Running After My Hat

Ridiculous pursuits, matters solemn and less so

Hanging in the Sky

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[For information about this image, see the note at the foot of this post.]

From whiskey river:

This is the Dream

This is the dream we carry through the world
that something fantastic will happen
that it has to happen
that time will open by itself
that doors shall open by themselves
that the heart will find itself open
that mountain springs will jump up
that the dream will open by itself
that we one early morning
will slip into a harbor
that we have never known.

(Olav H. Hauge, translated by Robert Bly and Robert Hedin, from The Dream We Carry: Selected and Last Poems)

…and:

Wonder begins with the element of surprise. The now almost obsolete word “wonderstruck” suggests that wonder breaks into consciousness with a dramatic suddenness that produces amazement or astonishment. Because of the suddenness with which it appears, wonder reduces us momentarily to silence. We associate gaping, breathlessness, bewilderment, and even stupor with wonder, because it jolts us out of the world of common sense in which our language is at home. The language and categories we customarily use to deal with experience are inadequate to the encounter, and hence we are initially immobilized and dumbfounded. We are silent before some new dimension of meaning which is being revealed.

(Sam Keen, from Apology for Wonder)

…and (italicized portion):

You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth. We walk through it, yell into it, rake leaves, wash the dog, and drive cars in it. We breathe it deep within us. With every breath, we inhale millions of molecules of sky, heat them briefly, and then exhale them back into the world. At this moment, you are breathing some of the same molecules once breathed by Leonardo da Vinci, William Shakespeare, Anne Bradstreet, or Colette. Inhale deeply. Think of The Tempest. Air works the bellows of our lungs, and it powers our cells. We say “light as air,” but there is nothing lightweight about our atmosphere, which weighs 5,000 trillion tons. Only a clench as stubborn as gravity’s could hold it to the earth; otherwise it would simply float away and seep into the cornerless expanse of space.

(Diane Ackerman, from A Natural History of the Senses)

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Paying Attention to the “Take Her Hand!” Moments

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[Video: scene from David Lynch’s 1997 film Lost Highway. Soundtrack: Lou Reed’s interpretation of “This Magic Moment”]

Almost every writer of stories, I bet, has had at least one “Take her hand!” moment. Here’s why I call them that:

Over twenty years ago, I was working on a longish short story called “Sing, Sing, Sing.” (I’ve written about this story numerous times here.) In general, the plot revolves around the efforts of a young boy named Matty to get into a concert at Carnegie Hall in New York, in 1938… without a ticket. In writing the story, I had to deal with challenges like these:

  • Why would eleven-year-old Matty — any eleven-year-old — be so eager to do this?
  • Given that Matty lived a certain number of miles from New York, how would he have even gotten there in the first place? How long would it take him — and thus, by what time would he have to leave his house?
  • What was the weather like in New York on that evening in January, 1938? Would Matty have to be dressed for cold temperatures? for wet? or for unseasonable weather?

But I hadn’t foreseen one complication.

There came a critical moment in the story’s action, bracketed by (a) the events which brought Matty to Carnegie Hall in the first place and (b) Matty’s experience of the concert itself: the precise moment when he moved from the street into the hall. Oh, I considered all sorts of wacky scenarios — all of which fell apart under the harsh glare of plausibility and actual facts. Especially, in the latter case, I had to accept the fact that the ticket-takers weren’t mere uniformed employees of Carnegie Hall, who might or might not be 100% on the ball: they were police, and they were checking every ticket.

So I’m writing the scene, and I’ve got Matty navigating his way through the pushing-and-shoving crowd at the doors, and there’s all kinds of traffic noise and shouting, and Matty seems as confused by all the ruckus and foofaraw as the author himself.

And then something curious happened, something very curious:

Matty’s eye was caught by a little girl and her father, approaching an elderly policeman at one of the entrance doors. Suppose he could somehow insinuate himself into the father-daughter group… But how would he do that, convincingly, without getting caught by the policeman? Meanwhile the man and his little girl were getting closer and closer to the doorway…

…and I thought, as loudly as I could:

Take her hand, damn it! Take her hand!

