The Strait Way of Righteousness

Short Cut through the Bible?

Or

Straight is the Gait?

Do as I say, not as I do say.

Wise Guys

No Profanity!

A word to the wise is enough, gawddammit!

First of All:

First Second Books

First things first!

But first, announce: "First things first!"

But before that, call out, "First!"

Etc.

Leave Good Expressions Behind You

First Expressions?

First expressions are the lastingest.

By the bye, the artwork above is Autumn Rhythm No. 30, Jackson Pollock (1950).

Cruel and Unusual Punishment: T. S. Eliot's Spelling Bee

T. S. Eliot

Wikipedia

From the proverbial T. S. Eliot: "April is the cruellest month."

Less cruellest would be: "April is the cruelest month."

Which Way to Burn: Before or After Crossing?

Bridge Burnt Out?

Don't burn the bridge till you come to it.

Classical Gas

Roadies: Fuel Up

All things must pass gas.

Everybody thinks it's disgusting, but everybody likes to do it!

Muslims who marry infidels?

Ali Waked

According to Ali Waked, writing for Breitbart (August 19, 2017):

While sharia law allows Muslims to marry non-Muslim women who convert to Islam, the law forbids a Muslim woman from marrying a non-Muslim man unless he converts to Islam.

Huh?

Fate of a Mustard Seed?

Mustard Seeds

Faith may move mountains, but so do earthquakes . . . and they do it faster.

Don Quixote Wisdom?

Wisdom

Forewarned is forearmed, so why've I got just two forearms when I've been forewarned so many times?

Takes One to Know One!

Study Carefully!

It takes one to know one, two, three, four, five, and the rest of the natural number system!

Heartless?

Hearth

Goin' Hog Wild

Cold hands, warmth-thievin' heart!

Clothes Maketh the Man

Clothes

Clothes maketh the man; woman maketh the clothes. Therefore . . .

No Sweat

Alleged Sweatdrop!

Google Images

Don't sweat the small stuff; sweat the great big stuff!

In the Tradition of "Where's Wally?"

The Thinker

The Gates of Hell

Wikipedia

A little learning is a dangerous think.

Just look where Rodin's Thinker ended up!

Everything for Sale?

Come to Cthulhu

Every man has his price, but why sell yourself short?

My mama told me, "You better shop around."

Genius

Genius

Google Images

Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent exasperation!

Moral Hazards?

Love of Money

Google Images

Bad money drives out good . . . morals.

Actually, the proverb stopped at the word "good." I therefore asked "good what?" No answer was given. I decided "morals" worked as well as any, so I kept it.

But what is bad money?

Six Feet Underdog?

Underdog Deceased?

It's better to live than to decease.

But all dogs go to heaven
because they give
more
than they receive.

Attitude is Everything!

Google Images

Don't mix business with pleasure; make that extra effort to hate your work.

Two more proverbs on excess

Excess

Better late than sorry, and better safe than never.

Wait, that ain't right. It's . . .

Better late than safe, and better sorry than never.

No, wait. It's . . .

Better sorry than late, and better never than safe.

No, it's . . . never mind.

Adverse Obesity

Obesity?

Obesity makes strained-bed fellows.

Some like it hot!

Both kind of roundish . . .

"Comparisons are odious" is like saying similes are silly!

Another Death in the Family

Aunt Ava Jo

My Aunt Ava Jo passed away recently. Her official obituary can be found at Barker Funeral Home, part of which I post below:

Ava Jo Perryman Bowling was born June 10, 1930 in Salem, Arkansas. She left this life on July 24, 2017 in Salem, Arkansas. She was the daughter of Henry and Mabel Shell Perryman. Ava Jo attended the Salem Schools and graduated as valedictorian in 1948 from Salem High School. She attended college at Central Baptist College, Arkansas State College and the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. She studied Home Economics. After her first year of college she taught school at the one-room schoolhouse in the community of Fairview near Salem. She also taught Home Economics at Salem High School in 1951-52. During her college years, she worked at several different jobs including Sears Department Store in Kansas City, Missouri.

