The Best American Poetry

Oh, Let's Call the Whole Thing Off!

Happy birthday, Robert Morse (alias Finch, alias Bert Cooper)

 

Shelley's "Ozymandias" on "Mad Men"

The surprising thing about the line from Shelley's sonnet quoted on tonight's episode ("Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!") is not that Mr. Ginsberg knows the poem but that art director Stan, the unremitting  philistine, should also know it -- and know it well enough to point out, to Ginsberg and bystander Peggy, that the "rest of the poem" rebukes that hubristic utterance. The line joyously mouthed by the young copy-writer is from the monument Ozymandias, "king of kings," built to his vanity. But the great Oz was not an ominipotent ruler for long. Time has ravaged the statue: "Round the decay, / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, / The lone and level sands stretch far away." -- DL

Mad Men Last Night: Dreams Deferred, Dashed, or Done [by Connie Aitcheson]

         I could almost see the words of Langston Hughes scrolling across the bottom of the television screen: “What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun? Or fester like a sore, And then run?. . . . Maybe it just sags like a heavy load or does it explode?”

               In last night’s episode Megan decides that she isn’t going to dry up or fester. Rather she will cut her losses and pursue her childhood dream of being an actress. Although she’s doing well at work, the ad business is not for her. After a failed audition, she reveals her desires and distress to Don: “I can’t explain it, but I felt better failing at that audition than I did when I was succeeding at Heinz.” But Megan is still young enough to have "chaos, fun, and adolescent joy," the qualities a client feels are needed in a piece of music to accompany an ad. Megan’s not thinking of financial security. She’s grateful she has that in Don so she can afford to dream of being an actress. Whereas Don’s days of leaping before looking are over -- as we see when an elevator door opens but there is no elevator, just a long vacant chute to nowhere. If he had walked into the elevator shaft he’d have fallen to his death. Don wants familial security and routine. He may not want Megan barefoot and cooking in the kitchen all the time, but he wants to know she’s close by, either at work or home. 

               But Peter is a heavy load that’s about to explode. Or about to go from the minor explosions he has each episode into a volcanic eruption. He has a fling with Beth, the wife of a train buddy, Harold, who sells insurance. Within twenty minutes of meeting each other they’re on the floor of her home. While Peter knows Beth is trying to soothe her pain of knowing her husband is unfaithful, he gives into the reckless moment. But he doesn’t fantasize about the affair or treasure the memory as Beth suggests. Instead, he pursues Beth -- on the phone and, when that doesn't lead anywhere, in person, at her home with her husband in another room. Eventually we see him as the jilted lover waiting for Beth in a hotel room forlorn, with a bottle of champagne and two glasses. He throws a glass at the wall, defeated.

               Of all the scenes in the episode I audibly laughed when Peggy gave it back to Don at the botched pitch for whip cream, “You’re not mad at me, so shut up.” They’re so perfect for each other, yet I would never want to see them together.  Only Peggy can sass Don and leave him unoffended. When he calls her searching for Megan, she switches the roles and asks him if he knew where her boyfriend was, as in ‘Man, I am not your wife’s keeper.’ Anyway Joan tells us earlier of the type of women Don marries, and that type is not Peggy.  That type is a long willowy model -- like Betty Draper.

               Dreams for Don are not ethereal and visionary, but concrete steps taken to achieve a goal. He and Roger share a generational moment when they say their career choices weren’t lofty ideals but what they were told to do or what were the avaiable jobs. By the time Megan puts on The Beatles “Tomorrow Never Knows” (from Revolver), Don can’t really appreciate it for its motivational lore but its literal suggestion.  He’s too busy thinking of Megan and this new deveopment in their marriage.  So the best way he knows to “lay down all thoughts, surrender to the void,” is to go to bed. He may well find some answers tomorrow. -- Connie Aitcheson

Mad Men: the Limits of Liberation [by Connie Aitcheson]

It seemed to be a night of liberation for the women of Mad Men: Peggy defying expectations and moving in with Abe, Megan bursting with new ideas and even little Sally coming out as a beautiful adolescent, trying to leave the age of innocence, while the big girls also supported and encouraged each other. But then the generations spoke; wisdom, doubt, envy, and truth all echoed to each other -- crashing and crushing the hopes and dreams built up in the women’s fantasies.  

