An Advanced Conservative Liberal

I was lunching with the Poet Laureate at Miller's Pub today, a marvelous establishment where the panels are oak, the staff wears fancy coats, the gin is Hendrick's, and for $10.75 you can get a massive meal fit for a king with barbecue sauce almost as good as the Royal Oaks. And in a conversation mostly about writing, I described my Trollope project, which he listened to with much interest (though not as much as I showed for his). What I didn't tell him was the crux of the matter, driven home to me now upon the completion of The Duke's Children, the twelfth and last installment of the Barchester/Palliser saga: what does it mean to be a conservative liberal?

This is actually not a contradiction. There is a way of thinking Trollope is trying to portray in these books, which he set up appropriately enough after the terrific The Way We Live Now (which both Newsweek and Vanity Fair described last year as the best novel about 2009 America despite being written in 1874 Britain), in which a country's identity and well-being are attached to the combination of perpetuating the national character and institutions while taking one step after another to making this character accessible to more and more people of every class. The status quo is not something to be revered as we revere God, and it is also not something to be discarded. It must change with the times, and the method of life must be updated, but the basic premises and principles which made these institutions and with it the nation great must keep their spirit. This is something which neither the most diehard Obama supporters, in their rush to change everything they don't believe in, nor the Tea Partiers in their march forward to the 18^th Century are willing to admit to.

That paragraph was one strand of the book which I hope to spend the next five years working on. Another will deal with a clear progression from Mr. Harding's introduction to the Duke of Omnium's acceptance of a changing world, how individuals cannot live outside the grain of society, how it is beyond them and keeps getting beyond them as the world changes and shrinks and becomes more democratic. How a human being should conduct themselves in the world they live in.

The last, of course, will be of Trollope's life as a citizen of 1855-1880 England and a world traveler, fulfilling Reverend Bignall's aforementioned claim that the role of the humanist is to introduce the Other world with its Other ideas to our own world, to spark minds and help them grow in inspiration and wonder.

Trollope certainly would have approved, and I feel proud to have this chance to give him his due. And if someone reads this and steals the idea, well, I still will have helped give Trollope his due. But I hope not, because nobody else can write about him like I can. And there's a lot of Palliser in me: the advanced conservative liberalism, the thin skin, the desire to do good for others. But he only had one Glencora. Between Mommy and the S.O. and the Earth Mother and the Drama Queen, I have too many Glencoras to handle. However, that's a blessing.

OTHER MAGNIFICENCE

This I will keep secret, for it is not my own idea. But today the Poet Laureate shared with me the most viable idea I've ever heard for a Robert Bolt-style screenplay in this decade. My mouth was salivating as much as it did when I tasted that barbecue sauce.

George Steinbrenner died, and so did Bob Sheppard. I wrote to George with my condolences. But I was a bit more struck when another New Yorker, Tuli Kupferberg, passed away. The world always needs a social activist with a sense of humor. There are so few…

And as a lover of the beautiful American game and a respecter of its history, I can honestly say I never was an anti-Steinbrenner man. He was loud and arrogant, but he poured all his resources into restoring the Yankees to glory…twice. Even the Clevelander in me respects that.

Memo to job scammers on Craig's List. Come on! Don't claim to be writing from a corporation, then put a smiley face and a request for a credit score in one lengthy paragraph with no signs of professionalism!

The Tall Guy made me think about going back to school…bartending school, that is. If a really cool Div School Ph. D. candidate can do it, so can I!!!

I heard two radio stations simultaneously playing "That's All" at the gym this morning…but I also heard one truly fantastic song I'm linking to…