Free French

“The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.”



Now there was a guy who knew a thing or two about living--Blaise Pascal, the French mathmetician, philosopher and badass theologian. Born in the summer, died in the summer, never made it to see age 40 and still made an impact on Western culture with his inventions and writings. 1623-1662


"A poem is never finished, only abandoned.” -- Paul Valery, essayist and critic, who graced this good earth from 1871-1945. Abandon hope, all ye who attempt the periodic poem. Takes a patient hand to create such imperfection...

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be” -- Marcel Pagnol,  Film Auteur, 1895-1974.

Seen any of his flicks? Me, neither, but we could catch a screening on my birthday. It's coming up, and I'm available.

“Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.”  --- Voltaire, Frenchiest French Philosopher and Writer ever, 1694-1778.

Yes, it's Bastille Day, or at least for another 45 minutes. I'm squeezing one in, under deadline tonight.

This was the day, in 1789, when the Marquis de Launay learned that it's generally not a good idea to piss off a crowd of pike-wielding siegers, unless one doesn't value one's head. A good number of the aristocracy suffered the repercussions of that day in the weeks that followed, and of course, it marks the beginnings of the modern French republic.

So here's to the French. We love to hate them, we like their cheese. They subsidized our own Revolution (merci!) and they host the world's greatest bike race every summer as well. And they produce the best mimes.

And who would vous want defending your Maginot Line more than these guys? Crepes all around, s'il vous plait.

Thanks for reading. And please remember that just because you can, does not necessarily mean that you should.

An Elegy for Lance

Written after Stage 8 of the 2010 Tour de France

http://www.versus.com/

Welcome back to earth, Pilgrim.

Hard truth in les Alpes. You're 38,
of sound mind, but broke bike,
supplanted, slashed up in torn Spandex.

And just the other day,
seven years' good luck
buckled on Belgian pavé.
Time to let the ribs stick to waffles?

Will the boss take the backseat?

Or maybe upholster a sidearm,

in a clumsy swat, like Jordan

with a bat. Time to rest.

For the French press of hot blood pursuit
 (pas cafe au lait)

They never get old, unlike Ullrich, the Badger, Pantani bought the farm.

Even the Man of the World took a shotgun to the face
He's still pissed off about it.

Recently a Mennonite has ruined
even a bowl of cold cereal in your hotel room.
And so welcome back. You are a water-bottle cage
for the other guy. Again.
You are more like us, now.

Graham Watson

Crazy With The Heat

Much of the country is on a spit this week, turned slowly over the flames of July, Dante Style. Here are a few suggestions to weather the weather, whether or not you thought of it, whether or not you want to hear it. It's the weather. It ain't going away any time soon.

Move slowly between the hours of 11 and 2. Wear a sun hat and walk from one taxes-funded, air-conditioned place to another--we've already paid for it, n'est-ce pas? Hit up the library and read Calvin Tomkins, one of our best American writers, who covers tennis serenity as manifested in Roger Federer, in the June 28th issue of The New Yorker. Peruse the cookbook stacks and pick out a compendium of cold salads. Skip the tuna if you had it last week. We're looking for less mercury, not more, thank you.

http://www.confinednomad.com/

Or, cool off at the expense of your least-favorite local corporation. Stroll the aisles of Rite-Aid and make an estoteric comparison, in your head, of the flavored water ice to the sherbert. Then go buy some, but from a local vendor you like, within walking distance. You don't have sherbert in walking distance? You need more help than I thought.

Clean your basement. It's cooler down there. Remember that broken light bulb you stalked away from, in disgust, in the mad dash to depart on the lake vacation? Time to sweep up the shards, wipe the mildew off the clothes washer, oil the hinges on the beer fridge.

These guys did!

Sweating is o.k., by the way. The Tour is on, once again, and you know how I feel about that. Later today, I'll get out there and log a few miles on the bike, temperature be damned, because life is short, and Lance is 38. He says it's his last Tour. No really!

Leave the car in drydock today. The progeny and I made it back and forth to a neighboring town yesterday twice, on our own power. Good times.

That's all I got, for now. What, I'm going to spend all of this glorious day at a computer screen? Feh!

Thanks for reading. What's that you say? Two words? Ice Coffee.

A Weekend in the Country

One day, some folks near Lawrenceville, Pa, saw fit to build a lodge above a lake, stock it with good grub, and decorate it with enough dead animals to score the 2004-2005 Taxidermy Professionals of America Appreciation Award (Pennsy Chapter).

As it turns out, if you stuff them, they will come--and play keen tunes. This weekend, many lucky 80's-era graduates of my high school convened, amongst the fur and horns, and were entertained by more musical talent than Tioga County might have reasonably expected to beget in the mid-late 60s. Two of these fellas have graced these pages before, and you can find an accounting of their musical stylings under Songwriter Buds The Second and The Third., respectively.

photo, Jill Sumner Ellison

Their sets were rousing and wonderful and inspiring in their own right, but for this blogsploitation, I'm focussing on the fairer musicians... the wimminfolk.

