Happy New Year (again),
Paul Kinscherff took me to task yesterday because he claimed I had begun the year with undue negativity. I had said that we were starting the year with meaningless college bowl games. Fair enough; my comment was a bit negative. That said, these games actually meaningless every year! Of course you’re right that that sports plays an important role in our national psyche. And entertainment in these tough times is important.
Time for poetry and music…
POETRY
Terrance Hayes, winner of the National Book Award winner for Poetry, from American Sonnet for My Past and Future Assassin:
Seven of the ten things I love in the face
Of James Baldwin concern the spiritual
Elasticity of his expressions. The sashay
Between left & right eyebrow, for example.
The crease between his eyes like a tuning
Fork or furrow, like a riverbed branching
Into tributaries like lines of rapturous sentences
Searching for a period. The dimple in his chin
Narrows & expands like a pupil. Most of all,
I love all of his eyes. And those wrinkles
The feel & color of wet driftwood in the mud
Around those eyes. Mud is made of
Simple rain & earth, the same baptismal
Spills & hills of dirt James Baldwin is made of.
And because songs are poetry too, here are lyrics from Sheryl Crow, which Jerry Lucido says describes the relationship some people have had with a certain man in the news for the past four years:
God I feel like hell tonight
The tears of rage I cannot lie
I'd be the last to help you understand
Are you strong enough to be my man
My man
Nothing's true, and nothing's right
So let me be alone tonight
'Cause you can't change the way I am
Are you strong enough to be my man
Lie to me, I promise I'll believe
Lie to me, but please don't leave
I have a face I cannot show
I make the rules up as I go
Just try and love me if you can
Are you strong enough to be my man
My man…
When I've shown you
That I just don't care
When I'm throwing punches in the air
When I'm broken down and I can't stand
Would you be man enough to be my man
Lie to me, I promise I'll believe
Lie to me, but please don't leave
MUSIC
The new year is here. And with it, I hope we will find ourselves in theatres shortly. In the meantime, here are Jimmy Fallon and Andrew Rannels (star of Book of Mormon and the new TV version of Prom) doing an amazing medley of Broadway songs to tell the story of 2020: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjbLY46Vaq8
Finally, we can all use a little “feel good” music from home. Here is an EL (English Learners) class with an original composition, with their teacher. It starts with the words, “I know you’re having a bad day…” The good news is they say “we’re holding on ‘til September” (which is when there will be a new school year in person…): https://vimeo.com/413100268. Thanks, Ron Stern, for forwarding this.
Have a great weekend,
Glenn
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