Cultural List - eracy, Part 1: Make Your Own List

CULTURAL LITERACY
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

Cultural Literacy:
What Every American Needs to Know

or better yet

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy:
What Every American Needs to Know

"Cultural literacy is not about elitism; it is about ensuring that every individual has the tools to navigate and contribute to our complex world. . . . the glue that holds a society together. . . . the only road to genuine equality and opportunity in our society."

Back in 1987, it was practically a party game -- like a round of Jeopardy! -- to thumb through Hirsch's massive alphabetical list, testing what we had learned and retained or what had been sadly omitted from our cultural education. When was Victoria queen (1837 - 1901), what was the span of Shakespeare's life (1564 - 1616), how about a priori and posteriori: that sort of thing.

Hirsch's project reminded me of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), which I had been required to read and analyze as an undergraduate. The assignment (this was way back in pre - Google 1978) was to look up any of these items with which we were not already familiar:

"Culture includes all the characteristic activities and interests of a people: Derby Day, Henley Regatta, Cowes, the twelfth of August, a cup final, the dog races, the pin table, the dart board, Wensleydale cheese, boiled cabbage cut into sections, beetroot in vinegar, nineteenth-century Gothic churches and the music of Elgar. The reader can make his own list."

T. S. Eliot (1888 – 1965)

Eliot is skewing British here, but even in Missouri we knew about "Pomp and Circumstance," pickled beets, and boiled cabbage. Some of the others weren't as relevant to North American college kids, but that's okay, because, as Eliot himself concluded: "The reader can make his own list."

Happily, witty American composer Cole Porter had already done just that -- 14 years prior to Eliot's suggestion -- in his song from the 1934 musical Anything Goes. You're the Top is a light - hearted bit of fun, but it is also a short course in cultural literacy:

You're the Top

At words poetic, I'm so pathetic
That I always have found it best
Instead of getting 'em off my chest
To let 'em rest unexpressed
I hate parading my serenading
As I'll probably miss a bar
But if this ditty is not so pretty
At least it'll tell you how great you are

You're the top
You're the Colosseum
You're the top
You're the Louvre Museum
You're a melody from a symphony by Strauss
You're a Bendel bonnet, a Shakespeart sonnet
You're Mickey Mouse

You're the Nile
You're the Tow'r of Pisa
You're the smile
On the Mona Lisa
I'm a worthless check, a total wreck, a flop
But if, baby, I'm the bottom
You're the top

You're the top
You're Mahatma Ghandi
You're the top
You're Napolean brandy
You're the purple light of a summer night in Spain
You're the National Gallery, You're Garbo's salary
You're cellophane

You're sublime
You're a turkey dinner
You're the time
Of the Derby winner
I'm a toy balloon that's fated soon to pop
But if, baby, I'm the bottom
You're the top

You're the top
You're an Arrow collar
You're the top
You're a Coolidge dollar
You're the nimble tread of the feet of Fred Astaire
You're an O'Neill drama, you're Whistler's mama
You're Camembert

You're a rose, You're Inferno's Dante
You're the nose on the great Durante
I'm just in the way as the French would say
"De trop"
But if, baby, I'm the bottom
You're the top

You're the top
You're a Waldorf salad
You're the top
You're a Berlin ballad
You're a baby grand of a lady and a gent
You're an old dutch master, you're Mrs. Aster
You're Pepsodent

You're romance
You're the steppes of Russia
You're the pants
On a Roxy usher
I'm a lazy lout that's just about to stop
But if baby, I'm the bottom
You're the top

Cole Porter (1891 - 1964)

Almost 40 years after Porter's hit, the classic country Statler Brothers had a 1972 hit with their nostalgic ode to growing up in the 1950s, filled with numerous references to the popular culture of the time:

Do You Remember These?

Saturday morning serials
Chapters one through fifteen
Fly paper, penny loafers, and Lucky Strike Green
Flat tops, sock hops, Studebaker, "Pepsi, please"
Ah, do you remember these?

Cigar bands on your hands
Your daddy's socks rolled down
Sticks, no plugs and aviator caps, with flaps that button down
Movie stars on Dixie cup tops and knickers to your knees
Ah, do you remember these?

The hit parade, grape truaide, the Sadie Hawkins dance
Peddle pushers, duck tail hair, and peggin' your pants
Howdy Doody, Tootie Fruitie, the seam up the back of her hose Ah, do you remember those?

James Dean, he was "keen", Sunday movies were taboo
The senior prom, Judy's mom, rock 'n roll was new
Cracker jack prize
Stars in your eyes
"ask daddy for the keys"
Ah, do you remember these?

The boogie man, lemonade stand and taking your tonsils out
Indian burn and wait your turn and four foul balls You're out!
Cigarette loads and secret codes and saving lucky stars
Can you remember back that far?

To boat neck shirts and fender skirts and crinoline petticoats
Mums the word and dirty bird and double root beer float
Moon hubcaps and loud heel taps and "he's a real gone cat"
Ah, do you remember that?

