resolution

Hello fellow survivors,

We have an answer (with apologies for distorting poor old Tom's intentions):

This is the dead land
This is cactus land
Here the stone images
Are raised, here they receive
The supplication of a dead man's hand
Under the twinkle of a fading star.

It's still twinkling too much for my tastes, but we shall make do, shall we not?

Strange,
walter

addendum

Quick note,

I am in love with the world. I don't want it to end today or tomorrow.

Hoping those ladies were wrong,
walter

rapture

Blessings, dear friends,

Whilst ambling along the avenue yesterday evening, I was approached by a pair of doom criers. One, despondent, unkempt, penning a mournful wail in her tearful eyes, mouth formed vainly for its escape, wore a board proclaiming the end of the world on May 21st. She staggered, speechless, back and forth across the sidewalk, plaintively meeting the eyes of each passing pedestrian in turn. Her partner, more sober, followed a few steps behind with a stack of brochures. Most passers-by did exactly that, as quickly as possible. But I stopped a moment and collected a pamphlet. There was a brief flicker of hope across the faces of the duo before they realized, likely for the thousandth time, that it, along with everything else, would be short lived. I thanked them and walked on. The point, whose deeper meaning and contradictory nuances I will leave for you to ponder in the short time we have remaining: the pamphlet was in essence a mail-in coupon for more information.

The day approacheth,
walter

shoes

Gesundheit,

I almost bought a pair of red shoes today. My last pair wore out a long time ago and I've been staidly hobbling about in sedate black ones. Fret not, gentle reader, for I well know the benefits of black shoes, my classic set in particular, and would no sooner debase them than accept a slap in the face; fresh, clean, versatile, they pass as well in casual company as they do in tuxedoed formality. And yet... and yet. Here is a brief story about adventure.

Seven years ago, or maybe it's even eight now, Mr. Percival Reginaldus Tweedie, a cheerful, plump vacuum salesman on a 10-town rotation, had saved up enough money to take a break from his rounds. After consulting his oldest friends, some of whom did not like Percival at all but couldn't find the courage to terminate such a long-standing friendship, he decided to rent a kayak and ply the silken, salient waves of the Red Sea, north to south. His friends chuckled morbidly after they'd dropped him at the airport, and didn't much expect to see him again. They were starkly aware of what Percival so blissfully was not. Perils, non-exhaustively: pirates, though not likely interested in a lone kayaker, lack of water, lack of food, heat, clumsiness, sun, navigational miscalculations, sharks, jackal-headed doubt gnawing fringes of his soul in the darkness, dust storms, language barriers, solitude, Portuguese Men-of-War, the sheer massive length of what, to poor Percival, seemed a quaint oasis in an exotic locale. His friends were right, it was a foolish trip. They've never seen Mr. Tweedie since. I think he plans to keep it that way.

Tally ho,
walter

quote

Ideality
Hartley Coleridge

The vale of Tempe had in vain been fair,
Green Ida never deem’d the nurse of Jove;
Each fabled stream, beneath its covert grove,
Had idly murmur’d to the idle air;
The shaggy wolf had kept his horrid lair
In Delphi’s cell, and old Trophonius’ cave,
And the wild wailing of the Ionian wave
Had never blended with the sweet despair
Of Sappho’s death-song: if the sight inspir’d
Saw only what the visual organs show,
If heaven-born phantasy no more requir’d
Than what within the sphere of sense may grow.
The beauty to perceive of earthly things,
The mounting soul must heavenward prune her wings.