Tuesday, November 18, 2014

He Had a Dream Last Night You'd Want to Hear About and Remembers the Words to Songs





  • The weather has changed for winter. It's weirdass snot season.
  • I hadn't thought of Vashti Bunyan is a few years, this Saturday Jeffrey Davison has an interview with her, news of which put her songs in my head.
  • Quick Poll! Do I want to see The Vaselines in January? Do I want to see His Name Is Alive in February? Do I want to see Swervedriver in March? 
  • I confess I hadn't heard about the Gruber/Obamacare firestorm until reading that link. Yawn. Of course voters are stupid.
  • An act of war.
  • A review of a review of a new Ian Curtis biography.
  • Departing wisdom.
  • CCT!
  • Robert Wyatt interview.
  • Aesthetic v Artistic Valuation, part three.
  • The latest in Egoslavian Blog Rules: I can link to new stuff at Hollowtide but not add Hollowtide to Me and Mine blogroll; I cannot link to new stuff at VNTY'SGRVYRD but it can be listed in the Me and Mine blogroll.
  • I really like the Lumsden poem below though I assure you I would never listen to The Best of U2.









THE MAN I COULD HAVE BEEN

Roddy Lumsden

The man I could have been works for a vital institution, is a vital
            institution.
Without him, walls will crumble, somewhere, paint will peel.
He takes a catch.
He is outdoorsy and says It was a nightmare and means the traffic.
He’s happy to watch a film and stops short of living in one.

The man I could have been owns a Subaru pickup the colour of   
            cherry tomatoes.
He’s in the black, not in the dark.
His mother is calm.
Women keep his baby picture in the windownooks of wallets.
No one dies on him.

The man I could have been owns bits of clothes not worn by   
            uncles first.
He has no need of medicine.
He walks from Powderhall to Newington in twenty minutes.
He plays the piano a little.
Without him, havens buckle, sickbeds bloom.

The man I could have been lives locally.
He is quietly algebraic.
Without him, granite will not glister.
And when he sees a crisis, he does not dive in feet first.
He votes, for he believes in their democracy.

The man I could have been has a sense of direction.
For him, it was never Miss Scarlet with the dagger in the kitchen.
He knows his tilth and sows his seed.
He’ll make a father.
He is no maven nor a connoisseur.

The man I could have been has a season ticket at Tynecastle.
He comes in at night and puts on The Best of U2
He browses.
He puts fancy stuff in his bathwater.
He doesn’t lace up his life with secrets.

The man I could have been was born on a high horse.
He knows the story of the Willow Pattern.
He had a dream last night you’d want to hear about
and remembers the words to songs.
His back is a saddle where lovers have ridden.

The man I could have been has a sovereign speech in him he’s   
            yet to give.
He might well wrassle him a bear.
He is a man about town.
He has the exact fare on him.
Without him, motley trauma.

The man I could have been, he learns from my mistakes.
He never thought it would be you.
And no one says he’s looking rather biblical.
He has no need of London
and walks the middle of the road for it is his.

The man I could have been is quick and clean.
He is no smalltown Jesus nor a sawdust Caesar.
Without him, salt water would enter your lungs.
He doesn’t hear these endless xylophones.
That’s not him lying over there.



7 comments:

  1. U2 suffers from the same fate you mentioned yesterday, to wit: a great band that started to suck when everybody discovered them and, additionally, when it went to their head and they became celebrity "rock stars". At first, they lit up college, left-of-the-dial radio and couldn't buy mainstream airtime. Then, again, maybe "I Will Follow" just is their greatest hits.

    In this order (from most need to see to least): Swervedriver, Vaselines, His Name...

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  2. i am telling you that you must watch some fox during a democratic administration

    Nope. Obama has critics on the left whom I trust.

    FAUX lies 24/7. if they accidentally tell a truth in during shitstorm:, it's not worth waiting for.
    ~

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    Replies
    1. I don't agree with all of Sartwell's takes but I always find them provocative - and this is where I first heard of the controversy he's writing about which is why I posted the link. Also too: you allude to something I was thinking about when reading Sartwell - there is a cry wolf element built into their - and all propagandists' bullshit: Fox may very well be right and righteous over this story (I don't know enough about the story to judge) but because they spew bullshit (it's their - and all's) mission statement, real outrages get lost in all the bullshit.

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    2. C.S. sounds awfully familiar to me. I wonder if he went to Lafayette Elementary School?
      ~

      Delete
  3. Me and U2 - the first Psychedelic Furs and first U2 album were released if not the same week than very close to each other. I remember buying both at Sights and Sounds on the same day. I bought every Psychedelic Furs album through World Outside, I never bought another U2 album. Saw the Furs countless times, never saw U2. It was never music hate - it's true that hate came when Bono turned clown and that's not about the music - I just never dug their sound.

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  4. among the songs on the best of u2 1980-1990 b sides is

    Trash, Trampoline And The Party Girl

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  5. from our friends at wikipedia

    Legend behind Minton's Willow china pattern

    In order to promote sales of Minton's Willow pattern, various stories were invented based on the elements of the design. The most famous story usually runs as described below. The story is English in origin, and has no links to China.

    The Romantic Fable: Once there was a wealthy Mandarin, who had a beautiful daughter (Koong-se). She had fallen in love with her father's humble accounting assistant (Chang), angering her father. (It was inappropriate for them to marry due to their difference in social class.) He dismissed the young man and built a high fence around his house to keep the lovers apart. The Mandarin was planning for his daughter to marry a powerful Duke. The Duke arrived by boat to claim his bride, bearing a box of jewels as a gift. The wedding was to take place on the day the blossom fell from the willow tree.

    On the eve of the daughter's wedding to the Duke, the young accountant, disguised as a servant, slipped into the palace unnoticed. As the lovers escaped with the jewels, the alarm was raised. They ran over a bridge, chased by the Mandarin, whip in hand. They eventually escaped on the Duke's ship to the safety of a secluded island, where they lived happily for years. But one day, the Duke learned of their refuge. Hungry for revenge, he sent soldiers, who captured the lovers and put them to death. The gods, moved by their plight, transformed the lovers into a pair of doves (possibly a later addition to the tale, since the birds do not appear on the earliest willow pattern plates).

    Cultural impact of the story: The story of the willow pattern was turned into a comic opera in 1901 called The Willow Pattern. It was also told in a 1914 silent film called Story of the Willow Pattern. Robert van Gulik also used some of the idea in his Chinese detective novel The Willow Pattern. In 1992, Barry Purves made a short animated film relating the story, transplanted to Japan and entitled Screen Play.

    The old poem: Two birds flying high,
    A Chinese vessel, sailing by.
    A bridge with three men, sometimes four,
    A willow tree, hanging o'er.
    A Chinese temple, there it stands,
    Built upon the river sands.
    An apple tree, with apples on,
    A crooked fence to end my song.

    ReplyDelete