1. While writing on Monday, I was so caught up writing about Naya singing and my latest kidney news, I forgot to mention that reliable source of pleasure I so look forward to every weekday afternoon. I'll keep it short. On both Monday and today, I tuned into the Billy Collins Poetry Broadcast. Over the last two days, he read poems by Thomas Lux, Ron Koertge, Gerald Dawes, William Matthews as well as poems from his volume, Picnic, Lightning. If the need many of us, including Billy Collins, have to stay home much of the time ever comes to an end, I hope Billy Collins will continue to broadcast these twenty to thirty minute weekday plunges into poetry. For me, their value, their beauty ought not to be attached to pandemic relief. Hearing new poetry, entering back into poems I already am familiar with, having my world grow larger with each listening, and enjoying the deft, casual intelligence and wry humor of Billy Collins enlarges my mind, heart, and soul, whether I am confining myself to quarters or not.
2. I think it's going to take me several weeks to finish reading Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth. I might work through it more briskly if I weren't listening to John Lee read it to me. But, I've decided a couple of things. First, I'm going to devote many hours to this story. Second, I'm not going to increase, using the audible controls, the speed of John Lee's reading. I'm going to continue to move leisurely through this book's stories of political intrigue in the medieval church and the realm of England and the struggles imposed on the characters by the social and economic stratification of the world they occupy.
3. I poured one of those little bottles, like are served on airplane flights, of Jameson's Caskmates IPA Edition Irish Whiskey into a small glass and sipped it tonight while enjoying another of Bill Davie's Tuesday evening Tree House Concerts. As always, Bill played and sang superbly, performing songs he's composed recently as well as ones that he wrote 30-35 years ago. These older songs prompt me to think back to the 1990s when Bill and I resumed contact with one another and I saw him quite often as he used to swing through Eugene and other places in western Oregon to perform and he often stayed at my house and twice performed house concerts in my Eugene home. So, while I very much enjoy being in the present moment, listening to Bill perform, some of my best memories of living in Eugene and spending time with friends centered around Bill's performances. In addition, Bill and I had fun doing other stuff in Eugene -- going to a play, going out to movies, walking around town, seeing mutual friends in Eugene, meeting up in Deadwood, and yakkin' about all kinds of things.
Tonight, I enjoyed the poems Bill read, about five of his own and about five by Jim Dodge. I also enjoyed every song Bill performed. Because Sunday was the anniversary of Mom's passing away and of his wife's Diane's father passing away, several years earlier, he sang two moving songs in their memory, to honor them: "Raise Your Heart" and "Father to Father". They were perfect. He ended the concert with one of my favorite of Bill's covers: Ian Anderson/Jethro Tull's song, "Life Is a Long Song".
Here's a limerick by Stu:
It’s not that we have to agree.
Watch same things both online and TV.
But, it appears now the news,
Gives facts AND their views.
So, you’ll know just how it should be.
No comments:
Post a Comment