Eight-year old poet

This spring, Hannah took part in the third grade Living Wax Museum at her school, where kids research figures from history that they admire, write up a report to read aloud, create a posterboard display and then dress up like the person. Then the parents walk through this Living Wax Museum exhibit, prompting the kids to read their pieces aloud by dropping quarters into pails placed on the table on which their posterboards are displayed. The day of this event, I took a personal day off and our family visited the Emily Dickinson Homestead up in Amherst to soak Hannah in the atmosphere of the poet, but we soon found out Hannah had already learned quite a lot through her research beforehand and was able to comment on many of the things being pointed out on the tour.

Below is the piece she wrote to read aloud at the event. In the spirit of Emily, Hannah decided to write in verse rather than in prose, as the assignment was intended (her teacher was more than happy to honor the request, of course). Also in the spirit of respecting Emily, who only lived to see a handful of her poems published, each edited considerably without her input, I’ve decided to type up Hannah’s poem just as she wrote it, despite its occasional oddities.

The Life of Emily Dickinson
By Hannah Ricci-Westcott

My birthplace was Amherst, Massachusetts
My birthday was December 10
I have a great story to shout out with glory
And your ears I ask you to lend

The year was the end of 1830
New fame was aloft to tell
For nobody knew it was me
Who would have poems I wanted to sell

About when I was nine years old
I moved to the Pleasant Street Homestead
Where there was plenty of forsythia
And plenty of journal pages to be fed

I’ve about 2,000 poems
My next stanza’s the first one
I never knew I’d be famous
Before death all my work’s all but done

“The mushroom is the elf of plants
At Evening he is not
At morning, in a truffled hut
It stops upon a spot”

I did not know what my future was
My poems were not discovered
And over some scraps of paper
My pen simply hovered…
Then when I was finished
I stuffed poems in my dresser
And after my death, sister Lavinia
Found my poems which obsessed her

I just wanted to write about the world
Never was prepared for fame
I’m a woman- too weak
But then a thought came:
“Could I not just write?
It is not against the law.”
When I started up my poems
It was then I finally saw
That it was my best talent!
And I was right! Yet again
My poems were created in nature and zen

I was the first poet
With words of brand-new style
No one knows what I really meant
When I said butterflies kiss on the tile
It means love, love, love, my dear
So now you surely know
That I know how to be different
And make poems that are not just so
I’ve inspired people to write poems
Poems about nature, to say
This is my last word
To you, I hope a good day

My real name is actually Hannah, and I have to say that Emily has inspired me to write poems about nature. She was a great go-getter, and when her older brother Austin went to college but she couldn’t, she was greatly vexed. She knew that she was by far the very smartest and brightest in her family. I follow in her footsteps and make poems when I feel like it, not when I am forced to. But I make poems by myself best often. She’s awesome and I feel very close to her, since Amherst is close to Hardwick.


And here is one of Hannah's aforementioned nature poems from her own pen:

The dawn is new and rising
Its swift bird sweeps over the grass
The little child runs over it
And into the fieldy mass


Nonetheless, I think my own favorite of her works so far is the following one:

Brought by the shadows of whom
Never wished to know
The language of below.
Their whispers always drift aloft
Always gone of wind,
A ring is worn alone
Only to wait and slip.
All too soon comes a breeze
The curtains part, the winds whistle.
Though birth will never break the spell
And doors will click and twist,
Sheet will ripple,
And heads will blur unknowingly.
Tears will drop, but never fall,
Or it shall be made into ink of dread
It will write on your heart invisibly, silently,
Leaving you no choice.

List of Titles

Back in 1999, Henning, Brian and I were playing in the band Humbert along with Ari Vais and we recorded an incomplete album that went by the title "The Insomniac's Almanac." That moniker was provided for us by our poetry-writing friend Connolly Ryan, who also named Humbert's second CD, "The Great White Lunchroom" as well as an old solo release of mine, "Are You There, Margaret? It's Me, God." Recently I came across the list of title suggestions that Ari, Hen, Connolly and I all came up with for the stillborn 3rd Humbert album. I must warn you- more than a handful of Connolly's will make you laugh out loud (some of them would make great titles for Guided By Voices songs, too).

