Letter to Federico Curiosa

Fred,

I recently happened upon an excellent first edition of The Letters of Mercurius. Soon I shall delve into the mind of that anonymous and "slightly crotchety" master of Oxfordian prose, and when I do, I will write more about it later.

A few days ago I came across this line somewhere during my reading: academic of the avant-garde. I thought it was interesting but I can no longer place where I first read it. I have added a few words of my own--a mere academic of the avant-garde genre. Whenever I read and find a line that I like very much and wish to use it, hopefully I will not misuse the opportunity without proper identification of the original author. Training myself to slow down while at the same time trying to teach myself about writing and how to write, seems daunting. There is so much to learn. English! How I ever stumbled across this infernal language I will never know. But, sometimes words must be appropriated and rephrased, to be used in a new context in a new age with a new meaning, and this is probably the most difficult task of all for me. One must work at it. Go back and reread, pour over everything one has written, clarify, make notes etc.

On that matter we spoke of yesterday: it is not to the American liberal's taste to read my writings with any kind of fondness and I am glad of that. I believe that some of them are searching for an "intellectual totalitarianism" of a sort, one which will please their soidisant post-modern tastes and does not confuse their hastily constructed consciences. Do not hold it long against them for some of them are our friends, and with friends one uses wit not venom in the social areas.

I still think of our kayak trip on the Mohican in Ohio with M in June. What a great time we had. This fall I will surely set aside time to meet you in the mountains, near where you spoke about on the telephone. I have always wanted to take a trip down the Clarion River. Pack lunch. Vino!

Giovanni

July 31, 2009

Like the Pharaohs (letter to the Telegraph)

Posted to the Telegraph.co.uk
July 27, 2009

"When Tutankhamon popped his clogs" is a good read...and I have just gone through the traumatic experience of disposing of my lately late parents belongings. But I had to travel a round trip distance of 800 miles, once a month for 5 months to complete the work of sorting through years and years of accumulation. My fathers collections were vast, from dignified art, lockers and a safe full of British and U.S. commemorative coins of princes, princesses, queens, and presidents, boating and marine equipment by the box loads that I remembered fondly from my youth, huge amounts of music by everybody who was anybody, and every subsequent invention to play it on, cameras and photography equipment, watches and jewelry by the score to the lowly campaign medals and Zippo lighters from his military days; collecting by my mother was more frugal, saving only in large amounts besides pretty blouses and highly raved about rings, those much despised "monuments to democratic capitalism" -- piles of cash.

Being originally from a part of Great Britain but having lived in the United States I am often intrigued by how some Brit writers compare our two countries--yours being the little corner of the tomb and ours being the great hall. Old Tut would have loved it here but I am sure that he would not have thought much about your place or state, having been a pampered and precocious teenager, accustomed to the best and a lot of it.

What a dilemma it was deciding what to take home, the things to share, and the chattel for the auction block. Needless to say, I brought from each trip memorabilia and mementos of every description, stuffing it away in every available and conceivable space that I could find, where I am sure upon my own demise it will be discovered by an inquisitive Howard Carter of the future. Good luck, old boy! If it hadn't been for the dedicated help of one of my best friends (with an occasional break for boating excursions) I would still be sorting through piles and piles of kimonos, photographs, ivory carvings, tools and whatnot.

Back to the comparisons--yes America has a lot of, again "monuments to democratic capitalism" but why should we not? We have to store away our stuff just as you do, not in a paltry 700 outside treasure houses but in over 57,000 and more are being built every day. Why, just think, the whole of Great Britain is only a little mouse of a nation that would fit comfortably inside the state of Michigan and still have room for a large family around the edges. At only 94,525 square miles to our 3,537,438 square miles that's not much to boast about. I can see why you wouldn't want to save too much stuff. So I suggest, being good neighbors, I will let you send some of it over to me for storage. I can still make room somewhere among all my books and this and that for whatever you can spare. I will be able to look at it nostalgically and think of my home away from home.

Good read, old boy. I did like all of your pop idioms and expressions such as impedimenta, popped his clogs, and flog it in the bazaar. How did you manage to collect such an extraordinary amount of words? All this time I was defining my status and myself by what I own, when I could have gone another route. It was a pleasure reading, Boris.

Giovanni


Posted in reply to Like the Pharaohs, we're getting buried by our own possessions by Boris Johnson, Telegraph.co.uk 26 July, 2009.

