Blowin 9-10pm Sunday 28th November 2010
More tunes than time…
Blowin now online at blowin.podomatic.com
Listen to BCB on 106.6 FM or www.bcbradio.co.uk

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Foam Lines

The Love Song Of J. Alfred Prufrock

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question. . .                               10

Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,                               20

And seeing that it was a soft October night

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;                                30

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions

And for a hundred visions and revisions

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—                               40

[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—

[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all;

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,                       50

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all—

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?                    60

And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all—

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

.     .     .     .     .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets              70

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

.     .     .     .     .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?                  80

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head (grown slightly bald) brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet–and here’s no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,                                             90

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say, “That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all.”

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,                                           100

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—

And this, and so much more?—

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

“That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all.”                                          110

.     .     .     .     .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . . I grow old . . .                                              120

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown               130

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

T.S Eliot

1915

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Truism of the week:

‎‘Sheep stray but the otter’s pocket remains always dry’.

Sooo true, and on so many levels

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Blowin

28 November

Kapt. Kopter And The Fabulous Twirlybirds – Downer – Kapt. Kopter And The Fabulous Twirlybirds CD – Epic

Gregory Isaacs – Tribute To Wa De – Once Ago CD – Virgin Frontline

Mississippi – Fred McDowell – You Gotta Move – Mississippi Delta Blues CD – Arhoolie

Brian Eno – This – Another Day On Earth CD – Opal

Cornel Campbell & Ranking Dread – Bandulu & Hard Times – I Shall Not Remove 1975-80 CD – Blood & Fire

SBTRKT – Look At Stars – Beggars Banquet

Wailing Souls – Penny I Love You – Wailing LP – Jah Guidance

Brian Eno & John Cale – One Word – Wrong Way Up CD – Land

Sonny Sharrock – Who Does She Hope To Be? – Ask The Ages CD – Axiom

Bim Sherman – Golden Locks – Love Forever CD – Century/EFA

Alec Guinness meets TS Eliot at Bradford Central Library, with Notorious Wig at the controls – The Love Song Of J Alfred Prufock

Brian Eno – Horse – Small Craft On A Milk Sea CD – Warp

More playlists at www.rob-walsh.co.uk

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Keep On Blowin

Rob

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