Have you ever read Robert Frost?
Wait: I meant, "Have you ever read Robert Burns?"
(Everyone who attended high school in the U.S. before at least 2005 has read Robert Frost. His JFK inauguration poem was awesome but no "On the Pulse of Morning." Always thought "Mending Wall" was a prequel to Grumpy Old Men, hated memorizing "The Road Not Taken" in Ms. Sinatra's class at Anaheim High because it's kinda chintzy, but recite to myself the lines "The woods are lovely, dark and deep/But I have promises to keep" basically every day like it was a Yankee Hail Mary).
But Burns? You feel the Scottish soul in his lochs and housies and haggis the way you get Frost's dour New England landscapes. I do need to read more of Burns' stuff, but am always entranced by his visuals and intrigued by a man who stood up to the English empire by using Scottish words whenever he could.
So help me, o Caledonian bard, as I tell my followers here...
The best-laid schemes of mice and men
Go oft awry,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
This is me now.
Gracias for your patience with this fookin' ingrate book club — I've been, um, busy with Trump and politicos and all those pendejadas.
That small heap of leaves and stubble,
Has cost you many a weary nibble!
BUT...I finally have some dates so we can commiserate.
As a first assignment, I asked ustedes to read Gay Talese's "Frank Sinatra has a Cold," widely considered to be the best magazine article of all time. What did ustedes think about it? Send me your thoughts and I'll share them next week along with mine.
And I hope ustedes are finishing up our first book assignment: Natalia Molina's A Place at the Nayarit: How a Mexican Restaurant Nourished a Community. She will be joining us via Zoom on May 10 at 11 a.m., not just because we're reading my comadre's book, but because Profe Natalia is also a member of Guti's Fookin' Ingrate Book Club!
We'll be talking to the Macarthur genius for about an hour — first 5 is me welcoming ustedes, then I talk to Profe Natalia for about 20 minutes because I want to turn over the conversation to everyone else. Come with questions and thoughts. Then I announce the next book and article, and onto the reading! Zoom link forthcoming.
For right now, I gotta prepare for the L.A. Times Festival of Books, where I'm moderating THREE panels — let's see Lopez do THAT.
Still you are blessed, compared with me!
The present only touches you: But oh!
I backward cast my eye, On prospects dreary!
Sorry, Rabbie: I've got a haggis to eat -- pero yo le hecho Tapatío. Although, come to think of it, I should throw in a Scotch bonnet...
In Vedas,
Gustavo Arellano
