When the server sent word that a readership of this page had opened in Thai-land, it was almost as startling as if one had landed in Kansas. I don't know about one's betters, but immediately Whitman came to mind: I no doubt deserve my enemies, but I don't believe I deserve my friends. It's not that we're unaware that this 'web' thingamajig doesn't stop; it's that those of us who are rooted in agriculture reserve a kind of awe for meeting those who also are, in another parish.
Mind you, it would be just one's luck to have been discovered by some Cantabridgian remittance-man, on a post-baccalaureate sail for Billecart-Salmon to Phuket (where most of it seems to be shipped, these days). But to think of learning about the cultiv-ation of bamboo and the wearing of silk pants has led one to invite this reader to identify himself, and take over this page for a posting. Silly as this certainly must sound to one's cosmopolitan readership, farmers really don't get around very much, olive growers aside - a notoriously restless race, for millennia - if much to the advantage of literature and cuisine.
Yet even we who stay at home have purposes - Cole Porter wrote a song about it, not that statistics didn't favour its creation, among several hundred others. But we know it well, because it was cut from Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929). I thought of this posting in gratefulness to a very considerate blogger, whose embar-rassment with our illustrations is unintended. And he does the thing the song enjoins, busy as he has to be, tending to others as far-flung from the Hudson as the Boston Common. Why Don't We Try Staying Home is in his stack of Bobby Short LP's, and one shouldn't be surprised if he knows it by heart. Once a Whiffenpoof . .
When the server sent word that a readership of this page had opened in Thai-land, it was almost as startling as if one had landed in Kansas. I don't know about one's betters, but immediately Whitman came to mind: I no doubt deserve my enemies, but I don't believe I deserve my friends. It's not that we're unaware that this 'web' thingamajig doesn't stop; it's that those of us who are rooted in agriculture reserve a kind of awe for meeting those who also are, in another parish.
Yet even we who stay at home have purposes - Cole Porter wrote a song about it, not that statistics didn't favour its creation, among several hundred others. But we know it well, because it was cut from Fifty Million Frenchmen (1929). I thought of this posting in gratefulness to a very considerate blogger, whose embar-rassment with our illustrations is unintended. And he does the thing the song enjoins, busy as he has to be, tending to others as far-flung from the Hudson as the Boston Common. Why Don't We Try Staying Home is in his stack of Bobby Short LP's, and one shouldn't be surprised if he knows it by heart. Once a Whiffenpoof . . 
Yes, I have been reading from Thailand, Chiangmai to be exact, and just about two months now. I suspect your server will send word next month of readership from Malaysia as I am headed there and your URL will no doubt accompany me. Sorry if this shatters an image in your mind but your blog is nourishment for both mind and eyes.
ReplyDeleteI, as a traveler, unfortunately do dine in restaurants, although many meals are taken in places that would hardly be classified as a restaurant.
I'll continue to indulge myself with visits unless I'm forbidden to, and when I return home, I'll fade into the masses.
And I read your blog from the belly of the beast- NYC. All the worlds's a stage?
ReplyDeleteMarvelous to think you'd allocate some of your "break" time from a fabulous public service blog such as yours, VT, to this quirky project - one's slathered in recompense for merely playing, which seems hardly fair. But I'll take it, thanks! :) Best wishes to your super page.
ReplyDeleteOn the contrary, HC, one's little germ indulges nostalgic delight in migrating in the physical, old-fashioned way, from one innocent port to another in your care. This consideration exceeds all intrigue of singularity and comports entirely with one's antic, errant errand. I know I shall never, personally, stand on that sandbar of tall buildings, but to think that a posting might attract its omniscient autocrat's hovering eye suggests a turn to pretty seascapes 'til you get to the Barrier Reef, or some such bucolic place.
The offer remains open, if not flung off hinges of elation in its tracks, to run a posting of your trouvailles in transit. Nor can there be any hope of fading into the masses wherever "home" might be, with powerpoint lectures such as yours to draw them to your stadium in proper hunger for the sights.
As to these sources of nourishment, you're right to assert the traveler's exemption; but even so that old jest in one's masthead is there for irony's sake, not for oppression. As time will doubtless show.
Thanks for 'phoning in. Before you do leave Thailand, however, should you find it expedient to seduce a local, I'd be most obliged to your putting in a good word for rmbl. You're right, it has been pleasant to think of kicking back in some atoll of soothing accents.
And I, my friend, I am here in Western Massachusetts: http://www.brucebarone.com/MountTom.htm
ReplyDeleteKind of you to make this trek, Bruce!
ReplyDeleteI suppose if I were to hear the record, once again, I might be able to muster a memoried sing along, but no longer can one burst into said song and still recall the lyrics, much less more than a snatch or two of the melody. I am fortunate to share both an alma mater with Mr. Porter, and a membership in the singing group you mention. There are other things we share, or shared, too, as I have since learned . . . Thank you, sir.
ReplyDeleteWell, a valiant wit would not be amiss to share with anyone, and that, for me, sums up Mr P - apart from the stash of pixie dust he was born with. The song is everything you'd expect - and surely you can see this grisly quote coming, a mile away - you fellows would really get a kick out of it. But thanks go the other way, for being a good sport about others.
ReplyDelete