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A couple years ago my daughter was asked to contribute a few poems for some "zine" that came out quarterly, and since they were to appear in the Winter issue, it was suggested she write stuff that had to do with snow, or cold, or that sort of stuff. Three of them she wrote on her own, and they were utterly inspired - e.g.; "I wanted to write a poem about Winter / The only word it rhymes with is 'printer'" [note that this is not factual; she knew perfectly well about "sprinter," "splinter," etc. - instead she had the energy and imagination to wrestle with language]. The fourth, much longer poem, I helped her with, but it was very much a collaboration, and of a rather interesting kind - she came up with the entire story, down to very small details, and my role was to convert it all into meter and rhyme. I could find no mention of it anywhere on the web, to my horror, and I didn't have a copy of it, so I've reconstructed it from memory. I know parts of it differ from the original, but I've tried to be as close as I could. There's a lot of Shel Silverstein here, but I happen to like Shel Silverstein a lot. And he wrote the song appended hereto.
The Ice Queen and I
This Winter I plan to surmount the North Pole
With a team of genetically engineered moles
Or some kind of steam drill, to drill a huge hole
Where I’ll fish for the Big Ones – so big is my goal
That I’ll settle for only the Magical Walrus
As the moles and I watch it will sing and enthrall us
And through it the voice of the Ice Queen will call us
The Ice Queen! Who still owes me two hundred dollars!
So the drill is shut down and the moles are unfettered
They watch as the walrus and I leave together
I’m drawn on a sleigh by a long silver tether
To the Hall of the Ice Queen, who doesn’t know whether
I remember those two hundred dollars or not
You want it played cool? Well, cool we got
So she points out a few more spectacular spots
And I tell her I like them; I like them a lot
Still, she senses it’s coming. It hasn’t come yet
But you don’t often see her break into a sweat
It’s just not something either of us would forget
And an outstanding debt is an outstanding debt
Why she needed the money’s a bit of a fuzz
Did her credit max out, as it so often does?
But I can’t dwell on issues of “why” or “because”
I was there when she needed me. That’s all it was
But Queens don’t carry cash, so I have to assuage her
There are protocols; right and wrong ways to engage her
I suggest it be settled by some sort of wager
To gain time, she pretends there’s a beep on her pager
“Your pager won’t work here,” I chuckle and say,
“So let’s stick to those two hundred bucks you can’t pay
We both knew this was coming; it came here today
Since you need a way out, I’m providing a way.”
And right then from the sea leapt a hideous fish
It slid right to her foot, which she lifted to squish
The foul thing on the spot, but I granted its wish
Saying “This is a fugu! They’re simply delish!”
“In Japan there are chefs who devote their whole lives
Learning what tiny bits one can eat and survive
And behold! By some miracle fate has contrived
That I have on my person a full set of knives!”
Having found the appropriate knife and filleted it
I cut out a rather small piece and displayed it
I would leave to Her Majesty which of us ate it
Then wait the ten minutes we’ll need to have waited
The Ice Queen, of course, must put something at stake
I’m already down two hundred bucks, for Christ’s sake!
And since someone might die here, the risk she should take
Should reward a bet mortals don’t normally make
She might eat it, and live, and in that event she
Is absolved of her debt. Possibility B
Is she eats it and dies. Possibility C
Is I eat it and live – and her force goes to me!
Possibility D is the one where I die
But I already see that cold gleam in her eye
She suspects my bravado conceals a lie
And what fool would eat food its own chef wouldn’t try?
Hence the lot fell to me, as I might have predicted
I ate it, and lived, and the Queen was evicted
There was some in my teeth, so I quietly picked it
Dug it out, glanced at it, leaned back and flicked it
Now what will I do with my new, God-like powers?
I’ll conclude, having weighed it for three or four hours
There are too many rainbows, and too many flowers!
Let snow fall in blizzards! Let ice fall in showers!Where they least expect snow, I will make it snow first
Where the weather is best it shall henceforth be worst
Stratocumulus clouds will assemble and burst
Every trace of our species will soon be immersed
I will snow on the world without mercy or favor
No allowances made with regard to behavior
You’ll look back on the Pleistocene Era with savor
Then I’ll feast on my shave ice – Planet Earth-flavored!
Repairs following the recent engagement (http://mog.com/Cody_B/blog_post/153713, et. al.) with Capitaine Cody of le Rap are finally complete. We lie becalmed for the moment, and the crew take advantage of the respite to compose epic poetry or draw up designs for newer and bigger atomic supercolliders.
