{"id":7833,"date":"2010-07-09T06:45:48","date_gmt":"2010-07-09T10:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=7833"},"modified":"2019-11-05T12:58:12","modified_gmt":"2019-11-05T17:58:12","slug":"best-not-to-wait","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2010\/07\/best-not-to-wait\/","title":{"rendered":"Best Not to Wait"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

[Image above, “Don’t Wait for Tomorrow” (original oil on board, 92cm x 122cm<\/span>),
\nby Nadeem Chughtai<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore<\/a> on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Joan Didion; quoted widely, allegedly from a 1975 commencement address)<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The time allotted to you is so short that if you lose one second you have already lost your whole life, for it is no longer, it is always just as long as the time you lose. So if you have started out on a walk, continue it whatever happens; you can only gain, you run no risk, in the end you may fall over a precipice perhaps, but had you turned back after the first steps and run downstairs you would have fallen at once \u2013 and not perhaps, but for certain. So if you find nothing in the corridors open the doors, and if you find nothing behind these doors there are more floors, and if you find nothing up there, don’t worry, just leap up another flight of stairs. As long as you don’t stop climbing, the stairs won’t end, under your climbing feet they will go on growing upwards.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Franz Kafka, quoted at Memory Green<\/em><\/a> from a work called The Advocates<\/em>)<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Not from whiskey river<\/em>:<\/p>\n

Keep Going<\/strong><\/p>\n

I was led to the trees, as if someone with muscle
\nIn her walk had pushed me. Heading
\nTo the leaves — regal, molten with their final
\nChance to breathe, Indian summer — I stopped
\nBy the crowd shouting at the blue police barricade,
\nMile 25. This was the moment, one of 26,000
\nRunners, you presented yourself, dazed and red-faced,
\nSoldiering on. Although I was too astonished
\nTo speak, your name issued from me, the same way
\nA cut bleeds, the eyes allow us to see.
\n“Keep going!” I shouted, again without forethought.
\nSlowly, your mouth fashioned my name, then
\nYou continued, working to control your body,
\nPushing on through a life out of control.<\/p>\n

“I can’t sit still,” were your words, so urgent,
\nServing as much as a plea and apology as a goodbye.
\nYet it is the way we would sit together
\nFor which I remember you. We would talk only briefly
\nOr not talk, leaning against each other while the light
\nTurned to darkness over the Hudson, until we were sitting
\nIn darkness, and one of us, without any active thought,
\nMight quietly speak, or rise to turn on a light,
\nOr move closer to the other, as if the darkness
\nItself had spoken and thought were held away
\nLike an outsider, standing outside a barrier,
\nAnd we were not going anywhere. We were inside.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Michele Wolf [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and:<\/p>\n

The abbot had known that this day would bring pilgrims. The knowledge was a part of his dreams; it surrounded him, like the darkness. So the day became one of waiting, which was, he knew, a sin: moments were to be experienced; waiting was a sin against both the time that was still to come and the moments one was currently disregarding. Still, he was waiting. Through each of the day’s services, through their scant meals, the abbot was listening intently, waiting for the bell to sound, waiting to know who and how many.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Neil Gaiman, Neverwhere<\/em>)<\/p>\n

I really, really wish I understood music better than I do.You may recall the musical clip from last week’s whiskey river<\/em> Fridays post<\/a> — Canned Heat’s “Going Up the Country.” In that post, I blithely introduced the group as “the classic hippie-era boogie-blues band”; re-reading it, a couple days later, I wondered just what the heck makes “boogie blues” different from, say, “boogie-woogie jazz.” I can hear the difference, but damned if I can explain it, y’know?<\/p>\n

Well, I forgot all about that question until formulating this<\/em> post. And then I thought of including some boogie-woogie music, because that driving barrelhouse-piano-based sound comes about as close to not-waiting as I can imagine.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to “Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar.” A bizarre title, right? It sounds like it must be some drunken masochistic domestic-violence scenario. Not so, according to Wikipedia<\/a> (although no source for this story is provided there):<\/p>\n

The title adopts 1940’s hipster slang coined by [songwriter Don] Raye’s friend, Ray McKinley, a drummer and lead singer in the Jimmy Dorsey band in the 1930s. McKinley kicked off certain uptempo songs by asking pianist Freddie Slack — nicknamed “Daddy” — to give him a boogie beat, or “eight to the bar.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given my general level of ignorance about music theory, I wouldn’t dare attempt to trace a line from the early Big-Band versions of the song all the way to the 1970s, including multiple recordings by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen<\/a>. But I’ll share one of the latter with you:<\/p>\n\n

Lyrics:<\/p>\n

Beat Me Daddy Eight to the Bar<\/strong>
\n(by Don Raye and Ray McKinley;
\nperformance by Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen)<\/em><\/p>\n

Well, there’s a little
\nHonky tonky village in Texas
\nWhere’s a guy who plays
\nThe best piano by far<\/p>\n

He can play piano
\nAny way you like it
\nBut the way he plays it best
\nIs eight to the bar<\/p>\n

When he jams, it’s a ball
\nHe’s the daddy of them all<\/p>\n

The people gather round
\nWhen he gets on the stand
\nAnd when he plays
\nHe gets a hand<\/p>\n

The rhythm he plays
\nPuts the cats in a trance
\nNobody there bothers to dance<\/p>\n

And when they jam
\nWith the bass and guitar
\nThey holler, oh, beat me, Daddy
\nEight to the bar<\/p>\n

I said plink, plink, plink
\nPlink, plink, plink, plink
\nPlunking on the keys
\nRiff raff, riff raff, riff raff
\nRiffing up with ease<\/p>\n

When he jams, it’s a ball
\nHe’s the daddy of them all
\nPeople, one time, yeah<\/p>\n

[instrumental break; repeat lyrics]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I don’t know; I don’t hear patterns of eight of anything<\/em> in there. (Maybe my hearing’s not only weak, but slow.)<\/p>\n

For contrast — and to restore normal cardio-pulmonary functioning to your system — here’s a forcibly decelerated and more recent version, by jazz duo Liz Magnes (piano) and Sandra Bendor (vocals):<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image above, “Don’t Wait for Tomorrow” (original oil on board, 92cm x 122cm), by Nadeem Chughtai] From whiskey river: I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just […]<\/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":[410,247,1393,74,36,251],"tags":[178,561,852,1514,1877,1878,1879,1880,1881,1882],"class_list":{"0":"post-7833","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-hearing","7":"category-ruminations","8":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","9":"category-music","10":"category-reading","11":"category-poetry-writing_cat","12":"tag-whiskey-river","13":"tag-music-theory","14":"tag-neil-gaiman","15":"tag-joan-didion","16":"tag-franz-kafka","17":"tag-michele-wolf","18":"tag-boogie-woogie","19":"tag-beat-me-daddy-eight-to-the-bar","20":"tag-liz-magnes","21":"tag-sandra-bendor","22":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-22l","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7833","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=7833"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7833\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21752,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7833\/revisions\/21752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}