The Last Word

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This article ran in December of 2000, just before the site temporarily vanished a few months later. Hence the dolourous tone.

The Red-Headed League is Dissolved I have never prided myself on brevity, and I shall have even less occasion to do so here than I ever have. This is to be the last word on and in this famed publication, this self-described cultural institution, for quite some time; so, in the truest of Minnesotan tradition, the goodbye, which would drag on as long as possible under even normal circumstances, will be strung out to its last conceivable terminus.

I am, by my own standards, a young man of extreme wealth and position, with much to be grateful for. I live in a large home, with a large family. I have money in the bank and plenty of socks and underwear. I eat three square meals a day and a bowl of Corn Flakes every night before bed. I have had a most satisfactory education in all the essentials of character, mathematics, writing, menial chores, theology and wittiness. I come from a stable, midwestern, Christian family and a long line of hard-working engineers, musicians and innovators. I have sacked groceries for $5.10/hr, mowed lawns for varying amounts of remuneration, and sat in a cubicle for more than I care to admit. I sing in a small choir and attend a small church, and I actually look forward to family reunions.

Thanksgiving Day has been a reminder to me how little there really is to add, and how much could be subtracted, from my lot in life. In this respect, I suppose, it is similar to the Y2K bug. But that is only tangential. Now, it is planned, as part of a strategy conceived some years since, that I will give up my comfortable post for an eighteen-month absence. And so the recent holidays are shaded by the continual awareness that my familiar days at home are imminently waning. Whether the long-planned development will prove to be permanent or transient is not seen, but entrance into a trial-by-fire organization and the prospect of bankruptcy and utter dependency at the end of it all is amusingly unsettling, whatever happens.

One of the lamentable features of this departure, and the one which principally concerns us here, of course, is the lengthy hiatus of this venerable publication. Necessity is the matriarch of invention, and sappy modern prose was the causative itch that led to much of this site’s content, as a kind of civil disobedience. The western world is overstuffed with self-styled writers who bring no new perspectives in either style or substance. I will not craft a detailed indictment here, but when I say that I reflexively twitch whenever I read yet another instance of people “laughing together, and crying together,” or such like vaporous cliches, you will no doubt get the idea of my perspective.

When I first began looking for characteristics of a good writing style by which I could take my pattern, the first and chief thing I noted was this: good writing is not predictable. That is not to say it is definitely unpredictable, but that it does not scan in a way that you could shut your eyes and reliably guess what words or ideas come next. As I see it, the writer’s chief duty in communicating his subject is to continually throw the reader off his log in the water, or to make him run a little faster to stay dry. Sometimes this means using uncommon or portentous words. Often it means creative, intriguing metaphors. Whatever the means, writers must find some way to get off the beaten path. Now-a-days, that path is so regularly hard-trodden that it might as well be paved. This is my uneducated opinion.

Night has fallen in Pequod Lake. Since the twilight of the software-centric era of this site, it has been mostly an experiment in these ideas of writing. In this I think I have been successful in proving my point, and in creating some little accumulation of interesting works, as ideas occurred to me. What little criticism I draw from its extremely modest readership often entails complaints of my alleged density of style. I say, I never desired, and desire less now than I did when I embarked, the attention of anyone too stupid to follow a complex idea all the way to the end of the sentence, or of anyone too apathetic to enrich his mind by reading and looking up words he may never have seen before. Another frequent annoyance is from Canadians who feel threatened by my half-serious position paper favouring the takeover of their sovereign state. But by and large, my readers have responded with candour and a kind of tolerance to this oasis of originality. To them I extend my sincere thanks, for even though they were wholly unnecessary for my purposes, their presence was encouraging.

Fortunately for us all, life is about more than extended experiments in manpleasing and frivolities. In pursuing it through to its perfect end, I take my leave of you for now. Perhaps we will meet again someday. But until then, I shall derive great pleasure from knowing that, in this encounter, I have had The Last Word, and am

Yours Sincerely and In Absentia,

— Joel Alexander Dueck (JD)

“I may not be totally perfect, but parts of me are excellent.”
— Ashleigh Brilliant

The Ride

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Half the creaking crickets ’twixt the poplars and the pine Own the frog their master yet they fear with him to dine. Wherefore the fear? The reason’s clear: the crickets have no spine. Wild crows are always hungry for they hate all that they scour: Apples make them pucker and they think the grapes too sour. So with empty plates they crow ’till late, long past the supper hour. The squirrel in the hollow has a mind that’s very shallow, His cheeks are very puffy, for he oft forgets to swallow; Ere autumn ends, he downs it then, and sleeps on leafy pillow. Robbins every morning have to wrestle with a hassle: In the summer all their feathers scratch their throats like little thistles; Do these rusty-coloured feathers cause their early-morning whistle? Eh?

wooden wives in the emerald eaves

Agony Columns

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Think how boring I'd look if I owned a razor! What follows are some short, public promulgations regarding missing persons/items, general notices, personal dolor or opinion, and charitable propaganda.

