Radical literature

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This has nothing to do with the stalemate over the debt ceiling crisis.  At all.

A Summertime Quiz (and you thought school was out for a few months): 

Does the following quote come from:

A.  Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

B.  Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party

C.  Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power

D.  Vladimir Lenin, What is to be Done?

E.  None of the above

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries which are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments have become moth-eaten.  Your gold and your silver have rusted; and their rust will be a witness against you and will consume your flesh like fire. It is in the last days that you have stored up your treasure! Look, the pay of the laborers who mowed your fields, and which has been withheld by you, cries out against you;  …  You have lived luxuriously on the earth and led a life of wanton pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.  You have condemned and put to death the righteous man; he does not resist you.”

I’ll give the answer on August 1^st.  Maybe Congress and the President will have answers to other questions by then.

 

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Too busy to blog

I feel better now.   Barb hasn’t posted for more than two weeks, and she had been a “post-a-day” blogger with WordPress.  Me, I’m nearly three weeks without a post.  But it’s busy on the island these days and hard to keep up with anything.

Jeri and I did manage to get to the Blues Festival in Rockland last Sunday.  Had to skip church to do it.

And lobstering has picked up pretty good, with a fairly decent run of shedders and, for some reason, a lot of the hardshells that we never caught this spring.  So too busy to blog. 

Note to those from away:  Shedders and hardshells are lobsters.  They grow a size by crawling out of their old shell and starting over again each year, soft-shelled and bigger.  And hungry.  Oh, the price is lower, but there are more of them and they pay the bills.

Anyway, for a bit of island nostalgia here’s a photo of the Serena Lee, the last of Dad’s lobster boats.   He fished out of this one from 1972 until 1990 when his back wouldn’t let him anymore.  She was a familiar sight around the Cranberry Isles, and with her red riding sail became the subject of many postcards and magazine articles.  I took this photo just north of Baker’s Island, and you’ll see the same hills of Mount Desert Island in the blog’s heading.

I miss you out there, Dad.

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O Canada

self-portrait from Both Sides Now

In the “any excuse for Joni Mitchell” category, Canada Day will do nicely.  

Here are the lyrics to “A Case of You” followed by a black-and-white slide show of my favorite Canadian singing this classic from her “Blue” album.

It’s not clear whom she wrote this song about, who it was that got into her blood like holy wine.  Graham Nash?  Leonard Cohen?

O Joni;  so bitter and so sweet. 

A Case of You

by Joni Mitchell

Just before our love got lost you said
“I am as constant as a northern star”
And I said “Constantly in the darkness
Where’s that at?
If you want me I’ll be in the bar”

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue TV screen light
I drew a map of Canada
Oh Canada
With your face sketched on it twice
Oh you’re in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet

Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet
oh I would still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I’m frightened by the devil
And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid

I remember that time you told me you said
“Love is touching souls”
Surely you touched mine
‘Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time
Oh, you’re in my blood like holy wine
You taste so bitter and so sweet

Oh I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
“Go to him, stay with him if you can
But be prepared to bleed”

Oh but you are in my blood
You’re my holy wine
You’re so bitter, bitter and so sweet

Oh, I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet
I would still be on my feet

© 1970; Joni Mitchell 

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