The longest song I ever heard

The longest song I ever heard
but I remember every word,
and also I recall the day
the music died.

Over at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, where I was once a toad myself, Kerry recently asked for poems about iconic people.

Many icons from my youth are said to be mentioned in the song Kerry posted in her challenge: American Pie by Don McLean. However, I've read that McLean hasn't agreed or disagreed with anyone's interpretation of what he calls "just poetry" so perhaps we'll never really know. On the other hand, I've also read online articles claiming they are McLean's explanation of the song.

"The day the music died" is said to refer to the day Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and The Big Bopper (JP Richardson) died in a plane crash in 1959. I remember the three so well...







The first 45 rpm record I ever bought for myself was "Oh, Boy!" by Buddy Holly and the Crickets in 1958. Oh, boy, how I loved Buddy Holly!

Everyone thought The Big Bopper was a lot of fun and, believe it or not, his song "Chantilly Lace" was considered somewhat risqué, if not downright scandalous, by parents of the young crowd.

Ritchie Valens wasn't even 18 when he died, but his top song "La Bamba" reached a whole new audience when the movie of the same name was released in 1987.

Music is lovely
music is fine—
music is fatal
to fav'rites of mine:
Bobby Darin also died young
and Mama Cass as well.
Sam Cooke was shot
Otis Redding was not—
he died in a plane crash, too.
Accidents and overdoses,
claimed too many lives.
Brian Jones
of the Rolling Stones,
thought to be suicide.
Jim Morrison
and Janis Joplin,
Jimi Hendrix, too,
at twenty-seven
went to heaven,
all three far too soon.
The list goes on,
and on and on,
of singers dying young,
but in all, or many, cases
the music lives today.
The music
did not die,
after all.

Kay Davies, November, 2014                                                                                           

All I want for Christmas...

There is a book I want for Christmas this year.
That's all, just one book.
In the latest issue of Canada's Maclean's Magazine, copy editor Larissa Liepins has reviewed "The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person's Guide to Writing in the 21st Century" by Canadian-born Steven Pinker.
Oh, yes, please. I need a guide to writing in the 21st century. My biggest problem is thinking too much, which makes this book an obvious choice for a thinking person like me.
Pinker also, says Liepins, "applies his considerable expertise in cognitive science and linguistics to crafting a modern-day style guide for, as he puts it, 'people who know how to write and want to write better'."
Oh yes, that would be me. I've been writing since I was six years old, and have had some experience in the craft, as well as some experience as a proofreader and copy editor, and I know quite a few other writers. I know that, deep down, we all want to write better. Many of us also need to know what the 21st century wants of us as writers.
"If you count yourself in that group," Liepins goes on, "you likely own a style bible of old, be it Strunk and White's The Elements of Style or Fowler's Modern English Usage" and you will find them "frequently in Pinker's crosshairs."
Okay, shoot, Mr. Pinker. I'll get over it, even if you malign those treasured tomes and tell us repeatedly that language purists are "sticklers, pedants, peevers, snobs, snoots, nitpickers, traditionalists, language police, usage nannies, grammar Nazis, and the Gotcha Gang"!
Sigh, but I will get over it.
I will get over it because scientist Pinker has convinced editor Liepins "that, not only will we not go to hell for splitting an infinitive, sometimes it's the only way to boldly go."
I like that.
I need someone with "expertise in cognitive science" as well as linguistics, who "mines everything from obituaries to Dear Abby columns for good writing."
Sigh again.
Writers of my advanced age will remember Dear Abby's skill with words, and may have, as I did, demanded of our parents and siblings, "Read this! What a great line!"
Now, just don't tell Steven Pinker that when I grow up I want to be Dave Barry.

***

I am linking this, quite belatedly, to Open Link Monday at my favourite writers' blog, Imaginary Garden with Real Toads. Thanks for being there, dear Toads.

Get listed: The Art of War

Art? in war?

what’s war for?

the silent sound of children dying

tenderness of mothers crying

futility of fathers trying

to explain duty, alliance, tactics

to ears which now can’t hear.

