word of the day: jeu d’esprit

word of the day: jeu d’esprit

Miss Bianca has returned from what turned out to be a rather boring vacation for her in the mountains. She couldn’t play in the snow with the Boy, who is her special human friend, so she’s mostly been restricted to staring out windows. Upon her return to the Embassy she learns that Bernard has gone off on a rescuing mission without her. Miss Bianca is the prime mover of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society so she is worried. She knows Bernard is capable, yet … 

So when he shows up at the end of his own adventure, Miss Bianca is much relieved. 

“[H]ow tired you must be …, my dear, dear Bernard!”

"Just a bit whacked," admitted Bernard. "Did you miss me at all, Miss Bianca, while you were away at that mountain resort?"

"Did I miss you!" exclaimed Miss Bianca. "You were hardly absent from my thoughts! I even wrote a poem about you!"

"Really?" cried Bernard. "Really and truly? Oh Miss Bianca, won’t you repeat it to me?"

"’Twas but a jeu d’esprit which I’ve almost forgotten," said Miss Bianca.

"Can’t you remember even a line or two of it?" pressed Bernard.

"Well, the last two," said Miss Bianca, "were O Bernard are you all right / Out of my sight?"

Bernard drew a deep, happy breath.

Ah, to be immortalized in a poem by the beloved! Now, if only she would love him. 

definition (Collins): a clever, witty turn of phrase, piece of writing, etc.

source:

Bernard the Brave

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Leslie Morrill

1977. Little, Brown & Co., Boston

word of the day: facer

word of the day: facer

In the role of rescuer (representing the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society) Bernard has at last succeeded in the necessary first step of mounting a rescue — finding the prisoner. 

The heiress to be freed from bondage expresses full confidence in her would-be savior. 

“I … place myself entirely in your hands!’ [the young lady says.]

This was a bit of a facer for Bernard, who … had as yet no solid plan for rescuing her.

definition (Merriam-Webster): British : a sudden often stunning check or obstacle

source:

Bernard the Brave

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Leslie Morrill

1977. Little, Brown & Co., Boston

word of the day: midinette

word of the day: midinette

Bernard, in his role as agent of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, is trapped himself when two scrubwomen enter the room where he has not found the missing heiress. The women are “discuss[ing] their Easter bonnets — Easter bonnets meaning as much to a scrubwoman as any topknot worn by a midinette in Paris on St. Catherine’s day.”

Thus the women, who otherwise could spell doom for a mouse, are distracted enough for Bernard to make his escape. 

definition (Merriam-Webster): a Parisian shopgirl; especially : a Parisian seamstress

source:

Bernard the Brave

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Leslie Morrill

1977. Little, Brown & Co., Boston

word of the day: rebarbative

word of the day: rebarbative

Trying to fulfill his rescuing duties as agent of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, Bernard confronts the largest house on the Grand Boulevard. It’s supposedly where a young heiress is being held captive to prevent her coming into her fortune. 

The front door is impenetrable. 

[Bernard’s] experience of prisons, however, had taught him that however rebarbative their frontage, there was often a weakness at the back; so … he … nosed cautiously round the building’s huge bulk, where his expectations were fulfilled by the sight of [a] back door … so jammed ajar by cartons and waste-paper, Bernard was easily able to slip in.

definition (dictionary.com): causing annoyance, irritation, or aversion; repellent.

source:

Bernard the Brave

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Leslie Morrill

1977. Little, Brown & Co., Boston

word of the day: doss

word of the day: doss

Miss Bianca and Bernard have always mounted their rescues together, being the main actors in the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society. But Miss Bianca has gone with her human family on a salutary excursion to the ski slopes, so when an elderly mouse shows up to beg their help with his darling human mistress, it is only Bernard who can heed the call.

When the entreater expresses doubt about Bernard’s ability, Bernard retorts,

“I’ve had more experience in prisoner-rescuing than you seem to realize. I don’t suppose a few hours [delay in beginning] will make any difference; you doss down where you are [on the couch] and I’ll go back to bed.”

For [Bernard] always believed in getting a good night’s rest before any unusual enterprise, and if possible a good breakfast as well.

definition (Merriam-Webster): chiefly British

to sleep or bed down in a convenient place —usually used with down

We’ve encountered doss before as part of the compound doss-house. 

source:

Bernard the Brave

by Margery Sharp

illustrated by Leslie Morrill

1977. Little, Brown & Co., Boston

“a single character was missing”

In their book about the New Horizons mission to Pluto authors Alan Stern and David Grinspoon go on at length about the proofreading, troubleshooting, and rehearsals required for the mission. Nothing was checked just once — or just twice. Everything had to be gone over again and again. 

