A miscellany like Grandma’s attic in Taunton, MA or Mission Street's Thrift Town in San Francisco or a Council, ID yard sale in cloudy mid April or a celestial roadmap no one folded—you take your pick.
Hey, I remember that game—played it as a kid. Just like “Authors,” we had a special deck with very cool pictures on the cards. I came by my love of card games early.
But this game appears to be a bit different—in the form of a meme, & I was “tagged” by Kate Gabrielle of the wonderful Silents & Talkies & Flapperdoodle & kate gabrielle & now Spiffy. Kate is a fantastic artist, & I recommend her blogs very highly.
So, without further ado, here goes:
8 Things I look forward to (in no particular order):
1. Having a week during which I don't make a trip of over 100 miles more than once (see this morning’s post for more details) 2. Cribbage games with Eberle (see remarks on card games above) 3. Watching our Netflix or old films on VHS together in the evening—lately we’re on a Foyle’s War binge, & we’re also watching Star Trek Deep Space Nine in order from beginning to end (right now we’re at the end of season four) 4. Any time I get a chance to play music, especially for others 5. First cup of coffee in the morning 6. Writing more ghazals 7. Receiving comments from the regular commenters here, & also reading all the lovely blogs I follow to learn what people are doing & thinking. 8. Excursions with Eberle (favorites: going to the Oregon Coast or to Portland, but also taking day trips around here)
8 Things I did yesterday:
1. Went to McCall for a doctor’s appointment 2. Worked on this month’s set list 3. Made a “picnic” of veggie burgers & coleslaw & chips 4. Taught guitar, & worked out fingerstyle arrangements for the lesson 5. Played my wonderful new handmade mandolin—more on that in the near future. 6. Took a nap in the recliner 7. Worked for wages (“telecommuter”) 8. Re-read The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner for the umpteenth time
8 Things I’d like to do over the next few months (This was “8 Things I wish I could do,” but I’d rather look at things that I’m hoping to get done):
1. Get a book of my San Francisco poetry self-published 2. Doing some recording of the music I’m doing at the Senior Centers (& elsewhere), & also recording some instrumental stuff, probably mostly on uke 3. Finding more time to play the banjo—ironically, given the blog’s name, often the neglected instrument in the line-up. 4. Watching more baseball—I subscribe thru mlb.com & really haven’t had much time to watch so far this season. 5. Take a trip to either Portland or the Bay Area with Eberle (we’ll go to the Oregon Coast in the fall!) 6. Get better on my wonderful new mandolin 7. Have a full performing schedule thru the spring, summer & fall (without running myself ragged) 8. Read Kristeva’s Tales of Love & Desire in Language
8 Songs I’m Working On (This was "8 TV Shows I watch," but while we do watch TV shows from Netflix—we don’t currently get either satellite or cable—it struck me that those aren’t as important a recreation as music).
1. It’s Only a Paper Moon (Oh so fun—this is pretty simple by “old standards” standards) 2. Dreamer’s Holiday (I can finally sing this doggoned song—in C!) 3. Brother, Can You Spare a Dime (D minor or E minor? hmmmm) 4. Bach’s Bourée in E minor (on mandolin—I believe this was originally written for lute) 5. Little Maggie (I’m interested in finding a way to play some of those haunting old modal tunes on the guitar without re-tuning & without squaring them off in standard chords—I’ve come up with some chord shapes that approximate what a 5-string banjo’s playing when tuned to “mountain minor,” & it’s really fun. 6. Nobody Knows You When You’re Down & Out (I had it, then tabled it; but I’m getting it back) 7. Mississippi Delta Blues (I always get thrown by the changes & I don’t know why) 8. Duncan & Brady (Still working on breaks for this & trying to find the perfect tempo—this is one I tend to play too fast)
8 People to tag: Sorry—especially sorry to Kate—but I always fall back on the “consider yourself tagged” line whenever I’ve done one of these memes. One reason is that some bloggers don’t choose to participate—which is totally legit—but then it’s awkward; for another, I always worry that I’ll somehow assume that I’ll think so-&-so might have no interest, when in fact he/she is the one person who really wanted to be “tagged.” So for those reasons, I play it safe. I’m still pondering blogs for passing on the Palabras Como Rosas award….
But thanks again Kate, even if I wimped out on the tagging part!
I have no idea what the pic at the top of the post has to do with Crazy Eights, but there you have it....
