Whatever became of the wildwood flower?

In one of his most compelling songs, Gates of Eden, Bob Dylan wrote: "At dawn my lover comes to me/and/tells me of her dreams/with no attempt to shovel the glimpse/into the ditch of what each one means."

Not at dawn, but when I first get up, I find my mate sitting in his Lazy Boy reading the paper, listening to the radio and drinking coffee. I add one more activity to his multiple roster: listening to my dreams.

Not every morning, but just when I have had an unusually vivid one, one that stays with me for a while. This one is already dissolving like frost into the winter air.

I was about 20 years old. I wasn't "I", but this slender, pale wildwood flower of a girl, as if I were barefoot except I couldn't tell if I was barefoot or not. I was wearing a dress like Pippa Middleton's at Kate and Wills's wedding, very close-fitting white satin. My hair was streaming down my back, long and brown and straight and completely unstyled. (I have never looked even remotely like that in my life.) Anyway, I was in a church and was about to be married. I didn't recognize the church at all, or any of the people, though my mother was supposed to be there and I even had dealings with her but didn't know it, didn't recognize her. I had the feeling she might have been one of the people who tried to fuss with my hair.

At one point I even asked someone if the sides shouldn't be pulled up at the back in a ribbon or a rose, and someone else said, "You mean up? Please don't put it up, it looks so pretty that way," but I worried it would look a little too informal or even make me look uneducated and "backwoods". I only recognized one guest, my former English professor from 1991 who kept bustling around very urgently in a suit and tie, as if he was supposed to be doing something. The minister (a youngish guy with a lot of tousled brown hair, whom I had never seen before) kept getting up and blabbing to the congregation about things that I don't remember now.

At one point a woman ripped open buttons on the neckline of my dress (which went all the way up to my chin), leaving the front sprung wide open, and I thought of the man's collar in that Bugs Bunny cartoon, the tenor, when he couldn't stop singing. Then she said, "Ahhh, that looks better," though I worried it didn't look good at all and would look unkempt and out of control, but I couldn't check it because there were no mirrors in the place at all. All the way through this dream I kept hearing the music on this video, which I recently heard on an old Star Trek, a favorite episode called Shore Leave in which the crew of the Enterprise was on a planet where all your thoughts immediately materialized and became real.

There were all sorts of things, a knight, Don Juan, a tiger, Finnegan (asshole from Kirk's Academy days), but suddenly there appears Kirk's old girlfriend Ruth, dressed like an Athenian goddess and so heavily made up (like all Star Trek babes, probably for the grainy b & w TVs of the time) she could barely keep her eyes open. She looked like his date for the Academy grad party or something. Yes, this music came on and from the beginning I loved it, not for its sweetness but for the almost agonizing dissonance in the strings that underlay the innocent flute melody. Anyway, as I was preparing to get married, three girls I vaguely remembered from high school (actually, I only remembered one of them, Janet, who always beat the hell out of me in grades and getting awards) pulled up chairs at the front of the congregation and sat in a sort of triangle (not facing everyone) and began to discuss contract work and contractual obligations and how it was important to know exactly what you were signing.

At this point I stretched out between two chairs in my Pippa Middleton white satin wedding gown and took a nap, thinking I would look more refreshed for the ceremony. The three girls (only about 15) were giving a sort of seminar and no one thought it was unusual. Then I began to worry about the vows, which I had had nothing to do with. I was afraid the minister, who seemed somewhat fundamentalist, would say "love, honor and obey", and I didn't want the "obey" in there, I wanted "love, honor and cherish", but didn't know how to change this because I seemed to have absolutely no control over anything that was happening that day. In fact I seemed to be the least important person in the place, almost as if I were invisible or a walking ghost.

It was not until after I woke up and analyzed this dream that I realized the strangest detail of all: there was NO GROOM - no one, nothing! He was just a cipher, a non-entity. I did not even think about this, did not wonder about it, nor did anyone else. It did not matter at all who I married, in fact it was clear I was not marrying anyone. Hmmm, what else? In a side room, before the ceremony started, a few people I sort of knew from my old church were watching a video on a large flat-screen TV, a movie featuring dangerous mountain climbing. I watched it for a few minutes, then realized it was getting close to the time of the ceremony, so I said, "Will you pause it for me, please?", so I could watch the rest of the movie after I got married.

