Nghy. Bill Nighy.

Excerpted from a wonderful interview with Bill Nighy, which you can read in its entirety at The Guardian:

When you were younger, you travelled to Paris to write a book, but never completed it. Will you ever dust down your great unfinished novel to realise your literary ambitions?

I had a very romantic idea – I was a walking cliche in my 20s – of running away to Paris to write the great English short story. The pathetic thing is that I went and stood in the Trocadéro, outside the Shakespeare and Company bookstore and under the Arc de Triomphe, hoping to catch some vibes. I sat down for an hour in front of a blank page and drew a margin, like at school, for the teacher’s remarks, but the doorbell went or the phone rang and that was the end of my literary career.

Click over to read it all HERE.

Here Comes the Moon

 

(clicking imbiggens)

And that reminded me of this:

Full lyrics HERE.

She stood there bright as the sun…

I really like the line, "He knew right then he was too far from home."  What a wonderful way to describe naivety!

Full lyrics HERE.

Naïf

"As an editor I was always waiting for Richard (Brautigan) to grow up as a writer. It seems to me he was essentially a naïf, and I don't think he cultivated that childishness, I think it came naturally. It was like he was much more in tune with the trout in America than with people."  ~Lawrence Ferlinghetti (source)

()

All Watched Over By Machines Of Loving Grace
by Richard Brautigan
 
I like to think (and
the sooner the better!)
of a cybernetic meadow
where mammals and computers
live together in mutually
programming harmony
like pure water
touching clear sky.
 
I like to think
(right now, please!)
of a cybernetic forest
filled with pines and electronics
where deer stroll peacefully
past computers
as if they were flowers
with spinning blossoms.
 
I like to think
(it has to be!)
of a cybernetic ecology
where we are free of our labors
and joined back to nature,
returned to our mammal
brothers and sisters,
and all watched over
by machines of loving grace.

 

It's an interesting poem, but I think it would have been better if he had just omitted the parts in parenthesis.

I could be wrong-- I don't know what he was going for there-- but it feels like he was attempting to mimic e.e. cummings' style. It's a bit distracting.

 

Heard, Seen

 2 Kings 20:5:  "I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears: behold, I will heal thee."

in context

"Words only have meaning in context.  If I just say 'toast' to you, you don't know if you're getting strawberry jam or champagne."  ~Erin McKean, in Every Word is a Bird We Teach to Sing by Daniel Tammet, ©2017

I can lock all my doors.

Full lyrics HERE.

Fake Flea Collars

My vet makes a point of warning everyone about counterfeit Seresto collars.  He has lost several cats to them.

At least one counterfeiter has a very convincing fake site that looks very much like an official site.  But it isn't.

Be careful.

Frowst

From Mirriam-Webster:

frowst (intransitive verb)
chiefly British
: to loll or lounge especially indoors

I've been reading a lot of P.G. Wodehouse lately, and learning a lot of new words. I don't know if it's because he's British and I'm not, or because the books I'm reading are nearly a century old.

Either way, I'm having fun.

Whoopie!

This is the first protest song that really resonated with me.  There was something very effective about the horrific imagery and the goofy delivery:

Full lyrics HERE.

My Korean-war veteran father, on the other hand, preferred this one:

Full lyrics HERE.

A Pit In Your Stomach All The Time

"All these sorts of things, these moments in your life, I know you really feel lousy. You've got a pit in your stomach all the time. So to me, the idea sometimes behind songs is to try and reach that person and say, 'Look, how about this thought?' So I'm always trying to do that. I notice. I'm always trying to say, look, it's going to be okay. It will be alright. I'm trying to be the voice of encouragement."  ~Paul McCartney (source)

maga

 

What people forget about the Vietnam war is that it was insanely popular until the last couple of years. Most boomers weren't anti-war hippies, they were do-as-you're-told conformists.

There has always been a large contingent of people who revel in doing as they're told, and think everyone else should do as they're told as well.

And the worst thing about the 2020s is seeing it all circle around again.

