Buttercupchappati Chronicles

lock and load

Hmmm, less than two weeks before I leave and I am fairly sure I have my digital entertainment options covered. (What is this fear of boredom!) Now may have to stop distracting self with electronics and look at more mundane packing requirements like knickers and shampoo...

So - actual books in hand? Two: Modern Oral Amdo Tibetan and Tibetan-English-Chinese Dialogue In The Hospital, winners both.

On Darth the mini-tab/e-reader thingy? This is where it gets seriously fun:

All 6 books of the Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett -
    Game Of Kings
    Queens Play
    The Disorderly Knights
    Pawn in Frankincense
    The Ringed Castle
    Checkmate
Anna Karenina*
Jane Eyre*
Pride and Prejudice*
Japanese Fairy Tales*
The Wind In The Willows
War and Peace*
Siddhartha*
The Three Musketeers*
These Old Shades
Devils Cub
The Heart Of Understanding - commentary on the Heart Sutra
What Makes You Not A Buddhist
Niccolo Rising
The Spring Of The Ram
The Mists Of Avalon
The Hare With Amber Eyes
A Tiny Bit Marvellous
Mrs Frys Diary
Old Path White Clouds
Wolf Hall
A Clash Of Kings
A Dance With Dragons
A Feast For Crows
A Game Of Thrones
A Storm of Swords
*free to download from a benevolent internet deity

Now the ipod, here is the stuff to listen to, the spoken books, (oh and The Lord Of The Rings e-book)

Is the list too long? Should I run it together like Rat does when describing his picnic hamper to Mole when they have their first adventure together?

"What's inside it?" asked the Mole, wriggling with curiosty.
"There's cold chicken inside it," replied the Rat briefly; "coldtonguecoldhamcoldbeefpickledgherkinssaladfrenchrollscresssandwichespottedmeat
gingerbeerlemonadesodawater -"
"O stop, stop." cried the Mole in ecstasies: "This is too much!"
"Do you really think so?" inquired the Rat seriously. "It's only what I always take on these little excursions;"

Or should I just say lots.

Lots.  (Twenty six, but don't tell anyone)

Hundreds of hours of listening pleasure, in my own language.

And music, again, lots.

And things to watch - may all the Gods bless you Mr Jobs, I love my Apple stuff! I have the last two episodes of Sex and the City, Rear Window, Out Of Africa, an episode of Dr Who - The Waters Of Mars, and four episodes of Invader Zim, because I can.

Think I'm good to go.

p.s.
there is quite a lot of poetry too, I'd forgotten about because its stored in a different location, and of course all my text books and manuals!

p.p.s.
The Wind In The Willows is one of my most loved books forever and I always take it with me if I can. I even took it on our honeymoon - a truth!

p.p.p.s.
TWITW actually has two perfect picnics:
      "Rat hurried off home. There he got out the luncheon basket and packed a simple meal, in which, remembering the stranger's origin and preferences, he took care to include a yard of long French bread, a sausage out of which the garlic sang, some cheese which lay down and cried, and a long-necked straw-covered flask containing bottled sunshine shed and garnered on far Southern slopes."

 

Ah, Neruda...

"I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees."

 

Oh ok, here is the whole beautiful thing:

"Every day you play with the light of the universe.
Subtle visitor, you arrive in the flower and the water.
You are more than this white head that I hold tightly
as a cluster of fruit, every day, between my hands.

You are like nobody since I love you.
Let me spread you out among yellow garlands.
Who writes your name in letters of smoke among the stars of the south?
Oh let me remember you as you were before you existed.

Suddenly the wind howls and bangs at my shut window.
The sky is a net crammed with shadowy fish.
Here all the winds let go sooner or later, all of them.
The rain takes off her clothes.

The birds go by, fleeing.
The wind. The wind.
I can contend only against the power of men.
The storm whirls dark leaves
and turns loose all the boats that were moored last night to the sky.

You are here. Oh, you do not run away.
You will answer me to the last cry.
Cling to me as though you were frightened.
Even so, at one time a strange shadow ran through your eyes.

Now, now too, little one, you bring me honeysuckle,
and even your breasts smell of it.
While the sad wind goes slaughtering butterflies
I love you, and my happiness bites the plum of your mouth.

How you must have suffered getting accustomed to me,
my savage, solitary soul, my name that sends them all running.
So many times we have seen the morning star burn, kissing our eyes,
and over our heads the gray light unwind in turning fans.

My words rained over you, stroking you.
A long time I have loved the sunned mother-of-pearl of your body.
I go so far as to think that you own the universe.
I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells,
dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.

I want
to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees."

 

Now that is a start to the week!

book rescue

A Better World Books day on friday, happy dance.