Obscenely gifted wimminfolk. photo, Ken Harris

Secret weapon Lori Barrett coordinated the homefront, played a set of her own hard-driving, yet funny tunes, accompanied another songster on bass, organised the sound-and-lights package, held a rehearsal in her garage and even "produced" a back-up singer in the form of her own daughter--gotta be a first amongst Mansfieldians in my extended peer group. When I was emerging from tweenhood, Lori was the star ingenue, "Following the Fold" as Sister Sarah, and putting jam on the cat, in The Fantasticks. Last weekend's show blossomed around her infectious enthusiasm, and the beaming pleasure she takes in music of any kind, and it was pretty clear that if you randomly sat her down with two strings to stretch, saw, strum or otherwise experiment with, she'd ignite into a small sun.

photo, Lonny Frost

Esther Friedman played the fiddle.

photo, Frost/Barrett

Someone ought to write a short story with that as the first line. She also said Yes to the fortunate Chris LaVancher and his proposal of marriage, and now they, well, make beautiful music together. And separately. She put an album out that's available on CD Baby, as well as Napster and you can find her stuff on Amazon, as well.

photo, Tom Willner

 I've already used the word "artisinal" to describe this kind of intricate song-making, so I won't do it again, but I will say this: If you were to trek out, on a high spring day, into the Massachussetts hardwood forest, and a tree fell in front of you at about the three-mile mark, not only would you hear it, but if you were to cut it open to count its rings, you'd find a teeny tiny little dryad with a hand-whittled lyre, posessed by the ghost of Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, plucking out an Esther Friedman tune. Swear to God.

And finally, guest vocalist Gwen Walker, who tore the shingles off the place with "Down on my Knees." photo, Ken Harris

Gwen Walker, den mother of us all; Gwen Walker, operatic mezzo who not only put the "belt" in the Belt Parkway, but also put the "fist" in sophisticate; Gwen Walker, who will still have the porcelain skin of an early-thirty-something when the rest of us are clipping coupons for Pollident. Whatever deal with the devil Gwen Walker made, I want in. Gwen was always one of the older kids whom you wanted to be like. Sometime around 1985, she put together a pick-up group at Mansfield University and they did a "coffeehouse." I didn't know what a "coffeehouse" was, nor why one would hold it at the student union building, but I took notice, given that Gwen always projected the air of someone who knew what the hell she was doing. This was especially driven home when I sat in on a rehearsal and watched her bear down on a trombone player until he got the solo right in their cover of Chicago's "Hard Habit to Break." She also referred to a Billy Joel tune as "the Joel," as in, "Awright everyone, we're going through the Joel, now." Years later, I heard Twyla Tharp do the same kind of thing in rehearsal. "Andy!" she'd bark -- "Cue up the Meyer!" (Edgar Meyer, bassist/composer). So, there you go: Twyla, meet Gwen. Gwen, Twyla.

 

A couple of luminaries in the audience ought to be mentioned--our childhood teachers. Bill Berresford was a major presence in the musical lives of many, many Mansfieldians (and Blossburgundians, too, and others, through a multi-school wind ensemble), and he was beaming all night long. Our beloved choral and theatre muse, Christine Wunderlich, conferenced in on someone's cell phone, and sent pleased-as-punch vibes from Pittsburgh. And there was another gent who took great relish at the evening's festivities--particularly Tom's rollicking, funny song about the ironies of modern conception--Jack Novak, our elementary school principal, who was as sharp as ever and remember us all, down to our bus routes. I always thought he was a terrific principal and it was a lovely surprise to see him.

photo, Lonny Frost

Everyone joined in a finale of Tom Willner's reggae chillax anthem "All Fruits Ripe," with lush harmonies and sweet syncopations. By that time, I had found the Zen of building the lavender hi-side light during a crescendo in the bridge. The controller I commandeered was a gutsy little 8-channel trouper, and faded the lighting to a blue mist at the end of each song.

photo, Ken Harris

And that's exactly what had happened at gig's end, when we walked out the door, tired and happy---a blue mist bathed the Tioga Hammond basin. Lycanthrope jug bands prowled the dirt roads in search of cheap whisky and a good time. The young shoots of corn dreamt of a time when they might tassle, and what that might feel like. And so we all made our way gingerly back to our parents' houses...

