Here, after much searching, is a very brief but significant clip from the Pastoral Symphony segment of Disney's Fantasia. I wanted to see this because it features, if ever-so-briefly, two glorious zebra centaurettes who weren't erased from the final cut.
This voyage into cinematic racism in human/equine hybrids started with Sunflower, the little black girl who acted as a handmaiden/possible slave to the pastel-coloured centaurettes. Sunflower, who was half-donkey rather than half-horse, was edited out so thoroughly that she no longer appears in the DVD version of the movie at all, and even looks to have been photoshopped out of one scene.
That turned out to be wrong. The little black centaurette/donkey/possible slave who unrolled the red carpet for Bacchus/Dionysis and the gang was a character called Otika. It was nice of the animators to name her, but not so great when she almost instantly vanished from view. Once she was photoshopped out, we were left with the bizarre phenomenon of the red carpet unrolling all by itself.
Better black magic than an admission of racist stereotyping. The solution seemed to be getting rid of the character altogether. But what of the zebra-ettes, who aren't even given names? They too act as servants: one of them fans the fat,drunken Bacchus, and the other keeps his wine glass sloshing over the top. Within ten seconds or so, both of them have quickly moved out of the frame.
I don't know what the rationale is here. These are grown women, obviously; but it is equally obvious they are black, perhaps even African, since their lower halves are not horse but zebra. Were these exotic creatures serving Bacchus out of love, or because they were earning a salary? Disney was a known cheapskate who might just have kept his zebra hybrids on slave wages. It's impossible to untangle this one because it's such a bizarre example of erasing something that is just too embarrassing to leave in. Having a sort of little black Sambo-ette/servant figure in the movie is inappropriate, but why is it OK to get rid of her completely? The magnificent Deviantart depictions of Sunflower are reclaiming her from obscurity, giving her her power back. And I'm all for that.
But Otika, her two-second film appearance now more rarefied than the unicorn or even the centaur, can take comfort in the fact that she is not the only actress whose performance has ended up on the cutting room floor.
This started off as a tack-on for my last post on Sunflower, but then I realized that, even for this blog, which trades in twists and turns and irrelevancies, it was just too irrelevant to be there. But I have to deal with it, somehow. This is something of an update on another tack-on from my Bob Dylan post, Darkness at the Break of Noon. Yes, my former friend is dead. He is not asleep; he is dead. At the end of the Dylan post, I wondered what exactly had happened to him: his longtime partner, someone I have never connected with (they were, strangely, both named Paul), emailed me to say he'd had a stroke and was "not expected to survive the weekend". It was a mass email that went out to a couple dozen people, none of whom I knew. Nothing came after that. I didn't feel comfortable answering the email, and I needed to know, so I had to do some detective work. I found out on the Facebook page for his former church (which he founded and made himself the head of) that he died on Easter Sunday.
Is he in the Afterlife, whatever that is? I feel him batting around me like a fly. It's a nuisance, is what it is. Not a good energy, if it IS him. Black magic - was there some black magic going on here? Nonsense, I know nothing about it, even though I took his class in traditional/aboriginal medicine many moons ago. That's how I learned about curses, poisoned darts, boiled toads and datura. So it's interesting that if - a big if - an impossible if - IF there were any black magic going on at all here, the source of it would actually be him. What happened for me was anything but magic. His was a particularly fine-edged abuse: take an interest at first, be kind, be helpful, be supportive even, and then, for reasons impossible to ascertain, or for no reason at all - chwwwwwwt! (The sound of a guillotine blade making a lizardy little breeze). I only know that, having set himself up as an expert on certain things I was interested in, he said some hateful, hurtful, condescending, even contemptuous things about me and my beliefs.
Yet everyone thought he was the most wonderful, big-hearted, kind - but here, I am not sure. He left that church at some point - "retired", but if I knew the man at all - knew the hole in the centre of his sureness - I think he left because he lost control of the whole thing. No one was falling in line any more. He had ceased to be the Little Prince, holding sway over his own little spiritualist fiefdom. It was a long time ago I met him, I was a different person then, and I would never let anyone like that into my life now. I had enough of it growing up in my family of origin, thank you very much. (But then again: most of THEM are dead now, too. Funny how, in a strange sort of way, death solves everything.)