If it’s Friday, I must be off to Ontario, Oregon in just a bit. This truly has been a hectic week: off to Cascade (yes, the Cascade of Boise-Cascade for those familiar with big lumber businesses in North America); that’s roughly a 150 mile round trip—odd too, because Cascade lies almost due east of Indian Valley, & “as the crow flies,” it’s not that far but because there’s a large & imposing mountain in between you have to go north & then south again in order to go east.
There is a direct route to that area—actually coming out in Donnelly, about 15 miles north of Cascade. It’s called the Middle Fork Road (after the middle fork of the Weiser River, which it follows). This is a rather spectacular route for scenery, but it’s only a shortcut in terms of miles, not in terms of time. The road isn’t really wide enough for two vehicles to pass at many points—it’s obligatory for the west bound traffic to stop & pull over as much as can be safely done to allow an eastbound vehicle to pass—& at a certain point the “road” really isn’t properly graded—it’s little more than a logging road around the aptly named “No Business” summit, which is around 7,000 feet. From there you descend a few thousand feet into Donnelly (which itself is a bit less than a mile high).
Those of you from the US may recall that our previous president, George Bush (& good riddance is the mildest thing I can say about him) made a trip to Idaho sometime early in his second term & spent time at the Tamarack Resort. This resort is near Donnelly, & it aspired to be a “destination” resort; Andre Aggassi & Steffi Graff were seriously considering investing in a high end hotel to be built in the resort’s “village.” Then, of course, the economy went bust & now the resort is bankrupt—I believe they’ve even auctioned off the ski lifts. Donnelly & Cascade are slowly returning to the sleepy state they’ve maintained for years.
The point of that story is that there was a serious movement afoot to pave the Middle Fork Road in order to enhance access to Tamarack from the Boise metropolitan area. The move was spearheaded by ex-Governor (& later Bush Secretary of the Interior) Dirk Kempthorne—who, coincidentally no doubt, was an investor in Tamarack. Thankfully the plan was shot down by the Idaho legislature—proving the old saying that even a broken clock is right twice a day, the most conservative forces in the legislature defeated the plan because of the massive amounts of Federal loan money it involved. There were other reasons for defeating the road plan, but no point in quibbling.
I also was at the Council Senior Center for music on Wednesday, & travelled again to McCall yesterday for a doctor’s appointment; now off to Ontario. This has definitely had an impact on the blogging schedule here & also on my visits to other folks’ blogs. The weekend looks quiet, but then a lot of traveling Monday thru Wednesday. Wish me luck.
The pic at the top of the post was taken on the Middle Fork road several years back by our good friend Margot Kimball
Here are two more ghazals written a few days back; sorry there’s no audio this time around. As I mentioned yesterday, this week has been kinda unbelievably busy, with a string of appointments & tasks.
In addition, I’d like to thank Cheryl of the wonderful Lizzy Frizzfrock blog for her kindness in awarding me the Palabras Como Rosas. According the Cheryl’s post, “The award is for words that like roses, leave a wonderful perfume, lingering for a while.” That’s a lovely thought, & I’m very flattered that Robert Frost’s Banjo was chosen to receive this. I will be passing the award along, but it may be a day or two on that—so many deserving blogs to choose from!
In the meantime, hope you enjoy these.
“what can we talk about that will take all night?”
footsteps descending a staircase a cello played pizzicato a sense of anticipation within the ribs the
blue haze this morning the redwinged blackbirds’ chirp amongst the cherry blossoms an unsettling
silence in an amber apartment a skybluepink porcelain Blessed Virgin on a knickknack shelf
there was always something left unsaid— 10 years prior footsteps coming down stairs in a blue
Vermont summer evening the damp air off the big lake the Virginia air spring 1987 was a red rose blossom on a white
pergola an unsettling silence pulsing pizzicato around an em- brace beside a staircase the unsettling skybluepink
laughter around an embrace the “thin whistled notes” of white-crowned sparrows’ song within a cottonwood’s
boughs—columbine about to bloom—a room trembling with anticipation within the ribs—a
sob in the hedge a laugh in the green green streetlamp’s light— a sigh inside the ribs a mahogany mandocello’s low
C-string tremolo the continual thrill of birdsong in the cottonwood this morning the echo of unsaid words
(quote from Kenneth Patchen’s Do The Dead Know What Time It Is?)
