September is vaguely sad, a restless time. Summer still lingers, faded but proud, and Autumn is not yet strong and wild; she only spits and does not growl. Everything is getting older—the summer dying, children going back to school. I feel prowly. We went to the zoo, and the tigress was stalking around her enclosure, pacing the same circle, then turning to try some new path. Leisurely stepping, then suddenly bunching herself for a fleeting exertion. That’s how I feel.

Or maybe it’s just the grey morning.

Morning: sick
Rest of day: work

I am sorry.

I was the bearer of bad tidings to Wonko today, as I had heard on NPR that both Johnny Cash and John Ritter were dead. I knew that Wonko liked John Ritter from discussion of his turn on Buffy. Here’s a bit of Wonko’s response:

These are people whose names we’ve grown up hearing, or who we’ve grown up watching or listening to. I mean, Obi-Wan Kenobi is dead. Dr. McCoy is dead. Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Charles Bronson, Mel Blanc, and now Johnny Cash and, totally out of the blue, John Ritter. Darth Vader has arthritis and his health is failing. The Godfather basically can’t do anything anymore because his mind and body have deteriorated so much. Stanley Kubrick died years ago after making his worst movie ever.

For some reason I never thought these people would die. They’re supposed to be constants. It’s not fair.

I realized as I read this that this simply isn’t true for me. While hearing people I’ve admired or appreciated have died makes me sad, it doesn’t give me that feeling of destabilization—a feeling I know well, having lost two grandparents. (As a side note, I think grandparents are part of the foundation and grounding of your world, and losing them is profoundly shaking.) What disturbs me more is the death of authors. I cried out in shock and pain when I heard that Isaac Asimov died (and my fifth grade class laughed at me for it), and I have regular attacks of dread on behalf of Lloyd Alexander, who is getting fairly old.

At first, I considered that perhaps Wonko is more immersed in popular culture than I am - but, I am The Fangirl, so that is not it. Perhaps, thunk I, Wonko’s attachment to movies affects his perception. This is quite possible, but then I thought of something more intriguing. A movie is a time capsule. Short of Greedo shooting first, it is an immutable pocket of fantasy. The ‘reality’ of that moment - the people, props, and places—is fleeting, and so they occupy a different place in my perception of time and the universe. It does not really surprise me, even though it saddens me, that Alec Guinness is dead, any more than it surprises me that Drew Barrymore is no longer osh-koshing it about in pigtails. A movie is a moment.

A book - and I stray near to literary theory here, though I will not cross the line and condemn this post to a long philosophical discussion with my husband - is a conversation. You inform the words on the page far more than you inform the images on a TV screen. I read Taran Wanderer and find it new each time. When I read Gone with the Wind in elementary school, I thought Scarlett was really ill-used by the others in the story, and was quite admirable. When I read it in high school, I thought she was a spoiled, vicious brat and Melanie was worth a dozen of her. You notice nuances or bring new moods to the reading of a book, so that the volume, that chunk chiselled out of an author’s brain, lives and speaks differently each time. How odd, then, to put down a living book and hear that the author with whom you’ve been interacting has gone.

Not only that, but whilst the author lives, the conversation can continue, carried through another book and another. When he or she has died, all you have to sift through are the library’s old volumes. The tree is still there, but you know it will never bear fruit again.

I don’t know who originated the phrase, but Keith Devlin used it in a Science, Technology, and Society lecture to show how a grammatically correct sentence (that a computer could tell was correct) was different from a meaningful sentence (a computer wouldn’t be able to tell). The phrase was:

Colorless green thoughts sleep furiously
Mr. Devlin noted that it is in fact so meaningless that each pairing of juxtaposed words within it is nonsense. To me, high-schooler and not-yet-English-major that I was, it did seem to have meaning - more than one, even. A person has thoughts, perhaps, which he has ground over in his mind so often that they are faded, or no longer have the emotional punch they once did. Perhaps these thoughts are of forests, or gardens, or a fertile homeland. He is tired of these thoughts, so he tries to suppress them. As suppressed thoughts do, they stay down, but only with an anxious effort, like holding a muscle in an awkward position - determined and intense. Colorless green thoughts sleep furiously.

