Keep me from going to sleep too soon
Or if I go to sleep too soon
Come wake me up. Come any hour
Of night. Come whistling up the road.
Stomp on the porch. Bang on the door.
Make me get out of bed and come
And let you in and light a light.
Tell me the northern lights are on
And make me look. Or tell me clouds
Are doing something to the moon
They never did before, and show me.
See that I see. Talk to me till
I’m half as wide awake as you
And start to dress wondering why
I ever went to bed at all.
Tell me the walking is superb.
Not only tell me but persuade me.
You know I’m not too hard persuaded.
Photo by Zooey
Here’s what William Rivers Pitt had to say about “Summons”…
“Summons” is about love, simply. The voice in the lines could be a man, a woman, black, white, gay, straight, American, immigrant, old, young…the person being addressed could likewise be a man, a woman, black, white, gay, straight, American, immigrant, old, young…there is no evidence to prove or disprove any assumption. The person asked to come stomp on the porch could be a lover, a wife, simply a friend, or even a stranger; the relationship is not established, which leaves the work wide open to any and every interpretation.
But it is above all else about love: love of the open heart, of the one who comes with that summons, of the moonlight and the night, of the wild urge to run and see and breathe and be, of the drive to experience all there is to be found, and not alone, but with that un-named other who is loved as much as the moonlight and the night and the lighting of the light.
What this poem says to me is, “Don’t let me drift away; don’t let me fade away. If you see that happening, reel me back in. It won’t be too hard; I just need a nudge.”
What does it say to you? Anything? Nothing?
This is our daily open thread. Got something on your mind?
Summons speaks thusly to me:
Don’t leave me
Don’t leave me out
Share all – drink in what is offered by the world -
Don’t leave me alone
Share with me
Come with me
Come with me to see the night
observe the day
Share with me
Care with me
Don’t leave me alone
Come with me…
I like the imagery this Robert Francis poem imparts:
Waxwings
Four Tao philosophers as cedar waxwings
chat on a February berrybush
in sun, and I am one.
Such merriment and such sobriety -
the small wild fruit on the tall stalk -
was this not always my true style?
Above an elegance of snow, beneath
a silk-blue sky of brotherhood of four birds.
Can you mistake us?
To sun, to feast, and to converse
and all together- for this I have abandoned
all my other lives.
One thing is certain: “Robert Francis” is clearly and obviously NOT the nom de plume of Jim DeMint.
To me the poem speaks of friendship, of profound friendship deep enough even to be between human and cat, human and dog.
Beautiful.
Thank you for this welcome little eddy to pull into and just watch the river run on…
The Summons poem says “everything” to me ~ Thank you for posting it, Zooey.
Love is nature, energy and all that truly is peace . . .
2 ebb, Frugal, Raven and all the other Critters posting today, may you experience this feeling throughout your days ~
House, if you watched Face the Nation I’m presenting you a ribbon made of platinum- for endurance a bravery.
As soon as they mentioned Liz Chenney’s name that made me quite ill and made the show more irrelevant than usual.
of course that should be ‘a platinum medal’ on a ribbon. For endurance AND bravery.
RIP Barbara Billingsley…
On Face the Nation, Cheney and Howard Dean got into an unmoderated argument over campaign financing and she would ask him a question, pause for him to answer, then as soon as he started to respond, she would start talking over him. Half what she said was while it was Dean’s turn to speak. Schieffer might as well not be there. I don’t remember a host ever asking a guest to shut up while someone else had the floor. TV talk shows have all become the McLaughlin Group!
This Week started with a short report on the Delaware Senate race, which is one of the most lopsided races in the midterms, yet gets all the attention.
The Roundtable is an all-right-wing panel, with George Will, Meghan McCain, Terry Moran of ABC, and Matthew Dowd. They start by discussing the Senate elections in general. They cover the Reid-Angle debate, and Will is amazed by Angle’s fundraising. The best thing he can say about Angle is that she can repeat the Republican talking points!
