Winking up like shining eyes

Wheel gull spin and glide -- you've no place to hide
Cause you don't need one
All along the Lee shore
Shells lie scattered in the sand
Winking up like shining eyes - at me, from the sea
Here is one like sunrise
Older than you know
It's still lying there where some careless wave
Forgot it long ago
When I woke this morning
Dove beneath my floating home
Down below my graceful side
In the turning tide
To watch the sea fish roam
There I heard a story

From the sailors of the Sandra Marie
There's another island a day's run away from here
Empty and free
From here to Venezuela nothing more than to see
Than a hundred thousand islands
Flung out like jewels upon the sea
For you and me

Sunset smells of dinner

Women are calling at me to end my tales

But perhaps I'll see you the next quiet place
I unfurl my sails.

Beauty.

*******

Play it with the volume up. Then compare that version with these other two -- one Crosby and Nash from 1971, and the other CSN in 1991.

Personally I prefer the version on my Carry On disk to all three -- just for the way he delivers the jewels upon the sea line.

*******

Been listening to this song all morning. It came up on the poodle while I was in a cab yesterday, eyes fortuitously closed. Took me back to a Dosa Hut in Long Island some years ago, where walking in to pick up a take-away order, I came across a late-middle-aged guy in an old CSNY t-shirt. I asked him if he was planning to go for their reunion tour; he said yes. He asked me back, and I said with my limited budget I'd rather go to the Phil and Friends show since I knew they were a real live band who wouldn't just be playing covers from thirty years ago.

He said yeah, but you can always see them again -- these guys, who knows if they'll tour again.

I thought he was being a little sentimental.

But yesterday afternoon in the cab I found myself wishing I'd gone instead.

*******

Wisdom that comes with years? Last week as part of one of my in-class stunts I broke off from the Theory Of Reasoned Action to elicit the name of a concert performer that someone in the class would really like to go see. (Previous years I've mainly gotten names of local acts, due to which i can now drop names like Kelly Chen and Eason Chan. This year, funnily enough, I heard first Justin Timberlake and then Madonna. Is the East Being Won?) In the last section, a Chinese-American exchange student piped up: "Roger Waters!"

["Ah, Roger Waters!" I said, "That's one that I'd consider going to myself." Then I asked the rest of the class if they'd heard of Roger Waters. Turned out no one had, so we had to change the example. The exchange student graciously amended his response to 'Britney Spears'; I said, "Woo, Britney Spears! Let's party like it's 1999!"; so everyone was happy and the Theory of Reasoned Action had its moment in the sun.]

After class the exchange student, along with a couple of Canadians, approached me tentatively and with a quaver in his voice asked me if I really did like Roger Waters. I told him that well I don't really like his solo stuff, not any more anyway [cue nods and understanding noises], but there was a time when I wouldn't think very highly of you if you weren't able to name all the Floyd albums in chronological order. "Really?!" one of them said. "You're a rock fan?" "A card-carrying one," I replied, and I flashed my GD keychain at them. (How freaking corny!)

We talked briefly about the Roger Waters concert in HK the previous month, and then they *seriously* staggered out of the room. On Wednesday, the same kid came to me before class and showed me a photo of Roger Waters he'd snapped on his camera phone during the concert (they'd busted through to the rails). I asked him if he liked reggae. He replied, uncertainly, that he did. I told him about the Dub Side of the Moon CD. Thursday I lent it to him.

He's due to return it tomorrow. I wonder what he thinks of it.

Are you living
In reality?
I left years ago, it quite nearly killed me