We Who Are Your Closest Friends


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http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/we-who-are-your-closest-friends

We Who Are Your Closest Friends

Phillip Lopate, 1943

we who are

your closest friends

feel the time

has come to tell you

that every Thursday

we have been meeting

as a group

to devise ways

to keep you

in perpetual uncertainty

frustration

discontent and

torture

by neither loving you

as much as you want

nor cutting you adrift

your analyst is

in on it

plus your boyfriend

and your ex-husband

and we have pledged

to disappoint you

as long as you need us

in announcing our

association

we realize we have

placed in your hands

a possible antidote

against uncertainty

indeed against ourselves

but since our Thursday nights

have brought us

to a community of purpose

rare in itself

with you as

the natural center

we feel hopeful you

will continue to make

unreasonable

demands for affection

if not as a consequence

of your

disastrous personality

then for the good of the collective

From At the End of the Day: Selected Poems and an Introductory Essay, copyright © 2009 by Phillip Lopate. Used by permission of Marsh Hawk Press

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I'm stumped. The poet seems to be talking about a woman but who is she? I thought I was reading an obit. At least there was no final date listed as in references to the poem Bang the Drum Slowly. On a happier note Thursday night football will be back soon, The Donald, an anarchist is running for President, and our old pal Joe Biden MAY have entered the race. Just kidding. Care to elucidate about the poem?

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Mike,

 

I don't know what's in George's mind, but I seriously doubt it's a plea for attention.

 

:smile:

 

His Cato essay thread is one of the most widely read threads on OL.

 

From my understanding, few people engage on that thread because to do so intelligently would demand a level of scholarship and familiarity with old texts most do not have. And George does not engage too much on OL because he is busy writing that magnificent body of work.

 

In other words, people are going there, but they go there to learn, not discuss. I know that's how I do it.

 

As to the poem, I think he just found it funny.

 

I did, precisely because I have had many friends like that.

 

The poem is a classier version of, say, a country song.

 

 

:smile:

 

Maybe I'm wrong. 

 

But then, I'm an asshole myself when I want to be (and sometimes when I don't).

 

:smile:

 

Michael

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Mike,

I don't know what's in George's mind, but I seriously doubt it's a plea for attention.

:smile:

His Cato essay thread is one of the most widely read threads on OL.

From my understanding, few people engage on that thread because to do so intelligently would demand a level of scholarship and familiarity with old texts most do not have. And George does not engage too much on OL because he is busy writing that magnificent body of work.

In other words, people are going there, but they go there to learn, not discuss. I know that's how I do it.

As to the poem, I think he just found it funny.

I did, precisely because I have had many friends like that.

The poem is a classier version of, say, a country song.

:smile:

Maybe I'm wrong.

But then, I'm an asshole myself when I want to be (and sometimes when I don't).

:smile:

Michael

Great tune, but who sings it? Three different claims are made in the comments section on YouTube: Jimmy Buffett, August Campbell, and George Jones. My guess is George Jones, but I'm not sure.

Ghs

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Great tune, but who sings it? Three different claims are made in the comments section on YouTube: Jimmy Buffett, August Campbell, and George Jones. My guess is George Jones, but I'm not sure.

 

George,

 

It's Jimmy Buffett. There's another video with the same version on YouTube that presents the lyrics. It clearly says his name. But the uploader screwed up the lyrics so much, it's painful to watch:

 

 

The comments on YouTube all complain.

 

On another note, only marginally related (asshole-wise :smile: ), when I get into an anti-American mood, meaning when I get really pissed off at the American government, I kinda like the following video. I feel guilty for liking it most of the time, but when I'm in that damn mood, what can I say? It does it for me.

 

 

:smile:

 

Michael

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My only reason for posting the poem was that I found it very amusing and insightful. It plays into the paranoia many people have about what their friends say about them behind their backs.

Ghs

Indeed, it is all of that, but it is also clearly directed to a woman (or a homosexual man I suppose but doubt given the date written). I recognize in it what I consider a character flaw of many women - the expectation that the men in her life be the source of her happiness and self-worth. Great poem!

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Interesting man...

Architecture

Lopate has written about architecture and urbanism for Metropolis, The New York Times, Double Take, Preservation, Cite, and 7 Days, where he wrote a bimonthly architectural column. He has served as a committee member for the Municipal Art Society and as a consultant for Ric Burns' PBS documentary on the history of New York City.[1]

http://www.philliplopate.com/ <<<< his website

lopate-300x225.jpg handsome fellow

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillip_Lopate

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My only reason for posting the poem was that I found it very amusing and insightful. It plays into the paranoia many people have about what their friends say about them behind their backs.

