Queen of Cheese? Theophilus the Great

 

I just tried to watch another YouTube video that GOT IT ALL WRONG. It celebrated the awful poetry of one William Topaz McGonagall, calling him the Worst Poet in History. But McG is not even close! I was going to post a comment on it and thought: ah shit, why bother? I'll do my own post on it. (They always get it wrong, don't they?) But McGonagall is certainly not alone in writing bad poetry. Even the so-called greats had their off moments.

I found a horrible Robert Frost poem in which a man pounds on his door of a snowy evening and asks if he can cut down all the lovely snow-sparkling pines on his property to sell as Christmas trees. And here Frost hums and haws over it, turns it over in his mind, thinking: well, here are the advantages in it; and hmmm, here are the disadvantages in it; and: AIIIIIEEEEEK! Cut down all your friggin' trees?? What are you thinking? I guess back then it must have seemed that there were trees enough, that they were endless, and just a crop to be managed like any other. But I was so upset at this point that I didn't even read to the end.

Discouraged, I threw away Christmas and widened my scope to include any old poetry that was sublimely bad, but it's hard to find truly awful stuff. I found articles quoting three or four weak lines in, say, Tennyson. Auden once used a bad adjective, and somebody found a pun in Shakespeare, comparing an orange to Seville (or was it servile?). Well, who gives a shit about that? I wanted bad, and I wasn't getting it.

Until.

Until I found. . . This. 

A Tragedy

Theophilus Marzials

Death!
Plop.

The barges down in the river flop.

Flop, plop.

Above, beneath.

From the slimy branches the grey drips drop,
As they scraggle black on the thin grey sky,
Where the black cloud rack-hackles drizzle and fly
To the oozy waters, that lounge and flop
On the black scrag piles, where the loose cords plop,
As the raw wind whines in the thin tree-top.

Plop, plop.

And scudding by

The boatmen call out hoy! and hey!
All is running water and sky,

And my head shrieks -- "Stop,"

And my heart shrieks -- "Die."

*          *          *          *          *
My thought is running out of my head;
My love is running out of my heart,
My soul runs after, and leaves me as dead,
For my life runs after to catch them -- and fled
They all are every one! -- and I stand, and start,
At the water that oozes up, plop and plop,
On the barges that flop
                              And dizzy me dead.
I might reel and drop.
                                                Plop.
                                                Dead.

And the shrill wind whines in the thin tree-top
                           Flop, plop.
*          *          *          *          *
A curse on him.
                            Ugh! yet I knew -- I knew --
If a woman is false can a friend be true?
It was only a lie from beginning to end --

My Devil -- My "Friend"

I had trusted the whole of my living to!

Ugh; and I knew!

Ugh!

So what do I care,

And my head is empty as air --

I can do,

I can dare,

(Plop, plop

The barges flop

Drip drop.)

I can dare! I can dare!

And let myself all run away with my head
And stop.

Drop.

Dead.

Plop, flop.

                                              Plop.

---

                                        [-- from The Gallery of Pigeons (1874) ]

As if this bounty weren't enough, I found these little notes attached to an article about him, claiming that Marzials, not McGonagall, was the worst poet in the English language:

"Theo Marzials, the last of the Victorian aesthetes, who lived on in rural retirement, addicted to beetroot and chlorodyne (morphia, chloroform and prussic acid), for two decades after the world thought him dead. In the 1870s, as a young man with long hair, flowing moustaches and a silk bow tie over his lapels, he worked at the British Museum. According to Max Beerbohm, the great Panizzi himself, founder of the round Reading Room, was one day surprised to hear a shrill voice crying from the gallery: "Am I or am I not the darling of the Reading Room?"

. . .  Marzials almost outlived danger. "On the last occasion when I happened to catch sight of him, looking into a case of stuffed birds at South Kensington Museum, he had eaten five large chocolate creams in the space of two minutes," wrote Ford in 1911. "He had a career tragic in the extreme and, as I believe, is now dead." But he wasn't. He was living in a farmhouse room in Colyton, Devon. The bed, occupied day and night, had a saucer of sliced beetroot beside it, the smell of which mingled with the fumes of chlorodyne, the smoke of an oil lamp and the steam of a stockpot perpetually simmering on the
stove."

This is disjointed as hell because I've edited 300 or so words out of it, so who knows who "Ford" is, but then again, who cares? The important thing is that I have found a truly horrendous, a harrowingly bad poet, and this opens the door to all sorts of posts about him. Or not. Depends if I can find anything else. Oh, here's one -

The Ghost of Love

by: Theophilus Marzials (1850-1920)

The wan witch at the creepy midnight hour,
When the wild moon was flying to its full,
Went huddling round a damned convent's tower,
From out the crumbling slabs or tombs to pull
Some lecherous leaf or shrieking mandrake-flower.
Beneath she heard the dead men's voices dull;
Around she felt the cold souls creep and cower;
In hand she held a grinning damned's skull!

