The Creation of “Silent Night” (Play)

Note: Several years ago now, I wrote a play for my sons, nieces and nephews, to be performed on Christmas night.  They didn’t exactly know about it ahead of time, but man, did they ever get into it. They made costumes and props, and even created voices for the characters.  (We sort of got a Von Trapp thing going on.)

The play is about the creation of the song “Silent Night” and is based on a play I did when I was in sixth grade– WAY back in the early 80s. I never knew who wrote this play or why my sixth grade teacher had a copy of it.  (It wasn’t in a book or anything.  It was just typed pieces of paper that she mimeographed for us.  Ah, the early 80s!)

I tried to find it on the Web, and when that went nowhere, I eventually ended up writing a version of my own.  I used the play’s basic story and borrowed some of the lines I remembered. (Yep, I actually remember lines I said in a Christmas play over thirty years ago… but I can’t remember to pick up groceries when my wife reminded me ten minutes before.) 

After our performance,  I figured, “Hey, maybe there’s another family out there who wants to put on a goofy Christmas play.”  And so, I offer to the world my vaguely historical play about the creation of the song “Silent Night.”   Take it, perform it, manipulate it… just don’t make millions off it! 

The Story of “Silent Night”Dramatis Personae

• Frolic, narrating elf
• Play, narrating elf
• Father Nostler, grumpy pastor
• Father Mohr, writer of the poem on which “Silent Night” is based
• Julia Bauer, kindly parish secretary
• Greta Bauer, Julia’s young daughter
• Franz Gruber, schoolteacher, organizer, and composer of the music for “Silent Night”
• Mr. Zingler, organ repairman
• Maggie Mouse, Myrtle Mouse, Morgan Mouse, Maynard Mouse–Mice who eat the pipes of the organ

The main action of the play takes place in the small town of Oberndorf, Austria, in December 1818.

Prologue

Frolic: “You know Dasher…”

Play: “And Dancer…”

Frolic: “And Prancer…”

Play: “Look, we already established that they know ‘em… why are we going through the whole list?”

Frolic: “Good point.  But do you think they know a certain C. Clement Moore?”

Play: “Who he?”

Frolic: “Why, the author of the beloved Christmas poem ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas,’ you silly.“

Play: “’A Visit from St. Nicholas’? I never heard of—“

Frolic: “That’s because it’s better known by its first line, ‘’Twas the Night Before Christmas.’”

Play: “Ah! Got it!”

Frolic: “C. Clement Moore is one of the greatest One-Hit Wonder Poets of all time.  And what is a One-Hit Wonder Poet, you ask?   It’s a poet who gains mainstream popularity by writing one well-known poem.”

Play: “How awesome is that?  Minimum effort, maximum achievement!”

Frolic: “Indeed.  Well, my name is Frolic, and this is my counterpart Play.”

Play: “Howdy!”

Frolic: “We are two jolly elves, and tonight we would like to ask a simple question: ‘But do you recall the most famous One-Hit Wonder Poet of all?’”

Play: “You mean Francis Scott Key, the author of ‘The Defense of Fort McHenry,’ which later became the basis for the ‘Star Spangled Banner’?”

Frolic: “Uh, no.  It’s a Christmas-themed One-Hit Wonder Poet.”

Play: “Maybe Ernest Thayer, who wrote the classic baseball poem, ‘Casey and the Bat’?”

Frolic: “No, you nitwit.  Just pipe down and listen, will you?  Now then… we begin our story in a church  in the small town of Oberndorf, Austria.  ‘Twas the night before the night before Christmas, in the year 1818, and four local mice—Maggie, Morgan, Maynard, and Myrtle—are doing more than stirring; they’re looking for a snack.”

Scene 1

Maggie Mouse: “Hey, what did one snowman say to the other?”

Morgan Mouse: “I don’t know. What?”

Maggie: “’Do you smell carrot?’” (They both laugh uproariously.)

Maynard Mouse: “OK, how about this one: how do elves greet Santa when he returns home?”

Myrtle Mouse: “I don’t know. How do elves great Santa when he returns home?”

Maynard: “With a round of Sant-applause.”

Myrtle: “I don’t get it.”