Ghazal 5/11
the difference between frail pink quince petals & delicate yellow pistil & an inability on the part of two young people to
speak their hearts’ desire is a breeze shifting the willow ‘s delicate boughs on a spring morning when I’m 52 already my
beard streaked gray like a white-crowned sparrow—the difference between rollicking whitecaps across Lake Champlain past
the causeway toward South Hero & the words in a young heart saying “there will always be a time” is a yellow headed blackbird’s
harsh trill in cattails surrounding a pond refelcting an un- clouded sky—the difference between grape vines embracing the cedar
posts in contorted gestures & two chairs in an apartment in a white building beyond a red door in Burlington, VT is a
young peach tree’s pink blossoms beside a wrought-iron glass-topped table reflecting blue haze—the difference be-
tween an inability for young quince petal lips to tell the entire story & the call of sandhill cranes circling becomes a May forenoon scribbled with poems
[I’m having a bit of a crazy week, so I’m postponing the “regularly scheduled program,” part 2 of the Sonnet Form series, until next Wednesday. In the meantime, here’s the latest installment in Eberle’s Women’s Art is Women’s Work series. Enjoy!]
Why would a popular hat be named after a murderess? What did it mean that the fashionable “Merry Widow” hat kept getting larger and larger? Were hatpins really a menace to men? Was British Parliament justified in limiting the sale of hatpins to two days a year?
A group of Athenian women in the sixth century B.C. used the long pins they wore in their clothing to stab a soldier after he informed them that their husbands had met their deaths in battle. That was a long time ago, but the possibility of women using fashion accessories as weapons still has a special place in myth, law, and literature.
Hatpins were popular between the 1850s and the 1930s, reaching their most dramatic length from the turn of the century to 1913—after which time legislation was put into place to limit their size. But not to put the cart before the horse—hats came before hatpins, and before hats came: bonnets. In themid-eighteenth century, women at home wore “house bonnets,” actually more like head-scarves, tied under the chin and a version of the same for protection outdoors. As coiffures ascended higher and higher in the anti-gravity trend of the 1770s, bonnets served mostly to protect these structures from wind and weather. Then, for most of the nineteenth century, the bonnet dominated the millinery horizon and rode the waves of fashion. It was a wild ride. Bonnets ranged from enormous structures with bouquets of flowers and vegetables on them, as well as ribbons, plumes, and whole stuffed birds, to tiny things that had to be skewered on with pins. There were turbans too, and gypsy and shepherdess hats, picture hats and conversation hats. Bonnets represented up-to-the-minute fashion, constantly changing.
I have no faith in transient passion. How true soever it seem to be, Which, like a bonnet, goes out of fashion, As soon as it loses its novelty. Elizabeth Akers Allen "True Love Can Ne'er Forget" (1856)
Novelty in bonnets recorded all kinds of trends—and flotsam from the tides of international economics washed up on their lacy and ruffled shores as well: ostrich feathers from Africa, birds of paradise from South Africa, entire hummingbirds from Brazil. Also from Brazil came iridescent beetles that were made into jewelry and ornaments for headgear, very popular in the 1870s and 1880s. Some daring women wore live insects as part of this trend. Lillie Langtry went to a nineteenth century ball with gold mesh containing live butterflies draped over a gown. In New York, women put fireflies in their hair for adornment. Godey’s Lady’s Book in 1863 told readers that "(t)he ornithological and entomological fevers, which broke out last spring, will continue with increased violence throughout the winter." Godey’s showcased the millinery creations of Madame Tilman, which incorporated beetles, bird nests, butterflies, flowers, grasses, hummingbirds and mosses.
Simultaneous with this fashion trend was an intense interest in natural history, both as a hobby and scientific pursuit. Many pastimes involving natural science were recommended for women in their leisure time, including maintaining a kind of terrarium, known as a "Ward Case." This trend started in London, but is described in Catherine E. Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe's popular American Woman's Home as well. Taxidermy was another hobby considered acceptable for nineteenth century women to pursue. Museums at the time were blossoming almost as effulgently as bonnets, and people thronged to them—some wearing bonnets with specimens matching the ones inside the case and reflected back at them in the glass.