And as I watched, Matty reached out and clasped the little girl’s trailing hand. The cop looked down benignly at the little motherless family, smiled, glanced at the tickets in the father’s hand, and waved them through. He even tousled Matty’s hair a bit as he passed. (The girl was a little freaked out, but it took her a few lucky moments to protest.)

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Everybody* Believes in Music

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Lyrics:

Atheists Don’t Have No Songs
(Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers

Christians have their hymns and pages,
Hava Nagila’s for the Jews,
Baptists have the rock of ages,
Atheists just sing the blues.

Romantics play Claire de Lune,
Born agains sing He is risen,
But no one ever wrote a tune
For godless existentialism.

For Atheists,
There’s no good news,
They’ll never sing a song of faith.

For atheists,
They have a rule,
The “he” is always lowercase.
The “he” is always lowercase.

Some folks sing a Bach cantata,
Lutherans get Christmas trees,
Atheist songs add up to nada,
But they do have Sundays free.

Pentecostalists sing they sing to heaven,
Coptics have the books of scrolls,
Numerologists can count to seven,
Atheists have rock and roll.

For Atheists,
There’s no good news,
They’ll never sing a song of Faith.

In their songs,
They have a rule,
The “he” is always lowercase.
The “he” is always lowercase.

Catholics dress up for Mass,
And listen to, Gregorian chants.

Atheists just take a pass,
Watch football in their underpants.
Watch football in their underpants.

Atheists, Atheists, Atheists,
Don’t have no songs!

Thanks, Jules. And thanks to Pacificvs (Adrian Covert) for the lyrics! (Also see John Kinney’s comment on the Pacificvs post, which stitches together a more complete version of the lyrics from several different performances he found online.)

______________________________

* …and not only Mac Davis and friends.

What You Think, What You Know, What You Can and Can’t Have

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[Longer trailer for The NeverEnding Story (1981); you can see the whole film on YouTube, if you’d like, broken up into nine or ten parts]

From whiskey river:

I see human beings as a self-regulating system that wants us to discover our own nature. Our imagination, our deep mind, so to speak, wants to help us to do this. In part, that’s why it gives us the thoughts and feelings and associations it does. That’s why we dream what we dream and “think up” the imagery that comes to us. When we take all of this seriously, when we use it, that is, and are willing to risk releasing our tight grip on ourselves by writing what we don’t yet know, to paraphrase Paul Klee, we demonstrate to our own imagination that we can be trusted with its gifts. Of course, our imagination likes this. It says, “Hey. She’s serious. Let’s give her more.”

But when we turn our back on this powerful inclination toward completion, we risk losing contact with the gift-giving nature of the imagination. We risk damaging the relationship we’ve developed. Think of it as a relationship to “the muse,” if you will. As the poet Stuart Perkoff wrote in regard to abusing the gifts of the muse, “Be careful. It’s hers. She’ll take it back.”

(Peter Levitt, ZinkZine, Fall 2003 [source])

…and:

It is important to have a secret, a premonition of things unknown. It fills life with something impersonal, a numinosum. [*] A man who has never experienced that has missed something important. He must sense that he lives in a world which in some respects is mysterious; that things happen and can be experienced which remain inexplicable; that not everything which happens can be anticipated. The unexpected and the incredible belong in this world. Only then is life whole. For me the world has from the beginning been infinite and ungraspable.

(Carl Jung [source])

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Utterly Irrelevant Pop-Music Interlude

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The pop trio Hanson never, I believe, threatened to encroach on my radar in the 1990s. I knew of them — they were hard to miss entirely — but they seemed too, I don’t know, insubstantial or something.*

This video from their latest album makes me think, like, Hmm, maybe it’s past time to pay attention… Some of the comments at YouTube say pretty much the same thing. My favorite one begins: “What the hell? At what point did Hanson become awesome?” Ha!

Of course, it doesn’t hurt — from my perspective — that I can see the cross-references not just to The Blues Brothers Movie, but also to The Temptations, Aretha Franklin…

(Lyrics below the video.)

