365 Poems: Strange medicine

Day 138

And to wrap up our strange theme, Steve Perry sings us out.

365 Poems: Strange Shakespeare

Day 137

So we were thinking about strangeness and how to approach the strange today. We thought about the archetype of the stranger, but thanks to 57 years of observation, our conclusion is short: We are all strange. (Cue Joseph Campbell.)

Next, we wondered what our good friend, William Shakespeare, had to say about strangeness. Of course he didn't let us down:

(from Hamlet, Act 1, Scene 5)

Horatio: O day and night, but this is wondrous strange!
Hamlet: And therefore as a stranger give it welcome.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. But come,
Here, as before, never, so help you mercy,
How strange or odd soe'er I bear myself
(As I perchance hereafter shall think meet
To put an antic disposition on),
That you, at such times seeing me, never shall—
With arms encumbered thus, or this headshake,
Or by pronouncing of some doubtful phrase,
As “Well, well, we know,” or “We could an if we would,”
Or “If we list to speak,” or “There be an if they might,”
Or such ambiguous giving out—to note
That you know aught of me. This not to do,
So grace and mercy at your most need help you,
Swear.

Good, huh? But that's not the best of it. We happened upon a site called 'No Fear Shakespeare' that "translates" Shakepearean prose into modern English! With just the kind of results we anticipated, feared ... and enjoyed:

We know! STRANGE!

365 Poems: Jim Morrison

Day 137

So we're thinking about strangeness, and in a brain that emcompasses so much information, we jump from Gerard Manley Hopkins and Maria Bezaitis to Jim Morrison. Of course.

Because Jim Morrison got strangeness:

He was strange and self-destructive and out of control and coolly wonderful too. When I go to Paris I'm going to his grave.

And we need to see this documentary, of the same name.

Great pix from Life.

From Huffington Post: Jim Morrison, Great Amercian Poet?

And we're can't leave without this, because I love this guy and this song.

Jim Morrison would have turned 70 on December 8, 2013. Instead he'll always be 27. 

365 Poems: Strangeness

Day 135

Piebald horse

This TED talk caught our eye -- even through it's talking about data and business models and more data, it struck us that needing strangeness, embracing strangeness, is what poetry is all about. 'The poetic eye'  sounds kind of lame and cliche. What if we called it, 'the eye for strange'?

Gerard Manley Hopkins hit it. This is not the first time we've had to quote 'Pied Beauty':

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise him.

And probably I get a prize for mentioning Gerard Manley Hopkins and Maria Bezaitis in the same sentence.

365 Poems: Of dandilions

Day 134

Most people hate 'em. Not me.

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