Saturday, October 26, 2013

Jose Marti; Celia Cruz Birthday; Guantanamera; Pete Seeger; My son's favorite poet - a fall sonnet; Leather; i thank you

i thank You God for most this amazing

i thank You God for most this amazing
day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birth
day of life and of love and wings: and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any—lifted from the no
of all nothing—human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

This is item number 1 due to it's being the luck of the draw on Saturday Writers Almanac,  10/26/13


"i thank You God for most this amazing" by E.E. Cummings, from 100 Selected Poems. © Grove Press, 1994

.......


HALLOWEEN GREETINGS
FROM THE SEWER RACCOON NEWS

.......




JOSE MARTI

 wrote these words:

"With the poor people of this earth
I wish to share my fate;

The streams of the mountain
pleases me more than the sea."



Cuban singer, Celia Cruz


On Google today. (10/21)

HAPPY 88TH BIRTHDAY CELIA CRUZ
....HAD YOU LIVED; the song and inspiration LIVES

Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso de la Santísima Trinidad (October 21, 1925 – July 16, 2003) was a Cuban-Americansalsa performer. One of the most popular salsa artists of the 20th century, she earned twenty-three gold albums and was renowned internationally as the "Queen of Salsa" as well as "La Guarachera de Cuba."
She spent much of her career living in New Jersey, and working in the United States and several Latin American countries. Leila Cobo ofBillboard Magazine once said "Cruz is indisputably the best known and most influential female figure in the history of Cuban music."  (WIKIPEDIA)


.......



I first heard of Pete Seeger when he came to the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 1954.  I was a freshman.  There were some protests against his being given entree there.  Some thought he was a C-O-M-M-U-N-I-S-T.  (Horrors!)

The Young Republicans for one example, were ag'in him. So was The John Birch Society.  He was singing with The Weavers,
surely a communist outfit, some thought.  They sang such songs as:



  • 1. Wimoweh




  • 2.Wreck of the John B




  • 3.Tzena, Tzena, Tzena
  • 4.On Top of Old Smokey
  • 5.Kisses Sweeter Than Wine
  • 6.The Roving Kind
  • 7.Old Paint (Ride Around Little Dogies)
  • 8.When the Saints Go Marching In
  • 9.I Know Where I'm Going
  • 10.Around the Corner (Beneath the Berry Tree)
  • 11.Midnight Special
  • 12.Lonesome Traveler
  • 13.Hush Little Baby
  • 14.Suliram (I'll Be There)
  • 15.Hard, Ain't It Hard
  • 16.The Bay of Mexico
  • 17.Along the Colorado Trail
  • 18.The Frozen Logger
  • 19.So Long (It's Been Good to Know Yuh)
  • 20.Goodnight Irene

I attended the Seeger concert, and was changed, beginning then, and gradually forever.








and here's one where Pete's grandson
sings it with him:



Play:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EJ1kZ0yBzg

The song by Marti has been adapted

in many different ways:

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAs7U1dyesQ

and always resonates!


Again, happy birthday Celia Cruz.




.......




Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst in Me Behold


That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see'st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed whereon it must expire
Consumed with that which it was nourish'd by.
This thou perceivest, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well which thou must leave ere long.


"Sonnet 73: That Time of Year Thou Mayst In Me Behold" by William Shakespeare. Public domain


.......

From Raccoon stringer
Rev. Tom Bentz

This fall-themed recall from his formative years
an Email rec'd today (10-21-13) with video clip:


"Our 25-year-old prodigy pianist, organist, composer and church music director
just sent me his music for November
as my favorite fading month of October goes  
while I try to remember
September
and the late Jerry Orbach
and seeing him in Carnival, my first musical on Broadway,
on my high school senior trip 50 years ago,
turning me into a carny . . ."



...

Bentz
bent
not broken



(he lived)


.......

From son Lee's Facebook:


#Leather. So hot right now. #nyc #kindergarten #fashion
Like ·  ·  · 6 hours ago ·