Wednesday, 15 February 2012
A Guitar is a Thief in the Night.
A guitar is a thief in the night
That robs you of sleep through the wall
A guitar is a thin box of light
Throwing reflections that rise and fall
It reminds you of Memphis or maybe Majorca
Big Bill Broonzy or Garcia Lorca
A truck going north or a cab to the Festival Hall
And the man who plays the guitar for life
Tests his thumbs on a slender knife
Forever caresses a frigid wife
His fingers travel on strings and frets
Like a gambler's moving to cover bets
Remembering what his brain forgets
While his brain remembers the fears and debts
Long fingernails that tap a brittle rhythm on a glass
Around his neck a ribbon with a little silver hook
Like some military order second class
You can read him like an open book
From the hands that spend their lives creating tension
From the wrists that have a lean and hungry
Eyes that have a mean and angry look
A guitar is a thief in the night
That robs you of sleep through the wall
A guitar is a thin box of light
Throwing reflections that rise and fall
A guitar reminds you of death and taxes
Charlie Christian outplaying the saxes
The beginners' call
And the very last call of all
On the midsummer fairground alive with the sound
And the lights of the Wurlitzer merry-go-round
The midway was crowded and I was the man
Who coughed up a quid in the dark caravan
To the gypsy who warned him of danger
"Beware of the beautiful stranger"
"You got that for nothing"
I said with a sigh
As the queen's head went up to her critical eye
"The lady in question is known to me now
And I'd like to beware but the problem is how
Do you think I was born in a manger?
I'm in love with the beautiful stranger"
The gypsy (called Lee as all soothsayers are)
Bent low to her globular fragment of star
"This woman will utterly screw up your life
She will tempt you from home, from your children and wife
She's a devil and nothing will change her
Get away from the beautiful stranger"
"That ball needs a re-gun" I said, shelling out
"The future you see there has all come about
Does it show you the girl as she happens to be
A Venus made flesh in a shell full of sea?
Does it show you the shape of my danger?
Can you show me the beautiful stranger?
"I don't run a cinema here, little man
But lean over close and tune in if you can
You breathe on the glass, give a rub with your sleeve
Slip me your wallet, sit tight and believe
And the powers-that-be will arrange a
Pre-release of the beautiful stranger"
In the heart of the glass I saw galaxies born
The eye of the storm and the light of the dawn
And then with a click came a form and a face
That stunned me not only through candour and grace
But because she was really a stranger
A total and beautiful stranger
"Hello there" she said with her hand to her brow
I'm the one you'll meet after the one you know now
There's no room inside here to show you us all
But behind me the queue stretches right down the hall
For the damned there is always a stranger
There is always a beautiful stranger
"That's your lot" said Miss Lee as she turned on the light
"These earrings are hell and I'm through for the night
If they'd put up a booster not far from this pitch
I could screen you your life to the very last twitch
But I can't even get the Lone Ranger
One last word from the beautiful stranger"
"You live in a dream and the dream is a cage"
Said the girl "And the bars nestle closer with age
Your shadow burned white by invisible fire
You will learn how it rankles to die of desire
As you long for the beautiful stranger" Said the vanishing beautiful stranger
"Here's a wallet for you and five nicker for me"
Said the gypsy "And also here's something for free
Watch your step on my foldaway stairs getting down
And go slow on the flyover back into town
There's a slight but considerable danger
Give my love to the beautiful stranger"
Pete Atkin, and lyrics by Clive James.
Monday, 13 February 2012
Oh go through the walls, if you must.
"Oh go through the walls, if you must, walk on the ledges.
Of roofs, of oceans; cover yourself with light
Use menace, use prayer…
My sleepers will flee toward another America."
(Jean Genet), though he wrote in french, and I'm endlessly suspicious of what, exactly, happens in a translated poem. But that's a debate for another day. Actually the poem from which these words are lifted was not in the least to my taste.
But these words seemed... luminous? the first time I ever read them, I was in the little yellow house, on an island somewhere in the middle of the Baltic sea, and Harry had just come back from a weekend in Stockholm.
He'd bought some records.
Oh yes. Records. not downloads to an ipod, kids, back in the day, music was analogue and glorious.
Album sleeves were art.
Records were big rigid discs of mostly black vinyl. On the surface was a texture, which on closer examination, with a microscope, perhaps, would resolve into one, just one.. line. A groove. A wavy, wiggly groove. A groove that wrapped and spiralled hundreds, nay, thousands of times on the circular black disc, from the edge toward the centre.
