Harold Pinter reveals why Cricket is better than Sex

Something shiny!

AAAAARRRRRGH!!!! The merlot!

There are several cricket matches on weekends in Bakersfield. We have a large Indian and Pakistani population. I have gone, watched, had it explained to me, but for the life of me I can't understand why the matches (tests) go on for soooooo long. I am good for an hour and then I start getting a headache. I want to learn, but guess I am just to lazy.

Get thee back immediately to yesterday's topic! This instant! Everybody knows that cricket is - HEY! Butterflies!!!

I've been in Request Stop, a Pinter sketch, and a scene from his play A Slight Ache. My acting instructor absolutely worships Pinter. They're quite similar, actually, from what I've heard. Isles, what sort of butterflies? I love cricket. It's the only fun game I remember from 7th grade gym class. 

Cricket explained:

You have two sides one out in the field and one in.

Each man that's in the side that's in goes out and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.

When they are all out the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in out.

Sometimes you get men still in and not out.
When both sides have been in and out including the not outs, that's the end of the game.

LETS GO RIDE OUR BIKES!!

I never understood how cricket was played until I watched the second "Are you being served?" series, the one out in the country.  Then I finally got it.

Wait, no . . . it still makes bugger-all sense!

I just read the article about Pinter directing his own funeral. I think that's a good idea for us all to contmeplate. The only problem is I don't go to funerals and have no intention of attending my own.

I highly recommend this 56-minute Charlie Rose with Pinter... It is available right here, now... Please save this link for later if you can't spend an hour right now....

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3150302824340759417 ;

In my opinion, a life without Charlie Rose is a life (barely) worth living....

You lmew I was going to put in a link to the Wikipedia article on Harold Pinter... right?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Pinter ;

knew (finger transposed right one key)

Did anyone play Roll (to) the Bat growing up? Is it somehow related to Cricket?

Harold Pinter is only the second playwright (at least, primary playwright, as opposed to a novelist or journalist who writes the occasional play) to be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature.  The first was Eugene O'Neill who is also the only playwright ever to receive four Pulitzer Prizes for drama.

Lady Comrade, do you agree with your acting instructor?  I'm terribly under-educated in Pinter, myself.  I've read The Homecoming and seen The Collection and that's about it.  I confess both experiences left me wondering what all the fuss was about but I appreciate there's still a lot of his work I should experience before I can make any competent judgment.  I tried to see the production of No Man's Land that was done in the mid '90s with Jason Robards and Christopher Plummer but missed my chance.  Ditto the recent revival of The Homecoming with Ian McShane and Raul Esparza.  So what's your take on the guy?

Bah!  Green grass, blue skies and stcky wickets........ I've got snow to deal with today, but Im not complaining. Yet.

There's something about a silent shroud of nightime snow when the only thing you can hear is the muffled crunch of your steps as you forge through it, only to be occasionally disrupted by the distant sound of a snowplow clearing out the main arteries before morning has broken and all of the daily gears start grinding and turning again. 

While the cold air envigorates you so that you wish to walk further, the utter silence and mesmerizing reflections off of the falling snow let you sleep soundly when you gat back home.  It is simply perfect for woolgathering.

Now how did I get there by looking at a cricket ball (or whatever its called), at rest, just lying in the sun.  Can't imagine where a photo of a baseball would have taken me.

The things one learns online! 

In Second Life I learned there is a bureaucratically imperious format that all plays must follow called 'play script'.  (So much for my one-act play in that virtual world... don't expect obsessive compulsives to understand that a play can simply be a creative expression.  Not in the correct format = instant dismissal without even so much as a sympathetic reading....)

