Here’s a Saturday Morning of Zappadan piece:
1968
Category Archives: poetry
Now that the Political Season is 0ver…
After the most expensive and longest and most frustrating presidential campaign in our history, we can now get back to0 the important stuff. To me, of course, that is the Arts, especially Visual Arts and Theatre. To kick off my searches and good feelings, here’s some verse by Kurt Vonnegut that my pal Joe Bratcher uploaded to Facebook:
I agree with you, Kurt. We have enough investment bankers, corporate execs and politicians already. Artists we need more of.
I have such an urge to direct again…
… and what I really am eager to do is a production of the 1953 musical “Kismet“, whose music was adapted from classical work of Borodin.
The wonderful Arabian Nights story of 16th Century Baghdad about a fortune teller, a Wazir, a young Caliph and two very lovely women is something I have loved most of my life.
Many of it’s musical numbers became song classics. “Baubles, Bangles and Beads“, “Stranger in Paradise” and this:
“This is My Beloved.”
The show was a starring vehicle for Alfred Drake and the Broadway debut of Richard Kiley.
Unfortunately, my current physical condition makes it seem like I will never be able to direct again. If the tumor is removed it will probably endanger the part of my brain where cognitive creativity is connected. If we don’t solve the problem and I keep having seizures I will never be able to drive again and won’t be able to put in the solid effort that coordinating a musical production, especially a large and complex one as this, would be very difficult. It could certainly, however, make West Virginia community theatre history.
And then I have to find one of the local community playhouses who might let me do it… find 20 great performers … get a nice piano score for my dear collaborator Ruth Robertas to play from… and find a local choreographer who can bring the dancing girls to life.
If I get through this surgery and all that accompanies it, it will take at least a year before I can even get started (apart from notes I am doing now) putting it together. One can hope. It gives me something to focus on.
Related articles
- STAGE TUBE: On This Day 10/7- Alfred Drake (broadwayworld.com)
- MUSIC: On a November weekend, music to evoke ‘Summer Nights’ (kitsapsun.com)
- Augustin Hadelich Performs Lalo’s Symphonie espagnole (wqxr.org)
Some words about this blog and me…
I often get e-mail from folks out there in the web world who want to know about Under The LobsterScope and why 
I keep it going and put a major part of each day into it. It is for that reason that I’ve decided to say a few things that will clarify my relationship with UTL and, perhaps, encourage you to get involved as a commentor.
I started this blog through another editing site, Blogspot, during the 2004 presidential election year. I did several thousand entries over five years or so and then something happened. For some reason, someone got into my blog at Blogspot and did some fairly confusing stuff leaving it impossible for me to post on. I cancelled my relationship with Blogspot and over 4000 posts ago I started UTL up again through WordPress where it remains today.
While I was interested in electoral politics (originally in Maryland before my wife and I moved to West Virginia), my biggest interest at the time – and even now, a little – was in theatre directing. I got to do a couple of musicals and some plays at local community theatres and spent a lot of time attending theatre events (one of the reasons we moved to the Shepherdstown, WV, area was to be closer to the Contemporary American Theater Festival which we attend every year.
I also have a great interest in the visual arts… Elly’s background is as a painter and visual artist. That means heading off to galleries locally, in DC and other places. Add to the visual stuff an interest in music and poetry and dance. The arts in general are very important parts of my life.
As to politics, during the past couple of years beginning with the election of Barack Obama, I have become more and more an active Democrat and have felt it is my obligation, since this is a published item read by thousands of people a week, to expose the really awful things Republicans and extreme conservatives are trying to pull off.
Several of you have also noted that I often expose dangerous things being done by religious organizations. As you probably know I am a non-believer… an atheist, a humanist… and cannot understand how people with developed intellectual capacity can believe this stuff. I have no problem exposing things that might make readers see what I see. I am, however, as opposed to pushing my atheism on others as I am of them pushing their religious beliefs on me.
Now that my current age and health keeps me in the house most of the days of the week, I have much time to read other web sites, magazines and other publications, many of which I quote or comment on in the blog. On an average day I do at least 5 posts.
