They said, 'beautiful eyes' - they said, 'lovely fur'

If I really want to spring the latch on my childhood and release all the hobgoblins of memory, I listen to Children's Record Guild recordings on YouTube. I didn't save any of my originals, which were in bad enough shape when I inherited them from some other family who didn't want them any more. But they didn't go anywhere. They took up residence in the back of my brain. When the internet was relatively new, I discovered "kiddie record" websites which actually SOLD these things, and I was amazed to see they still existed, but I wasn't about to pay $50 for an old beat-up copy of Puss in Boots.

Now  I can hear them, many of them, for free. Some have aged better than others. This might be my favorite - a vastly-simplified version of the Puss in Boots tale, with the main character played by a brash actor with a slightly nasal, possibly New Jersey accent. At the time I just thought Puss was "neat" and didn't notice how American he sounded. 

Then there were the songs. They stuck in the mind. When we  got a kitten in about 1990, I went around the house singing something that made my kids want to climb the walls. It was the song about how Puss learned to talk.

"When I was just a teeny-weeny kitty,
Everyone told me that I looked so pretty.
They said, 'beautiful eyes',
They said, 'lovely fur',
But all I could answer was meow,
or purr."

Pretty soon they were singing it with me, helpless to resist. "My coat was black, my eyes of course were yellow/People always said, what a charming fellow! I wanted to thank them, but I did not know howwww, for all I could answer was purrrr, or meowwww."

When I listen to these things that we played so often, full of familiar skips and scratches that somehow became part of the story, they seem - different. They've changed. For one thing, they're so short. In childhood, time is perceived differently. When we were waiting for Christmas to come, it seemed to take a few thousand years. Now Christmases whip by in a blur, and I want time to go slower so I can at least breathe. The stories now seem almost laughably brief. Puss in Boots was one of the really big, impressive, two-disc recordings, a musical extravaganza, an epic. You had to keep turning records over to hear it. And the whole thing lasts about fifteen minutes! It was hard to fit more than three or four minutes per side on a 78 rpm record, especially a cheaply-manufactured kids' recording. 

Fifteen minutes! Surely those stories lasted hours, because they were a kind of universe we entered. We didn't notice how stupid some of the songs were: 

"Oh a beaver shouldn't bother with a bathrobe
And a raincoat on a reindeer isn't right
And a seal in bedroom slippers
Though he fits them on his flippers
And he zips them up with zippers looks a fright
Now a spider in a sweater is no better,
Hippopotami look horrible in hats,
And a sparrow in a snowsuit looks much worse than one in no suit,
But boots look nice on pussycats
(purrrrrrr, purrrrrrr)
Boots look very nice on pussycats.
(purrrrrrrrrr)."

That song, dumb as it sounds, still kind of gets to me because it's sung rather tenderly, and the "purrrrr, purrrrrr" is quite convincing. Then Puss says, "Thanks, Jahn," and the spell is broken.

All those actors are dead now, because these things were mostly made before I was even born. It was an important cultural genre then, children's records, and even my own kids caught the tail-end of it. And then it all changed. I can't keep up with kids' entertainment now, not sure I even want to, and every day I encounter at least six words that I don't know the meaning of. And yet, in the midst of this alien landscape, I can take a trip backwards any time I want. For free. By the power of YouTube.

Squirrel in a shark suit eating an avocado

The Picnic Panic: deeply surreal

I have always found this old cartoon gorgeously surreal. The deeply-saturated colors, the shining pastel faces of the little girls, the hokey music and chorus - not to mention the unlikely characters - lend it a certain unrealistic charm. Of course animation is an obsession with me - I even try my hand at it myself sometimes, with disastrous results. 

I kept wondering WHAT the opening song reminded me of - it drove me crazy! - until it occurred to me: By a Waterfall, Busby Berkeley's incredible aquatic number in Footlight Parade, one of my all-time favorite movies. It's also a little like Wedding of the Painted Doll from Broadway Melody, which I will also post below. The fragment of animation looks very similar to the first cartoon, but as usual with YouTube, it's just a bleeding chunk. I can't trace it back to anything.

Special bonus video! Ruby Keeler and Dick Powell sing Pettin' in the Park, which has a similar dut-da dut-da dut-da dut-da DA-DAA rhythm to it. They also sang an awkward version of By a Waterfall, but I couldn't find it anywhere. You think Elizabeth Holmes has a deep voice? Wait until you hear Ruby Keeler. She can no more sing than she can dance, and yet she was a huge star. Maybe it was those puppy-dog eyes.

