Enough

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You may devote yourself 

To the machinations of our animal nature,

To insecurity and copulation,

Fight or flight,

To the games we make of a pecking order

Measuring yourself against your fellow.

You may grovel

At the foot of your betters

Like a hungry dog

Slurp at the dish of scraps laid out for you,

Nudge others out of the way,

Position yourself so you can fill your girth

Get your share, more than your share.

There's enough they say

Enough for everyone,

And you laugh every time 

You hear that word

Enough, because there's no F in enough,

It's never really enough.

There are tough questions you never ask yourself

About the forces that make us do

What we do, say what we say,

Unanswerable questions still worth asking,

Like without empathy

What are you good for?

Me and my Harmonica

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CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SONG

for Adam Gussow

I learn to play harmonica,

To my wife's eternal dismay.

But play the harmonica I will,

Whatever she may say.

She hates the crying racket,

The piercing whiny whine.

But that's not how I hear it,

To me it sounds sublime.

She says she can't be near it,

Yells take it somewhere far.

Where nobody can hear it,

'Play it in your car'.

Me and my harmonica,

We're both made to roam.

The one place I can't play it,

Is when I'm in my home.

Me and my harmonica,

We both sing the blues.

Anything that you can have,

Is something you can lose.

I blow a tune in four-time,

Pressed up against my lips.

And when my tune is done,

Back in my pocket it slips.

I move on down the road,

A wanderer alone.

With nothing but a song to sing,

Far away from home.

Out and in, in and out,

My body and my breath. 

Shapes a sound into a song, 

From silence and from death.

  

Me and my harmonica, 

Go out for a long walk.

Try the door on my return,

But she done changed the lock.

Me and my harmonica,

We both sing the blues.

With every tune I learn to play,

I also pay my dues.

A Change of Words

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A change of words is what they said,

Something a bit more acceptable,

To modern tastes and sensibilities

We must make it less contemptible.

These books are for children after all,

And our babies can't feel offended,

You surely won't see anything wrong

With texts that are slightly amended.

So without the author's permission, 

Cause for ten years he's been dead,

They took out their magnifying glasses

And scoured the pages they read.

Like uniformed men armed with rulers,

Taking measure of our heads,

They inspected every sentence

For the meaning of what is being said.

Aha! the word 'fat', it has to go,

And 'crazy' cannot be tolerated,

'Mothers and fathers' replaced by 'parents'

And 'ugly' is synonymous with 'hated'.

The list they compiled was comprehensive,

With many substitutions,

The result were stories dull enough 

To erase any moral confusion.

And by 'moral' what they actually meant,

Are groups that needed placation,

Until the books bore scant resemblance 

To the author's initial creation.

What makes this episode most ironic,

That the revisers don't seem to get,

Is the author was a well-known satirist

Whose stories are meant to upset. 

And thank goodness we have stories that upset.

Looks familiar

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Make a name for yourself;

it's not really yours,

it's never been yours,

it's donated, used

over and over

before, worn

like old clothes

from the Sally Ann

bought and 

paid for.

You're a has-been, 

in re-runs,

whatshisname,

looks familiar.

Come from afar

like a name scrawled

on a ship's manifest 

in faded ink,

spoken for,

a dropped syllable

uttered

shortened 

anglicized

unoriginal

to fit in,

not an exact copy

but the same stuff

twisted

into a new shape,

and once 

you're gone

you're gone 

soon forgotten

with traces

of resemblance

in the next version.

Damn those assholes

Damn those assholes. 

I'm talking about the publishers of Roald Dahl's books and the estate, or whoever signed off on this madness to tidy up his books. Here's a sampling of the offensive words that they deemed so egregious they had to be expunged:

Fat: Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory who was described as "enormously fat" is now just "enormous."

Ugly: Mrs. Twit in The Twits is no longer called "ugly and beastly" now she's just "beastly."

Crazy: Mrs. Jenkins in The Witches no longer "goes crazy" but instead she "will be furious." Matilda, who was "crazy with frustration" is now "wild with frustration." 

Female: Miss Trunchbull formerly described in Matilda as "a most formidable female" is now "a most formidable woman." The Witches who were described as "a bunch of dangerous females" are now "dangerous people,"  also "old hags" is replaced by "old crows." 

Mothers and Father: Changed to "parents" in several books.

Seriously? 

You might look at these changes and say, so 'mothers and fathers' changed to 'parents', means the same thing, what's the big deal? I answer, exactly, what's the big deal?! What is so offensive about 'mothers and fathers' that it had to be changed. But there is a big deal and it's that a decision has been taken to alter the work of an artist from the original, and that's an affront to the integrity of the work and the dignity of the creator's artistic legacy. 

