The Hammock Papers: Porter

Showing posts with label Porter. Show all posts

09 June 2026

Happy Birthday, Cole Porter

Cole Porter was born on this day in 1891.

The best interpreter of Porter's work takes "Night and Day" for a spin ...

10 July 2024

Lisa Stansfield, "Ain't Nobody's Business"

09 June 2024

Happy Birthday, Porter

Cole Porter was born on this day in 1891.

Lisa Stansfield, "Down In The Depths (On the Ninetieth Floor)"...

09 June 2023

Happy Birthday, Porter

Cole Porter was born on this day in 1891.

"Well, Did You Evah!"

Frank and Bingo ...

Deborah and Jim (that rare case when 10 + 10 =...) ...

04 April 2023

Frank Sinatra, "In the Still of the Night"

09 June 2022

Happy Birthday, Porter

Cole Porter was born on this day in 1891.

Lisa Stansfield, "Down in the Depths (On the 90th Floor)"

18 November 2021

Workingman's.

Anchor's short history of Porters ...

All historical references to “porter” seem to go back to 1722 and one Ralph Harwood, a London brewer. Harwood created a beer that was originally called “Entire.” Entire previously had referred to a blend of three separate beers, consisting of one third each beer, ale, and strong beer. This blend was also known as “Three Threads,” probably vernacular for “three thirds.” Prior to Harwood, Entire was mixed in the bar at the point of service.

Entire quickly became popular as the workingman’s pint of choice, and as several historians seem to think, became known as “porter” because it was a particular favorite of the porters who labored at the local markets and also delivered the product to the pubs.

CONNECT

17 October 2021

Thrill.

Volkov, Autumn Wind, n/d

Crispy air and azure skies,

High above, a white cloud flies,

Bright as newly fallen snow.

Oh the joy to those who know October!

Colors bright on bush and tree.

Over the weedy swamp, we see

A veil of purple and brown and gold.

Thy beauty words have never told. October!

Scolding sparrows on the lawn,

Rabbits frisking home at dawn,

Pheasants midst the sheaves of grain,

All in harmony acclaim, October!

Brown earth freshly turned by plow,

Apples shine on bended bough,

Bins o'erflowed with oats and wheat,

And satisfaction reigns complete. October!

Radiant joy is everywhere.

Spirits in tune to the spicy air,

Thrill in the glory of each day.

Life's worth living when we say, October!

Joseph Pullman Porter

30 September 2021

Frank Sinatra, "At Long Last Love"

06 August 2021

In.

Porter, Dog at the Door, 1971

The RESEMBLANCE BETWEEN YOUR LIFE and a DOG

I never intended to have this life, believe me—

It just happened. You know how dogs turn up

At a farm, and they wag but can’t explain.

It’s good if you can accept your life—you’ll notice

Your face has become deranged trying to adjust

To it. Your face thought your life would look

Like your bedroom mirror when you were ten.

That was a clear river touched by mountain wind.

Even your parents can’t believe how much you’ve changed.

Sparrows in winter, if you’ve ever held one, all feathers,

Burst out of your hand with a fiery glee.

You see them later in hedges. Teachers praise you,

But you can’t quite get back to the winter sparrow.

Your life is a dog. He’s been hungry for miles,

Doesn’t particularly like you, but gives up, and comes in.

Robert Bly

03 August 2021

Ethereal.

Porter, The Edge in the Afternoon, 1961

GREAT SPRUCE HEAD ISLAND

Like a tadpole heading north, its head highest in the

bay

Covered on the northside of the head with ferny

birchwoods

In the late spring full of fragrant twinflowers and

flowering bunchberries

And strawberries in the meadow, and daisies, and red

and yellow hawkweed

And on the shore the seaweed exposed by the yawning

tide

Yawning southward toward the islands past the wind.

In the summer every afternoon rises the southwest

wind

And the off-shore winds are full of the scent of bay

And the quiet foggy days of the smell of the beach at

low tide

And the warm breath of sunset exhales through the hollow

spruce woods

And the bright winds of June are full of the light of

the hawkweed

And the summer winds ethereal with a series

ripening berries.

Fairfield Porter

Close.

Porter, The Edge in the Morning, 1961

WHY I WOULD RATHER BE a PAINTER

The most important thing is the quality of love.

