"Autobiographies of great nations are written in three manuscripts – a book of deeds, a book of words, and a book of art. Of the three, I would choose the latter as truest testimony." - Sir Kenneth Smith, Great Civilisations

"I must write each day without fail, not so much for the success of the work, as in order not to get out of my routine." - Leo Tolstoy

I have never believed that one should wait until one is inspired because I think the pleasures of not writing are so great that if you ever start indulging them you will never write again. - John Updike

"The life of every man is a diary in which he means to write one story, and writes another; and his humblest hour is when he compares the volume as it is with what he vowed to make it." - J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan

Poetry is the shadow cast by our streetlight imaginations." - Lawrence Ferlinghetti


[Note - If any article requires updating or correction please notate this in the comment section. Thank you. - res]


Wednesday, September 5, 2018

R.E. Slater - Poetics of the Flesh


Poetics of the Flesh


Poetics of the Flesh
by R.E. Slater


The human breast bursts,
Overcome in flame and fire,
At Beauty's stunning presence.

All flesh burns for Beauty's splendors,
Passion fills the senses with colours,
Imagination takes life, and is.

Strong images quickly arouse,
Imagination soars beyond self,
Beauty's idles grip the soul.

Incapable to be forbidden,
Driven, craven, lusting,
Love rages unabated.

Forgetting self,
Finding self,
Life without end.

R.E. Slater
September 5, 2018
Edited September 6, 2018

@copyright R.E. Slater Publications
all rights reserved


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Jennifer Lawrence, JOY by Dior TV Commercial,
"The New Fragrance"





Rolling Stones She's A Rainbow 1966




The Rolling Stones - She's A Rainbow (Official Lyric Video)



SHE'S A RAINBOW [Lyrics] (Mike Jagger / Keith Richards) The Rolling Stones - 1968 She comes in colours everywhere; She combs her hair She's like a rainbow Coming, colours in the air Oh, everywhere She comes in colours She comes in colours everywhere; She combs her hair She's like a rainbow Coming, colours in the air Oh, everywhere She comes in colours Have you seen her dressed in blue? See the sky in front of you And her face is like a sail Speck of white so fair and pale Have you seen a lady fairer? She comes in colours everywhere; She combs her hair She's like a rainbow Coming, colours in the air Oh, everywhere She comes in colours Have you seen her all in gold? Like a queen in days of old She shoots her colours all around Like a sunset going down Have you seen a lady fairer? She comes in colours everywhere; She combs her hair She's like a rainbow Coming, colours in the air Oh, everywhere She comes in colours She's like a rainbow Coming, colours in the air Oh, everywhere She comes in colours


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


She's a Rainbow
Jump to navigationJump to search
"She's a Rainbow"
Shesarainbow.jpg
Single by the Rolling Stones
from the album Their Satanic Majesties Request
B-side"2000 Light Years from Home"
Released
  • November 1967 (US single)[1]
  • 8 December 1967 (UK album)
Format7-inch single
Recorded18 May 1967
StudioOlympic, London
Genre
Length
  • 2:48 (US promo single edit)
  • 4:10 (US single)
  • 4:35 (album version)
Label
Songwriter(s)Jagger/Richards
Producer(s)The Rolling Stones
The Rolling Stones US singles chronology
"In Another Land"
(1967)
"She's a Rainbow"
(1967)
"Jumpin' Jack Flash"
(1968)
Their Satanic Majesties Request track listing
show
10 tracks
"She's a Rainbow" is a song by the Rolling Stones and was featured on their 1967 album Their Satanic Majesties Request.[4] It has been called "the prettiest and most uncharacteristic song" that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote for the Stones,[5] although somewhat ambiguous in intention.[5]

