Tuesday, February 11, 2014

The Dog at the Center of My Life Recognizes You've Come to Visit



   
          
High Egoslavian Holy Day, so the traditional post. Leslie Nielsen was born eighty-eight years ago today. While the above makes me laugh every time, here, proof that I am still twelve years old, my favorite gag of all time since the last until the next.





           

Tina Louise was born eighty years ago today. Let me repeat that: Tina Louise was born eighty years ago. We pimply boys played a ubiquitous and sexist game of who would you rather do in my junior and senior high school years, Ginger or Marianne, I always thought those who chose Marianne were either lying and/or dopes and/or chose her because she'd cook their dinner and do their laundry too.






  • A review of The Intercept.
  • Of course I'll read The Intercept. I'm not encouraging you to boycott The Intercept. I do not think Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill are fully bought and paid for stooges to their billionaire sponsor. I think they are far more compromised than they are conscious of being, and I only ask you keep that in mind - and what that signifies - when you read them, as well as consider how Greenwald/Poitras/Scahill's adversarial dissidence accrues to the billionaire's benefit.
  • RIP Stuart Hall.
  • More market than ever: are you an aspiring novelist in need of a soul-crunching trend?
  • Bleggalgazing!
  • Now there are two main blegheaders, the one above and Momcat.
  • Washington Grove!
  • Laytonsville coywolf!
  • United on the radio? I paid off my season tickets yesterday in full. I
  • Once again, RIP Maxine Kumin.
  • Kumin's Sonnets Uncorseted.
  • I posted her Nurture a few years ago, it remains one of my most googled pings on the line about pillowcases, which is what I entitled that post.
  • Two James Wright poems!
  • Harold Budd, for those of you who do.
  • Bodeh played Circle last night, fell asleep listening to, woke up with....





HOW IT IS

Maxine Kumin

Shall I say how it is in your clothes?
A month after your death I wear your blue jacket.   
The dog at the center of my life recognizes   
you’ve come to visit, he’s ecstatic.
In the left pocket, a hole.
In the right, a parking ticket
delivered up last August on Bay State Road.   
In my heart, a scatter like milkweed,
a flinging from the pods of the soul.
My skin presses your old outline.
It is hot and dry inside.

I think of the last day of your life,
old friend, how I would unwind it, paste   
it together in a different collage,
back from the death car idling in the garage,   
back up the stairs, your praying hands unlaced,   
reassembling the bits of bread and tuna fish   
into a ceremony of sandwich,
running the home movie backward to a space   
we could be easy in, a kitchen place
with vodka and ice, our words like living meat.

Dear friend, you have excited crowds
with your example. They swell
like wine bags, straining at your seams.   
I will be years gathering up our words,   
fishing out letters, snapshots, stains,
leaning my ribs against this durable cloth
to put on the dumb blue blazer of your death.



2 comments:

  1. the band watching 'the honeybees' - the wellingtons -

    from wikipedia

    The Wellingtons were a folk singing group who performed the title songs for multiple television programs, including "Gilligan's Island" and "Davy Crockett." They were also regulars on the television series "Shindig!"

    The Wellingtons was formed by George Patterson. As The Wellingtons, they were signed by Walt Disney to record the theme song for Disney's "The Wonderful World of Color". For Disney Records, they recorded numerous theme songs, including "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" for the mini-series "Davy Crockett." The Wellingtons can be heard singing "The Ballad of Davy Crockett" in the soundtrack for the movie Fantastic Mr. Fox.

    "Gilligan's Island" producer Sherwood Schwartz had actually had his pilot episodes for the show rejected twice and decided he needed a new theme song. Working with composer George Wyle he came up with a folk song that told the back story of the castaways, and hired The Wellingtons to sing it. The song was a hit. The Wellingtons appear in a second season (1965–66) episode as a rock group called "The Mosquitoes." Not only is the name a play on The Beatles, but the members of the fictitious group are named Bingo, Bango, Bongo and Irving in a reverse play on the names John, Paul, George and Ringo.

    The Wellingtons appeared as regulars on the variety television show "Shindig!" on their own and as backup singers to visiting acts. They also provided backup singing on recordings by other artists including Jan and Dean. The group traveled with star Donald O'Connor for six and a half years and also toured with The Supremes and Stevie Wonder. The final members of the group were founder George Patterson, Kirby Johnson and Ed Wade.

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