January 25, 2014

"If you can keep your head when all about you/Are losing theirs and blaming it on you..."

The first 2 lines of Rudyard Kipling's "If—" sprang to mind this morning as the wind kicked up in the trees outside the window behind my iMac screen. The younger trees — silver maple and ash — were waving around furiously and the deep-rooted ancient oak tree barely moved.

The "IF" sentiment reminded Meade of "White Rabbit" and he sang:
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "Off with her head!"
I was still reading "IF":
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
And I said — hold onto your hat, Madison liberals —  "This sounds like Scott Walker."

Meade, acting like he's still into "White Rabbit," sings "Go ask Alice, when she's 10 feet tall," then asks "Do you know who else is 10 feet tall?" The answer: Scott Walker!

Which  means it's time once again — you know all those other times — to sing "Stand with Governor Walker." Key line: "Now he's standing 10-feet tall from Ashland to Monroe."


47 comments:

Meade said...

We've got to keep him in Mad-town!

Laslo Spatula said...

The 'White Rabbit' reference makes me think of a line from Camper van Beethoven's 'Turquoise Jewelry':

"Stop driving around in that station wagon with the wood on the side /
Take off that jumpsuit. You look like Grace Slick"

Laslo Spatula said...

Grace Slick singing "Knee deep in the hoopla" might also apply.

Marconi plays the Mamba, listen to the radio, don't you remember
Scott Walker built this city, he built this city on rock and roll...

Laslo Spatula said...

Meade has now got Grace Slick stuck in my head. Thank you, Meade.

Michael said...

Can't write "Kipling" without qualifying. Racist. Imperialist. Apologist.

Anonymous said...

Michael:
Which was the style of the times...

Feed your head!

garage mahal said...

Key line: "Now he's standing 10-feet tall from Ashland to Monroe."

Ashland stands militantly against Walker.

Meade said...

"Meade has now got Grace Slick stuck in my head. Thank you, Meade."

Planet Hillary Slick.

You're welcome, 'lo.


rehajm said...

If you force your sinew without stretching beforehand, it will lead to a trip to the orthopedic surgeon.

Michael K said...

"Can't write "Kipling" without qualifying. Racist. Imperialist. Apologist. "

Somebody wrote the other day about mentioning Kipling to an Englishwoman who looked shocked and embarrassed by the name. Lo how the mighty are fallen, and I don't mean Kipling.

Patrick said...

BOY: "Do you like Kipling?"

GIRL: "I don't know, you naughty boy, I've never been kippled!"

Some old postcard I saw somewhere.

Ann Althouse said...

@Patrick That's the Urban Dictionary definition of "Kipling."

Curious George said...

"garage mahal said...
Ashland stands militantly against Walker."

40% voted for Walker.

Ann Althouse said...

"Militant" means "combative and aggressive in support of a political or social cause, and typically favoring extreme, violent, or confrontational methods."

Hagar said...

"... maybe you just don't understand the gravity of what you have done!"

KLDAVIS said...

In response to his father quoting "If—," I think Homer Simpson said it best: You'll be a bonehead!

garage mahal said...

Actually you are right. Peaceful and determined opposition would be a better way to put it.

What they are facing is militant.

Meade said...

@garage, did you check out the source of the article you linked to? San Jose PsychicExaminer
Barbara Schneider

Barbara Schneider, CCHT, Certified Hypnotherapist, Reiki Master, and Feng Shui Consultant, is a regular contributor to San Jose Psychic Examiner. Barbara is a long-time practitioner of metaphysical and spiritual practices, which often had to be believed on faith because they could not be seen. Skeptics beware! Using digital photography, Barbara shows that there's a lot more to life than meets the eye and she has hundreds of photos to prove it.

Anonymous said...

Luckily, the racist Kipling was better at putting himself inside the heads of Hindus than the enlightened Michael is at putting himself inside the heads of Victorian Englishmen.

garage mahal said...

Here you go Meade. Click here.

Anonymous said...




Blogger Meade said...
@garage, did you check out the source of the article you linked to? San Jose PsychicExaminer
Barbara Schneider


Meade, do you somehow believe that garage has the integrity to vette his sources? If so, based on what?

Meade said...

Here you go Garage. Click here. (NSFW)

David said...

So does the wind slow your internet transmission speeds? It does here. Supposedly the issue is that the wind moves the wires and causes transmission fails, which causes retransmissions, which causes even more fails etc etc etc.

Life in the boonies.

David said...

Paul Zrimsek said...
Luckily, the racist Kipling was better at putting himself inside the heads of Hindus than the enlightened Michael is at putting himself inside the heads of Victorian Englishmen.


Amen.

garage mahal said...

Private armed security forces are needed to prevent swear words and the snatching of a cell phone? What to make of the president of GTac snatching a cell phone then? Link [hide the children]

Dollar Bill, it appears, is also a wanted man in Spain. The Cobre Las Cruces was given as an example of how environmentally safe mining is.

Anyways, you guys have visited Copper Falls State Park, are you in favor of blowing up the Penokees and carving a 22 mile long open pit and destroying the entire watershed that empties into Lake Superior?

FullMoon said...

"When the truth is found to be lies......."
Ya know, Jefferson Airplane was one of those bands that sounded way better on record than live. On the other hand I'm pretty sure I saw them and others play for free in Golden Gate park.

Oh, and when did "way" become a substitute for "much"?

Ruth Anne Adams said...

Althouse's version of rick-rolling.

Meade said...

Oh, and when did "way" become a substitute for "much"?

"Oh wow, man - MUCH cool!" just didn't sound quite right.

Gahrie said...

Can't write "Kipling" without qualifying. Racist. Imperialist. Apologist.

In other words, a man of his time.

Gahrie said...

By the way...what gives you guys the right to criticize kipling..he's just a reflection of his culture, and all cultures are equal....right?

harrogate said...

Scott Walker is awesome! posts are vintage.

Anonymous said...

The skeery armed security guards didn't snatch anything from anyone. Do I get to shrug them off too?

Freeman Hunt said...

Naxos has an album called "Classic Poems for Boys" that includes "If" and many others that one may or may not find applicable to Scott Walker. It is fantastic. Available through the Amazon portal.

William said...

Tell that to Anne Boleyn.

Michael said...

I actually know "If" by heart. A couple of others as well. Kipling enrages lefties, especially academics in the humanities and is trotted out as the personification of evil.

Great man actually. Had it mostly right. When the British left many of their colonies went back to jungle.

garage mahal said...

Armed commandos in every neighborhood to protect against every domestic distubance is clearly what's needed. Out of state preferably.

Richard Dolan said...

Strange to associate Kipling's poem with Walker. To the extent it's read at all today, If finds its audience in grammar schools. i suspect that's where Althouse first read it, and that's the phase of life she was reaching back to in bothering with it now.

Even for its pre-teen audience in grammar schools, the poem is used for its theme -- a very old fashioned, stiff-upper-lip, real-men-don't-cry idea of masculinity -- than any interest as poetry.

Walker isn't grammar school stuff, not remotely. He deserves to be associated with poetry of a much better sort.

Anonymous said...

Still, I'm glad we never really took up the White Man's Burden.

dwick said...

Why do Apple computer users always feel it necessary to call it out in some manner so everyone knows? It's never 'behind my computer screen' - it's always something like 'behind my iMac screen', 'behind my MacBook Pro screen' or behind my '2560x1440 resolution 27 inch Apple Thunderbolt Display', etc. Is the view so substantially different behind an iMac screen versus any other generic computer display that the iMac screen needs to be specified? Or is it people just trying to convey how cool and part of the 'in-crowd' they perceive themselves to be? I guess it's all part of a certain smugness... similar to people who drive Priuses, Leafs, etc.

dwick said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
FullMoon said...

dwick said...

Why do Apple computer users always feel it necessary to call it out in some manner so everyone knows? It's never 'behind my computer screen' - it's always something like 'behind my iMac screen', 'behind my MacBook Pro screen' or behind my '2560x1440 resolution 27 inch Apple Thunderbolt Display', etc. Is the view so substantially different behind an iMac .......


I started out on MacIntosh but soon hit the harder stuff-Everybody said they'd stand behind me when the game got rough-but the joke was on me......

The Godfather said...

"East is East and West is West, and n'er the twain shall meet,
"Til earth and sky stand presently at God's great judgment seat.
But there is neither East, nor West, nor border, nor breed, nor birth,
When two strong men stand face to face
though they come from the ends of the Earth."

Racist bastard. And what about "you're a better man than I am Gunga Din"? Imperialist swine.

Ann Althouse said...

"Why do Apple computer users always feel it necessary to call it out in some manner so everyone knows? It's never 'behind my computer screen' - it's always something like 'behind my iMac screen', 'behind my MacBook Pro screen' or behind my '2560x1440 resolution 27 inch Apple "

I think I said iMac because it was a shorter, spiffier word than "computer" and because it put a more specific picture in the reader's head.

Ambrose said...

And until just now I had thought the white knight was WALKING backwards.

Anonymous said...

"If" was Joe Paterno's favorite poem.

That's all I got.

gadfly said...

Environmentalists hate history. Minnesota's economy would have suffered immensely had the Merritt Brothers not opened their first taconite mine in the Mesabi Range in 1880. The iron range mines provided 90% of the ore required to make the war machines of WWI and the demand for steel brought Minnesota its ethnic heritage of Fins, Swedes, Croats and Slovenes.

Demand for steel is of coarse growing and the only place to get iron ore is by mining. We need the one-trick ponies and communists that pervade these groups to go away and now would be a good time because we cannot afford this idiocy anymore. We somehow can afford millions of government regulators but we cannot allow American capitalism to bring our economy back.

Steel industries have long existed in Wisconsin and Great Lakes ports and even the Edmund Fitzgerald was hauling taconite pellets when she went down in 35-foot waves in 1975 on Lake Superior after leaving Superior, WI harbor headed for Detroit.

We are indeed proud of Governor Scott Walker.

Rusty said...

Blogger Michael said...
Can't write "Kipling" without qualifying. Racist. Imperialist. Apologist.

I once had a Shakespeare class taught by an Oxford educated professor who was a leading expert on Kipling. An Indian gentleman.