At times the failed attempts to explore Mars have made that planet seem cursed. Yet the authors want you to know that Mars didn’t do anything — we fucked up. Cognizance of that history deeply informs all planetary missions.

The history of space flight is replete with … tragic examples of … accident[s caused by seemingly tiny errors]. NASA’s Viking 1 Lander, the first successful Mars lander, had been lost six years after it touched down on the Martian surface, when a software update, meant to correct a battery-charging error, had accidentally included commands to redirect the communication dish. The errant commands pointed Viking 1’s dish antenna at the ground, where it could no longer communicate with Earth, and just like that - the mission was over. Similarly, Russia’s Mars probe called Phobos 1 was lost in 1986 when a single character was missing from a software upload. This minuscule mistake caused the spacecraft to deactivate its attitude-control thrusters; as a result its solar panels could no longer track the Sun, and the batteries lost all their power. It was never recovered. And in one of the most painful and embarrassing failures in the history of spaceflight, NASA’s Mars Climate Orbiter came in too low as it approached Mars in 1999, burning up in the atmosphere. The problem was traced to the fact that two groups of engineers had used different sets of units when computing the Mars orbit insertion maneuver: one engineering group had been using imperial units (feet and pounds), while the other group had been using metric (meters and Newtons).

All that checking and rechecking paid off for the New Horizons mission and we have amazing close-up views of a world we can barely see from Earth. 

source:

Chasing New Horizons: inside the epic first mission to Pluto

Alan Stern and David Grinspoon

2018. Picador, New York

“his husband”

It still stands out. “His husband.” I’ve blogged before about coming across that (by now innocuous?) phrase. 

The authors of a book about the New Horizons mission to Pluto and the outer solar system are listing the members of a “group of old friends from the New Horizons science team [who] had gathered at a viewing site, anxious for their baby to take flight after so many years of hard work. … Science team geology and geophysics team lead Jeff Moore was there with his daughter and his mom. Geologist Paul Schenk was with his husband, David; Leslie Young was with her husband, Paul. Bill McKinnon had his kids in tow.”

There it is, “his husband,” indicating the gay couple, unremarkably amid the other families. Yet it is remarkable. For all the hard work the New Horizons team put in — and the mission was greenlit, then canceled more than once — this little scene is also evidence of progress not just in science but in society. Go, Paul and David!

source:

Chasing New Horizons: inside the epic first mission to Pluto

Alan Stern and David Grinspoon

2018. Picador, New York

“one of the milder cases”

Set in the year 1918, Sterling North’s memoir about raising a raccoon brings up a newly-relevant topic, the major pandemic so frequently compared to our current covid-19 event, that is, the Spanish flu. In his “November” chapter North writes:

Spanish influenza, which had swept across Europe and the eastern states, hit Brailsford Junction late in October, killing more of our citizens than died in the war [World War I]. The schools were closed, and people scurried along the half-deserted streets wearing eerie-looking masks of white gauze. At least one person in four was dangerously ill, with twice that number less seriously affected. Sometimes the disease struck with swift fatality. One ancient couple on the northern edge of town struggled out to their well to get a pail of water. The old man died at the pump, and his wife collapsed beside him, the handle of the bucket still grasped in her stiffening fingers.

11-year-old Sterling catches the virus, although he says, “Mine was one of the milder cases.” The father takes Sterling out to the home of family who own a working farm where the boy is nursed and recovers. No mention of any precautions taken to prevent the family from catching the virus. Luckily, if any of them did, it must be that none got a case bad enough to describe. 

For several days I spent most of my time in bed, arising occasionally for tea and toast or a short walk with Rascal [the raccoon]. In the evening, however, I donned bathrobe and slippers to listen to Aunt Lillie reading to the family in the parlor. … Aunt Lillie sat in her rocker beside a small table where a kerosene lamp threw its pale radiance upon the pages of a farm magazine. We sprawled around her in comfort, listening to her gentle voice as she read an endless serial.