At any rate, the idea intrigues me. Complete, grammatically correct sentences where each couple of words is literally nonsensical (not figuratively.) It sounds fun.

My first attempt:

Rhetorical anvils discourse moistly.

The Saga Continues…

Lom turned from the campfire where his men were still shaking off the memory of Woodsend, with the help of a small keg of brandy he’d hidden for just such an occasion. The boy they’d found sat on the side of his wagon, swinging his feet rhythmically. He hadn’t spoken much since they’d given him water and food, and he still looked skittish. Lom was worried he’d run off in the night at some imagined sign of Fair Folk.

“Well then,” Lom said, plunking himself down next to the boy on the wagon gate, “what’s your name?” The boy twisted his hands and looked about him, oblivious. Lom tried another tack, “You know, I’ve got two boys your age at home. Twins! How they do eat. You’ll get to meet them, and taste their mother’s cooking, if we do take you as far as Lookshy…” he trailed off. What were they going to do with the boy? Even if he were bright, cheerful and strong, there was no way he could feed another child or inflict another one on his harried Mari.

The boy swung his feet, appearing to study his boots. Lom looked towards the fire, where the men had broken out a deck of painted cards and were gambling for the remainder of the brandy. The boy beside him seemed to follow his gaze, and relaxed a little, gazing at the cards in fascination. Of course, Lom thought, there probably weren’t any cards in that little town, even if they could afford ’em.

“Want to try those out, lad?” The boy’s eyes focused on Lom’s face. “Here, I even have a second deck.” He dug out a deck he had meant to trade in the border towns. “There ya go. Want to learn how to play?” But Lihan, with a quick, curious glance at the Empress, the brightly painted wands and coins, put most of the deck aside, and began to build a house. His light eyes were intent, his movements sure, and his feral manner utterly forgotten.

“P’raps we can be introduced now,” Lom offered, “I’m Lom Hardroad, of Lookshy.”

“Lihan Hawkhome,” the boy said clearly.

“Well now, Lihan! That’s a fine name. Eh…” he scratched his bald head, “was yer whole family roosting in Woodsend then?”

“Yes,” Lihan said, a little less clearly.

“No grandmothers or aunties?” Lom hoped.

“Not that I ever heard of,” Lihan carefully bridged two arches with the Fool.

Lom sighed. “You do that real clever-like,” he said, eying the card chateau.

“It is kind of you to say so,” Lihan piped.

Lom was struck with an idea, “Can ya read?”

Lihan nodded gravely.

“Well, then,” Lom muttered to himself, “I think we can getcha settled and still feel comfortable in our hearts about it.”

Lihan grew more voluble as the journey went on, although Woodsend and his family were not topics that Lom or the other fur-traders brought up. The traders were full of admiration for his card-houses, and he slept warmly every night among the cured furs that smelled like home.

One morning they started early, as they were near their destination and all of them were anxious to see their families after such a long and stressful time. Lihan woke to the sound of knocking — Lom was banging on the wood of the secure wagon where the furs were kept. “Wake up, lad! Here are sights worth seeing!”

Lihan scrambled up to sit aside Lom on the driver’s bench just as they came to a halt on the crest of a hill.

“Lookshy!” Lom proclaimed, and swept his arm across the valley below. Lihan had never seen something so big in his life — the city covered more land than a bison herd, and beyond that, shimmering vast and steely, was the sea. The city itself had walls, not a crude log barrier, and on a scale none of the towns they had passed through had neared. He saw glints of metal and shining glass among the crowding stone buildings, and gaped in awe at the stretch of the sea, the size of the city, and the accomplishments of man.

“Like it?” Lom chuckled.

“I’m not sure ‘like’ is the right word — it’s…staggering!”

“Well, if all goes well, it shall be your home, so you’d best get over your staggerhood!”