Dancing close, little moron jokes and "cooties" in her hair
Captain Midnight, ovaltine, and the whip at the county fair
Charles Atlas course, Roy Rogers horse, and "Only the Shadow Knows"
Ah, do you remember those?

Gables charms, "froggin" your arm, loud mufflers, pitching woo Going steady, Veronica and Betty, white bucks and blue suede shoes

Knock, knock jokes
Who's there?
Dewey
Dewey who?
Dewey
Remember these
Yes we do!
Oh do we?
Do we remember these!

Written by Don Reid, Harold Reid, and Larry Lee Favorite
[And a list from the cowboy culture!]

In 1979, seven years after "Do You Remember These," along came "Reasons to Be Cheerful," from British musical artist Ian Drury. Drury's mostly optimistic, slightly sarcastic "shopping list" ranges from landmark achievements to any number of whimsical tidbits that add joy to the day:

Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3

Why don't you get back into bed?
Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3, 1, 2, 3

Summer, Buddy Holly, the working folly
Good golly, Miss Molly and boats
Hammersmith Palais, the Bolshoi Ballet
Jump back in the alley and nanny goats
Eighteen wheeler Scammells, Dominica camels
All other mammals plus equal votes
Seeing Piccadilly, Fanny Smith and Willie
Being rather silly and porridge oats

A bit of grin and bear it, a bit of come and share it
You're welcome we can spare it, yellow socks
Too short to be haughty, too nutty to be naughty
Going on forty no electric shocks
The juice of a carrot, the smile of a parrot
A little drop of claret, anything that rocks
Elvis and Scotty, the days when I ain't spotty
Sitting on a potty, curing smallpox

Reasons to be cheerful, part three
Reasons to be cheerful, part three
Reasons to be cheerful, part three
Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three
Reasons to be cheerful, part three

Health service glasses, gigolos and brasses
Round or skinny bottoms
Take your mum to Paris, lighting up a chalice
Wee Willie Harris
Bantu Steven Biko, listening to Rico
Harpo Groucho Chico
Cheddar cheese and pickle, a Vincent motorsickle
Slap and tickle

Woody Allen, Dali, Domitrie and Pascale
Balla, balla, balla and Volare
Something nice to study, phoning up a buddy
Being in my nuddy
Saying okey-dokey, sing-a-long a Smokie
Coming out of chokie
John Coltrane's soprano, Adie Celentano
Bonar Colleano

Reasons to be cheerful, part three
Reasons to be cheerful, part three
Reasons to be cheerful, part three
Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three
Yes, yes, dear, dear

Perhaps next year
Or maybe even now
In which case

Woody Allan, Dali, Domitrie and Pascale
Balla, balla, balla and Volare
Something nice to study, phoning up a buddy
Being in my nuddy
Saying okey-dokey, sing-a-long a Smokie
Coming out a chokie
John Coltrane's soprano, Adie Celentano
Bonar Colleano

Reasons to be cheerful, part three
Reasons to be cheerful, part three
Reasons to be cheerful, part three
Reasons to be cheerful, one, two, three
I don't mind
I don't mind, don't mind, don't mind, don't mind

Sung by Ian Dury and the Blockheads
Written by Charles Jeremy Jankel, David Stanley Payne,
Ian Robins Dury, Stanley Payne David
See also Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick

In conclusion, not forgetting the Beat Poets,
with Ginsberg's 1955 compilation of
"the best minds of his generation,"
but even moreso Ferlinghetti's 1958
wishlist: "I Am Waiting."


MORE CULTURAL LISTS
Friday, June 28th
Cultural List- eracy, Part 2:
From Prime Time to Internet
Bo Burnham ~ Welcome to the Internet (2021)
Don McLean ~ Prime Time (1977)
Billy Joel ~ We Didn't Start the Fire (1989)

Sunday, July 14th
Cultural List-eracy, Part 3:
Master Class
Ted Lasso, Steven Colbert & James Taylor
Next Fortnightly Post
Friday, June 14, 2024

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Listing / Listening, Part 1
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

This Year's Words

A HOUSE WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"WE WILL SAY THIS POEM AGAIN AND AGAIN . . .
THERE IS NO END TO ANYTHING ROUND."
~ RUMI ~

*************************

"Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers."
from The Wasteland
by T. S. Eliot
A new year full of new words!

Some of the best New Year's words I know come from T. S. Eliot's "Four Quartets":

Quartet No. 1: Burnt Norton
Quartet No. 2: East Coker
Quartet No. 3: The Dry Salvages
Quartet No. 4: Little Gidding.

These are perfect poems for the re-beginning cycle, dealing as they do with the human experience of past, present, and future and our place within time.