And just one more! This is one of my favorite numbers from Footlight Parade, Honeymoon Hotel. Even by today's standards, it's pretty racy, though in a cheerful, lighthearted way that makes it a lot more fun and less "illicit" (though it's all about forbidden sexual rendezvous(es) and how nobody feels any guilt about them at all).

As always, it's a good idea to watch these on YouTube rather than these little squares (which actually serve as thumbnails that play). Click on the bottom right. You can also go full-screen - click on full-screen! - but it might turn out kind of blurry 'cause it's old-fashioned low-rez.)

How Monarch Butterflies Are Made

Yes, we're all dodgin'

Yes, the candidate's a dodger, yes, a well known dodger 

Yes, the candidate's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too 

He'll meet you and treat you and ask you for your vote
But look out boys: he's a dodgin' for a note, 

Yes, we're all dodgin', a dodgin', dodgin', dodgin 

Yes, we're all dodgin' out away through the world 

Yes, the preacher he's a dodger, yes, a well known dodger 

Yes, the preacher he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too 

He'll preach you a gospel and tell you of your crimes 

But look out boys: he's a dodgin' for your dimes 

Yes, we're all dodgin', a dodgin', dodgin', dodgin 

Yes, we're all dodgin' out away through the world 

Yes, the lover he's a dodger, yes, a well known dodger 

Yes, the lover he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too 

He'll hug you and kiss you and call you his bride 

But look out girls: he's a tellin' you a lie. 

Yes, we're all dodgin', a dodgin', dodgin', dodgin' 

Yes, we're all dodgin' out away through the world

This isn't actually about the internet at all. Except that it is. This is one of Aaron Copland's beloved Old American Songs. These are loosely based on old folk songs that are thought to be anonymous (or written by that well-known composer, Arthur Unknown). To me, a lot of them sound suspiciously like Stephen Foster, especially the one that always moves me to tears, Long Time Ago. To hear William Warfield sing that delicate bit of musical incandescence is to truly be transported to another time and place, when people were different.

Or were they? 

This song seems to have been written as a sort of brash but good-natured political satire, a protest against the corruption that seems to have been around forever, trickling down from government to the most intimate areas of our lives  I don't need to tell you what "dodgin'" is, though today we might say scamming, spamming, trolling - all the different names for fraud.

The song is about insincerity as a way of life, and how ubiquitous it is. It's pretty cynical as it moves from political candidates (whom we all know are crooked) to preachers "dodgin' for your dimes" (has  anything changed here?), to -  the worst of all, the most painful - the lover: "He'll hug you and kiss you and call you his bride/But look out girls: he's a-tellin' you a lie." 

The only thing that saves this song from cutting sarcasm is the shrugging insistence that "we're all dodgin', out away through the world." Arthur Unknown seems to be saying we all have something of the scam artist in us, a necessary survival mechanism that often seems to work a lot better, and cost us a lot less, than honesty and sincerity. But then, displaying those qualities requires a mixture of foolishness and courage that most people just aren't up to, these days.

Instead, we see what we can get away with. Everyone's doing it, aren't they? Myself, I have paid far more dearly for my honesty than for my occasions of dishonesty. Often, a lie is what people would rather hear. All this proliferates on the internet like seething bacteria in a polluted sea. It's the ideal medium for dishonesty, and just look at how well it has done! As usual, its shining initial promise has pretty much collapsed into mediocrity and outright danger. It's just not safe to trust any more.

Integrity struggles, surfaces like a dolphin, goes down again. I don't know what the end of this is. I can't even end this post!  But I know it's a good song, and I'm going to go listen to the rest of them now.

ADDENDA. The roots of the song:

"The Dodger Song" is a 19th-century American folk song. Aaron Copland wrote an arrangement for it as part of Old American Songs, a collection of arrangements of folk songs. "The Dodger" was apparently used as a campaign song to belittle Republican James G. Blaine in the 1884 Presidential election between Blaine and Grover Cleveland, the Democratic candidate. Cleveland had won the support of progressives by his fight against Tammany Hall in New York. The version known today is based on a Library of Congress recording by Mrs. Emma Dusenberry of Mena, Arkansas, who learned it in the 1880s. It was transcribed and first published by Charles Seeger in a little Resettlement Administration songbook.

