Books

All About Angels

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I first saw the Black Angel in Aldebarán’s cultural store in Ávila (2006). She sat there, in the shop window, along with several other angels, and I worshiped her from the distance of the street. Her image was taken from an original painting from Rogier van der Weyden (1399/1400-1464). This was turned into a 3-D image and then converted into the statue I saw in the shop window.

I brought the statue back to Island View, placed it on the shelf above the fireplace, where it still rests, and wrote several poems on the theme of Angels. I gathered them together in a chapbook entitled All About Angels that I self-published in Fredericton in 2009. The chapbook was dedicated to Clare’s great-aunt, D. E. Witcombe who departed this world on October 15, 2008.

All About Angels was also based on a book of a similar title, Sobre los Ángeles, written by Rafael Albertí, one of the poets of Spain’s Generation of 1927. I avoided the ambiguity of the Spanish title — Sobre (in Spanish) can mean Above or Beyond as well as About — by limiting my own title to All About Angels.

All About Angels
Paperback edition

All About Angels
Kindle Edition

For Carl Jung, angels are the messengers sent to inform people of the state of their world. For me, they are also the wild creatures that inhabit the world around me and often take the form of birds and other spiritual creatures. They can be best seen in those moments of solitude when we are most open to the natural world around us. Then, and sometimes only then, we can hear the urgent messages they bring.

Black Angel

You cannot hide
when the black angel comes
and knocks on your door.

“Wait a minute,” you say,
“While I change my clothes
and comb my hair.”

But she is there before you,
in the clothes closet,
pulling your arm.
You move to the bathroom
to brush your teeth.

“Now,” says the angel.
Your eyes mist over.

You know you are there,
but you can no longer see
your reflection in the mirror.

Angel Choir

(on seeing the Northern Lights at Ste. Luce-sur-mer)

listen to the choristers with their red and green voices
light’s counterpoint flowering across this unexpected son et lumière
we tremble with the sky fire’s crackle and roar

once upon another time twinned in our heavenly prisons
we surely flew to those great heights and hovered in wonderment
now our earthbound feet are rooted to the concrete
if only our hearts could sprout new wings and soar upwards together

the moon’s phosphorescent wake swims shimmering before us
the lighthouse’s fingers tingle up and down our spines
our bodies flow fire and blood till we crave light and yet more light
yet when the lights go out we are left in darkness

close up.jpg

 Croaking Angels

Their tunes are one note symphonies,
croaks of joy
moving their fellows to ecstasy,
exhorting them to share
the splendors of ditch life,
in a springtime bonding
that will loft them to the skies.

There’s an ancient magic in this calling:
love and laughter,
moonlight and water,
all the joyous things
one links with spring.

Moonlight swings its cheerful love lamp.
New leaves and buds are also known to sing.

Railway Station 2

Railway Bridge

1

walking away
from Swansea sands

me crossing the bridge
shaking sand
from my sandals

a rare event
Swansea Bay Station
Cline Valley Line
a train at the platform

the station master
blows his whistle
doors close
slowly the train goes
under the bridge

I stand in a cloud
wrapped up
half-blinded
in huge puffs of smoke

filling my lungs
assaulting nostrils and eyes
with the sting of cinders
the stench of burning coal

sting and stench
and that short sharp whistle

they linger and cling
unforgettable
in my mind’s dark corner

Railway Bridge

2

walking away
from Swansea sands

me crossing the bridge
shaking sand
from my sandals

a rare event
Swansea Bay Station
Cline Valley Line
a train at the platform

the station master
blows his whistle
doors close
slowly the train goes
under the bridge

I stand in a cloud
wrapped up
half-blinded
in huge puffs of smoke

filling my lungs
assaulting nostrils and eyes
with the sting of cinders
the stench of burning coal

sting and stench
they linger and cling
unforgettable cobwebs
in my mind’s dark corridors
and never forget
that short sharp whistle


Comment 1:

Me and my writing buddy also discussed linked poems. This is simply a chain in which each poem links back to another one. Yesterday, we wrote about Swansea Sands and how the poem was generated. Today we can look at the linking between that poem and this one, the old railway bridge that crossed the railway lines by Swansea Bay Station, and led back into Swansea, a town in those days, and the Civic Centre. Note, now, that each of those names could generate further links, further poems in the chain.