Boris Johnson, Mayor of London (elected May 2008). Educated at Oxford University, as well as being mayor of one of the world's largest cities, Boris is the author of several books, appears regularly on British TV, and is also a journalist and feature writer for The Daily Telegraph. It may be noted that besides family, Boris has a passion for cycling, painting and tennis.

"When Tutankhamon popped his clogs there really ought to have been someone in his entourage who harbored doubts, deep down, about what they did next. It was all very well to mummify the kid, but I wonder whether anyone stopped to ask whether he was really going to need all that clobber."

for the full text of this article, see the Telegraph.co.uk it is well worth reading.

WHO IS GIOVANNI?

The writer Giovanni and the poet Dom Giovanni first appeared sometime in the late twentieth century, disappeared for awhile, mysteriously reappeared, then vanished again, each time reborn in the same body with a new mind and new eyes for seeing.

If I were to compare poets to anthologies the resulting list would be exhaustive. Rittenhouse, writing long ago observed that the pageant of poetry (and I am reversing this to read poets) have "been so often presented that no necessity exists for another exhaustive review" of the species. That our poet became a poet is enough.

For any writer a deeper explanation of him or herself is often necessary. Not because there may be more to the inner workings of writers than of poets, but that contemporary writers are still a dime a dozen and poets are not. Writers feel that they must explain themselves or be explained fully and unconditionally. Perhaps to justify their consciences for the bald act of becoming writers. Poets have no fear or a need to be so fully explained.

Observing that the world's din mysteriously waxes and wanes between episodes of pure brilliance and unexplained imbecility, the writer Giovanni thought that he, too, would add his words to the prolonged, loud and distracting noises of the phenomenal worlds in which he found himself. A challenge to be sure, because he did not desire to grow up to become a great writer or a fire chief but an unadorned poet.

Upon further reflection, and finding in himself a need to change occasionally, from poet to writer, Giovanni knew that it would be an ambitious undertaking to throw himself as a writer against the waning and the waxing of the world's follies and successes. Yet throw himself he did, beginning with two good and wise decisions. He bought a second-hand dictionary and a notebook. The writer was born!

Our new writer never pictured himself as an outside observer. Writers are usually inside observers, but of what phenomena I cannot tell. Our writer, this writer, he, always pictured himself standing and looking around in the middle of an enormous room full of people. Whether he could be seen in return he did not know, unless he acted thoughtlessly, which he very often did. This led him to become a writer. Write these people he told himself.

The task was daunting at first and not a little scary for such a large undertaking, that is, adding more words to the overburdened world. Thinking, at first, that it would be better for him to melt away than add his indiscretions to the indiscretions of so many who do not seem to care a whit about what they do or say, the writer appeared and disappeared like a hesitating apparition. It is easier to be an indiscreet writer than be an indiscreet poet. Which explains why there are not many great poets but numerous idiot writers.

And thinking that he would add his name to those illustrious, remembered for eternity, such as Herodotus, Suetonius, Caesar, Boethius, Xun Zi, Macaulay, Stowe, Spyri, Fitzgerald - - the list of names winds on with somebody else adding one here, two there ad infinitum. He flattered himself and stiffened his will for the challenge.

On these pages are found words of the writer Giovanni, not the poet Dom Giovanni. It is important that the reader not mistake the poet for the writer or the writer for the poet. The two may occupy the same body but not the same frame of mind simultaneously.

Also herein, the writer Giovanni, it is assumed, wishes to enlighten and greatly entertain his admirers, if any such admirers exist. Furthermore the writer undoubtedly lives with the hope that he can warm the frozen souls of those universal fanatics of which he finds himself completely surrounded. The pageant of writing (blogging) goes on with "loud, vague, tumultuous wonder" and is often presented so mindlessly by so many that a necessity may exist for an exhaustive review of the genre.

This is not a formal anthology of letters and writings, but a pastiche taken from various sources, sometimes abridged, pasteurized, revalued and rewritten to make them more comprehensible and palatable to the general reader. The letters are representative not exhaustive, and in certain instances, names have been changed to protect the innocent (or the guilty) from embarrassments in which they may not wish themselves to be found.

Who is Giovanni the writer? You tell me.

The reviewer




Notes:

Jessie B. Rittenhouse
"loud, vague, tulmultuous wonder" Caryle