Doggerel Poem about Evelyn Waugh

Away, Evelyn Waugh, away!

I have no time for your books today!

I have no time for Evelyn Waugh!
And if I did, I would probably spend it upon a see-saw!

Even if I had time for Evelyn Waugh-tays,
I would probably spend it drinking decaf soy lattes.

I have no time for a man named Evelyn,
Or men named Gwen or Len or Jen, neither.
Or Democratic Astronauts named Glenn.
I don't especially like Condoleeza Rice either.

I read one of your books when I was a kid,
I thought you were a woman named Evelyn;
I have already read Brideshead Revisited,
Do you expect me to read it again & again?

I have no time for you, Evelyn Waugh-rence,
And if I did, I would spend it looking at Titian's Martyrdom of St. Laurence:


What are your loves, Evelyn, what do you fear?
Was Oxford really so homoerotic?
When I went to Oxford, I got an abscess gall behind my ear,
And I had to take a pretty strong antibiotic.

I don't know much about World War One,
And I don't care about posh socialites in the twenties,
But if I had a cent for every word you wrote, Evelyn,
I'd have a lot of pennies.

Away, Evelyn Waugh, away!
I'll read your nineteen novels & extensive travel diaries another day!

Music Review: James Welsch at the Starry Plough, plus two songs lyrics

Last night I sang a solo set as "Featured Act" at the Starry Plough Open Mic. This is a classy establishment on Shattuck just three blocks from my apartment in Berkeley. It was a mellow evening, which was perfect because sometimes I've felt like I was shouting over boisterous carousing. I have a few supporters & one erstwhile promoter. My friends from the Stanford Sierra Conference Center, Ashley Elliott & Seth Peterson, both played after me. Also, The Girl George, who is the heart mother of Tuesday Evenings, who sings the same four songs before the feature every time, to the rocking-out of the elusive Guy Michelle on guitar or autoharp. I have been singing some sloshed back-up for her some times recently. One of her verses to "The Time They Are A-Changin'" is this:

That motherfucker Bush he dragged us to war,
This whole administration is rotten to the core,
He stole the election & for an encore,
Flushed the 'conomy down the toilet.
Something Something Something Something
For the times, they are a changin'.

The music always dramatically stops when she sings the line about the "'conomy". Also, again later when she shouts the line "Come on! you hippies! Whatcha goin' to do!?" The point of the song (if you didn't get it) is an old hippie yelling at the young generation of Berkeley, look at the situation we're in this decade, what are you doing about it, & she's angry. I repeat, she has sung this song (& two others, plus a couple others that rotate) every week since I started going there nine months ago. Surely a statement about the nature of time(s) if there ever was one.

For historians to scrutinize, here's my set list from last night:

The Waters of Babylon (trad.)
I'm goin' to see my Lord
Gospel Train
Straightway from the Holy Land
The Violin (D. Yazbek)
Father Drank Himself to Death
The Staff in the Hand
Father Drank Himself to Death (Snake Handler Version)

Hopefully this won't be the peak highpoint of these my "singer-songwriter" years. This morning my inbox was peopled with apologies for missing my set. Who knows? Soon I may return to the type of music I was schooled in, so you player-haters better come to some of my shows before they dissipate into nostalgia for the golden years. Ah, didn't T.S. Eliot write something about knowing that the distant panorama is "all being rolled away"?

I don't think I've ever written down the lyrics to "Father Drank Himself to Death" or "The Staff in the Hand", so I'll end this posting with those.

Father Drank Himself to Death (2004-5)

Father drank himself to death.
Shattered bottle broke his breath.
Once we visited the aquarium,
But we lived beside the sea.
Father drank himself to death,
Why did he love that dirty whore?

I wrote a song about the errors of a parent,
What all the neighbors will suppose is in a family.
For food & drink will I inherit as heir apparent.
For alcoholism runs in a family just like noses run in a family.

Eighteen feet are in to fathom,
Father never was that deep,
But the ce-ments for the weight, dear--,
(If you know what I mean)--,
When you live beside the sea.
Father drank himself to death,
Why did he love that dirty whore?

Sing me a song about, &c.

Father drank himself to death.
Shattered bottle broke his breath.
Father drank himself to death,
Why did he love that dirty whore?

The word "cement" is meant to be pronounced like Louis Armstrong does in "Mack the Knife." It turns out "two fathom" is only twelve feet, but I've always sung "Eighteen feet are in to fathom" - perhaps the bad math will one day be interpreted symbolically (like maybe he was sinking deeper than he calculated.)



The "Snake Handler Version", faster with different chords & a different melody, has essentially the same lyrics, but the third verse goes:

Once we visited the aquarium,
But we lived beside the sea.
Father claimed he was a Univeralist Unitarian,
But he seemed like a fucking Snake Handler to me.

