monoceros blogsI have little doubt that Valentine's Day is a money-making scheme. But once, when I was very young, I let myself get caught up in the engulfing air of love songs, flowers, and other assorted gifts. At junior college, the festive air made most people forget they didn't have boyfriends or girlfriends. It didn't matter when entertainment was to be had from the sight of flower-toting guys and girls who struggled with any number of bouquets and bears; the singing telegrams that interrupted lectures; and the clumsy and earnest messages of ardor playing on the school's speakers.
In fact, it's the memory of those lovingly or hastily penned messages that remind me of the lovelorn postman in the Italian film Il Postino. Not so many of us pursuing a lover can enlist the help of a poet. Then again, we do have the Norton Anthology and the collected poems of Pablo Neruda now. But still, the idea of asking the guy to whom you deliver mail to help you write lyrical poetry for your lady...you don't often get to have that kind of advantage.
The American version of the soundtrack of Il Postino has extra tracks: famous actors (and one musician) reading (with as much expression as they can muster) the love poems featured in the movie. Titbit: I stole the CD off a former boyfriend whose ownership of the album surprised and pleased me to no end. I didn't know many - if any - boys who watched Italian films and purchased their soundtracks. He was no English major but knew well enough that English majors liked poetry, and once read an Emily Dickinson poem to me in a Barnes and Noble bookstore. But that's another story.
I've selected four poems that sound the loveliest to my ear. The first three are about naked and/or beautiful women and the last is arguably the most famous of Neruda's poems. I've read it to myself often enough: "Tonight, I can write the saddest lines."
Funny how three of my favorites are by men who've played villains in films:
Sting reads "Morning (Love Sonnet XXVII)" - this guy needs no introduction.
Rufus Sewell - Crown Prince Leopold in The Illusionist, also the baddie in A Knight's Tale - reads "Ode to a beautiful nude"
Willen Dafoe - well known for his role as Green Goblin in Spider-man - reads "Adonic Angela" in that unmistakable deep voice of his.
And lastly, the most tragic and true poem of all: Andy Garcia - Terry Benedict from the upcoming Ocean's 13 (he's now working with the crew that stole his woman and his money in Ocean's Eleven) does the honors for "Tonight I can write the saddest lines."
There's nothing like having beautiful poetry read to you.
It's been nearly impossible to blog for the past month. I moved, and the new place did not have an Internet connection for an extended period of time. Then my desktop at my parents' crashed, so what little online time I got became next to nothing once I lost my only computer with online access.
I finally signed up for a Singnet account last week, solved further problems that prohibited online access, and here I am blogging on a Dell laptop at my new desk. The experience is exquisite.
Other experiences -
In January, I got to have an old friend stay for a few days. Ice-cream and coffee and cookies and ideas about which is more amazing: that there is life beyond our planet, or that we are completely alone in the universe?
In January, I also started teaching at a particular university in Clementi. I'm teaching English to students from China, and dare I say, loving (and loathing...on some days anyhow) it. Since many of the other lecturers in the department are much older, I dress corporate in a bid to gain a measure of respect from my students. However, it seems I can't run from my baby face; in the washroom, I've noticed the quizzical looks from Singaporean girls (all dressed in the latest fads - knee-length leggings, belted tunics, babydoll tops which are on the return) who probably wonder why a university-going kid dresses like an office girl.
I get to have lunch with my old Michigan crony, Peiming, who teaches at the Conservatory, and we commiserate about being the youngest and looking the youngest (of course, she has a height advantage which I dismally lack). I get to walk around the bazaar area, taking in the sights and sounds as a tourist would. Today, I bought souvenirs. Two hand-painted wooden doll-magnets - the boy's dressed in a yellow shirt and blue shorts with suspenders and the girl's got on a red Hawaiian dress.
Two days ago, I found an old CD that marked my last undergraduate days in Ann Arbor. During that time, I had attended a few ceremonies, done my reading for the writing program, and had one final essay to complete. One afternoon, I left my brother to entertain my parents, and drove in the pouring rain towards the graduate library. I found relevant books on Percy Bysshe Shelley and his poem "Ozymandias," selected a carrel, and set to work.
Back then, I had my Creative discman constantly at my side, and on that afternoon, I was playing a CD my father had brought over for me. Jacintha Abisheganaden's "Autumn Leaves." She made several pleasant renditions of Johnny Mercer songs, but it was the final bonus track that I kept on repeat mode - "Here's to Life" which Jacintha sang for the film "Play it to the bone."
Staring at the rain falling over the roofs of the university buildings, knowing it was the last essay I would write as an undergraduate, wistful about my departure of a town I'd come to love very much, I spent more time listening to the lyrics of the song than analyzing the lines of "Ozymandias," which itself is a great poem about the passage of time and the inevitable fading of human life and all things material. It was a favorite poem of mine, but music has a slightly greater power over me and I gave myself over to the melancholic strains of the song.
Of course, a few years later, I returned to the same university for graduate school. Much had changed by then (in the town and in myself). But I was glad to be back and doing what I'd always wished to do: read and write. And then the time to leave came by again. It was harder the second time round. And what did I return to? I'm still not sure. Perhaps I'll leave it at a life that's been good and painful.
Here's to life by Jacintha Abisheganaden