The date is always a reminder of a very good book. From Wikipedia:
Seven Days in May is an American political thriller novel written by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W BaileyII and published in 1962. It was made into a motion picture in 1964.The story is said to have been influenced by the right-wing anti-Communist political activities of General Edwin A. Walker after he resigned from the military.
An additional inspiration was provided by the 1961 interview Knebel, who was also a political journalist and columnist, conducted with the newly-appointed Air Force Chief of Staff, Curtis LeMay, an advocate of preventive first-strike nuclear option.
President John F. Kennedy had read the novel and believed the scenario it described could actually occur in the United States. According to director John Frankenheimer in his director's commentary, production of the film received encouragement and assistance from Kennedy through White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger, who conveyed to Frankenheimer Kennedy's wish that the film be produced and that, although the Pentagon did not want the film made, the President would conveniently arrange to visit Hyannis Port for a weekend when the film needed to shoot outside the White House.
From Wikipedia
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A bit of irony here in that the first thing I did this morning was go to YouTube and pop up one of my favorite singers, Woody Guthrie. The short film is called “Roll On Columbia” and about Woody, a twenty-something leftist activist, getting a job with the government for a month to write songs. This is before I realized today’s date. Here are some of the original lyrics (no longer played) to Woody’s “This Land Is Your Land, This Land Is My Land.” Again, from Wikipedia:
Original 1944 lyrics
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walking that ribbon of highway
I saw above me that endless skyway
I saw below me that golden valley
This land was made for you and me.
I roamed and I rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts
While all around me a voice was sounding
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, and I was strolling
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling
A voice was chanting, As the fog was lifting,
This land was made for you and me.
This land is your land, this land is my land
From California to the New York Island
From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and me.
Confirmation of two other verses
A March 1944 recording in the possession of the Smithsonian, the earliest known recording of the song, has the "private property" verse included. This version was recorded the same day as 75 other songs. This was confirmed by several archivists for Smithsonian interviewed as part of History Channel program Save Our History - Save our Sounds.
The 1944 recording with this fourth verse can be found on Woody Guthrie: This Land is Your Land: The Asch Recordings Volume 1, where it is track 14.
There was a big high wall there that tried to stop me;
Sign was painted, it said private property;
But on the back side it didn't say nothing;
This land was made for you and me.
Woody Guthrie has a variant:
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."
But on the other side it didn't say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
It also has a verse:
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
In the squares of the city, In the shadow of a steeple;
By the relief office, I'd seen my people.
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking,
Is this land made for you and me?
A 1945 pamphlet which omitted the last two verses has caused some question as to whether the original song did in fact contain the full text. The original manuscript confirms both of these verses.
Like a great many folk songs, the lyrics were sung with different words at various times although the motives for this particular change of lyrics may involve the possible political interpretations of the verses. Recordings of Guthrie have him singing the verses with different words.
From Wikipedia
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And, your point is what, orndorff?
I don’t have the words to explain it because I am not sure, but I think it is important for me to realize.
You are a-tune to the people, or you would like to be. But in today’s world the people don’t need a voice, there are thousands of voices out there to choose from. Woody was a voice for his time. You didn’t know who to give your ‘voice’ to, so you gave it to me. That’s the simplest explanation, don’t you think? – Amorella.
You dig in deep, Amorella, and 'cut to the chase' as people say. Blunt and without the BS. The explanation is true and simple enough, I agree.
Post. – Amorella.
Mid-afternoon. You worked on trimming the grass this morning as well as other outdoor chores. It was supposed to rain but so far has not. Carol’s suggestion for a late lunch at Potbelly’s in Kenwood, conveniently, a weekend sale at Macy’s where you are presently, waiting in the south lot as usual.
Eureka! I have found an enigmatic example once again in my experimental writing – one of the reason for all these years of notes Last night, once in bed, I realized what scene six was about. I did not realize Takis was going to envision the Dead would need (would negotiate) for a sun over Elysium. And the other point he makes, “without imagination we lose our height” and, “without our height we lose our dignity.” This is a foreshadowing caused by his own ‘ability’ to listen in on the Supervisor’s immediate thought process. I was duped just like Takis is. It is a ‘god's trick’ imposed, not unlike ‘reading the gods’ at Apollo’s Delphi, and later with MacBeth listening to the witches in theatre. I would have not considered this until after the last words of scene six were written. Here are yesterday’s new words (popped in at the time with me tired and unthinking) for my reminder.
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“Takis sat listening to the nature of the mind at work. From the leaf of a concept being fed from the root. In this case the leaf is the act (the environment; Elysium) of being human and being Dead. The main vein of the leaf is the River Styx. The mind runs back through the Styx to the Branch, the Branch to the Limb, Limb to Trunk and Trunk to Root. Growth, thought Takis, is not where the mind has been but where the leaf is expanding. The leaf takes up space. The mind does not. The Dead want to return to real time. The mind knows it has no need of real time. Imagination is the spring in the feet of hope’s dance. Without our imagination we lose our height. Without our height we lose our dignity. Without our dignity we lose what we brought with us from the Living, our freedom to think (for ourselves). Osmosis needs photosynthesis not rebellion.” [From Sc. 6; Bk. 4]
** **
Once again, I note an example of how Amorella does her work. Times like this are examples of her reality. It is right here in front of me, in my notes. As always, circumstantial evidence of something ‘untoward’ – a real ‘twilight zone’ within my head – in a combination of brain and mind. No wonder the creative Greeks believed the “muse” was real. The real-time irony – Amorella is as more than a muse, she is a connection with Platonic Forms if nothing else, a connection with the metaphysical realm. And, here I am, an agnostic of all things – an agnostic existentialist who has well-developed transcendental leanings. Does that take the cake or what? Even if this is a slight form of madness, the humor does a subtle twist like Einstein’s sense of time-in-space. My unconscious mind too, is slightly measurable; no smooth-balled gyroscopes needed.
As you like to compare light and thought, this may not be a bad analogy. Post when you return home. – Amorella.
I was attempting to be sarcastic, to be over-the-top ridiculous.
All the funnier, old man.
You are now waiting at Natorp’s while she looks for flowers for the classical styled urn in the front yard. You waited two hours at Macy’s and while you waited you played three games of chess on the computer. You won but only had the computer on one/fourth strength. Carol had a good sale price plus an extra twenty percent off with sale cards. The place was packed, lots of shoppers, lots of buyers.
Alas, once home Carol realized two shirts were not in the package. So, here you are, once again in the south lot of Macy’s. You think, ‘such is the way of the world’.
I am coming up with an eighteenth century play with a similar title. Congreve comes to mind? Where is Google when I need it? No wireless out here. World Book is of no use. I should put my Britannica software back on. And, I need to put my CD’d music on this iTunes. All my stuff is on the MacBook I loaned to Bob. Here comes Carol.
You are home. Post. Call it a night, orndorff. Tomorrow, Mother’s Day, and you are over to Outback for dinner in the mid-afternoon. - Amorella.
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