Escape from editor's corner

Thesaurus

It could be the name of a prehistoric beast
that roamed the Paleozoic earth, rising up
on its hind legs to show off its large vocabulary,
or some lover in a myth who is metamorphosed into a book.

It means treasury, but it is just a place
where words congregate with their relatives,
a big park where hundreds of family reunions
are always being held,
house, home, abode, dwelling, lodgings, and digs,
all sharing the same picnic basket and thermos;
hairy, hirsute, woolly, furry, fleecy, and shaggy
all running a sack race or throwing horseshoes,
inert, static, motionless, fixed and immobile
standing and kneeling in rows for a group photograph.

Here father is next to sire and brother close
to sibling, separated only by fine shades of meaning.
And every group has its odd cousin, the one
who traveled the farthest to be here:
astereognosis, polydipsia, or some eleven
syllable, unpronounceable substitute for the word tool.
Even their own relatives have to squint at their name tags.

I can see my own copy up on a high shelf.
I rarely open it, because I know there is no
such thing as a synonym and because I get nervous
around people who always assemble with their own kind,
forming clubs and nailing signs to closed front doors
while others huddle alone in the dark streets.

I would rather see words out on their own, away
from their families and the warehouse of Roget,
wandering the world where they sometimes fall
in love with a completely different word.
Surely, you have seen pairs of them standing forever
next to each other on the same line inside a poem,
a small chapel where weddings like these,
between perfect strangers, can take place.

~Billy Collins

Birthday!

The airwaves at 18

These were (purportedly) the top 25 songs from the year I turned 18, with commentary thereon. What were yours? If you participate, please leave a comment and a link!

I think this list really illustrates the social changes in progress at the time. There was a feeling that anything could happen, and soon.

1. Ain't No Mountain High Enough. Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell. I admit that this one went right by me. But how is it that I know all the lyrics?
2. Respect. Aretha Franklin. Anthem!
3. Brown Eyed Girl. Van Morrison. As a brown-eyed girl, this is certainly one of my favorite tunes.
4. All You Need Is Love. The Beatles. Still all we need.
5. Jimmy Mack. Martha and the Vandelas. This whiney song never appealed to me.
6. I Second That Emotion. Smokey Robinson and The Miracles. I remember how much I like this tune whenever I watch The Big Chill.
8. C'mon Marianne. The Four Seasons. "She was a passing fling and not a permanent thing."
9. I Heard It Through The Grapevine. Gladys Knight and The Pips. Seriously classic.
10. Soul Man. Sam and Dave. There was much chatter in SoCal about their "crossover" appeal and how this song popularized the phrase "soul music." A stretch of the freeway goes through the Watts area and after the riots you could see variations of Soul Brothers and Soul Sisters spray painted everywhere.
11. Light My Fire. The Doors. When this first got radio time, there were few stations that played songs longer than 3 minutes or so, but KUOW--referred to then as an underground station--eventually became the place where you could hear the "long version" of Light My Fire. A big deal at the time.
12. (Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher. Jackie Wilson. President Obama brought this one back. My other memory of this song comes from a friend who never failed to comment that Jackie Wilson won the Golden Gloves at age 16.
13. Daydream Believer. The Monkees. The Monkees became a little cultish, which I never understood. They seemed clueless and cartoonish.
14. Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You. Frankie Valli. His voice sounded right when he was with the Four Seasons but when he sang this (Andy Williams) song solo, it sounded squeaky and girlish. The Muse version takes it up a few levels.
15. It Takes Two. Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston. I don't remember who Kim Weston is/was, but this tune was a bit too cute or something.
16. The Letter. Box Tops. Loved it. I still remember every word.
17. Sweet Soul Music. Arthur Conley. Soul music about sweet soul music.
18. Expressway To Your Heart. Soul Survivors. I know I would recognize it if I heard it, but ??
19. Strawberry Fields Forever. The Beatles. Until they started playing "psychedelic rock," the Beatles seemed a bit Monkees-like to me--too many screaming little girls and too gimmicky. I believe this was the first music of theirs that I bought. The flipside of the 45 was Penny Lane.
20. Purple Haze. Jimi Hendrix Experience. Jimi's performance at the Hollywood Bowl in September of 1968 was a high point in my new hippie life. It was very tempting to jump into the moat but the threat of cops and electrocution won out. Purple Haze was the last song of the set.
21. Baby, I Need Your Lovin. Johnny Rivers. zzzzzzzzz
22. I Can See For Miles. The Who. After this, I was a major Who fan.
23. Standing In The Shadows Of Love. Four Tops. The Four Tops were the first "major" group I ever saw in concert. Many concerts back then (1964--1968ish) were dance concerts, meaning there was no seating. You either danced or stood and listened. Impossible not to dance to the Four Tops.
24. Penny Lane. The Beatles. Didn't like it as much as Strawberry Fields, but the lyrics were great.
25. Ruby Tuesday. Rolling Stones. Early Rolling Stones tunes were much more palatable to me than most of their later stuff. And I've never been able to look at Mick Jagger for more than 5 seconds at a time.

Oh. Snow.

We had some. We said "pretty!" We got more. We lost power. We lost tree limbs. We lost patience. We took pictures.

It started out all fun and games!


The river was chocolately from the previous two days of rain. The snow gave it a lovely sugar coating.


Snow began to accumulate on the pool cover. Rick squeegeed but lost the battle.


We removed the pool cover with its pounds and pounds and pounds of snow (sweating, cursing).


The next two pics are lovely but you're not hearing the snapping of huge limbs all over the neighborhood and the sound of trees hitting the river. It was painful.


The clouds disappeared overnight and in the morning Rick destroyed the skating rink to keep the squirrels and deer from trying it out. (Imagine trying to herd a terrified, half-frozen deer out of the deep end. wah.)


Our neighbors say it has never snowed like this before. We all really hope it doesn't come around again anytime soon!