I have established some regular features in this blog that I hope you enjoy. Cartoon(s) of the Week is the one people think of first when I talk about regular features. I have been interested in editorial cartoons for many years. During the current election I have regularly been posting poll results which I see by the search term roundups many of you are looking for. And, of course, there is my regular posting of celebrity obituaries.
If there is any kind of post I do that you would like to see become a regular feature, just let me know and it’s likely to happen.
– Bill
Related articles
- Saturday Morning and I’m getting ready for the 11 o’clock show… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
- CATF Plays in Running for National Critics’ Award (prweb.com)
- I REALLY need your help to continue the blog… (underthelobsterscope.wordpress.com)
Cynthia Huntington is a Finalist for a National Book Award
When the list of National Book Award nominees was revealed, I was pleased to see my old friend Cynthia Huntington nominated for her poetry book, Heavenly Bodies. Cynthia was a fellow at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown for two years while I was Director there in the 70s. I have kept an eye on her work for some time.
Published by the Southern Illinois University Press, Heavenly Bodies has been described as a blistering collection of lyric poems, which give an intimate view of the sexual revolution and rebellion in a time before the rise of feminism. Heavenly Bodies is a testament to the duality of sex, the twin seductiveness and horror of drug addiction, and the social, political, and personal dramas of America in the 1960s.
Echoing throughout are some of the most famous—and infamous—voices of the times: Joan Baez and Charles Manson, Frank Zappa and Betty Friedan. Jinns and aliens beckon while cities burn and revolutionaries thunder for change.
Cynthia Huntington is the author of four books of poetry, including The Radiant (winner of the Levis Prize), The Fish-Wife, and We Have Gone to the Beach, as well as a prose memoir, The Salt House. A former New Hampshire State Poet Laureate, she is professor of English at Dartmouth College, where she serves as senior faculty in creative writing. She served as chair of the poetry jury for the Pulitzer Prizes for 2006.
I congratulate Cynthia sincerely for her current achievement and look forward to reading Heavenly Bodies (and perhaps pass it on to John Case for his Monday morning poetry program.)
Related articles
- 2012 National Book Festival: Poetry & Prose (gianninabraschi.wordpress.com)
- Dozens Of The World’s Foremost Poets Descend Upon Newark, New Jersey Next Week, October 11-14, 2012 For The Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival (sacbee.com)
- Pulitzer winners, U.S. Poets Laureate to participate in Dodge Poetry Festival in Newark this fall (nj.com)
The Opening of “The Book Of Mormon”
I wonder how much Mitt Romney has effected the success of The Book Of Mormon? I don’t think his identity as a Mormon has anything to do with it.
For a little entertainment though, let me give you, my readers, the opening of The Book Of Mormon at the 2012 Tony Awards on Broadway – Hope you enjoy it:
A senior view of Mitt Romney… this is a pretty complete statement in poetic form.
Here’s a 92-Year-Old Veteran’s Must See Poetic Deconstruction of Mitt Romney. I’ll put the complete poem below the video so you can share it with friends.
Mr. Maxwell is a very impressive guy, and he sticks a pin in the Romney balloon that promotes the Republican as having support of the elderly. He doesn’t
Ralph Maxwell
WHEREFORE ART THOU, MITT ROMNEY?
by Ralph MaxwellO, Romney-O, Romney-O,
Wherefore art thou, Mitt Romney?
You flip-flop here, you flip-flop there,
You flip-flop almost ev’rywhere.You ballyhoo what you’re gonna do
And then you pull a switcheroo;
You now malign what you once found fine;
Seems like you’ve got a jellyfish spine.Obamacare, by you begun,
Now you’d trash it on day one.
Gun control you did extol,
But now you’re preaching decontrol.O, Romney-O, Romney-O,
Wherefore art thou, Mitt Romney?