What witchcraft is this? the tiny groove, the texture, is a code.
We set the disc spinning, at a precise 33 and a third revolutions per minute.
And we unlock the code with a needle. It seems so unlikely. But a needle, or more likely, the needle's descendant, the point of a sapphire crystal, set in an arm which transforms its movements into modulations in a tiny electrical current, which we feed into an amplifier, and thence to coils of copper, glued to cones of paper, over a heavy magnet. As the needle of sapphire vibrates in the groove on the revolving disc, so those vibrations are induced in the paper cone, as the coil is attracted and released by the magnet's field, as it is fed with varying energy.
Without thinking at all about the strangeness of the mode of coding, we played the record, Patti Smith, Wave.
I read Genet's words.
Listened to Patti's.
Of roofs, of oceans; cover yourself with light
Use menace, use prayer…
My sleepers will flee toward another America."
(Jean Genet), though he wrote in french, and I'm endlessly suspicious of what, exactly, happens in a translated poem. But that's a debate for another day. Actually the poem from which these words are lifted was not in the least to my taste.
But these words seemed... luminous? the first time I ever read them, I was in the little yellow house, on an island somewhere in the middle of the Baltic sea, and Harry had just come back from a weekend in Stockholm.
He'd bought some records.
Oh yes. Records. not downloads to an ipod, kids, back in the day, music was analogue and glorious.
Album sleeves were art.
Records were big rigid discs of mostly black vinyl. On the surface was a texture, which on closer examination, with a microscope, perhaps, would resolve into one, just one.. line. A groove. A wavy, wiggly groove. A groove that wrapped and spiralled hundreds, nay, thousands of times on the circular black disc, from the edge toward the centre.
What witchcraft is this? the tiny groove, the texture, is a code.
We set the disc spinning, at a precise 33 and a third revolutions per minute.
And we unlock the code with a needle. It seems so unlikely. But a needle, or more likely, the needle's descendant, the point of a sapphire crystal, set in an arm which transforms its movements into modulations in a tiny electrical current, which we feed into an amplifier, and thence to coils of copper, glued to cones of paper, over a heavy magnet. As the needle of sapphire vibrates in the groove on the revolving disc, so those vibrations are induced in the paper cone, as the coil is attracted and released by the magnet's field, as it is fed with varying energy.
Without thinking at all about the strangeness of the mode of coding, we played the record, Patti Smith, Wave.
I read Genet's words.
Listened to Patti's.
Friday, 10 February 2012
Have Kids?
This is a man who found something his daughter wrote on facebook, it was addressed "to my parents", but... hidden from them, she thought he'd never see it.
He was not exactly impressed.
Here's a father's reply.
Wednesday, 8 February 2012
Friday, 3 February 2012
"O, My America, My New-Found Land!"
TO HIS MISTRESS GOING TO BED. by John Donne  |
||
| Come, Madam, come, all rest my
powers defy ; Until I labour, I in labour lie. The foe ofttimes, having the foe in sight, Is tired with standing, though he never fight. Off with that girdle, like heaven's zone glittering, But a far fairer world encompassing. Unpin that spangled breast-plate, which you wear, That th' eyes of busy fools may be stopp'd there. Unlace yourself, for that harmonious chime Tells me from you that now it is bed-time. Off with that happy busk, which I envy, That still can be, and still can stand so nigh. Your gown going off such beauteous state reveals, As when from flowery meads th' hill's shadow steals. Off with your wiry coronet, and show The hairy diadems which on you do grow. Off with your hose and shoes ; then softly tread In this love's hallow'd temple, this soft bed. In such white robes heaven's angels used to be Revealed to men ; thou, angel, bring'st with thee A heaven-like Mahomet's paradise ; and though Ill spirits walk in white, we easily know By this these angels from an evil sprite ; Those set our hairs, but these our flesh upright. Licence my roving hands, and let them go Before, behind, between, above, below. O, my America, my new found land, My kingdom, safest when with one man mann'd, My mine of precious stones, my empery ; How am I blest in thus discovering thee ! To enter in these bonds, is to be free ; Then, where my hand is set, my soul shall be. Full nakedness ! All joys are due to thee ; As souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be To taste whole joys. Gems which you women use Are like Atlanta's ball cast in men's views ; That, when a fool's eye lighteth on a gem, His earthly soul might court that, not them. Like pictures, or like books' gay coverings made For laymen, are all women thus array'd. Themselves are only mystic books, which we —Whom their imputed grace will dignify— Must see reveal'd. Then, since that I may know, As liberally as to thy midwife show Thyself ; cast all, yea, this white linen hence ; There is no penance due to innocence : To teach thee, I am naked first ; why then, What needst thou have more covering than a man?  | ||
Wellies for the Red Dirt Girl
Red Dirt Girl goes all googly eyed over footwearhttp://throughthegate09.blogspot.com/2012/02/frivolous-friday.html. This week's exciting footwear is on her blog.... Shiny red welly-boots. Very shiny. Too shiny to wear in the steamy southern rain.
