My #MayTale

Well, I truly seem to have earned a nice packet of Twitter karma this past week. Apart from some very lovely, chirpy interactions with a few of my favorite people-whom-I-don't-actually-know in the whole world (Andy Partridge, John Flansburgh, Alan Davies...) I participated in a compelling project begun by much-adored author Neil Gaiman. His forthcoming "Calendar of Tales" will take inspiration from a series of twelve Twitter questions which he asked, one per hour, last Monday. This seemed like fun, so I joined in. I really enjoyed the process of composing (necessarily) succinct yet creative answers to each of the questions -- they worked brilliantly as writing prompts. Thousands (perhaps millions? Neil has that many followers) of responses were logged on Twitter, with Neil himself re-tweeting scores of them every hour. I can only describe my reaction as astonishment when I noticed this string of messages in my evening e-mail:

Neil had re-tweeted my submission for the May tale... and favorited me. And commented! I was delighted. What did he say?

"Glorious."

You guys.

Neil Gaiman, whom I've admired for nearly three decades and whose writing has tickled and touched and thrilled me more than I can even express, told me he considers some small fragment that I wrote to be "glorious." Let us take a moment to catch our breath and perhaps even bask in the awe of this.
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Okay. So. This wonderful exchange alone would have made my whole month, but my "Tales" tale wasn't quite over yet. A few days later, I got a Facebook message from Neil's assistant Cat, asking for my contact info because... well, because "Neil really likes your tweet and hopes to use it." (Do we need another moment? Yes, please.)
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I was asked to sign a release form and to follow BlackBerry on Twitter (they sponsored the project) and basically give up any future rights to my humble 140 characters. I don't know much else about what will happen next, except that Neil has already written tales for a few of the other months. I'll be Miss May, if you will. I guess the calendar will come out later this year, for 2014, and be sold for charity. Even though I'm just a small part of it, I can't help feeling pleased. Twelve muses are better than nine, don't you think?

Rebel, rebel.

"...in the summer of 1981. It was lush. There was something in there I'd never come across before, a tangy flavour my taste buds had never previously known the pleasure of."

That's arguably the most sensual passage in Teenage Revolution, Alan Davies' engaging memoir of the 1980s. Alas (for me), the author is not describing a summer romance nor his sexual awakening, but his first bite into a McDonald's hamburger.

And yet I can still relate. In fact, it's remarkable how similar my own teen years were to the ones he describes, despite our being born on separate continents. We're both the same age, both from single-parent homes, and both grew up watching eye-wateringly long hours of television. I never had a CND badge, but just like young Alan I had a series of very carefully-chosen wall posters in my bedroom: No Nukes, Monty Python, Steve Martin, gay rights, John Lennon. We shared ideals and heroes, even if I was a girl who preferred Bob Dylan to Blondie and supported the L.A.Dodgers instead of Arsenal F.C. But where teenage Alan felt himself part of a current and vital lefty revolution in the UK, I always felt that I'd been born too late, that the flower power movement in America had passed me by. I was proud of being a non-conformist but I never quite felt like a rebel. For me, right after university came marriage, a baby, divorce, and a long period of time during which I was mainly concerned with keeping myself and my son safe and provided for. But I still had ideals. And heroes. I still do have heroes. And now I count Alan Davies among them. Because, although my life is a lot nicer now than it was 15 years ago, I still sometimes need to know that at the end of a sucky day, I'll get a chance to just forget all the shit and laugh. TV comedy has provided that for me my whole life, especially Python, Saturday Night Live (not SNL, please) and David Letterman ("Your TV Friend"). And it's still really, really important to me to know that I can switch on the AppleTV, search for a QI or one of Alan's other shows, and get that precious comfort of a laugh whenever I need to.

After reading the wonderfully honest Teenage Revolution and watching the TV series, I really have to marvel at how much you can know about someone you don't actually know. I mean, I realize that most actors are just that -- performers, who present only a portion of their true-life persona to the public. But I can't help feeling there's something special about a stand-up comedian, which is what Alan Davies started out as, and what I particularly treasure him for being. It's difficult to follow a comedian's performances (and tweets!) over time and not come away with at least some impression of him as a person. And my impression is that Alan Davies is a good guy. I can't help hoping he'll write about his post-80s life someday. But for now, he has every reason to be proud of the young man he was, as well as the author, performer, and grown-up person he is.

