Great Exudations

“Shake Your Hips” by The Rolling Stones (1972); original by Slim Harpo (1966)

I wanna tell you ’bout a dance

That’s going around

Everybody’s doin’ it

From the grownups down

Don’t move your head

Don’t move your hands

Don’t move your lips

Just shake your hips

Do the hip-shake, babe

Do the hip-shake, babe

Shake you hip, babe

Shake your hip, babe…

There wasn’t much joy in the COVID-19 experience, I think we’d all agree. The nearly three years of vertiginous tumult seem mostly a blur in looking back, with the raw scars on our collective mind and body and spirit to show for it, not to mention the continued fiscal strife in its wake. I’m not sure why but I began taking photos of these abandoned masks. I think at first I just found them visually interesting. Something curious that hadn’t been there just months before and then was suddenly everywhere in many colors, shapes and states of disrepair. A demon-blossom of sorts. And then maybe they evolved into a reminder of the unpredictable hardship that attends living in this world. A symbol of loss and of sacrifice but also of resourcefulness and resiliency. Put on your mask and keep going. If you lose it, put on another one. Keep breathing. Because nothing lasts forever. Control what you can. And in that process, little deflections often pay dividends. You can always nudge, if not fully “disrupt” yourself. My walk to work was a lessened drudgery for the search of downed masks. I changed my route to increase the odds. Sometimes even strayed into traffic. And when I encouraged a few friends to join in the diversion, it was a second deflection toward a shared experience (the nerd in me is thinking of electrons jumping to another orbital in levels of excitation… but ripples on a pond would suffice). A collaboration! It’s a pretty simple formula, really, be it in science, music or art. Notice something. Study that thing from different angles and perspectives. Share your findings. Encourage others to do the same. Compare and contrast the results. Combine and integrate and alter. Reinterpret. Laugh. Marvel. If you’re lucky, cry. You never know what will emerge — it just might land like the shambolic, drug-suffused, bluesy and yet totally awesome amalgamation that is “Exile on Main St.” Shake you hip, babe, while I shake mine. And for all of this happy-strange experience, I am thankful to my “mask crusaders” (JS and family, RR, BK, AG, DW, RH) for infusing some fun, some real upside surprise into the dour days of COVID. And it is my sincere hope that we might again converge on a new creative project, whether it be silly or serious, fully-realized or fatally-flawed. Something once eloquently said about the journey eclipsing the destination seems to apply here. Cheers!!

“Paris, Hotel Commodore” by Mother Yingst (1930)

this a wonderful trip

the cemeteries are beautiful

I wish you could see the flowers

everywhere you look love

This is another vintage postcard from a consignment shop in Baltimore. They have loads that are blank but some are hand-scripted and stamped, making them more evocative and alive with narrative possibilities.

But first let’s discuss history. (Per Wikpedia) Chateau-Thierry is a French commune in the Province of Champagne. Tradition holds that the town is named for Theuderic IV (c. 712-737 AD; Thierry being the French translation of Theuderic), the penultimate Merovingian King of the Franks who reigned from the age of 9 until his death. After his demise, the throne (iron?) sat vacant for seven years until Pepin the Short (can’t make this shit up!) arranged for Childeric III to succeed him (wouldn’t seven years without a king make you question the need of one?). Well, it seems that Theuderic’s time there wasn’t a happy one as Charles Martel (aka Charles the Hammer), Mayor of the Palace and de facto ruler of France from 718-741 AD, imprisoned his puppet king in the town. There are castle ruins that date from 720 AD, though it appears that our postcard’s castle was built centuries later. Further along, Chateau-Thierry was sacked by the Prussians during the Napoleonic Wars in 1814. It also saw action in the Battle of the Marne (1918) in WWI and was the high water mark of that German offensive.

Now, let’s look at the postmark. The stamp is a profile of Marcellin Berthelot (who apparently knew a lot), a French chemist and Republican politician. He was convinced that chemical synthesis would revolutionize the food industry by the year 2000 (thereby presaging the Twinkie!). The Thomsen-Berthelot principle (WARNING: this might induce traumatizing flash-backs to high school/college chemistry) states that all chemical changes are accompanied by the production of heat (all that and 90 cents gets you a postage stamp!). And, if I’m reading it correctly, the card was stamped on August 21, 1930. It was a Thursday in France (ha-ha!). And after a little digging I found that on that same day the British Viceroy of India, The Lord Irwin, 1st Earl of Halifax, Edward Frederick Lindley Wood (maybe his friends called him “Deadwood” after he collaborated with Neville Chamberlain on the appeasement of Adolph Hitler) received a letter from Mahatma Gandhi listing the terms by which he would cease his civil disobedience campaign. And there was other news that same month from around the world:

— British rigid airship (called “Zeppelins” in Germany) R100 completed an Atlantic crossing from Cardington, UK to Montreal, Canada in 78 hours, 51 minutes, a new speed record. The Concorde of its day!

— Jack Zuta, mob accountant and “fixer” who worked for Al Capone but then crossed over to Bugs Moran‘s North Side Gang was shot dead while in hiding near Milwaukee for the murder of Chicago Tribune reporter Jack Lingle.

