The Lovers’ Chronicle 17 June – stay – art by Giovanni Paolo Panini – birth of Charles Gounod – photography by Carl Van Vechten

Dear Zazie, Here is today’s Lovers’ Chronicle from Mac Tag. Rhett

The Lovers’ Chronicle

Dear Muse,

some days are a struggle
to find a song
not today
goin’ with the second one
that came to mind;
’’Stay all night stay a little longer
Dance all night dance a little longer
Pull off your coat, throw it in the corner,
Don't see why you can't stay a little longer’’
written by Bob Wills and Tommy Duncan
’’Swinging with a great song’’
anything Bob Wills, anytime
but i would change the third verse;
’’You oughtta see my blue eyed Anna
The finest woman in Atlanta’’
’’Oh thank you my love
but I was already staying all night’’
just makin’ sure my dear,
now i gotta go back to sittin’
in the window writin’ for you

© copyright 2023.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

have written about this many times, i was the fallin’ kind, not the stayin’ kind; fell often and hard and left often and hard, will wear the crown of the least prepared to ever try, but, as also oft repeated, those colossal mistakes led to the verse; that leads to an interestin’ question, pre-you; what would i have rather had; a lifetime of bein’ with the one but without the words or endin’ up alone and writin’; solitude of course but the third option is the best

© copyright 2022.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

i have been tryin’
i even wrote about it
show me somethin’

i had no idea

come a little closer
tell me you know

how to feel about it
somethin’ in the way you are
takes me all the way

i found the reason
the need to hold on

somethin’ in the way
i miss you, takes me

Pale Love, Pale Rider

i have been tryin’

i said show me somethin’
if you come a little closer
now tell me you know

how to feel about it
somethin’ in the way you are
takes me all the way

i found the reason
the only need to hold on

funny, when you are broken
how you have to want
to be saved

no, never asked anyone
not the askin’ kind
pretty much always figured
the doors were not blocked
remember, i was one
for fallin’ not stayin’ 
reckon anyone in ga
can change that

© copyright 2019.2024 mac tag/cowboy coleridge all rights reserved

all along
i said show me somethin’
if you dare come a little closer

round and around
now tell me you know

how to feel about it
somethin’ in the way you are
takes me all the way
if you would stay

not just somethin’ given
round and around
now tell me you know

how to feel about it
somethin’ in the way
you make me feel
takes me all the way
if you want to stay

i found the reason
the only need to hold on

funny, when you are broken
how you have to want
to be saved

when you are without
for so long, hard to know

how to feel about it
somethin’ in the way
i miss you, takes me…

i want you to stay

would it matter to weep
to see you haste away
would it be as well to ask
first light to stay until
the day has run to evensong

if we speak of together
will we go along as before

we have a short time
to stay, to give to be
as hours do and dry
away, never to be found

screen porch evenin’

Ugly times ugly y’all
Darkness upon darkness
Eternal misery
Everlastin’ will not
go away pain, Amen

Today is the birthday of Giovanni Paolo Panini or Pannini (Piacenza, Duchy of Parma, Holy Roman Empire 17 June 1691 – 21 October 1765 Rome, Papal States); painter and architect, who worked in Rome and is mainly known as one of the vedutisti (“view painters”). As a painter, Panini is best known for his vistas of Rome, in which he took a particular interest in the city’s antiquities. Among his most famous works are his view of the interior of the Pantheon (on behalf of Francesco Algarotti), and his vedute, paintings of picture galleries containing views of Rome.

Portrait by Louis Gabriel Blanchet

In 1724 he married Miss Gossert, sister-in-law of Wengkels, director of the French Academy in Rome, with whom he had two sons: Giuseppe Pannini (Rome, 1720-1812), the architect, and Francesco Panini (Rome, 1745 – 1812), the painter, who followed in his father’s footsteps and manners.

Gallery

Interno del Pantheon (anni ’40 del Settecento)

Landscape with the Arch of Titus (1725-50), oil on canvas, 51 x 76 cm., National Museum, Warsaw

St Sibyl’s Sermon in Roman Ruins with the Statue of Apollo (1740s), oil on canvas, 81 x 125 cm., Hermitage Museum

“Apostles Preaching Among Roman Ruins”

View of Rome from Mt. Mario, in the Southeast (1749), oil on canvas, 102 x 168 cm., Gemäldegalerie, Berlin

Today is the birthday of Charles Gounod (Charles-François Gounod; Paris 17 June 1818 – 17 or 18 October 1893 Saint-Cloud, Hauts-de-Seine, France); composer, perhaps best known for his Ave Maria, based on a work by Bach, as well as his opera’s Faust and Roméo et Juliette. Also known for his song “Funeral March of a Marionette”, originally written for solo piano in 1872 and orchestrated in 1879. It is perhaps best known as the theme music for the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents.

In April 1851 Gounod married Anna Zimmerman, daughter of his former piano professor at the Conservatoire. The marriage led to a breach of his friendship with the singer Pauline Viardot; the Zimmermans refused to have anything to do with her, for reasons that are not clear. Gounod’s biographer Steven Huebner refers to rumours about a liaison between the singer and composer, but adds that “the real story remains murky”.

Anna, by Ingres, 1859

Gounod died, after a final revision of his twelve operas, at the age of 75. His funeral took place ten days later at the Church of the Madeleine, with Camille Saint-Saëns playing the organ and Gabriel Fauré conducting. He was buried at the Cimetière d’Auteuil in Paris.

photograph by Nadar (1890)

Performance of Ave Maria on YouTube

And today is the birthday of Carl Van Vechten (Cedar Rapids, Iowa; June 17, 1880 – December 21, 1964 New York City); writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. In his later years, he took up photography and took many portraits of notable people. Although he was married to women for most of his adult years, Van Vechten engaged in numerous homosexual affairs over his lifetime.

self portrait

In 1906, he moved to New York City. He was hired as the assistant music critic at The New York Times. His interest in opera had him take a leave of absence from the paper in 1907 to travel to Europe and explore opera. While in England, he married Anna Snyder, his long-time friend from Cedar Rapids.

The marriage to Snyder ended in divorce in 1912, and he wed actress Fania Marinoff in 1914. Van Vechten and Marinoff were known for ignoring the social separation of races during the times and for inviting black people to their home for social gatherings. They were also known to attend public gatherings for black people and to visit black friends in their homes.

Although the marriage lasted for 50 years, they often had arguments about Van Vechten’s affairs with men. Van Vechten was known to have romantic and sexual relationships with men, especially Mark Lutz. Lutz (1901–1968) grew up in Richmond, Virginia, and was introduced to Van Vechten by Hunter Stagg in New York in 1931. Lutz was a model for some of Van Vechten’s earliest experiments with photography. The friendship lasted until Van Vechten’s death. At Lutz’s death, as per his wishes, the correspondence with Van Vechten, amounting to 10,000 letters, was destroyed. Lutz donated his collection of Van Vechten’s photographs to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Van Vechten died at the age of 84. His cremated remains were scattered over the Shakespeare garden in Central Park.