Lom left the other traders to unload the furs at a factor’s, and led Lihan through the streets of Lookshy. Vaguely, Lihan was ashamed of holding Lom’s hand like a baby, but he realized that the city was too much for him, alone. He caught sight of Dragon-Blooded guardsmen with oddly-worked metal weapons at their hips, and saw men and women dressed in thin, beautiful clothing that made him think of flower petals, as well as some in sensible, brown clothing like his own. Hob-nailed boots trod after sandals, mailed feet, and brightly-colored slippers. Finally, Lom stopped in a quieter district, in front of a stucco compound with a carved wooden door. “Learn-ing is the task of all man-kind” he sounded out, as Lom knocked below the chiselled letters.

“Lom Hardroad for the Headmaster,” Lom said gruffly, with a little bow.

The city noises seeped away as they were led deeper into the rambling compound, and Lihan heard, instead, boys chanting repetitively in some strange language, boys shouting as they ran between the buildings, older boys arguing in a stilted, formalized way, and a piping, nervous boy’s voice doing sums rather badly. Lom and Lihan were led into a cubbyhole panelled in dark wood, and the door stoppered off the sounds behind them. Lihan eyed the window. It was small, but he was smaller. Relieved, he eyed the room’s possessor.

The man was old, that much was certain, but he seemed hale and cheerful, not bent and wistful like the few old folks he had ever met. His eyes were as beryl-bright as a summergreen’s leaves, and his smile underlined a magnificent white mustache. As he studied Lihan, scuffed boots to rumpled red hair, Lihan became sure that this man knew absolutely everything about him. More than that, this man knew absolutely everything in the wide and vasty world.

To be continued…

The rain came back, this week. I walked outside, and found I’d forgotten how quiet the world is after rain, the sun subsiding from its loud glare, the trees making sounds that are a kind of silence, the very pavement cushioned from footsteps with a thin layer of water. The paper birches were drip-drying their leaves, and the grass looked less artificial under a spray of dew. I forget sometimes how much I love it. Yesterday I walked back from lunch in the driving rain, and I couldn’t stop laughing, as if each drop running down my face or tunneling through my hair was a joke or a tickling touch. When it rains, I am home.

It’s that time again! Wonder Twin Powers, Activate! Form of…a sesquipedalian!

bucolic

The soft lowing of the cattle, the scent of drying hay and ripening apples… nothing could be more bucolic.

On NPR today, I learned a most beautiful and surreal thing. John Cage was an experimental composer. His most famous work, 4’33” consisted of a pianist approaching the instrument, sitting down, and not touching the piano, for four minutes and thirty-three seconds. Another piece of his is called As Slow As Possible. It was originally written for piano, and then he adapted it for organ. An organ can sustain a note, whereas the percussive nature of a piano limits the length of the notes, and therefore of the piece. Apparently on piano, it took 20 minutes, played as slowly as possible.

A group of Cage scholars in Germany have decided to play the piece, truly, as slowly as possible. The oldest organ in Germany is 639 years old, so they decided that was the length of time they should aim for. They bought a disused church, had an organ built, and commenced the concert 2 years ago today, on Cage’s birthday. As the piece begins with a rest, there were no notes until February of this year.

At first, I just laughed. But as I listened to the organizers, I stopped to think. One man said it was a ‘monument’. An eternal flame, he said, commemorates the past, this is about the future. He said a couple could come to the church, which is open to the public, listen for a while; and then their grown children could come and listen to the same concert, the same piece.

It’s a little odd, but I find it beautiful, and comforting. He said it was about hope, belief in the future, and I agree. Not only our race, but our endeavors, our arts, continuing. It’s an exquisite idea. I smiled.

Now I’m not a big Sting fan. Not in the sense of “I don’t like him but I’m being tactful” but in the sense of “I only own two of his albums”. Namely, I own Soul Cages and Brand New Day, which I believe is his second-to-latest album. The latter I haven’t listened to much for the simple reason that it wasn’t in the CD wallet in my car. Yeah, kinda pathetic. I just slammed the jewel case in with my bags for work the other day so that I could give it a good listen.

