Page 2-Sunday,;February 26, 1978-The Michigan Daily
The Michigan Daily-Sunday, Febr
RAMRLINGS/ lani jordan
SELECTION/ jacob miller
ROOTLESS. For all intents and
purposes, I've never really
belonged anywhere. This is not merely
a confession of psychological
alienation. I really do not have a home.
I was raised in a military family
whose idea of a normal year was to
crate up our belongings and trek off to'
another in a long line of residences. In
my eighteen years with them, we
moved seventeen times. I attended
eleven schools in twelve grades. Not
exactly the best way to nurture a
feeling of belonging. Sometimes some
of the boxes wee left packed from one
move to the next. There was no point in
doing otherwise.
On a recent job appliction I was asked
to "list all addresses for the past ten
years." I couldn't remember all of
them. The ones I did recall filled a
typed page. There was also a request
for a list of all schools attended.
Another typed page.
IT's truly a problem and being at the
University only makes it worse.
"Where are you from?" ranks high on
the list of conversation-openers all over
campus. People are identified by their
point of origin. This is Joe X, he's from
West Bloomfield. Immediate iden-
tification. You know something about
this person's background. While Joe X.
may turn out to be atypical for West
Bloomfield, at least you have
something on which to base a first im-
pression.
Now, take me. "Where are you
from?" someone asks me in the course
of our first conversation. Already I'm
at a loss. Should I say Mt. Clemens;
Michigan, where good old mom and dad
have settled "until old age," a place I
only call home by nature of using it for
a permanent address. I lived in glorious
Mt. Clemens for a grand total of seven
months, hardly long enough to find my
way around, let alone develop a sense of
identity. To inform someone "I am
from Mt. Clemens" seems somewhat
inaccurate.
WELL, HOW about the place before
that, Centreville, Michigan, a
minute burg which, according to my
mother, never caught on to the '50's
craze because they were still in the
'40's. Sure, I enjoyed living there. I
donned a Centreville High School
cheerleading uniform and pledged my
undying loyalty to the Bulldogs every
Friday night for nearly a year. Still,
I'm not from Centreville. The entire
year I spent there was like being a
character in Our Town. It was a game.
I am also not from the suburb of
Detroit where I resided for brief
periods between jaunts around the
country, nor from San Diego, California
(a place many Navy families claim as
home, whether they've ever lived there
or not).
Maybe my place of birth could be
considered "where I'm from."
Honolulu, Hawaii. It sounds exotic. And
replying that to some stranger's "Where
are you from?" is a sure way to prolong
a conversation. After that answer,
I don't escape until I relate all the
details of why I am in Michigan in mid-
winter when I could be surfing, lying on
a sandy beach, watching palm trees
wave, etc., etc. It gets a little old after
awhile.
I'm not really from Hawaii either
though. My life there, as it was nearly
everywhere else, was spent as a Navy
brat on base. Believe me, one base is
just about the same as the next. I never
really made a home there either.
SO, HERE I am in Ann Arbor. A
place where few people really be-
long. And although I have lived here
two-and-a-half years, longer than I've
lived anywhere, I don't belong here
either. I am a student, and students are
aliens who arrive with their few
belongings, usually spend only four
years and ultimately pack up their tent,
so to speak, and vanish into the sunset
to be seen only in the alumni section at
the football game.
Where am I from? The question
plagues me. To be sure I sometimes
reply Mt. Clemens just to get off the
hook but it leaves me feeling dislocated
and rootless.
I don't intend to spend my life this
way, however. Someday, when I find
the right place, I'm going to park
myself and not leave for 20 years,
maybe longer. Maybe I'll stay so long
people won't be able to remember when
I wasn't there. I'll throw out all the
packing boxes, watch a sapling grow to
shade my yard, and find the answer to
"where are you from?"
Conversation With Herr Doktor Concerning a Critical
Writing of the History of Dullness
"The only true History is a random History. '-Catullus Schwartz
Quick! Quick! Now Boy!
Pounce on it dog-
Herodotus, Thucydides and Tacitus are locked in the closet;
and as the elements grow thin,
DULLNESS MARCHES AGAIN UPON DR YHILLS.
Herr Doktor, forgive me. I will try to be more coherent.
