Day: January 26, 2017

Rhythm, meter, movement are our guides

Actors are the poets of the real.
They mould the air with bodily appeal
The body is the soul  through which we feel
Imprisoned bodies kill the soul ideal.

Dancers fuse with music stretching air.
They push and pull the freedoms that  live there
They play with Newton’s laws as they change gear
The bodies bend and flow with utter zeal.

Singers touch us deeply to the core.
As we listen with  our shrunken hearts  so sore
We  will cry out, oh, more,oh, more , yes, more.
As deep into our inner self ,they gore.

In every aspect of our human lives
Rhythm, meter, movement are our guides

Such a furnace is this blacksmith’s yard

Trivial thinking makes a waste of life;
Like polishing your shoes as Jesus dies.
Yet academics often create strife,
With philosophers more intellingent than wise

Perceptions sharp as nail bombs to the eyes
Are diverted onto other paths and lives.
Who will be the one who can surprise?
With which mind may such perception strive?

Who will listen to the chosen one?
Not the men whose faces are unlined.
Who sees truly what we have become?
In whose imagination is the true refined?

Such a furnace is this blacksmith’s yard
Refinement comes by fire and burning hard.

 

 

The rise and fall of empires

 

 

old-fruit-3http://www.openculture.com/2017/01/carl-sagan-predicts-the-decline-of-america.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+OpenCulture+%28Open+Culture%29

 

Then we have the counter-Enlightenment thinker Giambattista Vico. The 18th century Neapolitan philosopher took human irrationalism seriously, and wrote about our tendency to rely on myth and metaphor rather than reason or nature. Vico’s most “revolutionary move,” wrote Isaiah Berlin, “is to have denied the doctrine of a timeless natural law” that could be “known in principle to any man, at any time, anywhere.”

Vico’s theory of history included inevitable periods of decline (and heavily influenced the historical thinking of James Joyce and Friedrich Nietzsche). He describes his concept “most colorfully,” writes Alexander Bertland at the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “when he gives this axiom”:

Men first felt necessity then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance.

The description may remind us of Shakespeare’s “Seven Ages of Man.” But for Vico, Bertland notes, every decline heralds a new beginning. History is “presented clearly as a circular motion in which nations rise and fall… over and over again.”