Maynard: “Round of applause… Santa applause… Sant-applause?  Ah, you didn’t like it. It’s stupid.”

Myrtle: “No, it’s good.  I guess I’m just a little out of it, that’s all.  I think I need something to eat.”

Maggie: “Me too. Let’s find something to eat around here.  Hey, I know: why don’t we sink our teeth into that organ?”

Morgan: “What?!? Don’t eat me!”

Maggie: “Not Morgan!  Organ!  That pump organ over there!”

Maynard: “I love organs! Mangia! Mangia!”

Myrtle: “Isn’t that Italian?  I thought this play takes place in Austria…”

Morgan: “Don’t quibble with details!  Just eat!” (They all start chomping away.)

Maynard: “Hey, you know what would happen if someone dropped an organ on a musician?”

Maggie: “What?”

Maynard: “He’d B flat!”

(They all eat and laugh uproariously!)

 Scene 2

Play:  “Don’t blame the mice.  They were hungry, and they are just mice, after all.  How would they know their late-night snacking would render the pipe organ completely useless?”

Frolic: “We pick up our story the next morning, as the church’s pastor, the already cranky Father Nostler, absolutely blows a gasket upon they would have no organ music for the Christmas Eve mass.“

Fr. Nostler: “Father Mohr?  Father More? FATHER MOHR!”

Fr. Mohr (running in): “Yes, Father Nostler.  You called?”

Fr. Nostler: “No, I was merely exercising my tonsils.  Of course, I was calling you!  Has the organ repairman arrived?”

Fr. Mohr: “Oh, yes.  His name is Mr. Zingler, and he came first thing this morning.”

Fr. Nostler: “Excellent.  And do you have any news to report?”

Fr. Mohr: “Oh, yes.  I have some news.  According to Mr. Zingler… the organ will most definitely not be ready for tonight’s mass.”

Fr. Nostler: “That’s it?  That’s your news?”

Fr. Mohr: “I didn’t say it was good news.  Look, Father, what can I say?  The mice totally ate away at the bellows—“

Fr. Nostler: “Bellows?”

Fr. Mohr: “Yeah, you know… those flexible chambers of air that make a sound when compressed?“

Fr. Nostler: “I always referred to them as ‘windbags’…”

Fr. Mohr (aside): “Well, it takes one to know one…”

Fr. Nostler: “What was that?”

Fr. Mohr: “Nothing.  As I was saying… I’m sorry this happened, but no one could have known the mice were up there.  It’s winter, you know.  I guess they were hungry.”

Fr. Nostler: “You guess they were hungry?” (in a mocking tone) “ ‘It’s winter, you know.’ Of course, I know it’s winter!  I also know that this is Christmas Eve.  And I know that, as of right now, we’ll have no organ music for the service tonight!  How can you have Christmas Eve mass without music?”

Fr. Mohr: “Well, I was talking to Franz Gruber tis morning, and he was thinking he could lead the whole congregation in a sing-along, without any accompaniment?”

Fr. Nostler: “A sing-along?  A sing-along?  Is Gruber insane?  This is church, not a bar-room!  Singing without accompaniment—that’s so undignified!  And besides:  have you heard the voices of some of our parishioners?  They sound like strangled alley cats—especially that Mrs. Krause in the fourth pew!”

Fr. Mohr: “Now, that’s not nice.  Ms. Krause has a lovely voice… she just uses a different set of notes than the rest of us.”

Fr. Nostler: “You are going to fix this.”

Fr. Mohr: “Mrs. Krause’s singing?”

Fr. Nostler: “No!  The organ!  You are going to fix this mess with the organ and get me some music for tonight’s Mass!”

Fr. Mohr: “But… what am I supposed to do?”

Fr. Nostler: “That’s your problem, not mine!”

Scene 3

Frolic: “Well, it looks like our friend Father Joseph Mohr is in quite a pickle. So he does what all priests do when they’re in a jam: seek out advice from the smartest person in the parish, the power behind the throne, the real brains of the organization.”

Play: “The kindly parish secretary!”

(Julia is sitting down with Fr. Mohr, going over a few things.  Julia’s young daughter is playing with dolls by her feet.)

