Monday, September 03, 2012

It was considerate of him, no?

It was my birthday yesterday; I am half-way between birth and ninety, 30 and 60, I am five years older than five years ago (this is meaningful, trust me).

Please, I am not saying this to glean birthday greetings. I just wanted to point out that Lenny Cohen came and played Helsinki to celebrate the occasion – and a damn fine job the lovely old dude did do, too.

I dressed for the occasion. It was the least I could do, I felt.

10 comments:

Reading the Signs said...

Important things first: did you give Lenny my love and tell him about me remembering his gig in Jerusalem in the '70s? I have the 'Bird on a Wire' CD so I can re-live it as often as I want. Can almost swear I can see myself in the audience.

Oh, and happy birthday, which I came yesterday to say, and I said quite a lot about the saying of it but then didn't. But now it is a day later, so we have a problem. On the other hand, I know that you do retrospectives quite easily. So that's ok then.

x

Anna MR said...

Well hrm. To tell you the truth, Signskins, I was rather overwhelmed by it all and especially by Lenny's presence and the gorgeous life-earned gravel in his voice and so I sorta well um hmm like forgot, k? But Lenny did give me a wink and a thumbs-up, which now that I think of it clearly meant "tomorrow, Anna, when you think of your forgetful boo-boo of not passing on the greetings of fair Signs (how could I forget you, girl?), whilst being mortified you'll also remember this semi-secret gesture I gave you and realise it is okay, that I read your perfect goodwill with my mind".

I think you can see plain as day that Lenny remembers you and sends his regards.

Sincerely,

A MR

Reading the Signs said...

That's ok then. And I like that you put "Sincerely" at the end - touch of class.

I hardly ever comment anywhere these days so have almost forgotten about this robot-checking business. Today the word is memonen which is at least readable and friendly-sounding, but there have been some shockers. They really don't like letting one in easily, do they? Robots are quite sophisticated these days and could probably get round all this in any case. I may actually be a robot, for all you know.

Reading the Signs said...

Is that photo of you? Is it? Yes, it is! Gorgeous. What are you on? I want some.

And damnation, now I can't read the robot word - or see the 3-digit number.

Anna MR said...

Prescription meds (the new ones are good, as mentioned in the previous post) and some red wine, my dear. Two big glasses, in fact; although my native Finland, bless it, is officially The Land of the Rhinoceri, for it is/was not allowed to take one's wine to one's seats, and it was also sorta not allowed to stand up and dance. Obviously, my friend and I disobeyed wildly and with no regard to our personal reputation (or the fact that we had what was near-enough front-row seats but made do with staying waaaaaaaaaaaaaay further back where both red wine was allowed (and indeed, sold) and dancing was okay).

We won in the end, you'll be happy to know; and I believe Lenny was, too, for Finnish audiences can be a bit like performing to a very large black hole that absolutely sucks into nonexistence all the energy and beauty you throw at them, without giving a sausage back. But yes, we won in the end, we The Masses, We The People, for they couldn't stop us dancing (and so Lenny threw what was pretty much one more set as encores, in his delight at our dancing feet).

Oh do be quiet. Me, obviously. But yes. Thank you. The gorgeousness of the photo doth lie in its total accidental flaws, I believe, which give it movement and colour and interestingness (and which doth hide mine lines and wrinkles cetra).

If you are a robot, I will eat my hat. And if I have to eat hat, you are the nicest robot one ever met, considerably nicer than the bulk of people.

Yes verily, with a touch of class.

x

Anna MR said...

Ooops. Meant to say, "prescription meds, red wine, and Lenny". Naturally.

x

trousers said...

Happy Birthday, Ms MR, nonetheless. I note that you are a similar age to me :)

Do forgive me for failing - so far - to provide a suitable and adequate response to your previous comments to me - but may I say that they haven't been forgotten.

All in good time, I hope.

x

Anna MR said...

housut of loveliness – no way am I going to "forgive" you anything at all; for your visit is delightful to me, and to speak of a need of forgiveness within the same sentence – nay, paragraph – of thanking you for your visit and kind words is an aberration, housut, a total aberration; and I am really trying not to make myself guilty of (any more) aberrations.

So nothing to forgive but plenty to say thank you about: Thank You, housut; and how totally very delightful to see you, and charmed by your greetings (and but wait – are we really of the same vintage? The vintage of the Summer of Lurve, young housut?)

This isn't to say that any and all responses that you may give in the goodness and fullness of time wouldn't be very, very welcome, k? Just that there is no obligation or a sense of debt (oh ick).

Just totally happy to see you, and hoping for many such returns, oh fellow vintageling of mine.

x

trousers said...

Hi again, Ms Mr - I've arrived back uncommonly soon, but thought that at the very least - as well as to give further thanks for your kind response - I should clarify the age thing.

(Oh and I'll ask for forgiveness once more, this time just for the amount of hyphens in that first sentence above.)

Well then - not quite the same age - three years' difference. It's just when one gets to this kind of age then a couple of years or so doesn't seem like so much, anymore.

I see you've also posted about Mr Waits - I haven't read it, but I'm sloping off for the night now, but I should add that he's one of my favourites.

x

Anna MR said...

The rich use of hyphenation – especially in the right style and done with taste – and, even more centrally, with humour – is the salt of this – very bland! – earth, young housut – so there's no need to apologise over it – or indeed, over anything else – certainly not over in this House of Future and Past – no need at all.

But ha! I knew you were a young housut, the moment I clapped keyboard and computer screen on you, all those years ago. (Yes, of course you are right‚ a few years' difference at this age is not a difference – indeed, I have friends sixteen years my junior and twenty-thirty years my senior, and whilst one acknowledges the difference in life situation, circumstance and to some, albeit varying, degree, of experience, these things do not stand in the way of friendship. Funnily enough, I also have, through my work, very, very much enjoyed the company of very young children – as you might remember, housut, since you've been with this blog for a while. There is always the aspect of care when dealing with young children, of course, and dealing with young children professionally within the caring profession (if you like) does tint the relationship somewhat, so that you cannot perhaps call it friendship. But the company and the presence of people considerably younger than myself has been a source of joy and learning that has made my life a much better place – and, one does like to think, me a better person. So, you know, that was my Short Take on Age as Regards Friendship. I am wordy in the extreme, young housut, at this early hour, it seems. Just be warned.)

Yees. So that's nicely ironed out (with the odd punctuational pleat nicely ironed in, what-what). I absolutely adore Mr Waits, housut, adore him – but, as you might find out sooner or later even without me telling you this in so many words – I haven't strictly speaking posted about him. Rather, I've uploaded one of his songs and the lyrics to it. I do this sometimes, because, well, I just like the soundtrack-to-my-mind-and/or-life-at-the-moment-of-posting aspect of that.

I hope you slept beautifully, housut, for beautiful sleep is inherently beautiful in its own right - and we won't even start on how good it is for you, too, for we all know that and could do without the repetition of the obvious…

…in the meantime, I remain, as always,

Yours very sincerely,

A Mr x