Then through the ruin'd cloisters, strangely white,
T'wards the struck moon, all swathed in colod grave-bands,
She saw dead Love wringing his hollow hands,
And gliding grimmer than a dank tomb-light.

And with a shriek she rush'd across his path--
And now the hell-worm all her body hath!

The problem with this one is, as Zero Mostel says to Gene Wilder in The Producers: "Nah, it's too good." In fact it's neither good nor bad, and is as purple as most Victorian stuff was. But it strikes me as bargain basement Gerard Manley Hopkins, and even a pale photocopy of Hopkins has a certain power behind it.

I don't know what "colod grave-bands" are, but maybe they played gigs at the cemetary. Were they people of "colo"? We'll never know. (Could be a typo, also.) So even at being the worst, Marzials wasn't the best. Or the other way around.

MARZIALS DISH. This was all I could find about his sex life, and it came from Wikipedia so it MUST be true:

"The relationship between Marzials and fellow author Edmund Gosse is debated, with some claims that their relationship was more than platonic."

But wait, there's more. . . a truly cheesy poem!

We have seen the Queen of cheese,

Laying quietly at your ease,

Gently fanned by evening breeze --

Thy fair form no flies dare seize.

All gaily dressed soon you'll go

To the great Provincial Show,

To be admired by many a beau

In the city of Toronto.

Cows numerous as a swarm of bees --

Or as the leaves upon the trees --

It did require to make thee please,

And stand unrivalled Queen of Cheese.

May you not receive a scar as

We have heard that Mr. Harris

Intends to send you off as far as

The great World's show at Paris.

Of the youth -- beware of these --

For some of them might rudely squeeze

And bite your cheek; then songs or glees

We could not sing o' Queen of Cheese.

We'rt thou suspended from baloon,

You'd cast a shade, even at noon;

Folks would think it was the moon

About to fall and crush them soon.

James McIntyre

I don't know what to say.

HAPPY EASTER!

Need a dog bowl padded ruff? You've come to the right place.

Bring on Meghan's candle of grievance with sobbing crystal petals. Whatever she's selling, I'm buying!

By Jan Moir for the Daily Mail

The Duchess of Sussex has launched a lifestyle brand called American Riviera Orchard and I am here for it.

Quince bark coffee, tomato leaf soap, taster pack of salmon sperm injections, hand-embossed make-your-own voodoo doll kits, moonbeam gummies — whatever the heck Meghan is selling, the first merch drop can't come quickly enough for me.

And the only question to ask is this: what took her so long?

The Duchess is one of those women who was born to tell other women what to buy and think and do. She walks among mere mortals simply itching to enlighten us all on how to be, where to shop, who to adore and why greige is the new taupe — whether invited to or not.

Since Meghan's influencer days on The Tig, where she posted recipes, beauty tips and style hints from her Toronto base, it was clear that sooner or later she'd return to this lucrative world of clicks and likes; that she would be back among her merchant-class kinfolk quicker than you can say 'add to basket'.

The Duchess of Sussex has launched a lifestyle brand called American Riviera Orchard which sells items including: Quince bark coffee, tomato leaf soap, taster pack of salmon sperm injections, hand-embossed make-your-own voodoo doll kits and moonbeam gummies

All she had to do to maximise her online profile and boost any future profits was to somehow — somehow! — elevate herself from B-list television actress to becoming a significant figure on the global stage; a somebody that everybody had heard of, a person who went from not knowing Oprah Winfrey neither personally nor professionally, to inviting the all-powerful media star to her wedding. Anybody got any ideas?

Whatever you might think about the former Miss Markle, you must agree that it was mission accomplished on that front at least.

And how! From first date to locking the Frogmore door for the last time took just over three years, less time than the gestation period of a salamander or certain kinds of shark.

Of course, Meghan didn't marry Harry purely to winkle him out of the Royal Family, like extracting a sulky whelk from a pearly shell, just so that she could go on to use her royal title to launch a commercial lifestyle website selling cosmetics, jams, nut butters and organic birdseed in California.

Be serious! No wacky conspiracy theories on this page if you don't mind.

Yet one still must admire the clarity of thought, the audacity, the sheer drive and twin peaks of mutual ambition it took the Sussexes to get where they are today. I admire the energy, if not the approach, simply because far too many people were kicked to the kerb on their fast lane to liberty.

However, surely even Harry and Meghan must be exhausted by the industrial grievance complex that has funded their own lifestyle thus far?

That's one reason why I hope that this American Riviera Orchard venture will usher in brighter times for them both.

So, bring on the five-wick candles and the youth-dew elixirs, make haste with the seven-ply cashmere lounge pants and the overpriced jars of honey.

Let's all dig deep and online shop till we drop to keep this young couple in the luxury to which they have become accustomed and feel that they deserve.

