The Story of Skippy

One summer day in the city, a day when nothing out of the ordinary was happening, a puppy was born.

The puppy's family named her Skippy, for no particular reason. She was a creamy-golden cocker spaniel, very sweet-natured and beautiful. The children doted on her, the adults tolerated her, and for a while, everything was good.

But things change. The biggest people in the household, the Mom and Dad, weren't getting along very well. Skippy could hear them screaming at each other, and she crouched down on her belly in dread. One night there was an awful crashing and booming upstairs, and Skippy didn't sleep.

The next day, they told the children they had decided it would be better if Mom and Dad lived in two separate houses. The children knew it was their fault. Skippy wondered if it was her fault. Soon it became apparent that it was.

Neither of them really wanted Skippy. They didn't like dogs, she smelled, her fur had mats, and the vet bills! They argued and argued about who would take Skippy. The children kept their mouths shut in fear that Skippy would be taken away from them.

She was.

First the Mom and Dad thought about giving her to a shelter where she might find a "forever home", but then a friend of theirs, a man with many dogs, asked to take her, and they told themselves it was a good thing.

The children said goodbye to her tearfully. Mom, busy throwing all of Dad's things out on the sidewalk, said they should stop being such babies and keep quiet, so they did.

The man had many dogs. But he had no use for the new dog that cowered in the corner, her tiny stump of a tail wagging in a blur to placate him. Sometimes she peed on the floor, and he slapped her muzzle so hard she could not help but let out a shriek of pain.

Then he'd tie her outside for a long time.

Something happened while she was outside, and it became apparent that Skippy was going to have puppies. The man looked at her like he wanted to murder her. Skippy went under the bed to protect her unborn puppies. They were all she had.

The man had the decency not to harm her during her pregnancy, but when the puppies were born, they didn't look right, as if their father had been a Doberman or Rottweiller. Too bitter mixed with too sweet.

Very early one morning, Skippy noticed her puppies were gone. She never found out where they went. She mourned, whimpering, until one day the man threw something hard at her head.

She stopped whimpering.

But there was something gnawing at her, thousands of centuries of needing human beings to love and pay attention to her. One day she rolled over on her back to expose her belly, and the man kicked her hard. The sound she made cannot be described.

Though it was not like her to abandon her people, one day Skippy took a chance and ran away. She became a dog of the streets. Her survival instincts were sharpened, and when a person approached her she crouched down and let out a low growl.

She became more and more matty, and thinner from eating scraps. It looked bad for Skippy, and some days she just wanted to run in front of a car.

Then something happened. A girl was walking along the street, and saw two enormous liquid-brown eyes peeking out from behind a bush.

She crouched down and said, "Come on, girl. Come on."

It took quite a while for Skippy to come out of the bushes. She didn't know what to expect. But she knew, in a certain doggish way, that children shouldn't be harmed. No matter what the girl did to her, she would find a way to tolerate it.

There was a rope digging deep into Skippy's neck, so she hooked her finger in it and dragged her home. The pads on her feet were hot and sore from planting her legs.

Her mother said, Cindy, I don't know. We can't take in another dog. I think we should take her to the shelter right now. It's the best thing for her. Cindy cried, but did as she was told, knowing that it was her fault.

Skippy knew that it was her fault.

Things were bad at the shelter, all bleach and bars. There were a hundred other dogs there, either barking aggressively or cowering in corners. People came and went, poking and prodding, looking for something that would soon be their property.

Skippy knew that some dogs ended up in wonderful homes, and wondered how to act. She knew she shouldn't hope too much, but hope was the only thing that kept her going.

Then one afternoon, an old woman came into the shelter. Her eyes met Skippy's.

It was love.

It was love, and despite the fact that the old woman didn't have enough money to feed a dog, she took Skippy home, naming her Lady after the dog in the cartoon movie.

This was a home such as Skippy had never known. She truly was treated like a princess. She even wondered if the old lady could get her puppies back.

