[lit-ideas] Re: The Other Side Of Hopkins
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:07:23 -0600
DR:
"Vote a god for Geary, do."
This is the God I hope you vote me. I don't know her name. I saw her only
once, It was about 30 years ago on a wonderful autumn afternoon. I was working
on an outside walk-in cooler in Overton Square. Two women came out of
Friday's, they were laughing in buzz-delight as they walked to their car in the
parking lot. I was standing on top of the walk-in watching them. When the one
I want to win opened the car door, she threw her arms out to embrace the world
and let loose the loveliest sound I've ever heard. Her voice was as powerful
as Callas's, it filled the city, filled the whole afternoon: "Give me the beat,
boys, and free my soul, I want to get lost in your rock and roll and drift
away." Now, Dobie Gray's version is good, don't get me wrong, but it can't
compare to the intensity and urgency and ache in that woman's supremely
sonorous voice.
Yes, I said, I do believe. Yes.
Mike Geary
Memphis.
PS -- if you don't remember the song Drift Away here's Uncle Kracker's version:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYWtEoen_1E
----- Original Message -----
From: David Ritchie
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, November 30, 2009 12:07 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: The Other Side Of Hopkins
On Nov 29, 2009, at 9:03 PM, Mike Geary wrote:
Ah, yes, this is the mind-set I was raised in. The physical world is an
evil that pulls us away from adoration of God and the quest for spiritual
perfection. Our souls are restless until they rest in Thee, O Lord. Things
changed for me. I think they changed for Gerard as well -- certainly not as
radically as they did for me. He began to see that the physical world as a
mirror of the grandeur of God. I began to see it as God.
Who knows why this came in response to your fine words?
Non-monastic chanting, dreamlike, distant, as from some insistent wound-up
crowd's demand,
far louder than the usual sand prophet's whisper (of which I've heard a few),
"Vote a god for Geary, do."
I have no idea what these sounds could be about except protest of business
and the world's wooden turning.
They carry resonance of the sixties, but empty it like ordure into a moat
without, which is to say outside meaning; DADA doodoo poo dookie dump caca in
wa wa.
That's about as far as things go, now, tonight.
Silence answers, as then, as it so often has.
Alarms will start tomorrow,
and we'll work together to diminish Monday's wake's surge,
also global warming.
David Ritchie,
Portland, Oregon
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