Let's do it

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=FU55GLAa-Uw


Birds do it, bees do it
Even educated fleas do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

In Spain, the best upper sets do it
Lithuanians and Letts do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

The Dutch in old Amsterdam do it
Not to mention the Fins
Folks in Siam do it - think of Siamese twins

Some Argentines, without means, do it
People say in Boston even beans do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Romantic sponges, they say, do it
Oysters down in oyster bay do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Cold Cape Cod clams,'gainst their wish, do it
Even lazy jellyfish, do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

Electric eels I might add do it
Though it shocks em I know
Why ask if shad do it - Waiter bring me"shad roe"

In shallow shoals English soles do it
Goldfish in the privacy of bowls do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

If the birds and the bees and the trees do it
the educated and uneducated fleas do it
the Beatles and the Animals, Sonny and Cher
Elizabeth and Richard, him and her
and if 007 James Bond can do it too
Well we can do it - let's fall in love

etc

The chimpanzees in the zoos do it
Some courageous kangaroos do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

I'm sure giraffes on the sly do it
Even eagles as they fly do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

The world admits bears in pits do it
Even Pekingneses at the Ritz do it
Let's do it, let's fall in love

The royal set sans regret did it
And they considered it fun
Marie Antoinette did it -with or without Napoleon

etc.


Ella Fitzgerald sings Cole Porter




To the Virgins, to make much of Time




Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.


The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

The higher he 's a-getting,

The sooner will his race be run,

And nearer he 's to setting.


That age is best which is the first,

When youth and blood are warmer;

But being spent, the worse, and worst

Times still succeed the former.


Then be not coy, but use your time,

And while ye may, go marry:

For having lost but once your prime,

You may for ever tarry.


Robert Herrick. 1591–1674


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=DAmEkT58ps0&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=PtzgBJ13vro

Freedom

" I've abandoned free-market principles to save the free-market system"

G W Bush 17/12/2008


"Always watch where you are going. Otherwise, you may step on a piece of the Forest that was left out by mistake."

"Before beginning a Hunt, it is wise to ask someone what you are looking for before you begin looking for it."

"Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again?"

"Don't underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can't hear, and not bothering."

"Eeyore was saying to himself, "This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it."

"I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me."

"I don't see much sense in that," said Rabbit. "No," said Pooh humbly, "there isn't. But there was going to be when I began it. It's just that something happened to it along the way."

"I used to believe in forever . . . but forever was too good to be true."



Words of wisdom from Winnie the Pooh

The other side of silence

"Humankind does advance by small steps as well as great ones, does it not?
I must believe that.

I sometimes wake very early, and go out alone,
and imagine I can hear the cries of all the scurrying creatures in the grass
– there’s so much suffering in the world.

I think of it as a kind of muffled cry on the other side of silence
– if our senses were sharp enough to apprehend it all,
I think the pain of it would destroy us.

I think we should be glad we are not too sensitive.
And work in any small way we can to help our fellow creatures. "



Dorothea in the BBC's Middlemarch, by George Eliot.



http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=hSVXjrteyM4&feature=related--

Money

Performance v. art - where do we draw the lines?


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=n92Ilwh9DQA

Quiet love
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRIbUT6u7Q&feature=related

Money

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=4hkjkTe5kZE

Floyd

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=TOdtG0L9Alk&feature=related

Beatles


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=PYPSZiE0OAs

Empty Sky

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=HAGZaAe6Wa4

I woke up this morning
I could barely breathe
Just an empty impression
In the bed where you used to be
I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky
Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

Blood on the streets
Blood flowin down
I hear the blood of my blood
Cryin from the ground

Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky
Empty sky, empty sky
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

On the plains of Jordan
I cut my bow from the wood
Of this tree of evil
Of this tree of good
I want a kiss from your lips
I want an eye for an eye
I woke up this morning to an empty sky

Child of the Universe

No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent,
a part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were,
as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were:
any man's death diminishes me,
because I am involved in mankind,
and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
it tolls for thee.

» John Donne »from Meditation XVII

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=tD-2mSg92so

Something

19 when he wrote and produced this, multi-tracking 20 instruments (which he played himself) in groundbreaking style, launching a major record company, staying 5 years in the British charts - who says men can't multi-task?

