I hate the horrid hot sunny weather. Roll on October! How I envy those of you far enough south in the Southern Hemisphere where a decent cold winter is only weeks away.
Further North, like Lancashire, the significant importance of 1,2 or 3 degrees of latitude N meant swifts were much later, and of course left earlier.
My parents weren't ornithologists, or anything "ists" as such, but I do clearly remember being told, when I was quite little, (about '58/'59 I suppose, just when I was about to start school), that if I ever found a swift on the ground I had to pick it up gently and throw it up into to the air so that it could fly away.
My take on the New England coast is scarred by reading Robert Lowell's poetry for A-Level in 1969, 1970.
Alienation and dessicated isolation are themes that Simon and Garfunkel at least made tuneful; landscape in terminal decay with a malignant past was something Bob Dylan could nonetheless irradiate with apocalyptic promises of redemption; but Lowell, no. His song was an ongoing disconsolate honk around which baleful places, stultified people and lugubrious predicaments duly arranged themselves in a continuous rota to serve as metaphors for his appalling yet demanding sense of himself.
As far as I remember, the composite portrait of the New England coast in his poems was one of bleached settlements that seemed a bit like the shot-away upturned boats you find on the beach in Northumberland, only pierced with the odd accusing spire of some church built by roaring bigots in the Pilgrim Fathers period. He was descended from these. He was also a Catholic. This engrossed him in the most stupendous angst and guilt and bollox. Catholic guilt and historical guilt were not enough, he contracted other guilt and bollox by punishing with his company such strange women as he managed to annex, till they managed to squirm out of his grasp and away. The ocean swarmed with pasty corpses.
He was a conscientious objector in WW2 and was sent down for that, to rub shoulders with lobotomised hit-men. This did his self-esteem no good because (if I remember rightly, which is not a given...) his ancestors had led America's forces from the year dot and were roaring their disapproval of him from beyond the grave and were sitting in his head and giving him guilt bollox.
I got rid of the book because I'd drawn fish and bait and trout flies all over it and thought it an unbecoming inhabitant of the bookshelves of a mature grown-up adult like myself. "Well, I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..." Possibly I was driven by fear it would get me certified.
nicholas, New England is far nicer than your imagination paints it, very pretty in the summer, in fact, my heather plants are blooming right now, along with the trees. And Massachussets may have at one time had a shortage of Catholics, but things have changed over the last couple hundred years. And certainly, the lack of Catholics led to a majority of them here in Rhode Island, that most Catholic of the American states. The beaches are lovely, temperatures balmy, seafood tasty. The only problem is, especially on The Islands, one of which is Sara's Vineyard, is that it can get quite expensive in the summer down by the water.
"So - what is Martha's Vineyard *really* like..?!?"
A: In short, bleak and suicidal in the winter with the highest per capita rate of alcoholism and divorce, contrasted with a wild party in the summer (and the swimming is great).
"The ocean swarmed with pasty corpses." Were you thinking of the fate that befell so many of the wretched boatpeople who fled Old England? There used to be a lot of wrecked vessels on the New England coast -- those desperate refugees put to sea in anything that was even marginally seaworthy. The poorer people were free to escape England by another means, if only briefly. The formula went something like this: "Drunk for a penny; dead drunk for tuppence. Cheapest way out of ____." (insert name of English city)
"Is a traddiary the place where they keep the fiddlers so you can go and look at them?..."
No, that's a bestiary.
A TRADDIARY is what happens when when someone (a) shoots his true lover in the room of a swan, (b) stabs her with a penknife because he just feels like it, (c) drowns in a lake because it is deeper than he is, (d) other.
The outcome is often a one-way ticket to the gallows or Australia.
'Hamlet' and 'Oedipus Rex' are traddiaries.
"Oedipus Rex but Brakspeare's Bitter wrecks better" - Anon.
Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
...and I am heading down to my island paradise, so it's time to issue my annual invitation.
If anybody happens to be on Martha's Vineyard (off the coast of Massachusetts, USA) during the summer, please do drop by for some tunes.
Give a holler at sara505sings@verizon.net.
www.traddiary.blogspot.com
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by sara505sings
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
Well, the Wild Mountains Thyme is growing round here.
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by pipersgrip
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
That's 73000 invitations. How much space do you have?
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by leoj
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
I hate the horrid hot sunny weather. Roll on October! How I envy those of you far enough south in the Southern Hemisphere where a decent cold winter is only weeks away.
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by yhaalhouse
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
Hey yhaalhouse!
Get on down now, our weather is really changing as I write. Hey, we could really guarantee you a "frosty, icy" welcome!
All the best
Brian x
PS You'd miss your apus, I saw my last here, VERY LATE, last week. Bx
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by briantheflute
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
Brian: Funnily enough I saw the first swift here on Tuesday over Lavender Hill, Battersea, South London, SW11!
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by yhaalhouse
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
"That's 73000 invitations. How much space do you have?"
Well, I suppose I'll have to do some rearranging of the furniture.
That would be one mighty session, I reckon.
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by sara505sings
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
And wouldn't that consist of something like 72000 goatbashers?
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by yhaalhouse
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
That's lovely yhaalhouse!
That for me is a sign like sara says.
