Music Tuesday: “Salt of the Earth” by The Rolling Stones

This past Sunday’s Gospel reading at mass was the passage where Jesus calls his followers, the salt of the earth.  From Matthew 5:13-16.

Jesus said to his disciples:
“You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.”

I happen to be a big Rolling Stones fan, if I haven’t mentioned it in the past.  Whenever I come across that biblical passage I instantly think of the wonderful Stones’ song, “Salt of the Earth.”    This is such an underappreciated song, and it comes from one of their greatest albums, Beggars Banquet. 

 

This is such a fine song, you really should have the lyrics before you as you listen.

 

SALT OF THE EARTH
M. Jagger/K. Richards)

Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the lowly of birth
Raise your glass to the good and the evil
Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Say a prayer for the common foot soldier
Spare a thought for his back breaking work
Say a prayer for his wife and his children
Who burn the fires and who still till the earth

And when I search a faceless crowd
A swirling mass of gray and black and white
They don't look real to me
In fact, they look so strange

Raise your glass to the hard working people
Let's drink to the uncounted heads
Let's think of the wavering millions
Who need leaders but get gamblers instead

Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio

And when I look in the faceless crowd
A swirling mass of grays and black and white
They don't look real to me
Or don't they look so strange

Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's think of the lowly of birth
Spare a thought for the rag taggy people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth
Let's drink to the two thousand million
Let's think of the humble of birth

Lets raise our drink
To the salt of the earth
Lets raise our drink
To the salt of the earth.......

From Keno’s Rolling Stone Lyrics. 

 

If you’re only going to own a couple of Stones albums, the 1968 Beggars Banquet is a must.  It’s one of those albums where every song reflects another either thematically or musically, and every song is near perfection.  I love in this song the arrangement of acoustic and slide guitars and piano, backed up with a gospel choir.  This is the Stones at their best.

Finally a note.  You can read in the Wikipedia entry that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards  performed this song post 9/11 for the fallen in New York City, replacing the line “Let’s drink to the good and the evil” which I assume was meant as an embrace of all humanity, with the line “Let’s drink to the good NOT the evil” which was meant to repudiate the terrorist’s actions.  You can see that performance on youtube as well, here. 

Let's drink to the hard working people
Let's think of the lowly of birth
Spare a thought for the rag taggy people
Let's drink to the salt of the earth

Matthew Monday: At the Pharmacy

OK, this didn’t involve Matthew per se, only indirectly.  I was at the pharmacy and I had to pick up a few items for him.  He had been sharing a hair brush with his mother, and it was full of girly hair, so I wanted to get him his own personal brush.  He wanted one in black or green, and I was able to find him a spiffy one in aquamarine color.  He needed more baby powder, a package of wet wipes, and a toothbrush.  Got him a green toothbrush in the shape of a Crayola crayon that has a light inside that blinks when you push the button on the base.  Really cool, see below.

He was also running out of this cream for his behind when it gets chafe.  I looked all over the store for it, the baby aisle, the ointment aisle, and the medication aisle.  I went back and forth three times.  I didn’t want to ask a clerk since I wasn’t sure what to call it.  I knew it had a ridiculous name with “butt” in it.  So finally I gave up and went up to a man who might have been the manager.  He was up front and had a shirt that reflected the store’s identity.

 “Excuse me,” I said.  “Uhmmm, I‘m looking for butt cream.  I can’t seem to find it anywhere.”

The man had dark hair pushed back, and his face looked middle aged, or perhaps a shade younger.  He looked at me square in the eye, and then when my words finally registered in his head, he doubled over laughing. 

I must have turned red, and quickly said, “It’s for a child.”

The man regained himself and nodded his head.  I’m not sure what he meant by that nod, perhaps to say “yeah, they all say that.”  What he did say was, “It’s actually called Butt Paste, and it’s in aisle 14." 

I thanked him and went over and found it.  It was the baby aisle, but I hadn’t noticed it.  I was looking for a plastic tube and it turned out they package the tube in a box, which threw me off. 

 

I bet that man went home to his wife and told her a funny story.  He was probably laughing all night.

