Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Whistling in the Dark

I remember when I was in about 4th grade my dad taught me how to whistle in the kitchen when my baby brother was asleep in a back room. The whole family was egging me on. Suddenly I whistled as loud as a train and woke up the baby and everybody was mad at me.

Now my nose whistles involuntarily, and nobody appreciates that, either, especially when they're trying to sleep.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking of all the possible links I could make: Whistler (painter), whistle-stop campaign trips, blowing the whistle (on Lyme funding), whistling in the dark, whistling as an act that feminists deplore, the great intro to the Andy Griffith show...

Althouse had a neat reference yesterday to the fact that there aren't any great whistlers any more.

She hasn't heard my nose at night.

15 comments:

G. M. Palmer said...

A woman came up to me and said
I'd like to poison your mind
with wrong ideas that appeal to you
though I am not unkind
she looked at me
I looked at something
written across her scalp
and these are the words
that it faintly said
as I tried to call for help. . .

Kirby Olson said...

It was fun to listen to this group. I think you have mentioned them before. Sort of faux-military?

G. M. Palmer said...

Not at all faux-military. But lots and lots of wacky fun.

jh said...

this song whistling in the dark did conjure in me an assault upon washington dc a march of people singing and marching band complete with acrobatic girls flying high skirts awaft in wind

i hear the kids speak of this band
great music never takes itself all that seriously

any band that has obligatto sousa phones going is pretty cool or is that a tuba

1 2 3 4
1 3 3 4
1 4 2 3
1 2 3 4

kirby have you ever tried holding your nose shut and calmly blowing air up into your ears and sinus regions and then open your nose and mouth and let the air out

but on the other hand
you walkin around in the house at night with your nose wheezin
sounds surreal enough

we all have our marks of distinction

i once heard an amish lad of about 16 let loose with a whistle in an old school on the demolition track and the whistle rattled the windows and stirred up the dust it was so powerful so rich so pure and i realized that young people today put sound in their ears and they never let loose with sound from the mouth except for a new sort of satirical vocalized depression

whistling is quite an art no matter what anyone says
i had my two front teeth out until i was in my teens and i had the loudest whistle in the neighborhood but when they grew back i couldn't whistle anymore

now i imitate loons with a hand configuration and i can do the two finger catbird whistle as well
but it disturds the nuns when i do it
ah well

jh

Ed Baker said...

jh:

you and I might be the "last men standing"
who can whistle through their
left hand clasped
around right-hand's four fingers

then blow through where th
umb (nails) come together!


do 4our fingers
3hree fingers
2fingers
1on finger

blow and the notes get to a higher-ness

wiggle the fingers of the left "wrap-around" hand
and you get tremelo!

I do believe that this hand thing was mankind's veey first musical instrument...

had more of a range that merely phartting into the wind.

jh said...

for minimalist affect ed
a pharrttt in the wind
presented with the right sense of forlornness
has a certain what shall i say
j' ne c'est qua
and can be used effectively in
the making of physical music
doesn't bobby mcfarane fart out loud once in awhile
he must

gdday all

jh

jh said...

yeah ed
we should have a little duet one of these days
i've got a littel warble working into the hand movement
the left hand does most of my work
i don't have the lungs i used to have
but i can still make the loons wonder!!???!! -- what the hell is that?? ---
i think they're gone south now
but maybe i should do something constructive
and have a conversation near the lake with my pals

jh

Ed Baker said...

"that"
was merely the sound of
one loon flapping off
into the distance ..

from far far away
I can hear:
"woosh... woosh"

;and
then
the
last
sound

s.i.l.e.n.c.c..


hey, where IS that "lake"?

and The Lady of (it)?

a converstation (sic)? heck ain't that what poetry is all about?

we cld not otherwise (WISE) have 'cept via

poetry?

jh said...

lake sagatagan i fairly close to lake woebegone

stella maris is the lady

stella by starlight

to dum dee dee dee dum

jh

Ed Baker said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stella_Maris_(1918_film)

man: google: anything: and:
get: "the skinny"!

and I thought Stella Maris was Roger's mother...

or maybe the name of a Cuban Cigar made in a money-starie by
nuns n monks

Ed Baker said...