Bonnets in the countryside served more overtly practical purposes, and rural women in Britain and the United States often learned to plait straw to make bonnets and hats for themselves or for sale in local markets. Better paid sewing was confined to more urban areas, but plaiting could add to farm income and required little equipment. A straw-splitter, invented in the early 1800s, made plaiting easier; before that, straws could be split with a knife to produce a finer plait. Plaiting straw is one of the activities that women have shared for centuries from regions all across the globe. An even older form of straw work was the corn-dolly or corn-mother used in ancient harvest rituals. During Jane Austen’s time, the best straw bonnets came from Leghorn. In The Beautiful Cassandra, Jane gives a leading role to a bonnet. Jane wrote some of her most delightful work as a teenager, casting a critical and often sarcastic eye on the social customs that surrounded her. In a variety of works that she wrote between the ages of twelve and sixteen, she made fun of history, of class snobbery, of love, of pompous arrogance and hypocrisy, showing up the foibles of her elders. Jane’s eye for the absurdity as well as the poignancy of socialized existence continued throughout her writing career, but there is a quality of wackiness to her early works that make them laugh-out-loud reading. Cassandra, heroine of The Beautiful Cassandra, starts her career like many heroines, by falling in love, but in Cassandra’s case she falls in love not with a man but—with a bonnet. Cassandra is not an upper class lady, her mother in fact is a milliner, and Cassandra’s first act is to steal a bonnet intended for a Countess and then walk out of her mother’s shop. Her purpose: to make her fortune. She curtsies when she sees a Viscount, but then walks on and that is the end of that love interest. Next she devours six ices in a pastry shop and refuses to pay for them, knocks down the pastry cook, and walks away. She ascends a coach and proceeds to give nonsensical orders to the coachman. Again she refuses to pay, and the bonnet reappears, crowning the climax of Cassandra’s roving and lawless career when she takes it and puts it on the coachman’s head before running off. Back home soon afterwards, and pressed lovingly to her mother’s bosom, she says to herself: “This is a day well spent.”
Pix from top Hatpins Jean-Baptiste Greuze: Portrait of a Young Countrywoman Lillie Langtry (portrait by Millais) A Merry Widow hat The Marquise de Pezé and the Marquise de Rouget with Her Two Children, Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun (1787) Silhouette of Cassandra Austen (Jane's sister)
I’ve loved flower gardens since I was very young; my mother kept two gardens: one we could see out the picture window in our little dining room & the other in a corner of the front lawn; the latter had a rose trellis complete with swings—an image I’ll always remember. Later, I had a small garden of my own along the walk to the breezeway, which led to the side door (actually the door we used most of the time).
I must say I don’t feel gifted with a green thumb, however, so once I set out on my own, I admired gardens as a spectator rather than a participant. There were memorable ones, especially in Virginia & San Francisco—I loved the many flowering trees both in Charlottesville & Baghdad by the Bay, & while living on the left coast Golden Gate Park was a favorite spot of mine, with its calla lilies & dahlias & the great Conservatory of Flowers. Given that I’m not much with plants left to my own devices, I’m extraordinarily lucky to live with someone who’s a very talented gardener. Eberle’s garden is a really magical place, with so many delightful plants, not to mention her many metal sculptures made from found objects—for a long time we’d scavenge thru the metal piles at the Adams County landfill, finding everything from wheels to hot water heaters to a tractor hood. Eberle also wields a mean can of spray paint.
The garden has undergone a number of changes over the years. Way back when, the section you’ll be seeing was all raised beds & was a mixture of flowers & vegetables. Now the vegetable garden has its own home, & Eberle has done a marvelous job of landscaping—including a xeriscape garden up close to our house.
& new sculptures keep appearing—in fact, Eberle’s made a couple of new ones in the last few days. Our woodshed still has a number of objects from our scavenging days, & there’s a wonderful new shop outside of Council called “The Bottomless Pit” that has any number of strange old metal objects kicking around. It’s Eberle’s kind of store!
In addition to the picture leading off this post, I’ve included a slideshow tour of Eberle’s garden as it has appeared over the past few days. Both Eberle & I took these photos. I used two songs Eberle wrote as part of our score for Moominpappa at Sea; Eberle is performing both of these songs solo on our steel drum—an instrument our dear pal Dani Leone helped to make—Dani went on afterward to construct a number of steel drums on her own.
Eberle asked me the other day where the phrase “like dice shook” that keeps popping up in the Ghazals came from. It’s actually a case of quoting myself, tho a much younger self. It comes from a poem I wrote in 1986 in Charlottesville called “Emily Moon”—it may be my favorite amongst the many poems good, bad & indifferent I wrote during that time.
“Emily Moon” was part of a larger sequence called the Advent poems. Although the poems aren’t religious in theme, they did have to do with expectancy & absence & presence (all those good poetic themes!); all of them were written in 6 line stanzas similar to the form you see here. Based on the sequence title, you’d presume that I planned 24 or 25 of these, & that would be true. However, only 17 were ever written; while I personally like this poem best, all 17 were among the best poems I wrote during those years. It’s interesting to me that the sonnet sequence I wrote in San Francisco about 10 years after the “Advent” poems also stopped at 17 poems. The Ghazal sequence is currently at 14—ah well, best not to think about such things….
