haiku

It was a fine day.

Then the wind started blowing.

Then the wind was white.

.

noirku

Each unique design

Smashed unseen by my wipers.

 Tough night for snowflakes. 

.

13'11"

 The piece of music that did more than any other to make me a Classical Head instead of a Rock Head (though I play both as well as I can) was Rhapsody in Blue, and the performance that put it in my heart was Gershwin's own expressive piano roll.

Fifty, fifty-one years ago, I came across a set of LPs that Dad had of reproducing roll performances by Gershwin, Ravel, Prokofieff, and other legends of the keyboard. Gershwin's roll represented the composer's choices for tempo and other things, as well as his phenomenal skill.

Somewhat impressively, he sat down and overdubbed part of the roll, covering the thickest parts of the score, matching the tempos and keeping the live feeling. As a bonus, it has sections that aren't included in the solo piano score published by Warners. I was to learn why later.

I can tell you now, though. Everybody loved this piece, but they also felt like it could be cut at will without losing anything. Leonard Bernstein, in a tribute that feels patronizing, says it's just wonderful how we can cut this and that from it, and it's still enough, right?

And cut they do, possibly because Gershwin was eager enough to get the piece recorded that he agreed to set it down on a single disk, even if that meant cutting between a third and a half out and joining the bits with fillers that I hope came from the composer, at least.

For reasons of time (Whiteman had announced a concert piece premiere that Gershwin hadn't agreed to), Whiteman had the composer provide a two-piano (partial) sketch that Ferde Grofe would then orchestrate for the concert. This worked out, and Whiteman decided that, therefore...

...he, Paul Whiteman, was henceforward entitled to have his guy touch up and abridge every concert work Gershwin wrote, but that's another story, and he seems to have cut it out after a while, but not until making an 'alternate' Concerto in F at two thirds the length.

Anyway, I started 'working' on the piece while still in high school, and have subjected any number of ears to the work in progress over the years. As my technique has improved, I am finally where I can believe I'll be able to overcome all the wrong stuff I taught myself...

...and be able to simply sit down and play the whole thing when I want to hear it. Last night, I traversed the score of the familiar blue-cover version published by Warner, reaching the end without disaster. And PARTS OF IT WERE GOOD. I plan to improve what I can do. Here's hope.

More Technique: Piano Stuff.

Photo by Baron Dave, 2005. I had hands then, too! Taken at Minicon.

So much of the time I spend learning a piece now appears, in the cold light of decades of days, to be time spent figuring out how it should sound. Even as I built a pretty good facility for sightreading whatever didn't scare me off at second glance, I still had to deal with the ingrained presence of Mister Fuckup.

Mister Fuckup lives in my head, with some other entities we don't need to discuss now, and his sole joy in life is making me play the next wrong note. (He moonlights as a typing coach, by the way.) Even as I improved my playing and gained some welcome certainty over the easier notes, Mister F still reigned unchecked. My own personal Muse of Failure, living on the road between Intention and Execution, his specialty was finding the moment of confidence after playing three things right in a row and starting to believe I'd make it to the end unscathed. Implacable, non-negotiable.

The first partial victory against Fuckup was when I noticed one day that I was talking to my hands, as if they were individuals with wills of their own. And maybe they are. Anyway, I was embarking on a tough passage, and I beamed a thought like "And if Righty fluffs the melody up there, Lefty, you're doubling it anyway, so lean on it and we'll get through this," and then I caught myself doing it and realized that as long as I was making up entities, I should concoct an invisible henchman whose only job is to keep my place in the score (I had just done the crushing job of deducing that losing my place was a drawback. Offstage.) and threaten it with dire things if it didn't keep a running spot tally for my eyes to return to. 

And what do you know? It worked. My playing improved more quickly than usual for a while. I'd injured Mister F.

In many ways, it's good to have a brain you can take out and play with sometimes. With a number of little hacks and kludges, I began to get fairly reliable within my level. I even began to notice some things about my playing that went back to the very fundamentals of playing.

Remembering about Dad's advice, via Martha, to know what the passage is supposed to sound like before trying to play it makes me think of the long times I would spend trying to make a piece of music match what I heard in my head when that aural image was overly vague or otherwise just plain wrong to start with. 

I not only increased how much I'd work on each hand by itself (oh yeah, we're talking piano here), but made it a point when needed to dissect one hand's part for a measure, even playing it with both hands until I had the sequence of notes and rests down in my head. Has this made a difference? No, I've cunningly spent all these paragraphs saying it didn't, ell oh ell, aitch aitch oh kay, ess aay ess. Of course it made a difference!

It turns out that subjecting myself to continuous cognitive dissonance by looking at the right notes while thinking the wrong ones can wear you out, and stopping it is a relief, even if you don't replace it with anything. If you replace it with something, though, may I recommend mentally shouting out the name of the note when you see it in notation instead of trying to cultivate the Blind Zen Archer bit. It turns out that successful blind Zen archers were remarkable because most of them failed and found something better to shoot for and are now faintly embarrassed by the whole archery phase, to be honest, and they have a ukulele right here.