In the first quartet, Eliot imagines the simultaneous existence of past, present, and future:

Time present and time past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.
Footfalls echo in the memory
Down the passage which we did not take
Towards the door we never opened
Into the rose-garden. My words echo
Thus, in your mind.
But to what purpose
Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves
I do not know.
"Burnt Norton" (from section I)

In the fourth quartet, some things, like "last year's words" can be left in the past, while "next year's words" remain in the future. In my post last month, I quoted Salman Rushdie as saying that "the home we make . . . is anywhere, and everywhere, except the place from which we began." Eliot, however, brings us back around:

For last year's words belong to last year's language
And next year's words await another voice . . .
What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from . . .
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.*
"Little Gidding" (from sections II & V)

*These great lines from Eliot have already
appeared a couple of times previously on this blog:
see ~ "Three Passions"
and ~ "Parallax"
On the topic of wintry words, you may remember this one from
last January, but here it is again, always a favorite:

"Antiphanes said merrily,
that in a certain city the cold was so intense
that words were congealed as soon as spoken,
but that after some time
they thawed and became audible;
so that the words spoken in winter
were articulated next summer."
Plutarch, (46 - 120)
1st Century Biographer
born Greek but later became a Roman citizen
A Little Window on Winter
SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Saturday, 28 January 2012

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Snow at last!
Time to winterize your croquet set!

There on the Edge of Autumn

ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

"I am a leaf!"
All of today's connections are drawn from the writing and photography of my friend Jan Donley. References to her work have appeared several times on this blog (and The Quotidian Kit) right from the very beginning.* It was Jan who said, "September always smelled different from August. It just did." Likewise, October smells different from September; and November from October. As my son Sam said earlier today, "It smells good out here; it smells cold!" Yes -- it smells like November!

Excerpts from Jan's Journal

Gray / 21 November 2010
The bare trees covered the hillside, and from a distance, it looked as if the hill was covered in fur. Funny that way—how hard branches soften. . . .

The sun shone down from the western sky and pieces of light through the branches made stripes along the shaded ground.

[Out for a walk with her dog Gray] She could see her breath and Gray’s too as he panted along. They stopped at the edge of a drop, too steep to walk down. The sun disappeared behind a cloud, and the air turned colder. She grabbed Gray up into her arms and took in the warmth of his coat against her bare face. He squirmed to be set free. So she put him back down and squatted next to him—there on the edge of autumn looking out toward winter.

Alone / 21 October 2010
Opal looked out the window. A gray overcast filled the sky. Leaves hung on trees—orange, yellow, red. She watched one fall. It twirled and almost seemed to shine against the dark day.

She put on her red jacket and her brown shoes.

“I’m going outside!” she called, knowing that Aunt Frances may or may not hear her. Aunt Frances had her own worries, and sometimes Opal felt alone.

She opened the front door and ventured down the stoop steps and onto the grass, covered with leaves that rattled under her feet.

She made her way onto the sidewalk—also leaf-covered. She shuffled through the leaves and watched as their colors tumbled over her shoes. They crackled and popped. The sound made Opal laugh.

Some leaves fell from limbs and other swirled up from the ground.

It was just a fall day. Opal knew that. Days come and go, Opal thought.

But something in the swirling and the falling made her stop.

She twirled herself one, two, three times.

“I am a leaf,” she called to the sky, to the trees, to the day.

She ran along the sidewalk, her red coat glimmering on that gray day.

She chanted, “I am a leaf” down the block and across the wide street to the park with the pond and the ducks and the caw cawing crows.

It was enough for the moment, to be one of many swirling through the day.

(Look closely! See the bench?)
And now some excerpts from Jan's short story "Blind"
Not necessarily an autumnal story,
but a back - to - school story,
so it must be Fall!
Sometimes you look up at the sun and you get blinded. You put your hand up as a shield, and you have sight again, but it’s kind of awkward to keep your hand there like that. And sometimes, you meet someone who blinds you, and even when you try to really see that person, it’s awkward. So you put your head down or look the other way. That’s how it was with Caroline.

She blinded me. . . .

The narrator here is Franny, trying to understand the complicated feelings she has for her classmate Caroline. One of my favorite elements of the story is their homework session:

“You really get these poems, don’t you?” And the truth was, I did. I could read a poem and figure out the puzzle of it faster than my mom could do the Daily Jumble in the Gazette.

For homework, we had to read “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot. Mr. Zellner, our English teacher, got all teary-eyed when he talked to us about it. He carried the book around the classroom and read parts aloud:

“For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life in coffee spoons.”
I looked around and most everyone, including Caroline, was yawning or staring out the window. Me, I was listening.

Mr. Zellner asked, “What do you think Eliot is trying to convey when he writes the line, ‘It is impossible to say just what I mean?’”

I raised my hand. . . .

“Well.” I looked down at the words in the poem. “He has all these memories bottled up. He wants them to mean something, but he’s not sure they mean anything at all.”
“You got all of that out of one line?” Caroline asked.

“It’s poetry,” Mr. Zellner said, as if that answered everything. He read some more of the poem:

“I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.”
"Mermaids . . . .” Caroline stared at the page, and then she looked up at me. “Why mermaids?”

“It’s a metaphor,” I said.

Mr. Zellner smiled really big. “Yes! Yes! That’s right. Did everyone hear Frances?”

I wished he would call me Franny; but for some reason, teachers liked to use full names.

Mr. Zellner continued, “Our poet, Mr. Eliot, is using the mermaid’s song as a metaphor for missed opportunities, for loss, for—” Mr. Zellner stopped. He looked around the room— “what we wish we had done. Haven’t you all had moments when you wished you had done something different? The poem is about regret.”

