The Right Column

Sweet Caroline

Neil Diamond's Classic always evokes happy memories

When I was a kid, Summers, back in Vermont, there would be times spent waiting to go where ever it was that we were being hauled off to. In the old station wagon we would have the AM radio that would blast pretty loudly for the small space. And if you cranked up one of those old AM radios all the way it would distort the sound in the most wonderful manner to augment the awesome rock and roll pop music. "Sweet Caroline" was one of the songs that would rock my 3rd grade world. My earliest memories of it are my sister chasing my brother around and singing the lyrics to it: "Sweet Caroline", with her hands grasping towards my brother has she chased him:

"reaching out. . . . touching you . . . touching me . . . " etc,

my brother, a couple of years older than my sister would flee to avoid her. Her behavior annoyed him. All in all it was to her innocent affection but almost physical harrasment to him, all that 'reaching out, touching you . . ' stuff.

I remember her chasing him around my grandmother's yard a few times. That would have been while we were waiting to roll out from there. My Grammie used to live on Williston Road in Vermont, a main drag, Rt 2 that goes all the way to Washington State if you follow it through Canada. We may have been waiting for my parents, or my father to wake from his nap which he would always take just before a long drive. We were probably anxious to get on to where ever the next place would be. Dad was always trying to catch up on his snoozes. After 'us kids' had filled up the five gallon jugs from grandmas hose with potable water, it would be time for us to go. And so now can't we be off to somewhere else?

"Reaching out . . . touching you . . . touching me . . . sweet Caroline! Dunt da da. Good times never felt so good. . . "

Back then, as an eight year old, I used to love the Red Sox (still do). And Neil too. My dad was an even bigger fan of Neil. Now my dad is in the ward where he doesn't remember moment to moment. He knows nothing about what happened this week in Boston. And if you told it to him he wouldn't remember. But I told him "We got the bastard!" He didn't know what to make of that. It didn't make him sad. So that is what I told him because, even as a patient in an Alzheimer's ward, he must have gotten a sense how how addled people were this week. I'd like to think that he is still in tune like that. He often surprises us with illuminated observations. His comments often cut deep to truths that were always never uttered before when he had the filters on. Now he will say things that he never would have said when he was better able to remember.

One of the things that dad still does is listen to Neil Diamond music. He doesn't know how to put it on himself anymore, but he loves to have it playing. Sometimes at the meetings there is entertainment. Neil Diamond songs always get covered by the talent that entertains these seniors.

Dad had the 'Stones' album, one of Neil's classics. He would play it repeatedly, almost every night, after getting home from work. I found myself, on my long romps through our semi-meadowed forests, singing Neil Diamond songs "I am, I said . . . I am I cried . . . " yes, Neil was a big part of our listening experience. And dad had all of Neil Diamond's records. So now Neil is still singing and dad isn't really able to hear it very well. I thank you, Mr. Diamond for understanding that the genius of music is keeping it real. You came to Boston to help us heal. We will always associate your music with the sense of joyous enlightenment: the exuberance of passionate affection between innocent friends with no guile. Sweet Caroline. It can be any one named Caroline in one sense, when you only hear the words. Or if you don't speak English and can't understand the words at all you can understand the tempo and the passion of Mr. Diamond's vocalizations. All in all Mr. Diamond, as a composer of modern songs is one of the greats. We thank him for this and for giving us another thing on which to associate human joy: the wonderful and heartfelt songs of his composition.

 Geesh, I've flown far and away today,
       haven't I?

ON CINEMA

I always check for the movies that are out there. I rarely go anymore. Why? Well, the modern selection of American movies is mostly rehash of rehash with very little that is more than just knee jerk literary movie cleche. Oh, if I don't see them than how can I really say what these new movies are? Fair point.

There ought to be a reason to go. If nothing makes me think I want to see a movie then I don't just go to any random movie just because I am bored. A movie has to draw me to it. The people who make the movie have to convince me, in some way, that this is a movie that I will like and that will be worth-it to see. If the movie is not worth-it, why, then I don't even wait for the DVD. I just ignore it, like it never existed.

We are living in a age of dark cinema. The stuff that is put out is usually done for politcal and/or monatary reasons without any concern for poetic and hte human growth of soul that all of us art-folks like to delude is the point of what we do. We want our stuff to not be about stuff things, either food or whatever, for the purient effect of temporary feelings. We would like to drop a pearl into the irridescent thoughts of our compatriots, and contemporaries and make the world glad with the joy of loving the truth. What movies are doing that now? I want to know the titles of them and I will try to read up on those movies and possibly see them.

I could be dooing other things, making grand sequencers for the world to say : oh, lookiee here, in this age of ullullelation, here is more ullullating tatter shutters, a flitter flattering on this here telescreen.

OK, so I could have, and I did. I have a slew of demos on my demo page. Please find the link. Also here is a pretty good one that I kind of like that I made yesterday:

Very Many Hearts

Am I repeating myself?

Very Many Hearts

Am I repeating myself?

" . . . . OH, on an on he goes and off into the inane, (muttering) talking about himsells in the thirst purses, my garments . . ."