I will now address any Sting-haters in the audience; others, you may skip this paragraph. Yes, Sting is cheesy occasionally, but I think it’s by dint of taking chances on drama that pay off elsewhere. Some people say he’s pretentious. Well, I like his eclectic world-pollinated approach to music, so that doesn’t bother me, and as for subject matter, I like hearing a song from the point of view of an ancient king, a vampire, or a puppy-dog occasionally! Genero-whiny-dumped-by-girl guy gets old, thank you very much! I like the odd subject matter he uses. And finally, some people hate his time signatures (he has a weakness for odd meters like 7/4). A) Gustav Holst has converted me to weird meters, and B) It’s a signature of his work. If you don’t like odd meters, don’t listen to Sting. If you don’t like celtic influence, don’t listen to Loreena McKennitt. See where I’m going with that? Okay, having dispensed with the Sting-haters, let’s get to content.

There are two songs on this album that I remember hearing on the radio —namely, “Desert Rose” and the title track. Obviously, I liked them, or I wouldn’t have bought it. “Desert Rose” is a great example of one of my favorite kinds of songs—songs that create a space (examples: “Gimme Shelter” by the Stones, “Where the Streets Have No Names” by U2). Between the trip-hop synth music and the soaring folk melodies, it creates a sort of dizzying expanse of shimmering heat and cool shade. I love that. Space-creating songs make my head feel like it’s suddenly relaxing and dissipating over a great distance, rather than the usual tense muscles and constricting headaches of day-to-day life. Oh, and “Desert Rose” is catchy. I’ll just be sitting at my computer and the little synth-bubbles of notes start playing in my head.

“Brand New Day”, on the other hand, is less evocative, more of a traditional pop song. It’s very upbeat, about the prospect of renewing old loves without opening old wounds. Also very catchy, but in a more finger-snappin’ sense. There’s a harmonica in it, mmkay? I like it— I often feel (correctly or not) that most pop or rock songs are downers. This is completely understandable to me—in my few efforts at composition, I’ve found that minor keys are much easier to write in well. Happy happy can grate. The reverse is also true, though—when you’ve been listening to sad, angry, edgy, or twisted songs, something like “Brand New Day” is like dusting the cobwebs out of your head and opening the windows to let the sun in. Happy is good.

The “surprise” songs, were, of course, all the ones I hadn’t heard on the radio. A short look at each:

“A Thousand Years” is an atmospheric ballad very similar in tone and content to the Sting classic “Road to Jerusalem”. While not quite as shiveringly haunting as that song, it is quite good and stands up well by itself. The two-note underlying theme is surprisingly resilient and very hummable.

“Big Lie, Small World” grew on me. The sort of jumpy backbeat and cheezy jazz touches bothered me at first, but once you listen to the lyrics, it is quite a fun song. It’s amusing enough to listen to repeatedly, even if you don’t like the tune and the chorus too much. Which, to clarify, I do not.

“After the Rain Has Fallen” is probably my favorite “surprise song” on this album. Not only does it have that “unusual content” I enjoy (it’s about a princess falling in love with a thief she finds stealing her jewelry), but it has a really gorgeous, uplifting chorus. Finally, how can you not like a song with the line “Take me for a pirate’s wife” in it? Come on!

“Perfect Love…Gone Wrong” is from the point of view of a dog. Canus Domesticus, man’s best friend, slobber-factory. At the risk of losing the respect of those of you who have heard the song, I think I didn’t notice this until the third time through the album. It’s an interesting take on the traditional “betrayed love” song—writing it about the pet-owner relationship instead of a romantic relationship. It’s worth a few laughs, and is a decent pop-rock song. However, it does include multiple interludes of French rap. Some of you may not even know such a thing exists. I, to my chagrin, know that it exists to the extent that I recognize some of the traditional word-tropes and pronunciations of the genre. It may destroy some of you, and it may make some of you stronger. Do not listen if you are weak-minded.

“Tomorrow We’ll See” is a decent sad prostitute song (is that actually a genre, or did I just make it up?) Some very nice instrumentals and a nice tune. Lyrics—slight cheese. Am I the only one whose mind bends when she hears a male voice sing “These new heels are killing me”?