“Yeah,” Caroline said. “I think I get it. Thanks to Franny.”

*****************
I love the way Jan has incorporated literary analysis right into the body of the story. Everything she says here about "Prufrock" is exactly what I've tried to tell my students in the past and what I told Ben & Sam when (luckily!) they were each assigned to read this poem in high school. [Click to hear T. S. Eliot himself recite.]

I also like the way that when it comes to poetry, Franny just knows. I earned a similar credential when discussing Jane Hamilton's novel A Map of the World in one of my long ago book groups. There is a sad, sad scene in the book when Alice's family kind of accidentally (not maliciously but simply because they don't understand what it is or how important) throw away her map of the world. When I asked my fellow readers if they had reached that scene yet, they weren't sure, so I pointed it out to them, since to me it was such a crucial turning point, not to mention that it totally illuminates the title of the book. Upon a second reading, I had to admit that no where is it specifically stated: "No! Wait! Stop! The family is throwing her map away!" Yet, when the group asked me, how I knew -- well, I just know!

Playing on the theme of "Blind," Jan writes that even Mr. Zellner "squinted a little" not to mention that he gets "all teary-eyed" when reading "Prufrock!" Franny at first averts her eyes out of shyness but later "nodded into the bright sun" of Caroline; and Caroline takes a moment just to look at the sky, nothing more, nothing less. The story concludes with the two young women sitting on a park bench in the late afternoon autumn sun, discussing the difficulty of making direct eye contact, the varying degrees of vegetarianism, and their upcoming Emily Dickinson assignment. Then, as Emily would surely have it:

"We stayed on the bench till the sun dropped.

In the dark it was so much easier to see."

View from the Bench
A few more Connections:

1. Jan enjoyed it awhile back when I told her that Franny's literary expertise reminded me -- in a good way of course! -- of Velma in Scooby-Doo. You know, that episode in which Daphne asks her, "Velma, do you have a book for every occasion?" And Velma replies, "Actually, yes." Which, in turn, brings to mind the question I was asked in college when I worked on the literary magazine: "Do you have a poem for every poem?" And, like Velma, I just had to say, "Actually, yes." Jan wrote back to me: "I am especially happy about your Scooby-Doo Reference. Diane loves her Scooby-Doo, and it's so much fun to have that allusion in the midst of Eliot and Hamilton, etc."

Scooby and the Gang
2. In other popular culture, Jan's description of Franny and Caroline sitting at the park reminds me of the leafy, sunny scene in the movie Harriet the Spy when the best friends all roll down the hill in the park:

Harriet and Friends
3. Franny puzzles over a comment that Caroline makes about various boys in their class -- "He wants me" -- and asks her to explain, “What does that feel like?”
“What does what feel like?” Caroline asked.
“Being wanted. What does it feel like to be wanted?”
“You’re kidding me, right?” . . .
“Yeah,” I said. “I’m kidding.” But I wasn’t.

This exchange made me think of a "fun fact" about the casting of The Graduate: Robert Redford was considered for the role of Benjamin before Dustin Hoffman. But Redford disqualified himself when the directors told him that the character had to portray a sense of defeat -- like being turned down for a date on a Friday night. And Redford said something like, "Huh? What do you mean?"

Similarly in the musical Jersey Boys the three macho Seasons don't want to sing the song "Walk Like a Man," written by the fourth, more "emo" Season (Bob Gaudio, in real life). The three dudes are complaining that it makes no sense -- "What do you mean, like a man instead of a woman? Walk like a girl?" Gaudio says, "No, like a man instead of boy. It's about growing up, standing up for yourself, not being twisted around someone else's little finger." The others just gawk at him uncomprehending. What? Apparently they're just not the type to ever have been twisted around anyone's little finger. What does that feel like?

4. Additional Favorite Journal Entries that I would recommend:
House
Washington Street (see text below, in "Comments")
The rain fell on yellow leaves

* 5. Previous Jan Donley Posts on my blogs:
Lucky Rock
Lost & Found
9 / 11 Retrospective [also on Quotidian Kit]
Dagmar's Birthday [also on Quotidian Kit]
Everyone Loves Stories

Scales
Sleight of Hand
The Little Door
Savor September!
Happy Birthday Coyote!

6. A bit more "Prufrock"

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, November 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

There Are Children in the Leaves

CHILDREN IN THE FOLIAGE
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

" . . . for the leaves were full of children . . ."
~ T. S. Eliot ~

" . . . there are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love
and they will lean that way forever . . . "
~ Leonard Cohen ~

My last post featured Davey,
the little boy in one of my favorite childhood storybooks
who stacks up all the hay in the Christmas stable,
having some fun along the way:

Here are some real children, dear to my heart,
engaged in similar activity.

Look at these happy kids,
turning straw to gold!

Ellie & Aidan, in their backyard
October 2024

Aidan & Friends, playing after school
November 2024

Ellie & Aidan
All Saints Day 2025

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, unremembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.

~ From "Little Gidding" (Part V)

Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children,
Hidden excitedly, containing laughter.
Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present. . .
Even while the dust moves
There rises the hidden laughter
Of children in the foliage
Quick now, here, now, always—
Ridiculous the waste sad time
Stretching before and after.

