Page Four THE MICHIGAN DAILY ~~~~~Wednesday, December 13,197/2 Wdedy eebr1,1)TEMCIA AL
(continued from page 3)
Ladies Almanack, by Djuna
Barnes, Harper and Row, 1972,
$5.95. 84 pp. '
By ROSE SUE BERSTEIN
Ladie Almaak, "the Book
all ladies should carry with
them, is a loosely disguised alle-
gorical accounting of the life-
span of one Dame Evangeline
Musset, written and -illustrated
by a "Lady of Fashion."
Evangeline undergoes rapid
canonization to become Saint
Musset, albeit not rapidly at all,
in proportion to her fly-by-night
life. This odd Saint enters the
world in January, and takes her
leave of it just twelve short rela-
tive months later with the pass-
ing of December. Along the way,
our Lady of Fashion takes time
out from the Narrative of Evan-
geline's life to warn us a bit
about the ways of the world, as
seen, of course, through visions
shaded by Fashion-.
Djuna Barnes originally wrote
this book in .jest, and her inten-
tions have not been violated with
this reprinting, although it is
clear a message lurks somewhere
astride the affectation. The mes-
sage is cleverly disguised indeed.
For those who delve a bit, it ap-
proaches the quintessence of
satirical comment; for those oth-
ers whom this satire evades, it
does not impede their enjoyment
of Barnes' humor.
We observe in the Almanack,
along with Saint Musset's Dis-
Portents June bears th Ebta
is November. En route through
this extraordinarry Year, we are
taught the MVysteries of the
Saints' days - or twelve good
Reasons for the canonization of
Evangeline Musset; we learn a
Lullaby for a Lady's Lady. In
March, we witness the Zodiac,
"te prt about Heafen that has
gels and the various zodiacal
characters gathered together for
a most interesting Event.
And none Nine Months later,
there was heard under the
Dome of Heaven a great Crow-
ing, and from the Midst, an
Egg, as incredible as a thing
forgotten, fell to Earth, and
striking, split and hatched, and .
fro ou ofrdit stepped onestsay-
going!" And this was the first
Woman born with a Difference.
After this the Angels parted,
and on the Face of each was
the Mother look. Why was that?
During this very same season,
we are treated to another ap-
propriate diversion-the spring-
time deflowering of Dame Mus-
Rose Sue Berstein, former Daily
Fea lure Editor, is a facilitator
for the class, "Introduction to
Women's Studies."
set, at the very advanced age of
ten. "When I wish to contemplate
the highest Pitch to which Irony
has climbed, and when I really
desire to wallow in impersonal
Tragedy," Evangeline recalls
later, "I think of that day, forty
years ago, when I, a Child of
ten, was deflowered by the Hand
of a Surgeon! I, even I, came to
it as other Women, and I never
a Woman before nor since-"
Sure enough, the year contin-
ues, and there are more appie-
priate seasonal Happenings In
the sainted life of Dame Mum-
set. But, does she learn from her
mosmic experience? Does she
bring the Light of the World to
Life so that other Women might
benef it? or does she merely re-
count her lovely tales of Affec-
tation? Does her Life live on In
tragic Splendor?
Yes, Readers, the answe is
Yes!
Ast'ory by Richard Ford
by Greg Orr
Da fod il .Poem
.I remember the cloud on its blue bicycle
gliding over the leaves under the bare branches.
You and I were walking.
You were wearing your long green dress
with the hem frayed so the loose threads
seem like tiny roots.
We were holding hands when my hand
became a yellow scarf
and you stood waving it slowly.
I stepped off the train in Pennsylvania,
just as it began to snow.
Girl With 18 N ig htgowns
and each one to the advantage
breasts
which were present in softness
and under softness
were present
like miniature rabbits in the Andes
that only come out at night.
of her
jJ0-MO AND PO-PO are 83 in Shreveport. And each
year at Christmas time Mo-Mo writes their son,
Paul, in Little Rock and tells him to invite his daughter
Lilab, who is 27 and married to an otolaryngologist, to
come and visit for the two days before Christmas Day.
