Whimsy Speaks Again

A recent book by Stephen Prothero, a BU prof in the religion department, documents America's "Religious Illiteracy".  Although seemingly the most religious (and Christian) developed nation on earth, Prothero notes:

Nearly two thirds of Americans believe that both creationism and evolution should be taught, even though the former teaches that the latter never happened.

50% of high school seniors believe that Sodom and Gomorrah were married.

17% of Americans agree that Ramadan is the Jewish day of atonement.

Only 1 American in 3 can name the four Gospels, and 50% can't name even one.

Half of Americans can't identify the preacher of the Sermon on the Mount.

75% of all adults believe that "God helps those who help themselves" is one of the Ten Commandments (it's a Ben Franklin saying).

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I listen to a lot of televangelists on my morning treadmill walk.  My favorite is Dr. Creflo A. Dollar (and his wife Taffy), but Joyce Meyer is no slouch either.  Her ministry's headquarters was built for $20 million and houses $5.7 million in "furniture, artwork, glassware, and machinery", says the county assessor.  In that total are a pair of Dresden vases ($19,000), a malachite table ($30,000), and a marble-top antique commode ($23,000).  The ministry's fleet of cars is estimated to be worth $440,000. 

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Jilly's taking a blogging break, but there's no reason you can't buy Darryl's Jazz CD.  I never know where to throw my money, but that sounds like a good bet.  My son Derek is cutting his first CD this month, together with the Down and Dirty Blues Band.  You can expect me to open up a Whimsical Shameless Commerce Division when it's available.

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There's a lot of good work in the recent (300+ page) Notre Dame Review, from the subdued to the disjunctive.  Contributors include Ciaran Berry (an Alsop Review mate), Trevor Dodge, William Logan, W.S. Merwin, Donald Platt, R. T. Smith, among many others.  A few highlights:

Merwin, Photographer:  "Later in the day / after he had died and the long box / full of shadow had turned the corner".

Sarah Lindsay, Destruction: "..//They say the Baron von Hausknecht traveled / nowhere without a valet, a chef, and a mistress, / and cursed in nine languages, some of them dead,/..."

Logan, The Crane Among Its Minions:  "Like a chalk-white spire / rising over the Herefords of the Beef Teaching Unit, / the whooping crane stood alone with the alone,"

John Hennessy, Vengeance:  "How qualify love for a God who'd wager / with Satan, prop Job — childless, penniless, / riddled with boils he scraped with potsherds, salved"

Shane Seely, Elegy for Anthony Piccione:  "Out by the lake, the graves of soldiers / lurch in thaw. // Their bodies / are uneasy with the weather,"

Patricia Corbus, Pimpernel:  "In the rain, alizarin spatters & runs down towers, / The breasts of the whore weep with regret & compassion, / & the gates, all 28 of them, open & close,"

Sarah Bowman, The Magic Angle:  "of entry // two face a barbed hook, a fastened line, a net / chain-stitched, one drifting, one trawling"

John Kinsella, Compass:  "And so ... depoliticized /         shilly-shally / trendsetter off-centre, off looming water in-city, / cracking encampments / as aspirator or pater hedges semi-mountain uproar / a law unto chemical mosquitoes"

Ryan G. Van Cleave, Two Lovers in an Abandoned Nuclear Missile Silo While, Unbeknown to Them, Biochemical Terrorist Activity Destroys America Above:  "Pink lipstick tattooing his neck, his lungs prickled / by radon-thick air, he leads her in to the black water / tank which once held 30,000 gallons of undrinkable "

Ciaran Berry, Blindness:  "Whether arrived at in the womb or through old age, /    or because hatred in a hoop skirt and whalebone corset /     has been welcomed as honored guest into your home,"

Deb Olin Unferth, Brevity :"..//Deleted Material / 1.  Numbers / Eins zwei drei vier fünf / 2. Pet /Pet pet / petpetpetpetpetpetpet"

Kass Fleisher, Wedded Words:  "words nanosized dancing on the head of a spin she can't but inhale them shit they creep into the corners of her eyes piss the tries to rub them out but they're already halfway to the amygdala which is fuck pores jammed with prepositions ..."

Kristy Odelius, Forecast:  "* // All around me orchestra / was spinning out algebra // I said closed — but eyelids hum, recurring there."

Johnny Horton, Cold War Phonetics:  "Able went into aeronautics with his best friend / Baker.  No good time / Charlies, those two monkeys, wearing hang / Dog faces.  Flying wasn't"

Leo Jilk, Forestscaped Shore:  " ocean I         saw /       the other side of          I was / swinging from           chains/             side to side"

There are also a number of book reviews and an interesting article by blogmate Robert Archambeau called "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Poetry", wherein he reviews the work of Laton Carter Keneeth Fields, and James McMichael in light of Weber's capitalist dictates.  Altogether a fine volume of work, though I don't know why they come to me for free.  I was a contributor a couple of times, but I don't remember subscribing.  They must be the Saturn dealers of poetry.

See you tomorrow.