The Meaning of the Grouse

Eat your pineapples,
Chew your grouse,
Your last days are coming,
You bourgeois louse.

- Mayakovsky, 1913 or so

I think everybody always assumes that the Grouse in question on this blog is a verb. It is, in fact, a bird, and looking back at the Mayakovsky, we can clearly see this was some sort of luxury bird back in the day in Russia. Grouse chewing was sort of an apocalyptic thing for the rad young Marxist.

For me, by now, the stakes are kind of different. While I've never actually had grouse literally, I must confess I am generally pro-grouse and wish in fact that there was -- if not a grouse in every pot -- at least a hearty soy-based substitute.

So that the themes that permeate this blog would appear in some sense nostalgic or even conservative, arguing in favor of preserving:

1. The so-called environment
2. The way we live -- our house, financial stability, my frickin teeth, etc.
   
3. The America I thought I grew up in, characterized by open-mindedness and tolerance, both in somewhat short supply of late.
4. A sense of curiosity about things not going on around me, or going on not around me
   

The point is, in the end, for it to be worth Graham and Natalie's while to be living in this overpaved land of blockbuster releases 30 years out, to defer Mayakovsky's last day.