The rationale is obvious in this case, it's to sell more books and make more money. I think that's a miscalculation. But putting the commercial aspect aside, it's treating art (and literature counts as art), as nothing but a consumer product, no different than clothes or electronics. Books are original creations of mind and heart intended to enlighten as much as entertain. They aren't simply manufactured product to be tweaked and marketed from time to time as 'new and improved' in order to sell more product. For anyone to argue this is just an 'update' of Dahl's books, my response is: Would anyone accept making word substitutions to Shakespeare's plays to update them? 

What about the argument that words like "fat" and "crazy" have become offensive terms today in a way that they weren't in Dahl's time? I have two responses. First, all artwork has to be understood in the context of the era of their creation. That's part of the way we learn to appreciate art. Should we edit out the n-word from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer? Or rather use the text as written to delve deeper into the meaning of slavery and racism in America? In my view, the shock of experiencing that word in the text is essential to achieving greater understanding of where we were and how far we've come. Second, 'offense' is often in the eye of the beholder and not a reason to alter an artist's work. Offense is often the point of art, and it's by risking offense that cultural progress is made. In the case of Dahl, to edit out the supposedly offensive bits is so egregious because he was a satirist (like Twain). Walking the line of offense was part and parcel of his craft. Anyone who has read any of his adult fiction knows that his literary modus operandi is to surprise and outrage. In his work for children, using salty language (toned down to suit his readership) was clearly intentional. Subversiveness is the very essence of Dahl's work, and he chose every word carefully for effect. To change even a word is to diminish his work. 

Another argument I've been hearing is that the edits and omissions can be justified by the age of the readership. It might be called 'censorship' if they were being made to his adult books, but children need to be 'protected' because they are easily influenced and unable to think critically about what they are reading. This is hogwash (no offense to hogs). In the first instance, it's parents who buy children's books, they make the decision on whether it's appropriate for their children. Furthermore, if you are a parent like me, you read Dahl's books to your kids, because let's face it, not many kids pick up books on their own. Secondly, I give kids, especially the ones who are age appropriate for Dahl's books, a lot more credit, and clearly so did the author. Dahl's books are spicy, that's what got kids (and their parents) reading them in the first place. It's entertainment not indoctrination. Just because an exaggerated fictional character like Augustus Gloop is described as 'fat' or the mythical witches are called 'ugly women' doesn't mean the kids will instantly become bigots or mysoginists. Rather, the edgy style of Dahl's writing may actually turn kids into avid readers, like it did to me, and creating book lovers is an author's greatest achievement. 

For those who haven't read his books, I'll give an example from the 1971 film adaptation of Charlie and The Chocolate Factory, for which Dahl wrote the screenplay. There is a scene, not in the book (and not actually in the original screenplay either), that beautifully illustrates what I'm talking about. Willy Wonka emerges from his factory, the first time he's ever been seen in public. His reputation is as a great and powerful man, but he appears to the assembled crowd outside the factory gate shockingly frail, he walks slowly with a cane. Suddenly, he trips and falls, the crowd gasps. But he does a sommersault and hops to his feet, agile as a gymnast. It was an act, signalling that appearances are not to be trusted on the journey he is about to take us on. It's a brilliant piece of filmmaking (actually improvised by actor Gene Wilder) that encompasses so much about the story, foreshadowing what's in store for the audience. I'm sure disability rights activists have demanded that the scene be expunged from the film as offensive. Doing so would diminish the film. I hope it's not the next part of Dahl's legacy to be chopped. 

As you can probably tell, I loved Roald Dahl's books when I was a kid. I loved his adult fiction too when I got older. I was incredibly disappointed to learn later in life that Dahl was an unapologetic anti-Semite. It's well documented. There's nothing I can do about that. But his offensive racist views don't change I how feel about his books. Just as the full picture of who he was as a person must be acknowledged and not 'whitewashed' to help sell his books, so should his original works remain unchanged. 

__________________________

UPDATE: The 'backlash' that was elicited by this announcement has prompted the publisher to back down, in a way. They don't say that they've decided to rescind their decision, but that they will also be publishing unchanged 'Classic Editions' of the original books. This leads me to suspect that the whole thing was a cynical marketing ploy to boost public interest in the books from the beginning. I think it worked. Damn them again for their cleverness.      

Balloons

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Another one shot down

by an F-15. 

Fourth this week.

Montana, Yukon, Alaska, Lake Huron.

Apparently our airspace 

is teeming with balloons

and no one was paying attention.

Fighter jets and missiles are ready.  

Reminds me of my daughter 

who was petrified of balloons, 

refused to attend birthday parties.

At the time I thought it strange.

What kind of kid

shuns cake and ice cream

for fear of an unexpected pop?!

