Bolt and bar the shutter,
For the foul winds blow:
Our minds are at their best this night,
And I seem to know
That everything outside us is
Mad as the mist and snow.

    - W. B. Yeats: The Winding Stair and Other Poems  (1933)

Between foul posts by RickyB ("Bitch") and BBE's  ("Whore") vituperations in his many manifestations (why are women the targets mostly?)  and what with Dr. Duck the Huckster's  (with his own flack now, no less) suddenly live quacking (I'd assumed he was a Spambot) and Dr. Toots' relentless hawking and Frank's loony wheezing--   it is hard to remember what brought me here and keeps me here.

What brought me and kept me here: authentic voices.  Distinctive voices with style, range, weirdness, originality. The easy erudition. The camaraderie. The commitment. The engagement. The erstwhile fun. 

Here are some of those voices, in order of appearance, all first heard in the germinal month of May,  illustrating not only the exquisite craft of these venerable ancients but the spirit in which this enterprise was formed. 

Steven Axelrod  Elizabeth McDonald Designated Knitter  Madame Bitch  Sandra Miller Norriin Raad Gadi Ben-Yehuda Sarah in_USA   Caruso Wegie   Lonnie Lazar Anne Rhys Matthews Donna Sandstrom Arlene Green Rosina Lippi mad typist Susan Mitchell Stellaa  pretend_farmer bbd

Perhaps all this is destined to go The Way of All Flesh, to be consigned to the dustbin of history, but then all of us will have lost something. We will have lost the promise of an auspicious beginning of a unique community.

If you follow the links and like what you see, RATE THE POST or make a comment. This will bring the posts to the Activity Feed and perhaps others will admire and emulate. I've generally described the first few posts that were made by the writers. Once you're hooked, you'll tend to read all their work.

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As a reader, that grabs me.  And its original take on reading ( not an easy task following  Bacon or Hazlitt ) as physical love, without straining the quality of the metaphor, dropping as the gentle rain upon the reader -- enough, no more Bardolatry -- is no easy feat to pull off.

Equally original is his piece on profiling people  as characters out of Winnie-the-Pooh . And if you want to really understand and be moved by why writers write, read Twenty-three Dollars.  While you're at it, scan his brilliant takes on Proust and Tolstoy and Vikram Chandra, because then, as ePriddy famously commented, you won't have to read the books themselves! Talk about range.

For OS addicts, her Second Life? What's Wrong With Your First One?  is of the essence:  " When you are on your deathbed, no one will be wishing that they could have just one more chat session with someone they have never met."

Read about her commitment and responsibility towards her horses, a meditation upon the death of the filly Eight Belles. This post is even more poignant and prescient now after pretend_farmer's recent piece on abandoned horses. And then there's her The therapy of Frogging ,  a classic whether read as metaphor or to actually improve your knitting skills.

 

Madame Bitch  :  First, let me say that I love her.  Her work, I hasten to add. Us neutered dogs have to be doubly careful what we say to the opposite sex. Here's the unforgettable beginning to The Torture Memo & the CIA Agents Who Follow It:
  Question: Ok, so suppose a CIA agent relied on the Torture Memo and did something within its bounds, like pulling someone's nails, or electrocuting their testicles, and then that Memo is rescinded, and it turns out her conduct is illegal. Is she shit out of luck?

Her unwavering commitment to human rights, her clear-sighted views on Israel/Palestine, her outrageous provocativeness, all make her a must-read in my book.  Follow her on to other posts on torture by Ondelette and ktm to plumb the depths of our despicable policies.

And for something completely different (nudge nudge, wink wink),  read her Je veux te voir  and Monty Python pieces (anyone who lives by the Python's parables is, of course, my friend for life). 

Sandra Miller                                   Norriin Raad                         Gadi Ben-Yehuda

Sandra Miller   : Who doesn't love Sandra? Her beginnings draw you in like magnets.

Slouching Towards the Donut Shop:   A couple of weeks ago, my fiance's iPhone makes an imperious beep. He glances at the calendar reminder and groans.

"I forgot to get a snack!"

Yes, of course, they are in bed. Sandra's a very sexy writer.

"I've never seen her like that," f whispered to me in bed that night.

