Cat people, dog people - what's the difference?

"Methigel is extremely palatable," the directions on the tube of

medication said. "To stimulate taste interest place a small amount of
Methigel on animal's nose or directly in mouth. Cats: 1/2 to 1
teaspoonful twice daily. Dogs: 1 teaspoonful twice daily."

To me, it looked like old beef gravy which had been allowed to harden
into a quivering semi-solid. To my cat ... well, when I unscrewed the
top of the tube, he took one sniff and ran the other way.

I don't blame kitty for his critical response. Cats loathe medicine,
especially the really noxious stuff. Murphy hates it, just as he hates
to admit that with the onset of middle age he has developed certain
urinary problems familiar to 50-year-old males everywhere.

There is a treatment: Methigel. But why are the manufacturers so
insensitive as to suggest that this stuff is equally "palatable" to
cats and dogs? That's like saying a medicine is suitable for guppies
and giraffes. Frogs and finches. Amoebae and antelope.



Everyone knows there is a world of psychic difference between a cat
and a dog. Just take a look at their owners.

Dog people wear thick Cowichan sweaters, smoke three-dot Brigham pipes
(even women), drink Dewar's White Label, read Hemingway, and sit by
the fire with their faithful pal at their feet. They like to be in
control - of their dogs.



Cat people wear claw-marked cashmere, gave up smoking years ago (Tabby
doesn't like it), drink whatever will get them there fastest, read
Dorothy Parker, and know enough to sit very still so Precious will
deign to jump up and snuggle. They love to be in control - but not of
their cats, who can bite and hiss and scratch and still be named
"Cuddlebug".

Murphy eyed me with mistrust. "I suppose you think I'm going to take
this greasy gunk without a fight," he stated as I prepared an oral
syringe full of the dreaded Methigel.

"No, but I do expect you to take it," I countered, grasping 16 pounds
of cat between my knees for the twice daily struggle.

"Good for cats and dogs? Bah -," Murphy spat, decorating the wall with
most of the dose. "A dog will eat coffee grounds."

He's right, you know. I've seen it. Dogs aren't fussy. In fact,
they'll lick up any old swill with the greatest of enthusiasm, then
sit up and beg for more.

Dogs are prose; cats are poetry. Dogs embody the spirit of rugged
manhood. Cats are the spooky eccentricity of woman. Dogs doggedly
follow. Cats disappear.

I'm writing to the manufacturer of this medicine to suggest a change.
"Methigel for Cats?" No, let's call it Tuna Delight, a tasteful puree
of assorted fish-heads.

There will be a twist to the instructions. Before the owner is allowed
to administer the first dose, he or she must swallow a full
tablespoonful.

Good for cats. Humbling for humans.

NOTE: This is an ANCIENT piece, even pre-dating my blog which I started in 2012, and likely taken from one of my newspaper columns in the mid- '90s. DECADES ago! I found it, miraculously, quoted on someone else's blog (or somewhere), maybe ten years later, which still makes it pretty old. Someone must have seen it somewhere, God knows where, and thought it was good enough to quote. I have pictures of Murphy, but they make me so sad and nostalgic for those good times (and bad, let's not forget) that I decided to use Bentley's hokey gifs as illustrations. Bentley has never been sick, touch wood, but Murphy in his latter years had all sorts of old-cat problems. He was the cat-riarch of the family for a magnificent 17 years. Bentley is, of course, a more than worthy successor, but a completely different sort of cat, more reserved, neater and tidier, quieter, better with his litter habits, and absolutely devoted to both of us, and zealously protective, like many dogs are protective of their owners. And as we get older, his devotion only increases. 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Before Star Trek: WILLIAM SHATNER and LEONARD NIMOY in The Outer Limits!