“Fill Her Up”. Umm. Gosh. Uh. Well, frankly, I don’t think the rich instrumental tapestry and high production values of Sting’s style are suited to Western. Maybe it’s just something too British about him. I don’t have the objections of some Amazon reviewers that say they feel insulted hearing a grossly successful, rich star sing “Got no prospects, no education, I was lucky to get a job at this gas station”. It’s called suspension of disbelief, and I’m frightened they didn’t need it to believe a successful rock star as a widdle puppy-dog. This song has its moments of fun, and during certain parts of the month, the gospel, preachy section can make me cry, but it is at best a very guilty pleasure. Cheese a-plenty.

“Ghost Story” is a very low-key, introspective song. It’s very pretty, and I like it.

Bottom line:
Moments of cheese interspersed with stretches of great beauty, all full of pretty and intricately-detailed instrumentation. Bottom line? If you like Sting, you will like this. If you are not sure about Sting, you might be better served by something a little less eclectic, like the more thematically cohesive “Soul Cages”. 8 out of 10

The other day, sister sledge said to me, “You know, me and my sweetie just don’t do stuff. We talk to other people about the neat things they do, and we say, ‘wow, we should do that,’ but then I remind him, ‘but, we don’t do stuff.” After some prodding and offering of examples, such as “hiking,” we managed to confirm that this conversation was about being a homebody as opposed to someone who goes out into the world, and wrests fun from its still warm body! Or something.

At any rate, I immediately felt the urge to cancel my rigorous schedule of Exalted-reading, Babylon 5-watching, and picture-drawing, and do something. Whether this was a lofty goal or merely petty oneupmanship I leave as an exercise to the reader. So on Labor Day, Matt and I went to the Zoo. ‘But, Felicity!’ I hear you say, ‘the Zoo? On Labor Day? DO YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE!?’ Well, I could not love life, loved I not foolishness more.

So we went to the Zoo! After sailing our bark through the treacherous Straits of Excursion and Narrows of Yukon, we finally lighted upon the famed Parking Space Available, concealed in the confines of the Children’s Museum Auxiliary Lot. And so we came at last unto the Zoo, and as we are members of the not-so-secret Zoo Cabal, we did pass into the zoo unharried by queues and taxation.

The sunshine was running about having one last day of utter indulgence before the school-year started, and a fairish number of undergrown humans were following suit. Blessedly, the bane of zoo-going, Bad Parenting, was less evident than usual. I will note, however, in passing, that I abhor the use of leashes to tether children. I even found a new reason to abhor their use—an overweight child at an age where she should be running and playing any excess off easily, constantly TRYING to run and being stopped by the leash her (admittedly, morbidly obese) parent/guardian was holding. Kids need exercise. They also need to understand about behavior in public places, I admit, but a leash certainly doesn’t teach them to restrain themselves. ‹/rant› If anyone wants to tell me how they were leashed like a Jack Russell Terrier as a child and are the better for it, they are at liberty to do so.

The animals were surprisingly active, for such a hot day. The female Siberian tiger was stalking around their habitat, investigating grass-patches with her nose, scratching up trees, and displaying her muscles in occasional languorous leaps up the moat-stairs. The elephants were outside, giving themselves dust baths in a fashion that made my nose itch just looking on. The wolves in the Alaska Tundra exhibit were variously napping, watching the visitors intently and intelligently, and stalking back and forth as if to remind the other two that wolves had legs.

The real highlight of the trip was Winged Wonders, the butterfly exhibit. I love butterflies. They give me complete and utter ferret-shock. And this place was full of butterflies. You followed one with your eyes - and then another distracted you - and another—back and forth. Black and red “small postmen” drank from flowers, great brown “Owls” sat still against the trunks of trees or swooped like small birds to a new resting place. The brown-bottomed, blue-topped common morphos flew in squadrons of four or chased each other in dipping lines of two or three. They were everywhere. They flapped up against their reflection in Matt’s sunglasses, rewarded my long stillness with a perch on my skirt, and tickled the back of my legs with their wings. It was gorgeous!