~ From "Burnt Norton," Parts I & V

Both selections by T. S. Eliot (1888 - 1965)
From The Four Quartets
~ always inspirational for the New Year ~

Next Fortnightly Post
Wednesday, January 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Leaves & Straw
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Last Year ~ This Year
Ellie ~ Aidan

Tony Brown's Last Lines #1 ~ #5

MISSOURI BARN, MISSOURI POETRY
WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Photo credit: Round Barn Series by Jay Beets

My connection with poet and journalist Tony Brown was made years ago as an undergraduate in a couple of classes with fellow English majors at Northeast Missouri State. Following graduation back in 1979, we had neither one seen nor heard mention of the other until Facebook came along and gave anyone who wanted to participate massive highschool / college reunion opportunities with old -- and older -- long forgotten, long remembered classmates.

Tony has not hesitated to share with his readers that the last few years of his life have been informed by his fight with colon cancer. Last month, he mentioned that he was mulling over a notebook of his earlier poems, written between 1980 - 2010, and that he would be posting one each day throughout December as a series of "Last Lines." He not only said "read and enjoy," but also granted me to permission to share them on my blog.

So, I am starting with his first five entries, paired with a series of photographs by yet another creative college friend, Jay Beets. What a blessing to reconnect with these insightful souls who, in sickness or in health, bring light and insight into the lives of friends and stangers alike through their incomparable words and images.

I think you will find Tony's poetry rich in literary illusion
(T. S. Eliot, Walt Whitman) and evocative of rural
American despair and the quest for a broader vision:
#1
Bedford's Daughters

In the spring of their pulchritude
No one would have guessed they
Were sisters.

Karen, who Aunt Edna called
"A goddess, a Greek goddess"
Certainly bore her share
Of pagan charms.

Unsinging, unsmiling in the
Back pew, shifting her perfect
Face and sculpted leanness
Like a bored-out Camaro
Mounted on slicks, burning alcohol
Hell-bound for anyplace
That wasn't Bedford County.

But was preferably a six-bedroom
Faux colonial in Creve Coeur –
A place she'd never heard of –
Fully equipped with six
Kids and a dentist.

Shelly, the oldest – my age –
Smelled like Perry's high pasture,
Which is to say like oak leaves
And naked boards in an old
Wagon, painted blue
By starlight over white,
Stubbled fields, holding
Shadows beneath thin
And moonless clouds.

Sometimes, between crushes
On minor basketball deities
And young factory studs
With dreams of "farming on
My own someday," her heart,
Firmly settled on Old Bedford's
Two-thousand black acres,
She sat by me in church.

Once, during a steamy
July revival, dear
Old Fred preaching
Hard on passion, he
Was against it, she
Held my hand for
Sixteen minutes.

That fall I left for college.

Mom saw her, repeated
Ugly stories of half
Her teeth gone, stocking
Shelves at Place's – meth.

Husbands, babies, liquor,
Beat me, don't take the kids,
Multiple DUIs,
Shock time, squalor – meth.

"And her a Bedford," Mom said.
But Karen, she glowed and gushed,
Was somewhere East, or maybe
Des Moines or Little Rock.

Old Bedford's acres long
Since sold under the
Sheriff's pistol butt.

Perry tore down the house,
Rotted deep from the inside.
Only the land is left,
White stubbled fields
Holding shadows beneath
Thin and moonless clouds.

© Anthony Brown, 2020

#2
Practice
~ Author's note: based one one of Jim Thomas' creative writing class exercises.

Q. She was depressed and drank lots of coffee. It didn't help.

A. She crossed the door of sadness, found beans no cure for madness.

Q. His heart was free like the wind.

A. Turning from bondage toward discovery
He Frenchkissed midnight goodbye, stole her keys,
Drove wild, bright hope beneath the stars.

Q. The dog was homesick and very hungry.

A. Come inside, you wet, smelly thing,
We'll microwave the fatted calf, share supper
And dream of hunting rabbits.

Q. Lightning flashed against the night sky.

A. If you want a real sky-brightener
There's nothing beats out thundring and lightner;
For lightner flashes and thundring booms,
And the cat she hides amongst the brooms.

Q. She saw something in the portrait that made her fear her own death.

A. Her image wrought in tear-stained glass,
A mirror of beauty and the grave.

© Anthony Brown, 2020

#3
Dad's Waltz

When I was three
my father taught school;
we lived in a falling-down house on our farm.

He'd come home from work
in his Yogi Bear hat
give mom a peck and turn on the charm.

My poor brother was there,
I rolled on the floor.
Supper was hot on the kerosene stove.

We had a piano, a rarity then,
And my father would play "Bill Bailey."

On just the black keys, down on his knees,
Bill Bailey, please, come home.

© Anthony Brown, 2020

#4
Prufrock's Blues
(For Bill McKay – both of them)
~ Author's note: This one requires some heavy lifting. Sorry about that. But I always thought it was goodish. I've posted it before, according to Facebook, so some of you may have seen it. Apologies to Tom Eliot -- "Il miglior fabbro".

