tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77069111608180997812024-03-13T13:42:36.429-04:00ssspunerismsssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.comBlogger238125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-53534403474574648982018-07-30T23:08:00.000-04:002018-07-30T23:27:25.268-04:00Moor, Moor, Moor: For Kate and Emily on Their Birthdays<br />
My favorite professor talks a lot about <i>lineage</i>, and how you can see/read in one writer’s or artist’s work all the influences that have come before, and how it’s not a stealing copyright thing like it usually is today (“He’s So Fine”=“My Sweet Lord”…<i>really?!</i>) but something free and generous in spirit, maybe like that traveling pants story but with words. <br />
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<i>in the mail for centuries</i><br />
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And then maybe you come along and stumble on something itcanevenbetotallynew that has mad-love for its echo, and there’s that at first disjointy then oceanic fuzzing when you connect with something so deeply you find yourself there: <br />
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You read it and then the words have a new home in your head.<br />
You listen to it and the words have a new home in your ears.<br />
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It’s even more exciting if you’re a woman and you want to make art and the art you’re inspired by was made by a woman artist.<br />
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<i>Wuthering Heights</i> the novel was published—to mixed reviews, for it was wild and full of abuse and cursing—when Emily Bronte was 29; she died less than a year later.<br />
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Kate Bush was only 18 when she wrote "Wuthering Heights" the song, and she wrote it in just a few hours, late one night, after watching the 1967 BBC mini-series. But I’ve also read it was after watching the classic Sir Laurence Olivier film. Either way, it was when she read the book that she discovered she and Emily were born on the same day, 140 years apart. July 30.<br />
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(The lasso! The cartwheel! I love her so bad.)<br />
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<i>Lionesses,</i><br />
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and here’s the thing with K & E: people were confused at first because they both were doing something different and fierce and stuff that probably women weren’t supposed to do but they did it anyway.<br />
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And if I am just the tiniest drop of Kate and Emily, a drop that’s at least 200 years old today, the tiniest drop seen by the people on the bus one day who looked and said too loud <i>she could be the ugliest woman in the world or the most beautiful</i>. And I get what they mean, and it’s not about how one looks physically but how one presents in the world, as one would record a physical symptom while being examined by a doctor, because people we all of us examine each other with our eyes and only some parts of our brain like that.<br />
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And it is beyond race and gender and color and whatever else we see first and loud, but something in the DNA that aligns and organizes us into tribes like band camp is such an obvious but true example, or word-mad girls whose hearts attach too full and soon, and can you see Kate and Emily in the same tribe of dark-haired ladies at the window? <br />
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<i>Dark-haired artist ladies at the window</i><br />
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P.S. I do know about dangling participles and split infinitives and verb-tense agreement and—so lacking here—periods. But not tonight, Grammar & Punctuation. Not tonight.<br />
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P.S.S. My favorite comment on Kate’s video:<br />
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“I just don't understand how a reserved girl was able to create this persona and be brave enough to show it to an audience when she had no clue how people would react.”<br />
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ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-82591958377373796192017-10-11T17:52:00.000-04:002017-10-11T17:52:53.328-04:00Doin’ It to You in Your Ear Drums, in 88 Words or Less: “Disco Lady”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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This week we’re getting a little cosmic on House of Pride Radio, with Johnnie Taylor and his 1976 hit, “Disco Lady.” <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HOP.RADIO.SF/" target="_blank">Listen in from 6pm to 8pm Pacific tonight!</a><br />
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<i>If the planets make music as they orbit the sun, this is the last song they’d play on Saturday night. </i><br />
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Up in the sky, like a balloon in a parade, <br />
she gets so high<br />
to get down.<br />
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DJ, just give us a sign!<br />
No parking, baby, on the dance floor:<br />
The planets align<br />
Do the Bump behind her<br />
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With every step of her shimmer-gold funk-me pumps<br />
a swirl of stars;<br />
Can you see Mars?<br />
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Shakin’ it up with slinky Mercury<br />
Uranus shakin it down<br />
Horny Pluto shovin’ it in and out<br />
Disco Lady round and round<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-3JkEoQ0Cz8" width="560"></iframe><br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-11816152421526948052017-10-04T17:32:00.000-04:002017-10-04T17:32:29.805-04:00Doin’ It to You in Your Ear Drums, in 88 Words or Less: "Da Ya Think I'm Sexy?"<br />
<i>Today on House of Pride Radio, I'm honoring this 1978 Rod Stewart classic, #308 on </i>Rolling Stone<i>'s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. <a href="http://nthmost.net:8000/mutiny-studio.m3u" target="_blank">Listen in from 6-8 pm Pacific tonight!</a></i><br />
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It’s Rod the Mod and you’re seeing leopard;</div>
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got on nothing a bag o’ marbles can’t hold.</div>
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Peel a grape and gape:</div>
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He’s there right in front of you!</div>
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Multiply this, and now you’ve got a whole roomful of Rods</div>
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except where his head should be </div>
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you see</div>
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Bette Davis, Prince and Cher</div>
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the UPS man!<br />
Yogi Bear!<br />
the Golden Girls, Barack and Joe,</div>
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Everyone who’s nice you know</div>
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Brigitte Bardot and Tom Jones, too</div>
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They’re all sexy—</div>
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so are you!</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hphwfq1wLJs" width="560"></iframe><br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-7021042434596773452017-09-19T16:26:00.001-04:002017-09-19T16:26:54.496-04:00Doin’ It to You in Your Ear Drums, in 88 Words or Less: "Everything's Coming Up Roses"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s 1979, and the last days of disco are being snorted up and shat out by Johnny Rotten, but you don’t care. You’re La Merm, and you break rules harder than any sniveling sod pimped out by Malcom McLaren ever could. You hold a middle C for 16 bars, yet you’ve never taken a voice lesson in your whole life. You do everything in one take, and you have a Christmas tree that you light every night, reminding yourself that yes, <i>everything’s coming up sunshine and Santa Claus</i>.<br />
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P.S. Listen to me read this on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/HOP.RADIO.SF" target="_blank">House of Pride Radio</a> tomorrow!<br />