I know that Ishould try to approach this more sincerely and
I assure you that in the future I will, but for today Y
let me feed you some History.
Of late, Isleep a lot, i.e., Isleep a lot, of late.
We all have priorities...
Yet like any well-meaning complacent, Iam absent-minded.
When I wake though,
I wake to lips, wet and pouting in thick air.
But enough of this Political doggerel.
Allow me to sing of better distractions still.
Mike called me tonight and informed me
that laughter was no longer fashionable and
that the Neanderthal mentality was back in vogue.
Mike said, "Our 'natural' generation wants someone who's aware of his roots,
someone who goes back to the good ol' days of Primitive Man.
Someone who doesn't use 'modern' conveniences, like words, but
communicates in a 'natural' way, like groaning, howling, etc.,"
other assorted mundane facts.
Later, said he was tired and had to get up early in the morning-
yes I'll have another cup of coffee, thank you.
Bah, it's bitter... But Herr Doktor, tell me,
what if History could be reduced to a gambling equation?
What if time, places, dates and occurances
all merely fall at randorm like dice?
What then? No answer? Fine. No matter.
Let us speak of wet pavement of late night London streets,
of cracking wall of Jerusalem wailing in heat, heat, heat,
of music, tones, notes, colors, flesh,
platd in Paris, in Rome, in Athens, in Sparta,
the great men assembling,
and high ways, mountains, factories, forest, and shelters
of all dimensions,
reclining against the cushions of History...
Come Herr Doktor, let us speak of what is dull.
Herr Doktor. Goddamnit! Wake up! The time is ripe:
if only we can construct an ambiance from which I might
capture, cultivate and depict
the truer nature and superior occurances observable
within the History of Dullness.
Sunday magazine
She Tore Up Th
Poem I Wrote Ah
and now sits,
unnaturally still,
in a chair by the w
Her pose for the n
is of a special kind
dignified boredon
She would like to
but won 't.
FICIWSTiC PUZZLE.
BY
STEPHEN J.
POZSGAI
Copyright 1978
INSTRUCTIONS
Guess the words defined at the
left and write them in over
their numbered dashes. Then,
transfer each letter to the cor-
responding numbered square
in the grid above. The letters
printed in the upper-right-hand
corners of the squares indi-
cate from what clue-word a
particular square's letter
comes from. The grid, when
filled in, should read as a
quotation from a published
work. The darkened squares
are the spaces between words.
Some words may carry over
to the next line. Meanwhile,
the first letter of each guessed
word at the left, reading down,
forms an acrostic, giving the
author's name and the title of
the work from which the quote
is extracted. As words and
phrases begin to form in the
grid, you can work back and
forth from clues to grid until
the puzzle is complete.
ofternoo
the cat on the cc
purrs
the coffee on th
boils
me
I'm emptying al
in the ap
i don't do this o
it's gooa
i don't think ab
I'm empi
N. Flush: fill
A. Fender; polisher-
13 80 147 180 183 8
11 15 70 102 66 109 219
B. Development of a ploy leading
to the catastrophe
C. Grimm's Fairy tale in which the
sister must keep dumb for
seven years (2 words)
D. Forming a cylindrical structure
E. '-West of the Moon"
Norwegian Fairy Tale
(4 words)
F. Title of Red Riding Hood tale in
Grimm's Fairy Tales
(2 words, 1 Comp.)
G. Discoverers of tIe
gingerbreol ouse
(3 words)
H. Period added to harmonize the
lunar with the solar calendar-
I.'The Frog King's faithful servant
(2 words) (Grimm's)
J. A shuttle falling into a well leads
to gold for the youngest and
pitch for the oldest child in this
Grimm's Tole (2 words)
K. One who delivers or discharges
a cargo
L. Guest of the Seven dwarfs
(2 words)_
M. Reverted to the state due to the.
death of the owner intestate
without heirs .
4 32 51 117 135 93 68 155
1 24 42 67 174 90 131 170 179 189 199 206
211 232
6 169 79 190 209 235
0 30 9- 5 5 6 7 - - - -
10 30 39 50 57 65 75 89 98 107 130 149.
