motivatin'

I've had the rockabilly song Maybellene in my head all week. Maybe that's 'cause I could use some motivatin'.

Chuck Berry first recorded the song in 1955. Here he is on Youtube in an undated performance which sounds like it might date back that far.
There are many covers, including one by Simon & Garfunkle at Central Park in 1981.

Here's the lyric:

Maybellene

Maybellene, why can’t you be true?
Oh maybellene, why can’t you be true?
You’ve started back doing the things you used to do.

As I was motivatin’ over the hill
I saw maybellene in a coup de ville.
A cadillac a-rollin’ on the open road,
Nothin’ outrun my v8 ford.
The cadillac doin’ ’bout ninety-five,
She’s bumper to bumber rollin’ side by side.

Maybellene, why can’t you be true?
Oh maybellene, why can’t you be true?
You’ve started back doing the things you used to do.

Pink in the mirror on top of the hill,
It’s just like swallowin’ up a medicine pill.
First thing I saw that cadillac grille
Doin’ a hundred and ten gallopin’ over that hill.
Offhill curve, a downhill stretch,
Me and that cadillac neck by neck.

Maybellene, why can’t you be true?
Oh maybellene, why can’t you be true?
You’ve started back doing the things you used to do.

The cadillac pulled up ahead of the ford,
The ford got hot and wouldn’t do no more.
It then got cloudy and it started to rain,
I tooted my horn for a passin’ lead
The rain water blowin’ all under my hood,
I knew that was doin’ my motor good.

Maybellene, why can’t you be true?
Oh maybellene, why can’t you be true?
You’ve started back doing the things you used to do.

The motor cooled down, the heat went down
And that’s when I heard that highway sound.
The cadillac a-sittin’ like a ton of lead
A hundred and ten a half a mile ahead.
The cadillac lookin’ like it’s sittin’ still
And I caught maybellene at the top of the hill.

Maybellene, why can’t you be true?
Oh maybellene, why can’t you be true?
You’ve started back doing the things you used to do.

{Chuck Berry in 1955
Sources: http://arted.osu.edu/160/images/50rnr/berry.gif and http://www.rocksbackpages.com/furniture/artists/berry_chuck.jpg}

{source: http://content.answers.com/}

{1954 Cadillac Coupe de Ville; source: http://shawnpatton.com/roadtrip/pink_cadillac.jpg}

{1950 V8 Ford Custom Sedan; Click here for more photos; source: http://www.chooseyouritem.com/classics/files/127000/127328.html}

I have a feeling that the guy singing the song owns a '50 Ford with its flathead V8. Maybe because one of my best friends drove one -- all customized and souped up. It overheated just like the one in the song, but it wasn't near so fast. I pick 1954 for the model year of the Cadillac thinking Maybellene would probably go for a guy with a late model of that car. I didn't know anyone who owned a pink Cadillac, but I used to service a Series 62 black '54 four-door sedan when I worked summers in the local garage.

{Click to enlarge. Source: http://www.misterw.com/Cadillac/54Cad4Dr06b.jpg}

Extract from the "Chuck Berry" page

On the advice of blues great singer Muddy Waters, Chuck contacted Leonard Chess of Chess Records in Chicago. Chess and his house producer Willis Dixon were intrigued by "Ida Red", the piece that was performed by the Sir John's Trio and written by Berry. The song was revamped, named "Maybellene" and recorded in 1955. Alan Freed, a very popular disc-jockey, was given a copy of the single that he played for two hours continuously on his show in New York on radio station WINS. "Maybellene" went on to sell in the excess of one million copies and grabbed the number one spot on the R&B chart as well as number five on the Hot 100.

Berry's success could not be fully enjoyed, however, because the copyright for "Maybellene" was not his alone. It also listed the names of Alan Freed and Russ Frato, resulting in a reduced level of royalty payments to Berry. Around the same time, Chuck also became aware that his manager was pilfering funds from Berry's live performances. Having developed a hard-edged attitude toward show business, Berry soon acquired a reputation for being difficult to work with because of his intense desire to be in control of his own affairs.

Extract from the Chuck Berry article in Wikipedia

In December 1959, after scoring a string of hit songs and while touring often, Berry had legal problems after he invited a 14-year-old Apache waitress whom he met in Mexico to work as a hat check girl at Berry's Club Bandstand, his nightclub in St. Louis. After being fired from the club, the girl was arrested on a prostitution charge and Berry was arrested under the Mann Act. Berry was convicted, fined $5,000 and sentenced to five years in prison. This event, coupled with other early rock and roll scandals — such as Jerry Lee Lewis' marriage to his 13-year-old cousin and Alan Freed's payola conviction — gave rock and roll an image problem that limited its acceptance into mainstream U.S. society. However, when Berry was released from prison in 1963, his musical career enjoyed a resurgence due to many of the British Invasion acts of the 1960s — most notably the Beatles and the Rolling Stones — releasing cover versions of Berry's songs. In 1964–65 Berry resumed recording and placed six singles in the U.S. Hot 100, including "No Particular Place To Go" (#10), "You Never Can Tell" (#14), and "Nadine" (#23).

Addendum: Why motivatin' and not motorvatin'? I don't feel a lack of the latter, so much as the former.

Another: Chuck Berry took the melody for Maybellene from a 19th-century fiddle tune called Ida Red. According to Wikipedia, he'd heard it in 1938 done by Bob Willis. Here's a Youtube of Willis and his Texas Playboys.

PappyStuckey, who put the video on YT, says: "Brother Bob with his best Snader Telescription, I think... Joe Andrews takes the vocal with great fiddle, steel and piano solos from Bob, Joe Holley, Bobby Koefer and Skeeter Elkin along with especially hot guitar from the underappreciated Cotton Whittington. Western Swing fans take note -- look closely for Ocie Stockard on banjo."

One more: Why Mabellene and not Maybelline? The nice Wikipedia article on the song says the two are often confused.

patron saint of catalogers

Library humor is a tad lame and, within that category, cataloging humor can hardly be said to exist at all. This post, from my blog where I work, is about as good as it gets. I credit my source page at bottom. I should have done this post on the solstice, but forgot.

June 21, 762 A.D.

Death of St. Minutia, patron saint of catalogers. The birth date of St. Minutia is unknown. The only reliable chronicle has an unlucky lacuna: "Sa. Minutia in [.......an]no domini nata est", where only the last two missing letters can be supplied with any certainty. Vitae of the saint written later naively abbreviate the "...no domini" as 'n.d.', and this is the form traditionally cited for her birth. Minutia is said to have been born in the former Roman province of Nova Panonia (part of the present day Czech Republic), in the village of Sineloco (modern day Odnikud). Her time and place of birth, therefore, are usually given as "s.l., n.p., n.d."

Happily, a generous amount of hagiographical material on St. Minutia has survived, perhaps the most popular of which is a collection of her homilies and sayings, including the motto most closely associated with her: "Non pilus tam tenuis ut secari non possit."* She appears to have had some interest in ecclesiastical architecture; one early vita has references to a church which was built using plans drawn up by Minutia herself. The actual building has not survived, but there is a fragment from a contemporary description: "On either side of the main entry, St. Minutia caused innumerable added entries to be placed, such that people marvelled at the great multitude of doors, and rebuked the Saint for the labor wasted in putting them there. 'No labor has been wasted', she answered them patiently, 'for by these means no one will be barred from my church through a lack of access.'" Another account explains that her plans were an improvement on earlier designs which had called for a single entry at the east end, near the tabernacle; the inconvenience of relying on this so-called corporate entry was immediately recognized and rectified by the saint.


St. Minutia using a sword to split a hair

She was, not surprisingly, an influential member of her convent. There are a number of references to her reorganization of its agricultural property: she is said to have divided the land into holdings devoted to permanent crops (fixed fields) and holdings given over to crop rotation (variable fields). The variable fields were further divided into smaller parcels (subfields) assigned individually to peasants attached to the convent. Minutia is also renowned for her role as a mediator between the warring factions so prevalent in those chaotic times. She was continually optimistic in even the most threatening circumstances and was careful never to anticipate a conflict, although she quickly resolved them when they arose.
------------------------------------------------
*translation: There is no hair too fine to be split.