SPECIAL BONUS VERSES! There's more to this song than you think.

Oh, the candidate's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the candidate's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger too.
He'll meet you and treat you and ask you for your vote,
But look out, boys, he's a-dodgin' for your vote.
We're all a-dodgin',
Dodgin', dodgin', dodgin',
Oh, we're all a-dodgin' out the way through the world.

Oh, the lawyer, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the lawyer, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll plead your case and claim you for a friend,
But look out, boys, he's easy for to bend.

Oh, the preacher, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the preacher, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll preach the gospel and tell you of your crimes,
But look out, boys, he's dodgin' for your dimes.

Oh, the merchant, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger
Oh, the merchant, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll sell you goods at double the price,
But when you go to pay him you'll have to pay him twice.

Oh, the farmer, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the farmer, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll plow his cotton, he'll plow his corn,
But he won't make a livin' as sure as you're born.

Oh, the sheriff, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the sheriff, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll act like a friend and a mighty fine man,
But look out, boys, he'll put you in the can.

Oh, the general, he's a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh the general, he's a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll march you up and he'll march you down,
But look out, boys, he'll put you under ground.

Oh, the lover is a dodger, yes, a well-known dodger,
Oh, the lover is a dodger, yes, and I'm a dodger, too.
He'll hug you and kiss you and call you his bride
But look out, girls, he's telling you a lie.

Sunday Sillies

Eyes of Elizabeth Holmes

 

1930 Fashion Revue - Color Film

I find this completely adorable. It's one of those "my God, how I wish I were there" things. It provokes an alarming impulse to escape everything in my current reality and go backwards, back into a time which I perceive to be simpler, happier, more civil. 

Now, in THAT regard I may be right.

The world grows more appalling each day, and there is a feeling it's disintegrating, or at least human decency is. And yet we are called upon to be happy. To wrap the day around ourselves like sable, or ostrich-plumes, depending on the mood. For the most part, I surprise myself by feeling at home in the day. I am not ridiculously happy all the time, but I always seen to find satisfaction  in something-or-other, even just hearing a bird in a tree. 

So why do I still yearn to escape? There's this feeling that sooner or later, there will be a day of reckoning. I have no real fear of it myself, because I have lived far, far longer than I ever thought I would, or could. It's for my grandchildren that I fear. I know they will have to take this up and carry it themselves, but I fear, I quake for them.

I know we can't go back. Everyone says things like, "It really wasn't that good  back then. We had war, we had crime, we had disease." But we had people relating to each other, not staring into glassy little talking gadgets as if they were alive. If you walked into a manhole back then, you were in a Buster Keaton movie, not texting.

At any rate, my rose-colored fantasies can't come true except in my mind. If I could jump back, I'd pick 1964. 1964 was the best year of my life, though I had no idea of it at the time. It was well before puberty, so my body still belonged to me, hadn't yet been hijacked by hormones. My Dad gave me a horse. A HORSE. The thing I had wanted more than anything in the world! The Beatles exploded onto the scene, performing on the Ed Sullivan Show for the first time on my 10th birthday. I was in an advanced Grade 5 class in school (having skipped through 3 and 4), in which we did absolutely nothing  except create  anarchy and give the teacher a nervous breakdown.

I can't go back. There's no Wayback machine. I keep asking myself why I'm not more unhappy. Denial, I guess! It'll all end when it does, and no one knows the day, or the hour.

Too close for comfort: California in flames

No one is safe any more.

World's tiniest frog pond

Goodbye. . . and hello: Faure's Pavane

Gabriel Fauré: Pavane/en Lyrics


C'est Lindor, c'est Tircis et c'est tous nos vainqueurs!
C'est Myrtille, c'est Lydé! Les reines de nos coeurs!
Comme ils sont provocants! Comme ils sont fiers toujours!
Comme on ose régner sur nos sorts et nos jours!

Faites attention! Observez la mesure!
Ô la mortelle injure! La cadence est moins lente!
Et la chute plus sûre! Nous rabattrons bien leur caquets!
Nous serons bientôt leurs laquais!

Qu'ils sont laids! Chers minois!
Qu'ils sont fols! (Airs coquets!)

