A n d r e w s G u m W o r l d

Upwards, Somewhere, originally uploaded by JohnnyBallgame.

IMAGE: Kauwgomballenboom by
Dutch artist Willemijn van der Spiegel

Earlier today, we posted a video featuring the early 1970’s Dutch hit Kauwgomballenboom (or, The Gum Tree) by Elly Nieman and Rikkert Zuiderveld. I realize that you may not readily understand Dutch (as is the case with me)….so here is a rough English translation of the lyrics (with some modest paraphrases, where appropriate) courtesy of Googletranslate and then the song, as it was originally written, in Dutch — if you don’t need help with translation (Dutch lyrics courtesy of musicfrom.nl):

Right in the garden of my silly old uncle
(There is a) gum tree, gum tree, a real (gum tree)
With a hundred thousand balls for a penny and a penny
They just (look) down (to see) if you’re awake
They are all together from the branches of the tree
Right in the garden of my uncle

And every Monday (there) is the party in the street
Then all the children sing and no one comes too late
Because my uncle then climbs to the top of the tree
As he shakes the branches
And the (gum)balls stick,
But he (thows them) down
That we may (take them)
Until we (are chewing) and smacking
Right in the garden of my uncle

You know what is best in your case
Take a gum, a big gumball
You do not have to buy for a penny and a penny
Just (take) a walk when you’re awake
Then (just) look (for) the gum tree
Right in the garden of my uncle

Because every Sunday is the party in the street
Then all the children sing and no one comes too late
Because then my uncle (shakes) all (the gum)balls from the tree
Why are you still moping
Get your Bulls and your piping
(Don’t) let your jaw freeze
Because what do you have to lose
(Other) than your teeth and your choice
Long live my crazy old uncle

—

Midden in het tuintje van mijn oude malle oom
Staat een kauwgomballenboom, een echte kauwgomballenboom
Met honderdduizend ballen voor een stuiver en een cent
Die zie je zomaar zitten als je uitgeslapen bent
Ze vallen met z’n allen uit de takken van de boom
Midden in het tuintje van mijn oom

En elke zondagmiddag is het feest in de straat
Dan zingen alle kinderen en niemand komt te laat
Want dan klimt me oom naar het topje van de boom
Daar schudt ie aan de takken
En de ballen die daar plakken
Laat ie naar beneden kwakken
Die mogen wij dan pakken
Tot we smikkelen en smakken
Midden in het tuintje van me oom

Weet je wat het beste is in jouw geval
Neem een kauwgombal, een hele grote kauwgombal
Je hoeft hem niet te kopen voor een stuiver en een cent
Gewoon een stukje lopen als je uitgeslapen bent
Dan kom je zonder zoeken bij de kauwgomballenboom
Midden in het tuintje van mijn oom

Want elke zondagmiddag is het feest in de straat
Dan zingen alle kinderen en niemand komt te laat
Want dan schudt mijn oom alle ballen uit de boom
Waarom zit je nog te kniezen
Pak je bullen en je biezen
Laat je kaken niet bevriezen
Want wat heb je te verliezen
Dan je tanden en je kiezen
Leve me ouwe malle oom…

 
PHOTO: Councillor Peter Goody, Croydon Guardian

We’ve not often included gum poetry in these posts; it turns out to be a fairly specialized field (although the writer and poet Roald Dahl famously included a gum chewer, Violet Beauregarde, in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). However, our friends in Croydon, UK, who take their gum clean-up fairly seriously (we’ve visited the village before with its gum cleaning efforts, including in one of the very first posts of AndrewsGumWorld) — see one of the anti-gum tossing campaigns by the Redbridge Council above which involved gum targets — ran a competition last fall which offered local residents to wax poetic about gum.

There were three winners in the campaign coordinated by the Croydon Business Improvement Disrict (BID), and they were featured in a fall issue of This is Croydon Today. The winners included Penelope Boxall, Tamara Isted and Pamela Pope.

