[As usual, the actual sermon was somewhat different than what's posted below, what with ad-libbing and on-the-fly tweaking, but the general gist is here.]


"The Poetry of Inconvenience"
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Cookeville
Earth Day sermon

( Today, April 22nd, 2007... )

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Miscellany:

* A voicepost of me reading Mary's poem is here.

* Listened to part of The Splendid Table during the drive home, which included a clip of Jonathan Gold talking about his twelve-year-old daughter's love of Italian squid feasts and about other food writers he admires. He sounds very cool and his "triumph of the proofreader" wisecrack makes me even more inclined to like him.

* However, catching up with Gold's writing is going to have to wait. The immediate plan: cook lunch (something with mushrooms and chicken), bake dog biscuits, and work on essays until my brain is goo.

* It's 78 F and sunny here. Here's the start of the Maura Stanton poem ("God's Ode to Creation") that was the meditation text for this morning's service:

Today's the kind of day when I feel good
about that dazzling stuff I've made down there,
everything so mixed up that even lies
turn out to be the truth...

Mrrrr. I need another obsession hobby like a fish needs a flamethrower, but there's a part of me that's actively itching to sit down with my Harrap's, get a grip on all the damned prepositions and pronouns, and then translate a slew of French pop songs into (1) colloquial English and/or (2) singable English. And then to put in enough time at the piano so that accompanying myself on a Cabrel or Goldman ballad (for, say, a UU coffeehouse) wouldn't be just a pipe dream.

( Plus ca change, toujours pas de temps )

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During the 1990s, a number of French musicians volunteered for a series of CDs on behalf of Sol en Si, an organization assisting children with AIDS. Last month, I decided to treat myself to Vol. 4 after finding out it contained a French-language version of "Girl of the North Country" (with Francis Cabrel, Jean-Jacques Goldman, and Zazie on vocals).

The CD finally arrived yesterday, and "Fille du Nord" is lovely, but the track I've replayed most often has been Maxime Le Forestier's cover of Goldman's "Quand tu danses." I've also been listening to Goldman's version via YouTube. (English lyrics can be found here. If you like Carla Bruni's "Quelqu'un m'a dit," you're likely to enjoy these.)

( How this relates to instinct and fruitbats )

This post was also going to enumerate what I enjoyed about church this morning and other blessings, but I've lingered too long on this topic as it is, and I need to devote what's left of the night to billable work (plus supper). I spent a good chunk of the afternoon in my kitchen, boiling chicken (for stock and salads), baking chess pie and rosemary shortbread, and tackling other chores, all with the door wide open and the CD player blaring blues and zydeco. Here, it's spring, and today was one of those perfect days -- daffodils outside the church, a breeze with a bite to it (I like that, days like this), and the sunshine pouring down.

I'd made two pans of the shortbread yesterday for a gift; that particular batch turned out so well that the BYM made a point of saying so. There had been only been a few pieces left over for us (all gone by breakfast), so I decided to bake another pan of it once I got home.

This one? It's okay, though not as good as yesterday's. I ended up having to add milk after mismeasuring the flour, which is the sort of thing that happens when one ends up dancing to "Eunice Two Step" instead of counting. :-)

matociquala: All you can do as an artist is, when it's your turn, do your damnedest to tear the cord out of the motherfucking wall.

Today's tally:
* one sermon finished and delivered
* one story revised and submitted
* three new poems drafted

Also one bunch each of asparagus and baby beets roasted, a delightful coffee-break with a friend, and another friend treating me to the Panda Garden buffet in Cookeville.

Breakfast was a slice left over from last night's outing to Pizzereal. Good stuff. (One of the poems I drafted tonight was about retsina.) Maybe I simply failed to notice the combination elsewhere, but the fact that my neighborhood now has two combination pizza/Greek/Middle Eastern joints just seems way cool to me. (One of them, Italia, has become a major hangout for the precinct's cops -- there are usually several officers eating there when I pass by.)

Also, Pizzereal has beautiful wood floors and a gas fire (last night's weather was wet and dreary) and great service.