Peggy’s uncertainly about her relationship with Abe made her think his request for an urgent dinner must mean he wanted break up with her.  With Joan’s encouragement she changes her thinking and believes the dinner might be for a marriage proposal.  But Abe doesn’t propose marriage, instead he wants them to live together and Peggy has to readjusts her thinking. When all the talk of cohabitation is finished, Abe asks Peggy if she still wants to eat dinner and she says, “I do.” The sadness on her face implies that this might be the only time she gets to say those words. It Is as though her heart caught up with her mind and she calculated all the pros and cons of living together or not being with Abe: is she settling, how does she maneuver sex-and-the-single-girl territory, does she demand marriage or go with what’s right for the moment? As strong and independent as she is, as determined to move in with him, it was painful to watch her have to struggle with the choice, then to have to listen to her mother’s words, “you are selling yourself short. This boy he will use you for practice till he decides to get married and have a family.”

The Mad world is a constant struggle between reality and illusion. Megan and Don recovered remarkably well from last week. Still blissfully in love but wanting to prove herself, Megan comes up with the winning idea to seal the Heinz deal.  Although everyone at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce knows the idea is Megan’s, she downplays her role in coming up with it so that Raymond from Heinz gives Don the contract.  Peggy congratulates Megan and she is seemingly on her way to realizing herself as a successful career woman.  But Megan’s parents are staying with her and Don, and their unhappiness filters into her life.

Her father, Emile, a leftist intellectual, is struggling with his own professional failure as his latest idea for a book didn’t go too well with the publishers, and his wife, Marie, is unhappy and unloved. Let me digress for a second. It is a little jarring watching sweet, innocent Ormond from Sabrina get typecast as the mother of adult women.  She was fantastic in Temple Grandin, but I’m not sure if I want to see her as a mother much more. Maybe just wife or mistress, business woman, politician or Navy pilot, anything else.  It takes deliberately awful makeup, with the eyeliner on her top lid so unfashionably out of skew and shadows under her eyes, to make Ormand look old enough to play Megan’s mother.  With her hair down she could be playing Megan.

Anyway, leave it to the fathers to see in their daughters what they don’t see in their wives; Don telling Sally to take off her boots and makeup, protecting her virtues -- this after he deserted Megan last week.  And Megan’s father giving her a backhanded compliment and beat down, “I’ve always thought you were single-minded about your dreams….but now I see that you skipped the struggle and went right to the end….I hate that you gave up.  Don’t let your love for this man stop you from doing what you wanted to do.” Yet at the same time he’s telling his daughter this, his wife's head is positioned between Roger’s legs in a dark room. What dreams did she have or skip; how did her marriage make her stop living her life?

In the end all are sadder and maybe a little wiser, but none as honest as Sally.  When she sees the exchange between Marie and Roger she is forever changed. Asked by her telephone buddy how the city is, she has the last word of the night. “Dirty.”  

-- Connie Aitcheson

"Mad Men": The 4/20 Edition [by David Lehman]

Think of tonight's episode,the best of the 5th season so far, as the Four Twenty Edition of Mad Men with a bummed out Peggy playing hooky smoking a joint with some horny stranger in a dark movie theater watching "Born Free" (I think that's what it was). . . Roger Sterling goes on an acid trip with his wife, Jane, who, it turns out, speaks Yiddish when she is high (Roger thinks it's German). No sooner has Roger announced that LSD ("your product, Mr Leary") is "boring" than he opens a vodka bottle and hears mighty Russian chorale music. You can hear it every time the bottle is uncapped -- and as long as the bottle remains uncapped. The cigarette in Roger's mouth shrinks. In the mirror he sees himself with half his hair gray, the other half black, as in a magazine ad and Don Draper appears over his shoulder and tells him everything will turn out okay now go back to your wife and he does and she says things like "How can a few numbers contain all of time?" In the cab Bert Cooper's face appears on the five-dollar bill.  And her epiphany is that he doesn't like her. And his epiphany is that it's going to be easier to get out of this marriage than he thought. "It'll be expensive," she tells him, but he doesn't care, he's free, it's gonna be a great day. . .And Ginsberg, who needs no drugs to establish his extraterrestrial bona fides, finds a witty way to tell Peggy he was born in a concentration camp. And Peggy is smoking more and drinking more Canadian Club and she resembles no one more than Don when she tells off the guy from Heinz who rejects her "Home is where the Heinz is" campaign, though it's, well, awesome ("the fire is primal. . .and it's the beans that brought them together on the cold night at the end of the summer") and she gets taken off the account and that is why she is bummed out enough to go to the movies and get high and fall asleep in Don's office and later she gets a weird brusque phone call from Don, "Did you get any calls? Has anyone called you?" which makes no sense until we go over the same stretch of time from the point of view of Mr Draper himself, who is driving to a HoJo Motor Lodge with Megan (in beautiful orange-striped sweater that goes perfectly with the decor) where they have a blowout fight which ends when he loses his temper and bolts. "Don't you dare pull away. I'm talking to you," she says helplessly as he pulls out and drives off without her. Cooling off, he goes back and looks everywhere for her including the ladies' room. (She took the bus back, furious.) No pot, no acid, but a sleepless Don smoking cigarettes in a period sedan and having odd flashbacks to composite car trips is enough of a high to end on. A brilliant episode. 1966! -- DL

