{"id":20354,"date":"2018-06-15T06:22:56","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T10:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=20354"},"modified":"2018-06-15T06:22:56","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T10:22:56","slug":"give-anything-to-find-that-birdy-boy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2018\/06\/give-anything-to-find-that-birdy-boy\/","title":{"rendered":"Give Anything to Find That Birdy Boy"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intrinsic-container intrinsic-container-16x9\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/263985244?title=0&amp;byline=0&amp;portrait=0\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p class=\"smalltext\"><em>[Video: &#8220;Hit Like A Girl Contest 2018\/Good Times Bad Times &#8211; LED ZEPPELIN,&#8221; a cover version by one Yoyoka Soma, an eight-year-old drummer. <a title=\"Hit Like a Girl Contest\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/hitlikeagirlcontest.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hit Like a Girl<\/a> is self-described as &#8220;the global online contest for female drummers.&#8221; Soma did not &#8220;win&#8221; HLAG, even in her &#8220;Drumset &lt;18&#8221; category; I haven&#8217;t watched the other videos, but it&#8217;s hard to imagine that they all radiate quite this &#8212; or this <\/em>much<em> &#8212; spirit.]<\/em><\/p>\n<p>From <a title=\"whiskey river: Michael McCarthy, on joy in an ironic world\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2018\/06\/blog-post.html\" target=\"_blank\"><\/a><a title=\"whiskey river: Michael McCarthy, on joy in an ironic world\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2018\/06\/blog-post.html\"><em>whiskey<\/em> <em>river<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;joy is not a concept, nor indeed a word, that we are entirely comfortable with, in the present age. The idea seems out of step with a time whose characteristic notes are mordant and mocking, and whose preferred emotion is irony. Joy hints at an unrestrained enthusiasm which may be thought uncool&#8230; It reeks of the Romantic movement. Yet it is there. Being unfashionable has no effect on its existence&#8230; What it denotes is a happiness with an overtone of something more, which we might term an elevated or, indeed, a spiritual quality.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Michael McCarthy [<a title=\"Amazon.com: 'The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy,' by Michael McCarthy\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1681372428\/braipick-20#reader_1681372428\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: D. Bunyavong, on the gentle ones\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2018\/06\/pay-attention-to-gentle-ones-ones-who.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Pay attention to the gentle ones,<br \/>\nthe ones who can hold your gaze<br \/>\nwith no discomfort,<br \/>\nthe ones who smile to themselves<br \/>\nwhile sitting alone<br \/>\nin a coffeeshop,<br \/>\nthe ones who walk<br \/>\nas if floating.<br \/>\nTake them in and marvel at them.<br \/>\nSimply marvel.<br \/>\nIt takes an extraordinary person<br \/>\nto carry themselves<br \/>\nas if<br \/>\nthey do not live<br \/>\nin hell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(D. Bunyavong [<a title=\"D. Bunyavong's Instagram account, on the 'gentle ones'\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/BjthGO6HYpz\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;<a title=\"whiskey river: 'Advice to the Actress C.N.,' by Bertolt Brecht\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"http:\/\/whiskeyriver.blogspot.com\/2018\/06\/refresh-yourself-sister-with-water-from.html\" target=\"_blank\">and<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Advice to the Actress <span class=\"explannote\" title=\"this was apparently one Carola Neher, who worked quite a bit with Brecht (see her Wikipedia article)\">C.N.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Refresh yourself, sister<br \/>\nWith the water from the copper bowl with bits of ice in it &#8212;<br \/>\nOpen your eyes under water, wash them &#8212;<br \/>\nDry yourself with the rough towel and cast<br \/>\nA glance at a book you love.<br \/>\nIn this way begin<br \/>\nA lovely and useful day.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Bertolt Brecht [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Poems, 1913-1956,' by Bertolt Brecht\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=JyomfFKieTwC&amp;pg=PA179#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Not from <em>whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Branch Library<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>I wish I could find that skinny, long-beaked boy<br \/>\nwho perched in the branches of the old branch library.<\/p>\n<p>He spent the Sabbath flying between the wobbly stacks<br \/>\nand the flimsy wooden tables on the second floor,<\/p>\n<p>pecking at nuts, nesting in broken spines, scratching<br \/>\nnotes under his own corner patch of sky.