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=t9A60e16SvM&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=OwctZz6wwT0&feature=related

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=MaygITgll80&feature=related

El(l)iots

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Eliot
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=hSVXjrteyM4&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RE5Dza0nr6c&feature=related







http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=NvTCO8-pWLI
http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=UOGBTFFxOpY

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0VQ_qfKL5qU&feature=related
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxBFRfYiDNE
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=A2khDhfwsoE&feature=related





The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo
Questa fiamma staria sensa piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero
Sensa tema d’infamia ti rispondo.

Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .
Oh, do not ask, ‘What is it?’
Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes,
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
[They will say: ‘How his hair is growing thin!’]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: ‘But how his arms and legs are thin!’]
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
Is it perfume from a dress
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: ‘I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all’—
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: ‘That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.’

And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
‘That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant at all.’

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use,
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Love_Song_of_J._Alfred_Prufrock

Painting of Ms Heller (?) by Mrs Heller

Hope

As someone said on the radio this afternoon - "It's enough to make the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end - even though I'm not Welsh, I don't particularly like rugby, and I don't have any hairs on the back of my neck".

http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=FqtIlaHIqrs


Also on the radio today:

"Optimism? It's not a question of optimism, it's a question of hope. I am not an optimist, but I am always a prisoner of hope".

Archbishop Desmond Tutu

Photo of Gareth Edwards

Myth of Tomorrow

http://www.mingeikan.or.jp/english/html/about-mingeikan.html


http://www.setagayaartmuseum.or.jp/exhibition/exhibition_e.html


'Myth of Tomorrow', by Taro Okamoto, presently in Shibuya train station, depicting the moment of the Hiroshima bomb.

Shipwrecked

It was a bit blowy the other morning, Friday, at the bus stop. Spray shooting over the harbour wall.











Friday night I noticed a few police around, waving their luminescent wands. Thought perhaps the Emperor was staying down the road - I note he's been feeling under the weather lately.

Turns out a large platform thing had gone adrift and landed up on the rocks outside my flat.













Rollocks












The best laid plans of mice and men....











Went to the supermarket and on the way back along the beach pondered the recent bits and bobs I've read on neuroscience - it seems that scientists are making giant leaps in understanding how the brain works. For example, the other day there was a piece in the paper reporting some new neuroscientific research which has revealed the startling truth that if you are happy then people around you tend to be happier too.

Seems to me that a group of blokes sitting round a fire 20,000 years ago probably worked that one out. In fact the more things I read or hear on such brain research the more it seems that scientists are finding physical evidence for what artists, poets, philosophers, old wives have known for millenia.




















http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=dV4t1rZEYnA&feature=related


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=U0YepyPRCfQ&feature=related


http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=ZON2rv5XKzo

http://jp.youtube.com/watch?v=BfJmGpaL18k&feature=related

Earthrise

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/nov/30/ingrid-betancourt-columbia-freedom-interview


http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/nov/30/apollo-8-mission

These Ithakas

As you set out for Ithaka hope the voyage is a long one, full of adventure, full of discovery. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, angry Poseidon—don’t be afraid of them: you’ll never find things like that on your way as long as you keep your thoughts raised high, as long as a rare excitement stirs your spirit and your body. Laistrygonians and Cyclops, wild Poseidon—you won’t encounter them unless you bring them along inside your soul, unless your soul sets them up in front of you. Hope the voyage is a long one. May there be many a summer morning when, with what pleasure, what joy, you come into harbors seen for the first time; may you stop at Phoenician trading stations to buy fine things, mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony, sensual perfume of every kind— as many sensual perfumes as you can; and may you visit many Egyptian cities to gather stores of knowledge from their scholars. Keep Ithaka always in your mind. Arriving there is what you are destined for. But do not hurry the journey at all. Better if it lasts for years, so you are old by the time you reach the island, wealthy with all you have gained on the way, not expecting Ithaka to make you rich. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you would not have set out. She has nothing left to give you now. And if you find her poor, Ithaka won’t have fooled you. Wise as you will have become, so full of experience, you will have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.

Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

(C.P. Cavafy, Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Edited by George Savidis. Revised Edition. Princeton University Press, 1992) http://www.cavafy.com/search/list.asp Cinema Paradiso