I seem to remember one of my grade school teachers reading to us from Rascal. I never saw the Disney movie. But I do remember thinking a raccoon pet would be ideal. Rascal sounds like a sweetie, but a raccoon probably would not work out as a pet these days, especially in town. 

source:

Rascal

Sterling North

illustrated by Joh Schoenherr

1963. E. P. Dutton, New York

The Best Poems of 2020

Ever Blue … Joseph Salvatore Aversano

Roberta Beary … haiku “on my finger”

Kari Davidson … haiku “evening sunlight”

Eli S. Evans … The Liberation of Spirit

Gilles Fabre … two haiku “let me pick you off” and “in the old iron pot”

Allen Ginsberg … haiku “a dandelion seed floats”

Michael Gizzi … “A tea shower eavesdrops on a treefort …”

Ty Hadman … haiku “knothole”

Doris Heitmeyer … haiku “the sound of night rain”

Anita Krumins … haiku “methodical husband”

D. H. Lawrence … All Souls

Hsieh Ling-yun … Overnight at Stone Gate

Ippyo … haiku “what cools us are red lanterns”

Ivan I. Ivancan … haiku “stars”

Michael McNierney … haiku “after therapy”

M. M. Nichols … haiku “walking downhill”

Natalia L. Rudychev … two haiku “the world” and “losing my shadow in his”

Masaya Saito … haiku “breaking off an icicle”

Mongane Wally Serote … Introit

Helen L. Shaffer … haiku “new blanket”

Shi-wu Ch’ing-Kung (Stonehouse) … Mountain Poem #67 “lunch in my mountain kitchen”

W. D. Snodgrass … Looking

Stefan Theodoru … haiku “sparrow on the wing”

Lequita Vance … haiku “alone on the road”

Wang An-shih … Events on Chungshan

Joyce E. Young … How Will You Step Forward?

*

As I read a book I keep a batch of placemarks ready should I come across something I want to revisit. After I’ve marked a poem and come back to read it again, I sometimes read it again and again, usually over the course of several days. If I decide I don’t want to leave it behind, I hand copy it into a loose leaf notebook. I’ve been doing this since 1989. Some years I copy out many poems; some years only a handful. 

With the new year I read aloud (usually just to myself) the poems I’ve copied out in the previous year. Then I type up the list and post it on the blog.

Are these the “best” poems I read all year? I only make that claim because it’s fun to. It’s a bigger claim than “personal favorite.” Any editor who claims their choices are the “best” of what they had offered to them isn’t telling the truth. The more candid ones will say they publish What They Like. 

So these are What I Like, or What I Liked the Most in 2020. I read a lot of poetry — and I do like a lot of it. The many poems I liked but which didn’t make it into my notebook were poems I managed to talk myself out of copying out. That doesn’t make them worse. Just so you know. 

Titles read in 2020

January 

The Fury of Firestorm: the Nuclear Man, #1 - 22 and annual #1 (1982-83)

Gerry Conway, writer; Pat Broderick, et al, artists

When Brooklyn Was Queer

by Hugh Ryan

The Tranquilized Tongue

by Eric Baus

Jon Sable, Freelance, #1 - 24 (1983-84)

Mike Grell, writer/artist

Two Lines: Landmarks

2013

eds. Susan Bernofsky and Christopher Merrill

Animal Man: 30th anniversary deluxe edition, vol. 1

Grant Morrisson, writer

February

The Best American Poetry 2016

Edward Hirsch, editor

The Mysteries Within

by Sherwin B. Nuland

Fear of Dancing: Red Moon anthology 2013

Jim Kacian, editor

The Animal Man Omnibus

Grant Morrisson, writer

Working Stiff: two years, 262 bodies, and the making of a medical examiner

by Judy Melinek and J. Mitchell

The Field-Ingersoll Discussion: Faith or Agnosticism

Henry Field & Robert G. Ingersoll

Nigger: the strange career of a troublesome word

by Randall Kennedy

The Hive

by Charles Burns

My Terza Rima 

by Michael Gizzi

March

On Haiku 

by Hiroaki Sato

Twilight of the Gods: a journey to the end of classic rock

by Steven Hyden

Life of a Counterfeiter & other stories

by Yasushi Inoue; translated by Michael Emmerich

Sugar Skull

by Charles Burns

Finding Them Gone: visiting China’s poets of the past

by Bill Porter / Red Pine

How It Happens

by Joyce E. Young

X-Men: Grand Design, vol. 3: X-tinction

by Ed Piskor

Unrelated Individuals Forming a Group Waiting to Cross

by Mark Yakich

The Best American Poetry 2017

Natasha Trethewey, guest ed.; David Lehman, series ed.

