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Friday Random Ten – the Homestretch Edition

Jill

1. Can-U – Old Song
2. The Avett Brothers – Salvation Song
3. Guided by Voices – A Salty Salute
4. Jay-Z – December 4th
5. The Kinks – Big Sky
6. Tom Waits – Shore Leave
7. Portishead – Mysterons
8. The Mountain Goats – Lion’s Teeth
9. Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds – (Are You) The One I’ve Been Waiting For?
10. Bob Dylan – Not Dark Yet

Friday Random Video – last week it was Michael, so now it’s Miss Jackson:

And finally, because I’ve been up to my eyes in dry legal whatnot all week (and will be until May 9th — cross your fingers for me), I could use a little literature. So I give you two of my favorite Adrienne Rich poems:

Diving into the Wreck. Favorite section:

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.

and Snapshots of a Daughter-in-Law. Favorite section:

Banging the coffee-pot into the sink
she hears the angels chiding, and looks out
past the raked gardens to the sloppy sky.
Only a week since They said: Have no patience.

The next time it was: Be insatiable.
Then: Save yourself; others you cannot save.
Sometimes she’s let the tapstream scald her arm,
a match burn to her thumbnail,

or held her hand above the kettle’s snout
right inthe woolly steam. They are probably angels,
since nothing hurts her anymore, except
each morning’s grit blowing into her eyes.

3

A thinking woman sleeps with monsters.
The beak that grips her, she becomes.

Give me poetry with your FRTs, Feministes. I need some beauty today.

10 thoughts on Friday Random Ten – the Homestretch Edition

  1. 1. (Theme from) Dr. Detroit by Devo
    2. Ride Like the Wind by Christopher Cross (really)
    3. Silver Bell by Chet Atkins
    4. Debaser by The Pixies
    5. Juxtaposed With U by Super Furry Animals
    6. Moving On by Desmond Dekker
    7. Be There by Donny Hathaway
    8. I’m Just an Old-Fashioned Girl by Eartha Kitt
    9. Zydeco Honky-Tonk by Buckwheat Zydeco
    10. Government Center by The Modern Lovers

    I have to do my poetry from memory: “In Xanadu did Olivia Newton John, a stately roller rink decree…”

  2. What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why (Sonnet XLIII)
    Edna St. Vincent Millay

    What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
    I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
    Under my head till morning; but the rain
    Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
    Upon the glass and listen for reply,
    And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
    For unremembered lads that not again
    Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
    Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
    Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
    Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
    I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
    I only know that summer sang in me
    A little while, that in me sings no more.

  3. Apparently this is the “Yep, I’m Just That Weird Lyle-apalooza” Edition:

    Georgia Rae – John Hiatt – Slow Turning
    Sweet Evening Breeze – John Mellencamp – Human Wheels
    I Know You Know – Lyle Lovett – Lyle Lovett and his Large Band
    Good Intentions – Lyle Lovett – Lyle Lovett and his Large Band
    Queen Of Argyll – Emerald Rose – Archives Of Ages To Come
    I Married Her Just Because She Looks Like You – Lyle Lovett – Lyle Lovett and his Large Band
    Hey Baby – No Doubt, Featuring Bounty Killer – Rock Steady (Deluxe)
    Hymn To The Local Gods – Shriekback – Sacred City
    Amen Omen – Ben Harper – Diamonds On the Inside
    Slow – Reverend Horton Heat – It’s Martini Time

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  5. Ai’s Twenty Year Marriage

    You keep me waiting in a truck
    with its one good wheel stuck in the ditch,
    while you piss against the south side of a tree.
    Hurry. I’ve got nothing on under my skirt tonight.
    That still excites you, but this pickup has no windows
    and the seat, one fake leather thigh,
    pressed close to mine is cold.
    I’m the same size, shape, make as twenty years ago,
    but get inside me, start the engine;
    you’ll have the strength, the will to move.
    I’ll pull, you push, we’ll tear each other in half.
    come ob, baby, lay me down on my back.
    Pretend you don’t owe me a thing
    and maybe we’ll roll out out of here,
    leaving the past stacked up behind us
    old newspapers nobody’s ever got to read again.

    and Mike Perrotti’s Mote

    I want to crawl into the sound of your body
    breaking as I lay you down.

    and

    The Fourth of July

    She was a fire cracker
    A kitchen match stuck in a blonde
    She could actually lick her rage
    I have many of the same complaints
    Engaged in daily life
    I was rapidly deteriorating
    To write, to read, to love
    And other various ailments

  6. There’s this Philip Larkin classic (try to ignore my inane palaver in these links). One of my favorite contemporary poets is Galway Kinnell. Maybe my favorite of his is Freedom, New Hampshire. There’s also The Cellist and The Porcupine.