When we think of the great chain of being, we think of how all things are linked. From the Great Western Railway (GWR), to the Mumbles Railway, to the Cline Valley Branch line, and beyond. Each poem a railway station along the way. Main line, branch line, express train, goods train … links everywhere, and each link encapsulated in a memory of one kind or another. How could we not write poetry about such things?

McAdam Railway Station, in New Brunswick, Canada. 60 trains a day used to stop here. Now the station is a landmark, a memory, a place where ghost trains run and shadowy figures run wild up and down the grass grown tracks where the sleepers sleep, their dreams undisturbed. I could write a book of poems about this station. Wait a second, I already have and Geoff Slater, my painting buddy, decorated it for me with his wonderful paintings and drawings. What more can I say? Each link in the chain, a potential poem. Each stop along the way, material enough for a painting, a poem, or a book.

Comment 2:

So, what happens when we change the photo? What if we add a branch line or two to the original poem? How does this affect our idea of creativity, poetic creativity? What happens when we add a different sketch from my painting buddy’s wonderful set of drawings? Oh-oh, that’s not my painting buddy – that’s a set of graffiti on a passing railway car. Sorry, painting buddy, please forgive me. But hey, wait a minute – de gustibus non est disputando – there is no arguing about taste. Somebody painted that box car and enjoyed doing it. Where does art begin? Where does it end? How formal can it be? How informal? How many railway stations do we stop at? I guess it depends on the length of the journey. But one thing I know, don’t get off the train until you reach your destination!

Railway Bridge

Railway Bridge

walking away
from Swansea sands

me crossing the bridge
shaking sand
from my sandals

a rare event
Swansea Bay Station
Cline Valley Line
a train at the platform

the station master
blows his whistle
doors close
slowly the train goes
under the bridge

I stand in a cloud
wrapped up
half-blinded
in huge puffs of smoke

filling my lungs
assaulting nostrils and eyes
with the sting of cinders
the stench of burning coal

sting and stench
and that short sharp whistle

they linger and cling
unforgettable
in my mind’s dark corners

Comment:

Me and my writing buddy also discussed linked poems. This is simply a chain in which each poem links back to another one. Yesterday, we wrote about Swansea Sands and how the poem was generated. Today we can look at the linking between that poem and this one, the old railway bridge that crossed the railway lines by Swansea Bay Station, and led back into Swansea, a town in those days, and the Civic Centre. Note, now, that each of those names could generate further links, further poems in the chain.

When we think of the great chain of being, we think of how all things are linked. From the Great Western Railway (GWR), to the Mumbles Railway, to the Cline Valley Branch line, and beyond. Each poem a railway station along the way. Main line, branch line, express train, goods train … links everywhere, and each link encapsulated in a memory of one kind or another. How could we not write poetry about such things?

McAdam Railway Station, in New Brunswick, Canada. 60 trains a day used to stop here. Now the station is a landmark, a memory, a place where ghost trains run and shadowy figures run wild up and down the grass grown tracks where the sleepers sleep, their dreams undisturbed. I could write a book of poems about this station. Wait a second, I already have and Geoff Slater, my painting buddy, decorated it for me with his wonderful paintings and drawings. What more can I say? Each link in the chain, a potential poem. Each stop along the way, material enough for a painting, a poem, or a book.

Waist Land

Wind-sculpted tree on rocky coastline with turbulent ocean and cloudy sky
A lone, wind-shaped tree stands on rugged coastal rocks under a cloudy sky

Image generated
not by Big Brother
but by Little Brother
who left the Frying Squad
to become a painter
and mind-reader

Waist Land

Jack Pine Sonnet

living in a waste land
surrounded by books
he writes in his journal
things false and true
in memory of the old days
when the world seemed so new

a life built on sand
slips through his fingers
wouldn’t it be grand
if the sand stays and lingers
refusing to pass through
the hour glass’ waist
so time stops to flow

then he could say no
leave me alone
there’s more sand to fall
I don’t want to go

Comment:

It’s a bit like a cliff-hanger, isn’t it? Hanging on by our fingertips and not daring to look at the depths down below. We know they are there, but look, there’s a tiny fossil in the fissure in the rock, so much older than us, we’ve got a long time to go to catch that up. And remember – 80 is not old, if you are a stone!

