Walt Whitman Speaks!

Edison cylindar recording of (apparently) Whitman reading Whitman. I read on IMDB that Daniel Day-Lewis based his accent in Gangs of New York in part on recording(s) of Whitman (for that mid-19th-century native New York twang).

Sabbath Poem: The Lantern Out of Doors

"The Lantern Out of Doors" by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Oh My (Chinese) Darlin'!

A couple of weeks back I was watching a Chinese film, Quitting (Zuotian - 昨天 - trailer here), a really great semi-documentary about a young actor coming out of drug addection in 1990s Beijing. There's one scene where all the young cool folks are hanging out together, celebrating the protagonist's birthday, and they start singing a song to the tune of the old American gold-miner's lament, "Oh My Darling, Clementine".

I rewound the movie so I could type out the subtitles:

wish you longevity
as long as a pine tree of the Southern Mountain
may you have good fortune
as much as the endless water in the Eastern Ocean

I emailed a bunch of Chinese-American friends to find out if they knew anything about this version of "Clementine" —and whether it was a specific "birthday song" used, perhaps, in place of the ubiquitous, but technically still copyright-protected "Happy Birthday To You"? But nobody'd heard aything about it.

Interestingly—getting back to copyright—The Beatles' music plays a significant role in the plot of Quitting, but makes no appearence on the soundtrack—it's all Chinese rock (which works quite well—even in the scenes where you're watching the main charactar listening to a Beatles album on his headphones ... actually, the whole film is accessible but also again and again visually, sonically, and conceptually arresting).

In any case, I wonder when the "Clementine" melody made it back to China ... obviously Chinese immigrants were an important of Gold Rush (and post-Gold Rush) California ... perhaps it made it back soon after it was written (in the 1880s, but based, perhaps on a song from the 1860s). Most likely it arrived much more recently. But I like the idea of a former Chinese "Miner '49er" making his way back to China in his old age (long as the pine on the Southern Mountain), bringing the song from Gold Mountain.

Sabbath Poem: What We Need Is Here

I think I'll start a tradition of Sunday poetry recitations—largely from the sheaf of memory-poems I have clipped together hanging from a nail on my bedroom wall. I'll launch things, appropriately enough, with one of Wendell Berry's, "What We Need Is Here", from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979–1997.

Last Night. True Story.

In the dream I was driving. Down the road. In the car. And next to me ... was Ira Glass.

Not bad, I hope, for a first attempt at audio embedding (gracias a the Internet Archive and OdeoStudio). Well actually, second. The first attempt didn't record the voiceover at all. A third attempt might have done something about the audio levels, but that's enough going on for one day.

Also in hindsight the comments I make about television doubtless owe an arm and a leg to Rob Long's wonderful weekly Martini Shot commentaries on KCRW, most recently and specifically this one.