"Mad Men" Update: The Hebrew Blessing [by David Lehman]

Ben Feldman as Michael Ginsberg

On Mad Men last evening, the new Jewish copywriter comes home, bringing groceries (like farmer's cheese, oy vay), and there's his Papa, tall, with a thick accent, a refugee from the old country, probably a widower, possibly a man with tattooed numbers on his arm, and what does the old man do? He blesses the boy with the traditional blesssing a father gives his son, hands on head. The blessing is in the book of Numbers, chapter six, verses 24-26. In the King James Version:

"The Lord bless thee, and keep thee:
"The Lord make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee.
"The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace."

In Hebrew: Yesimcha Elohim k'Ephraim u'Menasheh.

Yevarechecha Adonai veyishmerecha.

Ya’er Adonai panav elecha veyichunecha.
Yisa Adonai panav elecha veyasem lecha shalom. -- DL

The Dogs are Howling, Allen (by Laura Orem)

An Italian greyhound being "stacked" prior to a going-over by the judge.

The 136rd Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is going on right now at Madison Square Garden. Purebred dogs of all shapes and sizes compete to be judged "Best in Show" and have their names engraved on the big trophy. It may seem confusing - how do you compare a chihuahua and a Great Dane? - but the dogs aren't really judged against each other. They are measured by their breed standard, compiled by the breed's parent club, which describes the ideal specimen of that dog.   The closer a particular dog gets to perfection, the higher the chance of being chosen "Best in Show."  But there are also those indefinable characteristics of personality and sparkle, that make the judging so exciting. It isn't always about the numbers.

2011 Best in Show Winner: Scottish Deerhound Grand Champion Foxcliffe Hickory Wind. (Hickory to you and me.)

The annual WKC show also introduces new breeds to the American audience. Of course, most of these breeds aren't "new" at all; in fact, many have been around for thousands of years, but they may be unfamiliar here. To be a recognized breed in the US, the parent breed club must make an application to the American Kennel Club, proving a sustainable US population with responsible breeding practices. There are six new breeds this year: the American English Coonhound, the Cesky Terrier, the Entelbucher Mountain Dog, the Finnish Lapphund, the Norwegian Lundehund, and - take a deep breath before attempting to pronounce this one - the Xoloitzcuintli (left). The "Show-Lo," as its called for short, can be traced back to the ancient Aztecs and is the national dog of Mexico. You may know it as the "Mexican hairless." 

All dogs begin in their breed competition. The winners of each breed go on to their group competition. Groups are made up of breeds with similar purposes or jobs. The AKC recognizes seven: the Terriers (self-explanatory), the Herding Group (German shepherds, border collies, corgis, etc.), the Working Group (mastiffs, Rottweilers, etc.), the Hounds (everything from dachshunds to Irish wolfhounds); the Sporting Group (setters, spaniels, and retrievers); the Toy Group (little guys bred solely for companionship); and the Non-Sporting Group (everyone else who doesn't fit into any of the other groups). The winners of each group go on to the Best in Show competition; the winner here is literally the top dog.

Toy poodles being judged in their breed competition.

One of the fun parts of watching the WKC show is hearing the dogs' registry names. Like the names of racehorses, these names reflect the ancestry of a particular dog. At Westminster, they are proceeded by the word "Champion;" to be a Champion, a dog must have earned at least 15 points (depending on placement) at AKC sanctioned dog shows. Only dogs with this distinction can be entered at the WKC show.  But all of these dogs are also family pets. It's kind of impossible to holler, "Come back here, Champion Oreo Cookie of Royal Nabisco," so of course, all the dogs have "call names." Sometimes they are diminuitives of their registry names (like Cookie or Biscuit for above); sometimes not (like Sport or Butch). For example, growing up I had a registered German shepherd. His registry name was "Conrad Von Dornberg." We called him Atlas.

