This just in... Me. After work... well, as an extension of work, there was a meeting to decide the fate of 2 Columbus Circle. Not really. It was a meeting of Communit Board No. 5, and their votes are only advisory on this issue. Anyway, it doesn't look like Mr. Stone's building with it's whimsical lollipops and portholes is long for this world. The new design, to house the Museum of Art and Design (formerly the Crafts Museum) is really splendid in its own right. We've had 40 years of the Stone building. Time for something new. If the proposed building was crappy design, I'd be fighting like hell to preserve it. But instead, it's something I'd very much like to see in New York City.

Then there was the Leather Pride Night planning meeting. Things move along soooo smoothely with that group. It's almost remote control. I don't know why by contrast GMSMA's planning meetings for Folsom Street East seem to be so frought. Is it really that much more complicated?

And then, off to the gym, where I anihilated my forearms, thighs, and calves. I was starving afterwards, and stopped at the Galaxy Diner to have a ham omlette. A very hunky man was seated facing me, and we had a nice flirtation going.

I had a great idea at work today. My boss wants to propose legislation to eliminate tuition in the State University system. Rotsa ruck, right? But I recommended Clintonian incrementalism... Free tuition (for example), for the children of police, firefighters, EMS workers, and sanitation workers; free tuition for public school teachers' children; free tuition for prison parollees and releasees; etc. That way, each of these proposals has a natural constituency that would be inclined to endorse it. And once we get one through, the others would follow. ("Hey! You gave it to the cops and firefighters, what about us teachers?") I think it might fly.

Tomorrow I have a meeting with representatives from the New York City Lesbian and Gay Anti-Violence Project. They want money. I'm tempted sorely to bring up the wrong-headed letter they wrote about the Saint-at-Large's invitation to the Black Party. As in, "What were you thinking?" That would throw them.

Anyway. It's late. I'm off to bed. I overslept this morning, and I don't want that to happen twice in a row.

And here's the poem. Again, a favorite. This time, not American, and not Twentieth Century.

The Garden
By Andrew Marvell

How vainly men themselves amaze
To win the palm, the oak, or bays,
And their uncessant labours see
Crowned from some single herb or tree,
Whose short and narrow vergèd shade
Does prudently their toils upbraid,
While all flow'rs and all trees do close
To weave the garlands of repose.

Fair Quiet, have I found thee here,
And Innocence, thy sister dear!
Mistaken long, I sought you then
In busy companies of men.
Your sacred plants, if here below,
Only among the plants will grow.
Society is all but rude,
To this delicious solitude.

No white nor red was ever seen
So am'rous as this lovely green.
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame,
Cut in these trees their mistress' name.
Little, alas, they know, or heed,
How far these beauties hers exceed!
Fair trees! wheres'e'er your barks I wound,
No name shall but your own be found.

When we have run our passion's heat,
Love hither makes his best retreat.
The gods, that mortal beauty chase,
Still in a tree did end their race.
Apollo hunted Daphne so,
Only that she might laurel grow.
And Pan did after Syrinx speed,
Not as a nymph, but for a reed.

What wondrous life is this I lead!
Ripe apples drop about my head;
The luscious clusters of the vine
Upon my mouth do crush their wine;
The nectarene, and curious peach,
Into my hands themselves do reach;
Stumbling on melons, I pass,
Ensnared with flowers, I fall on grass.

Meanwhile the mind, from pleasures less,
Withdraws into its happiness:
The mind, that ocean where each kind
Does straight its own resemblance find,
Yet it creates, transcending these,
Far other worlds, and other seas,
Annihilating all that's made
To a green thought in a green shade.

Here at the fountain's sliding foot,
Or at some fruit-tree's mossy root,
Casting the body's vest aside,
My soul into the boughs does glide:
There like a bird it sits, and sings,
Then whets, and combs its silver wings;
And, till prepared for longer flight,
Waves in its plumes the various light.

Such was that happy garden-state,
While man there walked without a mate:
After a place so pure, and sweet,
What other help could yet be meet!
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share
To wander solitary there:
Two paradises 'twere in one
To live in paradise alone.

How well the skilful gardener drew
Of flowers and herbs this dial new,
Where from above the milder sun
Does through a fragrant zodiac run;
And, as it works, the industrious bee
Computes its time as well as we.
How could such sweet and wholesome hours
Be reckoned but with herbs and flowers!

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