 

Ambedo

 

Clicking Imbiggens

I looked it up on Wiktionary to be sure, and it is a real word (LINK). 

Word O' The Day

verisimilitude (Noun, plural verisimilitudes)

1. The property of seeming true, of resembling reality; resemblance to reality.  
2. A statement which merely appears to be true.  

(via Wiktionary)

Worry and Monotony and Unsatisfied Longings

Capitalism and classism go hand in hand, and these are not new problems.

This excerpt is from Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys, ©1939:

I go into the other room, this time without knocking.  Salvatini has gone.  Mr Blank is still writing letters.  Is he making dates with all the girls he knows in Paris?  I bet that's what he's doing.

He looks at me with distaste.  Plat du jour-- boiled eyes, served cold…

Well, let's argue this out, Mr Blank.  You, who represent Society, have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month.  That's my market value, for I am an inefficient member of Society, slow in the uptake, uncertain, slightly damaged in the fray, there's no denying it.  So you have the right to pay me four hundred francs a month, to lodge me in a small, dark, room, to clothe me shabbily, to harass me with worry and monotony and unsatisfied longings till you get me to the point when I blush at a look, cry at a word.  We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky-- and it would be so much less fun if it were.  Isn't it so, Mr Blank?  There must be the dark background to show up the bright colours.  Some must cry so that the others may be able to laugh more heartily.  Sacrifices are necessary…  Let's say that you have this mystical right to cut my legs off.  But the right to ridicule me afterwards because I am a cripple-- no, that I think you haven't got.  And that's the right you hold most dearly, isn't it?  You must be able to despise the people you exploit.  But I wish you a lot of trouble, Mr Blank, and just to start off with, your damned shop's going bust.  Alleluia!  Did I say all this?  If course I didn't.  I didn't even think it.

I say that I'm ill and want to go.

And that reminded me of this:

“It is not enough merely to win; others must lose.”  ~Gore Vidal

Bud

 

Calvert Grant DeForest
(Larry "Bud" Melman)
July 23, 1921 – March 19, 2007

"Everyone always wondered if Calvert was an actor playing a character, but in reality he was just himself: a genuine, modest, and nice man. To our staff and to our viewers, he was a beloved and valued part of our show, and we will miss him."  ~David Letterman

And They Said

By Becky Hemsley @beckyhemsleypoetry (via):

She sat at the back and they said she was shy,
She led from the front and they hated her pride,
They asked her advice and then questioned her guidance,
They branded her loud, then were shocked by her silence,
When she shared no ambition they said it was sad,
So she told them her dreams and they said she was mad,
They told her they’d listen, then covered their ears,
And gave her a hug while they laughed at her fears,
And she listened to all of it thinking she should,
Be the girl they told her to be best as she could,
But one day she asked what was best for herself,
Instead of trying to please everyone else,
So she walked to the forest and stood with the trees,
She heard the wind whisper and dance with the leaves,
She spoke to the willow, the elm and the pine,
And she told them what she’d been told time after time,
She told them she felt she was never enough,
She was either too little or far far too much,
Too loud or too quiet, too fierce or too weak,
Too wise or too foolish, too bold or too meek,
Then she found a small clearing surrounded by firs,
And she stopped…and she heard what the trees said to her,
And she sat there for hours not wanting to leave,
For the forest said nothing, it just let her breathe.

And that reminded me of this; similar words, totally different tone:

Full lyrics HERE.

 

Palilogia! Palilogia! Palilogia!

 

(clicking imbiggens)

And that led to this:

Noun
palilogia

    (rhetoric) Deliberate repetition of a word or a phrase for the sake of emphasis.

And that reminded me of this:

Zippy is online HERE.

Wiktionary is online HERE.

Full lyrics to "Joy in Repetition" online HERE.

Rumi²

The two poems below, written by Persian mystic Rumi 800 years ago, seem to transcend Islam and speak to a more universal religion.  In particular, the last four lines of "Flood Residue" and the opening of "As Ripeness Comes" sound quite a bit like Hinduism:

 

Flood Residue
from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks ©2004
 
The taste of today is not that of yesterday.
A pot boils over.
 
