Time is running out before the end of International Kissing Day, so I had best get a post up and quick. Unfortunately, I have used up pretty much all of my good kissing thoughts and quotes in the runup last year (see posts here) so I don't have a lot to generate in the way of new content. At least not blog-content.

But, if at all possible, celebrate in the obvious fashion.

Pejman Yousefzadeh proposes a Solomonic compromise to bridge the miscommunication about first-date kisses. [Amber Taylor, Brock Sides, PG, and Dan Moore champion them; I am all in favor of kisses, but wish to make clear that the error costs are high, so shy folks sometimes err on the side of caution]

Anyway: Pejman's proposed solution is for the gentleman to take the lady's hand at the close of the evening and kiss it. He suggests this is an etiquette violation (hands should be offered, not grabbed) but this isn't the species of hand-kiss etiquette recognizes anyway. The kiss-on-the-hand recognized by etiquette is not supposed to be a half-strength substitute for a kiss on the lips. It's a form of non-romantic greeting from European gentleman to married lady (and the hand isn't actually kissed; that's an optical illusion).

The romantic hand-kiss is a creature of spontaneity, and isn't a solution here. If a romantic kiss is unwanted, it is unwanted, and moving it from lip to hand to elbow will hardly make it better. Indeed, it smacks too much of the bad-- but too tempting-- tactic of making physical contact by a series of slow, carefully plotted, and seemingly unintentional degrees. (He places his hand on her shoulder whenever he laughs, he brushes against her too frequently, etc.)

I am all for circumspection, but if one is going to work up the wherewithal to make the first romantic kiss, there is no point in the half-measure. It is no less invasive.

Amber Taylor insists that those who don't kiss on the first date will be interpreted as uninterested. Ack! So much the worse for those who are shy, or merely very very reluctant to make bold moves that might be undesired. I think I remember some interesting discussion of when an un-desired kiss constitutes an assault but have forgotten the source.

The trouble is a vast heterogeneity of expectations and symbolic language. Miss Manners, for example, condumns not just un-requested first-date kisses, but also hugs [2/14/01]:

Dear Miss Manners:

Participation in a dating service has yielded me a dozen first dates in the past few months, and they have been wonderful fun. However, at the conclusion of the dates, the men typically want to hug.

While I believe their intent is innocent, I find the expectation of a hug from someone I have known for just a few hours to be both presumptuous and inappropriate, and I am growing increasingly uncomfortable with the situation.

When I try to preempt their gesture by extending my hand for a handshake, these men either overlook it, discount it or just open their arms and lean in, regardless of my reluctance.

What can I do to graciously decline these advances for a hug (and in some cases, a kiss, too) while letting the man know I've enjoyed his company and leaving the door open for a second date?

Many people now confuse a hug with a handshake. Almost as many as those who confuse a date with an assignation.

Miss Manners doesn't know which sort of confusion afflicts your new friends. Perhaps both. The two are not as mutually exclusive as logic might suggest.

But as you like these gentlemen anyway, she will not consider a solution that would permanently disabuse them of the desire to hug you. Reaching back to times that moved more slowly, she suggests that you jump back and say provocatively, "Oh dear, I never hug on the first date."

I have had the first few measures of Lester Young's This Year's Kisses stuck in my head for the better part of a week now-- it has a delicious addictiveness to put most modern pop to shame. (I don't much care for the song's lyrics at the moment, but luckily Young is a saxophonist, and thus his song features no words.)


This will necessitate a re-jiggering of my DC Jazz cd. (Friend of Crescat Mark Shawhan pointed out to me another inexcusable lack-- Miles Davis's All Blues).

But what to sacrifice? Probably one of the Basie tunes, the Loussier (I love him, but it isn't summer commuting music), and if need be, Lester Leaps In.

