HAPPY THANKSGIVING (TAKE IT AWAY, MORRISSEY)

  This year I am deeply thankful for the earthly lives of my cats Eddie (l) and Felix (r) (nb., short “e” sound on Felix; he was named by Brazilians).   We "lost" these two family members earlier this year, but that’s not how it really works.  Eddie was in many ways the best and closest friend I ever had.  Felix was Jane’s best friend and guardian.  You couldn’t ask for finer companions with nobler characters.

  Andy, pictured below/right with Edie, is doing well a year after his last back surgery.  He is coming back all the way, I think, slowly but steadily and surely.  With everything he’s been through, he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself or overdo things.  It’s a smart decision. 

  The rationality and good character of our so-called pets – our cats, dogs, birds and fish – astounds me.  They are a round-and-round-never-ending drama-comedy event rivaling all the news, science, pseudo-science, art & literature, and mysterioso conspiracy theory websites combined.  Everything good in and for our family resides in this all-of-us-together place, and as far as the bad & the sad go, we need perforce to take the bitter along with the better.  Things once seemed easier, I think I recall, but I’m pretty certain they’ve also been more difficult.  

  Happy Thanksgiving.

  Take it away, Morrissey (Link)

and Andy Mackay: A Four-Legged Friend (Link)

WHITE ROOM

These be
Three silent things:
The falling snow . . the hour
Before the dawn . . the mouth of one
Just dead.

Just now,
Out of the strange
Still dusk . . as strange, as still . .
A white moth flew. Why am I grown
So cold?

a. Text:  Adelaide Crapsey, Triad (first) and The Warning (second), 1911-13

b. The Hour Before Dawn: Andy Mackay (Link)

c. Illustrations:  Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Four-Poster Bed and Washstand from The White Bedroom at Hous 'Hill, Glasgow (1904)

The End Of The World

Why does the sun go on shining?
Why does the sea rush to shore?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?

Why do the birds go on singing?
Why do the stars glow above?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?

I wake up in the morning and I wonder
Why everything's the same as it was?

I can't understand, no, I can't understand,
How life goes on the way it does.

Why does my heart go on beating?
Why do these eyes of mine cry?
Don't they know it's the end of the world?

Top: Great White Shark near Monomoy Island, Martha's Vineyard, July 18, 2011

Bottom:  Artist's rendering of wreck of the City of Columbus near Gay Head Cliffs, Martha's Vineyard, January 19, 1884

Link 1:  Skeeter Davis performs The End Ot The World

Link 2:  Andy Mackay performs Pyramid Of Night (Past, Present and Future)