Will said the Tea Party has pulled the Republican Party away from the social issues. Big business looks to government for subsidies and tax breaks, and the Tea Party threatens that. He is against disclosure for political contributions by billionaires and brings up Soros, of course.
Dowd said there’s a chance for post-midterm bipartisanship if the President caves to the Republicans.
That was about it for the discussion.
The latter half of the program was on Alzheimers’, with Maria Schwarzenegger and another lady I didn’t know.
Dowd said there’s a chance for post-midterm bipartisanship if the President caves to the Republicans.
Yeah, because that’s been working SO well for the last two years…
Meet the Press opens with Gregory grilling White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, which results in very little new information. He’s asked about the expectations of the Obama Administration for the midterms and whether Gibbs will stay as press secretary. Gregory tries to pin Gibbs down on why Obama is appealing the DADT decision and Gibbs squirms out of the obvious answer,(that they want to get it to the Supreme Court, so the issue becomes settled law), by waffling about how the House has already repealed it, and they hope they can get it through the Senate soon.
The main event is a debate between Colorado Senate candidates Michael Bennet and Ken Buck. They show a poll result with Buck ahead 48-43. It’s a Denver Post/KUSA poll from September 28 to 30, that’s over two weeks old! A quick check of RCP shows a PPP poll taken 9-30 to 13-2 with Bennet ahead 46-45, and a Rasmussen Poll from 10-14 with Buck only up 47-45. MtP wants to portray the race as an upset of an appointed incumbent, I suppose.
Gregory starts by asking Buck if the Tea Party is an extreme insurgent political force, or a legitimate political movement. (I’d say both) Of course this gives him an opportunity to kiss the Teabaggers’ collective asses, so he does. Gregory quotes from a report by the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights that the Tea Party has been a recruiting platform for racists and bigots. Buck says these elements should be rebuffed, but that he hadn’t seen the report, because he’s been to ‘over 800 events’ in Colorado in the last 20 months. Gregory asks Buck about a Denver Post editorial listing his many flip-flops from his primary campaign to the general. My take on his answer, is that he’s been to over 800 events, and he can’t keep up with what he’s said from one event to the next.
Bennet finally gets to talk, and he lists all Buck’s Teabagger positions like privatizing Social Security, getting rid of the Dept. of Education, ending the Federal Student Loan program and so on. He says most of Buck’s money came from outside of Colorado, with 85 % of his ads paid for by the folks who ‘managed to drive this economy into the worst ditch since the Great Depression’.
Gregory then makes Bennet defend his brief voting record as the replacement for Ken Salazar, on voting with the President 97% of the time and on criticizing the process of passing health care reform, then voting for it. Then Bennet listed his newspaper endorsements, including a paper that endorsed McCain in 2008.
They get into a back and forth on spending versus tax cuts, how to pay for them, with Buck plying the old line that people should get to spend their own money instead of having Washington spend it for them. Bennet says that when the tax cuts were passed under Bush, the middle class income fell. (This follows the Thom Hartmann theory that tax cuts for wage earners result in lower wages. I think his source for that is Ravi Batra.) This confuses Buck into saying that people spending more money grows government. It’s funny to hear this, he doesn’t know what he’s saying. Watch for the clips later today.
There was more debate but I ran out of time on the DVR. My typing sucks today and I spent too much time on pause trying to gets things down.
Thanks for watching these shows for us and giving weekly reports, House!
House, thanks for the synopsis. I truly consider you a champion for the willingness to sit through such tripe week after week.
My patience for folk like Liz C. and Gregory runs extremely short – actually nil. Were there relevance to what they ask and answer, maybe, but since it is a waste of precious time – no.
So again – you are CHAMPION for persevering week after week !
21 years on – still alive – no quaking
(17 October 1989 6.9)
Loma Prieta
Wow, I remember when that earthquake happened, ebb. We had just moved to Oregon from the Bay Area — my men and I had left town on the lower part of the freeway that collapsed.
