#tawdry

“Carroll Baker is the powder! George Maharis is the fuse! SYLVIA is the blast!”

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up   and I am waiting for a rebirth of wonder and I am waiting for someone to really discover America and wail and I am waiting   for the discovery of a new symbolic western frontier   and I am waiting   for the American Eagle to really spread its wings and straighten up and fly right and I am waiting for the Age of Anxiety to drop dead and I am waiting for the war to be fought which will make the world safe for anarchy and I am waiting for the final withering away of all governments and I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Second Coming   and I am waiting for a religious revival to sweep thru the state of Arizona   and I am waiting for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored   and I am waiting for them to prove that God is really American and I am waiting to see God on television piped onto church altars if only they can find   the right channel   to tune in on and I am waiting for the Last Supper to be served again with a strange new appetizer and I am perpetually awaiting a rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for my number to be called and I am waiting for the Salvation Army to take over and I am waiting for the meek to be blessed and inherit the earth   without taxes and I am waiting for forests and animals to reclaim the earth as theirs and I am waiting for a way to be devised to destroy all nationalisms without killing anybody and I am waiting for linnets and planets to fall like rain and I am waiting for lovers and weepers to lie down together again in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the Great Divide to be crossed   and I am anxiously waiting for the secret of eternal life to be discovered   by an obscure general practitioner and I am waiting for the storms of life to be over and I am waiting to set sail for happiness and I am waiting for a reconstructed Mayflower to reach America with its picture story and tv rights sold in advance to the natives and I am waiting for the lost music to sound again in the Lost Continent in a new rebirth of wonder

I am waiting for the day that maketh all things clear and I am awaiting retribution for what America did   to Tom Sawyer   and I am waiting for Alice in Wonderland to retransmit to me her total dream of innocence and I am waiting for Childe Roland to come to the final darkest tower and I am waiting   for Aphrodite to grow live arms at a final disarmament conference in a new rebirth of wonder

My brother,

Tawdry,

I try not to think about you anymore. Everyone tells me they're sorry for my loss, they treat me like I'll break whenever someone says your name. I hate it.

I miss you, immeasurably so, but I'm the one who made the choice to let you die.

You don't believe I made the right decision, but I'm not sorry. I did what I thought would be best at the time. Never the right thing with me.

Sometimes I think if I just don't think about it, I might be able to defend myself next time your spirit returns to me. If I stop loving you, you can't hurt me...

It's harder lying to myself than it is other people.

0205 Dancin’ Homer

Requiescat in pace, Æthelthryth.  An East Anglian princess, Northumbrian and Fenland queen, first Abbess of Ely, and now a saint venerated in the Roman Catholic, Anglican, and Eastern Orthodox churches, she is said to have founded a double monastery at Ely in 673 (which building was later destroyed during the Danish Invasion in 870), the present construction (built in 1083) of which is highlighted in the above stamps.  For this stamp enthusiast’s fellow lexicographer friends, in the Common Tongue Æthelthryth was known as St. Audrey, which gave us the word tawdry--Æthelthryth’s followers were known for the lace goods they would purchase: St. Audrey lace = tawdry lace = tawdry, for by the 17th Century, the lacework was seen as old-fashioned and/or of cheap quality.  Ouch.  Æthelthryth died on this date in 679, probably in her early 40s.