Nostalgia with T.A.M.I.

T.A.M.I. stands for Teenage Awards Music International, and the T.A.M.I. show was in theatres, first in Los Angeles, in November 1964.  Since then, the show has occasionally been aired on television, and many pirated videos have been made from those appearances or from the 2200 prints made for those first shows in L.A. and around North America and the U.K.

Now there is the official collector's edition DVD, and it is fabulous.

Anyone old enough (and many who aren't) to remember the Beatles first television appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show (February 1964), and to remember the swooning and excitement, is exactly the right age to appreciate the nostalgic trip offered by the T.A.M.I. show.

The 112-minute DVD features The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, James Brown and the Flames, The Barbarians, Marvin Gaye, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Lesley Gore, Jan and Dean, Billy Kramer and the Dakotas, Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, The Supremes, and The Rolling Stones - quite a stellar line-up!

The Beach Boys, at one point,  insisted that their performance be removed from all copies and from the master, but so many copies had been made that their part in the concert was preserved, which also allowed them to add the footage to a "best of" album/DVD in 2004. The bootleg copies also facilitated the collector's edition DVD.

As far as I know, these same artists never appeared anywhere else together; for that alone, the movie is a unique document; it's a piece of rock and roll history. Until now, I had no idea such a thing even existed.

Mostly though, for me, it's about memories and nostalgia. Gosh Mick Jagger has aged since those days - and I just don't want to think about what that implies for the rest of us who remember so well!

The Connections! The Connections!

I do so love posts and comments that trigger connections that become other posts and comments. My last post about April being poetry month fired up Cooper to post entries about poetry at Wonderland or Not. She, in turn, has written something that fired me up - and hence this post!

When the connections are about other connections - literary in this case - I am really happy.

In Ashes and Waste Lands, Cooper "opines" about T.S.Eliot's The Waste Land and reminisces about reading it with all of Eliot's notes interspersed. I, too, remember studying the poem and wading through all of Eliot's many notes.

In the first note, Eliot recognizes the work of Jessie L.Weston, which he claims contributed greatly to the poem:

Not only the title, but the plan and a good deal of the incidental symbolism of the poem were suggested by Miss Jessie L. Weston's book on the Grail legend: From Ritual to Romance (Macmillan). Indeed, so deeply am I indebted, Miss Weston's book will elucidate the difficulties of the poem much better than my notes can do; and I recommend it (apart from the great interest of the book itself) to any who think such elucidation of the poem worth the trouble. To another work of anthropology I am indebted in general, one which has influenced our generation profoundly; I mean The Golden Bough; I have used especially the two volumes Adonis, Attis, Osiris. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognize in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies.

Weston's book is complex and interesting. She claims that Grail legends are based on ancient fertility myths. Both Weston and Eliot were influenced by Sir James Frazer's work The Golden Bough.

Jessie Weston's book also makes an appearance in the 1979 film Apocalypse Now. The film, set in Vietnam and Cambodia during the Vietnam war, is based on Joseph Conrad's novel Heart of Darkness, set in late nineteenth-century Africa.

Weston's book and Frazer's appear very briefly in the movie, as the camera shows the quarters of Kurtz, who has set himself up as a god in a remote Cambodian village (much as his progenitor has in central Africa in Conrad's novel).

Kurtz reads from Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men," and has background works for The Waste Land on his bookshelf. Comment on Kurtz's psyche? on the human condition? merely on Kurtz as an educated man? on Eliot?

Specualtion is great fun, but it can't beat, for me, those great connections, literary or otherwise.


Thanks, Cooper, for triggering this digression!

April is Poetry Month

Once upon a time, poetry didn't need a special month set aside for it. But in the millennia since humans first became poetic, what is encompassed by the word "poetry" has become so diverse and often so removed from our everyday lives, that we need a reminder of what poetry gives to us and an opportunity to celebrate it and its makers.

April is poetry month in Canada and in the U.S.

Way, way back, poetry was an aid to memory, the repository for heritage, ancestry, and the lineage of one's cattle. Professional rememberers knew the formulas for oral poetry and could recite the story of a people's creation, battles won and lost, the coming of animals into the world.

At times, poetry has expressly taught us lessons, given us images, told us stories, conveyed ideas, celebrated the sound of words and the sheer joy of putting them together. Poetry expresses the world to us in ways that we don't usually think of for ourselves.

Poetry is also the battleground for academics, poets, theorists, critics, and people whose grandmothers write poetry in notebooks. Everyone, it seems, knows exactly what poetry is and what it definitely should never be.