Going home as adults brings an inevitable regression to the old times, but in a good way, when we sang three-part harmonies in the school cafeterias, drove past endless pastures to catch the latest movies, and spent Thursday afternoons at the bowling alley. That's smalltown life for you. Many of us stayed in the area and are raising families, many moved away. Some have died... The thickets of Tioga County can still call back its own, and we delight in going back. So much the better, in this case, to gather around the musical fire, and tell each other a few stories.

Thanks for reading.

America's Newest Source of Plentiful, Clean Energy? George Michael...

For the rest of the month, Blaiser will attempt to live his life in accordance to the wisdom of the ancients, as revealed in the lyrics of Careless Whisper by WHAM, (UK!), and as channeled by an Intehnet search engine.

For this digital tea-reading experiment, I'll identify the most psychically profound turn of phrase found in each stanza (identified in boldface, for your pleasure), punch it into the tricorder, and choose an image from the first page of results. The synergy produced by unleashing two central elements of my life into the ether (Boolean searches and 8th-grade angst...) will either lead us to cold fusion, or will cause the British Music Rights building on Berners Street in London to implode into a TARDIS, just like people thought would happen to our entire planet when they fired up the 17-mile-long Hadron Particle Motor Speedway. If it's the TARDIS, the Brits will be ethically compelled to turn it over to the Audubon Society to make up for the boneheads at BP. Either way, our energy problems are solved.

In order to join the psychically-aware array of BlaiserBlog readers, and to harness the maximum milliamps available from your feeble minds desktop PCs*, please hit Play on the accompanying audio-visual aid while you scroll through the word-defying lyrics below. I think you'll like the results.



I feel so unsure

As I take your hand and lead you to the dance floor

As the music dies, something in your eyes

Calls to mind a silver screen and all those sad goodbyes

I'm never gonna dance again

Cause guilty feet have got no rhythm

Though it's easy to pretend

I know you're not a fool

I should have known better than to cheat a friend

And waste the chance that I'd been given

So I'm never gonna dance again

The way I danced with you

Time can never mend

The careless whispers of a good friend

To the heart and mind

Ignorance is kind

And there's no comfort in the truth

Pain is all you'll find

I'm never gonna dance again

Cause guilty feet have got no rhythm

Though it's easy to pretend

I know you're not a fool

I should have known better than to cheat a friend

And waste the chance that I'd been given

So I'm never gonna dance again

The way I danced with you

Tonight the music seems so loud

I wish that we could lose the crowd

Maybe it's better this way

We'd hurt each other with the things we want to say

We could have been so good together

We could have lived this dance forever

But now who's gonna dance with me?

Please stay

I'm never gonna dance again

Cause guilty feet have got no rhythm

Though it's easy to pretend

I know you're not a fool

I should have known better than to cheat a friend

And waste the chance that I'd been given

So I'm never gonna dance again

The way I danced with you

 Now, if my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour....

Thanks for reading, and please remember that your oil executives aren't allowed near open water unless they can do 15 lengths in an oil-filled Olympic-sized pool, in business attire, but without their WaterWings. Train Accordingly....

* BlaiserBlog does not support Apple products...

Angels on the Airfield

In which a cyclist is reborn, and Blaiser enjoys a left turn at Albuquerque.

Last year, over Memorial Day Weekend, I broke my first bone in an ironic attempt to demonstrate a speedy hill descent, on a mountain bike, to my son...

It was 39 years old, this bone, and I discovered the hard way it would no longer absorb the force of bodyslamming macadam like it did in its younger days. And so, the brand-y new road bike I had purchased the month before did not, in fact, aid me in reducing my waistsize. Rather, it sulked in the bedroom and tried to maintain dignity as a silver-and-black clothesrack.

When one is no longer a kid, injuries take longer to really heal. So....One year later, and I'm fully back in the saddle as a bike lover, having made peace with the shift from cross bars to road bars, attacking hills, exploring twice or three times a week (via semi-serious rides) the best North Jersey has to offer in the way of scenic pavement. The effort has taken me comfortably south of 200 lbs. Pants are starting to fit well, again. It's nice.

Good thing, too, because I attended a wedding in Los Angeles over the weekend. Now, I have to say, I'm an Easterner, as my grandma would say, and as such, I don't really recognize LA's right to exist, what with what I perceive to be a mostly nonsensical lifestyle: Botox available on the beach, executives who have the gall to "develop" reality shows, and a dearth of decent public transportation, encouraging everyone to enmausolate* themselves in gas-guzzling cars that smogify the planet more and more each day. Oh, and the earthquakes, and the just, plain weirdness of Southern California (note irresistible marketing banner).

The nuptials, however, were fab, and pulled off as a bit of matrimonial performance art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA).

They don't really "allow" weddings there, but my buddy, a minor deity of American public radio who shall remain unnamed, had the audacity to act on a good thing when he saw it, and I don't just mean securing the hand of his elegant bride. The guests convened around dusk...

