As with the angels that caroled
His arrival in stable, bare.
Praises, Alleluia, Hallelujah!
A King is there.
And with the shepherds,
Who worshipped with humble hearts,
Praises, Alleluia, Hallelujah!
The Savior has come. To start
God’s kingdom on earth,
A baby, a birth
Of Hope and Salvation
Of Love, Joy and Mirth.
As with the Wise Men
That wandered in wonder of stars,
Praises, Alleluia, Hallelujah!
We’ll find where we are.
At Christmas, our Hopes revive!
Yuletide, our Joy is alive!
Open your hearts and sing
Tell every living thing-
Praises, Alleluia, Hallelujah
The birth of a King!
********************
While this is unabashedly joyful (with many exclamation points), Christmas is a joyful time. I can just imagine this being sung with brass and tympani.
My hopes for you (if you do or do not celebrate Christmas)is a happy, blessed day.
I was thinking this morning about the power of the “unspoken”, which can be an essential part of communication between two people -as much as the words even – in some circumstances. There can be an energy to that seemingly empty space that is unrivaled. This poem seeks to describe that. Thanks for visiting.
Writing
I mentioned a while back that I had submitted a poem that was accepted for an online publication. It is posted here, in The Front Porch Review, or at the link Periodicity under Published Work, down at the lower right of the menu bar. I am fond of this poem, as it captures some actual experiences of my life, and rolls some of the meaning into life’s cyclic nature. There are some other excellent poems in that issue, I invite you to give it a read. As always, I welcome your comments and thoughts.
I’ve started off the new year writing (attempting to write) some flash fiction pieces. I may share something here soon, but I’m also contemplating moving/reorganizing my blog site to accommodate things differently.
Music
After bingeing on holiday/Christmas music since mid-November, I have been cleansing my musical palette with “oldies.” That’s such a relative term, isn’t it? One generation’s oldies are not the next. When I say oldies, I mean 50’s and 60’s jukebox tunes. Doo-wop and British invasion songs are peppy enough to gloss over the general ‘suckiness’ of January weather. I don’t mind the snow…but the bitter cold. What do you listen to on a winter day?
Some random statistics
Since my unemployment began, I’ve applied for approximately 125 positions, mostly through internet application processes. I’ve gone through 12 phone interview processes (with different companies) resulting in 1 onsite interview. That means almost a 10 % conversion from application to phone interview, and only about 8 % of those result in a site interview. This gives a whopping 0.8% likelihood of a job interview based on internet applications – I think. This is biased due to my specific area of expertise and experience level, but it demonstrates the level of difficulty in finding the right job. Sorry about the math…I have to keep my skills up.
Reading
I wish I could say that I did a lot of reading over the last part of 2014 and the Christmas holiday…but I didn’t. I’m still nursing Philip Kerr’s novel Dark Matter:The Private Life of Sir Isaac Newton– A Holmes-esque mystery novel during the time when Newton was Warden of the Royal Mint. I’ve read some interesting journal articles about anthocyanins that I mentioned in a post a while ago in December. And, my MIL gave me three Jack Higgins novels to read…which I am excited about. I read The Eagle has Landed when I was in high school and really liked it. Also, I dusted off my copy of The Silmarillion (after seeing the third and final Hobbit film), and leisurely read a few sections to try and jump start my interest in the book…sigh…the names.
In songs
I play
the sound peaks.
Pizzicato
-the splash of a pebble
breaking the water’s surface-
then hide from the rushing
sounds
of swelling streams
where,
as in triumphant marches,
I reemerge
marcato –
thrust
and struck.
I have a lot of random crap in my head today, so indulge me…
Music sets a great mood for holidays. I turned on the cable holiday music channel yesterday, and to my delight, it was Halloween-focused. Great favorites like Monster Mash, (It’s a) Monster’s Holiday by Buck Owens, Rick Scott’s Halloween Hoodoo, and The Guess Who’s Clap for the Wolfman to more contemporary adult fare like The Eagles Witchy Woman, Cliff Richard’s Devil Woman, and the ubiquitous Thriller and well known movie soundtrack clips.
Some others were a bit of a stretch…just because devil is in the lyric, it doesn’t make it an automatic Halloween song, does it? Cases in point…(She’s got the) Devil in her heart by The Beatles, Sympathy for the Devil by the Rolling Stones, The Devil went down to Georgia by the Charlie Daniels Band. All great songs in their genres, but not on my go-to list for Halloween mood music.