"Tower. And you?" "A regular ziggurat."

The title of my blog, Balm Carousel, was never really meant to make any sense -- it's a quote from Fawlty Towers that even most Fawlty Towers fans don't remember. But today I realized that, as I tend to come back to read and write in my blog when I'm blue or angsty, the blog does become sort of a revolving repository of things that make me feel better. But that's not what I logged on to say...

The other day I was poking around Stephen Fry's website (I've been addicted to watching QI episodes on YouTube since we got AppleTV last month; see forthcoming posts re: my emerging Alan Davies fixation) and I noticed for the first time that Stephen once recorded an audiobook of Oscar Wilde's fairy tales. This formed in my mind what Nabokov's character Ada Veen conceived as a tower: three especially beloved or meaningful things occurring together (the third thing, I suppose, was a set of sleep headphones that I found again while cleaning the apartment). Could it be that I might actually, if I chose, listen to beloved author and entertainer Stephen Fry read to me at bedtime from Oscar's fairy tales?

Most people who know me know that I've held up Oscar Wilde as a personal cultural icon from the time I was 12 or so. I'd already had squidgy popstar crushes on Donny Osmond and Elton John at roughly the appropriate ages, but I went pretty wack with Oscar: scrapbooks, posters, a shrine of sorts in my bedroom at home, and of course, lots and lots of reading (since he hadn't released any records for me to play, you see). One of the books I borrowed over and over again from the public library at that time was a volume of Oscar's fairy tales that was illustrated with attractive watercolors and bound in very pretty violet cloth. I hadn't thought about those stories for so long: The Young King, The Birthday of the Infanta, and my special favorite (Christian allegory notwithstanding), The Selfish Giant. The stories reveal a sensitivity, a non-cynical earnestness (!) that (as Stephen points out in an older post on his blog) many people don't really associate with Oscar.

Anyway, last night I had the chance to slip into the sleep headphones (these, if you're interested -- so comfy) and play the audiobook as I went to bed. And... I was weeping after the first few lines or so -- happy, and so overwhelmed with how sweet an experience it was to hear Stephen (whose work and life story and personality I've admired for years and years - got most of his books and everything) reading the Oscar stories I've loved for... well, decades. His voicing of each character was pitch-perfect, especially the Happy Prince's lilting "Swallow, swallow, little swallow." A high tower, truly. So thank you, Stephen Fry, for recording that audiobook (although I was a bit sad The Birthday of the Infanta was missed out). My next purchase will be Stephen reading Chekhov's short stories. Because... well, to be honest, it's because I read in Alan Davies' book that Chekhov is a favorite of his. (I'm hopeless.)

Meat Marketing

Beef. It's what's for dinner.

Pork. The other white meat.

Chicken. The other other white meat.

Lamb. Don't forget about me!

Veal. You heartless monster.

Turkey. You are getting sleepy.

Fish. We swim around in our own filth.

Tripe. At least I'm not haggis.

Haggis. The only thing worse than tripe.


(thanks to John for these swell slogans)

Found In The Stacks Today

Excerpt:

"Man, I just don't dig this. I never made an instructional package before, I don't even know what one looks like, I had better go back to page 6 and do the assignments and learn about packaged instruction." (p.5, "Path Selection")

Got You Sussed

I think the difference between my love for The Beatles and my love for The Who is the fact that I've been alive to experience more of The Who's musical journey. To me, The Who are less mythical, I suppose. But seeing "Amazing Journey", the new documentary (or "Roc-Doc", as VH-1 insists) tonight made me realize how important the band and their music have been to me ever since I was old enough to like rock and roll.

The film is propelled by interviews, performance footage and photos, with (thankfully) no "Behind The Music"-style omniscient narrator or swelling, ominous background music. The early biographical sketches of the band members, especially Pete's, really caught my attention; I was following Pete's autobiographical blog posts earlier this year. I also enjoyed the commentary by everyone from Eddie Vedder to Keith Moon's mum, and hearing so many fun facts about the band (was Pete sincerely worried that Jimi Hendrix was stealing his moves?).