Love means paying very close attention

to something and you can only pay close attention to

something because you

can't help doing so.

Fairfield Porter

09 June 2021

Cole Porter, "Well, Did You Evah?"

Frank & Bingo

Havin' a nice time?
Grab a line ...

Deb & Jim

I've never seen such yuppity ...

Ella Fitzgerald & Nat "King" Cole, "You're the Top"

Happy Birthday, Porter

Cole Porter was born on this date in 1891.

Franks sings "I Get a Kick Out of You" ...

25 October 2020

Know.

Dad's senior year in high school ...

Crispy air and azure skies,

High above, a white cloud flies,

Bright as newly fallen snow.

Oh the joy to those who know October!

Colors bright on bush and tree.

Over the weedy swamp, we see

A veil of purple and brown and gold.

Thy beauty words have never told. October!

Scolding sparrows on the lawn,

Rabbits frisking home at dawn,

Pheasants midst the sheaves of grain,

All in harmony acclaim, October!

Brown earth freshly turned by plow,

Apples shine on bended bough,

Bins o'erflowed with oats and wheat,

And satisfaction reigns complete. October!

Radiant joy is everywhere.

Spirits in tune to the spicy air,

Thrill in the glory of each day.

Life's worth living when we say, October!

Joseph Pullman Porter

09 June 2020

Happy Birthday, Porter

Cole Porter was born on this date in 1891.

k.d. lang performs "So in Love" ...

09 June 2019

Happy Birthday, Porter

Cole Porter was born on this date in 1891.

Frank and Bingo, "Well Did You Evah?"

09 June 2018

Happy birthday, Porter.

Cole Porter was born on this day in 1891.

Frank and Bingo ask, "Well, Did You Evah?"

BARRY HINES

"That's why it makes me mad when I take her out and I'll hear somebody say, 'Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk. I could shout at 'em; it's not a pet, Sir, hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me, right. And that's why it's great.Look, there's Billy Casper there wi' his pet hawk.' I could shout at 'em. It's not a pet, Sir. Hawks are not pets. Or when folks stop me and say, 'Is it tame?' Is it heck tame, it's trained, that's all. It's fierce, and it's wild, an' it's not bothered about anybody, not even about me right. And that's why it's great." (A Kestrel for a Knave)

WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

"When I am, as it were, completely myself, entirely alone and of good cheer – say travelling in a carriage or walking after a good meal, or during the night when I cannot sleep – it is on such occasions that my ideas flow best and most abundantly. Whence, and how, they come I know not ; nor can I force them. Those ideas that please me I retain in memory and am accustomed, as I have been told, to hum them to myself. If I continue in this way, it soon occurs to me how I may turn this dainty morsel to account, so as to make a good dish of it. That is to say, agreeable to the rules of counterpoint, to the peculiarities of various instruments etc. All this fires my soul, and, provided I am not disturbed, my subject enlarges itself, becomes methodised, and defined, and the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once. What a delight this is, I cannot tell."

WALT WHITMAN

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow’d wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.

MARCUS AURELIUS

"Is your cucumber bitter? Throw it away. Are there briars in your path? Turn aside. That is enough. Do not go on and say, 'Why were things of this sort ever brought into this world?' neither intolerable nor everlasting - if thou bearest in mind that it has its limits, and if thou addest nothing to it in imagination. Pain is either an evil to the body (then let the body say what it thinks of it!)-or to the soul. But it is in the power of the soul to maintain its own serenity and tranquility."

VINCENT van GOGH

"What am I in the eyes of most people? A nonentity or an oddity or a disagreeable person — someone who has and will have no position in society, in short a little lower than the lowest. Very well — assuming that everything is indeed like that, then through my work I’d like to show what there is in the heart of such an oddity, such a nobody. This is my ambition, which is based less on resentment than on love in spite of everything, based more on a feeling of serenity than on passion. Even though I’m often in a mess, inside me there’s still a calm, pure harmony and music. In the poorest little house, in the filthiest corner, I see paintings or drawings. And my mind turns in that direction as if with an irresistible urge. As time passes, other things are increasingly excluded, and the more they are the faster my eyes see the picturesque. Art demands persistent work, work in spite of everything, and unceasing observation."

DAN CAMPBELL