Within me a lunatic sings - song/poem fiction

Thursday is dark and very slightly raining.  For whatever reason this week has been impossible to keep straight.  Every day has been a multiplicity of weekdays.  Yesterday, for example, was constantly both Wednesday and Thursday, and today already feels like it must be both Thursday and Friday.

It happened again this morning, that the titles of the songs which randomly popped up on my phone during my short commute to the campus assembled themselves into something approaching poetry:

Another brick in the wall, then came the morning.
I'll do the driving while within me a lunatic sings*,
"Turn to stone, kangaroo court!"
*[Within me a lunatic sings is the English translation of the song title, Inní mér syngur vitleysingur.]

I didn't see that until I started to record this morning's soundtrack.  Hmmm... I'll bet with a little license I could create a short narrative:

Last night I dreamed claustrophobic Poe-esque storylines
All pounding heart and sealing walls
I know I squirmed against invisible bonds of sleep paralysis
As bricks slowly obscured my view
One brick, another brick, then another...

Another brick in the wall, then came the morning at last.
Who wastes their nights in such useless terror?
What else lies hidden in my mind, to creep out when all is at rest?
Inní mér syngur vitleysingur (within me a lunatic sings)
One song, another song, then another...

I leave for work, I think, under my own control
I'll do the driving, but what drives me?
As my own verdict silently and mindfully plays out I turn to stone.
The internal kangaroo court is laughing now
One laugh, another laugh, then another.

Within me a lunatic sings

That certainly wasn't how my night went, thankfully.  And this morning all I noticed was a string of really good tunes that kept me tapping the steering wheel all the way to campus.

Today's full playlist:

• Another Brick In The Wall, Pink Floyd
• Then Came The Morning, The Lone Bellow
• I'll Do the Driving, Fountains Of Wayne
• Inní mér syngur vitleysingur, Sigur Rós
• Turn To Stone, Electric Light Orchestra
• Kangaroo Court, Capital Cities

Я не понимаю по-английски (I don't understand English)

Is it, isn't it going to rain on me this morning?  Nope - nary a drip hits my car as I putter in under a contradictingly bright but glowering sky.

Cutting across campus yesterday with a colleague we noticed that many of the trees were just starting to turn, starting to cut back on the production of chlorophyll.  No!  Summer just got here - it's only early August, for Pete's sake!

The squirrels are spreading the rumor: no more monkey business.
The Dow Jones hops up, then down, then back up, trying for attention,
           up against dog days.
The Capitol dome rattles like a witch doctor's gourd. “More Republicans,”
           warn the talking drums.
The networks labor underground to stockpile T, A, and blood capsules
           for Sweeps Week, when all hell won’t be enough to save some.
Pedestrians slip into light coats of pollen and mold spores.
   - from Summer's Almost Gone, by William Trowbridge

We live in a region where all four seasons are just barely distinct from one another and where the boundaries between them are gradual zones. It plays out like 8 small seasons rather than 4: Summer, not-summer, fall, not-fall, winter, not-winter, spring, not-spring, summer, repeat...

I remember being in Khabarovsk, in the Russian Far East, in late September.  The weather had been summer-hot for the first two weeks we were there, in the 90's with high humidity.  Then one morning it simply wasn't any more. A cold wind materialized overnight and suddenly you needed a coat to go outside, and so it stayed for the remainder of our trip.  The hot water service (centrally supplied and piped in huge tunnel-sized insulated over-ground pipes (permafrost only a few feet down) turned on and suddenly you could heat your apartment and get all the hot orange-brown water you wanted from your faucets.  The boundary between one season and the next was a clear demarcation.  They have pure seasons in the Russian Far East.  We have a cycle of vague transitions.

After ubiquitous seasons and a search
For anything to give them boundaries,
I wander in the sand avoiding rocks and
Glass, complaining of the seasons how
They cramp even my mirror, clouding a face
Which the broadest sort of caution will not clear
   - from, After Seasons, by Julia Maria Morrison

Since yesterday I've been listening to a "station" on Google Play Music, this one labeled, "Uplifting Indie Motivation."  I like dipping my toes into a stream of musicians and music I may not already be familiar with; I've found a lot of the musicians I like that way.  The music featured on this "station" is energetic and enjoyable. The lyrics - well, that's a different story (or lack thereof).  I sure don't come across any poets in the set of tunes I hear this morning. Mostly fragments of sentences that don't go anywhere but which sound vaguely lost and disillusioned with one song about someone on the run from the law for a hanging crime.  So, really good high-energy music and downer-to-useless lyric content.

