[Image taken from a full photographic composition by Brandon Voges of the Bruton Stroube studio; see the note at the bottom of this post for more information.]
From whiskey river (italicized portion):
Picnic, Lightning
My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident
(picnic, lightning) when I was three.
— LolitaIt is possible to be struck by a meteor
or a single-engine plane
while reading in a chair at home.
Safes drop from rooftops
and flatten the odd pedestrian
mostly within the panels of the comics,
but still, we know it is possible,
as well as the flash of summer lightning,
the thermos toppling over,
spilling out on the grass.And we know the message
can be delivered from within.
The heart, no valentine,
decides to quit after lunch,
the power shut off like a switch,
or a tiny dark ship is unmoored
into the flow of the body’s rivers,
the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore.This is what I think about
when I shovel compost
into a wheelbarrow,
and when I fill the long flower boxes,
then press into rows
the limp roots of red impatiens —
the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth
from the sleeve of his voluminous cloak.Then the soil is full of marvels,
bits of leaf like flakes off a fresco,
red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam.
Then the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue,
the clouds a brighter white,and all I hear is the rasp of the steel edge
against a round stone,
the small plants singing
with lifted faces, and the click
of the sundial
as one hour sweeps into the next.
(Billy Collins, from Sailing Alone Around the Room [source])
…and:
Expectations of goals and rewards (such as Enlightenment) are recognized for what they are: last-ditch attempts by the ghostly self to subvert the process to its own ends. The more we become conscious of the mysterious unfolding of life, the clearer it becomes that its purpose is not to fulfill the expectations of our ego. We can put into words only the question it poses. And then let go, listen, and wait.
(Stephen Batchelor, from Buddhism Without Beliefs [source])
Not from whiskey river:
Everything is disappointing to those who read a lot. There’s no question that at no time in my life have I ever thought that life was as good as reading. And I haven’t had a bad life. What’s unusual about me is that most people I know who read to the extent that I do aren’t as precarious as I am.
I am additionally a lounge lizard of tremendous proportion. It isn’t that I don’t enjoy life, I do. But I would rather read than have any kind of real life, like working, or being responsible. Reading prepares you for other reading, and possibly for writing, but, I’m happy to say, it certainly has nothing to do with real life. All the things that I never did because I was reading, so what? If someone said to me, how did you spend your life? I’d have to say, lying on the sofa reading.
(Fran Lebowitz [source])
…and:
Your Punishment in Hell
Someone will douse a cobra in gasoline,
light the sucker, and shove it headfirst
down your throat. It’ll speed straight
through your esophagus, unfurl
its hood to fill your stomach
then begin to strike and strike and strike
and strike and strike: fangs pierce
your stomach, venom pours in,
the little burn of incipient ulcers
grows quick, paralysis sets in.
Your lungs stop before your brain,
before your hand, which lifts
to your mouth the plastic-lidded
paper cup holding the caramel
macchiato cappuccino with a double
shot of espresso and frothed soy milk
topped with two shakes of cinnamon
and no, NO (yes, you said no twice)
sugar that was made for you
slowly, while I, already running late,
waited behind you for a simple,
already-made black coffee.
You will lose all motion before
that drink reaches your mouth,
but you recover and the drink,
strangely, has vanished, and barista
and cobra-douser-slash-lighter do it all again
and again. I know this because,
for my angry impatience,
I am behind you in line in hell
forever, the pot of black coffee
behind the counter steaming,
turning, I know, bitter.
(Gary Leising)
Wikipedia says that Melanie Safka (or just plain “Melanie”) is “an American singer-songwriter,” which gets me off the hook for how to characterize her. (Left to myself, I was groping about in the murk of verbiage like “rock-folkie.”) Her 1971 “Look What They’ve Done to My Song” has a feel to it of a throwaway rinky-tink music-hall ditty, but it’s not a bad meditation on the horrors of clumsy, sometimes deliberate, misinterpretation. (Heck, expand the word song to a metaphor for anything, including a whole life, and it even plays well with whiskey river.)
I had my choice of a gazillion videos here. I just liked the way the images in this one seem to invite connections to the lyrics, without forcing anything. (Lyrics below.)
Lyrics:
Look What They’ve Done to My Song
(Melanie Safka a/k/a “Melanie”)Look what they’ve done to my song, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my song
Well it’s the only thing I could do half right
And it’s turning out all wrong, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my songLook what they’ve done to my brain, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my brain
Well they picked it like a chicken bone
And I think I’m half insane, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my songI wish I could find a good book to live in
Wish I could find a good book
Well, if I could find a real good book
I’d never have to come out and look at
What they’ve done to my songLa la la…
Look what they’ve done to my songBut maybe it’ll all be all right, Ma
Maybe it’ll all be OK
Well, if the people are buying tears
I’ll be rich some day, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my songIls ont changé ma chanson, Ma
Ils ont changé ma chanson
C’est la seule chose que je peux faire
Et çe n’est pas bon, Ma
Ils ont changé ma chansonLook what they’ve done to my song, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my song, Ma
Well they tied it up in a plastic bag
And turned it upside down, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my songIls ont changé ma chanson, Ma…
Look what they’ve done to my song, Ma
Look what they’ve done to my song
Well it’s the only thing I could do all right
And they turned it upside down
Look what they’ve done to my song
And boy howdy, if anybody knows how a song can get twisted around, it’s Melanie — as I realized not just in viewing the myriad YouTube covers of this song, but in reading about the “controversy” surrounding her biggest hit: “Brand New Key.”