But then one morning, everything fell still. The old woman didn't get up.

Then came the argument all over again: who will take the dog? No one seemed to want her very badly. She was a burden no one could afford.

Then someone spoke up. A man who had many dogs. The family brushed her carefully, making her look her best. He took her home, put a rope around her neck and tied her to a post in the yard.

 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

    It took me years to write, will you take a look

Order The Glass Character from:

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Barnes & Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-glass-character-margaret-gunning/1117863913?ean=9781927068885

Thistledown Press

http://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/genre/Fiction/the_glass_character_p580.cfm

Chapters/Indigo
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-glass-character/9781927068885-item.html?ikwid=the%

The ghost at the piano

Picture this.

It's sometime in the afternoon back in the God-knows-when, the fall or something, and I have a stack of files or books in my arms, and something comes on the radio and even though I am barely paying any attention to anything other than the rabid stress of the moment, suddenly - all the books slide out of my arms and onto the floor.

I am stunned.

Stunned in my tracks, because someone is playing something on the piano. Something sinuous, noir-ish, midnight-y, redolent of back alleys and cats on fences, of men in top hats kicking cans and regretting, of call girls lurking in shadowy corners, of. . .

I heard this thing, then got distracted I guess, because in an act of total idiocy I didn't listen for what the piece was called, or who wrote it.

It only took around twenty years for me to hear it again - it was called The Graceful Ghost, by William Bolcom - only this time it was played Wrong.

Wrong, as in jaunty, raggy, almost upbeat, probably the way it was intended to be played by the composer.

The version I had heard, sinuous, mysterious, smoky, almost stoned, had slipped away from me. And I still haven't found it.

I've bought several recordings of it, and always end up groaning because it's played in the same choppy, soulless way. Then I heard this YouTube version by this kid, this Grant Carvalho. The comments reflect people's absolute ignorance of what actually constitutes good music: no one seemed to appreciate it at all. They said it was nice, they said it was good, but that his technique was lacking and he needed to keep working at it.

It isn't "my" version, because no one, except that phantom pianist from 20 years ago, could ever reproduce it. But there's something awfully good going on here. Graceful it is, but tinged with melancholy. There's a care for the music, even a love. He's in tune with it. The dynamics are superb (in fact, it's the only version I have heard that has any). And this is a kid! A kid who, if he sticks to this, will be getting right inside music to a degree that very few can ever attain.

Why does this piece haunt me now? Three guesses. Harold Lloyd, Harold Lloyd, Harold Lloyd.

I can't talk about this or I'll jinx it, but because it's never going to happen anyway and I can no longer keep my grief to myself, I'll explain it. All through the writing of The Glass Character, my novel based on the life and loves of silent screen comedian Harold Lloyd, this music kept playing in my head. Not the jaunty version, mind you - and Lloyd could be plenty jaunty, part of the smokescreen he put up to hide his sensitive interior.

I mean that dark and sinuous, elongated, midnight tomcat version, like something out of a saloon in a Warner Brothers movie starring Bogart and Bacall.  It played and played and played in an endless circle in my ear, the way ragtime does.

Writers can't help it, they see their works in print, and they see them as movies. It's because of these fat successes that come along once in a while and just grab every trophy. We won't even go into J. K. Rowling, who started off writing penny-ante fiction and ended up as the Oprah of kids' literature. Probably forever. Not that we get jealous, oh no. I just want a piece of what they have. I don't want the successes to succeed any less; I just want me to succeed more. Surely there must be enough to go around?

But apparently there isn't, and that's part of the reason many of the publishers I have approached have shut the door (not slammed, of course) before they have even looked at one paragraph of my work. They're full-up and no longer receptive.  I remember the godawful rubber stamp, that "list is full", not even written by hand, and not even on a form letter but stamped on MY letter and returned in my dutiful self-addressed envelope. They didn't even have to pay the postage! I paid to have this thing tossed back at me without a single word of acknowledgement from a human being.