Getting back to me, however, I'm passing along my advice to myself: Figure out the real melody as soon as possible. It's never too late, luckily, to start working toward it and away from the broken version of a tune I'd substituted. When temptation strikes to keep the wrong one, I can refer to a mental image of something my best piano teacher, Mr. Diebel, said about a very similar topic. 

"Write your own damn music."

.

Technique: volume on the piano

 A thing about piano playing is that, much like the Earth and everything on it, the sound is constantly dying. When you hear a piano player, you're riding the Relativity Express, and they are running it. 

This manifested itself to me as a dissatisfaction with the tone, that I couldn't keep things smooth enough, and it developed over the source of many thought balloons that if you want to stay the same volume on a piano, you can play each note at the same volume as the previous one started, or you can play each new note at the same volume that the previous one had attained when the next one was played. A sliding scale.

The first of these does seem to keep your melodic line prominent (usually emphasizing the top line), as each new note is a tiny tad more loud than the preceding. This can give an impression of increasing volume. It can bother my ear some, it turns out.

The other solution has me playing a little softer as I go through a phrase (provided I'm not directed to get louder on it), with what seems like a more coherent stream of sound. It's like ending a piece with some repeated chords: If it's not saying to get louder on them, I like to strike each a tiny bit softer, so as not to be louder than the existing envelope of sound that it's being opened in. 

A net effect is that phrases go softer in the absence of any other written directions, This leads to a more ongoing ebb and flow of dynamics, instead of "just playing." Other dynamics still apply, just as a driver continues to pay attention to his location within a lane, even as the road twists. 

Well, it makes sense to me, because I'm a sensitive creative artist, or something. I'll try and post more of this sort of thing, including art and productivity tips, under the "Technique" umbrella.

surprisingly, this was not originally a Twitter tweet stream.
.

Middle-aged Man, Made of Meat

Pino rose reluctantly from dreams of magic. His joints seemed to creak, and he remembered the amazing year in which he was born, fresh, a wooden puppet. His joints rattled then, instead of aching.

What if he'd never changed? Would he still feel ancient on this morning? Wood can last an amazingly long time, but it's not eternal. What if a finger had broken off, and been replaced by unenchanted wood? Would it feel like him? Would it be him, if he was replaced entirely, piece by piece? Tantalizing, to think of living forever, a mended, patched life, replacing himself piece by piece, not knowing if he was still the same individual.

About like now, he reflected. Darn near the same. He chuckled at this, took up his axe, and whistled as he went outside to work.

 

originally a tweet

.

Good Morning!

 

By the driveway. 10:05 am, 12/9/2022.

many wrongs make a blog post

Recent tweets (harvested by hand):

Could they make a dog toy that squeaks in a range only dogs hear?
 

.

"Turn on notifications or skip for now." For now? For NOW??

.

You can't even buy calling birds nowadays. You can only rent a calling bird plan.

.

Today I beat Wordle by not playing.

.

[photos of decorative apples made of alabaster or onyx] I was looking more for a pomme granite.

.

No, I feel okay. I just feel like going outside and eating a bunch of grass is all.

.

Woe is me. Murray now believes 100% that any time I whistle, it means I'm calling him to go out, even if he was just out. So now, any time I'm exuberant enough to whistle, I'm gaslighting my best buddy.

.

Eric Idle's sortabiography has a story of the aftermath of the attack on George and Olivia by that creep. George was lying on a gurney, bleeding, and the new housekeeper reported for work. She looked on, utterly apalled, and George said "So, what do you think of the job so far?"

.

When I buy anything snacky, I take the precaution of figuring out how much fat is in the whole thing. Sometimes unlikely, but always good to know.

Kudos to Dove ice cream bons on that score. I looked at the info, and serving size is THE WHOLE BOX OF, LIKE, TWENTY. Hardcore FTW.

.

I sat in an empty room at a con where I was the event, and suffered the social awkwardness of deciding whether to start talking when someone looked in.

.

OPEN THREAD 714

I walked Murray around nine this morning, when the weather indicated some clear before a period of moisture. There were some bits of junk mail here and there that had escaped from a recycling container. (I even know whose, thanks to addressed mail, but that's irrelevant.) After ignoring them for a minute, I picked them up and folded the small stack and jammed it in my back pocket to recycle at home. When I started practicing, I looked out and saw that the one house on the street that still had a piece of that stuff was ours. It was flapping quietly to draw attention to itself and, by association, to denigrate our choices of local politicians to have yard signs for. 

I ignored it for a minute. Two minutes. Then after some more minutes I went out and strided to it. Regarded it for a couple of seconds, taking in at a glance the quality of shower stalls being offered, then clapped it up and crumpled it and took it in, gaining exercise and a timely reminder that it was about time to do my teeth and stuff anyway, so there's that. And then I updated my blog, because why not? 

