The Shadows – “See You In My Drums”
The Shadows

A few of The Shadows’ surfy ‘60s tunes may sound familiar, as songs from that era often do. But there are otheres where they hit their stride and do something they like and you feel they wish they could jam on it forever. This is one, with a wonderful extended drum solo by Tony Meehan.

In man or fish, wriggling is a sign of inferiority.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick

Vocabulary: Midleaf Crasis Edition

surcingle: belt worn with a cassock; also one used to strap burdens to horses
crasis: blending or mingling; also combining two vowels into one sound
pasquil: also pasquinade, a satire or lampoon, usually posted publicly
poetaster: an inferior poet (-aster is a universal pejorative suffix)
aerolite: a meteorite, esp. one composed of silicates
caoutchouc: also cauchauc, archaic term for rubber
appetence: desire, appetite, affinity, or tendency
hibernian: relating to Ireland, or an Irish person
chark: to create charcoal, or the material itself
jakes: an outhouse or other outdoors lavatory
wain: an open-topped wagon or cart
collogue: to secretly conspire or plot
putid: morally or chemically corrupt
propugn: to defend or advocate for
harridan: a scolding woman or nag
succade: candied citrus peel
quondam: former, erstwhile
imposthume: an abscess
trivant: truant

The Blue Rondos – “Little Baby”

Produced by Joe Meeks, this and a handful of others were all this short-lived British band put out in the early ‘60s. Still, “Little Baby” is note-perfect: very much a bouncy pop song, yet ever so slightly bent. (official site – watch for autoplaying music)

Failure is less frequently attributable to either insufficiency of means or impatience of labour, than to a confused understanding of the thing actually to be done.

John Ruskin, The Seven Lamps of Architecture

I now rambled about in great uneasiness from the coffee-house to the promenade, from thence to the museum, from the museum to the tavern, from the tavern to the exhibition of wild beasts, and at last to the playhouse, but I could nowhere find tranquillity.

Lawrence Flammenberg, The Necromancer; or, The Tale of the Black Forest

Love has many masks; masks of submission and of oppression; and even more terrible masks that make Nature a stranger to herself and ‘turn the truth of God into a lie,’ as St. Paul wrote.

Ray Russell, Sardonicus