Pomegranate Cocktail
Cover and chill:
5 cups pomegranate juice
2 1/2 cups vodka
1/3 cup orange-flavored liqueur
1/3 cup fresh lime juice
Add when cold:
2 1/2 cups chilled ginger ale
The wedding at Casa West went swimmingly — thanks for your suggestions a few posts ago. I ended up talking about how, when you meet the right person, your questions quiet down to a dull roar because you’re comforted by a gut “knowing,” knowledge that can be strong and quiet and unshakable. That was true in this case; the bride is someone who complicates with glee, and yet when she met her now husband, she simply “just knew.” While I initially turned to that great poet D.H. Rumsfeld for his thoughts:
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don’t know
We don’t know.
—Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing
I ended up quoting T. S. Eliot:
We shall not cease from exploration,
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Hard to believe, two more official weeks of summer left. May you respond with joy, dress with whimsy, and give with abandon.
I’m not a huge fan of poetry generally, though I do enjoy a good goofy verse. I definitely get more joy out of Ogden Nash and Billy Collins than Dickinson and Keats.
Best of all, though, are poems like Mr. Rumsfeld’s above. I love poetry created from everyday utterances. One excellent example is a book Scotty and Steph gave me last year: “O Holy Cow! The Selected Verse of Phil Rizzuto.” Rizzuto was a baseball player and then commentator for the Yankees; most of the poems are taken from his comments while calling games:
To Be Alone
Hey White
You know where your loyalties are?
Right here.
The old pinstripes.
No.
You never wore them.
So you have a right to sing the blues.
Alienation
I think my head shrinks a little
In this indoor stadium.
I am…
The mike is getting bigger.
And I have to tighten it.
That sounds like a deliciously refreshing cocktail, not to mention inebriating.
Brilliant move to soften them up with humor, using the Rumsfeld quote, then win them over with a good old fashioned Modernist classic.
Also, what’s with the decapitated groom?
I also like this Rumsfeld poem, also appropriate for a wedding…
A Confession
Once in a while,
I’m standing here, doing something.
And I think,
“What in the world am I doing here?”
It’s a big surprise.
—May 16, 2001, interview with the New York Times
And re: the groom — we found it at the end of the night. Read into it what you will! (all good, of course)
I’ve long been an admirer of Rumsfeld’s work.
Has anyone here linked to Garfield Minus Garfield yet? It’s even better than Rumsfeld poetry.