Attached is a photo proving that the color folded flyer page is no longer waving at passers-by. And here is an Open Thread, because we here at the New Pals Club Web-Log believe in letting our reader have their say, This is the first in a long tradition, so I gave it a great big number in the tradition of composer Karl Czerny, who wrote a lot of notes on pages but still inflated his apparent output with ever-larger Opus numbers, and why the heck not?

Proof! Select the window pane that does not contain an ad for new shower stalls. IT'S ALL OF THEM!

Anyway, here's your Open Thread. I hope this thing works. 

.

Just Blow a Raspberry

BEDAZZLED, the Faustian comedy feature by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, delighted me instantly, though I soon started thinking that this part or that part was dated or awkward or embarrassing. Oddly, as time went by and I got older--two things that occurred simultaneously--the awkwardnesses seem to have hit closer to the mark than I knew, and the dated aspect becomes the perfection of a period piece. In short, the good bits keep getting better and the weak ones either do or become unimportant, and what's left is one of my generation's classics.

Dudley Moore, aka Stanley Moon, is a diner cook in love with the unattainable waitress Margaret Spencer (Eleanor Bron, who I remember best from HELP). Stanley is approached by George Spiggot (Peter Cook), who being Lucifer the Lord of the Underworld offers George seven wishes. Seven chances to win the amazing Margaret, and any one of them should do it, right? Stanley lets himself be convinced: his original sin. The movie shows us the relationship between these two men, with Margaret as a pawn We never see her internal world, and most of her time is spent in scenarios concocted by George in order to ruin Stanley's wishes, and her role is akin to that of another castaway playing a part in a dream sequence on Gilligan's Island. 

George also manages the seven deadly sins, each personified by an actor. Raquel Welch as Lust lights up the screen with a broad Southern accent. He also takes Stanley with him on some of his rounds, which consist of a series of petty annoyances against people (and perhaps animals), because it's his job, as he explains to Stanley at some length. God makes him do this, in a pretty direct way. It's not George's fault. Nothing ever is. (I knew a George.) 

A favorite scene of mine has the two men dressed in white and showing up at an elderly woman's house. George says that they're the Fruney Green Eyewash men, and if she has five bottles of Fruney Green Eyewash in her home, she will win a tidy little prize. Of course she doesn't, but George encourages her to nip to the chemist and bring them back, and he'll pretend they were there all along. After she goes off on her bike, George raids her fridge and eats her raspberries and cream. Stanley complains, but has some too. Anyway, George offers, it's all her fault because she wanted to lie about the eyewash. 

Speaking of raspberries, the deal is that Stanley can end any wish and go back to status quo by blowing a raspberry. George's preferred magic words are "Julie Andrews!" but he can substitute. The scenarios of Stanley's wishes, egged on by George's devilish suggestions, are the formal set pieces of the movie, and they get more and more exacting as Stanley endeavors each time to make THIS one George-proof. Witness ye now my favorite, a self-contained "Ready, Steady, Go!" parody on a show called "Going, Going, Gone!" Stanley has wished for fame, and he has wished to win the heart of the fair Margaret (I love the moment when she's watching Stanley on the stage and is suddenly transfixed by Stanley on the monitor.). 

So Stanley goes on, singing a song written by Dudley Moore, and everything goes according to plan for a while.

 

 

It's the ultimate (as Dudley could well deliver, and often did) in its field, and its field is NEEDINESS. You will never hear a needier pop song, more baldly delivered. Watch the choreography. Then note the exact opposite of all fo it in the follow-up, also by Dudley, delivered by the guy who just couldn't help being tall and handsome and cold.

(Incidentally, Bongwater covered "Bedazzled," the song, gender-flipped and hilariously camp. Recommended.)

.

A Timely Tip

Playing piano at Minicon about 15 years ago. Photo by Tony von Krag.

When you're learning to play a piece--on the piano, in this case--it's helpful to learn the melody by humming or whistling or la-la-la-ing. This piece of advice from my father, a piano teacher, has turned out to be very useful recently. Makes me wish Dad had told me years earlier. Or at all.

As it happens, I got this pointer from my sister, to whom Dad told it decades ago. Dad tried twice to teach me and we apparently came up with a mutual unspoken deal where I'd struggle by myself for years and he'd occasionally offer me a suggestion that would usually prove useful, though not as useful as learning to finger, or acquiring basic harmony knowledge. After I finally started spending my own money for lessons, Mr. Diebel (I expect his proper title was Dr., but I never heard it used or requested) patiently addressed the worst of my deficiencies, ignoring my utter helplessness from his friendship with Dad. Dad once asked him what the main thing was he'd taught me, and Diebel answered by putting five fingers on his arm and saying "One, two, three, four, five." When I came to him, I acquired most notes by moving my hand. When we moved out of state a year or so later, I was about where a second or third-year student might be, provided nobody asked any theory questions, including "what key is this in?"

