Or he may lasso a unicorn.

Poachers moonlighting as game-keepers.

…or more accurately gate-keepers. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, just like almost everything else. Here is T.S.Eliot, in his day job at Faber and Faber, writing to tell George Orwell they won’t be publishing Animal Farm, because they agree with the pigs.

And here is Edna St. Vincent Millay explaining to the Guggenheim Committee in 1933 just how much she dislikes ee cummings…

So far as I am concerned, Mr. Cummings may do anything he likes with the alphabet, the English grammar, and the multiplication table, provided only the result of his activities be something interesting, and, after a reasonable period of application, comprehensible, to a reader of culture and brains. Mr. Cummings may not, however, I say, write poetry in English which is more difficult for me to translate than poetry written in Latin. He may, of course, write it. But if he publishes it, if he prints and offers for sale poetry which he is quite content should be, after hours of sweating concentration, inexplicable from any point of view to a person as intelligent as myself, then he does so with a motive which is frivolous from the point of view of art, and should not be helped or encouraged by any serious person or group of persons...

…and then, rather gloriously, explaining why she thinks they should award him the grant anyway.

    But, unfortunately for one’s splendid hate which had assumed almost epic proportions, by no means all of Mr. Cummings poetry is of this nature. In these books which I have just been reading there is fine writing and powerful writing (as well as some of the most pompous nonsense I ever let slip to the floor with a wide yawn), and that this author has ability I could not deny; that he has more than that I gravely suspect.

    What I propose, then, is this: that you give Mr. Cummings enough rope. He may hang himself; or he may lasso a unicorn.

Edna St Vincent Millay observes the unicorn rodeo.

The inscrutability of Daniel Wells.

A phrase I find really annoying (yes, we’re only three weeks into this, and already the old man is shouting at a cloud) is “Nothing could be further from the truth.” It’s annoying because it’s a stock phrase, of course, but even for a stock phrase it has such a smug, Willy Wonka-ish ‘Hold on to your hat, you poor gullible fools, as I turn everything you thought you knew UPSIDE DOWN!’ ring to it. Also, of course, it’s almost never true.

This is the sentence from a book I read this week that started this whole cloud-shout (name changed to avoid picking on the author.)

On first meeting him, most people thought Daniel Wells was a pleasant, if rather ineffectual little man. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

I mean, for a start, are we meant to infer that the truth from which nothing could have been further than this is that Daniel Wells was a repulsive, if ruthlessly efficient giant? Or, more symmetrically, an unpleasant, if reasonably competent man of above average height? Either way, here are some potential first impressions about Daniel Wells I think the author has over-looked:

On first meeting him, most people thought Daniel Wells was a mesmerically adorable, if utterly incapable man of about two foot five.

On first meeting him, most people thought Daniel Wells was a short stretch of the A37 just outside Yeovil.

On first meeting him, most people thought Daniel Wells was not Daniel Wells.

Advert Break

Let’s keep this brief: there are two more try-out nights of new material (also featuring nostalgic reading of old material) for Souvenir Programme. London, March 31st and April 10th. Tickets here. That is all.

Commentary Box

1. Re last week’s Victorian laughter-hater, Raymond writes:

I wish I could introduce that Victorian writer to Jemma Redgrave's incredible laugh! For anyone who's unfamiliar (1) where have you been? and (b) here.

I was one of those who was unfamiliar - I’m not sure where I’ve been - and it is definitely worth a click.

2. On the same subject, Anastasia writes:

Actually this is very ancient wisdom. According to Ayurveda, laughter is one of the things which shorten one's life, along with strenuous exercise, excessive talking and sex. So I'm trying to compensate for all the laughing by avoiding sports, sex and conversation.

From their ancient text: ‘How to have a long life without particularly enjoying it.’

3. Re the pledge thing at the bottom of this newsletter, Dawn says, perfectly reasonably:

Please don’t exclude us more financially challenged from your newsletter.

Don’t worry, I certainly won’t do that. There will definitely always be a free version. On the other hand, if it turns out I can keep this up on a weekly basis, that’ll only be sustainable if I put some of it in a paid-for version, because writing stuff to entertain people is my job; and if I can’t make this at least partly count as my job, I can’t really justify doing it instead of my job. So, I imagine I’ll give about half of it away for free, and put half of it in the subscribed for version. Does that seem about right? But first, let’s see a) if I can carry on doing it, especially when deadlines start to bite and b) whether there’s enough appetite for a paid version to make it worthwhile.

Sketch Book

These are very quick scribbled sketches of the same guy, in an effort to learn how to do bolder, simpler caricatures, which are the ones I must admire, but never seem to draw myself. So, 1 is a first pass. 2 is trying to make decisions about what’s characterful in his face. 3 is basically a caricature of 2 rather than of the guy, and while I don’t dislike it as an idea for a character design, it no longer looks much like him. 4 is just me drawing the guy from life again, but having done 2 and 3, and sure enough it’s probably the most successful. (Also because for once I remembered that just because he’s not looking at you in life doesn’t mean he can’t be looking at you in the sketch.) If I was serious, of course, I would then have done 5 - 25.

Love,

The Airport.