Then there are the rejections that arrive on Christmas Eve. I actually objected to one of them last time, sent off a protest letter, even though you are never, never, ever allowed to argue with a rejection, not even with the time it is delivered. Then in checking with some friends, I found that several of them had also received rejections on Christmas Eve, likely due to editors' habit of cleaning out their desks before flying off to Puerta Vaillarta for the holidays.

Why should we object? What's wrong with us? Don't we want to know what their decision is? Isn't it better to know before the holidays, so we can begin to plan a more effective strategy while everyone else is drinking eggnog and kissing under the mistletoe?

I didn't expect to go off on this tangent. I wanted to write about Harold Lloyd. If I can't stand the heat, I should just keep my mouth shut and pretend I'm happy with the way things have been going. I have something here, I know I do. It may rot in the bud, and there will be nothing in the world I can do about it. Am I unlucky? What's lucky? Whatever I'm not, I guess.

Even Harold's luck ran out eventually, in spite of all his elaborate superstitious rituals. But I'd like to have some luck, just a little, so I can have it run out on me, so I can say, I had my moment, and even though it passed, it gave Harold just a little more time in the sun.

http://margaretgunnng.blogspot.com/2012/01/synopsis-glass-character-novel-by.html

http://members.shaw.ca/margaret_gunning/betterthanlife.htm

The two weirdest things in the world

The more Boobahs I find, the more Gaga I get.

Lascaux in Port Coquitlam

(See'f you can tell the difference: my brilliant granddaughter Erica started painting horses the other night. One of them turned out so well, I tucked it under my coat. This horse rivals those cave paintings in Lascaux, I think, except it`s easier to hang on my refrigerator.)

There are beavers

If you just stop to think, here's a lesson for you

What a beaver can convey

With a beaver you make someone happy or blue

With a beaver you make them sad or gay

So be careful what you say
And be careful how you smile

It's so easy for a beaver

To kill us, or make life worthwhile. . .

There are beavers, that make us happy
There are beavers, that make us blue

There are beavers, that steal away the teardrops

Like the Sunbeams steal away the dew

There are beavers, that have a tender meaning

That the eyes of love alone can see

But the beaver, that fills my life with sunshine

Is the beaver that you gave to me!

Yes, the beaver, that fills my life with sunshine

Is the beaver that you gave to me!

Oops. . . didn't mean to click on that "beaver" site. . . heh-heh-heh (munchmunchmunch. . . watch out for that treeeeeeee. . . . . . !)

 

Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my book

    It took me years to write, will you take a look

Order The Glass Character from:

Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001K7NGDA

Barnes & Noble

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-glass-character-margaret-gunning/1117863913?ean=9781927068885

Thistledown Press

http://www.thistledownpress.com/html/search/genre/Fiction/the_glass_character_p580.cfm

Chapters/Indigo
http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/the-glass-character/9781927068885-item.html?ikwid=the%

Twilight drive

I don't know where to start with this. I can't write an essay. It just hit me in the stomach. I was watching my old Twilight Zone episodes: haven't seen most of them in 50 years, I mean the few I managed to see without my Mum knowing about it. They seemed creaky and quaint at first, but gradually the strange and disturbing vision of Rod Serling began to burn through: an alien dystopia, the world seen through the wrong end of the telescope, human darkness laid bare by the frightening advancement of a soulless technology.

Yes, overheated old cathode tubes and beeping big boxes that are supposed to be computers, and astronauts in clunky old suits left over from Diver Dan. An atomic blast that leaves one survivor, Burgess Meredith with his Coke-bottle glasses shattering into a million pieces. But along with laughably primitive versions of future innovation (and the weird sensation of trying to see 1970 as the future), there were other things.