I've written about The Outer Limits before - I always thought it was far scarier and even more thought-provoking than the more-celebrated Twilight Zone, which could often be preachy and pretentious. TOL had that creepy announcer saying "WE will control the horizontal. . . WE will control the vertical. . .", which to my child mind meant we were losing control of everything. This was the height or depth of the Cold War, and there was a vague, never-spelled-out terror in the background of life that made me wake up screaming. I found it fascination (to quote Spock) to see that both Shatner and Nimoy had Outer Limits episodes, different ones - though Shatner starred in Cold Hands, Warm Heart, and Nimoy had only a supporting role in the other one, can't remember the title, but it wasn't about an alien invasion at all,  but a nasty quirk of physics that could have (OF COURSE) destroyed the whole world! This one was a bit disappointing because there were no monsters in it, but as with TZ, mankind itself was the enemy, stupid and selfish and maybe even worthy of instinction.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

"Good evening."

I'm back in a Hitchcock cycle again, kind of like the way my orbit takes me around to Dylan, Gershwin and Poe (and a more mixed bunch you never saw!). I'm once again watching all the old Alfred Hitchcock Presents episodes from the 1950s, in glorious black and white, and the even-better Alfred Hitchcock Hour, in which there is a whole hour to develop story lines and characters. 

The half-hour ones are kind of like The Twilight Zone, a short fiction format where you have to get in there fast, do your damage, and then get out (my own formula for writing short stories). I am also re-watching The Outer Limits series which I'm able to stream and binge-watch in its entirety. Some are absurdly hokey, but there are others with a definite film noir feeling to them, not to mention hints of German expressionism, a Metropolis atmosphere of paranoia and lurking danger. We never quite understand what is going on, something is always held back - kind of like life.

One of the most macabre episodes, The Architects of Fear, had Robert Culp slowly morph into a hideous alien creature, and what I noticed most of all was how much David Cronenberg's Brundlefly was modelled on the monster. The basic body structure, the head, the way it clomped around on two legs but still retained a ghastly humanness. . . yes. These geniuses are all affected by each other, notice each other. It may not even have been a conscious choice, but I think he absorbed it.

And in all these old TV shows, we see character actors or even big stars that would go on to be very familiar indeed. Nearly every episode of the Hitchcock series has "oh, THAT guy!" in it - or that woman - the one who has been in so many episodes of so many shows, but whose names we can't recall. And then people like Sir Cedric Hardwicke show up, along with Shatner and Nimoy and those who  would go on to be massive stars. In fact, I did a video on this and should post it.

It's interesting to see the difference between Hitchcock's 1950s series (and by the way, he DIDN'T direct these, just introduced them) and the later hour-long format. For one thing, I have vague memories of it, and did a whole long riff on the eerie episode Consider her Ways, based on a John Wyndham story. This led me to read a whole lot of John Wyndham, leaving me with an aftertaste. The man did not feel good about the future. I watched The Outer Limits - some of it - the ones I could stand - through my splayed fingers, terrified even by that unforgettable opening: "There is nothing wrong with your television set." It was enough to give me night terrors. So when I watch them now, there are little jolts here and there that represent the stirring of deep memories.

Hitchcock would have approved.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

"GET LOST!" Girl dove chased by nasty male pigeons

This lovely domestic white dove has joined the flock of wild pigeons on Burnaby Lake. Originally we saw TWO white doves, and I swear I  saw two black ones, though I didn't think that kind of domestic dove came in black. Now there is but one, but she is VERY popular among the male pigeons, who do  their absurd strutting courtship rituals around her: puffing out their neck so that it looks huge, circling around and around their quarry and even spinning in circles to get her attention. Because all those ploys didn't work and Paloma just blew them off, one of the males gave her an aggressive peck. Pigeons! She just not that into you.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Holy Honkers! TWO HUNDRED CANADA GEESE in Blakeburn Lagoon!

This was one of those rare sights that makes birdwatchers turn cartwheels of joy. It's what a fellow birdwatcher called "a gathering of the clan" - HUNDREDS of very vocal Canada Geese in one small body of water, a man-made lagoon we love to walk around. A week or so before, the lagoon was almost completely deserted, with only the odd dabbling duck. But as we approached the water, unable to see through the bushes, we heard this incredible racket and had no idea what it was. When I first saw the massive flock, they were so far away I could barely take in the sheer sweep of them, and I was only able to photograph a small portion of a colony that extended far into the other side of the lagoon. With the sun in my eyes, I barely knew what I was photographing, so I was pleasantly surprised to see my zoom had picked up closer shots of them, all sailing along in the same direction and making a bloody racket! The next time we went to the lagoon, about a week later, I did not see any geese at all, but the ducks had returned, no longer crowded out. In fact, I saw mallards, coots, a heron, wigeons, and mergansers all returning from wherever they had been all summer. Such is the endless joy and superb variety of birdwatching. It's literally never the same twice.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Top 10 Most Outrageous Bootleg Merch