ARI:
Bamboozled
Ouch
Driven By Drivel
We Will Crush You All
Soundcheck Encore
Serious About Soap
Dance, Dance, Dance
Our Bodies, Ourselves
Giant
Too Gay To Barf
Details of a Catnap
Entrails of A Turnip
Night Owl
Howza Howza Howza!!!
Good Grief
Good Bones
Trapped In The Glove
Stalkaholic
Naked
Shot In The Dark
Scaraoke
Rock Of Ages
Secretariat
Boobie Trap
Surprise And Shine
Dead
La Dee Da
Letterbox


HENNING:
Karaoke Dinner
Karaoke Bench
Breathe
Hello Stranger
Thank You
Fiendish & Fervored
With Love
Durable
Slide Show
Not It!
Strangled
Trampoline
The Foal
Conversation


TONY:
Bubblebath
Puttin’ The Grunt In Disgruntled
Problemless Honeymoon
Straightforward Is A Word
Efficient Rock Band
Fruit Nut
Pale And Polluted
Perp At The Waterpark


CONNOLLY:
The Insomniac’s Almanac
Thug Harbor
Bugaboo Harbor
Sunday Drivel
Fun In The Mud
Lemonade Stand-Off
The Pillowtalk of Criminals
Wreckingball Perfume
Various Shades Of Severe Disappointment
Beyond The Watercloset
Sweet Dream At Gunpoint
Halo On A Leash
The Strumpet’s Trampoline
Divine Rejection
Bardic Antfarm
Babies On Parole
The Pussycat’s Chauffeur
Asthma For Beginners
Shangri-La By Shortbus
Gumshoe Dreams
Berlin Wallpaper
England, Old And Dew
Huckster’s Abroad
Swallowed Holiday
Butter Ballet
More Sleighbell Fugues
The Original Inertia
Of Vais And Hen

Katy Perry, Jesus Christ, and my son Owen

Last week, I was at my six year-old nephew's birthday party and soon after opening his presents, he began playing with a few toys while listening to his new "Kidz Bop" CD. If you don't know of Kidz Bop, it's basically collections of famous current pop hits sung by groups of kids to the background of faceless karaoke backing tracks. Anyway, I couldn't help but notice one of the songs on my nephew's CD was Katy Perry's recent hit, "California Girls," only the choruses were altered so that the line "California girls, we're unforgettable/ Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top" was removed altogether, ostensibly because Kidz Bop might not consider such outfits appropriate for the young audience at which Kidz Bop is aimed. Either way, the truly baffling thing was that the kids still sing the second half of the chorus- several times no less- which goes, "Sun-kissed skin, so hot, we'll melt your popsicle." It's not that I don't understand- I do understand how this would occur- I just wish it weren't so, especially given the fact that I teach language arts.

Same goes for the bigotry surrounding the controversy of having a mosque built near Ground Zero. In one of her blog statements, Sarah Palin recently pleaded with "all non-violent Muslims" that they try to be understanding of her insistence that a mosque not be built there out of respect for the painful memories of 9/11. In answer to Mrs. Palin, I would ask all "non-bigoted Christians" to consider the idea that Jesus taught his followers to love their neighbors and to turn the other cheek. Moreover, I'd argue that allowing this mosque to be built would send a message to the world that we Americans do not blame Islam itself but rather Al-Qaeda for the terrorist act. To my mind, it would be like insisting that no Catholic churches be built in the vicinity of the Murrah building in Oklahoma City because Timothy McVeigh, a terrorist who considered the U.S. government to be the "ultimate bully," was Catholic. Either way, my opinion is in the minority so maybe I truly am not understanding something here.

Let me end on a non-political note and simply relate one of those "kids say the darndest things" moments. Last weekend, our family was having lunch at this cool cafe in Brattleboro- sorry, I can't remember the name (not Mocha Joe's or the hole in the ground place, though those are cool, too- this one made a note of their careful attention to being green-friendly in every way possible)- but they had a kids' corner with tables, toys, a blackboard to scribble on, etc. and our two oldest kids went straight for it while Shelly and I ordered coffee and snacks. Owen, our three year-old, and Hannah, his older sister, insisted they didn't want anything to eat but would be happy with smoothies. Later, after some time had passed, Hannah changed her mind and asked my wife if she'd go up and obtain a muffin or something. Shelly asked Owen again if he wanted anything but he was happy playing with the chalkboard and said no. A minute later, Owen ran up to his mother in line but she still couldn't get him to decide on a treat. She picked him up and held him on her hip nonetheless. Finally, one last time she asked him if he wanted anything to eat and he said no so she asked him why he left the chalkboard to come wait in line and he stated plainly to the delight of all four of the young women working behind the counter, "I just wanted to come see the pretty girls."