then on that lake
that is not Woe-Be-Gone


(but could be due to the drowning of:

http://www.csbsju.edu/sjuarchives/ask/drowning.htm

now to check-out what order Thm Merton was an
"in-mate" of

besides Thelonius the only monks that I knew around here in the 50's were brown-robed Franciscan monks and who came into our grocery-store for
the unsellable (but good) veggies were Little Sisters of the Poor

played basketball with the monks
ping pong with the sisters
etc

(hey: are these posts like private letters? or do/does 1.3 million lantzmen read this? too?

jh said...

anybody can read anything if they know how to download that's all it takes nothing more just hit some keys and download man anything anything anything

jewish bankers and the knights templar the last of the great warrior catholic monks struck astounding deals to insure safe travel the first credit system guys pilgrims wandering jewish poets muslim troubadours bastard sons of gypsies playing mandolins and lutes all these guys were given rather free passes with a mere medallion that they could show anywhere and get cash for the party that night what a deal

the stella maris chapel on lake sagatagan was a party place when i was in college there was this group called the space pen boys they were acid droppin space star trek dudes they would haul a generator and music out there and psychadelic was the theme of the night and the grateful dead and synthezizer space music very odd occassions one night i do recall numerous requests for horizontal square dancing however so yeah the catholics caught onto the zanny reconformation of society bandwagon for awhile not so much these days...kids are quiet crazy computer heads all of them

the chapel in question has been renovated and is spiffy again with a nice statue of the pregnant virgin mary that ever agreeable jewish girl and spiffy art glass windows...used to be a star of david in the floor still is but tile covers the area now

garrison keillor lived and worked here in the early days of public radio prairie home companion more or less started here with the first performance coming from the college stage a rickety old set of boards if ever there was one

one night after the football game and i had tested all the distraction i could see or find i wondered into the auditorium and there was this thing goin on on stage and i could not for the life of me figure it out it wasn't quite a play but then it was and i sat there in a state of induced stupor and marvelled at the antics of these guys and gals just hammin it up on stage then garrison starts making some jokes about the one kid in the audience and he looks a bit over the top son are you drunk he ask me and i say i could be and he makes a few more wisecracks and then goes on to a song butch thompson on the piano man that guy could stride

anyway for the next few saturday nights i smoked reefer and went to heare garrison keillor

thomas merton was a benedictine called trappists for a reform movement but they follow the same rule as we do they being a bit more hardball with literal interpretation we taking the gentler approach to things guys have tvs and whiskey in their rooms i'm sure of it i just have books and guitars it seems


pheeeooo pppheeooo pheeoooooo
pheeeeoooooow pheeeeyiiiouw
phweeeeeoooouuu

phouiiieeeee


phooooooouuuuuiiii


phhhooooooouuuuuuuuuuuuooooiiiooo

phooo

phooo

phooo ph ph ph ph phooo

jh

jh said...

franciscans are technically referred to as friars
generally decent blokes
monks profess vows of stability
i think franciscans do just the opposite they have a vow which requires them to go out onto the highwys and byways and do good works for the people who need some breaks in their lives

benedictines tend to be a bit more bookish
not so much as jesuits or dominicans but fairly bookish just the same

pax

jh

Craig said...

Played golf with a Filipino lawyer a few weeks ago. Told me his great grandfather was a Franciscan friar during the last days of the Spanish era. Apparently more of them had families than most people realize. Said his sister's a doctor.

Ed Baker said...

yeah..

travelin' around the inter-net today very much (I imagine) like Jewish merchants travlin' around the Mediterranean in the days of King Salomon ...

the only ones allowed to connect with all of the myriad cultures of the region and spread goods and information...

and trekking off (as part of the Persian Empire/traders) back and forth along The Silk Road...

there has been found written down in a Buddhist Monetary in India Jesus' Hebrew name where, it seems, he spent some of those 30 missing years, studying, meditating, an learning

I mean, that early "stuff" re: Christianity when it was yet entrenched in Judaism (laws, myths, etcs)

sure does have much fundamentally firmly on a Buddhist plinth, eh?

I think Essene and Kabbalah were ...

oh well..

I got a neat/fun little book around here somewhere about kabbalah... which, as y'all know ain't a religion sort of akin to tao-ism

or tantra... check outs so books by Odier

Reid also did a neat book: The Tao of Health, Sex, & Longevity

(ancient "stuff") !


(now, off to the store for some Buddha Beer for tonight's pagan/Vodun (halloween) festivities...


HEY didn't VooDoo Religion come out of Haitian/Catholic mystical "stuff" and

sink-in-to-them Louisiana by-you's?

 
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