Running After My Hat

Ridiculous pursuits, matters solemn and less so

Walking Around Empty

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[Image: still from Man Made Monster (1941).]

From whiskey river:

I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark,
vacillating, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
downward, in the soaked guts of the earth,
absorbing and thinking, eating each day.

(Pablo Neruda, from “Walking Around” [source])

…and:

You’ve heard “Don’t believe everything you read.” Here are some useful spinoffs: Don’t believe everything you think. Don’t believe everything you tell yourself. And most especially, don’t believe everything you feel.

(Rev. O. M. Bastet [source unknown])

…and:

As long as we have practiced neither concentration nor mindfulness, the ego takes itself for granted and remains its usual normal size, as big as the people around one will allow.

(Ayya Khema [source])

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Midweek Music Break: “Bad Moon Rising”

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Creedence Clearwater Revival’s classic gets most of its airtime around Halloween, maybe for obvious reasons: its association with John Landis’s great 1981 horror film An American Werewolf in London. Interestingly, in the film the song doesn’t get played in its entirety. Instead, the soundtrack plays just a few lines from the opening — almost as a joke — leading into the onscreen (and non-CGI) transformation of actor David Naughton from cute and charming lad to homicidal creature of the night.

“Bad Moon Rising” is also a favorite of disaster groupies, maybe for even more obvious — literal — reasons. Natural calamities have figured prominently in the news of late, and that business about rivers overflowing, earthquakes and lightning, well, it’s almost too perfect.

(If you’ve not been following the extinction-level-disaster/government-coverup-conspiracy chatter about the comet and/or brown and/or “dark” star Elenin, well, oh dear. You may have missed your last chance to survive. I recently saw a lengthy YouTube video, uploaded a few months ago, with a timeline of coming events. The fellow who made it claims that August 1 was the cutoff date — the last practical day to head for a cavern in the Ozarks to join with other believers prepared to live underground for at least a year. Even if you left on time, though, if you don’t arrive with an RV or U-Haul full of food, tough. They have no room for hungry, screaming, latecoming leeches.)

[Below, click Play button to begin Bad Moon Rising. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:20 long.

[audio:badmoonrising_ccr.mp3|titles=’Bad Moon Rising’|artists=Creedence Clearwater Revival]

Lyrics:

Bad Moon Rising
(Creedence Clearwater Revival)

I see the bad moon arising.
I see trouble on the way.
I see earthquakes and lightning.
I see bad times today.

[chorus:] 

Don’t go around tonight,
Well, it’s bound to take your life,
There’s a bad moon on the rise.

I hear hurricanes ablowing.
I know the end is coming soon.
I fear rivers over flowing.
I hear the voice of rage and ruin.

[chorus] 

All right!

Hope you got your things together.
Hope you are quite prepared to die.
Looks like we’re in for nasty weather.
One eye is taken for an eye.

[chorus] 

[repeat chorus] 

And for those who haven’t seen American Werewolf in London, here’s the five-minute lead-in to the transformation scene, right up to the point where Landis (having had his little laugh) abruptly cuts off the song:

The transformation scene itself took a little over two minutes, and you can find several clips of that here and there around the Web. (This one superimposes the full song over the scene, which in fact simply included sound effects and the character’s, um, vocalizations.)

Death Scenes

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[Image: Death in the Sickroom, by Edvard Munch]

Well, now. Could that title be any starker? Maybe it should be all caps?

(Aside to Jules, if you’re reading this: I actually put that header in a marquee tag for a moment. It was just too, too weird.)

Some of the most interesting online content for writers, I believe, can be found at the blog of YA author Livia Blackburne. I don’t think I’ve ever left a comment there (he said, his toe digging at the ground in shame), but from the first visit I was hooked. I’d probably keep returning, if for no reason other than to savor the site’s slogan:

A Brain Scientist’s Take on Writing

How can I resist that? From her “About” page:

By day I’m a neuroscience graduate student at MIT, conducting research on the neural correlates of reading. On evenings and weekends, I write fantasy stories for young adults… I like to take the analytical approach I use for my experiments and apply it towards the process of writing and publishing. This is what I will attempt in this blog: study pieces of writing, break it down into component pieces, and try to see what makes it work.

