The Week

■ This week’s 1984 Award goes to Senator Edmund Muskie, for the most novel pollution solution yet. “In a consumer-oriented society,” says Muskie, “everything we produce leads to waste. Maybe we ought to set some limits on the standard of living.”

■ Our own John Wayne has won the Oscar. A special Oscar should be awarded to the Committee, which transcended the anti-Wayne arguments in recognition of an outstanding performance by the greatest living Hollywood trouper. The contrast is interesting with, e.g., the Nobel Committee, or for that matter the National Book Awards Committee. Wayne’s sins are (beginning with the least of them) a) an occasional woodenness of manner on the screen, which however is regularly forgiven others, e.g., Gregory Peck. And b) (above all), his attraction to themes that honor duty and country, culminating in the great blasphemy of the Green Berets in which he—would you believe it?—sided with us! As we suggest, the courage of the Hollywood Philistine is in refreshing contrast to the continued pusillanimity of the poets hereabouts and in Stockholm, who for reasons patently political, refuse to recognize the poetic talent of Ezra Pound.

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■ This week’s 1984 Award goes to Senator Edmund Muskie, for the most novel pollution solution yet. “In a consumer-oriented society,” says Muskie, “everything we produce leads to waste. Maybe we ought to set some limits on the standard of living.”

■ Our own John Wayne has won the Oscar. A special Oscar should be awarded to the Committee, which transcended the anti-Wayne arguments in recognition of an outstanding performance by the greatest living Hollywood trouper. The contrast is interesting with, e.g., the Nobel Committee, or for that matter the National Book Awards Committee. Wayne’s sins are (beginning with the least of them) a) an occasional woodenness of manner on the screen, which however is regularly forgiven others, e.g., Gregory Peck. And b) (above all), his attraction to themes that honor duty and country, culminating in the great blasphemy of the Green Berets in which he—would you believe it?—sided with us! As we suggest, the courage of the Hollywood Philistine is in refreshing contrast to the continued pusillanimity of the poets hereabouts and in Stockholm, who for reasons patently political, refuse to recognize the poetic talent of Ezra Pound.