But it's unpleasant, the way things come back to me, disparaging things I put up with: having my own spiritualist experiences, which I was testing out because I wasn't sure what to make of them, dismissed as "oh I don't know, it's probably just some kind of fantasy", said in a bored sort of voice. Whereas he would go on, and on, and on about his own experiences, with the assumption that all of them were bona fide. Did anyone even need to question it? The Gershwin thing hurt and angered me. I am the first to say it may well be 100% imagination, but my exploration at first seemed to be greeted with enthusiasm and even fascination. I started sending him things. I don't know when, exactly, the turning point came, but it's hard to hear that nasty little metallic "chwwwwwwt!" before you've even had breakfast.
No, this doesn't sound authentic at all. No, I could check with some of my friends who know something about this, but I know what they'd all say. Don't forget, Margaret, that you don't really have a grounding in this tradition and that I trained myself for many, many decades to blah blah blah. I don't see anything here that blah blah blah blah blah. He did not have to say, "Oh yes, write a book about it, why don't you." But the sudden trap door opening under my feet reminded me of another vicious sadist, a man whom I later found out was virtually sociopathic in his cruelty to others. I actually found it out from a psychiatrist who had "inside knowledge" that I did not doubt. Later I found some blog posts from people who turned themselves inside-out apologizing for him because he was dead, but then went on to compare him to Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, with his lethal trap door. A direct quote from a dear friend of his (name changed to protect the innocent, namely me): My good friend writer R. D. died last week. This is not an obituary. Nor is it a paean to him. He would have hated that. R. was not a perfect person. He was funny and kind but he frequently isolated himself and he cut off some friends like Sweeney Todd dispatching a client.
He was also deeply private. As he lay dying of a stroke at age 67, colleagues were arguing about the particulars of his life. Did he have one brother or two? Had his father been a school teacher or farmer? Did R. really play the cello and, if not, how did this small town Prairie boy develop such a profound knowledge of music?
I hope that, when my time comes, work colleagues don't stand around my deathbed trying to piece together my life, trying to determine if I had anyone in my life at all (which these rather chilling words imply). Obviously they were attempting to scrape up particulars for his obituary, having no one else to ask. I think this goes beyond being "deeply private". I wondered at first if someone had found him weeks later, as sometimes, sadly, happens with people who "frequently isolate themselves". I also hope there are no comparisons in my obituary to Sweeney Todd, who slit people's throats in his barber chair, slid them down a trap door, had them ground up into meat and made them into pies that people then purchased and ate. (Sidebar: in the usual published tribute, someone at the Sun strongly implied he had been wasted in the backwater of Canada and should have been writing for somebody important, like the New Yorker. I'm trying to figure out who this says the most about: R. D., the commentator, the Vancouver Sun or the New Yorker.)
And a curious thought: both men died of sudden strokes. I don't want to go too far down the road of what that might mean symbolically. Neither of them were old: seventy-ish, if that. In fact, R. D. was maybe 67. First there is a person, then there is no person, then. . . The last email I ever got from Paul I deleted unread. I already knew what was in it. I just pushed the whole thing away from me. Part of me wanted some kind of revenge - I admit it now! And yes, I admit that at that particular point, I had my mojo working. What does that mean, exactly? What that means, and all it means, is that one holds up a mirror. One holds up a mirror, and whatever bad vibes that person is emanating, they bounce right back at them and hit them in the face. You don't have to do anything, not anything at all. That's the way it works. That's why I opened this post with Celie's famous statement from The Color Purple. It's the scene in which she gets her power back. I got mine back a very long time ago, but it is nasty to be reminded that someone, anyone, can toy with it and do damage the way Paul did.