In the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, this Wednesday’s word list was from a 1910 edition of The Art of War by Sun Tzu. An ancient book, it has been published and republished until the actual identity of the original author is lost in the mists of time.

And here we are, 100 years after “The War to End all Wars” and our world has never seen a prolonged period of peace.

I have chosen a few words from the list of 13 to include in a short poem on a subject that haunts us all.

Succinctly Yours in 140 characters

"How low can you go?" asks Grandma, at Grandma's Goulash.
Grandma has been asking that question for 182 weeks now, and I used to respond to it regularly. I've been remiss for some months now, but I'm back, at least for today.

Grandma posts a picture for participants, and asks us to write a short story about it in 140 words or 140 characters. I always like to use 140 characters. It's challenging, and it's fun. This week, my contribution consists of a short conversation in 140 characters.
There's usually a word of the week, too, and I like to fit it in if I can. This week's word is "deal".

"What is that animal doing up there?

Someone get it down! I don't want any animals in here."

"Oh, it's no big deal. He's just a little kid."

An ex-Toad appears for Open Link Monday

This sketch of Warty Bliggens the Toad,

drawn by George Harriman for the book

Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis,

was copyrighted in 1927

by the New York Tribune, Inc.

I used to be a Toad

and I was happy

I used to be a Toad

and I was green

with great big yellow warts

on all my toadly parts

the funniest-looking toad

you’ve ever seen.

but then I hibernated

and I waited and I waited

to become a Toad again,

you see.

but waiting did no good

(hibernating, even less)

and I forgot how toadly

I had been.

I forgot my toadly parts

and only could see warts

where once there’d been

a lovely shade of green.

I used to be a poet

of nonsensicable verse

but life somehow got worse

’til I lost my sense of verse,

becoming short and shrill and terse

instead of green.

by Kay Davies, September 7, 2014

Thanks to all my friends in the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads for inviting me to come back to the Garden when possible, with a special thank-you to Kerry, and to those toads who have become my friends on Facebook.

The unfittie returns at long last

Hello world, I'm still alive, and as well as can be.

There are still some final touches to be done on The Great Canadian Home Renovation...but I have almost reached the picture-hanging stage in the living room. Various pictures are on chairs and bookcases around the room, being "tested" as to colour and appropriateness, with only minor attention as yet to subject.
However, it feels good to have something to write about, at long last, along with the desire to say it.
When we bought this house, it was guesstimated by the realtor and the former owners to be approximately my age.
Old.
And old houses, built piecemeal in the 1940s, 1950s and onward, as time and money allowed, can prove to be a serious challenge to owners in the 21st century. With said challenge can come a lot of surprises, many additional costs, and some creative cussing.
Sigh.
Now I have to hope Blogger will communicate with my camera when I take photos of the "new" house. Much to my surprise, my two new photos appeared when I connected the camera today. The older picture, taken last week, required much ado on my part to get it from the camera to the computer.
Perhaps...and I'm making no promises...perhaps I'm back to blogging!
Meanwhile, you might be wondering about the photo shown above. Well, our darlin' dog Lindy has pretty much lost her eyesight, and gets confused in the house sometimes because the renovation required considerable moving of furniture, and she bumped her head on the wall a few times when aiming for the doorway between the living room and her food dish.
If you know Lindy, you know food is worth far more to her than a mere bump on the head, but my husband panicked, so I had him take me to an upholstery shop. There I purchased two large pieces of upholstery foam, which I covered with pillowcases intended for a child's body pillow.
Now, when Lindy misses the side of the door, she hits her head on the foam. She has also decided that the pillow helping to keep the foam upright makes a nice place for a nap, and for storing her favourite toy, a bright pink fellow named Biggy Piggy.
And now for the renovation project in all of its glory...make that "part of its glory"...
For years I've had a big, heavy, white-painted, wooden bookcase. I had Dick move it out of the shed, where it was stored during the renovation, onto a large piece of heavy plastic in the yard. I started to spray it black.
That's when I discovered that even spray-painting, as easy as it might sound, still requires bending oneself into awkward shapes, and is also quite painful for a person with chronically sore hands.
Who knew?
So I spray-painted the top and the sides black, re-painted the shelves white (because I did, after all, have to cover up the black where my spray went astray) and am quite delighted with the result.
I somehow haven't managed to fix the hole that appeared gratuitously when the bookcase was removed from the shed, but I'm thinking of remedies somewhat more effective than stick-on mailing labels, which didn't work.
Meanwhile, I'm delighted with our colour choices. Two shades of grey on the walls, with white moulding and baseboards, is very soothing.