Treading air – great fun. Not as good as treading warm water in the local YMCA. Just a lovely sense of balance, floating there in the warmth, no weight on arthritic joints, and the world around us amniotic, as it was in the beginning. Ah, those original waters, we have all swum in them, the rich and the poor, the black and the white, and all shades in between. Even King Charles and the late Queen. And remember, they may speak of blue bloods, but all blood is red -and, if you cut us, do we not bleed.

Speaking of bleeding – blood-thinners – my favorite doctor’s latest joke. I cut my arm the other night, getting into bed. Didn’t even notice. Pillows and sheets soaked in blood when I woke up and my scalloped arm, stuck to the sheet, opened itself up and started to bleed again. Feels like seventeenth century Spain, the wounds of the dead man re-open and start to bleed when the assassin appears before him. Certain truth. Obviously 100% guilty.

And they tell me that in South Wales people are adding cooking oil to gasoline to make the petrol go further. Scotland Yard sent the Flying Squad to South Wales to sniff people’s exhaust pipes to see if they were cheating the tax man. I asked my friend – “Is this true?” “Ah, yes,” he said in his lovely Welsh lilt, “and we call them the Frying Squad!”

My Love For You

My Love for You

A Jackpine Sonnet

Yesterday fled quickly by
today limps slowly on and on
tomorrow draws near
yet never arrives
if and when it does
it becomes today

As for me I feast on shifting
shadows my story a tapestry
reversed – hanging
back to front unreadable

It is hard to slough your skin
the skin once shed can never
never be donned again

My body white bone grey gristle
no longer wrapped in skin
is bonded together by super glue
made from my love for you

Comment:

Moo assures me that this painting, unsigned and untitled, is actually his. After yesterday’s doubts, I must believe him. He says it is called U-R-My-Sunshine. He also thinks it would be a great painting to go with this strange little poem that crept somehow out of my head and landed on my page. It reminds me somewhat of the church cat – it crept into the crypt, crapped, and crept out again. “Oh what a naughty pussy cat.” Who U-R is up to the reader / viewer apparently. I doubt that I am his sunshine after what I said about him yesterday. Oh sorry. You didn’t read that blog? Well, shame on you! You’ve got to do your homework if you’re going to keep up with me and Moo.

What is A Jack Pine sonnet, you ask? Well, I don’t have a clue. But now that my other buddy, Ryan, has introduced me to AI, I will ask my AI what such a thing might be. Asking now. Hang on to your seats. It tells me it’s thinking. Aha! Here’s what I think it thinks it thinks.

AI says – A jackpine sonnet is an irregular, spikey poetic form created by Canadian poet Milton Acorn (from neighboring PEI), in the 1970’s. It typically acts as a 14-line sonnet with 7-13 syllables per line, but allows for flexible line counts (e.g., 12, 18, or 20), using internal and consecutive rhymes rather than strict, traditional rhyme schemes.

Key Aspects of the Jackpine Sonnet:

  • Origin: Developed by Milton Acorn, often known as the “People’s Poet,” as a uniquely Canadian, gritty form of expression.
  • Structure: While it aims for roughly 14 lines, it can vary in length based on the needs of the poem.
  • Rhyme and Rhythm: Uses internal rhymes (rhymes within a line) or consecutive end-rhymes (e.g., AABB) rather than standard sonnet structures.
  • Style: It is designed to be “irregular and spikey like a jack pine tree,” focusing on structure and integrity rather than rigid adherence to traditional verse rules.

So, now you know what a Jack Pine sonnet is. But I bet you’ve never heard of Milton Acorn! I have. Here’s the poem I wrote about one of my meetings with him. You can find it in The Nature of Art.

Milton Acorn

“Oy,” he waved strong carpenter’s hands, “Make this
work.” I typed in my code and the machine
came to life. “Go away,” he pushed me out
and slammed the copier room door behind my back.

Later, my secretary came in and caught him,
his face pressed to the glass. He pushed the button,
lights flashed, the machine whirred and copies emerged.

In his hand he held images of his feet,
arms, legs, head, all of his body parts.
“Tape, not masking, clear tape, 3M.”
Flustered she fled, brought Scotch tape,
watched as he stuck himself together.

Over lunch he showed me his work:
a self-portrait, shadowy and cloudy,
whiskered and worn, smelling still of printer’s ink.
That’s how I remember him: unique, stately,
unmistakeable, uncouth, unseemly:
a jack pine growing in its own self-image.

Farewell, my dear friend, Milton.
And that is how I remember you.

