Steampunk Unicorn Damask by Jayde Hilliard Virgin and Unicorn fresco by Domenico Zampieri, 1581–1641 Melville Drive Unicorn Photo by Kim Traynor "Unicorns were the supporters on the armorial bearings of Scotland's royal family, the Stewarts. When James VI of Scotland became James I of Great Britain in 1603, one of the unicorns was replaced by an English lion on the new British royal coat of arms." Info from Geolocation. Art Deco Zebra Unicorn Unicorn Portrait by Johanna Öst Sharing the cake between the Lion and the Unicorn by Sir John Tenniel, Wood-engraving by Dalziel Illustration for Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass (1865) Links: * American Museum of Natural History: Unicorns, from their Mythic Creatures exhibit * Unicorn music and poetry * Unicorn legends * Unicorn and Rainbow Image Creator
Just recite an occasional sonnet And your lap'll have honey upon it... ~ Cole Porter
I'm more "Can't we all get along?" than "Battle of the Sexes," so The Taming of the Shrew has never been my favorite Shakespeare play. I know, there are various interpretations of it, and someone could probably convince me to like it, but my attitude is generally this:
Here's a song from Kiss Me, Kate anyway. I can't resist clever use of Shakespeare references.
Brush Up Your Shakespeare by Cole Porter
The girls today in society Go for classical poetry, So to win their hearts one must quote with ease Aeschylus and Euripides. But the poet of them all Who will start 'em simply ravin' Is the poet people call The bard of Stratford-on-Avon.
Brush up your Shakespeare, Start quoting him now. Brush up your Shakespeare And the women you will wow. Just declaim a few lines from "Othella" And they think you're a heckuva fella. If your blonde won't respond when you flatter 'er Tell her what Tony told Cleopaterer.
Spotlighting English author/poet Sophie Hannah today. She is famous for her psychological thrillers, but she also writes poems for children and adults:
When you’re waiting for someone to e-mail, When you’re waiting for someone to call – Young or old, gay or straight, male or female – Don’t assume that they’re busy, that’s all.
Don’t conclude that their letter went missing Or they must be away for a while; Think instead that they’re cursing and hissing – They’ve decided you’re venal and vile,
"Put your trust in God; but mind to keep your powder dry." ~ Oliver Cromwell
Powder-flask, Moghol work circa 1750 Powder horn India, Mughal court, 17th century; Powder flask, engraved steel painted with lacquer, Morocco 19th Century Linden Museum, Stuttgart Gun Powder Flask-Sundial Compass Watch Southern Germany, circa 1590 Gunpowder flask Mughal, Late 18th century Silver Flask Two views of a German Steel Powder Flask circa 16th Century (First the bottom, then the top) Sakalava Madagascar powder flask British Museum Links:
I love my poetry revision club. My clubmates are fun, smart, and just generally great to hang around with. We played around with poem art last time, sort of like what the Poetry Foundation did for National Poetry Month. Thank you, Katherine, Krista, and Chris for letting me share yours.
"Green bright curve of snake slides through spring fallen pink petals in the lime grass going someplace with a smooth slither sleek move along" ~Chrystos from Because You Asked About the Line Between Prose and Poetry ~ Howard Nemerov "There comes a moment that you couldn't tell/ and then they clearly flew/ instead of fell" "Wherever we turn in the storm of roses/ thorns illuminate the night/ and the thunder of a thousand leaves/ once so quiet on the bushes/ is right at our heels." ~Ingeborg Bachmann "Insects, why cry?/ We all go/ that way." ~ Issa
"My definition of Blues is that it's a musical form which is very disciplined and structured coupled with a state of mind, and you can have either of those things, but it's the two together that make it what it is. And you need to be a student for one, and a human being for the other, but those things alone don't do it." ~ Eric Clapton
In honor of Father's Day, I'm posting lyrics from one of my pop's favorite genres: the blues.
Them dead presidents Them dead presidents Well I ain't broke but I'm bad bent Everybody loves them dead presidents
Hamilton on a ten can get you straight But Jackson on a twenty is really great And if you're talkin' about a poor man's friend Grant will get you out of whatever you're in
See him cuddled in the shadows Sleepin' on his cardboard bed Using rags for a pillow Where he lays his unwashed head
His blanket's old newspaper Not much good against the snow See so many like him out there When you walk the night patrol
When you walk the night patrol Oh, you wonder where he came from Where he's gonna go Was it a woman or a bottle?
That's brought him down so low What's happened to his family? Do they know he's out here in the cold? He's just a nameless soldier
Marching on the night patrol Marching on the night patrol Like that girl on the corner She can't be more than seventeen
She's run away from somewhere Taking nothing but her dreams Now those dreams are lying shattered As the street exacts its toll
And she's just another victim Lost out on the night patrol Oh, you could ask me why I'm out here Where do I fit into the scene?
Now I'm drawing unemployment Got replaced by a machine And I'm tortured by my bad habits Sometimes, I lose this struggle to control
And the street has its attractions When you walk the night patrol When you walk the night patrol
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I listened to bluesman Robert Johnson quite a bit when I was in high school. Robert Johnson, Mose Allison, Duran Duran, and Madonna were all in heavy rotation on my stereo -- I was something of an eclectic listener. And in college I listened to Eric Clapton a lot. One of my favorite albums was Derek and the Dominos' Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. Here's Bell-Bottom Blues:
There's a connection between these two musicians (Eric Clapton and Robert Johnson). RJ was a big influence on Clapton. My pop told me recently about an album that Clapton recorded to honor Robert Johnson. The cover is shown below. I'm going to include a quote of Bob Dylan's about RJ below as well.
