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

Hey Nineteen

Happy Nineteenth Birthday to Motley-girl.

(Kudos to Steely Dan for the title and a good song.)

Just Shy Of Fifty-Two

I've outlived Keats, Shelley, and Byron by a considerable margin with not all that much to show for it.

The heat is on, then, to make the second half-century count.  I embrace the challenge.

Lines: evidence of time passing, though not of any mere passive passage of time.  Maps to the country of character, of mishap and what-have-you.  A lack of sunscreen, certainly; plenty of squinting into the sun, commuting, driving across bridges, kayaking and diving out in the glare.  Pool-time and sea-time too: dried skin from the chlorine and salt.  And all that reading, of course, the concentration above all those pages . . . .  And yet, and this is something I wear with pride: more smiles than anything, frankly.  There's an aspiration, don't you think?  Crease your face with good will and cheer, if you dare.  (I'm smiling as I type that.)

There's a poem by Robert Graves that comes to mind, though he was older when he wrote it.  I'll post it in a day or so.

This year I've written at least one poem worth keeping, and that's a fine judgment, a fine declaration.  More would be better, but then that's homework to be dealt with in the next few months.

Just now, right now, I am toasting all of us with a bit of Bushmills.  Carry on, and live as large as you can.

May the devil . . . oh, you know.  And, here's to King Brian in the interim.  I'm drinking Irish, after all.

Lord Byron: "My Mind Is A Fragment"

Happy 225th, Lord Byron!  The portions of this entry will move fragmentally, in honor of his Lordship.

200 years ago today, Lord Byron turned 25, footloose, if not exactly carefree in London.  I've been reading around in his letters, his journal from later in 1813, and a bit of poetry composed around that time to enjoy Byronic wit, self-absorption, and poetic talent.  I want to share a few bits from (or about) Byron's “The Giaour: A Fragment of a Turkish Tale,”  composed in pieces, fragmentary by design, from later in his 25th year, 1813, begun in March and published in early June.  ["Giaour" rhymes with "tower".]

Opening Lines: No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian’s grave,
That tomb which, gleaming o’er the cliff,*
First greets the homeward-veering skiff,
High o’er the land he saved in vain—
When shall such hero live again?

*A tomb above the rocks on the promontory, by some supposed the sepulcher of Themistocles. [Byron’s note]

My note:  The concern for the missing hero, the lost hero, the failed hero haunts the works, poetic and dramatic.   Byron’s excellent Don Juan opens with a call for a hero too, for none of the potential heroes of the period really qualify; he is forced to turn to the old seducer Don Juan (which for Byron & the English of  the time rhymes, quixotically perhaps for us, with “true one").


A favorite passage:
The Mind, that broods o’er guilty woes,
   Is like the Scorpion girt by fire,
In circle narrowing as it glows
The flames around their captive close,
Till inly search’d by thousand throes,
    And maddening in her ire,
One sad and sole relief she knows,
The sting she nourish’d for her foes,
Whose venom never yet was vain,
Gives but one pang, and cures all pain,
And darts into her desperate brain.—
So do the dark in soul expire,
Or live like Scorpion girt by fire;**
So writhes the mind Remorse hath riven,
Unfit for earth, undoom’d for heaven,
Darkness above, despair beneath,
Around it flame, within it death!—

**Alluding to the dubious suicide of the scorpion, so placed for experiment by gentle philosophers.  Some maintain that the position of the sting, when turned towards the head, is merely a convulsive movement; but others have actually brought in the verdict ‘Felo de se’. The scorpions are surely interested in a speedy decision of the question; as, if once fairly established as insect Catos, they will probably be allowed to live as long as they think proper, without being martyred for the sake of an hypothesis.

My note: I like the contrast between the poetic and the prosaic, between the melodramatic verse and the contrasting skeptical/satirical explanation.

Finally, a line from Byron's journal of 1813:

For my part, I adhere (in liking) to my Fragment.  It is no wonder that I wrote one -- my mind is a fragment.

--Byron's Letters & Journals: Volume 3: 1812-1814 -- 'Alas! The Love Of Women!',
edited by Leslie A. Marchand,
Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA,
1974.

My Pal Keith: Happy 51st!

My pal Keith. Tomorrow would have been his 51st birthday. 

Here's a shot from Summer 2002. He and I were running around his adopted state of Alaska in my first visit. I'm not sure why I took so long to head north; I know that his yearly trips south to see family and friends made it easy to put off such a visit, and I know being a cash-strapped grad student for many years was also part of the equation.  Sadly so, I now know.  I wish I'd visited more often.  

Also, I am surprised Keith sat still long enough for a photo. That's either bug spray or pepper spray (for the bears) in his hand, I'm fairly sure.

I miss you, my friend.

And, wherever he may be, on the next turn of the wheel, if it is at all possible, Keith is sending his love, that mix of being concerned and compassionate, of being heedful and helpful,  to his family and his friends.

My Father's Fiftieth: The Belly Dancer

For his fiftieth birthday, my mother dispatched a belly dancer to crash the police officers' conference that my father was chairing. I was shocked by the idea, frankly, given my father's dislike of public show (and of revealing his prominent heart surgery scar), but he was a very good sport about the whole thing.

Like most Duckworth's, my dad was a professional extrovert, despite the characteristic personal reserve. Actually, on reflection, I am not sure if his co-workers or team mates ever realized just how introverted he was. In other words, my father could be a ham when he felt the need, and he often felt the need. I proudly take after him in that regard. (Just ask my students.) In sports, my father could be a genuine extrovert too.

When he started playing the tambourine, I had to laugh. Luckily for me, my mother had alerted the relatives about the event, and we crashed the conference just as the belly dancer did. (Well, not just as.) Afterwards, when my brother questioned him about how he reacted to the dancer, my father replied, "What else could I do?" Something like that.

I like remembering what a good sport my father could be. I like to remember him having some fun. (I'll put this memory next to the one of him diving off a rock into the Carmel River when I was a very small boy. I recall thinking, Wow, he's OLD and he's diving right OFF that rock --and my father must have been only 30, 31, or 32.)

My father at 50. I'm grayer than he was, but I hope I can be such a good sport my whole life long. Happy Dad's Day, Dad! I'm a day early, but you won't mind, will you?