{"id":7871,"date":"2010-08-13T06:36:48","date_gmt":"2010-08-13T10:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=7871"},"modified":"2010-08-13T06:36:48","modified_gmt":"2010-08-13T10:36:48","slug":"surprised-by-what-you-want","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2010\/08\/surprised-by-what-you-want\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprised by What You Want"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/object><\/p>\n

[Video above: “Rio,” by Hey Marseilles<\/a>. Lyrics at the foot of this post.]<\/em><\/p>\n

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

I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit is flinging tennis ball after tennis ball, eternally, and the one thing I want in the world is a tennis ball.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Annie Dillard [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Born Thirty Years Ago<\/strong><\/p>\n

Thirty years ago I was born into the world.
\nA thousand, ten thousand miles I’ve roamed,
\nBy rivers where the green grass grows thick,
\nbeyond the border where the red sands fly.
\nI brewed potions in a vain search for life everlasting,
\nI read books, I sang songs of history,
\nand today I’ve come home to Cold Mountain
\nto pillow my head on the stream and wash my ears.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Han-shan, Cold Mountain<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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

Why I Am Not a Painter<\/strong><\/p>\n

I am not a painter, I am a poet.
\nWhy? I think I would rather be
\na painter, but I am not. Well,<\/p>\n

for instance, Mike Goldberg
\nis starting a painting. I drop in.
\n\u201cSit down and have a drink\u201d he
\nsays. I drink; we drink. I look
\nup. \u201cYou have SARDINES in it.\u201d
\n\u201cYes, it needed something there.\u201d
\n\u201cOh.\u201d I go and the days go by
\nand I drop in again. The painting
\nis going on, and I go, and the days
\ngo by. I drop in. The painting is
\nfinished. \u201cWhere\u2019s SARDINES?\u201d
\nAll that\u2019s left is just
\nletters, \u201cIt was too much,\u201d Mike says.<\/p>\n

But me? One day I am thinking of
\na color: orange. I write a line
\nabout orange. Pretty soon it is a
\nwhole page of words, not lines.
\nThen another page. There should be
\nso much more, not of orange, of
\nwords, of how terrible orange is
\nand life. Days go by. It is even in
\nprose, I am a real poet. My poem
\nis finished and I haven\u2019t mentioned
\norange yet. It\u2019s twelve poems, I call
\nit ORANGES. And one day in a gallery
\nI see Mike\u2019s painting, called SARDINES.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Frank O’Hara [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

Finally, E.B. White writes of his efforts to soothe the soul of an elderly gander who’d recently lost his mate. In desperation, White checks out a brood of goslings in a friend’s care:<\/p>\n

The goslings had the cheerful, bright, innocent look that all baby geese have. We scooped up three and tossed them into a box, and I paid Irving and carried them home.<\/p>\n

My next concern was how to introduce these small creatures to their foster father, my old gander. I thought about this all the way home. I’ve had just enough experience with domesticated animals and birds to know that they are a bundle of eccentricities and crotchets, and I was not at all sure what sort of reception three strange youngsters would get from a gander who was full of sorrows and suspicions. (I once saw a gander, taken by surprise, seize a newly hatched gosling and hurl it the length of the barn floor.) I had an uneasy feeling that my three little charges might be dead within the hour, victims of a grief-crazed old fool. I decided to go slow. I fixed a makeshift pen for the goslings in the barn, arranged so that they would be separated from the gander but visible to him, and he would be visible to them. The old fellow, when he heard youthful voices, hustled right in to find out what was going on. He studied the scene in silence and with the greatest attention. I could not tell whether the look in his eye was one of malice or affection — a goose’s eye is a small round enigma. After observing this introductory scene for a while, I left and went into the house.<\/p>\n

Half an hour later, I heard a commotion in the barnyard: the gander was in full cry. I hustled out. The goslings, impatient with life indoors, had escaped from their hastily constructed enclosure in the barn and had joined their foster father in the barnyard. The cries I had heard were his screams of welcome — the old bird was delighted with the turn that events had taken. His period of mourning was over, he now had interesting and useful work to do, and he threw himself into the role of father with immense satisfaction and zeal, hissing at me with renewed malevolence, shepherding the three children here and there, and running interference against real and imaginary enemies.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(E.B. White, “The Geese,” from Essays of E.B. White<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

Note: <\/strong>Lyrics to the video which opens this post:<\/p>\n

Rio<\/strong>
\n(Hey Marseilles)<\/em><\/p>\n

Silhouette seasons and far-away reasons
\nare all I have now
\nBorders can keep me if Rio will have me
\nto dance and to drown
\nTake to the harbor like sails to set
\nSleep for the evening in failed regret
\nHold on to skylines of pale and coal
\nClouds on horizons and love to grow old<\/p>\n

On the way I will go
\nWhere the days left to breathe
\nAre not gone, are still long
\nI am traveling on<\/p>\n

Love is a hazard in lower Manhattan
\nYou cannot escape, and mustn’t be saddened
\nBy men who abandon your eyes for another’s
\nThere are always Brazilian boys to discover<\/p>\n

Set your sights straight now
\nDon’t forget pain
\nDrink ’til tomorrow becomes yesterday
\nThink of the shorelines you have yet to see
\nMen who will hold you with eyes you believe<\/p>\n

On the way I will go
\nWhere the days left to breathe
\nAre not gone, are still long
\nI am traveling on<\/p>\n

On the way I will go
\nWhere the days left to breathe
\nAre not gone, are still long
\nI am traveling on<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Video above: “Rio,” by Hey Marseilles. Lyrics at the foot of this post.] From whiskey river: I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit is flinging tennis ball after tennis ball, eternally, and the one thing I want in the world is a tennis […]<\/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":[183,247,1393,405,74,5,251],"tags":[63,178,295,1937,1938,1939],"class_list":{"0":"post-7871","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-nature","10":"category-music","11":"category-06_writing","12":"category-poetry-writing_cat","13":"tag-eb-white","14":"tag-whiskey-river","15":"tag-annie-dillard","16":"tag-hey-marseilles","17":"tag-han-shan","18":"tag-frank-ohara","19":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-22X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7871","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=7871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7872,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7871\/revisions\/7872"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}