The registry names can be pretty pretentious. With this in mind, Slate has posted a little quiz. Can you identify which of these is the real name of a WKC group winner and which is a real line from Allen Ginsberg's Howl? I got 15 out of 15 (I teach Howl regularly, so I had an advantage). No cheating - and let me know how you did. Make your puppy proud.

Ginsberg or Canine?

Tune into the USA channel tonight at 8pm to watch the last three group competitions and root for Best in Show.

Nothing else would matter in the world today . . .

I first heard this song two weeks ago while watching a certain period drama series and now I can't get it out of my head. Here's a clip of the same song being sung in the 1944 British film Immortal Battalion. Isn't it terrific? -- sdh

Will the Real Poet Please Stand Up?

Will the Real Poet Please Stand Up?

[by Caroline Malone]

My first impression of a poet came from listening to my mother and her friends talk about their attempts at being hipsters in high school. Apparently, my mother was not aware that the dark sunglasses, black turtleneck sweaters, berets and bongoes came straight from Madison Avenue and Hollywood. In fact, the 1958 B-movie High School Confidential seemed to be a major reference point for the youth of Oak Ridge High School. In the movie, Phillipa Fallon plays a beat poetess who performs at The Drag, a teen hangout. As Poetess recites her verse, a band interjects snatches of ragtime.

"My old man was a bread stasher all his life.
He never got fat. He wound up with a used car,
a 17 inch screen and arthritis.
Tomorrow is a drag, man.
Tomorrow is a king sized bust.
They cried ‘put down pot,’ ‘don’t think a lot,’ for what?
Time, how much? And what to do with it.
Sleep, man, and you might wake up digging the whole
human race giving itself three days to get out.
Tomorrow is a drag, pops, the future is a flake.
I had a canary who couldn’t sing.
I had a cat who let me share my pad with her.
I bought a dog that killed the cat who ate the canary.
What is truth?"

Since I was not able to see High School Confidential until my early thirties, the image of the poet influenced me via my mother's interpretation: What she found pertinent became my experience. But now I giggle when I read the poem from the film and wonder how many teenagers took it to heart.

The stereotype of the beat poet was not confined to the big screen. As an adolescent, I constantly watched reruns of the 1960s television show The Munsters. In one episode, Herman Munster improvises a poem for the guests of his beatnik party. With earnest innocence and a nervous smile, Herman speaks:

"Ibbitty bibbitty, sibbity sab,
Ibbitty bibbitty, canal boat.
Dictionary. Down the ferry."

The poem continues with nursery rhyme and novelty song references, and the young, hip guests, dressed in black jumpers and trousers, are delighted. Albeit The Munsters was a comedy, I somehow interpreted the beatnik episode as a truthful portrayal of a poet. Of course, Herman's poem makes no sense in and of itself; the audience of hipsters is responsible for attributing meaning to the words. For them, the poem is a deep commentary on the establishment. For a ten year old, the poem sounded like nonsense but the reception of it by the audience infused the words with a mysterious meaning.

More recently, in Billy Bob Thornton's film Sling Blade (1996), the character Morris writes lyrics for a song that seem to be descended from beatnik genes. In the scene, redneck Morris and his band are drinking when they begin to discuss their future as musicians:

Doyle: Morris here is a modern-day poet, kinda like in olden times.
Morris: Yeah, I got a new tune in composition entitled "The Thrill." And it goes somethin' like this: "I stand on the hill, not for a thrill, but for the breath of a fresh kill. Never mind the man who contemplates doin' away with license plates. He stands alone, anyhow, bakin' the cookies of discontent by the heat of the laundromat vent. Leavin' his soul!" Then like in poetry I go dot-dot-dot, you know, kinda off center, then I drop down and then I go: "Leavin' his soul! And partin' the waters of the medulla oblongata of - -brrrrrr! - -mankind!" That was a damn good song, wasn't it Doyle?

Of course, Thornton intends the men in the band to be laughable, but I wonder how many viewers might find that the image is an accurate portrayal of a poet.

I imagine my preoccupation here is a concern about what other people think about poets, but it could also be that I think posturing is ugly. I'm not sure what a poet is supposed to look or sound like, but I do know that a stylized version of a bard is not what I trust.