Before You're Sixty-Four.

Diane · Post by **Diane** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 1:29 am

I think somebody should record this with your words, Lizzy. And Jarkko should install an automatic sensing device for when people are getting their knickers in a twist which will then set off the song. Oh, let it be so

.

Diane

Andrew McGeever · Post by **Andrew McGeever** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 4:26 pm

To those obsessed with knickers (especially of the twisted variety), can you please travel slightly upwards to the items which can, consensually of course, be unbuttoned?

I recall stating that "unbutton" is, in my opinion, one of the most erotic words in the English language. Perhaps "knickers" is for others.

Andrew.

P.S. I can still do the Twist, so there!

lizzytysh · Post by **lizzytysh** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:28 pm

Now you have ME laughing out loud, Diane... what a trip!!! To have a sensor that would make for an auto turn-on [electronic variety] of the song. Perhaps, triggered by how hard the keys are being pounded

?

Andrew ~

This particular, well-knickered issue is one clearly of the "you reap what you sow" variety ~ that particular piece of apparel would never have entered my mind in the entirety of this discussion were it not for your mentioning them yourself. It's been at least a century since they unbuttoned, too... so, even that unbutton reference wouldn't have prompted the thought

. I did envision a woman's blouse and a man's shirt, however... and, yes, erotic indeed

. I don't recall your saying that about the word "unbutton," though ~ when did you do that? Did I miss it in this thread?

~ Lizzy

Diane · Post by **Diane** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 5:31 pm

Hi Andrew. If you are referring to my silliness

, I was expanding only on the humorous way that Lizzy picked up on you saying there was 'no need to get your knickers in a twist' about your poem. I was not referring to the poem itself. Sorry, threads do go off on tangents that's for sure.

You said:

"Unbutton" is the key to unlock the poem, while Boris Pasternak permits me to speak about the coastlines of our lives

.

"unbutton" is, in my opinion, one of the most erotic words in the English language

Please explain more about your poem.

Oh, I didn't see your post until after I'd posted, Lizzy

.

Perhaps, triggered by how hard the keys are being pounded ?

Yes, or maybe a pressure sensor on the submit button would do it?

In silliness,

Diane

Andrew McGeever · Post by **Andrew McGeever** » Fri Mar 31, 2006 11:07 pm

Dear Diane,
The couplet which ends the poem was taken from (inspired by?) Boris Pasternak; not from one of his poems, but his novel "Doctor Zhivago".
He wrote;
"She was near and dear to him
In every feature
As the shores are close to the sea
In every breaker."

The novel, sent to the "West", was made into a film starring the incredibly handsome Omar Sharif and the eminently unbuttonable Julie Christie.
Pasternak won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958 (but that's the stuff of another thread).

Diane, that's all for now.

Andrew.

P.S. The girls at my high school fell in love with Omar Sharif, after watching "Doctor Zhivago". Knickers in vertical descent; no twisting.
Mind you, that's before I introduced them (well, 2 or 3) to "The Songs of Leonard Cohen".

Diane · Post by **Diane** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 5:58 pm

Hi Andrew,

Aha, Doctor Zhivago, yes a lovely film, but I have never read the book.

while Boris Pasternak permits me to speak about the coastlines of our lives.

On the coastline of our lives, on the edges, away from where we spend most of our time, lie memories of breakers, and intimacy once shared. Yes, I understand the inspiration for your poem. Can you explain the 'sailing by' line? Why is it in italics?

P.S. The girls at my high school fell in love with Omar Sharif, after watching "Doctor Zhivago". Knickers in vertical descent; no twisting.
Mind you, that's before I introduced them (well, 2 or 3) to "The Songs of Leonard Cohen".

Careful now, you don't want to entice the thought police back into your thread

. But then, I must say I do find Geoffrey's posts entertaining to read.