Van drank a glass of milk and suddenly felt such a wave of delicious exhaustion invading his limbs that he thought he'd go straight to bed. "Tant pis," said Ada, reaching voraciously for the keks (English fruit cake). "Hammock?" she inquired; but tottering Van shook his head, and having kissed Marina's melancholy hand, retired.
"Tant pis," repeated Ada, and with invincible appetite started to smear butter all over the yolk-tinted rough surface and rich incrustrations-- raisins, angelica, candied cherry, cedrat-- of a thick slice of cake.
"I wonder," asked Marina, "how many miles you rode to have our athlete drained so thoroughly."
"Only seven," replied Ada with a munch smile.

A few final links in the aftermath of International Kissing Day:

Amber Taylor rounds up myriad links.

The Curmudgeonly Clerk shows why an Idaho jury's decision that "stealing a kiss is not a crime" is suspect (as I had hoped he would).

Spencer at Mediocrity's Co-Pilot complains that kissing people can lead one to be obligated to see them again, and-- even if you like seeing them-- that obligation is a cost. Two reponses to that: 1) if that is a problem, International Kissing Day seems to slightly alleviate it, since it can be used as an excuse for those who prefer to kiss-and-run ("oh, that was on Kissing Day..."). 2) romantic obligations (implied or explicit) are a mixed bag. On one hand, there's some obvious sense in which having the option to do A or to do B is strictly preferable to being forced to do A or forced to B. On the other hand, making promises to do things (even things you wanted to do anyway) makes people trust you, encourages them to rely on you, and can increase the chance of their coming around for you in the future. It's especially hard to tell which of these factors prevail in the case of something as versatile as a kiss, which is perhaps one of the least binding forms of romantic commitment known to man.

Finally, Waddling Thunder recognizes (even if he does not completely admit) the link between the kiss-blogging he has grown tired of, and the physical pleasures of which he will never grow tired. His comments on the curiosity of hugging ("Are they testing their strength? Seeing if they could kill their huggee if necessary?") are brilliant.

It is, of course, International Kissing Day, and thus by rights it ought to be time for one last kissing poem before cooling our jets a tad.

Alas, I've used up almost all of my good ones here and here and here and here and here (and long ago here (and longer ago here)).

But I think I have one last such poem up my sleeve to play against the curmudgeons (and it's not Catullus's call to "love and not give tuppence for the mutterence of old men's tut-tutterence.") [Note, incidentally, that nothing in International Kissing Day promotes public kissing, a much more dubious (if sometimes seductive) vice.]

Drunk as Drunk, by Pablo Neruda

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made out of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it-- our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal--
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And Equinox, drowzy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

Happy Kissing Day, all -- a Scottish Ballad, loosely related to kissing, but with kissing nonetheless. I posted it because the ballad itself, in my ears, is beautiful. I recommend the Baltimore Consort's rendition, found here. Anyhow, the text follows -- as found here (the tune -- in, as far as I can tell, MIDI format -- is also present on the website itself, although I'd reserve judgment until after hearing the Baltimore Consort):

The Three Ravens
or, The Twa Corbies
There were three ra'ens sat on a tree,
Down a down, hey down, hey down,
They were as black as black might be,
With a down.
The one of them said to his mate,
Where shall we our breakfast take?
With a down, derry, derry, derry down, down

Down in yonder green field,
Down, a down, hey down, hey down,
There lies a knight slain 'neath his shield,
With a down.
His hounds they lie down at his feet,
So well they do their master keep,
With a down, derry, derry, derry down, down.

His hawks they fly so eagerly,
Down a down, hey down, hey down,
No other fowl dare come him night,
With a down.
Down there comes a fallow doe
As great with young as might she go
With a down, derry, derry, derry down, down

She lifted up his bloody head,
Down a down, hey down, hey down,
And kissed his wounds that were so red,
With a down.
She got him up upon her back,
And carried him to earthen lake,
With a down, derry, derry, derry down, down

She buried him before the prime
Down a down, hey down, hey down,
She was dead herself ere e'en-song time,
With a down.
God send every gentleman,
Such hawks, such hounds, and such a leman.
With a down, derry, derry, derry down, down

Tomorrow is International Kissing Day (for related issues, see here), so it's time for another poem. Since I spent nearly all of yesterday lolling and lollygagging in the sun or zooming along highways 50, 404, and 495, I had some trouble dreding up a good one for today. Luckily, friend of Crescat Dimitrity Masterov has come through:
When We with Sappho, by Kenneth Rexroth

“. . . about the cool water
the wind sounds through sprays
of apple, and from the quivering leaves
slumber pours down . . .”