From Stage to Page

An unrolled parchment scroll showing a sunset windmill sketch on a wooden desk with a quill and inkwell.
A beautifully detailed scroll depicting windmills at sunset rests on a classic wooden desk alongside traditional writing tools.

Image generated by AI.

Ryan and Don Roger

4

Stage to Page

            So many questions – so much to say. Let us begin by stating that Cervantes is one of the most original novelists the world has known. Then we can continue by stating that, in spite of that, like Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, aka Molière, he is not above borrowing his material from other writers. When Molière was asked where he found sources for his plays, he replied “Je les prends où je les trouve.” Cervantes might well have said the same thing.

            The source of the first sortie of Don Quixote is a short play, an entremés, called El Entremés de los Romances. These short, entertaining pieces were often installed between acts of a longer pay to keep the audience amused during the breaks. In this particular one, an old man thinks he is a knight and travels forth quoting the old border ballads and ballads of chivalry as if they were historical truth. Mind you, some of them were, or pretty close to it, especially those that carried news of the reconquest, but not all of them were true by a long way. The old man goes too far with his chivalry, gets a beating, and comes back home, draped over his horse which is led by a neighbor. Sound familiar?

            In classical rhetoric, imitation – imitatio in Latin – was the highest compliment one could pay to another author as it meant he was worth imitating. Today, imitation is considered more a scourge to be avoided, although if you follow the crime and spy shows on TV you will know that the same, or very similar, incidents recur again and again, played out in different stories by different actors.

            So, Cervantes starts out by imitating an older stage play and turning it from a play into a short story. This is creativity, beyond imitation, in itself. In this theory, the first story is in fact a short story, meant originally to stand on its own. This is not my theory, incidentally, I have borrowed it from my own teacher, Geoffrey L. Stagg, the man who introduced me to the scientific study of the Quixote. Stagg took as his evidence the first edition of the book in which he discovered an anomaly. The last sentence of Chapter Five ends in a comma (in the original, and certainly not in my translation by J. M. Cohen. I first read this book in 1965 – 61 years later, it is held together by glue and Scotch tape, a bit like Don Quixote’s helmet and armour!). To continue, the first word of Chapter Six begins with a lower-case letter, as if that word were joined to the last in the previous chapter. The heading of Chapter Six also runs smoothly into that first word as if they were joined. This suggested that in fact the two chapters had been united in a single story and had later been separated as the idea of turning the story into a novel dawned on the author.

            But who is the author of Don Quixote? Miguel de Cervantes, obviously. But who is the narrator of the story? In the first sentence, this first person narrator states ‘a village in la Mancha that I do not wish to name – de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme in the original Spanish. AI helps us out here. I quote – “Miguel de Cervantes was likely imprisoned in Argamasilla de Alba (specifically in the Cueva de Medrano) around the turn of the 17th century due to disputes arising from his work as a tax collector, or potentially a local dispute with a nobleman. This confinement, stemming from financial irregularities or local drama, is traditionally believed to be where he began writing Don Quixote.”

No wonder Cervantes, the initial narrator, does not wish to name that particular town. A little later, in an effort to embrace the readers and draw them into the text, the narrator uses the first-person plural- our text, followed by we make take it … we do not depart.

We will return to the narrative structure of the novel on many occasions. For the moment, we will leave the matter there. In narrative structure, the real Cervantes is the author. Cervantes, named or unnamed, is the narrator and becomes a part of the narration. I should add that the 1605 version of Don Quixote contains many short stories, that have nothing, or very little to do, with Don Quixote himself. We will return to these intercalated novels, as they are called, when we meet them later in the text.

Riding Buddies – Reading Buddies

Ryan and Don Roger

1

Riding Buddies – Reading Buddies

            Don Quixote makes three sorties. The first is very brief, about five chapters. The second is much longer. And the third is 74 chapters in length. Each sortie is different. For now, I would like to take a brief glance the difference between Sortie 1 and Sortie 2.

            Sortie 1 – Don Quixote sets out on his own. He travels to an inn, has adventures there, gets knighted by the inn-keeper, albeit falsely, and after an unequal combat in which he is bruised and battered, he is brought back home by a neighbor.

            When the inn-keeper asks Don Quixote for payment, the knight replies that knights errant do not carry money with them, nor do they pay for their food and lodging. The inn-keeper recommends that Don Quixote find a squire to attend, one who can carry the money and the other things that a knight needs. Our knight takes this recommendation to heart.

