Fantasy: Hand Over Bush!

Wikipedia
"sweet imagination"

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush if fantasy's your forté.

If fantasy's not your forté, then drink before you think!

What a dream I had . . .

Luna Lee
aka "Not-Lig"
Google Images

Rather often these days, my friend Kevin Kim, writing in his main blog, "Big Hominid," refers to a former student of his whom he has nicknamed "Ligament" for reasons that connect to something or other that I know nothing about, and he shortens this nickname to "Lig" and claims that Lig looks like Luna Lee of gayageum fame, but he can't prove this bold assertion, he says, because Lig won't let him post a photo, so I think Lig is either a vampire, a creature that cannot be photographed, or Kevin's imaginary friend, also a creature that cannot be photographed, but in Kevin's original words:

If you're curious about what Lig looks like, and frustrated because she won't let me upload any photos of her onto the blog, watch this chick, who is almost Lig's spitting image. I've linked to Luna before; the link I just gave you is to one of my favorite vids. She's got an album now, Luna does, and I'm thinking about buying it. She's talented and original, and because she looks like A Certain Lady, she's also quite sexy.

Presumably, we're supposed to believe this on Kevin's word alone. Well, I had a dream about Kevin and Lig, and I'll have to disagree - Lig and Luna don't look alike at all! I saw this with my own eyes! Granted, in a dream, but still . . . and I've at least provided more evidence than any of you have! Anyway, I posted my dream as a comment on Kevin's blog:

Last night, I dreamed that you and Lig were out on a late-night walk, and the night was so dark that you lost contact, and you somehow took the hand of the wrong woman, but the two of you had such a wonderful conversation that you fell in love with each other, sight unseen, till you emerged on a lighted street, still hand in hand, and there also stood Lig, so you dropped the woman's hand, and she walked away, but so did Lig, and you wondered then why you hadn't at least given the new woman your card, but the next day, the new woman showed up at your place, having somehow determined where you lived . . . and I then woke up.

I hope my dream doesn't cause you any problems with Lig.

Readers will notice that I didn't mention in this comment my disagreement on Lig's appearance. That's because I didn't want to hurt Kevin's feelings, so I've posted my refutation only here on my secret blog, where Kevin will never see it.

A Penultimate Note: I don't know Lig (Ligament) at all, so anything I've written in this post is only about the imaginary Lig of the sort who appeared in my absurd dream, which should not be taken seriously in any way, for sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, a pipe is just a pipe, and a dream is just a pipe dream, a fantastic notion without substance.

And finally, here's the song you've all been waiting for since reading the heading to this post . . .

Paul Simon's 'Christian' Interests?

Paul Simon

Christianity Today

As someone who hangs around with the evangelical crowd, though mainly on the sidelines, I've often encountered references to the late British evangelical John Stott, so I was curious to read that one of my favorite musicians, Paul Simon, had liked the man. We learn this from Kim Lawton, of the PBS program Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly, who has written on the point in "Paul Simon: 'God Comes Up a Lot in My Songs'" for Christianity Today (January 9, 2012), which tells of Simon's "memorable conversation with John Stott":

Simon said he was recording in England when he saw a 2004 New York Times column by David Brooks, which described Stott's approach to faith.

"The piece was about how embarrassed some Christians were by the televangelists, and (it) said, no one ever talks about this guy, but he's a really good thinker," Simon said.

Paul Simon reads David Brooks? David Brooks reads John Stott? Maybe we should take a look at that column, which asks, "Who is John Stott?" (New York Times, November 30, 2004), and then offers an answer:

[I]f evangelicals could elect a pope, Stott is the person they would likely choose. He was the framer of the Lausanne Covenant, a crucial organizing document for modern evangelicalism. He is the author of more than 40 books, which have been translated into over 72 languages and have sold in the millions. Now rector emeritus at All Souls, Langham Place, in London, he has traveled the world preaching and teaching.

When you read Stott, you encounter first a tone of voice . . . . It is a voice that is friendly, courteous and natural. It is humble and self-critical, but also confident, joyful and optimistic. Stott's mission is to pierce through all the encrustations and share direct contact with Jesus. Stott says that the central message of the gospel is not the teachings of Jesus, but Jesus himself, the human/divine figure. He is always bringing people back to the concrete reality of Jesus' life and sacrifice.

