A Sweet Unrest

My heart creaks on its fault lines

A while back I read Kate Clanchy's 2004 collection Newborn.  According to the little bit of poking around I did, it seems writing about something as girlie as motherhood diminished her standing the poetry world.  But I liked it, and I especially liked that all the poems put together told real, complete story.  As I was reading it the first time I wasn't knocked over by any one poem, until the end, but by the time I finished I had an enormous amount of respect for what she'd done.  It progresses the way life with a newborn does, from the insulated, cocooned world of the early months to everyday life slowly penetrating back through sweet fog, and the way she depicts that is brilliant.  The last poem is an absolute stunner and cut me right to the quick, and it would completely stand on its own but it's a spoiler so we'll have something else.

Learning to Walk by Kate Clanchy

He's on the brink - all day
hanging on a table's edge,
nosing his feet - his fists - his grand
round Sévres head, slowly
into nothing.

                        All my life
I've smashed cups and wept,
and this is forever too, I guess;
this liquid heart, this sense
that he's the water, I'm the glass. 

Looking out into the skyline today

 

One thing I shared with my brother was a love of the city and whenever I see something unlikely to be found in any other town- be it a man in tight leather trousers and tighter, rhinestone encrusted ‘Playgirl’ t-shirt shepherding a baby stroller through the semi-dark netherworld of BART or simply one of the breathtaking views that can catch me unawares at a chance turn or sudden change of weather- I think of him, and I see the wide, easy, encompassing grin that would cover his face at such moments, the way he would gently nod his head in appreciation of all the beauty and difference we take for granted like we take air for granted yet never stop delighting in around here.

 

 

I can’t pretend to have even the slightest interest in (American) football but he was a great fan of the home team, who are one game away from the Super Bowl after years of disappointment and heartbreak.  I spent many Sundays listening to him and his best friend yelling at the TV, the only times I knew either one of those two laid back goofy kids to raise their voices, and once his friend told me that now, after, without my brother to help get him through he’d resorted to cleaning floors and bathrooms to let off steam when the games were going badly.  (His wife confirmed this while indicating there was still a fair amount of shouting).  We’re going to watch the game this weekend all together, with the four little boys we now have between us and lots of nice food.
 

This is all a long way of explaining what I’m about to say, explaining to myself maybe why I suddenly care about something I’m not interested in, though I will admit that I do like it when there is that feeling in the air of everyone being excited about the same thing, even if it’s NFL.  I’ll always be a baseball (with a side of hockey) girl but I mean this -  

G O  N I N E R S ! !

 

Honey I smell smoke

 

The baby has, tragically, stopped napping, forcing me to wave a very unwilling farewell to the few quiet moments I was able to find in my day.  Posting will be more irregular than ever but one day, one day, this is going to be a real blog.

For now I'll do my best and my first post of 2012 is a look way back.  I didn't know we'd lost Heavy D until I read it in the year-end farewells in a magazine.  He always made me smile.  He styled himself somewhere between a cuddly teddy bear and hip hop's unofficial court jester but he had a fantastic delivery and seemed well-respected by all.  He did the theme song for In Living Color.  His memorial in EW was written by none other than Q-Tip.

My favorite Heavy D performance is this guest rap on Guy's single Do Me Right.  This goes way back to the exuberant early hook-ups between hip hop and classic soul.  The resulting genre, New Jack Swing, was offensive to many- the straight up hip hop kids who thought it too poppy and the soul purists who thought it too rappy but songs like this never failed to make me want to dance.  I am convinced one day some of these songs will be properly appreciated the way disco is now.

That's Heavy D in the intro these songs inevitably all had but what I absolutely love is his sketch starting at about three minutes in, his cool comedic self-possession the perfect contrast to Aaron Hall's velvety, down-on-my-knees pleading.

And anyhow, it's Friday.  Let's dance while we can.

Guy feat. Heavy D - Do Me Right

Happy New Year

My traditional New Year's wish - a fancy dress, a lovely song.  

Happy Happy 2012 

Rufus Wainwright - What Are You Doing New Year's Eve

Merry Christmas

Late one night last week I found myself huddled around a tiny fireplace with handful of friends singing Christmas carols, accompanied by a sweet fellow playing ukulele.  It was unexpected and lovely.  When I got home I had the irresistible urge to let the tropical breezes waft through my Christmas playlist, and so here we are.  This isn't ukulele but another Hawaiian specialty, slack key guitar, and I think it gives the traditional carols an easy island warmth.

Dwight Tokumoto - Away in a Manger

Merry Christmas to my imaginary yet immeasurably dear friends.