UPDATE! New recordings of "Father Drank Himself to Death" - here.

The Staff in the Hand (2005)
(Most of the lyrics are from Isaiah Ch. 10)

I will abuse you, wall'd in leaden gyves, some of these days.
The staff in the hand of the Assyrian army is the rod of mine indignation.
You want me to choose you, but you've trampled my vineyards night & day.
The staff in the hand of the Assyrian army is the rod of mine indignation.

Shall I not,
As I have done unto Samaria & her idols,
So do to
Je-ru-sa-lem, & her idols.
Therefore it shall come to pass
That when the Lord hath performed
His whole work
Upon Mount Zion
And on Jerusalem,
I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria,
And the glory of his high looks.

Shall the ax boast itself against him that heweth therewith,
As if the bombs descending thru clouds unfolding lift themselves against them that's dropping.
Or shall the saw magnify itself against him that shaketh it?
Or if the plagues recoiling back to the fatherland left this bard to reconsider.

Shall I not,
As I have done unto Samaria & her idols,
So do to
Je-ru-sa-lem, & her idols.
Therefore it shall come to pass
That when the Lord hath performed
His whole work
Upon Mount Zion
And on Jerusalem,
I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria,
And the glory of his high looks.

Bulletin: Show To-Night! Tuesday Night! Exciting Gospel Train Music!

From:	S. Sandrigon
Date:	Mar 27, 2007 10:29 AM
Subject	Show To-night Tuesday Night! Revolutionary GospelTrain Music
Body:	Friends, Proselytes, &c. I will be playing the featured act at Berkeley's own Starry Plough (formerly the "Top Hat") Pub To-Night! Tuesday Night! 3101 Shattuck Ave at Woolsey! The featured acts at this fine open mic are preceded by the infamous Girl George & usually start at about 9:30ish. I will be playing my own gospel & drinking songs, from my exciting Gospel Train Album, released now on Vanity Press. Hope to see you, Sincerely, James Welsch A.k.a S. Sandrigon, Prophetic Poet & American National Bard

E-mails: Whale War!

Date:	Sat, 24 Mar 2007 17:20:06 -0700 (PDT)
From:	"James Welsch" <_@itwaslost.org>
Subject:	Whale War!
To:	"Liam Joseph Olaf Worland Golden" <______@yahoo.com>, "James Eliot Quill" <______@yahoo.com>, "Samuel Tear Amidon" <_________@gmail.com>

For those who don't know, there's a war going on down in the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary between illegal Japanese Whalers & the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, complete with ships ramming each other. Here's the latest news release from Sea Shepherd:

http://www.seashepherd.org/news/media_070323_1.html

Peace, James


Below is a picture from Good Magazine, that shows on the side of a ship from the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, all the illegal whalers they've thwarted:

____________________________________________________________________________________

Date:	Sun, 25 Mar 2007 15:44:11 -0500
From:	"Sam Amidon" <_______@gmail.com>
To:	"James Welsch" <_@itwaslost.org>, "Liam Jospeh Olaf Worland Golden" <_____@yahoo.com>, "James Eliot Quill" <_________@yahoo.com>
Subject:	Re: Whale War!

i'm really glad i know about this now. although i don't like reading
things that defame the japanese. damn. really doesn't make me feel
happy. i had a dream last night that all three of you were in. we were
at some lame swanky person party. but it was nice to see you guys. you
all seemed to be doing well.

sam

From the Archive: Apology for Rag-Time

Date:	Mon, 03 Mar 2003 00:12:40 -0500
From:	"Bonnie Anne Whiting" <___________@oberlin.edu>
To:	"James Welsch" <___________@yahoo.com>
Subject:	drowsy headed poppies.

Your ragtime is kicking my orchestra's ass. What do you mean by the
glissandi in the flute and clarinet?  They say it is not possible.
Tell me what you want, and I will tell them. Wow. It is hard for them.

________________________________________________________________________

Date:
Mon, 3 Mar 2003 08:01:08 -0800 (PST)
From:
"James Welsch" <_____________@yahoo.com> 
Subject:
An Apology for Rag-time
To:
"Bonnie Anne Whiting" <___________@oberlin.edu> 


