![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/johnesimpson.com\/images\/relocation.jpg?resize=439%2C312&ssl=1\" "\\"relocating")
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From whiskey river<\/em><\/a> (except for the last five lines; numerous other differences vs. the alternate source linked below):<\/p>\n Exercise<\/strong><\/p>\n First, forget what time it is then forget what day of the week it is follow these by forgetting to add forget how to count go on to forgetting elements forget fire<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (W. S. Merwin [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n …and<\/a>:<\/p>\n Imagine if for the next twenty-four hours you had to wear a cap that amplified your thoughts so that everyone within a hundred yards of you could hear every thought that passed through your head. Imagine if the mind were broadcast so that all about you could overhear your thoughts and fantasies, your dreams and fears. How embarrassed or fearful would you be to go outside? How long would you let your fear of the mind continue to isolate you from the hearts of others? And though this experiment sounds like one which few might care to participate in, imagine how freeing it would be at last to have nothing to hide. And how miraculous it would be to see that all others’ minds too were filled with the same confusion and fantasies, the same insecurity and doubt. How long would it take the judgmental mind to begin to release its grasp, to see through the illusion of separateness, to recognize with some humor the craziness of all beings’ minds, the craziness of mind itself?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Stephen and Ondrea Levine, from Who Dies?<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n Things I Didn\u2019t Know I Loved: After Nazim Hikmet<\/a>*<\/strong><\/p>\n I always knew I loved the sky, But I didn’t know I loved the clouds, And I know I love the grass, even as I am cutting it as short Sometimes I love the rain, staccato on the roof, But how about the sound of trains, Those whistles give loneliness and departure a voice. Perhaps I embrace the music of departure — song without lyrics, (Linda Pastan, from Queen of a Rainy Country<\/em><\/a>)<\/p>\n 1994’s Pulp Fiction<\/em> focused on the restarting of things we might have imagined dead. Old pulp themes, obviously. The life of Bruce Willis’s beat-up boxer, Butch. The heartbeat of Mia Wallace (played by Uma Thurman). The soul of hitman Jules Winnfield (Samuel Jackson). John Travolta’s real-life career…<\/p>\n It also defibrillated the popularity of a fairly minor sub-genre of rock: surf music. Wikipedia says<\/a> Quentin Tarrantino chose it as the main ingredient of the film’s soundtrack, but not because the music — or the film itself — had anything to do with the ocean. Rather, said Tarrantino, “To me it just sounds like rock and roll, even Morricone<\/a> music. It sounds like rock and roll spaghetti Western music.”<\/p>\n The closing song, “Surf Rider,” was a hit in 1963 when performed by a group called The Lively Ones, and (with most of the other songs) returned to the charts when the soundtrack was released. It played over Pulp Fiction<\/em>‘s end credits, and I’m not sure I can explain just how right<\/em> the song’s pace and rhythm felt as I sat in the theater after the first time I saw the film, grinning, my pulse still racing:<\/p>\n [Below, click Play button to begin. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 3:19 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n “Surf Rider” was recorded first not by The Lively Ones, but by The Ventures in 1962 — the song itself essentially a reboot. Even the title “Surf Rider” was new; at first, The Ventures called it “Spudnik”**. And while the melody and much of the instrumentation was unchanged, the original had been quite a bit less, uh… lively<\/em>:<\/p>\n [This clip is 2:25 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n ______________________________________
\nfor an hour
\ndo it regularly every day<\/p>\n
\nand do this regularly for a week
\nthen forget what country you are in
\nand practice doing it in company
\nfor a week
\nand then do them together
\nfor a week
\nwith as few breaks as possible<\/p>\n
\nor to subtract
\nit makes no difference
\nyou can change them
\naround after a week
\nboth will help you later
\nto forget how to count<\/p>\n
\nstarting with your own age
\nstarting with how to count backwards
\nstarting with even numbers
\nwith Roman numerals
\nstarting with fractions of Roman numerals
\nwith the old calendar
\ngoing on to the old alphabet
\ngoing on to the alphabet
\nforgetting it all until everything
\nis continuous again<\/p>\n
\nstarting with water
\nproceeding to earth
\nrising in fire<\/p>\n
\nthe way it seems solid and insubstantial at the same time;
\nthe way it disappears above us
\neven as we pursue it in a climbing plane,
\nlike wishes or answers to certain questions — always out of reach;
\nthe way it embodies blue,
\neven when it is gray.<\/p>\n
\nthose shaggy eyebrows glowering
\nover the face of the sun.
\nPerhaps I only love the strange shapes clouds can take,
\nas if they are sketches by an artist
\nwho keeps changing her mind.
\nPerhaps I love their deceptive softness,
\nlike a bosom I’d like to rest my head against
\nbut never can.<\/p>\n
\nas the hair on my grandson’s newly barbered head.
\nI love the way the smell of grass can fill my nostrils
\nwith intimations of youth and lust;
\nthe way it stains my handkerchief with meanings
\nthat never wash out.<\/p>\n
\nand always the snow when I am inside looking out
\nat the blurring around the edges of parked cars
\nand trees. And I love trees,
\nin winter when their austere shapes
\nare like the cutout silhouettes artists sell at fairs
\nand in May when their branches
\nare fuzzy with growth, the leaves poking out
\nlike new green horns on a young deer.<\/p>\n
\nthose drawn-out whistles of longing in the night,
\nlike coyotes made of steam and steel, no color at all,
\nreminding me of prisoners on chain gangs I’ve only seen
\nin movies, defeated men hammering spikes into rails,
\nthe burly guards watching over them?<\/p>\n
\nIt is the kind of loneliness I can take in my arms, tasting
\nof tears that comfort even as they burn, dampening the pillows
\nand all the feathers of all the geese who were plucked to fill
\nthem.<\/p>\n
\nso I can learn to love it, though I don’t love it now.
\nFor at the end of the story, when sky and clouds and grass,
\nand even you my love of so many years,
\nhave almost disappeared,
\nit will be all there is left to love.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n[audio:surfrider_lonelyones.mp3|titles=’Surf Rider’|artists=The Lonely Ones]<\/div>\n[audio:surfrider_ventures.mp3|titles=’Surf Rider’|artists=The Ventures]<\/div>\n
\n* See Nazim Hikmet’s original poem (translated by Mutlu Konuk and Randy Blasing), “Things I Didn’t Know I Loved,” here<\/a>.<\/p>\n