That same trip to the Russian Far East I picked up a couple of CDs of the current Russian pop music.  It was good stuff (even the pop music there favors minor keys), though I understood very little of the words. Not understanding the lyrics didn't detract from being able to enjoy the music, though.

So I think I'll keep this station on and just pretend I don't understand English as I enjoy our very gentle glide-path away from summer into not-as-much-summer.

Today's full playlist:

• Geronimo, Sheppard
• Easy, Real Estate
• Unbelievers, Vampire Weekend
• Time to Run, Lord Huron
• Up Up Up, Givers

Quiet morning

Sunny and mild, a perfect open-top morning.  Traffic is light and drivin' is easy, even on the less-than-arterial roads that make up my short commute.  The music mix is good, though none of the lyrics (all love lost and angst) seem applicable to such a sunny mellow morning.

How from the quiet center, not the rim,
each man and animal and plant must grow
is plain to me who lived without the hope
of any God, and still lack proof of Him,--
but need it less--who feel and sense and know
the tentative blind shoot drawn safely up.
   - From The Quiet Center, by Edith Henricht

The campus is ghost-town quiet this morning as I pull in and point the Fiat toward the service road to the north campus cluster of buildings.  One car follows me in, closely, its hood sniffing at my exhaust pipe like a dog's inspection/greeting (dude, there's a speed-bump here - chill!), but there is no other movement.

I draw a curve around the door of my consciousness,
The door of the dawn of my vision and revelation,
And draw within, the horns of sentience folding upon themselves,
The folded hands of revelation
Holding the core, the pith, the kernel of quiet,
Of subjectivity, close-leaved, like a budded plant,
Close-winged, like a resting bird.
     - from, Curve of Quiet, by Amy Bonner

No other cars are moving, very few parked in the lots, and not a single body to be seen.  Thursday has obviously convinced a lot of people he brought the weekend with him.

Today's full playlist:

• Where Would I Be, Cake
• Country Mile, Camera Obscura
• Movin' Away, My Morning Jacket
• Art of Almost, Wilco

Within to Match Without

Tuesday slips in quietly, wearing a thick roll of dark clouds around her like a comforter shawl that makes the morning light darker than usual through the bedroom blinds, and I would love to stay a bit later under my own comforter.  But I cannot think of any good reason to do so and can think of several good reasons not to.

A tattering of rain and then the reign
Of pour and pouring-down and down,
Where in the westward gathered the filming gown
Of grey and clouding weakness, and, in the mane
Of the light’s glory and the day’s splendor, gold and vain,
Vivid, more and more vivid, scarlet, lucid and more luminous,
Then came a splatter, a prattle, a blowing rain!
And soon the hour was musical and rumorous:
A softness of a dripping lipped the isolated houses,
A gaunt grey somber softness licked the glass of hours.
   - from, Darkling Summer, Ominous Dusk, Rumorous Rain, by Delmore Schwartz

I have to press the wipers into action on the drive in this morning, setting them to pass ever so slightly infrequently to keep pace with a light rain more mist than drops.  The cars that share my short commute seem divided into two specific camps: impatient, pushing, mad at the rain drivers and those drivers dawdling in indecisive wonder at all this sudden wetness.  Rain?  Summer? Pacific Northwest?

The rain, in the backyard where I watch it fall, comes down at different rates. In the center a fine discontinuous curtain — or network — falls implacably and yet gently in drops that are probably quite light; a strengthless sempiternal precipitation, an intense fraction of the atmosphere at its purest.
   - from, Rain, by Francis Ponge

The music stream shuffle is as determinedly mellow as the rain.  Even Bela Fleck's rapid-fire banjo rendition of a Paganini piece lands languidly on the ear.  Intermittent thunderstorms are predicted for later today; maybe the drive home will feature more raucous music, within to match without.

Today's Full Playlist:

• Heaven/Where True Love Goes, Yusuf Islam
• As Time Goes By, Mark O'Connor, Wynton Marsalis, Jane Monheit
• Dreams Be Dreams, Jack Johnson
• Number One, Joni Mitchell
• Paganini - Moto Perpetuo, Bela Fleck
• All Good Things, The Weepies

On war and a suggested Memorial Day Promise

As Memorial Day approaches, I think it is important to reflect on both the memory of those who have died in battle on our behalf and also on why we fight and die.  As is my habit in reflection, I turn to poetry and the writings of others to help me organize my seemingly conflicted thoughts into something more (I hope) cohesive.

