Sumer Is Icumen In

A bit odd, but it means just about what it seems to mean. It’s the title of an English round; the first verse, in modern English

• Summer has come in,
  Loudly sing, Cuckoo!
  The seed grows and the meadow blooms
  And the wood springs anew,
  Sing, Cuckoo!

It’s probably about 750 years old. I remember it because I had to read when I studied Middle English. (Yeah, I know, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.)

Here’s an even more dependable sign of summer than the cuckoo, this one also in literature from by-gone days.

• The Fool-Killer came along the Pike Road one Day and stopped to look at a Strange Sight.

  Inside of a Barricade were several Thousands of Men, Women and Children. They were moving restlessly among the trampled Weeds, which were clotted with Watermelon Rinds, Chicken Bones, Straw and torn Paper Bags.

  It was a very hot Day. The People could not sit down. They shuffled Wearily and were pop-eyed with Lassitude and Discouragement.

  A stifling Dust enveloped them. They Gasped and Sniffled. Some tried to alleviate their Sufferings by gulping down a Pink Beverage made of Drug-Store Acid, which fed the Fires of Thirst.

  Thus they wove and interwove in the smoky Oven. The Whimper or the faltering Wail of Children, the quavering Sigh of overlaced Women, and the long-drawn Profanity of Men — these were what the Fool-Killer heard as he looked upon the Suffering Throng.

  “Is this a new Wrinkle on Dante’s Inferno?” he asked of the Man on the Gate, who wore a green Badge marked

A Tale of Three Cities

Two of my favorite cities are Boston and Baltimore. Both stuffed to the rafters with history and art, both with bustling commercial districts and quiet residential sections. Right next to the charm and comfort, shadows and grit; a block from the picturesque, streets you know at a glance are not good for walking.

Good, however, for film drama. Set in Baltimore, The Wire is TV’s best street-level look at the American city since Hill Street Blues. And look at the movies recently to come out of the Boston area: Mystic River, The Departed and the one we watched last night, Gone Baby Gone.

So, how about this for a story line. Wife of a former police chief is arrested in an undercover drug investigation. She and her son are charged with importing cocaine and heroin, and helping to managed its distribution. The chief himself is implicated, among other things, in discussing how to cope with police raids which confiscate large portions of their inventory.

And I didn’t even have to go to Boston or Baltimore. It’s right here in Schenectady. Yes, the GE City of Light, foster home of Edison, eighteenth-century gateway to the West. A plot worthy of Boston or Baltimore.

The former chief and his family have not been convicted, so must be presumed either to be innocent or to have a credible explanation for the incriminating evidence already made public.

But, having hauled Schenectady and the foibles of its bureaucracy into the spotlight, let me shift focus a bit. Over there, just to the left. That dark building, with all the glass, and the trees around the front and one side. It’s the main branch of

What do the experts know?

If we’re talking brain surgery or rocket science or thirteenth-century church music, the answer is “a hell of a lot more than you do.” If we’re talking national politics, child-rearing, or arts criticism, the answer might be, “as much as you do, or maybe a bit less.”

It was national politics which first got me onto this tiny rant. (See “Primary Delusions,” to the right.) But then I added in child rearing, about which, if one is to judge by the sanity, decency, and productivity of my children, I’m a goddam world-class authority. (I know, I know… speaking of delusions….)

But then I got onto arts criticism. Once upon a time, I wrote book reviews for a technical magazine, and movie reviews for a big-city alternative newspaper. (Not simultaneously.) I was no better qualified for those tasks than anyone else; I was simply the nearest hack writer who could be lashed to the gig.

I was as honest and generous as I could be in both slots, not an easy balance to maintain. But if no one complained too loudly, neither did any arts organizations laud my contributions. I knew, to quote a nearby authority,

Lettering the Editors

Nearly six years ago, the New Yorker published a Comment article, by David Remnick and Hendrik Hertzberg, justifying the Bush Administration’s clearly-emerging plans to invade Iraq. I wrote them a letter of protest.

