Pannonica ("Nica") de Koenigswarter

Nica the cat, named after the Baroness Pannonica de Koenigswarter.

Pannonica ("Nica") de Koenigswarter, also known as the jazz baroness, was a friend and patron to jazz musicians of the bebop era (beginning in the early to mid 1940s). She was especially close to Thelonious Monk and Charlie Parker.

She also loved cats and had about 30 in her house in New York. 

Pannonica de Koenig

10 December 1913 - 30 November 1988

Accidental Hipster

My Dad possessed many admirable traits and talents but one of the least acknowledged was his sense of style. What I find interesting is that his sense of style was firmly rooted in an absolute and total disinterest in it. Therein lies the secret of his genius. Consider the examples below. The first outfit nonchalantly throws together, in perfect harmony, a faux fur vest over a half zip sweatshirt and a Korean War veterans baseball cap. Notice how relaxed and downright elegant he looks. The very definition of panache!

 

Next we have an Easter outfit, perfect for a photo op with the Easter bunny. Again, notice the ease at which he combines a camouflage rain hat with a quilted plaid hoodie. It takes confidence to pull off this outfit and Dad had fashion confidence galore. He did much of his best shopping at his favorite store, Ocean State Job Lot. His complete lack of pretense contributed to the overall appeal of his fashion statements.  I know he would be proud to be recognized as a fashion icon.

The Song of Wandering Aengus

William Butler Yeats

13 June 1865 - 28 January 1939

W. B. Yeats was a poet, dramatist and writer born in County Dublin, Ireland, and at the forefront of the Irish Literary Revival. He was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Though he had ties and lived some years in England, he identified as Irish and, in fact, held fiercely nationalistic views. His earlier work reflects his fascination with the occult and the cyclical nature of life. His later work became more concerned with the affairs of society and politics. Shocking to the Burmese Mermaid, he believed that authoritarian rule, not democracy, best served society. He abhorred political liberalism and saw democracy as a threat to order. His revolutionary political leanings led him to serve as Senator of the Irish Free State. In his later years he traveled to India and translated parts of the Upanishads, an indication that spiritual matters remained a constant in his life and work.  

The Song of Wandering Aengus

I went out to the hazel wood                                     

Because a fire was burning in my head,

And cut and peeled a hazel wand,

And hooked a berry to a thread;

And when white moths were on the wing,

And moth-like stars were flickering out,

I dropped the berry in a stream

And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor

I went to blow the fire aflame,

But something rustled on the floor,

And some one called me by my name:

It had become a glimmering girl

With apple blossom in her hair

Who called me by my name and ran

And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering

Through hollow lands and hilly lands,

I will find out where she has gone,

And kiss her lips and take her hands;

And walk among long dappled grass,

And pluck till time and times are done

The silver apples of the moon,

The golden apples of the sun. 

                           The Silver Apples of the Moon

                       by Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh

           Painting inspired by The Song of Wandering Aengus

                                     

Utagawa Hiroshige: Pictures of the Floating World

 

"The Moon over a Waterfall" (an early 1830s woodblock print from the series "Twenty-Eight Moonlight Views") by Utagawa Hiroshige I, 1797 - 1858, a.k.a. Ando Hiroshige.

Hiroshige is considered the last great master of the ukiyo-e tradition of painting, which flourished in Japan from the 17th to 19th centuries. Ukiyo-e 浮世絵 translates as "pictures of the floating world".

In 1856 Hiroshige retired from the world of human affairs and became a Buddhist monk, seeking refuge in a monastery. However, the cholera epidemic would find him there and claim his life in 1858. 

As a farewell to civilian life he wrote:

東路に
筆を残して
旅の空
西のみくにの
名所を見む

"I leave my brush in the East.

And set forth on my journey.

I shall see the famous places in the Western Land."

(Western Land is probably a reference to the paradise of the Amida Buddha in Pure Land Buddhism.)

Amida Buddha: Main Buddha of Pure Land Buddhism

Amitabha statue in gold leaf with inlaid crystal eyes.

Tokyo National Museum

                                                        

Billie's Blues

 

Billie Holiday

7 April 1915 - 17 July 1959

The Burmese Mermaid aspires to bravery. I'm not always able to act bravely though, so I look for inspiration in the world of human affairs.

Billie Holiday or Lady Day (the name given to her by the great tenor saxophonist Lester "Prez" Young) bravely dared to perform and record "Strange Fruit", a song about lynching. I imagine she was afraid of repercussions but still she persisted. 

The song was blacklisted, banned on the airwaves, and Lady Day was pressured not to perform it. When she refused, she was often met with hecklers, racist taunts, harassment. The U.S. government targeted her. Read more here: 

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/the-story-behind-billie-holidays-strange-fruit/17738/

"Strange Fruit" was written in 1937 by Abel Meeropol (under the pseudonym Lewis Allan), a Jewish-American songwriter, and recorded by Lady Day on April 20, 1939. 

"Strange Fruit" is recognized by many as the earliest protest song contemporaneous with the start of the civil rights movement.

