I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity.
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so
What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ...
July 15, 2010 - 12:51 p.m.
No matter what I do day comes after day and once again it's time for me to update Wise Madness
I often start my entries by somehow saying, "I'm starting my entry." I often follow that with deconstructing my writing. That is usually followed by my mentioning that I'm deconstructing my writing. I could go on like this all day but I won't.
Why do I do it? It gets my writing muscles going. I don't have start from a standing start. It's the same reason Ed Norton starts off every song with a riff from Swanee River. "A pitcher has to warm up before he pitches ... "
I'm off to a good start. I'm quoting Ed Norton.
That reminds me. Look at the top of the page and the last quote is a new one. Krugman just used that in his blog. You should quote him too. That deserves to be preserved for posterity. It could be the motto of the Daily Show.
I'm making my way through In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. I'm still loving it but I'm not as enamored with it as I was at the start. Someone said that's what happens with his books that he writes the best beginnings. I think the problem is not so much that the quality goes down as that the reader get sated. If I started the book in the beginning that would be my favorite part.
It bothers me that that he called some Australian spider "the most venomous" insect." A spider isn't an insect and isn't everyone taught that when they are 5 years old by someone correcting them or was that just me? In any event no reputable source would say that which leads me to doubt his other "facts."
He gives a verse of Waltzing Matilda and says it makes no sense. Yes he used the original lyrics which are rarely played now and that has the linguistic oddity of saying that the swagman camped IN the billabong (an ox-bow lake) not by it but that doesn't make the song not make sense.
In fact Waltzing Matilda is the best National Anthem I've heard. It isn't the national anthem but the world knows that it should be. It generates patriotism in me. When I hear it I want to go back to Australia (I've never been there).
Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolabah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three,
"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?"
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?",
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong,
"You'll never take me alive", said he,
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me."
"Oh, You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me."
I wish I had a video of Iain Campbell Smith performing it at Carolyn and Peter's house complete with powerpoint presentation explaining it. I'm going to do my best
What you need to know is that a swagman is a hobo and a Matilda is what he carries his meager possessions with. "Waltzing Matilda" is an expression meaning to walk the country with your Matilda.
A billy is a can used to heat water for making tea.
A jumbuck is a feral sheep. A squatter does not have the same connotation than it has in the rest of the world In the early days of Australia people went into the bush and farmed on land they had no rights to and were eventually granted the land. As the country developed this land became valuable so squatters were rich farmers.
We can now put that together to see what the song was about. A hobo camps by a lake in the bush and sits down to make himself some tea. He a feral sheep comes by and he grabs it and puts it in his bag. A rich farmer find him and wants the sheep to which he has no real claim, anymore than he did to his land, and calls the cops who come to arrest the hobo. Rather than be arrested he defiantly jumps into the lake and drowns. His spirit then haunts the place.
This is the song that Australia sees itself in. I like a country like that. The American song that comes closest in spirit is Hobo's Lullaby by Goebel Reeves. It was Woody Guthrie's favorite song but he did not write it. Both songs take the point of view of the most vulnerable, those scorned by society, those for whom the system didn't work. They get us to feel for them.
I wanted to post videos of both of them and listened to numerous versions. Woody Guthrie of course recorded Hobo's Lullaby and so did the wonderful Anaïs Mitchell. There are haunting versions by Emmylou Harris and Bruce Springsteen. In the end the best of them is by Arlo so that's what I'll show you.
I wish I could have shown you Fred's (Iain Campbell Smith) version but I didn't record it and couldn't find a video of it. I had trouble deciding which to use and settled one this fairly simple version because some of the visually imagery echoes that of the Hobo's Lullaby video.
This might seem like strange material for me to write about but it's where my head is now. In searching for the right video I heard both songs over and over again and didn't grow tired of them. So in the end I'm writing about myself, as I always do.
I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge:
please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
Wise Madness is Now In Session - May 28, 2018
The NFL and the First Amendment - May 27, 2018
On The Road Again - May 26, 2018
Oliver the Three-Eyed Crow - May 25, 2018
creative commons
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Horvendile July 15, 2010
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