From: GREAT MOMENTS IN THE HISTORY OF TECHNICAL SERVICES

desertification

A news search on the term "desertification" turns up lots of stories. Most stem from a press release of a study conducted by the the United Nations University. What's striking is the scale of the problem and the linkage of cyclical draughts, such as those in Africa, to global warming. The study says maybe 50 million people will flee from newly arid lands in the next 10 years.

Desertification is mainly caused by climate change, erosion, and degradation of soil in dryland areas. Crop raising based on irrigation, cattle farming, and other traditional farming practices exacerbate the problem. The report says the process might be halted by new forms of agriculture, such as encouraging forests in dry land areas. But care must be taken or efforts to help will make matters worse. For example the author of the report says that a tree-planting program in China won't stem the advance of deserts because the trees being planted needed large amounts of water, putting even more pressure on scarce resources.

Here's the press release followed by some images and links:

Desertification: UN experts prescribe global policy overhaul to avoid looming mass migrations

Desertification, exacerbated by climate change, represents “the greatest environmental challenge of our times” and governments must overhaul policy approaches to the issue or face mass migrations of people driven from degraded homelands within a single generation, warns a new analysis from the United Nations University.

Contact: Terry Collins
terrycollins@rogers.com
416-538-8712
United Nations University

In the analysis for presentation June 28 at UN Headquarters, New York, UNU experts say the loss of soil productivity and the degradation of life-support services provided by nature pose imminent threats to international stability. They outline a multi-point prescription for policy reform at every level of government.

“It is imperative that effective policies and sustainable agricultural practices be put in place to reverse the decline of drylands,” says Prof. Hans van Ginkel, UN Under Secretary-General and Rector of UNU.

Land use policy reform is urgently needed to halt overgrazing, over-exploitation, trampling and unsustainable irrigation practices, as are policies to create livelihood alternatives for dryland populations, he says.

Based on input of 200 experts from 25 countries convened in Algiers late last year, the analysis urges governments to adopt a broader, overarching view and a more coordinated, integrated and interlinked approach to dealing with desertification, climate change, poverty reduction and other public concerns.

It highlights dozens of problems and inconsistencies in policy-making today at every level, saying decisions are often taken in isolated sectoral silos, the end results of which, on balance, can be counterproductive.

“Some forces of globalization, while striving to reduce economic inequality and eliminate poverty are contributing to worsening desertification. Perverse agricultural subsidies are one such example,” says Prof. van Ginkel.

One-third of all people on Earth – about 2 billion in number – are potential victims of desertification’s creeping effect. And, left unchecked, the number of people at risk of displacement due to severe desertification is an estimated 50 million over the next 10 years – a sweep of migrants worldwide equal in number to the entire population of South Africa or South Korea.

“Addressing desertification is a critical and essential part of adaptation to climate change and mitigation of global biodiversity losses,” says Prof. van Ginkel. “UNU has led the argument over the last decade that such inter-linkages in policy formulations must be taken.”

“Reforming policies to combat desertification also represent one of the world’s most expedient ways to sequester more atmospheric carbon and help address the climate change issue,” says Zafar Adeel, lead author of the analysis and Director of the UNU’s Canadian-based International Network on Water, Environment and Health.

Policy formulation for combating desertification “has been hindered by the lack of concrete data about rates and extent of desertification,” he adds. “We must, as the global international community interested in desertification, put monitoring and assessment at the top of our policy agenda.”

Desertification shows no sign of abatement: An “environmental crisis” with major impacts

UNU says the main barrier to expanding isolated successes at combating desertification is “the lack of effective management policies.”

In some countries where policies are deemed conducive to addressing desertification, enactment and implementation falls short. Or, designed and implemented at a national level, policies fail to translate into local action. Worse, some policies provide perverse incentives, exacerbating competition and conflict over the use of land and natural resources.

Among many recommendations, the report urges governments and policy-makers to:

* Reject the notion that aridity and water scarcity are inevitable;
* Create financial incentives for pastoralists and other dryland users to preserve and enhance the ecosystem services their land provides to all;
* Accept the carbon sequestration as a measure for simultaneously combating desertification and climate change. While vegetative cover in most drylands is sparse, drylands represent more than 40% of global land area, providing immense opportunities for carbon sequestration;
* Foster alternative, sustainable livelihoods for dryland dwellers, including non-agricultural jobs in industry and tourism, for example;
* Yield ownership and decision making to communities: empower them to take charge of land on which they depend and end the pattern of individuals chasing environmentally-detrimental short-term gains;
* Promote greater transparency and accountability, the participation of multiple actors, information sharing, measurable results, and follow-up systems;
* Better educate local populations and policymakers, many of whom lack adequate awareness of the fragility of their natural resource base and, in some places, fail to understand fundamental concepts of "drylands" and "desertification;"
* Put science at the heart of policy making and beef up research on emerging issues such as thresholds or "tipping points" as they relate to migration and desertification; and

* Improve coordination at all levels:

Nationally: harmonize policies dispersed across a range of government ministries and agencies; rationalize and link the wide assortment of development, poverty reduction and environmental policy frameworks, independently conceived and "each in their own orbit," to encourage synergies and integration;

Regionally: to help address transboundary issues such as integrated river basin management and environmental migration; and

Internationally: better relate global conventions, agreements and other initiatives one to another. The analysis says the separate constitutions, priorities and procedures involved in administering the mix of international agreements operating today prevent important synchronization needed to achieve broad social and environmental goals: food security and famine relief, conflict and migration prevention, better health and poverty reduction, desertification and climate change avoidance and biodiversity protection and enhancement.

The authors urge governments to better define and understand environmental migration – its economic and ecological consequences, and to create a global framework to legally recognize and assist environmental refugees.

“The expected climatic change scenarios as projected by the recently published report of the IPCC give an additional dark shade to an already gloomy picture. However it is difficult to properly quantify the number of environmental migrants and the migration routes as long as the concept itself remains debated even from a scientific point of view,” the analysis says.

UNU advances a classification scheme based on three subgroups of migrants driven predominantly by environmental reasons:

* Environmentally motivated migrants
* Environmentally forced migrants
* Environmental refugees

Finally, the analysis says governments need to measure progress in human-development terms and develop a common set of environmental indicators and data collection methods to enhance consistency for tracking and comparison purposes.

###

United Nations University

Established by the U.N. General Assembly in 1973, United Nations University is an international community of scholars engaged in research, advanced training and the dissemination of knowledge related to pressing global problems. Activities focus mainly on peace and conflict resolution, sustainable development and the use of science and technology to advance human welfare. The University operates a worldwide network of research and post-graduate training centres, with headquarters in Tokyo.

UNU-INWEH began operations in 1997 to strengthen water management capacity, particularly of developing countries, and to provide on-the-ground project support. With core funding from the Government of Canada through CIDA, it is hosted by McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.

source: http://www.worldrevolution.org/

source: http://www.the-human-race.com/pages/about_desertification.htm

Deserts are shown in yellow. Threatened areas are in orange; the darker the color, the greater the threat. Click to view full size; source: http://www.mazerolle.fr/demographie/cours2006/chapitre-03S3d.htm

Links:

UN issues desertification warning
By Matt McGrath
BBC environment reporter
Desertification could displace up to 50m people over the next decade
Tens of millions of people could be driven from their homes by encroaching deserts, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, a report says. ...

DESERT VOICES
Oral Testimony - Perhaps nowhere in the world are the impacts of desertification more challenging than in Africa, where it is inextricably linked to poverty, migration and food security. These personal accounts from Sudan and Ethiopia highlight the wide-ranging consequences of desertification, from migration for work and conflict over resources, to changes in traditions and women’s roles...

Severity Of Desertification On World Stage
Science Daily (press release) - Jun 19, 2007
Science Daily — Desertification puts the health and well-being of more than 1.2 billion people in more than 100 countries at risk, according to the United ...

Likely Spread of Deserts to Fertile Land Requires Quick Response, U.N. Report Says
The New York Times
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: June 28, 2007
ROME, June 27 — Enough fertile land could turn into desert within the next generation to create an “environmental crisis of global proportions,” large-scale migrations and political instability in parts of Africa and Central Asia unless current trends are quickly stemmed, a new United Nations report concludes....