And 'poking around' this morning I discovered that one can buy scripts (Pinter's seem to run in a range of 10-25 dollars).  If one chooses to PERFORM them there is a 'per performance' fee, too.  (No, I have no clue how they enforce that!)  Here's a site (no I am not getting paid to send you there!).  It will give you some idea of how the system seems to work. http://www.dramatists.com/cgi-bin/db/multiple.asp

If any high school drama teachers are groaning, 'Gee, the guy from Cape Hatteras just discovered the Atlantic Ocean!', well, guilty as charged.  I've seen a gazillion plays in my life, but successfully avoided the embarrassment of forgetting my lines in front of hundreds of people.  (Ad libbing Hamlet is NOT a good idea, IMHO).  I did have a college friend who was an actor in a phenomenally good college production of 'Waiting for Godot' who said it was the hardes he'd ever had to do since so much of the dialogue was essentially non-sensical.  It required complete and accurate recall! 

(Before anyone asks.... Yes, I lived for two years in England, but no, I never even attempted to try to figure out cricket.  Watching folks playing as I drove through Ipswich was the closest I ever got.  Now, FOOTBALL (aka soccer) was another story... I discovered that playing kickball (in kindergarten) gave me just enough ability to entertain my English friends who chortled at my feeble attempts to 'kick the ball' as I referred to our lunchtime matches... They found my kicking even more entertaining than my quaint spelling of such words as 'colour' and 'favour'.

Odd to read by so towering a figure: "Reflections On The Gulf War."
Persons a lot less well read and accomplished than he, including but not limited to, Mother Teresa, (and yes, I do know how some of you feel about her) have long been aware of the futility of railing against war.

I was once asked why I don't participate in anti-war demonstrations. I said that I will never do that, but as soon as you have a pro-peace rally, I'll be there.
Mother Teresa - War - Peace

To fill your brain, heart, belly and bowels with seething contempt and hatred for the makers of war can lead, at most, to the shortening or temporary lack of it which has little to do with real peace.

I apologize, again, for my own inability to track down the Israeli author of this quote:
"We will have peace only when our enemies learn to love their children more than they hate us."

His reference, and I heard it, was to suicide bombers. The irony is that his statement couldn't be more universally applicable if it had been uttered by God.

Enjoyed The Homecoming; tried to see No Man's Land w/Christopher Plummer but missed. Eugene O'Neill, mentioned, among my alltime favorites, justifiably honored; Long Day's Journey Into Night my introduction long ago left me emotionally drained in the best sense. Loving theater, I've often seen 2 plays a day, and--never mind, we're not talking about our own acting. SO:

Of cricket almost ignorant, I'll listen. And read again for sheer pleasure, John, your words all lovely, second and third paragraphs each gems of an essay, or one in whole. Lively alliteration, perfect word choices come effortlessly, apparently, from your poet-mind: something..silent..shroud..snow.silence..mesmerizing reflection off falling snow.. muffled crunch..steps..forge..disrupted..distant sound snowplow..gears grinding. A too-brief-I-want-more essay leading me to woolgather and a nap.  After I read again.  How lucky your family.

Harold Pinter reveals why "Cricket is better than Sex."

I have heard that such a thing as bad sex exists. I'll take that on faith. Some people can't get anything right.

But, even good, no-great cricket can't shake the throne of the beast with two backs.
Sorry Harold.

Stoney,

Around here, the saying is that barbecue is like sex- even when it's bad, it's still pretty god.

Georgia,

'Of cricket almost ignorant' I also belong to this group. So I to shall read along for the fun of it sipping some hot chocolate, munching some hazelnut biscott. 

Stoney, that quote was from a wonderfully moving speech given by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Here's the link. Be sure and take a tissue...

http://www.jewishaustralia.com/rabbisacks.htm

I'll have to put Harold Pinter in the same category with a Psych professor of mine. *WARNING-potentially offensive story*:

After class several of us were walking down the path, and the old guy said something like "You know, sometimes a bowel movement can be as good as sex". One wag shot back quickly, "Well, Professor, either I don't know how to shit, or you don't know how to fuck!" Later, he complained he'd gotten a C for that semester...

Poor Harold musta had a deficiency SOMEWHERE, if he thought cricket was better'n sex. I'm with Woody Allen on that one thing: he said his worst orgasm was right on the money.

