Time Marches On, Singalongs, and other nonsense

TIME

The concept of time is fundamental to how we see the world. It’s hard to imagine our world without time. Even imagining takes time! Time is a fundamental dimension of our universe. Events by definition happen in time. Without time, nothing happens. From the human perspective, there’s objective time, subjective time, and a time for all things, as the Bible says. It’s interesting that our current scientific understanding of time can so little affect the way we ourselves experience time: the way live, and the way we talk about time. All the time. We don’t have all the time in the world, after all.

We know for a fact, for instance, that the age of the earth is 4.5 billions years or so. In the geological timescale, our time here on earth has to be seen as severely limited. A brief moment, a blink of the eye in the long and fiery history of the earth. And if you like, you can count a bit further back (in time) to the Big Bang. However, before the Big Bang, time did not exist. Time was created along with space at the “moment” of the Big Bang. Before the Big Bang nothing ever happened or existed because there was no time. Maybe time was just hiding?

Talk about hiding and the quantum world: in the sub-atomic scale of things, we humans are very long-lived. So relax. We have eternity in our midst. But a kazillion number of things are happening at breakneck speeds all the time inside of everything that we see and “know” – including our own bodies. All unbeknownst to us, and very quickly. Have to stop. Time for supper.

SINGALONGS

These songs are almost like karaoke tapes. Ready for you to sing along. I barely sung on them – something for which you should already be grateful! There’s just piano accompaniment much of the time, so you, dear reader, are being asked to carry the vocal. I think that if you sing along on this 1970’s classic written by Pete Ham and Tom Evans, and played by their band Badfinger – and then famously recorded by the brilliant Harry Neilson, you’ll be the better for it. Maybe you could take the ipad into the shower. The song is Without You or I Can’t Live If Living Is Without You.

OK, here’s real old one, here’s Alexander’s Ragtime Band by the great Irving Berlin, his first hit, recorded by the great Bessie Smith over a hundred years ago.

Come on and hear
Come on and hear
Alexander’s ragtime band
Come on and hear
Come on and hear
It’s the best band in the land

They can play the bugle call like you’ve never heard before
Sounds so natural that you’ll wanna go to war
That’s just the best band in the land
Oh honey lamb

Come on along
Come on along
Let me take you by the hand
Up to the man
Up to the man
Who is the leader of the band
And if you care to hear the Swanee River played in ragtime
Come on and hear
Come on and hear
Alexander’s ragtime band

NONSENSE DEPT

Inspirational Fruits and Vegetables – a pictoral essay

A picture tells a thousand words…. which is probably a couple of hundred more words than anyone wanted to hear in the first place… All the same, the wisdom of fresh produce remains a source of inspiration (and roughage) for the poet and green grocer alike! Here are two inspirational, highly pictorial, and (thankfully) very brief poems:

I know a fruit and I ain’t tellin’

But there’s no hiding a

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

I don’t care what food you eat

There’s one vegetable that can’t be

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah

Author: Bumba

Shown on a recent visit to the Big Apple, Bumba has written two literary novels and has recorded two CD soundtrack albums to accompany them. Check it out on Bumba Books. View all posts by Bumba