Not Too Close to Call: “We had a very important, close contest last Nov. 7th. The people have spoken. Pine County, MN, will not be split in two. I hope the radicals will now go home and let our property taxes remain where they are. Good night, and thank God for this clear and wise decision on the part of the people.”
— Joseph Upjig

a pixelated pike

Notice: “Howell Creek Radio will return to the air next week, after a considerable delay owing to Mr. Aldrich’s extreme particularity in consenting to renew our license. The station broadcasts rail and mining news from near Brimson, MN in St. Louis County, and can be heard as far south as Pequaywan Lake, nearly six miles south. We hope to extend our range as far as Knife River, Two Harbors and Castle Danger in the future, legalities permitting. Please vote Mr. Aldrich out of office in November, he has had enough of the public funds for his living already.”
— Mr. Edwin Nathaniel Dowdley

a pixelated pike

Pequod Lake Residents: A meeting of the P.L. Assoc. will be held on Sept. 17, to discuss the toll that has been placed on Coolidge Rd., the which is made more deplorable since the road is a gravel one and no plans for paving it are in the offing. Also on the agenda, plans for switching the county over to the Metric system.

a pixelated pike

Mr. Don Renwhie: “Halloa, old friend. I was just in town and I wonder if you’d look me up, as we are such buddies from way back. We’d like you to take a good long visit with us; we have a nice room all ready. Just give me a jingle at (218) 834-5677 and let us know when we can be expecting you.”
— John McNally, Scotland Yard

a pixelated pike

Silby: “We defy you to win another match, under fair conditions this time. If your manliness consents, you have only to give the word and Prof. Barrows will name the location and officiate. Your continued nonappearance will be understood as admittance of guilt, and the world of honourable amateur sports will be only to happy to carry on without such miscreant behaviour.”
— Albert Gravesend, Table Tennis Club of Hennepin

a pixelated pike

“We would respectfully suggest to the members [of the Minnesota Territory Legislature], to allow their Sergeant-at-Arms mileage for his daily travels about St. Paul in search of ‘absent members.’ — He should also receive some extra pay for the arduous labour performed by him in pulling the Representatives out of bed every morning.”
Watab Reveille, St. Paul, 1/29/1851

a pixelated pike

Wanted: “The metro transit commision of Minneapolis in now taking applicants for the new Adopt-a-Bus-Stop program; responsibilities include removing used Cigarettes from the area, pre-populating all vertical surfaces of the shelter with tasteful graffiti, and (in the winter) keeping the shelters well stocked with firewood for heating.”
— Mr. C. Andersen, MTC

a pixelated pike

General: “I, Harry Winston Johnson, have always wanted to see my name in print. Thank you.”
— Mr. H. W. Johnson of Fargo, ND

“All articles that coruscate with resplendence are not truly auriferous.”
— Traditional (paraphrased)

In Defense of Dandelions

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No new weather here! Probably 2 more feet of snow before it stops.There seems to be a prevailing prejudice in human nature against things that are common and prolific; and it is this prejudice which has given rise to common sentiments against dandelions . This plant has obvious value, and yet is being rejected for no reason, really, other than its commonality.

The dandelion, a plant of the genus Taraxacum, is a small plant with long, toothed green leaves growing out of the base. The stem is crowned with a bright yellow bloom, soft and fluffy to the touch. Towards the terminus of their lifespan, the head becomes a white sphere of seeds which are carried off by the wind. They propagate easily and without restriction into almost all types of terrain and climate.

It is an inexplicable fact that this sprightly herb is an object of scorn to many. The Pequod Lake Conifer & Gazette carried an ample column on “The Problem of Dandelions and How to Expunge Them.” In this article, they are merely continuing their long history of kowtowing to the pickiness of suburbanites, and to the interests of the lawn-maintenance unions who make fat profits in spraying mephitic toxins on peoples’ grass. It is lamentable that a publication with the means and readership of the Conifer should be misled into encouraging the use of such unnatural measures, all to obtain what they call “the look and feel of a lush, natural lawn.” Let us take this quote in two parts.

