From UK retailer John Lewis:
The Self I Cannot See
Life continuously refuses to show us the plot. The desire to give it shape, and by shape, meaning, is so great anything will do. But Orwell would have us stand against all the “smelly little orthodoxies which are now contending for our souls.” I am struck by how difficult it is to get back to something we knew to be true once we have been converted, forced by circumstances, or simply denied and turned away from it, to whatever lonely mess we have managed to make since. It is as though the experience of unhappiness is more valid than that of joy. We all know the experience of wanting something badly, only to have it disappear as we approach it. Rarely do we look at the wanting self. My shadowless shadow. We don’t cope with much grace, neither the grace of civility, nor the grace of physical being, nor the grace of the spirit. There is at bottom no real distinction between them anyway. Perhaps I am too often absent from my own being.
(Terrance Keenan [source, including the first three sentences])
…and:
Self-Portrait
Between the computer, a pencil, and a typewriter
half my day passes. One day it will be half a century.
I live in strange cities and sometimes talk
with strangers about matters strange to me.
I listen to music a lot: Bach, Mahler, Chopin, Shostakovich.
I see three elements in music: weakness, power, and pain.
The fourth has no name.
I read poets, living and dead, who teach me
tenacity, faith, and pride. I try to understand
the great philosophers – but usually catch just
scraps of their precious thoughts.
I like to take long walks on Paris streets
and watch my fellow creatures, quickened by envy,
anger, desire; to trace a silver coin
passing from hand to hand as it slowly
loses its round shape (the emperor’s profile is erased).
Beside me trees expressing nothing
but a green, indifferent perfection.
Black birds pace the fields,
waiting patiently like Spanish widows.
I’m no longer young, but someone else is always older.
I like deep sleep, when I cease to exist,
and fast bike rides on country roads when poplars and houses
dissolve like cumuli on sunny days.
Sometimes in museums the paintings speak to me
and irony suddenly vanishes.
I love gazing at my wife’s face.
Every Sunday I call my father.
Every other week I meet with friends,
thus proving my fidelity.
My country freed itself from one evil. I wish
another liberation would follow.
Could I help in this? I don’t know.
I’m truly not a child of the ocean,
as Antonio Machado wrote about himself,
but a child of air, mint and cello
and not all the ways of the high world
cross paths with the life that — so far —
belongs to me.
(Adam Zagajewski; translated by Clare Cavanagh [source])
“Ye Gods — Not That Again…!”
I‘m going to start this post with some music which did not bore me at all.
On Saturday nights, our local public-radio station broadcasts a program originating in Chicago, called Midnight Special, whose slogan, per the program’s Web site, is “folk music with a sense of humor.” And the other night I just happened to catch a song called “Don’t Make Me Sing,” by an artist named Greg Greenway.
Now, Greenway — check his Web site — is a serious guy: not a “comic” performer, as a rule, although he obviously has a good sense of humor. But he’s been singing in small venues long enough to have seen a wide range of audience response… not all of it applause. “Don’t Make Me Sing” adopts the point of view of an audience member with things on his mind other than the person onstage.
I’ve transcribed the lyrics below the audio-player widget (please let me know of any mistakes); as you will see, this live performance comes with a certain amount of… well, let’s say it departs from what seem to be the “official” words. (In a performance captured via YouTube, Greenway manages to get through the song with somewhat less, er, distraction. Once he gets started, that is.)
Lyrics:
Don’t Make Me Sing
(by Greg Greenway)I ate at the bar
I surveyed the space
Two tables from the stage front
My favorite placeI was bursting with pride
I was flushed with success
I’d had to ask her out six times
Before she’d finally said…
…Okay.Then this guy started singing
It was a pretty good show
Then that telltale expression
Don’t even go there — oooh nooo…refrain 1:
Don’t make me sing
That’s why I paid to see you
It’s a show business trick,
Singer/Songwriter shtick
Why don’t you write something new?refrain 2:
Don’t make me sing
Don’t even act like I should
Give me a break, I’m on a first date
Why don’t you write something good?We gave it our best shot
We gave him a chance
Until he turned into Barney
In combat boots and black pants[refrain 1]
Everybody!