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d give anything to find that birdy boy again<br \/>\nbursting out into the dusky blue afternoon<\/p>\n<p>with his satchel of scrawls and scribbles,<br \/>\nradiating heat, singing with joy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Edward Hirsch, from Special Orders [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Special Orders: Poems,' by Edward Hirsch\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=xpyS5fbkLPUC&amp;pg=PA5#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>Sojourns in the Parallel World<br \/>\n<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We live our lives of human passions,<br \/>\ncruelties, dreams, concepts,<br \/>\ncrimes and the exercise of virtue<br \/>\nin and beside a world devoid<br \/>\nof our preoccupations, free<br \/>\nfrom apprehension&#8212;though affected,<br \/>\ncertainly, by our actions. A world<br \/>\nparallel to our own though overlapping.<br \/>\nWe call it `Nature;&#8217; only reluctantly<br \/>\nadmitting ourselves to be `Nature&#8217; too.<br \/>\nWhenever we lose track of our own obsessions,<br \/>\nour self-concerns, because we drift for a minute,<br \/>\nan hour even, of pure (almost pure)<br \/>\nresponse to that insouciant life:<br \/>\ncloud, bird, fox, the flow of light, the dancing<br \/>\npilgrimage of water, vast stillness<br \/>\nof spellbound ephemerae on a lit windowpane,<br \/>\nanimal voices, mineral hum, wind<br \/>\nconversing with rain, ocean with rock, stuttering<br \/>\nof fire to coal\u2014then something tethered<br \/>\nin us, hobbled like a donkey on its patch<br \/>\nof gnawed grass and thistles, breaks free.<br \/>\nNo one discovers<br \/>\njust where we\u2019ve been, when we\u2019re caught up again<br \/>\ninto our own sphere (where we must<br \/>\nreturn, indeed, to evolve our destinies)<br \/>\n&#8212;but we have changed, a little.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Denise Levertov [<a title=\"Google Books: 'Selected Poems,' by Denise Levertov\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=RaAd0N8c6jEC&amp;pg=PA185#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong>I Am Waiting<\/strong><br \/>\n<em>(excerpt)<\/em><\/p>\n<p>I am waiting<br \/>\nto get some intimations<br \/>\nof immortality<br \/>\nby recollecting my early childhood<br \/>\nand I am waiting<br \/>\nfor the green mornings to come again<br \/>\nyouth\u2019s dumb green fields come back again<br \/>\nand I am waiting<br \/>\nfor some strains of unpremeditated art<br \/>\nto shake my typewriter<br \/>\nand I am waiting to write<br \/>\nthe great indelible poem<br \/>\nand I am waiting<br \/>\nfor the last long careless rapture<br \/>\nand I am perpetually waiting<br \/>\nfor the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn<br \/>\nto catch each other up at last<br \/>\nand embrace<br \/>\nand I am awaiting<br \/>\nperpetually and forever<br \/>\na renaissance of wonder<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Lawrence Ferlinghetti [<a title=\"Google Books: 'These Are My Rivers: New &amp; Selected Poems, 1955-1993,' by Lawrence Ferlinghetti\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=odYWsa9mLIUC&amp;pg=PA103#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;and:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8230;as we usually construe the world, sadness and pleasure should be far apart. Is it that the joy that comes from other people always risks sadness, because even when love doesn\u2019t fail, mortality enters in; is it that there is a place where sadness and joy are not distinct, where all emotion lies together, a sort of ocean into which the tributary streams of distinct emotions go, a faraway deep inside; is it that such sadness is only the side effect of art that describes the depths of our lives, and to see that described in all its potential for loneliness and pain is beautiful?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Rebecca Solnit [<a title=\"Google Books: 'A Field Guide to Getting Lost,' by Rebecca Solnit\" rel=\"noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=mgK5EdIQDL4C&amp;pg=PT62#v=onepage&amp;q&amp;f=false\" target=\"_blank\"><em>source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Video: &#8220;Hit Like A Girl Contest 2018\/Good Times Bad Times &#8211; LED ZEPPELIN,&#8221; a cover version by one Yoyoka Soma, an eight-year-old drummer. Hit Like a Girl is self-described as &#8220;the global online contest for female drummers.&#8221; Soma did not &#8220;win&#8221; HLAG, even in her &#8220;Drumset &lt;18&#8221; category; I haven&#8217;t watched the other videos, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20365,"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":"Rebecca Solnit, Michael McCarthy, et al.: 'Give Anything to Find That Birdy Boy'","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[247,1393,74,50,36,251],"tags":[272,850,1987,3288,3417,3884,4748,4749,4750,4751],"class_list":{"0":"post-20354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-music","10":"category-language-writing_cat","11":"category-reading","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-sadness","14":"tag-denise-levertov","15":"tag-edward-hirsch","16":"tag-bertolt-brecht","17":"tag-joy","18":"tag-rebecca-solnit","19":"tag-lawrence-ferlinghetti","20":"tag-d-bunyavong","21":"tag-michael-mccarthy","22":"tag-hit-like-a-girl","23":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/yoyokasoma_video_thumb.jpg?fit=600%2C340&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-5ii","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20354","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=20354"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20366,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20354\/revisions\/20366"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}