fun instruments (?)

[fflo]

This morning as I walked up to the office, glimpses of ribbons of sound caught my attention. After a moment I figured out they were coming from the freaky house across the way that's surely a thorn in the side of its neighbor, the Support The President house. It was somebody fiddling around with an accordion.

Accordions are happy instruments.


Money was so low when I last paid my bills that, when I happened to be in a bookstore buying a One Fish Two Fish as a gift, I went and bought the Elizabeth Bishop book I have qualms about. She didn't aim to publish its contents. But she's dead. And we want to know more about her, or to know her more, every bit as much as we want to see more of her work, right?

I couldn't help myself. I picked it up just to look & knew that I wanted to spend more time with it. There aren't many books I acquire & aim to have in the house any more, but. It's a mainstream sort of book of poetry, as poetry for sale goes these days, but. I'm not sure I like voting with my dollars for this resurrection and the project's/editor's way of possessing her, but.

But I'll probably post a snippet or two here, from some of what kept me from putting the book back, in the end. Though I do wonder whether money having been so low wasn't the biggest reason I walked off with the volume.


I wonder if money will be so low next month that I'll end up with a new tea kettle.

I've kept myself from buying a tea kettle (to replace the sad-shape thrifted Revereware one I've had for years) cuz I love tea kettles so much. If I let myself get started, see, I might look up and find I have 8 tea kettles, each lovely in its own way.

But lately I feel a desire to abandon this fear of abandon. It's a miserly strategy, after all, when it comes right down to it. Miserly with one's self. So what if I were to look up and have 12 lovely tea kettles, and some amount of additional debt? I've got debt from quite a lot that's given me less pleasure than they surely would be providing, were I going nuts for them that way---and we'll all be dead soon enough anyway. Besides, it doesn't necessarily follow that surrendering to such a desire leads to excess, wantonness, dangerous profligate slippery slopes.

What I've got in mind for the off-the-cliff, w-t-f first: a two-tone harmonica whistler, alerting me pleasantly that the water molecules are really movin' now.

Comments

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

I have real trouble resisting that urge to spend because money is low thing.

Funny you mention accordions. I was thinking that other day that the old "Lawrence Welk" shows must be available on DVD and that maybe I'd look for those. Then I reminded myself that I'm not quite that old, although that show does hold a certain nostalgic appeal for me. Mostly by reinding me of Aunt Helena, who absolutely loved that show. when she got older and hard-of-hearing, we'd go up to her porch on a Sunday afternoon and hear PBS re-runs of "Lawrence Welk" blasting through the closed door. Then the challenge would be to get her attention--she couldn't hear the door bell over the TV.

Back when that show still aired, you can guess what the Maddox family did on Saturday nights. I think it came on before "Gunsmoke." We were so corny--but it was fun, as I recall. Back before mom had decided that her life was over.

Ment to change my userpic

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

Oops.

That Book is Worth It

[schroederjt.livejournal.com]

I overcame my sticker shock and bought that book a few months ago. (Don't you feel like you should get a few dollars off if you can show the bookstore that you previously owned a copy of the Now-Not-So-Complete Poems, purchased in good faith?) But for me, Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke Box was worth it, overall. I liked the title poem quite a lot, and convinced myself that any 'new' Elizabeth Bishop poems would probably render the the price tag less painful. There are a few previously unreleased gems in there.

Mostly, though, I was struck with the inclusion of those nineteen drafts of "One Art." There is something to be said, obviously, for seeing the angel in the marble, and carving until you set it free. But if you had written that first draft, would you have kept carving? And if she hadn't, if she would have just given up or felt like, "this just is not coming out the way I want it to," and moved on to something else, the world would have lost something so terrific. It says a lot to me about poetry, not just as art, but as work. And then there's the draft where she's playing with the line breaks and ending words - as if trying to make it into a sestina. It makes her so much more human. I'm excited to hear about which snippets were the poetic equivalent of the two-tone harmonica whistler.

Your qualms on Bishop's behalf are understandable, but I'm glad these poems didn't die with her. Have you read "Open Me Carefully?" Talk about qualms.

Re: Ment to change my userpic

[fflo.livejournal.com]

That show calls up, from childhood for me, restlessness. I didn't want to be sitting there looking at any more Lawrence Welk. Watching it later I thought of it mainly as a weird window into the Dakota Lutherany culture of my mother's people. Plus a very strange place for Crippen Taylor to think it'd be cool to work.

Re: That Book is Worth It

[fflo.livejournal.com]

I still owe you a response to Fun Home --- and now I also have talking to you of this EB stuff to look forward to. I guess the "watch her work" aspect is a big part of what we like about looking at her life, as represented in this stuff. Book's at home, now, though, and I'm taking my time with it. So, a little savoring down the road, I'll comment further.

Feels good to know you caved & bought it, too.

[disclaimerwill.livejournal.com]

If anyone could use a little accordion therapy, it's Support the President Guy. (He's still at that?)

I didn't know they made harmonica tea kettles! Makes me wish I liked tea. I also like the kettles they sell at Target with little spiral doodads atop the spout that spin in the steam.

Re: That Book is Worth It

[vjsmom.livejournal.com]

I think I may have to get it myself, after reading schroedrjt's comments.

[fflo.livejournal.com]

oooh... spiral doodads that spin. i love spirals; i like (much) spinning; and doodads goes without saying...

Support the Pres guy doesn't have any signs up, but I'm sure he's still in there. Calling the parking police on people and stuff like that.

Hey, some journal Andy had the other day had published a piece on busting Marcu---on how not only weren't they going to print his submission, but . . . ---we all thought of you.

[disclaimerwill.livejournal.com]

I miss Marcu. *sigh*

Hey- if you Google him, the second hit that comes up is my Math Refuse article! Ha! I wonder if he's seen it...

[fflo.livejournal.com]

Good question! To me it's the equivalent of "If you were Danut, would you Google yourself or not?" I think it all hinges on the extent to which he's in denial. Maybe he thinks he's really contributing to scholarship. That it's all recycling or something. Fascinating to ponder, the notorious plagiarist...

Hey, here's a link to what may be that article Andy had (thanks to Google Scholar with "Danut Marcu" in title and 2006 in the year fields) --- it's a .pdf:

http://www.lamsade.dauphine.fr/~bouyssou/Marcu.pdf

It has Googling Marcu in it as a research method! Good chance that article's writers read your piece then, you know? Curiously, though, their paper says that links to Marcu seem to have been removed from MSN --- that's not true. Even if they mean links to his works in reviews of other work, there are some, according to the new MR Citation thing.

Don't miss the reference to his charater/personality at the end.

[squirrelykat.livejournal.com]

you just watch out, you may soon have a plethora of tea kettles....

such a dilemma with the finances - in debt? will a little more hurt?
the price for being happy. eegads.

don't laugh, but i know that accordian player. he actually
was a wandering musician at the EcoRide!

[fflo.livejournal.com]

i know that accordian player. he actually was a wandering musician at the EcoRide!

How cool is that? (Answer: way cool!)

[disclaimerwill.livejournal.com]

BWAH! "Marcu responded with a childish drawing indicating he was out of reach."

That made me really happy. Thanks!