Welsh-Walesian blogger/potter/gardener gz comments "I'd go for yellow ones!! ("Where would you be?" The Big Yin !!)"
And it occurred to me that the Red Dirt Girl and most of the non-brits reading would not know what the reference is about.
. All-round larger than life scots comedian, Billy Connolly, a lovely man, had a song, about wellies. (also known as rubber boots, wellingtons, topboots, billy-boots, gumboots, gummies, barnboots, wellieboots, muckboots, sheepboots, poopkickers, or rainboots) I thought I'd post it here.
But before that, I thought I should come clean, and confess I recently bought a pair of uber-wellies myself. My job often requires me to trudge through mud water, and filth, and no matter what the advertising says, I've yet to find a leather waterproofer that works for long. So I end up with cold wet feet. I had some wonderful wellies, they were made by Nokia.
(Yes. Nokia). The phone company was an offshoot of the rubber company's cable division.
(The tyres on my car were Nokias too.) The Nokia boots weren't cheap, but they were lined with thick felt, supple and warm, with grippy soles that would take tungsten studs for grip on winter ice, and my feet would stay warm and toasty in minus twenty degrees C.
Find them here.
My new boots aren't Nokias, they're made by Scottish footwear makers Buckler.
At work I need to wear safety footwear, steel toecap and steel insole protection, in case someone drops something heavy on my poor little pinkies, or I step on timber with upward protruding nails. I've seen someone get a nail almost all the way through his foot on a demolition site. Anyway, if I buy safety footwear for work use, the company pays. I hate cheap wellingtons, they're rigid, cold, foot-chafing monstrosities, usually with no grip. I wanted comfortable warm grippy boots, and Bucklers make such a boot, the uppers are soft insulating neoprene foam, the soles are grippy...
And they're blue and fireball-orange! They're just the thing for wading through slush anf freezing mud, stomping across the field where my leather boots would be sogged in no time at all.
How'd ya like them boots, RDG?!
If it wisnae fur yer wellies where wid ye be?
ye'd be in the hospital or infirmary
cause you'd have a dose o' the flu or even pleurisy
if ye didnae have your feet in your wellies.
wellies they are wonderful
wellies they are swell,
cause they keep oot the water
and they keep in the smell.
and when you're sittin' in a room
you can always tell,
when some bugger takes off his wellys.
If it wisnae fur yer wellies where wid ye be?
you'd be in the hospital or infirmary
cause you'd have a dose o' the flu or even pleurisee
if ye didnae have your feet in your wellies.
Or when your out walkin' in the country wi' a bird
and your strollin' over fields just like a farmers herd
and somebody shouts keep aff the grass
and you think "how absurd"
and Squelch! you find why farmers all wear wellies
If it wisnae fur yer wellies where wid ye be?
you'd be in the hospital or infirmary
cause you would have a dose o' the flu or even pleurisee
there's fishermen and firemen there's farmers an all
men out diggin' ditches and workin' in the snow
this country it wid grind to a halt and no a thing wid grow
if it wisnae fur the workers in their wellies.
If it wisnae fur yer wellys where wid ye be?
you'd be in the hospital or infirmary
cause you'd have a dose o' the flu or even pleurisee
if ye didnae have your feet in yer wellys.
now MPs and the government
they hivnae made a hit
they are ruinin' this country
mair than just a bit
if they keep on the way their goin'
we'll all be in the shit....
so you better git your feet in yer wellies.
If it wisnae fur yer wellies where wid ye be?
you'd be in the hospital or infirmary
cause you would have a dose o' the flu or even pleurisee
if ye didnae have your feet in yer wellies.
Welsh-Walesian blogger/potter/gardener gz comments "I'd go for yellow ones!! ("Where would you be?" The Big Yin !!)"
And it occurred to me that the Red Dirt Girl and most of the non-brits reading would not know what the reference is about.
