One off First Line Quiz

The singing went pretty well that I remember. I'm hardly the one to ask since I'm always my own worst critic. I sung the duet with one of their friends. I didn't know him & he was pretty good as I remember.
CCM, I suppose is bigger with Christians than anyone else, as if that isn't stating the obvious! but it seems it was just getting started when I was a kid. It has really come a long way.
As far as dancing, I can waltz, polka... I suppose I could fake the tango, but to learn it in Argentina - that must've been fabulous! Sounds like there's a story in there?...The farthest south I've been is Panama. Gorgeous snorkeling as I remember.
I, like you, love the theatre. Unfortunately, I don't go as much as I used to. And I feel the same way about tv. I started watching classic movies when I was home with the chicken pox in jr. high school, at about 13. I was hooked from then. Do you have movie (video or dvd) rentals over there? Do you have a favorite classic movie? play? musical?
I did see the final Frasier. It was okay. You're right about ending it with Daphne finding out. It was a bit anti-climactic after that, don't you think?
Let's see, English shows I've seen: Keeping Up Appearances, My Hero, Are You Being Served?, Mr. Bean, ...I can't remember all the names of the shows! It's mostly comedy. I'm rather weird when I'm so tired. I like the inane, no-brainer type shows that I don't need to think a lot about!
Oh, and I've been meaning to ask you about your novel. Are you writing it now? Can you tell me anything about it or are you the type who doesn't like to divulge?

I know what you mean, as am I; some people are usually more praising about what I have done than myself... I dislike to play my own trumpet. How far has it come? Are there many bands of it?

There is a story behind it; I had a book of mine published by a small press in Buenos Aires under an assumed name, and so I stuck around in that city for quite some time, sorting out legal things. (The book was a small sucess, selling all its hundred-fifty copies within the first few weeks.) I made sure that I got the best out of long, vacant days around the city-- which included learning the tango, which was great. When did you go to Panama? I'd love to go. Did you know that Panama hats are actually made in Ecuador? Did you go on a snorkelling holiday? Would you go again? Where's top on your list to go to, if you could?

As for classic movies, I like the movies from the Nouvelle Vague; but, from America, I like 'Some like it hot' and 'It's a wonderful life,' and quite a few others like those... ... they seem so refreshing compared to movies-by-numbers.

My favourite play has to be either 'The Tempest' or 'Measure for Measure,' with 'Much ado' a close third. When I was young, I would have chosen Hamlet, but I find the romances and the problem plays show Shakespeare's poetry and power in characterising, uncluttered by the tragedies' depression.

As for a musical, I'll have to think about it. And non-Shakespearean play? Under Milk Wood, by Dylan Thomas; the sort of thing that I would come up with if forced to write a poetic play.

It was, indeed. The last episode was so sad, trying to find a suitable climax to blitz every other one that we have seen. Did you think it right that we never saw Maris?

What weird shows they are showing over there! Fo you like any of them? I know what you mean about being weird when tired; I lose all ability to think, apart from in a different way-- like another tired level.

(And I've been writing about where I've been and the characters whom I've met. In the summer, I suffer a real creative-drought.. .)

Dover Beach

The sea is calm to-night.
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; -on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

CCM is a whole industry! There are bands in every genre. Nashville, Tennessee is a 'mecca' for Christian artists as well as Country-Western ones now. What is Nouvelle Vague?
Oh! was your novel written & published in Spanish?
What was it about & what was your nom de plume?
I went to Panama in 1991 with my army unit (a hospital) to do some training and help out there. The US military has since pulled out of there, so I'm not sure how easy it is to get in any more. I absolutely loved the snorkeling! It was my first time in the ocean (as opposed to fresh water). It was so beautiful. It's one of my favorite memories. I'd go again if I could. I'd love to go so many places! Where do I start? India - Taj Mahal, Paris, just all over Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia - you name it, I'd pretty much go.
I thought it was weird no to see Maris, but it was in keeping with 'Cheers' (same producers...) where we never saw Vera, Norm's wife.
I kind of like 'My Hero'. It's weird and quirky. Just what I need when I'm in that weird tired state. I know exactly what you mean - another tired level is a good description!
I'm sorry for your creative drought. I'd send you mine, but it wouldn't do much good. Maybe I should send you Lauren's! I tend to wilt in summer heat too. It's been really mild here, though, so I'm doing better than usual. Do ou feel more creative now that you're traveling?

