This song, by Brandy Clark and Adam Wright (featuring Clark's singing with Randy Newman), has been on my mind since rising this morning.
It was written in 2020 and is, alas, as pertinent as ever:
Chocolate and ice cream therapy, I should think.Be to her, Persephone, All the things I might not be; Take her head upon your knee. She that was so proud and wild, Flippant, arrogant and free, She that had no need of me, Is a little lonely child Lost in Hell, -- Persephone, Take her head upon your knee; Say to her, "My dear, my dear, It is not so dreadful here." - Edna St Vincent Millay
This song, by Brandy Clark and Adam Wright (featuring Clark's singing with Randy Newman), has been on my mind since rising this morning.
It was written in 2020 and is, alas, as pertinent as ever:
Chocolate and ice cream therapy, I should think.Steering clear of news from south of the border, I'm taking refuge in happiness and humour.
When elder daughter was less than a year old, I had a cassette tape of Harry Belafonte's 1959 appearances at Carnegie Hall, and fell madly in love with the quirky "Mama Look a Boo Boo".
The only trouble was, when I was pushing my baby around in her stroller, doing errands downtown, I'd catch people giving me brief, alarmed sideway glances, and realise that I'd been singing it under my breath: "Shut your mouth, go away..."
Last week, I stumbled across this 1965 gem from The Danny Kaye Show.
Excuse me while I shut my mouth and go away.
Doom-scrolling is a crummy thing to do before bedtime.
This was brought home, once again, to me about three weeks ago, when I made the mistake of checking my newsfeeds as I lay down to sleep, and stumbled across a veteran American meteorologist named John Morales breaking down as he analysed the approach of Hurricane Milton towards the Florida coastline.
You don't want to see a grown scientist cry. It's really unsettling.
Last night, the Resident Fan Boy and I watched John Oliver wrap up the latest episode of Last Week Tonight with a passionate plea to American voters to keep that guy from getting into the White House again. I was startled to see that his eyes were moist.
You don't want to see a British political satirist cry, either.
My American cousin and her son have spent the past few days phoning voters in the swing states. I'm doing my bit by steering away from newsfeeds. I'm rather grateful that Facebook blocks news items in and out of Canada.
The RFB and I will be watching Stephen Colbert tonight. John Oliver will be a guest. Are we crazy? Well, the results are unlikely to be known soon, because, after more than eight years of this nonsense, and for reasons that overwhelm and depress me, the vote is likely to be close.
Another Republican, standing on the edge of the abyss of an American civil war, made a plea to the "better angels of our nature".
I hope I can sleep tonight.
"Well, getting consent is always a good idea," I tell her. She's laughing so much, that she forgets to get the chocolate croissant and hand it to me, even though I've paid, and is momentarily confused to see me still standing there.
"You had my consent and everything!" I declare in mock indignation.
I get mock-indignant so often, that I think real indignation would go unrecognised.
I've seen them several times over the past year; one of them lives in an apartment building around the corner, and I've seen his pal at the ancient glass entry door in the morning, before they head out to middle school. (I've also seen them hogging the courtesy seats on buses and scattering ice cream packets on the sidewalk, but, heck, thirteen is thirteen.)
That's the thing. They don't look thirteen this late summer afternoon. They've shot up a couple of inches, and their shoulders have broadened. High school for them, this year, I think.
Then I discovered I'd left my wallet behind, doubled back, and decided to seek a cooler way into the village. The sun was just bordering on uncomfortably warm, but the shadows were deliciously pleasant, with a light breeze wafting up from the strait.
So I nipped around another corner, and skidded to a halt.
For years, the City of Victoria has covered the utility boxes with historical photos of the surrounding area: landmarks -- such as hospitals and schools -- shown as they were decades before, and houses that are no longer there.This is the first time I've seen our usually laidback urban deer running.
They're fast.
They bound. They bounce off the grass, and over shrubbery. I turn, to see them vanish into the bushes that encircle the east end of our building.
Another cluster of clattering rings out behind me. I wheel around, and a fourth deer sails by me, only a foot or so between us.
I never see what has spooked them.
I don't enjoy riding sideways on the bus, and avoid it whenever possible.
This particular afternoon, the bus is fairly full, so I find myself fighting momentum sideways while clutching a rail with two full cloth shopping bags dangling from my wrist, and an ice cream birthday cake balanced precariously on my lap.
Across the aisle, a plumpish young woman is curled up in a corner, her bare knees pressed against a bar, chatting nonstop on her phone. Next to her, a young man with odd colouring - pale, pink, and washed out - is gazing into space. He's wearing earbuds. There's something about the proximity between the two that suggests to me that they're travelling together, just not quite in the same universes.
Every now and then, he sings out a snatch or two of whatever is playing in his ears. I don't recognise anything, of course. Knees Up Phone Lady glares at him when he does this for the fifth time.
"I'm on the phone," she hisses, and plunges back into the other conversation.
"I was answering the question," he shrugs.
Cramped and crippled, I juggle my packages, struggling to keep the cake upright, and leap gingerly down to the pavement, wondering what the question was.