1976 Musical Memory for 2010

1976 Musical Memory for 2010

In 1976

Al Stewart

and Peter Wood released a melodic song with a play time of over 6 minutes and that still managed to dominate the airwaves. Last Saturday, while mowing the lawn, my iPod shuffled to this song and lost in the magic of ear-bud land, I heard the lyrics as if for the first time. Some of them were familiar to me but as the music rolled on, I was smitten by their beauty. There is real poetry in this song, I tell you.

The simple interpretation of the song lyrics tell a story about a tourist who meets a hippie girl in an exotic market, stays the night with her, and thus misses his tour bus. The larger story is about how we can lose ourselves in someone else to the point that our intended destination is lost and the direction of our lives permanently altered.

Please accept my invitation to listen to or read some of the most romantic and enchanting lyrics from the 70's.

Hear the song here:

Year of The Cat - YouTube

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Lyrics below.

Year of the Cat - Al Stewart & Peter Wood

On a morning from a Bogart movie

In a country where they turn back time

You go strolling through the crowd like Peter Lorre

Contemplating a crime

She comes out of the sun in a silk dress running

Like a watercolour in the rain

Don't bother asking for explanations

She'll just tell you that she came

In the year of the cat

She doesn't give you time for questions

As she locks up your arm in hers

And you follow 'till your sense of which direction

Completely disappears

By the blue tiled walls near the market stalls

There's a hidden door she leads you to

These days, she says, I feel my life

Just like a river running through

The year of the cat

Well, she looks at you so cooly

And her eyes shine like the moon in the sea

She comes in incense and patchouli

So you take her, to find what's waiting inside

The year of the cat

Well, morning comes and you're still with her

And the bus and the tourists are gone

And you've thrown away the choice and lost your ticket

So you have to stay on

But the drum-beat strains of the night remain

In the rhythm of the new-born day

You know sometime you're bound to leave her

But for now you're going to stay

In the year of the cat.

All This Talk About Change

Change

Another second ticks past

Another moment that won’t last

Time again yields to nothing new

Leaves behind victories and youth

Those who thought one life could change

Our world from scandal and pain

Belief that hope and desire

Would cast water upon the fire

Yet failures and callused minds

Bind with broken promises finding

Brilliant victories heralding

Vanquished limits and proclaiming

Without giving merit to those

Whose lives already tried and lost

Upon the battlefields

Of soil and polices

Note: image courtesy of Free Digital Photos

Relief - A Tale from the Seaside

Before the lightning flashes, clouds roll in bringing with them a promise of relief from the incessant heat and the potential of a light show over the sea. There is nothing so comforting as a summer evening thunder storm at the coast.

Their regular appearance with their own assembly of sound, light (amazing light) and a palpable embrace. It's the drop in barometric pressure, so they tell me, that creates the change in the air. the air seems to at once feel lighter and more dense with moisture as it brushes against you: an ascending wave of breeze upon breeze. The air smells of salt and sea just before the storm.

Perhaps the sensations are so powerful because of all bare skin; the taut, tanned skin of youthfulness, proclaiming would be eternal beauty and undaunted vigor, feeling every ray of sun, every grain of sand, every coming drop of rain.

Memory tells the story now... Here I felt the world, alive and full. I felt the storms. Here I would grab you by the hand and rush to the beach as the clouds darkened the sky and the breeze began to chase us. Sunbathers scattered for shelter and we would run against the current of people to the beach and scurry like sand fiddlers into the large wooden float box positioned with it's one open side facing the ocean. There we would settle in, giggling and shuffling into our place among the sandy floats, into each other's arms and wait for the show to begin.

Drops would fall, making small dimples in the sand and then give way to sheets of rain, blown sideways by the wind folding them like sheets - waving to us. The light would fade and burst in flashes. Then the moment would come when, framed by the window of our shelter we would see a jagged bolt of lightning descend in to the sea. We would shut our eyes and capture the image of that bolt now cut into the fabric of our souls as we felt the thunder - thunder into us. We would hold each other tightly as we shared the storm between us. I remember your bare back hot beneath my hands, the texture of your lips, and the taste of you.

Lightning flashes. Clouds roll in, bringing with them the promise of relief...

