{"id":8183,"date":"2011-05-20T11:51:17","date_gmt":"2011-05-20T15:51:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=8183"},"modified":"2011-05-20T11:51:17","modified_gmt":"2011-05-20T15:51:17","slug":"one-after-another-after-another-after-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2011\/05\/one-after-another-after-another-after-another\/","title":{"rendered":"One After Another, After Another, After Another…"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

[Image: scene from Northlandz<\/a>, the world’s largest model train layout
\n(Flemington, NJ). Photo by Vlad Bubnov, on Flickr<\/a>.]<\/em><\/p>\n

From whiskey river<\/em><\/a> (italicized portion):<\/p>\n

In the Moment<\/strong><\/p>\n

It was a day in June, all lawn and sky,
\nthe kind that gives you no choice
\nbut to unbutton your shirt
\nand sit outside in a rough wooden chair.<\/p>\n

And if a glass of ice tea and a volume
\nof seventeenth-century poetry
\nwith a dark blue cover are available,
\nthen the picture can hardly be improved.<\/p>\n

I remember a fly kept landing on my wrist,
\nand two black butterflies
\nwith white and red wing-dots
\nbobbed around my head in the bright air.<\/p>\n

I could feel the day offering itself to me,<\/em>
\n and I wanted nothing more<\/em>
\n than to be in the moment — but which moment?<\/em>
\n Not that one, or that one, or that one,<\/em><\/p>\n

or any of those that were scuttling by
\nseemed perfectly right for me.
\nPlus, I was too knotted up with questions
\nabout the past and his tall, evasive sister, the future.<\/p>\n

What churchyard held the bones of George Herbert?
\nWhy did John Donne’s wife die so young?
\nAnd more pressingly,
\nwhat could we serve the vegetarian twins<\/p>\n

who were coming to dinner that evening?
\nWho knew that they would bring their own grapes?
\nAnd who was the driver of that pickup
\nflying down the road toward the lone railroad track?<\/p>\n

And so the priceless moments of the day
\nwere squandered one by one—
\nor more likely several thousand at a time—
\nwith quandary and pointless interrogation.<\/p>\n

All I wanted was to be a pea of being
\ninside the green pod of time,
\nbut that was not going to happen today.
\nI had to admit to myself
\n<\/a>
\nas I closed the blue book on the face
\nof Thomas Traherne [*<\/a>] and returned to the house
\nwhere I lit a flame under a pot
\nfull of floating brown eggs,<\/p>\n

and, while they cooked in their bubbles,
\nI stared into a small oval mirror near the sink
\nto see if that crazy glass
\nhad anything special to tell me today.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Billy Collins, from The Trouble with Poetry, and Other Poems<\/em> [source<\/em><\/a>])<\/p>\n

…and<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Life is made up of moments, small pieces of glittering mica in a long stretch of gray cement. It would be wonderful if they came to us unsummoned, but particularly in lives as busy as the ones most of us lead now, that won’t happen. We have to teach ourselves how to make room for them, to love them, and to live, really live.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Anna Quindlen, A Short Guide to a Happy Life)<\/p>\n

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

The Last Glass Bead Game Player<\/strong><\/p>\n

The colored beads, his playthings, in his hand,
\nHe sits head bent; around him lies a land
\nLaid waste by war and ravaged by disease.
\nGrowing on rubble, ivy hums with bees;
\nA weary peace with muted psalmody
\nSounds in a world of aged tranquility.
\nThe old man tallies up his colored beads;
\nhe fits a blue one here, a white one there,
\nMakes sure a large one, or a small, precedes,
\nand shapes his Game ring with devoted care.
\nTime was he had won greatness in the Game,
\nHad mastered many tongues and many arts,
\nHad known the world, traveled in foreign parts—
\nFrom pole to pole, no limits to his fame.
\nAround him pupils, colleagues always pressed.
\nNow he is old, worn-out; his life is lees.
\nDisciples come no longer to be blessed,
\nNor master to invite an argument.
\nAll, all are gone, and the temples, libraries,
\nAnd schools of Castalia are no more. At rest
\nAmid the ruins, the glass beads in his hand,
\nThose hieroglyphs once so significant
\nThat now are only colored bits of glass,
\nHe lets them roll until their force is spent
\nAnd silently they vanish in the sand.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(Herman Hesse [source<\/a>])<\/p>\n