We’ve got no clue what you will do
Or what new view you’ll pander to.Time was you championed women’s choice,
But you no longer heed their voice;
On gay rights, too, guess you withdrew
Support they once enjoyed from you.Global warming, EPA,
Immigration, minimum pay,
Roe V. Wade, also fair trade,
All joined your flip-flop cavalcade.O, Romney-O, Romney-O
Wherefore art thou, Mitt Romney?
So many things that you were for
You’ve turned against and slammed the door.Stimulus and cap and trade,
Education, foreign aid,
Campaign reform, tarp rescues, too,
All victims of your switcheroo.You take your stand on shifting sand,
We never know where you will land;
You vacillate, you fabricate,
A wishy-washy candidate.O, Romney-O, Romney-O,
Wherefore art thou Mitt Romney?
As gov’nor you let taxes rise,
Now ev’ry tax you demonize.You say regardless of the facts
You’d take an axe to millionaire’s tax;
You’d feed the greed of the richest few
The poor and middle class you’d screw.Your tax returns you hide from view
What evil there lurks we’ve no clue;
If they’re not bad why hesitate?
Or is it they incriminate?O, Romney-O, Romney-O,
Wherefore art thou Mitt Romney?
At Bain you plundered with a flair
And walked away a zillionaire.You shipped off-shore, good jobs galore
To China, India, Singapore;
A job creator you are not
And to boast you are is tommyrot.As a total fraud, Mitt’s got no peer
What we should do is crystal clear:
Let’s give Obama four more years!
Yes, it’s Obama — four more years!
FOUR MORE YEARS! FOUR MORE YEARS!
Related articles
- Romney endorses “socialism” on 60 Minutes in yet another flip-flop (americablog.com)
- The Largest Compilation Of Mitt Romney Flip Flops (VIDEO) (addictinginfo.org)
- Mitt Romney Flip Flops On Health Care, Again, Within Six Hours – Takes Back What He Said This Morning (alan.com)
- Not breaking: Mitt Romney flip-flops yet again. This time, about a TV show. (dailykos.com)
- The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Child Protection and The Family Justice Review (researchingreform.wordpress.com)
Christian Groups Support Akin
His party says it’s time to leave,
but Akin says he’ll just believe
the Christian groups that say “stay in there”
since they all see him upping their share.
Obama said this utter ass
must have missed a science class.
But all of this is hardly dimmin’
Todd Akin‘s cause: The War on Women.
And this from the Ragin’ Grannies:
Related articles
- Obama: Todd Akin “Somehow Missed Science Class” (alan.com)
- Obama mocks Akin, says Akin missed science class (sfgate.com)
- At New York fundraiser, President Obama says Todd Akin ‘somehow missed science class.’ – @reidepstein (politico.com)
- Grannies give Todd Akin his own ‘Legitimate Rape’ theme song (deathandtaxesmag.com)
- Rasmussen: Missouri Senate: McCaskill (D) 48%, Akin (R) 38% (riehlworldview.com)
- Is Ryan going rogue? (salon.com)
- Christians Favor MO Candidate Todd Akin over GOP (christianlibertynews.wordpress.com)
- Under fire, Akin gets help from social conservatives – Reuters (reuters.com)
- Conservative Christians rally around Akin in face of GOP criticism (religion.blogs.cnn.com)
- Claire McCaskill Mysteriously Pulls Ahead of Todd Akin in Polls [Rape Rape] (jezebel.com)
Musical Theatre Fans… Here’s the best political parody I’ve heard so far this year…
If you’re a Les Mis fan like me, you’ll love this piece, “One Term More”, based on “One Day More.”
Here are the lyrics if you want to sing along:
One Term More!
A time to celebrate democracy,
Repeal Republican hypocrisy.
This man who would unseat Barack’s
A bleak choice at the ballot box.
One Term More!
A G.O.P. perdition-bound,
All sense of right & wrong eroded.
One Term More!
With laws that let ‘em stand their ground,
Republicans are locked & loaded.Contraception’s now a sin,
Screwing G.M. in the clutch.
Incivility’s a virtue,
Homophobic. Out of touch.
Filibusters. Budget scrums.
Ultrasounds & speculums.
