The Athenaeum

Doc Watson, 1923-2012

We lost one of the best yesterday.

Over the years I've had the privilege of hearing Doc Watson play live many times- with his son Merle, & after Merle's passing with a very fine side man from Monroe NC, Jack Lawrence. The last time was in the small performance room at the back of McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica CA.  That evening my daughter clapped so hard a large ring she was wearing broke in half & went loudly skidding across the wood floor to everyone's amusement, including Doc & Jack's.  Jack explained to Doc what the noise was & he leaned out over the tiny stage to tell her, "It certainly is nice to be that appreciated, young lady."

Doc Watson was not only a virtuoso guitar, banjo, & mandolin picker, but had a stage manner so relaxed & genuine you felt you were sitting on a back porch somewhere listening to him play:

 Black Mountain Rag (with Jack Lawrence)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdUrg2Cqxdw 

Southbound (with Merle Watson)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STpiAfxy0-s

 

-Maureen Lang

 

 

Targets - by Basilisk

 

 

The two men, heavy laden with the implements of destruction, scuffed through crunching autumn leaves. The scent of winter was somewhere near by.

“I doubt we’ll sneak up on anything with all this noise.” The man carried a deer rifle with a heavy leather sling.  The rifle’s stock showed dents and scratches.  The slender barrel wore a patina cut through by shiny patches. It mounted an anachronistic, Chinese-made scope that contrasted by its cheapness with the utilitarian old rifle.

“That’s what’s nice about being out early—the quiet—and I’m ruining it.” The speaker dragged a heavy black rifle case,  “I guess I could carry this thing, but that’s why they call it a sniper drag bag, right?” The weapon in the case was a modern Savage, a thing that looked suited to Star Wars’ imperial storm troopers. It was all fluted black steel and ridged aluminum. There was a folded bipod and a massive piece of glass on the rifle’s back.

Memorial Day 2012: "This Story Shall The Good Man Teach His Son"

Re-posted from 2009 for this Memorial Day:

"This Story Shall The Good Man Teach His Son" 

  

  

(Enter the KING)

WESTMORELAND. O that we now had here 
    But one ten thousand of those men in England 
    That do no work to-day! 
  
KING. What's he that wishes so? 
    My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin; 
    If we are mark'd to die, we are enow 
    To do our country loss; and if to live, 
    The fewer men, the greater share of honour. 
    God's will! I pray thee, wish not one man more. 
    By Jove, I am not covetous for gold, 
    Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost; 
    It yearns me not if men my garments wear; 
    Such outward things dwell not in my desires. 
    But if it be a sin to covet honour, 
    I am the most offending soul alive. 
    No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England. 
    God's peace! I would not lose so great an honour 
    As one man more methinks would share from me 
    For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more! 
    Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host, 
    That he which hath no stomach to this fight, 
    Let him depart; his passport shall be made, 
    And crowns for convoy put into his purse; 
    We would not die in that man's company 
    That fears his fellowship to die with us. 
    This day is call'd the feast of Crispian. 
    He that outlives this day, and comes safe home, 
    Will stand a tip-toe when this day is nam'd, 
    And rouse him at the name of Crispian. 
    He that shall live this day, and see old age, 
    Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours, 
    And say 'To-morrow is Saint Crispian.' 
    Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, 
    And say 'These wounds I had on Crispian's day.' 
    Old men forget; yet all shall be forgot, 
    But he'll remember, with advantages, 
    What feats he did that day. Then shall our names, 
    Familiar in his mouth as household words- 
    Harry the King, Bedford and Exeter, 
    Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester- 
    Be in their flowing cups freshly rememb'red. 
    This story shall the good man teach his son; 
    And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by, 
    From this day to the ending of the world, 
    But we in it shall be remembered- 
    We few, we happy few, we band of brothers; 
    For he to-day that sheds his blood with me 
    Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, 
    This day shall gentle his condition; 
    And gentlemen in England now-a-bed 
    Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here, 
    And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks 
    That fought with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

Henry V | Act IV, Scene 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAvmLDkAgAM

 

-Maureen Lang

 

Bloody Bucket--Basilisk

 

In daytime, the place was just a normal house, down at the heels, surrounded by a gravel parking lot where a lawn may once have existed. At night, it was the infamous “Bloody Bucket.”

The name was derived from a makeshift sign that hung, a bit cockeyed, from the rusted rain gutter over the sagging front porch. Proprietress Delilah Grimm, known almost universally as “Lil,” had been thwarted in her original plan. She had wanted to call the place “Delilah’s Bucket o’ Blood Tavern and Grille.”

When it was time for the sign to be painted, however, she discovered that one of her half-witted sons—as she never failed to describe them—had decided that the bocce balls would be far easier to see in the evening games if they were painted red. In their crafty but stupid way, the two teenagers found the paint.

The Italian miners, who were the only users of said bocce balls, claimed the two idiots had left runs of paint on the balls that made them take screwy paths like Dizzy Dean’s junk pitches. They refused to use them.