We lie here in the bee filled, ruinous
Orchard of a decayed New England farm,
Summer in our hair, and the smell
Of summer in our twined bodies,
Summer in our mouths, and summer
In the luminous, fragmentary words
Of this dead Greek woman.
Stop reading. Lean back. Give me your mouth.
Your grace is as beautiful as sleep.
You move against me like a wave
That moves in sleep.
Your body spreads across my brain
Like a bird filled summer;
Not like a body, not like a separate thing,
But like a nimbus that hovers
Over every other thing in all the world.
Lean back. You are beautiful,
As beautiful as the folding
Of your hands in sleep.

We have grown old in the afternoon.
Here in our orchard we are as old
As she is now, wherever dissipate
In that distant sea her gleaming dust
Flashes in the wave crest
Or stains the murex shell.
All about us the old farm subsides
Into the honey bearing chaos of high summer.
In those far islands the temples
Have fallen away, and the marble
Is the color of wild honey.
There is nothing left of the gardens
That were once about them, of the fat
Turf marked with cloven hooves.
Only the sea grass struggles
Over the crumbled stone,
Over the splintered steps,
Only the blue and yellow
Of the sea, and the cliffs
Red in the distance across the bay.
Lean back.
Her memory has passed to our lips now.
Our kisses fall through summer’s chaos
In our own breasts and thighs.

Gold colossal domes of cumulus cloud
Lift over the undulant, sibilant forest.
The air presses against the earth.
Thunder breaks over the mountains.
Far off, over the Adirondacks,
Lightning quivers, almost invisible
In the bright sky, violet against
The grey, deep shadows of the bellied clouds.
The sweet virile hair of thunder storms
Brushes over the swelling horizon.
Take off your shoes and stockings.
I will kiss your sweet legs and feet
As they lie half buried in the tangle
Of rank scented midsummer flowers.
Take off your clothes. I will press
Your summer honeyed flesh into the hot
Soil, into the crushed, acrid herbage
Of midsummer. Let your body sink
Like honey through the hot
Granular fingers of summer.

Rest. Wait. We have enough for a while.
Kiss me with your mouth
Wet and ragged, your mouth that tastes
Of my own flesh. Read to me again
The twisting music of that language
That is of all others, itself a work of art.
Read again those isolate, poignant words
Saved by ancient grammarians
To illustrate the conjugations
And declensions of the more ancient dead.
Lean back in the curve of my body,
Press your bruised shoulders against
The damp hair of my body.
Kiss me again. Think, sweet linguist,
In this world the ablative is impossible.
No other one will help us here.
We must help ourselves to each other.
The wind walks slowly away from the storm;
Veers on the wooded crests; sounds
In the valleys. Here we are isolate,
One with the other; and beyond
This orchard lies isolation,
The isolation of all the world.
Never let anything intrude
On the isolation of this day,
These words, isolate on dead tongues,
This orchard, hidden from fact and history,
These shadows, blended in the summer light,
Together isolate beyond the world’s reciprocity.

Do not talk any more. Do not speak.
Do not break silence until
We are weary of each other.
Let our fingers run like steel
Carving the contours of our bodies’ gold.
Do not speak. My face sinks
In the clotted summer of your hair.
The sound of the bees stops.
Stillness falls like a cloud.
Be still. Let your body fall away
Into the awe filled silence
Of the fulfilled summer --
Back, back, infinitely away --
Our lips weak, faint with stillness.