In this parcel is a lovely second hand Everyman edition of the The Complete Poems of John Donne. It was printed in 1991, so not very old, but it looks like its had a life. This one was printed and bound in Germany.

It's an ex-library book; I love getting these because I think of all the people who have read it before me, or sometimes , like the Tibetan Medicine books I acquire, I just know that no-one has read it at all before me.

This one I am not so sure, there are a few pencil marks next to some of the poems, so I am guessing a student borrowed this for their semester on Donne, or English Poets.

What makes me smile is that it's from The Public Library of Nashvile and Davidson County, and I keep trying to play Donne in my head with a Country and Western flavour.

But what makes me wince is the callous stamp inside the front cover:

"Discarded
from the Nashville Public Library"

Ouch

Couldn't that have been phrased a little better? After 20 years of faithful service?
No longer required, let go, not popular, deemed surplus to requirements.
Discarded is awful.
I am officially rescuing this book and promising to give it a good home!

And now good morrow to our waking soules

 

some spare time and a mini love affair

So - I got an impromptu day to myself, kind of.

After the meditation class this morning, my patient rang to change her appointment. That's ok, it happens, life happens to all of us. It's not something I get too upset with.

Free time and the number two son at home all day, that's where the path goes all dark and twisty.

You know that what's coming next is not going to be good when he appears asking how his Brownie points are? With four, count them, four pairs of pants in hand that need the hems taken up.

Seriously? I thought I was having a day off.
Brownie points?
When he still owes me churros from our last bet (the standard wager in our house)!

Thankfully I am in the grips of a little love affair and it's tiding me over all the domsestic tedium

Why has it taken me so long to meet Wislawa Szymborska?

It was love at first sight when I found a copy of "Here" at Readings.
That picture is of  someone you want to be your best friend, immediately.

And the writing is sublime.

But it gets better, I open the book at a random page (the only way to read new poetry) and there it is, five perfectly crafted lines about my favourite painting.

Vermeer

So long as that woman from the Rijksmuseum
in painted quiet and concentration
keeps pouring milk day after day
from the pitcher to the bowl
the World hasn't earned
the world's end.

Wislawa Szymborska

sigh, when I grow up I want to write like that, or paint like this...

a few fragments from amazing women

Poetry season, seasonable, and forever, and always

especially these exceptional women

 

"Bodily"

From that bomb shell moon in yet another lovely dress
To the deep mahogany sheen of a roach
I am trying to take an appreciative approach
To life in your wake
I focus on the quiet now
And occasionally I'll fall asleep somehow
And emptiness has its solace
In that there's nothing left to take

Ani Difranco

 

"The Last Song"

how can you stand it
he said
the hot oklahoma summers
where you were born
this humid thick air
is choking me
and i want to go back
to new mexico

it is the only way
i know how to breathe
an ancient chant
that my mother knew
came out of a history
woven from wet tall grass
in her womb
and I know no other way
than to surround my voice
with the summer songs of crickets
in this moist south night air

oklahoma will be the last song

i'll ever sing

            Joy Harjo

 

"Nonreading"

Bookstores don't provide

a remote control for Proust,

you can't switch
to a soccer match,

or a quiz show, win a Cadillac.

We live longer
but less precisely
and in shorter sentences.

We travel faster, farther, more often,

but bring back slides instead of memories.

            Wislawa Szymorska

a new one

Two thousand and eleven, a year well launched with friends and family, laughter, dancing, singing, momo's, Texas chili, margaritas and The Rocky Horror Picture Show on dvd.

I suspect the horror part was all of us doing the time warp some time around midnight, but anyway...

It was cozy - and that is one of my main words for this coming year. I want to snuggle in and read, study, work, create, be myself; with occasional outings for travel where I do all that, just in a different place.

Key words for 2011:

reflection

meditation

mantra

reading

study

music - really listening, not just playing in the background

healing - myself and my patients

art

writing

solitude

gratitude

poetry

a dharma year
a catching up year
a year where I return to Amdo - always!
a year where I say hello to myself, everyday

well - resolution comes from resolve, so let's just see.
Intention is everything, I tell everyone else that! Best listen to my own awesome advice.

Happy new year everyone!
Peaceful, safe, prosperous and brilliant.

back to the christmas thing

Still struggling, sad but true, no christmas spirit hiding anywhere at all. Nothing to define this time as special.

Then I found this poem!

When I had my shop, and as a general part of my self-imposed life task of being not ordinary, my decorations for the festive season were different. (And always included a letter to Santa asking for among other things - Johhny Depp in my stocking. Still waiting big guy!)

And on the last Christmas, I found as many Christmas poems as I could, and more importantly, ones I could stomach, and put them in the window.