In fact, many of us have an idea about what constitutes "real" poetry. It can be representational,  or concrete, or imagistic, or rhyming, or not ryhming, or structured, or free. Should one use villanelles or ghazals, isolate syllables with parentheses, use all lower case, spill out angst or joy, celebrate daffodils ? Long line or short? Lyrical or conceptual?

I have taught poetry classes for twenty years, read it for most of my life, and written a little as well. I love poetry in most of its forms, purposes, and concepts, even if I cannot say that I do so equally.

I have come to thoroughly dislike the, often quite bitter, arguments among poets themselves, among academics who advocate for a particular theory above all others, among those who simply don't know the great range of poetry and insist that only what they do know counts.

We humans can take something so integral to our long existence -  a linguistic mode of expression,  joy,  provocation, beauty, sound-  and fight about it to the point that it can become marginalized and we do, indeed, need a special month to commemorate it.

We need rap, and rhyme, and all the other modes of poetry. We need the poetry of professional poets, of children, of grandmothers, of the poets of the past from any tradition.

Crayola is celebrating National Poetry Month with activities for kids. The Poetry Foundation doesn't seem to be in celebration mode, but is such an incredible resource for poetry that I must mention it. Did you know that there are even poems celebrating nutrition month, which was in March? The corporate, the kids, the highbrow, the rhyming nutrition poems, we need them all.

April is Poetry Month. Have a poem for breakfast!




(daffodil photo credit)
(painting by Ann Altman)

Everybody Knows?

Jim Carey's opinions about what any woman, and hence Elin Woods, knows about her husband's infidelity are pure bumkum, put forward for whatever reason Carey felt his opinions should be heard. And everyone, from his fellow Twitterers, to media commentators, to ordinary people in the street, has lined up to agree or disagree with him.

We all think we know about people generally - what they think in certain situations, how they feel, how they should act. After all, it's just "normal." And if we know in general, then we know for Elin Woods. End of discussion. Any deviation from the norm signals something amiss. Or so we believe.

The truth is that we really don't know what we think we know about how others live, think, react, feel.

The most dramatic instance demonstrating exactly that we don't know is the 1980 case of the death of nine-week-old baby Azaria Chamberlain in Austrailia. She was the infant who was probably stolen and killed by dingoes.

Azaria's mother, Lindy, always claimed that the baby was stolen by dingoes; but she was convicted in 1982 of murder and sentenced to life in prison with hard labour, in spite of evidence to the contrary.

In 1988, after the accidental discovery of a missing piece of Azaria's clothing, some ways away in an area of dingo lairs, the mother was exonerated of all charges.

The discovery of the clothing, a problem with some forensic evidence, and bias and invalid assumptions on the part of the jury, the public, and the media led to the court's decision to exonerate Chamberlain.

Lindy Chamberlain did not act as grieving mothers should act. She was not the stereotype of the mother whose child has just been stolen and killed. She was too cold and unemotional. The conclusion: She was the baby's killer.

Lindy Chamberlain reacted in a way that was different from what EVERYBODY KNOWS is normal. In her case, what people thought they knew led to her being imprisoned for six years. What else she suffered, only she could say.

For Elin Woods, what everybody knows will not lead to a legal sentence of life in prison, but cannot possibly have any positive effect on her or her situation. We don't know what she knew at any point.

The argument that everybody knows what wives with unfaithful husbands know is wrong. Any argument about what everybody knows about what people know, think, feel is suspect and damaging, possibly even dangerous.

It is a demonstrable fact that controversy often generates publicity. But what Jim Carey thinks he is doing by commenting in this way, or at all about Elin Woods, is something only he knows.

The Wishfulfilling Quick Bite

We love headlines and sound bites. But I wonder how often, in our feel-good, easy-answer culture, do we actually read or listen further. How often do we really want the whole story?

The butter/magarine war is a good example. Butter has won the most recent battle, with scientists considering it a better choice than margarine. That doesn't mean butter is good for us. It's a saturated fat that is preferable to a trans fat, nothing more. But oh, how we want to believe in that buttery goodness. And that's probably what we get from the "butter is better" clip.

As our collective weight and the incidence of lifestyle diseases rise dramatically, we would do well to check out the whole story. This recent story from the New York Times - "Eating Vegetables Doesn't Stop Cancer" by Tara Parker-Pope, April 8/10 - is a case in point.

The story is about a European study conducted over nearly nine years with approximately 400,000 people - the study appears in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute - to determine whether eating lots (not the scientific label!) of vegetables reduces the occurrence of cancer generally.

From the NYT headline, one could be excused for thinking that vegetables don't help even one little bit to reduce the incidence of cancer.