To this end, here is Meghan; back in California arranging white roses in a vase, cooking something virtuous for lunch, launching herself as a tastemaker and a mompreneur who leads by example.

Someone who imposes her terrifying sense of style upon the dreary, civilian she-turnips in the real world by wearing £1,500 Roland Mouret day dresses and no end of delicious designer gowns to pick up her latest humanitarian award. So inspirational!

Yet, just like all those other lifestyle gurus — including Martha Stewart and, of course, Gwyneth and her mighty Goop — one can't help but feel that sometimes their online sisterly solidarity is as manufactured as their signature scents.

And — whisper it — also that it is avarice rather than the giving of advice that really floats their boats. Out there in brand-land there are certainly millions of dollars to be made, but it is difficult to see where American Riviera Orchard fits into this crowded marketplace.

In the U.S., brands such as The Pioneer Woman started off as a farm-girl blog and turned into a multi-million-pound business, today boasting a hotel, a pizzeria, a cooking-utensil range and a TV cooking show that's run for 37 seasons and made founder Ree Drummond a very rich woman.

This week, Ree is raving about a new milk frother and wondering if you can feed carrots to dogs, while her wildly glamorous rival, Hannah from Ballerina Farm, is selling sourdough kits and 'mountain raised meat' on the Utah ranch where she lives with her husband and eight children.

Closer to home, even Kate Moss is giving e-commerce a whirl with her Cosmoss company, a new line of beauty and self-care products sold online and in-store. The range features a facial oil made from something called Mythical Tears of Chios — a resin native to the Greek island of the same name — that sells for around £105 for 30ml, making it almost as expensive as scorpion anti-venom. Has everyone gone completely mad?

Cowgirl, party girl, Goop girl — but what is Meghan's USP going to be? Surely she wouldn't dare to play on her royal connections? She promised not to, after all.

The Duchess has said that she wants her brand to be more 'accessible' than Goop, but is impressed by the polished elitism of Flamingo Estate, another California brand that sells organic soaps and an exclusive lifestyle.

Apparently Martha Stewart is her main inspiration; solid, dependable Martha who is known for her practical advice on everything from skimming gravy to running a home and keeping it clean. Recent Martha posts included 'how to grow a tapestry lawn' and how to 'clean a broom' — indicative of her attention to detail.

I'd listen to Martha's advice on anything, but what does Meghan know about brooms, except perhaps — as her enemies naughtily claim — how to fly one?

'I am flattered,' said Martha, when told that she inspired the Duchess of Sussex. She advised her to 'produce good products that work and will help the homemaker have a nice life. That's what it's all about.'

American Riviera Orchard seems to be rooted in a sense of place rather than a person. Meghan is selling the California dream, one jar of jam at a time. It is Montecito that is the major sell, but even still, there is the faint air of unearned emplacement; the feeling that she wouldn't be living in this upmarket millionaire's paradise were she not married to a prince of the British realm.

Indeed, some are convinced that American Riviera Orchard will taint the monarchy with an unsavoury strain of commercialism, but not anyone who has perused the Highgrove website recently.

You won't believe the stuff that King Charles is flogging under the auspices of his beloved country home in Gloucestershire.

Everything from £375 corduroy gilets for country gents to £150 silk scarves, triple-milled soaps, Prince of Wales check washbags and a £9 teabag tidy. Yes, you might not be surprised to hear that a member of the Windsor family is selling Yakhak Milky Rock Crystal Quartz Charms for £39 apiece — but it is Charles and not Meghan who is the culprit here.

If Gwyneth's Goop famously 'nourishes the inner aspect', what will Meghan's Orchard do? Give everyone the pip?

To launch a brand such as this, you must be popular and admired, you need a roaring army of fans to build your brand, you need to have the pulling power of someone like Jeremy Clarkson.

I've seen with my own eyes how hundreds of people will queue for two hours just to buy a bag of Jeremy's potatoes from Jeremy's farm because Jeremy grew them.

Can Meghan inspire the same devotion in her public? We will find our next month when the site launches at last. In the meantime, here's what I imagine we are in for …

The Candle of Grievance (£86)

Beautifully housed in a reclaimed jar, this soy wax candle is impregnated with crystal petals which make a sobbing sound when they burn. Light it for a frenemy, light it for yourself, lighten up for God's sake.

With top notes of prickly thorn and a dry down of sour grapes, this will fill your space with a keen sense of injustice that lingers long. Burn time: three years and counting.

This soy wax candle is impregnated with crystal petals which make a sobbing sound when they burn

Shearling Noise Cancellation Headphones (£256)

A sophisticated solution to plugging your fingers in your ears and shouting, 'la la la, not listening'. Instead, pop on these fluffy beauties and marinate longer in your own thoughts, be they petty or ever so grand. Lined with hand-milked muskrat silk to keep your lobes toasty. Accessorised with opals for emotional amplification.

