Beautiful song, Dys; I like that one a lot.
You've been so long
Your blind eyes are gone
Your old bones are on their own
So take off your coat
Put a song in your throat
Let the dead beats pound all around
We will go nowhere we know
We don't have to talk at all
Hand-me-downs, flypaper towns
Stuck together one and all
The bargains you've dragged
Buckets and bags
And all your belongings
Your train's in the sand
Ramshackle land
Let the rats watch the races
We will go nowhere we know
'Til we found our one and all
Hand-me-downs, flypaper towns
Stuck together one and all
Praises get spent
Your trick faces bent
Pig sties and prizes
'Cause there's no kind of wealth
You're shooting yourself
You leave yourself behind
We will go nowhere we know
'Til we found our one and all
Your hand-me-downs, flypaper towns
Stuck together one and all
caca? Cuban or Spanish?
Letty, this is compliments of Basil-Fish. Being a Gringo I only know a few Mexican words. I requested Spanish to English but it could be Cuban for all Jack knows:
The cockroach, the cockroach, No longer can walk; Because it does not have, because him lack Marijuana that to smoke. Either murio the cockroach, Or takes it to bury, Between four buzzards and a mouse of sacristan. With the beards of Carranza, I am going to do one toquilla, Pa' to put it to the hat Of its father Pancho to it Villa. A baker went to mass, not finding that to say, Him pidio to the pure Virgin, Marijuana pa' to smoke. A thing gives laughter me: Pancho Villa without shirt; The carrancistas already go away Because the Pancho Villa supporters come. For sarapes, Forecastle; Chihuahua for soldiers; For women, Jalisco; In order to love, toditos sides.
I may already have spoiled it for myself with Basil-Fish. Along with learning how to play beginning guitar in September I am also giving beginning German another shot. So tempting to use Basil-Fish though. Also, you are one great creative poet Letty. Is this a normal thing among poets? To be able to crank out a well understood poem (even if I did have to have it translated) on a second's whim?
Et tu drom et neve?
Wow, this old semi-literate cowboy is being overwhelmed with beautiful poetry here! Et tu drom et neve? As with Letty you also are so creative from the heart?
This is great for Jack because it is unlike the profs of old who used to insist on telling him "what the poet really meant!" :wink:
Setanta?
Setanta. The Gaelic Football and Surf Club of LaJolla calls themselves the Setantas. What means Setanta?
The club appears to be quite upscale. Just being in LaJolla makes anything upscale I guess. Most of the lads are from Ireland. I sense from there bios they are yuppies, good education, some lawyers, professionals mostly. They play well and have a good record. The club has a website that you can surely find if you are interested in the football Setantas.
Wow! I really appreciate the part in Dys' song that talks about the roof coming off.
Jack, JL is the rain in Spain, I think. We might refer to Charley as poetry in motion and now the winds of Frances are gaining momentum. Hey gringo, I would love to see you and drom dance the tango. You be Valentino and she can be the lady with the rose.
As to Letty's Cadillac, I cad a lac it, but some stuffs makes me want to "buick" ....groan.
Well, it's happy hour at the Letty household, and tonight I could use a little of the old spirits.
Lord of the dance with a troupe of two.
Re: Setanta?
Jack Webb wrote:Setanta. The Gaelic Football and Surf Club of LaJolla calls themselves the Setantas. What means Setanta?
The Cunning Coney started a Christmas thread in December, '02, in which i answered this question, as follows:
I wrote:OK, OK, i did this once at AFUZZ, but i'll do it again here.
Setanta means the pathfinder, which was the source of much hilarity among medieval Irish monks who wrote scurrilous tracts about drunken Ullii (Ulstermen) being lead astray by an equally drunken Cuchulainn--which makes no sense, unless you know why a lost Cuchulainn is funny to them. I was also the butt of several jokes, most notably from GeneralLee at AFUZZ when i couldn't log on as Setanta because i'd lost my "pathword."
