Theme
Variations
Because? Because? Because?
Because it’s good to remember that there was a time when America’s black musicians actually contributed positive visions and emotions to music and the culture at large. And that time may come again.
Theme
Variations
Because? Because? Because?
Because it’s good to remember that there was a time when America’s black musicians actually contributed positive visions and emotions to music and the culture at large. And that time may come again.
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from EAST COKER — Eliot
Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.
There is a time for the evening under starlight,
A time for the evening under lamplight
(The evening with the photograph album).
Love is most nearly itself
When here and now cease to matter.
Old men ought to be explorers
Here or there does not matter
We must be still and still moving
Into another intensity
For a further union, a deeper communion
Through the dark cold and the empty desolation,
The wave cry, the wind cry, the vast waters
Of the petrel and the porpoise. In my end is my beginning.
NEW Real World Address for Complaints, Brickbats, and Donations
Beneath the Aegean
When all Earth’s seas shall Levitate,
Dark shawled within the skies,
Upon our eyes will Starfish dance
Their waltz of Blind surprise.
The sun will Rise within wine Dark
As Argonauts imbibed,
Whose drunken arms embrace that sleep
Where Phaeton’s horses Stride.
Upon all of Earth’s wind-sanded shores,
As dolphins Learn to soar,
All we once were on the land
Shall be sealed behind the door
Of Ivory and Chastened Gold,
That the Mystery solved complete
Shall never til the seas’ Long fall
Wake mariners from their sleep.
— Van der Leun
Your Say
Song of Myself
I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this
air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their
parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
— Walt Whitman
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
— The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot
SPRING
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Cool song. Memories . . . kinda made me sad.
Not related to this posting, but it appears the zman blog has been suspended.
I guess they are in a censorship frenzy now.
Imperator Rex/Vachel Lindsay as well today. ‘Ol Remus reported Vault-Co has shut down and had his archives wiped out.
The Circle of Filth is closing in on the truth-sayers.
Are you sure about Z man? I was just there.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G4jnaznUoQ
I was at zman just now. the straight url thezman.com issues a redirect to http://thezman.com/wordpress/
As I grow yet older, I value Motown more. More even than the British invasion.
And just what did happen to our black brethren? When they were truly oppressed, they produced the Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Gospel, Jazz, Motown, and they covered the Standards (which we never hear anymore). Now they give us Rap is Crap. Was there a mutation? There are NO musical blacks anymore.
For that matter, aside from prancing around football fields and basketball courts, black contribute nothing to our culture.
1964…dancing in the streets. 2018…shooting in the streets.
I agree with Bob Sykes on black contributions to culture but I’ll extend it by adding, or any other thing in life. As far as their “music” goes, Noel Gallagher’s remarks on “jazz” are equally well applicable to anything beyond the Motown genres.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soOJHt_2IPc
As a former resident of the Memphis area, and musician on Beale Street, I can tell you there are still quite a few black musicians in Memphis playing and singing the blues. Most of them spit on rap. In fact, on Facebook, one of them recently said “rap is dead; can someone please shoot it?”
Whatever was wrong with it yesterday, it seems to be working now. Yesterday it kept coming up with “this account has been suspended!”
“And just what did happen to our black brethren?”
===============
In the mid 60’s Lyndon Baines said, “I’ll have these nigga’s voting democrat for the next 1000 years.”, and then he signed into law a document that converted weak negro’s back into slaves. It’s been downhill ever since.