Today is the birthday of the late great Henry Mancini (1924-1994). He won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and 20 Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.
I definitely feel the urge to put on some background music, pour some wine and give the cat a name…
*Ernest Dowson
Today is the birthday of Tennessee Williams (1911-1983) proud son of our flyover town and my flyover university. He didn’t actually graduate and I don’t think he was overly fond of it, but we like to claim him. He is buried here–against his wishes. He left most of his money to the University of the South, in Sewanee, Tennessee (an Episcopal school) in honor of his maternal grandfather, Walter Dakin, an alumnus of the university. When his sister Rose died in 1996 after many years in a mental institution, she bequeathed $7 million from her part of the Williams estate to The University of the South.
Tennessee wrote some famous plays–quite a few, in fact. Hollywood made some good movies out of those plays, although they all contain a lot of acting. One that is somewhat less fraught is The Night of the Iguana (1964) with Richard Burton and Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner. I have always liked it.
And I always liked the poem that Nonno, Hannah’s grandfather, spends the play writing:
How calmly does the orange branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair.Sometime while night obscures the tree
The zenith of its life will be
Gone past forever, and from thence
A second history will commence.A chronicle no longer gold,
A bargaining with mist and mould,
And finally the broken stem
The plummeting to earth; and thenAn intercourse not well designed
For beings of a golden kind
Whose native green must arch above
The earth’s obscene, corrupting love.And still the ripe fruit and the branch
Observe the sky begin to blanch
Without a cry, without a prayer,
With no betrayal of despair.O Courage, could you not as well
Select a second place to dwell,
Not only in that golden tree
But in the frightened heart of me?”
A toast to Tennessee Williams then, on his birthday!
Daughter #1 is driving home today so that she can assist me in babysitting the wee babes tomorrow–an all day assignment. Daughter #3 is in Nashville celebrating her sister’s bachelorette weekend and the boy will be at his store. We’ll survive, but it won’t be easy!
As far as movie picks for the weekend, I have to go with birthday boys William Shatner and Louis L’Amour.
Think of the possibilities!
We could watch The Brothers Karamazov (1958)…
…or Hondo (1953)…
…or a Star Trek marathon…
…or any number of Sackett movies…
As for me, I’ll toast Billy Collins, who also celebrates a birthday today.
“The Chairs That No One Sits In”
You see them on porches and on lawnsdown by the lakeside,usually arranged in pairs implying a couplewho might sit there and look outat the water or the big shade trees.The trouble is you never see anyonesitting in these forlorn chairsthough at one time it must have seemeda good place to stop and do nothing for a while.Sometimes there is a little tablebetween the chairs where no oneis resting a glass or placing a book facedown.It might be none of my business,but it might be a good idea one dayfor everyone who placed those vacant chairson a veranda or a dock to sit down in themfor the sake of rememberingwhatever it was they thought deservedto be viewed from two chairsside by side with a table in between.The clouds are high and massive that day.The woman looks up from her book.The man takes a sip of his drink.Then there is nothing but the sound of their looking,the lapping of lake water, and a call of one birdthen another, cries of joy or warning—it passes the time to wonder which.
Interesting side-note: Jonathan Edwards, the great 18th century minister and philosopher, who died on this date in 1758, is remembered today on the Lutheran Calendar of Saints. He is not included on the calendar of the Episcopal Church. Quite an oversight on our part, I must say.
Have a great weekend. Do what you think is best.
*Hondo Lane
Good morning! There’s nothing like some Mandisa to start your day off right! And it is important to start your day off right.
This is the day which the Lord has made;
let us rejoice and be glad in it.
(Psalm 118:24)
My mother, who was not one to scold or correct, did tell me once, when I was grousing about something as an adolescent, that this is the day which the Lord has made, and you ought not to complain about it, but, indeed, rejoice about it. And for Pete’s sake, don’t waste it! That advice struck a cord in me and I never forgot it.
IT IS A MOMENT of light surrounded on all sides by darkness and oblivion. In the entire history of the universe, let alone in your own history, there has never been another just like it and there will never be another just like it again. It is the point to which all your yesterdays have been leading since the hour of your birth. It is the point from which all your tomorrows will proceed until the hour of your death. If you were aware of how precious it is, you could hardly live through it. Unless you are aware of how precious it is, you can hardly be said to be living at all.
“This is the day which the Lord has made,” says the 118th Psalm. “Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” Or weep and be sad in it for that matter. The point is to see it for what it is because it will be gone before you know it. If you waste it, it is your life that you’re wasting. If you look the other way, it may be the moment you’ve been waiting for always that you’re missing.