Hey, speaking of sex, is it just me, or is the ENTIRE POSTING gone for the Sex Appeal day???? I got nothin'...unusual weather we're havin' around here...

There's me, all over the map again. *sigh*

O,

That ain't all that's gone in case you haven't noticed. Fair trade I'm thinkin'.

Maybe that C was a bump up. Who could say?

I cannot fan even the hottest embers into spark of interest in the game of cricket. My memory closet shelves are already stuffed full of the paraphernalia of sports that I love to watch, play and/or wish I could play. The shelves are all bowing in the middle from the weight of an old discus, shots that used to be put, Rawlings baseball mitts, Louisville slugger bats, 16" softballs that have been recovered in electrical tape just to squeeze on more game out of them, several deflated footballs, basketballs and a rusty set of golf clubs that should have been sent to Davey Jone's locker in some long ago water hazard.

If we are going to stay on topic, here's my feeble attempt at jumping on the cricket bandwagon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0sq7b0t81N0&feature=related

Olivia,

Sex appeal, smex appeal!  Who needs to write or read about it. If yous gots it, yous flaunts it. If ya ain't got some, then just look inside and gets some!  It's in all of us if we just lets it out to shine says Peter Lake, preachin' to the choir yet again.

As for the missing day of posts, it just makes me think of the movie "It's A Horrible Life" when George Bailey's evil twin was never born and so much nastiness didn't happen.  Whenever a bell rings, someone gets a hot foot.

Peace out!

Here is what they would tell us from the frontal cortex, almost verbatim, I am betting: 

Sex Appeal Day? There was no sex appeal day. I have no idea what you are talking about.  Even if there had been a sex appeal day, which I am not saying there was, some 21 posts out of about 80 all came from the same place, a place posts can not come from.  I understand that over on the travel page, there, the percentage was even higher that day.

It was aprox 42 to 67.  It was absurd.  

Please pardon my repeat posting, but I watched THE WOMEN last night. BOTH OF THEM.

I had seen the original a few times and found it OK, though not really earthshaking. What frustrated me most about the remake was the main stars are in their late forties ( Annette B was 50 before the film came out) and they seemed determined to look and act like they were in their twenties. Or is this what all women in New York do? Or all women everywhere want to do?

 There was also a scene during "spring break" set somewhere in Maine ( to parallel the Bermuda trip in the earlier film) and they were talking about going swimming, as in In The Ocean.

Have no fear, William dear. Never again shall I behave as I did in my twenties...mostly. Those days of confusion, angst, and silliness are over. Oh yes, I foreswear silliness altogether, as you all know from my serious and scholarly posts here.

Sure, SOME needed to go, but the WHOLE DAY? Okay, maybe it was a good trade...

Can we get a do-over?

Olivia,

Many, many thanks for the link.  It knocked the proper perspective right back into me.

Stoney,

I just came back from walking my snowblower around the block and up and down some driveways.  It was up to my in places, and this was the second clearing.

How are you folks doing up the lake?  If it weather sneezes down here, you get that and much, much more.  Damned if I didn't take the time to study the flakes again.  In my defense it was colder than the wicked witch of the east wearing a brass bra and doing push ups in the snow.

If I was to classify today's snow flakes, I'd say they were very white and kinda pretty.

oh..... the missing word in the second sentence would be"knees", it wasn't THAT deep.

Returning post-nap to see things I missed. Which reminds me, this morning, who knows why? all over the place mentally, could find no place to comment, only an essay w/nothing beneath, so I poked around 'til I found a place and spoke with several of y'all on various subjects so you've messages awaiting.... A surreal moment. It may've been beneath the bulldog (sex) and I think sex was one I mentioned but someone remarked recently that "Potty humor is FUNNY." and I'd add "So might sex be, please? often and sometimes at its most passionate, wild superlatives. Certainly enroute there, off and on. We're human, and human bodies are funny, but consider how they do magnificent and lovely things, things we'd never dreamt they were capable of. All wonderful, with endless possibilities." Maybe you'll happen onto your messages....