First of all, what in the nation do they mean by ‘look and feel’? Do they really mean to imply that a lawn without dandelions ‘looks and feels’ better than one that has them? By what standard? We say, by the artificial and historically anomalous standard of city-folk and suburbanites.

Second, by ‘a lush, natural lawn’ they imply a claim that a lawn whose vegetational diversity has been artificially destroyed is the paragon of ‘naturalness.’ This is obviously self-contradictory.

Picture of a dandelion Dandelions do a lawn good; they spread nobly about, beautifying their surroundings, punctuating them with universally complementary spots of bright yellow. Indeed, the brightness of the dandelion is an index to the health of the soil. Furthermore, talking of health, the Dandelion is a study on the subject of cheerfulness and health. It is a little-known fact that every part of the dandelion is not only edible, but useful for a variety of medicinal applications. The very name of its genus, Taraxacum, is derived from the Greek taraxos + akos, ‘remedy for disorders.’ Probably, those who now wage chemical warfare on their lawns little know what a bountiful harvest of tea and salad ingredients they are persecuting. Give them a glass of dandelion wine rather than the cheap grocery-store stuff they drink now; maybe they will waste less money on killing dandelions and rendering their lawns hostile to animals & children.

But more than all this, there is something about the nature of this sunny perennial that ought to be more widely appreciated. It is small, cheerful and tough, the floral counterpart of the Chickadee. It is at once a picture of the transience of life and an incarnate testimony against the vanity of overparticular lawn care. Ah, the Dandelion, model to its inward greatness, like little body with a mighty heart; we ask, with apologies to the Bard, what mights’t thou do that honour would thee do, were all thy owners kind and natural!

Our great state of Minnesota has the inexplicable feature of having an official State Mushroom (the Morel, or Morchella esculenta) but no State Herb; there is consequently a grass-roots effort (ha) underway to elect the humble and oft-noted Dandelion into this position. We do of course have a State Flower, the pink-and-yellow ladyslipper, but these are seldom seen and hardly as useful as the Dandelion. We hope that this matter may be taken in hand when the Legislature next convenes; in the long run, however, nothing will be acceptable short of the utter erasure of these meaningless stigmas.

—JD

“Applaud, friends, the comedy is over.”
—Ludwig van Beethoven, last words

Feb 20, 2003

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I sometimes wonder if my dogmatic distaste for chapstick is having a negative effect on my psyche. Every now and again during the winter months, someone will say something funny, and I find I have to force myself to smile, because my lips are cracking and it’s a bit painful. From December to March, I end up subconsciously repressing smiles, which is at least as bad, psychologically, as repressing a sneeze.

But the alternative, the nastifying, albeit admittedly short-term, frustration of having a smudgy layer of stuff on your lips all the time, that makes everything you eat taste funny: that is not even an option. You can’t win, I guess.

Feb 13, 2003

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An explanation of the Attic Project: We have a very large house, probably one of the biggest in town. There are fourteen people living under our roof. To give some of us a litte more room, we’re adding an upper story bedroom in what used to be part of the attic. I’ve been working with a friend of the family, Mr. Joel V., to rip the old roof off, put in a stronger floor system, and build the new walls and roof. After we’re done, we’ll have seven bedrooms in our house, which means the ten children of the family will get to spread out from three bedrooms to four.

Art Fare for the Common Man

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Don't shoot until you see the yellow of their post-it notes!Let us discuss the writing of poetry. Here is an excerpt from a woefully typical modern-day poem.

A card table in the library stands ready To receive the puzzle which keeps never coming. Daylight shines in or lamplight down Upon the tense oasis of green felt. Full of unfulfillment, life goes on, Mirage arisen from time's trickling sands Or fallen piecemeal into place: German lesson, picnic, see-saw, walk With the collie who 'did everything but talk' — Sour windfalls of the orchard back of us.

It is pieces like these that have pretty well killed popular taste for poetry. Those were the opening lines from the aptly-titled Lost in Translation by James Merril, and they demonstrate very well what is wrong with most contemporary efforts at English poetry: randomness.