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<br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-51463981744281436482017-09-07T08:01:00.000-04:002017-09-07T08:01:59.267-04:00They All Look The Same Way Now<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I am ashamed to admit this, but I don’t look cashiers in the eye. I know this is not the eclipse, it’s just band-aids and Brillo pads at Walgreen’s, but the truth is, it’s easier and faster this way. About 25% of the time they’re on the phone and not looking at you anyway, which makes me feel all “I won’t be IGNORED, Dan!,” and another 25% they’re taking care of someone else at the same time while eyeing the people in back of you, which gets me all hypervigilant, like I have to grab my purchase and sprint to the bus that’s not coming because, oh yeah, I’m not going anywhere. <br /><br />And then of course, there’s my lack of facility with small talk. You’d think I could remember “Nice day today!” instead of relying on a nerve-induced blurt like “Were you vaccinated for the measles virus?,” but <i>nooooo….</i><br /><br />So unless I’m at a place I regularly frequent, or at Trader Joe’s, where I think they make their checkout crew memorize wacky Stepford Wifestyle scripts (“What lovely melons you have there!” “Whatcha got planned for the long weekend?”), I keep my head down, always try to have exact change and get outta there fast.<br /><br />When I go most anywhere else beyond city limits, though, I feel totally safe to indulge in normal, nonmisanthropic interactions. And I’m pretty good at it! I was recently at Kripalu Institute, a retreat center in the Berkshires where everyone tries their best to let the other person go first, buying some birthday cards in the gift shop. The cashier was having trouble with the sale because one of the items wouldn't scan. I could see she was getting some kind of weird error message on her computer screen, and that she was super-frustrated. <br /><br />"This isn't working, let me try it again," she says to me.<br /><br />And to herself, a drop quieter, "I'm just going to breathe."<br /><br />My gut reaction is to detach from her nonfunctioning orbit and just go to the other register, dumping her in a stumpy, Trumpy way that would quickly solve my problem and not hers. But I have nowhere to be, and her stated dedication—saying it out loud, as if it then goes on a post-it note you can only see in the fourth dimension—pulled me back to a reality where people are nice to each other, and where I’m a nice person who CAN SAFELY LOOK AT OTHER HUMAN BEINGS. I remain, invested. And this being Kripalu and me being the type to thank my socks for their hard work, I breathe alongside her, ‘cause I don’t want her to feel stressed.<br /><br /><i>How many times do you say It isn't working but not<br />Let me try it again?</i><br /><br />"10.26," she says after what was not a-long-at-all-while.<br /><br />"Yay! It went through!" I say. "I was rooting for you!"<br /><br />"I could feel it," she smiles. <br /><br />And I feel a little shy in this new world we agree to be in together: a world where, for the time being, the purchase of a pink birthday card for someone who will soon be 94 (!) is all that matters. And because I am so dang relieved that it’s not me, it’s you, New York, I nervous-laugh since a smile isn’t big enough. She laughs as she hands me my change and I laugh as she hands it to me. <br /><br />But wait, <i>hands</i> is so the wrong word…She’s doing these wrist-twisting, hand-rotating <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shields_and_Yarnell" target="_blank">Shields and Yarnellian</a> gestures that have me mesmerized. Presenting each bill purposefully in a flourish, like she’s trying to turn them into doves.<br /><br />"11,” she says, and releases the coins to me in a jingle.<br /><br />“12, 13, 14,” three Georges and here comes a hot rod Lincoln…<br /><br />“20." <br /><br />I look at the bills in my hand, and they give me that same tucked-in calm you get from seeing your folded laundry. <br /><br />She explains, "I made sure all their faces are looking the same way now,”<br /><br />Oh! I know that’s a thing they do in banks, but I am always getting taped-up or written-on dollars, on squirmy occasions still flaccid from the sweaty guy buying lottery tickets ahead of me. These bills are not like that, and I know it’s because she paid them extra attention for me, because I was just the littlest bit nice.<br /><br />And me being me there’s melancholy, too, because it’s not as if they can see anything anyway. Can you imagine George and Abraham et al. having to witness, dry-eyed and cotton-mouthed, every transaction ever made? <br /><br /><i>Is it easy seeing green? <br />Is it queasy feeling greed?</i><br /><br />At least, in this case, it’s not like we're leaving our vintage POTUSes shaking their heads in shame at our consumerist culture. (A lot of us are trying to make it better, GW—please pass it on.) <br /><br />As I walk out of the shop, I get this lemony flash of a summer day last August. I was running along the East River and stopped short when I noticed this crazy patch of blackeyed susans swaying together in the breeze like they were waving at me, yellow and happy like Big Bird and exclamation points, respectively. In my head I cue up my favorite singalong for flowers and kittens, <a href="http://ssspunerisms.blogspot.com/2016/04/songs-i-love-in-88-words-or-less-loving.html" target="_blank">XTC’s The Loving</a>, just like it does now. And I walk to the sun room to write out my pink birthday card.<br /><br /><br /><i>What if the faces were to change<br />places?<br />The Benjamins pimp Helios’ ride<br />Lincoln blinks at the breeze;<br />Back on the register a bleeding heart winks <br />‘cause money grows on trees.</i>ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-71220147168036515712017-07-12T23:23:00.000-04:002017-07-12T23:31:12.518-04:00Shitting Here in Limbo<br />
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Ever since I started applying to graduate schools last December, I’ve been unable to write. That would probably be okay if I weren’t going to graduate school in August for writing. It’s a bad case of shit-or-get-off-the-pot—otherwise known as <i>limbo</i>—and I’m scared. <br />
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Maybe I don’t really want to write.<br />
Maybe I’m already starting to buckle from performance anxiety, and school will trigger permanent stage fright. (Pagefright?)<br />
Or when I do write, it’ll just be an endless loop of typing a few words and watching the cursor moonwalk over them, as I try again, over and over, until all I’m doing is typing gibberish, like those <a href="https://curiosity.com/topics/could-a-monkey-randomly-pounding-keys-type-out-shakespeare-curiosity/" target="_blank">monkeys randomly pounding away on typewriters</a>. And when I finally come up with a Shakespearean sonnet, I’ll delete that, too. <br />
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So that’s my take on Limbo, version 1—<i>a place of restraint and confinement</i>, where I’m the one confining myself with this boringass selective writer’s block, plugging up the spout that lets the words come out. And guess what? It’s just a drop in the bigger bucket of Limbo, v. 2, <i>an uncertain period of awaiting a decision or resolution, or an intermediate state or condition</i>. As August nears, I’m in this interim space between the person I am now and the person I’ll be when this thing <i>I think</i> I fear finally gets going. A second you looking at the first you, imagining a third you. And I imagine this: My fellow classmates, too legit to quit, typing away and working on stuff to bring to the first class, and then me, this hack who somehow squirmed her way in, polishing up her Lifetyme-y histrionics and Hallmark one-liners.<br />
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<i>Limbo lower now.</i><br />
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I probably first encountered limbo via Chubby Checker and “Limbo Rock,” with its simple, limpy melody and kid-friendly lyrics about the mildly uncomfortable party game in which dancers move under a pole, held by two people, that starts at chest level and is gradually lowered. I remember doing the limbo in grade school, but no one ever tells you <i>how</i> to do it, that you need to bend your knees, take wide steps and gradually bend your back, or you’ll lose your balance. So we all winged it, most of us outright cheating by ducking under instead of chest-up, making for an unsatisfying game that lasted just a few rounds. As such we had no idea how low we could go, especially considering the world’s record for the lowest limbo dance is 8.5 inches.<br />
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Could the Hoff pull out a win with 8 inches? <br />
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It took me several views to see that he’s shortchanging us here, and to fully unpack why the heck this stupid video infuriates me so much. It may look like he’s totally chill and has all the answers, with all that hammock-hanging going on, but dive deeper—isn’t this whole thing just a classic case of the denials? Like, hey, shit just got real, and suddenly he needs a nap. In fact, he tries to avoid limbo so much that by the end of the video, when you figure, finally he’s gonna get up offa that hammock and spread those legs, he opts instead to plunge slo-mo, feet-first into the deep end. He assures us that <i>everybody gets the chance</i>—but what about you, Hoff?! I was watching, waiting. You never did the limbo dance.<br />
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And just when you think you’ve got it all figured out, here comes a fly-sized Hoff in that white suit, buzzing around my ear and whispering, “<i>I know you</i>… go ahead, just watch that third episode of <i>Beat Bobby Flay,</i> because, hey, your brain is pretty much like Cheez Whiz by now, may as well just get up early and try to write <i>tomorrow</i>… “<br />
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<i>Clap your hands, it's party time<br />Do the limbo dance</i><br />
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And that’s the irony, isn’t it? Because we think of limbo as this place we don’t want to be, or a state we will be, but aren’t yet, moving out of or into. While in actuality <i>we’re in it all the time</i>. <br />