Lady Day. Forever in our hearts and deeply missed. Beloved and brave beyond measure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Fruit

Antidotes to the Fear of Death by Rebecca Elson

 

Rebecca Elson, Astronomer-Poet

2 January 1960 - 19 May 1999

ANTIDOTES TO FEAR OF DEATH

Sometimes as an antidote

To fear of death,

I eat the stars

Those nights, lying on my back,

I suck them from the quenching

dark

Til  they are all, all inside me,

Pepper hot and sharp.

Sometimes, instead, I stir myself

Into a universe still young,

Still warm as blood.

No outer space, just space,

The light of all the not yet stars

Drifting like a bright mist,

And all of us, and everything

Already there

But unconstrained by form.

And sometimes it's enough

To lie down here on earth

Beside our long ancestral bones:

To walk across the cobble fields

Of our discarded skulls,

Each like a treasure, like a 

chrysalis,

Thinking: whatever left these

husks

Flew off on bright wings.

Wild Woman

My wild woman

was a child born

of gravitational waves cresting

Birthed through a black hole reluctantly

emerging she kicked her way along 

a stream choked with water chestnuts

which she then ate squatting. 

My wild woman insists on being wrong

she will fight you 

if you resist her 

benign acidity.

Her only true strength is love.

My wild woman, at her most beautiful,

much envied,

once ran away.

My wild woman returning

pushed the veil aside

nurtured wild grasses in her womb

gave life breath.

Her blood became a river lost.

My wild woman now is tame and oldish

Unseen she lashes together sails of stone.

She gathers strength in sleep

and in the dark hours siphons galaxies

Free, my wild woman

dusts the halls of heaven

marks all the exits

and departs

Eleven Cents

 On August 6, 1996, I woke up early and, while still lying in bed, slowly turned my head to study the profile of my husband sleeping beside me. I studied his features and breathing as if for the last time and had a sudden, clear thought, "today could be the day he kills me."

I moved gingerly out of bed, went into my sons' bedroom and dressed them quickly. They were still half asleep but I managed to carry them outside to the car, secure them in the back seat and head back into the apartment. Instinctively, I reached for a piece of paper and wrote, "went to CVS. Be back soon", and placed it on the counter.

It was only 7 in the morning and I had no intention of going to CVS. I only intended to get out of there as fast as I could. I knew if he woke up we would be in grave danger and so I made an efficient exit, being careful to remain composed for the sake of my children.

Within minutes, the boys and I were on the road, headed to who knows where. I was on auto pilot, had no real sense of where I was, just that I needed to keep driving and create distance. Also, I realized I had only 11 cents on me. A feeling of lucidity overcame me then, mingled with detached panic, and I thought to myself, "well, at least I'm free." I kept driving and never looked back even though it hurt like hell.

You don't need money, just freedom from fear, to have mermaid dreams.

The Burmese Elvis & Jenny Ko Gyi

Tony Hundley (aka Bo Bo Han, The Burmese Elvis) and Jenny Ko Gyi, Rangoon 2011

Not surprisingly, the Burmese Mermaid has significant human ties to Burma. 

Exhibit A above: cousin Tony Hundley, aka Bo Bo Han, stage name The Burmese Elvis, famous Burmese pop star at his zenith in the 1970s.

Here he is with Jenny Ko Gyi, my babysitter and long time family friend of the Hundley's. Jenny is a Buddhist scholar, highly respected in Burma and in the Buddhist West. 

Jenny is a teacher and translator at the International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University in Rangoon, Burma.

 https://itbmu.org.mm/

I revere these elders inside Burma. I wish them safety, wellbeing, health, happiness and freedom. They live in a country ruled by a military junta whose aim is to exert absolute power: it oppresses the people using imprisonment, torture, murder,  and suppression of dissent. 

Bo Bo Han traveled to the U.S. in 2006 and performed a concert at LaGuardia Performing Arts Center, New York. A large number of American Burmese turned out for the concert. Tony (Bo Bo Han) is famous and still has many fans inside and outside Burma. I was determined to talk to him while he was in the states and got his cell phone number from Tony's sister, my cousin Mary Hundley in Los Angeles. I tried to reach him many times but was unable to. It's very possible he was being closely monitored and censored by military authorities assigned to travel with him.

I found Jenny on Facebook a few years ago and reconnected as best as Facebook and censorship will allow. 

Bo Bo Han, more recently in concert.

Bo Bo Han, The Burmese Elvis

Tony Hundley (first row, far right) and friends, 

Thingyan (Buddhist New Year Water Festival), April 1967.

Returning

 

There is so much sweetness in the world

Honey on the tongue

Goldenseal

A collusion of jasmine and earth

Abundant

In every cell

 

For your return

I will throw down

My burdens 

as proof

Let them all go the way of

Out purposed things

 

Let it flow

Love let it out

Let it go

Even In ruins

Love built Remembrance 

to outlast millennia

But quickening

now flickers the eye 

in sleep

Or cloud

Occluding moon’s lantern

 

In a moment 

Another moment will arise

Then another

Ceasing and returning

Ceasing and arising

The breathing ritual.

Morning dew

In a field

Overnight cool

Soon to be overtaken by the sun’s

insistence to go forth.

Forward motion

Letting it all go

Letting it Flow

In Time 

Unknowable where 

Lover and Beloved

Are not separate.

11.01.2022  All Saints