BAck to present -- Of WT to Stoney on how sex is like bbq: Never thought of it that way but Love it! WT, on Netflix I've had The Women long on my list, and they keep saying 'not available,' so maybe you had it and now I'll get it and compare notes with you. Any woman who 's "determined to look and act...twenties" sounds scary.  Please tell me a man (not a boy, lovely though boys are) is more interested in a woman, in every arena, than a barely-out-of-her-'teens girl. I hope I'm more interesting now than then. I'm prepared to be annoyed by this movie. I don't give short shrift to its portraying a woman with a younger man, say, but you don't read as if that's the case.

JI, I'm with you on one count (at least; God knows how many more) and have a question: Get the merlot! and you mention "Butterflies." I liked an old BBC series of that name ...what's your "Butterflies" reference?  Stoney, please read "Terrorist," jy John Updike. Very unlike most of his, but chilling. Excellent, everybody read it, speaking of making children into weapons; he traces such a journey in a 'teen.  And with his usual love of, appreciation of, care with words.  Cynthia, do you dunk the biscotti in the hot cocoa?  Mmmmm.

Have had too much snow, far too much scotch and am thawing myself in front of a fire in an unidentified cabin.

Any chance I'm on topic?

Georgia,

Is there any other way to have hot cocoa and biscotti. One must dunk, I am sure there is a law...somewhere...

AS always Jenn, your spot on topic.  Nailed it with lase-like precision.

Georgia,

I wish I possessed just a small snippet of the talent you so generously give me credit  for having.  I'm just a guy with too much time on his hands someday's and a tendancy to woolgather and pass on thoughts I've garnered from others.  If I didn't google Paul Simon's lyrics, what I would have typed would make no sense at all.

You on the other hand are an original talent and such a joy to read.  

Georgia,

Once again I am without context.  I just went back a day and read your post.  Thank you.

Biscotti and espresso !. . . . I am officially lost and without hope of redemption.  Have a nice weekend ya'll.

Cappuccino and biscotti is what I wish I were having, but alas...I must make do with hot cocoa.

Olivia,

I was remiss in failing to thank you for that link. Bless your heart.

Peter Lake,

Apart from a dusting of sparkling you-know-what, we dodged the most recent weather bullet. Just enough to show new tracks clearly. If people knew what was lurking out there...

Isles,

Funny thing but most of the cabins and cottages in jeopardy, are the great big deals.
The kind of stuff that would most appeal to me/us seems to be paid for- dammit!

Although, there are vacant land parcels coming down.

If I'm not impudent or invasive (not for anything would I break Our Rules) to ask, is either of you, who obviously live on the same lake, willing to name it?  Never mind, pretend you didn't hear Eve, if you'd prefer to remain anonymous on that score. I understand so DON'T TELL ME: You're afraid I'll show up with, oh, cookies or a pound cake or something.  But your comments remind me so much of my one wnter experience with good friends over a snowed-in CHristmas-New Year's at Schroon Lake in the Adirondacks, hour and a half from Albany NY (where you fly, also snowed in).  Snow up to -- well, beyond your mention, even -- the windowsills; cars unapproachable because snow up to windows and locks frozen. The most magical thing was we walked, some drove all over Scchroon Lake, which I've enjoyed often in summer, but this was another universe; gave me a sense, at least, of wha it's like to live above the MD line that far. I'd been in snow often in NYC, rarely (you read about it) here, deep at WEst point, visiting a relation-- but none approached this.  I saw what inspired terms and song-titles, Christmas cards, people's worldviews even.... A friend calls from NYC, planning to fly to Florida -- says his 17th floor apt's terrace is flakes-covered, its table iced like an enormous rectangular wedding cake awaiting decoration (admit that's me; he said 'there's ice on the terrace'...)  Eve

My God, what HAVE I missed???  A sex appeal day featuring some 21 inappropriate posts?  Dare I ask (as if I couldn't guess) what the hell happened???

