28 November—There’s an important birthday to celebrate today. But first, yesterday (as I was telling a nice girl at Consumer Cellular that they’d be losing my account because ever since GTCR, a private equity firm, bought the business three years ago my monthly bill has gone up inexcusably while the level of service has gone down), I received this pregnant poster from a Republican assemblyman, followed by good news from CTMirror.org.

The good news must have made Katie Dykes, Gov. Ned Lamont’s monomaniacal Commissioner of the Department of Energy & Environmental Protection, fall off her electric broomstick. Because, as the Republican-American put it this morning, “Lamont pulls the plug on EVs; Facing defeat, governor withdraws regulations for 2035.”

The defeat would have been largely thanks to some of Ned’s fellow Democrats—the rational ones who aren’t under the spell of California’s irrational, flaky knee-jerkers. That’s certainly a relief for now, but let’s not count on anything as long as Connecticut suffers under what amounts to one-party rule. (Either party, by the way.)

* * * * * * *

Now to the important birthday. No, it’s not your humble editor’s 81^st. But thanks for your good wishes. Rather, the important birthday boy of the moment is William Blake; he’d be 266 today, had he not died in 1827. He was an exceptionally idiosyncratic, largely self-taught English painter, poet, and printmaker. Most of his contemporaries considered him to be crazy. Maybe so, but he was brilliant and productive.

While Blake wasn’t recognized as a phenomenon in his own time, he was immensely productive in all his pursuits. He was an innovative printmaker and produced most of his own extensive—read humongous—poetic repertoire as relief etchings. He was also a sought-after commercial illustrator.

William Blake is best known for (these are only excerpts):

Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

and:

A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A Dove house fill’d with Doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thr’ all its regions
A dog starv’d at his Masters Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misus’d upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.

and:

Little Lamb who made thee,
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life & bid thee feed.
By the stream & o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing wooly bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice!

and, of course:

And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England’s mountains green?
And was the holy Lamb of God
On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Devine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of Desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire.

I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand
Till we have built Jerusalem
In England’s green and pleasant Land.

That’s the hymn “Jerusalem,” from Blake’s self-illustrated (of course) epic poem “Milton,” about John Milton and as long as Milton’s own epics. It was set to music by Sir Hubert Parry in 1916 and notably orchestrated by Sir Edward Elgar.