BOX OPENING: my new Dam troll!

I am not letting the reborn community get ahead of me! Here is my version of a box opening with Frodo, my new Dam troll.

The worst word in the world

I was going to hitch these thoughts on the end of my racism post, but then started thinking about it some more and thought there was more going on. More going on than just an unpleasant memory.

My Dad could be a son-of-a-bitch, but I suppose he had some good qualities. When not drinking and expounding like some hot-air-bag buffoon, he could say some things that were reasonably intelligent. The man used his brain, and his generation, with his level of education, were not expected to do that. 

What I liked most about my Dad was the way he hated Americans. Well, not hated exactly. He could not fathom why they acted the way they did. He had been born in England, grew up in a little fishing village called Leigh-on-Sea, and never quite lost that scruffy English street urchin thing, having to go out and make a living at age thirteen. Like the Dad in Angela's Ashes, which rattled a few memories for me, his father appeared only sporadically, joined the army, was booted out, worked a bit, mostly haunted the pubs, and was sometimes violent.

But back to the American bit. I don't know if this was originated by him or by Mark Twain or somebody else, but sometimes he would expound on some particularly idiotic turn of American political events, roll his eyes heavenwards and exclaim, "The land of the free, and the home of the slave." His version of the Star-Spangled Banner (which he sometimes sang at the dinner table) was, "O say can you see/Any bedbugs on me?" Irreverant was no word for it. 

But I will never forget the most terrifying, and perhaps the most profound thing he ever said, when he was fairly drunk but in a reasonably benevolent mood, not in one of his fist-thudding rages. He was rambling on about something, then fixed me with his glittering eye and said, "Do you know what the worst word in the world is?"

I thought he meant cursing, and kept thinking, shit, fuck, goddamn, but I couldn't say those words out loud. 

"The worst. The very worst word you can say or write or think of."

Bitch. Asshole. Christ?

He sort of crooked his finger and made me get in really close so he could say it low. But he said it. 

"Nigger."

I flinched. I knew that word was terrible, that I never said it and was not supposed to say it. My mother had told me rather casually that they used the word all the time when she was growing up and didn't see anything wrong with it. But my mother was born in 1915.

I didn't ask why it was the worst word in the world, but I didn't have to because he was about to expound on it. 

"Nigger. Nigger is the worst word in the world, and I'll tell you why. It means one person owns another person."

It took me a minute to realize he was referring to slavery. And it was appropriate, because nigger is a slave word, a plantation word, a word to describe a thing that can be owned, bought and sold. Placed on the auction block. And when those ran out, there were lots of others to be captured and shipped over, an industry in itself, the importing of essential goods. 

This was difficult for a ten-year-old kid to contemplate, the concept of one person owning another person. It was horrible, demeaning, dehumanizing. Little middle-class white girls growing up in 1960s suburbia didn't use language like that because it might evoke something demonic. Nigger meant you were farm machinery, replaceable and even renewable through breeding, and that your purpose was to make agriculture possible, thus founding a country which insisted it was the greatest nation on earth. Then not being able to use the white drinking fountain. It was crazymaking, a blank wall of contradiction.

That communities grew up, vibrant communities, out of the ashes of slavery makes my scalp prickle with awe. That those communities grew up right outside my door makes my head spin. But when I realize that Chatham's significant part in the Underground Railroad was never even mentioned in all my years in school, it fills me with a sickness, and casts a pall over the brightest sunshine of my life.

Kitty, get DOWN!

Subtitled: "You think YOUR cat is bad."

Amethyst geode

Deer crossing a river

A few notes. These are not "deers". They are deer. The splashing of the river is about half the video, so if you can't get the audio to play please click to go full-screen with it. Just a few seconds of loveliness.

Black lives: the Underground Museum

I can't begin to tell you how much it sickens me to see what strikes me as a great resurgence of racism - and not just in our neighbors to the south. How we love to say things like, "Oh, that's just in the States," or "our history was so peaceful,"  conveniently forgetting the apartheid of residential schools which literally stole children from their parents and held them hostage. We never heard about these things at all, of course, and I think if we had, we would have thought in terms of what an advantage it was for these poor underprivileged "Indian" children to get a good solid Catholic education.

