sometimes you can't make it on your own

Sometimes you can't make it on your own. Boy, I'm feeling that right now. And I remembered this song this evening, and found it again.

Tough, you think you've got the stuff

You're telling me and anyone

You're hard enough

You don't have to put up a fight

You don't have to always be right

Let me take some of the punches

For you tonight

Bono wrote the song ... U2 wrote the song, for his dad's funeral. Apparently, his father had a big voice too ... raised Bono and his brother alone after Mrs. Bono's father's wife died.

Oh, the Irish. I know them. I can imagine the difficult? strained? tempestuous? ridiculous? sublime? relationship that he had with his father. It probably wasn't very different from what my own father and brother's was before he died.

And it's you when I look in the mirror

And it's you when I don't pick up the phone

Sometimes you can't make it on your own

We fight all the time

You and I... that's alright

We're the same soul

I don't need... I don't need to hear you say

That if we weren't so alike

You'd like me a whole lot more

But I am a girl. And girl's forgive their father of everything. And for as much as this is a song about a father and a son, I can make it mine as I am so like my father. And he did, indeed, put the opera in me. I channel him not much differently than Bono does his own father. I imagine that Bob, Bono's dad, and Bill, mine, are havin' a pint up at the pearly gates, still trying to figure out how the heck to get in to Heaven.

Can, you, hear, me, when, I, sing

You're the reason I sing

You're the reason why the opera is in me

When How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb was released, I saw U2 every night that they played in Chicago. My sister broke her clavicle bone ... and had surgery. We had the pit tickets (general admission ... best seats in the house for a U2 concert), and I told her that she would be fine in all of her clavicle gear ... I would make sure that she had a drink in each hand, and I would block anyone getting too close to her. It was a riot! And when the boys started to play Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, we crushed close to the stage, clung to each other, and sobbed for our own dead father. Bono came very close to us, and I think that he recognized in us our pain. We connected to each other in the sultry air of the venue.

The video above is the 'official' version. I love it for the end as Bono walks into the theatre, takes off his coat, and sings the hell out of the song in his red shirt. The house where he lies on the bed, supposedly, is his childhood home. I don't know for sure. Another cut of the video is a continuous shot of Bono walking the streets of Dublin. Apparently, he had to stop often, for the he could not control the tears. I understand this ... it is very difficult for me to listen to it without shedding a few of my own. It is a beautiful tribute to Bob Hewson, and dads everywhere.

And sitting here, not at my best, I'm thinking that it is a song that covers a lot of sins. I've ran those streets that Bono traverses, literally in the Dublin Marathon; and figuratively, with the death of my father. I know that if ever I had a chance to meet and chat with Bono, I would slip into my leprechaun accent and draw him in by talking about our dear old dads, and how we share the opera that is in us.

sassy dress

Vogue October 2012

I love a red dress. And with pink ... divine. This is a lovely bright folly. And I would love to wear it.

saint laurent

Vogue October 2012

Vogue October 2012

Something is going on at YSL. I could look it up, but I'd rather just imagine. The ads are the first that I've seen in the magazines. The accompanying page ... all white, and only 'Saint Laurent/ Paris,' suggests to me that they are moving in a different direction.

http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/b/baciccio/pieta.html

Whatever it is, the photographs are striking, and certainly stood out in all of the pages of color. More than the single shot, I am drawn to the couple ... for me, it is Biblical ... Mary gazing down at her son. The particular painting that I found to illustrate the connection is the Pieta of Annibale Carracci by Gaulli at right.

The scene is tender, intimate ... and sad. In the photograph she looks down at her lover in a movement that seems to mean that she is moving away from him. And of course, in the pieta, it is the son, Mary's love, that is moving away from her. She holds out her hand to send him off ... towel in hand, she wipes his brow knowing that his journey is one beyond death. Purposed.

Though similar, the woman in the photograph, not Mary, will leave. He will lie. Separate. Not joined throughout eternity.

ghosts

My friend did not like my pumpkin with all of the holes in it, but I love how it glows!

Tonight I celebrate Halloween with friends and family. I always wait until the last moment to put a costume together. I bought my mom a Halloween card that featured the 'ghoul scouts.' She was my scout leader, and I thought to do that ... but I would've had to order a uniform, and that didn't happen. So, I'm just a gurl ghoul.