We got over 

the embarrassment of her over-

sensitivity as a groundswell of empathy

among parents grew into a movement

against balloons at birthday parties,

balloonless birthdays

became a thing,

and our daughter

could soon celebrate aging

with her friends again. 

Personally, I missed the balloons.

The held-breath

of them,

the feeling of being surrounded

by multi-coloured corpuscular orbs

on the verge of explosion 

like an aneurysm.

As I got older

I found myself looking skyward

for no apparent reason,

thinking a balloon might appear

out of nowhere

like an omen

O.

Top 10 Burt Bacharach songs

I`ve been reading so many top ten lists. I need to have my say (and of course my list has eleven.) Part of the grieving process. 

11. Alfie

Proof that Bacharach/David had empathy for men as much as for women. A delicate and intimate portrait of male vulnerability, or the struggle for it. I can't think of another similar song in popular music. Bacharach has said this is his favourite song he's written. He wrote it to lyrics, which was generally not his process with Hal David, except for when they worked on music for the theatre (Promises, Promises) or movies. He cites "Are we meant to take more than we give/ Or are we meant to be kind?" among his favourite lyrics, and if you know anything about his personal life, you understand why.

10. Do You Know The Way To San Jose

Listen to it for the quintessential mastery of Bacharach`s musical arrangement that became his trademark. It has it all; punchy horns, lavish strings, and even a Wurlitzer organ riff that seems conceived out of nowhere, demonstrating his genius for instrumentation and ear for catchiness.

9. Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

Another one of those songs that proves that a great song provides room for various vocal interpretations. My favourite is by BJ Thomas who made a name as a country singer. 

8. Always Something There to Remind Me

The synth-pop hit version by Naked Eyes from 1982, once again, proves that great songwriting leaves room for all kinds of adaptation. This one transcends the generations, and is to my mind even better than the original version sung by Warwick.  

7. I'll Never Fall in Love Again

Written for the Broadway play Promises, Promises, and notable in the Bacharach/David partnership as a song that had lyrics before music. Bacharach says he wrote the melody faster than any other song he'd ever written, and this song, maybe more than any other, seems to illustrate his process of writing melody first and building around it. It's also David at his mischievous best with lines like 'What do you get when you kiss a girl? / You get enough germs to catch pneumonia / After you do, she'll never phone ya.' Rhyming 'pneumonia' and 'phone ya' is genius worthy of Cole Porter. 

6. This Guy's In Love

A song that made Herb Alpert a credible vocalist, which says more about the song's inherent appeal than his abilities. So laid back and cool. Male vulnerability personified. See #11 - Are there any other pop songs that talk about male vulnerability?

5. (They Long To Be) Close To You

A hit for The Carpenters, featuring Karen Carpenter at her very best. The Carpenters recording is also notable for featuring the legendary Wrecking Crew on instruments, and their flawless 4-part harmony backing vocals. I used to sing this song to my babies to rock them to sleep (see also, Herb Alpert as a vocalist.) Nough said. 

4. Walk On By

The song that cemented the relationship between Bacharach/David and Warwick. Notable for the way the song leaves room to groove, and the tasteful piano hook after Warwick sings "breakdown and cry". This song shows how Bacharach knew when to leave space for a song to breathe, and when to lay on the strings dramatically. Bacharach stated in a 1998 interview that he looked at his songs as “three-and-a-half minute movies, with peak moments and not just one intensity level the whole way through.” This song was the first of many to demonstrate this approach. Other irresistible elements include the stabbing guitar, and the melodious atmospheric Hammond (?) organ. It was the same session as "Anyone Who Had A Heart" which probably should be on this list too. 

3. Say A Little Prayer

Many people think Aretha's version is definitive but to my ears it feels a bit too gospel and bombastic, a bit too diva. This song needs to have a vulnerability that undergirds the soaring vocal delivery, and that's Warwick's specialty. The trumpet hook and string arrangements are a Bacharach signature.   

2. What the World Needs Now is Love

A song that is quite literally the soundtrack to the turbulent 1960s in America. Reportedly it took David almost two years to write the lyrics. And for anyone who would argue that the Beatles did it better with their anthem All You Need is Love, I point out that this song came out two years before theirs, and, although I haven't researched it, might have influenced Lennon/McCartney. It's a safe guess because the Beatles actually recorded a Bacharach song "Baby, It's You" earlier. Jackie DeShannon had a hit with it, but it's Warwick's version, again, that's definitive in my mind. The story is that DeShannon only got it when amazingly Warwick intially turned it down because she thought it was too preachy. 

1. Promises, Promises

This is my number one because it amply showcases everything that made Bacharach (and David, and Warwick) great, in terms of musical craft. It opens with an irresistible trumpet hook, and has multiple shifts in time signature to propel the song forward and support the narrative arc of the lyrics. It's intimate and grand at the same time, as the most enduring art always is.