Blindness. I don't want to start. Chatham, where I grew up, seemed for some reason to have a disproportionate number of black people. Disproportionate? That means five per cent rather than none! But black culture was a presence, if not from the citizens of Chatham we lived and worked with, then from Detroit, that source of vibrant new musical culture along with alarming rumbles of unrest.

But there was something else about Chatham. I think my schooling was lily-white until I got into Grade 9 or so (not that it had anything to do with the parallel social movement of integration, no sir!). Then suddenly there were black kids, maybe two or three in a class of thirty. Compared to the zero of before, with all those classes of kids at the Dutch reform school who seemed to be universally blonde and blue-eyed, it was a lot.

It was a confusing time. Black culture was cool, we thought, but we wanted the "good part", Diana Ross and the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, Afros and "black is beautiful", and wanted to leave out the ugly part, the violence, the riots. Of course I knew about Martin Luther King - he was my hero - but I was beginning to have just sprinklings of awareness of other leaders with names like Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and Malcolm X. Meantime, something seismic happened on a more intimate level that rocked our school, and everyone's school. It was a song by a folk singer named Janis Ian, and it was about a white girl dating a black boy. It was called Society's Child, and the refrain was, "I can't see you any more. . . " The girl's mother would not even let the boyfriend in the house. To me, the most chilling line of all is the very last one: "I don't want to see you any more." Her mother's ugly mentality has won a mean little victory.

This song caused a furiosa of response, but it was all underground. Girls huddled around their lockers whispering to each other about it. "Did you hear it? That song? . . .I heard it. . .yeah, it's true, isn't it." Not one person thought the song was inaccurate.

I don't know why were such idiots about it, why we didn't discuss it openly in school, but then we never discussed anything important in school. This was never more apparent than when my mother started talking to me one day about her favorite history book, Romantic Kent by Victor Lauriston. "There's a chapter in it about the Underground Railroad. Chatham is one of the termination points, you know."

About the what?

Once my mother had explained to me, more or less, what the Underground Railroad was, and that Chatham was instrumental in helping escaped and fugitive slaves to settle and build new homes and create communities, a question screamed in my head: why didn't we learn about this in school?

We learned nothing of the Underground Railroad. Either it didn't occur to the school board to put it on the curriculum, or they were embarrassed by it. Chatham had a famous son, Fergie Jenkins, a nationally-known champion ball player, and he was a real nice colored man. Wasn't that enough? We had Mahalia Jackson who came all the way to Chatham to sing for us, but, oops, Mahalia wasn't allowed to stay at the William Pitt Hotel because the management was sure she would be "much more comfortable" in another hotel across town.

I see racism minimized now, I see people writing in comments sections (and why do I still read them?) about how it has all been blown out of proportion, how black people should just forget the past and suck it up and be glad they live in the greatest country in the world (and you know the country I mean, and it isn't Canada). Unfortunately they omit one little fact: that greatest country in the world was founded on the backs of slaves. The United States would not, could not exist without slavery. Slaves were the engine that made the entire machine run. If by force, if by theft of liberty, then what was the damage? They could always go over there and get some more, because slaves were a renewable resource.

But why do those black folks still insist on making such a fuss? I have seen diatribes about indentured workers, Irish mostly, and about how they were treated "just as badly as the blacks". It's the same mentality that whittles down the Holocaust: "but lots of other groups were just as persecuted", "other atrocities took place in history and nobody notices", and maybe just maybe they got that infamous six million count wrong.

I try not to write these days, I really do, because when I do this is what comes out. Truly, I'd like to only post silly videos and animations and things I enjoy doing, because none of it makes one jot of difference anyway. I have almost no readers, and I keep this going only for something to do. I have had weird surges in readership that then died, and I don't understand the surges and I don't understand the dying. I guess I will keep on as long as it amuses me, but there are certain things that will never amuse me, and atrocity against humanity is definitely at the top of the list. 