Desertification
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Desertification is the degradation of land in arid, semi arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various climatic variations, but primarily from human activities. Current desertification is taking place much faster worldwide than historically and usually arises from the demands of increased populations that settle on the land in order to grow crops and graze animals....

u might c me

1.

I left my picture on th ground wher u walk
so that somday if th sun was jst right
& the rain didnt wash me awa
u might c me out of th corner of yr i & pic me up

2.

Your eyes are the blue
of the deep end of the pool
the world
has been put through the rinse cycle
and dries in the sun
and i am happy

2 from th txt msg poetry cmpititn in th Guardian. 2002 but nu to me.

catching up with Joost

Joost Posthuma gives an update on his website. He says he's mending well and is free of pain. He passed an endurance test last Wednesday, goes to physical therapy daily, and hopes to start in training camp early in July. All going well, he thinks he might be able to enter the Sachsen Tour, beginning July 29 in Dresden.
{photo credit: http://www.joostposthuma.nl}

what you say

In a column entitled Words Of Mass Infuriation Anne Applebaum takes notice of an article in The Telegraph on the annoying things people say. Articles on language tend to be tedious debates between pedants and pragmatists, or at best vehicles for some tepid humor. The one in the Telegraph is somewhat each. My favorite example of the British vacilation between its own and our American clichés comes from a reader named Nick Godfrey who wrote:

I hear what you're saying but, with all due respect, it's not exactly rocket science. Basically, at the end of the day, the fact of the matter is you have got to be able to tick all the boxes. It's not the end of the world, but, to be perfectly honest with you, when push comes to shove, you don't want to be literally stuck between a rock and a hard place. Going forward we need to be singing from the same songsheet but you can't see the wood from the trees. Naturally hindsight is 20/20 vision and you have to take the rough with the smooth before proceeding onwards and upwards. The bottom line is you wear your heart on your sleeve and, when all is said and done, this is all part and parcel of the ongoing bigger picture. C'est la vie (if you know what I mean).

Applebaum's piece, which focuses on political verbal pablum, stimulated a fine contribution from a reader with the email handle kenonwenu:

The government nowadays speaks a language I would describe as Orwellian-Manichaean.

Remarks by the President on Homeownership at the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Washington, June 18, 2002
http://www.hud.gov/news/speeches/presremarks.cfm

"Let me first talk about how to make sure America is secure from a group of killers, people who hate -- you know what they hate? They hate the idea that somebody can go buy a home. They hate freedom; that's what they hate...

..I want to thank the choir for coming, the youngsters for being here. I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we're really talking about peace."

{cartoons from the Telegraph article}

Monty Panesar's good days

{source: http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/20062007/58/monty-cracks-world-elite.html}

Monty Panesar has been all over the cricket press lately. He was instrumental in finishing off the West Indies team in the just-ended npower Test series in England. He's also become the highest rated spin bowler for England in 30 years.

Read this account of Monty's performance yesterday, one of the highlight moments of the Test: Panesar spins England to victory

{source: CricInfo has this an other excellent photos.}

The West Indies captain Daren Ganga praised Panesar's skill at keeping the pressure on his batsmen. An article in the Gulf Times quotes him as saying “He’s definitely there in the top three (spinners) as he’s winning games for England." “He’s having a heavy influence in terms of test matches that England have won. I definitely think he’s a top-class spinner.” The article says Panesar, 25, is trying not to put too much pressure on himself and says he recognized that the playing field favored his style.

There is much comment in the press about Monty's emotionalism and the rebuke he received from the umpire for his excessive celebrations. “He was saying that I should appeal before I start celebrating,” Panesar said with a smile. “I guess I get a little excited while I’m out there.”

AFP has a good overview of Monty's achievements: Panesar to keep Monty mania in check. A couple of excerpts:

Off the field Panesar, the first Sikh to play Test cricket for England, is ... a non-drinker and non-smoker, unlike [another exuberant] left-armer whose private life became the subject of some lurid newspaper headlines.

Panesar has been mocked for his poor fielding and now, in England at least, every time he succesfully gathers and returns the ball he is cheered, albeit in a supportive if patronising fashion, by spectators. However, on Monday, he surprised a few people by dismissing Darren Sammy caught and bowled following the all-rounder’s well-hit drive.

Monty has been characteristically modest about his success, crediting the advantageous pitch and his own luck as well as skill and perseverance.

{caption: Bell (right) executes a smart catch to end Corey Collymore's brief innings and hands Panesar his 10th wicket of the match; source}

a small mystery of research

I'm reading the Diary of Robert Hooke. He was one of the prime movers of the scientific revolution during the latter part of the seventeenth century and a man of strong likes and dislikes. The Diary is not a literary exercise, like Samuel Pepys', but a terse, compressed, aid to memory.

Hooke was extremely active, making daily visits to places of work, to the homes of acquaintances and business contacts, to booksellers, to merchants, and to coffee houses. This busy-ness is well-summarized by Lotte Mulligan{fn1}. As example of it, I've copied a week's worth of entries at the bottom of this post.

These days I'm doing research on one of his acquaintances, a man who, like himself, was a Fellow of the Royal Society. On Feb 25, 1673, Hooke wrote of this man that he "reviled the Royal Society scandalously for not subscribing his proposals about Barnardinus Caldus."{fn2} This was an uncharacteristic outburst. I've seen no other like it in my research and I immediately began to seek out information about the incident. It took most of a morning to gather enough for some preliminary findings.{fn3}

First, it seems the person rendered by Hooke as Barnardinus Caldus was referred to by my man as Bernardinus Baldus (in a letter to John Beale, Aug 20, 1672; Rigaud, vol. 1, p.200).

More searching revealed that Bernardinus Baldus was more commonly called Bernardino Baldi (or Bernadino Baldi), an all-around Renaissance fellow (1553-1617) There's much to learn about him - see the Galileo Project entry for a summary.

In his letter to Beale, my man says "As to the Manilius, the ingenious Ed. Sherburne, Esq. Clerk of his Majesty's Ordnance, hath made an excellent English poem of it, with modern additions; and it is now printing. He was willing to have disbursed £20 for a copy of Bernardinus Baldus his three voll. of the lives of mathematicians, who died but in 1617; the heirs are covetous, and demand 900 pistoles, to the destruction of a design like Stanley's."{fn4} There's much to say about this statement. The gist is that my man wanted to achieve the publication, in English, of a manuscript of Baldi's, a multi-volume work on the lives of mathematicians. The phrase 'design like Stanley's' links Baldi's project to Thomas Stanley's The history of philosophy, a set of biographies of the famous philosophers of antiquity (1655).

The reference to Manilius is to a draft of Edward Sherburne's book The sphere of Marcus Manilius which would be published a couple of years later. In it, Sherburne gives a biographical listing of astronomers and their works. He also issues a warning about the loss of manuscripts from ancient times to his day and warns specifically about the possible loss of the Baldi manuscripts, referred to as "... those of the learned Bernardinus Baldus, Abbot of Guastalla, mentioned at the End of his Comment on Aristotle's Mechanicks, amongst which are two Volums of the Lives of Mathematicians, whereof Bartholinus in his Preface to the Edition of the Optick Fragments of Heliodorus Larissaeus, Printed at Paris 1657. gives an honourable Elogium." (p.117)

I conclude from all this that my man asked the Royal Society to fund the acquisition and publication of the Baldi work and the RS refused. His scandalous revilement of the Royal Society reveals his passion for advancing mathematics in particular and science in general through "intelligence" (the acquisition and sharing of information about the work being done by mathematicians) and encouragement (a parallel effort to get published as much of this work as possible). Sherburne, who knew my man well, tells us more:

We should be injurious to him, if we did not farther inlarge, by telling the World how much it is obliged for his Pains in exciting the Learned to publish their Works, and in acting the Part of an Ingenious Obstetrix at the Press, in correcting and in drawing of Schemes; So that he hath been Instrumental in furnishing the World with the many learned Mathematical Books here lately published (for which, his chief Reward hitherto hath been to obtain from the Learned the Title of Mersennus Anglicanus) and many more may be expected, if moderate Encouragements towards Printing such Works, and Leisure for such an Affair be not impeded through the necessary Avocations for a livelyhood, and though it be besides my Design, yet I cannot but digress in giving him and others like minded (which are very rare to be found) their due commendations, in promoting the laudable Design of getting Learned Men to impart their Labours to be Printed; and exciting others to encourage the same, as being of singular Use and advantage to the Republick of Learning; through the want whereof many Learned Mens Works of much worth have been lost, suppressed or long delayed.{fn5}

====================

Here is a sheet from the original diary of Robert Hooke:

Source:

Here are two transcribed pages for the middle of June in 1675; click to enlarge to full size.