The great mythological hero of the Irish was Cuchulainn (which is pronounced "kookullen" in the west of Ulster, from which he was supposed to have originated), and here is the story:
One day Conchubar (Konokur), the King of Ulster, decided to visit his smith, Cullen, and he took with him Fergus and the other great heroes of Ulster. As they were leaving the dun (fortress), the saw Setanta playing at the hurly with the other boys of Ulster, and defeating them single-handed. Conchubar invited Setanta to join them, but he hadn't finished humiliating the other boys, so he said that he would follow later. Fergus warned him of the great hound of Cullen, so fearsome, that Cullen employed no armed men to defend his rath (the open area within the dun), simply turning the hound loose on the rath at sundown. Conchubar and the others went on. Setanta stayed later than he had planned, and then hurried after, dribbling a silver hurly ball on his stick. ("Dribbling" means keeping the ball--about the size of an American hardball--in the air with light taps of the hurly stick--for which, imagine a cross between a hockey stick and a Louisville slugger.) But the sun had set by the time that Setanta arrived at Cullen's dun, and the hound had already been loosed. As he ran up the slope of the dun, and down onto the rath, Setanta remembered the hound, and the hound began to bay. Those within forgot their food and drink, and then Fergus remembered Setanta. As the hound charged down on Setanta, he knew not, at first, what to do, as he was unarmed. Then he threw the hurly ball into the air, and swinging his stick, drove it down the throat of the hound, killing him on the spot. The Men of Ulster ran out onto the rath, and finding Setanta still alive, began to rejoice in good fortune. All, that is, except Cullen. Cullen sat by his hound and wept. "I am ruined, for i have no fighting men, and now the defense of my dun is gone." Setanta went to Cullen, and falling on his knees promised to spend three days to find the greatest hound whelp in Ireland, and return with it to Cullen's dun. (Traditionally, such feasting, with heavy drinking, would go on for at least three days.) Cullen was sceptical, but said nothing further. In Leinster, Setanta found the whelp of the only other hound in Ireland which could have vied with Cullen's hound, and brought it back to Cullen's dun. There, before the King and all the Men of Ulster, Setanta swore an oath to defend Cullen's dun with his life for a year and a day, until he could raise up the whelp to be a hound to match the one Cullen had lost. And Setanta was as good as his word--when a year and a day had past, the whelp had become a full-grown hound, more fearsome even than he whom Setanta had killed. When Setanta returned to the King, there was great rejoicing, and for his year of service in Cullen's dun, Setanta was known ever after as Cuchulainn--the Hound of Cullen.
Creative writing?
My writing probably is a little creative once in awhile but no romance. No romance whatsoever unfortunately. I once completed about 450-500 pages of a novel years back. The more I worked on it the angrier I became. One day I ripped it all to shreds picked up the pieces threw it in the trash bin and the old Apple IIe system went with it. Printer, disks, manuals, everything.
I watched in silence and I was somewhat gleeful as the garbage man came down the hill, pulled up to the sidewalk dumped it all into the hopper on his truck and heard it all being crushed by the hydraulic compactor!
I write a fair amount of short tid-bits, mainly for newspaper op-eds that involve local and national politics. Mostly critical. Some of my friends and a couple of journalists think my stuff is OK and they all say I need an editor.
I'll rely on drom, letty and others I will undoubtedly discover on All2Know and elsewhere for good poetry and prose. Artists that know how to do it.
Great song, Setanta, never heard it. But note that the sentence is "Yo quiero bailar en Mexico" (not "Yo quiero A bailar en Mexico").
Thanks, Letty, for La Cucaracha. I've never had more than the beginning lyrics. It points up the enmity between Carranza and Villa. They started out as revolutionary allies against the government of Huerta but ended up despising one another. .
Oh, by the way, Letty, Ravel's Bolero IS popular culture.
Culchulainn.
Setanta. Great explanation! Great tale! I was introduced to Culchulainn and things related in Thomas Cahill's "How The Irish Saved Civilization" a few years ago. I still have it. Have to go back and look at it again.