This is just damn funny! I haven't laughed out loud at a YouTube video in a long time. It has all become oh-so-earnest, everybody wanting to get into the act and each upload more pretentious than the one before. Clicks and monetizing and special clubs and merch and all sorts of junk. But this is really funny, because these products (wherever they got them) are such obvious ripoffs, but with badly-translated English titles and descriptions to add to the delight.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Buick Cars 1960: advertisement as art

This is an example of advertisement as a high art form. Everything about this ad is beautiful, as if it was conceived and directed by a master. Don Draper, maybe. From the dreamy orchestral beginning to the spectacular 360-degree view of the magnificent Buick, this is an ad that was designed with every bit as much care as the car itself. 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

GUEST COLUMN by Sarah Vine: and so say all of us!

Tuesday, Nov 8th 2022 

SARAH VINE: Being a doctor is supposed to be about helping sick people get better, not guilt-tripping them for taking up your time... So why are doctors STILL using Covid as an excuse not to see patients?

By Sarah Vine for the Daily Mail

A couple of weeks ago, I came down with a nasty chest infection. At first I just ignored it. But it got worse: my lungs were on fire.

The bug then took up residence in my ears, rendering me deaf and in considerable discomfort.

I’ll be fine, I said to myself. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ insisted my daughter, home from university. ‘Quite apart from the fact you sound . . . well, gross, you’re insufferable when you’re ill. Go to the doctor.’

Ah, foolish youth. Go to the doctor? If only it were that simple.

There was a time when seeing the doctor was a straightforward affair. You rang, you made an appointment, you went. These days, you might as well be seeking an audience with the Pope.

My first mistake was to call on a Monday morning. Whichever bacterium was rampaging in my bronchioles had clearly not got the memo about Monday mornings.

After 47 attempts to get past the ‘engaged’ tone (my phone logged them), I finally got through to a recorded message about how busy they were, and I was placed in a queue. I actually felt grateful.

I waited a further 40 minutes before the receptionist finally answered, only to be told — you guessed it — that no appointments were available.

On Tuesday, the infection was much worse. I tried again. This time it took 45 minutes to get through. Again, no appointments were available. The receptionist suggested emailing.

Ah, emailing. That involved going through a hideously clunky NHS website called ‘SystmOnline’. As portals go, it might as well have been the gateway to Hell for all the ease of access it afforded: although not even the Devil himself could have devised such a frustrating piece of technology.

I’m quite computer-literate. It’s beyond me how anyone is expected to cope who isn’t proficient with tech, who can’t remember their password or who simply doesn’t have online access.

Eventually, I managed to navigate my way through it, and logged my request. The next morning my phone rang. ‘Are you the person who emailed?’ I was. ‘The doctor will call you.’

I then spent the rest of the day watching my phone like a hawk, only to miss the call when I popped to the loo. When I rang back, the line was engaged. Obviously.

Now I know I’m not the only person who’s been ill these past few weeks, but I’m also not the only person struggling to see their GP.

My daughter, for example, needed a non-urgent appointment for an ongoing issue.

The earliest they could fit her in? Christmas Eve.

A friend came down with a kidney infection. It took her three days of passing blood before her GP would agree to see her.

The truth is, GPs seem to have unilaterally decided they don’t want to see patients any more.

Being a doctor is supposed to be about helping sick people get better, not making them sit for ages on hold, or guilt-tripping them for taking up your time

Their excuse? Covid, of course. But why? Everywhere else has opened up. If the rest of us are expected to go back to work as normal, why can’t they?

To my mind, the answer is simple: it suits them not to have to see patients. Thanks to Covid — that great catch-all excuse for incompetence in public service — they’ve realised it’s easier to keep us at arm’s length, and hide behind ‘precautionary measures’.