Dog Bowl Padded Ruff (£99.99)

Have you ever worried that someone might burst into your kitchen and throw you on the dog bowl without a by-your-leave? If so, this is the gadget for you. Simply clip this velvet padded ruff around your dog bowl, ready to cushion your fall in any emergency. Made from a repurposed ceremonial robe no longer needed. Available with sustainably farmed ermine trim, apply for details.

Mood Bracelet (£799)

Multi-strand quartz bracelet that will help align your chakras and promote calm. Featuring rose quartz for unconditional love, malachite for pure odium, cellulite for self-acceptance and compassion and cherry quartz for cherry picking fights.

The mood bracelet - rose quartz for unconditional love, malachite for pure odium, cellulite for self-acceptance and compassion and cherry quartz for cherry picking fights

Ohm Alert Portable Meditation Set (small £55, med £75, large £95)

Featuring a pre-loved cardboard box inscribed with the words Meditation In Progress, Do Not Disturb. Using her formidable calligraphy skills, the Duchess of Sussex personally inscribed each box herself, turning this practical aid to meditation on the move into a valuable collector's item.

Wherever you are, simply pop the box on your head to create a safe space for chanting personal development mantras, manifesting, lucid dreaming and grounding the ego. (Limited edition autographed version, £100 extra.)

Silent Not Silenced Revenge Diaries (£125 each)

Set of thick-lined diary notebooks for journalling, collecting evidence, settling scores and keeping secret lists of potential royal racists. Each volume comes with a special 'unconscious bias' section and an enemy index.

A set of thick-lined diary notebooks for journalling, collecting evidence, settling scores and keeping secret lists of potential royal racists

Hummingbird Sage Dishwash Soap (£38)

In honour of the moment when 11-year-old Meghan changed the world by writing to Procter & Gamble about a sexist dishwashing liquid ad. Has she mentioned this before? 5p off orders of 12 bottles or more. Discounts for the unwaged.

Merrie Olde England Gourmet Section

The Duchess of Sussex is thrilled to introduce her own recipes and culinary ideas to entertain and delight. Included is Marry Me Roast Chicken, featuring the exact roast chicken and sacred herbs Meghan was cooking when Harry proposed.

Look out, too, for a family favourite called the Frozen Wieners Supper and a spectacular Japanese Puffer Fish dish that Meghan liked to serve to her in-laws, followed by Hard Cheese and Simply Crackers.

 

Meghan Markle Merch: artisanal lavender dog soap, anyone?

Kate Middleton news derails Meghan Markle’s big plan

The global outpouring of goodwill for the Princess of Wales as she fights cancer may leave Meghan Markle in a very difficult position.

Daniela Elser

March 26, 2024 - 4:01PM

Are you in need of a new dog lead or meditation cushion or wine carrier or drawer organisers or marmalade or a bird feeder? How are you doing for pet shampoo, lanterns and tisanes?

If you are then, boy, do I have some good news for you. Meghan the Duchess of Sussex has heard your cries and soon you could be able to buy all this and much, much more from her new American Riviera Orchard (ARO) lifestyle brand.

Those industrious sorts over at the Daily Mail have somehow gotten their hands on ARO’s trademark application which for the first time reveals the scope and ambition of the duchess’ first major solo commercial project and golly gosh it’s a big ‘un.

To which I say, amen. Build it and they will hopefully come and spend money. Dream big and then embroider it on a pillow you can sell at a massive mark-up. I am all in on the return of Business Meghan seven years after she shuttered her blog The Tig, even if that was blandly derivative.

Meghan Markle’s new lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard will have quite the array of goods. 

However, in the ten days since ARO’s Instagram debut, the world tilted on its axis with Kate the Princess of Wales’ announcement that she has cancer.

How could the incredible global deluge of support and sudden lovey-dovey messages of goodwill for the princess affect the public reception of ARO?

Basically, will discerning shoppers fork over large wodges of hard-earned cash for artisanal lavender dog soap to a woman who is not on speaking with Kate? And who has spent the last few years chipping away at Kate’s image?

No launch date has yet been revealed for ARO but it mustn’t be far off.

For the better part of the last year reports have circulated that Meghan was beavering away at some entrepreneurial online turn with the only oblique hints being that it would be authentic and whatnot.

Then on March 14 came the big reveal of ARO on Instagram, including a 15-second video of the 42-year-old looking like someone auditioning for the part of a sister-wife, showing her arranging flowers and mixing something in an artfully rustic kitchen.

Meghan Markle's new lifestyle brand, seen in a promotional video posted to Instagram. Picture: American Riviera Orchard/Instagram

No matter what best laid plans might have been drawn up, just over a week later, on March 22, Kate released her video – the internet reeled and the Church of England sat down to write a special prayer (truly) to wish the princess a speedy recovery.