To me, the most interesting part of the film had to be Pete's commentary on his songwriting career. He mentions that he found songwriting to be "boring" up until the time of Tommy, and after its success, he worried about playing God from that point on, especially during Quadrophenia. He confessed to feeling like a puppeteer pulling the strings his bandmate marionettes in order to put on his little shows. But gradually, he gave himself more and more permission to make his songwriting personal, and he credits Roger with always being the perfect vocalist to interpret his songs.

The interviews and comments are candid and, for the most part, sincere. The Cincinnati concert tragedy is mentioned toward the end of the film, with respectful comments from Kenny Jones and others, but neither Pete nor Roger speaks about the event. Pete does speak frankly about his arrest on suspicion of possessing child porn. And as much as I love the guy, I guess he just wouldn't be Pete without saying something shockingly egotistical and dumb; in this movie, the top award has to go to his observation that "Keith was a genius, John was a genius, I was certainly on the edge of it . . . Roger was a singer." Okay, Pete.

The film covers just about all the major events in the life of the band. Keith dies. Sad. Band breaks up. Sad. John dies. Sad. Roger and Pete live on, and Pete claims that only now have the two of them been able to feel truly close.

"Amazin Journey" is a perfect mix of history, trivia and music. Who knows, maybe they'll make it into an album, a stage show, a film of the stage show....

"...but the weather turned around."

Written seventy years ago today:

Poem On His Birthday (read and hear it here)

I have a Caedmon LP somewhere of Dylan Thomas reading this and other poems... he often said that poetry should be spoken, not merely read. He certainly had the perfect poet's voice; he very nearly sings his poems.

Somehow I always remember his birthday, but I usually think of this poem rather than the one actually called "Poem on His Birthday":

Poem in October
by Dylan Thomas

It was my thirtieth year to heaven
Woke to my hearing from harbour and neighbour wood
And the mussel pooled and the heron
Priested shore
The morning beckon
With water praying and call of seagull and rook
And the knock of sailing boats on the net webbed wall
Myself to set foot
That second
In the still sleeping town and set forth.


My birthday began with the water-
Birds and the birds of the winged trees flying my name
Above the farms and the white horses
And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days.
High tide and the heron dived when I took the road
Over the border
And the gates
Of the town closed as the town awoke.


A springful of larks in a rolling
Cloud and the roadside bushes brimming with whistling
Blackbirds and the sun of October
Summery
On the hill’s shoulder,
Here were fond climates and sweet singers suddenly
Come in the morning where I wandered and listened
To the rain wringing
Wind blow cold
In the wood faraway under me.


Pale rain over the dwindling harbour
And over the sea wet church the size of a snail
With its horns through mist and the castle
Brown as owls
But all the gardens
Of spring and summer were blooming in the tall tales
Beyond the border and under the lark full cloud.
There could I marvel
My birthday
Away but the weather turned around.


It turned away from the blithe country
And down the other air and the blue altered sky
Streamed again a wonder of summer
With apples
Pears and red currants
And I saw in the turning so clearly a child’s
Forgotten mornings when he walked with his mother
Through the parables
Of sun light
And the legends of the green chapels


And the twice told fields of infancy
That his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.
These were the woods the river and sea
Where a boy
In the listening
Summertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joy
To the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.
And the mystery
Sang alive
Still in the water and singingbirds.


And there could I marvel my birthday
Away but the weather turned around. And the true
Joy of the long dead child sang burning
In the sun.
It was my thirtieth
Year to heaven stood there then in the summer noon
Though the town below lay leaved with October blood.
O may my heart’s truth
Still be sung
On this high hill in a year’s turning.

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Source: Poetry (February 1945).

Balm Cartoon!

I was so tickled to see this:
This other balm mention was cool, too: Late Show Top Ten List from July 19th.

"Nobody's Erasing!" - My Favorite Online Comics

I rarely get the chance to shop for comics anymore, but I seem to spend more and more time reading them on the web. These are some of the online comics I try to keep up with daily. It's a shame these strip images have to be so small, but they're all links that will take you to the big version. You can also follow the title links to the artists' websites. Most of these strips are free to view, but the paid-subscription one (American Elf) is definitely worth the few bucks.