[What I wrote]

In their effort to explain our “war on terrorism” plight, David Remnick and Hendrik Hertzberg fall into precisely the trap which I hoped they might warn others against. They write, in the seventh paragraph, of the need to behave rationally in our pursuit of justice for the 9/11 perpetrators. Then they begin the eighth paragraph with a discussion of the potential war with Iraq.

You see, that is exactly the problem. How does one get — logically, politically, morally — from 9/11 to an attack on Iraq? It will not do simply to dance across the chasm on paper. In the real world, we need a bridge. A real one. And even on paper, one wishes for a transition. A cross-fade, a segue. But what we are given is a jump-cut. Or in the metaphor of geography, a jump-chasm. Period, indent, capital letter. And the thing is done. We have moved effortlessly from carnage in New York to carnage in Baghdad.

Out in the real world of fire and explosions, however, the world of body parts and blood, something more substantial is needed. Call it an explanation, call it a bridge, call it evidence. Whatever the name, I did not find it in the essay, so I assume the writers did not find it. I have not found it in the daily press, so I assume the President has not found it, or has not yet shared his finding with the press or the public. And until it is shown, revealed and not manufactured johnny-on-the-spot, I will not be able to make it across that chasm.

Without it, the troops and tanks which cross that chasm will, in the eyes of history and most of the contemporary world, be aggressors. They will be starting a war. They will be killing soldiers, of course, and they will also be killing peddlers and doctors and children, willy-nilly.

Period, indent, capital letter. It’s not enough to support a war.

To my surprise, they wanted to print it. Edited, of course, to meet their requirements. At the time I was too proud

Queen’s Defense

Can you honestly picture me in that
dank grotto (a cave, in fact, reached only
through a narrow passage from the dungeon)
butchering frogs, boiling newts, casting spells?
Don’t you know how hard it is to distill
elixir of nightshade leaves and infuse
essence of wolfbane petals and lace with
extract of apricot stone (maintaining
just below a boil five hours, staying
clear of deadly vapors) and each half hour
skim the oily surface foam and scrape off
residue caking the rim of the cup
(yes, cup, never cauldron nor even pot:
economy of potion scale be damned,
essence of wolfbane costs a king’s ransom)
then watch for crystals forming — they mean
it’s cooled too damn fast — and filter to purge
the tell-tale metallic taste and odor,
knowing in advance that your best effort
will likely yield barely enough to dose
one apple only, with no guarantee
 the one you dose will be the one she picks?

Can you imagine I’d endure all that
just to win a local beauty contest
when I had an utterly unquestioned
lock on the title and the only way
that simpering pudgy twerp could win was
if all the judges were twelve-year-old boys?

The Shall-Be Flyer

[a recovered manuscript from twenty-five years ago]

I bought myself a new bicycle a few years ago. It’s swift and graceful, a slender hawk of a machine. But it’s imperfect. Soaring down the Gorge Road at about 35 mph one afternoon, I realized that, for all its elegance, my new bike couldn’t carry three cases of beer.

My first bike could. It was a Shelby Flyer, with a full-size front wheel and a standard basket. I used if five afternoons a week and all day Saturday to deliver groceries for Mr. Lewis.

About the three cases of beer: Every Thursday I took them to Mrs. Thurley, and returned with three cases of empties. Four blocks down Reid Street, regardless of snow, rain, and afternoon traffic, with cases piled so high I could barely see over them.

Only once in a year and a half did I drop a case. Empties. One bottle broke. I had to pay for it. Two cents.

I didn’t mind the two cents. What bothered me was the lecture from Mr. Lewis. “Yer problem is that Shall-Be Flyer. It’s like a told ya when ya came to work here. I never had no boy work here ride a Shall-Be Flyer. You oughta have a Rollfast or a Elgin. They wouldn’t tip over on ya.”

The bike had not tipped over, but there was no point in trying to explain that to Mr. Lewis. When I started working for him, he made clear his suspicions of any bicycle different from those his previous boys had ridden. Maybe if I’d had a Schwinn 35 years ago,