Underground Railroad Museum, Chatham, Ontario

The Three Stooges - Swingin' The Alphabet (1938)

B—A—bay
B—E—be
B—I—bicky-bi—B—O—bow
Bicky—bi—bow—B—U—boo
Bicky—bi—bow—boo

C—A—say
C—E—see
C—I—sicky-sigh—C—O—sow
Sicky—sigh—sow—C—U—sue
Sicky—sigh—sow—sue

D—A—day
D—E—dee
D—I—dicky-die—D—O—doe
Dicky—die—doe—D—U—due
Dicky—die—doe—due

F—A—fay
F—E—fee
F—I—ficky-fi—F—O—foe
Ficky—fi—foe—F—U—fu
Ficky—fi—foe—fu

G—A—jay
G—E—gee
G—I—gicky-gi—G—O—joe
Jicky—ji—joe—G—U—jew
Jicky—ji—joe—jew

Rat-da-da-da

H—A—hay
H—E—he
H—I—hicky-high—H—O—ho
Hicky—high—ho—H—U—who
Hicky—sigh—ho—who

J—A—jay
J—E—gee
J—I—jicky-jigh—J—O—joe
Jicky—jigh—joe—J—U—jew
Jicky—jigh—joe—jew

K—A—kay
K—E—key
K—I—kicky-kigh—K—O—co
Kicky—kigh—co—K—U—coo
Kicky—kigh—co—coo

L—A—lay
L—E—lee
L—I—licky-lie—L—O—low
Licky—lie—low—L—U—lou
(Curly’s a dope)

M—A—may
M—E—me
M—I—micky-my—M—O—moe
Micky—my—mow—M—U—moo
Micky—my—mow—moo

EXPLANATION. Somebody on a TV horror movie Facebook page (Svengoolie) said I was dissing the Stooges, which means I am a "hater". What I said was, comedy is funnier when it's funny. For this, someone posted one of those red-faced "rage" stickers at me. I am now a  troll! I am no longer welcome to post on their page because I don't love every movie they show. And I am not saying the Three Stooges weren't funny, I've had convulsions over their lowest-of-the-low gags, but their movies weren't particularly good, and most were awful. They didn't have Curly or even Shemp in them, so the third man was always weak. They had run out of steam and ideas. So comedy is funnier when it's funny. This clip is from when they were funny, or at least appealingly odd.

But that Svengoolie guy, boy, talk about oversensitive.

My favorite 87-year-old sex symbol

Fatboyslowdown!

I suppose I should add a note of explanation to this, perhaps my favorite gif of all time. And yes, I know I've posted it before, but can you ever see this enough times? And isn't it better just the way it is? Let's just say this guy is caught up in the spirit of Dancing with the Stars, only he can't dance. Actually, this was filmed during the height of that Toronto Blessing/Holy Laughter/Kenneth Hagin/rolling-on-the-floor ("carpet time") movement which had people mooing, bleating and crowing like roosters in church, all to express - I guess - the glory of God. This guy prefers to spin around in circles, stomping all the way. 

Like this.

"Do shadows hide your beauty?" Your future in a bar of soap

Camay wasn't a soap so much as a state of mind. Think of it. There was nothing in this product that wasn't in a million other kinds of soap products. What they were selling here was an idea. No, what they were selling here was a future. A literal metamorphosis, not from a bad-smelling woman to a nice-smelling woman, but from a dour and unwanted single girl to a Bride. Almost every Camay commercial I could find (and I recently unearthed a cache of them from the Internet Archive, which I then turned into this series of gifs) features this remarkable morphing into a married state, which to our eyes seems creepy and even laughable, but to young women in the '50s must have been. . . remarkable.

I think I've used Camay once or twice - or was it Pond's? At any rate, it was about as refreshing as rubbing a pound of Crisco on my face. I now use the plainest stuff I can find, only a step up from lye and ashes, with no scent and no cold cream or other yucky dreck. But Camay was obsessed with cold cream, and its manic little jingle proclaimed it like some revelation: "There's cold cream now in Camay! There's cold cream now in Camay!"

Earlier ads were a little more melancholy-sounding: "Do shadows hide your beauty?" (though with the same irritating three-note tune - their jingle-writer must have been lazy). "Your beauty" is interesting, isn't it, because it just assumes you're beautiful, or you WILL be beautiful once you get those grungy shadows off your face by using Camay. This was a rare case of a product with a woman announcer, though  her voice was almost contralto-sounding, with a la-di-da, privileged, finishing school diction that's hard to describe. People just don't speak that way any more.