[refrain 2]
I gave into peer pressure
I sang with all that I’ve got
She used to be smiling
Now she’s checking her watch[refrain 1]
Don’t make me sing
They hit me up at the door
I did my job all day
Why should I have to pay
To help you do yours?Don’t make me sing
Why don’t you try something else?
If I had a good voice
I’d be up there myself[refrain 1]
[refrain 2]
I’ve been thinking about the song quite a bit since Saturday. Aside from enjoying the rhyme and melody (and of course laughing at the sense), I’ve also tried (and failed) to come up with analogy, for writers and readers, to the live singer/audience dynamic which Greenway depicts so wryly.
At first I tried to think of readings I’d attended — what do writers ask of their audiences on such occasions, which audiences might be unwilling to grant?
But the real analogy, I believe, isn’t in the live performance of a written work. It’s in the general unspoken contract between writer and reader. This is the contract which takes effect when you sit down in your favorite reading chair, open a new book, and begin to read.
What little gimmicks do writers rely on which drive you crazy, make you twitch, maybe make you wish you had picked up that other book instead? For example: cliffhanger chapter endings, maybe? gratuitous insertion of untranslated foreign words and phrases? picaresque plotlines? (Note: this is a question about writers in general, or writers in a particular genre, not about a specific writer’s tics and foibles.)
And if you’re a writer, have you — in horror, no doubt — ever found evidence in your own writing of something which drives you crazy in others’? If so, what (if anything!) did you do about it?
Stretching to Make a Point
One of my favorite RAMH regulars kindly forwarded this video to me. It’s a clip from a 1944 film called Broadway Rhythm, and the performers here were called the Ross Sisters.
More information on the girls can be found (naturally) on Wikipedia. The video’s been around long enough that I should be embarrassed not to recognize it (especially since I’ve got a copy of That’s Entertainment III, which Wikipedia says includes the bit). But I’m enjoying it too much to be embarrassed.
Innocent times…
For those of you who are writers or artists, do you have any “tricks” which you knowingly perform — because you know you’re good at them (even if you don’t usually admit it, for the sake of modesty or other reasons), and because they’re identifiably yours? Take your last name, or your commenting handle, and add an -ism suffix to it (e.g., Simpsonism): what are your characteristic isms, that is, your bits? what’s your shtick?
Already Elsewhere
From whiskey river’s commonplace book:
Echoing Light
When I was beginning to read I imagined
that bridges had something to do with birds
and with what seemed to be cages but I knew
that they were not cages it must have been autumn
with the dusty light flashing from the streetcar wires
and those orange places on fire in the pictures
and now indeed it is autumn the clear
days not far from the sea with a small wind nosing
over dry grass that yesterday was green
the empty corn standing trembling and a down
of ghost flowers veiling the ignored fields
and everywhere the colors I cannot take
my eyes from all of them red even the wide streams
red it is the season of migrants
flying at night feeling the turning earth
beneath them and I woke in the city hearing
the call notes of the plover then again and
again before I slept and here far downriver
flocking together echoing close to the shore
the longest bridges have opened their slender wings
(W. S. Merwin [source])
…and:
After yesterday’s storm I had expected to find the landscape a desert of sodden heathery bogs and swollen reedy lochans; and so it mostly was, but over all its vast extent the light was so radiant that I felt I could see not just for great distances but into time itself. The ruins of crofts, a mile away, seemed so close in that enchanted air that I saw not only the nettles of ragwort round the doors, but the people coming out for the last time: I could even see the grief on their faces. No wonder, I thought, this was the land of second sight. If I stayed here I would be a seer as well as a poet.
((John) Robin Jenkins, Fergus Lamont)
Across
[Image: “Waiting for the Ferryman,” by Jack R. Johanson (click for original). The photographer describes the location, along the Norwegian river Glomma, as “a fine place to wait for the ferryman to take you to the other side.”]