A watchman calls down the ladder,
Did you hear the commotion last night
from the seventh level?
 
Saturn turns to Venus and tells her
to play the strings more gently.
Taurus milk runs red.  Leo slinks from the sky.
 
Strange signs, because of a word
that comes from the soul
to help us escape speaking and concepts.
 
I answer the nightwatchman,
You will have to assign meaning
For these ominous events.
 
I have been set free from the hunt,
the catching and being caught,
to rest in these dregs
of flood residue, pure and empty.

As Ripeness Comes
from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks ©2004

What souls desire arrives.
We are standing up to our necks
in the sacred pool.  Majesty is here.

The grains of the earth take in something
they do not understand.

Where did this come from?
It comes from where your longing comes.

From which direction?
As ripeness comes to fruit.

This answer lights a candle
in the chest of anyone who hears.

Most people only look for the way when they hurt.
Pain is a fine path to the unknowable.

But today is different.
Today the quality we call splendor
puts on human clothes, walks through the door,
closes it behind, and sits down with us
in this companionship.

Wodehouse

P.G. Wodehouse’s books have such a timeless quality that I didn’t realize until today that quite a few of them have passed into the public domain.

You can read them online or download them for free from Project Gutenberg HERE, or Standard Ebooks HERE.

☮

 

(clicking imbiggens)

Artist Liz Climo has a web page HERE.

Hate your next door neighbor, but don't forget to say grace…

Full lyrics HERE.

We've been perched on this precipice a long time. 

Barry McGuire has his own web page HERE.

Wraps-Blunts-Cuts

by artist/poet Alec Finlay

I wonder if

Excerpted from Quartet by Jean Rhys, ©1929:

Marya lay very still listening to the hooting of the cars outside.  She felt sharply alive but very tired, so languid as to be almost incapable of movement.  A profound conviction of the unreality of everything possessed her.  She thought:  "I wonder if taking opium is like this."

And that reminded me of this:

 

…with nothing in their hands.

Sweet Talked Into Connection
from The Essential Rumi, translated by Coleman Barks ©2004

Stay with your family.
Do not wander away.

If you are an arc of the moon,
live the full circle.

Why should a part be coy with the whole?
Do you want compliments?
Do you want to be lied to?

As a genus branches and becomes a species,
so the unseen reaches here.

It's a constant natural process,
but you want to be sweet-talked
into connection.

It would be better
if a spirit-king slapped you awake.

Don't avoid discipline.
You have learned ways to make a living
for your body.  Now learn to support
your soul.  You wear fine clothing.
How do you dress your spirit?

This world is a playground
where children pretend to have shops.

Sometimes when they wrestle,
it may look like sex,
but none of it's real.

They exchange imaginary money.
Night comes, and they go home tired
with nothing in their hands.

3

 I like to have three books going at once: one challenging, one light, and one book of poems.

I've started on the novels of Jean Rhys, and that's my challenging one-- not in the sense that she's hard to understand, but that her topics are serious. I'm just beginning, but my first impression is that her style is similar to J.D. Salinger's. I love her use of repetition.

My light one is Dewey by Vicki Myron, the story of a library cat and the woman who cares for him. It's not overly sentimental, but there are a lot of Awww… moments.

And my book of poetry is a rereading of The Essential Rumi translated by Coleman Barks. Rumi is remarkably accessible, considering he lived in Persia 800 years ago.

It's a good idea to read poems at different times in your life. The poem you loved as a teenager and the poem that strikes you as an adult are seldom the same.

And then go stealing through the moonlit nights with your lover…

 

The Bellamy Brothers included a reggae version of "Let Your Love Flow" on their gospel album Jesus Is Coming.

It's pretty good.

Full lyrics HERE.