Note: image courtesy of Free Digital Photos

The Puppet Man

The Puppet Man

pull the string, watch the dolls dance

blood runs from my finger tips

maybe this time it will change

calm my fears or ease my pain

see my marionettes take your stage

watch your laughter, feel your rage

safely sitting

program in hand

three cheers for the puppet man

pull the string, watch the dolls dance

blood runs from my finger tips

maybe this time it will change

calm my fears, ease my pain

i see your faces, swoons and frowns

watching fixed, puppet take puppet down

they're not real, you carefully remind

while i silently die standing behind

pull the string, watch the dolls dance

blood runs from my finger tips

maybe this time it will change

calm my fears, ease my pain

with human hate they dance for you

showing the worst the we can do

superb! delight! encore' you shout

so once more the toys come out

pull the string, watch the dolls dance

blood runs from my finger tips

maybe this time it will change

calm my fears, ease my pain

the lights are gone, empty isles now

i fall broken, wondering how

these hands will heal, gather strength again

so, you can watch through my gift, friend

pull the string, watch the dolls dance

blood runs from my finger tips

maybe this time it will change

calm my fears, ease my pain

see my marionettes take your stage

watch your laughter, feel your rage

safely sitting program in hand

three cheers for the puppet man

*note: i wrote this poem a few years back while struggling with managing the internal demands that i often felt from others' external behavior around me. i think as children we often take on the role of performing for the 'big' people in our world - and although maturity requires us to grow more autonomous, we many of us struggle well into adulthood to perform for others... it is only a problem when the price is our very health, peace and well being.

**Photo used by permission

Emotive - Not a Water Poem

Emotive

placid ripples radiate

out from the stone's wake

it falls into silence

downward

from a nameless toss it came

flying in a moment

failing to break gravity's spell

downward

descending the abyss

parting waters of primeval ways

stirring the reservoir of rage

downward

what lies beneath

what longings to be stirred

what hopes become reacquainted

down there

a small pebble settles into deepest sediment

nests into it's new dark home

and then

something disturbed

moves

down there.

Beat the Reaper - A Killer of a Book

My son loaned me a innocent little yellow covered paperback book, "Beat The Reaper, " by Josh Bazell.

Turning to the opening chapter, I was smitten - in love I tell you - by the first line: "So, I'm on my way to work and I stop to watch a pigeon fight a rat in the snow, and some fuckhead tries to mug me!"

The great news is the read gets even better. Carol Memmott, USA Today, is quoted on the cover "It's just what the doctor ordered...think House meets The Sopranos." She couldn't be more right!

Bazell wields wonderfully strong verbiage and a bouncing story line that darts between a clearly depicted real-world hospital environment and a fantastical realm of underworld brutality.

I'm finding the book disturbing (I even have nightmarish dreams). I find it engaging. I find the work mesmerizing.

Sharing the Green Thing Today - My St. Patrick's Day Post

Abigial Harenberg is on a quest - 365 Self Portraits this year, one every day. Check out her flickr record here. She has promised me a special photo for St. Patrick's Day so be sure in click over to see what she came up with.

Stay in touch by following her on Twitter or vis Her website.

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

For more St. Patty's Day Fun - see previous post, but then, "where's the green in that?!"

Top 10 Ways to Play on St. Patrick's Day

If you are not Irish and you don't drink, what is the point of St. Patrick's Day? Really.
Although one could argue that the day is intended to remind us of the success of the historical St. Patrick's success in advancing Christianity on Ireland - the practical connection is completely lost. For me, it is a good topic for a blog post...

So, how about these Top 10 Ways to Play on St. Patrick's Day?

1. Wear green - creatively. Don't just wear a little pin on your lapel, or a green blouse - get creative. Wear a hat, sport a bow-tie, or dye your eye brows green.
2. Offer green M&M's to people all day (and then whisper "They're not really M&Ms - after they eat them)
3. Write Green - Use a green pen for everything you write that day, or change your email font color to green.
4. Randomly ask people "Where's the green in that?" in response to anything they say.
5. Post "Have you seen my leprechaun?" on all of your Social Media statuses.
6. Send a FTD Shamrock bouquet to your boss (or at least call the florist and try)
7. Ask people to tell you difference between a clover and a shamrock and then reply with #4 above.
8. Rank everything on a 1-5 Shamrock scale and announce your rating - everywhere! "Yeah baby! I'm talking 5 Shamrocks!"
9. Just say "Shamrock" every chance you get. It's fun to say. All together now - SHAMROCK!
10. Provide a #10 for this list in the comments...

Bound - A Poem about Moments of Self Doubt

bound

the knot tightens

the grip of self within self

constricting fists of self hate and loathing

mauling my soul

doubled over in pain

breathless from the impact

blows of fury born of hatred and distrust

disemboweling my being

healing hands, where are you?

gentle touch of truth, come

come, come

release me, untie me, free me

i am weary with waiting

The Top 9,009 Numbers for Lists and How to Use Them

The Top 9,009 Numbers for Lists



Here is my detailed analysis on the topic. After years of research (read "time spent reading") top 10, 20, 3, and 5 lists for countless theories, techniques, processes, and approaches I have come to the following conclusion - one that will certainly simplify and increase your success at list making. So, here are the top 9,009 numbers for lists and how to use them.

Approach #1 - start with the number 1 and then number each item on your list consecutively until you reach 9,009.

Approach #2 - start with 9,009 and order your list in descending order until you reach the #1 (and often most important) item on your list.

And there you have it! The Top 9,009 numbers for lists and how to use them!

(in case you haven't noticed, lists are very big these days and I wanted to write a post about lists - tongue firmly planted in cheek. Did you really think this would be a list of 9,009 items?)