Vanity

I have neglected some classical literature. The Vanity of Human Wishes by Samuel Johnson was suggeted to me. I'd not read anything by him that I can recall; I needed to remedy that.

But some great lines: "How Nations sink, by darling Schemes oppres’d," sounds very timely. Or "When Statutes glean the Refuse of the Sword" In context I don't believe Johnson was right. He thought the poor were less likely targets, but as Sowell quoted a sixteenth century German bishop as saying "The poor are a gold mine." Those statutes Johnson mentions don't glean much from any one of the poor, but there are so many that the income is large.

War and consequences: "And mortgag’d States their Grandsires Wreaths regret From Age to Age in everlasting Debt"

And about beauty: "Ye Nymphs of rosy Lips and radiant Eyes, Whom Pleasure keeps too busy to be wise," ... "What Care, what Rules your heedless Charms shall save, Each Nymph your Rival, and each Youth your Slave? An envious Breast with certain Mischief glows, And Slaves, the Maxim tells, are always Foes."

And I see where Austin got the phrase "Pride and Prejudice."

Mushroom song

The Internet is a wondrous thing sometimes. A fragment of a ditty about mushrooms stuck in my mind and surfaced today: I'd read it in a book about campers back in '66 or so. Searching about, there seem to be several variants, and one version claimed James Thurber as the author (?I didn't find evidence). I went to camp but once in my youth, and that camp was more about singing hymns than folk songs--not that I cared much for either--so I've no historical bias. Which, if any, of these 4 did you learn?

(The third seems slightly corrupted, but maybe the music was different.) archive.org is back.

The mushroom is a vegetable
To select it few are able
You won't know them when you meet them
You won't know them 'til you eat them
If in heaven you awaken
You will know you were mistaken
And the ones that you have eaten
Weren't the ones you should have et.

Mushrooms are a vegetable
which you eat when you are able
you will know one when you see one
you will know one when you eat one
if in Heaven you awaken
then you’ll know you were mistaken
Must have been a toadstool, tough luck!!!

Mushrooms are a veg-e-table
That you eat when you are able,
You will know when you eat them,
You will know them when you eat them.
If in heaven you awaken
And you find you were mistaken,
That the mushrooms you had eaten
Weren’t the ones you should have et.
Must have been toadstools -- tough luck!

“Mushrooms is a veg-e-table; 
to detect them few are able. 
If in Heaven you awaken 
then you’ll know you were mistaken, 
And the ones that you have eaten 
weren’t the ones you should have eat!”

The Farmer's Journey

I heard a talk on applying "the hero's journey" to memoir writing, as a framework for telling the story. I can see that for some life stories, or adventures, but there are other callings. The contortions to make my life story fit the hero's journey would stand out among side show grotesques.

My story's more like "the farmer's journey," where what is required of the hero is perseverance and faithfulness and working with what he's been given. Not that I'm an exemplar of those virtues; I've often been more of a "Look! A squirrel!" sort. But that seems more like the theme of my life. This incident or that can be shoehorned into the HJ model--I gather most stories can. But seriously...

The "farmer's" decisions are significant, the task takes effort, there's strain and pain sometimes--but they are spread out over years. I don't say one calling is better than the other (that's God's call about His callings), though one makes a livelier story than the other. Frodo would have starved to death long before Mordo without faithful farmers.

Questions before dinner

led to another rabbit hole: The Great American Novel seems like a concept designed to keep critics employed. Our effective motto seems to be e pluribus rixae(*), from the Albion's Seed era through today. External enemies unite us for a while, but not very long (I remember the 60's and 70's)--too many people see advantage in leveraging divisions, and quite a number of us find joy in being against things. It's fashionable to be against the fashion? Popular media don't seem quite the uniting force either--as soon as people found ways of getting non-monopoly news they did, and how many channels of music does siriusxm carry?

I have no clear idea what "American" means in this context."

Of course great art can be universal, but then how is it specifically American--aside from its provenance? Is Don Quixote The Great Spanish Novel?

(*) So says google translate.

Jason

When I first read Jason and the Argonauts in Hamilton's Mythology I felt it wasn't quite like the other stories--it seemed more contrived. He had who in the crew? Seriously? It occured to me during a lunch talk about special effects--is this the oldest known instance of a crossover work?