Finding an old name and then the face to go with it.
The couple, married before me, before any of us, straight after college.
You think a couple is a good couple because of so many things, their combined physicality for instance. Their interests. They way they make each other laugh.
They were both tall and thin. I mean, really tall and really thin. Both hipsters, not artists themselves, on the periphery, but always the right choice in music and film and clothing.
Without looking for either of them, I found them both on Facebook.
So many people are still there, in Cleveland, the art scene still alive. If I had stayed in Kent, would I have begun to venture back to the east side? Would my poetry have cropped up again? Would my daughter have wanted to go to art school and really have accepted the acceptance at CIA?
I would not have found Sacred Harp singing, that’s for sure.
*
They were at my wedding with a new baby. How little I knew of babies then, but thought I did. Thought I knew so much.
(for the first time, I’ve figured out how to put a video directly from my Photo Booth to my blog without making it public on youtube. how could this have flummoxed me so in the past? does this date mean it’s from October or November? dang dates)
(Buckle in, it’s a long one….be brave, take your time, know that if you make it through, you’ll be blessed with knowledge of an Italian song so romantic, you will be able to woo and win over even the most unshakeable heart)
In spite of the overabundance of rain (and dampness and cloud-cover), I do like to look out my smallish kitchen window at the leaves. Perhaps the most tolerable thing about all of this rain is that the leaves’ colors are more intense when they are wet.
Cat update: I have switched to a grain-free canned food (they had been on kibble) based on a recommendation from an alternative-medicine vet (I’m not kidding, people, this is the Happy Valley after all). And guess what? It is dramatically improving my fat black cat’s coat and demeanor. The other cat, Willow, well, she’s as sweet as pie and seems simply hungrier for her food than before. They both apparently love their new food and seeing them eat with gusto is satisfying. Now sometimes I wonder if I could just feed them rabbit and chicken meat (and livers and what all other organs). It would all be locally-raised and the money would go straight into the pocket of the farmer, right here, right now. Hmm…..
Socks. This is one of my great weaknesses. I love socks. I love all sorts of them–cotton-blend, merino wool, little short sport-socks with a pink collar and plush terry-cloth interior that I pad around in on the cold (and dirty, it is true) floors of my kitchen, the discount wool-and-synthetic blend ski socks I find every fall at TJ Maxx, the hand-knit socks made of bamboo that I bought at an art fair in Maine in the summer, the Sock Lady socks I bought 3 years ago at our school’s annual Holiday Fair (for my mother who didn’t like them, so she gave them back to me) made from mohair wool which comes from angora goats that the Sock Lady and her husband raise. We call her the Sock Lady and I mean no disrespect because I actually know her real name (Cynthia) because I’ve interacted with her quite a bit over the years, but really, the people who have been at the school for years and years and years and into a decade or more simply call her that because they love and crave the socks she sells. They are warm, they are colorful, they have a beautiful sheen to them, they last and last as long as you don’t wash them on hot or dry them, they make you feel heavenly because you have seen the beautiful black-and-white photos of the goats that the wool comes from and you know how much Bob (the husband) appreciates the goats and how much he loves his wife (by all outward appearances).
I like the discipline it takes for me to NOT plug in my computer on occasion so that the battery can almost run out of juice. You have no idea how compulsively I would like to plug it in and how delicious when I accomplish this goal, as per recommendations I’ve found on the internet.
Loving being involved in the Occupy movement and love watching it evolve via an email list I’m on and the weekly gatherings I attend. Democracy in action. DAMN it’s good, deep down inside.
What the hell’s a stornelli you ask? I can’t find out much more than that it is some sort of traditional Italian song played in a drinking establishment and they all seem to have a similar tempo and similar style of guitar strumming, but I did find some stornelli on youtube that weren’t even played on guitar. You can see the whole stornelli concept could be moved to a Music Monday post, but I love this so much, I couldn’t wait.
I’ve had the song for many years on the soundtrack to “Big Night” (a twinkly favorite and highly recommended). I listen in my car, melting, trying not to cause accidents due to being swept away so fully.
I found a translation for about half of the lyrics, but couldn’t find anything more all over the g-damn internet. I don’t know who wrote the song. I don’t speak Italian. I am so not Italian it shocks even me. But I sure wish I could understand the words to the rest of the song. Being somewhat familiar with many Latin roots and knowing a little bit of French like I do, I can piece out little bits, the moon, and thoughts and breath and song and the four winds, but I could also be wrong, as I am wont to be. Although it may seem like it, I’m not really a fan of Italian culture, but how can you resist quattro venti? Even italicized is Italian. Such beauty. Sigh.
E’scritto nel tuo cuore Il mio destino, Anche se l’esistenza m’avvelena. Anche se l’esistenza m’avvelena Voglio restare sempre a te vicino.
Per quella bocca rossa e bella profumata Ci perdo volentieri la mia vita. Ci perdo volentieri la mia vita Per poter dire al mondo l’ho baciata.
Se tu fossi regina Ed io regnante, Ti colmerei di perle dell’oriente. Ti colmerei di perle dell’oriente In cambio del tuo amore affascinante.
It is written on your heart,
My destiny,
Even though its existence poisons me.
Even though its existence poisons me,
I will always be near you.
For that beautiful and fragrant red mouth
I will gladly give my life.
I will gladly give my life
To tell the world I kissed it.
If you were the reigning queen
And I like a prince,
I would cover you with pearls of the Orient.
I would cover you with pearls of the Orient
In exchange for your enchanting love.
