STAND ON IT AGNES

Maybe-They're-Significant Quotes Day!
Are they significant? You decide!

"Aw no man
My code is a dog's code
It could never make a lady weep
It could never make a homeless man turn his life around and achieve more than any man has ever achieved before
Not like piano music"
- C. 'Roast Beef' Kazenzakis, Achewood, 8 November 2002 (by Chris Onstad).

Do I feel that my art is pathetic and impotent next to the vitality and emotional power of music? You decide!

"Each free throw that left his hand, / each of the five thousand seven hundred thirteen free throws that Rick Barry made in his professional career, eighty-nine point three percent of his attempts, was a testament to the beauty of his game, an unwavering testament to the perfect fact that / Rick Barry shot his free throws underhand."
- Michael J. Earnshaw, "Villanelle (Song for Rick Barry)".

Am I inordinately proud of this stanza? You decide!

Three brown girls + one Chinese guy = an odd party, to be sure

It's a YouTube Wednesday!



My Society ISU ("Action Research Project") is killing me. It is LITERALLY MURDERING ME. Soon I will die, by which I mean, figuratively that is, I will be finished high school, and then skellingtons, skellingtons will come, by which I not only make a reference to John Allison ("The Englishman")'s fine daily comic Scary Go Round, but I mean I will write a new poem for you to read, which to me is not always a good thing, but to you it may be. Until then, here are some song lyrics and a nice video:

My Darlin' Corey Is Gone

(heartbreaking Bela Fleck banjo intro, outlining the melody)

The wind's through the night,
Blowin' so lonesome,
Singin' me a song.
The whippoorwill's call
Is just a reminder:
Pretty girls have hearts made of stone.

CHORUS:
Awake with the blues at dawn,
My darlin' Corey is gone.
I don't know why she told me goodbye
But my darlin' Corey is gone.

(heartbreaking Bela Fleck banjo solo, with a natural harmonic restating of the melody)

The ring that she wears
I bought for her finger;
I purchased that ring with fire.
Gave her my last
Greenback dollar,
And now she's left me behind.

CHORUS

(fiddle solo, guitar solo, heartbreaking banjo solo)

Drifting along,
Like crutch on a river,
Caring not where I roam.
I'm going to live
In the deep forest,
Dark Hollow will be my home.

CHORUS

(mandolin solo)

My darlin' Corey is gone.

I know there's no real point to posting lyrics, but I have this Quixotic desire to do so. If you want to know how the song goes, call me up and I'll sing it for you. This is a song that I love to sing.

Here is another banjo song, this one you can watch and listen to. Kermit the Frog feat. Debbie Harry - Rainbow Connection. Enjoy!



Love it.

"What did you think, Mr. Littlejeans?"

It's a Google Video Sunday!



Anyone who does not know who Señor Wences is should. He was a Spanish ventriloquist who became well-known in North America for his appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show from the mid-Fifties to the late Sixties. Basically he would come out and get one of his puppets--Johnny, a high-voiced boy made of Wences' hand or Pedro (don't be fooled--this link says Johnny, but it's actually Pedro), a gruff-voiced head in a box (Pedro has a great catchphrase; after his introduction Wences would from time to time open the box, upon which Pedro would say "'S awright"--if you watch the previous video and don't find that funny, then we can't be friends anymore)--and do some patter back and forth, then put them down and do juggling or plate-spinning while talking back and forth with the puppets. If you look at this routine, you can see what I mean: Johnny is put away behind the table, and Pedro is simply sitting there in his box while Wences does plate-spinning and talks back and forth with them. To be honest, I find this terribly funny, and the humour does not diminish with repeated viewing. And here's a seasonally inappropriate bit with Santa Claus.

Also today: Muppets! Here are a couple Kermit bits from the Ed Sullivan show: Kermit eats a worm, and Kermit and the art of visual thinking.
And, if you still haven't found anything funny, here's something that has my guarantee, even more so than the other things: from The Muppet Show, it's the classic Mahnamahna Song.

And, if you haven't read my first June poem, do so--and comment!