It's nineteen-seventy-something. I'm in second grade, and I've ditched Lynn, my girlfriend, somewhere over by the POD, an octagonal lunchroom separate from the school. We're playing kissing tag, and it's not that I'm so stupid that I don't know that the purpose of kissing tag is to get caught, it's that her cousin, Lucinda, is more into pinching, and she's very good at it. So, I've split the scene.
It's warm and snow melting off the comparatively hot pavement creates steam that rises in thin clouds about waste high, and they are golden glorious in the noontime sun. I've got spring fever and am feeling freaking high. I bellow out Paul McCartney's "Monkberry Moon Delight." I don't have a clue what it's about, but I love the feel of the words on the end of my tongue:
So I sat in the attic, a piano up my nose,
And the wind played a dreadful cantata.
Sore was I from a crack of an enemy's hose
And the horrible sound of tomato.
Ketchup,
Soup and puree,
Don't get left behind.
Ketchup,
Soup and puree,
Don't get left behind.
I never did figure out the exact meaning of the song. As I grew older, it seemed to me it might have been inspired by B-grade monster movies, but it also seemed a finger to expectations--artistic, social, political and otherwise, Paul McCartney saying I'll be who I please and do what I please. It felt very revolutionary to me, and I loved its pure celebration of the sound of language.
Whenever, I'd get upset in high school or early years of college, I'd just fling words down on the page and play with them, make slightly irreverent, irrelevant nonsense out of them, like this:
More Talk
... Instead I gnarl on a bark stick,
pour on the cats
and say,
"Gee this is very good,
this is very meaty for a stick of wood."
The termites tingle as they slide down my throat.
What would I do for a feast on fat goat?
I'd slit my mother's own throat!
I definitely had nothing against my mom. I just had something against propriety. I still do. I just fight the impulse more. I'm not so sure that's good. I think real reverence comes about when you're at least a little open to irreverence. Paul McCartney could write "Let It Be" and be sincere because he could also write "Monkberry Moon Delight." If he sat around always trying to write lofty songs, they'd have the impact of Hallmark Cards or the music of Air Supply.
So, to quote Paul--sort of--if you want to write well, leave your cats to Billy Budapest and let your piano be boldly outspoken.
It's warm and snow melting off the comparatively hot pavement creates steam that rises in thin clouds about waste high, and they are golden glorious in the noontime sun. I've got spring fever and am feeling freaking high. I bellow out Paul McCartney's "Monkberry Moon Delight." I don't have a clue what it's about, but I love the feel of the words on the end of my tongue:
So I sat in the attic, a piano up my nose,
And the wind played a dreadful cantata.
Sore was I from a crack of an enemy's hose
And the horrible sound of tomato.
Ketchup,
Soup and puree,
Don't get left behind.
Ketchup,
Soup and puree,
Don't get left behind.
I never did figure out the exact meaning of the song. As I grew older, it seemed to me it might have been inspired by B-grade monster movies, but it also seemed a finger to expectations--artistic, social, political and otherwise, Paul McCartney saying I'll be who I please and do what I please. It felt very revolutionary to me, and I loved its pure celebration of the sound of language.
Whenever, I'd get upset in high school or early years of college, I'd just fling words down on the page and play with them, make slightly irreverent, irrelevant nonsense out of them, like this:
More Talk
... Instead I gnarl on a bark stick,
pour on the cats
and say,
"Gee this is very good,
this is very meaty for a stick of wood."
The termites tingle as they slide down my throat.
What would I do for a feast on fat goat?
I'd slit my mother's own throat!
I definitely had nothing against my mom. I just had something against propriety. I still do. I just fight the impulse more. I'm not so sure that's good. I think real reverence comes about when you're at least a little open to irreverence. Paul McCartney could write "Let It Be" and be sincere because he could also write "Monkberry Moon Delight." If he sat around always trying to write lofty songs, they'd have the impact of Hallmark Cards or the music of Air Supply.
So, to quote Paul--sort of--if you want to write well, leave your cats to Billy Budapest and let your piano be boldly outspoken.
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