Bonnie,

The Entire Universe ascends before mine eyes as many Layers of Circling Whirling Globes.
The Outer Orbit, beautiful, in Eternal Eden is the Realm of Truth and Light.
Man, in his delimiting imagination, open’d his jaws and call’d it Concept.
The Inner Orbit, breathing, generating, sexual and physical, is perceiv’d by the Theater of our
    Sensations as a Delicious Lifelong Embrace.
Woman, in her moonbent perturbation, open’d her Womb to it and call’d it Object.
The Third Orbit, nowhere and all consuming, created by the Mighty Artist, and Invented by
    him as the Word, is Mankind’s Salvative Solution to Understanding the Outer Spheres.
To Throw down your Pen is to renounce your Sexuality, in effect renouncing your Immortality.
To Notate at the Speed of Light is to be a God, perfect, beyond Space and Time.
To be an Artist is an attempt at a Reflection of Eden’s Beauty, which Mozart came close to,
    and for it died Midway through Life’s Journey, at Jesus’ age.
And God said, Thou canst not see my Face: for there shall no Man see me, and Live. [Exodus xxxiii:20]
Luckily, I suck at Notation, so will most likely live a Long and Impotent Life.
When I say Glissando, it is a Word created by a Mortal to tell a Mortal Clarinetist to
    slide between two notes.
The Glissandi of the Heavens are Puissant, Infinite, Terrible, Beautiful in their Divine Glory!
A Classical Musician perceives the Word on a Page & says:
Lo!  God has written this Word and it is within my Mortal Powers to Fly through the
    Indefinite Elysian Galaxy in an Infinitesimal Nanosecond, if I while away my Allotment of
    Time Practicing it, to Reflect the Composer’s Flawless Handwriting.
A Rag Musician perceives the Limits of the Page & says:
Cat, I shall never dig the Perfection of God and the Boundless Regions of the Stratospheres!
    What the Room, What the Hour, the Performance will be Endlessly Different!
    Such is the Glory of Love, Such are the Limits of Rag!
    If the Fall of Man were One Second Later, would Measure Sixty-Nine be delay’d as well?
    I shall Rejoice in my Humanity and play the Glissandi when where & how I shall!
    To Honor the Inadequacy of the Scribe is to Rejoice in the Paragon of his Muse!
As the Great Poet resounded to the Ecchoing Indeterminate Silence:
Composition, Performance, and Audition or Observation are Really Different Things.
    They have next to nothing to do with one another.
These Ideas are not mine own, and have been decreed by Plato Aristotle Shakspere & Blake
    timeless times before and timeless times in the Distant Future.
However, as this is The Way Things Are, & as Language is sadly merely the Looking-Glass of Truth,
    my restating it for mine own piteous purposes, in my feeble attempts at poetry and music,
    will plagiarize nor do no harm to no Immortal Force:
For such is the quality of rag.

James

Introducing: Doggerel Poetry!

Miss Jenny Ruth Crawford called me at work yesterday & asked what helicopters are doing when you see them flying around. There are many new things to me, living in a quasi-densely populated area like the East Bay. When you see a helicopter, what is it doing? Who's in it? What are they doing? Where do they come from & where are they going? For that matter, how the hell do they work?

If you've ever read the poetry I publish here, you'll notice I am a sucker for difficult themes, & I fall easy victim to the high-art Modernist pretensions of the 20th Century, that many current poets are desperate to move beyond. Of course, many of the poets that the ivory towers dote upon were beloved by a large population - as someone somewhere recently pointed out, Tennyson's birthday was celebrated by the whole country when he was alive. I remember Philip Glass mentioning that Verdi's operas sold out, a bit defensively when he was speaking about how he (Philip Glass) sometimes plays to packed audiences, defensively because of a prevailing 20th Century Academic Zeitgeist that good art can only appeal to a small educated crowd. I guess the lesson I've learned from trying to gage the relation between popularity & its 'esteem' (for lack of a better word... but I mean 'greatness as perceived by a bunch of people who know greatness') is that it's often coincidental, or largely dependent on marketing. Blake's prophecies & Moby-Dick had to wait for upwards of a century before emerging from obscurity. Of course, they're difficult texts for any average reader. But so are things like Wordsworth's Prelude or "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", but those were soon devoured by huge masses & remain favorites.

That paragraph was tangential. I just wanted to inaugurate some Doggerel Poetry on this weblog, to compliment the tougher stuff. Didn't, in happier times, there used to be doggerel poets at the corner pub, the doggerel poet just one of a usual cast of characters one knew in the community. Those were the days before cars ripped up our society, but now we write doggerel poetry on the internet. And it gets e-mail-forwarded from California to your friends working desk jobs in Chicago. (Click on the little mail button at the bottom of this post.) And hip-hop now fills part of that human need. But what about drunk old white guys? Doesn't anyone want to contribute some doggerel poetry to www.itwaslost.org? James? Sam? Sarah? How about:

What are helicopters doing when they fly above?
Is it for money or is it for love?
Do you need a reason or do you just go?
Won't you take me for a ride up above San Francisco?

Would a helicopter swarm cause the people to alarm?
Is your fuel from Saudi or is it from a corn farm?
If I used one to commute, would I get to work early?
Won't you take me for a ride up above Berkeley?

