Gary Lipon (on Stevens, Frost and Shade) quoting John Shade: "Now I shall speak of evil as none has/ Spoken before. I loathe such things as jazz;/ The white-hosed moron torturing a black/ Bull, rayed with red; abstractist bric-a-brac" from Canto 4, lines 223-6 [...] The verbs glued and smeared both denote stickiness.N's paste carries sexual connotations while Stevens' opulent sun stands, in the usual way, as the fundamental life-giving force imbuing our little corner of the universe (much like Shade claims, rather implausibly, for his little scissors).
 
JM: Nabokov and Shade are similar in their disgusts. Cf. Strong Opinions, Vintage p.18,1962: "It is also true that some of my more responsible characters are given some of my own ideas. There is John Shade in "Pale Fire", the poet. He does borrow some of my own opinions. There is one passage in his poem, which is part of the book, where he says something I think I can endorse. He says - let me quote it, if I can remember; yes, I think I can do it: 'I loathe such things as jazz. the white-hosed moron torturing a black bull..abstractist bric-a-brac, primitivist folk masks, progressive schools, music in supermarkets, swimming pools, brutes, bores, class-conscious philistines, Freud, Marx, fake thinkers, puffed-up poets, frauds and sharks.' That's how it goes." 
 
btw: very interesting exchanges bt. Frost and Stevens, and quotes. Great! And colored sunsets.
 
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