"When Johnson started singing, he seemed like a guy who could have sprung from the head of Zeus in full armor." ~ Bob Dylan
Love that quote! Happy Father's Day. Jone has the Poetry Friday round-up.
"Unusually, Yeats holds the distinction of being Ireland's first medalist at the Olympic Games in the wake of creation of the Irish Free State. At the 1924 Summer Olympics in Paris, Yeats' painting The Liffey Swim won a silver medal in the arts and culture segment of the Games."
"Across the Arab world, poetry is a powerful and popular form of expression. Thousands of works have extolled the so-called Arab spring, ranging from free-form verse in Cairo's Tahrir Square to literary figures such as Syria's Ali Esber, better known by his pen name Adonis, who has railed against Arab despots and last month was awarded Germany's Goethe prize."
I briefly met flutist Doriot Anthony Dwyer earlier this year, which led to me learning a little about her (and, indirectly, Helen Kotas). Both women were pioneers. In 1941, Helen Kotas became the first woman to be the principal of a section in a major U.S. symphony orchestra. Ms. Kotas played French horn. I tried to find a video with her in it, but, unfortunately, I came up empty-handed.
In 1952, Doriot Anthony Dwyer (whose father was Susan B. Anthony's cousin -- I love that little detail) became the first woman to be the principal of a woodwind section in a major symphony orchestra. You can see her performing in the video below:
In addition to the general resistance women faced in working outside the home, women were perceived as lacking the physical strength required for playing instruments other than the piano, or lacking the stamina to withstand lengthy orchestra rehearsals. A woman's constitution was perceived as "frail" and she might wither under the tyrannous glare of the conductor. Many instruments—such as the double bass, winds, brass, and percussion—were deemed inappropriate for a woman, not only because of the physical exertion they required, but also because a woman might look less than ladylike while performing.
Women responded to this exclusion and lack of opportunity by playing in all-female ensembles...by the 1930s, there were nearly thirty all-women orchestras across the United States.
* This list shows the relative representation of women and men in European orchestras in 2005 (some U.S. orchestras are also included). Honestly, I was shocked by the ones at the bottom, like the Vienna Philharmonic (99% male). That's old news for some people, but I had assumed that women were better represented everywhere. * Here's a 2009 update to the last list -- interesting because it shows the changes between 2005 and 2009.
American-born Margaret appears to have spied on her British general husband--and father of her many children--on behalf of the American revolutionaries. What a difficult decision to make. And she winds up being shipped off to England, so she doesn't get to stay in the new country she helped.
This portrait is from 1771, but she almost looks like she knows what's going to happen!
"Soldiers take an oath to defend the Constitution, but let me tell you, what they're really defending is libraries and museums and the memories of the human species, and that's an awesome responsibility." ~ Donald Anderson
If a body is what you want, then here is bone and gristle and flesh. Here is the clavicle-snapped wish, the aorta's opened valves, the leap thought makes at the synaptic gap.
~~~~~~~~~
Do read the rest of Here, Bullet. I read the poem when it first came out, and it stayed with me.
I don't get nervous in any situation. There's no such thing as nerves when you're playing games.
~Shaquille O'Neal
Lewis chessmen probably made in Norway, about AD 1150-1200 The Cheat with the Ace of Clubs by Georges de La Tour, late 1620s Kimbell Art Museum (there is a later version of the same composition in the Louvre.) The Dice Players by Georges de La Tour, circa 1650-1651 Red Queen lecturing Alice from Lewis Carroll's "Through The Looking Glass" illustration by John Tenniel, 1871 Domino Doll 11 by IndianDollArtWorks Hopscotch by Rhonda Radford-Adams Links:
For this Music Monday, we have the oldest song in the world. The Hurrian hymn to Nikkal (orchard goddess, wife of the moon god), circa 1400 B.C.E., Syria, is the oldest surviving (nearly) complete work of notated music in the world:
My opera singer’s name is Leah, I recommend her. Men fall in love with her when she goes to get the mail, and not just mailmen, men from across the street, men who have been following her for four days and want her address to be their address, they would take her last name, and just because of her humming. When she gasps, hearts break. When she snores, marriages fall apart. With Leah, I am always backstage. Still...
Whole days evaporate. Her body turns to sand. She could be an island beach, her bedsheets a briny foam upon her shores. The men of the island stand waist deep casting their hand-tied nets toward the surf. Women on shore sort baskets for fish. Dark naked children scamper through the breaking waves laughing and swinging sticks. There is no too quiet house, no dog coming upstairs to lick her face, to see she’s still alive. And later, no children or husband returning from school or work, puzzled by this, her fourth whole day in bed...
Bonsai and viewing stones are closely related art forms, each reflecting a deep respect for nature. While a bonsai is cultivated to evoke the qualities of a venerable old tree, a viewing stone is usually displayed to suggest an aspect of the natural landscape, such as a distant mountain or a waterfall. Thus, when these small-scale forms are viewed together in a complementary arrangement, the whole of nature can be imagined.
Chrysanthemum Stone - Moon Night National Bonsai Foundation Gift from Nippon Suiseki Association to President Gerald Ford Photo by Joe Mullan Dwelling Stone From Ciniru River Valley, Kunigan, West Java, Indonesia Gift from Indonesian Suiseki Association Photo by Joe Mullan from the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Lang Ying (1585-ca. 1664) Abstract Suiseki In the Earth Art Gallery Photo by Andrew Alden, licensed to About.com; suiseki by Jim Broadhurst Mountain Stone Suiseki In the Earth Art Gallery Photo by Andrew Alden, licensed to About.com; suiseki by Lance Plaza From The Zymoglyphic Museum Stars in Stone The Ancestors' Land by Primangelo Pondini Interested in learning more? Felix Rivera has a very nice Suiseki site