A mournful folk song coming out of tape recorder, a song that was never recorded to begin with, accusing a man of murder. (This one I remember. I had bad dreams about it for weeks.) A doll that talks, yes, talks to Telly Savalas! A grandfather (Ed Wynn, who was on the show several times) whose clock ran out at the same time as his heart. And stuff like that.

Then today, I start watching on my PVR and: my God. It's Inger Stevens.

Inger Stevens, whom I first saw as the sweet but ditzy Swedish housekeeper for Congressman Morley on the '60s sitcom The Farmer's Daughter. (They finally had to get married when viewers complained that it looked like they were shacking up.)

It was a long time later that I learned what had happened to Inger Stevens. It must have been on the internet somewhere, or where? I heard that she had killed herself at age 35.

I thought back, thought of her fragility, the deerlike wariness in her lovely eyes. She was a sort of Nordic Audrey Hepburn, beautiful in a classy kind of way, but always with a look of barely-controlled anxiety.

This episode was called The Hitchhiker. It was in some ways reminiscent of Janet Leigh's famous drive in Psycho where, having just committed adultery and theft, she speeds away from danger and towards safe haven at. . . the Bates Motel. (And here we have a couple of degrees of separation, but let's not get distracted.)

Actually, The Hitchhiker predates Psycho slightly, shown in 1959 during Twilight Zone's first year, when the theme song was an eerie, dark, Poe-like dirge full of dissonant harp sounds rather than the doo-doo-doo-doo that came later. The legendary Bernard Hermann (who wrote the music for Psycho!) composed that first theme, although it was sadly forgotten after Season One.

So Inger Stevens is on a driving trip from California to New York, but we're never sure why. A blonde woman, a young blonde woman, an attractive young blonde woman in a car alone, driving away like mad, is automatically suspect, is she not? After all, the shower scene in Psycho has an undertone of punishment for female independence and its attendent rampant sexuality. Janet Leigh, a lady so bad she wears a black bra, is just enjoying that shower too damn much. (Norman. . . is that you?)

The whole premise of this episode is that Inger Stevens keeps seeing a mysterious hitchhiker, a rather grubby middle-aged man who appears, disappears, then appears again. She becomes increasingly unhinged as it becomes apparent that no one else sees him. She feels so desperately unsafe that she picks up a sailor on leave, another powerful metaphor for sluthood, and offers to drive him back to his ship. He becomes so freaked out by her escalating delusions that he jumps out of the car.

Knowing what we know, knowing what in fact Inger Stevens herself doesn't know, this drama is almost unbearably poignant: there are references to death all through it, and by the end, when it becomes horribly apparent that she is already dead and caught in some sort of awful no-man's-land, we see how lost she is, her eyes huge, desperate, haunted by God knows what sort of dark trauma buried deep in her subconscious.

Dead blondes. Hitchcock revelled in them. Show business eats 'em up and spits 'em out, just the nature of the game. Fame does that to people, doesn't it? Or do people pursue fame, desperately pursue it, to fill an agonizing vacuum within, a vacuum created by lack of love or the awful presence of unforgiveable abuse?

Or am I becoming fanciful once again? Doing a little digging, it turns out Inger Stevens was married to a black actor, and in that era it had to be kept secret. Kind of like being married to a homosexual. But this doesn't make a person swallow a handful of barbiturates and die.

Why do people kill themselves? I'm always shocked and sickened by news of a suicide, and yet, I do get it. Personally, I have always found life a bewildering mess, with odd patches of wonder and beauty that somehow keep you in there, keep you in the fight: and then there are my people, whom I couldn't abandon no matter what sad sort of mess I'm in.

Was Inger Stevens too fine-edged for reality, too thin-skinned, too moody, too bipolar, too drug-addicted, too unloved? Too blonde, too lovely, too famous, or not famous enough?

But she's dead. So we'll never know the answer to that one.

Playtex girdle: so comfortable under your swimsuit!