A recent post offered some interesting peeks into the mind of a reader (Blackburne herself) coming upon a death scene in a novel — and then re-reading it, even though it tore her up on the first pass and continued to do so on the second. I’d love to have that sort of detachment. But if Blackburne is there to provide it, maybe I can just trail along in her wake. Sample advice:

  1. Emphasize the good qualities of the dying character…
  2. Draw a connection to a previous tragedy…

More here (caveat: includes spoilers about the book she was reading!).

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Admin: Cleaning Up Some RAMH Clutter

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Running After My Hat, like certain real-world counterparts, has always had a back room or two into which its proprietor secretly hopes no one will stumble, because they’re filled with old junk, and sometimes even with new junk. Broken knick-knacks and furniture. Tumbled piles of books. Telephone handsets which lack base stations and/or wires. Family photos, fifty-year-old report cards, greeting cards from people who no longer share the faintest remembered connection with you, paintbrushes stiff with dried varnish, board games which have lost their dice or their, um, actual boards.

One such back room has always been the “About” page.

I’ve spent some time sprucing that up. It looks much the same, but the verbiage has been cleaned up. And it’s a little less preciously self-conscious, if you know what I mean. If you’ve been visiting here for a while, I doubt that you’ll find anything new, except new expressions of what you already knew. But for anyone who’s a stranger, or imagines him/herself to be, I’ve added four new and (I hope) not-too-preciously-self-conscious pages about me.

(Aside to those of you who do visit regularly, and expect to continue: this will save you from many tedious first-person-POV posts in the future.)

The new pages are:

We now resume our regular broadcast schedule, such as it is. Until the next interruption.

Which may, or may not, have something to do with how the joint looks. (I’m still terrified to touch it.)

Long, Languorous Tomorrows

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[Image: “August Morning,” by Tracy, from “August in Ohio” at the Seasons Flow blog]

[Below, click Play button to begin Summertime (Charlie Parker). While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:46 long.

[audio:summertime_charlieparker.mp3|titles=’Summertime’|artists=Charlie Parker]

From whiskey river:

Late August

Let me enjoy
this late-summer day of my heart
while the leaves are still green
and I won’t look so close
as to see that first tint
of pale yellow slowly creep in.
I will cease endless running
and then look to the sky
and ask the sun to embrace me
and then hope she won’t tell
of tomorrows less long than today
Let me spend just this time
in the slow-cooling glow
of the warm afternoon light
and I’d think
I will still have the strength
for just one more
last fling of my heart

(Jon Bohrn [source])

…and (italicized portion):

Directions

You know the brick path in back of the house,
the one you see from the kitchen window,
the one that bends around the far end of the garden
where all the yellow primroses are?
And you know how if you leave the path
and walk up into the woods you come
to a heap of rocks, probably pushed
down during the horrors of the Ice Age,
and a grove of tall hemlocks, dark green now
against the light-brown fallen leaves?
And farther on, you know
the small footbridge with the broken railing
and if you go beyond that you arrive
at the bottom of that sheep’s head hill?
Well, if you start climbing, and you
might have to grab hold of a sapling
when the going gets steep,
you will eventually come to a long stone
ridge with a border of pine trees
which is as high as you can go
and a good enough place to stop.

The best time is late afternoon
when the sun strobes through
the columns of trees as you are hiking up,
and when you find an agreeable rock
to sit on, you will be able to see
the light pouring down into the woods
and breaking into the shapes and tones
of things and you will hear nothing
but a sprig of birdsong or the leafy
falling of a cone or nut through the trees,
and if this is your day you might even
spot a hare or feel the wing-beats of geese
driving overhead toward some destination.