I can't sit here and say I'm glad he's dead, because surely he did have people who cared about him, and I wouldn't insult them. But I am glad that the nastiness in him, unacknowledged by anyone around him, is dead. I am glad his pomposity and intellectual bullying and constantly pulling rank on people to make himself feel better is dead. I am glad that peculiar form of sinking dismay will never happen to me again. I know I have learned from him, but not even remotely what he thought I would/"should" learn. From him I learned I can step around narcissists who seem to believe they have special knowledge, wield special power, and are thus innately entitled to tell you that your own beliefs are ill-informed and of no value. From him, I learned what to avoid - what to ignore - and how to keep on walking.
But meanwhile. . . LET'S SING!
Seems a downright shame
Shame?
Seems an awful waste
Such a nice, plump frame
Wot's his name has
Had
Has
Nor it can't be traced!
Business needs a lift
Debts to be erased
Think of it as thrift as a gift
If you get my drift, no?
Seems an awful waste
I mean, with the price of meat
What it is? When you get it
If you get it
Hah
Good, you got it
Take for instance, Mrs. Mooney and her pie shop
Business never better using only pussycats and toast
And a pussy's good for maybe six or seven at the most
And I'm sure they can't compare as far as taste
Mrs. Lovett, what a charming notion
Well, it does seem a waste
Eminently practical
And yet appropriate as always, it's an idea
Mrs. Lovett, how I've lived
Without you all these years, I'll never know
How delectable, also undetectable
Think about it
Lots of other gentlemen'll
Soon be comin' for a shave
Won't they?
Think of all them pies
How choice
How rare
For what's the sound of the world out there?
What, Mr. Todd?
What, Mr. Todd?
What is that sound?
Those crunching noises pervading the air
Yes, Mr. Todd, yes, Mr. Todd
Yes, all around
It's man devouring man, my dear
And then who are we to deny it in here?
These are desperate times
Mrs. Lovett and desperate measures are called for
Here we are, now, hot out of the oven
What is that?
It's priest, have a little priest
Is it really good? Sir, it's too good, at least
Then again, they don't commit sins of the flesh
So it's pretty fresh
Awful lot of fat only where it sat
Haven't you got poet, or something like that?
No, y'see, the trouble with poet is
'Ow do you know it's deceased? Try the priest
Heavenly
Not as hearty as bishop, perhaps
But then again
Not as bland as curate, either
And good for business too
Always leaves you wantin' more
Trouble is
We only get it on Sundays
Lawyer's rather nice
If it's for a price
Order something else, though to follow
Since no one should swallow it twice
Anything that's lean
Well then, if you're British and loyal
You might enjoy Royal Marine
Anyway, it's clean
Though of course it tastes of wherever it's been
Is that squire on the fire?
Mercy, no sir, look closer
You'll notice it's grocer
Looks thicker, more like vicar
No, it has to be grocer, it's green
The history of the world, my love
Save a lot of graves
Do a lot of relatives favors
Is those below serving those up above
Everybody shaves
So there should be plenty of flavors
How gratifying for once to know
That those above will serve those down below
Now let's see, here we've got tinker
Something pinker
Tailor? Paler, Butler? Subtler
Potter? Hotter, Locksmith?
Lovely bit of clerk
Maybe for a lark
Then again there's sweep
If you want it cheap
And you like it dark
Try the financier, peak of his career
That looks pretty rank
Well, he drank, it's a bank
Cashier, never really sold
Maybe it was old
Have you any Beadle?
Next week, so I'm told
Beadle isn't bad till you smell it and
Notice 'ow, well, it's been greased
Stick to priest
Now then, this might be a little bit stringy
But then of course it's fiddle player
No, this isn't fiddle player, it's piccolo player
'Ow can you tell? It's piping hot then blow on it first
The history of the world, my sweet
Oh, Mr. Todd, ooh, Mr. Todd
What does it tell?
Is who gets eaten, and who gets to eat
And, Mr. Todd, too, Mr. Todd
Who gets to sell
But fortunately, it's also clear
That, but everybody goes down well with beer
Since marine doesn't appeal to you
'Ow about rear admiral?