Literature in the News: Reading Bingo Challenge 2014

Has anyone ever heard of reading BINGO?  It’s a new one for me.  Julie at Happy Catholic blog (hat tip)  made me aware of it and in my search apparently I found it is fairly widespread.  I’m with Julie; my reading list is way longer than I can accomplish, so I don’t actually need games to spur me to read.  However, I can see how this can create a varied reading list to spread one’s horizons.
 

Random House publishers puts out an annual challenge, and here’s their challenge for this year.

 

When facing a new year filled with so many possibilities for resolutions, sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. Do you want to challenge yourself to read more in the coming year? What about to read more widely? And where’s the motivation to stay on track?

Bingo—that’s where! Welcome to Retreat’s Reading Bingo Challenge 2014. We’ve created a printable bingo card with 24 reading challenges! Join us and challenge yourself to read more, to read more widely and to have fun doing it all!

You can approach the Reading Bingo card however you like: beginners, start by getting one line; if you’re more advanced, try the whole outside box on the card; experts, fill in the whole card!

We would recommend using one book per space, but if you read a book over 500 pages written by someone under 30, who are we to stop you from cover two squares with one read?

 

Here’s an actual reading BINGO card.

 

 

 

The game seems to be an approach to get kids and adolescents to read more, but certainly adaptable for adults.  If you do a Google Images of “Reading Bingo” you can find all sorts of reading bingo sheets for various ages.

 

 

Lines I Wish I’d Written: Giovanni Loves Beatrice from “Rappaccini’s Daughter”

I’ve been reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s fascinating short story, “Rappaccini’s Daughter” and came across this noteworthy passage.  You can read about the story and its themes here. 

Let me briefly set it up.  Giovanni Guasconti, a young University student, has observed Beatrice, the beautiful daughter of the scientist Dr. Giacomo Rappaccini, and has fallen in love with her.  Dr. Rappaccini is a scientist who will do anything for science, including experiments on his own daughter, and in his research of poisonous plants has allowed his daughter to be infused with poisons and the result is that her breath and touch is caustic to whatever comes in contact.  Giovanni has just met her face to face for the first time and in their encounter she has touched his right hand.  He now is back in his room thinking over her beauty. 

No sooner was Guasconti alone in his chamber than the image of Beatrice came back to his passionate musings, invested with all the witchery that had been gathering around it ever since his first glimpse of her, and now likewise imbued with a tender warmth of girlish womanhood. She was human; her nature was endowed with all gentle and feminine qualities; she was worthiest to be worshipped; she was capable, surely, on her part, of the height and heroism of love. Those tokens which he had hitherto considered as proofs of a frightful peculiarity in her physical and moral system were now either forgotten, or, by the subtle sophistry of passion transmitted into a golden crown of enchantment, rendering Beatrice the more admirable by so much as she was the more unique. Whatever had looked ugly was now beautiful; or, if incapable of such a change, it stole away and hid itself among those shapeless half ideas which throng the dim region beyond the daylight of our perfect consciousness. Thus did he spend the night, nor fell asleep until the dawn had begun to awake the slumbering flowers in Dr. Rappaccini's garden, whither Giovanni's dreams doubtless led him. Up rose the sun in his due season, and, flinging his beams upon the young man's eyelids, awoke him to a sense of pain. When thoroughly aroused, he became sensible of a burning and tingling agony in his hand--in his right hand--the very hand which Beatrice had grasped in her own when he was on the point of plucking one of the gemlike flowers. On the back of that hand there was now a purple print like that of four small fingers, and the likeness of a slender thumb upon his wrist.

Oh, how stubbornly does love,--or even that cunning semblance of love which flourishes in the imagination, but strikes no depth of root into the heart,--how stubbornly does it hold its faith until the moment comes when it is doomed to vanish into thin mist! Giovanni wrapped a handkerchief about his hand and wondered what evil thing had stung him, and soon forgot his pain in a reverie of Beatrice.

Excerpt taken from Literature Network, where you can read the entire story. 

 

That is a lovely passage.  I think highly of Hawthorne’s short stories, and this one is captivating in its symbolism and moral construct.  It is clear that Dr. Rappaccini is immoral, and though Beatrice is an innocent victim, is it wrong for Giovanni to pursue her and become entangled in an evil endeavor?  I won’t spoil it, so do read the story. 

