early April, 09

D ears,

Hmm, just noticed that the letter D is the shape of an ear, a new discovery in this six year long exploration of the letter D these d-mails have encouraged. Has ever a single letter been more pondered than it has here? Well, why not. Somebody should. That is our purpose here. Why the letter D? Because it looks like an ear, of course, and what is better than an ear? My what big ears you have! The better to hear you with, my dear.

This Friday night we have some great bands to hear with your D. At 10ish we have the nouveau rock and roll of Meniskus. This terrific band is a barrage of music, strange heavy rhythms and guitars with a tinge of middle-eastern flavor, really pretty hard to describe, but an experience well worth having. Sound Rabbit plays before them and this is super solid and fun band from Boulder, with infectious Jack Johnson-like grooves. Both bands have played the D before and we're thrilled to have them back. Opening the night at 7pm is a new songwriter to our stage, Eric Forsyth. $5

Saturday we celebrate Tartan Day at the D Note, featuring the bombastic bagpipe driven highland rock and roll of Angus Mohr, a band we have come to love. We will have Scottish events all day: Noon, Music by An Shee Eilee, 1:00 Music by Skean Dubh, 2:00 Highland Dance by Rocky Mountain Highlands Dancers, 6:30 Surprise lead-in to Angus Mohr, 7:30 Ceilidh - music by Angus Mohr. $15 after 6pm. We will try to tape all of the music on Saturday for posterity. It'll be a scotch tape. Ba dum dum.

Yes, and no,

D mouth (see, cause the D also looks like a mouth, if you turn your head to the side.)

Extra Credit: Last month Sylvia Plath's son Nicholas Hughes killed himself 46 years after his mother did. There's a beautiful and devastating poem by Sylvia to Nicholas, foreshadowing his death from half a century ago. You can read it here for extra extra credit. But, for the sake of April, let us have another poem this week, one written by Nicholas's father Ted Hughes, to Sylvia, shortly before he died in '98. The first lines of Chaucer's old English translate, basically, to "when April showers pierce the drought of March to the root".

Chaucer

‘Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

The droghte of March hath perced to the roote . . .’

At the top of your voice, where you swayed on the top of a stile,

Your arms raised – somewhat for balance, somewhat

To hold the reins of the straining attention

Of your imagined audience – you declaimed Chaucer

To a field of cows. And the Spring sky had done it

With its flying laundry, and the new emerald

Of the thorns, the hawthorn, the blackthorn.

And one of those bumpers of champagne

You snatched unpredictably from pure spirit.

Your voice went over the fields towards Grantchester.

It must have sounded lost. But the cows

Watched, then approached: they appreciated Chaucer.

You went on and on. Here were reasons

To recite Chaucer. Then came the Wyf of Bath,

Your favourite character in all literature.

You were rapt. And the cows were enthralled.

They shoved and jostled shoulders, making a ring,

To gaze into your face, with occasional snorts

Of exclamation, renewed their astounded attention,

Ears angling to catch every inflection,

Keeping their awed six feet of reverence

Away from you. You just could not believe it.

And you could not stop. What would happen

If you were to stop? Would they attack you,

Scared by the shock of silence, or wanting more – ?

So you had to go on. You went on –

And twenty cows stayed with you hypnotized.

How did you stop? I can’t remember

You stopping. I imagine they reeled away –

Rolling eyes, as if driven from their fodder.

I imagine I shooed them away. But

Your sostenuto rendering of Chaucer

Was already perpetual. What followed

Found my attention too full

And had to go back into oblivion.