{source: Diary of Robert Hooke, ed. Henry W Robinson and Walter Adams (London, 1935) - fair-use reproduction.}

The text reads:

DIARY OF ROBERT HOOKE

- Wednesday, June 9th.--Agreed with Hayward for floor and frame of scales. Saw Scarborough's Draught. At Bedlam, agreed about the sewer, tile window under gallery, oak door cases, etc. At Garaways. The news of the parliaments prorogation to the 13th of October. Message from Mr. Dubois. Mr. Piercehouses view in Love Lane.
- Thursday, June 10th. -- At View in Nicholas Lane 0G. from Dr. Bradford. At Bankes. At Guildhall, Oldfields and Dr. Chamberlane and Dutch. Spoke to Sir Th. Player he promised my money next week and appoiuted me to come to him. DH. A little meethlg. I reproved Oldenburg for not Registring Experiments. Brouncker took his part. At the Taverne. With Sir J. More at Coffee. He told me of Lingars Experiments. Signior a Drunken huff with Chace and Coyne. Sir J. More had tryd his watch and approved it.
- Friday, June llth. With Mr. Fitch to Mr. Mountacues. Alt agreed. To Sir Chr. Wrens. To Tompions. DH. Met Buckworth, Rider and Curler at 3 in Winchester Street. To Garaways. Davis and Hayward brought news from Curler of his huff and Oliver.
- Saturday, June l2th. -- Fitting Helioscope and watch at Physicians College. Left Deans watch with Tompion who mended balance. At Bloomsbury met Mallet. Left Cane at Coxes for ferrule. Saw his new house. At Sir Ch. Wrens. He promised me a chamber by the Park Stairs. DH. Slept. Haak. With Sir J. Cutler. Davis indeavoured to overreach me by measur &e 1/2. Sir J. Cutler at Blagrove, took Haywards papers for floor and seats. Drunk. promised to pay whatever I signed to be paid. -- At Garaways, Leak, Tompion. Tompion here all night. Much rain. Heard of Lingars Experiment without Morefields. At the Dean of Canterbury. Mrs. Cox spoke about will. Books a guift. I want one.
- Sunday, June 13th. -- Cloudy morn noe Eclipse to be seen. I took 1/2 3 of Gua. Guag. Wrought little. Boyld 2 pipkins of Hagiox. Went not out all day. Tompion here. Wrote this Account. One day this last week I revived my old contrivance for Pocket watch by cutting the Ballance in two and inserting the halfs joynd by two side pieces. See the figure. ~ Not alterable by any, they fitted the Deanes watch well. Much afeard of nose. Tompion. Resolved to proceed.
- Monday, June 14th, and Tuesday, June 15th.--[No entries.]
- Wednesday, June 16th. -- The morning overcast and blustering afternoon fair and mild. ~ 170. wind North. Received as a present from Coll. Richards 12 bottles of Port oport. Lent Tompion, Fosters Miscellanys and Streets Astronomy. Bought of Scot, Mons. Arcoud Nouvelles Elemens de Geometric. Sir J. Cutler signd and seald Haywards papers.
- Thursday, June 17th. -- At Mr. Montacues and at the ground with Mr. Russell and Montacue. Noe councell. Society Read Dr. Grew. Outlandish physitian. Oldenburg a Rascall. I propounded my theory about the digestion of liquors, about Putrefaction, about the parts of Liquors working one upon another, &c. Received from Brounker order for receiving from Chest. Received it from Collonel Richards. Received also Hay Grains his bowle of silver from him. Gave J. Clay 5 shill.
- Friday, June 18th. -- [No entry.]
- Saturday, June 19th. -- Sent Scarborough with Leake to measure Bloomsbery. Sir Th. Player promised money -- 3 days hence. Began to drink strong water and brandy.
- Sunday, June 20th. -- Grace and I drank Senna. It wrought well with me not with Grace. DH. Tompion here. At Garaways. Finished Montacue Draughts.
- Monday, June 21st. -- To the King met Mr. Montacue in the Park. Brouncker had Zulichems watch. To Leicester house, Scarborough and Chivers plot Of Ground. Mullet fals. Sir Chr. Wren faild. DH. At Dean Tillotsons Delivered Watch. (Noe Will.) Met Mr. Axe he promised Wednesday.
- Tuesday, June 22nd. -- All the morn at Mr. Montacue, Chace and T. Fitch. Lane and Fitch disappointed. J. Fitch cavilld. DH. At Sir Ch. Wren order to view spittlefields for Title, and to direct Observatory in Greenwick park for Sir J. More. He promisd money. Chess with Haak. Saw books at Faithornes of Webb about fortifications and Engines. Met Scowen and Shaw at Divill taverne. Thence to Kingsland till 11 at night. Dr. Tillotson out of Towne.
- Wednesday, June 23rd. -- At Sir J. Mores. Walkd with Aldworth. With Sir J. More to Faithornes. With Mr. Hoskins and Dr. }{all at Tompions. Borrowd of Dr. Ball Voyage al'Athens. DH. Disappointed Hoskins. Dancing Masters view 10sh. at Scots. At the Colledge.

Here is the citation for the manuscript in the Guildhall Library, London:

Author or Name Hooke, Robert, 1635-1703.
Title Diary kept from 10 March 1671/2 to 16 May 1683.
Notes The folio commencing 6 January 1672/3, and bound up after fo. 20 in this volume, should follow fo.8. At the back of the volume are miscellaneous notes including lists of books and papers (some belonging to the Royal Society) borrowed and lent by Hooke, 1666-81.
Most of the diary was published in 1935 as "The Diary of Robert Hooke 1672-1680" edited by Henry W Robinson and Walter Adams (a copy is held in the Printed Books Section at B/H 782). The publication includes entries from 1 August 1672 and the full manuscript is printed from 1 January 1673 to 31 December 1680.
Ms number Ms 01758
Bib Id 407692

=======================
fn1: Mulligan's description is on the sample first page; you don't need a Jstor subscription to view it.
fn2: 1673: Since it would be many years before Britain adopted the reformed, Gregorian, calendar, it was -- from January through March -- 1673 there and 1674 on the Continent. Explanation here.
fn3: My main search tools: Google Book Search, Dogpile metasearch, Early English Books Online, and the catalogs of the Library of Congress, Folger Library, and British Library.
fn4: Pistoles: Wikipedia says "Pistole is the French name given to a Spanish gold coin in use in 1537; it was a double escudo, the gold unit. The name was also given to the Louis d'Or of Louis XIII of France, and to other European gold coins of about the value of the Spanish coin. One pistole was worth approximately ten livres." Of livres, it says, "The livre was established by Charlemagne as a unit of account equal to one pound of silver. It was subdivided into 20 sous (also sols), each of 12 deniers. The word livre came from the Latin word libra, a Roman unit of weight. This division is also seen in the old English pound sterling, which was divided into 20 shillings, each divided into 12 pence."
fn5: We know that Sherburne knew my man well through internal evidence, their mutual association with the Royal Observatory, and a diary entry of Hooke that links them. Mersennus Anglicanus is a reference to Marin Mersenne, 1588-1648, a famous French mathematician who used meetings and correspondence to inform other mathematicians of each others' advances.

photosynth!

Richard Wallis has a post on the Panlibus blog about photosynth: MS Photosynth - Jaw-dropping demo.

He says "Take yourself to this video of a presentation at the 2007 TED Conference.  Don't argue just take a look!."

And he gives a link to the application itself: photosynth.

He closes by connecting a few dots: "Next, mash together in your mind this, plus the Microsoft Surface technology and the Mulltitouch technology that I've discussed before. Finally, go lay down in a darkened room and imagine the way we will interact with our digitized resources in a few years time."

Paul Desmond

Paul Desmond died thirty years ago, May 30, 1977 -- Memorial Day in the US. A web site called puredesmond.ca has a biography, discography, and other good stuff. The interviews are interesting because Desmond's conversation was a lot like his playing: there's an overall appearance of modesty and self-deprecation on top of an obviously massive talent. There's surface humor beneath which is a deep and serious commitment: wit in the service of high art.

