Sunday 8 November 2009

Sunday Night is... Buffy Sainte Marie




Little Wheel Spin and Spin, Big Wheel Turn Around and Around

I adored this voice when I first heard her version of the magnificent Lyke Wake Dirge. But she's not doing it on YouTube so this is the next best thing. It sends shivers up my spine.

*

Back from London. Father in hospital, thin, unshaven, wild looking, and talking a blue streak for almost an hour. One doctor reckons they poisoned him with the wrong medicine, he says. He can't stop talking. He is reckoning up what has happened, how he has got here, what all this is about. Naturally. 'Keep the beard,' I say as we leave. Can't imagine him doing so.

*

Then the Hungarian Cultural Centre for the pre-launch of the Hungarian anthology I have just edited for Arc. Comes out properly in January. Two of our poets are here though, Anna T Szabó and István László, together with translators George Gömöri, Peter Zollman and Ágnes Lehoczky. Place quite crowded out. Some poems by Szabó and László next. But late now.



1 comment:

Gwil W said...

From my viewpoint in the UK the first cracks in the wall as I saw them or perceived them:
I recall that Gorbachev was "the man we can do business with" as Mrs. Thatcher said when he came to power. At the time, I sensed something, not even a crack in the wall but more like the impression of something going to happen.
Then there was that strange speech, a cryptic message from the USA to the USSR, by Ronald Reagan, it was about space aliens and ufos. Things were not normal. Leaders were talking in riddles. What was going on? And then of course there came the Reagan call, "Mr. Gorbachev, pull down that wall." This was all before Bush Snr. & co. of course.