On this Day in 1819, 23-year-old John Keats wrote a love letter
considered one of the most beautiful ones ever written. I discovered this listening to the daily podcast of the Writer’s Alamac. Here are the written words:
My dearest Girl,
This moment I have set myself to copy some verses out fair. I cannot proceed with any degree of content. I must write you a line or two and see if that will assist in dismissing you from my Mind for ever so short a time. Upon my Soul I can think of nothing else—The time is passed when I had power to advise and warn you again[s]t the unpromising morning of my Life—My love has made me selfish.
Continue ReadingBeautiful Poem by Sonia Gernes
Golden
for my parent’s fiftieth anniversary
In the old photographs, it is always autumn.
Colors fade to the sepia of remembered thought:
my mother in a flapper dress, my father
proud beside the Model A. They glow
in the light of dreams that I can never know.
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The Emmancipation Paradox: Women have become unhappier since 1972
Maureen Down (NY Times) reports stunning data and speculates why the libration of women seems to have made them unhappier while men have become happier.
Women are getting unhappier, I told my friend Carl.
“How can you tell?” he deadpanned. “It’s always been whine-whine-whine.”
Why are we sadder? I persisted.
“Because you care,” he replied with a mock sneer. “You have feelings.” Oh, that.
Electric Car Alert: I want to take the Tesla for a Spin
Just read a story in the New Yorker about the development of an all-electric car by the California startup company Tesla. Despite the difficulities of refuelling the car quickly, I would love to experience driving this all electric car. Here is Tad Friend’s report on his test drive:
IT’S ELECTRIC!
This week in the New Yorker, I write about Elon Musk and his company Tesla Motors, which last year began producing the Roadster, the only highway-capable electric car currently on the road. (Subscribers can access the full article.) In April, while I was reporting in Silicon Valley, where the company is based, I spent a few days test-driving the car, an experience both familiar and strange. Once you slide into the Roadster—which, for me, at six feet tall, required some forethought—you’re in a standard sports-car cockpit, one just large enough to fit two people and a loaf of bread. There is no video-game-style joystick or futuristic trackball; the car feels like a car. Only the lack of a glove compartment and the crappy, off-the-shelf JVC stereo-and-navigation system indicate that Tesla was hurrying to get the car out the door.
4.6 million to lie forever on top of Marilyn Monroe
I don’t know any man who was young in the early 1960s and who did not have a crush on Marilyn Monroe. As this generation is starting to face death, one rich man can be with Marilyn for eternity. The DailyNews reports:
Even in death, Marilyn Monroe is still snagging millionaires.
An unidentified deep-pocketed fan who clearly prefers blonds placed the winning $4.6 million bid Monday in an eBay auction for the crypt directly above the sexy screen icon’s grave. Beverly Hills widow Elsie Poncher put her husband’s strategically positioned crypt on the auction block with a starting price of $500,000. Bidding soared to $4.5 million three days later.
“Here is a once in a lifetime and into eternity opportunity to spend your eternal days directly above Marilyn Monroe,” the eBay auction description boasted. Richard Poncher was buried face down, looking at Marilyn, when he died 23 years ago at age 81, the posting revealed. His 80-year-old widow said she decided to move his remains and sell the valuable vault at the Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park cemetery.
The Pope’s Letter
PM: Is is always better to read someone in the original. I am looking forward to reading the Pope’s encyclica Caritas in Veritate to see whether he has to something say that politicans and business leaders can use to guide their actions.
Dear Brothers and Sisters,
Today I wish to reflect on my Encyclical, Caritas in Veritate. Some forty years after Pope Paul VI’s Encyclical Populorum Progressio, it too addresses social themes vital to the well-being of humanity and reminds us that authentic renewal of both individuals and society requires living by Christ’s truth in love (cf. Eph 4:15) which stands at the heart of the Church’s social teaching.
MJ: Bigger in Death than in Life
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Michael Jackson Explained
Robert Hilburn pieces together for the best account to day why Michael Jackson is dead.
Michael Jackson: the wounds, the broken heart
Pop music critic Robert Hilburn recalls the years when the public turned its back on the singer. ‘I’m lonely,’ a 23-year-old Jackson said.
I’ll always regret that the last conversation I had with Michael Jackson ended with him angrily hanging up the phone—at least I’ve long thought of Michael’s mood that day more than a decade ago as angry. I now realize the more accurate description would be “wounded.” Michael was at times among the sweetest and most talented people I met during my 35 years of covering pop music for the Los Angeles Times.
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