Reflections of the Empty Flagpole

by Eileen S. Tabios

New Shoes

by Kathleen Fraser

Married to the Demon King: Sri Daoruang and Her Demon Folk

edited/translated by Susan F. Kepner

XII Moon Poems, ’64 - ’89

by Pagan Neil

Theater of Terror: revenge of the queers

edited by Justin Hall and William O. Tyler

I’m Special & other lies we tell ourselves

by Ryan O’Connell

Under the Rock Umbrella: contemporary American poets from 1951 to 1977

edited by William Walsh

April

Slashed to Ribbons in Defense of Love & other stories

by Felice Picano

Folk Songs of the United States

California State Department of Education, 1951

Poetry

July/August 2015, v. 206 n. 4

Frogpond

2009, v. 32 n. 1

A Century of South African Poetry

edited by Michael Chapman

Slaughterhouse Five

by Kurt Vonnegut

Walking Shadows: a novel without words

by Neil Bousfield

Cyclone Fence

by Dale Jensen

Ubiquity: why catastrophes happen

by Mark Buchanan

I Paint What I See

by Gahan Wilson

Decade Dance

by Michael Lassell

Playboy’s Gahan Wilson

by Gahan Wilson

Quipu

Arthur Sze

“… and then we’ll get him!”

by Gahan Wilson

In a Spring Garden

edited by Richard Lewis; pictures by Ezra Jack Keats

The Twelve Caesars

by Suetonius

Pacific Presentss #1 & 2: The Rocketeer; The Missing Man

and The Rocketeer Special Edition #1

Dave Stevens; Steve Ditko

Blue Unicorn

Fall 2018, v. XLII n. 1

Namesake: book one

by Isabelle Melancon and Megan Lavey-Heaton

May

Surviving Through the Days: translations of Native California stories & songs

edited by Herbert W. Luthin

The Ziggy Treasury

by Tom Wilson

Blue Unicorn

Spring 2019, v. XLII n. 2

John Hart, editor

includes my poem “Customer Service”

Poetry 

Feb 2012, v. CCI n. 5

Christian Wiman, editor

Namesake: book two

by Isabelle Melancon & Megan Lavey-Heaton

Poetry 

April 2013, v. 202 n. 1

Christian Wiman, editor

Master Snickup’s Cloak

by Alexander Theroux; illustrated by Brian Froud

Poems for the Millennium, v. 4: The University of California Book of North African Literature

edited by Pierre Joris and Habib Tengour

The Uninhabitable Earth: life after warming

by David Wallace-Wells

Shake the Kaleidoscope

edited by Milton Klonsky

Encore! Encore! a new collection of Ziggy favorites

by Tom Wilson

Tintin in America

by Herge

The Portable Dante

edited by Mark Musa

Poetry

Nov 2017, v. 211 n. 2 

Don Share, editor

Jessica Farm, vol. 2

by Josh Simmons

Tender is the Night

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Cigars of the Pharaoh

by Herge

Nuts

by Gahan Wilson

June

Multi-America: essays on cultural wars and cultural peace

edited by Ishmael Reed

Fence

Fall-Winter 2007-08, v. 10 n. 1 & 2

R. Wolff, editor

Bridge Eight Literary Magazine

c. Spring 2008, issue 07

includes my poem “Fare for Passage”

Hanging Loose

2014, #104

eds. Hershon, Lurie, et al

White Christmas: the story of an American song

by Jody Rosen

Hanging Loose

2015, #105

eds. Hershon, Lurie, ed al

Poetry

Jan 2018, v. 211 n. 4 

Don Share, editor

The Invitation-Only Zone: the true story of North Korea’s abduction project

by Robert S. Boynton

The Rescuers

by Margery Sharp

Tales of Magic Land, vol. 1: The Wizard of the Emerald City and Urfin Jus and His Wooden Soldiers

by Alexander Volkov; translated by Peter L. Blystone

Flight

vol. 4

edited by Kazuo Kibuishi

Blue Unicorn

Fall 2019, v. XLIII n. 1

John Hart, editor

Poetry 

Feb 2018, v. 211 n. 5

Don Share, editor

Children of the Days: a calendar of human history

by Eduardo Galeano; translated by Mark Fried

July

Haiku World: an international poetry almanac

by William J. Higginson

Me 

by Elton John

Planet on the Table: poets on the reading life

edited by Sharon Bryan and William Olsen

bottle rockets 

#43 (v. 22 n. 1)