There's been a lot of twaddle written recently about the supposed opposition between faith and reason. To read Stott is to see someone practicing "thoughtful allegiance" to scripture. For him, Christianity means probing the mysteries of Christ. He is always exploring paradoxes. Jesus teaches humility, so why does he talk about himself so much? What does it mean to gain power through weakness, or freedom through obedience? In many cases the truth is not found in the middle of apparent opposites, but on both extremes simultaneously.

Stott is so embracing it's always a bit of a shock -- especially if you're a Jew like me -- when you come across something on which he will not compromise . . . . Most important, he does not believe truth is plural. He does not believe in relativizing good and evil or that all faiths are independently valid, or that truth is something humans are working toward. Instead, Truth has been revealed. As he writes:

"It is not because we are ultra-conservative, or obscurantist, or reactionary or the other horrid things which we are sometimes said to be. It is rather because we love Jesus Christ, and because we are determined, God helping us, to bear witness to his unique glory and absolute sufficiency. In Christ and in the biblical witness to Christ God's revelation is complete; to add any words of our own to his finished work is derogatory to Christ."

Yeah, that's pretty uncompromising. I wonder why Paul Simon, who is also Jewish, expressed a wish to meet the man, though he apparently did, as Lawton tells us:

He decided he wanted to meet Stott, and a friend helped connect them. Simon called the theologian and offered to take him out for dinner. He said Stott told him he didn't go out much anymore and instead invited the musician to his flat for tea and biscuits.

"I'd say we spent two or three hours there," Simon recalled. "I talked about everything that was on my mind about things that seemed illogical, and he talked about why he had come to his conclusions."

Simon was very impressed by Stott. "I liked him immensely," he told me. "I left there feeling that I had a greater understanding of where belief comes from when it doesn't have an agenda."

"It didn't change my way of thinking," he added, "but what I liked about it was that we were able to talk and have a dialogue."

I guess Simon just wanted to understand evangelicals and have some of his questions answered by a thoughtful evangelical leader who is also a well-informed intellectual.

You can watch Kim Lawton's interview, "Paul Simon" (January 6, 2012), on her Religion and Ethics NewsWeekly program for PBS. He says less there than Lawton provides for us on the Christianity Today site, but there are other interesting things, such as the character of his most recent album, So Beautiful or So What, which the evangelical Irish blogger Cathleen Falsani, "who writes frequently about religion and pop culture," praised as "one of the most memorable collections of spiritual musical musings in recent memory." In citing Falsani, Lawton is quoting from an article that Falsani wrote for The Huffington Post, "So Beautiful or So What So Christian?" (June 30, 2011). In that article, Falsani also cites Steve Stockman, "a Protestant clergyman and music critic from Northern Ireland," who says that Simon's album is perhaps "the best Christian album of the year."

As a follow-up to that piece and the Lawton interview, Falsani tells in "God, PBS and Paul Simon, The 'God Chronicler By Accident'" (Sojourners, January 6, 2012) of a burgeoning friendship with Simon, who had read her article. Of Simon, she writes:

Simon is the real deal. He is thoughtful, kind and intellectually curious. He pulls no punches, digs deeper, seeking the truth -- whatever it may be.

He sounds like an interesting man, as I would have expected from his music -- which I started listening to when I was about 10 -- and today's blog post has been interesting for me to write, for it was unplanned and has taken me places that I didn't expect to go.

I hope that readers have enjoyed the journey . . .

Paul Simon on the Creative Process

Paul Simon

Illustration by Joe Ciardiello

(Image from NYT)

Yesterday, I mentioned that Paul Simon "says some interesting things about the creative process" in his review of Stephen Sondheim's recent book, Finishing the Hat, but I didn't really say much. I won't today, either, since I'm still suffering a recent relapse of the flu and don't have the energy or concentration. But I'll say a bit.

The NYT editors note in "Up Front: Paul Simon" (October 27, 2010) a bit about Mr. Simon's views on the creative process:

In his review [of Sondheim], Simon refers to "that feeling of joy" that arises when an artist creates a work of art. "The question of artistic bliss is really interesting," he said. "I guess I first felt it when I wrote the melody and the words 'Like a bridge over troubled water, I will lay me down.' I remember being surprised. I had no idea where those words and melody came from, and I thought, 'Well, that's better than you usually do.'"

