ofthewedge

rooting around for grubs in diverse soils

Flotsam and jetsam

  • Like a rat up a drainpipe

    Liberals in the west love a false dawn and one such was in the summer of 2024. Labour won a landslide in the UK elections. Macron somehow leveraged the left to jujutsu the far right and keep his party if not in power at least in office. Kamala Harris briefly looked cool (‘brat’) enough to Read more

  • Looks are laughable

    ʒamol of ʒeardum… When I was living in an attic on Via dei Pepi one of my flatmates lent me a cassette tape recording of Stan Getz and Chet Baker’s Stockholm concerts from 1983. A rare thing, she told me, that these two antagonists briefly played together, and that someone had the foresight to record Read more

  • widening gyre

    “all the foundations of the earth are out of course.” – Psalm 82:5b “..those who travel in order to acquaint themselves with the different manners of men might spare themselves much pains by going to a carnival at Venice; for there they will see at once all which they can discover in the several courts Read more

  • Soð bið swicolost: Anglo-Saxon Truth-Bombs

    Gnomic statements, maxims, apothegms, are the aged distillation of a society’s collective wisdom. To read collections like the Old Testament’s Book of Proverbs, some of this old wisdom sticks: How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard? When wilt thou arise out of thy sleep? Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, A little folding of Read more

  • A very palpable hit

    Short form is good and Mitstki gets this. Her last albums covers a lot of ground in little over half an hour. Her motley repertoire channels cameleon-like the spirits of Kate Bush, Tori Amos, Kristin Hersh, Leonard Cohen among others. She salvages humour from the wreckage when life runs aground. Amidst all this there’s an Read more

  • Beim Schlafengehen

    Nun der Tag mich müd gemacht,Soll mein sehnliches VerlangenFreundlich die gestirnte NachtWie ein müdes Kind empfangen. Hände, lasst von allem Tun,Stirn, vergiss du alles Denken,Alle meine Sinne nunWollen sich in Schlummer senken. Und die Seele, unbewacht,Will in freien Flügen schweben,Um im Zauberkreis der NachtTief und tausendfach zu Leben. Hermann Hesse was not old when he Read more

  • On letting go

    And you’ll miss me more as the narrowing weeks wing by. Someday duly, oneday truly, twosday newly, till whensday. James Joyce, Finnegans Wake Nature, so hard at work all spring, now displays the results of its endeavours, and May Day offers a moment to admire them. Lady’s smocks with their pastel gossamer petals belilac the Read more

  • The purging of all meats

    Though much is taken, much abides; and thoughWe are not now that strength which in old daysMoved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,One equal temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield. Tennyson, Ulysses Looking for Jesus Somewhere Read more

  • Spring Notes Vol. I

    in Just-  spring          when the world is mud-  luscious … E.E. Cummings Severe cold came in January for a week and then snow fell from the heavens and stayed for a while like it was smothering with an alien simplicity all that was impure in our world, until the snow itself became crunchy and differentiated, complicated, Read more

  • Everything is irksome! -Notes on The Wanderer

    I have wandered far from that ring-giver and would not renegue on this migrant solitude. I have seen halls in flames, hearts in cinders, the benches filled and emptied, the circles ofcompanions called and broken. That day I was a rich young man, who could tell you now of flittings, night-vigils, let-downs, women’s cried-out eyes. From Seamus Read more