Dinosaur Comics

Possibly the funniest comic on the web. Like David Lynch's "Angriest Dog In The World" strip, the panels never change; but T-Rex's inane comments to his dino pals are different in each strip. Ryan North rules people's lives with this comic.

Quote: "Lesbians! I respect their choices and don't fetishize their sexuality at all."

The Journal Comic
Even though Drew Weing kept this journal strip going for only a year or so, it remains one of my all-time favorites. The unfortunate paradox of autobio comics is that only cartoonists produce them; how great would it be to read the comic journal of a firefighter or a copy editor or... I dunno, a librarian?

Starting point: Might as well start from the beginning -- sixteen months' worth of three-panel strips goes by quickly when they're this good.

Perry Bible Fellowship

Unsettling but sometimes hilarious, these beautifully-painted strips range from dark humor to absurdism.

Starting Point: The "Random" feature is most appropriate for this one.

Achewood

Well-plotted and sweetly surreal, this Web comic follows a bunch of bizarre, anthropomorphic stuffed animals from northern California. The artist, Chris Onstad, is insanely prolific, posting new strips several times a week and even maintaining blogs for each of the main characters.

Starting point: You can browse the archives to see how the strip has evolved, or use the pull-down menu to jump to a story arc. "Volvo of Despair," in which two cats buy Trent Reznor's high school car, is a great start.

For Better or for Worse

Kind of a guilty pleasure, but I can barely stand to miss a single day of this daily newspaper strip. Yes, sometimes it's smarmy (especially the Sunday strips), but it really does seem as though I grew up with these characters.

Starting Point: The online archives only go back as far as 2003, but several of the older compilation books are still available.

American Elf

One of the best-known web comics of all (it's also published in Burlington's Seven Days newspaper), American Elf is rock star James Kochalka's daily chronicle of his own life. He's been keeping this sketch diary for years and years now. This is a subscription site, but you can check the current strip every day.

Quote: "While Amy read a story to Eli, I looked at her crotch."

Spamusement

This one is extremely silly and I wish I had thought of it: spam subject lines accompanied by crude cartoons.

Quote (from above panel): "It's time to Refill armadillo"

Bob The Angry Flower

An irritable flower takes on aliens and wheelchair basketball. Stephen Notley is the creator of this strip. He's probably the only adult male (apart from Peter Gabriel) to dress up as a flower in public on a regular basis. His movie reviews, which he posts on his site, are entertaining, too.

Starting Point: Anywhere, as long as you don't miss "Bob The Angry Flower Struggles With The Time Looker-Forward Tube."

I Meme Mine

You've seen them by now, right? Web pages and blogs featuring cutely-captioned photos of cats and other creatures, exemplified by the now famous I CAN HAS CHEEZBURGER? site.


Wikipedia and even the mainstream news are getting hip to the emerging LOLmeme. So, after delighting in lolpresident, loltrek, lolgod and even lolbrarians, I couldn't resist starting up...


lolbeatlz

Triptych

I've been slowly attempting to decorate the side door of the garage. I've painted two panels in the past three years. Here's the one I finished today:

Here's the whole door. Two more to go, but I'll have to sit on the ground to reach them.

Five Things I Did To Avoid Answering Reference Questions On My Last Day Of Work Before Taking A Week Off

1. Made pretend phone calls
2. Sneaked away for 45 minute nap in my car
3. Used two computers at once to look extraordinarily busy
4. Took eight extended trips to the restroom
5. Avoided eye contact

Faux Fungus

Today I planted the ceramic mushroom from the Essex Junction craft show. I like how it offsets the actual fungus on the trunk of the crabapple tree. The mushroom was made by Ripple Pottery of Rumney, NH.

The Else

It's actually kind of spooky. I was reading This Might Be A Wiki this afternoon and I realized that certain lyrics in every song on TMBG's upcoming album The Else could have been written about my life -- specifically, about this year of my life. (Okay, except maybe "The Mesopotamians".)