The worldwide reaction to the video has been truly incredible to witness.

It has been viewed 197.5 million times on the Waleses’ official Twitter and Instagram accounts alone. In the US, CBS broke away from their live coverage of March Madness basketball to broadcast the video, Prime Ministers and Presidents by the dozen nearly fell over themselves to show their support and the White House press secretary, Dr Jill Biden and President Joe Biden all separately shared their effusive best wishes within a matter of hours.

Then came the hand-wringing and the self-flagellating with millions worrying about the consequence of their gleeful reposting of bonkers Kate theories and speculation.

The end result of all this sympathy and suddenly caring bleating is that Kate has basically been deified in only a few days.

The Princess of Wales revealing she is undergoing treatment for cancer. Picture: Kensington Palace

So where does this leave Meghan and ARO? Could this dramatic volte face of feeling towards Kate have an impact on her business’ debut?

Join me as we really get into the weeds here.

One argument here is, the two women’s lives have precisely zero bearing on each other. Meghan and husband Prince Harry the Duke of Sussex put out their own one-sentence statement wishing Kate “health and healing” and according to People, the California-based couple have also reached out privately.

The Sussexes are entirely free agents meaning they can do whatever they fancy with their spare hours in between manifesting abundance and writing cheques for the small army of top London silks toiling around the clock on Harry’s hacking lawsuits. Meghan could join a Mars mission or convert their lesser sauna (they reportedly have two) into a rescue shelter for Pomeranians or run for Santa Barbara comptroller and it would be fine and dandy.

Whatever is happening back in Blighty has nothing to do with whatever the duke and duchess are doing.

Kate, William, Harry and Meghan reunited briefly after the Queen died in September 2022 but relations have remained strained since. Picture: Chris Jackson/Getty Images

However, the other argument goes, get real. That’s a wilfully naive interpretation.

For years, the Sussexes have largely built their US brand in opposition to the royal family. The couple put their hearts on their sleeves and shared, shared, shared, even sometimes when they were not being paid.

While Crown Inc. and Harry’s relatives were unconsciously biased, frigidly cold in the face of personal suffering and emotionally constipated, the Sussexes were the open, evolved version of royalty, them valiantly speaking truth to an antiquated institution and casting royal life as a protracted emotional and psychological trial. (Though seriously, how can anyone doubt them on that last point?)

Harry and Meghan with their Oprah interview, Netflix series and the duke’s memoir Spare, offered a deeply unflattering portrayal of William and Kate claiming that they had encouraged Harry to dress up as a Nazi, William had attacked Harry, Kate had made Meghan cry and in one shocking incident currently under investigation by the European Commission, Kate was reluctant to share her lip gloss with Meghan. (The Hague has also been notified.)

In November last year, the Dutch version of highly sympathetic Sussex biographer Omid Scobie’s Endgame named King Charles and Kate as having commented about the Sussexes’ son Prince Archie’s skin colour. The duke and duchess did not comment on the claim push back in any way.

The Waleses and the Sussexes have not been on good terms to say the least. 

Given this history, this story, the image that Meghan has cultivated post-Megxit is the yin to Kate’s yang, what could this mean for ARO’s launch?

In this climate, will Meghan pitching herself as a cosy domestic goddess with perfect taste land with shoppers and see the orders stream in? Or could there be some sort of shopping protest vote, so to speak, with people staying away from ARO out of sympathy for the Princess of Wales?

Will support for Kate see the credit-card toting masses boycott or avoid ARO? Or is Meghan’s US support base so big (and her taste so exquisite) that her sister-in-law’s health battle will have no impact?

(I have said it before and I will say it again for anyone who needs to hear it – the Duchess of Sussex has sublime style.)

It’s interesting to note that to date, ARO has attracted 570,000 Instagram followers, despite no content aside from that first video. That’s a truly impressive figure until you realise that in 2019 when Harry and Meghan launched @SussexRoyal, they set a Guinness world record for reaching one million followers in five hours and 45 minutes, then the shortest time ever. (Jennifer Aniston later broke that record.)

And William and Kate? They have gained just shy of one million new followers this year alone.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and a royal commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.

 

Beware the Helping Hand (or: How to Make a Crazy Quilt)

 

I just had one of those godawful internet experiences of losing a few thousand words I labored over for the entire evening – because I forgot to hit “update”. I was adding it to a previously-published post, so it wouldn’t automatically save as a draft. So it didn’t. But I will make an attempt at piecing it back together. The gifs are random and just a way to break up the block of text.

Have you ever had a relative you tolerated, even tried to be nice to, strictly because they were kin and you didn’t feel you had a choice? I had one of those, but no more. I had to unload this person for the sake of my – excuse me – “mental health”.

And the whole thing is so ironic, in light of what went down, and why.

