Glenn Gould from probably anybody on Vimeo.
I feel about words the way he felt about music. Later in life, he began to feel about words the way I do. In the documentary “32 Short Films about Glenn Gould” he began at the end to realize that the way people talk is itself a kind of music. That you could play people’s conversation like an orchestra. Make compositions of it.
Contrary to all the teachings I ever received about what literary writing consisted of, I have always conceived of it as an oral art, the sound of a voice talking to others. I have construed it also as multiple voices contending. I have done a symphony but never, or rarely, a concerto. I am a composer of words, but like Glenn Gould I am more interpreter than impresario.
I play the keys of the keyboard. He was a stiletto, a perfectionist, even a pointillist. I am the wild-ass thing that only happens in writing of the oral kind, where there is no predetermined score or sentence. I am Ring Lardner with a scalpel, Evelyn Waugh with a heart, and Mark Twain with a computer. Why what I do can be compared to Glenn Gould.
Not that I am competing or presume to be his equal. It is that I, like him, have spent my life trying to turn fingers into clear moments. I play, I hit the keys, and you hear every word hit your mind. Not always singly. But like a drum riff. No matter what voice I’m using, and I’ve used dozens, you feel yourself penetrated by a tattoo of thoughts, images, ideas, and voices that make a difference in your perception.
When I was young I wanted it to be poetry. Older I wanted it to be drama and story. Older still I wanted it to be clairvoyance. You keep pushing, you see.
When I look at him I am cowed. He went around the bend. I’m trying very hard not to do that. All the same forces are at work. I want to be alone. Completely alone but for my wife. I want all of you just to be an audience. I want to keep you as far away from me as possible. But I fail.
Writers are not musicians. We need human contact that goes beyond strings and keys. As much as I want to be solitary, isolated, and free of human contamination, I also need to feel your lives, or else my own life ends.
When I reach out, it is not a ruse. It is an expression of what I am. When I say I care, I do. Even though the portrait of Glenn Gould above is, to me, frighteningly similar to the view I have of myself. I am not like you, any of you. What my wife puts up with in me is beyond my comprehension. I am not violent. I am ever so perseverantly alone and detached from everything that home life is supposed to consist of. I USE Raebert to pretend I’m an ordinary sort of fellow with a big dog keeping him in check.
The reality is that I’m a freak, whose big dog does keep him in check by needing water, going out, and two meals a day. Without that I would be shutting down completely. I don’t know how to play the words people need anymore. The natural response of someone who has been the best at words all his life is to fold inside, tighter and tighter until there is nothing left, not a single syllable.
I’m explaining, not quitting. You see, Raebert is here. Lady Laird is here. She understands everything I am telling you. She shouldn’t love me, but she does, and he does.
He sniffs my right ear every morning. Can you still hear me? Yes.
What Glenn Gould didn’t have. He had plenty of smart people around, but he didn’t have an ocean of love. They were all trying to figure him out and fix him somehow. There is no fixing of this particular condition. For months, years, I kept waiting for my wife to tell me there was something wrong with me. Then I realized she had told me the truth when she said she loved me the way I am, accepted me as her husband the way I am. I still wake in the middle of the night feeling guilty, but my love for her keeps growing. Why do I believe in God? Because he gave me her. She frightens most men, but she comforts and cares for me.
Why I can still serve you. As long as I am able.
Raebert thinks the Laird coat of arms is just a pillow. He hasn’t read the ‘Spero Meliora’ motto. “I hope for better things.” But he’s just a dour Scot.
Please don’t get in a dither or take offense or anything. I’m here. It’s just that I usually can’t believe I still am. Like the way Keith Richard keeps showing up at concerts. By all rights we should both be dead. I keep running into the stories of people who are. Dead I mean. Which is when I have to stop and think why.
Tomorrow my wife and I will celebrate the two month anniversary of Raebert turning her engagement ring, my mother’s btw, into a gnarled piece of metal trash with a diamond hanging off one end of it. The new one is at the jewelers. Same little diamond in a whole new setting.
Kind of like getting engaged all over again. Which in the mind of any conscious male should occasion the question, would she say yes again?
When I look at the evidence, I don’t see why she would. I’m not unfaithful, I don’t yell at her, and I don’t take her for granted. But I’m me. Which to my mind is an astounding disability I don’t comprehend anyone overlooking. She must have a screw loose somewhere.
So I have to acknowledge milestones like this. To the extent you get anything out of what I write, you owe it to her. She keeps me productive, interested, engaged, alive.
So rather than analyze me or her, think about the ring. She’s getting something more than an heirloom now. I’m happy about that. Raebert did us a favor. In his customary badass way. And I get to take this opportunity, once again, to express my abiding love for the best woman I’ve ever known.
Coincidentally, I saw 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould freshman year of high school. Went completely over my head. I didn’t really get what it was all about until much, much later.
I’ve told you before that you ruined the rest of the internet for me. It’s true, and it’s a compliment. Thanks for everything and thank you Pat & Raebert for keeping him going. I do hope you’ll still be writing for many years to come.
Well. I always thought my tombstone would read, “He wrote The Boomer Bible.”
This sounds better:
“You ruined the rest of the Internet for me.”
A fabulous compliment. Not that I’m hurrying to engrave it in stone, mind. But thank you. Deep bow.
I know how it feels, I have a loved man that keeps me alive.