But wait! What does the article actually say? What does the study actually say?

What the researchers found is that vegetables DO reduce the overall incidence of cancer, but by an amount that is not statistically very significant. The researchers are also careful to point out that specific compounds in certain vegetables DO reduce the incidence of certain types of cancer. They also tell us that for smokers and regular drinkers, there IS a more noticeable effect overall on cancer reduction.

That sounds pretty good to me, even if eating our veggies is not a cancer panacea.

Now the New York Times is not responsible for people's desire to eat fat-laden fast food, high glycemic-index carbs, and servings of anything with catastrophic calorie counts. But I would bet a significant sum of cash that there are folks who will read that headline (or others like it) and think yippee! no more veggies for me - bring on the deep-fried pizza with butter sauce!

We need veggies to live; we need the vitamins in them to prevent deficiency diseases, like scurvy. Vegetables are a great source of carbohydrates (one of the macro-nutrients necessary for life) with a low glycemic index.

With sky-rocketing rates of obesity and lifestyle diseases, we need the benefit of even a little cancer protection, the vitamins to protect against diseases, and many low fat and low sugar choices. We don't need an excuse to give up on vegetables.

And for the record, I  am not a fan of those ads where people spit out their veggies and then run to top up their veggie count with commercial juice preparations - with up to 28grams of sugar per cup. Hello.

So keep reading and keep listening beyond the wishfulfilling headline or soundbite.

And eat your vegetables!


(butter photo credit)
(veggie photo credit)

Cat Nap

Sundays are so relaxing.

Circle of Friends Award

From Cheri at Along Life's Highway: The Yard Art Game, I received the Circle of Friends Award. I appreciate the honour and apologize for not being able to respond sooner.

My nominees for The Circle of Friends Award:

ANGEL'S HAIR - a delightful blog by a talented artist, with musings (and visuals) on art, life, and inspiration. I always look forward to new posts.

Journaling My Life Away - a collection of observations on life, books, scenery and locale, and, sometimes, original poetry. The blogger is a former freelance writer and teacher who has turned her talents to blogging - happily for her followers.

Humanyms - this is one of my most favourite blogs. It's eclectic, poetic, quirky, photographic, and there is always something in it that I directly connect with.

First-Ever Award

I would like to acknowledge receipt of the Excessively Diverting Blog Award from Hels at ART and ARCHITECTURE, mainly. It is the first of two awards I received (and will post about) just as I was approaching or newly recovering from surgery. Now that my brain is working again...

The aim of the Excessively Diverting Blog Award is to acknowledge writing excellence in the spirit of Jane Austen’s genius in amusing and delighting readers with her irony, humour, wit and talent for keen observation. Recipients will uphold the highest standards in the art of the sparkling banter, witty repartee, and gentle reprove. This award was created by the blogging team of Jane Austen Today to ack­now­­ledge superior writing over the Internet and promote Jane Austen’s brilliance.

My nominees for this award are:

Northern Reflections - this blog is extremely well written and delves intelligently into current events, politics, and ideas, generally.

AskCherLock.com - diverting indeed, the subjects of this blog range wonderfully from politics and current affairs to economics and self-awareness - all with pointed  and witty perception.

The Guy's Perspective - a funny, serious, informative, fun blog about the male perspective on life, love, and many other things.

arthiker - the digital art and musings of Tomas Karkalas of Lithuania. The digital photography is quite stunning and the musings thought provoking.

A little piece of me - a personal blog that entertains with doodles, photography, and humourous anecdotes and observations.

chickenbus tales - fascinating, true stories from the author's travels - travels that in and of themselves are fascinating (no driving trips to grandma's house here). This is a new blog, and one I hope continues.

Recipients, please claim your award by copying the Excessively Diverting Blog Award badge, posting it on your blog, listing the name of the person who nominated you, and linking to their blog. Then nominate seven (7) other blogs  that you feel meet or exceed the standards set forth. Nominees may place the Excessively Diverting badge in their side bar and enjoy the appreciation of their fellow bloggers for recognition of their talent.

Fires and Fears

Forty-two years ago today, I arrived home from Knoxville, Tennessee - four days after the assassination of Martin Luther King in Memphis. The days between the assassination and the touchdown of the plane on home soil were the most frightening of my life.

A Canadian teenager visiting a friend in Tennessee when King was shot, I was terrified when everything erupted. There were police everywhere we went in Knoxville. There was talk at one point of the commercial airports being closed to facilitate bringing in the National Guard.

