Saturday Blues

Today was supposed to be a work day, but it's turning into half a work day.  For some unaccountable reason, I'm feeling quite depressed.

Zeus in His Customary Place

While it's all very well to be depressed to one degree or another, I'm reminded of the realities of life by one of my favorite writers: Thomas Stearns Eliot OM (26 September 1888 – 4 January 1965), who mentioned practicalities through his character Ape Neck Sweeney in the play Sweeney Agonistes.

Apeneck Sweeney is best described in the poem Sweeney Erect:

The lengthened shadow of a man
Is history, said Emerson
Who had not seen the silhouette
Of Sweeney straddled in the sun. 

In Sweeney Agonistes, three men and two women are sitting around a kitchen table together, having a drink and listening to music.  At the prompting of Doris, Sweeney decides to wax philosophic.


SWEENEY:

I gotta use words when I talk to you
But if you understand or if you don't
that's nothing to me and nothing to you
We all gotta do what we gotta do
we're gona sit here and drink this booze
we're gona sit here and have a tune
We're gona stay and we're gona go
And somebody gotta pay the rent

When it's all said and done with, someone has to pay the rent.  That would be me, as the cats have no money this month.  Next month isn't looking too good either.