I hope I'm not suffering from "Famous Polka" syndrome:

"A famous person wears the same size waterskis as me.
She's got three cars, as many years I've lived in this city.
Her hair is blonde and mine is brown. They both start with a B.
But when the phone inside her ribcage rings, it's not for me.
But when the phone inside her ribcage rings, it's not for me. "

Wild Wild Life

I sure wish I could find the charger to my camera so I could capture some of the suburban wildlife I've been seeing this week. This morning alone in the back yard, to complement the daffodils and violets and pretty plantlife springing up all over, I saw the following fauna:

- A pair of purple finches perched on the power cord that runs from the house to the garage
- A brilliant, loud male cardinal, which landed on the same wire and scared off the finches
- Two gray catbirds in the flowering crabapple
- Several sparrows
- Several gray squirrels
- A chittery chipmunk
- Chickadees in great quantity
and the most special spotting:
- a large bright-eyed brown bunny, which slowly hopped across the driveway, under the Adirondack chair and across to the neighbors' back yard

I'll have to look up rabbits in my Celtic Animal Oracle. But no matter what sort of omen the Druids may have thought it, seeing a soft, sweet wild thing this morning just felt a little bit magical.

Checking Out John Flansburgh

Cinco de Mayo weekend marked another Vermont visit for me, this time to beautiful Burlington on a springy, sunny weekend. The Best Friend had booked a hotel for us and whisked me away a day early; we checked in late Friday afternoon. As we walked from our room to a nearby restaurant (and a "surprise" for me, I was informed) on Friday evening, we passed by the Higher Ground Ballroom. "THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS - MAY 4", annnounced the marquee. It took me a while (nearly halfway through our meal, really) to assimilate the info, but when I did, I was ecstatic -- the BF had gotten tickets just the day before, and... we were going to our third TMBG concert together, that very night! Wahoo!

The show was to start at 8:00, so after dinner we went back to the room for a while to play Word Sweep and check out the Red Sox pre-game stuff on TV. Later, as we prepared to head over to the concert, I glanced out our fourth floor window to the walkway below. A dark haired dude with glasses was passing below. He was sipping a coffee and munching a muffin or donut as he walked. "Cute guy," I thought. I had just been thinking about Burlington and how a lot of interesting people around my age (but with perhaps a younger mindset) tended to live there, and here was a perfect example bobbing along the sidewalk 40 feet away. Then a flash of recognition: his slightly gray, slightly spiky hair, his build, his features... "Flans! It's Flans!" I shouted to the BF in the bathroom. John Flansburgh was staying at our hotel. "It was Flans! I just saw him!" I repeated.

"Cool. What channel?" came the voice from the bathroom.

"No, no... he's HERE. I just saw him out the window! I think he was walking into the lobby!"

We grabbed our room keys and took the stairs down to the lobby, but I guess we were a bit too slow: there was no sign of Flans. We paced around outside and even camped out on a bench for a while, but as 8:00 approached and Mr. Flansburgh continued not to appear, we decided to stop our spontaneous stalking.

I told the BF as we walked to Higher Ground: "I can't believe I was checking John Flansburgh out".

The show? Yes, of COURSE it rocked. There are some very good accounts of it here.

Personally, it just may have been my favorite concert ever.

Crow And The Sea

by Ted Hughes (from Crow: From The Life And Songs Of The Crow, London : Faber and Faber, 1970)

He tried ignoring the sea
But it was bigger than death, just as it was bigger than life.

He tried talking to the sea
But his brain shuttered and his eyes winced from it as from open flame.

He tried sympathy for the sea
But it shouldered him off -- as a dead thing shoulders you off.

He tried hating the sea
But instantly felt like a scrutty dry rabbit-dropping on the windy cliff.

He tried just being in the same world as the sea
But his lungs were not deep enough

And his cheery blood banged off it
Like a water-drop off a hot stove.

Finally

He turned his back and marched away from the sea

As a crucified man cannot move.

My Trip (For People Who Like To Click Links)

I had a very nice mini-vacation last week. On Thursday afternoon I took a beautiful drive here to meet up with my best friend. The day was clear and I arrived there in the late evening, just as it was getting dark. We ate some of this, watched TV, then watched another show on DVR and some of a DVD before going to bed.

