Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 19:15:14 -0800 From: "Ray, Judy - ray" Subject: Re: [WRITERS] Toscano for List Italian Mi caro Don Anthony: >I respect the way you accept me for what I am and the way you always push >me for more. Your feminine sensitivity is almost powerful enough to leave >me feeling spiritual early in the morning, and when I'm in a spiritual mood >I'm so much more docile and cuddly round the edges. See? Spirituality ain't just about going to heaven in the by and by. It's about feeling better right now. Thank you for the respect and the compliment on the power of my feminin e sensitivity. >But the list this morning feels rather faint and wispy; don't you agree? Yes. I do agree. >Your poem sounded cute and rhythmic (you must realize the important role >rhythm plays in your life as an artist, no?), and whenever you talk about >getting laid my stiletto clicks and points itself toward Sicily, but the >rest is all so friendly and agreeable. It was cute and rhythmic, wasn't it? I like rhythm. I've *got* rhythm. We poets like to get intellectual about rhythm and call it "meter", but it's just the same old beat. Heart music. Striding feet on green earth. Shake your bootie to hot blues and lyric ballads music. >I suggest we begin again to talk of Clinton and the exciting debate now >going on in congress. Anthony. You find the debate "exciting"? I've pretty much given up on the circus in the Judiciary committee these days. Reminds me of a bad Donohue show. Hasn't quite fallen to the Springer level yet, but it's getting there. I heard that Congressman Barr (one of those highly principled Republicans) said that those of us who don't agree with him are "unAmerican". Hmmm. Shades of you know who. > You can start by telling us that the whole thing's >just a sex issue, that Republicans are jealous because fewer of them, per >pinstripe, have gotten laid at the office than have their Democrat >counterparts, and I can tell you about the importance of rules for their >own sake. But it *is* about sex, Anthony. ;) teehee! Sex and the lack of it. The importance of rules for their own sake? I don't know about that. Which rules would you be referring to? >The other Anthony, the scalawag poet and political profiteer, >might even enter the discusssion with a poem of no fewer than twenty-five >lines, no more than three words to each line, and a pungent punchline >regarding the nature of bias in our society. I hope he's working on that one. I'd like to see it. >If that doesn't light a conversation a curmudgeon might enjoy, then maybe >we can speak of grammar? I could begin aloud to notice all the spelling >mistakes lately submitted here in place of art, and a bunch of girls and >their liberal-minded male defenders could jump all over me and together try >to pull the steel rod out of my ass. I think you *should* get noisy about spelling and grammar errors. Those are rules that are important for more than their own sake. And you really need to demonstrate just how curmudgeonly you can be...to garner a few last-minute votes. >No? Well then how about a pheromonal love poem from one of the romantics >on list? One of the cloying kind that slip out unobstructed by propriety >and shame after the third glass of wine late at night. ;) Seems like *I've* written one or two of those in my time. Someone, can't remember who, has said that there are really only a few subjects in poetry anyway, and love is one of those s/he enumerated. Geez, if we can't write about love.... What are we to do? Write about Ford Fairlanes? Bowling? Golf? Football on Sunday afternoon? >If anyone cares to help my mood -- and the general tenor of the list -- >with such a contribution, please include the word soul at least two times >before the third verse, and quick suggest with subtle metaphor that we're >all no more than a putrid gang of inner-children struggling with the nature >of orgasm and therapeutic bowel movements. Oh yes, soul. One of your favorite words. Why don't you write that poem, Anthony, and show us how to do it right? :) J. p.s. Two stilettos? I like the sound of that. ------------------------------------------ You start by writing to live. You end by writing so as not to die. Carlos Fuentes, "How I Started to Write"