I titled this entry ghosts because I've been haunted by one for the last year. It all started when a very dear friend died last November. He meant a whole lot to me over the years ... and his loss is still not one that has settled. In the week after his death, I awoke and felt someone in the room. Through a sleepy squint, I could just make out the outline of someone standing in the corner. I wasn't frightened at all. And I thought ... well, Jeffrey is keeping an eye on me. He came a couple of more times and then disappeared.

When I returned from a trip this summer, he was there again. Just for a night. And then along came Halloween! I brought all of the decorations that I have collected over the years up, and put them in their usual places. I have a couple of the pictures that are motion activated ... the old lady as you walk by, changes to a spooky figure and mumbles a few scary words. I put her on an entry table in the hall ... far from windows and drafts. I sat on the couch to watch television, and fell asleep. I was awaken by the lady and her mumble. hmmmmm. What was that? I crawled into bed, and didn't think twice about it.

And then in the night ... she went off again. How strange. I put new batteries in it. Who was walking by that triggered it ... aha! I thought. Jeffrey. I moved the picture. I really didn't want to be awaken in the night by her rambling torments. And then I had friends over last weekend, and they bore witness to the phenomenon. Strange.

ghosts. He really is still with me. It's an odd comfort.

the Brad Pitt debacle

When I heard that Brad Pitt was going to be the new face of Chanel No. 5, I nearly ... well, I wouldn't ever do anything as drastic as stop buying the stuff that is my signature scent ... more or less, but not even address their faux pas. But I'm breaking my own rule, what better rule to break, because I just can't tolerate this nonsense.

Come on ... who in the heck thinks that this man is sexy??? Look at him is the frame. He's scraggly, and icky, and he dumped Jennifer Aniston for who? Skank face. Yes, I am being totally ridiculous, but there are so many handsome men in this world that would much suit this purpose. David Beckham, anyone? Ewan McGregor might be interesting. I think that the Spanish actor that appeared with Nicole Kidman when she represented the 5 was awfully darn good looking. But Brad Pitt?

He probably smells like he looks ... and not of perfume. Not someone that you want selling the top selling perfume in the world.

the poet

Tatler August 2012

Yes, I have been saving this page. When I was traveling in Scotland, I met the retired school master who turned me on to a couple of poets that she has been tutoring her students on for the 'A' level examinations. And given my penchant for magazines and the whacky world of coincidence, one of them appeared on the pages of Tatler magazine that I read on the flight home.

Simon Armitage ... he says, "you can't beat a good fuck ... it can be erotic or affectionate or funny or aggressive." And for this Miss Violet Hudson, the article's writer, says of his favorite words that for this he "may be the sole reason that rhyme is now on par with rhythm on the list of Things To Look For In a Man." I certainly can't deny that a man with rhymes can take my heart with him.



With a quick read of his work, I particularly like this one:

It Ain't What You Do, It's What It Does To You

I have not bummed across America
with only a dollar to spare, one pair
of busted Levi's and a bowie knife.
I have lived with thieves in Manchester.

I have not padded through the Taj Mahal,
barefoot, listening to the space between
each footfall picking up and putting down
its print against the marble floor. But I


skimmed flat stones across Black Moss on a day
so still I could hear each set of ripples
as they crossed. I felt each stone's inertia
spend itself against the water; then sink.

I have not toyed with a parachute cord
while perched on the lip of a light-aircraft;
but I held the wobbly head of a boy
at the day centre, and stroked his fat hands.

And I guess that the tightness in the throat
and the tiny cascading sensation
somewhere inside us are both part of that
sense of something else. That feeling, I mean. 

At first read, I immediately thought of Wordsworth, the Romantic poet. He had an ongoing argument with his contemporary, Lord Byron, that he loved England more as he stayed put in his beloved Lake District while Byron trounced around Europe in his pursuit of adventure. And to some extent, I think that it is a safe comparison, though I get more the sense of the emotion of Byron in his lyric than the pastoral scenes that Wordsworth contemplates in his work. One can entertain cosmopolitan form from one's own space as it is how one feels about the thing than the thing itself.

This week I am lucky to have a few tickets to see Seamus Heaney speak ... one of my favorite poets. And though I don't want to move to far off of my intent for this blog, I have decided to break away and create one especially for poetry. I have been wrestling with URLs for weeks, and for some reason, this prohibited me from writing on this blog ... but the additional one can be found at carolmoran.net. I am sincere in my desire to work on my own poetry, and with a place for it, perhaps I will harder toward my goal.

Check it out if you get the chance.