That flute music appears throughout the classic Trek series, whenever a particularly fetching young woman appears. It's almost a "fetching young woman" signal. The most poignant isn't the one about Ruth but the episode with Jill Ireland, long dead from breast cancer, who falls agonizingly in love with Spock on that planet with the spores that make you fatuously happy. At the end of it she doesn't just shed a tear, she really weeps, with red face and running nose, and Spock speaks to her as tenderly as a Vulcan can.


Watching these Treks again, they're better than the heartless parodies, though of course most of it is standard '60s action/adventure, and Sulu is particularly amusing in his ongoing romantic advances to Uhura (implying it's more acceptable for a gay Japanese man to romance a black woman). Kirk isn't as bad as you remember. Really, he's not. He only overemotes about 10% of the time. This is not the place for Shakespearean soliloquys (though one of these times I'm going to post his Hamlet from one of the daytime shows of the '60s), so he pretty much sticks to the action/adventure hero mode. But as the series wears on he gains levels of humanity, transcending such hokey lines as "No blah, blah, blah!"

The dynamic between Bones and Spock is brilliant, unique to television. DeForest Kelley has some real moments, especially inThe City on the Edge of Forever, in which he runs around crazed but is still compelling and completely believable. I can see how and why this quirky little series somehow spawned a dynasty. But what does that haunting flute music have to do with getting married to an invisible groom? And if that pale wildwood flower really is me, whatever happened to her?

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The Invention of the Saxophone: take two

Blogger's note. God knows how many years ago, I was standing around in a book store leafing through a book of poems by Billy Collins. I found this amazing poem about saxophones, almost forgot it, then tried years later to find it on the net. No sign of it. As so often happens, I had to go back years later to find it, and by then I had done the unthinkable: written my own poem, which likely has unconscious echoes of the Collins poem. Unconscious, not because I was unconscious when I wrote it, but because I only read the Collins poem once in haste before the store clerk glared me out of the place. Do I need to tell you that the Collins' poem makes me want to stop writing forever?

The Invention of the Saxophone by Billy Collins

          It was Adolph Sax, remember,

          not Saxo Grammaticus, who gets the ovation.

          And by the time he had brought all the components

          together-- the serpentine shape, the single reed,

          the fit of the fingers,

          the upward tilt of the golden bell--

          it was already 1842, and one gets the feeling

          it was also very late at night.

          There is something nocturnal about the sound,

          something literally horny,

          as some may have noticed on that historic date

          when the first odd notes wobbled out of his studio

          into the small, darkened town,

          summoning the insomniacs (who were up

          waiting for the invention of jazz) to their windows,

          but leaving the sleepers undisturbed,

          even deepening and warming the waters of their dreams.

          For this is not the valved instrument of waking,

          more the smoky voice of longing and loss,

          the porpoise cry of the subconscious.

          No one would ever think of blowing reveille

          on a tenor without irony.

          The men would only lie in their metal bunks,

          fingers twined behind their heads,

          afloat on pools of memory and desire.

          And when the time has come to rouse the dead,

          you will not see Gabriel clipping an alto

          around his numinous neck.

          An angel playing the world's last song

          on a glistening saxophone might be enough

          to lift them back into the light of earth,

          but really no farther.

          Once resurrected, they would only lie down

          in the long cemetary grass

          or lean alone against a lugubrious yew

          and let the music do the ascending--

          curling snakes charmed from their baskets--

          while they wait for the shrill trumpet solo,

          that will blow them all to kingdom come

AFTER SEARCHING FRUITLESSLY FOR A POEM BY BILLY COLLINS CALLED THE INVENTION OF THE SAXOPHONE, THE AUTHOR TAKES IT UPON HERSELF TO WRITE ONE OF HER OWN

i don’t know who invented this

reflexive question mark of an instrument

but i think it was a good thing

for it’s great to look at,

with fat keys like frog eyes

and a big bell like royal jelly

you could keep flowers in there if you wanted to,

extra socks

or even a clock

Snakes kink too

and this sound is snakey

purply mauve as the deepest bruise

and raunchy

as a man in love

smoked as some cat of the night

disappearing over a fence

it makes leaps

(but only because it has to)

There is no

morning saxophone

this is a sound that

pulls the shades down

a hangover

howl

fading to twilight

or the blackmost

navel

of the night

Few can wrap their lips around

this gooseneck

without some harm coming to them

for this is an instrument

with a long history of

hollowing out

all but the most hardy

Bird flew into a pane

of glass and was

smashed

we don’t know why it does this to people

(maybe it was mad at him

for taking it all to such extremes)

but how could you blow this thing

halfway

i ask you

how could you rear back

in some great pained whiplash of the spine

without a sense of

terrible commitment

i never much cared for

saxophones myself

until i heard one blown correctly at last

jazz is a genre i will never understand

but perhaps that’s good

for like the priesthood, one must enter into it

without question

reservation

or doubt

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Shake, shake, shake: the Telus Hippo!

