To thine own self be true

(scene of absurd fall)

Two dopes delivering something next door last week let plastic sheets go flying all over the crescent. True terminally lazy dopes. I picked up what I could of the sheets and dropped them over my gate. (I should have then picked them up and put them in the garbage cans.)

Instead, It snowed and today in the process of cleaning a skiff off the sidewalk inside the gate, I went for a quick, unexpected fall. Nothing like falling on plastic under snow. (Let that be a lesson as to what might be under snow when one is out walking on non-see-thru, newly-fallen snow. That and evidence of how we do it both to others and ourselves.)

A close call big-time. Lucky my arms and hands were free and my head only very lightly grazed the concrete as I moved my head to one side in order to avoid a direct face-splat. I ended up with just a small horizontal cut at the end of my eyebrow. Amazingly, somehow, all of this drama did not bend or break my glasses. Have I ever said before that I’m a lucky man?

At the same moment three miles away, my daughter had a sudden, inexplicably strong urge to put on a Zen meditation CD I’d given her some time ago. To sum up, It’s all there, isn’t it? The danger and potential deadliness of winter and plastic bags as well as lazy dopes, self-inflicted accidents, close calls, luck, and the ESP experiences of loved ones.

(on left) my father, Delmar (Del) Vernon Davies (1926-1998), in Royal Canadian Navy (Sept. 9, 1943 to Apr. 23, 1946 and–in its Reserve–Sept. 13, 1960 to Sept. 12, 1965). He also served in the Royal Canadian Air Force from Mar. 29, 1951 to Jan. 20,1957 and the Royal Canadian Navy–Reserve–Sept. 13, 1960 to Sept. 12, 1965.

We/they were all young once. Like many other vets, he would have been appalled by ongoing government withdrawal of support for veterans’ health and services. He was a very witty man who loved old movie classics, music, dancing, travel, animals, and Nature. Significantly, he instilled in me a great appreciation of irony, humor, and perspective.

Over 18 years of military service for his/our country. Fondly remembered by Rick, especially around November 11.

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reprise of Remembrance Day message, 2013

(photograph and handwritten copy from In Flanders Fields by Lt.-Col.John McCrae, M.D., Toronto: William Briggs ed.)

McCrae used “grow” instead of “blow” in this copy/version.

He lay back, hands
behind his head, certain
of so much in this
unguarded moment.
he and the dog,
similarly assured and
quite comfortable with
their lots in life.
A winter afternoon thru
curtain sheers,
an illuminated poet
with pet, his socks
white as the truth
of the dog’s white.
The lamp behind his head
was not needed with
this much light, this
much momentousness
of being.

Elsewhere
on his red t-shirt
a blue monster
gobbled chocolate chips
and spoke of a world
of action and desire,
the madding nature
of consumption
and satiety, chaos,
and what it was like
‘to let loose’ and be
free quite differently.
In the end, there were
just moments and choices–
some way more simpler
than others–of
peace and contentment
with one’s ownlife and
the slow afternoon
drift of all things.

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“The poet does not think of himself as making his poems. He thinks of himself as a place where poems happen.”–Northrop Frye, “Reconsidering Levels of Meaning”

Sensibility is a key construct which people once were more interested in cultivating and developing. As Sven Birkerts describes it, it is, on one level, a range of fine feelings and ability to make distinctions (whether moral or aesthetic, etc.). On another, it is a refinement or cultivation of presence (what one essentially is and could be). On yet another, it is the part of inner life that is not given, but fashioned. On still another, sensibility means a coherent inwardness. For my own part, I believe that sensibility embodies the possibilities of/for resonance, integrity, and appreciation of such ‘old school’ things as gentleness, greatness, order, wisdom, romance, love, truth, beauty, soul, and the arts.

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1st published here Aug. 9/2013

Curationism today is a ‘second-hand’ attempt to create and communicate personal sensibility. As such, it’s nonetheless important relative to personal identity, knowledge, values, and a life-view or philosophy. And it obviously is something we can potentially express. Though what we actually create ourselves out of nothing, so to speak, is far more interesting, unique, and more deeply expressive.

Important to remember in all of the above is that “Context is all” (John Updike) relative to who we most deeply/innerly are and what Arthur Miller said–that we are each of us unique and there has never been and will never be another person (‘snowflake’ metaphor) like us again. That arising in whatever context/s of our lives. (Much as illustrated in Orson Welles’ masterpiece Citizen Kane.)

‘Tis in the information and knowing, like so much else, as I discussed in previous early entries…

Ultimate sensibility is basically a blend and/or union of the experiences of sensitivity to sensory stimuli (the physical, empirical, phenomenological world) and/with consciousness (including reflection, contemplation). Life, is of course, complex and operating on many levels/’worlds’, via many processes, but the apprehension, understanding and appreciation of the particular sensibility described above is ‘higher’, more ultimate, fulfilling, and satisfying. Typically, the body, heart and spirit are actively engaged in all of this zen and Dancing Shiva-related experience.