Stanford Forrester

includes one of my haiku

The Understanding Between Foxes and Light

the 2013 great weather for media annual

Poetry

March 2018, v. 211 n. 6

Don Share, editor

Slowly

by Lyn Hejinian

Who We Be: the colorization of America

by Jeff Chang

Mannequin Haus

rm. 2

Zachary Scott Hamilton, editor

includes four of my poems

Before Passing 

2015 great weather for media annual

Monastic Living

by Vernon Small

Lens

by Grace Marie Grafton

Over the Transom

2012, #22

Jonathan Hayes, editor

August

The First Treasury of Herman

by Jim Unger

The Comics Journal, special edition v. 1: Cartoonists on Cartooning

2002; Gary Groth, editor

The Blue Lotus

by Herge

Blue Unicorn

Sp 2020, v. XLIII n. 25

John Hart, ed

Poetry

Jan 2019, v. 212 n. 4

Don Share, editor

Cometbus #57

2016 

by Aaron Cometbus

The Land of Little Rain

by Mary Austin

as an ebook download from Project Gutenberg

The Broken Ear

by Herge

Poetry

Mar 2019, v. 213 n. 6

Don Share, editor

Starlight: 150 poems

by John Tranter

Cracks in the Iron Closet: travels in gay & lesbian Russian

by David Tuller

Becoming an Ancestor

by Lucille Lang Day

Hot Stuff: disco and the remaking of American culture

by Alice Echols

Black Hole

by Charles Burns

One Side Laughing: stories unlike other stories

by Damon Knight

September

The Black Island

by Herge

The Children of Harvey Milk: how LGBTQ politicians changed the world

by Andrew Reynolds

Parallel Worlds

by Michio Kaku

Legendary Children: the first decade of RuPaul’s Drag Race and the last century of queer life

by Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez

The Sirens of Mars: searching for life on another world

by Sarah Stewart Johnson

Poetry 

June 2019, v. 214 n. 3

Don Share, editor

The Pink Line: journeys across the world’s queer frontiers

by Mark Gevisser

Miss Bianca

by Margery Sharp

Caught in Fading Light: mountain lions, Zen masters, and wild nature

by Gary Thorp

Full-Metal Indigiqueer

by Joshua Whitehead

October

The Turret

by Margery Sharp

Black Bolt

2019 collection of a 12-issue series

by Saladin Ahmed & Christian Ward

Thrown in the Throat

by Benjamin Garcia

Jack Kirby: the epic life of the king of comics

by Tom Scioli

King Kojo

by Ruth Plumly Thompson; illustrations by Marge

Starslayer: the log of the Jolly Roger, #1 - i

created by Mike Grell, includes Rocketeer episodes

Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines

by Margery Sharp

Miss Bianca in the Orient

by Margery Sharp

as an Open Library ebook

Wallflower

by Peter Thomas Bullen

The Neanderthals Rediscovered: how modern science is rewriting their story

by Dimitra Papagianni and Michael Morse

November

Miss Bianca in the Antarctic

by Margery Sharp

Rin Tin Tin: the life and the legend

by Susan Orlean

King Ottokar’s Sceptre

by Herge

Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid

by Margery Sharp

The Vivisection Mambo: 125 poems of the new neo-realist school

Lolita Lark, editor

Blow-drying a Chicken: observations from a working poet

by Molly Fisk

This Is Not a Novel

by David Markson

Underland: a deep time journey

by Robert MacFarlane

December

The Complete Poems of D. H. Lawrence

edited by Vivian de Sola Pinto and F. Warren Roberts

Orphan Black: Helsinki

writers: John Fawcett, Graeme Manson, Heli Kennedy; artists: Alan Quah, Wayne Nichols, Fico Ossio

A House for Mr. Biswas

by V. S. Naipaul

Sapiens: a brief history of humankind

by Yuval Noah Harari

The Crab with the Golden Claws

by Herge

The Measure of a Man

by Sidney Poitier

The Shooting Star

by Herge

Spillway

2020, #28

edited by Marsha de la O and Phil Taggart

includes my poem “Personal Testimony”

Chaser: unlocking the genius of the dog who knows a thousand words

by John W. Pilley with Hilary Hinzmann

Black Dog, Black Night: contemporary Vietnamese poetry

edited by Nguyen Do and Paul Hoover

Antidote for Night

by Marsha de la O

The More Difficult Beauty

by Molly Fisk

Avis

by Michael Gizzi

Chasing New Horizons: inside the epic first mission to Pluto

by Alan Stern and David Grinspoon