The sunlight that pours in, falling over the sash like crisp, clear water, washing the walls, spilling over the coverlet and floor, refreshes like no rain has in years. I acknowledge the need for, even the longing, sometimes, for rain, but nothing comes close in rain, at certain other times, to giving me the reviving strength I find in showers of sunlight.
Is it my imagination, or is it a little bit hot in here???
Femme Fatale
Barbara is standing by to cut my scruffy hair:
but, say–doesn’t that look a bit like an electric chair?
Look at that pair of scissors–oh, boy howdy, are they sharp!
Will my coiffure just leave me playing sad songs on the harp?
I’d say it’s mighty hot in here–a preview glimpse of Hell,
Or maybe just a purgatory-hint, that hairspray smell–
I’m not so absolutely sure that something here is wrong;
and yet, what’s so darned horrible in leaving hair this long?
Is it sheer paranoia and delusion of myself–
Hey! What’s that creepy science stuff in tubes up on the shelf?
I’m getting awfully shaggy, yes, it’s true–but not a Nut!
(I merely hope it’s nothing but my hair that will get cut!)
Oh, Barbara, I am nervous, so please, kindly, Dear, refrain
from trimming quite so near my throbbing jugular, poor vein.
And if you have to croak me (does this happen very often?),
at least make sure I’m wearing stylish hair there in my coffin.
One way or another, I’ll be a hot number when I come out of here.
Dreamlike days wandering leisurely about in a favorite place . . . if there’s a heaven, it will have had stiff competition from certain days on earth. Yesterday here in San Francisco continued to be spectacularly sunny and full of the usual beloved scenery, friendly folk and delectable dining (more on that tomorrow). The air was filled with floral exuberance, food-stall enticements, salt tang from the waterfront, and the sounds of birds, humans and cable car bells all singing of happiness. Bicyclists jostled for space with meandering pram pushers, pedestrians, cars, buses, trolleys and hand-carts.
I forget, between times, what a vertical city SF is, not only in its hilly terrain but in the many buildings and monuments that spike up in a fountain-like spray of height and the tall trees all around and the masts of innumerable boats and ferries as one nears the waterfront. I think somehow this raises my spirits as well, a little like the developers of the High Gothic style’s vertical temples of pillars and points aimed at Heaven. Thanks to a Muni passport for occasional breaks from the walking, it’s still a magnificent city for traipsing around on foot for most of the day without flagging too badly. Being elated by the beauty all the livelong day, I am distracted from any such mundane concerns as it is.
And it’s nearing time to do just this again today, so I shall leave you with some more glimpses of our happy peregrinations.
Because I’m told that Sharing is a good thing.
Much of the repertoire categorized as Early Music by us modern folk was, whether religious or secular in nature, directly connected with the ideas of Heaven and Hell. Not surprisingly, a great many of these songs used love–doomed or newly married, joyful or unrequited, chaste or wildly earthy, or whatever brand was of interest in the moment–as the vehicle for exploring the concepts of Heaven and Hell. We are only able to conceive of and interpret any grand philosophy or construct through the lens of the familiar, and best so, through what excites our attention and preoccupies our waking hours. Love, in all of its myriad aspects, is a logical choice indeed for such explorations.
The programs sung and played thus far this week at Berkeley have been unsurprisingly full of love, lust, longing and loneliness and all of their cousinly affections, then. I had to laugh when a humorous piece contrasting Heaven and Hell included text and visual references in the performance that made Hell seem remarkably likely to be just another name for Texas, but that’s merely a reflection of this same recognition factor that makes songs of love such a universal language, so globally appealing.The whole festival this week is in itself a fine microcosm and affirmation of this communal language, created by not only the sharing of these great and even the not-so-great pieces of music, but also richly by the sharing of our common interest in music and the arts and the newly fledged acquaintances and enriched relationships that come from our all crossing paths in this event, by coming together as it were to sing the same song and revisit our sense of love and its wonders.
Now, let the players and singers strike up another chord!
Art-Colored Glasses 