We're thinking you don't have to be an English major to spot the irony in the above photo. Moose was paying bills this morning and by sheer coinkydink ended up slapping the Sylvia Plath stamp on the gas bill. (Yes, children, Moose still pays the utility bills with paper checks, tucked into envelopes and placed outside for the postal person to pick up and stuff into a large leather bag. She's old fashioned. Don't judge.) When she realized what she'd done, she showed it to Goose and they had a good long guffaw, which they like to think Plath herself would have understood.
Not sure if there are any ironies in putting Elizabeth Bishop and Wallace Stevens on the phone bills, but, hey, we are grateful to the U.S. Postal Service for getting the faces of ten great twentieth-century American poets into general circulation. Who knows? Maybe some dutiful, bill-paying citizen will get curious enough about the beguiling face of the pretty young woman on the stamp to go read one of her poems. Something delicate and dainty like, you know, this one. It could happen!
Enjoy your weekend, lovelies. May you find unexpected blog fodder and reasons to laugh wherever you go, whatever you do. The papers will be graded soon, my typist assures me, and we'll get back to something approximating regular blogalicious programming in the very near future. Honor bright. Meantime, if you're in the DC area, you should head downtown tonight or tomorrow to spend some time with this extraordinary 360-degree projection experience by Doug Aitken at the Hirshhorn. The Moms swear it's the coolest, most un-Washington thing they've seen in more than a quarter century of living in the national capital area. Go after dark. Tomorrow is the last night.
Peace out, and don't forget to pay your bills.
(Photo Credits: Moose, 5/19/12)
*Dark* irony!
ReplyDeleteHAhahahahahaha!!!
ReplyDeleteGood one, Moose. I'll look for those stamps.
Oh baby!
ReplyDeleteIf this results in more people reading poetry, HOORAY!!! Way to go, Roxie!!!
ReplyDeleteStill using our Owney the Postal Terrier stamps and our Barbara Jordan stamps, so we're not ready to stock up on poets yet. But the reference to Elizabeth Bishop reminds us that another American poet, Joelle Biele, alumna of Queer the Turtle U, has just edited and published Elizabeth Bishop's letters to the New Yorker (Elizabeth Bishop and the New Yorker). Nothing like reading other people's letters, I think!
ReplyDeleteTotes with you on the pleasures of reading other peoples' mail, Dudley's Human. Goose has made a career out that, as you know. Sorta makes you wonder what kind of stamps poets put on their letters before there were official poet stamps. The mind kinda reels in contemplation of that one, doesn't it? I really must demand that my typist pick up some Owney the Poster Terrier stamps, though. It's unconscionable that we don't have any of those.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that the Doug Aiken piece at the Hirshhorm is very un-Washington (and therefore cool)...but there was one projection that was even better. In the early 80s, the Corcoran was supposed to host a show of Robert Mapplethorpe photographs. Before the show opened...much hue and cry...it was the Reagan years, after all. A gallery downtown took up the cause and hosted the exhibit (which was great, but the crowds were overwhelming in the small space).
ReplyDeleteWhat happened at the Corcoran was cooler, though. Some activists obtained slides of the images, which they projected on the outside walls of the Corcoran. A couple hundred people showed up...there were flags (U.S. and rainbow), singing, and general hooting at the images and hollering at the Corcoran. There were police on hand, but mostly to keep people from edging into 17th Street and getting run over. It was peaceful, funny, and easily my favorite Happening in my 32 years in DC.