April 2026

April 10-12, 2026: When in the fourth century AD the Roman empire itself split into two halves, the Hellenistic world still enjoyed a ghostly existence in Byzantium. … …. From The Hellenistic World, F W Walbank 1981. We may as well begin with this, this melancholy-tinged compass heading, now that we have been dragged across a line from which there is no going back, the unilateral whims of a single man what has us by the curlies. One debacle (shitshow) succeeds another. They pile up, domino effect. It is not so difficult now to envision a crack-up fate for America in a time near enough or far distant, somewhere beyond history’s chuckling Loony Tunes rainbow, the capital recycled, say, in Houston or Los Angeles, the culture feeding on itself in vampiric fashion, rom-com esoterica set alongside conceptual follies in the world of the abstracted mind. What might have been vigour however raw, early days, is displaced over the centuries by a sentiment refined to the point of caricature. Yeats wrote “Sailing to Byzantium”, a poem about old age and the search for truth and permanence (1926), long after Rome gave way to Byzantium (Constantinople, 330 AD) gave way to the Ottomans (1456) which led, in its turn, to a sunset glow as was captured by Pamuk novelizing on Istanbul (once Constantinople) in the 80s and 90s of the 20th century when, whatever else civilization is, it comes with ads.

Truth Social gibberish and the follow-ups by news venues of all stripes are our lingua franca no less than when Greek was the language that crossed all borders in the Hellenistic era and, at a certain level, held things together. To be sure, Trump, crowing about a reset for his military, is no Alexander the Great (who had, at least, a functioning brain). The Macedonian started out his leadership as a peer among peers subject to review. But after amassing unsurpassed power and territory at the expense of the Persians and others in his 33rd year, he was now an out-of-the- closet raging autocrat. He had submitted his lively and knowledge-hungry brain to paranoia and the inclination to put his political enemies to death. Predictable, as hindsight will always tell us. And merrily, merrily, so goes You-Know-Who, though it is debatable as to whether, in him, there was a brain to ruin. In addition to which, it seems he is married to a woman turning all Juno on her guy Zoose the Gooser.

All the while some sort of default position is being arrived at whereby the republic, hooked to a ventilator, barely breathing, will eke it out for the foreseeable future at the discretion of a cabal of oligarchs. The will to do things, in Congress, for starters, has been ebbing to the point of flatlining. Nor is You-Know-Who an Augustus Caesar who finished off a civil war and allowed Virgil to flourish, Rome gotten some respite from its troubles, its senate however, somewhat redundant. Succeeding Caesars would take the shine off the peace by way of their grotesqueries, but America, as stated above, crossed a line the other day (bombs away in Iran, emperor-president spookily ranting, his hole-in-one attempts triple bogeys at best), and a card laid is a card played. (Or one might say that a shark must keep moving lest it catch a glimpse of itself in a mirror and flinch.)

One has discussed since the 70s the demise of the republic. One has even heard pronouncements and obituaries that more or less add up to: “bag the fucker”. One has been questioning one’s sanity all along, for all that one lacks a license with which to commit psychiatry. One’s ability to make sense of things, never mind putting anything into historical perspective, has been open to debate, an opening so wide one might venture to float a birdfarm though it (aircraft carrier). One watches the world of the mind get increasingly clever with less to say, though this may well be an unfair observation, impossible to track the totality of all that is published and feted (let alone absorb the gist of every podcast), creativity one’s license to pass Go, life as an electronic game in which “ignorant armies clash by night”. Nothing new in any of this, just that possibly, the inability to separate a false note from a true one is still a novel experience for us in our moment of time and so, has all the more power to wrong-foot well-intentioned pilgrims. One says of an athlete: “Man, but he or she is off his or her game. And the more he or she fights it, the more he or she flails around to no avail.” At the very least, one has to step back and breathe every now and then, centrifugal forces rendering that maneuver more and more problematic.

Postscript I: On this day in 1816, Coleridge read out his Kubla Khan to Byron, and Byron (Lord Byron the poet) thought why the hell not, get the damn thing published and raise a few boats. Melania was not there, saying she had not, in fact, had relations with a man dangerous to know (as was said of Byron. To interface with him was risky business for an apparently respectable woman bored out of her tree). Carpenter was not around to thumbs up or down or otherwise referee….

