Running After My Hat

Ridiculous pursuits, matters solemn and less so

The Object of My Affectation

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[Alfalfa, of the Our Gang comedies, sings of his love for sweet little round-faced, soft-focus Darla. And yes, I know: the song title doesn’t have that extra syllable in it. :)]

Whom, exactly, do you try to impress?

Note that I’m not asking about classes or groups of people. Most of us would like to be regarded favorably by our families and friends, our co-workers, the critics and audiences, and maybe even — ha ha — total strangers on the bus and in, ahem, Genuine Joe’s coffee shop (little in-joke there). And I know we’re not all “on” all the time, even the most determined poseurs among us: everyone has moments of utter un-self-consciousness, when our guard is down, we’re at our easiest and most natural, and we’re not actively evaluating what someone might think of us.

No, I’m just wondering, well…

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Monday Bounce

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I’m pretty sure I posted a link to this on Facebook and/or Twitter a couple months ago, when I first encountered it. For some reason it’s found its way back into my head today, and has been positively ringing there for the last several hours. When a song will simply not leave me alone, my solution is to just, well, listen to it. It goes away immediately. So, as much for my own sake as for yours…

Here’s “Don’t Worry, I’m Yours” — DJ Dain’s ingenious mashup of Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” and Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours.” (The ukulele accompaniment, as I understand it, actually makes this a three-way mashup: it came from a recording called “Wonderful World,” by the late Hawaiian musician Israel Kamakawiwo’ole.)

Lyrics to both songs are below, displayed side by side so you can (if you’re clever and, unlike me, somehow able not to get lost in the catchiness!) follow along with the interleaved audio.

Don’t Worry, Be Happy
(by Bobby McFerrin)

Here is a little song I wrote
You might want to sing it note for note
Don’t worry be happy
In every life we have some trouble
When you worry you make it double
Don’t worry, be happy

Ain’t got no place to lay your head
Somebody came and took your bed
Don’t worry, be happy
The landlord say your rent is late
He may have to litigate
Don’t worry, be happy
Look at me I am happy
Don’t worry, be happy

Here I give you my phone number
When you worry call me
I make you happy
Don’t worry, be happy

Ain’t got no cash, ain’t got no style
Ain’t got no girl to make you smile
But don’t worry be happy
Cause when you worry
Your face will frown
And that will bring everybody down
So don’t worry, be happy (now)

There is this little song I wrote
I hope you learn it note for note
Like good little children
Don’t worry, be happy
Listen to what I say

In your life expect some trouble
But when you worry
You make it double
Don’t worry, be happy
Don’t worry don’t do it, be happy

Put a smile on your face
Don’t bring everybody down like this
Don’t worry, it will soon past
Whatever it is
Don’t worry, be happy

I’m Yours
(by Jason Mraz)

Well you done done me
and you bet I felt it
I tried to be chill
but you’re so hot that I melted
I fell right through the cracks
Now I’m trying to get back
Before the cool done run out
I’ll be giving it my bestest
And nothing’s going to stop me
but divine intervention
I reckon it’s again my turn
to win some or learn some
I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait, I’m yours

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you’re free
Look into your heart
and you’ll find love love love love
Listen to the music of the moment
baby sing with me
I love peace for melody
And It’s our God-forsaken right
to be loved love loved love loved

So I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I’m sure
There’s no need to complicate
Our time is short
This is our fate, I’m yours

Scooch on over closer dear
And I will nibble your ear

I’ve been spending way too long
checking my tongue in the mirror
And bending over backwards
just to try to see it clearer
But my breath fogged up the glass
And so I drew a new face and laughed
I guess what I’m be saying is
there ain’t no better reason
To rid yourself of vanity
and just go with the seasons
It’s what we aim to do
Our name is our virtue

But I won’t hesitate no more, no more
It cannot wait I’m sure

Well open up your mind and see like me
Open up your plans and damn you’re free
Look into your heart
and you’ll find that the sky is yours
Please don’t, please don’t, please don’t
There’s no need to complicate
Cause our time is short
This oh this this is our fate, I’m yours!

