop it. The stars I am sailing under are cold and indifferent. They are like winter breath, a long white sigh across the black and empty sky."

Purple? Well, yes. Sometimes purple is a perfectly respectable color however, and often used for affect. Though sometimes, it is merely affected. I clumsily nuanced, or rather did not nuance a few sentences in the original post. A failing for which I was rightly taken to task. I do like the images and the way it flows (true or not, it doesn't matter) therefore I'm keeping most of it intact. So, after all those wine-dark words, a clear glass of cold water is in order, to wit:

"Robert Frost in 'The Death of the Hired Man' said, Home is the place where, when you have to go there, / They have to take you in." Dear Frost obviously never had to go looking for a home with a cat under his arm.

I hope that clarifies things. [Some damned poster out there trying to keep me honest. But, you know what? I love him for it.]

I would add an additional post this evening--but I received a great gift for an early Father's Day present and I think I'll go gleefully off to play instead. I'm going to try and download We Are Family, by Sister Sledge.

Twenty-eight. No, oops, make that twenty-nine.

My age. I wish. If I were twenty-eight or twenty-nine then my knees wouldn't be sore, or my back, or my neck, or my elbows. I look like I've been thrown through a windshield. No, no accident, just packing. I've got a gash on my nose and have no idea how it got there. When I finished packing yesterday I looked in the mirror before I took my shower and there it was, a big gash on the bridge of my nose. I don't remember banging my nose, but I obviously did. My arms are all scratched, and my right knee feels like I smashed it repeatedly against a concrete wall. Actually the only thing that doesn't hurt is my beard. And if I were 28 or 29 I probably would have found a job by now. But let's not dwell.

I was so pleased yesterday to have finally finished packing the books. Then came time to tackle the loft's closet, which I use for storage. Flinging open the doors, guess what I found? More books. *Sigh* To the 28 cartons already packed I had to add one more. And of course that fragmented the library because I found a Poe book, a Weldon book, a Henry James book, and one other that I can't remember, but belonged as the others did in other boxes where the authors were grouped together. After packing that one I just wrote on the carton: "Fragmented. Open first." With all the stuff that's been thrown out, it proves my grandma's maxim that "three moves are equal to one fire."

To resume my archaelogy this morning I fished out a t-shirt that had "First Cat" written on it with a drawing of Socks wearing socks. Whatever happened to Socks? It was nice to have a cat in the White House for a change. A cat may look at a king, said Alice. I've read that in some book, but I don't remember where. Neither can I, probably in Alice in Wonderland, but at least the nine lives of Socks had his fifteen minutes of fame.

People think, I think, that "bling" is a recent invention. Those who think that obviously didn't live through the 70's. Before there was rap there was disco. Before "bling" there was "glitz." This may seem at first glance a non sequiter, but it relates to my archaelogy. In digging through my layers of crapola I found two remnants of that magic age. A big chain-link silver bracelet that either belonged to someone else from that era, or was given to me. Who remembers? Too much dope and poppers has had its way with my memory. I put it on after removing the tarnish. My working out since then has made it a little snug, but it actually sits fairly comfortably between my hand and my wrist bone. I also found a stretchable thin silver metal belt which I wore with tight black pants and a black turtle-neck. I had hair then, too. We blinged on the dance-floor in a way that rivaled the blink-flashing of the mirrored balls that flash-spun and dervished overhead at The Broadway and we drank and sniffed into sweaty pools of timeless delight and oblivion. You had to be there. We Are Family. More, More, More. Boogie Oogie Oogie. You had to be there. Bling.

Someday I'll tell you about Studio 54. And the difference between VIP and VFIP. And Liza Minelli. And Patti Lupone. And Cher. And white parties. And Nureyev. And Peter Allen. And Joan Jett. And black and mirrored co-ed bathrooms. And the Rubber Room. And other debauchery. Actually I had better not tell you about Peter Allen and Nureyev. You wouldn't believe me anyway. I had an in through the alley, thank all the Golden Goddesses. I wouldn't have made it past the front doormen.

If I didn't LOATHE AND DEPISE Andrew Lloyd Webber SO VERY MUCH, now would be a good time to break out and sing a few bars of Memory.

Back to the dig. Maybe I'll discover a mummy. Friday the 13th falls on a Monday this month.

Good Question

This has been a bad morning. I was up by 6:30, but just couldn't pull myself together enough to get anything done. At 11:00, I did manage to force myself to go work out. Glad I did--that was a hour of listening to Tchaikovsky that I might not have had otherwise. The last of my loft/study books are packed. Ten cartons--clearing out five bookcases. I hate not being able to get to the poetry books. Which reminds me--as I'm not pretty when I go through withdrawal--two more books have joined the others going with me. Don't do the math, you'll institutionalize me. I'm taking The Library of America 2-volume set, American Poetry: The Twentieth Century. There are five bookcases yet in the living room to pack. *Sigh*

Do I know completely where I'm going yet? No. The first stop is Philadelphia where I'll get rid of some baggage I should have left long ago. From there, I vaguely have an idea that P.T. and I may go to Colorado for a while and take turns licking our respective wounds at my brother's house. If my sister-in-law will take both of us. The next few weeks are going to be Hell with all the good parts left out. "Ignominius" is an interesting word I think. Has a latin flavor. And some gravitas. More latin flavor. Though I'm much more fond of Greek.