Postscript II: Lunar and Lunarian homiletics: … …. ‘I have come to absolutely [ ] Israel and its kink for wholesale destruction. Spoke to Dr Cannabis this morning and we agreed I'd give it another shot before throwing in the towel. Expensive though. Well, "it" didn't happen and I suppose Trump will take all the credit for "it" not happening. What does one do with the [thoroughly] impervious? Meanwhile Israel continues to bomb, bomb, bomb, the most cowardly warfare. So, the settlers are now attacking a Christian village, not that that will register with people too embarrassed to think of themselves as Christian but yes, Macmillan's "The Seven Last Words of Christ" does speak to some Christian bone in me, as does Alfred Schnittke's “Choir Concerto”, both works of genuine mysticism as opposed to New Age mistiness, says he to “themselfs”. So, did Melania throw Donald under a bus? I don't really think so and that it is just a continuation of the bizarre fin du la monde spectacle. I read an extraordinary rant Trump made against Candace etc. May they all perish at the bottom of the Bosphorus.’ … …. Cue the music for “Hail to the Chief”. Serve piping hot. Follow with “Jimmy Crack Corn” ….

Postscript III: Cornelius W Drake of Champaign-Urbana, honk if you detect a ceasefire missing a sharpie or two; if you see a Vance looking to set-up a sideshow (in contradistinction to Trump’s extortions) as would have to do with his own presidentialness, the auguries perhaps favourable; if you see pocket squares fluttering in the breezes, cheerleading for the First Amendment even as You-Know-Who shreds the constitution like one grates zucchini so as to make for pancakes; honk if the only presence that smacks of “integrity” in the whole wide country is a space craft named as such, sticking out like a parachuting sore thumb into a dumbshow of cheap grandiosity, or, really, a triumphal arch? Says Drake: … …. ‘I thought Socrates and other ancients — exploring what is "the good," what is justice, beauty, truth — did that (laid the foundations of western civ, comes with ads, bad satire and disclaimers), as did America's founders and, ultimately, European luminaries not long after European Christians stopped killing each other, which is why the founders kept religion the hell out of the constitution. I look forward to reading (Gilbert) Highet. … …. ‘— but yeah, of course, Shakespeare lifted what was bad or at least questionable history to begin with and took literary license from there. He never pretended to be a scholar. [ ] Some writers deny it, [but] some are so intimidated by Shakespeare's unequaled genius they deny that he authored his plays — the most pitiable example being Freud, a brilliant writer (I couldn't put down Civilization and Its Discontents) who just couldn't handle the fact that Shakespeare was better; the greatest. [At least this was true in 1975 or thereabouts.]’ … …. ‘That clown Hegseth had B-52s crawling across Iran's skies. A moped could outrun one of those behemoths. The greatest danger now is if Iran captures the downed pilot — a mini version of Carter in 1979. T's instinct would be to send in the Marines with guns blazing, which would get 100s of them killed. The pilot, too, if rescue looked likely. If T's tailspin starts looking fatal to T, then we're in for the greatest long-term danger. He'd go full Adolf, and he'd have the military behind him because of Hegseth's Stalinesque purges.’ … …. Has there been a boom in tattoo sales, the five wounds and all that, speaking of the Hegsethian mode of seeking a speaking tour in Crusader heaven?

Postscript IV: Talking Avocado: … …. ‘Had to look up “cynocephalus”. I should’ve known the word, however: dog-head. It’s to say, as per your request, that I read the 15th (satire) of Juvenal, and all I’ve got to say is this, based on the imperative Now attend, and learn what kind of novel atrocity our day and age has added to history. If not in ancient Egypt, then in religious and/or political discord between various factions of various American towns. Otherwise, it’s Juvenal ragging on said Egyptians and their apparent cannibalistic practices. And why did Pythagoras abstain from eating beans? Does the body-politic to the south of here suffer from favism? Coolish in these parts, temperature-wise. Percival the goat says hi. If and when I get around to the 16th, I’ll get around to it and update you. Will the whole world transmogrify into the world of “Dover Beach”, the poem buried under layers and layers of genocidal obscenity and intellectual folderol and indifference? Guess correctly, take home a stuffed bear.’