Ghs

Indeed, it is all of that, but it is also clearly directed to a woman (or a homosexual man I suppose but doubt given the date written). I recognize in it what I consider a character flaw of many women - the expectation that the men in her life be the source of her happiness and self-worth. Great poem!

Despite the references to "your boyfriend" and "your ex-husband," I don't read the poem as gender specific. Rather, Lopate's observations are universal and would apply to either sex. If he wanted to indicate that the conspiracy of your "closest friends" included even past and present sex partners, which greatly enhances the effect, stylistic considerations would virtually demand that he settle for male or female references. Nevertheless, I would wager that many women read this poem and think immediately of insecure men they have known. I certainly did not think solely of women when I read it, and neither did my girlfriend.

Of course I could be wrong. The interpretation of poetry has never been my strong suit. I find that style of writing pretty much a mystery. Although I enjoy reading poetry from time to time (especially Coleridge and other Romantics), I have neither the eye nor the ear to appreciate it fully, and, at my best, I can only write doggerel on a high-school level.

Ghs

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From time to time in my early writing career I attempted to write poetry, but the results were typically so godawful that I threw almost everything away. I only managed to write one poem (c. 1977) that I thought was pretty good, or at least clever enough not to toss in the wastebasket, but I wasn't even sure what it should be called. The only reason I called it a "poem" at all was because I broke what could have been a continuous paragraph into several lines; that was about the extent of my understanding of "poetry." Anyway, I managed to get the piece published in a small circulation zine in Los Angeles. I wrote it in a fit of frustration, after finishing an academic article that included dozens of footnotes. I hated writing footnotes, and I still do, so here is what I came up with.

My goal as a writer:

To write an entire piece

Without a single footnote.*

*Failed again.

This piece, whatever it should be called, reflected my desire to write "essays" rather than "articles"--a desire I did not satisfy until I published "My Path to Atheism," in Atheism, Ayn Rand, and Other Heresies, in 1991. Although many pieces in that anthology had been published previously, I wrote that essay specifically for the collection, largely because I wanted to try my hand at a "pure" essay. I wrote it in a style quite unlike anything I had written before, and I still consider it one of my better efforts. I was reading a lot of George Orwell's essays at the time--he remains my favorite essay writer to this day--and his influence is evident at various places, especially in the final paragraph.

"My Path to Atheism" may be read here:

https://books.google.com/books?id=44APM0d_JtMC&lpg=PA1&dq=George%20Smith%20My%20path%20to%20atheism&pg=PA23#v=onepage&q=George%20Smith%20My%20path%20to%20atheism&f=false

Ghs

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I mentioned George Orwell's essays in my last post. If you are interested in essay writing but have never read Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant," you should do so. It is as close to a perfect essay as I have ever read, and I learned a lot about essay writing from it.

Orwell also wrote my all-time favorite opening line of an essay. The first line of "The Lion and the Unicorn," written while the Nazis were bombing London, goes like this:

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

It doesn't get any better than that. If I could write one opening line as crisp and brilliant as this line by Orwell, I would die a happy man.

Ghs

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My only reason for posting the poem was that I found it very amusing and insightful. It plays into the paranoia many people have about what their friends say about them behind their backs.

Ghs

Indeed, it is all of that, but it is also clearly directed to a woman (or a homosexual man I suppose but doubt given the date written). I recognize in it what I consider a character flaw of many women - the expectation that the men in her life be the source of her happiness and self-worth. Great poem!

Despite the references to "your boyfriend" and "your ex-husband" and I don't read the poem as gender specific. Rather, Lopate's observations are universal and would apply to either sex. If he wanted to indicate that the conspiracy of your "closest friends" included even past and present sex partners, which greatly enhances the effect, stylistic considerations would virtually demand that he settle for male or female references. Nevertheless, I would wager that many women read this poem and think immediately of insecure men they have known. I certainly did not think solely of women when I read it, and neither did my girlfriend.

Of course I could be wrong. The interpretation of poetry has never been my strong suit. I find that style of writing pretty much a mystery. Although I enjoy reading poetry from time to time (especially Coleridge and other Romantics), I have neither the eye nor the ear to appreciate it fully, and, at my best, I can only write doggerel on a high-school level.

Ghs

Try listening to poetry done by expert readers.

--Brant

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One more story about style that may interest OLers.

