My father's stroke: 'I shall return'

James writes:

On December 30, my father suffered a stroke that left a 4-cm bleed in his brain. Against prevailing medical opinion, he is making a near-total recovery. My father had this to say today about his progress: "When you put your mind to it, anything's possible."

My dad met Dara and I today in the lobby of his rehabilitation center. We took a drive over to Mystic, Connecticut to visit his future home at the Academy Point retirement community, where he will reside in 'assisted living.' The place is so nice, Dara and I want to move in too.

My dad is ready to go on to the next step--so starting tomorrow, the gears will be set in motion for his release from rehab.

Along those lines, here is a mesage my dad has left for his friends and family. (Keep in mind that for the last three months of his life, while suffering from expressive aphasia, he hasn't been able to speak more than a few words at a time.)

Next step: planning his 75th birthday party in May with a MacArthuresque return to the Beachead Restaurant on Block Island, where he first fell ill.

In the words of General MacArthur, upon his temporary defeat to Japanese forces in the Philippines: "I shall return."

MONDAY UPDATE: Westerly and Academy Point are on it! Dara and I will make the move with dad this Saturday.

Auden the Admirable

Dara writes:

I have decided that I admire the work of 20th-century British poet W.H. Auden more than I love it.

I applaud Auden's moral seriousness, his commitment not to turn a blind eye to the horrors, including World War II, of his time. I applaud his deep investment in poetry, and yet his incapacity to inflate either his own influence or his verse's importance. I find this combination of profound dedication and self-deprecation very appealing, and also missing in many of today's poets.

Auden's command of the English language astounds me. Has there since Shakespeare been a writer so on top of his game in that regard? The poet's flexibility with form invigorates me. Really, he could do it all, and he bore the mark of a master, which is that his formal poems never seem like exercises. Instead, his rhymes fall trippingly off the tongue. I admire Auden the person. He seems like a congenial man with a sense of humor.

His personality was revealed last night at a tribute to him at New York's 92nd Street Y. The centenary of his birth was about two weeks ago. Oliver Sacks and Charles Rosen spoke, and charmed. Sacks has such a Princess Bride of a British voice--"Twu Wuv." Auden's friend Shirley Hazzard rambled at length. Unfortunately she seemed not get her bearings and repeated the phrase "he had good manners" several times.

What I gleaned from the event is that certain rhymes and vistas of Auden wow me, yet I get lost in the poems as a whole. He was such a philosopher; his discursiveness can ruin poems for me. I'm not left reeling from one sustained image, as I am with work by George Herbert, John Keats, or Robert Frost, as examples.

But lines do shine, and I do thank Shirley Hazzard for contributing to the evening this, about three friends sharing an idyllic June day:

That later we, though parted then,
May still recall these evenings when
Fear gave his watch no look;
The lion griefs loped from the shade
And on our knees their muzzles laid
And Death put down his book.

I celebrate Auden the humanist and knower of human truths.

That crazy right-wing conference? Yeah, I was there.

James writes:

While Dara chose to stay home with Bosco, our tenured cat, I headed down to Washington last week to report on the annual Conservative Political Action Conference. It was an interesting year to be at CPAC. Day one the headlines read: Giuliani is a go, but McCain won't do CPAC. From The Washington Times:

Sen. John McCain is the only major Republican presidential candidate who will not address the nation's premier gathering of conservatives this year.

Sponsors of the Conservative Political Action Conference, which begins today in Washington and brings together thousands of conservative leaders and grass-roots activists, say the Arizona Republican has "dissed" organizers by attempting to schedule a private reception for attendees after rejecting invitations to speak at the event.

"It was a classical McCain move, dissing us by going behind our backs," said William J. Lauderback, executive vice president of the American Conservative Union.

With the Brownback campaign slipping cards under CPAC doors and a person in a dolphin suit walking the convention floor (the message: Romney is a 'flip-flopper'), this year's CPAC was pure American tango. Will an outcast conservative base (not a word is spoken in favor of the Bush White House) be wooed by a buffed out, high maintenance, $100-million-rasing Republican candidate for '08? Will a conservative underdog get the last dance? One thing's for sure: conservatives represented at CPAC weren't nearly ready to settle on this year's prom queen, even if this queen is ready to settle for them. (Yes, this is an undoctored picture of Giuliani in drag. You've got to wonder, is America ready for New York humor?)

Also at CPAC, Ann Coulter proved that Stephen Colbert doesn't have a lock on playing the conservative fool (when will they stop inviting this one-woman John Birch Society to the party).

In the end, while Giuliani made a rousing speech on the convention floor, Mitt Romney won the 2007 CPAC 'straw poll' . More here.
One rumor spread through the Shoreham Hotel afterparties that Giuliani's personal and political skeletons may overcome his Presidential ambition. A forensic expert at the event told me he had $5,000 riding on the belief that Giuliani would pull out of the race once he raises more cash. Here is an article that, while not backing up this cynical claim, at least indicates Giuliani's troubles at home. (Gosh, and I remember Andrew Giuliani when he was just an annoying pubescient at his father's first mayoral inauguration.)