The Blogosphere: Naughty Posting & Grown-up Catchy-Catchies

Some blogs are about blogging. Some blogs are about the Scooter Libby trial. I've noticed that many blogs, personal or otherwise, often cut & paste from the news. This serves a puzzling function, like just generally alerting the public what news stories you found relevant or interesting. I guess some bloggers even harbor the pretension that they're 'monitoring' the media. I cut & paste Melville quotes that sound like totally gay - I'm monitoring classic American Literature for its content & bias.

My mother keeps warning me to consider what I post on the internet, because a future job or school may reject me after discovering questionable shadows in my personal fountain of public artistic disclosures, or for confusing run-on sentences. Consider the lad who was rejected from an Ivy League when he bragged on some online venue that he had lied on his Financial Aide papers. Or the grade-schooler who was taken out of class to meet with the FBI about posting a presidential assassination threat on her MySpace page. Mom, I'm considerably more cautious than that, or maybe simply more innocent & less stupid. I tell her I design the content on this weblog to be impressive, maybe actually help me get a dream job or into some University.

But how clean do I have to be? I recently mentioned 'vaginal irrigation'. Is this a problem? And I recently refrained from reporting on the conversations at my last dinner party, as funny as they were, because I thought someone somewhere might be offended by humor at the sake of dead American soldiers. I was offended, actually, at my own jokes, & as I'm pretty much the one who reads this blog the most, offending a majority of your readers could be a serious blunder. But of course the more taboo an issue, the better fodder for humor. Do college admission boards google your blog with a hawkish nose for sketchy taste. I put the word 'fuck' in this blog's search engine & got two hits (three now). Who cares? Do HR departments really regularly do that? Such perverts!

Anyway, I wanted to cut & paste a news story about some of Dan Savage's filthy exploits. There's a whole Wikipedia entry on his re-definition of the word 'Santorum', deliberately making the name of the homophobic ex-Senator into the grossest term imaginable:

Santorum is a proposed neologism popularized by American humorist and sex-advice columnist Dan Savage in 2003 to "memorialize" former US Republican Senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania due to the controversy over his statements on homosexuality. The word became a successful Google bomb when Savage created a website for it, which unseated the Senator's official website as the top search result for his name on the Google search engine.

Savage asked his readers to submit disgusting sexual definitions for "santorum"; the winning definition was "the frothy mixture of lube and fecal matter that is sometimes the byproduct of anal sex."

I just love that aspect of revenge by manipulating the elastic English language. Some day Rick Santorum may actually find his picture in the dictionary next to his name. I also couldn't believe that Savage followed around 'conservative Republican Presidential hopeful' Gary Bauer on his campaign tour, licking doorknobs & handing him saliva-covered pens, attempting to infect him with influenza. What a genius!

Meanwhile, while I'm on the blogosphere, I wanted to congratulate my college roommate Sam Amidon on his new album, But This Chicken Proved Falsehearted. I've already over-listened to this album. There'll be a CD release party this Wednesday at Tonic in New York. Go!

Also, I was just listening to Gilbert & Sullivan's H.M.S. Pinafore. (I'm still finding all my old cds & slowly converting them to MP3s.) I had forgotten about this duet where Buttercup warns the Captain about the twist at the end, using all these pithy hints:

BUTT. Things are seldom what they seem,
Skim milk masquerades as cream;
Highlows pass as patent leathers;
Jackdaws strut in peacock's feathers.
CAPT. Very true,
So they do.
BUTT. Black sheep dwell in every fold;
All that glitters is not gold;
Storks turn out to be but logs;
Bulls are but inflated frogs.
CAPT. So they be,
Frequentlee.
BUTT. Drops the wind and stops the mill;
Turbot is ambitious brill;
Gild the farthing if you will,
Yet it is a farthing still.
CAPT. Yes, I know.
That is so.

Then, he, to prove he's understood her drift, invents these amazing irrelevant sayings:

CAPT. Though I'm anything but clever,
I could talk like that for ever:
Once a cat was killed by care;
Only brave deserve the fair.
BUTT. Very true,
So they do.
CAPT. Wink is often good as nod;
Spoils the child who spares the rod;
Thirsty lambs run foxy dangers;
Dogs are found in many mangers.
BUTT. Frequentlee,
I agree.
CAPT. Paw of cat the chestnut snatches;
Worn-out garments show new patches;
Only count the chick that hatches;
Men are grown-up catchy-catchies.
BUTT. Yes, I know,
That is so.

