tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post8221169550448392393..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: Philip Larkin: AdministrationUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-7050964696742916612013-06-01T20:47:38.959-07:002013-06-01T20:47:38.959-07:00empty,
Lovely to hear from you. Yes, those jumpin...empty,<br /><br />Lovely to hear from you. Yes, those jumping spiders do grow very large and hairy. They're fairly common in the US Southwest esp. Oklahoma/Texas. I can almost but not quite understand how the needs of someone starved for human contact might be assuaged by bonding with Phidippus mystaceus. Of course, as you suggest, the bonding might be a bit less anxious were the big beauteous jumping spider to be contained in a jar, and the bonding thus conducted from a safe distance. Wouldn't want one of those hopping about in the bedclothes!<br /><br />The females do not grow to quite the epic size of the males. Still, they do get big enough to fully capture one's attention. And they are pretty too!<br /><br /> <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Adult_female_Phidippus_mystaceus.jpg" rel="nofollow">Phidippus mystaceus, adult female</a>TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-78806185349300078222013-06-01T15:29:07.912-07:002013-06-01T15:29:07.912-07:00About thirty-five years ago my housemate and I, tw...About thirty-five years ago my housemate and I, two hard-working graduate students possessed with love of mathematics but maybe a bit starved for human contact, kept a jumping spider for many months. I found her one day walking on a heap of clothes fresh from the dryer. She was beautiful. I put her in a jar, and identified her kind, more or less, from a field guide. We named her Frieda; I don't know why we assumed she was female. We fed her daily with cockroaches from our kitchen floor, and she grew to a prodigious size.emptyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04513102801380602436noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-59026905849162121762013-05-31T04:45:56.874-07:002013-05-31T04:45:56.874-07:00That's the way of it with those Jewel-Eyed Adu...That's the way of it with those Jewel-Eyed Adult Male Jumping Administrators, then -- the habitual phantasmal cranking-up before the frustrating realistic letting-down, the chronic working-off of OTHER people's all too dearly-purchased socks.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-36553101106854505742013-05-30T23:19:42.745-07:002013-05-30T23:19:42.745-07:00In a scant four lines, Larkin cranks us up
With n...In a scant four lines, Larkin cranks us up <br />With nary a thought of letting us down.vazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-87133486179341161862013-05-30T17:23:32.307-07:002013-05-30T17:23:32.307-07:00But Administrator,
I worked my socks off!
Three pa...But Administrator,<br />I worked my socks off!<br />Three pair for the price<br />of Two<br />and Kiwis don't even wear Crock's<br />Vestigial wings and flat breastbones<br />You knocked my socks off.<br /><br />Marie Whttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07787850063283960703noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-83124681611592257342013-05-30T14:43:24.739-07:002013-05-30T14:43:24.739-07:00That's a great choice for a title.
That jewel...That's a great choice for a title.<br /><br />That jewel-eyed administrator's a beauty, isn't he?Mose23https://www.blogger.com/profile/01100756913131511440noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-80438537007683117922013-05-30T10:31:53.414-07:002013-05-30T10:31:53.414-07:00Thanks very much, friends.
Larkin's "rel...Thanks very much, friends.<br /><br />Larkin's "relations with women", always so famously fraught. <br /><br />In the same week he wrote this poem, he replied to an aspiring female poet of his acquaintance (she had worked as his assistant in an earlier epoch at the library in Leicester, sharing a tiny office with him, and had since married), who had written seeking his help with editing and publishing her work, and suggesting she might be dropping in on him at Hull (that otherwise unlikeliest of destinations):<br /><br />"I'd forgotten about the desert island -- what was the idea, getting away from it all? I used to think you looked very American! Marriage, well, I think of it as a mervellous thing for other people, like going to the stake."TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-6136743522567440932013-05-30T08:33:13.929-07:002013-05-30T08:33:13.929-07:00tom, as always, your generosity shines though! im ...tom, as always, your generosity shines though! im so impressed by your tenacity and consistency. so many well meaning poets are obsessed with their own work, but your scholarship is refreshing without being pedantic or sycophantic. <br />i love seeing this back and forth with stephen- btw i really enjoyed his performance at mills with the thingamajigs performance group and my dear friend edward schocker.<br />gotta love the larkin!<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05674334016491214659noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-67648442001737994272013-05-30T06:17:00.155-07:002013-05-30T06:17:00.155-07:00Tom,
Great photos to go with this poem (what a po...Tom,<br /><br />Great photos to go with this poem (what a poem!), whose 'back story' (Amber to the Larkin Society, Larkin to Kingsley Amis) really makes it snap.<br /><br />5.30<br /><br />light coming into sky above still black<br />ridge, white half moon through branches<br />in foreground, sound of wave in channel<br /><br /> two lines of figures moving,<br /> expected interruption<br /><br /> overhead, situation becomes<br /> framed in door, space<br /><br />grey white clouds against top of ridge,<br />lines of waves breaking across channel<br />STEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.com