Quoted in the Grove:
Most women do not want to be liberated from their essential natures as women.
~Dan Quayle
It is easier to live through someone else than to become complete yourself.
~Betty Friedan
When she stopped conforming to the conventional picture of femininity she finally began to enjoy being a woman.
~Betty Friedan
EndQuote:
There is always a certain peace in being what one is, in being that completely.
~Ugo Betti
~~
Posted from the Grove:
Requests from Writers Platform:
~Neko Case: I Wish I Was the Moon (3:41)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-WQfijvePY
~David Bowie: I Can’t Give Everything Away (4:26)
Last song from Mr Bowie’s last album, Dark Star
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZscv36UUHo
Hand Thing – Surreal (1:49)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtSgWZbL_kE&feature=youtu.be
~
Two Animal Videos:
Iguana Chased by Snakes
Talk about mind-blowin’ chase scene, this one will have you squirmin’. Pure drama. Ain’t telling if the varmint escapes. 2 minutes, 11 seconds of your time to find out.
https://youtu.be/B3OjfK0t1XM
Cats in Costume: Comic relief (2:32)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BX2a6mp9hio
~~
GlassTable:
~Piffin: “Velvet Elvis”
Dad always gave the worst gifts.
The worst.
The beauty part, though? It was by design; a little game he liked to play with family and friends.
“Happy Birthday!” he would shout, with all the exuberance of a man possessed with the joy of giving.
Anxious, even, as he watched the recipients shred the meticulously applied wrapping paper to confetti.
Once the item had been exposed, the frozen smiles said it all.
Dad’s own smile was all teeth.
“Nice, right?” he’d prod. “Right?”
The only person courageous enough to shrug social convention was my dad’s older brother, Terrance.
Each year, he would open his gift and ask, “What is this crap, now?”
Dad would just laugh.
That laugh.
Part of Dad’s gift-giving magic was that, ludicrous though the gifts may have been, they all demanded to be displayed.
A life-sized bust of Frank Sinatra. A hand-stitched comforter depicting the Battle of Little Bighorn. An autographed copy of Madonna’s coffee table book, “Sex”.
We would go visiting relatives for Easter, well after dad had Christmas-gifted them. He would take a few moments, inspect his surroundings, check the obvious places.
Finally, he would say, “Where is the … I don’t see?”
Our hosts would fall over themselves, explaining why the treasure was not in its proper place.
Mentally scrambling, the reasons they gave were always more or less the same, though precious nonetheless.
“We are having it cleaned.”
“The damn cat knocked it over. Bad Finster!”
“Yes, I lent that to…”
Everyone had a lie. Everyone was afraid they would offend him otherwise. Everyone, save my Aunt Patricia.
Being my mother’s sister, she was no dope, and had figured out Dad’s little game from the start. When he would ask her where the latest object d’art was stationed, she wouldn’t even look up from preparing the tea and cookies.
“Oh, that,” she would say. “Yeah, I regifted that. Honey or sugar?”
He remained undeterred.
One Christmas, he gave her a two-foot long statue of a killer whale, hand-crafted in onyx and alabaster.
Ostentatious as the likeness was, it had clearly cost my dad quite a bit of money. There was no way my aunt could possibly snub such an expensive gift.
Aunt Patricia, however, stuck to her guns. There were no whale sightings in her home after that day.
Despite that, my dad never let up.
To her credit, my aunt never weakened.
The contest went on for decades.
A month or so after my dad passed away, I got a phone call from my aunt, inviting me over for lunch. Monte Cristo sandwiches and carrot cake.
Presumably, she wanted to see how I was holding up; grief and whatnot.
At least there would be carrot cake.
When I arrived at her house, she ushered me directly into the kitchen. She seemed excited.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said, her thin hand on my arm.
Before I could think to ask, I could see what it was.
Laid out before me on the table was every single gift my dad had ever given her.
They stared at me and glistened at me and glowed at me. If I had wound a few up, they would have danced for me.
I was speechless.
“There you have it,” said my aunt. “Your legacy.”
“I thought you gave all of this stuff away.”
“No.” She laughed. “But I’d be damned if I was going to let your father display this crap in my house.”
She tapped her hand on the table. The Hank Aaron bobblehead nodded in agreement.
“This is amazing.”
“Anyway,” she said, “I thought you might like to have these things.”
I looked at the black velvet Elvis painting.
“Oh, I don’t know, Aunt Patricia?”
“Really,” she said. “Take it all.”
Her insistence informed me that, now that my dad was gone, the gifts were going in the trash if they didn’t leave with me.
Of all the gifts, the one that struck me as oddly out of place was a bottle of scotch.
My dad’s favorite brand.
The bottle I just opened.
It’s raining out tonight. The wind is blowing it sideways.
I’m sitting in my living room, this bottle of scotch, Bob Seger low on the stereo, lights dimmed.
I’m sitting at the window, drinking, watching the storm wash the night away.
I’m drinking with John Wayne and Hank Aaron. Elvis Presley and a red lava lamp. A killer whale.
And my dad.
~ For Dad. I miss you. ~
~~
Prewritten for Thurs (01/26) @6pm PT/9 ET is: a song
~Patty Griffin: Stolen Car
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myQzPRXZciM
~~
@Writers Platform:
Prewritten: trap door, boa, crap shoot, burlesque
~Piffin: “Feathered”
Swinging my boa
Like a watch on a chain
Shaking my bounty
For to sustain
This feeling in the theater
This feeling in the air
As my fingers on my body
Put a man in each chair
All cattlemen and hooligans
Love burlesque
This feathered life of mine
A crapshoot at best
All it takes is one catcall
One rancher out the door
And this trapdoor’s sure to open
In the middle of the floor
~
~Greymane: Stiletto Strut
The son of Dr. Acula wore boas ’round his neck
He owns a crimson cabareting burlesque discotheque
A torrid transylvestite with a trapdoor glory hole
He struts the stage stiletto like a queen on shore patrol
In leather things beneath his wings of sequined bloody lace
He casts a spell on clientele who stray into his place
They say that if he works the pole or God forbid he strips
He leeches like a lamia that lingers on your lips
To be so cursed with such a thirst is deadly others warned
He burst in flames when daylight came one fateful Fryday morn
~
~BarTalk: Tonight, Onstage and not-a-ku
~~
Impromptu: No impromptu this week, but a two song video of Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac on David Letterman (7:58)
~ . ~
Wordgrove Post & Review 