— King Kullen, per the Smithsonian Institution the first supermarket in the US, was founded by Michael Cullen, a former Kroger employee, in the Queens borough of NYC. It fulfilled all five criteria of a modern supermarket: separate departments, self-service, discount-pricing, chain-marketing, and volume dealing. Within wo years, the company had eight stores.

— President Herbert Hoover holds a press conference to announce that General Douglas MacArthur (“D-Mac” to his cronies) was appointed as Chief of Staff of the US Army.

— Neil Armstrong was born in Wapakoneta, Ohio on Aug 5, 1930.

— Cartoon character Betty Boop made her first appearance in the short film “Dizzy Dishes”

— The Noel Coward play “Private Lives” opened at King’s Theater, Edinburgh.

— Actor Lon Cheney, “The Man of a Thousand Faces,” died on Aug 26, 1930 from lung cancer.

Now to the photograph itself. A Medieval castle of Europe in sepia tones can’t help but evoke F.W. Murnau‘s silent-era film “Nosferatu” (1922). As it turned, despite changing the vampire’s name to Count Orlok and other various shifts in plot, the filmmakers were successfully sued by the heirs of Bram Stoker for infringing on his “Dracula.” A court held that all copies must be destroyed. However, several prints survived and the film went on to be one of the most influential of all time, spawning numerous copycats and variations. So go ahead, steal. Or rather, pay homage (they might have called it “From Prussia With Love!”). But I have a slightly different story in mind from this postcard image. Our Count Orlok is ugly and sinister in appearance, of course. But he is mute. And would you believe also benevolent. He is keeping a beautiful princess in his castle against her will, but not for reasons you would otherwise imagine. It is to protect her from the handsome bachelor Prince Vandillon, a knight of the realm who has pledged his undying love for the lady. But unbeknownst to her, this dapper figure is a vile ogre named Dungolla, in disguise by means of a witch’s spell (she goes by many names, too numerous to list here). And his half-brother, Count Orlok, was rendered disfigured and silenced by the very same spell at the behest of his rival. And now maybe you can help me finish the tale. I think Orlok dies, but he does so setting the maiden free and vanquishing the hag-sorceress and her warty accomplice…. (to be continued).

Montclief: “All I’m saying is that questions are now swirling. And also it’s your turn to serve.”

Renniers: “Mine?”

Montclief: “Yes.”

Renniers: “Okay. But understand this before we resume: I did not kill the Baron. Not directly, anyway. Some scores simply settle themselves.”

Montclief: “Indeed they do.” (then mutters to self: “And now that I’m firmly ensconced in your head, let the games begin!”)

Renniers: “Ready?”

Montclief: “Ready.”

The Catholic Church isn’t wrong about everything, just about most all the big/important things. But there is a benefit to the Confessional booth, I will admit. The unburdening of the soul for our human lapses and transgressions is worthwhile, if only for the self-examination. Sadly, I’ve experienced this but once in my life, during the lead-up to my, ah-hem, Confirmation. And I feel majorly gipped, since at the time it was the fashion to do these interviews face-to-face. I made up some bullshit about cussing too much and telling a lie or two. I left out the porn mags I had swiped from one of my uncles. Must’ve slipped my mind. The priest seemed distracted anyway by the gigantic bulge in my pants from the tube socks I stuffed in there just to fuck with him (I must confess to making this part up but sorely wish it were true!). There’s a cinematic quality to the “elaborate wooden chamber of naughty secrets” (the original name from the Medieval era), as we have seen most recently in “The Banshees of Inisherin.” And that’s the kind of thing I would go in for — a little informal priestly jaw-jaw with a few F-bombs and some witty repartee. To be known and to be heard. That’s all one can really ask from a church visit (or life, generally), other than maybe a nearby McDonald’s. We used to shoot like a laser from the Communion alter at Our Lady of Lourdes to the food counter at McD’s for an Egg McMuffin with hash browns (which, in a fine parallel, I no longer eat but fondly recall). All the better if it was the Spanish mass because Father Quinones did a reading like it was all one word, no caesuras or even audible breaths. Pure poetry to my ears and to my watch — though that might have forced a lunch order if it ended after 11AM, come to think of it.

But let’s get back to confessions. Here’s mine: I used to enjoy this song back when it came out. It’s bland and pure sap, no doubt, but I’d argue fairly well executed for the period. And to a 13 year old kid, Debby Boone had that wholesome sort of sexuality (like Dorothy Hamill), which was a useful ballast against my uncle’s pilfered Playboy‘s. In the end, it’s all about the balance. I even saw the film “You Light Up My Life” (1977) in the theater. It was absolutely terrible and, to my dismay, did not feature the telegenic Ms. Boone but rather Didi Conn, the mousy girl from “Grease (1978).” What a bummer! And much as I’d like to disavow the song, it is, alas, to be found in my bought-and-paid-for iTunes collection. I’d prefer to claim it’s there for some comic-nostalgic party-mix moment as a surprise element, but I’m not so sure. I might just be stuck with the notion that the song is permanently etched into my DNA and cannot be expunged (or shunted off to some other parish in Pennsylvania). Though it sure sounds nice to have a dark, quiet place to go to and hear someone tell me through a semi-private screen, in a melodic Irish brogue, that it’s all gonna be okay… that all is forgiven… that the song is still good… and that anyone who says otherwise can just go fuck off!!