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Think about it: When are you not in between two states, two waits? There are teeny-tiny limbos, like standing on line at the supermarket. Riding the subway to work. And bigger, serious ones, like waiting to hear if you got the job, or if someone you love has cancer. And ones we move through every day, like waking up, taking a shower. A scrubadub space between the silent you of your subconscious world—<i>what can you wash away today?</i>—and the you in-the-world. <br />
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<i>Sitting in limbo</i> is our natural and normal state of being. A meta person-puddle between earth and sky into which is forever falling more drippy, slippy blips of limbo-ness. And we had better get used to it. <br />
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<i>“Sitting here in limbo<br />Waiting for the tide to flow<br />Sitting here in limbo<br />Knowing that I have to go”</i><br />
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Jimmy Cliff wrote this song after the death of his mentor and producer, Leslie Kong. Kong had been with Cliff at the start of his career at 14, and was always pushing Cliff to experiment and try new things—a mother bird nudging her baby to that sacred take-off. He got the idea for the song way before Kong’s death. In Cliff’s own words, on page 136 of <i>Reggae Roots: The Story of Jamaican Music</i>: “The feeling of limbo was from Jamaica. It was 1970 before ‘Harder They Come.’ It was at that time I felt that feeling. I’d been in England four years and come back to Jamaica, not making it in England. Like I leave to make it and come back to Jamaica and find I’d lost the popularity I had. People even start thinking I’m a foreigner. It’s a crying out song. You are in an environment you can hardly…”<br />
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Are you shitting me, Google Books? <i>Page 137 is not part of the preview.</i> <br />
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Doesn’t matter, my feet will have to tell me the rest of the story. So here I go, Hoff—I dance it, I dance it, this song born of a limbo within a limbo. At first, I barely move—there is not enough air to go anywhere. Cliff’s voice, dawn-tender, lets me know this is an at-risk place, but not a frozen one. A sway, a shoulder roll, side-to-side because there’s no way up with all that hanging over me. And the ears in my feet start to notice the drums, the kind of drums with flat, round beats like stones thrown in hopes they’ll skip along the surface of a lake dark and deep. They pulse like an erratic heartbeat and I take tentative steps. <i>Lift a heel, put it down.</i> <br />
<br />
And YES, the kicker at 40 seconds in. I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of drum but not your average one, and every time I hear it, I’m no longer in one place, allasudden moving through space, step-step-tap-brush-whoa, off the ground. Air enough for a tiny flight, travel ban off. And the horns, every once in awhile doing a “ha ha, made ya look!,” because hey, this is more like it. It may not be a party quite yet, but things are <i>looking up </i>here in limbo.<br />
<br />
I know what it feels to be a baby<br />
bird, wings sunward,<br />
little head tingling<br />
where feathers will grow,<br />
someday <br />
soon.<br />
<br />
Oh yeah, I think we all want to get to that place where we’re flying. But there’s that little matter of the elephant in the room…The good ol’ Catholic concept of limbo, from the Latin <i>limbus</i>, or edge—a place right next door to hell for those who died in original sin. And it’s not just one limbo, but two. One for infants who have not been baptized but are too young to have sinned, and one for the “patriarchs of the old Testament,” destined to wait in perpetuity. That is, until Jesus came to spring them. <br />
<br />
I smell a limbo rat.<br />
<br />
Do you really think God would leave a bunch of little babies unattended? That’s some seriously effed-up crime in real life as it is. I’m not sure if the patriarchs could go over and visit the infants and vice versa, but by title alone it sounds like women weren’t allowed admittance into the Limbo of the Patriarchs, so those babies had no chance of maternal nurturing. <br />
<br />
Turns out the word <i>limbo</i> was never mentioned in the Bible, and the whole idea of a ginormous baby-man waiting room was actually developed by Catholic theologians in medieval Europe. Maybe something to keep people from ditching the ranks and forking over those indulgences? It took until 2007 for the Church to give, when Pope John Paul II commissioned a document stating that “there are strong grounds for hope” that God will save the babies in limbo. So yeah, even limbo is in limbo.<br />
<br />
But what if it’s bigger and wilder and wackier than that, with a better address than a few doors down the road from hell? What if we turn the definition on its head and make it, like, do the windmill? What if Catholicism is actually hosting the Grand Prix of limbo-ing, and only a few elite even make it to the starting gate? <br />
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<br />
That would include Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini, an Italian-American religious sister who was canonized on July 7, 1946. I first visited the Cabrini Shrine in Washington Heights this past Christmas Eve, to hear my friends sing carols. I walk in to the chapel, and my eyes go straight up to the ceiling. The walls are tiled white and gold, with mosaics featuring events in Mother Cabrini’s life, everything gleaming, upstreaming. I think that’s how churches are designed, with all the energy pushing skyward. Like if a building could be shaped like a sound, this would be the highest note, played by the shiniest horn. Sort of the feeling you have at an airport terminal, when you’re waiting for your flight and looking at the sky. Which I guess, is kinda what you’re doing in your spiritual life, too. So finally I touch down gently, and I look at the altar, and I see my friends. <br />
<br />
I also see the body of a nun encased in a big glass coffin at the front of the church. I was freaked out for all of one second, then I thought maybe one of the sisters who taught at the adjacent high school had just died, and they had to multi-task during Christmas Eve mass to get the casket ready for a funeral service. But why isn’t anyone else staring at it? And why do I have this tingly wish to jump up and float around the mosaics, like we’re in some bounce house at Chuck E. Cheese's? <br />
<br />
<i>Oh riiigghhhhttt.</i> Because this is the Mother Cabrini Shrine, and so that has to be Mother Cabrini. And she definitely didn’t pass away on Wednesday. I’m not the sharpest tack in the Catholic box, but I eventually work the major stuff out.<br />
<br />
“It’s the body of the first American saint!” my singing friend told me as he took my arm and escorted me out of the church when the program was over. “It’s so powerful! You see this in churches in Europe all the time, but in America, not so much.”<br />
<br />
That night I went home and Googled Mother Cabrini. She died in Chicago on December 22, 1917. When I told my sisters about it the next day as we went through our Christmas stockings, they knew exactly what was up. <br />
<br />
“Incorruptible,” Barbara said. It’s the Roman Catholic belief that the bodies of some saints, because they’re so holy, undergo little or no decomposition. (And P.S. I love you, Mother Cabrini, but you’re just a baby compared to say, Saint Zita, who died in 1272 and was found to be incorrupt when her body was exhumed in 1580.)<br />
<br />
So here’s the party trick: We know that Mother Cabrini landed smack dab in the middle of Heaven, no layovers in either limbos, her soul/spirit body/whatever word works for you born to eternal life. Yet something else of her, her vibration, her presence, still remains in her physical body in Washington Heights. (And please don’t freak out, just go with me here, but it’s not just in Washington Heights—her head has been preserved in a chapel in Rome, while an arm is at her national shrine in Chicago.)<br />
<br />
And this physical body, it’s not just lying there. It’s active. It’s <i>at work</i>, it’s punched in and on the clock. You can totally get a hit off it. And that to me is truly Olympic-level limbo, the art of being in two or more sets of limbos-within-limbos spontaneously, and fully-freaking-functioning and focused in all of them. Not suspended in the wait or the fear or the doubt, but making limbo an in-spot in its own right. <br />
<br />
Because you <br />
don’t rest in peace you<br />
dance in it.<br />
<br />
And now—I can’t believe how neat and tidy this is!—all we need to tie a bow around our elephant: the Catholic Church could consider adding the option of the limbo dance, or something that ritualizes it, at funeral masses. (Did the Hoff fool you, too? Did you think the Limbo Rock was just something Jamaicans did so tourists would get drunk on Red Stripe and act like idiots?!) The limbo dance dates back to the mid-1800s in Trinidad, and is often performed as a funeral dance because it is said to reflect the cycle of life. When the dancer successfully clears the pole and looks up unscathed, it is considered the triumph of life over death. Don’t even get me started on what might have happened if Mother Cabrini tried it.<br />
<br />