Fortune and decision brought me to theory. First, I noticed the existence of the Irish jam on Cathy's campus and started going. I tried playing my tiny backpack keyboard, but it was nigh inaudible in the room full of fiddlers and accordionists. I brought my accordion in (never learned the bass notes) and sight-read on that for a while before buying a five-octave keyboard with full-sized keys I could play. That led to a feeling of obligation toward those chord names over the tune sheets we used, and I started filling in, first with just the roots of the chords, then block chords, and finally comping. That's when a light bulb in my head said "You should take theory now, before you graduate." So I took four semesters off my art major and just took the sequence, not even for credit. I had some questions early on which my teacher answered by having me sit in on the aural training class concurrent with the theory cycle. 

I figured I knew enough theory from osmosis that I could start the class without a semester of "this is your finger and this is a note," and I was almost wrong but got through it with a simple trick I've mastered of clenching my entire head and keeping it that way until a problem seems to solve itself. The theory homework had the side effect of teaching me legible musical writing, which worked out because I also started writing some pieces of music in the same format we used in the jam. The class and sessions are the best musical education I've received, and I wish I'd done it decades earlier. 

I was talking to a couple of friends in the group (dang! I have friends here.) about playing outside the sessions to do other kinds of music. Suddenly, people started getting Covid and parts of society shut down, including all campus activities like ours (mostly peopled by non-college folks). My friend and I exchanged mp3s for a while, then started meeting under extremely careful conditions. After two years and change, we pick up new pieces pretty quickly (the tough ones take longer), often making our own non-virtuoso arrangements for the purpose. That's when Martha mentioned the bit about humming.

Who knows if I could have taken music theory earlier? I had one theoretical sort of class in Georgia but was trying to do math and computers and art. Would I have shrugged it off like my first (and second) lessons? Would Dad's pointer have taken root if he'd told it to me himself? Who sawed Courtney's boat? 

I'm taking away from this exactly what I'm getting: a tip that makes it even easier at a time when it's continually getting easier. With any luck, I'll get up to Michigan in the Fall and have a chance to show Dad how my playing is going, and mention that I'm using his tip. There's some baggage lying around that I don't feel like picking up. It'd just slow me down anyway, and nothing in it's of any real value. 

Left foot. Right foot. Am I there yet? 

Repeat.

.

A Window In Time

For alt-text, see third note below. Picture might enlarge if you click on it. This is as big as I can get it before it takes over the page.
 

One day in 1969, I was taking photography as an 8th-grade elective for a semester. I had the use of Mom's Kodak Bantam, which used 828 film (eight exposures? EIGHT?). It occurred to me that I could take a picture of the view from our living room window and save it forever!

That's probably Mark standing on what they called "a treehouse," wood nailed up in squared-off shapes. There's Roxy, their pony, visible behind the doghouse of Lady, the least fortunate collie ever, trust me. There's the swingset and the full-size tree they put in there.

There's the back yard where the boys would drive the "old" pickup around and around when they were too young to go on the road.* There's acres of pasture** where cattle sometimes grazed, and I found one of our cats dead.

There's the first leg up the hill, and the notch where we'd first spy the glint of our yellow bus coming around the mountain. We knew exactly how much time we had to get to the end of our gravel driveway. There's Spring Canyon Dam. The Swimming Gorilla. Horsetooth Mountain.

Confession: I had to fix the negative, which was torn clear down into Horsetooth, and the image there now is something I did in Photoshop to make it less glaring.

And there's our huge sky, always a canvas for extravagant white clouds that passed from the west and north mostly. One day I realized why: No trees, huh. How about that.

Special bonus: the lighter rectangle floating behind Mark shows the reflection in the glass of the kitchen window on the east side of the house. Hello, little window!

So, darn. It really worked, and it still works. I wish to award myself a point. Where's the chalk?

_______________
* Footnote: When I worked for RMFRES in 1980, I had occasion to visit the photo department at CO State U, and they had an aerial shot that must have been from right about 1969. You could clearly see the oval track in their back yard. rrr-RRRRR-rrrr!

** Feetnote: I referred to exactly this sort of terrain recently in a reminiscence of stepping out of a car in like 2004 onto ground like that and feeling like I was FINALLY HOME again, because the bottoms of my feet felt right at last.

 *** ALT TEXT for the photo! I can't find a way to do it here, but here's what I used for alt-text at Twitter, where most of this originally appeared earlier this morn... afternoon. 

"A black and white view looking west at the Front Range foothills of northern Colorado. In the near ground, scraggly trees, the neighbor's fence, a doghouse, a pony's back visible above the doghouse, a garage with a kid standing on a homemade construction of some sort at the south end. Acres and acres of mostly bare prairie with a long-unlived-in house visible just before the first hill. Spring Canyon Dam connects two hills, holding in Horsetooth Reservoir (named for the notch-shaped hill 3/4 of the way across the hilltops). Clothesline. Swingset."