Oddly, whiskey river was very prose-y in the last week. Think I’ll duck down into the archives there, a/k/a whiskey river’s commonplace book, for a poetry selection…
Letter Written on a Ferry
While Crossing Long Island SoundI am surprised to see
that the ocean is still going on.
Now I am going back
and I have ripped my hand
from your hand as I said I would
and I have made it this far
as I said I would
and I am on the top deck now
holding my wallet, my cigarettes
and my car keys
at 2 o’clock on a Tuesday
in August of 1960.Dearest,
although everything has happened,
nothing has happened.
The sea is very old.
The sea is the face of Mary,
without miracles or rage
or unusual hope,
grown rough and wrinkled
with incurable age.Still,
I have eyes.
These are my eyes:
the orange letters that spell
ORIENT on the life preserver
that hangs by my knees;
the cement lifeboat that wears
its dirty canvas coat;
the faded sign that sits on its shelf
saying KEEP OFF.
Oh, all right, I say,
I’ll save myself.Over my right shoulder
I see four nuns
who sit like a bridge club,
their faces poked out
from under their habits,
as good as good babies who
have sunk into their carriages.
Without discrimination
the wind pulls the skirts
of their arms.
Almost undressed,
I see what remains:
that holy wrist,
that ankle,
that chain.
(Anne Sexton; whiskey river includes only the first four stanzas, above, but I think you’ll want to read the whole thing, which you can do here and elsewhere.)
Trouble Hearing
[Image: Toothpaste for Dinner, June 3, 2007]
From whiskey river:
People write letters
to me from heaven, but I’m not listening.
The hermit said: “Because the world is mad,
the only way through the world is to learn
the arts and double the madness.” Are you listening?
(Robert Bly, “Listening”1)
…and (italicized portion):
We like to think that we are finely evolved creatures, in suit-and-tie or pantyhose-and-chemise, who live many millennia and mental detours away from the cave, but that’s not something our bodies are convinced of. We may have the luxury of being at the top of the food chain, but our adrenaline still rushes when we encounter real or imaginary predators. We even restage that primal fright by going to monster movies. We still stake out or mark our territories, though sometimes now it is with the sound of radios. We still jockey for position and power. We still create works of art to enhance our senses and add even more sensations to the brimming world, so that we can utterly luxuriate in the spectacles of life. We still ache fiercely with love, lust, loyalty, and passion. And we still perceive the world, in all its gushing beauty and terror, right on our pulses. There is no other way. To begin to understand the gorgeous fever that is consciousness, we must try to understand the senses — how they evolved, how they can be extended, what their limits are, to which ones we have attached taboos, and what they can tell us about the ravishing world we have the privilege to inhabit.
(Diane Ackerman, from A Natural History of the Senses)
What’s in a Song: Fever (2)
[This is the second of two posts about the popular song “Fever.” Part 1 was a couple days ago, here.]
As I mentioned in Part 1 of this “Fever” mini-series, the song’s lyrics and pulsing rhythm (and reputation!) seem to lead immature and/or lazy performers down sexual pathways they haven’t really earned the privilege of traveling. When a singer purrs the words “Never know how much I love you/Never know how much I care” while humping a microphone stand — well, it’s hard to imagine wanting to jump that performer’s bones. I just want to laugh.
So when you set out to post a handful of covers of “Fever,” from among the gazillion available, you’ve got to exercise some judgment, some restraint:
Say you’re sort of squinting as you run your thumb over the corner of the flip-card animation. Say you stop at random. And say you’ve landed on an MP3 of, I don’t know… say you’ve stopped at the Pussycat Dolls‘ cover. If you just state the obvious — Oooh, pretty girls! — you’re headed for disappointment to then conclude: “I bet they’ll do it justice!”
So anyway, those covers don’t count for me. What’s left ranges from the overly respectful — almost note-for-note, beat-by-beat respectful — to the out-there: covers which take the basic melody and bass line and flip them inside-out, making the song almost (almost) unrecognizable in the process.
