{"id":14062,"date":"2013-06-21T13:43:12","date_gmt":"2013-06-21T17:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=14062"},"modified":"2013-06-21T13:53:38","modified_gmt":"2013-06-21T17:53:38","slug":"a-glorious-mess","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/a-glorious-mess\/","title":{"rendered":"A Glorious Mess"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a name=\"top\"><\/a><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zsAUU4mPpq4?rel=0\" height=\"338\" width=\"601\" allowfullscreen=\"\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[<a title=\"Lyrics: 'After the Afterglow'\" onclick=\"javascript:wopenScroll('https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/lyrics\/aftertheafterglow_mygloriousmess.html', 'new', 425, 500); return false;\">Lyrics here<\/a>. More about the video <a href=\"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/a-glorious-mess\/#vidnote\">below<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From <a title=\"whiskey river: Albert Camus, on the need to breathe alone sometimes\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2013\/06\/find-meaning.html\" target=\"_blank\"><em>whiskey river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn&#8217;t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn&#8217;t have to be a walk during which you&#8217;ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don&#8217;t find meaning but &#8220;steal&#8221; some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn&#8217;t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to <em>be<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Albert Camus, Notebooks [<em><a title=\"Amazon.com: 'Notebooks, 1951-1959,' by Albert Camus\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Notebooks-1951-1959-Volume-Albert-Camus\/dp\/156663850X\" target=\"_blank\">source<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(unverified)])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: on the messy truths within\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2013\/06\/i-have-no-right-to-call-myself-one-who.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I have no right to call myself one who knows. I was one who seeks, and I still am, but I no longer seek in the stars or in the books; I&#8217;m beginning to hear the teachings of my blood pulsing within me. My story isn&#8217;t pleasant. It&#8217;s not sweet and harmonious like invented stories. It tastes of folly and bewilderment, of madness and dream, like the life of all people who no longer want to lie to themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Hermann Hesse [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Demian,' by Herman Hesse\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=WB3wKoZRE3EC&amp;pg=PA2#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: Wendell Berry, on not needing to *be* perfect to speak of perfection\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2013\/06\/do-not-think-me-gentle-because-i-speak.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>A Warning to My Readers<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Do not think me gentle<br \/>\nbecause I speak in praise<br \/>\nof gentleness, or elegant<br \/>\nbecause I honor the grace<br \/>\nthat keeps this world. I am<br \/>\na man crude as any,<br \/>\ngross of speech, intolerant,<br \/>\nstubborn, angry, full<br \/>\nof fits and furies. That I<br \/>\nmay have spoken well<br \/>\nat times, is not natural.<br \/>\nA wonder is what it is.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Wendell Berry [<a title=\"Google Books: 'The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry,' by Wendell Berry\" href=\"http:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=xxo9aSD49jsC&amp;pg=PT174#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from whiskey river:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I am a sucker for waltzes, although I have never danced one. Not only am I clumsy, but the slightest spin of my body makes me very dizzy. I have not been to an amusement park in nearly half a century, and were I to go, my movement would consist of going from one popcorn stand to another. It is not the waltz as dance that moves me, but rather its rhythm, which, more than any other time signature, is so expressive about love. Nothing beats a love song in waltz time&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>I suppose many people think of waltzes as old-fashioned, even though savvy songwriters still write love songs in three-four. I think of myself as old-fashioned and trendy, sometimes at the same moment. It can be messy and confusing, too, like love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Gayle Pemberton [<a title=\"Massachusetts Review: 'My Tourette's,' by Gayle Pemberton\" href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/25091078\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>The Soul has Bandaged moments &#8212;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Soul has Bandaged moments &#8212;<br \/>\nWhen too appalled to stir &#8212;<br \/>\nShe feels some ghastly Fright come up<br \/>\nAnd stop to look at her &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>Salute her &#8212; with long fingers &#8212;<br \/>\nCaress her freezing hair &#8212;<br \/>\nSip, Goblin, from the very lips<br \/>\nThe Lover &#8212; hovered &#8212; o&#8217;er &#8212;<br \/>\nUnworthy, that a thought so mean<br \/>\nAccost a Theme &#8212; so &#8212; fair &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>The soul has moments of Escape &#8212;<br \/>\nWhen bursting all the doors &#8212;<br \/>\nShe dances like a Bomb, abroad,<br \/>\nAnd swings upon the Hours,<\/p>\n<p>As do the Bee &#8212; delirious borne &#8212;<br \/>\nLong Dungeoned from his Rose &#8212;<br \/>\nTouch Liberty &#8212; then know no more,<br \/>\nBut Noon, and Paradise &#8212;<\/p>\n<p>The Soul&#8217;s retaken moments &#8212;<br \/>\nWhen, Felon led along,<br \/>\nWith shackles on the plumed feet,<br \/>\nAnd staples, in the Song,<\/p>\n<p>The Horror welcomes her, again,<br \/>\nThese, are not brayed of Tongue &#8212;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Emily Dickinson)<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Life has a wonderful, sprawling, aimless quality that only a disorderly person can appreciate. Take such common things as thunder and lightning. They tend to make a neat person nervous, as he hates to see the sky disrupted. But a good, rousing thunderstorm is a source of poetic joy to the disorderly soul. It brings out the best in him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Hal Boyle [<a title=\"Google News: Lewiston (Maine) Evening Journal, April 14 1952 ('The Neat Person vs. Disorderly,' by Hal Boyle)\" href=\"http:\/\/news.google.com\/newspapers?id=cIkpAAAAIBAJ&amp;sjid=PmcFAAAAIBAJ&amp;pg=7148%2C7476916\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>School photo, found after <span class=\"explannote\" title=\"Wikipedia: 'catastrophic EF5 multiple-vortex tornado that struck Joplin, Missouri, late in the afternoon of Sunday, May 22, 2011'\">the Joplin tornado<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"epigraph\">&#8220;Joey, 4th grade, 1992&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s been on the fridge since it happened,<br \/>\nsneaking glances from underneath the cat<br \/>\nmagnet at our dinners, coffee habits, arguments.<br \/>\nWe posted him on the database of items found,<br \/>\nhoping that someone would recognize his messy<br \/>\nhair, Batman t-shirt, blue eyes, but no one<br \/>\nanswered the post or claimed him.<br \/>\nSomewhere a childhood photo album is not<br \/>\nquite complete, or a grandmother&#8217;s mantelpiece;<br \/>\nan uncle&#8217;s wallet. One afternoon I got restless,<br \/>\nflipped through my old yearbooks, trying to find him,<br \/>\nlooking to see how he might have aged: did he lose<br \/>\nthe chubby cheeks? dye his hair? how long<br \/>\ndid he have to wear braces? But he&#8217;s too young<br \/>\nto have passed me in the halls, the picture just<br \/>\na stranger, a small reminder of the whirling aftermath<br \/>\nwhen Joplin was clutching at scraps: everything displaced,<br \/>\neven this poor kid who doesn&#8217;t even know he&#8217;s lost.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Laura Dimmit [<a title=\"Poetry Foundation: 'School photo, found after the Joplin tornado,' by Laura Dimmit\" href=\"http:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poem\/245758\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>________________________<br \/>\n<a name=\"vidnote\"><\/a><br \/>\n<img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" alt=\"Squeezebox keyboard?\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/mygloriousmess_squeezeboxkeyboard.jpg?resize=350%2C295&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"350\" height=\"295\" \/><strong>About the video:<\/strong> <a title=\"My Glorious Mess: home page\" href=\"http:\/\/mygloriousmess.com\/home\" target=\"_blank\">My Glorious Mess<\/a> is a Brooklyn-based folk-pop band whose self-titled EP came out in 2011; the video at the top of this post was shot in March 2012 and released last September. The music&#8217;s nice, and of course you can probably intuit how I found the band in the first place. But I was &#8212; am &#8212; transfixed by the keyboard which appears in the video. You can first see it at around 0:57 or so into the song. My first thought: <em>Is she playing a <span style=\"font-variant: small-caps;\">file cabinet<\/span><\/em>? The image at right is from a still photo taken during the video shoot; the keyboard sits atop a little wooden stool; that&#8217;s keyboardist Ambyr D&#8217;Amato&#8217;s knee and hand to its right. It is not a file cabinet, as you can see. It&#8217;s more a&#8230; squeezebox piano? It appears to work something like an accordion, although clearly not meant to be clutched to the chest while tootling a polka, and the wooden cabinetry adds a whole &#8216;nother dimension. <em>Musical furniture<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">[<em><a title=\"Return to beginning of post\" href=\"#top\">back to top<\/a><\/em>]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Lyrics here. More about the video below.] From whiskey river: Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn&#8217;t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn&#8217;t have to [&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":[247,1393,74,5,251],"tags":[1579,1754,3520,3521,3522,3523,3524,3525],"class_list":{"0":"post-14062","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-music","9":"category-06_writing","10":"category-poetry-writing_cat","11":"tag-wendell-berry","12":"tag-herman-hesse","13":"tag-my-glorious-mess","14":"tag-albert-camus","15":"tag-gayle-pemberton","16":"tag-emily-dickinson","17":"tag-hal-boyle","18":"tag-laura-dimmit","19":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3EO","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14062","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=14062"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14062\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14084,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14062\/revisions\/14084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14062"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14062"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14062"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}