But it is hard to speak of these things
how the voices of light enter the body
and begin to recite their stories
how the earth holds us painfully against
its breast made of humus and brambles
how we who will soon be gone regard
the entities that continue to return
greener than ever, spring water flowing
through a meadow and the shadows of clouds
passing over the hills and the ground
where we stand in the tremble of thought
taking the vast outside into ourselves.

Still, let me know before you set out.
Come knock on my door
and I will walk with you as far as the garden
with one hand on your shoulder.
I will even watch after you and not turn back
to the house until you disappear
into the crowd of maple and ash,
heading up toward the hill,
piercing the ground with your stick

(Billy Collins [source])

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Midweek Music Break: “I’m Beginning to See the Light”

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While working on the What’s in a Song posts about “Body and Soul,” my Big Band playlist reminded me of a song which threatened to swamp my attention to the nominal subject of the moment. “I’m Beginning to See the Light” was a #1 recording for Harry James’s band in 1945, with a vocal by Kitty Kallen. (It had also been a #6 hit for its composer, Duke Ellington, and #5 for Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots.)

Unlike “Body and Soul,” this one has an unmistakable melody: each stanza consists of three lines repeating virtually the same tune, followed by a simple refrain of the song title. You couldn’t escape the tune if you tried.

But somehow the song doesn’t become boring, and I think the reason for that lies in the lyrics. The Poets of Tin Pan Alley, by Philip Furia, says:

Ellington’s luck with lyricists hit its peak in 1944 when Don George gave an exuberantly casual setting to the catch-phrase “I’m Beginning to See the Light”…

What is even more artful about the lyric is George’s witty use of a list structure; not only does he develop a catalog of “light” images, he refreshes the tritest metaphors by reading them in literal terms — from stars in the eyes, to a suggestive “afterglow,” and the paradoxical “now when you turn the lamp down low I’m beginning to see the light.”

I think Kitty Kallen’s voice helps, too — the playful, flirtatious spin she puts on the phrasing. Here’s her version:

[Below, click Play button to begin I’m Beginning to See the Light. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 3:12 long.

[audio:imbeginningtoseethelight_harryjameskittykallen.mp3|titles=’I’m Beginning to See the Light’|artists=Harry James Orchestra + Kitty Kallen]

Lyrics:

I’m Beginning to See the Light
(Duke Ellington, Harry James, Johnny Hodges, and Don George;
as sung by Kitty Kallen)

I never cared much for moonlit skies
I never winked back at fireflies
But now that the stars are in your eyes
I’m beginning to see the light

I never went in for afterglow
Or candlelight on the mistletoe
But now when you turn the lamp down low
I’m beginning to see the light

Used to ramble through the park
Shadowboxing in the dark
Then you came and caused a spark
That’s a four-alarm fire now

I never made love by lantern-shine
I never saw rainbows in my wine
But now that your lips are burning mine
I’m beginning to see the light

And here’s Ella Fitzgerald with the Ink Spots:

[Below, click Play button to begin I’m Beginning to See the Light. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:45 long.

[audio:imbeginningtoseethelight_ellafitzgeraldinkspots.mp3|titles=’I’m Beginning to See the Light’|artists=Ella Fitzgerald + The Ink Spots]

Whiplash Misreadings

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So I’m in bed last night, reading a little bit (as is customary) before shutting out the light. I finish one article and move to the next. The title of this new article is “Sleeping with the Enemy”; and the subtitle, “What happened between the Netherlands and us?”

The Netherlands? I wonder. An enemy? Are we having problems with the Dutch which I have somehow overlooked?

So I start to read the article. It opens like this:

The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, in Leipzig, is a large, mostly glass building shaped a bit like a banana. The institute sits at the southern edge of the city, in a neighborhood that still very much bears the stamp of its East German past.

Suddenly the needle in my reading mind jumps the groove: squwrawk! I think to myself, Wait, why does this start out by telling me about a building in the former East Germany? Then I back up to the very first words and add: …and what the hell, an institute for evolutionary anthropology?!? What’s that got to do with geopolitics?