Enough walking through the garden of shadows and evil. Except perhaps to mention that late last night I finally posted John Heath-Stubbs' brilliant poem, "Mozart and Salieri." I'd make a link to direct you to the link, but I haven't figured out how to do that yet. You'll have to go through the trouble of swinging over to my sidebar links to get to it. My son will have to walk his doddering old Dad through the in-text link procedure. You think it's easy being a Diplodocus?

Anyway, it's a terrific poem. Even better when you hear him read it. Alas and unfortunately, the poem or any of the Heath-Stubbs' volumes are not available in the U.S. Of course. Don't get me started. He would be 87 this year I think. I don't know if he's still around. I couldn't find any notice of his death last time I looked. In any case, I don't care if I'm violating copyright. I don't think Carcenet or Heath-Stubbs himself would really mind it being available. Besides, they'd have to find me first and I don't even know where I'll be. Back when Denver had a classical music station, don't get me started, they would play the recording of him reading it on Mozart's birthday. He had this wonderful, plummy British accent. On the recording he prefaces it with, The story that Salieri poisoned Mozart is probably not true. But it's a delicious premise, and in 18 stanzas does a better job of capturing the rivalry between the two, and the aftermath, than Amadeus did.

I'm putting off another task that will be painful: deciding which CD's to take, and which to store. And I can't take any of my (nine!) Kandinsky posters with me either, nor my mother's paintings. My eyes will starve. Sorry. I'm having a difficult time finding my way out of the garden.

Let's see

Now let's see who gets bored first, you or me. The moving "To-Do" list is having items crossed off one by one. Which is a good thing. Or it would be if things would stop popping up on the bottom of the list just as damned fast as the ones at the top get crossed off.

Jessie to the vet, check; P.T.'s asthma prescripiton renewed, check (of course all I needed at this point was to discover he had asthma. Geez. Checkmate); half the boxes of the moving boxes have arrived by a very cranky FedEx man who had to climb three stories, half-check; the six cartons of winnowed-out books have found a home, painful check; most of the unnecessary files have been shredded, mostly check; extra computer speakers sent to my son, check; extra flat screen sent to my father, check; and the second car was oil-changed and checked, check. Okay, I'm bored.

Poetry volumes alphabetic by author have been packed. Of course once I sealed up box one, A-G1, I found my copy of Chaucer's Troilus and Cressyde. Of course. So that Chaucer is separated from its kin in box two, G2-M. The third box almost got the rest, but I had to cut off mid-W, as I couldn't get the remaining twelve (From Rebecca Wee to Paul Zimmer) into box three even with vaseline and a shoe-horn.

The list of books to take is growing though. I'm trying to hold it down, but some of them have pitched a fit when they saw they were about to be boxed. So Duetsch's Poetry Handbook snuck in there along with the Sixteenth Edition of Bartlett's Familiar Quotations. At least I don't have to haul along my hernia-inducing copy of Webster's Unabridged Dictionary. With my Microsoft Bookshelf 2000 disk, I'll have all the dictionary/thesaurus/encyclopedia I need. I hate Bill Gates. But I'll give him a two-second forgiveness for the Bookshelf. Then I'll rescind it because they don't make it anymore. To be safe, I'm having a stainless steel jewel case made for it.

I couldn't justify keeping my John Heath-Stubbs volume out. But neither can I go anywhere without his "Mozart and Salieri." It wouldn't be civilized. So I copied it and later tonight I'm going to post another blog (Cripes. Can't we come up with another word?) just as I did with Plutarch's "Peace of Mind," and Auden's "As I Walked Out One Evening."

AND IN OTHER NEWS TODAY:

Pope Ratzo in his ineffable infallibility announced that "Pseudo-matrimonies between people of the same sex are instead expressions of anarchic freedom which falsely tries to pass itself off as the true liberation of man," Notice "man" by the way, instead of "humankind." There's no such thing as a "woman" in his O-So-German weltanschauungen. "Get the Hell out of here Mary Magdalene. I don't care if you were the first one to recognize Christ after the Resurrection. Bitch! " That follows on the heels of "Moral Evil" and "Intrinsically Disordered" of course. That's gotta make young gay and lesbian Catholics just feel all warm and welcome and fuzzy inside. Let's go count the suicides.

Sometimes I Wonder.

Not that it means anything

It's Saturday. Not that that means anything to me. It could be a Tuesday for all I care. For all my worries, it has been nice to have burdens taken off my days. No this meeting today, no this dead-line to meet tomorrow, to make ready for something in the near future--or farther. In a way it makes up for all the vacations I've never taken over the years. So, Happy SMTWThFSat! Enjoy!