To the Dark Side they’ve succumbed.Soon Election Day will dawn,
We were meant to hold this seat!
At the ballot box of freedom,
Unemployment’s in retreat!
Now the battle lines are drawn,
And Detroit’s back on its feet!
Will you take your place with me!The time is NOW the vote is NEAR!
One Term More!
One more day to re-election,
And until the music stops,
We will fight to save the jobs of
Teachers, firemen & cops!
One Term More!
One more day to resolution,
We’ll defeat those fetid nuts,
We are fed up with pernicious
Talk of prostitutes & sluts!Watch ‘em throwing up,
Minting malcontent,
Drinkin’ all that tea’s
Made them incontinent!Dissembling persists,
Divisiveness prevails,
Calling colleagues Communists
Is OFF the rails!Listen to them spew,
“Femi-Nazi” rage,
Misogynistic rants
From the Jurassic Age!To Obama’s second inning,
He’ll drive home another run!
Norma Rae let sisters sing,
Rosa Parks let freedom ring!
For Obama’s just beginning,
Yes! The West Wing WILL be won!AND we’ll get the Dream Act DONE!
My place is here, I vote with you!
One Term More!
Emboldened by Star-Spangled myth,
We want a JEDI…NOT a SITH!!!Petty partisan obstruction’s
Why we’ve gridlock on the Hill!
One Term More!
Healthcare is a right,
Medicare’s a must,
Don’t let rogue Republicans
Betray that trust!Speaking of betrayal,
Bullied by his peers,
Tackled to the ground,
Screams turned into tears.Hunting down the queer,
Cutting off his hair,
SPIKED the ball, yet… “Can’t
Recall” if he was there???It’s his character we question!
Mom, apple pie & Chevrolet,
Don’t let ‘em down Election Day!That’s when we will determine
What our God in Heaven has in store!ONE MORE TERM!
OTRA VEZ!
(One More Time!)ONE TERM MORE!!!
Related articles
- STAGE TUBE: LES MIS Gets Political Parody with ‘One Term More!’ (broadwayworld.com)
- Check Out One Term More: An Inspired Obama GOTV Video Set to Les Miz (politicususa.com)
Fluent Magazine is NOW AVAILABLE!
Take a look at Fluent Magazine, the on-line Arts, Culture and Events magazine for the Eastern Panhandle area.
Yours truly is one of the Associate Editors on it, having written reviews of the CATF season and an article on CATF Director Ed Herendeen.
What’s more there are articles on art, poetry, fiction and much more. And you can subscribe for free!
I hope you’ll take a look at it.
Natasha Trethewey is the new Poet Laureate of the United States
Trethewey, 46, is an English and creative writing professor at Emory University in Atlanta, named the 19th U.S. poet laureate Thursday by the Librarian of Congress.
The Pulitzer Prize winner is the nation’s first poet laureate to hail from the South since the initial one – Robert Penn Warren – in 1986. She is also Mississippi’s top poet and will be the first person to serve simultaneously as a state and U.S. laureate.
Winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for her book of poems, “Native Guard,” Trethewey focused partly on history that was erased because it was never recorded. She wrote of the Louisiana Native Guard, a black Civil War regiment assigned to guard white Confederate soldiers held on Ship Island off Mississippi’s Gulf Coast.
The Confederate prisoners were later memorialized on the island, but not the black Union soldiers.
Here’s one of her poems: Providence.
| Providence | ||
| by Natasha Trethewey | ||
What's left is footage: the hours before
Camille, 1969—hurricane
parties, palm trees leaning
in the wind,
fronds blown back,
a woman's hair. Then after:
the vacant lots,
boats washed ashore, a swamp
where graves had been. I recall
how we huddled all night in our small house,
moving between rooms,
emptying pots filled with rain.
The next day, our house—
on its cinderblocks—seemed to float
in the flooded yard: no foundationbeneath us, nothing I could see
tying us to the land.