I included two audio clips—one is of the April 24th Ghazal, the first one in the sequence, & one that quotes the “dice shook” line; in case you missed that poem, here’s a link to the post. I also included a separate clip of yours truly reading “Emily Moon” during a reading I gave at 2nd Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA in March 1987. The audio on this one is ok, but it wasn’t recorded thru a good condenser mike like the ghazals—it was recorded on a boombox.
By the way, I should acknowledge that “Emily Moon” was originally published in Timbuktu, a wonderful lit mag from back in the 80s; at the time I published under the name Jack Hayes. I’ll always be grateful to Timbuktu founder & editor Molly Turner for her enthusiastic support of my writing.
Hope you enjoy this one.
Emily Moon
The good ones, sure, earliest steal away, And, as the afternoon moon, However extravagant, also shy, Looks lost over a disenchanted day Paling, so Emily from each love and town, Ran, silvery, away.
That's how, half-way or in-between, Up in the air, some creatures learn to stay alive. The best, first, learn to fly, And I, grounded, watched her careen, Her bracelets jingling to bind, above This cruel world. Lightly though she shone,
She, tremulously, kept high When set off, scattering like scattershot, Fated and powdery; Her glances, laughs (like dice shook) denied, denied. Please swing low, sweet chariot. But, distant, she survived.
And once in a blue moon, bluer than her eye shadow, She, spiritually, into my room Wavered or slipped, wary as a spy, And when we kissed, this shivered like a window's Winter scene when white light gleams. Then, she'd change to go.
Emily, you chose most the gray Gloaming, but after a dozen beers, Like the harvest moon, excitable, frizzy, Your orange hair drank light. But light can't stay. You caught the train to a state that wouldn't scare. You left the world every which way.
Here are two more ghazals for your reading pleasure; & I’ve added an audio clip of these read by yours truly. Actually, I recorded all 14 of the ghazals written to date, & if folks want, I can continue to post recordings of the poems already on the blog. Since the poems average close to a minute & a half reading time, I think that audio clips of two or at most three poems is the way to go.
A word on the audio: because Blogger doesn’t have a way of directly uploading MP3’s (I know there are some ways around this, but they all strike me as a bit complicated), I’ve come up with the expedient of creating slideshows to present our music, & I enjoy putting those together quite a lot. However, in the same way that I never include a picture when posting my poetry, I decided that I didn’t want to have a slideshow accompanying the poems, & so after a title frame, there is no video—all you need is one image to make a “movie” in Windows Movie Maker.
Hope you enjoy this.
Ghazal 5/9
two green morning stars phosphoresce above Indian Mountain 5:30 a m & finches & sparrows’ staccato outcry in willows’
arms & gray sky melting to whiteness a two story white house & two green morning stars phosphoresce in a once up-
on a time whitewashed morning July 1978 & gray white air beyond the screen window beyond a blue green orange batik—it could have been a
river—there aren’t any poems about this there’s 1 photo snapped sometime later—red door & six steps—two green morning stars phos-
phorescing in a once upon a time distance amongst deep green leaves & pungent white morning I didn’t have words for this
phosphorescence & you had few enough we were green morning stars phosphorescing this morning & distant beyond a
screen window & sparrows call greenly to mates re- peated patterns thru the weeping willow’s yellow empty arms
“it is night and it is serious”
a full moon’s amber light in indigo void a homestead’s sodium light floating ghostly against the lower
ridgeline—an amber light in a floor lamp a hard- cover book laid open across a birdseye maple table the words
were buried—I remember we used to sit together & read—an amber light upstairs in a restaurant a candlelight’s sharp
blonde gesture inside the larger light & ghost-green floodlights along Interstate 95 north past Perth Amboy the
green Vermont light thru lace curtains all evening we used to sit together & read—a petrified silence the printed
words’ black gestures in amber light the full moon in indigo void a Virginia indigo evening in a hilarious restaurant the
hennaed manic laughter “like dice shook”—the tailights’ red shift fading along Interstate 81 south thru purple shadows
& printed words in a full moon’s amber light in a void—the Vermont living room’s pine paneling a hennaed
page a ride thru ghost green light & serious words I remember we used to sit together & read