Lyrics:

Thinking ‘Bout Somethin’
(words, music, and performance by Hanson)

Well, I gave you love, you know it
So when did you outgrow it?
And decide that you would find another man
Well, you’ve been out there shakin’
Tell the boys you’re chasing
When you get home, I’ll be the bigger man

I’ve been thinking ’bout somethin’
I’ve been thinking ’bout somethin’ other than you

I ignored your reputation
‘Cause you send my heart racing
You think I would always be the fool
Well, I’ve run out of patience
For this sticky situation
You won’t find me crying that we’re through

I’ve been thinking ’bout somethin’
I’ve been thinking ’bout somethin’ other than you
It’s sad to say, but baby everyday
I’ve been thinking ’bout somethin’
I’ve been thinking ’bout somethin’ other than you
It’s sad to say, hey

Well, if you’re not too proud to beg
I could give you some respect

That tune you’re humming is never gonna change
You didn’t have to do what you did
I didn’t think you’d end it like this
‘Cause the love I’ve got is better than what you gave
Well, I’ve got girls in line
Waiting for these arms of mine
Listen up to what I say

I’ve been thinking ’bout somethin’
I’ve been thinking ’bout somethin’ other than you
It’s sad to say, but baby everyday
I’ve been thinking ’bout somethin’
I’ve been thinking ’bout somethin’ other than you

Hey, hey, I took my best shot
I’ve had enough of your tainted love you give me everyday
I tried to limit the lonely nights
But darlin’ please, c’mon, c’mon
I’m not gonna make that same mistake

You’ve been out there foolin’,
but I’m not thinkin’ about you
I’ve been gettin’ the love that moves me,
while you’ve been getting around
You’ve been out there foolin’,
but I’m not thinkin’ about you
I’ve been gettin’ the love that moves me,
while you’ve been getting around
You’ve been out there foolin’,
but I’m not thinkin’ about you
I’ve been gettin’ the love that moves me,
while you’ve been getting around

___________________________

* He said, recalling the depths and heights of his own thoughts and sensibilities, not just when he was in his own late teens but also twenty-thirty years later, when Hanson was at their peak popularity.

What’s in a Song: Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (2)

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[Another entry in an occasional series about American songs with long histories. This one follows Part 1, about the history of the composition of “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.” You can read Part 1, posted last week, here.]

[Video clip above assembled from the first film version of Roberta (1935); Irene Dunne sings it here. Later in the film, Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dance to an instrumental version, and their dance is what people usually remember from the film. This clip’s uploader helpfully tacked the dance scene onto the vocal: it begins at around 4:03 into the clip.]

By the time the 1940s rolled around, “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” had already established itself in the pop songbook. According to at least one observer, pianist Joe Bushkin of the Tommy Dorsey band, it provided the pivotal moment on “the night Frank Sinatra happened.” (Something of a storyteller, Bushkin apparently told the story many times; the details below come from Sinatra! The Song Is You, by Will Friedwald.)

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All in Good Time

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[A favorite minute from Citizen Kane. See the note at the end of this post.]

From whiskey river:

To Waiting

You spend so much of your time
expecting to become
someone else
always someone
who will be different
someone to whom a moment
whatever moment it may be
at last has come
and who has been
met and transformed
into no longer being you
and so has forgotten you

meanwhile in your life
you hardly notice
the world around you
lights changing
sirens dying along the buildings
your eyes intent
on a sight you do not see yet
not yet there
as long as you
are only yourself

with whom as you
recall you were
never happy
to be left alone for long

(W. S. Merwin, from Present Company [source])

…and:

We’re here, there, not here, not there, swirling like specks of dust, claiming for ourselves the rights of the universe. Being important, being nothing, being caught in lives of our own making that we never wanted. Breaking out, trying again, wondering why the past comes with us, wondering how to talk about the past at all.

(Jeanette Winterson. from Lighthousekeeping [source])

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Weird Week… and a Music-Language Mystery

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Boy, does this feel like a long time between posts or what?!

