June 2026

June 7-9, 2026: “When the poor give to the rich, the devil laughs.” Words from Benvenuti Cellini’s autobiography (written between the years 1558 and 1566). If you have not heard the devil laugh in a while, he has plenty of reason now to resort to chuckles, though it cannot be said that the poor are giving voluntarily. Let us say the rich are doing it on their behalf. Sleazy kazillionaires you know and love hand one another alms and benefices and humongous piles of pork that they, in the wake of executive orders, suction up from said poor. And with hugs and kisses. And all the time.

I read Cellini’s autobiography in my 20s. I have forgotten how often he patted himself on the back for his greatness. Puts me in mind of… need I complete the sentence? Just that Cellini could often enough redeem his words with genuine artistic accomplishment. 1527, and he was helping to defend the Castel Sant’Angelo (once Hadrian’s mausoleum) from mutinous Spanish and German and a few Italian troops during their sacking of Rome. When one of his cannonballs cut a man in two, however picturesque Cellini’s mother tongue, what he thought was the equivalent of one of our speech bubbles: “Wow, that was neat.”

So yes, it is something of a coincidence, reading the very words that a braggart wrote with respect to his life, and to hear on a daily basis how Trump sums up the Trumpian. The like as has never been seen before. Hoo ah. And all the bump and grind. And from an impeccable source, with respect to a different subject, different words: “Poets of our age have to avoid self-pity - very difficult even if you keep it inside and avoid grizzling on the shoulders of other people who know that if they rub your back it's going to get messy.” (Thanks for that to one who is to poetry what Zorro was to California.) Somehow these words have bearing on the political situation in a lot of nation-states, as people either wonder whether Trump (or any jefe) has a skeletal frame or is purely oligarchic cartilage, never mind empathy. What will remain when he shuffles off this mortal coil, as shuffle he will? There will be choruses calling for “re” words: reform, regroup, reconstitute. But all I can see for the moment is an overriding cabal of those who have decided that, in the interests of their own hard-porn fortunes, the rest of us are expendable, poets left holding the vomit bags.

Postscript I: If you were born on this day, you are likely silver-tongued. Carpenter, say what? Also, on this day in 1494, a treaty allowed Spain and Portugal to divide the New World between them, but does anyone care on World Caring Day? The Mayans seem to have been more urban than not. There were a lot of Mayans running about in the New World once upon a time. In their millions. It appears that other factors besides climate change did them in. We use climate change in the same sense (as per Cavafy’s poem about the barbarians at the gates) as an excuse for fatalism.

Postscript II: Lunar on the uptake: … …. ‘I can barely contain my rage at Hegseth's D-Day speech, the dirty little crawler, why the hell wasn't he hounded out of there? I could not imagine a bigger misuse of an event attended by a tiny handful of veterans still alive. D-Day was B's father's birthday. He never spoke about what he saw or experienced that day on the beaches. Hegseth would never in a million years comprehend this. Filthy scum. As for [poetry magazines], I just don't know what the criteria are anymore although I think it probably has a lot to do with sexual orientation and age. You are not old enough to be rediscovered. 90 is the minimum age. I have also read somewhere that St Francis of Assisi was an utter bore. I don't think it is at all possible to describe Kierkegaard as one but with respect to his relationship with, and separation from, Regine, it is tempting to describe him as an utter prat. … …. The best translation of Cellini is, so I believe, the one by John Addington Symonds. Why the book was so important to R is that Cellini's description of being in the oubliette sustained him through his confinement in the insane asylum. Braggadocio, it comes as a constant surprise that it is not an Italian but English word. Can braggadocio be ever considered a form of grace? Maybe, just maybe. Yes, the tide is turning against Trump but will it big enough to sweep away all the attendant scum? I see Musk is trying to save England again. The world's first trillionaire as a moral compass? Spare me.’ … …. Consider it done.

Postscript III: Cornelius W Drake of Champaign-Urbana, honk if, 1, you come across the Iran Deal, that one that keeps getting out of its cage, and 2, if you spot a disembodied Trump sign looking to be signage on some unsuspecting edifice. An intervention now might preserve an item of heritage, in light of which: … …. ‘It's a shame you can't recognize quality programming, Sibum, as I do. Just coming on, 1958's Earth Vs. the Spider, whose "non sequiturs are sheer joy," observed one film reviewer. I'm pumped. I'm a little surprised there's not more speculation about - or predictions of - the Rs simply stealing the elections. That's what worries me. While painting this afternoon I listened to Ben Rhodes on Pod Save America. He's not a historian, but he made a decent argument for the view that the popular opinion of the-sky-is-falling-and-it's-never-fallen-like-this-before is ahistorical. He's right, of course. I recommend his talk.’ … …. Ahistorical you say? Meaning what? Death by a thousand cuts and podcasts? I can only subsume so many…