And when Lilah comes, Mo-Mo fixes a vast- meal with
apricot nectar cake, and Po-Po sits in the living room
and talks to Lilah's husband, Lewis, about sewers. And
at five in the afternoon, when they have eaten and sat
for a time, Po-Po brings the Chrysler and they drive
along the River front. Po-Po points to the Montgomery
Ward that has been built on the Bozier City side of the
River, and he shows them the industrial park where
they have built a bicycle plant and farther to the south
a factory making B-B guns. And in a while they bend
downstream, and along a gravel road to the very edge
of the River, to a huge, dark, fenced-in compound,
within which they can see dim figures hurrying back
and forth into metal buildings. And in a time other
cars come and park and kill their lights, and the people
climb out and sit on their fenders, looking into the
metallic darkness. By 7:00 all the figures have gone into
the metal buildings inside the compound, and there is a
moment, a long moment, of complete silence. Until
all in one instant the huge power plant is electrified and
caparisoned in strings of red and green Christmas lights
trailing to the very top of the highest generator. And
there is a startled gasp through the crowd, and then
silence, and then unanimous applause.
Afterwards, the cars begin to pull away, one by one,
proceeding back up the gravel road..Po-Po and Mo-Mo
stay until the road is clear and then drive home. And
in the morning at breakfast, with Lilah's and Lewis'
single suitcase already locked safely in the truck of the
car, Po-Po places a check on Lilah's bone chine plate
for ten thousand dollars.
ROBARD HUGHES LEAVES the general delivery
window at the Post Office in Bishop, California, and
irives with his daughter, Carmel, out of town, to a
bridge that crosses a stream. And past the bridge he
stops and walks out, hoarding a letter in both his hands.
And at the railing, with the warm wvind snapping the
pages, he reads the words over and over, poring over
them in the warm daylight. And afterwards he throws
the letter into the stream and thinks to himself that he
is detestable, but that he had not finished with this part
of his life, not yet.
lHe forces the truck into gear and sends it off in the
gravel, shuddering back to the town.
His daughter sits on the seat beside him, holding a
naked doll by the ankles in front of her face.
He lets the truck coast round a curve and the engine
is silent, and the sound of the wheels is all there is to
hear, until it explodes again and roars through the pipes
and springs ahead in a fury.
lRichard Ford is a jcnior /Illow in the English depart-
went. "~A pieee of My) heart'' was first Iublished in
(he Black swamp Review.
Carmel stretches the doll's legs until they form a
perfect 'T' with its body:
"What're you doing there to Delores?" Robart says,
above the sound of the wind and the engine.
''She's limbering up," Carmel replies, stretching De-
lores' legs to extreme.
''What is she, some kind of ballerina?"
"Maybe," Carmel says, making Delores do splits with
either leg.
"Well let me see her a second." -
He pushes his open hand in his daughter's direction.
"She says she'd rather not have you touching her
while she's undressed,'' Carmel says, hiding Delores
>nl the other side of the seat.
"Let me see her a second," Robard says, keeping his
eyes on the road and guiding the careening truck with
his other hand.
"What do you want her for?"'
"I want to teach her a trick," Robard says.
The truck slams over a chug-hole, throwing open the
glove box and obliterating Carmel's answer. A pair of
pliers falls out on the floor.
"Pick them up, and let me see Delores," Robard
says. "Before I have to tell your mother."
The little girl puts the pliers in the box and gently
closes the door. She extends the naked doll and lays it in
her father's hand.
"What do you want her for?" she says.
"Teach her a trick," Robard says, gripping the doll
by the head and scratching down the middle of his back
with her toes.
Carmel squeezes her eyes closed and shakes her
finger at him.
"How would you like it if a giant picked you up and
used your legs to scratch his back?"
"They like it," Robard says. "It gets them turned on."
Carmel smooths the lap of her dress as they go on.
IELISSA TAFT is from Wilmette, and flew for Pan
American. And when she was in the Virgin Islands
she went to visit a club with a man she'd met, where
they eat their dinners and danced and drank Mai Tais.
And on the stage was a great red-haired woman who
was billed as' Mr. Sammie Lane, and who played the
piano and sang songs from the 1930s. At 11:00 the man
told her that she should come home with him and stay all
night, but Melissa" said she wouldn't, though the man
took her by the arm and began to lead her out through
the tables, until Melissa became afraid and told him
he should leave her there. The man became angry and
gripped her arm more tightly and began to pull her
through the room towards the door, during which
Melissa fell limp in his grasp, forcing him to drag her
and causing a commotion in the club. From the stage
Mr. Sammie Lane watched the man leading Melissa
from the room and saw him begin to drag her, her heels
snagging against the chair legs. And seeing this, she
pushed the piano from in front of her, slamming it
against the proscenium, and in an instant had grappled
with Melissa's escort and slammed him against the
jamb of the d<
conscious.
