{"id":11085,"date":"2012-06-08T10:31:25","date_gmt":"2012-06-08T14:31:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=11085"},"modified":"2012-06-08T10:31:25","modified_gmt":"2012-06-08T14:31:25","slug":"choose-your-armor-carefully","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/choose-your-armor-carefully\/","title":{"rendered":"Choose Your Armor Carefully"},"content":{"rendered":"

[Note: an abbreviated <\/em>whiskey river Fridays<\/a> post today, since I’m out of town. Normal blogcasting (whatever “normal” means) will resume tomorrow. This includes tracking down primary sources for the quotations, per my usual practice on Fridays.]<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

[Image: Urban Security Suit, designed by Tim Smit of Nieuwe Heren. For more information,
\nsee the note at the foot of this post.]\n

<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n

No one lives his life.<\/p>\n

Disguised since childhood,
\nhaphazardly assembled
\nfrom voices and fears and little pleasures,<\/p>\n

We come of age as masks.
\nOur true face never speaks.<\/p>\n

Somewhere there must be storehouses
\nwhere all these lives are laid away
\nlike suits of armor or old carriages
\nor clothes hanging limply on the walls.<\/p>\n

Maybe all paths lead there,
\nto the repository of unlived things.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Rainer Maria Rilke, Rilke’s Book of Hours: Love Poems to God)<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

It is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armor themselves against wonder.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Leonard Cohen)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Any reviewer who expresses rage and loathing for a novel is preposterous. He or she is like a person who has put on full armor and attacked a hot fudge sundae.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Kurt Vonnegut)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

All Souls<\/strong><\/p>\n

A few of us — Hillary Clinton, Vlad Dracula,
\nOprah Winfrey, and Trotsky — peer through
\nthe kitchen window at a raccoon perched
\noutside on a picnic table where it picks<\/p>\n

over chips, veggies, olives, and a chunk of p\u00e2te.
\nBehind us others crowd the hallway, many more
\ndance in the living room. Trotsky fusses with the bloody
\nscrewdriver puttied to her forehead.<\/p>\n

Hillary Clinton, whose voice is the rumble
\nof a bowling ball, whose hands are hairy
\nto the third knuckle, lifts his rubber chin to announce,
\n“What a perfect mask it has!” While the Count<\/p>\n

whistling through his plastic fangs says, “Oh,
\nand a nose like a chef.” Then one by one
\nthe other masks join in: “Tail of a gambler,”
\n“a swashbuckler’s hips,” “feet of a cat burglar.”<\/p>\n

Trotsky scratches herself beneath her skirt
\nand Hillary, whose lederhosen are so tight they form a codpiece,
\nwraps his legs around Trotsky’s leg and humps like a dog.
\nDracula and Oprah, the married hosts, hold hands<\/p>\n

and then let go. Meanwhile the raccoon squats on
\nthe gherkins, extracts pimentos from olives, and sniffs
\nabandoned cups of beer. A ghoul in the living room
\nturns the music up and the house becomes a drum.<\/p>\n

The windows buzz. “Who do you love? Who do you love?”
\nthe singer sings. Our feathered arms, our stockinged legs.
\nThe intricate paws, the filleting tongue.
\nWe love what we are; we love what we’ve become.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Michael Collier)<\/p>\n

I don’t really know for sure which song is referenced in the above poem… but I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out to be this one (playing behind a video tribute to its composer, Bo Diddley); it’s something of a paean to the notion of donning a costume in pursuit of a lover:<\/p>\n