<i>“But I know we won’t be long now<br />I know we won’t belong”</i><br />
<br />
I’ve listened to Cliff sing those two lines at the end of the song multiple times, and I’m not certain if he’s singing, “But I know we won’t <i>be long</i> now”—meaning, we’ll soon be moving out of limbo, like he sings way back in the second line of the song—or, “But I know we won’t <i>belong</i> now,” meaning, and this definitely is in keeping with his experience feeling like a foreigner in his own country—we are moving from one uncertain place to another where we don’t quite belong.<br />
<br />
Sometimes I feel like <br />
an otherless child<br />
<br />
Either way, both ways, it doesn’t matter; both work. Because life is full of places where we don’t feel we belong…<i>yet</i>. I mean, I love you so much for reading this far, but let’s face it—I’ve got a lot to spit and polish before I earn that degree. And even “Sitting in Limbo” was a long time in the making, developed in Jamaica in 1970 and finally recorded at the famous Muscle Shoals Sound Studio in Alabama in 1971, with Cliff also in an artistic <i>transition</i> from reggae to soul. I wonder if he started working on the song and then just put it away for safekeeping—until it emerged from the box already knowing how to fly—or did he stumble, climbing to the highest branch to find the sweetest fruit? <br />
<br />
Doubt of sorts: Did Mother Cabrini ever make-believe? <br />
If you’re always at home in the world, how do you know when someone else isn’t <br />
where they belong?<br />
What would Ira do?<br />
<br />
If you have pets, you know what I mean when I say: they have answers. Like Ira, who shows me how fluid and light life in limbo can be with every move. What he does is beyond a leap or a jump--I call it a <i>bloop</i>—and it has just 3 steps.1. He’s on the ground; 2. He’s suspended in mid-air; 3. He’s where he wanted to go. It’s the sustaining of step 2 where the juice is, and he likes to stretch it out as long as possible. Imagine that—<i>seeking the space between your home base</i>. <br />
<br />
And if you’re not the type to jump right in, you simply plunk yourself in the middle and fake it until you make it. Ira’s brothers, Derrick and Lorenzo, are always wanting to go out in the hallway, where they roll around on the carpet and get scritches from the UPS guys. Ira, no way. But when he’s feeling brave, he’ll sit right in the doorway, head and shoulders and front paws in the hallway, tail and back legs in the apartment. He won’t readily move either, so I have to stand there holding the door until he’s finished, a kitty Istanbul calling 2 worlds home. <br />
<br />
<i>Bend back like a limbo tree</i><br />
<br />
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In one of the most awkward interviews I’ve ever seen, the host of the Australian version of American Bandstand asks Chubby Checker if the limbo originally signified “the passing from death to the twilight zone into heaven.”<br />
<br />
“Wha?!” laughs Chubby. “Maybe.” Kinda like, <i>whatever, dude, that’s cool</i>, and goes on to share how kids are so much better at limbo than adults. <br />
<br />
Because Chubby’s still singing it, either way. And it’s perfectly okay to stay in the twilight zone, but be like Mother Cabrini and Chubby and Jimmy Cliff and Ira and yes, even me sometimes—and get off the pot.ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-43301392777420727822016-12-14T09:53:00.000-05:002016-12-15T07:37:27.320-05:00 Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: '"Silent Night"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>"Silent Night," as sung by my dad to my mom</b><br />
<br />
<br />
When my mom was dying, something told me we had to decorate her hospital room. Even though she couldn't see it--she'd had a massive stroke and was unable to talk or open her eyes--I could feel she was so present, so with us. And something hit me as I was sitting there and crying and literally <i>giving her grief</i>... it was so selfish and controlling, like--and sorry I can't think of any prettier, less smellier way to say it--I was literally shitting all over her. There was too much of a contrast with the glorious outside (the most beautiful bird-loud August ever) and inside her room, tubes and plastic and beeping like some laboratory where bad things get invented because someone was <i>careless</i>. I didn't want that for her, my mom who still planned out theme birthday cakes for us way into adulthood, vanilla cats and baseball diamonds and rocket ships. I wanted us to give her a party with the moon and stars, the pink-laughing-with-yellow of a new day.<br />
<br />
So I strung a string of butterflies across the window and played the songs on my iPod that seemed the most appropriate--I love loud guitars so there weren't too many, but I did have Burt Bacharach, The Carpenters, Vince Guaraldi's theme from "A Charlie Brown Christmas" (it sounds great in the summer, by the way). Not sure if it was the combination of the decorations and the music, but for whatever reason my dad--brain shrinking from dementia, heart growing because the theory of relativity--started singing "Silent Night" to my mom. And we all joined in, my sisters and brother-in-law. I'm not sure how many times we covered the first verse, but it was just the right amount.<br />
<br />
<i>There are no stars in your eyes when they're closed</i><br />
<i>We stumble behind you, dim to your inner constellation,</i><br />
<i>singing you home </i><br />
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H3b0wzhteuU" width="560"></iframe>ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-71267854662227815152016-12-05T14:29:00.000-05:002016-12-05T20:24:23.122-05:00 Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: '"Autumn Almanac"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>"Autumn Almanac," The Kinks</b><br />
<br />
fall/winter<br />
<i>Under tissue sky I<br />plunder<br />the end-of-the-season sale.</i><br />
<i><br />All the leaves, crackling bloodless arid,<br />you can fit in one paper bag.<br /><br />A dozen seed pods--a bargain!--<br />everything within on chelonian lock-down.<br /><br />Then by the river, so<br />foolish and tender,<br />a yellow rose I grab to hold in my hibernating<br />heart.</i><br />
<br />
This song by the way is just Ray being Ray. And I suspect the caterpillar is buttoned up in a cardigan.<i> </i><br />
<br />
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<br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-55311219009484795312016-11-19T11:22:00.000-05:002016-11-19T11:22:13.044-05:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "Care of Cell 44"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>"Care of Cell 44," The Zombies</b><br /><br /><br />When I graduated from college and moved to the city, I looked for jobs in the New York Times like everybody else. Only I started my search under "P" --for Philosophy. Surely there was a job where I could make a difference by sharing the secret similarities between Russian Marxism and the Clash ("All Lost in the Supermarket," natch)! As my blush faded--color me Pink Pollyanna--I landed at Teddy Bear Review, editing classified ads peddling googly eyes and doll wigs. <br /><br />I can't help but compare it to the Zombies, who pinned all their hopes for a big hit on this song. No surprise, it's beyond gorgeous. If I were a piano, I''d want to play it at the thought and expression of every sunrise. Who knows for sure why, but it totally flopped. I'm theorizing people felt a disconnect, when there really isn't one, between the music and the lyrics. And the Zombies broke up.<br /><br />Almost 50 years later, "Care of Cell 44" is finally recognized for the piece of art it is, and the remaining Zombies reunited and sometimes play it. So here's to late bloomers--'cause for me, I know now that your dreams can lead you to a prison or a key. And ain't no one locking us dreamers up except ourselves.<br /><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/afrdo2qneoI" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><br />
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P.S. Ballerina Cow postcard copyright Barry Downard 200. I added the quote.ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-68303050036078016572016-11-02T10:51:00.001-04:002016-11-02T11:00:55.933-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "Don't Stop"<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">"Don't Stop," Fleetwood Mac with the USC Marching Band</span></span></b><br />
<br />
<br />
Say you’re a sound. Are you a fizz, a plop? A stop then a pop?<br />
<br />
As for me, I’m honk-y. Born of horns that, in spite of their ability to go low and dark, ultimately want to bust out and fly skyward, taking everyone else along for the ride. If you know me, you know I’m a clapper. I spent most of my first half-marathon cheering on fellow Team ASPCA runners (yeah, that’s a little weird; screaming /shouting takes up a lot of energy, and most people would wisely save it for their own performances), and long ago I implemented the now-traditional practice in our dance class of applauding those who bust a move.<br />
<br />
Pretty corny, for sure. But when the USC Marching Band brass section starts talking on this already way goopy song, it’s total magic. They sound so <i>familial</i>, like my sonic tribe has come to kick me in my sorry ass. They’re so freaking positive and encouraging, writing notes in bluebird-colored ink that they toss wildly yonder, all of them reading the same thing—“You can do it!”<br />