But that’s not what being a doctor is about, is it? It’s supposed to be about helping sick people get better, not making them sit for ages on hold; or guilt-tripping them for taking up your time; or making them wait in agony for three days before you prescribe them the antibiotics they need. Or at least . . . it used to be.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page! 

HAMSTER. . . FROG. . . HAMSTER. . . FROG. . .

Hamster, frog, hamster, frog. These images are from an old British TV show of the '60s, Tales of the Riverbank. This was a sort of bastardized version of Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, with rats and hamsters and things "messing about in boats". But there were NO HAMSTERS in The Wind in the Willows! I think hamsters were used because they were more docile and easier to manage than, say, star-nosed moles, or their close cousins, field voles. Watching it again, which I never thought I'd do (because a few years ago there was no trace of it on YouTube), I realize how irritating the voiceovers are. I was less critical as a child and just loved all the creatures in it, including hamsters and frogs. This series spawned several loose sequals: Hammy Hamster, Once Upon a  Hamster, and the infamous Tumbletown Tales, which qualifies as parody. Me and Caitlin used to LOVE Tumbletown Tales, as it came on at weird times and was only 15 minutes long. 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

🌷BETTY BOOP: Treacherous Tulip!😳

What I love best about these early Fleischer cartoons is how inanimate objects are animate - in other words, animated. Things suddenly spring to life, talk, dance, make mischief. Some of them look rather grotesque. Even Betty, adorable as she is, has a massive head balancing on a sexy little body that, after 1934 and the Hayes Code, was covered up from neck to ankles. She looked like a matron in a girls' school, not a sassy little sexpot. 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

When ads were beautiful

 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Jack Gibbons plays Gershwin's Swanee

ALL RIIIIIIGHT! This may just be the BEST two minutes in all of YouTube. Here Jack Gibbons plays the HELL out of Gershwin`s first hit song, Swanee. Though it`s now negatively associated with minstrel shows (especially Al Jolson, who made this a hit with an excruciating blackface performance), Gershwin did not write those lyrics, and may well have had no idea it would be so darkly transformed. But pay attention to the slam-bam exuberance, the crystalline accuracy, the sheer blinding SPEED of this, the "great heady surf", as one Gershwin associate described his exuberant influence - and note the sheer joy emanating from Gibbons as he allows the song to take him over. The fact he just sat down at a New Years party and played this thing echoes the way Gershwin would sit at the piano and take over the room, and all the people in it.

Right in the middle of all that madcap tumble of notes, Gershwin suddenly quotes that "other Swanee": Stephen Foster's Old Folks at Home, also known as "Way down upon the Swanee river. . ." No sooner have we recovered from that shock of brilliance than he suddenly starts playing a different tune with each hand: his left hand bops and thunders away at Swanee, while his right deftly quotes a delicate spill of notes from Listen to the Mockingbird. 

This song harks back to Gershwin's early days toiling away on Tin Pan Alley, writing and demonstrating songs to various artists who soon realized that this brash young man was on to something. Gershwin's story is bittersweet, because his life was tragically short and his death nothing short of horrifying. He was a kind of Mozart of the Jazz Age, the songs tumbling and spilling through his hands and his brain faster than he could capture them on the page. 

He was just beginning to hit his stride as a serious classical composer - the thing he had always wanted to be - with his astonishing masterpiece, Porgy and Bess, which most critics panned because they had no idea what he was doing. But he did. And then, racked with bizarre symptoms, with agonizing headaches that even in those primitive times fairly screamed "brain tumor", he was allowed to die with little or no treatment, in isolation, separated from the family because his behaviour had become so embarrassing. 

So every time I listen to Gershwin - and, like Dylan, I keep circling back around to him  because he seems to speak not just TO my soul, but FOR it - I feel this melancholy, even anger, that he had to die that way, beloved of the world but abused and mistreated by his own family, and let down by doctors who should have known better. At any rate, I will never stop listening to this because it is a golden performance which I believe strikes closest to the way Gershwin would have played it himself. 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Gibbons plays Gershwin: Kickin' The Clouds Away & Love Walked In

I have listened to this a thousand times, and never get tired of it! Gibbons is considered the master of Gershwin's piano pieces, mainly because he meticulously restores the original piano score from all the myriad arrangements of Gershwin's tunes. Kicking the Clouds Away swings in a way that is both primitive and extremely elegant, and Gibbons plays it with the kind of gusto that George must have exhibited. He'd sit there at parties and just play, and play, and play. Much of it was improvised, so we will never know what it sounded like, but this captures the lighting-bug under glass for a few minutes, giving us a hint of what it must have been like to sit around the piano at those parties.