Georgia,

Please don't be modest.  DO talk about your own acting.  Have you done any O'Neill?  Any Pinter?  I share your high opinion of O'Neill but I didn't always.  He's a very grown up playwright and it took a few years of adulthood for me to really appreciate him.  But now, he's a favorite.  A couple of years pre-baby, I had the great pleasure of directing my wife in the title role of Anna Christie, the first of his four Pulitzer winners.  To this day, it remains my favorite of his many great works.

I have moved from the hot cocoa and biscotti to a glass (or two) of a fine red wine...thats it...just the wine.

DPR:  Greetings Matey!  NO, NO, you could not possibly guess what the heck went on that day.  It is not what you think, in that I'm sure.  Just say it was really wierd and our host did a fine job in halting the stupidness.  Someone will have to explaine it away from this site.  Must watch our p's and q's.

Stoney and John-anything for you guys, anytime.

Eve-you powdered that ol' pill outa the park again, Sugar. Way to go!

ROBERT! Where you BEEN, boy?

Jeez, I'm glad I didn't put Near Miss part 6 on the Sex Appeal day, where it really belonged. Now I'd have been TOTALLY pissed if they deleted me when I'm gettin' all literary. Then again, I'm prolly putting more juice in it than it deserves...but hey, it's therapeutic!

Hey, I posted late yesterday, for all you masochists...

Have no name for this just-happened experience. Seeking 'how to' send photos; how Members create their Peterman personal pics, information, things like that, I just now happened upon the serious pages lawyers clearly wrote, and read The Fine Print.  Reflecting on how, months ago, I simply saw that little unobtrusive 'eye' on the back of the Owner's Manual-inside-a-package-from-JP and went immediately to see what's this?  More than twenty years of Peterman experience is why, without question, I signed that instant to receive The Eye, went to look, stayed.

WHat's amazing, in the world we inhabit, is I didn't call to ask a question, nor seek fine print, rules, anything! And my computer had never been remotely near a site where people converse, nothing even in that realm. Indeed, "It never entered my mind."

My action in no way implies naivete; A woman grown, I don't find it attractive. Rather, it bespeaks how people who've learned a little something about how this man does business, treats people, regards colleagues, many of whom I've been speaking with for years and years. How many CEOs claim customers/members? who trust implicitly what they say, sell, promise, dream up, effect? Precious few, is my guess. I felt perfectly safe. And look what I found!  All of you. Say goodnight, Gracie....  kisses from Eve to The Community et al. 

Sorry I'm off-topic, what IS the topic?, but while the experience is fresh I must share it.  

Eve (if I may be so bold)

The lake in question would be Lake Michigan.  I'm 50 miles west of the southern tip.  I was born 17 blocks from it.  I'm heading to the front porch now to wait for my cookies.

Holy shiite, we got's rules!!!  Who snuck them in whilst I was napping.

Olivia,

The man behind the curtain wouldn't dare expunge the literarl brilliance of "Near Miss, Part VI.  Why I would be forced to don my French Farmer's shirt (the one that makes my hands look bigger and me seem like a source of knowledge) and recreate Bastille Day in Lexington.

that would be literary brilliance......

Olivia,

I did read your last post from yesterday and yet I don't feel the onset of any masochistic tendencies besides the usual "whip me, beat me, tie me to the bed and make me write bad checks";)..... but tha's just so typical....

Olivia and Captain,

I'm willing to bet that whatever went down is EXACTLY what I think.  I did a little research and discovered the Christmas Eve posts have also been completely removed.  So I've done the math and I'm off the subject.

Sorry I haven't been as prolific around here as usual.  Between tours, books, and daughter, I have had precious little time for internet friends but I think of you guys often and my wife will attest to the fact that I talk about you all the time.

Right now, I'm in the throes of designing a lecture to deliver from the top of the Empire State Building while also making time to visit the charter school into which I'm hoping to enroll my daughter.  When I grab a free moment, I devour the delicious pages of Caleb Carr's The Angel of Darkness (the second of his Dr. Kreizler mysteries) and by the time I stroll over to the computer, I'm intellectually spent.  But I know you guys can soldier on beautifully in my various and prolonged absences.

