The Banal Chew

The Happy News

I recently subscribed to this print newsletter and received my first copy in the post today!

I have been craving a simple print publication I could touch and read...and something that wasn't full of sad, troubling or triggering news. Just goodness. 

The Happy News is published in the UK by Emily Coxhead, who, along with a few other cheerful folks, authors, edits, illustrates and generally oversees the production of the quarterly publication (ISSN 2632-7260). 

 

 

He Can Dance

For no other reason than to giggle.

(click to watch the show)

Go with God, Crispy!

 

Today is the feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispinian. I am not a religious man, but I like this day for a few reasons.

First, I like the names very much. I especially love to say them with extra ssssssibilance. It's a gay thang.

And they are the patron saints of cobblers, something I always wanted to be...a cobbler, not a patron saint.

 

I also like the connection the day has with the Battle of Agincourt, which took place on 25 October, 1415. The Agincourt Carol is one of my favorite pieces of historical music. 

 
The Agincourt Carol, performed by Telynor 

 

And then there's the remarkable St. Crispin's Day Speech from Shakespeare's Henry V. 

 
Kenneth Branagh at his very best

Oh, did I mention I really like the name?

 

 

Sci Kick

I saw today the headline and newsbyte of an article about how a psychic got it massively wrong regarding Amanda Berry's disappearance many years ago.

I visited a psychic once. After much pleading, a friend finally succeeded in dragging me to his mentalist's house in suburban Wilmington. When I walked in her home, I was confronted with a number of screaming children. Soon, a diminutive, obese woman with bad hair came up to me. She was pleasant and handed me her card. It had a lotus flower on it with the words "Kamala Shirley" in red, cursive letters.

Shirley took me to her basement and sat me down at a flimsy card table with illegible graffiti carved into its vinyl covering. Taking a worn deck of regular playing cards, she began asking me why I came to see her.

"Because my friend dragged me here," I said.

"Ah. Well, I hope you don't mind I use regular cards." As if I cared.

Presently, after much shuffling and random laying down of the battered cards, she told me I would meet a woman with long dark hair, get married and have many children.

I thanked her and went to sit in the car while my friend had his reading.

'S Up?

Not much. 

(Psst. Click the pic.)

Ecco la Primavera!

Today is the first day of spring here in Australia, or at least it is for many Aussies. Some Indigenous Australians celebrate a seasonal calendar that is organized according to the interaction of climate and the immediate environment. 

For me, spring has always evoked an unusual blend of comfort and excitement. As a child, I saw the season as a herald of something new and intriguing, a time of undiscovered bike paths, spring calves and wildflowers, and more importantly, the end of the school year. It was as if the crocuses screamed an urgent and short-lived alarm, warning us all to live it up before we missed our chance. 

Although my childhood is far, far behind me, my eagerness to enjoy spring is not.

(Photo by Benson Kua, licensed for use by Creative Commons.)

 

Ecco la Primavera / Francesco Landini, performed by Ensemble Sarband

Rapture Schmapture

I just told Bonnee that the world is going to end this weekend.  She told me to shut my piehole and get back to work. 

And to stop playing all the Blondie and R.E.M. 

Jelly bean, Boom!

Poetry!

April is National Poetry Month (in North America).
To celebrate today, I am posting a couple of my favorites.

 

in time of daffodils
by e. e. cummings

in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me

 

 

Sonnet XVII
by Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were a salt-rose, or topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving

but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.

Cautiously Ecstatic

After a weekend of good news and constructive dialogs, I have decided to shelve my wallowing and let my spirit float.

Here is a sampling of what I've been using to keep the smile on my face.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call It

Ever feel like your life is spiraling beyond any hope of management?

That everything you reach for and think you've finally managed to grasp with worthy intention ends up wilting from a poisonous touch? 

Time used to be my adversary. Now I look at him as caregiver, deftly taking my arm as I hobble forth. As he has done for countless souls.

Our lives are galleries, that much I know. I get lost in galleries, just like I do in shopping malls and hospitals.

I've been in this room already.  Haven't I?

Yes. Again and again. You don't recognize the dark mural? 

I may. I recognize everything. Problem is, I remember little.