The Prince

 I've lost the source for this.  If anyone knows, please pass it along so I can properly credit the author:

Like the story of the prodigal son in the Bible, in India we tell a simple story of a prince who is kidnapped by robbers when he is very young.  He forgets all about the palace, even about his father and mother.  He just grows up as a bandit, learning to master the bow and arrow, ambush passersby, and disappear without getting caught.

Then one day the king's spiritual teacher happens by.  Many years have passed; the little child is a grown man, rough and cocksure.  But the teacher recognizes him, and with great love embraces him and calls him "your royal highness."  The young man, outraged, pushes him away.

But the teacher's faith is unshaken.  He begins to tell the young man stories about his childhood, how life used to be in the palace.  Gradually the prince begins to remember.  Finally, memory clears.  He draws himself up:  "Now I recall," he says slowly, as if awakening from a dream.  "I'm not a bandit.  I simply forgot who I was."  Truly a prince, he goes home to his father and mother.  

We are all children of god, but we've forgotten who we are.

"I said something wrong…"

Wow.  Seventy years ago Paul McCartney smarted off and embarrassed his mother, and he never really forgave himself.

From The Guardian:

“I know that she said something like ‘Paul, will you ask him if he’s going … ’

“I went ‘Arsk! Arsk! It’s ask mum.’ And she got a little bit embarrassed. I remember later thinking ‘God, I wish I’d never said that’. And it stuck with me. After she died I thought ‘Oh fuck, I really wish … ’”

You can read the full article online HERE.

 

Like a Man In a Trance

I don't have any context for this. The age of the band seems to stretch from barely-teenaged to near-retirement.

But they're all good, and they all seem to be enjoying themselves.

I think you'll like this one.  

Full lyrics HERE.

Unexpected

 

(clicking imbiggens)

It's your heartbeat, It's your face, It's your hair…

>

Spanish lyrics are available HERE.  Roughly translated:

When the sun heats up here on the beach
I feel your body vibrate close to me
It's your heartbeat, it's your face, it's your hair
It's your kisses, I shudder, oh, oh, oh

When the sun heats up here on the beach
I feel your body vibrate close to me
It is your heartbeat, your memory, my madness
My delirium, I shudder, oh oh oh

When the sun heats
here on the beach
Close to me
It's your heartbeat, it's your face, it's your hair
It's your kisses, I shudder…

Attains Peace

 Three translations of The Bhagavad Gita 9:30-31:

Ranchor Prime:

Even one whose behavior is deeply harmful, but who serves me with faithful devotion, should be accepted as a worthy person of right intention.  This soul very soon becomes righteous and attains peace.

Sir Edwin Arnold:

If one of evil life turn in his thought
Straightly to Me, count him amidst the good;
He hath the high way chosen; he shall grow
Righteous ere long; he shall attain that peace
Which changes not.

Abhay Charanaravinda Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada:

Even if one commits the most abominable action, if he is engaged in devotional service he is to be considered saintly because he is properly situated in determination.  He quickly becomes righteous and attains lasting peace.

I was reminded of this line when I saw yet another anti-John Lennon thread making the rounds, criticizing him for writing idealistic songs while living an imperfect life.  John was well aware of his flaws and was doing his best to live a better life, and that moves him ahead of most.

I've read several translations of the Bhagavad Gita.  The first I read was the 19th century translation by Sir Edwin Arnold.  It's in the public domain and can be downloaded or read online for free from Project Gutenberg, HERE.  It's rather flowery and ornamental.  I think he was trying to emulate the King James Bible.

Srila Prabhupada's version is very complete, analyzing the text line by line.  It's for more advanced scholars.

My favorite version is by Ranchor Prime, and it's the one I would recommend to someone reading the Gita for the first time.  It analyzes the text story by story, and that makes it very easy to follow and understand.  It's a great introduction.

Exodus

Full lyrics HERE.

Mona gave me this album at Christmas, and I had low expectations.  I didn't see how Reggae could possibly blend with classical instruments.

But I was wrong.  They did a fantastic job. 

I think you'll like this.

Marianne

Full lyrics HERE.

Her voice became so much more expressive as she got older.  This is just wonderful.