The appeal of poetry lies in expressing an idea within the boundaries of some kind of pattern, typically a rhyming or metrical pattern. To the degree that a poem lacks at least one easily discernible pattern, it will fail to be engaging, entertaining, and inspiring. The pattern forces the idea to be expressed efficiently and, may we say, musically:

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.

Both poems are vivid, and potentially full of implication; But where Merril’s poem prances awkwardly from vagueness to vagueness, Fitzgerald gives us something to chew on, an idea made powerful by the discipline of its rhyme and metre. Take note: We are not merely saying we prefer Fitzgerald to Merril. We are differentiating between real poetry and fake poetry.

In modern poems such as Merril’s, random surreality carries the day, and is given the title of Inspired Art. This trend is largely a feature of academia, a self-contained world where tasselled charlatans write material for each other and turn up their noses at the real world. Even many who call themselves ‘outsider’ artists achieve what fame they can by imitating their academic counterparts. This is all fine and good, except that, by and large, all this uber-progressiveness is edging out forms of poetry that require real creative ability, the ability to inspire the Common Man.

Anyone with an ear towards the artistic community cannot fail to note how disparagingly they speak of ‘public taste.’ Anything accessible and inspiring to the common man is hauled away in their wide net of ‘mass-marketing.’ To be sure, there is a lot of cheap, unoriginal work out there, but it at least does not make any claim of being more than what it is. What if a chef in a resturaunt should cook a fine steak? Is he “pandering to the interests of the public,” merely because his creations are both accepted and widely applauded? Should he abandon established forms and cook something that tastes bad so he can claim to be ‘progressive’ and ‘modern’?

And so the fellow on the street, encountering a poem that only its author could possibly understand, is told that this is Real Art, and is made to think that it is above him. Nothing could be further from the truth; he really cannot understand it because it is below him. The author made no effort to reach up towards the mind of You or Me, to crystallize his vague ideas in a way that would be even understandable, let alone convincing. Proponents of things like this give very elaborate explanations for why their work is so stiflingly self-absorbed, discontinuous, and random; but mark our words: what they are really saying is, “We want to be hailed as geniuses without possessing the talent or expending the effort.”

Again:

Like thousands, I took just pride and more than just, struck matches that brought my blood to a boil; I memorized the tricks to set the river on fire— somehow never wrote something to go back to.

Lowell might have had something interesting to say in there somewhere, something to suggest that he had something worth listening to, but we search in vain to find it. It combines the boredom of prose with the awkwardness of bad poetry, and no one can stand to read much of it. But find a writer who really can use English to its best effect, and the light shines in!

In a theme where the thoughts have a pedant strut, In a changing quarrel of 'Ayes' and 'Noes' In a starched procession of 'If' and 'But,' There is place and enough for the pains of prose;— But whenever a soft glance softer glows, And the light-hours dance to the trysting-time, And the secret is told "that nobody knows," Then hey!—for the ripple of laughing rhyme!         (—Austin Dobson.)

We concern ourselves with English poetry, since that is more along our line of specialty, but any reader can recall other areas of art, such as music and architecture, where the same problem applies. Common man, do not believe all who call themselves Artists. The inner witness of the spirit is the only test of art—which is as much as to say, Beauty is in the Eye of the Beholder.

—JD

Continue reading…

Jan 29, 2003

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The Editor and his Redoubted Father today handed a sheaf of blueprints to the Robbinsdale building inspector, then confidently ordered more than three thousand dollars worth of lumber, to be delivered on Friday. So, the Attic Project has now officially begun. Will the Duecks finish adding the two dormers in a timely, efficient manner, and before the occurence of a natural disaster? Here’s hoping.

Jan 21, 2003

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JIPW arrives back on the air, after a nearly two-year absence. Simplify and improve: those are the watchwords, friends. This site now loads more quickly and makes better use of the screen. Away with PHP and JavaScripts! Away with excessive graphics and pretentious layout! Let there be ASCII!

A Different Breed of Farmer

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A builder is a farmer of estate In whose aid nature lends no helping hand No simple seeds in furrows long and straight He sows, but must, to grow his crops, command An endless census of designs and parts. Nature’s seasons minds he not, and though The atmosphere may change for clear or dire, It is not sun and rain that makes to grow A home, which spurns what nature’s yields require, But human resolution, toil, and art. No natural seeds he on his field doth spend, But sows his lots with hands of working men.

his leaf shall not whither, & whatsoever he doeth shall prosper