.

From The Record Canister

We used to have a canister which might have originally held potato chips, but which was about 8" across, making it suitable for a stack of 45s and kiddie 78s. At a point in my life at which I had less control, I turned left and they turned right, and I never saw or heard them again, but my mind's ear provides replays of them, nestled in with the ringing.

One of the more peculiar of these kiddie disks was on the flip side of "Tattle-Tale Duck" ("Tattle-tale, tattle-tale, quackity-quack! / He tattles in front and he wiggles in back! / So watch your step, / You're out of luck / If you get caught by the tattle-tale duck!"), with the mild title "Ducks On Parade." 

It doesn't seem to be online. I checked, but you check as well. Sometimes I miss things.

Unlike most of the songs I'd hear in this enigmatic stack of clues to the greater world (such things would come my way, and I'd puzzle over their meaning as I labored to get the words right) this one had no lyrics. It was a pure instrumental, and if I'm any judge, it was made up on the spot. The instrumentation eludes my mental track, but the underall obbligato was a rhythmic quacking sound. Not a real quack, but a quacking sound. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was obviously a toy duck of the sort Lucy Van Pelt might have pulled around in a desultory fashion in a 50s Peanuts strip. And I'm not sticking my neck out very far by boldly asserting that someone had a wheeled duck toy and put it on one of the turntables in the studio and held it while the table turned, producing a quasi-quack-quack track.

And heck, that's really the interesting bit, right there. The melody is a series of tentative beginnings of phrases.

Doo.
Dooby dooby doo.
Dooby dooby doo; dooby dooby doo; dooby dooby doo.

(repeat a note higher; keep fumfering with it, and eventually back out more or less the same way)

It didn't have to be long. A 5" 78 record isn't good for much more than a minute, if that. So I guess either someone was screwing around with the ducky and the producer said "Let's record it," or else they were sitting around desperate for one more side that day, and the guy at the turntable said "How about this?" and put the duck on, and then the piano guy made up this tune, and eleven minutes later, they'd recorded it and mastered it and gone out for drugs.

You'll let me know if you find it, won't you? I haven't heard it in over fifty years. I mean, outside of  my head. Also, if you happen upon it, I'd really like a copy (even just audio) of the ~1970 ad for Clearasil or Noxzema that has the obnoxious "I am an Acne Pimple!" song that haunts my inner ear, where it threatens to overturn my balance.
.

Another Biggest Moment

 In one of the earliest seasons of the Simpsons, Lisa has a substitute teacher (voiced by Dustin Hoffman) who she falls in love with on every emotional and intellectual level she has. He's magic. He understands her, stimulates her, and deals patiently with her grade-school crush.

Like any sub, he can't stay around. Lisa's teacher gets over her illness and shows up in class. Lisa runs to find him, and they have a scene at the train station, where he sadly, patiently, explains that he is needed for the slowest kids, the troubled kids, the trouble kids. 

"But what about ME?" Lisa demands. Why is it always someone else's turn? When it is her turn? What will happen to her? The teacher gives her a note, and says that everything's going to be okay. Wait till the train goes, and read the note. And away he goes, smaller and smaller, out of sight, and before that happens, she has unfolded the paper and read the words:

"You are Lisa Simpson."

.

Biggest Moment

There's an episode of the original Star Trek series, not a distinguished one, where Kirk has to escort a trophy wife for some political alliance, and she uses her alien wiles to force him to fall in love with her. As the show ends, McCoy and Spock are discussing the heartbroken captain. "I've sedated him," says Bones. "He's all right physically. If he could only just forget." Spock says nothing. The doc leaves, still muttering.

Spock watches Kirk for a few moments, his face impassive, reflecting nothing. Then he extends his right hand in a very Vulcan configuration, seeks a spot on his friend's temple, and intones the word:

"Forget."

The episode is more than fifty years old, and it still hits me behind the eyes.

"B" Attitudes

To everything, there is a purpose, and a time for every season under Heaven. There is a time to put your right foot in, and a time to take your right foot out. A time to Kung Fu, and a time to Wang Chung. There is a time to hit the bus, Gus, and a time to never let you go.

There's a time to eat the plums, and there is a time to refrigerate plums together. There is a time to hold them, and there is a time to lay them upon the table. There's a time for getting what you want, and there is a time for getting what you need. There's a time to roll over and a time to wake up Maggie. There is a time for jazz hands, and there is a time for happy feet. There is a time for little green apples, and a time to shake the peach tree.

There is a time to like short shorts, and there is a time for tequila. There's a time for knowing what time it is, and a time not to really care. There's a time for getting to Phoenix, and there's a time for working on the line. There is a time for a ball and chain, and a time for a ring of fire. There's a time to ride, captain, ride, and there's a time to not rock the boat. There is a time for dancing in the moonlight, and a time for leaving the cake out in the rain.