The lamps were lit...

a bride and groom emerged from the smog, became man and wife in a swift, yet moving ceremony--at arguably LA's most romantic locale--and then processed into the modernist concrete courtyard.

Delicious foods were served at the reception and a vinyl-spinning DJ brought the noise. Again, I don't mean to pull back the Venetian blinds that shield the secret and wild nightlives of public-radio personalities, but Holy Crap can that Krista Tippett dance a mean Limbo...

A beautiful wedding aside, bad things tend to happen when I visit California. Once, I went to San Francisco for a gig and awoke to a medium-sized earthquake, which seemed to say, "If you've wondered what it would feel like if you won the slots in Vegas, and then fed all 200 quarters into the vibrating, heart-shaped bed at the same time, ponder no further."

This time, I went to Venice Beach for the first time, and somewhere nearby, Dennis Hopper expired; Gary Coleman had turned up his toes the day before. Now, the narcissism of blog-writing aside, I'm not implying my movements have any effect on anyone, really, but could there be some link? An MD Super-80 extends its flaps at Dallas/Ft. Worth, and a dimuntive actor in Utah suffers a brain hemorrhage?

I don't mind admitting that it got me thinking, though, and so I did some research into my whereabouts when the world lost Hervé Villechaize on September 4, 1993. And you know what? I have absolutely no idea what I was doing. Probably sweeping the dance floor at the Joyce.

Alors, I'll impart the following bit of wisdom: If you're a middle-aged celebrity under 4'-8", you better make sure your affairs are in order if I either reach for a broom, or board a jetliner.

Writing of which, I am a huge fan of periodic jet travel, even though you now have to pay for checked bags, blankets and bad food, and despite the fact that we were never intended to be up there in the first place-- otherwise we'd have spray feathers available to us in random office buildings in LA instead of spray tans.

The flight back was direct, but due to bad weather somewhere in the middle of the country, we hung a Louie in New Mexico and hauled ass for the Great Lakes.

Then around the stretch we came, and BAM! We were over Manhattan and swung wide over the Atlantic before sliding into the Rockaways, and the airfield formerly known as Idlewild. Given the freakin' traffic on the Van Wyck on the way outta there, I wish they had left the damn golf course alone.

* Good word, huh?

Big Bird, Trilliums and Mothers Day in Heaven

Today the Red Sox are a half-game out of Second Place. But there are three teams ahead of them. How should I feel about that?

More important, Tim Wakefield goes for career win #190, and in a related move, there's a real good possibility I'll get to meet Big Bird this afternoon...

He's 40, too. We should compare notes.

I have white man's overbite guilt/envy when I dance to R & B records.

On Sunday, I saw a snowflake in Scranton. It was Mothers Day, and in the local paper there were more than 20 "Mothers Day in Heaven" memorials to dead mothers. My mother is still alive and well, in Florida, so I sent her flowers and took myself out to brunch at Chick's Diner on Moosic Street.

Ron Paul has introduced legislation to once again legalize hemp farming in this country. Party on, Garth.

I propose we merge April and May into one month in which all the poets bike to work.

Thank g-d Whole Foods has sprouted stores in expensive neighborhoods. Before that, I'd only partially eaten foods for which I had underpaid.

If I only write ny with lowercase letters, can I reasonably expect never to have to spend time in Albany?

The single largest donor to the Democratic Party made his fortune from "five retards in Spandex." I don't think he's a nice man.

I wonder what the career advancement opportunities are for the guy who wears a diaper and lies on a bed of nails. Does he look over at the guy who walks on hot coals and think, "That's my two-year plan, Inshallah."?

Is Inshallah Arabic for "yo" or is "yo" Jive for "God Willing"? *

When a thing is televised, its head is actually held motionless in the retractable steel jaws of fiction.

If you ask a McDonald's executive where you should eat lunch, betcha he won't say, "Burger King."

Recently I walked in the woods amongst the destruction wreaked by the natural gas companies, in their disheartening prosecution of making profit from the Marcellus Shale. Hundreds of trees had been knocked out, and bulldozers had carved a road into a mountain side -- my hunting grounds. At the edge of this road, where busted roots were flayed open like the broken bones of  so many freeway pileup victims, I discovered a tiny little trillium erectum, a protected wildflower that was illegal to pick, in my youth, and may still be. In that moment--a tenuous cling to the roughly ploughed earth--this fragile forest jewel stood proudly against the arrogance of man, as if to say, "You may tear up my home and gouge my garage, but you cannot stop the tumescence of even the smallest living thing. You Gunkies!"

Thanks for reading, and here's a question to ponder on your trip home: Does forcing the Earth to fart  constitute a safe, sane or sustainable energy policy?

* I know. Most fakirs are probably not speaking Arabic. I'm just sayin'.