{Image source}

In 2001, Dave Brubeck reminisced about Paul during a show about a PBS documentary. At one point Brubeck tells an anecdote that shows Paul's combination of wit and virtuosity. The interviewer is Hendrick Smith.

SMITH: Paul had this thing about quotes, and he had this thing about telling stories uh, in music. And wasn't there one night when you guys were riding in Pennsylvania and…and the cops pulled him over the side of the road for speeding - I can't remember the story. What….what happened? Do you remember what I'm talking about?

DAVE: The cops pulled us over and Paul was driving and I guess speeding a little. And, [the cop] told us to follow him and he took us down across the railroad tracks to a farm house where there was a judge. And we had to pay a certain amount of cash to this judge. Well there wasn't time to rehearse or even talk about this and the next night at the concert, in the middle of a tune, Paul laid out the whole sequence in quotes. Titles of songs that would tell the story. The first place the cop was supposed to be wearing a broad rim hat like they do in Pennsylvania, kinda, you know like the Canadian Mounted Police. The first quote he played was "Where did you get that hat?" The next thing was "Down by the railroad station, early in the morning." All wove into another tune -- quote after quote after quote that made absolute sense as a jazz chorus. And of course Paul just strung out these quotes -- he could do that.

SMITH: You told me he would even do that on stage playing with you and sometimes he'd play, I don't know, Don't Fence Me In, I mean he'd…I mean he'd play things that were sorta, you know, giving you the elbow.

DAVE: Oh yeah, he had some good quotes. We'd be playing in the middle of a song and I might hit a chord that was too far out and the next thing he would play would, you'd hear "You're driving me crazy." What did I do? (laughter)

{Image source}

Dave Brubeck Quartet, "These Foolish Things"


Some Desmond quotes:

Complexity can be a trap. You can have a ball developing a phrase, inverting it, playing it in different keys and times and all. But it's really more introspective than communicative. Like a crossword puzzle compared to a poem.

I think I had it in the back of my mind that I wanted it to sound like a dry martini.”

I would also like to thank my father who discouraged me from playing the violin at an early age.

We used to get on planes, and they'd ask who we were, and we'd say, 'The Dave Brubeck Quartet', and they'd say, 'Who?' In later years they'd say, 'Oh', which amounts to the same thing.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

I have won several prizes as the world's slowest alto player, as well as a special award in 1961 for quietness.

I was unfashionable before anyone knew who I was.

I tried practicing for a few weeks and ended up playing too fast.

I discovered early in life that if you take gym first period, you can go into the wrestling room and sit in the corner and sleep.

On the secret of his tone: "I honestly don't know! It has something to do with the fact that I play illegally."

He was an English major in college. His reason for not pursuing a literary career, "I could only write at the beach, and I kept getting sand in my typewriter."

Desmond's fondness for scotch was well known. So in early 1976 when a physical examination showed lung cancer, he was ironically pleased that his liver was fine. "Pristine, perfect. One of the great livers of our time. Awash in Dewars and full of health."

{Image source}

If you're still with me, check out PAUL DESMOND interviews CHARLIE PARKER. It's a transcript from a radio broadcast from early 1954. The announcer is John McLellan. I particularly like the section in which Desmond gets Parker to tell about the hard work he devoted to the development of his skill.

Lili Schonemann (& JWvG)

As you can see from my Current Reading list, over on the right panel, I've given over historical research in order to ingest John Armstrong's Love, life, Goethe : how to be happy in an imperfect world. So far, it's pretty much what the publisher and reviewers say: an invitation to see Goethe anew, not as a distant and inapproachable component of the Western Canon of Literature, but as someone we can read for pleasure and learn from. Says Booklist: "Armstrong invites readers to appreciate Goethe as an eminently human genius perpetually striving toward personal growth and wholeness, balance and beauty." I'm one of those who find Goethe difficult to read. I like his Italian Journey, but find Werther, Faust, and the rest pretty tough going. Reading about Goethe is another matter and this is not a bad book on him; perhaps having read it, I'll do better then next time I tackle works by the man himself.

In reading Armstrong, I just got to an account of the love between the 23-year-old Goethe and 16-year-old Lili Schönemann. Armstrong says Lili was seductive with a look full of erotic knowledge and a passion for sharing little secrets with men who admired her. One of these secrets, she told Goethe, was a habit of gaining the love of men, and then showing her dominance by breaking off from them. She might have intuited that Goethe was similarly inclined. He too had loved and been loved in return, and then, like Lili, taken his leave. Armstrong says this affinity was the main reason that, having once bonded, neither wished to break off and, just as much, neither wished to marry the other.

Armstrong shows us this portrait of Lili and adds a provocative question.

The picture puts me in mind of a similar raised eyebrow in last fall's production of Hedda Gabler at Goucher College.

Addendum:

Ralph Waldo Emerson put Goethe on a plane with Shakespeare and celebrated both throughout his life. In his portrait of Goethe in Representative Men, he seems to be writing of himself as much as his subject:

His failures are the preparation of his victories. A new thought or a crisis of passion apprises him that all that he has yet learned and written is exoteric, — is not the fact, but some rumor of the fact. What then? Does he throw away the pen? No; he begins again to describe in the new light which has shined on him, — if, by some means, he may yet save some true word.

Scholars or writers see connection where the multitude see fragments, and are impelled to exhibit the facts in order, and so to supply the axis on which the frame of things turns. {This is a bit of a paraphrase.}

[The writer] reports the doings of the miraculous spirit of life that everywhere throbs and works.

[Goethe] exists for culture; not for what he can accomplish, but for what can be accomplished in him.

An intellectual man can see himself as a third person; therefore his faults and delusions interest him equally with his successes. Though he wishes to prosper in affairs, he wishes more to know the history and destiny of man; whilst the clouds of egotists drifting about him are only interested in a low success.

Source: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men, Goethe or, The Writer

Lloyd Alexander

Lloyd Alexander has died. We loved his books well, first read aloud at bed-time, then read and re-read to ourselves. We actually met him once, at a reading at the Library of Congress where Gobbergo -- not quite 10 -- got to tell the man how much he liked his work and where he received a warm response.

Here is a link to his author page on LibraryThing and one to his name page on Worldcat Identities. There are plenty of obits. I've listed a few at bottom.

He was 83; died from cancer a couple of weeks after the death of his wife, Janine Denni. They had been married 60 years and lived in Drexel Hill where he had been born and raised.

The New York Times quotes his acceptance speech on being awarded the Newbery Medal in 1969: "In whatever guise — our own daily nightmares of war, intolerance, inhumanity; or the struggles of an Assistant Pig-Keeper against the Lord of Death — the problems are agonizingly familiar. And an openness to compassion, love and mercy is as essential to us here and now as it is to any inhabitant of an imaginary kingdom."

Tim Burke enlarges on this theme in a tribute at Easily Distracted. Says he, "To me, the books were valuable not just as a story of swords and sorcery or even of the journey from childhood to adulthood, but also as an exploration of what it means to make moral choices. ... I think it is utterly counterproductive to teach morals by diktat and repetition. Any story for children that has a single or obvious moral teaching is a story begging to be ignored, subverted or rejected. The Prydain books explored morality as it is lived, even for children, in difficult choices, in painfully-won wisdom, from the inside of consciousness rather than the outside infrastructure of social life. ... The main characters are not noble by fiat.... One of the incidents that made the biggest impact on me as a boy was when Taran is compelled to accept the possibility that his lost father is not of noble birth, but a shepherd, and the shameful feelings he struggles with as a result. Characters die, characters suffer. When they come to a moral decision, you’re taken along with them inside the process of experience and reason that brings them to that moment. ... This is not about saying that everyone’s right, that all choices are ok. These are the kinds of fictions that take children (and adults) through the process of moral reasoning and make them relive ethical choices as painful, difficult and not blandly equanimous."

Some obits: NYT, CBC, LA Times, Boston Globe, NY Mag Washington Post.