Postscript IV: Talking Avocado: … …. ‘I've been reading Colson Whitehead. Or rereading him. I started “The Nickel Boys” a few years ago and stopped after about fifty pages because I knew what was coming and it was too depressing. (It's about this black kid back in the forties or fifties who gets chucked into a reform school in Florida. The kid is not only innocent but a goody goody: academic, moral, hard working. Well, it doesn't take keen foresight to see what he's in for.) Percival got me reading Wordsworth, who I've struggled with. Not that I'm reading a whole lot of him, but venturing into the forest and admiring the leaves… What happens is, I blink and I see rogue robotic elements riffing on “The Planet of the Apes”. How about them there sky-high housing costs and strained healthcare systems? That’s British Columbia politics as seems a conversation everyone everywhere else is having, say, in all the Tristan da Cunhas and Hammersmiths. Speaking of Percival, might have to take him to the vet. I suspect something respiratory. The oldest poet I know is 103. He’s removed himself to one of the remoter islands. To get away from tourists, especially those spiritually inclined. Partly cloudy here on this old island. George Vancouver was the first white man on it, and then came the gold rush…. My novel has nothing to do with any of this, though I’ve been tempted.’

Postscript V: Rutilius: … …. ‘Working on translating an anthology of Slovak women's poetry from the beginning of the last century to the present. It’s likely I’m masochistic. Faber has just taken on some fool call Jade Cuttle whose article for Poetry Review has come with a new critical term "the global majority" to assess the worth of a poem. Well, we all know where pandering to the silent majority has got us. As Persius said (Roman satirist): “live with yourself and you’ll see how little furniture you have. Also, the hour flies.”’

Postscript VI: Sissy Gadzilla: … …. ‘A Polish cousin bought me a ticket to ride, and I’m headed for the Eastern Townships. “Rural serenity”. Will be leaving my French horn behind. And if I have to think about third-wave lickspittle-ism in You-Know-Where under the aegis of You-Know-Who over the course of the next few days, I’ll scream.’ … …. Relax. Understood.

Postscript VII: Trail Mix: … …. ‘So I indulged and watched Spider-Noir of the neo-noir variety of gong shows, watched it in gorgeous B&W and liked it, though it’s still what it is. If you watered down Proust with Pynchon, even so, the TV series would still fall short in the Having Complex Ideas Department, even if the good guys win even as they too are rank arseholes. Like I said, cinematography. What’s the word? Chiaroscuro. In other words, I’ll put my neck on the line and say that mannerism, up to a point, has always carried its weight. The date for the reopening of my favourite café keeps being pushed back. Things might be truly falling apart before we get to that halcyon moment. Should it actually occur, in thanks, I’ll offer up to Zeus a gummy and a rose. Did someone say Atlantis? And then faster than you can say five-six-pick-up-sticks, invoke moral hubris? That’s a lot of Triple XXX talking, if we’re talking the USA and a coast-to-coast tsunami of rolling H2O and voter rage…. Also, I watched (yet again) “In the Valley of Elah”, 2007. Not that it’s a masterpiece of cinema. T’ain’t. But it was the first flick to suggest to me that things in America had gotten beyond being merely f—ked up. The not-having-a-grand-time-here scowl on Tommy Lee Jone’s craggy face might serve to emblemize this particular epoch in time and in so much else. Seeing as he had to discover that his “good boy” soldier son was not so good as all that. There was Iraq. There was rot at the boy’s spiritual core. There was the boy’s overwhelming fear for the wherewithal of mind and soul. Evangelical pieties were not going to cut it. Nor chicken sandwiches.’

RECEIVED, and it has been a while since we last received anything: David Hackbridge Johnson’s Orchestral Music, Volume Four: Piano Concerto No. 3, OP. 455 “After Bruno Schulz”; Symphony No. 18 in F Sharp Minor, OP. 438, No. 3. Will let you know.

LETTING YOU KNOW: I expected to dislike Hackbridge Johnson’s Orchestral Music, Volume Four: Piano Concerto No. 3, OP. 455 “After Bruno Schulz”; Symphony No. 18 in F Sharp Minor, OP. 438, No. 3., because I have not had many happy experiences with contemporary orchestral music. I was proved wrong this time around. Excursions through more than just “mind” and “sound”. How about human nobility of spirit and the degradation of that? As for English landscapes, take on being inside of “something” even as one is outside and asking a million questions, getting the All-Knowing Silence in reply. Shut up and listen for a change. &c.