During the early 1970s, while I was living in Hollywood, writing ATCAG, and attending one of Nathaniel Branden's groups, I was forever broke, so I struck a deal with Nathan: He needed a research assistant for a project he was working on, so I would take that job in exchange for payment to the weekly group, which consumed most of every Saturday and Sunday. I served in that role for around a year, so I had to meet with Nathan fairly often to give him my notes and explain some things to him. We often met at an upscale hamburger joint near his office on Sunset Blvd. (I could not afford to eat there very often, but Nathan always picked up the tab.)

One day at lunch I quizzed Nathan about his writing style. (This is something I did whenever I had a chance to talk to professional writers.) During the conversation we talked about the fact that many young Objectivist writers modeled their nonfiction style after Rand's, with the same polemical mannerisms, punctuation (lots of dashes), plentiful use of "i.e.," etc. Neither of us saw anything wrong with this, so long as such writers go on to develop their own style instead of remaining mimics for the rest of their lives. But during the conversation I mentioned that my own style was probably influenced as much by Nathan's writing as by Rand's, and possibly more so. This immediately caught Nathan's attention, so he asked me for details. I then explained how, when I read Peikoff, I could not distinguish his style from Rand's. The two were identical for all intents and purposes. I specifically mentioned "The Analytic-Synthetic Dichotomy"; if Peikoff's name were not on that monograph, I would have assumed it had been written by Rand. Nathan nodded, noted that Peikoff wrote it with Rand "over his shoulder," and went on to explain that Rand closely supervised and edited everything Peikoff wrote. This made sense to me, since I had owned for years a copy of Peikoff's doctoral dissertation, which was written in a radically different style than the material he wrote during his years with Rand.

But Nathan's style, I went on to explain, differed considerably from Rand's. His sentences tended to be longer and more complex, etc., and I sometimes preferred that way of writing to Rand's. Nathan was quite pleased with my comments; he said that he also thought that he had his own way of writing that differed from Rand's, and that he had worked on it intentionally so he would not appear a clone of Rand. I apparently had been the first reader to tell Nathan that I was well aware of the difference, and that seemed to earn me some brownie points, at a time when brownie points mattered with me. 8-)

Ghs

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I mentioned George Orwell's essays in my last post. If you are interested in essay writing but have never read Orwell's "Shooting an Elephant," you should do so. It is as close to a perfect essay as I have ever read, and I learned a lot about essay writing from it.

Orwell also wrote my all-time favorite opening line of an essay. The first line of "The Lion and the Unicorn," written while the Nazis were bombing London, goes like this:

As I write, highly civilized human beings are flying overhead, trying to kill me.

It doesn't get any better than that. If I could write one opening line as crisp and brilliant as this line by Orwell, I would die a happy man.

Ghs

Glad to read that again, George. The Baptists were a hoot. My Mother was a subscriber to IF Stone's publication and if I don't have every one--she saved them all--I'd be surprised if that is missing. I just came across them yesterday in a trunk. I'll take a look tomorrow and see if I can find the issue that led to your deRandianization. I saw one of the two or three Carson shows Rand was on--in Tucson too--in 1967. Those programs back then originated in NYC.

--Brant

edit: I know of two young people Nathaniel had to have been greatly impressed with back then then to the highest degree: you and Jack Wheeler, yet you are quite different in philosophy, orientation and belief in God

Edited by Brant Gaede
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My only reason for posting the poem was that I found it very amusing and insightful. It plays into the paranoia many people have about what their friends say about them behind their backs.

Ghs

Indeed, it is all of that, but it is also clearly directed to a woman (or a homosexual man I suppose but doubt given the date written). I recognize in it what I consider a character flaw of many women - the expectation that the men in her life be the source of her happiness and self-worth. Great poem!

Despite the references to "your boyfriend" and "your ex-husband" and I don't read the poem as gender specific. Rather, Lopate's observations are universal and would apply to either sex. If he wanted to indicate that the conspiracy of your "closest friends" included even past and present sex partners, which greatly enhances the effect, stylistic considerations would virtually demand that he settle for male or female references. Nevertheless, I would wager that many women read this poem and think immediately of insecure men they have known. I certainly did not think solely of women when I read it, and neither did my girlfriend.

Of course I could be wrong. The interpretation of poetry has never been my strong suit. I find that style of writing pretty much a mystery. Although I enjoy reading poetry from time to time (especially Coleridge and other Romantics), I have neither the eye nor the ear to appreciate it fully, and, at my best, I can only write doggerel on a high-school level.