Et c'est toujours de même, et c'est ainsi toujours!
On s'adore! On se hait! On maudit ses amours!
Adieu Myrtille, Eglé, Chloé, démons moqueurs!
Adieu donc et bons jours aux tyrans de nos coeurs!
Et bons jours!

It is Lindor, it is Tircis, and it is all our victors!
It is Myrtille, it is Lyde! The queens of our hearts.
As they are defying! As they are always proud!
As we dare rule our fates and our days!

Pay attention! Observe the measure!

Oh mortal insult! The cadence is less slow!
And the fall more certain! We'll make them sing a different tune!
We will soon be their running dogs!
They are ugly! Dear little face!
They are madmen! (Quaint airs and tunes!)

And it is always the same, and so forever!
We love! We hate ! We curse our loves!
Farewell Myrtille, Egle, Chloe, mocking demons!
Farewell and goodbye to the tyrants of our hearts!

And a good day!

So what does it all mean?

Faure's famous Pavane (and a pavane, by the way, is a slow processional dance from the Renaissance, not a lament as so many people think) suffers from a serious disconnect between the music and the lyrics, which upon analysis seem insufferably silly. 

According to wonderful Wikipedia (and I quote it here not to be lazy, but to provide you with links to finer details of the story):

The original version of the Pavane was written for piano and chorus in the late 1880s. The composer described it as "elegant, but not otherwise important." Fauré intended it to be played more briskly than it has generally come to be performed in its more familiar orchestral guise. The conductor Sir Adrian Boult heard Fauré play the piano version several times and noted that he took it at a tempo no slower than 100 quarter notes per minute. Boult commented that the composer's sprightly tempo emphasised that the Pavane was not a piece of German romanticism, and that the text later added was "clearly a piece of light-hearted chaffing between the dancers".

Fauré composed the orchestral version at Le Vésinet in the summer of 1887. He envisaged a purely orchestral composition, using modest forces, to be played at a series of light summer concerts conducted by Jules Danbé. er Fauré opted to dedicate the work to his patron, Elisabeth, comtesse Greffulhe, he felt compelled to stage a grander affair and at her recommendation he added an invisible chorus to accompany the orchestra (with additional allowance for dancers). The choral lyrics were based on some inconsequential verses, à la Verlaine, on the romantic helplessness of man, which had been contributed by the Countess's cousin, Robert de Montesquiou.

The orchestral version was first performed at a Concert Lamoureux under the baton of Charles Lamoureux on November 25, 1888. Three days later, the choral version was premiered at a concert of the Société Nationale de Musique. In 1891, the Countess finally helped Fauré produce the version with both dancers and chorus, in a "choreographic spectacle" designed to grace one of her garden parties in the Bois de Boulogne.

This is one of those pieces that evolved from a trifle into a classic. Faure didn't  think much of it, probably tossed it off and filed it somewhere until he was called upon to use it at "light summer concerts". But soon things escalated. If you have a rich patron like the Countess, and it's her birthday, and she's the one that pays the rent, you give her pretty much anything she wants. What she wanted was Faure's lovely little piece - but with words written by her cousin (the one with the unspellable name). What Faure thought of that idea is not on record, but he went ahead, orchestrating the piece and adding an "invisible chorus" (and it must have been a chore to find that many invisible singers), dancing girls, elephants with ostrich-plume headdresses, plate-spinners (for all we know), and various other garden party accoutrements.

The end result was a piece which put Faure on the map, and is easier to listen to than the Requiem because it only lasts six minutes. It would be interesting to find a version closer to the original, but the piece we know today is deeply melancholy, achingly romantic. So we ended up with this sad, scrumptious piece of music with the dumbest words ever written. It's just court gossip, stuff whispered slyly behind fans.  It translates awkwardly, and each line is followed by an exclamation mark, which is affected enough. I misheard it for years, barely understanding a word here and there. "Observez la mesure" was, surely, "Behold, the misery!" Not even close. It just means, "Keep the rhythm", perhaps a reference to people who can't gossip and dance at the same time. "Coeur" kept popping up, summoning up images of lovers clutching their damaged hearts. Instead it was a quite mundane "queen of hearts" reference.

One thing, though. It ends strangely upside-down, with "adieu. . . et bonjour",  which I like. Perhaps this reflects the shallowness of courtly life, the lapdogs, the intrigue, the feathered lorgnettes. And all that stuff.

