Three Beautiful Things 04/01/15: Wallace Stevens at the Co-op, Walking Greenbelt Lake, Frosty Adultery

1.  I spent time at the Greenbelt Public Library today, perusing the audio books, thinking that it might be fun to listen to something on the way to New Jersey/New York the weekend and back next week. I was indecisive about that, but, for myself, I found an audio book of Wallace Stevens reading his own poetry and then I sat in the Co-op parking lot and listened to him read "Infanta Marina" and "Fabliau of Florida" and pondered this stanza: "She made the motions of her wrist/The grandiose gestures/Of her thought" and it took me back to the spring of 1973 and Intro to American Literature at North Idaho College and Mr. McLeod introducing our class to Wallace Stevens, and I pondered, before going in the store to buy peanut butter and milk and some broccoli, how from that spring day until now, hardly a day goes by that I don't think a little more about Wallace Stevens' poem "The Idea of Order at Key West" or "The Snow Man" in ways, I suppose, that are similar to how some hear The Grateful Dead in their minds every day and others always have the writings of Audre Lorde.

2.  Before I went to pick up the Deke, I walked the circumference of Greenbelt Lake, about a mile and a half or so.  I walked briskly and paid close attention to how the walk made me feel and I'm happy to report that none of the sensations I experienced on Monday returned.

3.  Inspector Jack Frost is very good at his job and is a deeply flawed man.  In the episode I watched tonight, he visited Emily, his partner in adultery whom he hadn't seen or made contact with since the illness and death of his wife.  She angrily confronted him with the fact that he was fine sharing her bed when his wife was alive but couldn't do it when his wife became terminally ill and died.  It's developments like this in A Touch of Frost, which have nothing to do with the case he's inspecting, but everything to do with his character, that make this one of my favorite programs.  Tonight's episode portrayed him as caring quite a bit about a 22 year old petty thief and drug addict who'd been beaten to death and as quite cold as the sexual partner of his mistress.