Let us go then, you and I
Via Pinto, The Soxaholix gets all Thomas Stearns Eliot on us. This is he best juxtiposition of Modernism and baseball since Ferlinghetti sat in the stands at Candlestick Park reading Ezra Pound.
And screw Eliot, by the way. “April is the cruellest month?” That’s when opening day is! Eliot was born in St. Louis! I thought they were the best baseball fans in the world!
Perhaps Eliot was describing an opening day loss by his beloved Cardinals (or more likely, Browns).
What are you, a Republican on the Judiciary Committee? Context, man, context.
“April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain”.
Jim S is right. The Waste Land was written in 1922, after the SL Browns had their first winning season in 5 years, and still finished in 3rd.
April is cruel… in October. Ain’t that the point.
Apologize.
John Steinbeck can rest easy – neither of these two schmucks are in his league, much less his ballpark.
Wooden—Eliot and Steinbeck are apples and oranges, are they not? Eliot a poet, Steinbeck a novelist. Even said, given either’s complete works—poems, stories, essays, words—I’d take TS everyday. Ash Wednesday does things for me that Of Mice and Men never could.
As for April: in a contemporized context, Opening Day is generally in March, and April is the month in which we realize that our baseball team will not, in fact, be winning the World Series this year.
Whoa. I’m gettin all goosebumpy…