My sister-in-law, my husband’s brother’s wife, whom I will call Janie, is what used to be called a “ busybody” – happily probing into everyone else’s business, then passing along the most sensitive bleeding chunks of information with relish, especially if it would serve her in some way. And this did.

She would phone me. For the past 30+ years, at least three or four times a year, she’d phone me, and talk, and talk, and talk, in her rattling-on, self-involved way – which was irritating enough – but it was worse than that. I don’t know how some people do this, but she was adept at extracting information from people – me in particular. When I’d finally get off the phone with her, which always took a lot of effort, I’d always have the feeling that I never should have told her any of that stuff. But somehow it came out. Like a robin pulling a worm out of the ground, she somehow got things out of me, largely from asking questions so none-of-her-business that you somehow answered her because you couldn’t quite believe what she just said. 

Never once, ever, in my life, have I phoned Janie, because I didn’t want to phone Janie. I don’t like Janie, and I never did. I don’t want to talk to her. Ever. And yet, for reasons I have never understood, she phones and phones, tagging along after me like a particularly obnoxious dog you can’t shake off.

This has taken a turn just lately because she started to follow my Facebook posts, and leave likes and comments on the majority of them. Some of them were nice, but mostly they gave me that cloying feeling. She was fastening on. Coat-tailing, they used to call it. Even reading her comments made me feel drained. After she read my Facebook post on “Why I Hate Mental Health” (because it has become a shallow, meaningless buzzword), she phoned me (of course! She always phones me!), and began to talk. Oh yes, I was so right! Oh yes, the mental health care system is terrible! And as it turned out, she has taken it upon herself to become a Mental Health Crusader, and has joined some sort of board of directors and gets up at board meetings and tells Tales of Terror from the Crypt of Mental Illness. 

I should have been clued in when she said she told them all about her close friend, a woman with schizophrenia whose doctor changed her meds, leading her to attempt suicide so she had to be hospitalized. She told this in colorful detail, which I am sure must have really impressed her pals at the board meeting, but while she was rattling on, my guts began to squirm. 

Did Janie, um, like, ask permission to say these things? Did her close friend want those painful episode brought up and trotted out as an example of How the System Fails the Mentally Ill? I had no idea, but my stomach-squirm turned out to be prescient. 

To further prove what a selfless crusader she is for the lame, the halt and the blind, she then launched into the story of how I had to spend three nights in a hospital corridor because they had no room for me in the psych ward, and how I had then climbed out of bed, crawled down the hall on my hands and knees to a pay phone, and phoned the crisis line so I’d have someone to talk to.

That’s the thing, Janie remembers stuff. God, does she remember. This was the kind of thing I would tell her, oh, maybe 30 years ago, but she filed it all away.  But there it was again, dredged up, fresh as paint, raw and red and glistening. She then said she told this psychiatric horror story at her board meeting, in an attempt to raise funds for one of her pet projects, Feed the Criminally Insane or something. No kidding, she told my story to impress the board. 

But there was just one problem. More than one, really, but the main one is this: it never happened. She took several different stories I wish I had never told her and conflated them, stitched them together, “curated” them into the ultimate horror story, when in reality the hospital corridor thing (which was only one night) happened in 1982, and the crisis line thing happened in an entirely different setting (NOT a hospital) in 2004. And never did I ever crawl on my hands and knees. I walked, until some nurse shouted at me “GET BACK INTO BED!” (which was bad enough, but still not crawling). So the most RECENT story, told in very garbled form, happened 20 years ago. Out of these rags and tatters,  she stitched together a crazy quilt of horror that was much more colorful and impressive than anything that actually happened. 

She did mention that she "didn't use my whole name", which she seemed to think made it perfectly OK to profit from my "story". (Though she DID say it was her sister-in-law.) She also assumed that because I had told HER about it, I was completely fine with sharing it with anyone at all, up to and including a Society for the Prevention of Straitjackets (or whatever the hell).

But this time it was different. I had had it with Janie. Forever. I just couldn’t pretend to be nice to her any more and just told her to STOP dragging up stuff from the past that I’m trying to forget about! And I tell you, she was very upset. I was raining on her social worker/self-righteous-charity-lady parade, thwarting her shining quest to Speak for Those who Cannot Speak for Themselves, the  powerless, the stigmatized, the crawling dregs of society! 

I don’t remember yelling at her any time before in all those dozens or hundreds of annoying one-sided phone calls, but I did it this time, and she was not only astonished but actually quite offended. What?? I’m not grateful for her selfless service to The Cause? I didn’t want to help her save every  mental patient who ever crawled along the floor in a psych ward?  Well, no, Janie. I don't. She finally said, “QUIT SHOUTING AT ME! I heard you the first time, so you can just stop ranting at me!” 