Bookcase, complete with hole at left, and grey smears
where the spray paint went too far. (My hands shake.)

Bookcase, with random contents, awaits arrival of more
boxes from the shed. Meanwhile, I'm trying out a couple
of items for the wall around it. The copper picture of Lindy
was made by my husband's youngest daughter, Monica.
The abstract painting is by his daughter Andrea. The small
oil portrait of Lindy was done by Canadian plein air artist
Aleta Karstad. Do check out her work here.

Lindy's mom tries to do it herself

I'm sure glad Lindy has been holding the fort for me. I kept looking and looking at my blog and there weren't any new comments. Suddenly, in the middle of the night (or early morning, it is 3:30am) I realized it was my own fault. Of course, I didn't blame Lindy. I found 35 comments, and only one was spam, so now 34 have been posted.
Sigh.
Thanks for being there, my friends.

I'm here because it is time for Fireblossom's Flash 55 at The Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, where I used to enjoy writing poetry. The following bit of doggerel (all mine, not the dog's) came to me just after 3am, and it has 55 words.
Thanks to my friend Hedgewitch for reminding me about The Garden.

not last night, but the night before

twenty-four robbers came to my door

and one of them said “roll over, roll over”

they all rolled over and one fell out

twenty-three at my door

I don’t know what for

then one of them said

“are we really all dead?”

and I woke up

                                Kay L. Davies, August 3, 2014

Hello world, it's Lindy again, with new news

Maybe you can tell this is me...or at least the curliest part of me. I'm lying on the floor in this picture, not suspecting my mom is taking photos of my backside. And that's my new rug, to lie on when the floor is a bit chilly. You can see a bit of my mom's recliner on the right.

This is my dad's new lamp, beside his new window, behind his old recliner. People can look out this window to see our back yard, where I'm usually sleeping under a tree.

Here you can see rain on the front window. Yes, our neighbourhood is so green because the Canadian prairie is getting a lot of rain. My mom calls it "unseasonable" but I don't think that's a real word. Dogs don't use words like that. The wall isn't really black the way it looks here. Mom said something about the flash not going off because of light from the window. Some things dogs don't understand, but I know one thing: I don't like the flash when it does work.

This is the new little red table for phones and the answering machine. The answering machine has a funny voice because it isn't my dad and it isn't my mom. They say it's a computer voice but I don't really believe that. You can see the nice grey walls, and the white trim on the side of the doorway but not below it yet. We're going to have new floor in the hall, too. My mom says the old floor is "plug ugly" but I like it, because my food and water dishes are in the hall.

There will be two of these black stools in the living room, by the table with my dad's chess set, so someone can play with him. I will play with him, but I don't know chess.
Right now you can see the newly-painted wall and the nice new floor which is cool on hot days. My mom says you can also see that the baseboards haven't been done yet but I don't know what a baseboard is.

My mom says to tell you the living room ren-oh (that's short for renovation) has been keeping her busy, but that's not all. I know she went to British Columbia to see her friends and her brothers, and my cousins, too, and now she is very tired because travel is difficult for her.

Also, she says she is trying to get back to writing poetry, and she's thinking about posting more travel photos. I hope she does it soon, because it is extremely difficult for a Golden Retriever to use a keyboard without making all kinds of mistakes.