I keep talking about packing books. That's because it's taking me a long time. Not the packing itself. That's a breeze. I've at least learned to do that task fairly well in my past 34 years in the book business. Probably the best way to explain it, bowing to the modern age, is that my library has become fragmented, and defragging takes a long time. I had no idea (well, a clue), that this Muriel Spark is over there, and this one is here, and there's another over there somewhere. And then I get amazed at my accumulation. The winnowing has had a silver lining in that it has helped to boil my true self down to its essence(s). My Tchaikovsky books and scores filled one large box--I didn't think to count them, I should have. My Emily D. books are packed--again, I didn't count them. Should have. Those two are obvious accumulations. But then I have been discovering I'm very rich in many authors and subjects, not just the aforementioned Muriel. I have dozens of Auden books; dozens of books on King Arthur; dozens of books on T.S. Eliot (we'll discuss him another time, I've changed); dozens of Anne Tyler; dozens of Fay Weldon; a goodly stack of Gide, much more than I thought of Poe (strange.), another interesting stack of Joyce Carol Oates; among others. I was also amazed at how much Maugham and Gore Vidal I have. No need to turn this into a poetic catalog. You can see what I mean.

I have 16 books on Alexander the Great (he doesn't get packed for personal reasons), and two others at this point; those will go with me. The additional two are The Selected Poetry of W. H. Auden, and The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. I hope I can keep it down to these eighteen. Emily's complete in one book, but there are three large volumes of Auden's poems, so I opted for the Selected instead. Things are almost sorted.

I did run across a paperback of Plutarch's Essays. I have no doubt that this translation by Robin Waterfield, which I have read, is probably the better one, it's more readable and complete. But as I generally just go to my favorite essay, "On Peace of Mind," and I like the intricate smoky-pipe flavor of the Loomis, and as I have posted the latter (see my Links), both translations get packed.

Now do you understand why it's taking me so long?

And a little sad.

The acquisitions librarian at Montgomery College couldn't have been nicer. She seemed to be very glad to get my books. I had to play Chinese Puzzle to get all the boxes into the car, but my car looked cool once I did. It was about two inches from the pavement. Before I loaded them, I took a felt marker and wrote on the top of one of them, "Goodbye, my friends. You're safe now." Over the top sentimental, I know. I loaded them onto the cart for her, and then gave her a hug. I'm sure she thought I was insane, but she hugged back. I told her to take very good care of them and she promised. I suppose it's stupid, but once I left and got into the car, I had to wait a few minutes until my eyes stopped watering. I know that I would never get around to reading them again, but it was always a pleasure just knowing they were there. Books don't just a find a place in your mind, they find a place in your heart. And if you don't understand that, you probably shouldn't be here.

Happy days! Happy days!

At last! I've finally found someone to take in the six cartons of books I'm not keeping. Montgomery College Library has graciously consented to take them in. Now they'll have a good home and taken care of properly. Praise be to all the golden goddesses!

Self-centered drivel

That's what most blogs are, except "The Sophist" and the others listed on my Links and the links listed on "The Sophist." In fact this one proves my point. More than proves my point. Dribbling drivel and I'm in the driver's seat. Here's a napkin, and we'll move on from here.

I've got a list of things as long as my whatever that I should be getting to this morning (suffice it to say it's a very long list), including shredding literally file cabinets of papers that I've hauled around with me for one reason or another. Shredding for two reasons: to prevent identity theft; and the bonus reason, the stuff will make good packing material. How clever of me. Again, I'm procrastinating. After a big brouhaha about the books I'm keeping--and I am keeping them--it's shred and pack time. And order (more) boxes time, and take one of the cars in for it's 1000 mile check-up time, and find movers I can trust time, once I find a storage space time. See? Drivel.

Instead, I'll share a story. This morning I was out on the landing and one of my neighbors came out wearing a t-shirt that had the Seven Deadly Sins listed on the front, with "Sloth" crossed out. It reminded me of one of my extremely lovable and eccentric professors. One morning as we arrived in class--Shakespeare's Comedies--he had written the Seven Deadly Sins on the blackboard. He was always heading off on one tangent or another.

And I'll head off on this tangent a moment to give you another example of his you-are-in-this-world, but-I-am-over-here-in this-world presence: This morning we were going to discuss The Two Gentlemen of Verona, but instead I'm going to read parts of The Misanthrope by Moliere. I was just reading it this morning. And he went on to read it aloud and dramatically. In French. None of us knew French.

Back to my story: He had the Seven Deadly Sins on the blackboard. For those of you who can't remember them they are: Greed, Gluttony, Envy, Sloth, Pride, Lust, and Wrath. How many of you know what these are? He waved his hand at the blackboard. We sat there like lumps, because we never knew where he might be headed. These are the Seven Deadly Sins. He then turned around and wrote another word on the board. How many of you know what this is? Again, lumpish silence. This is the eighth deadly sin. Without it, the other ones can't function. "Respectability." Avoid it at all costs.