_____________________________________
About the opening image: Photographer Brandon Voges took photographs of several people hanging upside-down by their ankles, and printed the images “right-side up.” I first read about this project here.
whaddayamean says
oh dear. rather sad about how much the Fran L quote resonated with me. le sigh.
weirdly (the cosmos! again!) i kinda just posted on a similar thing myself (ish). always eerie, these uncanny waves of topic energy through the blogosphere…
marta says
I understand waiting in line for a straight cup of coffee.
Love Fran, of course. And Billy Collins, well, I’ve got that book of poetry on a shelf here at home.
Froog says
That was spooky – I’ve never known who Melanie is, but that song is one of the first I can remember hearing on the radio when I was 6 or 7: a shivers-down-the-spine moment for me to rediscover it nearly 40 years on.
Ashleigh Burroughs says
I”m going to see Billy Collins next Sunday afternoon. Thanks for reminding me of his wonderfulness. Mattie-the-Yogi tells us to consider living an untethered life. I shall contemplate these overlapping concepts as the poetry rolls over me next weekend.
a/b
John says
whaddayamean: Yeah, but your own post on the topic has an urgency all its own… and I think many writers might find the challenge daunting:
Start with an editor who loves not just reading itself, but also the feeling of becoming SO obsessed with a book that everything else will be put aside. An editor who longs for the manuscript that will make her “desperate to get back on the train” which she commutes on…
Picturing our manuscripts in the hands of such an editor is one thing. Picturing our manuscripts as ones which match that editor’s fondest hope, wow, now that‘s a scary thought. I wonder how many writers truly believe their books to have such pull?
John says
marta: Somewhere in the last couple of days, I read a blog post/newspaper column whose author wished that coffee shops would set up express lanes exclusively for patrons who can place an order using no more than five words.
I’m one of the Fran Lebowitz readers who’s been almost actively looking at my watch for the 20 years (or whatever it’s been) since her last book, waiting for the next one.
John says
Froog: Melanie’s roller-skates song holds a special place in my memory — one of the first rock songs (if not the first) I can remember whose lyrics struck me as being about something more than the literal meanings of the words. I’d been told before (by critics/DJs/other listeners) that other songs fit that criterion, but when someone first mentioned the double entendres in Melanie’s hit I could think to myself, “Oh yes, that occurred to me, too” instead of “Wow. Now why couldn’t I have been clever enough to see that on my own?”
Not that this required any real powers of insight. That would be like a nail’s patting itself on the back for knowing how a hammer blow feels.
John says
a/b: Now I’m wondering if Mattie-the-Yogi is one of your pseudonymous Cast of Characters… Hmm. Nope.
Let me know how his reading goes. We saw him once a few years ago — a genuine crowd-pleaser (and I mean that in a thoroughly good way). His voice was just exactly as I might have imagined it: the tone and texture, the way it broke words at syllables, the easy confidence in each word’s sound, meaning, and placement.
Froog says
That nail-and-hammer line – you’ve been saving that up for a while, haven’t you? Well done.
I perhaps know Melanie best (first) through Adge Cutler & The Wurzels, a local band where I grew up, sort of a rustic version of Weird Al Yankovich. Their biggest hit in the early 70s was the lonely farmer’s love song “I’ve got a brand new combine-harvester (and I’ll give you the key)”.
John says
Froog: Actually, no, that nail-and-hammer thing was ad-libbed in the comment. I worked at it through several variations, though, before finally hitting Submit. It felt clunky to me even then, so I’m glad you liked it anyway. :)
As with Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, I had to see the lyrics to know for sure what the lyrics of Melanie’s song actually were. I mis-heard them in ways which made them even more suggestive than they in fact are, which is saying something. (E.g., I heard “…and try them out, you see” as “…and try them out on me.”) Given my age and uncivilized nature at the time, I was probably predisposed to read intimate suggestions into everything.
James Thurber wrote a piece called “The Admiral at the Wheel,” about the unsuspected pleasures of poor eyesight: it made his world more stressful, true, but also more interesting. I could probably right a companion piece about hearing.
Jules says
I get to hear Billy Collins speak here in Nashville. Soon. SQUEE. I figure I need to get there veeerrrrrrry early, as I figure it’ll be very crowded.