Saturday's, uhm, lovely, weather

It was 95 degrees in Boston. Tied a record for the date.

Just splendid.

Sixties today, though. Huzzah!

Ogden Nash on the martini
(spotted at Andrew Sullivan's blog)

There is something about a Martini,
A tingle remarkably pleasant;
A yellow, a mellow Martini;
I wish that I had one at present.
There is something about a Martini,
Ere the dining and dancing begin,
And to tell you the truth,
It is not the vermouth --
I think that perhaps it's the gin.

Charles Martin: from poets.org

Here is a "political poem" that is a poem: Easter Sunday, 1985. I first encountered it in Phillis Levin's anthology of sonnets.

Mr. Martin is also, apparently, a translator of Catullus's poems.

Mark Strand on political poetry and rap

Am not the hugest fan of Strand, but for the most part I'm with him on this one. Most political poems are, indeed, ephemera. And what he says of rap is quite apt.

Discovered via the website of the Poetry Foundation.

One more

The Carpenters, yet again: "Hurting Each Other," 1971.

(I really like Karen's voice on this one ...)

Tracy Chapman

"You're the One," live, November 2003:

Song: "Good-bye, little yellow bird"

A nineteen-year-old Angela Lansbury as Sibyl Vane in the 1945 film version of Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray:

Another YouTube

The Carpenters perform Ave Maria, 1978.

Another quiz

You Are 4% Texas

Damn Yankee! You think the sun comes up just to hear you crow.

How Texas Are You?

I may be a damn Yankee, but even I know enough never to eat a cowpie.

The 1970s

Testing my ability to post a YouTube video. If it works, you should see/hear the Carpenters sing "Only Yesterday":

Quiz

You Are 70% Tortured Genius

You are smart. Brilliant in fact. And while it's a blessing, it's also a curse. Your head is filled with everything - grand ideas, insufferable worries, and a good deal of angst.

Are You a Tortured Genius?

Via Oblique House.

An Orthodox akathist hymn

From Glory to God for All Things.

This is poetry, and more than poetry ... although perhaps it is irreverent to speak of such an inspired hymn as merely poetry.