Like the best O.Henry pieces, her endings are a delight. But no spoilers here. Go read them yourself. And if you want sexy, Reimagining My First Kiss got even this ahem, neutered dog going.

And congratulations Sandra and f/bf/H. 

Norriin Raad   :  Lawyer, ex-prosecutor, classical musician and a fine eye for the women. And he wrote the only contemporary post on Myanmar.

His first post in May was  Slavery and the Death Penalty:

The death penalty is like slavery.  The same processes which brought forth abolition of slavery will one day bring about abolition of the death penalty.

Read the bone-chilling comments by Madame Bitch that complement the piece.

The death penalty is followed effortlessly by The cult of Daljit :

Maybe I just have a weakness for women with PhDs, a powerful working knowledge of policy issues, a lilting, sophisticated accent, and eyes which hold the secrets of the the universe.

Me too, me too! If you don't know who Daljit Dhaliwal is, follow the link in the post. Or wait till the end of this piece.

His A Thinking Man's Sex Piece: Part One is fascinating, stimulating and.....can you say coitus interruptus? The promised Part Two never came, so to say.

His Lorem Ipsum Rubaiyat is playful but in perfect quatrain form, invoking Cicero, Omar Khayyam and in turn provoking a delightful limerick by Sandra  Miller.

These are true Salonistas. Kevin Berger's The world in a song  on Neil Finn and Crowded House (from Down Under) brought a response  from Rob'son quoting Auden on Yeats!

You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
The parish of rich women, physical decay,
Yourself. Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.

Sarah_in_USA, un blogauteur formidable,  je t'aime.  Sounds so much better said in French, though I think I'm gonna get it for blogautuer. 

She kicks of it off with IN SEXO VERITAS? uncovering sex (at least the writing thereof) ancient and modern, from the Satyricon and Decameron to the very present day Houellebecq (if you can spell and pronounce it, go to the head of the class -- she detests him, as does Dawg, proving she has excellent critical faculties), Walter Mosley and more. 

Her insightful and original analysis of   The Meaning of Obama's Last Rally  held in Manassas Park, VA made me realize the potency of its symbolism (hopefully as a permanent antidote to the symbolism of Reagan's  kicking off his campaign in Philadelphia, MS.)

And Sarah has taken on the seemingly Quixotic venture of introducing American literature to the French. Bonne chance, Madame!

Start with Batz! In the Indiana! if for nothing else but the following exchange:

"Hey Caruso, these cartoons are great. Are they your own?"

"Thanx and not easy to draw with paws."

This deranged feline's  BATZ! - Travel Tale Terror has the most hilarious line of 2008 on OS with one of the Batz saying:

"It's a lot funnier if you understand Echolocation."

And Caruso is the rarest of its species: a working cat. The intricately worked panels appear(ed) with chronometric regularity, with every psychotic episode eagerly awaited by perhaps equally loony fans.

Lonnie Lazar:  Now here's one dude nobody loves (except perhaps Dr. Amy? ).  Sure, he's famous in his own (hemi)spheres, but his best days are behind him. Just kidding, guy, just kidding.

Lonnie's range and talent are enormous and seem to encompass all media. Plus,  the man can just flat out write.

His A Tale of Two Mothers - Part 1  (and the following Part 2) are two of the most honest, touching, loving, heart-breaking pieces I've read on OS. I believe there was a connecting Part 3 promised, but I've not come across it yet.

His latest offering -- him with his shit-eating grin (his own description) sandwiched  by the loveliest of OS lasses (for a Buddhist, Lonnie displays a somewhat obsessive human sandwich fixation) -- could be in your future if you gained more exposure to him. Read him.

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This has already become the longest love letter in the storied history of Open Salon. And so far we've only covered the first 9 of the 9+9. Verbal logorrhea, thy name was ever Caveat. Also, the OS Editor, apparently has, ahem, problems with excessive length or references. But don't go away for too long. The next nine follows immediately in Part II. ____________________________________________________

 Here are the afore promised pictures of the divine Daljit Dhaliwal.

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 And since no Caveat piece would be complete without a somewhat cheeky ending -- you know I was kidding earlier, right, Lonnie?

                                           LONNIE, WE LOVE YOU, MAN.

                                      Ancient Greek Vase Painting (c. 400 BCE)

 WOOF