Mary and the cardigan

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Mary Brown woke up earlier than usual. She was wondering  whether to make her  mug of tea but instead, she picked up her Nokia Lumia phone and began to read the news
Good grief she said to  Emile I never thought that I would become one of those people who are always looking at their smartphones?
I want a smartphone said Emile. Why should I be deprived when nearly all the cats around here have got them.
I don’t believe it . What News would cats watch,said  their next door neighbour,Annie who had just come in through the kitchen door which was always open [except when it was snowing.] Mary’s  late husband Stan had liked fresh air and he wanted to watch the birds in the garden while he sat at the  kitchen table reading  cookery books and drinking gin.
Annie was wearing a magenta coloured jumpsuit with turquoise stiletto heels on her beautiful feet and a magenta woollen coat wrapped around her shoulders. On  her eyes, she had purple  eyeshadow and black mascara and her lips were covered in  thick shiny magenta  lipstick by Seeher of Harris
How  did you know where to find lipstick to match so well,  asked  Mary?
I didn’t know.I bought the lipstick first from that new shop which sells body shop products and then I took the lipstick into the shops and looked around until I found a coat that was the same colour.
That was a very strange way to shop, said Mary. but it’s probably a good thing to change the way we do things the only problem could be if you can’t find a coat anywhere that is the exact same colour as that lipstick.
I know art so well, if you can’t find one the same colour you could find a contrasting colour,  like  teal or Kingfisher blue. There are more coats in those colours of course, but this year it seems that Lands End have actually been selling magenta coloured coats or at least reddish coats, Annie gushed.
Oh, I hate it when two colours  are not exactly the same. also when I was going to the art class I realised that one can wear two or three colours which are very close to each other on the colour spectrum and it can be very attractive but we could take so much time matching our clothes and make-up , we’d  have no  time to do anything else.
Yes, I so agree with you. That is why some people in the fashion industry developed a  kind of uniform. One lady had seven black cashmere sweaters and 7 black wool skirts and when she found a pair of shoes she liked she was so well  off that she paid to have  hem copied privately so that she had Enough tears to laughter[ enough to last her] for several years.
I think I ‘d get bored if I was just like that but I guess you would have to have a few silk scarves or some beautiful necklaces and a stunningly expensive watch. or you can wear tights in different colours like teal ; at the moment it is possible to buy them in Marks and Spencer’s. Stan liked blue tights  but for many years one couldn’t get  only black or  beige
But do you think that God put women on the Earth so that they could spend many hours every week either thinking about the clothes washing them ironing them or going to the shops and buy some more?
Of course I don’t think that; we were much better off with only had a very small wardrobe but  whenI was at university I had  only one  skirt and I wore it for all the  6 years As  the  fashions went shorter, I turned up the hem; it must have looked dreadful because I didn’t  cut any fabric  any off before I turned up the new hem, so  it was very bulky.. and I had a  thick white polo neck jumper and one pair of black trousers.plus a horrible green cardigan that my mother had knitted for me I say it was horrible because it was a mixture of green and black and she had only bought it because it was being sold off cheaply at the wool shop -no wonder because nobody wanted that colour.Maybe the sheep were green and black!
I have to confess that I was wearing it when I went to my interviews at the university. Usually ,her knitting was very good but on this occasion, she had put the button band on wrongly or perhaps it was too short ;the cardigan was twisted. It was so warm and well made I ended up wearing it for 6 years I can’t remember what I did with it after that.It was a great relief when I could afford to go into Marks and Spencers and buy and buy a lambswool cardigan in a brighter colour.
You poor thing,  said Annie, it’s amazing that you managed to get accepted at University.
Yes, it was hard for girls because they didn’t do mathematics very much; when I told them that I wanted to do research , the  two male interviewers nearly fell off  their chairs laughing. In fact, I’d already done some original research by then.The annoying thing   was that someone else had already solved that problem and published it so I could not have it published in my name
Why did you not tell them about it or even take it with you, asked Annie, in a timely manner
I don’t know. I mean it was the first interview I’ve ever been to and I had no idea what to expect I Nobody in my school had done advanced Level Maths before and I don’t think the teachers understand what they were doing 3/4 of the class failed the exam.I didn’t tell tnhe teacher about my research
Well, I’m glad that you managed to pass, darling, Annie replied  I want you to make some coffee now.
Ok, I will make us both some coffee. would you like a chocolate biscuit?
Yes please , said Annie cheerfully.
Would you like two?
Yes, and Emile wants them as well
And so do all of us

Language poetry

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http://www.creative-writing-now.com/language-poetry.html

 

“Creative Writing Now: In the same essay, you refer to the value of the irrational in poetry, when used correctly — when it is “the right kind of crazy.” Could you talk more about this? Could you talk about the role of play, wordplay,humour, serendipity in your poetry?

Karl Elder: So that following a mid-day trip my wife and I do not have a crabby grandchild on our hands, in order to keep him, a three-year-old, awake in his car seat, I sing his favorite songs, but with a twist: Old MacDonald had a farm—G.I., G.I. Joe. “NOOOO,” he guffaws and then giggles, meaning, of course, “That’s irrational.” Children seem to know intuitively that whacky language is not crazy so much as it is craziness, and should they happen to grow into contemplative adults, craziness may become, for instance, something as serious and challenging as the irrationality of The Book of Job, subject the poem is to interpretation that the divine is revealed only in questions for which there are no answers. Another thought—paradox is a form of irrationality; nevertheless, we “understand” it. And once upon a long time, it was irrational to speak of the earth as round. Yet how prompt our conversion. Human evolution has well outfitted the brain for sea change in an ocean of eons”