Too salty, I prefer general
With or without his privates? 'With' is extra
What is that? It's fop
Finest in the shop
And we have some shepherd's pie peppered
With actual shepherd on top
And I've just begun
Here's the politician, so oily
It's served with a doily
Have one, put it on a bun
Well, you never know if it's going to run
Try the friar
Fried, it's drier
No, the clergy is really
Too coarse and too mealy
Then actor, that's compacter
Yes, and always arrives overdone
I'll come again
When you have judge on the menu
Wait, true, we don't have judge yet
But we've got something you might fancy even better
Disney's Fantasia is one of those highbrow thingammies that you're supposed to appreciate because it's Culture.
It's high culture that is Good For You, like some kind of medicine you have to swallow for your own elevation.
It was meant to give children a clinical dose of classical music with all sorts of fun cartoons to watch while they suffered through it. They got Beethoven. They got Tchaikovsky. They got Moussorg-whatever-his-name-was, the big guy on the mountain.
I don't think a child ever liked Fantasia, and certainly no child ever loved it. Most adults were likely kind of bored with it too, but trundled the family off to see it anyway as a sort of educational duty.
Fantasia bores ME to death, and I have never even seen it. I fell in the generational cracks between the movie's release in 1940, and the tepid bits that appeared on TV on Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color (which, of course, we watched in black and white). I don't think I saw more than five minutes of it at a time.
But speaking of black and white!
I never knew there was anything disturbing in Fantasia except its length, its pomposity, and those dinosaurs killing each other to Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Now I know. There was a little black girl in there who was excised. I mean, cut out. Cut RIGHT out. Cut out because her very presence was seen to be offensive.
She was offensive sort of the way Mammy in Gone With the Wind is now seen as offensive, and yes, I sort of get it. Personally I love Mammy in Gone With the Wind because she is the glue holding the whole thing together, and her character, though limited by the strictures of the servant role, is powerful and nuanced. All Scarlett does is run around looking gorgeous.
But that aside: there was, in Fantasia, in the Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony section with all the centaurs and cherubs and Dionysian types capering around, a small character named Sunflower. Sunflower existed, then she didn't. She made one appearance on TV which I don't remember (for surely Fantasia was never shown in its entirety on TV). But when the movie was theatrically re-released in the late 1960s, all trace of Sunflower had been removed.
Excised.
It was as if the little black centaurette had never existed.
This is a solution, is it not? Getting rid of something that is a problem. But it has disturbing echoes of The Final Solution, in that it says "hey, listen, folks, WE never displayed racist attitudes in our cartoons!" Nobody here but us white folks.
Here is an analysis of the whole mess from a film site (so I don't have to explain it any further - I'm lazy today):
Was it wrong for Disney to censor Fantasia to remove the character Sunflower? One of the most controversial aspects of Disney's Fantasia is the censorship of the character Sunflower from the Pastoral Symphony segment of the film.
Sunflower is a centaurette (female centaur) who is depicted as being a hybrid of a young black girl and a donkey. She is shown performing duties as a servant to the other centaurettes who are depicted in a wide variety of pastel colors.
Beginning in the 1960s, Sunflower was deemed a racist and negative depiction of black people, and her scenes in the film were deleted. Beginning in 1990, the scenes were restored, but the shots she was in were cropped so that she could not be seen.
There is much debate over whether she should've been removed from the film. There are those who say that she should be censored in order to move away from the attitude of depicting black people as negative stereotypes. Others say that she shouldn't be censored because such portrayals were very common in animated films of the time, and that removing them is the same as saying that they never existed in the first place. Some believe that there should be a middle ground; in other words, for example, the late film critic Roger Ebert felt that the original should be preserved for historical purposes, but that the censored version should be the one made available for mainstream consumers, in particular children.
atomicfireball.deviantart.com Also of note: There are other black characters in the segment. There are two identical unnamed centaurettes who are part young black women and part zebra and another young black girl centaurette named Otika who in the original rolls out a red carpet; in all versions currently available, Otika is digitally removed so that the red carpet appears to unroll by itself, and the zebra centaurettes have never been altered or removed from the film.
