via Plep, from a searchable Blaeu Atlas of Scotland, 1654,

(my home town 68-72)

"AYR, or AIRY
A small city, but a large spirit clings to its strong people,
Inferior to none in the nobility of its men.
Most pure, it draws its climate from the plains of the air
And a lighter breeze rests on its gentle soil.
Hence I believe it was called Airy before Ayr,
For what right does lightness have with harshness?
But if one may compare lower thing with higher,
Perhaps it should have been first called Aureate.

[Arthur Johnston depicts it thus:
City content with the goods of heaven, either from the pure air
Or from the bronze by which you may be called, you draw your name.
Indeed you are small in size, but you increase size with gifts,
And you are in front of large cities in nobility.
You look at huge stones, at gems of little body.
Yet the little gem has more lustre.
And Jove’s oak rises from a little seed,
And the seven mouths of the twin river are hidden.
Increase in spirit: she who subjected to herself lands and seas,
The city of the Tiber was once no more than a villa.] "

tracklist for the Fall Peel Sessions Box

">> Disc One:
01 Futures and Pasts (15.06.78)
02 Mother-Sister (15.06.78)
03 Rebellious Jukebox (15.06.78)
04 Industrial Estate (15.06.78)
05 Put Away (06.12.78)
06 Mess of My (06.12.78)
07 No Xmas for John Quays (06.12.78)
08 Like to Blow (06.12.78)
09 Container Drivers (24.09.80)
10 Jawbone and the Air Rifle (24.09.80)
11 New Puritan (24.09.80)
12 New Face in Hell (24.09.80)
13 Middlemass (31.03.81)
14 Lie Dream of a Casino Soul (31.03.81)
15 Hip Priest (31.03.81)
16 C'n'C-Hassle Schmuck (31.03.81)

>> Disc Two:
01 Deer Park (15.09.81)
02 Look, Know (15.09.81)
03 Winter (15.09.81)
04 Who Makes the Nazis? (15.09.81)
05 Smile (23.03.83)
06 Garden (23.03.83)
07 Hexen Definitive - Strife Knot (23.03.83)
08 Eat Y'self Fitter (23.03.83)
09 Pat Trip Dispenser (03.01.84)
10 2 x 4 (03.01.84)
11 Words Of Expectation (03.01.84)
12 C.R.E.E.P. (03.01.84)

>> Disc Three:
01 Cruiser's Creek (03.06.85)
02 Couldn't Get Ahead (03.06.85)
03 Spoilt Victorian Child (03.06.85)
04 Gut of the Quantifier (03.06.85)
05 L.A. (07.10.85)
06 The Man Whose Head Expanded (07.10.85)
07 What You Need (07.10.85)
08 Faust Banana (07.10.85)
09 Hot Aftershave Bop (09.07.86)
10 R.O.D. (09.07.86)
11 Gross Chapel-GB Grenadiers (09.07.86)
12 U.S. 80's-90's (09.07.86)
13 Athlete Cured (19.05.87)
14 Australians in Europe (19.05.87)
15 Twister (19.05.87)
16 Guest Informant (19.05.87)

Disc Four:
01 Deadbeat Descendant (31.10.88)
02 Cab It Up (31.10.88)
03 Squid Lord (31.10.88)
04 Kurious Oranj (31.10.88)
05 Chicago Now (01.01.90)
06 Black Monk Theme (01.01.90)
07 Hilary (01.01.90)
08 Whizz Bang [never broadcast]
09 The War Against Intelligence (23.03.91)
10 Idiot Joy Showland (23.03.91)
11 A Lot of Wind (23.03.91)
12 The Mixer (23.03.91)

>> Disc Five:
01 Free Range (15.02.92)
02 Kimble [the Creators cover] (15.02.92)
03 Immortality (15.02.92)
04 Return (15.02.92)
05 Ladybird (Green Grass) (13.03.93)
06 Strychnine [the Sonics cover] (13.03.93)
07 Service (13.03.93)
08 Paranoia Man in Cheap Sh*t Room (13.03.93)
09 M5 (05.02.94)
10 Behind The Counter (05.02.94)
11 Reckoning (05.02.94)
12 Hey! Student (05.02.94)
13 Glam Racket - Star (17.12.94)
14 Jingle Bell Rock [Bobby Helms cover] (17.12.94)
15 Hark the Herald Angels Sing [traditional Christmas carol] (17.12.94)
16 Numb at the Lodge (17.12.94)
17 He Pep! (22.12.95)
18 Oleano (22.12.95)
19 Chilinist (22.12.95)
20 The City Never Sleeps [Nancy Sinatra cover] (22.12.95)
21 DIY Meat (18.08.96)
22 Spinetrak (18.08.96)
23 Spencer (18.08.96)
24 Beatle Bones 'N' Smokin' Stones [Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band cover] (18.08.96)

>> Disc Six:
01 Calendar (03.03.98)
02 Touch Sensitive (03.03.98)
03 Masquerade (03.03.98)
04 Jungle Rock (03.03.98)
05 Bound Soul One (04.11.98)
06 Antidotes (04.11.98)
07 Shake-Off (04.11.98)
08 This Perfect Day (04.11.98)
09 Theme From Sparta FC (13.03.03)
10 Contraflow (13.03.03)
11 Groovin' With Mr Bloe [Mr Bloe cover] (13.03.03)
12 Green-Eyed Loco Man (13.03.03)
13 Mere Pseud Mag Ed. (13.03.03)
14 Job Search (12.08.04)
15 Clasp Hands (12.08.04)
16 Blindness (12.08.04)
17 What About Us (12.08.04)
18 Wrong Place, Right Time
19 I Can Hear the Grass Grow (12.08.04) 

"A Cloud and Landscape Study by Moonlight" 1822 by Johan Christian Dahl, from the Moonwatchers show. 