{photo sources: at top: LibraryThing author page, Next: E. P. Dutton, about 1971 from NYT, and, last, AP photo via NYMag}

Monty and Joost

I've been quiet about Monty Panesar for months now. He was not selected for the team that lost to Australia in the Ashes Cup test match series last fall and has not been attracting much press notice all this season. You may recall that he's seen as relatively young and unpolished. He's a spinner at a time when that style of bowling has been out of favor (think knuckball pitcher in US palance). And his fielding is sometimes laughable.

The cricket press says things appear to be changing. In a test match against the West Indies team, he bowled the English side out of trouble, dismissing batters with deceptive throws. The umpire awarded Monty three lbws, that is he ruled that three bowled balls would have struck the wicket if the batter had not put his leg in front of it. Here's and extract from the account in the Times, first noting the erratic fielding, then celebrating his bowling:

Monty’s early contribution to England’s cause yesterday at Lord’s was typical. Stationed at mid-off, his geometry was so askew he headed right while the ball sped past his left hand to the boundary. Cue the usual chortles from the cheap seats. Monty was back and a good summer’s vaudeville was in prospect. But 10 minutes before lunch Andrew Strauss threw him the ball and the tempo of the match was transformed. In one ball. A ball that had flight and a deceptive loop and which turned and bounced outside the tentative forward prod of Devon Smith. The dismissal was an exact replica of Justin Langer’s in Perth and was greeted with similar disbelief by the batsman and with trademark jig by the bowler.

Inexorably, the West Indies were drawn into the plot as Panesar bowled unchanged from the Nursery End from just before lunch to late into the evening. By then, four West Indian batsmen had succumbed, three of them left in varying states of anguish by the raised finger of Pakistan umpire Asad Rauf. The dismissals were almost carbon copies, a front leg thrust forward, a bat tucked just behind the front pad and a ball which straightened just enough to persuade Rauf to give the lbw decision.

Darren Ganga, who had compiled a watchful 49, walked away holding his bat the wrong way up in a gesture of disgust.

Runako Morton left with the rueful smile of a man on the wrong end of a conspiracy theory. Brave umpiring? Hawkeye suggested all three would have hit the stumps.

{Image credit: http://www.sportbox.tv/cricket/news/}

I've also been silent about Joost Posthuma. Recovering from an injury suffered in a race last month, he was hit by a car during a training ride. He bounced onto the hood of the car and fell onto the pavement. Treated in the hospital for deep bruises, he has been recovering from this injury over the past few weeks. The Rabobank web site has a couple of articles, in English: Joost Posthuma hurt during training and Posthuma takes a rest after accident. Here is the second of them:

Every cycling fan in the Netherlands was scared stiff after receiving the news that Rabo cyclist Joost Posthuma was involved in a major traffic accident near the Dutch-German border. He was obviously frightened as well after the crash, because that is what it was. "We were just about to take a left turn, when that car hit me. It was an 80 km-road and the police have already indicated that the driver was going too fast. One can imagine what sort of a gigantic blow it must have been." Posthuma hit the hood of the car and the windshield and was then launched. "My hat was still stuck to the windshield. The hat, by the way, looked terrible as well."

Hence, the outcome of the accident could have been a lot worse: a bruised body, strained ribs and a strained left ankle, and the most serious injury, a torn muscle in the upper leg. "It will take some time for me to be back at my old level. Fortunately, I do not feel any pressure from the team, and I am not going to put myself under pressure either, because otherwise your entire career might be at stake. There is no specific recovering time assigned to this type of injury, so I will need to listen to my body." The chances of him being able to compete in the Tour de France seem to be slim. "Never say never, but if you are realistic, you know that I will probably not appear at the start."

On the day of the accident, the Dutchman was having his second practice after suffering a knee injury a couple of weeks ago. Posthuma was just about to peak at that moment. He managed to finish second in the ranking of the three-day cycling stage race of De Panne-Koksijde. "I was in a very good shape. I was very focused on the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Paris-Roubaix. Everything that has happened over the last couple of weeks has been a major setback for me. But, of course, the accident has nothing to do with cycling. That could have also happened if I had gone for a ride with my girlfriend."

Posthuma usually lives in Lanaken, a village located in Belgium near the Dutch-Belgian border, but because he could not practice a lot, he decided to stay in his native region for Easter. He will now stay there a little longer. "I am not that mobile, so I can let people take care of me. It has its advantages," joked the time trial expert so as to put things into perspective. He will start his recovering process during the upcoming days at the facilities of the soccer team of FC Twente, in cooperation with the medical staff of the cycling team.

Joost's own web site has a link to a video interview with him in the training center of the FC Twente soccer team.

{Image credit: http://www.wielermagazine.nl/}

Drummer Hodge

We watched History Boys. One of its achievements is to reveal the greatness of Thomas Hardy, the poet. He wrote the following a couple of months after the outbreak of the Boer War.

Drummer Hodge, Thomas Hardy

They throw in Drummer Hodge, to rest
  Uncoffined – just as found:
His landmark is a kopje-crest
  That breaks the veldt around;
And foreign constellations west
  Each night above his mound.

Young Hodge the Drummer never knew –
  Fresh from his Wessex home –
The meaning of the broad Karoo,
  The Bush, the dusty loam,
And why uprose to nightly view
  Strange stars amid the gloam.

Yet portion of that unknown plain
  Will Hodge forever be;
His homely Northern breast and brain
  Grow to some Southern tree,
And strange-eyed constellation reign
  His stars eternally.

{Boer words in the poem: kopje: small hill,
velte: prairie, Karoo: South African plain.}

From a review of the play:

Who could have thought that one of the most gripping scenes on Broadway this season would be a secondary-school teacher explaining a poem by Thomas Hardy?

It happens in "The History Boys," Alan Bennett's funny, touching and eloquent play about the meaning of education, which opened Sunday at the Broadhurst Theatre.

The teacher, Hector (the superb Richard Griffiths), has just been told he must retire from the North of England secondary school where he's worked for many years because he's been observed groping -- rather ineffectually -- his students.

Posner (Samuel Barnett), the pupil he's speaking to in an otherwise empty classroom, is confused about his sexuality, wondering if he's gay. But the scene is not about sex. It's about the consolation of poetry, thinking and understanding, connecting to something outside yourself.

The poem, "Drummer Hodge," concerns a young British soldier killed in Africa, and the usually exuberant Hector discusses it quietly and a bit wearily. ("Un-coffined is a typical Hardy usage. A compound adjective ... un-kissed, un-rejoicing, un-confessed, unembraced. ... It brings a sense of not sharing, of being out of it ... a holding back. ... Can you see that?")

The scene fascinatingly dramatizes what "The History Boys" is about: the unquantifiable value of learning.

Phillip Mallett has a good page on Hardy and the war on the home page of the University of St. Andrews.

Addendum: I've previously written about a famous battle -- Spion Kop -- and its connections with the Liverpool Football Club.

a song for summer

Here is another poem from Parnassus, the anthology compiled by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1874 (pdf).

The Grasshopper, by Richard Lovelace (1649)

To my Noble Friend, Mr. Charles Cotton

O thou that swing'st upon the waving hair
    Of some well-filled oaten beard,
Drunk every night with a delicious tear
    Dropped thee from heaven, where now th' art reared.

The joys of earth and air are thine entire,
    That with thy feet and wings dost hop and fly;
And when thy poppy works thou dost retire
    To thy carved acorn-bed to lie.

Up with the day, the sun thou welcom'st then,
    Sport'st in the gilt-plats of his beams,
And all these merry days mak'st merry men,
    Thyself, and Melancholy streams.

But ah the sickle!  Golden ears are cropped;
    Ceres and Bacchus bid good-night;
Sharpe frosty fingers all your flowers have topped,
    And what scythes spared, winds shave off quite.

Poore verdant fool! and now green ice, thy joys
    Large and as lasting, as thy perch of grass,
Bid us lay in 'gainst winter, rain, and poise
    Their floods, with an o'erflowing glass.

Thou best of men and friends!  we will create
    A genuine summer in each other's breast;
And spite of this cold time and frozen fate
    Thaw us a warm seat to our rest.

Our sacred hearths shall burn eternally
    As vestal flames, the North-wind, he
Shall strike his frost-stretched wings, dissolve and fly
    This Etna in Epitome.

Dropping December shall come weeping in,
    Bewail th' usurping of his reign;
But when in showers of old Greek we begin,
    Shall cry he hath his crown again!

