assertive raven NSW

The man says bad words. Video description says he is waiting outside at the DMV

Our DMV on Mississippi is a riot. 

The written exam and the driving test have been dumbed down to make more people eligible. Kind of like the NYT crosswords is now loaded with brand names and pop culture references, and Jeopardy! is loaded up with goofy categories. The two driving tests used to be serious but now they are not. There used to be a good chance you might even fail. Now there is no sense to studying, just go.

I was compelled to go, the last time I went. The state decided upon renewal that we all need new photo licenses but they did not say that is their reason for calling us in. I wondered after it all why they didn't just say so, why they kept us all in the dark as to why we are being called in unnecessarily. Did we do something wrong? The state has a good and informative website, but they failed to say, "oh we just want a new picture of you." They knew it would be subverted if they did. I would have subverted, at least got myself up, not dragged in from the summer heat.  They gave me no chance to subvert, not knowing the only thing they wanted was a new photograph. At the decision making level, what manipulative bastards.

Whereas everybody is so nice at the DMV it's incredible. They treated me like gold.

The whole interior is changed. I said to the first woman I encountered, "I like what you've done to the place," although I was indifferent to what they did to the place. She answered, "Wait till you get into it. They messed it up worse." And they did. Now you wait for each individual step as a herd instead of being ushered through the process once your number is picked. Now your number must be picked four or five times, but I did not know that at the beginning. She continued "go to one of those kiosks back there that you passed and ..." 

I didn't see a kiosk. 

I know what a kiosk is, I know what one looks like.

Or perhaps like a little hut. Like a one-day photo developer hut. She points to the kiosks but I still do not see them.  This not recognizing a kiosk along with my daft opening remark caused the woman to regard me as slow and in need extra assistance. She got up and walked with me back to what I had just passed to one of a few input stations set upon an upright much like this. I said, "Oh!" Nothing at all like a hut. And now she's convinced I'm retarded and in need of help attaining a license. She enters my information for me and directs me to the next station. 

A large group of people is seated waiting as I walk in my stately upright manner a bit beaten by summer heat but not all that shabby, I didn't think, my steps carefully measured with two canes that have handles that fit my left and right hand, very careful on polished floors because it would be disastrously embarrassing to fall in front of seated spectators like that. It wouldn't be long I expected. I do need to stand and move. Then suddenly a man who for all the world looks like a giant gay biker stands up from his seat and with a gracious sweep of his arm asserts affirmatively, "Sir. Have this chair." 

Such a gentleman. Do I look that bad? Shit. "Thank you! I think they're going to call my number soon." 

He sat back down. I stood only a minute, they called. I chatted it up with the guy taking information. Incredibly responsive conversationally. He was a very nice person. Then waited again.

Then chatted it up with the next person. This is the last for the photo. Incredibly responsive conversationally. She was a very nice person. But now the supervisor is unhappy with my chatting it up and whispered a direction into her ear and she stopped.  I waited again. Then, name called again, then pay, then wait again, then photo, then gone. 

Poem

Dear my friend and fellow student, I would lean my spirit o'er you!
Down the purple of this chamber, tears should scarcely run at will.
I am humbled who was humble. Friend, -- I bow my head before you.
You should lead me to my peasants, -- but their faces are too still. 

There's a lady -- an earl's daughter, -- she is proud and she is noble,
And she treads the crimson carpet, and she breathes the perfumed air,
And a kingly blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble,
And the shadow of a monarch's crown is softened in her hair. 

She has halls among the woodlands, she has castles by the breakers,
She has farms and she has manors, she can threaten and command,
And the palpitating engines snort in steam across her acres,
As they mark upon the blasted heaven the measure of the land. 

There are none of England's daughters who can show a prouder presence;
Upon princely suitors praying, she has looked in her disdain.
She was sprung of English nobles, I was born of English peasants;
What was I that I should love her -- save for competence to pain?

That is the beginning of Lady Geraldine's Courtship, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and you can tell, because you are clever, it sounds a lot like the Raven. I didn't want to say the name first because you'd be put off immediately.

Poe said it was the basis for the Raven. Admired it, raved about it, *ducks* in fact, copied it, and thankfully kept his a lot shorter.

lines 1-100 here, if you care to follow, and it goes on. And by on, I mean on and on, takes 4 more pages to line 412.

Thus, her foot upon the new-mown grass, bareheaded, with the flowing
Of the virginal white vesture gathered closely to her throat, --
And the golden ringlets in her neck just quickened by her going,
And appearing to breathe sun for air, and doubting if to float, -- 

With a branch of dewy maple, which her right hand held above her,
And which trembled a green shadow in betwixt her and the skies,
As she turned her face in going, thus, she drew me on to love her,
And to worship the divineness of the smile hid in her eyes.

Goodness. It is the sort of thing that once you get going it becomes hard to stop, the drumbeat keeps drumming and your story keeps telling itself. Poe said he liked the internal rhymes and the alliteration. That's what Wikipedia says Poe said.

Let's skip to somewhere in the 200's to see what Lady Geraldine gets up to. Because this is important! It is the person Flip Wilson based his character on.

Oops. Picked one where he's talking about himself, the poet. So a different one.

Oh, to see or hear her singing! scarce I know which is divinest --
For her looks sing too -- she modulates her gestures on the tune;
And her mouth stirs with the song, like song; and when the notes are finest
'Tis the eyes that shoot out vocal light and seem to sell them on. 

Then we talked -- oh, how we talked! her voice, so cadenced in the talking,
Made another singing -- of the soul! a music without bars;
While the leafy sounds of woodlands, humming round where we were walking,
Brought interposition worthy-sweet, -- as skies about the stars.

Dreamy.

Let's skip again to something in the 300's

I plucked up her social fictions, bloody-rooted though leaf-verdant, --
Trod them down with words of shaming, -- all the purple and the gold,
All the 'landed stakes' and lordships, all, that spirits pure and ardent
Are cast out of love and honour because chancing not to hold. 

'For myself I do not argue,' said I, 'though I love you, madam,
But for better souls that nearer to the height of yours have trod;
And this age shows, to my thinking, still more infidels to Adam,
Than directly, by profession, simple infidels to God.

Wow. I can see why Poe was impressed. But honestly, this is too many words for me, I can't hold it.

But what happens? Skip to the end.

Ever, evermore the while in a slow silence she kept smiling,
While the silver tears ran faster down the blushing of her cheeks;
Then with both her hands enfolding both of his, she softly told him,
'Bertram, if I say I love thee,. . . 'tis the vision only speaks.' 

Softened, quickened to adore her, on his knee he fell before her --
And she whispered low in triumph, 'It shall be as I have sworn!
Very rich is he in virtues, -- very noble -- noble, certes;
And I shall not blush in knowing that men call him lowly born.'

He proposes, she accepts. Aaaah. I am deeply moved. Even skimming it, that's how shallow I am. I only wanted to know about it not know all about it inside and out.