. All-round larger than life scots comedian, Billy Connolly, a lovely man, had a song, about wellies. (also known as rubber boots, wellingtons, topboots, billy-boots, gumboots, gummies, barnboots, wellieboots, muckboots, sheepboots, poopkickers, or rainboots) I thought I'd post it here.
But before that, I thought I should come clean, and confess I recently bought a pair of uber-wellies myself. My job often requires me to trudge through mud water, and filth, and no matter what the advertising says, I've yet to find a leather waterproofer that works for long. So I end up with cold wet feet. I had some wonderful wellies, they were made by Nokia.
(Yes. Nokia). The phone company was an offshoot of the rubber company's cable division.
(The tyres on my car were Nokias too.) The Nokia boots weren't cheap, but they were lined with thick felt, supple and warm, with grippy soles that would take tungsten studs for grip on winter ice, and my feet would stay warm and toasty in minus twenty degrees C.
Find them here.
My new boots aren't Nokias, they're made by Scottish footwear makers Buckler.
At work I need to wear safety footwear, steel toecap and steel insole protection, in case someone drops something heavy on my poor little pinkies, or I step on timber with upward protruding nails. I've seen someone get a nail almost all the way through his foot on a demolition site. Anyway, if I buy safety footwear for work use, the company pays. I hate cheap wellingtons, they're rigid, cold, foot-chafing monstrosities, usually with no grip. I wanted comfortable warm grippy boots, and Bucklers make such a boot, the uppers are soft insulating neoprene foam, the soles are grippy...
And they're blue and fireball-orange! They're just the thing for wading through slush anf freezing mud, stomping across the field where my leather boots would be sogged in no time at all.
If it wisnae fur yer wellies where wid ye be?
ye'd be in the hospital or infirmary
cause you'd have a dose o' the flu or even pleurisy
if ye didnae have your feet in your wellies.
wellies they are wonderful
wellies they are swell,
cause they keep oot the water
and they keep in the smell.
and when you're sittin' in a room
you can always tell,
when some bugger takes off his wellys.
If it wisnae fur yer wellies where wid ye be?
you'd be in the hospital or infirmary
cause you'd have a dose o' the flu or even pleurisee
if ye didnae have your feet in your wellies.
Or when your out walkin' in the country wi' a bird
and your strollin' over fields just like a farmers herd
and somebody shouts keep aff the grass
and you think "how absurd"
and Squelch! you find why farmers all wear wellies
If it wisnae fur yer wellies where wid ye be?
you'd be in the hospital or infirmary
cause you would have a dose o' the flu or even pleurisee
there's fishermen and firemen there's farmers an all
men out diggin' ditches and workin' in the snow
this country it wid grind to a halt and no a thing wid grow
if it wisnae fur the workers in their wellies.
If it wisnae fur yer wellys where wid ye be?
you'd be in the hospital or infirmary
cause you'd have a dose o' the flu or even pleurisee
if ye didnae have your feet in yer wellys.
now MPs and the government
they hivnae made a hit
they are ruinin' this country
mair than just a bit
if they keep on the way their goin'
we'll all be in the shit....
so you better git your feet in yer wellies.
If it wisnae fur yer wellies where wid ye be?
you'd be in the hospital or infirmary
cause you would have a dose o' the flu or even pleurisee
if ye didnae have your feet in yer wellies.
Sunday, 29 January 2012
But dreaming is for moonrise And moonlight ails his tired eyes
I thought we'd escape
I packed a fishing line and counted on it
I thought we'd escape
I packed a fishing line and counted on it
But dreaming is for moonrise
And moonlight ails his tired eyes
I treat him like a lady
I treat him as I would he unto me
Give Rose rose-seller a run for her money
With silicone and poetry
But it's the end of me
I thought it could change
I'd wake up one morning and find nothing to rearrange
I couldn't get there behind his wall of Sunday papers
I thought it could change
I'd wake up one morning and find nothing to rearrange
But dreaming is for moonrise
And moonlight ails his tired eyes
I treat him like a lady
I treat him as I would he unto me
Give Rose rose-seller a run for her money
With silicone and poetry
And it's the end of me
Here I am
Here I am
And here I stand
Here in my kitchen where I'm familiar with every brand
Here I am
A front line with labels where I witnessed custard's last stand
Here I am
"Bulimic Beats", from Catatonia's album "Equally Cursed and Blessed", released 1999.
The singer is Cerys Matthews.
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