At that point, I hung up. I immediately blocked her on Facebook, then deleted her furious email response unread, though the first line gave the impression of a tiny little person jumping up and down and screaming. The exclamation points were practically flying off the page. So that’s the end of Janie, and I now realize I never DID have to have any sort of relationship with her. I just felt like a captive audience. I never wanted to talk to her on the phone, yet for years and years I let it happen, and she went right on studying and extracting and collating her crystalline memories of fuckups that happened to me forty years ago. (Or maybe they didn't, but it sure sounded good that way.) I’m fascinating, you see. I’m a live one. Right there in the jar, on the end of the assembly line. So her scientific little busybody mind could poke, prod, and finally present the results of her laboratory experiment to the Board of Directors, with the final goal of getting a cash grant for all her psychiatric charity work. 

I guess this has gone on long enough, and if THIS one gets deleted I give up. I guess what I’ve learned is to pay a lot more attention to my discomfort and to trace it down to the source – and then, wherever possible, GET RID OF the source so I can live my life without emotional vampirism, from my own family or from anyone else.

I've left out a few bits and pieces, but because it's my blog and I'll rant if I want to, I'll add this. On the phone, Janie recounted how she was gathering funds for her Mental Health Event (bake sale, rodeo, nude swim), and someone dared to joke at her, saying "so are you crazy too?" or something equally devastating. Janie told him to FUCK OFF, turned on her heel and walked away. (This was in public.) She recounted this proudly, as if to elicit oohs and ahhs  from me, exclamations of how brave, how gutsy, oh my, you go girl, etc. Ohhhh, thank you so much for standing up for me, speaking for those incapable of speaking for themselves! (At the same time, do you notice anything here? ANY implication AT ALL that she herself has a mental health condition is outrageous and abusive and causes her to fly into a public fury.)

Janie has never been popular in my family. No one says it out loud, because we’re not that sort of family, but everyone has had a “story” at some point. Bill’s sister Judy once told me in a sort of muttering voice that she saw Janie in her kitchen, opening each kitchen cupboard and each kitchen drawer and snooping around in the contents. She said it was like an inspection. Mostly the muttered complaints were about the fact that they never saw her husband (was he being held hostage somewhere?), and her busy-body-ness and general obliviousness to other people’s feelings. Then I heard the incredible story from Bill’s brother that Janie had once been in a cult, complete with shaved head, mantras, sexually-abusive gurus, and whatever else they have in cults. It struck me as strange, as she doesn’t strike me as someone who would take orders from anyone – or was it a sort of School for Cult Leaders, and she was studying for a degree?

Predators hiding in plain sight: subtle exploitation on social media

 

(I wrote this post after I had to block someone who was following my Facebook page very closely. I was later to discover she had used much of my most sensitive material for her own gain. That's not allowed. But it got me to thinking.)

Maybe I should title this "things you shouldn't share on social media". It's a timely subject, particularly in light of the fact that we're now realizing that "delete" doesn't really mean "delete", that people can screenshot and save anything you post and use it for whatever purpose they choose, even years and years later - and in whatever distorted form they want to.

I have no complaint with sharing stuff that's sensitive, and I've done quite a bit of it myself over the years. This has led some people to believe that because I brought up certain subjects, I am quite willing to share EVERYTHING that has EVER happened to me in that area, including things that I went through literally decades ago.

But treating someone's most sensitive reflections as if they are in the public domain is - what shall I say? - quite hazardous, and I am learning that the hard way. This is particularly true if the person unearthing these archival incidents is not sharing ANY of their own personal struggles, but is hiding behind a sort of social worker position. When that happens, I feel "studied", and it's not sharing on any meaningful level. It is not identification, and it is the farthest thing from empathy that I can imagine.

We talk about boundaries, but in the Wild West of social media, it seems like boundaries are beginning to dissolve. I have shared some things on my blog that I honestly thought were OK to repost here (it's easy and can be done with the click of a button) - but my blog is personal, my following small, and generally speaking the content won't be held up for scrutiny in the same way.

Another issue that comes up a lot is the value of going public. It used to be seen as really admirable, but it's a whole new ballgame now. Back when I wrote columns for community newspapers, one or two people might appreciate what I wrote or how much of myself I shared. Now it's simply "out there", or up there, where people can either misinterpret it, or just assume I am willing to reveal more (and more and more!) about myself and be comfortable having others use it for their own gain.

Several years ago I dumped Facebook because it had become a drag that wasn't adding anything to my life. Now I honestly wonder how much it might be taking away. I know a lot of people who have stopped posting, perhaps wisely. If I do partake of this, I won't assume things I wrote five or ten years ago will have the same impact. Things have changed radically, and we must watch out for people who are, in a subtle way. predators.

Maybe cat videos and the odd family photo might be safer for me here, as I realizes now I don't want to be public property, even in the most minor way. I'll also make an effort to pay more attention to my own discomfort, and not allow even the most subtle form of exploitation to take place.

For that is what it is.