In the water, our reflection
trembled,
disappeared
when I bent to touch it.
|
||
Related articles
- Natasha Trethewey named 19th US poet laureate (news.yahoo.com)
- Natasha Trethewey Is Named Poet Laureate (nytimes.com)
- Natasha Trethewey named 19th US poet laureate (sfgate.com)
- A poem by Natasha Trethewey, next US poet laureate (kansascity.com)
- Civil War history buff named U.S. poet in chief (ctv.ca)
- Emory professor named U.S. poet laureate (ajc.com)
Afternoon Entertainment : Katie Goodman on the Current Situation.
It doesn’t matter if you are Republican or Democrat.
If you have a bad language problem, predominantly the “F” word, don’t play this.
Breathing easier?
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- Signs of improper campaigning in McKenna files (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
Here’s your chance to get a world famous artwork… got $80,000,000?
Sotheby’s is honoured to announce that Edvard Munch’s masterpiece The Scream will lead its Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale in New York on 2 May 2012. The iconic work is one of the most instantly recognizable images in both art history and popular culture, perhaps second only to the Mona Lisa.
The present version of The Scream dates from 1895, and is one of four versions of the composition, and the only version still in private hands. It will be on view in London for the first time ever, with the exhibition at Sotheby’s opening on 13 April. In New York, and also for the first time ever, it will be on exhibition at Sotheby’s in advance of the sale beginning 27 April. The work is owned by Norwegian businessman Petter Olsen, whose father Thomas was a friend, neighbour and patron of Munch.
The estimate of value is $80 Million bucks for this pastel version of Munch’s famous piece. The question is, will this remain in private hands or be purchased by a major museum, making it accessible to the public?
Of the four versions of the work, the present Scream is distinguished in several remarkable ways: it is the most colorful and vibrant of the four; the only version whose original frame was hand-painted by the artist to include his poem detailing the work’s inspiration; and the only version in which one of the two figures in the background turns to look outward onto the cityscape. This version has never before been on public view in either the UK or US, except briefly in the National Gallery in Washington D.C. decades ago.
I just checked my bank account and I can’t afford to bid on it. Can you?
“Taming of the Shrew” at Synetic Theater
Saturday night, Elly and I went down to DC to see Synetic Theater‘s “The Taming of the Shrew” with our friends Cecil and Linda (who had given Elly the tickets for her Birthday.)
“Shrew” is the latest in Synetic’s series of Shakespeare adaptations performed without words (which, to me, doesn’t make it truly Shakespeare… story line without the poetry, the words, eliminates the thing that makes Shakespeare Shakespeare.) It is performed with dance, music, incredible special effects, mime and sound effects and is incredible to watch. The best way to describe it is to shown their video promotion, which will give you an idea:
Irina Tsikurishvili plays Kate the shrew (if you’ve never seen Shakespeare’s play but have seen Kiss Me Kate, you know who the character is) under the direction of her adapter-director husband, the amazing Paata Tsikurishvili, who has created the “Silent Shakespeare Series, which has won tons of awards and never fails to sell out houses. The music, a mass of hip-hop rhythms, is by resident composer Konstantine Lortkipanidze and is stunning. It keeps the production moving for the full 90 minutes.
Tsikurishvili has set the show in “Paduawood” and made the characters members of the contemporary fashion and arts communities. The characters of Shakespeare, Kate, her sister Bianca, their father Baptista (a fashion designer played with great humor by Hector Reynoso) and Bianca’s suitors who, as you may remember, may not marry the younger sister until Kate has a husband…something that seems highly unlikely to happen.
Irina Tsikurishvili as Kate, Ryan Sellers as Petruchio
Along comes Petruchio, a motorcycle riding painter, who accepts a large cash payment to take Kate away and make her his wife, which he does. Kate, of course, is tricked into this and her shrewishness makes her hell to be around. And that’s the point of the piece – how Petruchio tames her and makes her his true love.
The show is filled with fun, the audience laughs throughout, and Irina Tsikurishvili’s performance brings that audience to it’s feet at the end of the show.
It is brilliant.
Unfortunately, we saw the second to last performance and it is no longer open. We will, however, look forward to the next piece in the series, or to any other of the “speaking” plays that Synetic also does.