There is time for the journey of a covered wagon, and there is time for a three-hour tour. A three-hour tour. There is time for a jump to the left, and there is time for a step to the right. There is time for me to cry at my party, and there is a turn for Judy to cry. There is a time to tune in tomorrow, and a time to tune in next week. There's a time for placing things, and there is a place for timing them.

There is a time to talk to a horse, of course, and there is a time to sit on it. There is a time to buy a vowel, and there is a time to spin the wheel; a time to introduce yourself and a time to write your final answer in the form of a question. There is a time to watch your mail, and a time to look under your seat. There is a time to just do it, and there is a time to ask your doctor if it is right for you. There is a time to fuck around, and there is a time to find out. There is a time to save a stitch, and there is a time to spend nine. There's a bit of spinach between your teeth; there it goes.

There is a time and a place for everything, but there is no time for sergeants.

Ellipses Are … Your Friend.

The humble ellipse has several purposes. It’s not just for avoiding punctuation any more! Though it still fills that need admirably. I picked up an issue of THE HIGHWAY EVANGELIST at a truck stop on I-80, many years back, and one feature that would have caused Mark Twain to prick up his ears was bad poetry of a pathetic nature. The alert reader has already tumbled to Twain’s fondness for mawkish funerary verse, and this was a near cousin to it.

The epic in question was arranged to look like verses. I don’t recall that it had much in the way of rhymes or meter. What stays in my mind was the choked sentence fragments, separated by roaming trios of periods. “She was…just a child…” Line after line of half-chewed partial sentences, disgorged randomly. I’ve seen other vox pop publications that seemed to accept whatever was sent in, provided it avoided bad language, and bad language wasn’t the only thing they avoided. Good language was pretty scarce, too.

Of course, ellipses are handy for sharpening up a quote to reduce meandering, improve focus, and change the meaning to something that will sell your movie or can of beans or whatever. Moreover, they will serve the same functions when you wish to represent the ideas and stands of someone who’s on the opposite political side from your own. Really skilled operators can even do it with audio or video of the opponent, particularly if luck is on their side and all that is required of them is to cut away the exculpatory parts of a phrase before and after the apparently incriminating nugget.

Then, there is the ironical use of the ellipse, which doesn’t even seem to be an ellipse at all when you look at it closely, which is why I refer to the formation instead as The Three Dots of Irony. Many a prose writer, unhappy that words on a page can’t convey the rise of the eyebrow, the hopeful smile, the whimsical shrug that says “I’m being humorous. Please laugh now!” The pronunciation of the Three Dots could, therefore, be similar to an actual laugh: Ha, ha, ha.

My experience goes back to the 70s, in print fandom, where jolly raconteurs, unhappy that their physical aspect was no longer part of their narrative, took to adding the three dots after remarks intended to convey humor in order to imbue it with irony and a hint of self-mockery. Often, they managed to convey also that despite his best efforts, the speaker was a windy bore who tended to finish each sentence or paragraph with an appeal to the listener to agree or affirm what has just been said.

The “Joke over; laugh now” purpose is supplemented nowadays with emoticons, bright little fuzzy dots of color which, in some media, contain a hovertext that might explain what word they’re standing in for. Many convey no information, but are overt requests for a particular reaction, most often laughter (but sometimes tears).

In the 70s social writers in apas and fanzines experimented with brief text cues whose usual purpose was to deflect an adverse reaction to some facially hostile sally or witticism, so that such things could be said with (hopefully) less consequence. S,AS stood for “Smiling, Always Smiling,” and meant something akin to “I was just riffing when I called you that awful thing, and I hope you won’t be so gauche as to insult me back!” NS,N was somewhat unusual in that it stood for “Not Smiling, Not,” and actually amounted to a writer confirming their being invested in what they’d written, rather than the expected nimble dance away from it.

Today’s writers have their preferred way of doing the same thing, with “/s,” representing the supposed closing of a mythical ‘sarcasm tag’ or ‘snark tag.’ By throwing in an actual label that disowns the words they just wrote, they have reached a new plateau in laughing at their own joke out of fear that their sarcasm is insufficient for a reader to detect without a helpful marker. The same people sometimes bemoan the lack of A sArCaSm FoNt (see what I did there?), because its nonexistence leaves them faced with the horror of having to either write sarcasm well enough that most people will get it (you won’t get everybody to see it, since RW cranks never tire of the delirious joy of pretending not to understand sarcasm when someone else uses it), or to not make the joke that was begging to be unleashed on a humor starved world just seconds ago.

So they’ll either make a quip that’s a standard thing someone on the Right might say, then punch it up with the SARC tag so we all know it’s funny, or they say something so vastly exaggerated (often well past humor) and then suddenly worry that they haven’t gone far enough, so they slap the tag on there to compel laughter.