Pink Moon - VW - Ten Years?!

I can't believe its been almost ten years since that Nick Drake 'Pink Moon' Volkswagen commercial came out.

I remember it pretty clearly.  I was a big Nick Drake fan at the time and like most of his fans, I felt like I had discovered a secret treasure.  Then, whammo, out of nowhere, Pink Moon is on the TV.  My first thought was "Oh no!".

The commercial was actually pretty beautiful, though, so I was a bit torn.  The more I thought about it, the better I felt about it.

Who am I to want to keep something as wonderful as the music of Nick Drake to myself?  If I really felt like I had discovered this amazing thing, why wouldn't I want to share it with the world?  Would its value to me diminish if others also could experience it?  It's not like I'm sharing a pizza with the world and there will be less slices for me to eat.  Music is like the flame that ignites all the other flames.  Each new flame doesn't diminish the original.

And so what if the song was being used in a commercial?  Was it supposed to bother me that the only reason it was on the television was so Volkswagen could sell cars?  The only reason music is on the radio at all is so they can sell advertising space.  The only reason music is on records in stores is so they can sell the records.  Money fuels most art at some level.  So, Volkswagen hoped to sell cars by using this song.  That's not much different than a record label hoping to sell records, or a band hoping to sell tickets or t-shirts.

And clearly the people who put together this video had strong feelings for that music.  It was certainly created with love.

And, wow, how great that thirty years after his struggling career, in which Drake often expressed his frustration in not having his music more widely heard, suddenly this song was heard by millions of people.  And it wasn't heard as background music in a store or on the radio.  It was exhibited in a clear way that made you listen closely.

It's been ten years since that commercial came out and that album, Pink Moon, is still just as magical and precious to me as it ever was.  For me it acts as an antidote to everything else in the world.  If you wake up grumpy and feeling defeated by the world outside your bedroom, put that album on for a second.  If you are concerned about traveling through the slippery roads of freshly falling snow, put that album on and feel your heart rate slow a little.  If you need a break from the overly loud and flashy world around you, play Pink Moon and take a second to recalibrate. Hell, it can even make a commercial seem precious.

The Fawns and National Carpet Poster

The Aloha Steamtain Comeback Special 2010 - A Recap

On this past Saturday, we had the Aloha Steamtrain Comeback Special 2010.  Ken was on tour at the time with Spouse but Joe Boyle did play, so we were a four piece.

Lord Russ was visiting for a week or so and we decided, hey, let's have a show while he's here.  We were able to have a quick practice during the week before the show.  We went over most of the songs, a couple we just touched on and said, "let's see what happens".  They all came back pretty easily.

The turn-out for the show was wonderful.  The room was nearly full and almost everyone was up and dancing from note one.  That was due in a large part to the lovable group Tasha Yar who kicked off the evening.  It was a Comeback Special for them as well as lead man, Scott Alden had just returned from a too-long stay away from the area.  Tasha Yar and their sparkly dancers, the Tasha Yarlings, set the mood for the evening.  They were a perfect match with the Steamtrain. Let's thank Lesa Bezo for suggesting that combination.

Our set, while great fun, went by far too quickly.  We played for 75 mintues or so, but it seemed like twenty.  In fact, while discussing the show with an audience member I related that the time went by so quickly for me and he said, "Well, you only played for about 45 minutes."

There were a lot of familiar faces from the past in attendance. People who played major roles int he Aloha Steamtrain series returned for this bonus episode.  We had guests from across Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey in the room.  They really made the night what it was.

What it was, was just an all around friendly good time.  Everybody seemed to be in a beaming good mood before, during, and after the show.  Not only was that evident from my view point on the stage, but that was the comment I got from a lot of different people.  They all marveled at how happy everyone seemed, and how everybody left in a good, energetic mood.  Smiles all around.

There is a currently one video online.  It exists, right now, only on Facebook.  The link is here: The Aloha Steamtrain - 80 Degrees.

Here are a few of the many photos that people have been sending to me.


Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.