Sherry Chandler

Jeff Hess at Have Coffee Will Write has reminded us that May 25 is Towel Day. As the mother of sons who practically cut their teeth on The Hitchhiker’s Guide, I don’t know how I could have missed this. I should have felt it in the wind.

My guys read the books, listened to the radio broadcast, and watched the wonderfully cheesey old television series. They did not take too much to the recent Hollywood version. At our house, Simon Jones will always be Dent Arthur Dent.

Wanna know the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything??

When I was a lad I served a term
As office boy to an Attorney’s firm.
I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor,
And I polished up the handle of the big front door.
I polished up that handle so carefullee
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen’s Navee!

— from “When I Was a Lad,” Gilbert & Sullivan’s HMS Pinafore

Political Wire has a link to an “amusing” article from the Harvard Crimson:

A 26-year-old college dropout who carries President Bush’s breath mints and makes him peanut butter-and-jelly sandwiches will follow in his boss’s footsteps this fall when he enrolls at Harvard Business School (HBS).

Though it is rare for HBS—or any other professional or graduate school—to admit a student who does not have an undergraduate degree, admissions officers made an exception for Blake Gottesman, who for four years has served as special assistant and personal aide to Bush.

These photos were also taken on April 22. I know the bugs are probably harmful and I shouldn’t have those awful rank things amongst my irises (see below on weeding), but on that one brightly sunny April day, I thought they were quite lovely and amusing.

That is not my shadow impinging in the second photo.

When the new Wavelength arrived in my mailbox two days ago, the first thing I noticed was that the cover illustration is very similar to a photograph I took myself earlier this year – on April 22 to be exact, a pellucidly sunny day after a storm. Ruth Rogers, who took the Wavelength photo, and I must have similar instincts. Or else there is something about irises beside the road.

But I wasn’t thinking about the road at all when I took the photograph. I just wanted to capture the brilliant color of the iris, because they don’t stay in gorgeous full bloom down the stalk like that for very long. It was only after I looked at the photo on the computer screen that I realized that the road almost dominates the picture, leading the eye off over the rise to look for adventure, like a novel. The Rogers photo has some nice chiaroscuro to add mystery, but the placement of the flower blocks you from following the road, brings you back into that shadowy place where poetry is written.

Not everyone is that impressed with irises. Coincidentally, a friend wrote, just yesterday, to bemoan the Sisyphean labor of maintaining perenniel beds:

I have a love affair with annuals. They only last a season, but they work hard while they’re here, sort of like that old country song - live fast, die young, and leave a happy memory. I try to summon the same affection for my perennials, but I get rather irritated at some of them. The iris, for example, bloom for one week, and then just sit there with that ugly foliage for the rest of the summer, sort of like someone who was a hotshot high school athlete and expects to coast for the rest of his life on his teenage glory —

And they have to be weeded all year long as payment for that one week of glory. I’m not that diligent in weeding mine, as you can see if you look at the photo closely.

Issue 12 of Wavelength contains poems by Dory Hudspeth and James Doyle, both of whom are always a joy, in addition to Jane Kretschmann. Subscriptions to Wavelength are $15/3 issues. Single copies are $6. Make checks payable to:

David Rogers
1753 Fisher Ridge Road
Horse Cave, KY 42749