Having worked my brain off making these gif compilations, and they really do take quite a bit of time and effort, suddenly I want to share the actual ads, which are minor works of art and which jack the lid off the strange and contradictory values of the 1950s. You used this soap so you could attract someone and get married, so that then you wouldn't have to worry about attracting someone any more and could just sort of stop using it. Or maybe just use the cheaper stuff.

Looks very jolly, doesn't it?

Tortie talks!

Cat wrap: Bentley on a roll

It's been a while since I posted a Bentley video, so here is one. Like most cats, he does all sorts of funny, sweet, droll - oh, SCREW that! He is the only cat who does the fun, the pleasurable, the joyfully antic things that he does, warming our hearts and making our lives just a tad more meaningful. 

For Bentley came along when there was a cat-shaped hole in my heart, and I didn't even know it. Not until that particular puzzle-piece clicked into place did I realize how incomplete I had been.

Bentley does not meow. Bentley does not purr. He is nearly silent. Bentley will bite you as soon as lick you. Bentley has huge eyes that sometimes seem predatory, sometimes frightened, or that glimmer enigmatically. He sneaks up on you with great stealth. He is exceptionally beautiful. We think so.

Bill callls him "chum", "our boy", and (when he has been bad) "ya bum". I call him "pudsy", "pud-pud" and "pudster", or "Bentleykins". Bentley takes care of us. He is sleek and beautiful and warms my lap. He runs to the door to greet us when we've been out. The only time we've been away from him for any length of time, when we went to Hawaii earlier in the year, he stopped eating and nearly had a nervous breakdown.

So there, dog people, those who say a cat can't be attached to you in the same way. No, it's not the same way at all! Bentley is attached to us in a Bentley way.

Jacques Brel - "Le Moribond": or, lost in translation

Goodbye Emilio I like you very much
Goodbye Emilio I like you very much you know
We have sung about the same wine
We have sung of the same women
We have sung about the same miseries

Goodbye Emile I am going to die
It is hard to die in the springtime you know
But I leave the flowers and peace in my soul
And because I know you are as good as white bread
I know that you will take care of my wife

Chorus:

I want them to laugh, I want them to dance
I want them to have fun like crazy people
I want them to laugh I want them to dance
To amuse themselves like crazy when they put me in the hole

Goodbye priest I like you very much
Goodbye priest I like you very well you know
We did not always agree about views and we were not on the same path
But we were searching for the same port
Goodbye priest I am going to die
It is hard to die in the spring you know
I leave the flowers and the beauty, peace in my soul
And knowing that you are her confidant
I know that you will take care of my wife

Goodbye Antoine I did not like you very much
Goodbye Antwon I do not like you very much you know
And it’s killing me to die today knowing that you are still so alive
And yet still as solid as boredom
Goodbye Antoine I’m going to die
It’s hard to die in the spring you know
I leave the flowers and the beautiful peace in my soul
And because I know that you were her lover
I know that you will take care of my wife

Chorus

Goodbye my wife I love you very much
Goodbye my wife I love you very much you know
I must take the train for the good God
I’m taking the train that leaves before yours
But we all must take the trains that we can
Goodbye my wife I’m going to die
It is hard to die in the springtime you know
But I’m leaving flowers and my eyes are shut, my wife
And because I realize that they were shut often
I know that you will take care of my soul

"Seasons In The Sun"
(originally by Jacques Brel)

Goodbye to you my trusted friend
We've known each other since we were nine or ten
Together we've climbed hills and trees
Learned of love and ABCs
Skinned our hearts and skinned our knees

Goodbye my friend, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
Pretty girls are everywhere
Think of me and I'll be there

We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed
Were just seasons out of time

Goodbye papa, please pray for me
I was the black sheep of the family
You tried to teach me right from wrong
Too much wine and too much song
Wonder how I got along

Goodbye papa, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
Little children everywhere
When you see them, I'll be there

We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song
Like the seasons, have all gone

We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song
Like the seasons, have all gone

Goodbye Michelle, my little one
You gave me love and helped me find the sun
And every time that I was down
You would always come around
And get my feet back on the ground

Goodbye Michelle, it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
With the flowers everywhere
I wish that we could both be there

We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the stars we could reach
Were just starfish on the beach

We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the stars we could reach
Were just starfish on the beach

We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song
Like the seasons, have all gone

All our lives we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed
Were just seasons out of time

We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun

THE TELEPHONE, and How We Use It