Related articles
- Synetic Theater’s “The Taming of the Shrew” – Sensory Stimulation Beyond the Spoken Word (lifeisanexquisitejourney.com)
Another movie I can’t wait for…
December is going to premiere the film musical Les Miserables whose score I have played over and over for years (but I can’t on WSHC because the Music Director has a ban on show music – a small minded person)… and I hear there is at least 1 new song for the film.
Hugh Jackman will be playing Jean Valjean, and, get this, Russell Crowe will be Inspector Javert. There’s a pair who can really go at each other.
Jackman and Crowe
Scarborough Library Follies
Todd and John setting up the remote studio
John and I broadcast Winners and Losers from Shepherd University‘s Scarborougfh Library this morning, adding an extra hour to our regular show. Todd Cotsgreave, our Station Manager, spent close to two days setting up the equipment, testing it and getting rerady for the broadcast, for which we express great thanks.
I was really struck by the signs and posters they had outside of the Library building and all over the inside that 
showed John and me broadcasting (pictures swiped from this blog going back quite a ways).
We interviewed members of the Library staff, program directors, student volunteers and Lisa Welch from the Film Society (movie tonight, btw – George Clooney ‘s Good Night and Good Luck). It was all set up by the Library Dean and we even had a mini breakfast and coffee for all attendees.
It all worked out pretty well and we’ll probably do it again in 6 months or so.
Stanley Kunitz remembered…
I was the Director of the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown (MA) in the late 70s, and one of the great men and women I worked for there was Center co-founder Stanley Kunitz.
The Pulitzer Prize winning poet, who died in 2006 at age 101, kept working as he got older. His last published poem was called “Touch Me” and was written in 2005. As I was looking around the web, I found him doing a live reading at age 100 and felt so good hearing him again.
I used to visit with him as he worked on his beloved garden in P-Town. We’d talk about flowers and poets and just about anything. Stanley could always maintain a stimulating conversation.
Just imaging an artist of Kunitz’s stature maintaining his literary power right up to the end of his life gives me a great deal of optimism that we can all maintain our creativity in the face of an anti-creative world.
Here it is:
Thanks for the memory, Stanley.
Related articles
- Poetry Prompt from Stanley Kunitz (thenightlypoem.com)
- Scintillating Light (emmasorchard.wordpress.com)
- My Brain (poemattic.wordpress.com)
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Billy Collins: Poems with Animations from the TED Conference.
I think we should be very thankful for the broad range of the TED Conferences, which include science and social engineering with poetry and the other arts.
Here’s former Poet Laureate of the US, Billy Collins, with poems and animations. Enjoy.
Poems for the 1st day of Spring:
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough.
A.E. Housman (1859–1936)
A Shropshire Lad (1896)
Spring has sprung, the grass has ris’,
I wonder where the birdie is?There he is up in the sky,
He dropped some whitewash in my eye!I‘m alright, I won’t cry,
I’m just glad that cows can’t fly!Anonymous
Spring breeze—
the pine on the ridge
whispers itKobayashi Issa (1804)
Enjoy the Day.
Barney Rosset has Died at Age 89
The founder and editor of Grove Press and the publisher of works by D.H. Lawrence, Henry Miller, Samuel Beckett, William S. Burroughs and so many others who had been rejected by the American Publishing establishment, has passed away at age 89.
Rossett, who started his company ion the ground floor of his New York brownstone, grew it into a powerful publisher. From an article 4 years ago in Newsweek, John Gall wrote:
“Rosset‘s publishing house, Grove Press, was a tiny company operating out
of the ground floor of Rosset’s brownstone when it published an obscure play called Waiting for Godot in 1954. By the time Beckett had won the Nobel Prize in 1969, Grove had become a force that challenged and changed literature and American culture in deep and lasting ways. Its impact is still evident — from the Che Guevara posters adorning college dorms to the canonical status of the house’s once controversial authors. Rosset is less well known — but late in his life he is achieving some wider recognition.