But that battle got me thinking a few things. One of them is that I'm glad no one showed up to defend country music so aggressively. The other is that rock, like the great Alexander, conquers territory not by scorching it, but by absorbing it.
How, then, do we absorb rap? And the object here, of course, is to distinguish not its most obvious facets, but its deepest and most universal. In this regard, Cody called my attention to one of the threads woven most deeply into it; something called the "Dozens." This is apparently a kind of verbal combat - strictly playful and good-spirited - with origins in precolonial Africa, whose purpose is to take turns saying something so offensive, so boastful, so completely obnoxious, that the other party blows his cool.
That registered with me. I did it with my brothers growing up, I did it with friends - I do it to this day, in fact (as some of my readers may have noticed), but only with people I feel I can trust and respect: this is the opposite of patronizing someone, which is the truest and most outrageous sort of insult. I was never aware of a name for it (and I don't think "Dozens" really does it justice), but this I can do. I'd never really even thought about trying it in lyrics before.
Naturally I would make no attempt to alter the way I express myself, musically or lyrically, or to make boasts that didn't seem just barely enough like the sort of things I might actually think to deliver the shock and horror required of them.
If I might here address the world as a whole - I am not above negotiation. I will consider terms of your surrender with respect and magnanimity. It is not too late to spare countless lives.
As you consider your next move, relish this almost universally overlooked song by Miles Dethmuffen (a band that might, perhaps, never have reached the audience it should have, but was denied ever having had a chance to by their name).
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Those battles for an utopic temporal supremacy are pointless, 'cos She will absorb rockers, rappers, zombies, goths, punks jazzmen and a few more tribes as well, stop these intra-Mog wars and bow low in front your Queen, the Queen of you all...
M U S I C
U.
P.S. BTW to repair your ship, i'd suggest you apply musical colors paint in at least 3 successive layers and aural attraction shield devices shall be plastered with any sort of tape/plastic sheets to avoid any drop of paint inside of any of the sound amplification tubes as to avoid cosmo-cosmic explosion
:))))))))))))))))))))))))
Whatever you do, don't go the Linkin' Park route. We are rap(t) with attention at your intention. BTW -We have upgraded to a starship due to a massive booty infusion since the last battle. Beam Me Up, Flava.
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Seeing the location coords you shall not be far from the Death Valley, all musical loud(gun)speakers are turned toward your ship, don't try to resist or we might be forced to shoot and have you listen to Willie Nelson (and only him, sorry Mr. Nelson you were picked at a random :)) for the next 40 years...
Those battles for an utopic temporal supremacy are pointless, 'cos She will absorb rockers, rappers, zombies, goths, punks, classic freaks in frocks, jazzmen and a few more wild tribes as well, stop these intra-Mog wars and bow low in front your Queen, the Queen of you all...
M U S I C
U.
CosmicCommodore Universalis in the Fields
P.S. BTW to repair your ship, i'd suggest you apply musical colors paint in at least 3 successive layers for better impregnation and all aural attraction shield devices shall be plastered with any sort of tape/plastic sheets to avoid any drop of paint dripping inside of any of the sonic buzzers amplification tubes as to avoid cosmo-cosmic risk of meta-explosion.
:))))))))))))))))))))))))
Helen Caddes, the first of you all to recognize the exquisite beauty of the pearls I cast before you, has made a request - and hereabouts, we treat those with reverence. She would like to hear her favorite VWC song, "Revolver." A superb choice.
I rather liked the FUN FACTS thing I did for "The Elephant" or whatever that ponderous dirge was called - I thought it would never end. Remember: if it doesn't end with an exclamation point, it is not an authentic Virgin-Whore Complex FUN FACT , and you should summon an adult immediately.
FUN FACTS :
1: This song is about an escaped lunatic, and is told from his not very reliable viewpoint. He's violent and dangerous, but - like all such people, I believe, even the ones who want people to think they're violent and dangerous - believes in his heart he's really a very decent fellow, driven to the occasional murder by circumstances; in his case, direct instructions from God, of whom he believes without question he is an agent. Chipworth Community is the mental care facility he has just escaped from, completely undetected; Father Kennedy (who is blind, hence the "eyes burnt white") is a fellow inmate he has come to regard as even closer to God than himself, and who is actually even further gone in the depths of insanity, but is less of a threat to others. Our narrator considers him the very model of sanity, and our story begins with him having made his escape, and saying his farewells. He'll actually kind of miss the place. But he has divine errands to run. He has learned through God that it is a service on behalf of outcasts of all kinds ("madmen and deviates," etc.) when he kills an intellectual or a gay man. Anyone wearing glasses is clearly the former, any male who looks at him is the latter. He gets extra credit from God for brutality, and before long he has killed one. Maybe more. The song's end finds him happy and free, with every likelihood of continuing in his divine mission!