The girl group known as The Cookies had two incarnations. The first (dating to the early 1950s) morphed into Ray Charles’s backup singers, The Raelettes. Starting in 1961, with a mostly new lineup (including one Earl-Jean McCrea), they sang backup for acts like Neil Sedaka and Tony Orlando. By 1962 they had a hit of their own: “Chains,” written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin in their Brill Building songwriting personas:<\/p>\n

[Below, click Play button to begin <\/em>Chains. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:31 long.]<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

[audio:chains_thecookies.mp3|titles=’Chains’|artists=The Cookies]<\/div>\n

Lyrics:<\/p>\n

Chains<\/em><\/strong>
\n (by Gerry Goffin and Carole King; performance by The Cookies)<\/em><\/p>\n

Chains
\nMy baby’s got me locked up in chains
\nAnd they ain’t the kind that you can see
\nWhoa-oh, these chains of love got a hold on me
\nYeah<\/p>\n

Chains
\nWell, I can’t break away from these chains
\nI can’t run around ’cause I’m not free
\nWhoa-oh, these chains of love won’t let me be
\nYeah<\/p>\n

Now believe me when I tell you
\nI think you’re fine
\nI’d like to love you
\nBut, darling, I’m imprisoned by these<\/p>\n

Chains
\nMy baby’s got me locked up in chains
\nAnd they ain’t the kind that you can see
\nWhoa-oh, these chains of love got a hold on me
\nYeah<\/p>\n

I wanna tell you, pretty baby
\nYour lips look sweet
\nI’d like to kiss them
\nBut I can’t break away from all of these<\/p>\n

Chains
\nMy baby’s got me locked up in chains
\nAnd they ain’t the kind that you can see
\nWhoa-oh, these chains of love got a hold on me
\nYeah<\/p>\n

Chains
\nChains of love
\nChains of love
\n(repeat and fade out)<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

King and Goffin supposedly offered the song to The Cookies in gratitude for McCrea’s recommending a good babysitter. The babysitter in question shortly stepped onto the world’s music stage as Little Eva –who recorded King and Goffin’s very<\/em> big hit of 1961, “The Loco-Motion<\/a>” (on which The Cookies, yes, performed the backup honors).<\/p>\n

Of course, the Loco-Motion in question really — really, now — has nothing to do with trains. But connections are interesting, aren’t they?<\/p>\n

___________________<\/p>\n

<\/a>* Given the context of those lines from Billy Collins, I thought this bit from Wikipedia<\/a> was interesting (emphasis added):<\/p>\n

Thomas Traherne, MA (1636 or 1637 \u2013 ca. 27 September 1674) was an English poet and religious writer. His style is often considered Metaphysical…<\/p>\n

As so little of Traherne’s work had (apparently) survived his death, Traherne was previously labeled a \u201cmissing person\u201d in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. In 2004, thanks to a number of additional discoveries, his status changed so much that he is no longer labeled a \u201cmissing person.” He is now highly regarded, such that if there were a picture of him (no portrait of Traherne has been authenticated)<\/em>, he would be put next to other well-knowns such as Wordsworth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

[back<\/a><\/em>]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Image: scene from Northlandz, the world’s largest model train layout (Flemington, NJ). Photo by Vlad Bubnov, on Flickr.] From whiskey river (italicized portion): In the Moment It was a day in June, all lawn and sky, the kind that gives you no choice but to unbutton your shirt and sit outside in a rough wooden […]<\/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":[247,1393,74,251],"tags":[1141,1754,2373,2374,2375,2376,2377],"class_list":{"0":"post-8183","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-ruminations","7":"category-whiskey-river-runningaftermyhat","8":"category-music","9":"category-poetry-writing_cat","10":"tag-billy-collins","11":"tag-herman-hesse","12":"tag-northlandz","13":"tag-anna-quindlen","14":"tag-the-cookies","15":"tag-carole-king","16":"tag-little-eva","17":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-27Z","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8183","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=8183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8183\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}