I was fixing dinner and even though I wasn’t a basesball fan, I thought I’d turn on the World Series because it was the A’s and the Giants. After a few minutes, I noticed the game wasn’t on. Just a screen saying something about technical difficulties. I went back to my cooking. A little later, I checked back, and the news was on. The announcer was saying there had been an earthquake and all they had was raw video without sound that was shot from a helicopter. They were showing the collapsed freeway, but at first I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. Finally, from looking at the businesses along side of the freeway, I realized it was the section of freeway with two decks and they were smashed together.
I felt like I was going to pass out. That freeway was always packed tight during rush hour — and it was rush hour. Thousands of people could be crushed under there. Then I remembered the World Series — the A’s and the Giants — people were at the game, not on the freeway!! Thank goodness for basesball!!!
RIP Benoît B. Mandelbrot.
Fractals are the coolest things ever.
Zooey, when I lived in the Bay Area (left in 84) I had to be on that stretch of freeway on a regular basis. I hated it and was convinced something horrible was going to happen there.
Not at all sorry to have missed it.
Same here, gummitch. Those pillars never looked substantial enough, and as it turned out, they weren’t.
Who needs to drop LSD when you can view vids like Z just posted – fractals are wondrous.
———
The earthquake was quite surreal. I’d stayed a little longer than usual at the office so had to hurry and get some last minute shopping done as my vacation was due to start in a day or two. And of course the game was being televised…
I was standing in line with the few items –
we heard and saw – nearly simultaneously the quake. The wave started at the front window of the store just like the domino effect knocked everything off of shelves. [mind you this all happened so quickly]
Top 10 Mama Grizzlies! h/t LGF
I left The City in — May? June? — of ’88. Like most people with cars in the area, I’d spent my share of time on the Nimitz.
(I lived in this ugly old concrete pillbox of a building on Turk St. in the Tenderloin, of all places. It was a rent control building with underground parking. The parking was like $60.00 a month which, even then, was shockingly cheap. I had this lovely studio apartment on the 13th (old building, so the elevator said “14″) floor, with a balcony stretching the whole length of the apartment overlooking city hall, the opera, and the central library. Loved that apartment, but hated the job that I had at the time.)
Gary, The Tenderloin but with parking and a balcony – those darn trade offs!
Too bad your employment was a minus as well.
——-
The predicted Virga (don’t even worry about getting wet is what they said)has turned into rain.
No complaints as we need it – but dang my schedule is now all messed up.
Bill Maher’s new rule — for Brett Favre and white penises.
**snort**
I enjoy watching the Sunday shows even if they are sometimes frustratingly partisan.
Having become a fan of Doctor Who, I noticed TCM had H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine, on today. I’m watching it just to see how time travel was portrayed in 1960.
house, you are a man of infinite patience that’s why I love you! oh and the fact you don’t mind watching Sunday shows ~!~
Technology changes so quickly – it is a trip and a half to watch how it was portrayed forty years ago on how it was going to be forty years from then.
Oh, that came out convoluted.
———-
Maher – you said it!
ANAHEIM, Calif. —
Steele and Palin packed a ballroom at a hotel complex near Disneyland. But Meg Whitman, GOP candidate for governor, and Carla Fiorina, GOP candidate for Senate, both skipped the event, claiming prior commitments. That said, Palin is a decidedly unpopular figure in the state.
RE: Bill Maher’s new rule — “New Rule: If a Woman Rejects Your First Dozen Advances, Don’t Send Her a Picture of Your Penis”
I’ll just cut to the chase and send the picture first thing …
Gary, are you saying that “its no big thing”…. sending a phallic photo?
/snark
Pachy,
Apparently in Favre’s case, it was “no big thing.”
2ebb — Back in the mid-’80′s when I was there, I didn’t find it such a bad place. I was in easy walking distance of North Beach (hence, Chinatown as well), City Lights and the SF Brewpub, Mission and SOMA, City square of course. I counted something like 14 movie screens within just a few blocks of me, and some untold number of used book stores (back when I still invested in woodpulp.)
