[Video: “Down Under,” by Men at Work. The pleasure that the band and crew obviously experienced in making this little film was undermined by a controversy which followed, some 25 years later: the melody of the flute solo was ruled to have violated the copyright (still in force) on what’s known as “the kookaburra song” — you know, “Kookaburra sits on the old gum tree…” Funnily (?) enough, I was researching that kids’ song because the lyrics I remembered seemed to sum up the live-for-the-present message of today’s post…]

From whiskey river (italicized paragraph):

I may venture into mythology, if the angels take themselves lightly, how much more would the lord of the angels? But of course we have been brought up in a mythological context where the Lord God definitely does take Himself seriously and is indeed, the serious person. So when we go into church, laughter is discouraged in the same way as it is discouraged in court. This is a serious matter and everybody has to have the right expression on their faces because this is the great authority figure. This is Grandpa, and we do not realize that he has a twinkle in his eye. So the basis of it all is this: If we say, “You must survive” or “I must survive,” and “Life is earnest and I have got to go on,” then your life is a drag and not a game.

Now it is my contention and my basic metaphysical axiom that existence—the physical universe—is basically playful. There is no necessity for it whatsoever. It is not going anywhere; that is to say, it does not have some destination at which it ought to arrive. It is best understood by analogy with music because music as an art form is essentially playful. We say, “You play the piano.” You do not work the piano.

(Alan Watts [source])

…and (italicized portion):

You trivialize us and trivialize the bird that is not in our hands. Is there no context for our lives? No song, no literature, no poem full of vitamins, no history connected to experience that you can pass along to help us start strong? You are an adult. The old one, the wise one. Stop thinking about saving your face. Think of our lives and tell us your particularized world. Make up a story. Narrative is radical, creating us at the very moment it is being created. We will not blame you if your reach exceeds your grasp; if love so ignites your words they go down in flames and nothing is left but their scald. Or if, with the reticence of a surgeon’s hands, your words suture only the places where blood might flow. We know you can never do it properly — once and for all. Passion is never enough; neither is skill. But try. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul. You, old woman, blessed with blindness, can speak the language that tells us what only language can: how to see without pictures. Language alone protects us from the scariness of things with no names. Language alone is meditation.

(Toni Morrison [source])

Not from whiskey river:

We do not rest satisfied with the present. We anticipate the future as too slow in coming, as if in order to hasten its course; or we recall the past to stop its too rapid flight So imprudent are we that we wander in the times which are not ours, and do not think of the only one which belongs to us; and so idle are we that we dream of those times which are no more, and thoughtlessly overlook that which alone exists. For the present is generally painful to us. We conceal it from our sight, because it troubles us; and if it be delightful to us, we regret to see it pass away. We try to sustain it by the future, and think of arranging matters which are not in our power, for a time which we have no certainty of reaching.

Let each one examine his thoughts and he will find them all occupied with the past and the future. We scarcely ever think of the present; and if we think of it, it is only to take light from it to arrange the future. The present is never our end. The past and the present are our means; the future alone is our end. So we never live, but we hope to live; and as we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable we should never be so.

(Blaise Pascal, translation by W.F. Trotter [source])

…and:

My Father Laughing in the Chicago Theater

His heavy body would double itself forward
At the waist, swell, and come heaving around
To slam at his seatback, making the screws groan
And squawk down half the row as it went tilting
Under my mother and me, under whoever
Was out of luck on the other side of him.
Like a boxer slipping punches, he’d lift his elbows
To flail and jerk, and his wide-open mouth
Would boom out four deep haaa‘s to the end of his breath.

He was laughing at Burns and Allen or Jack Benny
In person or at his limitless engagement
With Groucho, Chico, and Harpo. While my mother
Sat there between us, gazing at the stage
And chuckling placidly, I watched with amazement
The spectacle of a helpless father, unmanned,
Disarmed by laughter. The tears would dribble
From under his bifocals, as real as sweat.
He would gape and gag, go limp, and spring back to life.

I would laugh too, but partly at him, afraid
Of becoming him. He could scowl anywhere,
Be solemn or blank in church or going to work,
Turn grim with a cold chisel, or he could smile
At babies or football games, but he only laughed
There in that theater. And up the aisle
And through the lobby to the parking lot
And all the way home, I’d see the glow on his cheeks
Fade to the usual hectic steelmill sunburn.

By bedtime he was as somber as himself:
Two hundred and twenty horizontal pounds
Of defensive lineman, of open-hearth melter
Who could take the temperature of molten steel
At a glance, who never swore or told a joke.
Once, Jimmy Durante stopped, glared down at him,
And slapped his sides, getting an extra laugh
From my father’s laugh, then stiff-leg-strutted away,
Tipping his old hat in gratitude.

(David Wagoner [source])