I too did and do poetry.
I have begun the closing in and sizing down of my life.
I don’t have a Raebert, I have poms, I like smaller things.
I too should have been dead years ago. My tongue alone should have gotten me killed, I could never have been a diplomat. I love Honky Tonks, dark smokey bars and places with crowded dance floors.
Your top 100 has brought back so many faces, places and events. I have cried, smiled and relived. Thanks for that.
Congratulations on your love enduring.
Edna. Where have you been? Why haven’t you spoken before?
No matter. We like poms too. Come on in and talk. As you know, it’s not all going to be okay in general, but whatever you have to say will definitely be okay. We have the kindest commenters in the world here, and even I have been known to be polite on special occasions.
Begin by sharing your music. The 100 requirement was a discipline for the regulars. You don’t have to make any list. Just share the music you remember most fondly.
Bill Haley and The Comets : Rock Around The Clock. i first song i remember ever hearing. Small town in Kansas over the town storm warning system. They ran it every day at noon.
Garth Brooks: The Dance. I want to have this played at my memorial because I wouldn’t want to have missed any part of my life as lived.
Queen: Who Wants To Live For Ever. I thought I did, not any more.
Waylon Jennings: I’ve Always Been Crazy. Cause I am!
Ernest Tubb: Waltz Across Texas. Our love song for 39 years.
Steppenwolf: Born To Be Wild. Who wants to be ordinary?
Hank Williams: Hey Good Looking. My Dad’s good mood song. RIP Dad.
Marty Robbins: Lord You Gave Me A Mountain. My Mom had this life in truth and it made her cry. RIP Mom.
The Turtles: Happy Together. My first real boyfriend.
Conway Twitty: Slow Hand. My Husband!
Mel McDaniel: Baby’s Got Her Blue Jeans On. My love’s song of me.
Billie Holiday: I’ll Be Seeing You. Just because it fits so many places in my life.
Bonnie Tyler: I Need A Hero. I got one!
Jo Dee Messina: My Give A Damn’s Busted. So many times. (Current feelings for Obama)
Thank God. Finally. A country music person. I’ll do a whole post about this, I promise. I love country music myself, but I never feel qualified to do lists. I’ll build on your foundation of experience. So glad you’re here, Edna. Stay here.
And please note that we have just declared ourselves a Pom-friendly site. It may be tongue in cheek but it’s absolutely sincere. I’ve a bunch of little dogs, and there’s never been anything little about their hearts or brains.
I am humbled.
Nae. I.
Part 2
Three Dog Night: Mama Told Me Not To Come. I live through the 60s.
Mahalia Jackson: I Come To The Garden Alone. Favorite hymn.
Lou Bega: Mambo Number 5.
Santana/Rob Thomas: Smooth. My granddaughter’s competition dance.
Michael Buble: Save The Last Dance For me. Just because I want to.
Dean Martin: Sway: I love his voice.
Elton John: Crocodile Rock. You should have seen our high school dances.
Three Dog Night: Never Been To Spain. I have and i am from Okla. Saw them in concert in Okla City in 70s.
The Loving Spoonful: Summer In The City. On a military post, at a swimming pool, 15, 1st bikini, and boys.
Martha and The Vandells: Dancing In The Street. Shopping center street dance, high school.
Dolly Parton: I Will Always Love You. To my children.
Fats Domino: Blueberry Hill. Strolling at the youth center, this is where military kids go to socialize.
Creedence Clearwater Revival: Bad Moon Rising.
The Archies: Sugar Sugar.
Little Richard: Long Tall Sally.
Janis Joplin: Me and Bobby McGee:
R B Greaves: Take A Letter Maria. I just like it.
Meat Loaf: Bat Out Of Hell. Been there done that.
Eagles: Witchy Woman. Theme song?
Ray Price: Night Life.
Hank Williams: Honky Tonkin. Do you even know what a honky tonk is, I do.
Lori Morgan: Something In Red. All women need some red.
Wilson Pickett: Mustang Sally. 4 teenage girls in a convertible, summer at the lake and boys.
Faron Young: Hello Walls. Love ended.
Bee Gees: You Should Be Dancing. Always a dance floor somewhere you might have found me.
Abba: Dancing Queen. I won a lot of money dancing in competitions.
Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive. Because I will despite all my attempts otherwise.
You’ve got a talent, my dear. Characterizations as quick as a whiplash. Your life is rich. Tomorrow I promise, I’ll do you justice.
A letter of love . . .
Glenn Gould . . .
Edna!
What a wonderful hour this has been.
Wow! Edna brought back lots of memories. I first heard Rock Around the Clock in a movie theater in a small town in northeast Kansas watching the movie Blackboard Jungle. While I’ve never been a big country-western fan, when I as a kid in the 50’s my dad, who was never a big country-western fan himself, played me songs like Hank Williams’ “Jambalaya,” as well as “The Wabash Cannonball,” hence my liking of the K-State fight song, “The Ballad of Jesse James,” “Abdul Abulbul Amir,” “The Lass of Mohee,” and a cowboy tear jerker called “When the Works All Done This Fall.” There were others but those are the ones I remember. My dad was a good guitar player and could sing well. He was the first person I ever saw play the guitar and a harmonica at the same time. In his final years in a nursing home he could still entertain the ladies with his harmonica playing. My dad did become a fan of Martie Robbins.