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SATURDAY AT THE WORLD |
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Today is the 311th day of the year
which means you only have 48 shopping days till Christmas. Billy Graham and Joni Mitchell
were both born on this day – at different times and in a different place, we assume.
On the other hand, maybe not. When is the last time you saw them together?
Today in 1841 slaves being transported from Virginia to New Orleans aboard the Creole
mutiny and take the ship into the British port of Nassau, where they are granted freedom.
1885: The last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway main line is driven in at
Craigallachie, British Columbia. 1900: Boston bans automobiles in and around city parks to
"ensure the safety of women and children."
1910: Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist of War and Peace & Anna Karrenina, dies. In 1914
the first issue of The New Republic is published. 1918: Lenin leads the Bolsheviks in an
overthrow of Kerensky’s government in Petrograd; The October Revolution (Old Style
date is October 26.). 1918: World War 1 armistice erroneously reported by the London
Times.
In 1944 President Franklin D. Roosevelt wins unprecedented fourth term. 1970: MGM Records
head, Mike Curb, drops a large number of artists from his label for ‘promoting
drugs’ through their music. One does wonder, however, about some of his choices
– Connie Francis, The Cowsills and the estate of Judy Garland? Curb goes on to
receive a commendation from President Nixon for his courageous action. He later becomes
the most inconspicuous Lt. Governor in California history.
Are you a pitcher or a catcher? 1973: Today in New Jersey girls are allowed to play Little
League baseball for the first time. Finally, here today’s American Graffiti courtesy
of the 1976 McKuen Calendar & Datebook: Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
Have the laziest Saturday possible and the nicest Saturday Night, doing something
different with someone you like a lot.
- RM 11/2/98 |
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William Alwyn o
Albert Camus o Marie Curie o Balfour Gardiner o Billy Graham o Al Hirt o Dean Jaegger o Dame Gwyneth Jones o Herman Mankiewicz o
Joni Mitchell o Barry Newman o Johnny Rivers o Dame Joan Sutherland |
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Humility is the
mirror on the inside.
In friendship, silence is as important as words.
Know yourself and be successful.
Better a foolish optimist than a pessimistic philosopher. |
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PROLOGUE: CLOSE WATCH |
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1.
I began by loving nobody.
Then nobody’s face
became the face of many
as I traveled not to Tiburon or Tuscany
but battled back and forth
between the breasts and thighs
of those who fancied for a time
my forelock and my foreskin.
If they could overlook my acne
and the inch I lacked
to carry them to heaven,
I too could deal in charity
forgetting how their faces
always seemed to be the same
and thinking only how their thighs
were rowable and readable
and right for me and wrong for me.
See the stars.
Count them.
Watch the stars go sailing
through the sky.
And as the stars
move through the heavens
preordained and predestined,
so too the faces in the street
file by as if by prearrangement.
2.
Now they’re everywhere,
in cars with tops down,
stopped at red lights
or whizzing by at glider speed
toward some intersection
in their lives
that I’ll not share.
My God,
when seeing them
my car can barely hug the road.
Barefoot and barelimbed on beaches
they hump white waves
and disappear as lovers
in the final feathered plunge.
Can this be a ballgame now
or some new choreography
that makes them leap and limbo
through the sand?
Are they innocent
of what they do to me
or am I meant to be
audience and umpire too?
I’d gladly be their volleyball
and call it victory
each time I bounced against
their beach brown bodies.
Whatever battering a beach ball takes
I’d receive with grace,
and some thanksgiving.
If they covered up
on summer evenings
I’d roam the waterfront at will,
but while they bulge and burst and boast
I stay home for safety’s sake
( my own and theirs ).
Bartok’s blessed the Gramophone
with music of another kind
though even he cannot wall out
my mind’s percussion.
- from "Fields of Wonder", 1971 |
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