See. The sun has fallen away.
Now there are amber
Long lights on the shattered
Boles of the ancient apple trees.
Our bodies move to each other
As bodies move in sleep;
At once filled and exhausted,
As the summer moves to autumn,
As we, with Sappho, move towards death.
My eyelids sink toward sleep in the hot
Autumn of your uncoiled hair.
Your body moves in my arms
On the verge of sleep;
And it is as though I held
In my arms the bird filled
Evening sky of summer.

One more kissing-related post for now:

Article III groupie-- whose blog is something like Wonkette for Federal Judiciary Nerds-- has a clip of 9th Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski, kissing a girl on the dating game back in 1968. No, really.

(Apropos International Kissing Day, July 6th)

[It's the weekend, so my blogging will be even less substantive than usual. Perhaps my more earnest co-bloggers will pick up the slack.]

Sonnet XCIII, Pablo Neruda

If sometime your breast pauses,
if something ceases to go burning through your veins,
if the voice in your mouth leaves you wordlessly,
if your hands forget to fly and fall asleep,

Matilde, love, leave your lips half-open
because that final kiss should last with me,
should stay unmoving forever in your mouth
so that it joins me, too, in death.

I will die kissing your crazy cold mouth,
holding the lost cluster of your body,
and searching for the light of your closed eyes.

And so when the earth receives our embrace,
we will go blended in a single death,
to live forever the eternity of a kiss.

A few thoughts on International Kissing Day, the holiday launched by the de-lovely Amber Taylor, which we've been blogging about here for a few days.

First, Spencer at Mediocrity's Co-Pilot argues that kisses are pricey. One error he makes off the bat (somebody notes this in his comments) is counting the future dates implied "almost contractually" by a kiss as a cost. It's not; it's a benefit.

More generally, I think his post bespeaks a fundamental failure to understand a great use of kissing day-- it should be used as an excuse to draw those that one fancies into one's net. Mention to a non-blog friend how international kissing day is approaching, imply that you're hunting for a kissing partner, etc. Far from being a chance to soak the single, this holiday is a boon to them.

Then there's Anthony Rickey, joined by Curtis of Singing Loudly, who complain that their respective kissables are miles away. That does pose a dilemma. I won't attempt to resolve the question of whether and when it's acceptable to kiss other people-- presumably that question rests on prior understandings that aren't my business (as well as, perhaps, the question of whether the other side is obeying his or her end of the potential bargain). But it's not a lot different from the dilemmas faced by the distant at any holiday. Where one can't gather around the tree, hunt for the afikomen, tuck into a turkey, or snog with one's loved ones, I suppose one does what one can. Send a kiss through the mail, send a lip-smacking telegram, or simply take a few tinglingly pleasant thoughts and a raincheck.

That leaves us with Tim Sandefur, whose curmudgeonly complaints are largely conquered by Int'l Kissing Day's' grand dame Amber Taylor. The thrust of his argument seems to be one that pops up at nearly every holiday-- "Why do I need a holiday to celebrate X? I celebrate X all the time without its help!"

Similarly, such spoilsports could oppose Christmas and Thanksgiving on the grounds that they already rejoice with their loved ones, abstain from July 4th on the grounds that they are already patriots, or Veteran's Day, I suppose, on the grounds that they already show Grandpa the respect he deserves. Those are legitimate knocks against holidays in general, but there's nothing unique about Int'l Kissing Day that makes it more vulnerable to those criticisms than any other day of merriment. Some people think that activities that ought to be commonplace needn't be singled out for special celebration. For those that disagree, celebrate International Kissing Day next Tuesday.