An insane week at work. Busy early mornings. A week of fascinating blog posts t0 read from all my usual haunts (ha ha, no pun intended) — generally yours. Little to no spare time at night. It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya. A conspiracy.

I’ll be back tomorrow for a real post — the usual end-of-week whiskey-river-inspired rambling. And then at some point over the weekend, I hope to finally (!) put up Part 2 of the What’s in a Song entry on “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

Working on the latter has proved to be a lot harder than usual (and that’s saying something). I have almost too much information to draw on (at least if I’m to stay below the 2,000-word absolute maximum length I’ve set). One fascinating little nugget has turned out to be something of a mystery, but really just a side issue from the central topic; I thought I’d turn it over to RAMH readers for help — especially any of you who know something about songwriting and/or music at more than just a listener level.

“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” and numerous other popular songs, as it happens, apparently are considered examples of verseless songs. Obviously, this term doesn’t mean that they lack lyrics. And just as obviously, my assumption that the word verse equates roughly to stanza is completely off the mark.

Can anybody explain for me what that means?

As background, one of the most complete explanations I’ve read is from a book called What to Listen for in Rock: A Stylistic Analysis, by Ken Stephenson. Although primarily concerned with rock, the book does refer to other genres, like show tunes, to illustrate and explain key concepts. In this case, it says (bleeping over a lot of jargon):

The portion [of “Over the Rainbow”] starting with [“Somewhere over the rainbow, Way up high”] is actually only the chorus of the song; the verse, not sung by Judy Garland in The Wizard of Oz and thus largely ignored or forgotten, begins with the words “When all the world is a hopeless jumble.” Similarly, few of the millions who know Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas (1940) remember — or have ever heard — the verse, which begins with descriptions of the sunny weather and green grass of Southern California in December… Now, a chorus intended to be independent of a verse must have not only length but formal complexity as well… In many songs from this period, “Over the Rainbow” and “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” included, the chorus has taken on a multisectional form itself.

I don’t get it. Maybe in the case of “Over the Rainbow” — for which lyrics apparently exist for something called the “verse,” apart from the rest of the song — I can sorta kinda almost accept that “Somewhere over the rainbow/Way up high” is… something else. But what makes “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” verseless?

Et Çe N’est Pas Bon, Ma

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[Image taken from a full photographic composition by Brandon Voges of the Bruton Stroube studio; see the note at the bottom of this post for more information.]

From whiskey river (italicized portion):

Picnic, Lightning

My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident
(picnic, lightning) when I was three.
— Lolita

It is possible to be struck by a meteor
or a single-engine plane
while reading in a chair at home.
Safes drop from rooftops
and flatten the odd pedestrian
mostly within the panels of the comics,
but still, we know it is possible,
as well as the flash of summer lightning,
the thermos toppling over,
spilling out on the grass.

And we know the message
can be delivered from within.
The heart, no valentine,
decides to quit after lunch,
the power shut off like a switch,
or a tiny dark ship is unmoored
into the flow of the body’s rivers,
the brain a monastery,
defenseless on the shore.

This is what I think about
when I shovel compost
into a wheelbarrow,
and when I fill the long flower boxes,
then press into rows
the limp roots of red impatiens —
the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth
from the sleeve of his voluminous cloak.

Then the soil is full of marvels,
bits of leaf like flakes off a fresco,
red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam.
Then the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue,
the clouds a brighter white,

and all I hear is the rasp of the steel edge
against a round stone,
the small plants singing
with lifted faces, and the click
of the sundial
as one hour sweeps into the next.

(Billy Collins, from Sailing Alone Around the Room [source])

…and:

Expectations of goals and rewards (such as Enlightenment) are recognized for what they are: last-ditch attempts by the ghostly self to subvert the process to its own ends. The more we become conscious of the mysterious unfolding of life, the clearer it becomes that its purpose is not to fulfill the expectations of our ego. We can put into words only the question it poses. And then let go, listen, and wait.

(Stephen Batchelor, from Buddhism Without Beliefs [source])

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