But it still blows me away, this music. In spite of its rather strange garden-partyesque origins, it has evolved into an eternal classic. It intrigues me how it progressed from a nice piano piece Faure put together while eating his scrambled eggs (or was that Paul McCartney?) to - this, this lavish, heartbreakingly beautiful lament.

This pavane. Which everyone gets wrong anyway. It's a dance.

POST-SIGH. I sigh because this is the second time I wrote this post. This thing is acting so strangely, the screen sort of moving back and forth. Then, all at once, 3/4 of the text - disappeared. It was just nowhere. I thought of giving up, but I am constitutionally incapable of giving up, even when it would  be a much wiser course. SO - I pieced it back together again, minus whatever inspiration I had initially to write it.

The YouTube video I initially posted mysteriously vacated the building, as sometimes happens, so I had to find a substitute. I couldn't. The only truly lyrical versions of this piece are the ones without a chorus. Not sure why this is, except that it's kind of a lame choral bit. I think the piece would stand nicely without it. But this was all about the strange words and how they don't fit the music. So maybe it goes without saying that in this particular recording, the choir doesn't go with the orchestra. The band is great, soulful, etc., but I don't know what the deal is with the singers. They come in late, they're flat, certain sour razzy female voices stick out. They're not together. The only version I really liked has been taken back by YouTube. But you're welcome to keep on looking! There are only 957 versions to go.

How to style your doll's hair

It's just that easy.

She's not there: Elizabeth Holmes confesses (sort of)

Blood magnate Elizabeth Homes tries to defend herself in the wake of the Theranos (thanatos?) scandal. Note how different her facial expressions are, the eyebrows going up and down, the once-proud head tilting and bowing, the big sorrowful "how COULD you?" eyes. She looks like a little girl called into the principal's office. Abusers often try to turn it around so that they are the victim: it's part of their inherent narcissism. The system fed this woman and her schemes, exalted and inflated and lionized her to the point that she blew up like a balloon, then finally popped.

The Ballad of Elizabeth Holmes

The Ballad of Elizabeth Holmes

She made her name in blood -

"It's just one drop", she said.

But red will turn to orange soon

Or so the judge has said.

Black turtlenecks like Steve's,

Unblinking eyeballs too,

She soon had them believing

"With us she'll never screw".

A girl in science - what a thrill!

They've waited all these years!

She faked them out most masterfully,

And bypassed all their fears.

She stood up there just like a man,

Was never soft or weak.

And though her voice was basso,

Her dead-white skin looked chic.

How odd that all those power guys

Fell for that blood-drop bit.

Those rich old white men on the board

Were shocked it turned to shit. 

It made them blush to realize

They'd taken such a bath.

But now their golden girl's been nailed: 

She's just a sociopath.

One drop of blood has done her in,

Poor Lizzie paid the price.

But maybe she will come to see

That vampires just aren't nice.

(Or not. She is just as likely to work an elaborate con in prison. You CAN kid a kidder, and you can con a con, especially if you've had this much practice.)

Elizabeth Holmes
Elizabeth Holmes backstage at TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2014
Born	Elizabeth Anne Holmes February 3, 1984 (age 34) Washington, D.C., U.S.
Residence	Los Altos Hills, California, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Stanford University (withdrew)[1]
Occupation	Health-technology entrepreneur
Years active	2003–2018
Net worth	As of June 2016, USD $0[2]
Title	Founder and ex-CEO of Theranos
Parent(s)	Christian Holmes IV Noel Anne Daoust

Elizabeth Anne Holmes (/hoʊmz/; born February 3, 1984) is the founder and former CEO of Theranos, a privately held company known for its false claims to have devised revolutionary blood tests that used very small amounts of blood. She is under indictment by the United States Department of Justice for wire fraud.In 2015, Forbes named Holmes as the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world due to a $9 billion valuation of Theranos.The next year Forbes revised the value of her interest in Theranos to zero dollars, given an updated $800 million valuation of Theranos and the fact that many of Theranos' investors hold preferred shares and so would be paid before Holmes (who holds common stock) in a liquidation event).

Gabrielle Ray: raspberry red, lemon yellow, and orange orange

Floridly-tinted photos of the Edwardian actress Gabrielle Ray

Hands on/hands off

My heart belongs to Norway

As in a dream.

Busy little brain

Duet for French Horn and chair

Okay then.

Power fiddle