Oh, Jill, thanks for all this. Blokettes and straight bats - Jeezus - a life
of nonsensical oxymorons! At least crickets are consistent. Tho I like
grasshoppers best - I don't even know if they make a sound - but elegant.
Probably Buddhists in a former life - an addiction to sitting very quietly.
I am sure Cricket would be too concentrated and formal for me with my
attention deficit disorder, and impatience with real drawn out ritual. I
like to walk by baseball games in the park, or pause long enough to get the
drift. But if I were in Australia I would humbly take it all in.
A couple of nonsensical walking asides:
I like Frank O'hara partly because I always sense the poem is going
somewhere - with these perceptions popping up along the way.
I find Ashberry more like an almost too brilliant camera obscura - he sits,
and the periscope picks up everything. When it's good, it's good. But I sort
of want him to get up off his ass.
Frankly, have not read either one in a while. Nor Tennyson. Does't Julia (?)
Cameron have a great photograph of Tennyson? Shaggy dude and then some.
Off to market. Snow in San Francisco? Maybe.
Elections in Iraq? Over whose dead bodies? Thanks 'death and no liberty',
George.
Thanks again, Jill
> Hi Stephen,
>
> Oh, we got those kinds of crickets too. I think they're native but I could be
> wrong there. Did you know they've got tough little jaws and can bite? Years
> ago
> I was escorting one from my abode (it was keeping me awake with its song) and
> it got a bit grumpy with me, understandably. I hope it enjoyed the garden. I
> like them but they can get very noisy once they take up residence indoors.
>
> But cricket actually is more than a sport in this country and many others (not
> the US or Canada to any extent but you do have teams that play internationally
> on a small scale). It's not just British actors in Hollywood making up an
> eleven for a bit of hit and giggle. Involves, amongst other things, bat and
> ball, a pitch, stumps and bails, stump-cam, two teams of eleven each blokes,
> or
> blokettes (plus a 12th 'man'), batting (thus, 'keeping a straight bat'),
> bowling (quicks, leggies, etc), fielding (and wicket keeping) plus umpires,
> screens, drinks, lunch, tea, scoreboards, statistics for every single aspect
> you could ever want to name or hadn't even thought of, sledging (Australians
> are best at this), crowds of tragics, the odd streaker, Mexican waves, that
> kind of thing. I won't go into lbw (a very dark mystery), gullies or silly
> mid-
> on, boxes (a bit private), or when the covers have to be drawn and all that
> kind of caper. Andrew can tell you far more about it.
>
> Crickets don't play cricket - they are too busy singing.
>
> I'm a quiet cricket tragic (not wishing to align myself with Little Johnny
> who's a loud one). Cricket tragics cover the entire political, cultural and
> gender spectrum. As it's summer, it's in the headlines at the moment - such
> that the Sri Lankan team returned from its New Zealand tour to help with the
> tsunami clean-up. And two big fund-raising matches will be played.
>
> You see, it's big, unlike crickets which are small.
>
> Hope all that is clear.
>
> Cheers,
> Jill
>
>
>> Jill, your tongue must be too far inside your cheek! "Crickets" are the
>> nocturnal insects - who at 'the outset of evening darkness' begin chatter
>> incessantly with that very sound, "cricket, cricket, cricket.' Only in North
>> America?? I think the sound relates to the way they 'sport' with each other.
>>
>> What are 'crickets' called in Australia? I cannot believe some of them way
>> back did not migrate there on some sailor's duffle bag, or such.
>>
>> Is cricket a sport or something in your country?
>>
>> S
>> Blog: http://stephenvincent.durationpress.com
>>
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