La Nouvelle vague was a film movement in the sixties that brought such films as 'Le feu follet,' 'Hiroshima mon amour,' 'les cousins,' 'les bonnes femmes,' 'vivre sa vie,' etc. It mixed tragic romance, with crime, with depression, with vitality, with amazing creativity, and produced most of France's most renowned works. Not Nouvelle Vague, but I love Almodovar.

My novel was written in Spanish and published thus, after an all-clear; I am absolutely terrible at synopsising, even when I'm fully awake... I can hardly describe it; but it was generally branded as being 'weird' but 'good.' It was about this twisted Catalan guy who thought that he would be a star, but it was hundreds and hundreds of stories intertwone; the book's corpus was based on:

a) this guy's 'biography,' written by an English guy.
b) the diary of the English bloke, who is aiming to show the worst side of the Catalan guy to save who he thought was a friend but wasn't.
c) narrative of the aftermath, 10 years later.

I'm sure that that makes no sense, but it is better than it sounds, I assure you... now you can see why I leave summarising to others.

It's easier, isn't it, now, because there is no need for military occupation? I've never been snorkelling, but I would love to try it. Would you do your job out there again? Would you go to countries in which war was raging?

True-- I preferred Maris as an imagined character. What would you think she'd look like? I never saw My Hero, because I watch TV no more than about three times a year. What is it about? It has that guy from Father Ted in it, I remember.

Do you do much writing and things? I'd say that you would write something really interesting if you did. I have quite a lot of ideas, but I won't get around to them until Autumn. Isn't it weird that nearly every Classic you find was begun and finished between October and April?

I assume the movies were in French? My French is not so good. They sound interesting though.
Your novel sounds like it would be a good read! Aren't you working on another one now (or in the fall?)
I'm not sure about Panama, but you may be right. I hope so. It's a really beautiful country.
I wouldn't like to visit a war-ravaged country during the war. My military enlistment is up so they can't 'reactivate' me. Do you mean would I like to go back to Panama? Yes!
Maris? Well, she's been super thin and fat as well. I imagine a rich overly plastic-surgeried woman!
My Hero is about this guy (the Father Ted guy?)from 'Ultron' who is a super hero on earth. It's about his life with his girlfriend Janet, a nurse or maybe just an administrator in a doctor's office. It's pretty outrageously silly.
I don't do much writing other than here. I find it difficult to put my thoughts in proper order when there's so much to write. I get all jumbled just talking about real life things, let alone something from my imagination. I leave that to the experts like you and Lauren, et al.
I didn't know that about Classics. Interesting. I wonder what the psychology is behind that. I'll think on that for a bit!

The movies were in French, but I remember seeing two of them in French with Danish subtitles! They are very famous, so you would be able to get them subtitled in English; though this can be frustrating! If you were to try one, I would recommend le feu follet first, which was originally a book written by Drieu la Rochelle, whose work 'Gilles' I am translating into English.

I'll check up about Panama for you. One never knows who knows what around one. A few nights ago, I jokingly said to Clary, while I was in a station in Southern Poland, that I would ask the guy next to me about which awful Beckett play featured people in bins. I asked this in bad Polish, then in German, and we found out right away! By the way, was this like national service? Can one be a conscientious objector still?

I imagine a woman who looks quite like a large hamster, with less hair, when I think of Maris . I bet that you could write well-- if you were forced to write a book right now, what do you think that you would right it on?

I'm not sure about writing; I don't want to slog through when my creativity is at zilch level. I bet that it has something to do with the sapping effect of summer and being in more during winter-- but I don't know.

#1:

When You are Old -- WB Yeats


When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

I'll have to see if I can get the movies.
And thank you! I am curious about Panama. I don't know when I would get back there.
National Service? Do you mean mandatory? It wasn't mandatory. It's sort of a long story as to how & why I got in. It was an Army unit that was a hospital, technically a Combat Support Hospital(CSH). I think one is allowed to conscientiously object, but I think it takes a lot of red tape!
Love the hamster analogy for Maris! LOL!
Gosh. If I HAD to write a book (gun to my head!), I'd have to write about what I know. It'd have to be semi-autobiographical. It would probably be one of the most difficult things I would ever have to do.
I'd rather leave it to the real talented professionals! I always got so twisted up and confused when forced to write in high school or college. My best work was in English when I could be sarcastic or tongue-in-cheek. What and how some people can write just amazes me. I love a good writer who just has a way with words. I hope your writing muse comes back to you in the fall. It's a bummer what summer does! I've only been like this since I had my kids. Man, does that mess up your body more than I ever knew!
BTW, beautiful poem once again.