Then I back up even further, to the New Yorker‘s category heading: annals of evolution, it says.

So that solves the mystery of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. But now I’m even more confused. Did we evolve from the Dutch? Say what—?!?

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What’s in a Song: Body and Soul (2)

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[Image: “Body and Soul’s” opening measures, highlighting the dotted eighth rest]

From the wonderful Jazz Standards site’s musicological writeup:

Because of its complex chord progressions, “Body and Soul” remains a favorite of jazz musicians. The unusual changes in key and tempo are also highly attractive and provide a large degree of improvisational freedom.

“Unusual changes in key and tempo” might be what I think of (in my musical ignorance) as a weird near-tunelessness. At practically every turn, the song slides around what I’d expect to hear. I can’t imagine anyone whistling it while they walk along, y’know? And the weirdness all starts with that first note.

Well, technically it’s not a note at all. You can see it circled in red at the top of the post: it’s a rest.

Even more technically, it’s a “dotted eighth rest,” i.e., it’s supposed to be held for a duration of one-and-a-half “eighth notes,” or five-sixteenths of a whole one. That musicians can make anything at all from arithmetic like this is why they’re musicians and I’m not.

Which itself is weird, if you think about it. I mean, that’s the actual melody there — what a singer is expected to sing, and how. But that opening rest says to the singer: Wait! Don’t start singing right off the bat. Pause for a split-second. Then start.

And then there’s the so-called bridge…

As I mentioned in Part 1, the lyrics are hard to pin down because they’ve been so elaborated upon by so many performers. In its most common form, singers do two verses in the same “melody,” followed by a verse in a second melody, and wrap it all up with a repeat of the first one. This song structure is often depicted like this: AABA. The second melody — the B — makes up the bridge: a bit of music to carry a listener from the opening of a song through to the end.

“Body and Soul’s” bridge (“I can’t believe it/It’s hard to conceive it…”), unlike those A sections, does seem to have a real melody. And it, well, lilts.* Lyrically, the singer seems to be having second thoughts, trying to convince him- or herself that the sense of abandonment can’t be real. There must be some other explanation — “Are you pretending?” — only to conclude, with a desperate, almost audible thud in the final A verse, You do know I’m still yours, right? Please please please…?

Whatever the musical technicalities, for whatever reason, history makes one clear point: “Body and Soul” is much-loved not only by vocalists (who can appreciate not just the musical nuances, but the emotional ones in the lyrics), but by instrumentalists.

—-

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Make Your World

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[Above: an image designed to induce binocular rivalry: an attempt by one’s senses to forge a single thing from two conflicting images. See here for instructions on how to use.]

From whiskey river:

When you have lived as long as I, you will see that every human being has his shell, and that you must take the shell into account. By the shell I mean the whole envelope of circumstances. There is no such thing as an isolated man or woman; we are each of us made up of a cluster of appurtenances. What do you call one’s self? Where does it begin? where does it end? It overflows into everything that belongs to us — and then it flows back again. I know that a large part of myself is in the dresses I choose to wear. I have a great respect for things! One’s self — for other people — is one’s expression of one’s self; and one’s house, one’s clothes, the books one reads, the company one keeps — these things are all expressive.

(Henry James [source])

…and:

We have to recognize that the world is not something sculptured and finished, which we as perceivers walk through like patrons in a museum; the world is something we make through the act of perception.

(Terence McKenna [source])

…and:

Kneeling

Moments of great calm,
Kneeling before an altar
Of wood in a stone church
In summer, waiting for the God
To speak; the air a staircase
For silence; the sun’s light
Ringing me, as though I acted
A great rôle. And the audiences
Still; all that close throng
Of spirits waiting, as I,
For the message.
Prompt me, God;
But not yet. When I speak,
Though it be you who speak
Through me, something is lost.
The meaning is in the waiting.

(R. S. Thomas [source])

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