(Note. I don't remember seeing those zebra-ettes before, but did I look? I see them now, and they're gorgeous, though I still notice echoes of servitude in their actions because they're waiting on that fat drunk guy.) Hattie McDaniel liked to say "I'd rather play a maid and be paid $100.00 than BE a maid and be paid $2.00." Or words to that effect. She had the right attitude: if you're restricted to roles that reflect the racist stereotypes of the times, then play the hell out of those roles, transcend the stereotypes and win an Oscar. But you can't do that if somebody just took an eraser to you and made you disappear.
We never let Sunflower have a chance. She was cute, but a little disturbing, like Buckwheat in The Little Rascals. The thing is, The Little Rascals was ahead of its time: it depicted white and black kids all rolling around in the dust together, which no one else was doing. And Stymie, the solemn one with the bowler hat, was just the coolest character ever - I liked him way better than any of the white kids.
I find it interesting, though. First there is a Sunflower. Then there is no Sunflower. Then there is. Hello, folks. I'm back. I have my existence again, and I am here to tell you that THIS is the way it was in the 1940s, back when people were frankly racist and didn't try to dissemble. If you're not happy about it, you can try to get rid of me, but somehow or other, who knows when, I'll be back to haunt your conscience/consciousness again.
POST-BLOG I-DIDN'T-SEE-THAT-BEFORE: Of course, if the animators were kind of uncertain about Sunflower's presence, it's likely they would start making errors, or at least be inconsistent about her appearance. If you watch the tiny clips which I giffed (since they were only a few seconds long in total), you'll note that there's a sunflower in her hair in SOME scenes, but by no means all. Sometimes it's just not there, only those little rags her hair is tied up in (and not even those, in some places). These scenes weren't meant to take place on different days or even different hours or minutes. So what happens to the sunflower? Why can't the animators get it together on how her hair is supposed to look? They wouldn't do that to Snow White, would they?
APOLOGIA. For my habit of not always giving credit for certain kinds of artwork, I'm making amends here and now. deviantart.comis a fantastic site. I'm envious every time I look at it, because I can't make representative art to save my mortal soul. I might as well use a sharp stick and a little pile of dog shit, for all the results I get. But these Deviant Artists are superb, soaring in their talent and imagination. They display their art in a kind of vast internet gallery that gives the public a chance to admire and enjoy it, but in no way, shape or form can I claim it as mine. So I've posted links to their pages on each of these superbilicious renderings of Sunflower, a Disney character reimagined not as a subservient, minority, or erased character, but as a gorgeous and powerful exotic her own right, a mythic creature whose beauty puts those pastel pink-and-blue horsettes to shame.
Addenda to the addenda . Though I love those gorgeous uncredited zebra centaurettes in Fantasia, I'm not keen on the fat, lolling, drunken Dionysus figure that goes with them. So here are a nice couple of crops.
I'm not doing this properly at all, because I'm in a hurry and not spending proper time on it. But I just found out William Shatner (one of my Glass Character obsessions) just turned 85. Yes. Eighty-five. THAT.
When you look at poor old Bob Dylan, in photos of him from the '80s and '90s, he looks like 20 miles of bad road. Shatner? I always think he made a deal with the devil, but he must have gotten the best part of the bargain.
When you see him walk confidently onstage now, you think: there's a good-looking man in his 60s, ruddy of complexion, obviously not Botoxed or facelifted like those awful male ruins, Burt Reynolds and Mickey Rourke. That's just him.
My daughter and I used to talk about "good-smelling men". Harrison Ford: good-smelling. Tom Cruise: (marginally) good-smelling. Brad Pitt: blecccchh.
Shatner's good-smelling, he makes the list. You can just tell.
Two people I always hoped to meet, and never will: Shatner and Dylan, both of whom made deals with the devil in their own way.
