I don’t think Ben Franklin would be at all surprised to see the boats of this year’s America’s Cup, boats which seem no longer like sailboats but like an almost mythical hybrid of water creature and bird, equally at home flying through the water or above it. Ben Franklin admired the outriggers used by the Pacific Islanders, realizing that they were fast and stable.
The America’s Cup boat:
Here are a few quotes I like that I ran across recently in books I was reading. The books were fiction, not non-fiction; mysteries, not classics or philosophy; demonstrating that there is wisdom to be found in many places.
This guy’s evidently going and I’m not lion. (But he is.) Anyway, here’s a version of the song that brought this silliness to mind, a flash from a past I was alive during but didn’t partake in (inhaling or exhaling.) However, I did love the 60’s music. Enjoy.
Fictioneer: n. 1. A person who participates in a weekly challenge to write a 100-word story in response to a photo prompt.
2. A person who tells stories that may or may not be based in reality.
3. A person addicted to writing once-a-week, 100-word stories. No cure is known.
If you are not a Fictioneer, you’re welcome to read offerings other than mine by clicking on the blue link monster that follows my story.
If you read, feel free to “like” and comment.
Fictioneers love responses!
copyright john nixon
How many musical references can you find? Don’t be afraid to be Frank. Or…maybe not.
Word count: 100
Genre: If you can’t tell, I’ve failed.
A Noteworthy End
(Overheard at the wake)
“The key to it all (according to Frank) was to be natural and a sharp dresser.”
“Yeah, he always pulled out all the stops!”
“He liked to say ‘Oppor-knockity tunes but once.’”
“He also liked ‘Just duet.’ Drove me nuts.”
“Have you seen Dal Segno here?”
“Sorry, could you repeat that?”
“Never mind. It’s fine.”
“Frank liked to fly by the seat of his pants. And he was really getting into the piano.
“True, although he didn’t always conduct himself very well.”
“But what a finale!
“He’d love it! He always went for Baroque and besides, it’s all over YouTuba!”
Notes and chords…
I wanted to include a video I took on this same day, but WordPress won’t let me do it without paying for a special program.
So instead of enjoying a melody, you’ll have to be satisfied with a chord or two.
I hope you enjoyed the music.
“It’s that time of day, when you can say, ‘Head for the….beach, not mountains.'” (No Busch in my house, thank you!) It’s midweek Friday, time to put on your thinking caps and trot out the old (or new) saws for everyone’s reading pleasure. I really, really wanted to get away from feel-good stories, was looking for a good sci-fi type offering–even had the germ of an idea float by. Float? Beach? 🙂
Then my mind was overtaken, hijacked even, by not one, but many flashes from the past. I admit; I succumbed. As Boz Scaggs once sang on his Silk Degrees album (CD these days):
What can I say
What can I do
Three a.m. It’s me again
And wouldn’t you know
Things would have to end this way
That’s what I’m talkin’ about. You’ll see.
Medley
We took the last train to Clarksville,( ‘cause we’d been California dreamin’), and a big yellow taxi to the beach. The fog looked like smoke on the water. The morning sun was shining like a red rubber ball.
Ignoring the beach boys, I spied a long, cool woman. (No black dress!!) Now I’m a believer!
My wife protested, “But we were happy together.”
I retorted, “We had a good thing, baby. I know it’s kind of a drag, but I was born to be wild. Let’s live for today.”
She swung the green tambourine like Serena. Everything’s a purple haze.
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Can you find all the song titles? There are fourteen plus one group name. If you didn’t grow up in the 60’s. don’t remember the British invasion and all that not-jazz-but-rock-and-roll and didn’t see the Beatles for the first time on Ed Sullivan, you may refer to this page of 60’s song titles to see where I came from. It’s not a definitive list (“Red Rubber Ball” is shockingly missing) but most of what I used came from it or from my memories: http://largeflowerheads.com/id52.html.
It’s been suggested that I have a playlist, so here it is:
Last Train to Clarksville…..The Monkees
California Dreamin’…..The Mamas and Papas
Big Yellow Taxi….Joni Mitchell
Smoke on the Water….Deep Purple
Red Rubber Ball….The Cyrkle
Group–The Beach Boys
Long Cool Woman….The Holllies
Now I’m a Believer….The Monkees
Happy Together….The Turtles
Good Thing….Paul Revere and the Raiders
Kind of a Drag….The Buckinghams
Born to be Wild….Steppenwolf
Live for Today….The Grass Roots
Green Tambourine….The Lemon Pipers
Person–Serena Williams (not the 60’s, I know, but…)
Purple Haze…Jimi Hendrix
First things first. For all of you who aren’t my friends on Facebook, here’s a picture of a Friday Fictioneers meeting in New Jersey on Wednesday. The culprits are: Rich standing, your truly sitting on the left, Sharon on the right. A great deal of fun was had by all. Hopefully there will be more meetings. We’re planning a history tour of Philadelphia next.
On to the writing. A group of scribblers gathers weekly from around the globe for a virtual fun fest of writing based on a picture chosen after enormous deliberation by our intrepid leader, Rochelle Wisof f (no “h”)-Fields. Once we’ve written and posted the innermost thoughts of our fevered brains, we read what everyone else has written by clicking on the little blue link critter found after our stories.