            Sortie 2 – In this second sortie, Don Quixote has a companion. One of the main differences between the first and second sorties is that the knight now has a squire with whom he can talk. This dialog between knight and squire, master and servant, is key to the understanding of the novel.

            Their contrasting points of view, Don Quixote literate, a believer in reading, with a firm belief that all books of chivalry are true, contrasts immediately with the illiterate Sancho, his squire. Where Sancho sees reality – the windmills are windmills – Don Quixote sees illusion – the windmills are giants, waving their arms, and threatening to attack. This is a simplistic summary, but we will leave it there for now.

            Graham Green understood the nature of dialog when he penned his novel, Monsignor Quixote. In the film, available free of charge on YouTube, the Catholic Priest (now a Monsignor) and his friend, the Communist Mayor (now defeated in an election and unemployed) leave the little town in which they live, and set out on a journey of adventures, much in the same way that Monsignor Quixote’s namesake sets out in Cervantes’s novel.

They do not have a horse and a donkey. However, they do have Monsignor Quixote’s car, nicknamed, of course, Rocinante, in which to travel. The key to Green’s novel is the constant dialog between the mayor, knowledgeable in the ways of the world, and Monsignor Quixote, innocent of the world outside his church and full of illusions about the reality of that world. It is easy to think of them as riding buddies who converse.

            So, what is a reading buddy? Well, Don Quixote is a long book, over 1000 pages, with 127 chapters. Many readers set out in search of adventure, but do not keep reading. However, a wise reader will set out on that journey with a reading buddy, who will travel with him, step by step, chapter by chapter. Each will keep the other company, and one of the delights of the journey will be the constant conversation between the reading buddies.

            I am Don Roger. My reading buddy is Ryan. I am short and stout. Ryan is tall and thin. We have reversed the Sancho / Quixote image, but we are both equally insatiable in our search for knowledge. The curious thing is that I have read Don Quixote 28 items, mainly in Spanish, but also in English and French. Ryan is reading it for the first time, but he is an expert in AI access and is helping me to understand the wily ways of that electronic world of short cuts. Of course, it helps you to sort the chaff from the grain when you know what you are looking for and just use AI to refresh your fading memory!

            I am full of the illusions of the academy. Ryan reads with a sharp mind, a keen wit, and no illusions at all. He sees only the reality of what is there. Together we have embarked on a journey that is in the process of opening our eyes to two different realities his and mine – Ryan’s and Don Roger’s. The conversations that we are having along the way, will be the subject of this little discourse on Cervantes’s novel.

Rage, Rage 44 & 45

Rage, Rage
44

But all is not lost.
Highlights of the day:
waking to birdsong,
making it safely to the bathroom,
shaving without cutting my face.

I step high to get into the shower
and wash my body
without dropping the soap.

I emerge
without slipping or falling
thanks to the safety rails
Extra-Mural
inserted in the walls.

I stand on the bath mat
and dry with my towel
those parts of the body
that are now
so difficult to reach,
especially between
my far-off toes.

45

I pull my shirt over
still-wet, sticky patches,
damp from the shower,
and negotiate each trouser leg
without catching
my toe nails in a fold.

I tug at the pulleys
of the machine
that helps my socks
to glide onto my feet.

I force those swollen feet
into undersize shoes
and hobble
to the top of the stairs.

Banister in one hand,
cane in the other,
I lurch down them,
descending with caution
one step at a time.

Comment:

I lurch down the stairs, descending with caution, one step at a time. Indeed I do. That whole process of getting up, washing, dressing, going down stairs, takes me a good half hour, sometimes more. I do things in order, one after another, each step the same every day. That way, I remember everything and forget nothing. Easier said than done! I often forget something, or do something out of order, and then I get muddled and I stand there befuddled. Muddled and befuddled. Not a good way to start the day.

Moo sometimes visits and watches me as I struggle with my clothes. He has been known to help, especially when my back is still wet and my shirt won’t go on, or my feet get stuck in my pants or my socks. Usually, though, he’s very good. He sits or stands there quietly, just watching. I think some of his paintings come from some of my struggles. I know the titles do. When I am muddled and befuddled he says I am all shook up. he says that’s where the painting comes from. I’m not so sure about that. I think he has a secret liking for Elvis Presley.

