Image via WikipediaReasons To Be Cheerful Pt. 3
Ian Dury's Reasons To Be Cheerful Pt. 3 is on high rotation on my iPod right now. Not surprisingly this song makes me cheerful, sends me off in search of other reasons to be cheerful.
The first one that comes to mind is in Tolstoy's War And Peace. There is a scene where the young aristocracy are riding in sleighs through the perfect snow, in fancy dress on their way to a traditional festival. The girls are wearing men's suits, charcoal moustaches, hair tied up under hats, they are free to act outside the usual constraints of their polite society, they seem more vivacious and exciting than ever before. The whole passage is stoked with desire and joy, a celebration of youth before youth became a buzz word or a demographic. You know that all the participants will remember this night their whole lives, the feeling spreads to the reader.
Another is a simple drum beat. It occurs twice in James Brown's (Get Up I feel Like Being A) Sex Machine. The horns play seven perfect hits, the drummer cracks the eighth and kicks the whole band back into the groove. I've listened to this song over seven million times and this drum beat still hits me in the guts every time.
My mind wanders to Kerouac, On The Road. Kerouac is looking through the rear window of the car that is driving him away from Cassady. Cassady has a sad, beat bandage hanging off his sad, beat thumb, the thumb that hitched them both across America. Kerouac has been forced to choose between doing the right thing by one friend or leaping back into wildness and freedom with Cassady. The sheer bloody awfulness of this moment, the humanity, the honesty, that someone wrote this and I got to read it makes me feel ecstatic.
My friend paints. He paints real good. Once he painted a large abstract, cloudy greys that dragged the eye deep into the canvass. It takes a while to notice the life sized dog, a black and brown boxer, in the bottom right hand corner. The dog is almost photographic, real real real, so damned doggy. The abstract becomes even more beautiful for the presence of that dog. Nick's excellent technique and sense of humour thrill me.
That's plenty of reasons to be cheerful for now.
Parkstreet.
http://www.kentparkstreetblog.com/
The first one that comes to mind is in Tolstoy's War And Peace. There is a scene where the young aristocracy are riding in sleighs through the perfect snow, in fancy dress on their way to a traditional festival. The girls are wearing men's suits, charcoal moustaches, hair tied up under hats, they are free to act outside the usual constraints of their polite society, they seem more vivacious and exciting than ever before. The whole passage is stoked with desire and joy, a celebration of youth before youth became a buzz word or a demographic. You know that all the participants will remember this night their whole lives, the feeling spreads to the reader.
Another is a simple drum beat. It occurs twice in James Brown's (Get Up I feel Like Being A) Sex Machine. The horns play seven perfect hits, the drummer cracks the eighth and kicks the whole band back into the groove. I've listened to this song over seven million times and this drum beat still hits me in the guts every time.
My mind wanders to Kerouac, On The Road. Kerouac is looking through the rear window of the car that is driving him away from Cassady. Cassady has a sad, beat bandage hanging off his sad, beat thumb, the thumb that hitched them both across America. Kerouac has been forced to choose between doing the right thing by one friend or leaping back into wildness and freedom with Cassady. The sheer bloody awfulness of this moment, the humanity, the honesty, that someone wrote this and I got to read it makes me feel ecstatic.
My friend paints. He paints real good. Once he painted a large abstract, cloudy greys that dragged the eye deep into the canvass. It takes a while to notice the life sized dog, a black and brown boxer, in the bottom right hand corner. The dog is almost photographic, real real real, so damned doggy. The abstract becomes even more beautiful for the presence of that dog. Nick's excellent technique and sense of humour thrill me.
That's plenty of reasons to be cheerful for now.
Parkstreet.
http://www.kentparkstreetblog.com/
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