This piece is like a pocket version of Rhapsody in Blue, encapsulating so much of his edgy, urban, heady elegance with that incredible underlying urgency and drive. Gershwin said that Rhapsody in Blue was conceived while he was on a train and mesmerized by the steady chug of the engine, the hypnotic click of the wheels on the rails. You and I would hear that, and probably fall asleep, while he sat there conceiving a work of pure genius. And here it is all condensed down into a few minutes, while losing nothing of the fizzy joy of the original.

The second tune is one of my all-time favorites, Love Walked In, an exquisite arrangement which brings to mind the impressionist chords of Debussy. The lyrics are perfectly married to the tune: simple, achingly heartfelt, a universe of emotion which fits inside a thimble. Simple like Einsteins's formula, e=mc2. 

Nothing seemed to matter any more, 

Didn't care what I was headed for. 

Time was standing still, 

No one counted till 

There came a knocking at the door. 

Love walked right in and drove the shadows away; 

Love walked right in and brought my sunniest day; 

One magic moment, and my heart seemed to know 

That love said "Hello!", 

Though not a word was spoken. 

One look and I forgot the gloom of the past; 

One look and I had found my future at last. 

One look and I had found a world completely new, 

When love walked in. . .with you.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Hummingbird Aerial Fight in Slow-mo!

 

An amazing gif of two hummingbirds fighting in SUPER slow-mo.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

🌕INCREDIBLE SIGHT: Plane flies by Full Moon WHILE I’M FILMING! 🌛

This is an incredible shot I accidentally took while trying to film the moon, which was glowing orange due to local forest fires. In the slow-mo gif, you can see the plane's lights flash as it goes by. 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Dream House: 20 Victoria Avenue

 

Some dreamy images of the house I grew up in, as it looks today. The pale blue is so beautiful (it used to be yellow), and the outside has been beautifully kept up, as has the inside (though mostly unrecognizable to me). I believe this house is Edwardian, as it has many old-fashioned features, including a dumbwaiter (which we used as a laundry chute) and a root cellar in the basement, a little room with a door on it and a dirt floor. This feature pre-dated refrigerators and perhaps even the icebox. Some claim people in Chatham gave sanctuary to fugitive slaves, and hid them in attics and other secret places. This house was built after that, but it could have been used for that purpose. 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

VICTORIANA: the house I grew up in

 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page1

You CAN go home again! 20 Victoria Avenue

This came out of the blue! But not really, because a few years ago I got an email from someone who had just bought my childhood home on 20 Victoria Avenue, Chatham, Ontario, Canada (and I used to like to rhyme off the whole address because I loved the rhythm of it!). He had found my several blog posts about growing up in Chatham (I'll try to find a link to some of them), followed the trail and got in touch with me. The house had been converted into offices after we sold it in the early '70s, which made me sad, so to see that it had been converted back into a home and that people were going to live in it (including young children) filled me with gladness. 

But now the house is on the market again, and the fellow actually sent me a link to a YouTube video made by the realtor. So I get to see what the inside is like today (virtually ALL different, except for the gorgeous outside, and the layout of the living room and bathrooms). This was a very strange feeling indeed, and it could only happen via the internet. To see a tiny little thumbnail picture of my ancestral home was an odd, wondrous feeling. The place looks well-kept and well-loved, with its magnificent hardwood floors bared at last (we stuck grotty wall-to-wall carpeting down on it back then, because hardwood floors were for poor people and wall-to-wall was the height of luxury). My goodness, this is like me re-discovering my long-dyed, natural grey hair and actually loving it. There MUST be some good surprises in life.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

💗"Boots look nice on pussy cats. . ." (purr, purr)

Boots look very nice on pussy cats. (purrrrrrrrr)

The photo I used for the thumbnail is Bentley's "mug shot", the picture that started it all. We weren't in the market for a cat - at all - and in fact, I had just lost a beloved pet, a sweet little lovebird I called Paco. My last lovebird Jasper had died after seven years or so of companionship, and when I brought Paco home I was delighted - if you opened the cage, she would climb right onto your hand, go up your arm and nibble on your ear. But only a few weeks later, we found her dead on the bottom of the cage, and we never figured out why. She wasn't quite mature yet, and may even have slipped off an unfamiliar perch in a very large cage. But I was devastated, and knew I could not adopt another bird, it was just too heartbreaking.

