March poem

Over the lip of the lawn -- what spills?

Daffodils!

Thrust from the thick of the thicket  -- what thrills?

Daffodils!

Yellow and tall, with petals small --

O wilt thou be  my all-in-all ?

Later, come time,  other blossoms may bloom

in their turn,  to their measure of praise and acclaim.

But for now, ‘tis thou --

thou art our flower, now !

Another sky-glimpse (from “Brideshead Revisited”)

   the colour had died   in the woods and sky

   and the house seemed painted   in grisaille

[from Evelyn Waugh’s novel  of 1945.  In the French pronunciation of that final word, the couplet  basically rhymes.]

A Glimpse from “The Green Hat”

There is not much sky in London;

but that little   smiled on us

                                           with a faint load of stars,

and  somewhere behind the roofs

                           there might be hanging       a moon . . .

[from Michael Arlen’s novel of 1924;  re-typeset for effect.]

Later in the book,

 an even dimmer glimpse --

 this time, a monostich :]

 the unclouded darkness   pinned with faint stars

Fixed That For You

This wonderful new Internet catchphrase  allows us at last  to rectify the most egregious of widely-quoted inanities.

"There are no second acts in American lives."

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

“America has ever been, since its very origins, the land  par excellence  of second acts.”

-- FTFY

“Mission Accomplished.”

--  W.

“Mission Demolished.”

-- FTFY

“nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands”

-- e e cummings

… with the possible exception of Donald Trump

-- FTFY

Thomas Hardy pep cheer / rebel yell

Far from the Madding

Far from the Madding

Far from the Madding

Crowd !

Locked Room Mystery (redivivus)

The caterpillar   with shrivelled skin

in a tent of silk    was laid therein.

This crumpled thing,   shrunk like a shroud,

was laid in silk   white as a cloud.

The sons of men   stood round about

warding the worm   should not get out.

Three days they stood   with solemn face,

never eyes wavering   from that place.

Then did they open   that mute cocoon,

and stood amazed:   the worm was gone !

Then some believed   and some did doubt

how that the worm   could have got out.

Yet to the sky   in spiral rings

the new flew forth   on crystal wings.

~

[ For a tale of Paschal miracle:
Murphy Makes a Mitzvah ]

.

Tullimonstrum gregarium

The past couple of years have seen a remarkable series of fossil discoveries, from Yutyrannus huali, through Pinguinus ingens, down to Protungulatum donnae.

This next creature does not represent a new fossil find -- that dates back almost half a century -- but rather a brand-new (and quite surprising) taxonomic determination.    Let the New York Times tell it:

Some thought the 300-million-year-old creature was a mollusk, like a snail. Others assumed it was an arthropod like an insect or crab. And others believed it was some sort of worm.

Now, a team of researchers from Yale University say they have figured out the monster’s identity:  It’s a vertebrate most closely related to the lamprey.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/17/science/solving-the-tully-monsterscold-case.html

Scale model of the “Tully monster”

(actual length:  fifty feet)

Etymology of the Latin designator:

Tullimonstrum:  meaning, ‘monster found by Mr Tully’ (in Illinois)

gregarium: meaning, ungainly though it may have been, this creature liked to hang out with his homeys.

For a scientific summing-up of recent paleontological triumphs, click here.

SCOOP! WDJ reveals Trump’s cabinet appointments !!

Those tiresome comparisons of The Donald to Hitler (or, somewhat more plausibly, to Mussolini;  even more plausibly, to Berlusconi)  quite fail to capture the rotundity of his appeal.   A substantial number of even quite well-educated and relatively liberal people, very far from the MSM stereotype of his supporters as merely ignorant haters, find him at the very least amusing, and even -- by comparison with the two-faced, scripted, often groveling other candidates (e.g. Hillary at AIPAC this morning) -- at times refreshing.   To grasp this, we need to evoke a different character from history:  Sir John Falstaff.

Sir Donald,  merry at his mead

Falstaff is totally unapologetic:  he revels in his lechery and chicanery, lies without scruple, and when caught in a lie, unabashedly seeks to turn everything to his own advantage.  But his knavery is so engaging  and his lust for life so keen, that he has become one of the favorite characters of the Bard.

Sir Donald, rebuking a Democrat

Owing to a mole inside the Trump campaign, the World of Dr Justice  -- renowned for xxx-clusive scoops -- has obtained an advance copy of the cabinet appointments contemplated by President-to-be Trump (inflect “to be” for the subjunctive, here):

Secretary of War: Ralph Mouldy

Secretary of Gaming: Thomas Wart

Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Miscellaneous:  Simon Shadow

Secretary of Free Enterprise : Peter Bull-calf.

 Secretary of This, That, and the Other Thing: Francis Feeble

Sir Donald, bidding defiance to the Islamic State

U heard it here first.

~  The World of Dr Justice™ ~

~ “RUMINT U can trust”© ~

[Update 26 March 2016]  Another plausible comparison:  Trump as "the white man's Marion Barry":
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/donald-trump-the-new-marion-barry/2016/03/25/47fce1d4-f203-11e5-85a6-2132cf446d0a_story.html