Let us go then, you and I,
Out where Jimi kissed the sky
And get etherized with Jack D. on the table;
Let us go through certain South Chicago streets,
That smell of Delta catfish joint retreats

Of restless nights in sleazy little clubs
And sawdust stages with chicken-wire cages:
Streets that follow like a five-tone scale
From Satch's horn and Bessie's wail
That lead us to an overwhelming jam ….
Oh, do not ask, “Man, is it cool?”
Just get yo' ax and swing it, fool.

In the room the women come and go
Talking about Fats Domino.

The menthol smoke that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The big-legged woman whose nuzzles drive you, man, insane
Licks her tongue into the corners of your evening,
As you linger upon the pools that stand in her eyes,
As you fall upon your knees and beg cause she's built like a brick chimney,
Slipping it to her by the terrace; making a sudden leap,
And seeing that she was a gal long and tall,
Who curled up with her head in the kitchen and her feets in the hall.

And indeed there will be time
For a bourbon and a smoke inside the bar,
During the break with your back against the window pane;
There will be time to beat his time
To practice a lick and face the eight-bar troubles that you meet;
There will be time to shoot that .38,
And time for all the tunes in all the clubs by all the bands

That lift and drop a number on those cats;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred improvisations,
And Blind Willie moanin' 'bout John of Revelations,
While crying "It's the most!" and smoking tea.
In the room the women come and go
Wish I had me some jellie roll.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "How long has this been goin' on?"
To say that it's just not my cross to bear —
That St. Louie woman with the carnation in her hair —
(They will say: "He loves her like a schoolboy loves his pie.
Like a Kentucky colonel loves his mint-and-rye!)
My blue jeans rich and modest, but asserted by a simple style —
(They will say: "And that's why they call him Shine!")
But do I dare
To walk further on down the road?
In a minute there is time
For the sun to shine on my guitar someday.

For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the evenings when the sun goes down,
the when-I-got-up-this-mornings, and the Sunday kind of loves,
I have played slide guitar and coffee spoons;
I know the voices shoutin' with the gospel call
Above the Afro rhythms of a Ledbelly tune.
So how should I presume, without new strings, to stay in tune?

I grow old ... I grow old ...
I shall wear bell bottoms and try to rock and roll.
Do I still have ramblin' on my mind? Does Duane still dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear sharp threads and duck walk on the beach
With 'Retha, Etta and Ella singing each to each.

Oh how I dig it when they sing to me.

I have heard them sailing on the FM waves
Fine blues mammas with their heads thrown back
Soulful, sexy, beautiful, and black.

We have lingered until the house lights have come on
And I believe to my soul now, poor Tony's sinkin' down
So if the river was whiskey, Lord I'd jump in and drown.

© Anthony Brown, 2020

#5
April Elegy
~ Author's note: Really just a fragment. A vaguely (and ominously) political poem written in maybe five minutes just before my 50th birthday while standing in my back yard.

The storm we had this week
beat the blossoms off
the wayward lilac bush
in my neighbor's messy yard.

Until today it stood
scented, purple-crowned
all that Walt could wish
amid this cruelest month
of victory and mourning.

Lilacs, paschal lambs
and thirty years for me
since Lincoln died in verse,
doomed union's star of ages

© Anthony Brown, 2020

MORE TO FOLLOW . . .
Next Fortnightly Post
Sunday, February 14th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

Transportation Has Undone So Many

I had not thought death had undone so many.
T. S. Eliot ~ from The Wasteland

GRIEVOUSLY UNACCUSTOMED, UNCEREMONIOUS

Notation on the back, in my mother's handwriting:
"Aunt Bessie's & Dick's DeSoto, hit head - on
between Glenrock & Douglas, Wyoming
Both killed instantly ~ August 16, 1956"

from the CDC Childhood Injury Report

"Injuries due to transportation were the leading cause of death for children.
The highest death rates were among occupants of motor vehicles in traffic.
There were also a substantial number of pedestrian and pedal cyclist deaths among children.
Combining all unintentional injury deaths among those between 0 and 19 years, motor vehicle traffic–related deaths were the leading cause.
The leading causes of injury death differed by age group.
For children less than 1 year of age, two–thirds of injury deaths were due to suffocation.
Drowning was the leading cause injury death for those 1 to 4 years of age.
For children 5 to 19 years of age, the most injury deaths were due to being an occupant in a motor vehicle traffic crash."

**********

The sadness of these statistics,
calls to mind the response of novelist
Alice Hoffman, when asked at an interview,
"Yet we don't wish for tragedy, right?"

"We don't have to wish for it! Terrible things happen out of the blue. We become the people that we are because of the tragedies that we experience, but that is not our whole story, just a piece of it."

**********

Lest we forget . . .