                             Lots of dog hugs, Lindy

P.S. I forgot to share these pictures of my cat cousins. Mom stayed with them when she was in Langley, B.C.

My new cat-cousin, named Sochi.

My first cat-cousin, Bailey.

I like this picture of Bailey when he was a kitten. Lucky cat to get into a refrigerator! I try and try to get into the fridge in our house but my mom and dad don't let me. I lie down in front of it when they're cooking, but they always push me away. Sigh.

Posted for Pet Pride
hosted by Bozo and his family
at their Pets Forever blog in Mumbai, India. Thanks, Bozo!

Hello blog-followers, Lindy here

Hi everyone, here I am, Lindy Davies-Schear, wearing my best smile, to tell you my mom has been having trouble with the relationship between her camera and her computer, and with someone named Blogger. It's too bad, because they used to get along so well, but now the computer is rejecting the camera, while Blogger is rejecting the computer, and they're all breaking my mom's heart.

Plus, Mom says that, as far as poetry is concerned, her muse has abandoned her. I'm not sure what a muse is. I know what a camera is, and know what sound it makes when my mom turns it on, and I know where the computer is, but a muse? I think that should be "amuse" but Mom says no, and I understand what "no" means. It means the same as "Lindy, leave it!"

Wishing all our Canadian friends Happy Canada Day on July 1, and all our American friends Happy Fourth of July, and all our other friends Happy Day!
 — Lindy, Kay and Richard

Photo by Richard Schear

How much is that doggy reflection?

Lindy seems to be staring at her own reflection in the refrigerator, but she's not. Her close-up vision is pretty much nonexistent now, although she can still see objects farther away (yesterday, when walking with Dick while I checked on something, she headed for the wrong red car, and it wasn't even parked near ours).
So, instead of contemplating her lovely self, she is dreaming (as usual) about the contents of the refrigerator. You never can tell when someone is going to take out one of those lovely big cucumbers she so adores.

Posted for Weekend Reflections
hosted by James of  Something Sighted

Thanks, James!

Also posted for Pet Pride, hosted by Lindy's friend Bozo and his family at their Pets Forever blog in Mumbai, India.

Photo by Richard Schear with his smart phone

Galapagotian rhymes for Open Link Monday

I have no idea if that is a word...Galapagotian...my computer seems to think it isn't, but it suits me. Our present busy travel schedule all started with a trip to the Galapagos Islands in 2006 and we have been traveling ever since. Round and 'round the world we go, where we'll stop, nobody knows.

Sigh.

A few lines of this came to me the evening of Friday, the 13th of June, and other lines kept coming, so I am saving it all for Open Link Monday at the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads. I'm hoping I can be back to contributing regularly soon.

I don't believe I have any toad photos from the Galapagos Islands, but I have plenty of other fun creatures.

one foot, two foot

red foot, blue foot

and another one

on the way

marine iguana

land iguana

hadn’t much to say

and nazca booby

turned his head away

sea urchins large

and sea urchins small

they neither lurch nor sway

and penguins

and sea lions

                                                      I love them both

this lonely fellow                       

                                           perhaps the most

hello can your husband come out to play?

no we can look but we cannot stay

moonscape with frigate bird

ship’s mast with more

and then on the shore

birds and animals galore

  lava lizards  

   flamingos

flightless cormorants and more

  

     and we mustn’t forget

     Darwin’s delight

     a finch upside down

     and one upside right

     about which science

     for long years would fight

and last but not least

no not least at all

the galapagos tortoise

the oldest of all

Photos by

Richard Schear

and Kay L. Davies

W.B. Yates in the Imaginary Garden

For her form challenge this weekend, Kerry has presented to The Imaginary Garden with Real Toads the octaves of William Butler Yeats — a poet who, as Kerry says, needs no introduction.