Meantime, my daughter, who had also lost a cat, had adopted a new kitten named Mia - and every time we went over there, we were enchanted. But we hadn't owned a cat for ten years, and after Murphy left us, we said, "No more cats." Then Shannon  began to work on us. Hey, you're retired now - retired people need a cat!

So I began to look on various websites, SPCA and kitten rescue sites, and then - I found this picture, and something happened! I showed it to Bill, and said, "We have to go see this cat. Maybe tomorrow?" He said, "Why don't we go right now?"

We weren't even thinking of an adult cat, and this cat was a year old, a stray wandering along the road probably trying to find a girl friend. He was badly injured, and someone found him and brought him in to the SPCA across town. He was in a cubicle all by himself, and when I went in he was very high up, but immediately jumped  down and came up to me, his tail in a question mark. I picked him up, and he melted in my arms. We had our cat.

Yes, he HAD been injured, attacked by a dog or a  coyote, and it was a lucky thing that he had survived it. There was virtually no  fur on his back, just a shaven patch with awful  scars. I asked the staff if the fur would grow back, and they said they didn't  know. But when we took him home, everyone fell in love with him instantly. My daughter-in-law commented on his  bald spot: "That's where his wings broke off."

The fur almost all grew back, but when he leans forward you can see little bald spots on his shoulders,  which we call his "duelling scars". We like to say, "You should have seen the dog!" Obviously he had fought back valiantly, and ended up in safe haven.

So  now Bentley appears in many of my videos, and wanders into the frame when I show off my trolls. We can't imagine our lives without him. He is the perfect cat for us, quiet and dignified, but quirky and unpredictable at times, and fiercely loyal to us. If  Bill and I are having coffee and talking, Bentley will mosey into the room  and plunk himself down exactly in the middle. If I am sick or troubled, he will nudge the door open and jump up  on the bed to be with me. He lap-sits on Bill, but with me he prefers to nest between my ankles while I am reading in bed.

So it was a natural that he would be the visual for this song, which to this day brings tears to my eyes. Boots like nice on pussy cats. . . (purr, purr!)

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

CUTE HALLOWEEN FUN WITH OUR FAVORITE "EX" ROYALS

Yes, and THIS, too!

Exclusive Footage from Meghan Markle’s podcast Episode 3

OH YEAH.

🍄"OH, JOY!" STRANGE ad from 1950s

I made this animation from a VERY strange 1950s print ad for Batchelor's mushroom soup mix. The fact that this couple is so ECSTATIC about seeing/tasting a REAL MUSHROOM (singular) kind of gives you a sense of the quality of this product. Like chicken soup with no chicken in it, or the clam chowder joke: "Waiter! There's only one clam in my clam chowder!" Waiter to kitchen: "Hey, Charlie! The string broke!" 

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

😲WHAT?? Two Canada geese mirror each other EXACTLY!

I love it when nature does these things! We've noticed how "flock-y" Canada geese are - walking in stately single-file, swimming around in circles, and of course flying in their famous migrating V-shape. But it amazes me how they can stay in exact tandem like this, mirroring each other's every move. There is some sense they have, either a very finely tuned sensitivity to each other (not likely, for Canada geese are both aggressive and not too bright), or a kind of "hive mind" that operates all the geese at one time. Lately we have been seeing a vast colony of a hundred geese or more camping on the shores of Lafarge Lake. But even if they are sleeping along shore, their fat breasts bulging, they are all facing the same way. Hive mind says: SLEEP! Squawk! Honk! Eat! Run off the ducks!!