I thought the team name "Setanta" might have been something the lads had borrowed from Mexico. I was pretty far off on that hunch. Wasn't I?
One serious moment, here, my friends.(it's still allowed, is it not?)
We are a part of all we have met, whether it be virtually or REALLY.
We have our opinions on art, music, everyday stuff, but one thing that I must emphasize. No one and I mean NO ONE can fashion a set of rules that governs every aspect of our insight or our vision of the arts.
Jack, retrieve your book. Write it for yourself.
JL. Do you really care about the rigid confines of pop culture...old world culture...? Branch out, my friend.
I watched a beautiful black lab sit at the base of my palm tree and look expectantly at a grey and feisty squirrel. Her patience and expectancy of something that she could never expect to conquer, was a symphony in itself.
Of course, not one of us here, wants to appear gauche nor maladroit, but often I think that that is exactly what we should do.
I listen to all music. I have discovered in the autumn of my life, from folk, to rock to pop to whatever, that we have the option to reject or accept. At least I have listened.
Not one of us here has to understand the meaning to feel the beauty of the language.
Branch out? O.K.. I hate the pain of implosion.
Explain that remark, if you please.
I agree, Letty, with all you have said.
(And I thought the same, JL, and also that 'nos' was probably 'nuestros,' but I just supposed that that was the way that the song was written.)
Speaking of beauty of the language, whether you understand it or not, I've always loved Romance de la luna:
La luna vino a la fragua
con su polisón de nardos.
El niño la mira, mira.
El niño la está mirando.
En el aire conmovido
mueve la luna sus brazos
y enseña, lúbrica y pura,
sus senos de duro estaño.
Huye luna, luna, luna.
Si vinieran los gitanos,
harían con tu corazón
collares y anillos blancos.
Niño, déjame que baile.
Cuando vengan los gitanos,
te encontrarán sobre el yunque
con los ojillos cerrados.
Huye luna, luna, luna,
que ya siento sus caballos.
Niño, déjame, no pises
mi blancor almidonado.
El jinete se acercaba
tocando el tambor del llano.
Dentro de la fragua el niño,
tiene los ojos cerrados.
Por el olivar venían,
bronce y sueño, los gitanos.
Las cabezas levantadas
y los ojos entornados.
Cómo canta la zumaya,
¡ay, cómo canta en el árbol!
Por el cielo va la luna
con un niño de la mano.
Dentro de la fragua lloran,
dando gritos, los gitanos.
El aire la vela, vela.
El aire la está velando.
Incidentally, Jack, what provoked you to waste that work? You know that I think that one of the worst things is to squander talent. Why waste your goodness? What was the book about?
(Incidentally, I have contacts with Faber & Faber, if you wanted a publisher..)
Culture is culture, and a work is a work. That a work belongs or doesn't belong to a category should not demean its value if the work be good enough.
Branch out.
Well you're right where I am concerned letty. I have no ambition, no desire whatsoever to write for a living or be published for profit at this stage of life. I write simply for my own joy and amusement. Most papers stipulate they can do anything they want to work submitted to them beforehand. On the rare occasion I receive a call about a piece I never argue with the editor: Have fun. I can only recall two (2) occasions when I told them to just forget it because they suggested carving up the piece so much that it lost meaningful content. As far as I was concerned.
I'm going out to Foxtrot and Waltz tonight. Maybe Polka. Don't know how to do the Tango.
Right, Drom, "nuestros amigos".
Letty, I just meant that it's better for me to expand than to contract.
. You're no semi-literate cowboy; but I am creative at heart. I write for a living, mostly novels but all sorts of things, really. I'm putting out a book next year, composed mostly of poems that I've written back here, in the past. I have left my old stuffy home in the middle of England and my job as one of those profs to travel and write what comes to me (and hide 98% of it.) I once wrote a book down in Argentina, but that was a few years ago, and it wasn't exactly a bombast best-seller. (Though, from judging best-seller lists, I had rather not be in them.)