Postscript V: Rutilius: … …. ‘I was having a go at Cavafy, as I used to do every now and then in the Bush-Cheney segment of the last minutes of history, and came up with this, a la Keeley and Sherrard, from a poem entitled “Kleitos Illness”: She secretly brings some votive bread, some wine and honey/and places them before the idol. She chants whatever phrases/she remembers from prayers: odds and ends. The ninny/ doesn’t realize that the black demon couldn’t care less/whether a Christian gets well or not. And instead of a lovelorn lover boy, we could be talking the Secretary of War. Trump. Vance. Und so weiter. I could be a podcaster with flaming nails. The Hellenistic world, you say? So much easier to breathe its air, the tail-end of which was Neoplatonic, gnosis pita-wrapped and served to three major religions, than to breathe New Agey crystals as purveyed by literary reviews … I’m in a funk.’

Postscript VI: Sissy Gadzilla: … …. Nearest Polish cousin to me in space-time brought over a movie. There is a Polish element in A Bridge Too Far, spearheaded by Gene Hackman biopically playing a Polish general who had doubts about the battle plan and how it might get his paratroopers killed to a man. (He was, in real life, scapegoated for the Allied failure to hold the Arnhem bridge.) We tried to watch. I’d served cupcakes. I’d played a ditty on the French horn aforehand to put us in a watching mood. We called it quits after a cigar-chomping Elliot Gould, vamping his lines, noted that his little portion of the battle plan dubbed “Market Garden”, humongous airborne operation, was 36 hours behind schedule. Ain’t life a hoot? What else have I got to say? Nothing. A wild and woolly month it’s been in the news. That’s a big ten-four as used to get said. Polish cousin left in a huff. (He later phoned with apologies, saying his brain chemistry has altered. The yawns I couldn’t suppress as the war unfolded on the screen probably didn’t help.) Alone now, I watched something else, scenes of which I meant to commit to memory and which I’ve forgotten. Oh right, Mulholland Falls. Another neo-noir less-than-flattering portrait of the American military. And then what? Sixpack Annie, flick with myriad wiseacre one-liners, bad taste delivered with such gusto it was innocence, of a south that never existed, the quotable being, and imagine the wailing register in which it was cast: “Josephine, kiss my Bonaparte”. Will we all be wearing Jerusalem crosses by Victoria Day, seeing as we did manage to squeak by Easter, Christ having busted out of the Château d’if? Irreverence is best served hot as opposed to cold. Tepid, and then the tone merely patronizes. Polish cousin in question is a good guy, don’t get me wrong. He once swam the St Lawrence in an undesignated spot. I once wrote a term paper on John Steinbeck that was anything but designated.’

Postscript VII: Trail Mix: … …. ‘There’s a guy who hangs about the street on which my favourite café is located, he propped on his peg leg. I often exchange a few courtesies with him for luck. Minus 15 out and I say: “Warm enough for you?” That sort of thing. He plays along, humouring LaLa Land in a tuque and scarf. He’s part of a senior low life ratpack that’s out and about rain or shine or snow, and he addresses each and every home boy with sardonic remarks as to the weather or Trump or the price of smokes, even though he claims to have quit. He’s let his hair grow long, all salt and peppery under his green baseball hat. I don’t know what he did for employment when he wasn’t, how shall we say, retired. Bottom tier bagman? He’s cheery enough though his eyes say “life sucks”, and he’s no fool, though somewhere in him, there’s a regard for a little decency and the odd fine sentiment so long as one doesn’t overly dwell on all that. I’d miss him, were he to disappear, for he has more to do with what makes a community a neighbourhood than the local member of parliament. Going on for thirteen weeks and still, my café is closed for renovation. Peg Leg Man thinks he’s too low brow for the place. He doesn’t know it’s a scurvy lot as would hang about the premises. I comb the local Sally Ann for DVDs and hear orisons along Byzantine lines, antiphonal song in my head, and I get the heck out of there. The amount of self-help books on the discount shelves could sink a continent.’