<br />
<br />
My favorite horn moment on any song I’ve ever heard comes at 2:01-2:06.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7oZsyJgNVnQ" width="560"></iframe>ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-29513349206448082002016-10-19T08:01:00.000-04:002016-10-19T08:01:17.320-04:00Wide Awake, Crescent-Shaped<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<i>I see the moon and the moon sees me<br />High up over the apple tree</i><br /><br /><br />I can still hear my mom and dad singing this to me,* and with it that vague, buttery feeling that all little kids should have that everything is good and everything is connected. Like, if you can see the man in the moon (and yes, you want to see him so bad when you're 3, so you do), you're pretty much set. <br /><br />Here in New York City, I'm embarrassed to say I don't even know if the moon is <i>supposed</i> to be visible to telescope-less eyes every night. It's like that in many other urban areas, where most of the time you can't see stars because of light pollution. The glare and clutter from street lamps and lights in and outside office buildings spills into the sky like frat boys at Santacon, peeing in the street and such. <br /><br />It's not just that we can't see the night sky. it's that as a result, I think we're out of whack, oversolared and overexposed. If you're like me, you'll feel especially overstimulated in summer, when the sun is biggest and loudest. A real scheister who won't get off the stage until gravity forces its departure, the Donald Trump of things-in-the-sky (HELLO, you shouldn't look at him directly either). Even the sidewalks glare at you, and riding the subway is like licking a moist underarm (Eeww! Sorry). <br /><br />Fortunately, there is hope--and it's made of green cheese. Okay, it's actually more like rocks, but Ayurvedic experts and others recommend moonbathing as cooling and calming, a way to balance the sun's yang energy with some loony (as in lunar) yin. <a href="http://cosmicgems.blogspot.com/2010/01/tips-for-moonbathing.html" target="_blank">I found a blog post on this practice</a> that blows my mind (and P.S. if you wanna dig a little deeper you can find the author's body and spirit analysis of various world leaders).<br /><br />So this past summer I started watching the sky in earnest. At first, it was like some bad crush, with me practically salivating as I'd catch a glimpse of the moon over the East River. I'd be close to panting as I'd get off the bus and throw my groceries or bag upstairs and run outside again, only to find the ghost of my beloved taunting me from behind a pack of dirty-tricking clouds. Some nights it would seem like the moon was tracking a cubist path, now a cut-out hanging atop a tree with Scotch tape, then minutes later a papery disc holy communioned between two apartment buildings. <br /><br />But slowly, somehow my aim just got better, and me and the moon had some quality time. In Texas in September, she (she? Yeah, she's a she for sure in Texas) acted as a tour guide for a leg of our sunset cruise around Austin's Ladybird Lake, as a million bats emerged like butterfly shadows to greet her.<br />
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<br /><br />And these past few days, whoa…it's like the moon's on 'roids, swinging big and low and bulbous, precisely timing orbit and phase in order to be his biggest self. (Yeah, this Supermoon's a total shock jock). On Sunday night I turned off all the lights, opened the windows and did my before-bed meditating while gazing at the moon; I'd close my eyes and see the Kodachrome version like a glowy doorbell on my third eye, then woke up the next morning thinking, <i>The moon is a prodigal sun</i>.<br />
<br />On Monday night I had to lie on the living room floor to get a good view, Ira looming over me from the coffee table, a la Supermoon, Siamese Cat edition. I'd close my eyes and see the moon waning into tomorrows, then woke up this morning and knew, <i>Love is the moon looking at the sun</i>. Or, love is that which flows between the moon and the ocean.<br /><br />I also knew, like it or not, this is the story I have already been and have to start telling over and over, no matter that others have already told it better, no matter what a crappy or not job I do of it. I tell mine with cats and girls, and moms and brothers, and sacred beings and freshwater pearls. I wish it were a little easier to tell, like the story of the first kitten to do a pirouette (that's still on my list!), but it's kinda the one thing that explains everything to me.<br /><br />Love is the moon thinking about the sun.<br />
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<br /><br />* I didn't realize until this writing it's an actual song! One of
family members must have changed the words from "down through the leaves
of the old oak tree" to "high up over the apple tree," in homage to the
tree outside my window. To this day no Macintosh has been able to raise
the bar set by this tree.<br />
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And then there's this.<br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F_PjGiuJI1M" width="560"></iframe> <br /><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/H7WQMfONe_o" width="560"></iframe><br /><br />While writing this, my inner juke box cued up and busted out "Sunrise, Sunset," and I'm in the backseat of my family's light blue Caprice Classic again, forced to listen to this borderline creepy and way-too-depressing-for-a-kid song--sorry, Tony!--on 8-track.ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-37263798811530905022016-10-10T12:14:00.000-04:002016-10-10T12:14:32.873-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "Oh My My"<br />
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<b>"Oh My My," Ringo Starr</b><br /><br />When you're a kid, Ringo's your Beatle. The name! The nose! The rings! Octopi and submarines! <br /><br />When you're a kid, you also have questionable taste. I ate pats of butter and pink Betty Crocker icing by the spoonful. I liked Shaun Cassidy. I also loved this song, so I wasn't prepared for how freaking good it actually is when my 7-year-old self recently nudged me to listen in…<br />
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<br /><br />Billy Preston pounding on the keys like he's riding a unicorn with a rainbow mane. Ringo and the other drummer (they needed 2!), dancing bears doing the cha cha on the moon. And the saxophone, notes shooting out of my ears and riding the up elevator like a band of angels headed home...<br /><br /><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/yFtv9MtxlCc" width="560"></iframe>ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-81635273914933536972016-08-26T07:39:00.000-04:002016-08-26T07:39:19.221-04:00Hang Ups and Tries Again<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The universe has all sorts of crazy ways of keeping and marking time, and it's like we each get our own calendar of personalized holidays. A couple of mine: A week left of my freshman year in college, one of my dormmates ran up to me on the quad, lifted me up and swung me around, breaking several of my ribs. That same week a year later, our house president saw me on the front lawn during an ice cream sundae party, picked me up and squeezed me. An assortment of ribs cracked again. And for several years after I had surgery for an infection in my hand, my left index finger would feel funny on the April anniversary of its traumatic opening up and draining of whatever bad crap was in there. </div>
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Of course, they are not all somber anniversaries--some don't even get a whole day but slip echo-like through an hourglass, maybe words whispered when we made our way into this plane. Like on certain summer nights, a breeze will come through the window that I know I've felt before, like it traveled around the world and came back with stories of others in its path… It remembers me climbing out the back of a friend's car on a June night, barefoot on asphalt still warm from the day, backdrop lit with stars and fireflies…. After rehearsal for high school graduation, still in my cap and gown and flip flops as I lean over a fence to feed a friendly cow some greenage he couldn't reach…<br />
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So, with time tracked by a tricked-out rolodex remotely controlled by the moon, it shouldn't have come as a surprise when, on a run a couple of Mondays ago, I found a gold iPhone 6 on the ground by the East 6th Street footbridge--pretty much right where I lost my own gold iPhone six months prior. <br />
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I remember feeling so violated when I lost it. I'm not a big phone person--(1) you never really understand what someone wants/feels until you talk to them in person and 2) I had maybe 2 apps on there, which elicited big laughs from the nice Verizon Wireless guys who eventually programmed my replacement--but I took tons of photos for potential blogs, and a precious handful of images of high-octane moments, like my mom's hair when she was dying (it held this indescribable energy and beauty), like Ira when he was a baby and the love in Bing's eyes when he looked at me. <br />
