David, my closest friend, to whom I now have to say goodbye. And I don't want to, for it means the end of a huge chapter of my life. Maybe a whole book. The story is too large to tell right now, I don't know where to begin. I found this bit of him on his Facebook page, and some pictures.
Strange are the ways of Facebook. Nearly as strange as the ways of the world. I've received spammy things in my "filtered messages" file, such as:
Hello you got a nice sparkling smile i'm David by name
i do everything at I AM A GENERAL CONTRACTOR
HELLO PRETTY LADT I WAS JUST PASSING WHEN I SEE YOUR WONDERFUL BEAUTIFUL FACE I WAS CATIVATED IF YOU DONT MINE CAN WE BE FRIENDS
Hello Dear what a nice smile you got,am new on here please can we be friends? i stumbled on your profile and notice your wonderful smile and decided to say hello. Always wear that smile.
You and Justine Favour aren't connected on Facebook
Lives in Kharkov, Ukraine
hi, my name is Grace, i saw your profile and i became interested to know more about you, please can you give me the chance to know more about you? i will be very happy to be your good friend . this is my private E_mail ( babegrace222 (@) yahoo.co.uk ) PLEASE DON'T REPLY ME HERE. CONTACT ME THROUGH MY PRIVATE E_MAIL, SO THAT I WILL SEND YOU MORE PRIVATE PICTURES ( babegrace222@yahoo.co.uk )
Never mind that my profile pictures are usually photos of horses or parrots or vintage cars, or something else non-human. They still think I have a wonderful smile.
I've also seen some suspiciously click-baity-looking Facebook pages which plaster generic comments all over unrelated pages, i. e. history or science or WTF?? Dumb Video of the Day!! These pages have names like Wisdom of Life or Gateway of Peace or whatever. I don't know the purpose of these pages, and I don't want to know. But I find it irritating to have to skip over long, florid, pointless comments that have nothing whatsoever to do with the subject matter.
That is, it irritated me UNTIL TODAY. Today I encountered a Facebook comment that blew all those other Facebook comments out of the water. It cascaded down from the mountaintop of gibberish like a landslide of mind-numbing, soul-sucking irrelevancy. It was on one of my favorite mindless, funny-animals-doing-crazy-things-in-short-little-videos-that-don't-tax-your-mental-capacity pages, and the comment related to a video of very large wet dogs bounding around that looked like mastiffs with poodle coats.
Sharon Stewart My sweetie my dear precious sweetie how are you?I hope you had a good productive morning, I wish you The best evening ever, I think about you so much as I worked this morning,I'm always thinking about you,you lives in my heart thoughts, and my mind,try to feel good and happy in your heart and mind, try to feel good about yourself inside out, drink enough water for the day,takes the best care of yourself, love and respect yourself dear sweetie it's the greatest love of all, be temperate in all that you do, you are worthy,I appreciates and adores you,you are a beautiful person inside out, you are my dear precious baby sweetie, I cares about you and love you with an intense passion, nothing will ever seperates you from my heart that loves you dear sweetie, I will never leave you,I might be late with these letters, however I will show up,I'm here writing to you for a positive reason,I will be traveling home in a hour time,I'm free for the weekend, you are strong dear sweetie, we are going to get through this raging storm together, I'm trying to tolerate you dear sweetie,I still have to try harder,as there are things I'm still learning about you each day dear sweetie,the truth of the matter is,which ever way you flip the coin I just have to find the extra strength to cope,because love never gets weary,love don't give up,love do not keeps record of wrong,love has power over everything, even death,enjoy your evening ,I will rest for 15 minutes,then I have to get ready to travel with the bus home,you will hear me later my dear precious baby sweetie. I love you dear sweetie with my life,I promise you,I will try to be quite and not responsive to everything, its my way of talking,I have no friends I'm talking to,you is my friend dear sweetie,you is my baby,my heart,my life,my everything dear sweetie,I can't do without you my dear precious baby sweetie. ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤💋💋
Susan Viscum-Stewart Sounds like a fake letter by one of those people trying to get money out of a lonely, vulnerable person. Manage
Sharon Stewart Susan what ever your name is,even though money plays a vital role in our daily existence,there are things that money cannot buy,happiness is the most sought after emotion,and the most unhappy people in this world are those with x amount of money,life is the most precious gift on the planet earth or in space,,there's nothing that can substitute life,money cannot replace life (the founder for Apple The late great Steve Jobs would be still here if money could restore his life),don't criticise the empathy and humility of a person,in this crazy world where everyone is busy loving themselves, it's not often you see this kind of love reaching out from across this deep blue sea to instigate a dispondent heart,thoughts,and mind to feel good and happy, suzan I think you would be quicker here to support violence,we should be ready and quick to be a good person ,instigates others to be,and not be quick to tear down a good intention and interest. Manage
I don't know what to add to that. I don't know what I CAN add to that. I of course clicked on Sharon Stewart's home page (and what a suspiciously generic-sounding name that is, much like the names of many randomly nasty trolls who live to post vile comments everywhere). Well, there was nobody home. Just nothing there. When that happens,whether on Facebook or YouTube or anywhere, I sort of get out of there. Fast. I think the page exists for the sake of spamming, for some mysterious reason I haven't figured out yet. Please excuse the weird line-spacing here. My blog just had a nervous breakdown from all that foreign cut-and-paste. My computer skills are circa 2007, so you will have to forgive me. (Later) BUT WAIT! There's more. Since I can never leave anything alone, I checked this morning to see if there was anything more from "Sharon", and there was! Spelling and grammar were equally atrocious, and the message even more garbled. Don't make those bots mad, whatever you do.