Uncomfortable Numbers
From whiskey river:
A Word on Statistics
Out of every hundred people,
those who always know better:
fifty-two.Unsure of every step:
almost all the rest.Ready to help,
if it doesn’t take long:
forty-nine.Always good,
because they cannot be otherwise:
four — well, maybe five.Able to admire without envy:
eighteen.Led to error
by youth (which passes):
sixty, plus or minus.Those not to be messed with:
four-and-forty.Living in constant fear
of someone or something:
seventy-seven.Capable of happiness:
twenty-some-odd at most.Harmless alone,
turning savage in crowds:
more than half, for sure.Cruel
when forced by circumstances:
it’s better not to know,
not even approximately.Wise in hindsight:
not many more
than wise in foresight.Getting nothing out of life except things:
thirty
(though I would like to be wrong).Balled up in pain
and without a flashlight in the dark:
eighty-three, sooner or later.Those who are just:
quite a few, thirty-five.But if it takes effort to understand:
three.Worthy of empathy:
ninety-nine.Mortal:
one hundred out of one hundred —
a figure that has never varied yet.
(Wislawa Szymborska; translated from the Polish by Joanna Trzeciak [source])
…and:
One Hundred and Eighty Degrees
Have you considered the possibility
that everything you believe is wrong,
not merely off a bit, but totally wrong,
nothing like things as they really are?If you’ve done this, you know how durably fragile
those phantoms we hold in our heads are,
those wisps of thought that people die and kill for,
betray lovers for, give up lifelong friendships for.If you’ve not done this, you probably don’t understand this poem,
or think it’s not even a poem, but a bit of opaque nonsense,
occupying too much of your day’s time,
so you probably should stop reading it here, now.But if you’ve arrived at this line,
maybe, just maybe, you’re open to that possibility,
the possibility of being absolutely completely wrong,
about everything that matters.How different the world seems then:
everyone who was your enemy is your friend,
everything you hated, you now love,
and everything you love slips through your fingers like sand.
(Federico Moramarco)
What’s in a Song: Fever (1)
[This is another in an occasional series on popular songs with appeal across the generations. This post will be broken into two parts; Part 2 will appear in a few days is here.]
As a kid, I once read a “funny” comic-book episode in which aliens landed in mid-20th-century America and reported back to their home planet about all the strange things the natives did. The one which struck me the most was this: the lunatic creatures leave the comfort of their homes; climb into sheet-metal boxes each weighing several tons; move the metal boxes out amongst hundreds, thousands of others; and play a game whose object is to accelerate your metal box to screaming speed, aim it at all the others, and come as close as possible to all of them without actually hitting a single one — all without dying in the process.
Ha ha, I know: comic books. Can’t take ’em seriously. For in the real world, of course, the aliens are reporting back about the truly strange Earthling behavior: our fascination with sex.
We construct elaborate religious frameworks of abstention and lifelong celibacy, and equally elaborate ones of fetishism and promiscuity — and everything between. Both as societies and as individuals, we underwrite costly technological improvements to its experience. We try to cure ourselves of the obsession; we throw ourselves into it. We have ecstatic dreams about it and hair-raising nightmares. We write about it, and we write about everything but (in the process, creating a gigantic sex-shaped vacuum that’s awfully damned hard to ignore). We celebrate the level-headed old-timers who seem to do just fine without it… and cheer the friskier ones still nuts about it.
And oh boy, do we ever compose music about it — music explicit and implicit. (Some of this music doesn’t even have words.) We pay performers to entertain us with this music, to mime their having sex with us — even to mime the act with their voices, while their bodies barely move onstage.
Somewhere out there, a civilization of little green men and women is scratching their little green noggins about all this. Procreation, they concede: yes, very important. But truly civilized creatures of the universe, they will insist, focus their creative energies on the practice of xormling. You know, where you get either five or fourteen— Oh, never mind.
So we come to the song. Nearly every pop singer tries her hand with it at some point. You can pretty much count on at least one American Idol contestant each season, using it to establish his credentials as a bona-fide heartthrob. (God help us all if Robert Pattinson ever records it: the thud of all those bodies simultaneously swooning to the floor could set off shock waves around the world.)
Enter “Fever.”
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