All other days have either disappeared into darkness and oblivion or not yet emerged from them. Today is the only day there is.
– Frederick Buechner, Whistling in the Dark
“If the day and the night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal- that is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.”
―
“Write it on your heart
that every day is the best day in the year.
He is rich who owns the day, and no one owns the day
who allows it to be invaded with fret and anxiety.Finish every day and be done with it.
You have done what you could.
Some blunders and absurdities, no doubt crept in.
Forget them as soon as you can, tomorrow is a new day;
begin it well and serenely, with too high a spirit
to be cumbered with your old nonsense.This new day is too dear,
with its hopes and invitations,
to waste a moment on the yesterdays.”
―
I may have said all this before, but it bears repeating. Write it on your heart.
And here’s a little Stephen Stills on the subject:
Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice…
Stay, stay at home, my heart, and rest;
Home-keeping hearts are happiest,
For those that wander they know not where
Are full of trouble and full of care;
To stay at home is best.
Weary and homesick and distressed,
They wander east, they wander west,
And are baffled and beaten and blown about
By the winds of the wilderness of doubt;
To stay at home is best.
Then stay at home, my heart, and rest;
The bird is safest in its nest;
O’er all that flutter their wings and fly
A hawk is hovering in the sky;
To stay at home is best.
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Looking forward to staying home this weekend, but in the meantime, enjoy Thursday, hawks and all.
Can you believe that a week from today is Ash Wednesday? Where did February go? I mean really.
Well, today George Herbert (1593 – 1633) is commemorated on the calendar of saints throughout the Anglican Communion.
“The Herbert Niche” at Salisbury Cathedral
Herbert wrote poetry in English, Latin and Greek. Shortly before his death, he sent the manuscript of The Temple to Nicholas Ferrar, the founder of a semi-monastic Anglican religious community at Little Gidding, reportedly telling him to publish the poems if he thought they might “turn to the advantage of any dejected poor soul”, otherwise to burn them. Thanks to Ferrar, all of Herbert’s English poems were published in The Temple: Sacred Poems and Private Ejaculations, with a preface by Ferrar, shortly after his death in 1633. The book went through eight editions by 1690.
Here’s one of his most famous poems, “The Flower”.
How fresh, oh Lord, how sweet and cleanAre thy returns! even as the flowers in spring;To which, besides their own demean,The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring.Grief melts awayLike snow in May,As if there were no such cold thing.Who would have thought my shriveled heartCould have recovered greenness? It was goneQuite underground; as flowers departTo see their mother-root, when they have blown,Where they togetherAll the hard weather,Dead to the world, keep house unknown.These are thy wonders, Lord of power,Killing and quickening, bringing down to hellAnd up to heaven in an hour;Making a chiming of a passing-bell.We say amissThis or that is:Thy word is all, if we could spell.Oh that I once past changing were,Fast in thy Paradise, where no flower can wither!Many a spring I shoot up fair,Offering at heaven, growing and groaning thither;Nor doth my flowerWant a spring shower,My sins and I joining together.But while I grow in a straight line,Still upwards bent, as if heaven were mine own,Thy anger comes, and I decline:What frost to that? what pole is not the zoneWhere all things burn,When thou dost turn,And the least frown of thine is shown?And now in age I bud again,After so many deaths I live and write;I once more smell the dew and rain,And relish versing. Oh, my only light,It cannot beThat I am heOn whom thy tempests fell all night.These are thy wonders, Lord of love,To make us see we are but flowers that glide;Which when we once can find and prove,Thou hast a garden for us where to bide;Who would be more,Swelling through store,Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.
He’s pretty great, don’t you think?
*Herbert, from “The Pearl”
I sing the Sofa. I, who lately sang
Truth, Hope, and Charity, and touched with awe
The solemn chords, and with a trembling hand,
Escaped with pain from that advent’rous flight,
Now seek repose upon a humbler theme:
The theme though humble, yet august and proud
The occasion—for the Fair commands the song.*
I have been fighting a cold all week. I have gone into work, done my duty, and crawled home to my spot on the sofa where I curl up in front of the telly until 8:30 p.m. when I retire for the evening. It is not exactly an exciting life I live under normal circumstances, but with a cold…zut alors!
Anyway, I am grateful for my Puffs with Lotion…
and my blue sofa…
And the Christmas amaryllis has bloomed! Huzzah!
Certainly a cheering sight in the face of unending gray, cloudy days!