So we had e.e.cummings, Robert Burns, Dylan Thomas, and lastly the fabulous Abigaile Housemans. I had never heard of her before and have been able to find out very little since.

But here is some magnificent writing.

I don't know about you, but it kick-started my heart when I first read it, and again this week when I re-found it.

christmas list
and christmas wish
all apart of the christmas theme
without any of it its like there is no
meaning
but im here to tell
im here to yell
that christmas is not all about you
christmas she get you in the spirit for
what you need to do
help the poor
help the needy
help the ones that dont get this or that
help the ones that have that and this
christmas is not all about you
if i need to yell or scream
to tell you what christmas means
i will
i promise
because christmas is not all about me
its not all about you
just what you need to do

 

The summer had inhaled, and held its breath too long...

What a perfect first line.

I first heard the song "Comin Back To Me" sung by Rickie Lee Jones, on her Pop Pop album. It was love at first listen. The songwriter as poet has always been something special to me and these lyrics are an incredible example. Spare, poignant, and so evocative.

As is Rickie's expression of this masterpiece.

(And before the Jefferson Airplane fans line up to stone me in the street, please remember I was born in 1960 and the song was released in 1967)

And not being curious about covers it was a shamefully long time before I sought out the original. Also, of course, amazing.

I have been re-visiting some albums (do we still call them that?) that have meant a lot to me, and I have to say that when I listened to Rickie singing this song tonight, I held my breath so I would not sob. 

I like the original, but am loyal to the RLJ version, she extracts something that lay beneath the original recording and takes the lyrics to a place far beyond. I wonder if Marty Balin likes her cover?

Anyway, I am sharing them both here, Rickie first because that's the way I heard it first.

bit of a melt down yesterday

it's allowed.  I am today grateful for any and every good deed that I have ever done that added up to enough good karma to have Gangster Girl in my life.

Nothing speaks to that delicious misery of the long dark night of the soul like the poetry of a great angst driven ever-so-manic woman.

Sexton or Plath?

For me it is always Anne Sexton. She is more honest somehow. I feel like she writes with a pen carved from her own bones and dipped in their marrow.  There are no secrets here.

The Red Shoes      
 
"I stand in the ring
In the dead city
And tie on the red shoes.
Everything that was calm
Is mine, the watch with an ant walking,
The toes, lined up like dogs
The stove long before it boils toads,
The parlor, white in winter, long before flies,
The doe lying down on the moss long before the bullet.
I tie on the red shoes.

They are not mine.
They are my mother's.
Her mother's before
Handed down like an heirloom
But hidden like shameful letters.
The house and the street where they belong
Are hidden and all the women, too,
Are hidden.

All those girls
Who wore the red shoes,
Each boarded a train that would not stop.
Stations flew by like suitors and would not stop.
They all danced like trout on the hook
They were played with.
They tore off their ears like safety pins.
Their arms fell off them and became hats
Their heads rolled off and sang down the street.
And their feet---oh God, their feet in the market place---
Their feet, those two beetles, ran from the corner
And then danced forth as if they were proud.
Surely, people exclaimed,
Surely they are mechanical. Otherwise…

But the feet went on.
The feet could not stop.
They were wound up like a cobra that sees you.
They were elastic pulling itself in two.
They were islands during an earthquake.
They were ships colliding and going down.
Never mind you and me.
They could not listen.
They could not stop.
What they did was the death dance.

What they did would do them in."
        Anne Sexton

Breakfast, book shops, poetry and painting

All in one delicious Sunday morning.

PRS and I headed towards the city for a change on Sunday and spent some time on Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, arguably the home of cool in Melbourne, Melbourne cool - a quite specific kind.

After a great but decadent breakfast, eggs florentine, what diet? We then went into the bookshop bardo, my favourite!  The Grub Street book store is an institution and should be classified by someone other than me as a treasure. It smells and feels like a book shop should, has everything, really, and the the staff will smile and interact. They don't subscribe to the "I'm so hip I don''t have to do anything except take your money" attitude that some other businesses along this strip seem to encourage.

Anyway, after foraging through the one dollar boxes laid out to lure hopeless book buying addicts like me, I found a treasure in the five dollar box.

"Journey of The Wind" by Tomihiro Hoshino is a gorgeous anthology of poetry, essays and watercolour paintings. Like all Japanese published books it is a beautifully crafted edition, the typesetting, the colour printing, the stock and the binding are outstanding. As is the content. Five dollars well spent.

What I found inside when I got it home made it even more priceless (if you can quantify priceless-ness).

These works of art were painted by Tomihiro using a brush held in his mouth after he was terribly injured in an accident. He spent 9 years in hospital. Extraordinary.

Add to this discovery a few more bookshops, some great clothes found, a cruise around the Rose Street Artists market and a fantastic Sunday morning was manifested for us.