Correct essay form is demanding that I end this article on an ellipsis… but nerts to that.

Their Dogs

The paranoid’s dog learns to utter a soft bark, almost a cough, to announce itself before entering a room.

A wolf put its nose under a human’s arm by the fire. The human’s arm went up in reflex, then down, where he was petting the wolf before he could stop himself. There were no words for how the wolf made him feel. Literally, there weren’t really words. The wolf’s mouth hung open an inch, and his tongue lolled, and the human knew what it meant, and he mimicked the open V made by the angle of the wolf’s head. Dogs taught humans to smile.

The ADHD fellow’s dog is the most patient beast. He hints to his human for many minutes before the human is ready to look up, though he will pet him the while. Then the human will know it’s time for the dog to go out, and he will turn back to what he’s doing as if he will quickly finish it, and will deal very shortly with a couple of things that have just come up. The dog will not actually start feeling hop until the human stands decisively, and then the dog must watch human put on outside garments and check for the proper equipment in pockets and have a drink of water. Then there’s something new on the screen. Then the human follows the leading dog out into the hall, stepping back to switch off the lights. The dog looks back frequently. There is a bathroom that the human often goes into for some period of time just before a walk. Sometimes the human spends time brushing teeth. Then the human remembers something else back in the room. Then the human puts on another garment. Then the human runs up and down the stairs again for whatever reason, and then the dog is almost ready to go out.

Murray, why do you wrinkle your brow?

The homeless man’s dog is the luckiest of all dogs. Master is always present. Master spares no extent to make dog happy, though dog scarcely notices anything but Master. Rich dogs rightly envy them.

Purse dogs learn to get by on secondary affection, half-power pets and scritches while the mind is on another task, but still guaranteed by constant proximity.

"Ding ding--PSYCH!" --Pavlov, being a jerk.

Annie Warbucks’s Sandy might seem expensive to feed, but he’s worth his weight in human lives. He’ll probably scout out his own food while securing a supply for you as well. His power lies in his ability to walk a tightrope between being amazing (a dog who can fake snoring to fool a Nazi) and losing his canine identity as another hairy comedic second lead. As far as I know, Harold Gray only took us into Sandy’s thoughts one time, and then in a narratorial voice describing his thoughts without trying to mimic them. Considering how long Sandy trod the panels as a major player, this restraint is almost superhuman. In today’s strips, he’d have thought balloons, hobbies, and multiple internet accounts.

I will never forgive the creators of one of my favorite shows for their treatment of the protagonist’s dog.

After the last war, some former military androids got together and discussed whether they had a purpose, and they decided to use the tech available to them to build something of the wreckage of the world. As they sat on boxes in a ring, one of them felt a nose on its arm and looked down to see a military canoid looking up at it. He patted its cranial receptor to indicate acceptance and, to amplify the message, mirrored its expression.

Fox Walk

 

I just had a walk with Murray, as is customary for such a time of day.
He was asking for it. I prefer it to be my idea, but what the heck.
Out we went, after I looked at the temps and stuck my beak out the
front door to second-guess the weather people.
My face evaluation confirmed that it wasn’t cold,
but there was a moist coolness in the air that brought the feeling lower,
so I dressed for it and leashed the hound and opened the door.

He checked out the air himself, sizing up the day as he always does,
sniffing an extra second or two before heading into it. 

We launched ourselves straight forward this time, walking from porch 

to flagstones to grass, passing the tree swing, which I regarded with affection 

for a moment before we were passing over the patch of straw thoughtfully strewn 

a season ago by the men who had torn up the yard for pipe work and left it 

awaiting final repair, through which new grass stands straight to see over 

the scattered stems. Mark across the street says they’ll come around 

and make good on it, and he’s not worried. That’s a relief, as I often feel 

for Mark that he has to see my lawn while I get to see his.

Murray sniffed enthusiastically along a route I’d tried unsuccessfully to interest 

him in yesterday, a path where I’d looked up from the piano to see something 

larger than a cat which turned out to be a reddish fox, of healthy pelt and bushy tail, 

which departed the front of our yard, crossed the street, and vanished between 

Mark’s and Mike’s houses. He wanted to follow the trail right on past the yellow 

hydrant that stands between them, but I drew the line there, and we went on down the street. 

As always, he found reasons not to walk on the left. Had to sniff this, had to sniff that. 

We got down to the end of the block and wandered toward the beaten green 

that connects this subdivision with the Knickerbocker field and the path to 

the railroad trail that connects to everything else. 

As always, he sniffed a lot, sometimes on the ground, sometimes in the air 

while listening intently and looking off into the distance, muttering 

monosyllabic comments to himself under his breath from time to time. 

Another dog and human connected by a leash went by, and I had a short 

meteorological chat with the latter while Murray chose the moment 

to relieve himself (I am displeased that he so often picks yards where kids play. 