I first began fencing in The City, but the salle I went to was across the Bay in Alameda/San Leandro, so I always rode the BART train. Before I’d purchased my own gear, my instructor lent me a fencing sabre to take home for practice purposes. I had nothing to carry it in, so I’m on the train the whole way back under the bay with thing. Obviously a sword, but not dangerous in the obvious ways: the blade on a sabre is about the same size as that of a foil.
Still, nobody said anything until I passed these two guys one block from my apartment. As they walked by, one of them shook his head and said to his friend, “Damn. This neighborhood sure is getting tough.”
since we’re feeling all poeticy I thought I might share a few of mine.
First, a sonnet,
What lies within humanity tells
The hearts that therein beat,
Of frankincense, and heavenly smells
Eternal death to somehow cheat?
Yet lies within humanity spread
Both eyes and ears are closed,
While souls, though living, are but dead,
And martyrs lie in death reposed.
Though darkness ‘fore the light was all,
And silent word unspoken
The flame yet flickered eternal
And darkness’ spell was broken.
And truths that mankind would not tell
Are found within the living well.
*****
Walk with me awhile,
Under the night sky,
And gaze with me
At the wonders of the universe.
Drink with me a taste,
Of the milk of the night sky,
And feel the breath of the stars
Upon your lips.
And let me gaze at the lights of the heavens
Reflected in your eyes.
*****
In the places where the Gods met,
And laughed and played,
A single flower grew.
And in their revelry,
They loose’d a seed.
Carried on the high winds;
Floating, gently floating.
Floating, ever downward,
Gently floating.
When at last it came to rest
And grew.
And this single flower on earth did bloom.
Beautiful and rare.
And I,
I chanced upon this flower,
And knew it for its beauty.
And I loved this flower,
And cared for her,
And cherished her beauty,
Till at last the winter came,
And the north winds blew,
And carried her blossom upward,
Ever upward,
And laid her to rest in the places,
Where the Gods met,
And laughed and played.
****
OCTO-GONE
Once, I caught an octopus
While fishing with my brother Gus.
“Wow!” said he, “An octopi!”
As it hit him in the eye.
Don’t you think it rather odd,
That this type of octopod
Should keep warm by growing fur,
In the month of October?
Very nice, BnF. Although the last one escapes me.
Depends on whose it is of …
Joke form 18th (or earlier) C. England (in my own words):
Seems this gentleman has been out at the pub for a while and needs to return some of that ale to nature. Stepping out to the alley, he unbuttons his troos, whips “it” out and commences to make water. However, over the tinkle he hears a titter, looks around and sees a pair of maidens snickering at him. He indignantly demands to know what they are laughing at.
“Oh, nothing sir!” replies one of the maids. “We just laugh at every little thing!”
Okay Zooey, I remember something that happened back in the 1970′s…
A young couple, after their wedding were sitting, snuggling in their hotel room, sipping champaign and nibbling on wedding cake. He suggests she change into something “more comfortable”. After half an hour in the bathroom she comes out with a big bath towel wrapped around her.
He tells her that “We’re married now, you don’t need that towel”.
After a little cajoling on his part, she unhooks the towel letting it fall to the floor.
He looks at her and asks to take her picture, so he could “carry it close to his heart forever”. After more coaxing, she said okay and he snapped a picture with a Polaroid SX70 camera.
With the picture taken, she tells him to change into something “more comfortable”. He dashed off to the bathroom and spent 15 minutes showering and shaving before returning with a regular towel wrapped around his waist.
“Oh, come on now,” she said, “You don’t need that towel now.”
He unhook the towel and let it drop to the floor, whereupon she said, “Please, please, let me take a picture.”
“But why?” he asked.
She replied, “I want to have it enlarged!”
Great jokes, Gary & Pachy!
I am getting so fucking bored with physical geography!
But I have to admit that working on it all weekend has helped make it sink in better. *sigh*
gummitch, thanks for the Mamma Grizzlies.
