A Sweet Unrest

Vanity Flare

I don't know why exactly, but I first read this a couple weeks ago in the February 2009 issue of Poetry and it keeps making me smile.  I think more than anything it's saying, it's the playfulness of the language itself I like.

Vanity Flare by Wendy Videlock

Don't get me wrong: I know

that knowledge is power,

that mystery's water,

that hunger makes

a gargantuan 

lover,

and yes, I've drunk 

of the river Lethe,

from the breath of the Celts,

from the echo of 

the bulging elk,

and yet,

alas,

here I be,

small and twee,

all liquored up

on song and love,

hard as rails

and light as air,

expecting the heavens 

to throw down a flare,

to send in the clowns,

to burn a bush,

strike up the sea,

anything

that might mean

those cloudy bastards

have noticed me.

Contrast Podcast- When I Was 21 I Liked...

   

(I thought I posted this last night!)

This week on the Contrast Podcast we get to be 21 again.  I'd be writing this in a chiffony 

babydoll dress, artfully tattered tights and a pair of old docs if my current condition did not prevent such fashion nostalgia.  It does mostly, but I might wearing a dime-store tiara right now- you'll never know for sure.

I've already played two of my favorite groups from this period in my life, A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul, on the CP so I wanted to come up with something else.  I submitted this one, from Eric B and Rakim's third album, which came out a bit before I turned 21.  All four of their albums are classics, but for me- and I am speaking strictly as a fan and not someone with a lot of critical knowledge about these things- there was a huge leap between the two that came before, which sound very 'old school' to my ears, and this.  On this track the beats sound much more complex and dense and layered, and Rakim's delivery moves to a whole new level.  It's a great example of what made me fall in love with rap, the ecstatic mind-bending rhythmic rush of language which is like nothing else on earth.

Eric B & Rakim - Let The Rhythm Hit 'Em

I did entertain a few other things before settling on that though.  The first Black Sheep record came out when I was 21, and that is still a favorite.  I think this minute and twenty-five seconds does a better job pointing out the ridiculousness of gangster rap than anything else I've heard in the subsequent eighteen years.  Whatever you do, do not play it in front of your parents children.

Black Sheep - U Mean I'm Not

This album is full of great (and some quite filthy) tunes, so I'll play one more.  This sounds good in part because it relies heavily on a good sample, and normally that would not be enough for me to recommend a track (just listen to the original!), but Dres has fantastic style and, well, the fact is it still gives me the giggles.

Black Sheep - Strobelite Honey

(Both records are still easily available at the usual places)

If this were 1991 I'd be hitting the dance floor with my friends and whatever new moves we'd cribbed from the Fly Girls (pre-J.Lo, just for the record), but it's now so instead I'll put my feet up and listen to what everybody else was into when they were 21.

One Year Old

I wouldn't have had the slightest idea that tomorrow is the one year anniversary of my blog if it hadn't been pointed out to me!  I kind of knew it wasn't the best time for me to be starting a blog, but on the other had I wanted to write and talk about what I was reading and listening to and so I went ahead and did it anyway.  And I'm awfully glad I did because of the lovely people I've connected with through it.  My warmest thanks to everyone who keeps stopping by despite my slackadaisical posting schedule, and especially to those of you who email and comment.  That is what makes blogging so rewarding and fun.

So in celebration of that, and also because I wanted to post something beautiful for Valentine's Day but didn't get around to it, I thought I'd go back to where I started.

Bright Star by John Keats

Bright Star, would I were as steadfast as thou art-

    Not in lone splendor hung aloft the night

And watching, with eternal lids apart, 

     Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,

The moving waters at their priestlike task

     Of pure ablution round the earth's human shores,

Or gazing on the new soft-fallen masque

     Of snow upon the mountains and the moors.

No- yet still steadfast, still unchangeable,

     Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,

To feel for ever its soft swell and fall,

     Awake forever in a sweet unrest,

Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,

And so live forever- or else swoon to death.

Obviously I love this one, and in almost too many ways to write about, but I one of the things that struck me first, and still does, is this impossibly gifted poet throwing his lot in with the rest of us common mortals.

And then this, because I think it's Mr. Frame at his most poetic.  That first verse especially is a stunner.

Roddy Frame - Here Comes The Ocean

Contrast Podcast - Secrets

This week on the Contrast Podcast, we each reveal a little something we've been keeping to ourselves.  My little something is due to arrive on St. Patrick's Day:

Do they serve green beer in the maternity ward?

I haven't listened yet, but judging from the track list I am not the only one with this particular secret!

These past few weeks I've been in that last burst of busyness that takes over just before the inertia sets in.  I haven't listened to much new stuff, and my reading has been much less about finding myself, much more about losing myself.  

But I will have a poem to share in the next couple of days.

But first, some tunes.  If I'd been a blogger while expecting my first baby, the song I'd have played to sum up this period would've been one by a gay man, because every time I passed a full-length mirror (and the apartment I was in at the time was full of them) I heard Rufus'  vulnerable croon in my head- oh lord, what have I done to myself?

Rufus Wainwright - Vicious World

This time I'm less worried about my looks- it all somehow goes back where it belongs.  (More or less -ed).  This is what I played on the podcast, it sounds joyful, like cruising with the top down on a sunny day.

Friends Again - Lullaby No. 2 (thanks again, JC)

And to round things out, this is one I briefly considered for the Baby podcast a while back.  It isn't about babies either but is not completely unrelated to how they may get here.  If you see what I mean.  This is from their first album, and to me it sounds so LA-  maybe a little cheesy but gritty-glam, kind of wasted, impossibly cool.

Buckcherry - Baby