What’s with that?), so I didn’t get around to telling the neighbor about the fox 

that had been in my yard.

A minute later, Murray was looking intently between two of the houses at the end of the block, 

and I looked up just in time to see the fox unhurriedly traverse the last couple of yards 

and step behind the second house. I continued clutching the leash, a thing I often think 

I’m getting good at until the day Murray decides he needs to be a vector, 

and I’m an irrelevant constant to be disregarded. We hurried along the street now, 

both hoping to see Reynard again, but we didn’t. 

It’s easy to see, in retrospect, that the trail was fresher today. 

Lots fresher, with a working fox on the other end of it. 

Of course I didn't get any photos, but I can at least offer a legit pic of a similar animal 

(though sadly mangy) seen and snapped in this very back yard. 

 

A red fox that found my yard worthy of being in, 2012.

 

I saw this one a few times about ten years ago. Relation, perhaps.

. 

ABOUT THE PARAGRAPHING: 

Blogger has made some change that resulted in my pasted-in text 

having no right-hand margin, so I had to throw in line returns 

in hopes it would work on other screens. Sorry, it's all their fault, not mine.

. 

By the Numbers

One is the loneliest number. 

Two is how many can live as cheaply as one.

Three is how many are a crowd.

Four is the start of the Gettysburg Address, in scores.

Five is how many senses, when I was a kid.

Six is the rule that there is no Rule Six.

Seven is the listmaker’s number. Seven of this, seven of that.

Eight is “enough.”

Nine is the number of stitches saved by the one in time.

Ten is any one?

Nineteen’s what Boomers start checks* with. (*what?)

Twenty-three is the point at which you skidoo.

Twenty-six red cards in a deck.

Twenty-nine miles to Santa Catalina.

Thirty pieces of silver.

Thirty-one flavors of ice cream.

Thirty-three is the speed of an LP.

Thirty-six is a good first and third measurement, gals.

Thirty-nine was Jack Benny’s age. Well!

Forty-two is the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Forty-three is the wrong answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Forty-five is a calibre, a malt liquor, a rock single.

Forty-nine! Forty-niners! We’re gonna be rich!

Fifty’s half of fifty-fifty. Presumed average.

Fifty-four is, along with forty, fighting words.

Fifty-seven varieties.

Sixty-four is now nostalgia for Sir Paul.

Sixty-six is now a nostalgic route for that California trip.

Sixty-seven was that Expo in Canada.

Sixty-nine was that smutty number, nudge nudge.

Seventy-six was the spirit of a nation, in trombones.

Seventy-eight was the music of our ancestors.

Eighty-four was the dystopia we feared then failed to notice.

Eighty-six was banned from itself.

Eighty-eight keys on a Steinway grand.

Ninety-seven’s the unlucky engine that fateful night.

Ninety-eight? That’s normal. (WEAKLING!)

Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.

 

One hundred is what you want to keep it to.

One oh one was a silly millimeter longer.

One oh nine was JFK's PT.

One eleven is Cosmic Time in Digital.

One seventeen was always the answer page in Children's Digest.

One twenty was the speed of my most used 35mm film.

One forty-four is, to be blunt about it, gross.

 

Two hundred motels, per Frank Zappa.

Two twelve is where water boils in Fahrenheit.

Two twenty-one with a B... calling on Mister Holmes. 

Two two two: the solution to a sinister clue from the Riddler, Robin!

Two-three-two, an RS connector that used to matter a lot.

Two fifty-three, the highway number of a local street. Only time I'll do that.

Two fifty-six, one of the multiples of two that one sees out in the wild.

Two seventy-six, the "that's us" part of our old rural route address.

 

Three hundred issues, the goal of Cerebus creator Dave Sim.

Three oh three, the first area code I ever learned.

Three sixteen, the chapter and verse (in John) that Bible lovers can recall.

Three fifty-seven: Magnum, another iconic high-calibre size.

Three sixty, a panoramic view or one complete revolution. 

Three sixty-five, the days of a year. We won't discuss freak years here.

Three sixty-six, and it's leapt out of my control.

Three ninety-seven: down this week only from three ninety-nine.

 

Four Hundred, an elite caste of capitalized capitalists.

Four oh four, not found.

Four oh nine, the fungal formula for getting things clean and funny smelling.

Four eleven, the number that tells you all the other numbers.

Four fifteen: Income Tax Day. Treasure chest becomes a brass check. Ho ho.

Four twenty: As we get too old to laugh at sixty-nine, we will always have four twenty, man.

Four thirty-five cycles per second is a favored pitch for supposed baroque concert A.

Four forty is today's concert A, and we have electronic machines to enforce it.

Four forty two Glenwood Avenue is a girl group song I was just listening to.

Four fifty is as hot as you can make a book without it going Full Bradbury.

Four fifty one! You fool! Didn't I just warn you?