Considered one of the foremost poets of the 20th Century, his influences were traditional Irish ballads and songs. Writing extensively in rhymed verse, Yates used quatrains in his earlier poems but, later, he preferred the octave as a stanza form.

foxhunter, from Wikipedia

Having returned to writing after something of a drought caused by illness, fear and exhaustion, I am not quite up to par, in my own estimation. I should have been excited to see the word ballad and, indeed, I was pleased, but nothing sprang to mind yesterday.

Earlier today, I couldn't quite come up with 8 lines of 8 syllables, and produced only this bit of nonsense, alternating 6 syllables with the requisite 8, arriving at a Kiplingesque rhythm rather than a proper Keatsian iambic pentameter.
the fox was out with many men

to take them for a ride

he knew they’d follow where he went

and knew where he could hide

outfoxed they were, those many men

who’d come from far and wide

Texas "Haunted" house built by
Dan Baker and friends

when brother fox, he ran them out

across the countryside

Later, although I couldn't avoid considerable maudlin sentimentality, and definitely couldn't call up my usual humorous muse, I did manage an entire two stanzas, then decided to post them in order to give up the struggle for today.

the house where lives my broken heart

is haunted by the loss of you

I promised always to be true

and now don’t know how I can start

a life without you in this place

where ev’ry wall and ev’ry door

where ev’ry board in ev’ry floor

seems each imprinted with your face

my heart has longed for you too long

my soul aloud for you has cried

but to the outside world I’ve lied

and did my best to be so strong

to hold my head up, even smile

say “I am fine now, thank you, please,

“don’t worry now, just be at ease”

to fool them all out there a while

Kay Davies, June, 2014                   

Shadow Shot Sunday 2, with Lindy, too

Photos by Richard Schear, June, 2014

Lindy pauses to pant and puff in the shadows for a while during a walk this week with her daddy.
Now that her eyesight is compromised by cataracts, she wears her harness and we clip her leash to that, rather than to her collar, giving us better control. She still wears her collar, because her tags are on it, but she quickly learned that the harness means she is going out with us.

Posted for
Shadow Shot Sunday 2
and also for Pet Pride
hosted by Lindy's friend Bozo and his family at their Pets Forever blog in Mumbai, India.

Italian painter featured in the Garden

Today, over in the Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, our friend Fireblossom features Italian painter Guido Vedovato. Because copyright prevents us showing his paintings per se, I have chosen to use the two photos of the artist, with his work behind him.
More of his paintings can be seen on his website. His work is in the field of art called "naive" and therefore I have kept my style simple, as both complement and compliment.

Guido Vedovato Wikipedia (Creative Commons)

Guido’s rockinghorse can till the fields

while the village sleeps behind him

and the hills rise up

out of the forest

his birds have wings no larger than their feet

but the town on the tree below them

tempts them to land

atop the tower

the concertina-player 'neath the moon

plays lullabies to help his people dream

By Kay L. Davies, June 14, 2014

Can't resist kitten pictures

Though the world knows I'm a dog person, I can't resist seeing photos of kittens. They are just too darn cute.

Judy, at Through Squirrel Eyes, posted pictures of her foster-kittens, Alice, Cooper, and Vincent (yes, Alice and Cooper) for See Beautiful today, and I simply had to look up photos of my brother and sister-in-law's cat, Bailey, when he was a kitten.

I love this shot of him on his climbing-tree when he was little, compared with the one of him on the same tree when he was grown. The two pictures together always make me laugh, and laughter is good medicine, I've been told.

Besides, Judy asked: "For the month of June on See Beautiful we have a question. What can be more beautiful than the innocence of little ones, be they kittens, puppies or human?"

Bailey Davies, above, looking innocently beautiful, and below, still looking beautiful but much wiser.

This is a blog hop. I've never done this before, but I'm going to try to link.

Reflections in Danube never grow old

This spring we visited Budapest for the second time, and my husband was delighted to find new angles from which to photograph old favourites...the buildings and bridges along the Danube. We were also fortunate to stay in a hotel room with river views. Beautiful, day and night, but especially night.

Posted for Weekend Reflections
hosted by James of Something Sighted
Thanks, James!

Photos by Richard Schear, 2014