Made in his image

L and I went to a program with some friends last night at the Space Gallery in Portland. It was called "And the Banned Played On," and featured Maine authors reading from works that have been banned. The Maine Civil Liberties Union and Maine Library Association co-sponsored the event, to recognize Banned Books Week. It struck me that we are a repressed nation, since many of the books challenged had sexual content that the challengers found inappropriate. Anyway, Richard Russo started by quoting a line from a Philip Larkin poem, about how parents screw us up. I laughed along with the rest of the crowd and looked it up today. Here it is:

This be the Verse

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

I am counting on evolution and learning from mistakes, and will disregard the last line. I don't think all is lost. For example, I fucked up the color printer at work by printing labels in the wrong mechanism. They came off of the sheet and stuck in the rollers, causing significant aggravation to our systems librarian (and my friend). 2 days later and the printer torn apart, he was able to remove them with several techniques using rubbing alcohol and tweezers. Suffice it to say, I will never do that again. And if we don't fuck up every once in a while, we will never learn not to do stupid things.

Happy weekend!