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Friday, October 26, 2007

Is there a witch doctor in the house?

1999 was a rough year for me. It was the year we discovered that my spouse had cancer. It was also the year that I realized I was in a loveless marriage, when I could not get happy for him once he received his "all clear" remission status. And as if that weren't stressful enough, it later became the year that I started grad school, then learned about his adultery, followed by our separation and my dive into single-parenthood, ending with our divorce. Without any further detail of those terrible times, I should also admit that there were several positive and long-reaching emotional milestones for me in which solidified walls came down with an unexpected crash... and they came down directly as the result of others' creative expression.

The first emotional upheaval came on March 21, 1999 while sitting in a darkened theater and watching Roberto Benigni's LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL before the Academy Awards ran that evening. Seeing that goofy man's raw and pure love for his real-life wife (and hers for him) -- something that cannot be faked by even the best actors, on-screen or off -- while I sat next to a man who never once looked at me that way in all our years together (nor I at him), made me start shaking and sobbing uncontrollably for the entire duration of the film and for hours after.

The next upheaval came while sitting in my car before class on April 27, 1999, while listening to the university's radio program. Tom Waits' album MULE VARIATIONS had just been released that day and the dj decided to play the whole cd in honor of it being the first Waits cd in quite some time. I was touched and awed as I always am by his particular brand of poetic nostalgia, but it was the song "Picture in a Frame" that particularly struck a chord in me... one of nostalgia for something I'd yet to experience, but left me hopeful that it wasn't too late. As the simple song played, I welled up again, and the floodgates did not close until long after the album had ended. A few days later, my then spouse gave me the good news that his thyroid cancer was in remission and likely entirely cured (all without radiation, chemotherapy or anything but surgery), and that's when I finally had the courage to tell him that we were definitely broken and possibly irreparably so.

In the years since, I have yet to attain the feeling so best summarized by the lyrics "I'm gonna love you 'til the wheels come off," although I am still optimistic. I feel that Mr. Waits gave me part of the cure for what ailed me -- he cast a magical spell of hope for something... more. I'd describe the beauty of the song more thoroughly, except that I stumbled upon a review on Allmusic.com that does as good of a job as I could have done, or possibly better:


PICTURE IN A FRAME
Appears on Mule Variations
Performed by Tom Waits
Composed by Kathleen Brennan/Tom Waits
Song Review by Bill Janovitz

At once nostalgic, sentimental, and intimate, Tom Waits' love ode "Picture in a Frame" manages to tug the heart without ever once dipping into maudlin territory, a feat that Waits has been able to pull off for the greater part of 30 years. With this simple song, Waits again effortlessly makes the case that he is our best living balladeer. While old-timers like Frank Sinatra were able to balance the masculine, tough-guy shell with the generous-hearted and sensitive interior, there has probably not been one singer/songwriter as emotionally evocative while remaining so undeniably cool as Waits, never mind one of his contemporaries.

The New Orleans-flavored jazz-soul song -- co-written with his wife and frequent collaborator Kathleen Brennan -- is characteristically rich with unique and personal detail as Waits sings a litany of specific and memorable images that remind him of the precise moment his love became true: "I came calling in my Sunday best/Ever since I put your picture in a frame/I'm gonna love you till the wheels fall off...oh yeah." The recording, from Waits' Mule Variations (1999), begins with the room sounds of a piano bench creaking and a few breaths and grunts from the performer as he sets himself down at the piano, the warm atmosphere mirroring the intimacy of the lyric. From the gentle self-mockery of the old fashioned "Sunday best" courtship image to the final, understated verse "I love you baby and I always will," we are left with the impression that we have been given a little trip down memory lane in a relationship, a privileged glimpse at the joy two lovers have shared.


I had to put the song into this blog entry somehow, so that you could experience it for yourself, and managed to locate two actual versions of it. Both are on YouTube as the soundtrack to different videos (but there is no official Waits video): one version is some guy's interpretation of what the lyrics mean to him; the other is basically a tribute to a different guy's kitties. Personally, I feel that the far less distracting one to view is the version featuring the kitties, so I'm posting that here... but with the added caveat that the best way to listen would be to simply shut your eyes and soak in the song by itself, as I did when I first experienced it. Enjoy this from the bottom of my heart to yours...




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[Author's note: Probably not so coincidentally, you can catch both Waits and Benigni in Jim Jarmusch's classic DOWN BY LAW (1986), as well as in his not-so-classic COFFEE AND CIGARETTES (2003)... you know, just f.y.i.]

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Mother of the Year, I’m not

In what can only be considered a terrible bit of irony, I forgot to wish my oldest child a happy 14th birthday today. I am calling it irony, because just 2 days ago, I'd rented 16 Candles from Netflix and my younger two and I were watching it, while Aidan was at his friend's house playing Halo 3... and perhaps thankfully so, he has no clue that his 14th birthday just mirrored Molly Ringwald's character's 16th birthday. Okay, so there's no older sibling marrying an "oily variety beau-hunk" and no romantic interest and no grandparents visiting (actually, my mother and father did both call tonight, but my ringer was turned off)... but I did just pay him a visit in his room and quietly apologized to him for forgetting it was his birthday. If it was the first time, I'd just be forgetful... unfortunately, this is like the 4th time in his life that I've done this, making me feel pretty negligent. On the bright side, he should have plenty to talk about with his therapist some day.
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