Some truly astonishing ads from Playtex, circa 1950s-60s. I remember "to lift and separate," "you're suddenly shapelier," "holds you in like firm young muscles," and conversations between women like, "Ah, but I have midriff bulge. I really need a longline." "With some dresses, so do I! Then I wear Playtex longline padded bra."


And so on, and so on. Lycra and wire and rubber and padding, and wearing a girdle under your swimsuit. (Some women even slept in them.) Nowadays, even fat women let it all hang out in jiggly pink rolls, with skimpy tops and pants that ride below the crackline.

Anthony Perkins sings SUMMERTIME LOVE

Walk like an Egyptian

OK then, so it's Tony Perkins time again, just like "cryin' time" in that old song. I keep coming back to him, just because he was so mysterious, so misunderstood, and because he summed up in my mind what it means to be human: conflicted, passionate, vitriolic, kind, altriustic, selfish, brilliant, obtuse, and on and on it goes.

And he was cute, too. Cute in a way women loved, right up to and including the gorgeous, girlish Berry Berenson (sister of supermodel Marisa), who married him in spite of the open secret of his homosexuality. They had two sons and stayed together for 20 years, until he died of AIDS.

I've read lots of stuff about him, including Charles Winecoff's Split Image, which in some ways is the best bio of anyone I've ever read, but which in other ways offends the hell out of me. Never has a biographer been so thorough in ferreting out the real Perkins, penetrating the million smokescreens he put up, but then he wrecks it: he quotes "an unnamed source" who claims to have been Perkins' lover, outlining in excruciating, completely unnecessary detail what he liked to do in bed. Would a heterosexual actor have been subjected to such humiliation, and from a completely unreliable kiss-and-tell source who probably sought some sort of payoff?

I found another book about him, Anthony Perkins: A Haunted Life by Ronald Bergan, and I pounced on it. I thought it might be bland compared to Winecoff's claw-sharpening meow-fest, but on the first page it grabbed me because of a surprisingly bang-on description of his unusual body type.

The author was speaking to the actor backstage after a performance. "He was stripped to the waist, revealing the smooth-skinned svelte figure of a man half his age - he was forty-seven at the time - and what the actor William Chappell described as 'an Egyptian torso, unnaturally broad in the shoulder and small in the waist and so flat it is almost one-dimensional.'

Oh yes.

In spite of his great natural talent and versatility as an actor, there was a strangeness about Tony, a remoteness: he was the perennial outsider, but didn't seem to mind it, which made him even more odd. He wasn't a warm actor, but had certain abilities that were unique and eerie. In the Ken Russell turkey Crimes of Passion, he plays a demented minister addicted to sex toys and porn. Kathleen Turner plays a part-time hooker, and at the height of his Byzantine fits of craziness they have this conversation:

"If you're a minister, I'm Snow White. Who are you? You're not a reverend. Who are you?"

"I'm you."

Yes. Tony was us. He needled, he probed, he burrowed inside, he smiled boyishly as he found the subtle flaw and put his hand into it. The cracked cup, the broken building, the chipped tooth, all these were the province of Perkins and his calmly detached fascination. He snooped around the edges of the human condition, not unaffected of course, and capable of a paradoxical deep devotion to friends and family, but still the perennial observer. Why did people like him so much, care so much about a man who seemed almost cold? And they did, they loved him. As he lay dying of AIDS, literally gasping out his last, friends camped around his bedside in sleeping bags. Hundreds of people came to his memorial service, which lasted hours.

Tony loved dogs, but he was definitely more cat than dog, sniffing delicately, warily drawing back. And sometimes lunging forward in almost predatory sensuality. Bergan claims he had charm, but in the original, supernatural sense, a spellbinding power.

A friend once tried to describe his unusual body with its coathanger shoulders and long, gangly arms, which made his head seem small: he resembled "some sort of great prehistoric bird". Exotic, a little scary, impossible to comprehend, echoing all those stuffed owls and ravens of Psycho. Oh yes, Psycho, we were getting to that. Or were we?