*From “The Sofa” by William Cowper. You can read the whole poem here. The paintings are by Sargent, Chambiniere, Liotard.
Another week almost in the books…it was long, rainy and filled with the usual ups and downs, swings and misses, and bombshell drops at work.
I am always cheered by the photos the boy takes and texts of the wee babes at their preschool. I love this one of Lottie and her friend Mattie embracing/greeting each other. 
The last two are of a color matching game they were playing at school. Remarkable children!
This weekend I have more plans on my social calendar than usual. Later today daughter #1 is driving here from Mid-MO and then I will drive her to the airport in the morning. She is going to a conference in Washington D.C. and will also spend a night with daughter #2 and DN in Maryland. They are going to have way too much fun.
Saturday night is the Elegant Italian Dinner at church, a much-anticipated annual event where we eat lasagna and salad by candlelight and hope that nobody knocks the bar over (like last year). The boy and daughter #3 are attending with us this year while the wee babes enjoy pizza in the nursery. We are delighted that they are going with us.
Since today is the birthday of James Dean (1931-1955), I suggest watching one of his three movies this weekend: Rebel Without a Cause (1955), East of Eden (1955) or Giant (1956). I will probably opt for Rebel Without a Cause. Because, hello.
It is also the birthday of another of my faves, William Tecumseh Sherman.
So I will toast him tonight.
William Tecumseh Sherman, excerpt from a personal letterI confess, without shame, I am sick
and tired of fighting—its glory is
all moonshine; even success
the most brilliant is over dead
and mangled bodies, with the
anguish and lamentations of distant
families, appealing to me for sons,
husbands and fathers; tis only those
who have never heard a shot,
never heard the shriek and groans
of the wounded and lacerated that cry
aloud for more blood, more vengeance,
more desolation–Johnny Noiπ
Have a great weekend, travel safely and make good choices.
Be still my heart.
And, hey, Ted Drewes opens for its 90th season on February 12!
@explorestlouis
*Del Griffith in Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987)
Well, it is getting very cold here in flyover country. Not surprising, since it is January. But you know, people like to get panicky about weather.
I must say, it is the kind of weather that makes one want to curl up on the couch and read a good book or watch a good movie.
“To enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold, for there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable any more. For this reason a sleeping apartment should never be furnished with a fire, which is one of the luxurious discomforts of the rich. For the height of this sort of deliciousness is to have nothing but the blanket between you and your snugness and the cold of the outer air. Then there you lie like the one warm spark in the heart of an arctic crystal.”
–Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
Oh, Mr. Melville, you are the best.
*William Shakespeare
The painting is by Mary Cassatt
Today is the birthday of Robert Burns (January 25, 1759–July 21, 1796)–beloved Scottish poet and lyricist. There are memorials to Burns all over the world: Scotland, England, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, America…
…from Central Park…
…to Cheyenne, Wyoming…
…and even on the campus of my own flyover university where he was a favorite poet of many of the university trustees circa 1928. Artist Robert Aitken (1878–1949) completed the eight foot high bronze, which was ‘erected under the auspices of the Burns Club of St. Louis by admirers of Robert Burns and his genius’.
Speaking of which, in 2004 the Robert Burns World Federation had 400 clubs affiliated to it and these reflected a membership of approximately 60,000. Burns Clubs exist throughout the world “to encourage and cherish the memory of Robert Burns, to foster a love of his writings and generally to encourage an interest in the Scots Language and Literature.” (Wikipedia)
Well, even Bob Dylan has named Burns as his greatest inspiration. And I did not know that Michael Jackson’s good friend, David Gest, theorized that “the King of Pop’s influential Thriller video was inspired by Burns’ poem Tam O’ Shanter, which tells the story of a drunk who passes a graveyard and witnesses witches, zombies and demons dancing to the tunes of the devil on bagpipes.”
So tonight we’ll toast the great Scot, maybe even with a dram of Scotch. Of course, we’ll have to watch something appropriate…
Whisky Galore! (1949)
Greyfriars Bobby (1961)
Local Hero (1983)
Dear Frankie (2004)
Tunes of Glory (1960)
Chariots of Fire (1981)
I Know Where I’m Going (1945)
These are all great movies! And there are many more besides…This could be a weekend endeavor!
From Scenes like these, old SCOTIA’S grandeur springs,
That makes her lov’d at home, rever’d abroad:
Princes and lords are but the breath of kings,
‘An honest man’s the noble work of GOD.’
Have a great weekend!
dual personalities 