I've added comments, although they don't seem to work.

A new course and a new blog: Prosa de poeta. Which reminds me I haven't ordered books for this yet. . .

Nick writes to say he has posted 1,458 times on his blog. Amazingly close to my 1,456 (including this post).

If you don't like my Shapiro/Merwin example, substitute your own, by all means. A well-known poet whom you consider mediocre vs. a poet only known to yourself and a few hundred (or thousand?) readers as brilliantly discerning as yourself. Please, be as snobbish as you like, that's the whole point.

Do readers actually prefer poets like W.S. Merwin to really good poets like David Shapiro? Or is it that they haven't actually read Shapiro? My University library doesn't have Lateness, one of David's best books. I doubt a single member of the English department in Kansas (aside from Ken Irby) has ever read a poem by David Shapiro. Accessibility of the texts remains a problem. I mean getting one's hand on them, not accesssibilty as "easiness" of reading.

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I mean readers who have actually read both poets. It is only by suppressing good poetry that mediocre poetry can survive.

I've made 1,454 posts to this blog since September 5, 2002.

Zildjian Online

Apparently a rumor was going around that Elvin had died. Luckily, that is not so.

Then, after thinking I was getting good at those NYT crosswords, whole chunks of the Saturday puzzle humbled me until this morning, when I had to do a few google searches to complete it. I'm not a big Paul Gallico reader, I guess. In case you don't know, the puzzles are incrementally more difficult from Monday to Saturday.

I should explain about my Diacritics fetish. When I was a grad student, it was the age of Theory. Diacritics was where you might find interviews with or essays by Derrida, and super-involved theoretical critiques of the most recent books by all the big name theorists of the time, written by all the other big name theorists. (It is edited by Cornell University's Romance Language Department, and I actually lived in Ithaca for a few years in the mid 80s.) So the academic side of me has always desired to be published in Diacritics the way the poetic side of me might want to have a book published by New Directions or Coffee House Press.

Just got word I had an article accepted by Diacritics. Just when things weren't going so well I have had a few nice ego boosts lately. Why I need such boosts constantly to keep going is another issue I have to work on.

Crossword mania

I did the Friday NYT crossword on line in about 14 minutes just now. This is putting me almost in the scary position of having only one truly challenging puzzle a week--the dreaded but wonderful Saturday. I'm convinced learned puzzle solving skill is more significant than inherent knowledge of esoteric words or names in solving these things. I get better the more I do, but I still didn't know who "Irish revolutionary Robert" was, in today's puzzle. This means that the way to get better at puzzles is to do more of them, rather than to memorize lists of words.

How much of puzzle solving skill, as opposed to intrinsic knowledge, is based on knowledge of a specific code, of "crosswordese"? I'm glad you asked. I think this is about 30% of it. You have to know that words with a lot of vowels are going to appear ("eerie"). And that words with the vowel consonant vowel consonant pattern are going to be overused as well ("elal"), since they fit in grids nicely with the more common consonant-vowel pattern ("Riga"). Another part of it is instinct. For example, I no longer think, "six letters." Usually I just look at the blank and know whether a word will fit there. The ability to think horizontally and vertically at the same time also helps to solve more difficult parts of the grid.

I never use any reference book or dictionary. Not because it is "cheating" but because I rarely need help. The only exception is with a Friday or Saturday puzzle when I am down to a few clues and come across proper names that are unfamiliar to me. The name of a Nevada county crossed with that of a sitcom actress I've never heard of. In this case I will just use google to find the answer.

I would like to go the crossword puzzle tourney next year, though I am not that good at solving with pencil and paper. It was only when I started doing them on line, a few years ago, that I developed a real skill at it.

Answers:

McKuen: a, d

Merwin, b, c, e, f

Winner: Aaron Tieger of fish blog with 4 for 6 correct answers.

I just got my copy of Marjorie's memoir, The Vienna Paradox. It looks quite fascinating.

I got the Cramer Research award from my department. $5,000 before taxes. This means I can go to Spain and NYC during the summer. Whoopee!