Love to all!

Stoney, I've been mucking around in the Caribbean, looking for decent places with fertile land and the likelihood of avoiding massive storm surges and other hurricane driven tidal events. Having some major fun coming up with a list of possibilities, but my sweetie absolutely refuses to consider putting our "Bolt Hole" (what an image) anywhere near Hurricane Alley or in places with bugs the size of my shoes (13 D). And then there's the probability of (future) roving mobs of hungry, angry people... but that's a political topic for a far distant Peterman's Eye. I hope so, anyway.

Jonathan-clever sweetie. You'll have cause to thank her (again) one day...

Robert, just because we CAN soldier on without you, doesn't mean we WISH TO...

John-merci beaucoups de ton colibri'. Tres douce.

Cricket, Pinter, sex, fertile land, walking snowblowers, wine, and french.

You guys have been busy.  Never actually seen a Pinter play, after hearing them described I'm not sure if I want to, but I'll try almost anything once.  Cricket, seen it, slept through it, still have NO clue about the rules.  I'm gonna stick to sports that I excel in...cow tipping, TPing houses, etc.  You know, things found in the redneck olympics.

As for things better than sex...remind me what sex is again?!?  By the time I get home and drag myself up to bed I'm far to knackered to engage in nekkid co-ed wrastlin'.  I hear its really good though, so I don't believe Pinter for one minute.

Quick someone distract me and my short attention span!  I've finished work-work and now I've got to clock out and do cleaning job-work, handy that my two jobs are both in the same building.  Now if only Sir Boyscout and I could move into the loft space I would never have to leave.

Suz-I'm really feeling for you, poor baby. I hate you getting so dumped on, dear. You really need to get out from under and LIVE a little. Some-a that nekkid rasslin would do you the world a good too.

Anything we Eyesters can do to help? All for one...

Eh, I'm just whining...you want some cheese with that?  Things are tough all over, for everyone; seeing it, feeling it, participating in it (trustee's sales are a study in sadness and greed) leaves a mark on you.  I am OK, but all the negative 'everything' makes a cloud and its been tough to get out from under it lately.

Now I'm here in the office, late, on a Saturday night and I'm starting to here noises.  The building is about a hundred years old (really a couple buildings made into one), it leaks, it makes weird noises, and it smells funny.  Most nights it doesn't bother me, growing up in it, all its quirks make it just like that strange uncle that everyone smiles at but never talks to.  Tonight I'm a little freaked out.  If anyone walked in they'd think I'm nuts, I'm singing out loud to myself, and I'm NOT a good singer.  *sigh*

Hear, I am HEARING noises.  Oops that sounded crazier than the original post.

Ok, that's it, I'm driving home and getting the dog and coming back to finish.  Not that she'd protect me from intruders, but hey, she's company.

John dear, DO please be bold. LAKE MICHIGAN, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, i'VE BEEN IN! Before a Fulbright sent my son to teach American Lit. at Doshisha University in Kyoto, he taught at Western Michigan U., and my first trip to The Lake was a 'sense' surprise, if that makes any: So acustomed am I to the erotic seasmell hanging heavily on our humid air near marsh, beach, rivers, and so much do I love it, I was taken aback because there before me were, yes, dunes, and huge water, even waves, but no smell. I'd never before appreciated how I love seasmell (my term, made up of whole cloth; it may have a real name somewhere.  And erotic it is). I loved it, got in it enough to know I'd really felt it. What a beautiful place to live -- and I never saw it in winter...no, that's wrong, if I have my lakes right (being geographically illiterate I've probably reversed Great Lakes). Visiting Chicago, which I loved, wasn't I also on Lake MIchigan? If not, never mind: I loved Chicago. Loved your whole area when son and I drove around.  I may've pased your boat, your house, your family!  Pound cake enroute, cookies later.

 'Bout them rules, I just happened on them. Relax: JP will tell us if we cross a line, or you'll tell me if...and I'll tell you if..and Stoney will tell Olivia if...  "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off" and continue happy as clams.  Oh, and I do so love your "...that would be literary brilliance."  So quick are you. Forgive if I did mix your magnificent lakes. Ignorant in many ways I'm, but a quick study!