The Strange Names of AIDS Denialists

I was reading in Michael Specter's article in this week's New Yorker, that one of the prominent Australian AIDS Denialists' names is Eleni Papadopulos-Eleopulos. It seems hard to get taken seriously as a credible "medical physicist" with a name like Dr Papadopulos-Eleopulos. South Africa's Health Minister - notorious for refusing to accept that H.I.V. causes AIDS & advocating garlic as a cure, & currently too sick to do her job - is appropriately named Manto Tshabalala-Msimang. And of course, the most famous AIDS Denialist is the German Doctor Peter Duesberg, whose name, if you pronounce it with a bit of a German accent, sounds like a devise used in vaginal irrigation.

Music Review: Alarm Will Sound Live!

It was a hot day in Berkeley yesterday, the hottest day so far of 2007. I left work early to walk for forty-five minutes up to the Alarm Will Sound Concert in Hertz Hall at the University, & I was sweating in a thin shirt & white pants. (For those who think the Bay Area is summer year round, I must report that February was fricking freezing, & yesterday came as a sudden shock wave of college girls in floral skirts.) A friend of mine from high school, Mr Caleb Burhans, plays violin, viola, electric guitar, & sings countertenor for Alarm Will Sound, a contemporary classical music ensemble based in New York City. They were doing a “Composer Portrait” of Conlon Nancarrow, an American composer who disappeared to Mexico after fighting for the communists in the Spanish Civil War, & for forty years wrote exclusively for the player-piano. He had been frustrated by live musicians who couldn’t play his mathematical rhythms, & punching his own player-piano rolls liberated him to explore without the burdens of human-playability. (Think about how many educated classical musicians have problems with counting syncopations in 5/4 time, &c.) He frequently writes for two or more tempos simultaneously, & I believe he’s written music in meters like Square-Root-of-Two over Two.

The concert was well-received, altho attended by more older people than students. Possibly because of the $32 price tag. Their Nancarrow repertoire is far less cool than their previous projects. Their recording of acoustic versions of Aphex Twin songs was highlighted by the New York Times as a must-hear; their live concerts of it involved a whole slew of crazy instruments to imitate the electronic sounds. As trendy as it is to arrange Nancarrow’s Studies for Player Piano for chamber musicians, & as exciting as it can be to perform the crazy rhythms & dual-tempos live & well, these arrangements seemed very muddy. Two of them, Study for Player Piano No. 3A “Boogie-Woogie Suite” (arranged by Derek Bermel of Bang On A Can) & No. 2A (arr. by Gavin Chuck) are heavy on the jazz & rag influence, which is fun but a little cheesy in performance. It is a chaotic-big-band sound which results, in comparison to the recordings of the piano rolls, in which the rag-timey ones sound like Silvestre Revueltes put a Gershwin roll thru a textile machine. I guess what I’m trying to say is: that you’d think orchestrating the music would bring more of what’s going on out of the thick texture, but the opposite is the result. Alarm Will Sound had much of this music memorized, & they often stand & walk around the stage while playing it, which to me seems maddeningly difficult – but the successful effect is that you’re watching a cohesive band that knows its stuff & enjoys what they do (sometimes a rarity in the performance of 20^th Century Classics.) I guess they have no plans to record this music, & are putting it to rest pretty soon. I actually liked the performances of Nancarrow's pre-player-piano music much better, especially the meaty string quartet.

Coincidentally, last week, I finally got in the mail the CD/DVD of Alarm Will Sound performing Steve Reich Live at the Roxy in New York. I attended the taped-performance three years ago, & a perk of the ticket was they would send you a free copy. Apparently, there were some serious issues getting Sweet Spot DVD to release it, which are a little boring & businessy, but it didn’t get out by the time of all the Steve Reich 70^th Birthday Celebrations last year. I have to say, I think these performances of these three pieces – Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ; Sextet, & three songs from The Cave – are really first rate. It’s in the clarity, & fusion of the ensemble, & the youthful energy – for some reason, I think people in my generation, in their 20s & 30s, bring an essential something to Reich’s music that grey-haired old percussionists, like Reich’s own ensemble, lack. Alarm Will Sound has also provided the world with the best recordings of Tehilim & The Desert Music. Mr Burhans plays the rock star in Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices, and Organ, bouncing around with a microphone, picking out melodies from the texture & phasing them in & out with his sweet falsetto. And you can see me sitting there, next to four of my college friends, right behind him.

As for the genre, I feel like this is the first real live concert of Reich’s music that isn’t blabbed over by “interviews” (i.e., people saying boring things that aren’t as interesting as the music they’re blocking.) I know of several films or movies of Philip Glass’s music where the editors, operating under the assumption that the music is too dull to stand by itself, casually mix the interviews over it. Last week, I was watching that documentary about John Adams, Hail Bop, & they rarely let us hear more than twenty uninterrupted seconds of his music. A crucial element of this style is letting the audience get into the grooves & repetitions. Anyway, this is a live concert not a documentary, but especially with this kind of minimalism, it benefits from being performed well on video & uninterrupted. Also, did I mention you can see me sitting in the audience?