It was the winter solstice

Aneurysm by Kate Clanchy

When my father heard his friend 
was dead, we sat a while and talked
of traffic: how cars clog
each by-way now, every road
you think you know.  We were quiet,
and I lit the lamp.  I thought

I could hear the cars outside,
bashing, lowing, rank on rank.
There'd been a crash, my father said,
and his friend had walked out,
shaken, saved.  It was hours
before the blood-clot got him.

I held my son on my lap.  It was
dark, it was the winter solstice.
We said there is no such thing
as the right route or a clear passage
no matter where you start,
or how you plan it. 

The glassy boys, the bursting girls

One of my favorite things this time of year is Desk Set, which isn't I think so much a Christmas film as a film set at Christmastime.  It's one of the few films to portray librarians not as dowdy ssshhing buzzkillers but as regular, smart working girls and I've always loved it for that as much as for the sparring between Hepburn and Tracy which is so wonderful it's almost a let down when they inevitably kiss and make nice at the end.  

(not really related but speaking of Christmas films, this made me laugh)

This kind of evokes the Desk Set era though I think it may have been written earlier.

Office Party by Phyllis McGinley

This holy night in open forum
     Miss Mcintosh, who handles Files,
Has lost one shoe and her decorum.
     Stately, the frozen chairman smiles

On Media, desperately vocal.
     Credit, though they have lost their hopes
Of edging toward an early Local,
     Finger their bonus envelopes.

The glassy boys, the bursting girls
    Of Copy, start a Conga clatter
To a swung carol.  Limply curls
     The final sandwich on the platter

Till hark!  a herald Messenger
     (Room 414) lifts loudly up
His quavering tenor.  Salesmen stir
     Libation for his Lily cup.

"Noel," he pipes, "Noel, Noel."
     Some wag beats tempo with a ruler.
And the plump blonde from Personnel
     Collapses by the water cooler. 

 

I remember the December sky

I got some very nice mail yesterday.  My hero The Vinyl Villain sent me shirt from the Roddy Frame gig he attended back in October, along with his ticket stub from the night!   It isn't the first time he has done something so kind for me, and I know I am far from the only person on the interwebs to benefit from his big heart and thoughtful nature.  He's one in a million.

Here's a clip from that show with some chat and a new song-

And here's the review Drew from Across The Kitchen Table wrote.

And lastly yet another one of his perfect songs, it's seasonal without being Christmasy.

Roddy Frame - Crossing Newbury Street

Thank you so much JC.

All of my friends are welcome

 

 Thanksgiving is tomorrow which means fantastic food and counting blessings.  It's lovely to spend a day thinking about all the good things in life- beautiful children, family, friends both real and imaginary, books and music, beaded fringe and glitter nail polish (I realize those last two are probably just me).

This year I have an old school friend coming to stay which means one more beloved face at the table and, once the children are tucked into bed, tipsy Scrabble and uncontrollable giggling well into the wee hours.  Yay.

Every year on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the morning DJ at the jazz station does a full show of songs about food.  She puts the most amazing set together each time and I always look forward to it.  She played this one last year.  My elder boy thinks the part about eating the table and napkins is hilarious.  

Cab Calloway - Everybody Eats When They Come To My House

Many many thanks to each of you who visit, comment, send music and drop a line every now and again.  Happy Thanksgiving.

The Snag

I just finished reading the new(ish) one by Billy Collins and I found a lot to like, several whole poems plus little bits sprinkled throughout- with him, for me, it is often not so much the wording of the individual lines but rather the way whole poems turn.  I'm probably not explaining it well at all but here's this.

The Snag by Billy Collins

The only time I found myself at all interested
in the concept of a time machine
was when I first heard that baldness in a man
was traceable to his maternal grandfather.

I pictured myself stepping into the odd craft
with a vial of poison tucked into a pocket
and, just in case, a newly sharpened kitchen knife.
Of course, I had not thought this through very carefully.

But even after I realized the drawback
of eradicating my own existence
not to mention the possible existence of my mother,
I came up with a better reason to travel back in time.

I pictured myself now setting the coordinates
for late 19th century County Waterford, where,
after I had hidden the machine behind a hedge
and located himself, the man I never knew,

we would enjoy several whiskeys and some talk
about the hard times and my strange looking clothes,
after which, with his permission of course,
I would climb into his lap

and rest my hand on the slope of his head,
that dome, which covered the troubled church of his mind
and was often covered in turn
by the dusty black hat he had earlier hung from a peg in the wall. 

 

And just because I love this song-

Lucky Soul - Woah Billy