Great Grandfather Heidemann
Great - great Uncle Henry Heidemann
Great Uncle Harry
Great Aunt Bessie
Dick
Cousin Gary
Cousin Chase
Uncle Leonard
Jean S.
Scotty M.
Kenny H.
Jeff O.
Clarence F.
Sue S.
Steve H.
Joan E.
Cindy S.
Gail B.
Pete M.
Michele
Lee's cousin Earl
Leslie's son
Earl's nephew
Sherry's boyfriend
Betty (Conductron)
Bob T.
Brooke D.
Somayah
receptionist (ND)
4 students (ND)
2 students (UK)
secretary's 2 children & mother (ND)
Stephen's son George K
Carolyn B.
Marton's advisor
Jeanne's brother
friend of A & S
cousin of J
Terry's brother - in - law
Steve's sister
Christian B.
Evette

. . . and others . . .

RIP

**********

And to conclude,
a couple of In Memoriam tunes from Kansas:

People of the South Wind

There are some who can still remember
All the things that we used to do
But the days of our youth were numbered
And the ones who survive it are few

Oh, I can still see the smiling faces
When the times were so good
Oh in the all familiar places
I'd go back if I could

To the people of the south wind
To the people of the southern wind
To the people of the south wind
To the people of the southern wind

Well it's a hard thing to face the music
But it's somethin' everybody's got to do
So I hope that I can always remember
All the crazy times we had to go through

Now it's a dream that is slowly fading
Oh I don't want it to go
All of the memories are evading
And I want you to know

It's the people of the south wind
It's the people of the southern wind
It's the people of the south wind
It's the people of the southern wind

Now we've traveled all across the oceans
And we've seen what there is to see
But I guess it's not the proper solution
'Cause it's all about the same to me

Now I look back and it makes me wonder
Why we just couldn't see
All of the battles we fought and won there
Oh I wish that I could be

With the people of the south wind
With the people of the southern wind
It's the people of the south wind
You're the people of the southern wind

It's the people of the south wind
It's the people of the southern wind
It's the people of the south wind
You're the people of the southern wind

It's the people of the south wind
You're the people of the southern wind
It's the people of the south wind
You're the people of the southern wind

*********

Dust in the Wind

I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment's gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes with curiosity
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Now don't hang on
Nothin' lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind

~ Lyrics to both by Kerry Livgren ~

*********

See also: Handful of Dust, Sunset & Evening Star.
and Descent Into Kansas

Next Fortnightly Post
Monday, June 14

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT ~ Descent Into Kansas
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
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Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com

I Will Show You Modernism In A Handful of Dust

WHERE ALL'S ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS

Painting by Leonard Orr ~ Handful of Dust in the Wind
Mimi Allin writes:
"land sky heaped feathered leading discouraging
porcupined lit bloated muffled"
This Fortnightly's connections are all about the Ache of Modernism, the sudden tortured awareness of the unlived life, the life which dared nothing -- or not enough. As Carolyn Heilbrun writes of D. H. Lawrence (1885 - 1930): " . . . he understood that the mortal risk was not, or was no longer, death; it had become the possibility that life, the lived life, might be evaded." Historical discontinuity, alienation, asocial individualism, existentialism, melancholy -- these were the issues at hand. Horror to horror. Dust to dust.

Unlike the Romantic movement, which can be dated from a specific event -- the publication in 1798 of the Lyrical Ballads, Modernism begins less deliberately (unless you ask Virginia Woolf; more on this next time). There is not an initial document, such as the "Preface to the Lyrical Ballads," which sets forth the tenets of Modernism and heralds a movement to which writers may rally. Instead, one must look in the works themselves to locate the key concepts shaping the tone of the canon. In chronological order, here are a few of my favorites:

Joseph Conrad / Heart of Darkness (1902):
"He cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision, —
he cried out twice, a cry that was no more than a breath —
'The horror! The horror!'" [emphasis added]

Henry James / "The Beast in the Jungle" (1903):
"So he saw it, as we say, in pale horror, while the pieces fitted and fitted. . . . It was the truth, vivid and monstrous, that all the while he had waited the wait was itself his portion. This the companion of his vigil had at a given moment made out, and she had then offered him the chance to baffle his doom. One’s doom, however, was never baffled . . . The escape would have been to love her . . . This horror of waking-- this was knowledge, knowledge under the breath of which the very tears in his eyes seemed to freeze." [emphasis added]

E. M. Forster / Howards End (1910):
"Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect, and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.” [emphasis added]

T.S. Eliot / The Wasteland (1922):
" . . . I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you:
I will show you fear in a handful of dust. [emphasis added]

Jessamyn West / The Friendly Persuasion (1945):
"He, a live man, to die. He extended his hand, recalling its cunning, marveling at the way stiff, unpliable bones could be so cushioned and strung together as to be capable of music, of grafting a tree, of lifting a foal from it's mother's torn flesh -- and that hand to be dust. And the enemy present . . . He saw objects two ways, now, both as more beautiful and more pitiable: those which would stay, endure beyond men, stones, trees, the moving air, had new beauty, that of their own endurance and of his leaving; but men and women were more pitiable . . . Man's a sizeable hulk reared - up on his wagon seat and pulled about the earth by horses; dead, no more'n a spoonful of dust, not enough, spread thin, to take a small - sized horse track" (147 - 150). [emphasis added]

Jack Schaefer / Shane (1949 novel / 1953 film):
In the iconic closing scene, Shane bids farewell and rides off into the valley, ignoring young Joey's desperate cries of "Shane, come back!"