Funny going back over those old songs from the fifties and sixties. Long gone are the days when boarding school boys stuck their chewing gum on their bedposts overnight. I remember when we used to dare each other to sing ‘does your chewing gum lose its flavor’ in the school chapel during the morning service. I remember once having a bet with a friend how many Hallelujahs there were in the Hallelujah chorus. We dared each other to sing the number we chose. His number was higher than mine, and I remember his voice, singing out a lone solo Hallelujah and shattering the deafening silence of the packed school chapel.

And those limericks – “There was a young boy in the choir, whose voice rose up higher and higher. One Saturday night it rose right out of sight and we found it next day on the spire.” And that might be the only non-filthy Limerick that this old man can remember. Oh dear – all those songs we sang on the school bus!

Rage, Rage 38

Rage, Rage
38

Now, my heart is once more
a time-bomb ticking
beneath her fingers.

I dream of walking tall,
with her by my side,
in the youthful paradise
of a distant,
long-promised land.

My tom-tom heart,
softening clay,
putty beneath her fingers,
thumps out a hoodoo
voodoo beat on its drum.

Victor Sylvester,
and his orchestra,
Sundays on BBC radio,
announces his signature rhythm –
slow, slow, quick, quick, slow –
my mind waltzes to the music
plucked from my heart strings.

Wild winds blow in from the shore
buffeting my heart, breaking it apart.
Blown open, in spite of my dreams,
my secret is not a secret anymore.

Comment:

Absent without leave, I have chased the dreams of rugby and cricket and abandoned my poetry until another today. And here I am, a week after St. David’s Day, still dreaming, still raging, still recalling so many things.

Wild winds blow in from the shore buffeting my heart, breaking it apart. You can see, in the photo above, the wind tugging at the waves. A lurid sky fills with heavy clouds and oncoming rain. My heart is out there somewhere, wave-washed, blown open by the simple beauty of wind and sea.

How many now recall Victor Sylvester on BBC Radio on a Sunday afternoon? Or the Billy Cotton Band Show? That was our Sunday afternoon entertainment long before we had TV. You can’t imagine it, can you? A world without TV. So many things fade away from far too many people.

Who now will talk of my Voce and my Larwood, long ago? How many saw Hammond at his best, with his imperial cover drive? Ken Jones? Cliff Jones? JJ and JPR? Lloyd and Bleddyn? Old visions, buffet my heart, breaking it apart. Frank Worrall in Swansea at St. Helen’s. Everton De Courcy Weekes at Bristol, in the County Ground. I have the photos. I have the memories. And I have a broken heart when I remember things, some personal, some not, that so few people do.

Rage, Rage 34

Rage, Rage
34

A squiggle of spaghetti
or twisted noodles,
that’s what my brain
has become.

My second-hand mind
is a hand-me-down,
an antipersonnel bomb
from another place
and a distant time.

Blind, in so many ways,
with nowhere I want to go,
my soon-to-end days
lie humped on my shoulders,
weighing me down
as I limp along.

Comment:

You can blame my friend Moo for the painting. “That’s my view of your brain,” he told me. “A squiggle of spaghetti or twisted noodles.” I think his painting looks like what my Beloved, courtesy of Corrie Street (as was), calls a Spag Bowl. Funny how easy it is to become muddled and confused as we age. Did I shut the back door? Double-check. Yes, I did. And you can multiply that to the power of N (or DR – for don’t remember!). And what about those windmills that wave their arms in my mind? Will that be cash or “Charge!”

Re-reading the Quixote, side by side with a very good friend, I forget some of the ideas that I once had. I try to read my penciled marginal notes. What fun! First, I can hardly read them. Second, I can hardly understand them. And third, I have to reinvent what they might possibly have told me. All good fun. But sometimes, at the end of a session, my mind feels like the bodies of Don Quixote, Sancho, and Rocinante, after their meeting with the Yanguesans – battered, bruised, and beaten! Why, can someone kindly tell me, did Cervantes treat his two main characters to such frequent and brutal assaults?

Ah well, Friday today, and Friday is fish – not Spag Bowl. Are scallops fish? Not when they are sliced off your body with a razor-sharp sword. But then, I doubt if Quixote’s sword was razor sharp. It was probably vencida de la edad – conquered by age – just like he was. Conquered? No, not yet. Happily, I just limp along, however slowly. Ah yes, I forgot. I need a name for my Nexus. Maybe I’ll call it Rocinante, like DQ’s horse.