Photos: Fallen Leaf Lake & Desolation Wilderness, Fall 2004

These are photos from my first season working at the Stanford Sierra Conference Center, on Fallen Leaf Lake, which is just South of Lake Tahoe in California. Click on the image to see it larger.

“Dear old man,” she said, softening down, & a little shifting the subject, “when you think of that old kinsmen of yours, you know there must be a secret closet in this chimney.”

“Secret ash-hole, wife, why don’t you have it? Yes, I dare say there is a secret ash-hole in the chimney; for where do all the ashes go to that we drop down the queer hole yonder?”

“I know where they go to; I’ve been there almost as many times as the cat.”

“What devil, wife, prompted you to crawl into the ash-hole! Don’t you know that St Dunston’s devil emerged from the ash-hole? You will get your death one these days, exploring all about as you do. But supposing there be a secret closet, what then?”

“What, then? why what should be in a secret closet but – ”

“Dry bones, wife,” broke in I with a puff, while the sociable old chimney broke in with another.

-Herman Melville, “I and my Chimney” (1856)

Infinite sad mischief has resulted from the profane bursting open of secret recesses.

-Herman Melville, “I and my Chimney” (1856)

A man walks into a bar, & half of his head is an orange.

The bartender says: “If you don’t mind me asking, why is half of your head an orange?”

The man replies: “Well, it’s a funny story. I was in a mysterious cave in Turkmenistan, & I found a lamp, & when I rubbed it a magic genie came out & gave me three wishes. For my first wish, I asked that my wallet would always be full of money, so no matter where I was, & opened it, there’d be more bills in it.”

The bartender said: “Gee, that’s a pretty smart wish.”

The man says, “Yeah. For my second wish, I asked that no matter where I passed out, no matter how drunk or wasted I was, when I woke up, I would be in my own bed with no hangover.”

The bartender said: “Wow, that’s a really great wish. What was your third wish?”

The man says, “For my third wish, I asked that half of my head would be an orange.”

-Joke told to me by Miss Jennie Jo Lee.

From the Archives: The Tasin of jokes that are not funny

The Tasin of jokes that are not funny

This was the end of a paper I wrote for a class on Sufism, my senior year of college.

Khizr. Did you hear the one about the mystic who, realizing both light and darkness flow from the same head, embraced both?

Musa. No, I haven’t heard that one.

Khizr. His body and soul were elongated both up and down the river of life!

Khizr. What’s the difference between the ‘aynⁱ from which Iblis fell and the ‘ayn of ‘ayn from which Ahmad averted his gaze?

Musa. The source is unmoved by the motions it moves?

Khizr. How do you know? You know nothing. When citizens of the British Empire were visiting the Indian colony, the pricier cabins on the ships around the coast of Africa were on the left side there and the right side back – for a purer vision of the shore. This is where the expression ‘posh’ comes from – Port Out, Starboard Home. Direction determines everything.

Khizr. Did you hear the one about the Pharoah who only believed in himself?

Musa. Through the power of the One, We increased his plagues ninefold until he was an isolated unit of individuality?

Khizr. No. His pure atheism led unto an absolute annihilation and unification.

Khizr. What happened when Rabi‘a so witnessed the creator that it preoccupied her from gazing on the creationⁱⁱ?

Musa. What?

Khizr. What happened when Narcissus fell in love with his own image and drowned?

Musa. What?

Khizr. What?

Musa. They’re both dead?

Khizr. Didn’t I say to you that you would not be able to be patient with meⁱⁱⁱ?

Khizr. What happened when Echo pined away with love for Narcissus?

Musa. You will find me patient, God willing, and I will not disobey you in anything.

Khizr. Did you hear the one about the mystic who memorized the whole Book?

Musa. No, I have not.

Khizr. They released it in paperback.

Musa. No, really, what happened? Was he able to translate it into every moment in Time and Space across which he came? Did even his subconscious become a sign?

Khizr. Has the Lord again been telling you he will show you his face, and then merely crumbling mountains?

Khizr. Did you hear about the mystic who closed his eyes?

Musa. He ran into a tree?

Khizr. No. But the pigeon never crooned so mellifluous.

Khizr. Did you hear the one about the abject lover whose separation from God was complete?

Musa. No. What happened to him?

Khizr. He was given back his name, the Faithful.

Musa. But if there were no darkness, there would be all light.