Ghs

Try listening to poetry done by expert readers.

--Brant

During the 1970s and early 80s, I listened to quite a few poetry readings on LPs. I enjoyed them, for the most part, but my enjoyment stemmed largely from the sound of the words alone. I often didn't understand what the poems were supposed to "mean," and professional readers didn't make that task any easier. Much of my problem is related to the fact that I tend to think in highly abstract terms. I lack visual imagination--which is the main reason I could never write decent novels. Moreover, lack of clarity, as we often find in poetic metaphors, does little more than annoy the hell out of me. When reading poetry, I would sometimes think: "Is there a point here? If so, just spit it out." 8-)

I could be wrong, but I recall reading something by Rand in which she expressed her dislike of poetry. Maybe someone can remember the specific comment.

I have always been somewhat mystified by fiction writers who can describe someone's physical appearance in detail, or even the details of a physical environment. I usually don't notice such things and to describe them in writing exceeds my abilities. But give me some abstract ideas to write about, and I'm off to the races. I even find myself writing about ideas and their histories as if I were describing individual human beings, complete with their subtle features and peculiarities.

Ghs

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Another one of my favorite passages by a great English essayist--Thomas de Quincey, in Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts (1827).

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop.

I wish I had written that.

Ghs

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Another one of my favorites passages by a great English essayist--Thomas de Quincey, in Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts (1827).

If once a man indulges himself in murder, very soon he comes to think little of robbing; and from robbing he comes next to drinking and Sabbath-breaking, and from that to incivility and procrastination. Once begun upon this downward path, you never know where you are to stop.

I wish I had written that.

Ghs

Yeah, George, you just kept going.

--Brant

until you got to the Hellfire Club

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My attitude is that if you push me towards something that you think is a weakness, then I will turn that perceived weakness into a strength. Michael Jordan

Mornin' George and his special Pals. I searched my files for the word poet and found these references.
Peter

Rand occasionally referred a questioner to one of her published articles, then moved on smartly to the next person waiting at the microphone (e.g., referring a questioner about her views on poetry to The Romantic Manifesto, Ford Hall Forum 1973, 4:38–5:24 End quote

Robert A. Heinlein wrote: "...a human being has no natural rights of any nature."
"Sir? How about 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness'?"
"Ah, yes, the 'unalienable rights'. Each year someone quotes that magnificent poetry. Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die if he is to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? ... As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never an unalienable right; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost.
"The third 'right'? - the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives - but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs can insure that I will catch it." End quote

Monart Pon and Phil Knight recently wrote of a new phenomenon called "Philosophy Cafes" which are supposedly already well- established in France. This may be a nice new variation on populist "poetry slams." It basically sounds like a terrific idea, and something we really need here in America and New York City. End quote

THE RAND TRANSCRIPT By Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Ultimately, however, my insistence on the Lossky connection remains symbolic, for he was a paragon of all the dialectical tendencies in Russian thought, of the belief that "‘everything is immanent in everything’" (quoted in Scanlan 1998, 833).21 He presented a system in his lectures and books, developing interconnections among metaphysics, logic, philosophical psychology, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, and philosophy of religion (834). This dialectical orientation was central to the Russian Silver Age, the period of Rand's youth--from its neo-Idealists to its Nietzschean Symbolist poets to its Marxists. It was expressed by every major Russian thinker--from Vladimir Solovyov, who saw the world in terms of universal interconnections, to Aleksandr Herzen, who saw philosophy as an instrument of action.22 The Rosenbaum transcript makes clear that even if Rand had never met Lossky, she would have benefitted from a profoundly dialectical education. Indeed, this Lossky course was just the tip of the dialectical iceberg.
24. Seminar in Modern History (16th Century England)
In what was probably Rand's final semester at the university, she registered for senior-level seminars in history, the first of which was probably taught by Sergei Rozhdestvensky, who specialized in sixteenth-century landholding and lectured at the university throughout the 1920’s. He used important Marxist texts by N. M. Pakul and I. I. Semenov on the Dutch and English revolutions, which stressed the interconnections of economics, politics, culture, and . . . .
Symbolist, Aleksandr Blok, whom she characterized as her favorite poet. Blok gave regular readings of his work in Petrograd. In addition, one cannot discount the intellectual ties between Rand, Dostoyevsky (one of her favorite literary stylists), and Nietzsche. Nietzsche, in fact, wrote abstracts of many of Dostoyevsky’s works. Their common "existentialist" themes influenced the writings of E. I. Zamyatin, which were circulated in Petrograd literary circles in the early 1920’s. On the similarities between Rand’s Anthem and the "dialectic path" in Zamyatin’s We, see Gimpelevich 1997. Thanks to Richard Shedenhelm for bringing this article to my attention. End quote

