Lyrics for Saturday

What Do I Know
By Peter Mealy

She sat at the bar in her wedding dress,
Engaged in a drink and a cigarette.
Sad song on the radio,
She could have been the video.

Did you lose your nerve to say I do?
Or were you left in an empty pew?
Are you dressed up for Halloween?
Or is this your only dress that's clean?

What do I know, what did you say?
Did I hear you in the right way?
Let the lights dim and the sound die
Till we both see through the same eyes.

I pulled in the lot of a late night store,
A man in shadows by the door.
I smelled trouble, he smelled fear,
I locked my door, left the car in gear,

I said are you waiting for a ride
Or planning your next homicide?
Are you a cop out on the beat
Or one more victim of the street?

What do I know, what did you say?
Did I hear you in the right way?
Let the lights dim and the sound die
Till we both see through the same eyes.

We only see what's relevant,
Like the blind man and the elephant.
We search in the dark with just our hands,
Then our eyes met and we did a little dance.

We meet by chance, we meet by force,
We meet like pieces on a big chessboard,
Read each other, second guess,
Watch for signals, assume the rest,

But I see you like I see stars:
Brightest light in the darkest dark.
Mystery deep as the deepest stare,
And when I look up you're always there.

What do I know, what did you say?
Did I hear you in the right way?
Let the lights dim and the sound die.
Will we both see through the same eyes?
What do I know, what did you say, what do I know?

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We went to see Laurie Rose Griffith & Peter Mealy, a local husband and wife folk-jazz duo, at the Old City Hall in Fairfax for a free concert for 's birthday, hence you get lyrics. Even though they had a song list, I requested "All Around the World" and they played it for me -- Turquoise Scarf Woman, as they addressed me -- I was wearing a scarf dyed for me a couple of years ago that I totally love. And they brought an upright bass to play "Anchor" which is probably my favorite of their songs (lyrics here, they didn't write that one and I wanted one of Peter's songs). I had a very nice day for my husband's birthday -- picked him up from work for lunch and we went to India Bistro, then I came home and finished my Star Trek review, took the kids to a friend's house and wrote the Site Columns, then we all had dinner with my parents and headed out to Virginia for the concert.

It was a very interesting night to be in Fairfax; we had a terrible time getting a parking spot and thought maybe the concert was going to be wildly more popular than we expected. Actually it had a tiny audience and we realized why from the noise coming from the bars across the street: George Mason was beating Wichita State at the time and everyone else in Fairfax was apparently in front of a television. (And Villanova was fighting it out in overtime, though that was of less interest locally!) I must say that there is something kind of nice about having an intimate concert while everyone else is getting drunk and watching basketball. And it's kind of nice that hubby chose to spend his birthday evening listening to folk music rather than watching basketball! Peter played a medley of songs in jazz guitar style from The Wizard of Oz that was extremely impressive even though I'm not a huge jazz guitar aficionado, and they did a bunch of torch songs and Laurie sang a stunning version of Nat King Cole's "Autumn Leaves." (Previous report here.)

: Black & White
1. When is the last time you became unraveled? A couple of weeks ago when many family members were having crises.
2. What's the longest trip you've taken? Driving to California, then up to Seattle and home again the summer before last. Nearly a month in the van with my family.
3. Who is the biggest distraction in your life? My new toy with its portable internet connection. *g*
4. Do people notice you when you walk into a room? I doubt it. Sometimes if I am being loud.
5. Describe the last time you disappointed someone: My son, a few hours ago when I told him that he could not play his Nintendo DS even with the sound turned off at the concert even though it's a weekend night and he's usually entitled to video games then.

: Culture
1. Of the various cultures, ethnicities or nationalities you belong to, which most strongly do you consider yourself? American. I mean, culturally I'm east coast liberal, ethnically I'm Ashkenazi Jewish, nationally I'm Russian, Lithuanian, Polish, Hungarian and German, and if any of my ancestors had stayed in any of those places with their relatives, they'd have died in the same concentration camps, pogroms and ghettos and I would never have been born.
2. Is there a culture you cannot claim heritage from but which you feel quite close to? British-Celtic. Always have, from a very young age.
3. What's one language you wish you knew fluently? I wish what French and Hebrew I knew were fluent. Also Gaelic.
4. If you could move anywhere in the world and be guaranteed a job, etc., where would you go? London.
5. If you had a time machine, and could witness any one event without altering or disturbing it, what would you want to see? The Crucifixion and immediate aftermath.


So here is the review of "Wolf in the Fold" which is really not positive at all...this is one of those episodes I've felt like I was supposed to like because Piglet plays Mr. Hengist and it has pretty set decorations on Argelius and we find out that Scotty was an Aberdeen pub crawler, but really the misogyny makes my skin crawl and I think even "Spock's Brain" may have things to recommend it over this one in that regard. In much better science fiction news, Doctor Who, which we missed at 8 p.m., reran at midnight, with Simon Callow as Charles Dickens! (And given this show's occasionally Pythonesque sensibility, when the Doctor geeked out and said, "THE Charles Dickens?" I was expecting it to be followed by, "The famous Dutch author?") The Doctor claims to have been shooting for 1860 and hit 1869 by accident but he's pretty obviously there to save the world once they arrive. It's so delightfully camp X-Files with the flying ghost alien things -- not one of the serious scary conspiracy episodes but one of the ones where Mulder and Scully are laughing at their own jobs -- except that we hear about the time war, so obviously bad shit is going to start to happen.

I utterly adore the Doctor/Rose interaction ("The dead are walking! ...hi." "Hi.") and how easily Rose stands up to him despite how much she knows he knows. Also that she forms a real connection with another woman on very female-interest terms, something so painfully rare in science fiction, and her objection to letting the alien gas things cross over is purely out of concern for Gwyneth rather than any fear of alien gas things. (Doc: "I love a happy medium." Gaack!) And they're sitting in a pentacle when the beings cross over! Though it was too predictable they would turn out to be evil -- Satanic, even, which is a bit cheesier than I like -- I loved their explanation of the time war, "the whole universe convulsed," even if I don't get how the Doctor didn't suspect they were a threat to humanity. And if the aliens fed off the gases produced by corpses, how were they staying alive in live healthy humans? Okay, never mind, this show's not thoughtful exactly but very stylish. "We'll go down fighting together." "I'm so glad I met you." "Me too." And Dickens quoting Hamlet at the end, more things in Heaven and Earth than dreamt of in the Doctor's philosophy!


This is here because, although I did not feel compelled to post it after having posted a Shel Silverstein poem not long ago, I cannot look at the calendar without reciting the one that goes, "No one's hangin' stockin's up, No one's bakin' pie, no one's lookin' up to see a new star in the sky. No one's talkin' brotherhood, no one's givin' gifts, and no one loves a Christmas tree on March the twenty-fifth." The ornament is scrimshaw from Scandinavia and has tall ships on it -- does anyone wonder why I love it?

To bed for me...rest of comments and stuff tomorrow! Hope the weather stays clear even if chilly!