There are wars, usually unbidden, that must be fought.  In defense of something real and something valuable, like preserving lives, and (though the word has, of late, been wrongly worn as thin as a politician's promise) liberty.

Some would have us bow
in bondage to their dreams
of little gods who lay down laws to live by
but all these inventions
arise from fear of love
and open-hearted tolerance and trust  

Well screw the rule of law
we want the rule of love
enough to fight and die to keep it coming
if that sounds like confusion
brother think again
we know exactly what we chose  

Each one lost
is everyone's loss you see
each one lost is a vital part of you and me
   - Bruce Cockburn, from Each One Lost

Cockburn is quoted, in discussing the lyrics above, as saying, ""On the way into Kandahar Airfield from Ottawa, our little group spend a few hours at Camp Mirage, a Canadian staging base in the Middle East. As we were about to board our next plane, we found ourselves part of a Ramp Ceremony, honouring the remains of two young Canadian Forces members who had been killed that day and were being sent home. One of the saddest and most moving scenes I've ever been privileged to witness...this song is dedicated to the memory of Major Yannick Pépin and Corporal Jean-Francois Drouin."

There are, though, wars that are simply wars.  No higher value or need other than a collective someones' greed, or vanity, or beliefs, or hubris.  Where lives don't seem to count and don't seem to matter to those who would direct their actions.

God, damn the hands of glory
That hold the bloody firebrand high
Close the book and end the story
Of how so many men have died
Let the world retain in memory
That mighty tongues tell mighty lies
And if mankind must have an enemy
Let it be his warlike pride
Let it be his warlike pride
     - Bruce Cockburn, from It's Going Down Slow

There are also wars that wantonly scatter life across soil for profit and gain.  Only profit and gain for a safely isolated few, mind you, not to be shared with those whose lives will be torn by the cost of war.

Him seems too little what long he possessed.
Greedy and grim, no golden rings
he gives for his pride; the promised future
forgets he and spurns, with all God has sent him,
Wonder-Wielder, of wealth and fame.
Yet in the end it ever comes
that the frame of the body fragile yields,
fated falls; and there follows another
who joyously the jewels divides,
the royal riches, nor recks of his forebear.  - Anonymous, from Beowulf

Ike warned about the risks of the (to his mind, necessary) military-industrial complex, with its potential for institutionalized war profiteering:

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every statehouse, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military–industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists, and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals so that security and liberty may prosper together.  (Dwight D. Eisenhower) 

There are wars that seem to make no sense, no matter how hard you look for justifiable reasons from any perspective even slightly human.

I do not understand why men make war. 

Is it because when death is multiple and expanding, there
among the odd assemblages, arbitrary and unnamed, there
among the shrivelled mountains, distorted and hollow, there
among the liquid farms and cities, cold and sallow, there
among the splintered bones of children, women, men and cattle
there and only there, the eerie head of power is being born?
     - Juan Filipe Herrera, from War Voyeurs

This then, should be our Memorial Day Promise: that we will always do everything in our power to ensure we spend the very precious capital of life on only those wars where real need is present.  Let us look hard and critically at any cry to take up arms and be certain we can honestly live (if we live) with the memory of our reasons when we eventually face the ghosts of those who rose to the call.

In this way we best honor the sacrifice and memory of those who have fought, and those who still fight, and those who will undoubtedly fight in the future, on our behalf.

Hurrah for the drinking dumping aphids of spring!

According to the calendar on my phone, it's Thursday already and it simply doesn't seem possible this week.  It was Monday only yesterday, I swear.  And the day before, and the day before that, too. Maybe there lies the issue, now I think about it.  It's been a week of Mondays.  Groundhog Day a week late.  This week I couldn't tell the Great Pretender from Mr. Maleable, Monday's Toady, or The Play Yard Bully.   I think I'll recognize the Popular Dude when he gets here, though.  I might even be chanting his name already.

I see a sea anemone
The enemy
See a sea anemone
And that'll be the end of me.
While the vicious fish was caught unawares in the tenderest of tendrils
Underneath her tender gills
     - Andrew Bird, from Anonanimal

Traffic is light and so is the morning as I toddle down the road.  Really noticeably lighter of sky than usual this morning.  Bright sunny days earlier this week, lighter early morning commute, still light when I get home - these are good signs.

