Knight of the white elephant by Anthony Daniels - The New Criterion

Metamorphoses This text may be freely distributed, subject to the following restrictions:…

I've always like "A Supermarket in California", although my liking of the poem is tied up tightly with hearing Ginsberg read it aloud. I always hear it in my head in Ginsberg's voice.

I heard you asking questions of each: Who killed the pork chops? What price bananas? Are you my Angel?

I was reminded of the line while reading Keat's "Ode on a Grecian Urn"—a poem for which I have never had any particular fondness, but today, for some reason, it came alive to me.

What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?

Espalier Es*pal"ier, n. [F. espalier, fr. It. spalliera, fr. spalla shoulder, the same word as F. ['e]paule. See Epaulet.] (Hort.) A railing or trellis upon which fruit trees or shrubs are trained, as upon a wall; a tree or row of trees so trained. [1913 Webster]

And figs from standard and espalier join. --Pope. [1913 Webster]

I came across the word today in Tennyson's The Blackbird:

The espaliers and the standards all
Are thine; the range of lawn and park;

• Police should trust the wisdom of the crowds
• Bitter end
• Etiquette by Emily Post
• DNA not the same throughout body?
• Track of the Moonbeast

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Saturday sushi links:

• Pedant
• The impact of contemporary theoretical physics on the prescriptive grammar of Victorian England
• Asparagus by G.K. Chesterton
• Grammatical shibboleths

Links from Sunday:

• The simile — implied
• Spammers solving AI problems
• Pam Braun Pens
• Stoeger coach gun
• Christopher Fowler's Bryant & May mysteries
• Doctor Who: City of Death
• Banrock Station Shiraz 2007
• Polished concrete floors
• Catholic indugences
• Don't sleep, there are snakes