December Magazine

Contents: TWO POEMS, A SALUTE TO DECEMBER AND TO THE NUMBER TWELVE, plus some Duogesimal Meanderings, A LOWDOWN BLUES, SOME LOWDOWN POLITICAL COMMENTARY, and SOME LOVESICK BLUES

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A SCIENCE POEM

E=mc2

Nothing is faster than light

I conceptualized the race

And Nothing won…

All the same

E = mc_­2

Nothing goes faster than light

Shucks

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     A CHILD’S POEM

Fat and Skinny had a race

All around the pillow case

Fat fell down and broke his face

Skinny won the race

Now that’s a real poem! Better than that science one I just made up about Nothing. I remember Fat and Skinny had a race from the depths of my childhood. Apparently, my brain, and most likely your brain and all of our poor, tired brains, are sprinkled with little memory traces: poems, these nursery rhymes and ditties – cultural imprints if you will (and every culture has’em ) – little rhymes and songs that remain with us for life, just sitting there, hanging out up there inside our crania, all electrically coded into the grey and white matter of our poor, over-evolved brains. They (the ditties, not any of the grey matter, thank Goodness) occasionally rise to the surface as what we call “memories”. Anyhoo, the rhyme about Fat and Skinny is one I can clearly recall knowing and singing at a very early age. I recall that, as a toddler, I pictured Laurel and Hardy running around a bed, racing in circles. I associate the song with my grandmother – I’m sure she recited it to me – which gives the silly poem a very warm glow for me, not to mention the Laurel and Hardy image.

Fat and Skinny had a race

All around the pillow case

Fat fell down and broke his face

Skinny won the race

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Hail December! The Twelfth month!

Hail to the number twelve. Three cheers (four times) for the ol’ 12, the number with so many easy factors: 2,6, 3,4. The number on the top of the clock! Hurray for the end of the Julian year, and the beginning of a new one. Twelve more months! Twelve more reasons to celebrate. Hurray (12 hurrays) for Marina Kanavaki for creating such a beautiful calendar for us!

The word twelve, whose early English-Germanic roots derive from “two left”, or two left over after counting to ten, completes the cycle for us. After twelve o’clock we start counting the hours again. Every day (actually twice a day) we count twelve hours. And you know, of course, what time it is when your clock strikes thirteen? That’s right! Time to get your clock fixed!

Happy Holiday Season to all! Dozens of long-stemmed roses for the twelve days of Christmas (I don’t understand why they count the twelve days starting from Xmas past New Year’s to an Epiphany ceremony on Jan 5. Because if you began your count on Dec 21, the first day of winter, you could count down 12 to the New Year’s Day, January 1! And, as Chico Marx would say, “that would be some thing”). Anyhoo, Twelve songs of praise from the Twelve chromatic notes, Twelve songs of praise from the Twelve Tribes of Israel. And the Twelve signs of the zodiac! Hail the 12 and Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

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Musical Interlude:
The Low Down Blues

Here’s a blues I’ve been working on for a while. My goal was to make it very simple, and also to write an “original blues”, which is an impossibilty, I suppose. After all, it’s the blues, and the blues by definition is simple and it’s all been done before, etc., etc. Anyway, I only used two chords. But then I cheated a bit on the refrain and threw in two more extra chords. It seems I couldn’t refrain myself once I got to the refrain. (And I couldn’t refrain from saying the word refrain again now either) It’s the Low Down Blues and it’s in the key of G.

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MO’ LOW DOWN BLUES: POST-ELECTION POLITICAL COMMENTARY

If there was going to be a silver lining to be found in the cloud of depression and dejection following the Trump victory, it would be that finally, at long last, the political pundits would finally just shut up and go home. They predicted a Clinton victory, they got it all wrong. But no! They barely stopped to catch their breath. The pundits are back at it! Analyzing Trump’s every move or mis-move.

With a Trump presidency, this media overkill apparently will continue unabated, as we, the (viewing) public, maintain our obsession with opinion polls and “breaking news”. It seems we’re looking at four more years of media blitz, Twitter wars, gossip monguering, and media overkill – in addition to all the other crap that’s going to unfold. Fasten your seatbelts!

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OK, and here’s Hank Williams’ Lovesick Blues, played by Bumba and Maybank of course, to cheer you on your way toward a Happy December, a Happy Holiday, and a Happy New Year.

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