 

While I think highly of Hawthorne’s short stories, I do find his prose to be a bit ridged, if not overly formal.  [Nathaniel Hawthorne is the author of the great American novel, The Scarlet Letter, and you can read about him here.]  Concurrently I’ve been reading Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi and the contrastin style is striking.  Compare with my Twain passage I wished I had written, here.  I guess Hawthorne’s prose is very 19^th century-ish while Twain’s breaks through from his milieu with his lyricism and understanding of spoken American rhythms.  Still this passage from Hawthorne’s “Rappaccini’s Daughter” is very good. 

I’m debating whether to do a full analysis of the story, but I am behind on the analyses I had planned.  So I’m not sure whether I will.  If anyone reads this story and wants my breakdown of it, please let me know; that will push me over to doing it.

Literature in the News: Two New Poems by Sappho Discovered

I’m not a classist, but stuff like this for a classist must be exciting.  Heck, I think it’s fantastic. 

From the Greek Reporter: 

Today, only few poems by the ancient Greek poetess Sappho have survived, but thanks to new findings, two new works have been recovered, giving experts hope to find even more.

 

These previously unknown poems by the great poetess of the 7th century B.C. came to light when the owner of an ancient papyrus consulted Oxford classicist world-renowned papyrologist Dr. Dirk Obbink about the Greek writings on the tattered scrap.

 

Despite Sappho’s fame in antiquity and huge literary output, only one complete poem survives until today, along with substantial portions of four others. One of those four was only recovered in 2004, also from a scrap of papyrus.

 

“The new Sappho is the best preserved Sappho papyrus in existence, with just a few letters that had to be restored in the first poem, and not a single word that is in doubt. Its content is equally exciting,” said a Harvard classics professor upon examining the papyrus.

 

 

You can read about Sappho at Wikipedia.   Of course the thing that is routinely stated about her is that she was a lesbian—she lived on the island of Lesbos, from which the term “lesbian” was derived—but frankly it’s hard to tell from the sketchy poems, as this article clearly points out here  She speaks of both male and female relationships and translation is paramount.  Not being a classists I’m not going to claim to have any special insight, one way or the other. 

 

More interesting to me is the actual poetry.  The Greek Reporter speaks of her style:

 

 The two poems share a common meter, the so-called Sapphic stanza, a verse form perhaps devised by Sappho and today bearing her name. Both belonged, therefore, to the first of Sappho’s nine books of poetry and their recovery gives a clearer glimpse into the makeup and structure of that book. “All the poems of Sappho’s first book seem to have been about family, biography, and cult, together with poems about love/Aphrodite,” Dr. Obbink writes.

 

Sappho wrote in a dialect of Greek called Aeolic, which is significantly different in sound and spellings than the Attic Greek that later became standard. The handwriting on the papyrus allowed Dr. Obbink to establish its date as late 2nd or 3rd century A.D., almost a millennium after Sappho first wrote. It was not long after this time that Aeolic texts and other non-standard dialects began to die out in ancient Greece, with the focus of educators and copyists shifting on Attic writers.

 

Well, here are some translations of the two poems.  First, Prof. William Harris of Middlebury College of what is identified as “Poem 58.”   Read his commentary on how the poem was reconstructed it include the missing phrases.   

 

[For you] the fragrant-blossomed Muses' lovely gifts
[be zealous] girls, [and the ] clear melodious lyre.

[but my once tender] body old age now
[has seized] my hair's turned [white] instead of dark.

My heart's grown heavy, my knees will not support me,
that once on a time were fleet for the dance as fawns.

This state I bemoan, but what's to do?
Not to grow old, being human, there's no way.

Tithonus once, the tale was, rose-armed Dawn
love smitten, carried him off to the world's end

handsome and young then, get in time grey age
o'ertook him, husband of immortal wife.

 

 

The second poem seems to be a discussion of Sappho’s brothers, Charaxos and Larichos, with an interlocutor.  Here is a translation from Tom Payne from The Telegraph.   Payne is a classists and translator. 

Still, you keep on twittering that Charaxos
comes, his boat full. That kind of thing I reckon
Zeus and his fellow gods know; and you mustn’t
make the assumption;

rather, command me, let me be an envoy
praying intensely to the throne of Hera
who could lead him, he and his boat arriving
here, my Charaxos,

finding me safely; let us then divert all
other concerns on to the lesser spirits;
after all, after hurricanes the clear skies
rapidly follow;

and the ones whose fate the Olympian ruler
wants to transform from troubles into better –
they are much blessed, they go about rejoicing
in their good fortune.