23 36 45 59 111 119
133 160 105 150 171 225
O. Grimm's Tale in which an aging
faithful dog and a three-legged
cat scare off a wolf
and a boor (2 words)
P. English Fairy Tale in which
pixie juice reveals the
invisible (2 words)
Q. Inform; instruct
R. Slang refusal (2 words)
S. Only she could fit into the lost
slipper (Grimm's)
T. Lacking variety: monotonous: dull
U. Emdciation
V. Food: Nutriment
W. English Fairy Tale in which in
return for spinning 5 skeins of
flax a night, an imp gets
possession of the queen, unless
she can guess his name
(3 words)
X. Danish Fairy Tale in which three
women compete to see who has
the stupidest husband (2 words)
Y. Dine at a restaurant
(2 words)
Z. " pin": orderly (3 words)
137 43 69 146 92
83 148 143 28 2
7 27 37 91 100 136 151 167 176
- - - - - - - - - - -
58 74 97 127 188 153 112 145 158 207 216 230
233
38 56 76 184 122
44 103 157 116 54 129
96 113 172 191 202
Jacb Mlle isa junior in the Residential College. The poem "afternoon " was part
of an award-winning collection- in the 1978 Hop wood competition.
hal
162 224
18 22 61 63 84 104 108 114 141 53 165 173
181 192 217
19 12 208 222 196
9 20 25 78 182 128 154 194 203
29 34 81 118 125 187 138 95 218 239 164
3 166 140 71 110 240 212. 47
5 101 14 201 236 205 152 2i5 227
12 123 26 77 163 228 31
52 62 82 238 144 177 186 197 214
(f
16 40 73 88 213 94 115 223 198
41 64 72 226 87 120 139 35 195 178
46 193 204 237 210 221
55 229 86 134 121 99 185
Answerto Last Week's Puzzle
"Basketball, when a cer-
tain level of team play is
realized, can serve as a .
metaphor for ultimate co-
operation. It is a sport
where success as symbolized
Bby the championship re-
quires that the dictates of
community prevail over
selfish personal impulses."
Bill Bradley ife on the Run
(Continued from Page 3)
difficulty faced by the reader, at least
initially, in reading Hall's memoirs. It
is hard to picture Pound groping for
words or "Dylan the Drunken Boor,
Dylan the Roaring Boy." Hall writes
both clearly and figuratively but the
images are often sad.
Partly by design, partly because of
circumstance (Hall met three of the
four late in their lives, after they had
withdrawn from the mainstream of
literary life), Remembering Poets ends
up as four self-contained portraits that
reveal a great deal about the influene#°
in the lives of modern poets. There is
only a small amount of overlap between
the sections, and little repetition
despite the fact that the careers of Eliot
and Pound in, particular were at one
point intertwined.
Once the entertaining idea of treating
prophets as people becomes familiar,
the pithy chapters can be illuminating.
Thomas is pathetic, Frost vain, Eliot
shrewd, Pound befuddled. Hall devotes
each section to an explanation of the
inadequacies of these adjectives.
Sometimes he is more successful,
sometimes not.
S .WH HALLS 'Freudian !ai-alysis
brushed away (fortunately the
book is written so that the option is
open) the unifying idea is that one risks
all to become a leading poet. Part of the
gamble is that none of the work will
survive; the other part is that the self-
destructive urge that often comes with
the creative process will prove too
strong.
"Dylan chose the suffering not as the
release of natural instincts but as
punishment for the sin of writing
poems," but Frost, Eliot, and Pound
demonstrate the value of endurance.
Hall devotes the most space in his
Paris 'RIeview interviews -with Pound
early in March; 196. -The mintite by
minute accoun
year-old poet L
is tiring. It n
doubt that Pou
controversial
outspoken than
of the writer'
Hall's summai
a little better
quoting Pound
made a persor
writes, "At th
great poets, th
of anguish-p
choices made
and its passion
"12 4O2Q1}i24 132 1 r ° 56 107'200 ;231 .Comopbopq)fromaofairy
(2 wards)
17124 33. 48-6, 85106 142 159 1751M6
t
.. ,. t ,: t i }, z: r .«.: m,. f.c .r,.,A ". 1"d: i. °-i K t /'.4 i i S S.. f .. ;