Everyone was scared, tense, and highly opinionated about the assassination. The civil rights movement and its detractors were a concrete, in-your-face reality in Tennessee - much different from the television images and conceptual discussions I had experienced at home.

Finally, the day of my departure came and, as the plane took off from Knoxville, I breathed a small sigh of relief - only I still had to get through Atlanta, Washington DC, and Boston before I would be home in Canada.

We cleared Atlanta headed for Washington, one step closer. But on the approach to Washington, the evidence of the riots was only too obvious. Smoke was rising everywhere from all the fires in the city - one source reported over 1000 buildings burned.



Fear is generally not logical, and throughout the stop in Washington, I was convinced that the plane would be taken over and burned, or that we would have to get off (and be stranded) because the airport would be closed. 

Neither happened, and as we took off, banking over the city, the magnitude of the fires and their number was even more visible. It seemed impossible, but too true.

I remember trying to calculate when we might be in Canadian airspace after we left Boston, thinking that I would be safe and that nothing could harm me in Canada - the naivete and ignorance of youth!

In a most dramatic way, I learned how people can interpret and think about things so very differentlly. I learned that we are never immune to fear and danger.

Sadly, the the Vietnam War that King was so strongly and unpopularly against, claimed the life of my friend. He left for Vietnam shortly after my visit to Tennessee and never came home.

Every year in April, I remember them both.

Mining the Profit Motive

Since 1940, there have been more than 700 deaths from fire, explosions, or bumps in American coal mines, according to the US Mine Rescue Association.

Canada, too, has had its share of deadly coal mine tragedies. The mine in Springhill, Nova Sotia, alone, was responsible for the deaths of 287 miners in three separate disasters. The Westray Mine took 26 miners' lives and resulted in criminal charges (eventually stayed).

Each of these accidents has resulted in pledges to "get to the bottom of things;" to "leave no stone unturned;" to enact legislation and enforce it; to protect miners who resist unsafe conditions; to put the safety of miners first.

At the Upper Big Branch Mine in West Virginia, yesterday's explosion is generating the same tired old rhetoric that is trotted out after every coal mine disaster.

It's time to call foul and tell everyone involved to put up or shut up.

But will it ever end?

Governments enact legislation, but seemingly legislation with no teeth. Companies pay the fines and carry on. The mining lobby spends millions to persuade legislators not to restrict the industry too severely.

I used to wonder, like the words in the song, "When will they ever learn? When will they ever learn?" Now I'm much more cynical. They already know and they don't care. Profit is paramount.

My heart goes out to the families and friends of the miners of the Upper Big Branch Mine.

I hope that finally and forever the explosions that can be prevented will be prevented. But I'm not holding my breath.

The Chorus of Hallelujahs!

It is always a hard sell to convince students in poetry class that the poet's intention for a poem does not exhaust the range of meanings for that poem. Everyone wants to resurrect Shakespeare and ask him just exactly what he meant in a particular line. (And every student believes his or her interpretation is most likely the same as Shakespeare's!)


We don't do this with songs. We embrace covers of famous songs by the dozens (sometimes radically different interpretations) . Often, songwriters have recorded their own songs, so we have the author's interpretation, which we may really like. But we may also really like a cover, maybe even more than the author's version.

Leonard Cohen's composition "Hallelujah" is one such song. Cohen wrote and recorded the song. If we expect the same from him as we do from other songwriters/poets, we should insist that his recording is the final and best interpretation of the song - he's given it to us in the recording. Actually, he's given it to us in several versions, all slightly different - so what does that mean? Any version is awesome.



The artists who have offered their interpretation of this song are many and varied: Rufus Wainwright, Bon Jovi, John Cale, Jeff Buckley, The OC, Kate Voegele, Celtic Thunder (and apologies to anyone I've missed). Everyone has a favourite.

My all-time favourite is by k.d.lang. For me, the highlight of the opening ceremonies of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver was k.d. lang singing this song. I am humbled. (Here's the link to the Olympic performance - even if it were possible to embed this video, one would risk death and dismemberment to do so!). Here is a video of another occasion with k.d.lang singing this beautiful song:



I don't know why we make such a distinction between poetry and songs: too strict English teachers; needing the "right" answer for a test; considering poetry to be more high-brow and intellectual than songs; all of the above. (I'm not saying they are the same, just that our approach ignores the similarities.)

My best poetry teacher Rob Dunham said that after hearing some blues music, we don't ask, "What does it mean?"  We listen and experience. We should do the same for poetry before we begin to analyze and interpret. Feel the ryhthm; hear the connotations;  live the experience. Songs can guide us.

 Hallelujah!