One little thing gotten right in this world

Wednesday 4/2/25

Speaking of Candy Land: My buddy Amelia/Ms. Weber is known as a notorious cheater when it comes to this game which, alas, is not the biggest of surprises. I have it on reliable authority--including a tip from her own sister--that she'll spin, claim that the dial hit her thumb--when it didn't--and spin again.

Last night I had a dream about "Finder of Views" and another about a story in which birds were wearing hats.

Some years ago I got a copy--which you have to read on a screen--of Delphi's complete works of John Clare, which I was glad to have as he's my favorite poet and his prose--which is included here (along with Frederick Martin's 1865 biography, The Life of John Clare)--is otherwise hard to come by, but it's not complete, despite claiming to be the first ever complete collection of Clare's work. It's missing the poem "The Landrail," for one.

How sweet and pleasant grows the way

Through summer time again

While Landrails call from day to day

Amid the grass and grain

We hear it in the weeding time

When knee deep waves the corn

We hear it in the summers prime

Through meadows night and morn

And now I hear it in the grass

That grows as sweet again

And let a minutes notice pass

And now tis in the grain

Tis like a fancy everywhere

A sort of living doubt

We know tis something but it neer

Will blab the secret out

If heard in close or meadow plots

It flies if we pursue

But follows if we notice not

The close and meadow through

Boys know the note of many a bird

In their birdnesting bounds

But when the landrails noise is heard

They wonder at the sounds

They look in every tuft of grass

Thats in their rambles met

They peep in every bush they pass

And none the wiser get

And still they hear the craiking sound

And still they wonder why

It surely cant be under ground

Nor is it in the sky

And yet tis heard in every vale

An undiscovered song

And makes a pleasant wonder tale

For all the summer long

The shepherd whistles through his hands

And starts with many a whoop

His busy dog across the lands

In hopes to fright it up

Tis still a minutes length or more

Till dogs are off and gone

Then sings and louder than before

But keeps the secret on

Yet accident will often meet

The nest within its way

And weeders when they weed the wheat

Discover where they lay

And mowers on the meadow lea

Chance on their noisy guest

And wonder what the bird can be

That lays without a nest

In simple holes that birds will rake

When dusting on the ground

They drop their eggs of curious make

Deep blotched and nearly round

A mystery still to men and boys

Who know not where they lay

And guess it but a summer noise

Among the meadow hay

We can learn a lot from that poem, can we not? And a good poem for the class, so to speak--and in actuality--to discuss. Clare works well in both the sophomore high school English setting--the kids can understand him--and within the minds of those who are wise and becoming wiser still.

A landrail is a corn crake, a bird with an unmistakable call, though they're hard to spot. They were especially vulnerable--due to nesting on the ground--to the farmer's scythe. Andrew Marvell's 1651 poem "Upon Appleton House"--which wasn't published until 1681, several years after Marvell's death--has a particularly grisly description.

Shane MacGowan's lovely "Lullaby of London" also features a corn crake.

As I walked down by the riverside

One evening in the spring

Heard a long gone song

From days gone by

Blown in on the great North wind

Though there is no lonesome corn crake's cry

Of sorrow and delight

You can hear the cars

And the shouts from bars

And the laughter and the fights

May the ghosts that howled

Round the house at night

Never keep you from your sleep

May they all sleep tight

Down in hell tonight

Or wherever they may be

As I walked on with a heavy heart

Then a stone danced on the tide

And the song went on

Though the lights were gone

And the North wind gently sighed

And an evening breeze coming from the East

That kissed the riverside

So I pray now child that you sleep tonight

When you hear this lullaby

May the wind that blows from haunted graves

Never bring you misery

May the angels bright

Watch you tonight

And keep you while you sleep

I've been listening a lot lately to a demo version of the song, which has this endearing moment where MacGowan chuckles to himself ("...that kissed the riverside ha ha ha").

I'm heartened to encounter accounts of people saying that they sing this song to their children as a lullaby. One little thing gotten right in this world.

Realized yesterday that I had failed to include a Beatles piece from November 28 of last year in the New section of this site (and the Beatles writings section as well), which meant--because the host site is a disaster of functionality--that I had to pull down eighteen items so that I could put this piece where it belonged, and then upload all of the eighteen items again.