From: "George H. Smith"
Reply-To: "George H. Smith"
To: "*Atlantis"
Subject: ATL: Bullwinkle gag (was Re: Everett's Corner)
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 12:42:56 -0600
I wrote: "Why is it that, upon reading these grand pronouncements, the sights and sounds of Bullwinkle's Corner come to mind, in which Bullwinkle counts off each point on the fingers of one hand -- until he gets flustered upon reaching number six?"

Roger Bissell replied: "LOL, George! But there is another eerie echo with the universe of Jay Ward. One of the most frequent voices heard on Rocky, Bullwinkle, and other cartoons was Edward Everett Horton. He didn't do as many voices as
Mel Blanc, but he was a very respectable Honorable Mention."

Horton, as I recall, was the narrator for "Fractured Fairy Tales," but I don't recall his other voices on "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle."

I remember Horton best for his hilarious performance on a classic episode of "I Love Lucy," in which a pregnant (they couldn't say this word on television then) Lucy, apprehensive that Ricky's heavy Cuban accent would adversely influence their future baby, hired Horton as a speech therapist. Of course, by the end of the episode, the stuffy Horton -- who initially had Ricky saying things like "tiptoe through the tulips" -- had himself picked up much of Ricky's poor English.

For Bullwinkle fans who also like practical jokes, here is one of my better ones from the 1980s, during my six years as scriptwriter and general editor of Knowledge Products.

After writing and editing scripts, I would frequently travel to Nashville to act as a technical advisor in the recording studio. Well, the fellow who owned the studio (Nick), made extra money doing local commercials in a perfect voice of Bullwinkle. You also need to know that a number of us, including CC (the owner of KP) would all receive "rough edits" of the audio tapes before they were sent out to be duplicated -- but this became a formality with CC, who would often approve a tape without listening to it first, so long as the producer and I gave it the green light.

Well, we typically recorded four tapes at a time, and on one trip one of these was a script by Wendy McElroy on Mary Wollstonecraft's *Vindication of the Rights of Women.* Midway through her script Wendy had included part of William Blake's poem "A Different Face," which had been written as a tribute to his friend Mary and which we had read by a male actor in the voice of Blake. The script ended with a touching scene

in which Mary Shelley visits the grave of her mother (Wollstonecraft died shortly after giving birth), so I suggested to Wendy that she repeat four lines from Blake's poem at the very end, without comment, but this time to be read in Mary's own voice. She agreed.

Okay, so much for the setup. I had Nick read these final lines from "A Different Face" in Bullwinkle's voice and then include this "special version" in an edit that was given ONLY to CC. Thus, here is what CC heard by Bullwinkle at the very end of his tape (and please keep in mind that I am quoting from memory):

"Oh, why was I born with a different face?
Why was I born into this envious race?
Why did heaven adorn me with bountiful hand?
And then set me down in an envious land?"

Later, after I had returned to LA and the tape had been approved for many thousands of dups, I got a late-night call from a frantic CC. He said, "George, I just listened to the Wollstonecraft tape. There's something wrong with it. I mean, the last part -- my God, it sounds like Bullwinkle is reading "A Different Face." Who is that supposed to be? I don't understand. This isn't any good; we can't use it -- but the tape has already been sent out."

After I stopped laughing, I couldn't bear to see my boss endure any more agony, so I let him in on the joke. Fortunately for me, he took it well. 8-
Ghs

From: "George H. Smith"
Reply-To: "George H. Smith"
To: "*Atlantis"
Subject: ATL: Correction -- Re: Bullwinkle gag (was Re: Everett's Corner)
Date: Tue, 24 Dec 2002 13:02:58 -0600
Before poetry buffs jump all over me, I should correct something from my last post. I believe the title of Blake's poem is "Mary," not "A Different Face" -- though so many years have passed that I'm not even sure about this correction.
Ghs

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I could be wrong, but I recall reading something by Rand in which she expressed her dislike of poetry. Maybe someone can remember the specific comment.

I recall that in We the Living Kira says she doesn't like poetry.

During the Q&A's for the Peikoff '76 course there's some back and forth about poetry. Someone wanted AR to read Kipling's If aloud, and she refused. BTW, that course (and a few others) are now available for free:

http://campus.aynrand.org/classroom/

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