{"id":12933,"date":"2013-03-15T13:38:01","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T17:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=12933"},"modified":"2013-03-16T13:43:44","modified_gmt":"2013-03-16T17:43:44","slug":"spirits-tossed-lost-messed-up-redeemed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/03\/spirits-tossed-lost-messed-up-redeemed\/","title":{"rendered":"Spirits Tossed, Lost, Messed Up, Redeemed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/templates\/event\/embeddedVideo.php?storyId=170503478&amp;mediaId=170567083\" height=\"338\" width=\"600\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Lyrics <a title=\"Lyrics: 'Tourniquet'\" onclick=\"javascript:wopen('https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/lyrics\/tourniquet_hem.html', 'new', 460, 500); return false;\">here<\/a>; see additional notes at the foot of this post.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From\u00a0<a title=\"whiskey river: Philip Roth, on the predictability of wrongness about others\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2013\/03\/you-fight-your-superficiality-your.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>whiskey river<\/em><\/a> (which seems to have had a rough week):<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon and machine guns and steel plating half a foot thick; you come at them unmenacingly on your own ten toes instead of tearing up the turf with your caterpillar treads, take them on with an open mind, as equals, man to man, as we used to say, and yet you never fail to get them wrong. You might as well have the brain of a tank. You get them wrong before you meet them, while you&#8217;re anticipating meeting them; you get them wrong while you&#8217;re with them; and then you go home to tell somebody else about the meeting and you get them all wrong again. Since the same generally goes for them with you, the whole thing is really a dazzling illusion empty of all perception, an astonishing farce of misperception. And yet what are we to do about this terribly significant business of other people, which gets bled of the significance we think it has and takes on instead a significance that is ludicrous, so ill-equipped are we all to envision one another&#8217;s interior workings and invisible aims? Is everyone to go off and lock the door and sit secluded like the lonely writers do, in a soundproof cell, summoning people out of words and then proposing that these word people are closer to the real thing than the real people that we mangle with our ignorance every day? The fact remains that getting people right is not what living is all about anyway. It&#8217;s getting them wrong that is living, getting them wrong and wrong and wrong and then, on careful reconsideration, getting them wrong again. That&#8217;s how we know we&#8217;re alive: we&#8217;re wrong. Maybe the best thing would be to forget being right or wrong about people and just go along for the ride. But if you can do that &#8212; well, lucky you.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Philip Roth [<a title=\"Google Books: 'American Pastoral,' by Philip Roth\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=7PbWX0gCQnIC&amp;pg=PT44#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: Yuan Mei, on lightweights\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2013\/03\/willow-flowers-snowflakes-same.html\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Willow flowers, snowflakes, the same . . .<br \/>\nThey&#8217;re feckless.<\/p>\n<p>No matter whose garden they fall in,<br \/>\nThey&#8217;ll always follow the wind away.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Yuan Mei [<a title=\"Amazon.com: 'I Don't Bow to Buddhas: Selected Poems of Yuan Mei'\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Dont-Bow-Buddhas-Selected-Poems\/dp\/1556591209\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: Annie Dillard, on the waterfall of time\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2013\/03\/what-does-it-feel-like-to-be-alive.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>What does it feel like to be alive?<\/p>\n<p>Living, you stand under a waterfall. You leave the sleeping shore deliberately; you shed your dusty clothes, pick your barefoot way over the high, slippery rocks, hold your breath, choose your footing, and step into the waterfall. The hard water pelts your skull, bangs in bits on your shoulders and arms. The strong water dashes down beside you and you feel it along your calves and thighs rising roughly back up, up to the roiling surface, full of bubbles that slide up your skin or break on you at full speed. Can you breathe here? Here where the force is the greatest and only the strength of your neck holds the river out of your face. Yes, you can breathe even here. You could learn to live like this. And you can, if you concentrate, even look out at the peaceful far bank where you try to raise your arms. What a racket in your ears, what a scattershot pummeling!<\/p>\n<p>It is time pounding at you, time. Knowing you are alive is watching on every side your generation&#8217;s short time falling away as fast as rivers drop through air, and feeling it hit.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Annie Dillard [<a title=\"Google Books: 'An Annie Dillard Reader' (excerpt from 'An American Childhood')\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=XLaAI1tI-7wC&amp;pg=PA198#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from\u00a0<em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Twilight Comes<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"epigraph\">After Wang Wei<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Twilight comes to the little farm<br \/>\nAt winter&#8217;s end. The snowbanks<br \/>\nHigh as the eaves, which melted<br \/>\nAnd became pitted during the day,<br \/>\nAre freezing again, and crunch<br \/>\nUnder the dog&#8217;s foot. The mountains<br \/>\nFrom their place behind our shoulders<br \/>\nLean close a moment, as if for a<br \/>\nFinal inspection, but with kindness,<br \/>\nA benediction as the darkness<br \/>\nFalls. It is my fiftieth year. Stars<br \/>\nCome out, one by one with a softer<br \/>\nBrightness, like the first flowers<br \/>\nOf spring. I hear the brook stirring,<br \/>\nTrying its music beneath the ice.<br \/>\nI hear &#8212; almost, I am not certain &#8212;<br \/>\nRemote tinklings; perhaps sheepbells<br \/>\nOn the green side of a juniper hill<br \/>\nOr wineglasses on a summer night.