Next is a link to the 'Love Solves everything, so simple.' page:

Very Many Hearts

There will be new baseball coins next year with a concave/convex (depending which way you turn it) design. There is an awesome silver piece out of Israel, mid 1960's. That coin has an exceptional concave mirroring effect on it. It's a big chunk of silver, a very beautiful coin. The Israeli coin was obviously designed by a master sculpture. Such a coin is also a fine piece of art. As a person who enjoys fine sculpture I grabbed onto that coin when I first saw it and didn't put it down. I said 'why, this is exactly that kind of piece of modern thing that, while seemingly common is, in fact, quite rare. It's exceptional beauty is the reason for noting that it is rare. That piece, unique no, but of limited mintage, is a thick hunk of silver as well as being a fine piece of modern sculpture. So I bought that small thing for the price of the silver in it. A small markup from that.

If you are really a 'collector' there is a point where you must be come a 'seller' or else you just become a 'horder'. Perhaps you can be sane about your acquisitions and stop when you have enough of something. I get lost into the idea of things to the point of wanting a visual display of it, and for the purposes of layout and design, I attach my thoughts to various design ideas. Sometimes things are accidentally available to allow for a 'new thing' that isn't chincey quite yet (like my fling with Apple Dapplery, Apple Dappery back in February, find links at the demo page.) In the case of stamps, coins, covers, advertisements, old photographs, there is a lot of things that one can rip out of them, pilfer it all in a sense for the new. For example I can imagine in my mind how the coin 'ought' to look. I see a young man, very muscular. He is in full swing. You can't tell his skin color, ethnicity, anything like that. What you can tell is that he is a big bull of a guy and he is just about to knock that ball out of the park for a home run. Is the scene before he swings or after? I suppose one could add in the comic-frame trick of having lines that represent the motion of something. To the side of that will be the fencing behind him as a fringe at one part. There is the first base line, becaus we are looking down it. There is the pitcher's mound. That is where the ball came from. Yet another very handsome muscular guy (because of his stocking and fully muscular, almost unionist propaganda art deco style muscle guy, a real mans-man, ladie's man, dapper fellow but . . . obscured from view by his garmets. He is the pitcher. His mitt is in full view, a comic book quality mitt. In the distance we see a school yard, maybe a jungle gym. There are giant maple trees there along the fringe, hills in the distance, a river perhaps, or a walkway, a street for the people who are going to the game. a flock of birds. At the upper fringe we have the leaf work: the nearby trees. There are birds flying through.

I also picture an American flag. I think that the wind direction indicated by that flag must be important to the story of the picture. Maybe there ought to be multiple flags, each of them with a slightly different direction indicating cyclonic activity and changable weather. Perhaps there is a bird that is nosing around the catchers mound. Is the catcher in view or just his glove? How much of the baseline do we see? We see a bleachers, an old stone wall, maybe there are some sugar-maple taps with buckets on the nearby trees (along part of the fringe.)

Maybe there is a special quality to the wood of the bat? Maybe the ball is an historic ball made at an historic factory? Maybe there is already a runner on first. We would also be able to see the firstbaseman and the crowd as they sit in the bleachers. It would be a schoolyard game, there will boys standing nearby in a dugout. Maybe there is a police man there, too, watching the game, like a Norman Rockwell painting. Perhaps we can see a score board.

Perhaps amoung the buildings visible there is one modeled after the first baseball factory which is down on Marion Street in Natick (I think so). But including that might violate the rulls of the contest.

January 27th, 2013

some day
Dale is like a Rockstar

You play your guitar
    like a rock star
 Rock star.
     I saw you zooming through
       Ashland
   in your beautiful lime-green car.
        lime-green
      Muscle Car.

 Dancing and a singing
    on a star
 with the crunch metal band
        cranked-up. 
 Crank it up.

   I saw you at your
        job at the deli
     and all the people kept it silent
     that joy you
   just splashed out at them
       "Can I help you? how
       can I, of course, help
             you"
    rocking on. 
     Cutting that track
        tracking that cut 
  cocking your head and lifting your eye brow
       and then the other with
  a sudden look of constant interest
    in everyone, everyone loving
           everyone

      The back window moves with the beat of the song
    Dale pulls out from the light
        zooming away
       into the night.
   

     "Hall-all-lluu"

I'm working on it in my mind, thinking about how to make the music play and the strings to twang along.

Praise the Lord for his unfailing love.

    Praise the Lord just because you love Him!

Praise the Lord!

I've got you in my sights. How come no one ever writes? try this:

Mr Dew-ewde Willicker

Amillia Publishing Company

PO Box 211

Natick, MA 01760

If you have something real to share, a story, a poem, whatever, that is the best way to get my attention.

Dude Willicker, himself, fabled as he is, may actually answer here in this actual column, on this actual page. You could connect. It could be real.

  Rockstar
    you rock our worlds
    like a Rockstar.

 Beat beat beat beat
      beat beat beat
        Rockstar
    cocking his head
    with the beat
  as he zooms off along
 the electric street.

I got nothing more