In response to the blogging below about Catullus and stolen kisses, a reader writes in:

Given Will's post about stealing kisses and Sudeep's post of a Catullus poem on kissing, it is worth observing that this poem (Catullus 99) combines the two themes, pointing out the non-legal dangers that accompany unwanted kisses:

Surripui tibi, dum ludis, mellite Iuventi,

suaviolum dulci dulcius ambrosia.

verum id non impune tuli: namque amplius horam

suffixum in summa me memini esse cruce,

dum tibi me purgo nec possum fletibus ullis

tantillum vestrae demere saevitiae.

nam simul id factum est, multis diluta labella>

guttis abstersisti omnibus articulis,

ne quicquam nostro contractum ex ore maneret,

tamquam commictae spurca saliva lupae.

praeterea infesto miserum me tradere amori

non cessasti omnique excruciare modo,

ut mi ex ambrosia mutatum iam foret illud

suaviolum tristi tristius elleboro.

quam quoniam poenam misero proponis amori,

numquam iam posthac basia surripiam.


I stole from you, while you were playing, honey-sweet Juventius, a kiss sweeter than sweet ambrosia. But I did not go unpunished: for I remember being hung atop a cross for more than an hour, while I apologized to you but could not take away with any tears even a little of your anger. For right when it happened, you wiped clean your lips -- bathed by many tears -- with all your fingers, lest any contagion from my mouth remain, just as if it were the dirty spit of a filthy prostitute. Besides this, you did not hold back from delivering me, miserable, to hostile Love, nor from tormenting me in every way, so that to me that kiss, changed from ambrosia, was now more bitter than bitter hellebore [an herb with both medicinal and poisonous qualities]. Because, then, you thus punish unhappy love, never henceforth will I steal kisses.

And of course the Catullus I think should be the veritable theme for Kissing Day:

Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.

Let us live, dearest Lesbia, and let us love so we should measure the rumblings of harsher older ages to be worth not even a penny [lit., ass -- Roman currency]! The suns rise and fall -- for us, however, as soon as this brief light is over, there is only an infinite night left for sleeping -- so kiss me a thousand times! Then another hundred! Give me a thousand more, and a hundred again, followed by yet another thousand then hundred. Then when we have made many thousands of kisses, we will mix up their numbers so that not even we will know them, or that no awful man may be jealous should he find out exactly how many kisses there were.

(Apropos International Kissing Day, July 6th)

I said yesterday that I could think of no better kissing poem than Peter Meinke's Kissing. Upon reflection, I can think of one, which lacks the exultant and luxurious language of Meinke's, but makes up for it in brilliant simplicity and sheer force:

Jenny Kissed Me, by Leigh Hunt:

Jenny kissed me when we met
jumping from the chair she sat in.
Time– you thief– who love to get
sweets into your list, put that in.

Say I’m lonely, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have missed me,
Say I’m growing old, but add
Jenny kissed me!

(Apropos International Kissing Day, July 6th)

I am a little hesitant to post this poem now, as I find it unlikely I will be able to find anything better between now and next Tuesday. Still, I am not one for delayed gratification:

Kissing, by Peter Meinke:

I remember when we used to kiss
Your eyes closed for a moment then opened as if
in wonder at the world's sweet surprises of tongues of lips

We'd sit on the edge of the forbidden bed antic-
ipation bursting like cocaine *Oyesyesyes*
I *remember* when we used to kiss!

Nothing's like touch like skin on skin
and every minute the young beginning to sip
in wonder at the world's sweet surprises of tongues of lips

of taste and smell: the rollercoaster dips
of the body's bends And still through a myopic mist
I remember when we used to kiss

everywhere! lunatic lovebugs repetitive
as villanelles in your old keep crying with bliss
and wonder at the world's sweet surprises of tongues of lips

We'd say pupils wide with excess *Do that* *Do this!*
What innocence! What wickedness!
How I remember when we used to kiss
in wonder at the world's surprises: *Tongues!* *And lips!*

(Apropos International Kissing Day)

More, from Shakespeare:

R:
If I profane with my unworthiest hand
This holy shrine, the gentle fine is this:
My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand
To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

J:
Good pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,
Which mannerly devotion shows in this;
For saints have hands that pilgrims' hands do touch,
And palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss.