Love Walked In. . . and it never left.

It shouldn’t surprise me too much that I’ve fallen down the Gershwin rabbit hole once again. It was a full nine years ago I became fascinated, devouring every book I could find on the boy genius’s life and art (including Oscar Levant’s fanboy adulation), and of course immersed myself in his astoundingly powerful music.

 

So here he is again, all because of the comment I just received from a woman who is related to Alan Schneider, the man who for decades posed as George’s illegitimate son. Wow. DNA doesn’t lie, does it? And for all the criticism of the internet, all the ranting about the evils of social media, this could not have happened without Blogger, a nearly-obsolete program (or maybe it’s an app, whatever THAT is) and my 12+ of posting on it nearly every day.

Through this magic portal, I once received an email from a woman in New Zealand commenting on something I wrote in 2016. It was about a poem I studied in school in Grade 3 – it was about elephants, and I remembered more than half of it – but at the time, when Google was far less efficient than it is now, I couldn’t find anything at all about it, who wrote it, when, where, nothing.

 

Then after my usual bloodhound effort, I found SOMETHING in a very old newspaper archive from 60 years ago. Yes. They had published the winner of a poetry contest, and the thing was written by two people (can’t remember their names), and there it was – the elephant poem, in a newspaper archive in AUSTRALIA. Yes!

 The archive was one of those snapshots of an actual page, and just under it was a notice for a “cooey contest”, apparently a competition for calling a sheep dog or whatever it was. Very Australian indeed.  This woman from New  Zealand said to me, “YES! I also studied the elephant poem in school, and never knew where it came from.”

 

Getting back to Gershwin. I won’t repeat all the ins and outs of it, except to say I felt – believed – I had some sort of mystical connection to him. I felt his presence, shy at first, then gradually coming closer, a sort of warmth, and a kind of yearning to be heard, believed, understood. After his untimely and gruesome death of an inoperable brain tumour in 1938, people began to “see” him about town, hurrying along a busy street, hanging about at music festivals dedicated to his songs, and even – I swear – playing a piano that was NOT a player piano. Several people saw it, and they knew it was him.

My own connection with Gershwin’s ghost deepened and broadened, and it was exceptionally beautiful and mysterious - until I made the mistake of sharing it with someone I knew, a university prof (I had taken his anthropology course) and self-styled spiritualist medium. What he said was a slap in the face. It was a fantasy, a dream, I was imagining the whole thing to try to gain credence as a spiritualist. (I wasn’t.) Then he pulled rank, as he often did, citing his superior education (two Masters degrees and a PhD) and the fact that I had a psychiatric condition (and he didn’t) that made me prone to fantasy.

 

So George went away for a while. But where he is now, there is no time, which is extremely convenient for me (I’m still in my fleshly form, after all). So is he here again?

Why not? Paul Biscop isn’t. Paul died suddenly about eight years ago, dropped in his tracks with a stroke and was dead before he hit the ground, His partner of 20 years, also called Paul, emailed me with the news, so I must have still been on file somewhere (in case he needed someone to harass). Paul had died suddenly, he said, and we should pray for his soul. But then I saw something on Facebook that shocked me: a page for a spiritualist church that Paul Biscop had actually founded, and from which he stomped away years ago because people weren’t doing it right, were listening to their own hearts rather than slavishly following what he told them to do (and when and where),.

 

Paul was dead, and I wasn’t sorry, but there was more to it than that, and it was awful. The posts from the spiritualist church (and very few had posted their condolences, likely still feeling burned by his narcissistic bullying) sent out an urgent call for financial help for his long-time partner. Paul Biscop had left him with a massive debt that he had known nothing about, and the other Paul was now literally homeless and left with nothing.

So the church set up a GoFundMe page which only garnered a few hundred dollars. The church did not host his memorial  - that was held in a Masonic lodge, and the lady on the Facebook page stated that there would be a table set up in the back selling Paul’s books (no doubt on anthropology and other dry topics) to try to earn some funds for his now-destitute partner.

 

OK, this is very long, but I’m on a roll here The thing is, I of course never abandoned Gershwin’s music (my two favorite pieces are the Cuban Overture and the stunningly beautiful Love Walked In), but his presence had faded as if he too had been stung and had to retreat. But it’s OK now, George, I still love you and feel you and know you are immortal. You ring in those songs, songs that will never die. Like a latter-day Mozart, he would sit at the piano composing, then play the piece that same night in a concert hall. His improvisations were heard only once in human history, because they were different each time. This is what I was originally going to write about, but now – hell, I am exhausted already from visiting the past, something I try not to do these days.

Past-tripping can be counterproductive and even traumatic, and the reason it’s called the past is because it has PASSED. So I will try to get on with my day, such as it is (plunged  back into the rabbit hole), and of course I will revisit the music I never quite walked away from.

Love walked in, and it is apparent to me now that it never left.