    Read this John Updike poem if you want to weep. Wilfred Owen’s “Dulce et Decorum Est” is one of the great anti-war poems of all time. And then there’s T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” (hundreds of other poems on that site).

  7. In honor of the never-ending streak of one Tom Waits song after another on your FRT, I’ll offer you Ana Castillo:

    I ask the impossible: love me forever.
    Love me when all desire is gone.
    Love me with the single mindedness of a monk.
    When the world in its entirety,
    and all that you hold sacred advise you
    against it: love me still more.
    When rage fills you and has no name: love me.
    When each step from your door to our job tires you–
    love me; and from job to home again, love me, love me.
    Love me when you’re bored–
    when every woman you see is more beautiful than the last,
    or more pathetic, love me as you always have:
    not as admirer or judge, but with
    the compassion you save for yourself
    in your solitude.
    Love me as you relish your loneliness,
    the anticipation of your death,
    mysteries of the flesh, as it tears and mends.
    Love me as your most treasured childhood memory–
    and if there is none to recall–
    imagine one, place me there with you.
    Love me withered as you loved me new.
    Love me as if I were forever–
    and I, will make the impossible
    a simple act,
    by loving you, loving you as I do

  8. Here’s a secret, Hugo: Tom usually comes up at least twice when I’m doing the FRT. I typically just skip the second one, to keep the list diverse. In fact, as I type this, I’m listening to “Saving All My Love for You” from Heartattack and Vine.

    The problem is that when I got a new computer, I couldn’t transfer all of my music. Or, I could, but it was taking forever. So I ended up only coping CDs I already had into my new iTunes. Many of those CDs — and by “many” I mean 12 — were Tom Waits. Hence Tom’s domination of the FRT.

    Someday I’ll copy the rest of my music over and my lists will be more diverse.

  10. Here we go this week:

    1. Miles Davis – Stella By Starlight
    2. Elvis Costello – Watch Your Step
    3. Liz Phair – Johnny Feelgood
    4. Fear – I Don’t Care About You
    5. Supersuckers – Your Mom Rules
    6. Tom Waits – Midnight Lullaby
    7. Public Enemy – Louder Than A Bomb
    8. Ennio Morricone – The Ecstacy Of Gold
    9. The Misfits – Attitude
    10. The Breeders – Divine Hammer

    As far as poetry goes, I’m not all that learned, and I don’t know if there’s a theme, but I’ve always been a fan of Rudyard Kipling:

    I went into a public-‘ouse to get a pint o’ beer,
    The publican ‘e up an’ sez, “We serve no red-coats here.”
    The girls be’ind the bar they laughed an’ giggled fit to die,
    I outs into the street again an’ to myself sez I:
    O it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, go away”;
    But it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play,
    The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
    O it’s “Thank you, Mister Atkins”, when the band begins to play.

    I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
    They gave a drunk civilian room, but ‘adn’t none for me;
    They sent me to the gallery or round the music-‘alls,
    But when it comes to fightin’, Lord! they’ll shove me in the stalls!
    For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, wait outside”;
    But it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide,
    The troopship’s on the tide, my boys, the troopship’s on the tide,
    O it’s “Special train for Atkins” when the trooper’s on the tide.

    Yes, makin’ mock o’ uniforms that guard you while you sleep
    Is cheaper than them uniforms, an’ they’re starvation cheap;
    An’ hustlin’ drunken soldiers when they’re goin’ large a bit
    Is five times better business than paradin’ in full kit.
    Then it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, ‘ow’s yer soul?”
    But it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll,
    The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
    O it’s “Thin red line of ‘eroes” when the drums begin to roll.

    We aren’t no thin red ‘eroes, nor we aren’t no blackguards too,
    But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
    An’ if sometimes our conduck isn’t all your fancy paints,
    Why, single men in barricks don’t grow into plaster saints;
    While it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Tommy, fall be’ind”,
    But it’s “Please to walk in front, sir”, when there’s trouble in the wind,
    There’s trouble in the wind, my boys, there’s trouble in the wind,
    O it’s “Please to walk in front, sir”, when there’s trouble in the wind.

    You talk o’ better food for us, an’ schools, an’ fires, an’ all:
    We’ll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
    Don’t mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
    The Widow’s Uniform is not the soldier-man’s disgrace.
    For it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ “Chuck him out, the brute!”
    But it’s “Saviour of ‘is country” when the guns begin to shoot;
    An’ it’s Tommy this, an’ Tommy that, an’ anything you please;
    An’ Tommy ain’t a bloomin’ fool — you bet that Tommy sees!

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