"Rear View", a nice North Shore cloudbank alignment moment from 365 Sketches by Adam Harrison 

"Two Men Contemplating the Moon" c. 1830 by Caspar David Friedrich, from the Metropolitan Moonwatchers show.  

thanks Chris for this Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway
link, the cross tie stroll and the first skunk cabbage detection of the season.

PBS NATURE special on Ireland might be good. You can never have too much stoat and puffin footage.

What a lovely idea--a John Clare weblog--

Young Lambs

The spring is coming by a many signs;
The trays are up, the hedges broken down,
That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines
Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.
And where suns peep, in every sheltered place,
The little early buttercups unfold
A glittering star or two--till many trace
The edges of the blackthorn clumps in gold.
And then a little lamb bolts up behind
The hill and wags his tail to meet the yoe,
And then another, sheltered from the wind,
Lies all his length as dead--and lets me go
Close bye and never stirs but baking lies,
With legs stretched out as though he could not rise.
 

Patrick Kavanagh

Wet Evening in April


The birds sang in the wet trees
And I listened to them it was a hundred years from now
And I was dead and someone else was listening to them.
But I was glad I had recorded for him
The melancholy.

Flann O'Brien

"Having considered the matter in -- of course -- all its aspects, I have decided that there is no excuse for poetry. Poetry gives no adequate return in money, it is expensive to print by reason of the waste of space occasioned by its form, and nearly always promulgates illusory concepts of life. But a better case for the banning of all poetry is the simple fact that most of it is bad. Nobody is going to manufacture a thousand tons of jam in the expectation that five tons may be eatable."

Of course they would!

annotated Pogue lyrics at The Parting Glass. I saw them twice, once with Joe Strummer subbing for Shane. When they encored with a rollicking, knees-up "London Calling" there wasn't a dry eye in the house. Waving here is Spider Stacy, the man who made the penny whistle rock. 

Daph remembered some of this poem by Rupert Brooke when I told her about possibly scaring the goldfish on the porch into leaping out of his water-barrel.

HEAVEN



FISH (fly-replete, in depth of June,
Dawdling away their wat'ry noon)
Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear,
Each secret fishy hope or fear.
Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond;
But is there anything Beyond?
This life cannot be All, they swear,
For how unpleasant, if it were!
One may not doubt that, somehow, Good
Shall come of Water and of Mud;
And, sure, the reverent eye must see
A Purpose in Liquidity.
We darkly know, by Faith we cry,
The future is not Wholly Dry.
Mud unto mud! -- Death eddies near --
Not here the appointed End, not here!
But somewhere, beyond Space and Time.
Is wetter water, slimier slime!
And there (they trust) there swimmeth One
Who swam ere rivers were begun,
Immense, of fishy form and mind,
Squamous, omnipotent, and kind;
And under that Almighty Fin,
The littlest fish may enter in.
Oh! never fly conceals a hook,
Fish say, in the Eternal Brook,
But more than mundane weeds are there,
And mud, celestially fair;
Fat caterpillars drift around,
And Paradisal grubs are found;
Unfading moths, immortal flies,
And the worm that never dies.
And in that Heaven of all their wish,
There shall be no more land, say fish.  

(not only one of favorite album covers, but also contains the amazing "Excursions on a Wobbly Rail", almost the name of this blog)

happy birthday Cecil Taylor!

"Obviously I'm fascinated with words. And without thinking of rhythm in language, but knowing that it's there, and reading a lot of different people, finally what happens is the same thing that happens when we are involved in music. I listen to a lot of different music. For instance, today I listened to Chinese Classical music--which I really didn't dig too much, but I'll listen to it again--I listened to Islamic chants that really knocked me the fuck out. And just single voices. I listened to Duke Ellington's Orchestra circa 1945-- there was one piece that was just amazing. I listened to Victoria de los Angeles singing Purcell's 'Dido and something or other...' and then I listened to Gary Grafman playing the first movement of the Brahms piano concerto. Brahms, boy I tell you--then I listened to Leontyne Price singing the last movement of Richard Strauss' 'Salome.' Boy--what what a-- wheeew--boy, that guy--I have to go to see that guy. A lot of shit was up. And then, of course, of course--I listen every day to something by Ligeti. Today I heard 'Ramifications' and this choral piece, and 'Atmospheres.' Then I listen every day to [he chuckles] Marvin Gaye, of course. Then I put on Sarah Vaughn, then I put on Xenakis--oh, this fucking guy--this orchestra piece, and then I'm--god, I mean I practiced the piano four hours today. I spent two hours completing another section of this poem this morning. I cooked, I mopped all the floors in this house, and I've done all this stuff. And not one cigarette I can't understand it. No champagne, anything... "

Enough Appeasement

"Americans these days don't respond to rational argument. Now that I think about it, I don't think they ever have. They respond to the brute who picks up the biggest stick and beats it hardest on the ground, which is why the Right has had so much success over the past 20 years. The Right is merely playing catch-up with the base nature of Middle America, populated by the descendents of the same mob feared by Alexander Hamilton.

After My Lai broke, even after Americans knew exactly what had happened, an overwhelming majority supported the leader of the unit that carried out the massacre, Lt. William Calley, practically forcing Nixon to intervene and soften his sentence. Indeed, if Americans had their way, we'd probably still be bombing Vietnam today. It took the Vietnamese whipping our asses to bring some sense into the nation--not rational argument.

That's why the Iraqi insurgents are saving us from ourselves. My own sense is that the Times, like so many other media, trumped up the war in Iraq not so much because they believed in it, but because they knew that their brutish, bloodthirsty consumers--the American newspaper-reading public--wanted war, any war."


(via <$Xvarenah$>)