Night, as clear Hesper, shall our tapers whip
    From the light casements, where we play,
And the dark hag from her black mantle strip,
    And stick there everlasting day.

Thus richer than untempted kings are we,
    That asking nothing, nothing need:
Though Lord of all what seas embrace; yet he
    That wants himself, is poor indeed.

A biography of Lovelace is here.

FRANÇOISE HARDY

I'm fond of Corriente Textual. I can tell you no more about it than you see on the blog itself: interesting music, interesting artwork. Alan, the author, recently provided a link to this Francoise Hardy song, and so I to you.



Francoise Hardy, Ma jeunesse fout l'camp. The song comes from the TV show, La Femme Nikita. Wikipedia has an article on the show.

Hardy is photographable and much photographed, but rarely (never?) smiling.

{Source.}

She's only a couple of years younger than me.

{Source.}

Here is a Youtube video of one of her first performances, from a French TV show of the early 60s, Conservatoire de la Chanson.

Who all the day themselves do please

Here is another poem from Parnassus, the anthology compiled by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1874 (pdf).

THE COUNTRY LIFE, TO THE HONOURED M. END. PORTER, GROOM OF THE BEDCHAMBER TO HIS MAJESTY

by Robert Herrick

SWEET country life, to such unknown
Whose lives are others', not their own !
But serving courts and cities, be
Less happy, less enjoying thee.
Thou never plough'st the ocean's foam
To seek and bring rough pepper home ;
Nor to the Eastern Ind dost rove
To bring from thence the scorched clove ;
Nor, with the loss of thy lov'd rest,
Bring'st home the ingot from the West.
No, thy ambition's masterpiece
Flies no thought higher than a fleece ;
Or how to pay thy hinds, and clear
All scores, and so to end the year :
But walk'st about thine own dear bounds,
Not envying others larger grounds :
For well thou know'st 'tis not th' extent
Of land makes life, but sweet content.
When now the cock (the ploughman's horn)
Calls forth the lily-wristed morn,
Then to thy corn-fields thou dost go,
Which though well soyl'd, yet thou dost know
That the best compost for the lands
Is the wise master's feet and hands.
There at the plough thou find'st thy team
With a hind whistling there to them ;
And cheer'st them up, by singing how
The kingdom's portion is the plough.
This done, then to th' enamelled meads
Thou go'st, and as thy foot there treads,
Thou see'st a present God-like power
Imprinted in each herb and flower ;
And smell'st the breath of great-ey'd kine,
Sweet as the blossoms of the vine.
Here thou behold'st thy large sleek neat
Unto the dew-laps up in meat ;
And, as thou look'st, the wanton steer,
The heifer, cow, and ox draw near
To make a pleasing pastime there.
These seen, thou go'st to view thy flocks
Of sheep, safe from the wolf and fox,
And find'st their bellies there as full
Of short sweet grass as backs with wool,
And leav'st them, as they feed and fill,
A shepherd piping on a hill.
For sports, for pageantry and plays
Thou hast thy eves, and holidays ;
On which the young men and maids meet
To exercise their dancing feet ;
Tripping the comely country round,
With daffodils and daisies crown'd.
Thy wakes, thy quintels here thou hast,
Thy May-poles, too, with garlands grac'd ;
Thy morris dance, thy Whitsun ale,
Thy shearing feast which never fail ;
Thy harvest-home, thy wassail bowl,
That's toss'd up after fox i' th' hole ;
Thy mummeries, thy twelfth-tide kings
And queens, thy Christmas revellings,
Thy nut-brown mirth, thy russet wit,
And no man pays too dear for it.
To these thou hast thy times to go
And trace the hare i' th' treacherous snow ;
Thy witty wiles to draw, and get
The lark into the trammel net ;
Thou hast thy cockrood and thy glade
To take the precious pheasant made ;
Thy lime-twigs, snares and pit-falls then
To catch the pilfering birds, not men.
O happy life ! if that their good
The husbandmen but understood !
Who all the day themselves do please,
And younglings, with such sports as these,
And lying down have nought t' affright
Sweet sleep, that makes more short the night.
Unfinished — Cætera desunt — The rest is wanting

Notes on the poem

You can read about Endymion Porter here.

Notes on unfamiliar words in the poem (from luminarium.org)

Soyl'd, manured.
Compost, preparation.
Fox i' th' hole, a hopping game in which boys beat
each other with gloves.
Cockrood, a run for snaring woodcocks.
Glade, an opening in the wood across which nets were
hung to catch game. (Willoughby, Ornithologie, i. 3.)

Click image to enlarge. Source. "This letter, one of just a few documents to survive in Herrick's own hand, was carefully composed by him while a student at St. John's College, Cambridge. Herrick employs all his rhetorical powers in an effort to persuade his uncle William to give him money to buy books for his studies:

my studie craves but your assistance to furnish hir with bookes wherein She is most desirous to laboure, blame not her modest boldness, but suffer the aspertions of your love to distill upon hir, and next to Heaven, she will consecrate hir laboures unto you ...

"

Catching up with Emerson in Florence

More from Emerson's Journals. It is 1833, he is 29 years old, on his travels in Italy.

And so I left, on the twenty-third of April [1833], the city built on seven hills, the Palatine, the Capitoline, Crelian, Aventine, Quirinal, Viminal, and Esquiline.

April 26.

Passignano. Here sit I this cold eve by the fire in the Locanda of this little town on the margin of the lake of Thrasimene, and remember Hannibal and Rome. Pleases me well the clear pleasant air which savors more of New England than of Italy. To-day we came from Spoleto to Perugia on the top of how high a hill with mighty walls and towers far within the gates of the town. Old cathedral, and all around architectural ornaments of the Middle Ages. But were I a proprietor in Perugia, I would sell all and go and live upon the plain. How prepos terous too it is to live in Trevi, where the streets must make with the horizon an angle of 45 degrees. Yet here in Umbria every height shows a wide prospect of well-cultivated coun try.

April 27.

Passed a peaceful night close by the dreadful field of Hannibal and Flaminius. This morning we crossed the Sanguinetto and left the pontifi cal state. We passed by Cortona, the venerable Etruscan town, then by Arezzo, the birthplace of Petrarch, and stopped at night at Levane.

Next morn (April 28) through the beautiful Val d'Arno we came to Figline, to Incisa, and in the afternoon to fair Florence.

April 29

And how do you like Florence? Why, well. It is pleasant to see how affectionately all the artists who have resided here a little while speak of getting home to Florence. And I found at once that we live here with much more comfort than in Rome or Naples. Good streets, industrious population, spacious, well-furnished lodgings, elegant and cheap caffies. The Cathedral and the Campanile, the splendid galleries and no beggars, make this city the favorite of strangers.

How like an archangel's tent is this great Cathedral of many-coloured marble set down in the midst of the city, and by its side its won drous Campanile! I took a hasty glance at the gates of the Baptistery which Angelo said ought to be the gates of Paradise, "digne chiudere il Paradiso" and then at his own David, and hasted to the Tribune and to the Pitti Palace. I saw the statue that enchants the world. And truly the Venus deserves to be visited from far. It is not adequately represented by the plaster casts, as the Apollo and the Laocoon are. I must go again and see this statue. Then I went round this cabinet and gallery and galleries till I was i well-nigh "dazzled and drunk with beauty." I think no man has an idea of the powers of painting until he has come hither. Why should painters study at Rome ? Here, here.

I have been this day to Santa Croce, which is to Florence what Westminster Abbey is to England. I passed with consideration the tomb of Nicholas Machiavelli, but stopped long be fore that of Galileus Galileo, for I love and honor that man, except in the recantation, with my whole heart. But when I came to Michael Angelo Buonaroti my flesh crept as I read the inscription. I had strange emotions. I suppose because Italy is so full of his fame. I have lately continually heard of his name and works and opinions ; I see his face in every shop window, and now I stood over his dust.

Then I came to the empty tomb of Dante, who lies buried at Ravenna. Then to that of Alfieri.

The Birds of Killingworth

Here is another poem from Parnassus, the anthology compiled by Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1874 (pdf).

The Poet's Tale; The Birds of Killingworth

It was the season, when through all the land
The merle and mavis build, and building sing
Those lovely lyrics, written by His hand,
Whom Saxon Caedmon calls the Blitheheart King;
When on the boughs the purple buds expand,
The banners of the vanguard of the Spring,
And rivulets, rejoicing, rush and leap,
And wave their fluttering signals from the steep.

