Eva, Eduard, Helena (10), Nuria (21)
Are these Catalan grandchildren a manufactured figment from my internal dream factory, or are they real? Helena, the youngest, is a Cheshire cat that swallowed a Roman candle peeping from Puck’s pocket — I can’t really craft a metaphor improbable enough to do justice to her complex, zingy, irresistible, bounce-off-the-wall, sometimes piercing, magnetism. This may help: Last night, over tea, she asked if I wanted her to draw me. Glancing up from my iPad, I said, “Sure.” It would require, she added, that I stay still and look continuously at her. Bye-bye, iPad.
(c) 2018 JMN.
Strong Thoughts on the Internal Accusative
From high office in these Untied [stet] States came yesterday a promise to soon have a “strong opinion” about something (the Khashoggi murder?). Well and proper. One breathes a bated breath. At last, an opinion is to be had. May it receive due reception. The internal accusative comes to mind. One doesn’t “think” a button nor “sing” an antimacassar. One thinks a thought. One sings a song. One signs a signature. One prints a print-out. If one opines, the upshot is an opinion. The offspring of each action is its own thing. Comes the sauce, however, and here it gets interesting. Take “strength”: thinking a “strong” thought; singing a “strong” song. Have fun with it: What about signing a “strong” signature? Signing a strong signature to a strong print-out of a strong opinion? From here it begins to “begin,” to turn and turn in the widening gyre of gestural gyration, of sound and fury signifying themselves, lumbering fondly, antecedent-free and Ozymandias-like, into sands of the desert’s oblivious oblivion.
(c) 2018 JMN.