William Blake’s

“To see the World in a grain of sand,/And a Heaven in a wild flower,/Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,/And Eternity in an hour.”

embodies ultimate sensibility, and it is to the poets such as Whitman, Wordsworth, and Keats that one can turn to find this desired/desirable synthesis.

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(1st printed here Aug. 13/2013. I mention this because today for the first time in memory I saw the word “sensibility” actually used in a piece on curationism in the Globe and Mail.)

grey november sky
park benches etched in snow

wind strokes the last robin’s wing
breath warm & then gone

like a memory
lovers lost in each other’s eyes

we walk beside the river
& dream of hibernation

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1st published here Sept. 1/2012

Reprised after first snowfall Edmonton, winter of 2014-15

Indubitably, Ottawa-born Bruce Cockburn (1945-), of course. Bruce’s still-active half-century performing career, travels abroad, 31 albums, recent 9-disc boxset, 12 Junos, 8 honorary degrees have long merited attention. He has also won the Office of the Order of Canada, the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, and the Lifetime Artist Achievement Award.

In the fall of 2014, Cockburn reached the absolute zenith of his career, simultaneously releasing Rumours of Glory, a long-waited-for autobiography and a significant, personally-archived boxset collection of his music to date. 117 songs (with 16 new rares), his first-ever full-length DVD concert disc, and a 90-page illustrated booklet.

Uniquely, Cockburn has autographed and numbered each one of the 3,000 copies available (cf. above image of my copy). Anyone who is a true Bruce fan will not want to miss purchasing this very special, limited edition boxset.

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I was introduced by my best man/musical university-friend David P. to Bruce’s first album and saw him a year later in his first performance in Edmonton at an old church in Garneau. At that time, he played both piano and guitar. I have subsequently seen him about 12-15 times over the years, and I should point out that most of those shows were solo–which is his most common way of performing–just voice and amazing guitarwork. (He remains the top folk guitarist ever in Canada–check out his remarkable solo guitar album Speechless.)

I used several of his song lyrics in my Connections series and two editions of Inside Poetry. I told him of this when I met him in person the last time he was in Edmonton and had a signing. We talked a little about the above forthcoming book; he was very friendly and easy to talk to. Definitely, a slice for me to meet one of my folk heroes after following him for 44 years.

Arguably, Joni Mitchell’s most mature, poetic album, period, and my personal favourite. In 10 great songs, she explores her ’50s prairie childhood and teen years, child sexual abuse, youthful idealism and freedom, ‘dirty work’ women workers of the world finding romance and freedom from Western exploitation, formative friendship and love, entitlement-relationships treating others as a means to an end, the apocalyptic modern world (via W.B. Yeats’ “The Second Coming”), as well as passionate love and obsession. The strokes of her minimal backup music and allusions to painting help to maintain the central unity and author’s purpose here from start to finish.

Some sample lyrics:

“Like some surrealist/Invented this/4th of July” (“Night Ride Home”)

“Enter the multitudes/In Exon blue/In radiation rose/Ecstasy” (“Passion Play”)

“Cherokee Louise is hiding in this tunnel/In the Broadway bridge” (“Cherokee Louise”–set in Saskatoon)

“”You’d eat your young alive/For a Jaguar in the drive” (“The Windfall”)

“”And the worst are full of passion/Without mercy”) “Slouching Towards Bethlehem”)

“I feel your legs under the table/Leaning into mine/I feel renewed” (“Come in from the Cold”)

“”I heard you screaming down the mountain/Like you were running red lights” (“Nothing Can Be Done”)

“The Bottecelli black boy/With the fuschias in his hair/Is breathing in women like oxygen” (“The Only Joy in Town”)

“When it comes to mathematics/I got static in the attic” (“Ray’s Dad’s Cadillac”)

“Time has been untruthful/Heaven knows I loved you//30 years ago” (“Two Grey Rooms”)

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**Highly recommended for anyone who wants to hear a truly talented Canadian songwriter-musician-artist at the peak of her several-decade-career. Unquestionably, the top Canadian female folk singer-artist of all time.

A really nice, smart, U.K. ’70s ‘art film’ which defies conventionality. About a successful European novelist’s (Michael Caine) relationship with his spirited sexy wife (Glenda Jackson) and a mysterious young man rival (Helmut Berger) who is both a gigolo and thief. The main theme is about the blurring of fantasy with reality for all three characters, with plenty of anxiety dream and wish fulfillment, and much intrigue, jealousy, and deception mixed in. The script was co-authored by Tom Stoppard who keeps the dialogue tight, clipped, and frequently amusing. Joseph Losey’s direction is flawless for this unique, unusual film with elegant settings. Watch for the mirror and window symbolism throughout and ponder the many unexpected meanings of the “Romantic Englishwoman” title. (Great print on the newly released DVD.)