2: These lyrics were written in a single afternoon in Napa Valley, where the Napa State Mental Hospital can be found (I've never actually seen it), entirely under the influence of LSD , which may or not be true as far as you know, but would go some way to explaining the "trees of sculpted lead" and the "acid's immediate." Oh; and that's the possessive form for acid, not a contraction of acid is. Misinterpret it at your peril!
3: I have completely forgotten how to play this song; I have not he faintest clue what the chords are. I know I was never once able to play it and sing it simultaneously; the rhythm guitar part is tricky!
4: The last several lines, which play with "rain-soaked earth you flowers struggle through," are just a bit of silliness; they have no relevance to the story. "Ice" was, at the time this was written, described breathlessly in magazine articles as the next super-addictive drug that would destroy the country in a few short weeks!
Almost forgot the lyrics:
Goodbye, Chipworth Community
Some people die of sheer continuity
I don't mind the role so much as
What it might do to me
And in turn what I might do to you
Take faith, blind Father Kennedy
Eyes burnt white with Jesus' serenity
Caked in filth from head to toe and
Screaming obscenities
Who else understands the good you do?
I guess it's time I made a change
So I might just as well make a complete one
And the sun shines low and red
Between these trees of sculpted lead
On these velvet hills I never quite outgrew
And the rain-soaked earth you flowers struggle through
Raise hell, madmen and deviates
Widows and dope fiends
Whores and inebriates
Heaven's joys are long withheld but
Acid's immediate
Almost always less expensive, too
God's wrath, smite intellectuals
Find, expose and kill homosexuals
Rip their tongues out
Pound their heads in
Pull off their testicles
Sing, thou sword of Jesus, keen and true
And if I have to be a bastard
I might just as well be a complete one
In the garden there's a raincoat
In the raincoat there's a man
And an ugly black revolver
In my violently shaking hands
And I can't recall exactly what I dreamt last night
But I woke up feeling terribly angry
To see the sun shine low and red
Between these trees of sculpted lead
On these velvet hills I never quite outgrew
And the rain-soaked earth you flowers struggle through
And the plainclothesed earth you flowers struggle through
Rain-soaked earth you flowers struggle
Family, friends, career you juggle
Fifteen keys of ice you smuggle through
Comments
Hooray! I love the back-story. Maybe I should learn to play it so you can sing with me! I will have to meditate on this.
This is the best song EVER !
nice tune. it put me in a good mood despite being about a murderous lunatic
Helen, if someone with your discerning eye, someone whose convictions could remain as true and pure as yours, someone with tastes as solid and a love of music as profound as I have always said you possess, could have argued our case - had just been there to tell people there was something to us - the sky might have been the limit for the VWC . The mind reels. We could have had as many as forty, maybe forty-five fans. We could put out a record and be sure of selling at least thirty copies. I... I... [This train of thought is dizzying to zarpex; he reaches for a desk behind him and finds only empty air with his hand. He collapses to the floor in a dead faint.] Actually, Helen, someone keep the faith would have been a real balm, but a proper singer wouldn't have hurt, either. You don't sing by any chance, do you?
Charley! Well, I like to think of it more as a... How should I put it? It's not just trying to be perverse, or wrapping a subversive premise in smiles. It's more like building your own eventualities by means of attitude. There are homicidal maniacs in this world who believe they are doing us a favor by killing this guy here, that guy there, etc. The odds that one will pull your number out of the hat are almost zero, but the harm they can do to you by keeping you up nights worrying, or freaking the wife out, or taking from your finances in security systems you'll never need, or all those things they do to you without doing anything to you? Killers aren't coming. They're off somewhere talking to flowers. They have a long list of people to kill before you. You can defeat him in advance or surrender to him in advance; he'll never actually get you.
MOGs That Trust Me (8 of 46)
MOG Meter
Comments
I don't know what went wrong with that third-from-last stanza. It should read:
Now what will I do with my new, God-like powers?
I'll conclude, having weighed it for three or four hours
There are too many rainbows, and too many flowers!
Let snow fall in blizzards! Let ice fall in showers!
Rather apocalyptic ending there...
This explains a lot....
Fine work, friend.