Khizr. This is the parting between you and me.

i“Because of its rich semantic base, the Arabic word ‘ayn is frequently difficult to translate. It can mean ‘eye’, ‘source’, ‘spring’, or ‘essence’, or even ‘concrete manifestation’ of something.” Michael Sells, Early Islamic Mysticism, 1996, Paulist Press, New York; pg. 273.

ii ibid., pg.165

iii Qur’an 18:75, trans. Kristin Zahra Sands

E-mail: Letter to the New York Times about Poetry

I was inspired by this article in the New Yorker a few weeks ago by Dana Goodyear to send some poetry into a some publications, even if they were well out of my league. (I wasn't inspired by the talk of money, but by the discussions about style.) I had sort of misinterpreted her article as being a balanced piece of reporting about a complicated issue, like the money flowing thru the Poetry Foundation. Unfortunately, David Orr wrote a viscious response in today's New York Times, and it turns out Goodyear's article was a below-the-belt attack on all involved in the rich conservative poetry world. How was I supposed to know? He even complained about the length of her article and its colorful descriptions, which reminded me of when FoxNews told parents not to take their kids to see Happy Feet because it was both Left-Wing Environmentalist Propaganda and too long for their attention spans. The point I'm trying to make I wrote to the editor at the Times, to be lost in the annals of their inbox:

Date:	Sat, 10 Mar 2007 14:48:59 -0800 (PST)
From:	"James Welsch" <________@itwaslost.org>
Subject:	Orr's article on Poetry
To:	letters@nytimes.com

Editor,

It was strange that David Orr was so mean about Dana Goodyear's article in the New Yorker. I loved her article, and did not see it as a hit-piece on the Poetry Foundation - actually, it got me excited about Poetry Magazine and the Foundation, and I enjoyed reading about some of the people & issues involved. Orr's article, alternately, was a hit-piece, and left me disgusted at him. Of course she's been published a lot by the New Yorker: she works for them! If one of her themes was the new money flowing around the poetry world, so be it. It's better than choosing as a theme for your article, like, say, how a venerable old magazine sucks.

James Welsch
Berkeley, CA

E-mail: Communicating with Danny Curley Holt, & some highschool news archives

Date:	Wed, 7 Mar 2007 11:20:29 -0800 (PST)
From:	"James Welsch" <______@itwaslost.org>
Subject:	Little Miss
To:	"Danny Curley Holt" <________@yahoo.com>

D.C.

I'm sitting at work, googling, & I just found something crazy. Put this into google:

"Danny Holt" site:http://listserv.american.edu/

It's quite an artform, Google, like mining, but for treasures more mysterious.

You know, they're getting in trouble with publishers & copyright hawks, because they're scanning every book. They want to make every book ever published searchable.

I was thinking how impossible that would be with music. How could you scan an audio recording & make it searchable? Like googling for "L'homme arme".

I'm sorry we never spoke on the phone when you called months ago. I'm very flakey with my cellphone, but not flakey with other mediums, like talking to someone in person, or even electronic mail. What's the address to your new house? Is you piano white, black, or pink? I know you zip around at 90 miles per hour while talking on your cellphone, but I try & keep mine as far from my reproductive organs as possible. You know 200,000 Americans have died in car crashes since the invasion of Iraq, where, relatively, 3,000 Americans have died.

I keep my iPod on "random album" at work, & then skip the album if it's inappropriate. Bela Fleck playing classical music is playing right now, he's playing The Moonlight Sonata with Edgar Meyer. Who knew? Have you recorded "Wed"? I wish you'd send your latest recordings to 1985 Ashby Ave, Berkeley, CA 94703.

Well, I long to attend one of your salons. There are complicated issues involving why I never go South anymore.

Watch closely the new Alarm Will Sound DVD of live Reich. Yours truly is in the front row the audience, sometimes right under Caleb's armpit.

Speaking of whom, Alarm Will Sound plays Berkeley this weekend. I think it's all Nancarrow.

I live in this beautiful apartment. We have a guest futon & another couch, so you could theoretically arrive with a vanload of hippies & I could accommodate - so, if you're ever near the bay area with a vanload of hippies, they have a place to stay.

I was just ten feet from John Adams's butt the other day, conducting his new opera. I reviewed it here.

Why don't you play that first interlude from that sonata? It's so beautiful, & the world has no idea. I have issues with closure, which my therapist advizes me to get the fuck over. Actually, my therapist never swears, except when I'm [doing something offensive to] her from behind. I don't have a therapist, but if I did, she'd be a [derogatory slang for attractive female human].

Stravinsky's Symphony in C just came on now. Who knew?

Who's your girlfriend?

Love,
James

______________________________________________________________________

In regards to the above suggestion for Mr Holt to google himself in that listserv website: Someone has posted some selected archives of the E-NEWS from my high-school, the Interlochen Arts Academy. O, some fond memories can be found, mostly the listings for concerts we gave, during our young creative salad days. For instance, from March 10, 1999:

Composers Forum:  Thursday, March 11, 8:30 p.m., in the Chapel.