Ava Jo married Clarence Calvin Bowling [also of Salem, Arkansas] on September 4, 1953 at Salem First Baptist Church. They lived in Fayetteville before moving to Beaumont, Texas, which would be their home for 48 years. They had three children: Mark, Cindy and Sara. Ava Jo was an excellent homemaker and housewife. She provided stability, security and love for her children. She also worked part time as a secretary at Blue Bell Creameries Distribution.

Ava Jo was a dedicated and caring Christian woman. She was a member of Amelia Baptist and Westgate Memorial Baptist churches in Beaumont. She was a devoted Sunday school teacher for adult women. She was active in the Women’s Missionary Union, sang in the choir and was a supportive deacon’s wife. When she and Clarence moved to Horseshoe Bend, AR in 2003 they again became members of Salem First Baptist Church. Ava Jo was a kind and giving neighbor and wonderful cook. She also enjoyed reading and working crossword puzzles.

I remember those crossword puzzles. That was an interest she shared with her brother Harlin. I recall her working on those crosswords and only rarely asking for help. I noticed such things because I spent several holidays at her Texas home during my Baylor years. The fact that I attended Baylor at all is also due to her . . . albeit indirectly. Her elder daughter, Cindy, who was a year older than I, praised Baylor to the heavens and inadvertently persuaded me to apply there. Aunt Ava Jo therefore took an interest in me during my time in Texas. She reminded me that university life was more than just textbooks and tests, and she urged me to socialize. That was advice I wished to follow . . . so I did.

So, thanks, Aunt Ava Jo, for the good advice . . . and RIP.

Thumpteen thumps . . .

Thumper

"Blessed are the pacemakers." They'll give your heart a damn good thumping!

That Old Switcheroo!

Bait and Switcheroo

Google Images

"Failing to plan is planning to fail." I can see that, I think, but what about its opposite? "Planning to fail is failing to plan." Does that switcheroo work?

An Old Review Now Noted

How did I miss Deborah Smith's article of four years ago, namely, "The Uses of Uncertainty: Dalkey Archive's 'Library of Korea' Series" (The Quarterly Conversation, Issue 34, Winter 2014) - and especially how did I miss her review of The Soil that appears in that article? Follow this link (to the article link).

Ask any Korean or Korean literature student who wrote the first Korean novel, and the answer will almost certainly be Yi Kwang-su, whose career spanned the turn of the 20th century and witnessed the introduction of European literature into Korea, often via translations into Japanese, the language of Korea's colonizers at the time. The literary soil into which these new influences were being planted consisted of a rich Confucian heritage of lengthy poems and prose romances written in classical Chinese. Yi Kwang-su, among others, found in the novels of Zola and the stories of Maupassant an exciting new palette of potential techniques for creating an entirely new kind of literature, one more suited to the specific social, cultural, and political circumstances which Korea found itself in (the wrench of industrializing modernity was felt as even more of a brutal upheaval given that it was being implemented by a colonial power who also sought to suppress Korean cultural identity). However, in early novels like The Soil (serialized in the Donga Ilbo from 1932-33) we can also find intriguing traces of the earlier tradition. There's a confusingly large array of bit-part characters, and major characters who are (initially, at least) not so much fully rounded personalities as names appended to a list of characteristics, often corresponding to established types familiar to anyone versed in the Chinese classics.

Many more paragraphs follow, but let me correct one point, namely, that Yi Kwang-su wrote not the first Korean novel, but the first modern Korean novel. There is a difference. Deborah Smith, by the way, is the translator of the Korean novel Vegetarian.

By the way . . .

Google Images

Sam Shepard died on Thursday, July 27, 2017 at his farm in Kentucky. I read all of the plays he'd composed by the mid-eighties while I was living in Berkeley in the mid- to latter eighties, but I didn't keep up with his later plays. I found his writing fascinating at the time, but I see no influence on my own writing, unless some poem or other was touched. Maybe a reader of my poems can let me know.

Anyway, Mr. Shepard, RIP.

Let's have some nonsense!

Non-Sense

Wikipedia

Cold hands, warm heart, non-sense! - Cold hands do NOT imply a warm heart!

Speaking of Ravens . . .

The Raven

Wikipedia

Here's quite a large raven of Ravenden, Arkansas, though the locals who named the town might not have distinguished so clearly between ravens and crows.

A Stately Raven?

Stately, Nothing!

I Am The State!
Photo by My Wife

Or just old cousin crow?