I’ve also been singing Grim, Grinning Ghosts to myself since yesterday… Thank you Thurl Ravenscroft.
Movies have also been a source of enjoyment for me this Halloween season. I am particularly thankful that some stations broadcast the older, more gothic-than-slasher, creepy movies. I’ve seen Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween and Friday the 13th and most of their sequels over the years, and I’m not as big a fan of revisiting those movies as some are. I really enjoy the classic horror tales and anthologies. Some that I’ve seen this year are Twice-Told Tales* with Vincent Price, The Legend of Hell House with Roddy McDowell, and House of Wax with Vincent Price. I caught a moment of Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter last night and just couldn’t force myself to watch it. But, if I catch Bela Lugosi’s Dracula on tonight, I will be watching.
Cooking
I tried a leftover casserole recipe on Tuesday. If you have leftover chili or taco meat, or taco soup, this is a good thing to try. In a small baking dish (8 by 8), spread out the leftover chili/soup/taco meat about an inch or two deep, then cover with a layer of sharp cheddar cheese. On top of that add one mixed box of corn bread (Jiffy brand works well). I added a handful of cheese and half a jalapeno pepper to the cornbread mix. Cook according to the cornbread instructions. You get a nice layered casserole dish. Quick and easy.
Writing
Well..you know how it is, sometimes you write a lot, sometimes a little, and sometimes none. I’m in a little-to-none mode right now – at least in the poetry realm. I recently had a poem selected for an online publication in January 2015, so I’ll be sure to highlight that when it happens.
Have a safe and happy Halloween.
************************************************
*I am now intrigued by the writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne, particularly his short stories, such as Rappaccini’s Daughter and Dr Heidegger’s Experiment. Both stories use a plot foundation of chemical dosing. One as intentional poisoning/conditioning – Rappaccini, and the other as a discovery of a potential fountain of youth to restore their lost youth/bring back the dead – Heidegger. As events unfold in both stories, their desire to manipulate people is their undoing. It ultimately leads to retribution and judgement on them for their actions. Karma is dark romanticism, indeed.
em>Acappella music (without instrumental accompaniment) is particularly enjoyable for me to listen to. As a poet (and an avocational musician), I am drawn to the similarities that poems and acappella music have. Lyrical phrasing, meter, rhyming, assonance, and consonance mean so much to acappella music, because it relies so heavily on the human vocal element.
**********************************
It has been a while since I did one of these.
Partly because I hadn’t heard any new inspiring songs recently, neither was I particularly inspired to seek out any songs.
Until today.
I was wondering whether anyone had done an arrangement of Emily Dickinson poems for acappella chorus. Google. What a time waster saver. I found quite a few. And it should come as no surprise, as Ms. Dickinson is arguably the most prolific of American Poets and one of the more emotive poets (and also – to her credit – concise). These characteristics make her writing great fodder for choral literature.
The first one I noticed (and I think that I’ve sung it once) was Let down the Bars, O Death, composed by Samuel Barber, who was responsible for another haunting poem/choral selection that I discussed a while back, Louise Bogan’s To Be Sung on the Water. He wrote this piece during the same summer (1936)** as the string quartet that would eventually become Adagio for Strings.
Let down the Bars, O Death*
Emily Dickinson
Music by Samuel Barber
Let down the Bars, O Death —
The tired Flocks come in
Whose bleating ceases to repeat
Whose wandering is done —
Thine is the stillest night
Thine the securest Fold
Too near Thou art for seeking Thee
Too tender, to be told.
This setting is a simple chorale, with none of Barber’s usual complex counterpoint, but it is effective at letting Dickinson’s text carry the load. Given her gift for emotionally charging phrases, it definitely works with his gift for musical conflict and resolution. The opening of the piece sounds like a call, an invocation that begins hushed, and crescendos to the conclusion, where the opening lines are repeated/declared with emphasis.
The next piece was a bit of a surprise. I have a soft spot for poetry that is light and hopeful (something that is not necessarily plentiful in Dickinson’s canon of writing), so when I happened upon “Hope” is the thing with feathers, I was hooked.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers*
Emily Dickinson
Music by Kenny Potter
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
There are several different choral arrangements of this poem, but in my opinion, none of them capture the intention of the words like this arrangement by Dr. Kenny Potter of Wingate University. Recently composed in 2011***, this piece allows the underlying message to drive the song, with the opening lines carried through as heartbeat. A carefree melody, which breaks slightly to express the seriousness of the last line (much like Barber in the effective use of chorale style), but then returns to the patter of the “thing with feathers, and sings the tune without the words – and never stops – at all” fading to the end.
