Lemmings and Boxes

Stomack and Borgan return. The epigraphs are in keeping with the now fashionable trend in poetry to epigram (can that be used as a verb?) all poetry. Lemmings and boxes is what it’s all about.
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“The metal boxes will have keys and be located on side streets.”--- Deborah Miller

“Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes”--- The Police

Lemmings and Boxes
---- Big Frank Dickinson

Stomack: Borgan, boxes are no having the keys, is true?
Borgan: What boxes; why you talk of boxes?
Stomack: So, you like all lemmings just rush, rush and not be looking around?
Borgan: Look around plenty; you know me, Borgan - always look both ways.
Stomack: Then surely you see postal boxes on the street sides - very absent now - mostly.
Borgan: Never understand those boxes - why a box to put in what came from other box.
Stomack: Postal service has method; what you say now - Borgan is expert on mail too?
Borgan: Mail too?
Stomack: First expert on absences now mail too; please to answer.
Borgan: OK, not postal expert, but have good idea.
Stomack: Yes . . .?
Borgan: No need to take mail from letter box and congregate in congregation box - just take away for good. Saving boxes, and saving time too.
Stomack: Maybe is reason for congregation boxes.
Borgan: Ever look in box of congregated letters, Stomack?
Stomack: Cannot - box on side street always locked, not?
Borgan: Can lock box, but cannot hide bad idea!
Stomack: Borgan, such good quotation - is your words?
Borgan: Like lemmings we rush past bad idea too much. Please look and say out loud.
Stomack: OK: I change mind - you make me, Borgan. No more rush - now look both ways.
Borgan: So good: bad idea always will out!

Oscar Wilde Said

Big Frank thinks today that these Oscar Wilde quotations can be strung together and turned into a Oscar Wilde poem the title of which is:

Oscar Wilde Said
by Oscar Wilde via Big Frank

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
Illusion is the first of all pleasures.
Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead.

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone else's opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation
Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.
Only the shallow know themselves.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
The world is a stage but the play is badly cast.
There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.

If you are not too long I will wait here for you all of my life.

Rhino KO'd

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Big Frank 1, Rhinovirus 0!

Rhinovirus & NY

While Big Frank recovers from a bout with a rhinovirus, he heard this poem recited by David Rakoff and was transported by it. Read it and go where it takes you - beautiful.

Letter To N.Y.

by Elizabeth Bishop
(for Cd)

In your next letter I wish you'd say
where you are going and what you are doing;
how are the plays and after the plays
what other pleasures you're pursuing:

taking cabs in the middle of the night,
driving as if to save your soul
where the road goes round and round the park
and the meter glares like a moral owl,

and the trees look so queer and green
standing alone in big black caves
and suddenly you're in a different place
where everything seems to happen in waves,

and most of the jokes you just can't catch,
like dirty words rubbed off a slate,
and the songs are loud but somehow dim
and it gets so terribly late,

and coming out of the brownstone house
to the gray sidewalk, the watered street,
one side of the buildings rises with the sun
like a glistening field of wheat.

--Wheat, not oats, dear. I'm afraid
if it's wheat it's none of your sowing,
nevertheless I'd like to know
what you are doing and where you are going.

Memories of Paris

Big Frank said au revoir to Konrad at Charles De Gaul Airport. Konrad headed back to Warsaw and Big Frank to the States. Sitting in the Salt Lake City Airport, Big Frank has vivid memories of some great times in Paris. Konrad and his dad saw a lot of the typical sites that one sees in Paris: Notre Dame, the Arc de Triumphe, Galleries de Layfayette, museums, and lots of great restaurants. Perhaps those evenings sitting in the small restaurants with street views and over dinner and wine talking the night away - that's what Big Frank liked best.

Diner Merveilleux

Big Frank is enjoying his time in Paris, his son's company, and the great food that is available everywhere in this fine city. This evening, Konrad and his dad ate at Le Petit Sommelier de Paris. The waiter was polite, the food (moules et pomme frites) was excellent, the wine - superb, and the armagnac with espresso a heavenly end to a great meal.

Wheels Up for Paris

[Photo: Big Frank Dickinson]
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It's wheels up for Paris tomorrow! Big Frank will be joined by his son, Konrad in a Parisian adventure: museums, fashion, food, fun . . . and . . . yes, . . . work, but work in Paris - is that work? Big Frank thinks not.

Colorado Highs

Big Frank and his brother, Dan, had some very enjoyable Colorado Highs this past week. They spent a few days at Rainbow Lake kicking back, enjoying the isolation, the altitude, the hiking, the brilliant night skies, and each other's company. The cabin was right off the Colorado trail, so they had easy access to some great hiking, and to the west, a mere 10 miles, was Cottonwood pass - at a little over 12,000 feet - terrific vistas. What a great time!