Whoa. I thought it was hot a month ago. Today is Texas frying-pan hot. Time for some more seasonal music.
The Zombies say “It’s the time of the season for loving…”
Paul Robeson sings “…and the living is easy, fish are jumpin’…” but not when it’s this hot.
Cole Porter wrote and Stacey Kent sings,
“…when the thermometer goes way up
and the weather is sizzling hot
Mister Adam for his madam is not
cause it’s too darn hot, it’s too darn hot
It’s too darn hot.”
I agree with the latter, it is just too darned hot!
I love Chinese characters. There is so much implicit meaning. Not long ago I was looking for characters for the concept “hope.” I discovered the character “wang4.” The number after the word is the tone, thus wang is pronounced with the fourth tone, even.
月 is “Yue4” moon. This is the radical in wang4: 望. From the definitions, I infer a meaning of “to gaze in the distance at the full moon, with hope.” I love the idea of hope. For me, hope gives the world a certain solidity. Anything is possible.
Ha! An old gypsy saying goes, “You are never too old to get married, or jump off of a bridge.” Hope!
I love the moon and night, as certainly evidenced by the name of this blog. Tea by moonlight is an elegant concept, and both the Chinese and the Japanese drink tea whilst viewing the full moon. I recall stories of a famous Chinese poet, was it Li Po, who upon seeing the full moon leaped to his feet and wrote a poem on the ridgepole of the tea house? The next day, a carpenter carved the characters into the beam to immortalize them.
And legend says Li Po, in a drunken attempt to embrace the reflection of the moon, fell into the Yangtze river and drowned.
Cole Porter wrote: “In the still of the night, as I gaze out my window, at the moon in its flight, my thoughts all turn to you…” What thoughts the moon has inspired.
The famous Chinese poet, Zhang Ruoxu (c. 660-c.720) wrote:
Spring, River, and Flowers on a Moonlit Night
The tide in the Spring river meets the flat ocean.
On the sea a bright moon is born with the tide
And shimmers along the waves for thousands of miles.
Nowhere on the Spring river is without bright moon.
The river meanders through fragrant fields
And in the flowering woods moon makes everything snow,
Until even frost flowing in space is invisible
And on the shores white sands disappear in light.
River and sky merge in one dustless color.
Bright, bright sky, with only the moon’s wheel.
Who first saw the moon on this riverbank?
What year did this river moon first shine on men?
Generations keep passing without end,
But the river moon looks the same year after year.
I don’t know who the river moon is waiting for;
I only see the long river seeing off the flowing water.
One scarf of white cloud fades into distance,
Leaving unbearable sorrow in the estuary’s green maples.
Whose husband is drifting away in a flat boat tonight?
Who is missing her lover in a moonlit tower?
What a pity, the moon wandering through the tower;
It should light the mirror-stand of the traveler.
She cannot roll it up in the jade door’s blinds;
Or wipe it from the rock where she beats clothes clean.
At this moment, they see the same moon, but cannot hear each other,
She wishes she could flow with the moonlight onto him.
The wild goose flying off cannot escape this light,
When fish and dragons leap and dive I read patterns in the waves.
Last night she dreamed of fallen petals in a still pool.
What sorrow: with spring half over, the man hasn’t returned.
The current has almost washed the Spring away,
And the setting moon tilts west again in the river pool.
The slanting moon sinks deep, deep into the sea fog.
Between the Brown Rock and the Xiang River is a long way
And I don’t know how many people ride the moonlight home.
The setting moon fills the river trees with shivering emotion.
(Translated by Tony Barnstone and Chou Ping)
“…I gaze out my window at the moon in its flight…”
A most famous Chinese musical piece, “Moonlight on the Spring River”
Autumn and Winter are my two favorite seasons. Spring is third and there is no fourth. I ran across this quote from one of my literary heroes, Lin Yutang, and had to share it.
“I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death.”
I hate hot weather. I despise the summer. But, crap, what can I do? Without air conditioning, there is just no getting around it, even in Seattle. So, let us proceed to the Serenity Prayer:
God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.
The point being, “accept the things I cannot change.” No matter how hard I scrunch up my eyebrows and hunch my shoulders, it is not going to get cooler outside until the effing sun goes down.
Instead, let us focus on some summertime tunes, one after the other. Starting with the Kinks who are lazing on a sunny afternoon. The Kinks tend to show up at many of my blogs.
Now, Mungo Jerry In the Summertime:
Kick it up a notch with the Lovin Spoonful…
Then drive it up as high as it can go with Blue Cheer, whoa!
And let us bring it on home with Mr. Steve Fromholtz and the Texas Trilogy. “‘Cause it’s hotter than hell when the sun hits the land…”
“I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its leaves are a little yellow, its tone mellower, its colours richer, and it is tinged a little with sorrow and a premonition of death. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor of the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and is content. From a knowledge of those limitations and its richness of experience emerges a symphony of colours, richer than all, its green speaking of life and strength, its orange speaking of golden content and its purple of resignation and death.”
Moonlight Cha 月光茶 
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