Namedropping - in the garden

While we’re at it, why not drop the names of the many others with whom we think we might share a lace handkerchief, like Cornelia Parker or Jack Kerouac? And why not mention everyone and anyone who’s forever lost, literally blown up, or burnt out while we're at it. And be kind to grandma (and everyone else for that matter), because she’s more than just another old fart in the universe. (2Ti 1:1-7)


Every decent writer knows that she eventually has to kill her darlings, however endearing or alliterate their expressions may be. You simply can't expect them to fly out of context: 'Olly olly oxen free'. 'Ring around the rosie'. 'A tisket, a tasket.' They're not some serendipity (a gallery, som gäller alla), or part of a process that mimics cartoon deaths. From now on, we must promise to take a good look at our own baskets before gathering lost fragments of someone else’s. Who wants to live vicariously in the the coal, dark remains of a burnt out church, or a blown up garden shed? Remember C, what we saw on Isla de la Muerte, a la D.H. Lawrence in Quetzalcoatl?

”Go home,” you say. ”In due course,” she says, "and where do you come from?" ”And what about yourself, baby, boom, boom, boom, boomer?" This time she's caught her baby on the upbeat, just as he touched a home, though not his own.