As for me, if Larichos reaches manhood,
[if he could manage to be rich and leisured,]
he would give me, so heavy-hearted, such a
swift liberation.

 

Like most poetry, you never get the full poetic effect translated to another language.  Unfortunately I do not read ancient Greek.  Still, I enjoyed both of these.

 

Hat tip to Tom McDonald of God and theMachine blog for bring this to my awareness.

.

Matthew Monday: Bathroom Accident

There is an endless debate on whether little boys are inherently any different than little girls.  I’m not going to wade into that but there is one distinct difference.  Urination.

 

Matthew and I were playing superheroes the other day.  He pretends to be Captain America and I’m Ironman and we defeat all the bad guys.  He just loves it and drives me crazy to play and never once wants to take a break.  I noticed he was hopping up and down and holding his groin. 

 

“Do you have to go to the bathroom?” I asked.

 

“Yes, yes, I have to go, I have to go.”

 

“Then go.  What are you waiting for?”

 

“OK.  I’ll be right back.”  And he started to unbutton his pants as rushed into the bathroom.

 

From the bathroom I suddenly heard him exclaim, “Oh maaaaan!”  He dragged out the “man” with a long sigh.

 

“What happened?”  I called out.  He came out with his trousers and underwear down to his knees. 

 

“I missed.”  His pants, underwear, and socks were all wet.

 

“Is it on the floor?” 

He nodded.

 

“Get out from those clothes,” I said, and went to see what happened in the bathroom.  Good heavens.  He hadn’t gotten a single drop in the bowl.  Urine was everywhere, and in no particular direction.  It was as if he had lost control of you-know-what and he sprayed piss everywhere.  And he had a large bladder full.  All I could envision was a garden hose that was dropped, wiggling, and shooting water in all directions.

 

He came by while I was on my hands and knees cleaning up.  “I’m sorry dad,” he sighed.

 

I sighed.  “That’s ok.”

Faith Filled Friday: Marriage Prayer from the Book of Tobit

I just finished reading the Book of Tobit from the Old Testament and found it wonderful.  What a joy, first, since it’s one of those books that Protestants didn’t include in their translations, I didn’t need to read it from the King James Version.  [For an understanding of the Apocrypha Books, read here.]  Second it’s not a history, or the laws and rituals, or even the prophecies.  It’s the first of the poetical/wisdom books, and in this case it’s really a short story.  And third it’s a fast, easy read that provides sheer delight.

 

Here’s a quick summary without a spoiler: The story is about a man named Tobit, who goes blind and sends his son, Tobiah, to the distant Persian city of  Media to bring back money he had secured there many years before.  At Media there is a young lady named Sarah who has had seven bridegrooms die on her the night of their wedding prior to consummation as a result of an evil spirit.  Through the help of the angel Raphael Tobiah marries Sarah and overcomes the evil spirit, and brings her home to his family.  That’s just bare bones plot.  There’s more, so read it here. 

 

Another joy in the read is that there are six prayers spread throughout the work which are so sweet.  For this Faith Filled Friday, I’m going to post the prayer that Tobiah and Sarah pray on their wedding night after the expulsion of the evil spirit. 

When Sarah’s parents left the bedroom and closed the door behind them, Tobiah rose from bed and said to his wife, “My sister, come, let us pray and beg our Lord to grant us mercy and protection.”  She got up, and they started to pray and beg that they might be protected. He began with these words:

“Blessed are you, O God of our ancestors;

blessed be your name forever and ever!

Let the heavens and all your creation bless you forever.

You made Adam, and you made his wife Eve

to be his helper and support;

and from these two the human race has come.

You said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone;

let us make him a helper like himself.’

Now, not with lust,

but with fidelity I take this kinswoman as my wife.

Send down your mercy on me and on her,

and grant that we may grow old together.

Bless us with children.”

They said together, “Amen, amen!”  Then they went to bed for the night.

                                    -Book of Tobit, Chpt 8, 4-9

 

That is so wonderful.  I would never have thought of a prayer on my wedding night.  I wasn’t very religious then.  If I had known of this passage I would have had it read at my wedding ceremony.