I spent the morning “swimming” in 60-degree ocean water with a pack of happy teenagers, cleaning up a house rental top-to-bottom (that’s a lot of dishes and laundry, my pets!), and driving back home with me mum and a tide of New Englanders heading west.
Sun setting on orange-dusted tree tops, low rolling mountains layered dusky purple, tangerine, and gray…Oh, New England! Oh, Fall!
I love this song and began singing it to keep myself awake on Route 2 because, you know, it’s near full-dark at 6:30 now.
I learned this from my kids, but it’s nowhere to be found on the web so that I might share the tune with you. Perhaps my Annie and I could record it so you could hear it.
I would love to know if you know it, have heard it, know anything about its origins. I rarely ask for things from you, my doves, but I ask you now.
Autumn Roundelay
Here I sit and wait for you, ‘neath the spreading branches,
Cool the grass with shade and dew, sunlight ’round me dances
Ai loo lee oh lee oh lay,
How my heart is ringing,
Ai loo lee oh lee oh lay,
Songs to you I’m singing
Fall is in the air today, hear the wild geese crying,
Don’t delay, come while you may, snow will soon be flying
Ai loo lee oh lee oh lay,
How my heart is ringing,
Ai loo lee oh lee oh lay,
Songs to you I’m singing
The verses can be sung in a round. It’s the most lovely song, gives me shivers and tears
Happy Fall and Happy Deciduous Leaves Turning Color!
I don’t have an iPod (RIP Steve Jobs) and even if I did, I couldn’t play it through my 2000 Toyota mini-van’s stereo system (see, I used the phrase stereo system, so you know the dinosaur part about me is true).
I bought the new Wilco CD yesterday and I played it in the car on the way to the high school open house I attended last night. I listened to this track twice, once on the way to the school, once on the way home. Wilco played this live when we saw them in Boston last month and it stuck with me…I kept wondering which song was that?
During our 15-minute Geometry “class” at the open house, I tried sneaking reading the lyrics, but no worries, my daughter will probably get an A, unlike me who flunked high school Geometry (or was that Alg II?). Sneaking lyrics wasn’t the only thing I did in high school to get into trouble and I can only hope my amazing, intense, creative, energetic, artistic daughter goes a better way than I did back then.
This song, I don’t know what it’s about, but I think this is the true gem of the album, the one for the ages. There are a couple of lines that kill the hell outta me:
Outside I look lived in/like the bones in a shrine–it’s immediate, sharp and soft at the same time, and reminds me of churches in Prague and I am cold for my father/frozen underground
I’ve lived without my father for so long, lived without knowing him for so much of my life, but I was missing him and picturing him yesterday. I pulled out a bin of old photos.
I forget the damage, you know, the damage of losing a parent when you’re still pretty young. I don’t grieve for him any more, but I am today. How death defines us, underneath all of the geometry and the words and anything else we layer on top.
One Sunday Morning
This is how I tell it
Oh, but it’s long
One Sunday morning
Oh, one son is gone
I can see where they’re dawning
Over the sea
My father said what I had become
No-one should be
Outside I look lived in
Like the bones in a shrine
How am I forgiven?
Oh, I’ll give it time
This, I learned without warning
Holding my brow
In time he thought I would kill him
Oh, but I didn’t know how
I said it’s your god I don’t believe in
No, your Bible can’t be true
Knocked down by the long life
He cried, ‘I fear what waits for you’
I can hear those bells
Spoken and gone
I feel relief, I feel well
Now he knows he was wrong
I am cold for my father
Frozen underground
Jesus, I wouldn’t bother
He belongs to me now
Something sad keeps moving
So I wandered around
I fell in love with the burden
Holding me down
Bless my mind, I miss
Being told how to live
What I learned without knowing
How much more that I owe that I can give
This is how I tell it
Oh, but it’s long
One Sunday morning
One son is gone
Good Music Monday to you. Today, it’s It Might as Well Be Spring, music and lyrics by Rodgers and Hammerstein.
The crocuses were starting to open in yesterday’s full burst of sun, but they are tightly bundled against today’s continuing snowfall. It’s pretty cozy inside my house, but Sinatra’s voice makes me pine for something more.
I couldn’t find an adequate and free-to-link-to recording (or video) of Sinatra doing this song, so this Music Monday, you’ll have to troll around teh interwebs and find your own. I love Sinatra’s version the best, with Ella Fitzgerald running a close second. I couldn’t find Nina Simone doing it, but my guess is she, too, would do it justice.
The song generally seems to be presented as a saccharin confection; take for instance, Shirley Jones’, Julie Andrews’, or Andy Williams’ renditions. If I had heard one of those first, I might have dismissed the song as fluffy and escapist; it is after all from the 1945 musical “State Fair,” and though I have never seen it, I can guess at its sentiments.
Until you can find a recording of it, here are the lyrics. Beautiful really. Who writes songs like this any more?
It Might as Well Be Spring
Rodgers and Hammerstein
I’m as restless as a willow in a windstorm
I’m as jumpy as a puppet on a string
I’d say that I had Spring fever
But I know it isn’t Spring
I am starry-eyed and vaguely discontented
Like a nightingale without a song to sing
Oh, why should I have Spring fever
When it isn’t even Spring?
I keep wishing I were somewhere else
Walking down a strange new street
Hearing words that I have never heard
From a girl I’ve yet to meet
I’m as busy as a spider spinning daydreams
I’m as giddy as a baby on a swing
I haven’t seen a crocus or a rosebud or a robin on the wing
But I feel so gay in a melancholy way
That it might as well be Spring
twinklysparkles 