It began as the GODFATHER OF MATH, evolved into the GOODFATHER OF MATH. Now this. Go figure...

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The kind of humor I like is the thing that makes me laugh for five seconds and think for ten minutes = G. CARLIN...Stain glass, engraved glass, frosted glass
–give me plain glass = JOHN FOWLES ... Music is the mathematics of the gods=PYTHAGORAS ... Nothing is more fluid than language = R. L. SWIHART
I cannot live without the oxygen of laughter = DAWN POWELL ... !!! ... But laughter cannot survive without the hydrogen of gravitas = PAUL OLIVERIO
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Saturday, December 10, 2016

Let Us Assume And Then ... Let Me Remember

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Let us assume that this store replaced
Billy Blake's Department Store
in Stonybrook, two years after
I graduated college.

Billy Blake was a box store
that discount-minded shoppers
in eastern Long Island cherished
for much too brief a period of time.

The Blake stores existed for no more
than five years, ending in 1973. 
 
The  "A and P"  is equally defunct
but not until after one and a half centuries
of providing groceries for

Long Island hipsters
preferred to believe that
the Billy Blake Department Stores
were named for
the 18th century
poet and mystic.


For more than
William Blake has provided
inspiration and poetic pulchritude
for three and a half gazillion
people.

He will continue to inspire
our inner poets for the next
three and a half centuries.

Here is another image 
of the visionary poet:


Poetic-minded youth
might be more inclined 
to quote Jim Morrison
who named his band
because the mystical lead singer
was inspired by this quote.

However,
this page would not exist
if it were not for another 
famous Rock n' Roller:
Neil Young!

+
A confession from someone
who spent thirty-two years
 on Long Island:

My most vivid memory
of  William Blake's poetry  
is inferior to my memory
of Billy Blake's store.

At a poetry reading
in 1968,  I recited
while doing jumping jacks.

Do not ask why
but the idea was very inventive
while the execution
was embarrassingly bad.

 May 18, 1969
was my twentieth birthday
and the most memorable gift
was given to me by my father
in the parking lot of  
Billy Blake's Department Store.


Neil Young had released
less than a week before
my father begifted his son.
 

On December 10, 2016
(approximately four hours ago)
Mrs. CarPeo pleasantly surprised me
by playing Neil Young's masterpiece
on the car stereo.

I responded like
a crazy horse with memories...
and begat all of the above.

Thank you for reading this.

PS
Mrs. CarPeo grew up in Brooklyn
on the Western end of Long Island.
She knew nothing about
Billy Blake's Department Store
but when she worked for Abrams Books,
she designed a William Blake book:

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3 comments:

  1. Thanks for the memories, Mr. CarPeo.

    I was a cashier at the Billy Blake in Montauk
    and I hate to disappoint you, but the store
    was not named for an 18th century poet.

    It was named for the owner: a Corleone street boss:
    Guillermo "Billy Blake" Blockaroni.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No but he could cook up
      a poetically delicious lasagna.

      Delete