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If this happens to you, immediately put your phone in Lost Mode using the Find My Phone app--locking it and enabling you to track it if it still is charged and online. Then you leave a special "I am lost"message on it displaying a number someone can call. I never got a call, but that day my little gold dream floated above the deep snow drifts of East River Park up to Bellevue Hospital and back to the Jacob Riis Houses, where it remained until it became untraceable.<br />
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During that time, I fantasized about going there and putting up signs, playing the sympathy card about the photos of my mom. I thought about how iPhones are quite a luxury--but are worth nothing if they can't be used. I felt like I was in a cosmic standoff with whomever stole it, because by this point, they'd crossed the line from finding to stealing. But worrying about two phones is like not knowing whether to shit or get off the pot, so, well, I let 'er rip, gradually accepting and absorbing the loss.<br />
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I hadn't thought about it much until this sweaty August morning, when I'm holding a lost phone with a clear pink cover and a Metro card tucked inside. I had just decided that I would bring it to the police station when it rang. I arranged with the caller--Rashan--to tell the phone's owner to meet me in front of the running track. As I waited, I noticed 2 cracks across the screen--could that have happened from a fall during a super-fast (for me) tempo run? Could this be my phone? My code was 4 digits, and not one of those easy ones (1234! 2222!), but no so hard that it couldn't be cracked if someone kept trying. It felt so familiar in my hand, in a way that the replacement never has… <br />
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And it rang again, and it was Rashan saying that he was coming himself. And within 30 seconds, I handed it off to a scrappy 12-year-old on a bike with a banana seat, so light in my hand and then just as tender gone, like a butterfly long free dreaming of being in her cocoon again… <br />
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Could it have been my phone? The whole thing was choreographed so weirdly, it felt a little prankish, but I just didn't want to go there. And ultimately, it doesn't matter anyway, because I think this very personal marking of time is less about loss--save that for the big stuff!--and more about letting go.<br />
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I'm sure there are more to uncover, but some of the the things I learned while on Lost Phone holiday:<br />
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1. Don't get all testosteroned when you need to do anything faster--instead, go all loose and easy. If I hadn't been so tense during my speedwork, I may have heard my phone hit the pavement, but no way it could compete with my pounding heart. As one of my favorite yoga teachers, Erich Schiffman, has said, everything is easier when you relax…and it's so true, especially the hard stuff!<br />
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2. Inspiration has a shelf life--and it's much better added to the recipe when first picked rather than squirreled away in the freezer for later. And you don't need to hoard it, because it will always be there. Otherwise interpreted as: Use those photos right away! <br />
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3. You don't need a photo to keep a memory alive. If it's important, it will always be inside you like a shy smile. (P.S. I've also taken the practical step of backing them up on iCloud.)<br />
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4. Declutter joyfully. There's really nothing but your soul and your heart you can't afford to lose. <br />
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<i>What's in your datebook? Would love to hear what the universe has you celebrating/commemorating</i>.<br />
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"People take pictures of each other<br />
Just to prove that they really existed"<br />
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<br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-90970924297329071692016-08-10T09:37:00.000-04:002016-08-26T08:20:30.149-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "Apple Scruffs"<br />
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<b>"Apple Scruffs," George Harrison</b><br />
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I definitely hail from the same lineage as the Apple Scruffs, the quirky group of fans who'd wait all night in the winter for a glimpse of the Beatles. Even when invited in, most times they preferred to hang outside, on the edges like shy cats in half-shadows. Not to be confused with the fans who stole Paul's pants, or groupies like Penny Lane, these muses were looking at the same thing that Mona Lisa was, if you can imagine Leonardo a Liverpudlian.<br />
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In looking for a video to share <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3YTLpB2Q4U" target="_blank">I found this demo version that gave me chills</a>. And George sneezes like a happy dog at one point.<br />
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P.S. As a kid I also sat in mud puddles (scruff factor 23) and, a few years later, waited every Saturday for my Afghan hound friend from down the street to visit. His name? Apple, of course.<br />
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<br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-53241515432318339832016-08-07T21:56:00.000-04:002016-08-07T22:19:42.362-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "The Little Girl I Once Knew"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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"<b>The Little Girl I Once Knew," The Beach Boys</b><br />
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For those who wish to understand the forces with which flowers bloom, this song is the pop quiz you've been studying your whole freakin' life for. It's the sacred pause in the Beach Boys canon, a sleighbell bridge from the sand to the stars. Not the masterpiece, but the knock on its door so divine.<br />
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It has no home, a lone single between "Summer Days (And Summer Nights!!)" and "Pet Sounds," complete with a few fat full-moon seconds of silence that got radio stations so irked and confused they wouldn't play it. But for dreamers like me, if we listen hard enough we can hear the petals unfold, a tiny cantata echoing inside a sideways sinistral shell.<br />
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<i>P.S. I took that photo on a chilly run by the river in February, knowing I'd need it for this series in the summer.</i><br />
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<br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-88815313015531302122016-07-31T13:50:00.000-04:002016-07-31T13:50:23.604-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>"These Boots Are Made for Walkin,'" Nancy Sinatra</b><br /><br />From the get-go--flaccid guitar descending into droop--you know somebody's about to get kicked to the curb, and with more than a pinch of bullet bra-brandishing glee. During my shining moment performing a dance to this in college, I was so excited I grabbed the grapefruits stuffed into my 48quadrupleD brazeer (over a floral housedress, natch) and threw them at the audience a gloriously full count ahead of "Ha!" <br />
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I missed my cue, but the joke's not on me here--or any betty who has the balls to shimmy her way out.<br />
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<i>Thank you to my friend Petra for getting my copy of Nancy's book extra-specially autographed : )</i><br />
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<br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-30815350211684678692016-07-19T16:45:00.000-04:002016-07-19T21:22:03.301-04:00Free to Be You and Me... Or a Tree<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH29YXIgLPx3DKYr6hSVDb2IqQ6tetQ9LDGuUIDXuHaaqRg1egvRDmVKIGbRv1SZ58ekBFcTiCqgHVxAvZxtA6AkOli4Y7Z21mEhxYYYKXFPOJP09syXBz5Vc2U80uChyphenhyphen03BeoWPvIyq9V/s1600/seattletree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgH29YXIgLPx3DKYr6hSVDb2IqQ6tetQ9LDGuUIDXuHaaqRg1egvRDmVKIGbRv1SZ58ekBFcTiCqgHVxAvZxtA6AkOli4Y7Z21mEhxYYYKXFPOJP09syXBz5Vc2U80uChyphenhyphen03BeoWPvIyq9V/s400/seattletree.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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Ever since I saw my privileged dormmates down the hall repeatedly puke all over the bathroom at Connecticut College and leave their beer-and-pizza vomit for the cleaning staff to take care of*, I carry around a bias against others who look like them, or used to before they grew up. You may know the stereotype--conservative, WASPy, probably, though I'm not even clear on what that means anymore. But whenever I get the slightest whiff of button-downed, deck-shoed, freshly shaven entitlement, I feel small and threatened.<br />
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Or plain old grossed-out, thanks to the strange sit-com phenomenon known as Gas Face. Above right is just one example (and know that I have no idea who this is or what the show is about, I'm just zeroing in on that fake-uncomfortable bean-fueled expression). But I promise you, if you start looking at signage and commercials, prime-time news and print ads, you'll see this mug everywhere. From what I can tell, it's mostly adult men in Oxford cloth shirts who are making it. <br />