I phoned the Panaman embassy in Madrid, and they said that Americans can get there, provided that they have a visa. Problem solved . Where was it in Panama that this hospital was? Does one have to sign forms and things to object to military service? Is there no way of doing 'civil service,' instead, like in Germany or Spain? Spain have a wonderful plan; they send people who don't want to do el mili, who want something different than civil service, to developing countries to teach, or administer first aid. I found that a great way to make peace, not war.

Thanks about the Maris thing. I did not know that one is forced to do creative writing in American colleges? It's weird; over where you are, Colleges are more academic, and Universities more... technical; whereas, over here, it's the opposite. Also, one only has to do the subject(s) that one chooses, unless you're doing an Access course; it's different in America, and you have to take everything as minor subjects, don't you? I don't know what I think about this; although making people more well-rounded, it gives less time to specialize on the major. If I had to do physics for four years at University, I would have screamed.

I like the same sort of writer. Did you save any of your work in English? I saved everything of mine, even though I am someone who does not really like to hoarde. I mean; I don't like to part with certain things, but I hate clutter. I hope so too, else I am completely bummed. Writing means so much to me. Usually, what happens is that my poetry goes, then everything else does. Still, with these records that I'm cleaning up, it does mean that at least I have been productive in one sort of way.

I think that that poem is great; it was the first one that I ever was able to remember. Is Yeats taught often in America? In Ireland, he and Joyce are heroes. (Though I prefer O. Wilde to both.)

How considerate of you to find out about Panama for me! Thank you! OH my do I feel stupid! I don't even remember the name of the hospital let alone the city! I know it was near the business district and not far from the Panama Canal. It was also close (these places are all not far driving distance.) to the Ranger training base. That's a specific type of military job. What memories just writing about it come to mind!
I'm not exactly sure what one has to do to object to military service. I'll tell you one thing. The person is usually villified in the press somehow because it happens so rarely. Being that military service is voluntary, they figure if you signed up, you're willing to do whatever service is required of you.
I like the idea of civil service. The school my kids go to tries to teach this concept - about doing good for others, etc. There is the Peace Corps (started by President Kennedy), but I don't know much about the program myself. It's not a given option to abstaining from military service.
As far as creative writing, it was only mandatory in English and/or other writing classes. I took an 'AP'
(Accelerated ...class) in high school. We used to do a lot of creative writing in jr. high school. I kept only the pieces I liked.
Y'knkow, I never actually thought about the differences between colleges and universiities! I went to a 'liberal arts' college. Here, or at least where I went to college, we had to take 'Core' classes classes in most subjects, opting out of only a few, so that the education is well-rounded. As far as 'minors', you had to fulfill certain requirements (take certain classes in that field) in order to declare a subject a minor. BTW, I only did one year of physics, UUGH! I tried to take the type classes I liked (and could do well in): social sciences, music/theatre, a little dance, my major courses (of course!) and then the core classes - though you take most of those toward the beginning - freshman/sophomore year.
How funny! I am exactly the same way about clutter. I go 'round & 'round with my husband about this! He is such a pig! I don't mean dirty, I mean 'clutter-y' - Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh! As my space goes, so go I ... The more clutter in my space, the less focussed and more 'foggy' and bogged down I feel. That also has to do with the insomnia/tired and my depression/anxiety. It all kind of goes together.
I'm glad you're giving yourself small kudos for being productive. You seem like you are just as hard on yourself as I am on me!
The Eliot poem really captures the emotions, doesn't it? I can completely relate.
We are exposed to all kinds of poetry, Yeats included. I suppose it depends on the teacher. I didn't know Joyce and Yeats were considered heroic. Why? O. Wilde is good. What do you like best of his?
Goodness! Listen to me go on!... Your turn!

Sorry about the delay to getting to this; I don't know what caused it, apart from an unfortunate incident involving a friend's daughter last night-- I phoned, and offered advice.

Any time! You should write more of your memories, if you want; I would be delighted to read them: it must have been so overcoming, being so far away from home, new traditions and things. Were you given training before going to Panama? I might be able to get the name of the hospital by using the name of the base, using my old tool.

O, I thought that military service was mandatory, and that everyone still had to do it-- like Elvis ;D. I once did a project on him when I was about eight. I was expected to do about five pages and I came out with about one-hundred, and put into chronological order (with subdivisions and an index,) too. I thought that it was really unfair that people had to do military service, or else. So, if it's voluntary, why don't people just join the army instead and Earn?

