Cignetti, Rossetti, &c.

On football, poetry, and music; Donald Trump and Norway; a Harbaugh in New York; and more

School spirit, Hoosier-style (Indiana University)

People keep using the word “storybook,” and rightly. Coach Curt Cignetti and the Indiana Hoosiers have had a storybook season in college football.

Isn’t Indiana supposed to be a basketball school?

Cignetti, in his second season at IU, led the team to the national championship. They went 16–0, these guys. That is beyond Cinderella.

I was moved to verse, publishing the following on social media:

The head of Curt Cignetti
Should be showered by confetti.
He deserves a line
Much better than mine—
Perhaps by Christina Rossetti.

Rossetti, an Englishwoman, despite her name, lived from 1830 to 1894. She was not the only poet in the family: there was also Dante Gabriel Rossetti, an older brother of hers (who lived from 1828 to 1882).

Many years ago, I learned a poem by Christina, “Echo,” which really plays with the senses. I re-read it the other night, for the first time in ages.

The poem begins, “Come to me in the silence of the night / Come in the speaking silence of a dream.” And it ends,

Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Quick aside: This poem, like others I have quoted in my column, has indentations. Important indentations. But I can’t get them to stick, here on Substack.

So, I apologize to you and, most of all, to the poets.

Anyway, as I was looking over “Echo,” my eyes fastened on two words: “Speak low.” Is that where Ogden Nash got the phrase?

“Speak Low” comes from One Touch of Venus, the musical that Kurt Weill wrote with Nash (1943). The song begins, “Speak low, when you speak love.” It has been a favorite of jazz singers, classical singers, and other singers for generations.

Nash was a learned man, and he for sure knew a lot of poetry. I wonder whether “Speak low” was in his head because of Christina Rossetti’s poem.

I’d love to ask him. (Maybe he talked about it. Dunno.)

Do you want to hear Sarah Vaughan in “Speak Low”? Here. And here is Ella Fitzgerald, at the end of her career, with Joe Pass (the guitarist). And here is a classical singer, the great Swedish mezzo Anne Sofie von Otter.

Three different “looks” at an enduring song.

Hang on, weren’t we talking about football? (We will again, before this column is out.)

***

In 2010, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded its peace prize to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident and political prisoner. (He died, still a prisoner, in 2017.) Liu received the award in absentia, obviously.

The Chinese government was furious—at the Norwegian government. The Nobel committee is independent of the government, as the government tried to explain, over and over. But to no avail. The Chinese government punished Norway over the prize to Liu.

Beijing froze diplomatic relations, canceled trade, and so on.

We get, now, to our president, Donald Trump—who sent a text message to Norway’s prime minister, Jonas Gahr Støre, saying,

Considering your Country decided not to give me the Nobel Peace Prize for having stopped 8 Wars PLUS, I no longer feel an obligation to think purely of Peace, although it will always be predominant, but can now think about what is good and proper for the United States of America.

At the end of his text, Trump said,

The World is not secure unless we have Complete and Total Control of Greenland.

There are many things to say about the president’s words (shouldn’t a president always think about “what is good and proper for the United States of America”?), but I will move on.

Like the Chinese Communist Party, Trump will not believe that the Norwegian Nobel Committee is independent of the Norwegian government. He said, “If anybody thinks that Norway doesn’t control the Nobel prize, they’re just kidding. They have a board, but it’s controlled by Norway, and I don’t care what Norway says.”

This may be what psychologists call “projection.” Trump may believe that the prime minister controls the Nobel Peace Prize the way he himself controls, say, the Kennedy Center.

The Republican Party has nominated Trump for president three times in a row. Never before had the GOP nominated anyone for president three times in a row. The American people elected him twice.

Can we be proud that, through Trump, we are now in the company of the Chinese government, where the Nobel Peace Prize is concerned? Doesn’t that give a person pause?

(Those interested in the history of the prize might consult my book Peace, They Say.)

***

President Trump is forming something called the “Board of Peace,” meant to oversee Gaza. He himself will chair it. If countries want to join the board, they will have to pay $1 billion for the privilege.

To whom? That is unclear to me.

Trump has invited Vladimir Putin to join the board—because nothing says “peace” like “Putin,” right? He has also invited the little Putin in Belarus—Alexander Lukashenko—to join the board.

One who is saying no to the board is President Emmanuel Macron of France. The American president did not take kindly to this.

As a report says,

Donald Trump on Monday threatened 200 percent tariffs on French wine and champagne over France’s intentions to decline the US leader’s invitation to join his “Board of Peace.”

We have completed only one year of Mr. Trump’s current term.

***

Care for a little language? And fun with names? (Those are two of the mainstays of my column, which began way back in March 2001.) The new mayor of Saint Paul is Kaohly Her, a Hmong American.

A friend of mine writes,

Jay, after reading you on “I” vs. “me” the other day, I got to thinking about Mayor Her. The headlines could be dizzying: “Her plans to raise taxes.” “Her hires two new staffers.”

The mayor of the other twin city, Minneapolis, is Jacob Frey. If the two mayors shared a plan, it would be his and Her’s.

***

Another friend writes,

I’m glad for you that John Harbaugh is coming to New York, but as a fan of the Whatever the Redskins Are Calling Themselves This Week, I can only say, “Ah, crap.”

My homeboy, John, will now be the coach of the New York Giants. (His brother Jim coaches on the other side of the country, in Los Angeles.) I have lived in New York for nearly 30 years and have never really been able to root for a New York team. But now I will.

Unless they play the Lions, that is. (You can take the kid out of Michigan, but ...)

***

Care for a touch of music? Here’s a review of the New York Philharmonic, in works by Schumann and Tchaikovsky. Some interesting issues arise.

***

When I was growing up, there was a popular children’s book, The Snowy Day. (Magical thing, as I recall.) Well, this was a snowy evening, in ol’ New York:

Thank you for joining me, my friends. ’ppreciate you.