What lack of enthusiasm?
http://www.barackobama.com/live/?source=HQB_101710&ref2=true
On the subject of the 1989 San Francisco Earthquake: Tonight 60 Minutes had a segment about an early film of Market Street in SF, shot from the front of a cable car, which research has determined was made a week before the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. I thought it was really interesting the way they narrowed down the date, then found a newspaper advertisement for the film itself.
I saw it house, I picked up at the end that the film survived because it had been put on a train to N.Y. the night before the earthquake.
It was also poignant that many of the people in the film were probably killed by the quake.
Is it me or is Obama’s voice a little hoarse?
Yep House, he sounds a bit croaky.
Maybe it makes me a sheep, but after GWB’s smirking and sarcasm, I love watching Obama speak.
I want to make the President a nice cup of hot tea with honey and lemon.
House, thanks for posting that! I’d read about the man being interviewed,back in August and had forgotten when or if it was going to be aired.
Do hope this comes to fruition – that truly would be a feather in his cap!
Glad others found this interesting.
Hope critters got the chance to see Obama’s speech live.
I saw about 15 minutes of it, Cats. Thanks for the link!
BnF, “OCTO-GONE” nice feel – like a cross between Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein.
Thanks Cats! I got there before Michelle started talking.
2ebb, I was pretty sure you’d want to see that, and I didn’t expect you to have TV to watch it, either.
From my Comedy Central Joke of the Day, Gilbert Gottfried:
It’s a convict’s first day in prison; he’s a young convict and he’s there crying.
An older convict sits down and goes, ‘Look, calm down, prison’s not such a bad place. Like, for instance, do you like movies?’
And he goes, ‘Yeah I like movies.’
He goes, ‘Every Monday we show a movie on the screen, first run movie.’
He goes, ‘That’s great.’
He goes, ‘And you like baseball?’
He goes, ‘Yeah.’
‘Every Tuesday we arrange a baseball game.’
He goes, ‘That’s terrific.’
And he goes, ‘You like Italian food?’
And he goes, ‘Yeah I love Italian food.’
He goes, ‘In the cafeteria on Wednesday, it’s all Italian food. Let me ask you one more thing. Are you a homosexual?’
And he goes, ‘No.’
He goes, ‘Eh, you’re not going to like Thursday.’
So six out of seven days in prison really aren’t all that bad.
House, you are a sweetheart. Have I told you, more than once, today I love you?!
(don’t blush) Oh, and I still believe your wall calendar depicts cats!
—-
House and Ebb sittin’ in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
umm, Wayne, does that joke have to do with getting to first, second, third base and home? Or have I completely misunderstood?
No, ebb, it’s more like Zooey says: Six out of seven days in prison ain’t so bad.
doh! and doh! again.
——
Zooey,
Octo-gone is just a bit of fluff & nonsensical word-play…nothing deep at all. Even the title is a word-play.
BnF sez:
Octo-gone is just a bit of fluff & nonsensical word-play…nothing deep at all.
Sort of a word salad approach to poetry?
physical geography – is that like the geography of someone’s physique?
How could that be boring?
As to the Favre comments…& ‘no big deal’ …
well…
there’s a reason why th’ kilt has to be down t’ th’ knees…
I have a kilt, an’ I’m not afraid t’ wear it!
Yea – Right next to the dragonfly and the butterfly!
Okay, I’ll be quiet now.
No wonder I like men in kilts.
I don’t have a kilt, but I do enjoy pretending to wear it in public.
The story came down about a miner 49er new to the area who asked of the bartender if there were any women available in the town.
The bartender informed him that there were no women. And when asked what do all the men do for sex, the bartender said some guys do it with the Chinese cook. The man said he didn’t go for that shit and left.
Three weeks later the same fellow was back at the bar asking what it would cost to have the cook and how many people would know about it?
Ten dollars was the cost and beside the cook and the bartender two others guys would know about it.
“Why the two other guys?” the miner asked.
“Oh, they’re to hold the cook down,” the bartender replied, “He doesn’t go for that shit either.”