Right Looking

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[Image of Fay Ray, by William Wegman (1988), found here, as well as elsewhere
on the Web (e.g., Style Me to the Moon)]

From whiskey river:

My Hand

See how the past is not finished
here in the present
it is awake the whole time
never waiting
it is my hand now but not what I held
it is not my hand but what I held
it is what I remember
but it never seems quite the same
no one else remembers it
a house long gone into air
the flutter of tires over a brick road
cool light in a vanished bedroom
the flash of the oriole
between one life and another
the river a child watched

(W. S. Merwin, The Shadow of Sirius)

…and:

And now here’s the thing. It takes a time like this for you to find out how sore your heart has been, and, moreover, all the while you thought you were going around idle terribly hard work was taking place. Hard, hard work, excavation and digging, mining, moiling through tunnels, heaving, pushing, moving rock, working, working, working, working, panting, hauling, hoisting. And none of this work is seen from the outside. It’s internally done. It happens because you are powerless and unable to get anywhere, to obtain justice or have requital, and therefore in yourself you labor, you wage and combat, settle scores, remember insults, fight, reply, deny, blab, denounce, triumph, outwit, overcome, vindicate, cry, persist, absolve, die and rise again. All by yourself? Where is everybody? Inside your breast and skin, the entire cast.

(Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March [source])

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Super Powers for the Rest of Us

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[‘Super Powers,’ by Mark Stivers. Click to view the full set of six.]

Given a choice, I think the caption below my portrait — in ten words or less — would say something like writes brilliant stories one hour at a time*. (My Kryptonite: the Internet.)

Yours?

_______________

* Edit to add: Just to make it plain — this is not a super power I have. (The operative words above: given a choice.) God, no. It’s a super power I’d love to have — a super power I’d have if I were my ideal superhero.

Edit to add, 2: Now that I’ve read all these other great ideas, I think maybe the super power I already have is something like: can spot important trends with 20/20 hindsight.

BlogIt

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Every year around now, a large chunk of blogosphere real estate is turned over to posts, tweets, Facebook status updates, and Flickr albums about a gathering called BlogHer. As the conference title suggests, the focus in on women who blog — it’s apparently attended by a number of guys, as well — and for the several days of BlogHer, attendees take in workshops and panel discussions, attend parties, and go out with friends to take in the sights of that year’s city. (This year, earlier this month, it took place in New York City.)

I’ve never gone to BlogHer, and never expect to, although I follow and admire the bejeezus out of maybe a half-dozen of the BlogHerers (?) with wide name recognition (Maggie, The Bloggess, Kelly…) and make occasional trips through the takeout windows of another half-dozen or so.

There are a few reasons while I’ll probably never get there:

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Book Review: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson

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My review of this book is now up over at The Book Book.

So is another reviewer’s, as of yesterday — and we’re just following on the heels of the first, from a year ago. Clearly a book that draws reviewers like flies!

I liked the book very much although (as you can see from the review) just why sort of escapes me. You’ve got to get out of the gate fast with a grabber of an opening, we’re told, or no one will buy your crime story/mystery/thriller (and probably your collection of baby names). This one doesn’t start that way; nor, throughout, does it share the sort of propulsive arc which the vast majority of such stories have.

In a way, it’s something like being at the ocean shore, watching the waves. Those six were sort of interesting, weren’t they? And then, oh boy, here comes the seventh!…

…and then suddenly you notice the water is being drawn away from you, towards the horizon, and waaaay out there is a narrow line growing gradually thicker, and then you remember what all these symptoms mean and you think:

Holy crap, a tsunami!

At which point you start looking around frantically for an exit which, alas, does not exist.

If you think you can get used to this rhythm, absolutely give Dragon Tattoo a try. Even if you think you can’t, well, if you’re comfortable with crime stories/thrillers/mysteries/baby-name books in general, it still might be worth a look. It might catch you by surprise, as it did me.

Surprised by What You Want

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[Video above: “Rio,” by Hey Marseilles. Lyrics at the foot of this post.]

From whiskey river:

I feel as though I stand at the foot of an infinitely high staircase, down which some exuberant spirit is flinging tennis ball after tennis ball, eternally, and the one thing I want in the world is a tennis ball.