Whether it's genetics, good bones, spirit, will, or a combination, Shatner has come away with the prize: he never seems to age. Like that guy on Star Trek who was all those different famous people. . . and we sadly watched Nimoy shrivel away in the past year, the two of them exactly the same age, and spiritual brothers.
Never mind, got to go now, hate to slap this up but can't finish it now. The last two gifs are from videos taken about ten days ago. Right up to date. Try to believe that man is 85.
Darkness at the break of noon
Shadows even the silver spoon
The handmade blade, the child's balloon
Eclipses both the sun and moon
To understand you know too soon
There is no sense in trying.
Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn
Suicide remarks are torn
From the fools gold mouthpiece
The hollow horn plays wasted words
Proved to warn
That he not busy being born
Is busy dying.
Temptation's page flies out the door
You follow, find yourself at war
Watch waterfalls of pity roar
You feel to moan but unlike before
You discover
That you'd just be
One more person crying.
So don't fear if you hear
A foreign sound to you ear
It's alright, Ma, I'm only sighing.
As some warn victory, some downfall
Private reasons great or small
Can be seen in the eyes of those that call
To make all that should be killed to crawl
While others say don't hate nothing at all
Except hatred.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their marks
Made everything from toy guns that sparks
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It's easy to see without looking too far
That not much
Is really sacred.
While preachers preach of evil fates
Teachers teach that knowledge waits
Can lead to hundred-dollar plates
Goodness hides behind its gates
But even the President of the United States
Sometimes must have
To stand naked.
An' though the rules of the road have been lodged
It's only people's games that you got to dodge
And it's alright, Ma, I can make it.
Advertising signs that con you
Into thinking you're the one
That can do what's never been done
That can win what's never been won
Meantime life outside goes on
All around you.
You lose yourself, you reappear
You suddenly find you got nothing to fear
Alone you stand without nobody near
When a trembling distant voice, unclear
Startles your sleeping ears to hear
That somebody thinks
They really found you.
A question in your nerves is lit
Yet you know there is no answer fit to
satisfy
Insure you not to quit
To keep it in your mind and not forget
That it is not he or she or them or it
That you belong to.
Although the masters make the rules
For the wise men and the fools
I got nothing, Ma, to live up to.
For them that must obey authority
That they do not respect in any degree
Who despite their jobs, their destinies
Speak jealously of them that are free
Cultivate their flowers to be
Nothing more than something
They invest in.
While some on principles baptized
To strict party platforms ties
Social clubs in drag disguise
Outsiders they can freely criticize
Tell nothing except who to idolize
And then say God Bless him.
While one who sings with his tongue
on fire
Gargles in the rat race choir
Bent out of shape from society's pliers
Cares not to come up any higher
But rather get you down in the hole
That he's in.
But I mean no harm nor put fault
On anyone that lives in a vault
But it's alright, Ma, if I can't please him.
Old lady judges, watch people in pairs
Limited in sex, they dare
To push fake morals, insult and stare
While money doesn't talk, it swears
Obscenity, who really cares
Propaganda, all is phony.
While them that defend what they
cannot see
With a killer's pride, security
It blows the minds most bitterly
For them that think death's honesty
Won't fall upon them naturally
Life sometimes
Must get lonely.
My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards
False gods, I scuff
At pettiness which plays so rough
Walk upside-down inside handcuffs
Kick my legs to crash it off
Say okay, I have had enough
What else can you show me ?
And if my thought-dreams could been seen
They'd probably put my head in a guillotine
But it's alright, Ma, it's life, and life only.
So What Does The Poem Mean? or - how to macerate a great lyric.
Like everybody, I listened to this as a teenager and said, oh wow. I said, somebody understands me.