Coolest Telus ad EVER: and it makes great gifs!


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Amazing -

Sheldon Cooper's worst nightmare

This has been a Gorn sort of week. Oh, it started out OK. Next week will be better, I promise myself.

When things like this show up, your only hope is that a stunt double will take the fall for you. But that seldom happens outside of science fiction.

Sometimes, things just come atcha. And you can't do nothin' but wait for the commercial.

The Gorn roars loudly, and carries a very big stick. Run, Kirk. . . RUN!!

"No. . . no Gorn!" Poor Sheldon Cooper finds the Gorn almost as terrifying as Goofy. Worse, though, the Gorn is taking up sacred space. "That's where I sit!"

But wait, there's more! If you take advantage of this special TV offer, 

we'll send you TWO monsters for the price of one!

Yes! This is the amazing MUGATU, who jumps out of the bushes and harasses Captain Kirk for no reason! The Mugatu, who only looks like a man in an albino gorilla suit adapted with dinosaur spikes and a rhino horn! The Mugatu, who seems to have taken lessons from Ernie Kovacs' Nairobi Trio! The Mugatu, who. . . but let's cut Desilu some slack here. Desi Arnaz probably used up all the budget screwing expensive hookers.

It's gratifying to see McCoy blast this guy with the zipper in his back. It's one of the better special effects of early Trek. But who knows when the Mugatu will return?

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Don't give your heart (an aria)

You must know this: it's not too goddamn smart

To give your heart.

To let some boy just trifle, a-la-carte

It's not too smart.

If you want to go there, go there,

And if you want to stay here, stay here,

And if you want to just pop la balloon

With la railroad-spike -

Do what you like.

Stupid to throw so much of yourself away

Stupid to realize it's past that day

(Way past that day!)

But haven't we always been the railroad type?

Love is a gutting kind of a thing

Doesn't make bells and banjos ring

and in the end, who's gonna sing? 

Who's gonna dance?

When it almost works, it's such a shame,

And shame can feel much worse than  pain - 

L'angoisse!

When it almost works, the shock is deep

When it almost works, it shatters sleep

And pride and other things

The dream is stolen in the night
But you left it in the open, that wasn't too bright!
Not too bright.

When magic misfires too many times

and when all this stuff no longer rhymes

Quelle horreur!

But it can't be worse than misfired art

And it can't be worse than knowing

You made this whole mess start -

You gave your heart.

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Some day, when I'm awfully low

"Never Gonna Dance" music by Jerome Kern and words by Dorothy Fields

Though I'm left without a penny,
The wolf was discreet.
He left me my feet.
And so, I put them down on anything
But the la belle,
La perfectly swell romance.








Never gonna dance.
Never gonna dance.
Only gonna love.
Never gonna dance.





Have I a heart that acts like a heart,
Or is it a crazy drum,
Beating the weird tattoos
Of the St. Louis Blues?





Have I two eyes to see your two eyes
Or see myself on my toes
Dancing to radios
Or Major Edward Bowes?





Though I'm left without a penny,
The wolf was discreet.
He left me my feet.
And so, I put them down on anything
But the la belle,
La perfectly swell romance.





Never gonna dance.
Never gonna dance.
Only gonna love.
Never gonna dance.





I'll put my shoes on beautiful trees.
I'll give my rhythm back to the breeze.
My dinner clothes may dine where they please,
For all I really want is you.





And to Groucho Marx I give my cravat.
To Harpo goes my shiny silk hat.
And to heaven, I give a vow
To adore you. I'm starting now
To be much more positive.
That....

Though I'm left without my Penny,
The wolf was not smart.
He left me my heart.
And so, I cannot go for anything
But the la belle,
La perfectly swell romance.





Never gonna dance.
Never gonna dance.
Only gonna love you.
Never gonna dance.

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Khachaturian - Masquerade Suite (Waltz)

No! No! This ISN'T the same piece I posted a few days ago! This is just the waltz from Masquerade, not the whole suite. But it's much better, with a dark and slightly sleazy circus atmosphere that is like the worn velvet on Viennese trousers, worn because its wearer has been furiously engaged in an activity both illicit and sublime.