No reason you can’t join in the fun. Possible categories of participation are (singly or in any combination): reading, pressing “like”, commenting, writing your own story and linking it by following Rochelle’s directions, or going mad from trying to do all of these for all the stories. No matter what you choose, it’s so much fun that you’ll find yourself happy that Friday comes on Wednesday each week. (Does that make it like Daylight Savings time, giving we get an extra few days and hours of daylight each week?)
Music: The Speech of the Soul
In the thirty years since her initial audition with the orchestra where he was principal cello, their marriage had weathered the drama of the music business, the travel, long hours, and friendly competition.
When arthritis gnarled his hands too much to play, he rejoiced in her first chair appointment, never missing a performance. Now, after the stroke, he lay locked inside himself, unable to communicate.
By his hospital bed, the cello a hard-won concession, she closed her eyes tightly against tears, whispered his joshing words from that first day, “We could make beautiful music together”, and began to play softly.
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“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination
and life to everything.”
― Plato
“Music . . . can name the unnameable and communicate the unknowable.”
― Leonard Bernstein
“Who hears music, feels his solitude
Peopled at once.”
― Robert Browning, The complete poetical works for Browning
“Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent”
―Victor Hugo
This true story is for my best (female) friend. You know who you are. Merry Christmas!
Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent.
― Victor Hugo
They were introduced after church…our new music directors, a young couple with impressive credentials: one with an excellent voice, one with impeccable piano/organ skills, both with different but complimentary people skills and a desire to build a wonderful music program. They announced, as is always announced, that anyone who liked to sing or ring bells was welcomed to come to practice for choir, bell choir or praise team. I thought I might try praise team. (more…)
I’ve been thinking about copyrights lately.
Saturday morning’s always been a special time for me; a time of leisure, of
relaxation and renewal, a time for something special to eat, like a doughnut or pastry. Even when Saturday morning wasn’t like that, it felt as if it should be. Saturday morning’s the gateway to the weekend, the time when families are together, yard work gets done, people are outside saying hello to neighbors, the barbie is fired up, maybe a time to sleep in or read for a bit, when the choices of the weekend stretch out before you and the weekend feels twice as long as the two days it really is.
When I was in high school and college, in a small town in eastern Nebraska, I used to walk downtown some Saturday mornings and get a fresh glazed doughnut from the bakery. I’ve always loved glazed doughnuts, although I rarely eat them, and was sad when the nearby Krispy Kreme closed. It was so exciting to drive past, see the neon doughnut lighted and hurry in for a free, warm doughnut. Bliss! It takes a lot to tarnish that sort of joy but working in a health food store and doughnut shop (yes, I’m well aware of the paradox of that) in Steamboat Springs, Colorado years ago did the trick. Coming in early in the morning, the smell of the oil the doughnuts cooked in dominated the back area of the store and clung to my clothes, skin and hair long after I left. I didn’t eat doughnuts again for a long time.
When I was in grade school in Omaha, Nebraska, I would have a half hour piano lesson on Saturday morning and then, in winter, my brother and I would go ice skating at the indoor rink at Ak-sar-ben Nebraska spelled backwards. (You can read a short history of Ak-sar-ben race track and coliseum here, http://www.historicomaha.com/aksarben.htm.) Not only did we get to ice skate but we sometimes saw some of the hockey players for the Omaha Knights professional hockey team and actually got to know one of them personally, Gary Sabourin, who later went to the NHL, http://stlouisblueslegends.blogspot.com/2008/05/gary-sabourin.html. When you’re a kid, it doesn’t get any better than that!
This Saturday morning, I’m enjoying the sunshine, (indoors, because it’s cold), sipping tea and writing, remembering the song from my past that brings to mind the feel of Saturday morning’s time of freshness and possibilities.
Come Saturday Morning
The Sandpipers
Words by Dory Previn and Music by Fred Carlin
Peak chart position # 17 in 1970
Featured on the soundtrack of the film “The Sterile Cuckoo” starring Liza Minnelli
Come Saturday morning
I’m goin’ away with my friend
We’ll Saturday-spend till the end of the day-ay
Just I and my friend
We’ll travel for miles in our Saturday smiles
And then we’ll move on
But we will remember long after Saturday’s gone
(Come Saturday morning, come Saturday mo-o-rning)
Come Saturday morning
I’m goin’ away with my friend
We’ll Saturday-laugh more than half of the day (ay-ay-ay)
Just I and my friend (my friend)
Dressed up in our rings and our Saturday things
And then we’ll move on
But we will remember long after Saturday’s gone
(Come Saturday morning, come Saturday morning)
Come Saturday mo (Saturday) rning
Just I and my friend (my friend)
We’ll travel for miles in our Saturday smiles
And then we’ll move on
But we will remember long after Saturday’s gone
(Come Saturday morning, come Saturday mo-o-rning)
(Come Saturday morning, come Saturday mo-o-rning)
FADE
Enjoy your Saturday morning!
This, that and the other thing 