“Last month, a black-tie crowd gave Rosset a standing ovation when the National Book Foundation awarded him the Literarian Award for ‘outstanding service’ to American letters.
“This fall, Rosset was also the subject of a documentary, Obscene, directed by Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O’Connor, which featured a host of literary luminaries, former colleagues and footage from a particularly hilarious interview with Al Goldstein, the porn king. High literature and low — Rosset pushed and published it all.”
He published a magazine, the Evergreen Review, distributed art films, and by the late 60s, added a book club and two film theaters in the Village. As a producer, he imported the controversial film I Am Curious, Yellow, which
was seized by US Customs in January 1968 and Grove had to arrange for critics to view it at the United States Appraisers Stores in New York City under an agreement that they would not “publicize the contents.” These same critics were expert witnesses at the subsequent trial in May. A jury found the film to be obscene, but the Court of Appeals overturned the decision, and for the rest of the year it was shown to packed houses by reservation only at the Evergreen Theater on East 11th Street
– Loren Glass in the L.A. Review of Books.
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Happy Valentines Day to you and yours…
Time to get out there with your Sweetie and have a great day and a delightful evening. A great day to stop thinking about politics and corruption and such (although I’m sure I won’t) and just enjoy yourselves.
Related articles
- Valentine’s Day tips (writeontheworld.wordpress.com)
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Primary Poem
Today’s the day that Perry quit.
His backing goes to Newt, not Mitt.
And Newt’s ex-wife may crash his carriage…
She says he wanted Open Marriage.
Now Iowa has changed its score
and Rick leaves Mitt upon the floor.
Ron Paul takes all this at its face…
Ignoring his past views on Race.
So four are left in fume and smoke
And Saturday will be a joke.
A New Year’s Haiku…
New Year’s Day–
everything is in blossom!
I feel about average.– Kobayashi Issa
The Death of Vaclav Havel and remembering his interaction with Zappa
Former Czech President Vaclav Havel died on Sunday in his country house in Bohemia… age 75. The artist/playwright who came into power on what was called the “Velvet Revolution” and created a democracy out of a Communist satellite was summed up by the NY Times:
A shy yet resilient, unfailingly polite but dogged man who articulated the power of
the powerless, Mr. Havel spent five years in and out of Communist prisons, lived for two decades under close secret-police surveillance and endured the suppression of his plays and essays. He served 14 years as president, wrote 19 plays, inspired a film and a rap song and remained one of his generation’s most seductively nonconformist writers.
All the while, Mr. Havel came to personify the soul of the Czech nation.
Many people, however, are either unaware or forgetful of the brief relationship between Havel and Frank Zappa. This from the Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Havel was a life-long supporter of The Plastic People of the Universe, the Czech underground, nonconformist rock band that fought against the Czechoslovak totalitarian regime.
Under the communist regime, the vast majority of western music was banned, yet the country’s dissidents and its underground movement widely circulated prohibited music that focused on free expression and human rights, such as The Velvet Underground and The Mothers of Invention, led by Lou Reed and Frank Zappa, respectively.
These two bands achieved huge fame in erstwhile Czechoslovakia despite being forbidden by the authorities, and they were favorites of Mr. Havel. The former president said these musicians were among his dear, personal friends.
In January 1990, Mr. Havel appointed Mr. Zappa as Special Ambassador to the West on Trade, Culture and Tourism, and cited Mr. Zappa as one of his many sources of inspiration. The two men were close friends before Mr. Zappa’s death in 1993, and the American musician was active in Czechoslovakia’s transformation back to a free-market economy.
Here are 4 Videos of the Zappa’s visit to the Czech Republic in 1990:
…and for today, here’s our music break … Frank Zappa is our Papa, recorded by Michael Kocab and musicians in Prague.
(Michael Kocab, composer of rock and classical music, singer, politician responsible for the withdrawal of the Soviet Army from Czech Republic in 1991. Member of the Czech Parliament, adviser of President Vaclav Havel, Leader of group Prague Selection and Prague Selection II (Prazsky Vyber)was also a close friend of Frank Zappa.)
Under The LobsterScope 