Kennedy rates among my favourite presidents from the US; how about you? I think that peace corps are a good idea, especially when there are so many in need.

So, you still have the pieces? Are they mostly stories? What are 'APs'? How many must one take?

Luckily, I had to do no physics at University, but five years of it at secondary school was enough. As
a languages student, I had quite a few choices available, as there were language courses about everything. I was the sort of student who chose weird subjects to keep them going. These days, then, you can ask me anything about 'homoerotics in Latin poetry,' 'The Possessed: a continuous theme in German writing?,' 'Portuguese revolutions,' and 'a comparative political history of Chile.' In some, I was the only student, so my professors got to know me well. (I never missed one lecture throughout the four years, too.)

I know! It's a repressive feeling, and everything in the room is like jumping out at you. I like a place in which everything is in place; and where 'everything' is not much.

It does! The first time that I read it, though, I thought that I preferred the title to the name itself. Is Eliot popular in the US? I never particularly liked him, but I liked weird, random poems of his. I liked 'The waste land' too, but it wasn't the greatest poem that I have read.

They are-- all the pubs are named after their characters or poems, and huge crowds celebrate their birthdays (and, in Joyce's case, Bloomsday.) I love Wilde; my favourite thing of his is, without one single doubt, The Importance of Being Earnest. I love it completely. And you? What do you like of his?

I've been a little delayed myself. The weather here has been so gorgeous I can hardly stay inside. We're probably going to the beach again today, then off to Chicago to visit my sister some time this week, busy, busy, busy!
Panama was only a little overwhelming. I was only there for a couple of weeks. I just soaked up as much as I could of the surroundings there when I wasn't working. My Spanish is passable, so I didn't have too much trouble getting around. You asked about training... I was trained in my military job, but wasn't given a whole lot of info about the country itself, except that there were certain areas rioting at any given time and we were to stay out of them. That scared me, but it was an almost needless warning as we never got near any of it. BTW, that was during the time they were trying to get rid of Manuel Noriega (they called him'cara pina - or 'pineapple face' because of all the pock marks and scars.)
Military service is not mandatory here unless there is wartime draft, like WWII and Elvis, et al. There are lots of reasons people don't joing the military. I could list tons! Everyone's got their reasons, I guess.
As a president, I like Kennedy as well. I think the Peace Corps was a great idea! I'd like to see more GOOD ideas come out of the government. So much legislature (laws...) seem like just so much gobbly-de-gook to me!
I still have some writing pieces in a notebook ... somewhere. They are mostly papers from English classes. Oh, and AP's are advanced classes (usually college level) that some pseudo-brainiacs take in high school.)
I've finally felt better and less foggy the past few days, so I've got my house straightened and in some semblance of order. That feels really good.
Wow. That would be great to be the only student in a particular class. I have never experienced that. Is that at all common? You went to Oxford, right? My college had a program over there that one of my friends did. I can't remember whether she spent a semester or a year, but I know she enjoyed it.
Boy, that's jogging the old memory. I seem to be opposite from you in my recollection of poetry! I can't remember much at all! I will have to look it up and recall. I remember memorizing a lot too!

Oh, do you know yet when you will be going to visit your sister? Do you have beaches near you? -- are they usually crowded? Do you get there by car, or can one walk the distance? It sounds as if you are having a lovely time (for some reason, I wrote 'lawful time' just then!)

Did you get much time to visit around when you were in Panama? I would like to go there; well, I would like to go everywhere, but The Americas, from top to toe, would be brilliant. It's real pity that American rail is costly and unfrequent; isn't it? I once had a plan to take it in turns to drive a bus all down through the west side of Canada and the US, down the west side of Latin America, down through the West side of S.A all the way to the bottom of Chile, then go up again, but on the east side, taking in Rio and places. We figured that it would be a good idea, since plenty of students and other people would like to jump on and jump off, see things from the ground, in a way that's much cheaper than all the air connections.

But I have plenty of ideas like that that need funding. I had an idea a while ago; basically, you sign up to this site (pay €20 and get 5 starting credits, or whatever.) and you volunteer to give a spare room or even a couch for travellers at given times of the year (the more times you give, the better.) For every night they sleep at your house, you get one of their credits. One credit means that you can get one free night's rest in anyone's house who signed up, just by letting people stay (and/or buying top-up credits.) I thought that it was a good idea, what do you think?

I can guess how overwhelming it must be to be somewhere like Panama, especially during war time. Did you make friends there?