I know precisely what Mr. Simon means. I've had the same feeling at times in writing a poem Some of the phrases in "Water Witching" seemed to come from somewhere, which is perhaps why we have the myth of the muse. Anyway, that "feeling of joy" cited by the editors is a reference to something that Mr. Simon said in his Sondheim review, "Isn’t It Rich?":

The book "Finishing the Hat" becomes a metaphor for that feeling of joy, the little squirt of dopamine hitting the brain when the artist creates a work of art. It's a feeling so addictive the artist is willing to forgo love in order to experience artistic bliss. It could be a metaphor for Sondheim's love of songwriting.

I don't know if dopamine is involved, and this reduction to chemistry rather deflates the blissful quality of what philosophers of mind call "qualia," but something really strange is going on in the creative process, when the poet has "no idea where those words . . . came from."

Some things are intentional, however, as Mr. Simon explains:

Sondheim quotes the composer-lyricist Craig Carnelia: "True rhyming is a necessity in the theater, as a guide for the ear to know what it has just heard." I have a similar thought regarding attention span and a listener's need for time to digest a complicated line or visualize an unusual image. I try to leave a space after a difficult line -- either silence or a lyrical cliché that gives the ear a chance to "catch up" with the song before the next thought arrives and the listener is lost.

I don't think that John Milton provides poetic space to catch up, but I'd have to check. Nevertheless, it's an intriguing point to consider in analzing pop songs.

At times, the intentionality comes from outside the artist, as explained by Mr. Simon:

[I am] reminded . . . of my . . . reluctance to add a third verse to "Bridge Over Troubled Water." I thought of the song as a simple two-verse hymn, but our producer argued that the song wanted to be bigger and more dramatic. I reluctantly agreed and wrote the "Sail on silvergirl" verse there in the recording studio. I never felt it truly belonged. Audiences disagreed with . . . me . . . . "Sail on silvergirl" is the well-known and highly anticipated third verse of "Bridge."

The artist sometimes doesn't know best, despite best intentions.

Nor, apparently, does the mysterious muse, dependent for at least once upon the producer's intervention.

"Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard"

Paul Simon

(Image from Wikipedia)

I just have to complain and rant a little. I noticed the other day, in a NYT review, "Isn't It Rich?", of Stephen Sondheim's recent book, Finishing the Hat, that the author made a snarky remark about Paul Simon's 1972 hit single, "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard":

A song from "the heart" of a character has to be truthful, but if it isn't, it's not the author's lie -- it's the character's. But if a pop singer or songwriter writes a love song, a song of regret or even a bit of inscrutable doggerel like "Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard," it's autobiography.

Doggerel? That gem by Paul Simon? Remember the lyrics? Open a second browser and listen along on You Tube:

The mama pajama rolled out of bed
And she ran to the police station
When the papa found out he began to shout
And he started the investigation

It's against the law
It was against the law
What mama saw
It was against the law

The mama looked down and spit on the ground
Every time my name gets mentioned
The papa said oy if I get that boy
I'm gonna put him in the house of detention

Well I'm on my way
I don't know where I'm going
I'm on my way I'm taking my time
But I don't know where
Goodbye to Rosie the queen of Corona
See you, me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
See you, me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
Me and Julio down by the schoolyard

In a couple of days they come and
Take me away
But the press let the story leak
And when the radical priest
Come to get me released
We was all on the cover of Newsweek

And I'm on my way
I don't know where I'm going
I'm on my way I'm taking my time
But I don't know where
Goodbye to Rosie the queen of Corona
See you, me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
See you, me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard
See you, me and Julio
Down by the schoolyard

I recall first hearing this song way back in 1972 with my friend Robert Adler on his family's dairy farm, but that's merely autobiography on my part.

Anyway, back to the charge of "inscrutable doggerell"! How dare that NYT writer characterize Paul Simon's lyrics that way! Even in an article praising Stephen Sondheim's lyrics. So . . . who wrote this crap about rhymin' Simon?

Oh. It was Paul Simon. The man himself. A humble bit of autobiography, I suppose. Apparently, he has a new album coming out: So Beautiful or So What. And his article on Sondheim is very well done, and says some interesting things about the creative process. Which is also Sondheim's intention in his book:

"Finishing the Hat" -- a fascinating compilation of lyrics, commentary and anecdotes, covering the years 1954 to 1981 -- is essentially about process, the process of writing songs for theater . . . . After reading . . . I felt as if I had taken a master class in how to write a musical. A class given by the theater's finest living songwriter.