A pachydiplax was going to have the Lepidoptera for dinner – umm I mean over for dinner….
pachy, any update from Auggie?
Okay, I’m outta here for the evening. I need to let my brain relax after the workout it’s gotten over the weekend. Next weekend, I’m not studying anything!
Thank you everyone for your lovely responses to the poem that was the subject of today’s Sunday Roast. You are a great bunch!
House, is there a Roberts plaid?
Zooey is practicing for Halloween – doing the ‘ring and run’. Or in her case – the tease ‘em and leave ‘em.
House, is there a Roberts plaid?
Aye!
Zooey, geography is a very important subject, don’t let anyone tell you different, seriously.
The physical characteristics of the land has influenced where man has traveled, where man has settled and the establishment of industry and commerce throughout the ages.
Look at how the Khyber Pass has made Afghanistan such an important country throughout history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:KhyberPassPakistan.jpg
oooo, and do you own a kilt made of any of those patterns?
[she asks while
batting eyelashes and wearing a coquettish smile]
ebb
Auggie is concerned that when he meets pokey/Pee/PIP he would be tempted to chop his hands off so he couldn’t type. Auggie has been in deep thought about why he would ever consider such an extreme measure against what he perceives to be a very immature person. As a consequence of of this situation Auggie has been enjoying the splendor of the natural environment and has slowed his pace of travel to contemplate his real destination.
I’m not sure why he hasn’t posted anything on TP about his travels. It could be he’s shacked up with some nubile coed he met in the woods, like Chris in the Morning did in Northern Exposure or maybe a bear ate him!
Oh I’d like to think that you and Auggie are characters from NE! Auggie doesn’t really need to expound, to the TP crowd, on his escapades. You and Auggie also remind me of “Due South“. One just has to love a Mountie whose companion wolf is named ‘Diefenbaker’.
Group of folks in kilts at the Ren Faire one day had their pictures taken …
they’d turned their backs to the camera, bent over and “fluffed” their kilts at the photographer.
In the picture, even from the back, one fellow in particular was, er, hangin’ out.
He made a lot of friends after that …
Kilts – gotta love ‘em, hey Gary!
pachy, I’m thinking this is the Canadian version of what Auggie’s doin’ in the woods:
(not x-rated).
ebb, in his younger days perhaps. He’s developed into someone more like Brent LeRoy if Corner Gas’
I like that Auggie – a lot!
ok, so the G’s gave Philly one win.
We’ll get even at McCovey Cove! <;
I’m falling asleep at the keyboard.
Goodnight ebb and all others.
pachy,
~!~Dream of butterflies ~!~
My last post went into the ether – or spam bin.
Tried to re-post but WP told me it was a duplicate.
It was a link to the BBC about the German Chancellor’s prejudicial ‘immigrants should learn to speak German’. And that multi-cultural society in Germany was an utter failure.
The Polar Bear seems to be ‘among the missing’ from TP or anywhere on the intertubes.
Tried to post this twice at TP – can’t see it -
OT, but Joe Miller’s security detail handcuffed the editor of an online newspaper for trying to ask questions.
I think that the folks at TP have hit the sack and hide all new comments until they rise from their slumbers.
“private security detail”
Can’t wrap my brain around the machismo of some -why does and when did it become ‘ok’ for citizens to arrest citizens ‘just because’. There has to be a Just cause, doesn’t there?
——
Walt, TP and sometimes TheZoo seem sensitive to certain links and won’t post.
It’s possible that’s what happened to your TP post.
I forget which link I tried the other day – twice and it never posted (at TP). The third time I just commented, without the link, and it went through.
So they seem to be ‘touchier’ of things since the change.
Walt,
That Joe Miller Security Detail story is incredible. As a candidate for federal office, I believe he is entitled to Secret Service protection, isn’t he? Just because he’s not making the taxpayers fund his security doesn’t mean it’s up to his security detail to determine when the law has been broken.
I would sue them for illegal arrest if I were that reporter. That kind of behavior by a candidate’s private security detail cannot be allowed, or else our elections are no longer free and fair.