<br \/>\nBut no. My wife is at her work,<br \/>\nThere behind yellow windows. Supper<br \/>\nWill be soon. I crunch the icy snow<br \/>\nAnd tilt my head to study the last<\/p>\n<p>Silvery light of the western sky<br \/>\nIn the pine boughs. I smile. Then<br \/>\nI smile again, just because I can.<br \/>\nI am not an old man. Not yet.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Hayden Carruth [<a title=\"Google Books: 'From Snow and Rock, from Chaos: Poems 1965-1972,' by Hayden Carruth\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=YmCwWT1O3jcC&amp;pg=PA54#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>High Windows<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>When I see a couple of kids<br \/>\nAnd guess he\u2019s fucking her and she\u2019s<br \/>\nTaking pills or wearing a diaphragm,<br \/>\nI know this is paradise<\/p>\n<p>Everyone old has dreamed of all their lives&#8212;<br \/>\nBonds and gestures pushed to one side<br \/>\nLike an outdated combine harvester,<br \/>\nAnd everyone young going down the long slide<\/p>\n<p>To happiness, endlessly. I wonder if<br \/>\nAnyone looked at me, forty years back,<br \/>\nAnd thought, <em>That\u2019ll be the life;<\/em><br \/>\n<em> No God any more, or sweating in the dark<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>About hell and that, or having to hide<\/em><br \/>\n<em> What you think of the priest. He<\/em><br \/>\n<em> And his lot will all go down the long slide<\/em><br \/>\n<em> Like free bloody birds<\/em>. And immediately<\/p>\n<p>Rather than words comes the thought of high windows:<br \/>\nThe sun-comprehending glass,<br \/>\nAnd beyond it, the deep blue air, that shows<br \/>\nNothing, and is nowhere, and is endless.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Philip Larkin [<a title=\"Poetry Foundation: 'High Windows,' by Philip Larkin\" href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poem\/178053\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Woman at a French Door: Winter Sunrise<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Do not presume to know what she means &#8212; you do not &#8220;take her meaning&#8221; (you take nothing), you do not &#8220;get it&#8221; (you get nothing, not even <em>it<\/em>, least of all <em>her<\/em>) &#8212; when the corners of her mouth twitch, her fingers curling lightly over the door handle, rosy-orange light slatting\u00a0through Venetian blinds over her face and the wall behind her, the deck out there in burgeoning disrepair (boards springy, fuzzed with young woodrot), thin fog rising to disperse over Goose Pond and its ring of rooftops, alongside her a wheezing terrier dragging its behind on the carpet, in the bedroom the husband sleeping-in this morning (his tangled splaying hair once thick, dark, and fashionably long, now still long), and she mutters to herself, to the dog, to the sleeping husband, to herself,\u00a0to Goose Pond, to the sun, the single syllable, ambiguous even to herself:\u00a0<em>God<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(JES)<\/p>\n<p>____________________<\/p>\n<p><strong>About the video:<\/strong> The New York-based indie\/Americana band Hem found its lead vocalist quite by accident. Having advertised for a singer, they&#8217;d pretty much given up hope of finding one whose vocal feel matched the lyrics and melodies they&#8217;d been composing. Along came\u00a0Sally Ellyson, who left them a demo recording on which she sang\u00a0<em>a capella<\/em> lullabies, and, well&#8230; instant *click*.<\/p>\n<p>Certainly when I first heard their newest single, I might have dubbed it\u00a0<em>lullaby pop<\/em>. It sounds thin, light, and airy: <em>non-serious<\/em>. If Edward Lear were alive and writing music today, he might craft songs that sounded like this. And when I first saw the video, this impression only strengthened; colorful cut-out animals stroll around city streets, mimicking the behaviors of humans (wearing suits, dresses, and more casual garb, they talk on cell phones, walk babies, sip coffee and use laptops at sidewalk tables&#8230;). Pleasant? Of course. And a little, yes, silly.<\/p>\n<p>But then I started to wonder about it. Why on earth would you give a name like &#8220;Tourniquet&#8221; to a lullaby? (For that matter, what did the rest of the lyrics say?) And that video, wow: for all the veneer of nursery-wall murals, some dark,\u00a0<em>dark<\/em> stuff is roiling about in there&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>So I <a title=\"NPR: 'First Watch: Hem, 'Tourniquet''\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/blogs\/allsongs\/2013\/01\/28\/170503478\/first-watch-hem-tourniquet\" target=\"_blank\">dug around<\/a> <a title=\"New York Magazine: 'Lullabies for Brooklyn&quot;\" href=\"http:\/\/nymag.com\/arts\/popmusic\/reviews\/16308\/\" target=\"_blank\">a little bit<\/a> <a title=\"High Road Touring: press release for 'Departure and Farewell'\" href=\"http:\/\/www.highroadtouring.com\/artists\/hem\/\" target=\"_blank\">to find out<\/a> the circumstances under which band member Dan Mess\u00e9 wrote\u00a0and the band finally recorded &#8220;Tourniquet.&#8221; And things finally went *click* for me, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Lyrics here; see additional notes at the foot of this post.] From\u00a0whiskey river (which seems to have had a rough week): You fight your superficiality, your shallowness, so as to try to come at people without unreal expectations, without an overload of bias or hope or arrogance, as untanklike as you can be, sans cannon [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[183,247,1393,74,274,5],"tags":[295,1848,2005,2828,3408,3409],"class_list":{"0":"post-12933","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-everyday-life","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-music","10":"category-cartoons","11":"category-06_writing","12":"tag-annie-dillard","13":"tag-philip-larkin","14":"tag-yuan-mei","15":"tag-hayden-carruth","16":"tag-hem","17":"tag-philip-roth","18":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3mB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12933"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12933\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12954,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12933\/revisions\/12954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}