Tomorrow is not likely to be as much fun -- umpteen billable hours to crunch through, heaps of miscellaneous but must-do paperwork, and an appointment to deal with a fractured tooth. But it all can wait until I log in a good night's sleep. The better to fence with, at, and through all the double-damned ever-moving ever-maddening funhouse walls... Onwards!

Via marymary: Erin Noteboom's "Deep calls to deep at the noise of thy waterfalls". Wow.

Yaki manu (dumplings with sesame soy sauce) and chapjae (clear noodles with beef and veggies) at Manna.

This video of Francis Cabrel performing "Je sais que tu danses." I've owned the studio recording of this song for years, but there's an intensity to this rendition that really locks the song for me.

"Rockollection" -- why have I not known about this song before now? It is so much fun. I've been replaying the Enfoires 2001 version as I work (I can't get enough of David Hallyday's solo in "Tous les cris les SOS") and YouTube also has three other variations (Vanessa Paradis, Nouvelle Star, and Voulzy himself -- search on "Rockollection").

Bear's chatroom transcripts slay me. This one includes this jewel from katallen: "writers -- different because our subconsciouses can be bothered to hate us that much."

There was more I meant to mention, but I can't remember where in my conscious I stashed it. That, and a story needs revising, a sermon needs drafting, and an essay needs finishing. Onwards...

"To have stopped by the fig and eaten was not an error, then, but the reason for going."

- Jane Hirshfield, "Flowering Vetch

* Six poems rejected; two sold. Woot!
* Brunch at Marche with friends Saturday afternoon (croque-monsieur, celery root slaw, and cafe au lait served in a bowl)
* The roads were icy enough Saturday night that the BYM picked me up from the office. Today, it's sixty degrees.
* I have work that needs doing. I also currently have the mental constitution of a whelk. So, I'm going to take a nap, walk the dog, and then start the day over.

* All y'all. Thank you.

* A good send-off for Jace this afternoon. Full church (300+ people); choir singing "River in Judea"; Tony Jackson and others singing "You're the First, the Last, My Everything," "Sing a Song," "YMCA," and other standards.

* "Light tea" at the very charming Savannah Tea Room with a friend this morning. For her, a pot of Assam. For me, cups of blueberry rooibos and Provence rooibos. You start out by choosing your teacup from the shelves on the wall; then the server brings by a glass filled with Devon cream and topped with a raspberry, to go with the miniature scones. For the light tea, the second course is the tea tray, which consists of fruit (grapes and slices of pineapple, kiwi, and oranges), savories (cucumber sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, carrot sticks, cheese cubes, and tuna salad in phyllo shells), and sweets (blueberry cream puffs, apple tartlets, and chocolate covered cherries). The final course (i.e., a full-size dessert) was pineapple sorbet.

* Got to chat with Bryce a bit after he and the BYM finished messing around with cars out back.

* Went to Stacy Irvin's opening at The Parthenon. The photographs that linger with me at the moment are the ones of the camels, "Slow Day" (a child in a Chinese shop), and one of a farmer straddling an irrigation ditch.

* Running into more friends while stopping at Savarino's to pick up dinner.

* Finally opening the bottle of red wine ("The Four Graces" pinot noir) given to me when my term on the church board ended last year. I'm sipping it with my plate of eggplant parm as I type.

* I technically took today off, but I did sneak in a stop at the Green Hills branch of the library. One of their current exhibits consists of some of the birdhouses for this year's W.O. Smith/Nashville Community Music School fundraiser. There are always some that are stunningly gorgeous and inventive, and others that are just laugh-out-loud funny (some of you may remember me cooing over "Hawkwarts" last year). The one that made me stop and giggle in my tracks this afternoon was "The Schroederhorn" (with Snoopy on the podium; Nashville's new symphony hall is "The Schermerhorn").

* Also on display at the library -- a number of fun-looking new children's books, including Piratepedia and Adele and Simon (a sister and brother wander around Paris...).

* Maura Stanton's "God's Ode to Creation."

From today's New York Times:

In the summer, the haggis off-season, [Mr. MacAndrew] sells haggis at Scottish festivals where young male customers often dare one another to try a bite.

“They’re always upset to find out it actually tastes good,” he said. “I tell them, ‘If you want scary, go eat a hot dog.’ ”