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What the heck is the entertainment industry/media--because, really, those to me are the wheels that make our red-white-and-blue world turn---getting at anyway? "I was once large and in charge but the demographic revolution in this country has gelded me and now I'm trying to be relatable and relevant by making a flatulent fool of myself?" Reading into it much?! Yeah, probably, but ultimately, this face says, "I'm a tool." <br />
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There is a female version, too. Roll your camera on the typically white-ish woman of a certain age who, feeling the urge to let go, executes 10 or so seconds of doofish dancing. <br />
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I'm sorry I'm not as generous as most of the commenters. I hate those histrionic faces she makes, and I hate her outfit, and I feel embarrassed for this demographic of which she belongs and in which I'm probably categorized. Like the funk couldn't find her through that Stepfordian haze of feminine deodorant if it tried... C'mon, Hollywood, is this the best you can do for us honky women--pit-sniffing in a pair of khakis?!<br />
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Geez Louse. Notice how snarky my tone has become, and the leaps I made from judging a barfing college kid to judging a character on a TV show that's algorithmed-up-the-wazoo to get ratings (and that I know nothing about), and magically making that fictional character a stand-in for others who may look like him? That's why stereotypes are so dangerous--they start from a place of fear, even if it's an unfounded one, from a place of us vs. them. <br />
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I can't fault myself too much for that--it's human to judge, some leftover survival tactic from our Homo erectus days. But it is also human to seek connections and commonality, right? Why not broaden that to finding connection with everyone, not just the person who looks the same and has the same religious beliefs or eats the same thing or wears the same sneakers that you do. And by you I mean me. <br />
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If judging is too human, well, forget humans then. Trees don't seem to have this problem, and they've made it longer than we have. They don't have guns and use them, they don't organize into parties--still of color, red and blue, why only 2?--that fight within themselves and then each other. They're all over the place, in just as many and more spaces that humans are. And they not only coexist with us, but their activities completely support the planet, unlike human activity. (That green thing they do, what's it called again? Ah, photosynthesis…) <br />
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So, for the past couple weeks I've been practicing thinking about how I am like a tree. There's a beautiful one outside my window that I've looked at, really looked at, every morning for the last few years. I watch the tree in the winter, stark and still, and I watch my tree now in the busy season, green and always in motion, all that growing and changing to do. I was worried when a plastic shopping bag got stuck in the branches early last spring, and felt relieved when one morning it was gone for good, dislodged by rain or wind (I guess…or maybe a polite request?)…<br />
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<i>How is a tree like me? Is a tree a he or/and she?<br />How does a tree gauge overall success, a life well-lived and a life well-gived?<br />Is leaves-taking easier than leaves-making?</i><br />
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This morning I saw the tree as green and tender fireworks, no bellicose blow-harded boom-blooms for punctuation, the only commas a few withered and brown leaves on the edges… will they disengage and blow away, too, like an unkind thought or behavior pattern that no longer serves?<br />
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This may be Pollyanna, but the ultimate goal is to see yourself and everything as one--an idea way bigger than this pee-wee blog, older than the hills, way back when we were thick in the nucleon soup of time, when time in fact was still freaking figuring out a plan of action, when Iamheasyouareheasyouaremeandweareall together. <br />
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Many will say, in light of current events, it is not enough, that I am sheltered and idealistic, that I should get off my ass and shout about it. Maybe. But when events feel overwhelming, I gotta get grounded first, start with the basics, get that squared away, stand tall. I wish this was viewed as equally grand a gesture as others, 'cause it's not easy. But I will practice it every day. And while I don't yet have the desire to exercise my right to bear arms, I sure as sh*t want to start using my right to bear branches.<br />
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OK, so I had no idea that gas face was already a thing! It's different from mine, but still... beaten to the punch...or <i>bidet</i>?<br />
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My go-to song about being green.<br />
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* It wasn't just that. They did other things, too:<br />
- Made fun of me in the cafeteria on the first day of college because I had spiky hair and wore a shiny blue head scarf with fringes (this was Connecticut, people-and <i>The Preppy Handbook</i> was probably still on peoples' shelves). Their unimaginative insult : "Who's this, Cyndi Lauper?" (Insults are never really about the words, so it still stung.)<br />
- Said things like, "The last time I used a rubber, it broke and rolled down my dick."<br />
- Laughed at my writing teacher's beautiful caramel-blond Afghan hound, Billie Jean, because they thought she was funny-lookingssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-66336080844378298812016-07-06T17:54:00.000-04:002016-07-06T17:59:00.864-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words Or Less: "Souled"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>"Souled," Prius Commercial featuring Raphael Saadiq</b><br />
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Got to give it up. After almost 4 years, I still check online every once in awhile to see if Mr. Saadiq has released a full version of this song. Didn't happen, not going to happen, and I feel tricked all over, me and all the others suffering from the worst case of blue balls (note: the Motor City strain) in aural history. Even the ghost of Don Cornelius has 'em.<br />
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P.S. I know my blog is pretty under the radar (to put it nicely), but my last post was even under that, and <a href="http://ssspunerisms.blogspot.com/2016/06/songs-i-love-in-88-words-or-less-ballad.html" target="_blank">there were some beautiful thoughts (not mine, but President Clinton's on Muhammad Ali) that I really wanted to pass on</a>--please take a look if you have an extra moment.<br />
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P.S.S. I highly recommend <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_Rollin'" target="_blank">"Stone Rollin'"</a><br />
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<br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-79972130670686990312016-06-28T22:51:00.000-04:002016-06-28T23:09:36.962-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "The Ballad of El Goodo"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>"The Ballad of El Goodo," Big Star</b><br />
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Oh, this song! Alex wrote it about the Vietnam war, and though I wouldn't pretend to know or understand it in that context, I do know that the world is full of El Goodos…whether they're planet-sized ones with lightning hands and the courage to speak for a nation, or smaller, quieter ones with much less significant impact and little power, whose most resilient act is to look at the world day after day with gentle and kind eyes.<br />
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P.S. President Clinton says it way better, but heck, he had more than 88 words : ) <a href="tp://www.si.com/boxing/2016/06/13/muhammad-ali-funeral-bill-clinton-eulogy-speech" target="_blank">Please read his beautiful tribute to Muhammad Ali if you haven't</a>: "In the second half of his life, he perfected gifts that we all have: Every single solitary one of us has gifts of mind and heart. It’s just that he found a way to release them in ways large and small."<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Cn1t6l7UUPc" width="420"></iframe>ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-89006423435128320312016-05-31T22:41:00.000-04:002016-05-31T23:07:52.046-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "Someone's Looking At You"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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{page:WordSection1;}</style><b>“Someone’s Looking At You,” The Boomtown Rats</b><br />
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<i>With less than 2 hours to fulfill my New Year’s promise to
