Busytown by Jolisa Gracewood

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Busytown: A Thought Went Up My Mind To-day

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  • Ian Dalziel,

    the Cortizone...

    another Brewster McCloud fan?

    yay, verily! Immersing myself in that and Harold and Maude, provided early benchmarks for how seriously I should view the bathos-scope of the world...

    Christchurch • Since Dec 2006 • 7953 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    There really should be more music videos with dancing roller skaters.

    True dat.

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    It is never too soon to bring roller skates into a thread. Nor Olivia Newton John. Wow. The suit-dresses with the shoulder pads! The excess of cobalt blue! The blusher! ONJ's lurex harem pants!

    Also, courtship on a tightrope with parasols. Giovanni, don't you think it needs a closer reader than you were able to give through your initial tears of, um, joy?

    It's probably a sign of my excessively sedentary lifestyle that for the first minute of that video I thought the people whizzing past in the foreground were doing it in desk-chairs, though.

    (I also love how what they saved on a lyricist they spent on wardrobe.)

    Poetically: I am a big haiku fan myself, and have only just discovered fibs, a sort of haiku for maths geeks - have at it!

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • recordari,

    This will make more sense to those on twitter, but I liked the idea, so here goes.

    I/you/in two/it is true/we make a duck stew/with these words in sequence construe/that thirteen syllables seems like a lot of work, eh?

    AUCKLAND • Since Dec 2009 • 2607 posts Report Reply

  • Cecelia,

    Faith
    Hope
    Feathers
    Dickinson
    Eccentric, pithy
    The brain is wider than the sky
    But feathers are alas inherently comical

    Hibiscus Coast • Since Apr 2008 • 559 posts Report Reply

  • giovanni tiso,

    Indeed the Woody Allen book that the quote comes from is called "Without Feathers".

    Wellington • Since Jun 2007 • 7473 posts Report Reply

  • Cecelia,

    "Without Feathers".

    Cool.

    Heard the joke about the London bus driver? An old one. He said to the woman getting on the bus in a skirt on a very windy day, "Airy, isn't it?"

    To which she replied, "What did you expect, fevvers?"

    It's been a family joke for decades when anyone expresses surprise.

    Hibiscus Coast • Since Apr 2008 • 559 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    LOL, Cecelia. A new one to me, but henceforth an inevitable companion to the ancient family joke involving probably the same lady, and the phrase "Winter draw[er]s on"...

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

  • ChrisW,

    To Ian Dalziel - a tribute, though the layout isn't angled right.
    Jolisa (noting you currently reside in the singular US) - for myth read math if you prefer -

    rainbows, how do they work?

    archly they set arrows of white light aquiver
    refracting drop by drop a spectral bow wave

    infrared to ultraviolet and betwixt withal
    Bifrost spans Asgard to Midgard infradig

    but mostly they are magic
    foam on particulate waves

    viscerally vibrating
    optickling allusions

    reminding us
    we are light

    we are
    water

    plus
    dust

    O

    this

    artful

    radiant

    brilliance deserves

    repetition here, for it weaves

    the rainbow of myth and science, truth and poetry

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report Reply

  • philipmatthews,

    Speaking of poetry, an updated Howl at McSweeney's:

    TWEET.

    BY OYL MILLER
    - - - -

    I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by brevity, over-connectedness, emotionally starving for attention, dragging themselves through virtual communities at 3 am ...

    And so on. Link here.

    Coincidentally, the guy who inspired the line "who jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge this actually happened and walked away unknown and forgotten into the ghostly daze of Chinatown soup alleyways & firetrucks, not even one free beer" died this week.

    Christchurch • Since Nov 2007 • 656 posts Report Reply

  • Rob Stowell,

    Arroooooooo! (mournful howling)
    Farewell Tuli.
    I loved The Fugs. Their version of "Howl" on The Virgin Fugs was an anthem in our student flat one year.... Even when they were terrible, they were so bad they were good.
    Still. Jumped off Brooklyn Bridge and a legendary hipster and made it to 86. Respect!

    Whakaraupo • Since Nov 2006 • 2120 posts Report Reply

  • ChrisW,

    Jolisa - good to see your review of the Emily Dickinson biography finally make it onto the page of the Listener this week - so long after the week or two you'd expected that I thought there must have been a suppressed story of editorial judgement and intrigue to explain the non-appearance. But was afraid to ask.

    You were right, the one-page review so much less satisfying than the director's cut travelogue version.

    This to bring Busytown up to 4/6 of the top threads on PAS.

    Gisborne • Since Apr 2009 • 851 posts Report Reply

  • Jolisa,

    Thanks, Chris, for abetting the sudden surge in my PAS stock value!

    I thought there must have been a suppressed story of editorial judgement and intrigue to explain the non-appearance.

    I suspect the hand of the poet herself in assisting the editor to find space for the review at last :-) Squares of ectoplasmic gingerbread flying round the Listener offices, and all that.

    Auckland, NZ • Since Nov 2006 • 1472 posts Report Reply

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