Many laws coming out now are stupid; others are just plainly wrong. For instance, do you know that you can be fined in some states for putting a label over the thing on one's car that say 'Pride of America?' That's just stupid. Over here, they're saying that they want 50% of people to go into University. So what do they do? Subsidize everyone's enterance fees? Put more money in the long-neglected Unis? No; they make everyone pay top-up fees for going to good Universities; £28,000 ($42,000) for a four-year-course, excluding accomodation, welfare costs, etc. Way to encourage more people into education, hü?

You should dig your notebooks out the next time that you're cleaning. I would be fascinated to read your works. The APs sound a really good idea; I wish that our schools had them (but our secondary schools are meant to be a year and a half ahead with what they teach, apparently .) I went for Ox. for my post-grad work, and I liked it; in Ox. or Cambridge, it's common, but in Edinburgh it's not... the individual attention was great. I did the same sort of thing when I was teaching, though this meant that some were a bit too attached to me.

One of my favourite poems coming up, by the person whom they called loveless; he was not:

An Arundel tomb (much more uplifting than you'd think:)

Side by side, their faces blurred
The earl and countess lie in stone,
Their proper habits vaguely shown
As jointed armour, stiffened pleat,
And that faint hint of the absurd -
The little dogs under their feet.

Such plainness of the pre-baroque
Hardly involves the eye, until
It meets his left-hand gauntlet, still
Clasped empty in the other; and
One sees, with a sharp tender shock,
His hand withdrawn, holding her hand.

They would not think to lie so long.
Such faithfulness in effigy
Was just a detail friends would see:
A sculptor's sweet commissioned grace
Thrown off in helping to prolong
The Latin names around the base.

They would not guess how early in
Their supine stationary voyage
The air would change to soundless damage,
Turn the old tenantry away;
How soon succeeding eyes begin
To look, not read. Rigidly they

Persisted, linked, through lengths and breadths
Of time. Snow fell, undated. Light
Each summer thronged the glass. A bright
Litter of birdcalls strewed the same
Bone-riddled ground. And up the paths
The endless altered people came,

Washing at their identity.
Now, helpless in the hollow of
An unarmorial age, a trough
Of smoke in slow suspended skeins
Above their scrap of history,
Only an attitude remains:

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love

Engineers' corner - by Cope

A biting satire about the lines:
Why isn't there an Engineers' Corner in Westminster Abbey? In Britain we've always made more fuss of a ballad than a blueprint ... How many schoolchildren dream of becoming great engineers?
-- advertisement placed in The Times by the Engineering Council
(Considering that hardly anyone in England cares about poetry any more, and that engineers are better paid than most; the best engineers earn more than Tony Blair p.a..)

We make more fuss of ballads than of blueprints --
That's why so many poets end up rich,
While engineers scrape by in cheerless garrets.
Who needs a bridge or dam? Who needs a ditch?

Whereas the person who can write a sonnet
Has got it made. It's always been the way,
For everybody knows that we need poems
And everybody reads them every day.

Yes, life is hard if you choose engineering --
You're sure to need another job as well;
You'll have to plan your projects in the evenings
Instead of going out. It must be hell.

While well-heeled poets ride around in Daimlers,
You'll burn the midnight oil to earn a crust,
With no hope of a statue in the Abbey,
With no hope, even, of a modest bust.

No wonder small boys dream of writing couplets
And spurn the bike, the lorry and the train.
There's far too much encouragement for poets --
That's why this country's going down the drain.

Wow, Drom-! Are engineers really poorly paid in England? They do really well over here as far as I know. At least any engineer I know does very well!

No; engineers are paid hundreds of thousands of pounds over in England -- often more than Tony Blair gets per annum -- and Cope was annoyed that they would go on about not having an Engineers' corner when they're doing so well and poets being ignored (apart from an old corner that no one visits...)

A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire,
of a Child in London
Never until the mankind making
Bird beast and flower
Fathering an all humbling darkness
Tells with silence the last light breaking
And the still hour
Is come of the sea tumbling in harness

And I must enter again the round
Zion of the water bead
And the synagogue of the ear of corn
Shall I let pray the shadow of a sound
Or sow my salt seed
In the least valley of sackcloth to mourn

The majesty and burning of the child's death.
I shall not murder
The mankind of her going with a grave truth
Nor blaspheme down the stations of the breath
With any further
Elegy of innocence and youth.

Deep with the first dead lies London's daughter,
Robed in the long friends,
The grains beyond age, the dark veins of her mother,
Secret by the unmourning water
Of the riding Thames.
After the first death, there is no other.