Thursday, March 16, 2006

Unravel

Maurice Ravel; piano master whose early works seem scarcely less mature than those of his maturity; shavings of Parmigiano-reggiano were caught in his beard; It is the “tree moss” of the poets and Shakespeare's “idle moss,” and in the past it was used as a remedy for whooping cough, catarrh, epilepsy, and dropsy, also as an astringent, a tonic, and a diuretic, it was first described in 300 BC as a hair-growth stimulant; Greek voyager Pytheus sailed around Britain and discovered a place he named Thule (possibly the Shetland Islands, Iceland, or Norway), which for centuries was considered the end of the earth; I remember digging a whole in the garden and seriously believing that if I put the elbow grease in I would reach Australia; I could never quite pronounce the word ‘Vaseline’; chapped lips in the winter are a pleasure to crack, I smile as hard as I can in the mornings to crack the sides, and then immediately regret it; while earthquakes have inspired dread and superstitious awe since ancient times, little was understood about them until the emergence of seismology at the beginning of the 20th century; Steveland Judkins, a blind child prodigy produced a steady stream of classic hit songs, but Stevie Wonder (as he became) was much more than a freakish prepubescent imitation of Ray Charles, as audiences discovered when he demonstrated his prowess with piano, organ, harmonica, and drums; I had been writing under a pseudonym for years, until one day my house was burgled and it was stolen, now I have to be content with writing under a desk lamp; witticisms may not be my strong point; for many prehistoric tribes, the traditional test of manhood was the lifting of a special rock... such manhood stones, some with the name of the first lifter incised, exist in Greece and in Scottish castles; among the simplest instruments are those that European folk cultures share with many tribal cultures throughout the world: rattles, flutes, the bull-roarer, bone whistles, and long wooden trumpets, such as the Swiss alpenhorn; as “they” say ‘every singer starts out singing other peoples songs’ and I suppose eventually you come into your own, having understood the ineffable essence of composition, and weren’t the earliest writers writing what we sometimes refer to as ‘songs’?; Gilgamesh, who had returned to Uruk, rejected the marriage proposal of Ishtar, the goddess of love, and then, with Enkidu's aid, killed the divine bull that she had sent to destroy him; I want to convince myself that I’m not too much of a plagiarist – not too much of an idea-stealer; the fish monger had a hard time convincing Mrs Millenthrop to take home a Haddock as she was there was “something fishy about those spots on its shoulder”; before I go any further I should wash my hands repeatedly and say a thousand Hail Mary’s; despite his name, Pope Urban IV (who reigned 1261–64), wasn’t a proto-gangster-pimp, exhibiting the finest in Medieval bling, and pimping his nuns like a forward thinking antediluvian thug, instead he freed the Kingdom of Sicily, a papal fief, from Hohenstaufen domination and restored papal influence in Italy; an exercise in unfree-association.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

there is a u.s army base in greenland called thule

William said...

Ah well thats probably it then. Thank you for pointing that out 'anonymous'. The book i was reading seemed to suggest that it is not currently known where he landed exactly. Books arent always right though.

Anonymous said...

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