TOP MUSICAL HIT: 14TH BIRTHDAY?

I've read somewhere--some meme, some random posting--that the top musical hit on your 14th birthday has a mystical, even fatal effect on the arc and outcome of your life.  My 14th birthday on June 19th, 1975, seems to have seen this arc of hits:


June 7 "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" John Denver
June 14 "Sister Golden Hair" America
June 21 "Love Will Keep Us Together" Captain & Tennille

I can check further, but I think America's hit was the one that matters.

I'm not sure how I think and feel about all this, but I do recall being both puzzled and drawn in by the lyrics and their delivery in that song so many years ago.



SISTER GOLDEN HAIR---------by the band AMERICA

Well I tried to make it sunday, but I got so damn depressed
That I set my sights on monday and I got myself undressed
I ain't ready for the altar but I do agree there's times
When a woman sure can be a friend of mine

Well, I keep on thinkin' 'bout you, sister golden hair surprise
And I just can't live without you, can't you see it in my eyes?
I been one poor correspondent, and I been too, too hard to find
But it doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind

Will you meet me in the middle, will you meet me in the air?
Will you love me just a little, just enough to show you care?
Well I tried to fake it, I don't mind sayin', I just can't make it

Well, I keep on thinkin' 'bout you, sister golden hair surprise
And I just can't live without you, can't you see it in my eyes?
Now I been one poor correspondent, and I been too, too hard to find
But it doesn't mean you ain't been on my mind

Will you meet me in the middle, will you meet me in the air?
Will you love me just a little, just enough to show you care?
Well I tried to fake it, I don't mind sayin', I just can't make it

Doo wop doo wop

Written by Gerry Beckley • Copyright © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

Auden's "If I Could Tell You"

IF I COULD TELL YOU

Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be told, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reasons why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And all the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

--W,H. AUDEN

Bottle-of-Dreams

That's Chloe, by the way, a dancer of Atlantis, so click the link to know more.

Dreaming Pegasus

I dreamed of Pegasus early this morning.  The horse was trotting down a city street, opened up his wings, and flew up and away.  I stood there, watching that flight in a state of awe, sorry I hadn't a camera in my hand, but knowing better than to dig into my bag for that camera, knowing that the sight needed witnessing for my own sake, as the sun lit Pegasus's silver-gray flanks and wings, as the shadow of the flying horse played across the office building behind him.

And in the dream I never questioned the reality, never doubted that this was Pegasus.

(I love that about dreaming.)

Drowning Atlantis

I need to swim.

Right now, the water-of-life goes down like water.

When I am swimming regularly, putting in the laps, day after day, I'm not so thirsty.

Right now, I'm trying to drown Atlantis.
And I am.
Drop by drop,
dram by dram,
deluge by deluge.

The King of Atlantis
Fall 2009: Sculpture mix
(glazed with Transparent Brown, Stormy Blue, & Celadon),
copper wire, and hemp.

Sobriquet

"Hey, hey, Teach.  What's with the clay-head?"

--Not-my-student asking about the prop for Macbeth class today.

Second favorite event after the baby duck on campus.  

Since this was the last day of regular classes and I will be suffering from not-teaching soon, I liked hearing the sobriquet.

Julius, Post-Ides: sculpture mix, pit-fired on Ocean Beach, SF, CA.

"Be Mind Full": Cawdor Castle Motto

SAPPHO: Poetry

A few selections from the Greek poet Sappho (translated by Mary Barnard):


#39 He is more than a hero

He is a god in my eyes—
the man who is allowed
to sit beside you—he
 
who listens intimately
to the sweet murmur of
your voice, the enticing

laughter that makes my own
heart beat fast.  If I meet
you suddenly, I can’t

speak—my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,

hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body

and I turn paler than
dry grass.  At such times
death isn’t far from me.


#44 Without warning

as a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my heart.


#45 If you will come

I shall put out
New pillows for
You to rest on.


#65 Persuasion

Aphrodite’s
daughter, you
cheat mortals.


#53 With his venom

Irresistible
and bittersweet

that loosener
of limbs, Love

reptile-like
strikes me down.


#41 To an army wife, in Sardis:

Some say a cavalry corps,
some infantry, some, again,
will maintain that the swift oars

of our fleet are the finest
sight on dark earth; but I say
that whatever one loves, is.

This is easily proved: did
not Helen—she who had scanned
the flower of the world’s manhood—

choose as first among men one
who laid Troy’s honor in ruin?
warped to his will, forgetting

love due her own blood, her own
child, she wandered far from him.
So Anactoria, although you

being far away forget us,
the dear sound of your footstep
and light glancing in your eyes

would move me more than glitter
of Lydian horse or armored
tread of mainland infantry


#84 If you are squeamish

Don’t prod the
beach rubble.


*See Mary Barnard's translations of Sappho's poetry, introduced by Dudley Fitts, published by the University of California Press.

Step Sideways Towards A Truth

I have always preferred Herodotus to Thucydides and Byron to Wordsworth.

That meant, that means, according to grad school criteria (don't you know), I am damned to frivolity, to the frivolous.

At least by association.

(Or, so they say.)

Terrible that I let old school judgments color my own thinking, my own self, now.
Hard to resist, I think.

My other response is to give in, to agree, via an essential insight:
ham-bone connected to the brain-bone.

The Rule(s) of Threes

The Rule(s) of 3s:
today's linchpin in English 1B, a required Introduction to Literature course.

Triples: In Macbeth, we have three witches, three murderers, three apparitions.

I want to talk about a different set of triples, of threes.

Air: you can go three minutes without air.
Water: you can go three days without water.
Food: you can go three weeks without food.

But how does any of that relate to our English class?

Habits?
What do you think?
Three weeks--to break or to lose a habit?
Three months--to make, to create, a habit.

Students, I say as I heft Homer's Iliad and Shakespeare's Macbeth in my hands,
You've been reading steadily for three months now.  Don't stop.

Yes, some of you were already readers before you came to this class; good for you.  I've been cheering you on all term.

But some of you haven't been readers . . . but now you are.

Keep going.  Make being a reader a full-on habit.

After finals, take a week or two weeks off--I mean, why would you?  But okay, take a little time off--but before that three weeks' mark rolls around, pick up Homer's Odyssey or another Shakespeare play or a novel, crime or fantasy or science fiction or whatever.  Just don't stop reading.


(I think my students appreciated the effort I was making, and I pulled them in with the rules of threes.)