On Friday morning, we ate these (I had some of this on mine), watched more of this, and I looked at some of his old LP's like this one while he played my new guitar. Then we drove into town and hit the post office, the bank, and this place. We shopped here, ate lunch here, and then did some more shopping here (where I got some of these to bring home to The Boy). Then I spotted this store where we were lucky enough to find some of my favorite chocolates. We shopped here for groceries, then went back to the house for a game, which we played while listening to the CD we bought. The mail arrived, along with a gift for me (so sweet!). We cooked a delicious chicken stir-fry dinner and watched the DVD we had purchased earlier that day. Before and after the movie, we saw an exciting baseball game on TV. Then to bed.

Saturday was the day of the big book sale, so after breakfast and a stop at a drug store (because I had the sniffles), we made our way there. It was crowded, but fun to pick through the rooms and rooms of books; we each found a few interesting things, including this, all for very cheap. Then we stopped for a soda and a juice while I filled up my gas tank. We went for a private and pleasant walk near here, following a trail through a closed-down mini-golf course to a pretty meadow beside a red barn. It was all so very... this. Then it was time for lunch here. And of course, we browsed here, where I got this interesting set of... things (does anyone know what they might be?) and some candy.

We went back to the house for some song-swapping, Sox and Skip-Bo. Then dinner (he had leftovers from Friday night, while I had this), after which we watched the remaining episodes of this. Afterwards he gave a private piano concert just for me and the kitty. Later, we started another game but soon opted for the show and sleep.

Sunday was my departure day, but first we decided to head back here for breakfast, and here again for a few things. Then back to the house, where I finished packing my stuff and we played one final game while listening to his jukebox music.

The weather was sunny, breezy and beautiful all weekend long; although I was sad to be leaving, I knew my drive home would be pleasant. So, after we said "til next time!", I got on the road, listening to some re-discovered mix tapes, including one with great alternate versions of all my favorite Beatles songs. I've been back to work a few days now, but my head is still on vacation, and my ears are still hearing the Ab Fab Four For Jan.

Snow Globe

"April is the cruellest month..."

A few weeks back, I thought it was safe once more to set outside the beautiful glass globe my best friend gave me. It's one of my favorite things; a hand-blown sphere dotted with specks that absorb light during the daytime and glow like a galaxy at night. However, today it was looking more like a snow globe:



Here's where it lives on my shelf during the cold months, and where it's been put back for another week or so:














Yeah, I'm pretty sick of snow, and wondering if I'll ever see the back garden looking like this again:

Father Kurt

I was probably too young to read Breakfast Of Champions when I first noticed it on my stepfather's bookshelf. Actually, I didn't read it when I first noticed it -- with its Wheaties-slogan title and its garish orange, yellow and blue jacket, I probably thought it was a book about sports. But adolescent boredom eventually led me to pull it down and look through it. I remember being so surprised that there were pictures: the author's own artless line drawings which illustrated the darkly comic text in a way that reminded me of The Little Prince, which we had just read in English class. I finished Breakfast of Champions in an afternoon, and I remember feeling changed... more grown-up in some way, because I had read and understood and genuinely liked this ironic adult novel.

Later there were trips to Book Thrift, the store where used paperbacks were sold by thickness; the owner/cashier would stack up your purchases, measure the stack height with a ruler, and charge a dollar per inch. I got Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, Wampeters, Foma & Granfaloons, and my favorite (to this day) Slapstick. All through high school, college and life beyond, I had the pleasure of anticipating and purchasing Kurt Vonnegut's new books as they were released: Jailbird, Palm Sunday, Galapagos, Bluebeard, Deadeye Dick, Hocus Pocus. To me, reading Vonnegut was like listening to Bob Dylan or even The Beatles: a shared generational experience (although again, I was born a bit too late to be an actual member of the relevant generation). But it felt personal at the same time, because I had discovered this author for myself and I could always identify with at least some of the themes in each book.

I loved Kurt Vonnegut for his prose and his philosophy, his ideas and his ideals. His catchphrases became part of my consciousness and his persona, expressed through the lectures, interviews and essays of his later life, became very dear to me.

He was born on the 11th and he died on the 11th.

So it goes.