Olivia, your link made me weep: Kleenex. The 2,000 Year Old Man says Saran Wrap is the greatest invention, but there's much to be said for Kleenex, for times like your link, and when you're 15 and all your friends wear bras but you're still stuffing Kleenex in a AAA cup 'neath sweaters. Who said the other day when we discussed angora sweaters (boy, our group is deep) that we IN said sweaters were peeping around to see if boys noticed SOMEthing -- as JP says, "Even a man who notices NOTHing will notice..."  

DPR obviously is a published writer, and if he's willing I hope he tells tour dates/places for readings.  Delighted at your talent and hard work, DPR and resultant good fortune, Congratulations!  Morpheus is at it again (John, if you will, do a favor and tie me to bed and make me write bad checks...)  goodnight all. sleep warm

Pinter Pinter Pinter... I've never read Pinter. I like Eddie Izzard's take on Pinter in a west end (Shaftsbury) theater - "When shall we three meet again? Tuesday? Okay." BUT I AM JUDGMENTAL as all Hel when it comes to the things people say as if they are Holy Writ. Declaring Cricket to be better than Sex earns Pinter an instant and permanent demotion from member of the Pantheon to mere poseur. Anybody who could say such a thing with a straight face, even a gay face, is a trifle and not to be taken seriously.

Besides, any game where the losing team doesn't have the opportunity to HIT HARDER by way of compensation for losing is, like Pinter, a trifling endeavor and not to be taken seriously by men of stern intentions.

Hey, give the guy a break. He did after all die about a month later. Obviously at 78 or so Cricket was better than sex. And perhaps, it was a bit tongue in cheek. So to speak.

Great, Dec 24th is gone also?  I probably made "Honor Roll" on both those days.  Alas.

No Neptune I WAS the entire honor roll all of the missing days. I am sure.

I hope sex is still better even when I'm 78. It WILL be, if I have anything to say about it! Jonathan, you are a good man and true, and hath spake well this day sure certain.

Suz, don't forget the cheese. Maybe some wine would make things more better...

Eve, I love your seasmell. I know, how I know-it is erotic, and sensual, with the waves crashing on the rocks and the seawall, the gulls crying. Especially at night (no gulls but the water always calls to me). I mind standing up above Widow's Row, on the Bogy Hill, watching seals out in the harbour, the lighthouse at St John's Point, the tall ships on the horizon, the way the Irish sailors learn to sail the wind before being allowed on steel, the fishermen in their heavy Aran (pronounced like "iron") jumpers, each cable knit different to identify the waterlogged corpses, and they not worried about the weight should they fall in, "sure the cold'll kill ye afore ye can swim any way, lassie". the wild wind whipping my skirt, my hair, my shawl, it's hopeless, you just have to face into it, the tears whipped from your stinging eyes, white horses racing in on wavetips, clouds close behind, and the sky so blue it hurts to look at it, so it does, or the moon of an evening playing hide and seek with the silver smokey wispy feathers winding high and the grey slabs with their silver linings for yer trouble ach sure, stars bright and full of promises and you make your own constellations to match your hopes and dreams. It does no good to talk, for the wind takes your words for its playthings, and no one can make them out at all, at all. You smile, and point, and the lad you met at the Harbour Inn comes up with porter and sweeties, and you find a hollow against the wind to share and flirt and give up the odd kiss. Then your cousins, the big lads, come looking for you, and they always find you, how do they? Your tea's ready, come and have it, and see you, harbour lad? What's taking you up the hill, away on with you, and don't be annoying our wee lassie. "But he never!" Now, now, run and eat yer tea, never you mind. And another cycle on the slowly turning earth of the world winds down, and the day is over all too soon, and I sneak out again hoping against hope but all I have is the sea and the sky, and it's enough...