In his memoir 700 Sundays, Billy Crystal writes of the equally iconic moment in his childhood when none other than the legendary Billie Holiday (who was friends with his father) took him to see Shane at the movie theater. As the movie draws to a close and Shane rides off into the sunset, "Miss Billie whispered in my ear, 'He ain't never coming back'" (48).

Alan Sillitoe / "The Fishing Boat Picture" (1959):
"Then optimism rides out of the darkness like a knight in armour. If you loved her... (of course I bloody-well did)... then you both did the only thing possible if it was to be remembered as love. Now didn't you? Knight in armour goes back into blackness. Yes, I cry, but neither of us did anything about it, and that's the trouble." [emphasis added]

Iris Murdoch / The Black Prince (1973):
"The whole room breathed the flat horror of genuine mortality, dull and spiritless and final . . . (38)
"You understand nothing of -- the horror -- no wonder you can write real books -- you don't see -- the horror -- (224, emphasis added)
"The evening was overcast . . . I could smell dust, as if the quiet tedious streets all around me had dissolved into endless dunes of dust. I thought about this morning and how we had seemed to have all the time in the world. And now there seemed to be no more time. I also thought that if only I had had the wit . . . (285)
I awoke to a grey awful spotty early morning light which made the unfamiliar room present in a ghastly way. The furniture was humped shapelessly about me . . . Everything seemed to be covered with soiled dust sheets. . . . I experienced horror, then memory." (341)

William Stafford / "A Ritual To Read To Each Other"
(1977, or somewhat earlier):

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dyke.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider--
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give--yes or no, or maybe--
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep. [emphasis added]

Kansas / "Dust in the Wind" (1977)
Click to listen:
I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment's gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes with curiosity
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Now don't hang on
Nothin' lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind

Dust Bowl

SEE YOU IN TWO WEEKS FOR MY
Next Fortnightly Post
Tuesday, July 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blog posts
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogspot.com

Family History #5: Heideman & Lindsey

ROVILLA & PAUL
~ ACCUSTOMED, CEREMONIOUS ~

In the 1920s

In the 1960s

All the Paul and Rovilla Stories

Ancestors: FN & QK
Paul, Rovilla, and Others

Rovilla
Rovilla's Birth

Cousin Rovilla
Quilt made by Rovilla

Belonging to Rovilla
purse, billfold, and another view of the quilt

Sewing Box Lost Forever
Sewing box, quilt, and doily

Pink Kitchen ~ Blue Kitchen
Rovilla's childhood teacups

Mantelpiece
Rovilla's Lily of the Valley plate

Nina (rhymes with China)
Rovilla's childhood doll

Bonnie & Barbie
more hand-sewn doll clothes

Reach Out and Touch the Hem
Rovilla's childhood dress

Pie Safe
Rovilla's pie safe

Goodbye Old Brown Furniture
Little rocking chair made by Paul

Side by Side Secretary
More furniture from Paul & Rovilla's house

Steamer Trunk
emptied of vintage treasures & restored

Green Beans, Grandmas, and Air Conditioning
Rovilla's Jewel Tea ceramics

Descent Into Kansas
old newspaper clipping from Rovilla

A Moment of Silence
Rovilla notes the death of JFK

Two Fine Families
Heidemanns & Lindseys

A Bright Posterity
In the 1920s

My Shadow and Me
clever shadow pic of Paul

Tuesday Afternoon
Wedding Announcement

The Least Important Day
An "Our Town" Memory

Our Town Redux
If only I could hear her voice again . . .

Grandpa Lindsey
The Favorite

Vintage Boxing Day
Grandpa's Christmas Cards

Tools For Everyday Use
advice from Paul

My Ain Countrie
Paul and the old-time songs

Back When Kansas Was the Wild Wild West!
Lindsey Brothers

Dalton Gang
Dalton Brothers

Leap Day Wizard Dreams
A dream about Grandpa Paul

Day of the Dead
cemetery memories

Signs, Symbols, Souvenirs
funeral memories

Parallax
Funerals on Bloomsday

Transportation Has Undone So Many
RIP ~ tragic train & car accidents

*********************

MORE FAMILY STORIES TO COME
in the meantime . . .

Lots of Family Pictures: Calendar 2024
Calendar 2025: #1 ~ #2 ~ #3
Photo Ablums: Gravestones & Grandparents

There's no vocabulary for love within a family,
love that's lived in but not looked at,
love within the light of which all else is seen,
the love within which all other love finds speech.
This love is silent." ~ T. S. Eliot

ENTIRE SERIES:
Family History #1
Family History #2
Family History #3
Family History #4
Family History #5
Family History #6

Next Fortnightly Post: Family History #6
Tuesday, July 28th

Between now and then, read
THE QUOTIDIAN KIT
my shorter, almost daily blogs
www.dailykitticarriker.blogspot.com

Looking for a good book? Try
KITTI'S LIST
my running list of recent reading
www.kittislist.blogsppot.com