For each item in the News section, there are three parts, meaning that you have to copy and paste three different things into something like a Word file, so that you can then copy and paste all three parts for each item back into the place where you want them to go. You can't just drag and reorder. Isn't that amazing? Then again, this is also a site where you can only see half of the blog, because it doesn't let a viewer go past page 100 of blog entries, even though the other blog entries do, technically, still exist. You'd have to encounter them either via something searched on Google--and the host site doesn't work well with search engines--or because you knew to search a specific term or thought to in the search bar of the site.

The thing doesn't work, basically, as any host site--and thus individual site--should. I need to find a new host site, and then there will be the arduous process of carrying over everything by hand. This site itself isn't close to up to date, and that will have to be done first in order to have a complete site to work off of, rather than trying to set up a new one while also filling in hundreds of missing parts. Anyway, the News site is now up to date. It contains more than 600 items going back to 2018. I hope I haven't missed anything, because that was a pain yesterday when it should have been something that took less than thirty seconds. This is the same host site that automatically unsubscribes any subscriber if they go three emails without clicking on one of them and clicking the link within. It's the worst and it's holding me back.

I was reading in the Starbucks the other day when a red-haired woman who must have been six feet tall came in. She was strikingly beautiful in what I suppose one would call a next-door kind of way. She seemed very self-contained, moved with grace and a nice way about her. She'd come in with her dog, and got him a cup of whipped cream. He was excited for this, but she had him sit while she waited for her drink to be made, and then they went outside and she had him sit again--he was pretty well trained--before she said "Go for it" or words to that effect, and there was one happy dog.

Some monster games in the NBA last night. Steph Curry went for 52 and Jokic had 61--and a triple double--in a game the Nuggets lost. This guy is doing things that historically we haven't seen.

The playoffs should be great this year. Could be better than they have been in some time. The Lakers, the Warriors, the Nuggets, the Thunder of course, the Cavs, and the Celtics, who are playing their best ball of the year, have rounded into form, are unfazed by the road, and are healthy. I didn't think they were going to repeat, but I'm feeling better and better about them.

Then you have upstarts like the Pistons, wild cards like the Pacers and Wild, solid contenders like the Rockets, a team that could surprise like the Bucks. Usually the NHL playoffs are better, but I think that could be different this year.

A new study published in the journal Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience reveals that people who hold strong moral convictions about political issues make decisions more quickly—but that these choices are shaped by both emotional brain responses and metacognitive ability. The research shows that moral conviction activates specific brain regions involved in emotion and cognitive control, and that people with lower self-awareness about their own decision accuracy show stronger brain responses to morally charged political issues.

The findings help explain why deeply moralized political beliefs can feel so non-negotiable. When people see political positions as morally right or wrong, they not only respond more quickly but also engage brain systems associated with salience, conflict monitoring, and goal-driven thinking. But this fast, confident decision-making comes with a caveat: people who are less able to distinguish between correct and incorrect judgments—a trait known as low metacognitive sensitivity—appear to rely more heavily on these moral signals in the brain. This could help explain why some individuals become more rigid or dogmatic in their political beliefs.

The article from which the above is taken--and the study--keys on the political aspect, but the same could be said about anything now. People are not not going to think, most have lost the ability to think and would not be able to think if they wanted to. Again: Everything is a muscle. When the muscle goes, it's essentially not there anymore.

I found a tape put together by someone of the Grateful Dead's 1/27/68 performance from the Eagles Auditorium in Seattle clocking in at just under an hour and a half which I'm glad to have. They had to make it from various sources. This gig was previously believed to be from 1/23 and it's hard to locate with everything intact. I had to download it as one continuous piece of music rather than as individual tracks, but that's okay. The tape features one of the first recorded versions of "Dark Star," and the band is highly aggressive throughout. It's this blood-in-the-water shark-swarm music.

The judge decreed it, the clerk he wrote it

Downloaded Victoria Spivey's complete recorded works.

Walked three miles yesterday. Ran 2000 stairs. walked six miles, and did 100 push-ups on Sunday, which marked 3185 days, or 455 weeks, without a drink. Monday I did 100 push-ups and ran 6000 stairs at City Hall and took a steamy video.