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

A Day In The Life (Master Tapes)

Further to my post of yesterday, here is a really fascinating deconstruction of the final chord of A Day in the Life - perhaps the most meaningful one minute of sound in all of pop history. As most of us know - well, I did from somewhere - the final chord is an auditory amalgam of the same chord played simultaneously on several different pianos by several different groups of people - with a kind of "buzz" sound added to the mix to boost the bass. In the last five minutes or so of this video you actually get to hear the component parts. This kind of technical manipulation was almost unheard-of in 1967, and in itself was a stroke of genius perhaps invented or implemented by George Martin. The original ending was going to be one note. Thank God someone re-thought THAT idea! 

If you listen very carefully to that legendary final chord, as it slowly decays you can hear a chair squeaking. Others have heard the air conditioning system at Abbey Road Studios, though personally I can't. Given that playback is now much improved in clarity, people are still finding sounds in it, and to everyone's dismay, it turns out the recording equipment was turned off BEFORE THE END OF THE CHORD. It was still vibrating ever-so-subtly, but the truth is no one could pick it up even in playback. It was finished, wasn't it? SURELY it was finished, it had to be! No, it was not. It may have gone on vibrating for another 30 seconds, but we will never know.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!

Deconstructing A Day In The Life (Isolated Tracks)

This song is primal, and without a doubt the Beatles' masterpiece. Every single element of it rings true, and every single element of it is necessary to the whole. As Salieri said in Amadeus, "Pull out the tiniest detail, and the whole thing would fall down." But it doesn't, and evokes the '60s more vividly than anything else I can think of. What leaps out at me instantly are the drums - and if anyone still underestimates Ringo's brilliance here, they will have to answer to ME!

Ringo was my first Beatle-love, back when drums were just a lot of pounding rather than the glue holding the entire thing together. The big nose, the floppy hair, the sad blue eyes and somewhat rueful smile - it KILLED me when I was only ten years old and supposedly far too young for those sorts of feelings. The Beatles made their first appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show on February 9, 1964 - memorable because it happened to be my tenth birthday, for which we had actually gone to a restaurant (named Rossini's - and for some reason I remember seeing a mouse running along the sidewalk outside). This was rare, as most birthdays were home affairs - but my mother still made the cake. Restaurant desserts were deemed almost wicked back then, a near-shameful extravagance.

So we get home from my birthday dinner, turn on the TV as always, and whether or not I was prepared for what happened next has been lost to me. After the fact, it seemed that the sizzle and buzz around the Beatles must have been going on for weeks. But I was too young to play those 45 rpm pop records, and may or may not have heard them on the radio. Then the gangly, stiff-limbed Ed came on and announced something "for all you youngsters" - and then - BAM!

Everything changed.

The next day, all I was hearing about at school was Beatles, Beatles, Beatles. We had all been watching Ed Sullivan forever, and I had never seen any references to any of the other acts (not even Topo Gigio, the Little Italian Mouse). I remember the teacher could not keep order that day, and at one point made a remark about wigs, thinking that's what "Beatles" were. But suddenly it was Beatles everywhere, including bubble gum cards with four different  poses per ten-cent package (I had a nearly-complete set before THROWING THEM OUT when I turned 13 - how childish to collect such things!), shirts, lunch boxes, thermos flasks, and - most magical of all - Beatles dolls. I promptly got me a Ringo doll, and kept him in my desk.

The more you listen to this, the more impossible it all seems. These guys were just bloody geniuses. Paul and Ringo are now in their 80s, and like Bob Dylan, still performing, still going strong. Ringo has turned out to be the coolest Beatle, as I always suspected. Peace and love! His son Zak was drummer for The Who, which is not too shabby and proof that talent can be inherited, so long as you put in the hard work and dedication along with it.  I don't know a lot about drums, except that Ringo's accuracy was crystalline - combined with a slight shuffly effect which was deliberate. He has even talked about it, a way of slightly smearing the decay so that the beat was both diamond-hard and spookily underwater-ish.  I have always felt A Day in the Life would be nothing without Ringo. 

This is the Ringo doll I DIDN'T have. Magnificent! The little ones are worth a fortune now, so I can only imagine what this work of art would fetch on eBay nowadays.

Visit Margaret's Amazon Author Page!