Featuring **world premieres** of works by Ayaka "Kew" Nishina,

Danny Holt, James Welsch, Steve Whipple, and faculty member Elaine

Broad.

From February 16, 2000:

CONGRATULATIONS: Seven Academy students were named finalists in the Arts Recognition and Talent Search (ARTS) program and received additional awards following a week of workshops and presentations in Florida. Writing student Onnesha Roychoudhuri, who received a level II award, was also invited to compete for a Presidential Scholar in the Arts Award. Other awardees include: Jaren Philleo (oboe) Level II; Shea Scruggs (oboe) Level I; James Welsch (composition) Level II; Bonnie Whiting (percussion) Level II; Jamie Polychronis, IAA '99, (flute) Level III; and Jessie Iott (writing) Level II. In addition, Academy students received seven Honorable Mentions and 15 Merit Awards prior to the January event. ARTS is a national program designed to identify, recognize, and encourage talented high school seniors who demonstrate excellence in dance, photography, theater, jazz, music, voice, visual arts, or writing.

From February 11^th, 1999:

Composers' Forum:  Friday, February 12, 8:00 p.m. in the Chapel.

Will feature works by Danny Holt, James Welsch, Ashley Fure, David

Stinson, Levi Taylor, Mr. Joe DeFazio, and special guest Dr. Doy

Baker.  If you always wanted to know what a THEREMIN was, this is

your chance to find out (and hear it played!).

I believe I was playing the theremin in an improvised improvisation with Nicole DeLaittre.

Is this boring for you yet? I’m still having a blast. From November 11^th, 1999:

COMPOSERS' FORUM: The first student Composers' Forum of the year is on Saturday, November 13, at 8:00pm in the Chapel. Come hear new music written by Ashley Fure, Steven Whipple, David Stinson, Jonathan Shapiro, Victor Giraldo, James Welsch, and faculty member John Boyle.

MISSING GLASSES: Kelly Greenfield is missing a pair of glasses in a green Lenscrafter soft case. If you find them, please return them to Kelly in Counseling Services, or contact her by email (greenfieldkk) and she will come to you. "The computer screen is much more difficult to read without them!" Kelly says.

MISSING NOTEBOOKS: Cassidy Barnes is missing two notebooks. His lab notebook is a dark green spiral and has his name on the inside, with Physics and Chemistry written on the first page. His chem binder is a lighter shade of green and has the Interlochen logo on the front and his name on the inside. If found, please contact Cassidy in Hemingway.

[…]

ROAD TO WELLNESS THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Someone asked the other day, "Where is the music we used to hear in the cafeteria?" The inquiry prompted an interest in what actually led to the practice of music being played over meals. Research indicates that it all started a long time ago...in England. When he wasn't beheading wives, Henry VIII kept a court band of 79 musicians on hand for his royal entertainment. Meanwhile, his daughter, Queen Elizabeth I, made popular the whole idea of dinner music. Word has it that she could not eat supper unless she was being serenaded. So, there you go. While not answering the original question, it is interesting. One should also note that more Thoughts For The Day are needed! Email your ideas to Michael Haynes (haynesma).

TODAY'S MENU: Lunch - beef barley soup, plain and flavored wing dings, vegan chop suey, brown rice, snow pea pods, deli. Dinner - vegetarian vegetable soup, pork chops, vegan stew, scalloped potatoes, baby carrots, hot cinnamon applesauce, deli.

Bulletin: Gabriel García Márquez's Eightieth Birthday Bash

From: S. Sandrigon Date: Mar 5, 2007 11:17 AM Subject Gabriel García Márquez's Eightieth Birthday Bash Body: Attention Friends, Fans, Player-Haters, After some scheduling-confusion, I am proud to finalize that TO-MORROW, Tuesday, March 6th, Gabriel García Márquez's 80th Birthday, there will be a celebratory party at my beautiful Berkeley Apartment at 1985 Ashby Ave. We had planned to have coca leaves & an adolescent prostitute, but unfortunately my hook-ups for both completely flaked on me. Does anyone have any connections for coca-leaves! As for my ties to the kiddie-porn industry, they have been severed after a complicated incident involving Ted Haggard, Tim Lahaye, a rotary huller, & a ten-gallon bucket of hummus. I apologize for the Tuesday Night engagement, but plans to move it to Friday were boggled by various conflicts. To-morrow will be Gabo's day itself, & we'll establish a direct phone link to Cuernavaca. Tuesday is the New Friday in Magical Reality. Fried plantains will be served, along with fancy beverages & of course my hookah. Selected readings will be respectfully orated. Contact me if you want to attend, & need instructions or whatever... Party! James A.k.a. S. Sandrigon, Prophetic Poet & American National Bard