Jyms of Wyzdom for 19 March 2020

What the…? Why are you reading my notes for two weeks in a row? Because, Jae and I thought it might help to have WYZDOM in your Friday Bulletin every week for a while. I can try to be encouraging, inspirational, and even have a few real facts included. What I won’t be talking about (I promise) is that virus thing and politics…oh, and religion. What’s left?

When you talk to the half-wise,  talk twaddle; talk when you talk to the ignorant, brag; when you talk to the sagacious, look very humble, and ask their opinion. [Edward Bulwar-Lytton]

Movies: If you go to either of our local cinemas, you’ll find they are closed until further notice. Regal has the opera, “Maria Stuarda” listed for May 9…if the Met is back in operation by then. So, you’ll just have to rely on your TV and vast collection of DVDs. Bon and I bought a new Sony DVD player that is also equipped to pull in those other things you can subscribe to: Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, et al. Naturally, I did something wrong in trying to wire it up. I may have to call the Geek Squad at Best Buy to see if they will make house calls right now, or maybe I can get someone there to help me over the phone. You realize, I used to be very good at wiring things, but now that we have smart this and dumb that, it means complications. (sigh)

Middle age is when you are sitting at home on a Saturday night and the telephone rings and you hope it isn’t for you. [Ogden Nash]

Hedda Gabler: I only noticed a handful of OLLI folk at the Sunday matinee for this Ibsen classic. We felt the cast did an excellent job with the play, with a really fine Hedda. They had to cancel the final performance—what a shame. Things will get back to normal…

A Real Fact: Today is the first day of spring. Bon likes to tell how her parents thought about naming her Spring when she was born on March 21, but elected not to curse the poor child with that. Lucky her, though; she shares that birthday with Johann Sebastien Bach, her and our absolute favorite composer! How’s that for a coincidence? She is six months older than I am, but this birthdate signifies that we are both getting to the age of being actually OLD (75).

At seventy-five, I would say the advantage is that you take life more calmly. You have that “this, too, shall pass!”  [Humanitarian Eleanor Roosevelt]

If I had my life to live over again, I’d make the same mistakes—only sooner. [Actress Tallulah Bankhead]

Staying In: What to do with all this time? I have always said as long as I have music and books, I can be by myself almost forever. I just finished The House of the Spirits, Isabel Allende’s first novel. Somehow I missed reading her, but no longer. Wonderful and magical. She, along with Gabriel Garcia Marquez, traffic in that genre known as “magical realism.” Tennessee Williams also loved it, learned when he was young an frolicking on the beaches of Mexico. It’s when you write between the cracks and include, oh, ghosts, evil spirits, good spirits, real people and not…like that. I also read one of the small volumes of poetry by Billy Collins and a larger one y Philip Appleman. I am doing this, trying to gather the courage to approach the writing of poems again. I haven’t done one since age 18, when all that I produced was stuff and nonsense.

It's also a good time to check out the schedule for Turner Classic Movies—did you know that Xfinity is now charging extra for TCM? Unbelievable.

Prepare yourselves…I will probably start including some poems (not mine) in this space. Let’s see, the perfect one for the first day of spring would have to be…[pause for dramatic effect]…William Wordsworth’s…

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

*

Be safe, be whole, be always exactly who you are…Jym