I guess if Paul Simon thinks this highly of Sondheim, then he's well within his rights to denigrate his own lyrics.

So . . . never mind.

Concha Buika: Smokin'!

Concha Buika con el Cigarrillos Peligrosas

(Image from Kadmus Arts)

I appreciate a woman who's not afraid to present herself openly smoking a cigarette despite these politically correct times . . . though I don't perceive any actual smoke rising from the tip.

I'd heard of Buika, or at least seen her image somewhere, but only Larry Rohter's recent NYT article, "A Singer From Everywhere Arrives Here" (October 21, 2010), sparked my interest in listening to her sing. Her parents fled Equatorial Guinea for Spain in the late 60s or early 70s, I gather, for she was born on the island of Majorca in 1972 and grew up there as the only black kid and hung out with the local Gypsies (no Gypsy scholars, though):

Outside the house . . . Buika (pronounced BWEE-kah) spent time with the local Gypsies and absorbed their passion for flamenco and the tradition of "cante jondo," or "deep singing."

"I identified with their solitude," she explained, speaking Spanish in an accent close to Castillian, "because we were the only black family on the island, and I was the only black kid, which was very difficult for me."

But American music also fascinated her, both jazz and pop. When asked about female singers who influenced her style, notable for its dark and raspy intonation and bent notes, she mentioned not just the flamenco singers Lola Flores and Remedios Amaya but also Bonnie Raitt, Billie Holiday and Nina Simone, whom she probably most resembles. Her favorite male singers include both Michael Jackson and Julio Iglesias, and she said her preferred instrumentalists are John Coltrane and Bill Evans.

That's quite an eclectic collection, which intrigued me since I'm rather an eclectic collection of interests myself . . . in my own, obscure fashion. The good multiculturalism. I therefore went to You Tube and chose "No Habrá Nadie en el Mundo," taken by Buika's image with the cigarette that you see above. The title means something like "There Won't be Anyone in the World," but I don't know specifically what the song concerns. Love, probably. Flick away a cigarette butt anywhere, it's likely to land on a love song.

Let's find out by borrowing the Spanish lyrics and adapting the English translation from All the Lyrics:

Desde que el agua el libre,
Libre entre manantiles vive.
Jazmines an llorao,
y yo no comprendo como
en tus ojos niña solo hay desierto.

Hermosa era la tarde,
cuando entre los olivos nadie,
nadie vio como yo a ti te quise, como te quiero.
Hoy los olivos duermen y yo no duermo.

No habra nadie en el mundo que cure
la herida que dejo tu orgullo.
Yo no comprendo que tu me lastimes
con todo todo el amor que tu me diste (x2)

Pá cuando tu volvieras, pensé en cantarte coplas viejas,
esas que hablan de amores y del sufrimiento.
Cuando tu vuelvas, niña, te como a besos.

Y volaremos alto donde las nubes van despacio.
Despacio va mi boca sobre tu cuerpo,
tan lento que seguro se pare el tiempo.

No habra nadie en el mundo que cure
la herida que dejo tu orgullo.
Yo no comprendo que tu me lastimes
con todo todo el amor que tu me diste (x4)

Now for the English translation:

Since the water is free,
it lives free among springs.
Jasmines have cried,
and I can't understand my girl
why there's only desert in your eyes.

It was a beautiful afternoon,
when among the olive trees nobody,
nobody saw how I loved you, how I love you.
And now the olive trees are sleeping, but I can't sleep.

There won't be anyone in the world able to cure
the wound left by your pride.
I can't understand how you hurt me now
after having given me so much love. (2x)

I thought about singing old verses to you upon your return,
the kind that speak about love and suffering.
When you'll come back, my girl, I'll devour you with my kisses.

And we'll fly high, up to where the clouds move slowly.
My lips slide along your body slowly,
so slowly that time will stop for sure.

There won't be anyone in the world able to cure
the wound left by your pride.
I can't understand how you hurt me now
after having given me so much love. (4x)

See. I told you it would be about love. I should even have said "love gone wrong." What else is there to sing about? Except for love gone right . . .

But it sounds pretty good in Spanish, and for those interested in more by or about Concha Buika, visit You Tube, or Wikipedia, or even her official site.