Olivia, that was amazing.  I wish I could hear you read that aloud, maybe with some harp sounds behind it.  Yes, now I'm sure sex will be just as good when I'm 78. (I'm also sure I won't be playing cricket).

Olivia, wine, I would if I could but I can't so I won't.  The last thing anyone needs is to witness me being "drunk girl".  I do think I can manage a coke and a long hot shower with a certain Marine.  That is after the vacuuming is done.

Thank you, Cap. When I dream of the sea, the spirit of it takes me away, back to Ireland, the land of dreaming, and the string of my heart is loosed upon the page.

Suz, don't speak to me of Marines. I'm missing one meself, so I am...

Georgia,

You lovely, crazy darling!  I don't know what I have done to imply that I am a successfully published writer.  I love the idea but I have yet to pen my masterpiece.  I worked for some years as an actor and a director and have been paid for both disciplines though my name would not be recognized beyond a stone's throw from the theatre.  Today, I make my living as a tour guide.  The only published writing I do is for the Guides Association of New York City newsletter.  I write a column called Glory in Gotham, covering a different NYC house of worship every issue.

It was a natural mistake, Robert-you have that air of sangfroid, the man-about-town, savoir faire deportment. You drop in, say something cool, and disappear. Of course all of the ladies are intrigued by your mystery, your manliness, your intelligent competence. We know  a little, with our intuition: you like your martinis shaken, not stirred, you can disassemble a Walther PPK blindfolded, you look great in a tux. That sort of thing...

PS-none of the above is intended to be taken in any other way than dead serious, lest it be with a single-malt Scotch, neat.

I love you all and am remiss, I realized in the small hours last night as I wandered, nightgown trailing, in not thanking for saying good words about my own. Pam, John, DPR, Olivia, Peter, and more. Else how should i know I am in your warmth? we speak, we spoke, that funny day of missing words of which we laugh, wond'ring but we know, we know, and He Who Counted says 42 to 67 Absurd! how wise he. and of reviving things, yes Pam thankyou notes live, or was it MissIve who said it? but they do for I write them receive them, treasure people with whom I exchange letters for we alone insure descendants find not merely mechanical nonhuman relics to puzzle over, wond'ring what manner of man wrought this? And was he my ancestor? BAck to thankyous, I owe also many of you who welcomed me and and welcomed me again and yet again...not uncaring I; not at all, rather each new day you set my mind off on many a new think-level and I forget 'thank you'....

...of hearing Olivia's words read by her, yes! I must we must, Olivia.  And I have dibs on reading aloud the "Molly" chapter of Ulysses.  have longed to do it but the right person, right people never were. On Juneteenth an actress in bed on the street in Dublin recites it with all due passion, over and over and over, and a friend tells me about it and o, i wish i were there, no, i wish it were me but instead read it I shall for you. you are, finally, the right people!  And Olivia her words, for she knows, God I know she knows the eroticism of pluffmud, seawater, the things it holds, I can well see Olivia understands why I had to own, to wrap me in The Fench Lieutenant Woman's Cape over 20 years ago, felt cold-that-day seaspray pulling me off the jetty, pulling me toward who knew what but did I care no no no not at all only to feel him with spray blowing hair in my face as it blew his cap far far far out to sea and we melted then into the wind, down upon the jetty all wrapped in the cape for it was meant so to be but what of the Lookers, the incoming tide and we far far out on the jetty, the Lookers may look look look, and look and we care not for my cape enshrouds us from their ignorant uncaring eyes, no lassies they but somethin' other, strange, and even my own Longstreet Tartan means little in his warmth, the warm warmth of my French Lieutenant. "His woman," they called out to me as I ran, carping birds they, and my cape blowing so far behind, I reached back to fold it in, hold it in 'til I could touch him, running faster than the Lookers see I am a flash before their ignorant eyes and the smell no, they canna' understand that smell but e'en my Frenchman, my Frenchman knows it well 

On the other hand, the prose for the cape was already written, darn it, when first I spied and craved it.  'Say Goodnight, Gracie.'  a beat.  'Goodnight, Gracie...'.