Good wishes,

Diane

Andrew McGeever · Post by **Andrew McGeever** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:52 pm

Sailing By is the music played on B.B.C. Radio 4 every night: it accompanies the Shipping Forecast; messages to mariners who listen in, people like me. Then the channel changes to B.B.C. World Service.
Sailing By is the safe, comforting stuff to send you off to sleep.
Try it....it works

Diane · Post by **Diane** » Mon Apr 03, 2006 10:58 pm

Oh, it's that music is it? Ah, the shipping forecast is such a quaint old custom, like red telephone kiosks, and people being polite to each other. I must tune into radio 4, just to hear it

.

Diane

Andrew McGeever · Post by **Andrew McGeever** » Wed Apr 12, 2006 11:24 pm

"Such a quaint old custom" (sic).
Well, Diane, have you tuned into Sailing By ?
If so, let me know, for that's what half this poem's all about.
And as for the other half........

Andrew.

Diane · Post by **Diane** » Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:46 pm

No, not yet, but I'll make a big effort to tune in this week, if that's what it'll take to get ya to explain...

Geoffrey · Post by **Geoffrey** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 9:04 am

Andrew McGeever wrote [edited]:

>i'd like to take you to a
>bed-and-breakfast place and
>sign us in as smith or jones no
>clues for partners, mum's the word
>
>we'd lock the door
>unbutton each other
>shed decades of separation
>our bodies spoons
>
>then kiss, i whispered:
>you were nearer and
>dearer to me than breakers
>crashing on the shore
--------------------------------
>It would appear that my poem has caused a mini-outbreak of moral indignation.

At the end of his 'Gypsy Wife' song Leonard warns that those who endanger relationships will one day have to account for their deeds. A severe punishment sets a good example to others. As Stalin said; "One can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs." Do you know what it's like to babysit while a wife is out, and welcome her home in the early hours - scarf hiding a neck covered in love-bites? Moral indignation? The above poem is about devilish promiscuity, about a couple of disgusting selfish two-timing double-dealing adulterous insects hiding like the guilty lowlife fornicators that they are behind locked doors and under false names, whispering and indulging in debauchery while spending good housekeeping money on overnight lodgings where they can engage in filthy copulation instead of using it on their respective familys' welfare - and such a union makes me shudder. Rightly enough, the path to heaven goes through the graveyard - but loose and unscrupulous liars who favour licentious whoring and commandment-breaking before honesty and wholesome conduct, who shun scriptures like the plague and wallow in the lecherous gratification of Satan's repugnant cesspit of falsity - their black diseased heathen souls are unredeemably shovelled down into the unending inferno, into the eternal fiery pit of hell to suffer the agonising torture of burning for ever and ever. Amen.

bee · Post by **bee** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 9:02 pm

Rightly enough, the path to heaven goes through the graveyard - but loose and unscrupulous liars who favour licentious whoring and commandment-breaking before honesty and wholesome conduct, who shun scriptures like the plague and wallow in the lecherous gratification of Satan's repugnant cesspit of falsity - their black diseased heathen souls are unredeemably shovelled down into the unending inferno, into the eternal fiery pit of hell to suffer the agonising torture of burning for ever and ever. Amen.

the prospect sounds good to me Geoffrey- but then again, one has to wonder - if these ones who indulged themselves in carnal pleasures and romantic illusions are condemned to the heat of hell- what are you going to do with the rapists and killers and molesters? Is there a place in hell hotter that this one, where you placed the adulterers? Hell could be overwhelmed with too many clients?

Martine · Post by **Martine** » Sat Apr 22, 2006 10:19 pm

Don't worry bee, there'll be enough room for us all.

The more the merrier heh?

Andrew McGeever · Post by **Andrew McGeever** » Sun Apr 23, 2006 7:21 pm

This must be the first post ever, in the history of the L.C. Files, where, in the same paragraph, Josef Stalin is quoted alongside Leonard Cohen.
I refer to Geoffrey's latest rant (it's a wind-up, surely

)
If he wants to pm me, fair enough.
Margaret wrote, in a previous post, that I must be enjoying this attention.
Well, I'd rather the responses addressed the text of the poem, and not leap to conclusions about my, or anyone elses' life-style.

Andrew.

P.S. To be honest, I like the poem: I can't say that about most I've written lately.