The robin and the bluebird, piping loud,
Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee;
The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud
Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be;
And hungry crows assembled in a crowd,
Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly,
Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said:
"Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread!"

Across the Sound the birds of passage sailed,
Speaking some unknown language strange and sweet
Of tropic isle remote, and passing hailed
The village with the cheers of all their fleet;
Or quarrelling together, laughed and railed
Like foreign sailors, landed in the street
Of seaport town, and with outlandish noise
Of oaths and gibberish frightening girls and boys.

Thus came the jocund Spring in Killingworth,
In fabulous days; some hundred years ago;
And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth,
Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow,
That mingled with the universal mirth,
Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe;
They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words
To swift destruction the whole race of birds.

And a town-meeting was convened straightway
To set a price upon the guilty heads
Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay,
Levied black-mail upon the garden beds
And cornfields, and beheld without dismay
The awful scarecrow, with his fluttering shreds;
The skeleton that waited at their feast,
Whereby their sinful pleasure was increased.

Then from his house, a temple painted white,
With fluted columns, and a roof of red,
The Squire came forth, august and splendid sight!
Slowly descending, with majestic tread,
Three flights of steps, nor looking left nor right,
Down the long street he walked, as one who said,
"A town that boasts inhabitants like me
Can have no lack of good society!"

The Parson, too, appeared, a man austere,
The instinct of whose nature was to kill;
The wrath of God he preached from year to year,
And read, with fervor, Edwards on the Will;
His favorite pastime was to slay the deer
In Summer on some Adirondac hill;
E'en now, while walking down the rural lane,
He lopped the wayside lilies with his cane.

From the Academy, whose belfry crowned
The hill of Science with its vane of brass,
Came the Preceptor, gazing idly round,
Now at the clouds, and now at the green grass,
And all absorbed in reveries profound
Of fair Almira in the upper class,
Who was, as in a sonnet he had said,
As pure as water, and as good as bread.

And next the Deacon issued from his door,
In his voluminous neck-cloth, white as snow;
A suit of sable bombazine he wore;
His form was ponderous, and his step was slow;
There never was so wise a man before;
He seemed the incarnate "Well, I told you so!"
And to perpetuate his great renown
There was a street named after him in town.

These came together in the new town-hall,
With sundry farmers from the region round.
The Squire presided, dignified and tall,
His air impressive and his reasoning sound;
Ill fared it with the birds, both great and small;
Hardly a friend in all that crowd they found,
But enemies enough, who every one
Charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun.

When they had ended, from his place apart
Rose the Preceptor, to redress the wrong,
And, trembling like a steed before the start,
Looked round bewildered on the expectant throng;
Then thought of fair Almira, and took heart
To speak out what was in him, clear and strong,
Alike regardless of their smile or frown,
And quite determined not to be laughed down.

"Plato, anticipating the Reviewers,
From his Republic banished without pity
The Poets; in this little town of yours,
You put to death, by means of a Committee,
The ballad-singers and the Troubadours,
The street-musicians of the heavenly city,
The birds, who make sweet music for us all
In our dark hours, as David did for Saul.

"The thrush that carols at the dawn of day
From the green steeples of the piny wood;
The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay,
Jargoning like a foreigner at his food;
The bluebird balanced on some topmost spray,
Flooding with melody the neighborhood;
Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng
That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song.

"You slay them all! and wherefore? for the gain
Of a scant handful more or less of wheat,
Or rye, or barley, or some other grain,
Scratched up at random by industrious feet,
Searching for worm or weevil after rain!
Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet
As are the songs these uninvited guests,
Sing at their feast with comfortable breasts.

"Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these?
Do you ne'er think who made them and who taught
The dialect they speak, where melodies
Alone are the interpreters of thought?
Whose household words are songs in many keys,
Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught!
Whose habitations in the tree-tops even
Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!

"Think, every morning when the sun peeps through
The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove,
How jubilant the happy birds renew
Their old, melodious madrigals of love!
And when you think of this, remember too
'T is always morning somewhere, and above
The awakening continents; from shore to shore,
Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.

"Think of your woods and orchards without birds!
Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams
As in an idiot's brain remembered words
Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams!
Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds
Make up for the lost music, when your teams
Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more
The feathered gleaners follow to your door?

"What! would you rather see the incessant stir
Of insects in the windrows of the hay,
And hear the locust and the grasshopper
Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play?
Is this more pleasant to you than the whir
Of meadow-lark, and her sweet roundelay,
Or twitter of little field-fares, as you take
Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake?

"You call them thieves and pillagers; but know,
They are the wingéd wardens of your farms,
Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe,
And from your harvests keep a hundred harms;
Even the blackest of them all, the crow,
Renders good service as your man-at-arms,
Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail,
And crying havoc on the slug and snail.

"How can I teach your children gentleness,
And mercy to the weak, and reverence
For Life, which, in its weakness or excess,
Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence,
Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less
The selfsame light, although averted hence,
When by your laws, your actions, and your speech,
You contradict the very things I teach?"

With this he closed; and through the audience went
A murmur, like the rustle of dead leaves;
The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent
Their yellow heads together like their sheaves;
Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment
Who put their trust in bullocks and in beeves.
The birds were doomed; and, as the record shows,
A bounty offered for the heads of crows.

There was another audience out of reach,
Who had no voice nor vote in making laws,
But in the papers read his little speech,
And crowned his modest temples with applause;
They made him conscious, each one more than each,
He still was victor, vanquished in their cause.
Sweetest of all the applause he won from thee,
O fair Almira at the Academy!

And so the dreadful massacre began;
O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests,
The ceaseless fusillade of terror ran.
Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on their breasts,
Or wounded crept away from sight of man,
While the young died of famine in their nests;
A slaughter to be told in groans, not words,
The very St. Bartholomew of Birds!

The Summer came, and all the birds were dead;
The days were like hot coals; the very ground
Was burned to ashes; in the orchards fed
Myriads of caterpillars, and around
The cultivated fields and garden beds
Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found
No foe to check their march, till they had made
The land a desert without leaf or shade.

Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town,
Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly
Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees spun down
The canker-worms upon the passers-by,
Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown,
Who shook them off with just a little cry
They were the terror of each favorite walk,
The endless theme of all the village talk.

The farmers grew impatient but a few
Confessed their error, and would not complain,
For after all, the best thing one can do
When it is raining, is to let it rain.
Then they repealed the law, although they knew
It would not call the dead to life again;
As school-boys, finding their mistake too late,
Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate.

That year in Killingworth the Autumn came
Without the light of his majestic look,
The wonder of the falling tongues of flame,
The illumined pages of his Doom's-Day book.
A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame,
And drowned themselves despairing in the brook,
While the wild wind went moaning everywhere,
Lamenting the dead children of the air!

But the next Spring a stranger sight was seen,
A sight that never yet by bard was sung,
As great a wonder as it would have been
If some dumb animal had found a tongue!
A wagon, overarched with evergreen,
Upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung,
All full of singing birds, came down the street,
Filling the air with music wild and sweet.

From all the country round these birds were brought,
By order of the town, with anxious quest,
And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought
In woods and fields the places they loved best,
Singing loud canticles, which many thought
Were satires to the authorities addressed,
While others, listening in green lanes, averred
Such lovely music never had been heard!

But blither still and louder carolled they
Upon the morrow, for they seemed to know
It was the fair Almira's wedding-day,
And everywhere, around, above, below,
When the Preceptor bore his bride away,
Their songs burst forth in joyous overflow,
And a new heaven bent over a new earth
Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth.

This poem is much more interesting than the usual Longfellow fare: Evangeline (1847), for example, or The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858) -- they're all apparently collected here. In particular, the chanting meter of the Song of Hiawatha and its false-sounding Nativism have annoyed and embarassed me. Why this as a standard for the excellence of versification in the young United States?

By the shores of Gitche Gumee,
By the shining Big-Sea-Water,
Stood the wigwam of Nokomis,
Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis.

Killingworth is a real place, a village in Connecticut with its own online paper , garden club, and Wikipedia entry (none of which mention the Longfellow poem).

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{This church in Killingworth was built half a century before Longfellow wrote about the place. source}