Bell, Book and Candle

David Scott, Nimrod (1832)

How tedious is getting up,

But tedious to stay in bed!

What if it’s all a dream, my dream,

And in that dream a weighty conflict’s fled?

How trite to say: Things aren’t what they seem,

Although it seems to me quite certain that they’re not.

I advance toward a forbidding Ragnarok

Where Nimrod labors to take stock.

Why thus I am, Vedanta claims: Tat tvam asi.

And that makes sense: It’s us, or me,

Plunged on our own into a time

When digital culture plies its racket,

No point in supererogatory rhyme:

Doktorvater is Pyewacket.

Note:  Doktorvater = German, "doctor father": academic superviser. Pyewacket = name of a demonic familiar spirit—here, presumably, Google; a Siamese cat in Richard Quine’s 1958 film Bell, Book and Candle. 

Saturday, May 17, 2025