If You Can Believe It (or Even If You Can’t)

[Image: backglass from a new(ish) pinball game by Stern,
currently available from Premier Amusements]

From whiskey river‘s archive (a/k/a the commonplace book):

A physicist visits a colleague and notices a horseshoe hanging on the wall above the entrance.

“Do you really believe that a horseshoe brings luck?” he asks.

“No,” replies the colleague, “but I’ve been told that it works even if you don’t believe in it.”

(Niels Bohr)

…and:

Strangers

A man and a woman happened to sit next to one another on a train. The woman took out a book and began reading. The train stopped at a half dozen stations, but she never looked up once.

The man watched her for awhile, then asked, “What are you reading?”

“It’s a ghost story,” she said. “It’s very good, very spooky.”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked.

“Yes, I do,” she replied. “There are ghosts everywhere.”

“I don’t believe in them,” he said. “It’s just a lot of superstition. In all my years I’ve never seen a ghost, not one.”

“Haven’t you?” the woman said, and disappeared.

(Alvin Schwartz)

…and (plus the last sentence):

“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.

“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To see Nobody! And at that distance too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!”

(Lewis Carroll [source])

Not from whiskey river:

Gregory: I’ve tried so hard to keep it within these walls – in my own house. Now, because you would go out tonight, the whole of London knows it. If I could only get inside that brain of yours and understand what makes you do these crazy, twisted things.

Paula: Gregory, are you trying to tell me I’m insane?

Gregory: It’s what I’m trying NOT to tell myself.

Paula: But that’s what you think, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve been hinting and suggesting for months now, ever since…the day I lost your brooch. That’s when it all began. No, no, no, it began before that. The first day here when I found that letter. (Gregory stops and abruptly turns.)

Gregory: What letter?

Paula: That one I found among the music from that man…

Gregory: Yes, you’re right. That’s when it began…I can see you still, standing there and saying, “Look. Look at this letter.” And staring at nothing.

Paula: What?

Gregory: You had NOTHING in your hand.

Paula: What?

Gregory: I was staggered, but I didn’t know then how much reason I had to be…

Paula: I don’t know. What dream?

Gregory: I didn’t know that about your mother.

Paula: What about my mother?

Gregory: Your mother was mad.

Paula: Gregory.

Gregory: She died in an asylum when you were a year old.

Paula: That’s not true!

(from Gaslight, the ultimate “Who and what do you choose to believe?” film, starring Charles Boyer as Gregory and Ingrid Bergman as Paula [source])

…and:

Daniel

On the day we moved in, the pings, bumps, and snaps
Were scary, it’s true, but probably normal;
A house accepting new patterns of weight
With protest, the way no conviction goes gently.
We laughed a little, and called it “our spirit.”

Later that night, when the power conked out
And the kids were crying, the ghost got a name,
“Daniel,” and a history of whispered exploits,
All of them harmless, like nursery rhymes,
Or like the little fibs we tell ourselves
To explain why this or that has led to suffering.

Pretty soon, we were using him for everything.
When the Christmas tree fell, it was “Daniel”;
When my wife lost her ring, it was “Daniel”;
When the kids forgot to feed the goldfish
And it turned up dead, its eyes silvered over
Like water shadowed under sheets of ice,

Well, that became Daniel too, which was curious;
And pauses me now as I make the long walk
Down the hall to the bathroom in darkness,
And hear, in soft concert, the sound of my footfalls
Answered at once by my children’s voices

Still calling to Daniel behind their door.

(David Orr, from Poetry, 2007 [source])

The Missus and I were married ten years on May 29th; we’ll be celebrating this weekend, though — as I tag along on a business trip with her to one of our favorite cities.

In 2000, we’d already been living together for seven years and, I think, were both as surprised as anyone that we actually went the whole official-paper route. This was shortly after my second tech book came out, and I was feeling restless and a little nervous about its reception at the time I got an email from a reader. The message said, in its entirety: “Great, great book.”

The reader in question, as it happened, was an entrepreneur who was just starting up a sort of strange but wonderful business: working vacations for information-technology types like programmers and Web designers, floating technical conferences called Geek Cruises (now InSight Cruises, having expanded to special interests outside geekdom proper). And although my area of “expertise” at the time didn’t fit with the topic of the inaugural cruise, Neil invited me along as an instructor.

The destination: Alaska, by way of Vancouver. I’d have to teach a class on three of the seven days we’d be at sea, but Geek Cruises would pay my way: airfare, one night’s hotel stay at each end of the cruise, and of course the fare for the cabin on the ship itself.

It was too good an opportunity to pass up — especially because, once Neil found out what I had in mind, he threw in a little something for The Missus-to-Be’s passage as well. (Not to mention standing as our witness — Hawaiian shirt and all! — at the shipboard wedding in Vancouver.) We’ll never forget Neil’s generosity on that trip (and a subsequent Caribbean cruise, to boot). Our good fortune was, well, almost too much to believe.

And, in truth, it — mine — still is.

Here’s one of the songs from the “wedding mix CD” with which my sweet fiancée surprised me. I’ve previously alluded to our great fondness for the Twin Peaks television series; this remains one of The Missus’s favorites from that show’s soundtrack. (It’s built all around and among the rhythms, melody, and instrumentation of the theme song itself, making the song — aside from its other connotations for us — a fitting metaphor for the way Twin Peaks has wound through our life.) (And yes, for long-time readers with long memories: the same song appeared in last year’s May 29th whiskey river Fridays post.)

[Below, click Play button to begin. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left -- a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 5:23 long.]

Lyrics:

Falling
(words and music by David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti; performance by Julee Cruise)

don’t let yourself be hurt this time
don’t let yourself be hurt this time

then i saw our face
then i saw your smile

the sky is still blue
the clouds come and go
yet something is different
are we falling in love?

don’t let yourself be hurt this time
don’t let yourself be hurt this time

then your kiss so soft
then your touch so warm

the stars still shine bright
the mountains still high
yet something is different
are we falling in love?

falling, falling
falling, falling in love

falling, falling
falling, falling in love

Happy 10th anniversary, Baby. ♥