I believe he created an earworm.
The video I selected is a combined performance of several pieces. The first one is “Hope” is the thing with feathers. Have a listen. You will be humming this the next day.
*The Poems of Emily Dickinson Edited by R. W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, 1999)
**G. Schirmer, Octavo 8907
***Published by Santa Barbara Music Publishing (SB.SBMP-1017) 2011
Just some quick observations from the past few days…
Tomatoes don’t ripen very fast in Ohio. I’ve mentioned that I have an extraterrestrial tomato plant growing in my back yard, and the fruit-bearing capacity is phenomenal, yet they’ve been green for the better part of a month. At this rate, we’ll be having fried green tomatoes for a week, come October.
Fried green tomatoes are better when you use corn meal and salt. I tried making some this week using MW Cornbread mix (the sweet kind)…not my best effort. I was trying to use what I had on hand…mistake.
The Rat Patrol was much more violent and “adult-themed” than I remembered. I used to watch this show as a kid – I think it was in syndication by that time though. A friend recently loaned me the DVDs because I wanted to binge-watch the show. While not gory in detail, it certainly has it’s share of gratuitous violence, mayhem, and innuendo.
The square metal spatula that you can buy from that mail order kitchen implement supplier (coddled…cook), has a resonant frequency at B-flat 2 octaves above middle C. Good to know if you are ever in need of a tuning pitch at a party or for spontaneous acapella singing in the kitchen. Make sure it’s clean though.
Re-tiling a small bathroom (WC) is not as daunting a task as I thought it was. Despite knowing the rule that the job will take twice as long as you think and cost twice as much, it wasn’t that difficult. I managed to complete it within a few weeks (I didn’t work on it every day, because it wasn’t a critical need toilet).
I could have done it in a weekend if I were pressed for time. I think it looks nice. The most difficult thing was measuring and cutting the edge bits and pieces to fit the door jams. Still a few minor details to finish, beyond the flooring – but I am proud of the job.
I was reminded this week that I could update snippets, those that I briefly discussed here back on February 14th. I did that because I felt like it, not that it was a regular featured aspect of this blog (most of which is just rambly poetry things).
What I am reading. I finally did finish reading The Monuments Men back in May. Interestingly, I read most of it while on a trip to Germany, when suddenly all the place names made much more sense. On the trip, my son, father, and I visited Neuschwanstein Castle, where one of the pivotal finds in the book takes place.
I cheated a bit as well, since one of the in-flight movies was The Monuments Men. The book, as mentioned before, reads as a very dry account of events.The movie was a little better than I expected, given some of the luke-warm reviews that it received. I felt that it did a reasonable job of dramatizing, by combining some characters, making you a little more invested in their work and relationships. What you do come away with is a sense of dedication of these men, who weren’t soldiers and didn’t really fit in, but were very passionate about the art they were trying to save. And much respect goes to Rose Valland, who single-handedly collected information about looted art shipments while working at the Jeu de Paume Museum in occupied France.
So with that book finished, I have moved on to The River of No Return by Bee Ridgway. Billed as a time travel novel, it is something of an anomaly…at least to me…think of The Matrix, The Time Machine, Wuthering Heights, all rolled up into a historical fiction plot amid the political times surrounding the Corn Laws and Reform Acts in Great Britain, and about an unknown society of people who have the gift of controlling time.
What I am listening to: I am a man of eclectic tastes. Earlier this year I discovered The Decemberists and The Henry Girls. Very good working music…I’ve also become enamored with the soundtrack to Les Miserables, even the movie version in which everyone involved (even Russell Crowe) gives a very good accounting of themselves. And for another version, check out this video of the Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps performing an encore of their 2013 version of Les Miserables. Very, very, nice.
What I am writing In February, I mentioned that I entered an essay contest. This was sponsored by The Center for Homeland Security and Defense. My essay was not selected among the finalists. You can read the finalists’ essays here. All are quite good and well-deserving of recognition. If you’re curious/a glutton for dry reading/ really, really wish to read my essay, drop me an email and I’ll send you a copy. I thought about posting it here…but it doesn’t really fit the intention of this blog.
In other writing, I am looking for other poetry contests, journals, online literature blogs, and am still considering how to construct a chap-book. I haven’t had any great concept ideas yet, but I’m still interested in doing this. I know I need a reader/editor to help me with this, and I guess I haven’t found anyone suitable yet.
Taps and Ratamacues 