And the surest sign I've seen yet that winter is in retreat and spring approaches from stage left?  On Tuesday I parked nose-first under a tree for an early meeting off-campus and came out to find aphid droppings all over my windshield.  The pitch is flowing, the aphids drinking and dumping, the machinery of growth is starting up again.

By Shipher Wu (photograph) and Gee-way Lin (aphid provision), National Taiwan University

Today's full playlist:

• Anonanimal - Andrew Bird
• It's a Heartache - Rod Stewart
• I Will Always Love You - Dolly Parton
• Anyhow - Leonard Cohen
• Andalucia - Pink Martini

Key change up, increase strings and background vocals, pick berries

Monday, fairly dry and dark, like a good merlot. Traffic is heavy, as traffic goes for my little back roads commute.

Something I read somewhere this weekend (someone's tweet, maybe?) referenced dialing in a Tony Orlando & Dawn "station" on Pandora, so I decided to give it a whirl.  I looked up Tony Orlando & Dawn on Google Play, selected the "radio" option, and quickly lost myself in a stream of nostalgic music.  Often campy, always melodic, some with notions about boys and girls that wouldn't sit well today, it was an era for background singers and key changes.  One of this morning's songs had at least 4 key changes in it (and I may have missed one).  Each change was into a higher key, to up the energy level of the song.  By the time the song ended it felt like the singers were on tip-toes.

I still had my phone set to that "station" so I let it run for the drive in this morning.  Yes, I was that guy conspicuously singing out loud to himself in the little red Fiat you passed, or followed, or sat beside at the light.  Deal with it.

Most of these are time and place songs for me.  They were popular tunes in my youth, when every individual year was an epoch unto itself.

Afternoon Delight takes me back to a strawberry patch somewhere in rural Whatcom County.  It was a top-40 tune one summer in my youth, one of the summers I picked strawberries as a summer job.  A big old (and I mean old by the standard of the day) ex-school bus would pick us up early morning.  We'd bounce around dozing in our seats while the bus lurched and ground its way through gear changes and the engine whined, the cabin filling with exhaust fumes sucked back in through any of the fogged over windows that were cracked open.  Mornings were chilly and afternoons were hot, so we'd wear layers of clothing.  My sack lunch would contain a soda pop can I'd put in the freezer overnight, all bulging and misshapen from the expanded frozen soda within, so it would still be cold-ish by mid-day when we broke for lunch.

Someone always had a small transistor radio with them, and top-40 tunes played loudly over the rows of berries while we picked.  Hunched uncomfortably (I was a tall and gangly kid) over the low rows of berries, nose full of the sweet smell of warm ripe strawberries and dust,  knees sore from kneeling in the dirt and soaked through from morning dew and also from blood-red juice from where they'd inadvertently landed on over-ripe berries that had fallen to the ground, I would listen to the same selection of tunes over and over and over again all day.  Two tunes in particular stick with me from that summer: Having My Baby, and, Afternoon Delight.  I hated them both by the end of summer.  It took me a long time to reacquire a taste for strawberries, and I still can't say I really like Afternoon Delight.

Honey places me in the back seat of a '66 Ford Country Squire wagon, black with wood paneled siding, my back and legs sticking to vinyl seats covered in that those clear plastic knobbly seat covers that were so popular back then.  I don't know why that song takes me back there, but clearly I must have heard it a time or two from that seat.

Billy, Don't Be a Hero is just getting started as I back into a parking spot on campus.  Just as well, as many more seconds and I would have hit the skip button on my steering wheel.  I never liked the contrived-story songs (and Honey also falls into that genre).  You don't hear many songs of that sort any more, at least none that I can think of.  They've been replaced by the contrived "like" or "share" this story to show you care stories on Facebook, I guess.  Skippable, in either case.

A good tune list in the main, for a Monday.

Today's Full Playlist:

• I Like Dreamin' - Kenny Nolan
• Rock Me Gently - Andy Kim
• Lady Willpower - Gary Puckett & The Union Gap
• Honey - Bobby Goldsboro
• Afternoon Delight - Starland Vocal Band
• Daydream - Tony Orlando and Dawn
• Billy, Don't Be A Hero - Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods