I COULD HAVE ROMANCED ALL NIGHT….

I could have….that is, if I were fifty years younger. But why bemoan it if Mother Nature no longer shores up the animal in me? Still, she’s no spring chicken herself, so you’d think she’d cut old geezers like me some slack.

Moving on from my love life of fond memory: Wouldn’t it be loverly if I instead celebrated the 164th birthday of my near-contemporary George Bernard Shaw with a selection of songs from MY FAIR LADY (based on his play PYGMALION), followed by a bit of biography, a serving of Shaw quotes, and a nightcap of Shavian brew-haha.

From “Wouldn’t It Be” to “I Could Have”….

In this scene, Stanley Holloway is seen lifting his spirits on his last night of ‘freedom’:

Next in line, the bit of bio:

https://www.biography.com/writer/george-bernard-shaw

Now sink your teeth into the quotes:

I was a freethinker before I knew how to think.

Lack of money is the root of all evil.

Beware of the man whose god is in the skies.

The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that’s the essence of inhumanity.

You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.

There is only one sort of genuine Socialism, the democratic sort, by which I mean the organization of society for the benefit of the whole people.

We should have had socialism already, but for the socialists.

….which leads us to the brew-haha / brouhaha between Shaw and fellow socialist H.G. Wells (click on the title below the cartoon caricature):

….which takes us at a social difference to

THE END

“IF MUSIC BE THE FOOD OF LOVE, PLAY ON”

No doubt, the above words are familiar to you, but do you remember who penned them? If not, may I suggest that you….

Friends, Romans, countrymen: now that your Shakespeare is refreshed, are you in the mood for some food music? If so, let’s meat our next song:

No potatoes? That will never do, especially if you’re short of moolah and longing for love….

That’s all for now. If you didn’t dig the chow, don’t have a cow. I love you anyhow.

WELL(ES) SAID

“My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four….unless there are three other people.” –Orson Welles (in his obese later years)

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Today being the birthday (5/6/1915) of the great director/actor Orson Welles, I’m going to risk repeating myself by repeating myself….with a few selections (including the following clip) from a past post acclaiming Welles and his role in the classic film THE THIRD MAN:

To those who think the likes of this 1949 film has appeal only for seniors (like me), I’d say such films are called classic because they’re ageless, not made to capitalize on what’s ‘in’ at the moment. To demonstrate, here is a non-senior citizen explaining why she loves it:

Of Welles, the man grown from “boy genius,” much has been written, but I won’t go into the details of his life/legend here — they can be readily culled by clicking this link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orson_Welles (or less readily culled from recommended books like ORSON WELLES, a 562 page biography by Barbara Leaming). Instead, I will call on some of the wisdom he left behind….and I quote:

Even if the good old days never existed, the fact that we can conceive such a world is, in fact, a confirmation of the human spirit.

Living in the lap of luxury isn’t bad except that you never know when luxury is going to stand up.

I don’t pray because I don’t want to bore God.

Race hate isn’t human nature; race hate is the abandonment of human nature.

Don’t give them what they think they want. Give them what they never thought was possible.

We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.

When people accept breaking the law as normal, something happens to the whole society.

Well(es) said, I’d say.

 

 

 

BETTER HATE THAN NEVER

It does not matter much what a man hates provided he hates something. –Samuel Butler

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Eight days from today, much of the civilized world will celebrate Valentine’s Day. Between now and then, the candy kiss and chocolate industry will make nothing short of a mint, selling sweet somethings to buyers to treat lovers….what some might call a vast capitalist conspiracy to take advantage of the lovesick. I* call it, “Bah! Humbug! A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every 14th of February!”

Therefore and mean-while, I’m proposing to you the need for a date — a day to counterbalance that upcoming day of over-commercialized romance and mushy love with a date which celebrates its opposite: hot-blooded, hard-boiled HATE. And what better way to inspire a hateful frame of mind than appropriate mood music:

*and Ebenezer Scrooge

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Still not feeling the hate? All right, ladies, repeat after me: I Hate You, Darling….

However, being the sensitive soul that I am, I’d rather you not hate me personally. So let’s broad-en the scope and close on this e-gal-itarian note:

Hold on. We can’t close without a name for this hate date. Down With Love Day? Cupid Sucks Day? Miss Ogamist Day? Better Hate Than Never Day? Wait a sec — now we’re back where we started.

This is the end.

 

ANGELS HAVE EYES

ANGELS HAVE EYES

“Sex is sacred,”
some humans say —
but they still do
it anyway.

Why they do so
beats us above….
They’re not, you know,
so easy to love.

Yet angels know
man needs no shove,
dreams you’d be so….
How does it go?

Oh, yes! It’s — so….

 

02/20 VISION

In the tumult of men and events, solitude was my temptation; now it is my friend. What other satisfaction can be sought once you have confronted History? –Charles de Gaulle

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Indeed.  Where else but in my solitude can equilibrium’s vision be sought (much less found), if the following selection of February 20 events from “confronted History” is representative of “the tumult of men and events”:

1513 Pope Julius II (aka The Fearsome Pope and The Warrior Pope) died and was laid to rest in a huge tomb sculptured by Michelangelo [In those days, Catholic artists regarded such Popes as ‘Patron’ Saints] 

1839 U.S. Congress prohibits dueling in the District of Columbia [What a bad idea this turned out to be, given that since then, no one in D.C. has had a clue how to better resolve differences]

1907 President Theodore Roosevelt signed an immigration act which excluded “idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded persons, epileptics, and insane  persons” from being admitted to the U.S. [Unfortunately, there has not been a comparable act excluding such persons from becoming politicians]

1909 F.T. Marinetti, Italian poet, published the first Futurist Manifesto in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro and in Venice, including the statement “We want to glorify war – the only cure for the world.” [Evidently a utopian exception to “The cure is worse than the disease”]

1927 Golfers in South Carolina were arrested for violating the Sabbath [Talk about playing a-round!]  

1933 Congress completed action on an amendment to repeal Prohibition in the U.S. [and “I’ll drink to that!” rang out across the land]

1942 Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate Majority Leader, was born [Coincidentally, the cartoon character Pruneface premiered (in a Dick Tracy comic strip) the same year]

1996 Gangsta rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg acquitted of murder in 1993 shooting of alleged gang member [Draw your own conclusions]

2002 The Pentagon stated that its recently created “Office of Strategic Influence” would not spread falsehoods in the media to advance U.S. war goals. Office was shut down six days later (Feb. 26) [Apparently the bummed guy in this snapshot was the last to get the message]:

Love’s labor lost. Lament in SOLITUDE. But despair not. It seems that Love, like the passions and madness of history, is where you — and a buoyantly young Julie Andrews — find it. So don’t be [Venetian] blind, it’s/all around you/everywhere.

 

 

THIS POST IS FOR THE (LOVE)BIRDS

Now that NATIONAL BIRD DAY (see previous post) has come and flown, it’s time to transition from birds and bird song to love and love songs, in preparation for February 14 (VALENTINE’S DAY, aka ‘Woe To Guys Who Ignore It Day’). Let us begin the béguin*, boys and girls, by gauging your romantic wherewithall with this simple question:

*French for flirtation

Assuming that dealing with This Thing Called Love leaves you Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered (and, if it doesn’t, you must be either a robot or a Republican), I suggest getting back to basics, starting with having that Old Fashioned Love in your heart:

Relationships are like music: it’s essential to hit the right notes, but man does not live by instruments alone. For example, without lyrics, the title to the above song might just as well be Yabba Dabba Doo. Here is the same song sung with sweet words of undying love:

I hope that the above is starting to get you guys in a romantic frame of mind. With little more than a month left before V-Day, I have only six more posts to fill your hearts with enough good old-fashioned love to pass muster with your SO. So, mister, rest assured I will work Night And Day to ready you to be in the I’m In The Mood For Love spirit.

 

 

ALL’S FARE IN LOVE AND FOUR

With my mind drawing blanks and little time to spare
….as this post comes due, I hope you will bear
with four poems previously published, not saying where….
but near in spirit to my last post’s bill of fare:

LOVER BOY

Narcissus was too perfect for sex or pelf;
He longed only to gaze in love at himself….
The moral of which is that, even in myths,
Too much reflection may be your nemesis.

THE BOOK OF WISDOM

Thou shalt not commit adultery,
Nor shalt thou covet thy neighbor’s spouse.
Shouldst thou succumbeth to temptation,
Thou shalt not covet in thy neighbor’s house.

FAIR WARNING

And so, when wise men say to you
Love’s a game for dreamers and fools….
Buddy, beware
That a lady fair
Doesn’t play by the wise men’s rules.

TREASURE CHEST

\/    Madame’s cleavage so fair; yet
xx    he must pretend not to see;
~~   he knows well the song:
/\    Let it be; Let it be.

She may say, if he peeks,
he’s just looking for thrills….
but innocence is a broad, and she
gets There’s ogle in them thar hills.

ROMANCE WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY

To a romantic girl, all roads lead to Romeo. –Evan Esar

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August is ROMANCE AWARENESS MONTH. I’m not sure why a month is needed to raise awareness of romance (a week, or even a day, seems more than sufficient to awaken all but the most world-weary of libidos)….however, if it must take a month, I suppose August will do as well as any other. But then who needs Valentine’s Day  — enough is enough!

That may sound tantamount to telling Cupid to take a hike, but before you Romeos and Juliets go Roman off in a huff, be aware I have nothing against romance so long as it doesn’t get out of hand….which, as it happens, makes the title of my previous post (DON’T LOSE YOUR HEAD) appear as if I’d simultaneously had today’s post in mind. Alas, I am not that far-sighted, but as a killer of two birds with one stone, and as a preview of coming attractions, I must admit the title was prescient (and I assure you that the two birds killed weren’t lovebirds).

Anyway, what can I say about romance that hasn’t already been intimated by many others? Not much, I’m happy to say, because it comports with my creative energy level in these dog days of August. Therefore, I shall turn to those others who have already waxed eloquent about puppy love and the like, and relieve myself of further arduous cogitation:

Love is the emotion that a woman always feels for a poodle, and sometimes for a man. –George Jean Nathan

Romance has been elegantly defined as the offspring of fiction and love. –Disraeli

Marriage is a romance in which the heroine dies in the first chapter. –Cecelia Egan

This guy goes to a psychiatrist and says, Doc, my brother’s crazy! He thinks he’s a chicken. The doc says, Well, why don’t you turn him in? And the guy says, I would but I need the eggs. I guess that’s how I feel about relationships. They’re totally irrational, crazy and absurd, but we keep going through it because we need the eggs. –Woody Allen

Love is like an hourglass, with the heart filling up as the brain empties. –Jules Renard

The realist always falls in love with a girl he has grown up with, the romanticist with a girl from “off somewhere.” –Robert Frost

Fools rush in where bachelors fear to wed. –Evan Esar

Men always want to be a woman’s first love. That is their clumsy vanity. Women have a more subtle instinct: what they like is to be a man’s last romance. –Oscar Wilde

By the time you swear you’re his, shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is infinite, undying —
Lady, make a note of this: One of you is lying.
–Dorothy Parker

Nobody will ever win the battle of the sexes. There’s too much fraternizing with the enemy. –Henry Kissinger

In as much as we began this romantic excursion with several punning allusions to Rome, it seems fitting to close with scenes from one of my favorite films, the Audrey Hepburn-Gregory Peck romantic comedy, ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953):

IT MIGHT AS WELL BE SPRING

In the spring, a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. –Tennyson

As I write this on the eve (March 19) of posting it on the first day of spring, it might as well be spring because, as a once-upon-a-time young man, I’ve been turning to thoughts of love since I discovered it many springs ago….then I discovered that I hadn’t discovered it, but by then, it was too late to undiscover it. Or something along those lines. Love can be so confusing.

Anyway, like spring itself this year in Ohio, I’m getting a head start. I need time to gather spring songs for this post, an idea which arose out of my time songs post on March 10. But there seem to be even more love(ly) songs with “spring” in the title than with “time” in the title– so many, in fact, that it’s going to be hard to limit my spring song list to fewer than I’d love to share. But at least the title of this post suggests where to start:

For song #2, how about two for the price of one — both “spring” and “time” in one title:

Next, a long-forgotten spring song that’s a particular favorite of mine because its lyrics (by George Marion Jr.) are a marriage of exquisite simplicity and sophistication:

Wouldn’t you know it? Suddenly, the weather is turning colder. Now it looks like….

Well, it could be worse. If you live in the southern hemisphere, spring will not arrive for six more months. Fancy that! Fie on thoughts of love so late 😦 — why should those ‘down under’ wait?

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

Then be not coy, but use your time.
And while ye may, go marry;
For having lost but once your prime,
You may forever tarry.

–Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Carpe diem.