R:
Have not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

J:
Ay, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

R:
O, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do;
They pray -- grant thou, lest faith turn to despair.

J:
Saints move not, though grant for prayers' sake.

R:
Then move not, while my prayer's effect I take.

Amber Taylor is on "a one-woman crusade to establish Kissing Day in the U.S.A." (July 6th). This strikes me as a highly worthy cause, and this blog will be joining in the crusade until next week. She's kicked it off with this kissing-related poem. Spread the meme.

Posting on my part will be light until various internet affairs are sorted out. But for now, a few thoughts from Miss Manners (7/31/83):

Q: I was puzzled what to do about the porch light on the departure of some guests Sunday, and wonder how you would have handled this situation.

My guests included a young woman whom I have known since she was a young child and for whom I have much affection. The occasion, in part, was to effect my first introduction to a young man with whom she is evidently in love, as he is with her.

We had a very pleasant evening, and I approved of and liked the young man. I was touched that, from time to time, he reached over and squeezed my young friend's hand as an expression of affection, and grateful that evidences of their mutual affection were contained within proper bounds on this occasion.

The two young people came and left in separate cars, as he lives in town and she in the country, not far from my house, with her father. They were the last to leave, and of course I turned on the porch light. As I cleared glasses and emptied ashtrays afterward, I became aware that I had not heard their cars start up and realized they were having some long good night kisses in my driveway, which was rather well lighted by the porch light.

I felt that turning out the light, while it would give them more privacy, might appear unfriendly or even disapproving, which I was not. Would it have been more or less polite to turn out the light?

A: Miss Manners is hardly the one ever to say, "What does it matter?" but she does have the feeling that your young friends would probably have remained cheerfully oblivious to your electrical activities, whatever they were.

By your account, they behaved well in your house and officially departed. They are then out of your jurisdiction, and you can take no official notice of them. That is to say that any peeping must be done from a darkened room, and you are not allowed to tease them later about what you saw.

Miss Manners' instinct would be to leave the light on, presumably as usual, to disguise the fact that you did not go to bed before this late show began. If, however, you believe that the lack of privacy--which does not seem to have bothered them--will attract an audience of neighbors, you might turn the light off. They are not likely to know whether this is your habit when guests have gone and you have finished cleaning up, and Miss Manners is of the opinion that they are not likely to transfer their emotions of the moment to worrying about that.

As I've said before, Juan Non-Volokh's not the only one who can while away the weekends this way. Apropos all of the blogging here and there about kisses, my 8th 7th 4th most listened-to song on ITunes:

A Kiss To Build a Dream On, Louis Armstrong

Give me a kiss to build a dream on
And my imagination
Will thrive upon that kiss
Sweetheart, I ask no more than this
A kiss to build a dream on

Give me a kiss before you leave me
and my imagination
will feed my hungry heart
Leave me one thing before we part
A kiss to build a dream on

When I'm alone
with my fancies
I'll be with you
Weaving romances
Making believe they're true

Oh, give me your lips for just a moment
and my imagination
will make that moment live
Give me what you alone can give
A kiss to build a dream on.

When I'm alone
with my fancies
I'll be with you
Weaving romances
Making believe they're true

Oh, give me your lips for just a moment
and my imagination
will make that moment live
Give me what you alone can give
A kiss to build a dream on.

I approve of Amber's suggestion to mimic our friends across the pond and celebrate Kissing Day on July 6. I also understand her ambivalence about the source of her Instalanche (though I'm not helping, by linking to the kissing posts myself) -- after all, we got our first real attention from Glenn Reynolds for some even more egregious stuff.

[N.B.: Contra Dan Moore, "egregious" is not always an insult.] Anyway, I'll have a reply up soon to her defense of comments, and I do wish to point out that-- here, at least-- we have linked to plenty of Amber's posts about things other than making out.