(Annie Dillard [source])

…and:

Born Thirty Years Ago

Thirty years ago I was born into the world.
A thousand, ten thousand miles I’ve roamed,
By rivers where the green grass grows thick,
beyond the border where the red sands fly.
I brewed potions in a vain search for life everlasting,
I read books, I sang songs of history,
and today I’ve come home to Cold Mountain
to pillow my head on the stream and wash my ears.

(Han-shan, Cold Mountain [source])

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The Steam Drill Only Made Nine (Lord, Lord)

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When my siblings and I were kids, at some point Mom and Dad bought us a huge collection of LPs of music of all sorts — a passive music-appreciation course, of sorts, for kids in a small town. The entire set arrived in a cardboard box which none of us (but Dad) could lift. Each album was enclosed in its own slim box, with its own little brochure full of lyrics and other notes. (One album came with an additional surprise: the one about orchestral music included a small, slender conductor’s wand.)

I sometimes wonder whatever became of that set. Some of the albums got broken, for sure, but it’s hard to believe they all did. Maybe they ended up in the homes of my adult sisters and/or brother, or maybe — less likely, but you never know — maybe they’re taking up space down in Mom’s basement.

On the other hand, I don’t wonder what happened to the music itself. It — much of it — remains stuck in my head.

Among the hoariest of complaints by an older generation (any older generation) about the younger are those about “the music nowadays.” I try to keep an open mind, myself; I’ve heard too much wonderful music by people decades younger than I am to do otherwise. But I do worry from time to time about the looooong golden thread of folk music… and the prospect that it may be in jeopardy.

Well, no, that’s not quite right. Not the music per se. Let’s say I worry about the future of the stories which the music tells, and the language in which those stories are told.

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Real-Life Dialogue (Midday Meal Edition)

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[Setting: a small automobile in a mid-sized city in northern Florida, USA. It is early morning. She is driving today; He occupies the passenger seat. The car pulls up to a curb. He opens his door and prepares to exit; in the midst of the usual love-yous, good-byes, and have-a-good-days, He suddenly remembers a specific item about which He meant to wish Her well.]

He: You’re going to lunch with The Stepdaughter today, aren’t you?

She: Yes.

He: Oh, well, have a good lunch then!

She: You have a good lunch, too. Did you bring tuna today?

He: No. Chicken salad.

She: You didn’t bring some of that beautiful tuna salad you made?

He: What tuna salad? I didn’t make any tuna salad.

She: That whole bowl of it in the refrigerator—

He: That’s not tuna salad. It’s homemade dog food for The Pooch — dog food you made!

She: (laughing) Oh.

The car drives away. There is no traffic, but He remains standing there for another moment or so — standing, and collecting his wits.

Think You Know What’s Coming?

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From whiskey river:

If you knew what was going to happen, if you knew everything that was going to happen next — if you knew in advance the consequences of your own actions — you’d be doomed. You’d be as ruined as God. You’d be a stone. You’d never eat or drink or laugh or get out of bed in the morning. You’d never love anyone, ever again. You’d never dare to.

(Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin [source])

…and, from the whiskey river archives (the commonplace book):

How Much Happens in a Day

In the course of a day we shall meet one another.

But, in one day, things spring to life —
they sell grapes in the street,
tomatoes change their skin,
the young girl you wanted
never came back to the office.

They changed the postman suddenly.
The letters now are not the same.
A few golden leaves and it’s different;
this tree is now well off.

Who would have said that the earth
with its ancient skin would change so much?
It has more volcanoes than yesterday,
the sky has brand-new clouds,
the rivers are flowing differently.
Besides, so much has come into being!
I have inaugurated hundreds
of highways and buildings,
delicate, clean bridges
like ships or violins.

And so, when I greet you
and kiss your flowering mouth,
our kisses are other kisses,
our mouths are other mouths.

Joy, my love, joy in all things,
in what falls and what flourishes.

Joy in today and yesterday,
the day before and tomorrow.

Joy in bread and stone,
joy in fire and rain.

In what changes, is born, grows,
consumes itself, and becomes a kiss again.

Joy in the air we have,
and in what we have of earth.

When our life dries up,
only the roots remain to us,
and the wind is cold like hate.

Then let us change our skin,
our nails, our blood, our gazing;
and you kiss me and I go out
to sell light on the roads.

Joy in the night and the day,
and the four stations of the soul.

(Pablo Neruda; translation by Alastair Reid [source])

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