[lbo-talk] $39,000 handbag

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Mon Aug 29 18:03:14 PDT 2011


On 8/29/2011 7:22 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote:


> The MOMA example works. Your first one, not so much. The Olsens probably
> think of themselves as artists:
>

====

[Paquin was, I believe, a hat designer]

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What thou lov’st well remains,

the rest is dross

What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee

What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage…

The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world.

Pull down thy vanity, it is not man

Made courage, or made order, or made grace,

Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.

Learn of the green world what can be thy place

In scaled invention or true artistry.

Pull down thy vanity,

Paquin pull down!

The green casque has outdone your elegance.

“Master thyself, then others shall thee beare”

Pull down thy vanity

Thou art a beaten dog beneath the hail,

A swollen magpie in a fitful sun,

Half black half white

Nor knowst’ou wing from tail

Pull down thy vanity

How mean thy hates

Fostered in falsity,

Pull down thy vanity,

Rathe to destroy, niggard in charity,

Pull down thy vanity,

I say pull down.

But to have done instead of not doing

this is not vanity

To have, with decency, knocked

That a Blunt should open

To have gathered from the air a live tradition

or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame

This is not vanity.

Here error is all in the not done,

all in the diffidence that faltered.

---

Blunt was a minor English poet who opposed WW 1; as a result he was ostrasized, but Pound called on him. I guess it's a sort of immortality to appear in lines such as these, in a text such as the Pisan Cantos.

Carrol



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