Grasping at Grace (and Growth)

 Pleasant Rediscoveries





It's been a typical spring day in Chicago; I woke up to snow that fell most of the morning and part of the afternoon. By the end of the day, it was all gone. It reminded me of the first time I went to a Cubs game - opening day at Wrigley Field. The announcer had to say "Will people refrain  from throwing snowballs on the field." Ah, memories. 

But the two things that I wanted to say are as follows:

1) I'm really enjoying reading real books, and not paying much or any attention to online life, even though I can post things if I want. I've been binging on Martha Wells' Raksura series. I'm about a decade or so behind everyone else, but I'm catching up. Going to check the fourth book in the series at the library. Boy, can she ever create worlds!

2) I've been playing some long-ignored CDs; at first I just played a couple of Kitaro CDs, then one of my favorite Springsteen albums; "The Rising", which he recorded in the wake of 9-11. At the time, it was savaged by critics. They were wrong. And for the last couple of hours, I've been playing a two-disc collection of Harry Nilssen. The first disc was his early work, when he still had an angelic voice. Right now, I'm listening to the second disc, which was during and after he wrecked his voice during the recording of his "Pussycats" album, recorded with John Lennon. And the loss of his angel's voice does nothing to hide the beauty of what he writes (or what he covered; "Many Rivers to Cross" is on right now. )

And I'm moved to ask why the fuck his singing and his amazing writing genius isn't better respected and loved out there. Damn, he was amazing. 

Right now, I'm going to sign off, because I think we're going to watch anime. But we've got time for a couple more songs. 

Sunflowers and Cicadas

In the growing heat last week and during this week's even hotter days, or more properly in the dark of each stifling night, I heard cicadas shrilling their increasingly desperate love songs, or at least pleas for a hot date. This surprised me. I am used to summer cicadas scraping their legs together in the heat of the day, then calling it a day when night comes around. 

Have I simply not noticed night-singing cicadas prior to this year? Or is this something new? And if so, what does it presage? I mean, they're cicadas, even if they are the annual type and not representatives of the two separate hellish hordes that erupted from Americann ground earlier this year, so night-shrieking cicadas must, of necessity, be a sign - an omen, if you will - of something awful. 

So I'm kind of hoping it's just a thing I've managed to be deaf to for decades. That only presages my increasing age. 

On a completely different, and lovely, subject, sunflowers have been nodding their bright and drowsy heads all over my neighborhood this summer. We've always had a few scattered around in the occasional building garden or intersection lot, but there seem to be so many more this year that I suspect folks planted some last season, and we're all reaping the benefits. I love the fact that one of my sweetly eccentric neighbors planted sunflowers along the edge of her building, just across the alley from the back of our building. (There's a house about a block from our buildings that is a riot of real and plastic blooms, with an overwhelming number of sunflowers in the mix. I smile every time I drive past it.)

Anyhow, I thought I'd show you the sunflowers that Marianne planted. Although you can't see it, a yellow bird was flitting amongst the sunflower stalks. I took the pictures in an effort to see the bird, but you'll have to take it on faith that he or she is there. I can tell, because the yellow of the bird is slightly different than the gold of the sunflowers, but I don't think I could even point viewers to the exact spot. 

Ny shot makes them look rather bedraggled. 

But still ... sunflowers!

Singing, Not Saying

So here I am, again, with little to say.*

The world around me is covered with snow that is mostly not dirty; our building's maintenance lady snow-blew enough snow on my office's south window that I can't see out of it. That's alright; until yesterday, the entire place was rather dark. We had weather cold enough that I didn't open the blinds or curtains, or only pulled them open an hour or so. So being able to open blinds and curtains and not have the furnace on all the time means it's brighter in here, even if there's snow blocking one window. It will melt, and I can see out of other windows. 

( Politics and writing )

( Exercise and annual physical meanderings )

Oh; you wanted to know why the headline? 

( Finally, the music stuff. )

So, after talking and talking and talking and (ohgodwontsheshutthefuckUP) talking, here are the songs I've had inside my head for days. 

First "Sail On, Sailor", from the Beach Boys "Holland" album, followed by "America" and "Manzanar" from Parks' "Tokyo Rose"




*This is, of course, a lie.

A Seagoing Apology of Sorts

After having posted that brain-bleach-necessitating YouTube clip the other night, I'd like to present something far, far more lovely. While I'm not a fan of Stan Rogers for various reasons, he does write well, and he has a gorgeous voice. This is one of his songs that I just discovered, thanks to carbonel , and which I'll add to my small "Wow, this is great" list of Rogers songs. 

"Stan Rogers - Bluenose" (Watch on YouTube)

The original Bluenose, a fishing schooner whose home port was Lunenburg, and whose racing pedigree was unmatched, is such a Canadian icon that, as is mentioned in the song, her portrait graces the Canadian dime. She beat rich American sailing crews, even though she was a working fishing vessel. And when this song mentions that fact, my eyes filled with tears.

(There are actually two other songs about the Bluenose on YouTube, both of which were relatively popular in Canada. Neither of them match the poetry of Rogers' song, but this one is burned into my young brain, because it was played incessantly on Canadian radio and television around the time of the Bluenose II's launch. It's a better song than this one, at least to my mind.) 

Here's a National Film Board short on the original, ending in a particularly Canadian way with her sad demise, and here's a silly piece from Canadian comedy writer and performer Rick Mercer. I giggled quite immaturely at some of it; it's the kind of Canadian humor that I recognize immediately, but can't really explain why I recognize it.