Sharon StewartMargaret Gunning if that's your real name,I am smelling fake here,I won't allow you instigate me to feel bad and disgusting as you are feeling,as I was reading what you posted here,it did not take me a minute to take the message out of your event,I'm so sorry Margaret ,I can't help you catch up with happiness and peace of mind,that is out of your reach,my advice to is,sow good seeds,over rocks and mountain,over hills and valley,for whatsoever seeds you sow,you will reap,you won't stop me from sowing my good seeds here on the rocks of social media Margaret, my philosophy is *good*,to be a good person,and instigates others to be good also.
Wild ponies swim from Assateague to Chincoteague Island, Maryland, for the annual Pony Penning Day. This event was mythologized in Marguerite Henry's children's novel, Misty of Chincoteague (with glorious, magical illustrations by Wesley Dennis). The movie made from the novel wasn't half-bad, as they used the real ponies, location, and locals.
I don't have much time today - I have to be somewhere fast - but I thought I'd post, or re-post this slideshow I made from old family/hometown photos. Some of these are very personal, but since they weren't specifically labelled, I hoped they would be seen as "found photos", anonymous pictures of the past which often have a dreamlike, even slightly creepy quality. They're either black and white, or overly-saturated/faded '60s (Instamatic!) colour. I had someone contact me about this video, someone I knew in high school. We both lived in this same town. As far as I can remember, we were both miserable. One time, one of HER friends ripped into me and didn't stop ripping into me (though I never knew why) during a 20-minute walk the three of us took together. My friend said nothing during the whole thing. She was simply a spectator, which was somehow worse than being trashed. I don't remember much about our friendship except episodes like this (that, and her telling me to get off the phone because her boy friend was going to call).
Yet, over the years, and repeatedly, she kept wanting to connect with me - to talk about Chatham. Just about nothing else but Chatham. Chatham-ites are obsessive about their history and are forever wanting to glom onto you and reminisce about it. Old photos trigger them: "Is that the old Armoury?" "No, that's the old Presbyterian Church." "Oh no, that's the old Kent Museum!" Why did they dig up the lovely flower beds with the delphiniums in Tecumseh Park (35 years ago)? Why did they take down the bandshell? Everyone loved that bandshell. And look - look at that old photo of the Chatham Kiltie Band, with all the band members marching in their kilts! My Uncle Arnold was in that band. Yes, so was my - Excuse me while I kill myself. For reasons I do not understand, I did briefly join a Facebook page called "If you grew up in Chatham", but soon regretted it because of its exclusively backward view. For some reason I told someone my "maiden" name, and suddenly there tumbled out of people all sorts of detailed, fond remembrances - of my brother Arthur. Absolutely no one remembered me, and there was no record in their minds that I had ever existed at all. "Now let me seeeee. . . (long pause), no, no, I don't think so. But I'm sure someone - "
Now comes this message from my dubious friend that "people are asking about your video" (which someone had found on YouTube and posted on the "If you grew up" page). It turned out to be one person only, and her name meant nothing to me. But she wanted to get in touch with me for some reason, and wanted my friend to tell her my married name. Since I have three published novels, a longstanding blog and a (likewise) YouTube channel, if you google my married name, stuff comes up and it is easy to chase me down. I decided it was best to remain neutral and told my once-not-so-great/now-not-at-all friend that I'd rather remain anonymous. Her response had a little dart in it: Sure, OK, that's fine if you don't care about this. But just in case it means anything to you. . . (more details about the "people/person" who was interested in knowing my name, saying that we used to ride horses together on McNaughton Avenue with another girl whose name also meant nothing).
I had something happen to me which might explain my sensitivity. My mother left my name off her obituary. It was written in advance, probably by my sister, and she didn't just "forget" she had a youngest child. Everyone else's name was mentioned, even a child who had died in infancy. But in her mind, I simply didn't exist. She had never given birth to me, never raised me. It was like those awful family photos with the faces cut out. Chatham disowned me a long time ago, and if they want me back now, it's a little too late. It is all too easy to get embroiled in these things, particularly if there are nasty memories involved. Had I thrown this door open, the people from that Facebook page would probably be asking me where I got these pictures, as if I had no right to display them. They would object to the fact that not all the pictures are from 1964. Or they'd want obsessive details on each one, such as: "When was this one taken? No, not the year. The DAY!" "Was that the summer you had your house painted?" "Wasn't it blue?. . . No, I think it must have been yellow." "Wasn't that the same year you had your elm tree in the front yard cut down because of that disease?" ". . . Oh, look, there's Arthur Burton. I remember him! Wasn't he special?"
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.
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-dadut-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.)
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.
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.
❤
💋