As the newspaper reported, the winners were pleased by the results of her first time at poetry:

Winner Penelope said: “I am absolutely delighted, as well as surprised as this is the first poem I have written.

“It was great fun to write something positive about Croydon. I may have to write some more now.”

Tamara has little time for inconsiderate people saying: “I do hate the way people drop gum on the streets. It gets all over my trainers.”

Without further ado or poetic desonctruction, here are last year’s three winning entries:

P E N E L O P E  B O X A L L

Finished gum ain’t your chum!

Sometimes, there’s bad press about Croydon

and this can be very depressing.

So let’s start with the small

though we think it nothing at all,

and make Croydon the best place to be in.

Sure, gum might be tiny and small

but it’s a real pain and mess for us all.

For when stuck on your shoes,

it’s a like a strong glue

and picks up all manner of things!

So when you have gum

and the flavour’s all gone,

and you want to get rid of it quick.

Wrap it to scrap it including the packet

and find it a home in a bin.

A bin is your friend, not your foe

as it tries to keep Croydon litter-low.

So in making our BID

we’ll save on our quids

and be the gum-free-est borough on show!

T A M A R A   I S T E D

On the pavement, on the roads,

on your trainers, on your clothes,

in the playground, in the park,

you don’t see it after dark.

Chewing gum is not a sin,

but put the goop in the bin.

Spitting it out is so not cool

so be good and follow the rule!

P A M E L A   P O P E

Spitting out chewing gum is a devilish sin,

PLEASE be an angel and put it in the bin.

For it clings to our shoes and sticks to the street

And often it’s found on a table or seat.

So come on you chewers, please have a heart,

And let’s keep our Croydon looking smart.

Upwards, Somewhere, originally uploaded by JohnnyBallgame.

A piece today in that great blog Politico today tries to handicap what McCain’s speech to the Republican convention on Thursday might be like, noting that McCain — not noted for being the most gifted of public speakers — often gives “boffo convention speeches.”

The piece goes on to give some examples, including one from 20 years ago about Dukakis that, well, warms the heart of AndrewsGumWorld when McCain turns to a familiar confectionery metaphor to make a point:

In 1988, he gleefully joined the GOP chorus that was savaging Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis for being clueless when it came to national defense. Dukakis, McCain thundered, “seems to believe that the Trident is a chewing gum, that the B-1 is a vitamin pill and the Midgetman is anyone shorter than he is.”

Button, originally uploaded by lachance.

Regina Hackett, art critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (aka the P-I, if you grew up in those parts) has her own blog on the newspaper’s website, and yesterday she posted a fascinating entry about a southern California artist named Richard Ankrom, who decided to address insufficient signage on the 110 Pasadena Freeway in Los Angeles by creating public art that nobody really knew was public art (there’s a documentary made about the project which you can check out here, or if you’d like, you can zoom over to a segment of that documentary on YouTube by clicking here).

Hackett goes on to muse about art vs performance vs a sign that everybody thinks is a sign, but then to goes on to invoke Jasper Johns, who himself invokes our favorite substance:

“Publicly a work becomes not just intention, but the way it is used. If an artist makes something — or if you make chewing gum and everybody ends up using it as glue, whoever made it is given the responsibility of making glue, even if what he really intends is chewing gum.”

(And in honor of Jasper Johns and Seattle, a photograph gum functioning — briefly — as glue on the famous Seattle Gum Wall).

Wild Prairie Sunflower, originally uploaded by NaturalLight.

There are, sometimes, wonderful and amusing poems about gum (and not just from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl), and there was one written in 1913 by J.M. Cavaness (from the collection Jayhawker Juleps) and tackles a familiar plot element to the life of a young — and then not so young — girl (and AndrewsGumWorld).

You can read the entire poem, “An O’er True Tale” on the site Poetry of Kansas, where it includes these lines:

Alas, she had a habit bad,
And somewhat wearisome,
No matter what the time or place,
Of always chewing gum.

(The breathtaking Kansas sunflower shot you see above was taken by John Frisch, a Kansas photographer on Flickr who goes by the screen name NaturalLight)