desultory

I know this word, but I never use it. Probably because I keep forgetting it exists, not to mention forgetting what it means. That’s sad. Gonna fix that.

Definition of desultory:
1. “Having no set plan; haphazard or random.”
2. “Moving or jumping from one thing to another; disconnected: a desultory speech.” (answers.com).

Where I ran across it:
7/13/08 NYT article, “Happy Birthday, Milton” by Stanley Fish

“…Milton’s poetry never lets you relax . Even when one of the famous similes wanders down what appears to be a desultory path of mythical allusions and idealized landscapes, it always returns you in the end to the moral perspective that had only apparently been suspended.…”

My two cents:
I’ve been aware of the word, “desultory” since the 60s when I was a budding boomer and Simon and Garfunkel were strumming away, singing “A Simple Desultory Philippic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission).” Man, those were the days. They just don’t write ‘em like they used to. Where have all the flowers gone, anyway?

Stanley Fish’s column in yesterday's NYT is his report from London’s Ninth International Milton Symposium, where a bunch of professional John Milton-ophiles gather every year to whoop it up and have a rockin’ good time with 17^th century literature. Woh. Maybe this crowd, and Fish's column, are just a tad over-the-top-cerebral, but that's ok. They made me realize I didn’t know much about Milton, and I don’t recall ever reading his epic poem, “Paradise Lost,” (remember, Art School vs. Harvard?). So, I’ve just been on a merry lark of my own at PinkMonkey.com to read the annotated version. Really interesting. Milton is pretty deep. And wide. Heaven and Hell and Eternity and all that. Dante’s got nothin’ on this guy.

Fully edified, I then skipped off to research my boys, S&G, and their curious song from my nostalgic past. Check out what I found at Random House’s Word of the Day website (quoting here):

“In Roman times, a desultor was a skilled horseman who could vault from horse to horse mid-gallop--a fitting image for a conversational ‘leaper’ who flits from topic to topic.

A Philippic (spelled with one l and usually capitalized) is a spoken or written diatribe against whatever it is you feel that strongly about--be it a person, an idea, or a course of action, although the term Philippic was originally confined to a denunciation of a person. It comes from Demosthenes’ 4th century B.C. orations against Philip, the king of Macedon (who was the father of Alexander the Great), delivered to the men of Athens.

Paul Simon’s 1966 lyrics for ‘A Simple Desultory Philippic, or How I was Robert McNamara’d Into Submission’ are a little different from his 1964 version, which is in the Paul Simon Songbook. That one has Lyndon Johnson in the subtitle, and is a little nastier. Robert McNamara - President Johnson’s Secretary for Defense, one of his three special advisors on the growing war in Vietnam and arguably the most disastrous of the trio - replaced Lyndon Johnson in the song’s lengthy subtitle on the 1966 Simon & Garfunkel album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme.

Here are the first and last verses:

I been Norman Mailered, Maxwell Taylored.
I been John O'Hara'd, McNamara'd.
I been Rolling Stoned and Beatled till I'm blind.
I been Ayn Randed, nearly branded
Communist, 'cause I'm left-handed.
That's the hand I use, well, never mind!
...
I been Mick Jaggered, silver daggered.
Andy Warhol, won't you please come home?
I been mothered, fathered, aunt and uncled,
Been Roy Haleed and Art Garfunkeled.
I just discovered somebody's tapped my phone.”

Granted, Milton and his 17th century poetry are certainly a trip. But so are Simon & Garfunkel, and the 60s. Now those were the days, my friend. (But that's another song, altogether.)

And I think I just wrote a desultory blog entry. Why, yes, yes I did.