While reading most blogs today has only made me grumpy, I was made happy to find Amber Taylor's post here on the underratedness of kissing. Quite so. Quite so.

The Curmudgeonly Clerk has a post on Indonesia's contemplated kissing ban. I've discussed kissing bans before (in Moscow) and I don't have much to add to this-- the same problem, a different place.

But I would like to remind those (like me, and apparently the Clerk) who harbor an instinctual dislike of the bill that in principle a state with the power to outlaw public nudity and public orgies should also have the power to outlaw public kissing. Whether it should do so is of course a separate matter (and whether a state should be able to outlaw any of the above public conduct is yet another matter).

VII, by e.e.cummings:

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while spring is in the world
my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
--the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other: then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthsis

Like Snow, by Robert Graves:

She, then, like snow in a dark night,

Fell secretly. And the world waked

With dazzling of the drowsy eye,

So that some muttered 'Too much light'

And drew the curtains close.

Like snow, warmer than fingers feared,

Though to soil friendly;

Holding the histories of the night

In yet unmelted tracks.

A few almost random quotes:

Kissing is forbidden between us. This makes it bearable. One detaches oneself. One describes. [Atwood]

"But this," exlaimed Ada, "is certain, this is reality, this is pure fact-- this forest, this moss, your hand, the ladybird on my leg, this cannot be taken away, can it? (it will, it was)." [Nabokov]

Farewells can be shattering, but returns are surely worse. Solid flesh can never live up to the bright shadow cast by its absence. Time and distance blur the edges; then suddenly the beloved has arrived, and it's noon with its merciless light, and every spot and pore and wrinkle and bristle stands clear. [Atwood]

If they have been importunate (as ghosts will be), they have also been (as ghosts must be) patient. [Leithauser]

She will be dead in every way but this: she will be alive, and with somebody else. [Martin]

It’s a story that sooner or later I’ll also end up telling, but in the midst of all the others, not giving more importance to one than to another, not putting any special passion into it beyond the pleasure of narrating and remembering, because even remembering evil can be a pleasure when the evil is mixed I won’t say with good, but with variety, the volatile, the changeable, in other words with what I can also call good, which is the pleasure of seeing things from a distance and narrating them as what is past.[Calvino]

Christopher Nyrop (I have no idea who that is) once reportedly said: "A kiss too or from a woman we love is too tender a pledge of affection to bear the gazes of strangers." Moscow's city authorities seem to agree.

If initial reports are to be believed (and maybe they are not), Moscow is considering a kissing ban. The ban would only apply publicly (particularly on subways and, apparently, escalators) -- lovers could smooch away behind closed doors.

I'm sad to admit that my first reaction to this move was actually mixed-- proof that I've spent too long working on my "economics of traffic congestion" homework. Kissing in public imposes external costs on people, and therefore it should be taxed or even prohibited, I said to myself. Sure, prohibition is a bit harsh, but it would be very difficult to set up an efficient system of kissing taxes. And since the fine is only about $20, it is essentially a kissing tax, relabeled a fine. Hum. Neat.

Then the real me, the me that in earlier days decided to see how many train-stops you could make a single kiss last*, came to my senses. Sure, people don't like to see public kissing, but they don't like to see a lot of things-- ugly people, mean people, cell phones, crying babies, burning flags, &c. For the most part we regard those as unrestrictable free expression rather than open topics for regulation.

On the other hand, we do have laws to regulate "public morals" (like laws that forbid or restrict publc nudity (laws I'm not entirely comfortable with, I might add)), which is precisely what the kissing law is supposed to do. So isn't the difference between banning orgies on the street and banning make-out sessions on the escalators a difference of degree rather than kind?

Yes, but that doesn't make it right.

[All that said, while public kissing ought to be legal, the polite and the wise will consider exercising some restraint. As Miss Manners repeatedly points out, people who witness public displays of affection are usually either wondering what the participants see in one another, or cackling happily when the relationship turns sour.]



* Sad to say, I've forgotten the answer.