write 2 of these entries a month, I’m down to the wire… Luckily, this
isn’t the only time <a href="https://ssspunerisms.blogspot.com/2011/08/meezer-monday-wwjd.html" target="_blank">Jayne Mansfield makes an appearance</a> on ssspunerisms!</i></div>
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No one stares like New Yorkers riding the subway do! From that
flabby man who leered directly at the bosom of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>a young woman whose shirt was missing a button in an unfortunate
location to the bitchy ladies who size each other up, lingering on each other’s
weak points (smug smiles should they spot a doughy lump, a cankle, thighs with no
space in between)…this one’s for you--thanks for making the rest of us feel rotten. May your cup never be empty.</div>
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(And we still didn’t get to talk about how underrated Bob
Geldof’s lyrics are.)<br />
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<br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-46679587321332739932016-05-24T16:58:00.001-04:002016-05-24T20:56:23.006-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "Blood on the Dance Floor, TM's Switchblade Edit"<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsVVsSgd0HIthf6K5rsCRDjAMWEZOrdyfGxxVTaUvrWgeeGq2w2Uc3W_e2-dmldQ7xNAChBVvWn39oWNe2qR33JwNhhv6HWRFWXBWQ0XYu2s68t4p4_ES8DPLsMoyBNMlQ1Jz1k7QITV3W/s1600/redstarmj.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhsVVsSgd0HIthf6K5rsCRDjAMWEZOrdyfGxxVTaUvrWgeeGq2w2Uc3W_e2-dmldQ7xNAChBVvWn39oWNe2qR33JwNhhv6HWRFWXBWQ0XYu2s68t4p4_ES8DPLsMoyBNMlQ1Jz1k7QITV3W/s400/redstarmj.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
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<b>"Blood on the Dance Floor: TM's Switchblade Edit," Michael Jackson</b><br />
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Ira has a toy with a rainbow-colored tail he's obsessed with. It's in a cabinet, duct-taped shut because he kept opening it, rifling through like a burglar. When he gets it, it's like he still wants it. That's how I am about dancing to this song.<br />
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<i>How it starts! There's no way to stop <br />your rotting shadow come out to play, <br />sweat blossoming into the inky stains of your shame. <br />You choke on air as<br />curtains rise, <br />listing in releve<br />on a stiletto heel.</i><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqkZzsHWgEveNouqoiRKvkbLGo-ft50tJYmLCTx_3A9K0p4KOEzJs4ozLP2LgYzkDnnl32mIELLmYhU9QM75XFrZzqV0GAkqP943-zoIE7hCxehvPRJtTsWNJQLDMqMr371sqAtU7z0vjb/s1600/mjvid.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqkZzsHWgEveNouqoiRKvkbLGo-ft50tJYmLCTx_3A9K0p4KOEzJs4ozLP2LgYzkDnnl32mIELLmYhU9QM75XFrZzqV0GAkqP943-zoIE7hCxehvPRJtTsWNJQLDMqMr371sqAtU7z0vjb/s320/mjvid.tiff" width="320" /></a></div>
<a href="http://dai.ly/x2xkc4c" target="_blank">Thank you to whomever put this video together! Click to hear song : )! </a>ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-6693448590797337732016-04-30T23:05:00.000-04:002016-04-30T23:05:02.991-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: “The Loving”
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Number one with a
bullet on Pollyanna’s playlist—ladies and gentlemen, I give you the happiest song ever!</i></div>
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<b><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">"The Loving," XTC</span></b><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /><br /> </i></div>
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A friend of mine once said that all songs have balls—some are
enormous, some are small, some are hardly there at all. This song boasts a veritable
bunch of balloons, big and birthday-colored, filled to a breath below bursting
and delivered to you by a troupe of Siamese kittens. In lederhosen! </div>
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Seriously, though, I’m blown away by that big, fat
<a href="http://www.chopra.com/ccl/learn-the-ujjayi-breath-an-ancient-yogic-breathing-technique" target="_blank">ujjay</a>i-breathing guitar chord in the chorus that makes you feel all <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanic_feeling" target="_blank">oceanic</a>.
Freud might’ve really dug it if he could get past the whole ball-sizing thing.</div>
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ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-7618573755595962342016-04-17T08:38:00.001-04:002016-04-17T08:38:25.476-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "Salvation"<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPvarU83PsA6lIOx0WHjF4EfFacHQ_MSNObmcui7WcS3_o5u7YfUkScVxWkZ5xD_LwQLsLfJk8ePzN1yz2YLyef-EApvVCqNW3dKPcZnTn-vyeRfQUjKRVyeb0v_IvqOK4ZMkmhrdHdMCX/s1600/Mom.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPvarU83PsA6lIOx0WHjF4EfFacHQ_MSNObmcui7WcS3_o5u7YfUkScVxWkZ5xD_LwQLsLfJk8ePzN1yz2YLyef-EApvVCqNW3dKPcZnTn-vyeRfQUjKRVyeb0v_IvqOK4ZMkmhrdHdMCX/s400/Mom.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>
<br /><br /><b>“Salvation,” Elton John & Bernie Taupin</b><br />
<b> </b><br /><i>The latest installment in my little series—for my mom on her birthday. (It’s not the first time my card has arrived a day late. )</i><br /><br />
<b></b>At the bottom of the hill I met a man with a cane, carrying a pack of Dunhill Blues. <br />“I’m going to quit,” he said, "when I get to the end of the street."<br />“Good luck,” I said.<br />“I’m going to quit today.”<br /><br /><i>I saw my mother fall at the bottom of the hill.<br />She couldn’t talk, eyes shut to light<br />the path<br />She squeezed my hand when she got there:<br />A developing Polaroid of a shy ingenue,<br />a violet on her first day in the world.</i><br /><br /><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/uJYMLqPxAhM" width="420"></iframe><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://youtu.be/ai5Z6ffg7Cw" target="_blank">I don’t think I’ve shared my own video here</a> before—it was a limited release, and supposed to be as close to a minute as possible : )<br />ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-37662396708915496242016-03-27T20:09:00.000-04:002016-04-07T15:06:55.130-04:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: "Glam Slam"<h4>
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“Glam Slam,” Prince</h4>
<i>10 years ago or so I performed a solo completely of my own design to this song in a student bellydancing showcase. I was so naive that at the time I didn’t realize my teacher disliked me, even when all she said when I was done was that my hair was nice (super-high pony tail like Pebbles Flintstone).</i><br />
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If songs were flowers, this is what grows when you plant horny goat weed in the Garden of Eden. Comes up something whose name I’m not sure of, blooming and blushing in the moonset, dropping her petals like a stripper and shaking butterflies out of her efflorescent ass.<br />
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P.S. In that dorky musical genealogy tree that traces everyone back to the Beatles, this is the Spandex-wearing cousin of <a href="https://youtu.be/E7pgawaKtpc" target="_blank">It’s All Too Much</a>.<br />
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<a href="http://videos.sapo.pt/GDB0o8bTTY4K0zgMQy8F" target="_blank">Here’s the video for Glam Slam</a>--I don’t know how to embed this one, ping me if you do!ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7706911160818099781.post-71370209694268193162016-02-28T18:57:00.000-05:002016-02-28T21:20:36.530-05:00Songs I Love in 88 Words or Less: “All the Children Sing”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>"All the Children Sing," Todd Rundgren</b><br />
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A muttering, stuttering woman in Riverside Park once called
me a “grinning idiot” as I passed by, wearing a smile big as a dinner plate.
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This one’s for you, Muttering Woman, and all grinning idiots
out there—a song written by an overgrown baby in the key of Kitten. Clowns and
puppies, you’ll like it, too! </div>
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The Greek philosopher Pythagoras believed a bell
was the sound of a daimon—<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">a tiny spirit-god
inside going ding-dong</i>. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxB4weCzqGE" target="_blank">This ain’t the first Todd song with bells ringin' in heads</a>. Coinky-dink?</div>
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A music video before there were music videos! Made, like the
entire album, all by his own self!<br />
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Here are the other 4 posts in this series:</div>
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<a href="http://ssspunerisms.blogspot.com/2016/02/songs-i-love-in-88-words-or-less-rock.html" target="_blank">"Rock Around With Ollie Vee"</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.ssspunerisms.blogspot.com/2016/01/songs-i-love-in-88-words-or-less-over.html" target="_blank">"Over the River"</a><br />
<a href="http://www.ssspunerisms.blogspot.com/2016/01/songs-i-love-in-88-words-or-less-rock.html" target="_blank">"Rock and Roll"</a></div>
ssspunehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01109515778742993486noreply@blogger.com0