Further North, like Lancashire, the significant importance of 1,2 or 3 degrees of latitude N meant swifts were much later, and of course left earlier.
My parents weren't ornithologists, or anything "ists" as such, but I do clearly remember being told, when I was quite little, (about '58/'59 I suppose, just when I was about to start school), that if I ever found a swift on the ground I had to pick it up gently and throw it up into to the air so that it could fly away.
Oh and how the swallows sat on the lines!
All the best
Brian
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by briantheflute
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
Are there vines there?
My take on the New England coast is scarred by reading Robert Lowell's poetry for A-Level in 1969, 1970.
Alienation and dessicated isolation are themes that Simon and Garfunkel at least made tuneful; landscape in terminal decay with a malignant past was something Bob Dylan could nonetheless irradiate with apocalyptic promises of redemption; but Lowell, no. His song was an ongoing disconsolate honk around which baleful places, stultified people and lugubrious predicaments duly arranged themselves in a continuous rota to serve as metaphors for his appalling yet demanding sense of himself.
As far as I remember, the composite portrait of the New England coast in his poems was one of bleached settlements that seemed a bit like the shot-away upturned boats you find on the beach in Northumberland, only pierced with the odd accusing spire of some church built by roaring bigots in the Pilgrim Fathers period. He was descended from these. He was also a Catholic. This engrossed him in the most stupendous angst and guilt and bollox. Catholic guilt and historical guilt were not enough, he contracted other guilt and bollox by punishing with his company such strange women as he managed to annex, till they managed to squirm out of his grasp and away. The ocean swarmed with pasty corpses.
He was a conscientious objector in WW2 and was sent down for that, to rub shoulders with lobotomised hit-men. This did his self-esteem no good because (if I remember rightly, which is not a given...) his ancestors had led America's forces from the year dot and were roaring their disapproval of him from beyond the grave and were sitting in his head and giving him guilt bollox.
I got rid of the book because I'd drawn fish and bait and trout flies all over it and thought it an unbecoming inhabitant of the bookshelves of a mature grown-up adult like myself. "Well, I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now..." Possibly I was driven by fear it would get me certified.
So - what is Martha's Vineyard *really* like..?!?
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
"The ocean swarmed with pasty corpses" - above:
These weren't the women. They were other corpses.
# Posted on May 7th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
nicholas, New England is far nicer than your imagination paints it, very pretty in the summer, in fact, my heather plants are blooming right now, along with the trees. And Massachussets may have at one time had a shortage of Catholics, but things have changed over the last couple hundred years. And certainly, the lack of Catholics led to a majority of them here in Rhode Island, that most Catholic of the American states. The beaches are lovely, temperatures balmy, seafood tasty. The only problem is, especially on The Islands, one of which is Sara's Vineyard, is that it can get quite expensive in the summer down by the water.
# Posted on May 8th 2011 by AlBrown
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
"So - what is Martha's Vineyard *really* like..?!?"
A: In short, bleak and suicidal in the winter with the highest per capita rate of alcoholism and divorce, contrasted with a wild party in the summer (and the swimming is great).
"Sara's Vineyard "
# Posted on May 8th 2011 by sara505sings
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
sara - that makes it sound like Cornwall, over here!
.
I'm glad it isn't a total hell on earth, anyway
# Posted on May 8th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
Hell on earth? - only half the year, but it's very pretty, for hell, that is.
# Posted on May 8th 2011 by sara505sings
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
"The ocean swarmed with pasty corpses." Were you thinking of the fate that befell so many of the wretched boatpeople who fled Old England? There used to be a lot of wrecked vessels on the New England coast -- those desperate refugees put to sea in anything that was even marginally seaworthy. The poorer people were free to escape England by another means, if only briefly. The formula went something like this: "Drunk for a penny; dead drunk for tuppence. Cheapest way out of ____." (insert name of English city)
# Posted on May 9th 2011 by Atahualpa Quigley
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
" Were you thinking of the fate that befell so many of the wretched boatpeople who fled Old England? "
Looking at this 'map' and following up on each wreck, there are a fair amount of 'home built' wrecks on the New England coast forbye.
http://www.aquaexplorers.com/Shipwrecks_New_England.htm
However, Cornwall's pasty corpses might be due to a night out in Falmouth and wretching boatpeople.
# Posted on May 9th 2011 by Weejie
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
"The ocean swarmed with pasty corpses"
Better than corpse pasties, I suppose. Or corpses in pasties.
# Posted on May 9th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
Oh, Sara, was meaning to ask - is a traddiary the place where they keep the fiddlers so you can go and look at them?
# Posted on May 9th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
Jon - yes, exactly - unless they see me first.
# Posted on May 9th 2011 by sara505sings
Re: Oh, the Summertime is Comin'...
"Is a traddiary the place where they keep the fiddlers so you can go and look at them?..."
No, that's a bestiary.
A TRADDIARY is what happens when when someone (a) shoots his true lover in the room of a swan, (b) stabs her with a penknife because he just feels like it, (c) drowns in a lake because it is deeper than he is, (d) other.
The outcome is often a one-way ticket to the gallows or Australia.
'Hamlet' and 'Oedipus Rex' are traddiaries.
"Oedipus Rex but Brakspeare's Bitter wrecks better" - Anon.
# Posted on May 11th 2011 by nicholas