Composition and recording

The song includes rich lyricism, vibrant piano by Nicky Hopkins and Brian Jones' use of the Mellotron. The second verse includes:
Have you seen her all in gold,
Like a queen in days of old?
She shoots colours all around
like a sunset going down.
Have you seen a lady fairer?[4]
John Paul Jones, later of Led Zeppelin, arranged the strings of this song during his session days.[6] Backing vocals were provided by the entire band except for Charlie Watts. The lyrics in the chorus share the phrase "she comes in colours" with the song of that title by Love,[7] released in December 1966.
The song begins with the piano playing an ascending scale, which returns throughout the song as a recurring motif. This motif is developed by the celesta and strings in the middle 8. Humorous and ambiguous devices are used, such as when the strings play out-of-tune and off-key towards the end of the song, and when the other Stones sing their "La La's" like little children.[4]

Release and appearances

"She's a Rainbow" was released as a single in December 1967 and went to No. 25 in the United States. It has regularly featured on Stones' hits compilations, including Through the Past, Darkly (Big Hits Vol. 2) (1969), More Hot Rocks (Big Hits & Fazed Cookies) (1972), 30 Greatest Hits (1977), Singles Collection: The London Years (1989), Forty Licks (2002), and GRRR! (2012).[5] It was performed occasionally on the 1997–98 Bridges to Babylon Tour. The Stones also played the song by public request in Santiago, Chile and São Paulo, Brazil during their América Latina Olé Tour 2016 in February 2016.
In the 2011/12 season finale of Saturday Night Live, host Mick Jagger was in a "graduation" skit where the band Arcade Fire and the SNL cast performed "She's a Rainbow" as a tribute to departing cast member Kristen Wiig. In the sketch, Wiig is a student who was held back and is finally graduating after seven years to leave SNL to become a nun. Although Jagger does not sing "She's a Rainbow", he returns at the end of the skit, along with a number of SNL alumni, to join in the song "Ruby Tuesday".
In the first episode of Legion the song is used during a sequence.
It appears in a 2018 TV commercial for the 2019 Acura RDX.[8]

Personnel

Additional personnel

Charts


Chart (1967–68)Peak
position
Austria (Ö3 Austria Top 40)[10]8
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[11]13
Canada Top Singles (RPM)[12]9
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[13]2
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[14]3
US Billboard Hot 100[15]25
Chart (2007)Peak
position
Denmark (Tracklisten)[16]25
Switzerland (Schweizer Hitparade)[14]91

Friday, November 17, 2017

Gerard Manley Hopkins - "Inversnaid": An Epitaph Worthy of Environmentalists


In my readings of Hopkins yesterday I came across a verse which might be used as an epitaph on a tombstone for any of those nature loving environmentalists amongst us. I found it in "Inversnaid" and it can be found in the last four lines of the verse. I've also included a commentary to the verse as a help to understanding it. Enjoy.

R.E. Slater
November 17, 2017



"Inversnaid," 
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

This darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fáwn-fróth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, féll-frówning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and of wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.

- Gerard Manley Hopkins




Commentary on Inversnaid by Hopkins
"The sensation of a stream"

Hopkins describes the different parts of a highland stream, using word-painting to bring out its wildness, hoping that that wildness might never be destroyed. Mountain burn itself is a mountainside brook which is the focus of the poem as the poet witnesses a mountain stream rushing down the hillside and emptying itself into the lake below.

Hopkins describes it mainly from the bottom upwards, which is how he would have experienced it, having arrived on the lakeside, either by road or, more probably, by ferry. He emphasizes its untameable force as it pours over a waterfall, or series of falls, interspersed with whirlpool-like depths at the base of the cliffs.

Stanza 1 describes the final fall of the stream, or burn, in its tumultuous rush into the lake;

Stanza 2 describes the movement of the water in a deep pool formed under the cliffs;

Stanza 3 moves to higher ground, the plateau on top of the moor, so the stream is smaller and flowing less violently. All the time, Hopkins is trying to paint detailed pictures of each part of the stream.

The final stanza 4 is a repeated sort of prayer: ‘Let them…O let them….'. It is not clear who is to do the letting:
  • Is it a prayer to God or to his fellow humans?
  • Is it a prayer at all, or just a heartfelt desire?
  • Or do they come to the same thing?

Certainly, it is an unusual finish for Hopkins, but very memorable in its simplicity. It only takes a few minutes to learn by heart.

Investigating Inversnaid:
  • Locate words and phrases that personify the stream.
  • Try learning the last stanza by heart.