Ironically, at this stage in his life anyway, Bob Dylan was far too acidly hip and self-involved to understand anybody, or want to bother. So how did he fish out lines like "he not busy being born is busy dying"? It's one of those statements that sounds as if it's always been there. And at the same time: why didn't anyone think of that before? I get that same feeling listening to Gershwin. Sometimes I think they're the same person, in fact (and I'll try to find the video of Dylan singing "Soon" at a Gershwin tribute. Like every other songwriter breathing on the planet, he more-than-appreciates Gershwin's greatness. Perhaps more than the average dunce-headed non-genius ever could.)
There's an odd sort of parallel with Gershwin, in fact. Dylan is still a songwriter's songwriter, someone more deeply appreciated and envied by other artists than by the general (ignorant, though sometimes too-adoring) public. That means lots and lots of covers, most of them pretty watered-down. They come out about as good-sounding as Dylan's covers of other people's stuff - lousy, in other words.
I can't illustrate this thing, the whole idea is stupid. I have something on my mind, WAY on my mind. A former friend of mine died, or maybe didn't, over the weekend, on Easter Sunday in fact. I got this cryptic message from his partner. They are both named Paul. The Paul who maybe-died, maybe-died on Easter Sunday: had a stroke from which he was not expected to recover. But I still don't really know if he is "dead".
Paul was/is (?) a spiritualist medium who set up his own church on the Island. Always a bad idea. The last time I knew someone who set up his own church, it quickly turned into civil war, a kind of spiritual Rwanda which sent everyone running for cover, permanently scalded.
Can't say it was that bad in his church, because I wasn't there, but I do know that whatever psychic ability he had dissolved in self-importance long ago. It turned into his own little fiefdom, rife with adoring blue-haired old ladies being fed whatever he was manufacturing on that particular week.
I know how I am supposed to feel. How I DO feel is confused. I've never in my life put a curse on someone before, but I did, I got my mojo working because of some things, a lot of things, he said and did to me.
How does it happen, how can it come to be, that you can be abused for so many years you don't notice it any more? How much anger accumulates? Is it really possible to curse someone? And this was all over Gershwin, my time-travel writings about him which he at first took very seriously, then mocked, disparaged and even expressed contempt for. He would only be threatened so far by an amateur like me. Ultimately, he accused me of making it all up to impress him.
Years ago he read a tiny sample of a novel I had written and dismissed it as a "zany soap opera". Told me to be very, very careful about sending it to publishers for fear of what they would tell me about it. He did not understand why I broke off the friendship and believed I was being oversensitive. Years and years later he wrote me an apology, saying I had stirred up his issues which caused him to flee in terror. I forgave him, not realizing that what he really said was "look what you made me do".
I never expected to write about this, probably shouldn't. Of course you can't put a curse on someone! My Haitian voodoo stage now seems rather laughable, and it sure didn't help my book sales. Those yarn dolls are a hobby, a habit, I make versions of them with my grandkids for fun. The one thumbtacked to my bulletin board with a little noose hanging beside it is just for decoration.
Bob Dylan once gave an interview for 60 Minutes in which he said he had made a deal with the devil. He has an uneasy but obsessive relationship with fame. He needs to be in the public eye, I can see that. But has lost an arm in return.
Like Bilbo Baggins, his life has been stretched out thin by wearing, however briefly, the Ring of Power. Now he cannot die, as perhaps my friend, ex-friend, curseworthy quasi-friend cannot die, or is dead already and hovering around like an oppressive shadow.
WTM moment (wait-there's-more): I don't know why it takes me so much time to make these connections! I started thinking back to when and where I first met Paul, decades ago. It was in a class he taught at Douglas College called The Anthropology of Religion. This wasn't religion as in hallelujah and God and let's put our bucks in the collection plate. This was in the realm of datura, toad-boiling, poison darts, and fatal curses that literally strike people down in their tracks. It was "primitive" medicine, juju/mojo at its finest, and darkest. Hey, here's where I learned it all, folks! - at the feet of this strange figure who became so alienated from himself, or others, or at least from any sense of humility. It seemed laughable I'd try on any of this myself, and of course we all know it has no effect anyway. Doesn't matter whether I got my mojo working or not. I'm not even sure if the man is dead.
