A li’l pink (Sonoma button-down). A li’l Momo blue on the tie, as I call this color. Tie o’ the Day #2 is a Stacy Adams, of course. I’m sure you are starting to recognize the Stacy Adams style–gaudy, lots of paisley, and wide as can be. If you aren’t yet able to distinguish it from the styles of other designers, Tie o’ the Day will still and always love you anyway.
“Is it raining at your house, like it’s raining at mine?” Today’s rain reminded me of one of my favorite Vern Gosdin songs: “Is It Raining At Your House?” You should take a listen to it. Very sad, in just the right unrequited love way. Vern’s voice has that classic country & western smooth twang. Kind of a mix of George Jones and Hank Williams. And he also sings a song called “That Just About Does It”. That ditty has these lines in the chorus: “That just about does it, don’t it? That’ll just about kill it, won’t it?” That is plain snazz-errific. Break-up songs are the best.
One of the most obscure break-up songs I know is called “Sweaters”, written and sung/spoken by performance artist Laurie Anderson, in the early 80’s. The gist of it is that what makes us move on from someone isn’t the big things. What makes is leave is usually a gaggle of tiny things. It’s like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back: Those itsy-bitsy moves of theirs drive us nuts and away. The little things become so irritating that we are DONE. A couple of fantastic lines from Anderson’s song: “I no longer like the color of your sweaters. I no longer like the way you hold your pens and pencils.” The music of the song is purposely irritating, to great dramatic effect. Suits me fine.
Laurie Anderson is one of the way early influences of my life’s word-work. So blame her and Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen for nudging me in the poetry direction. And they did it before I was even old enough to vote, I might add.