Melissa, throu
\'Ir. Sammie La
admiring her fc
evening, after 1
the morning, sh
on the house. A
Lane to go hom
Melissa came
time that she wve
her clothes and
after a time, be
City where she
Melissa would f
without drawing
At the end of
and said that si
before she beca
she had inside I
bear her name,
confided that si
and 5 months
shortly after th
house in New Y
SA month aftex
to her brother i
who for many
and ran a tave
talked a long tix
with him that h
Lane would pay
Uncle Peacoc
red hair. He wa
ice blue, his wi
F-e wore a shax
a southern acce
and his skin was
When Uncle P
at the club. Ani
not see her bro
month she took
and the three
visited with Un<
a long time, an
for much longer
And after a
plane, as white
5 weeks before,
Soon Melissa
the term of it st
forth onto the d
in the evening
And Sammie L
time, cooking a
at all coddling
that she care fc
And at the e
delivered a boy
And they took1
it Sammy Lane
Wash ing My Face
Last night's dreams disappear.
They are like the sink draining.:.
a transparent rose swallowed by its stem.
Frontispiece from The Airnanack
A G/F T FROM CENTICOR E.. **
P.-A
JOUR N TO ..*IXT LA
ThsbokanThehssn C.1nd a ie s ersn naeoe
Iuiw.ies ot cenit:detuet1mpatvco oe i n
33 1y2dOPN129. Uieriy
cros frm Nikels Aeade665-6.4
663-112 E ERY o~m to p.m
F .t 0pmS N A SE HRE
Feiffer revisited
LO!AT 12(1 #(OV
6
i.e
t~3FL-AThM.
I
CHRISTMAS PARTY?
I For your Christrmas Party, Serve
Our Delicious and Convenient
iiCOLD BU FFE T U
served on completely disposable paper service
Onlyg 195PER PERSON -
I ~ INCLUDING:
COLD SLICED ROAST BEEF
5 COLD SLICED BAKED HAM
I ~ SLICED CHEESE
HOT BAKED BEANS
TOSSED SALAD WITH DRESSING
I MACARONI SALAD
PICKLED BEET SALAD
ROLLS AND BUTTER
APPLE PIE
Other Menu Suggestions Available on Recquest
FREE DELIVERY FORSO0PERSONS OR MORE
FRONTIER BEEF BUFFET
~2333 E. STADIUM ANN ARBOR 663-9165
In memory of the Soyuz 11 cosmonauts, who
perished in their capsule (code name, Amber)
The space -lab, said Dobrovolsky,
"it tremendous--there seems to be no end to it!"
Slavic bombast. A few tadpoles,
cabbageheads, ferns, onion bulbs ...
a metal seed in the astral belly of Time.
To dragon-deeps, endless firmament
we send what's vulnerable: our bone and blood;
there distempering wracks and melts us down.
Heartand muscles lose, by pieces, their cunning,
their proto-settlement in the seventh sphere.
We grew from tadpoles, not without reason,
to try our fires on the lunar plains.
Count back from Earthoon, motherly egg.
In the memory of moon-rocks
our genesis fixed:
a wind of pollen on hyrogen fils
who can say? say when two bald and
fiery sisters began
their first million cooling years,
tied by infancy to a kindling star?
The alchemical beauty of those ruby seas!
How they burned! Overhanging, blue-black
clouds
raining till head-legged protozoa
flapped into caves;
greenness overtook our stones,
limped from the sea, flew on storms;:
on the sun's gifts the wayward force
worked grass into bone, worms into crabs, lizards
rearing up on larger and sharper jaws
till generating cells wore down, wore out.
The reptiles fell among rats-but call them
pretty names, our genitors.
In these hundredrmillion years ee -
New lenses turned outward, to focus
that altering inaccessible thing:
luminous, virgin, a night-huntress
whom we mellowed by handicraft and verse.
In the first, imagined, moon-flights-_
harioted by staoks, dynamited, cannonballed,
kidnapped from bed by blind polypus
creatures of the lunar, star-facing dark-
Dobrovolsky, Volkov, and Patsayen lost their
breath.
Nothing will come of earth.
In five million years the sun
will flame out, then freeze us dead.
by Las
Sister, we evolve
Deeds done in tU
nothing. There
End to the luric
mixing in the a
end to the balr
foxglove, stingir
whose healing a
from the first I
swaying heart-s
or splashing un
or buried in pit
Amber began its
In Eden these 51
A space-suit cre
tensed apart; h
or be mummied
Spacemen, it nm
Saelliteranges
marshes occupy
the tadpole will
float to a nest
building our hon
- - w * , .( A.* * . - - - -