Julia: “I sent the food we collected to the soup kitchen.   We collected over fifty coats in the coat drive, and I had them delivered to the shelter.  Fr. Nostler wanted new clerics; they’re hanging in the closet.”

Fr. Mohr: “I just remembered: I forgot to send a Christmas card to the bishop.”

Julia: “Already done.  Hope you don’t mind that I forged your signature. “

Fr. Mohr: “Thank you so much.  You’re a miracle worker. How could I ever repay you for everything you’ve done?”

Julia: “Well, you could let me go home a little earlier, so I could give Greta a bath for tonight?”

Fr. Mohr: “You got it. And speaking of Greta, I have something for her. A gift.” (He hands her a piece of paper.) “It’s a poem. It came to me—out of the blue—while I was walking back to the rectory the other night.  It wasn’t that late, but no one else was around.  A light snow had started to fall, and everything was so very still and quiet.   I started thinking about the first Christmas, about the night Jesus was born.  And I guess I just got inspired.  As soon as I got home, I jotted down this poem.”

Julia: “You know I love your poems. “ (reads) “’Silent night, holy night./ All is calm, all is bright.’”

Fr. Mohr: “It’s simple, but…”

Julia: “You are so talented, Father.  You should really try to get your poems published somewhere.”

Fr. Mohr: “Ah, who’d want to read them?  Great poets speak to the entire world.  I’m just some Austrian priest.  It’s not as if my words could affect anyone.”

Julia: “Well, this is so very thoughtful of you.  Thank you so much.  I’ll read it to Greta tonight.”

(Mr. Zingler, the organ-fixer, barges in.)

Mr. Zingler: “Stupid, no-good mice!  Treating my organ like it’s a buffet!   You wanna take a bite out of my organ?  Huh. When I find you varmints, I might just take a bite out of you!”

Julia: “Ah yes… the classic Christmas Eve treat!”

Fr. Mohr: “Well, Mr. Zingler.  How’s our patient? Salvageable?”

Mr. Zingler: “Are you kidding me?  Maybe by Pentecost… but not for tonight!”

Fr. Mohr: “I just don’t know what I’m going to do. If I don’t find a way to provide music for tonight’s service… well, Fr. Nostler will not exactly be overflowing with Christmas cheer.”

Julia: “Is he ever?  Look,  God has a reason for everything.  Think of this not as a problem, but an opportunity.   Perhaps there is a very easy answer for this, if we just keep our eyes open.   The solution could just walk in through our door when we least expect it.”

(At that moment, as if on cue, Franz Gruber walks in through the door, carrying a guitar.)

Franz: “Merry Christmas, everybody!”

Fr. Mohr: “Merry Christmas to you, Franz.  What’s going on with the guitar?”

Franz: “Oh, this is a guitar I used when I was a kid.  I cleaned it up and got it re-strung, and I am going to give it to my son tomorrow as a present.” (pause) “So, how are things going with the organ?”

Fr. Mohr: “Well, it looks as if we’ll be able to have a great Christmas Mass on Pentecost.”

Julia: “Let’s just brainstorm some possibilities.” (Fr. Mohr, Julia, and Mr. Zingler sit around Julia’s desk, while Julia’s daughter Greta continues to play on the floor.  No one speaks. The ideas aren’t exactly flying back and forth.  Meanwhile, Franz sits slightly off to the side and starts strumming his guitar.  He’s playing something random, something they had never heard before– a quiet, contemplative song.)

Fr. Mohr: “Maybe you could sing for us, Julia?  After all, who needs a musical instrument with a voice as lovely as yours?”

Julia: “Thank you, Father.  But you know I never sing in public.”

Fr. Mohr (after long seconds of silence): “Could we maybe borrow an organ from another church?”

Mr. Zingler: “Borrow an organ?  Who’s going to carry it—you?  Besides, what will that church use for Christmas?” (They go back to silence, as Franz continues to play that new song on the guitar.)

Julia: “Franz, what is that you’re playing? It’s beautiful.”

Franz: “Oh, thanks.  It’s just something I came up with a few weeks ago.  Hope I didn’t disturb anyone. Playing quiet music on the guitar helps me think.”

Fr. Mohr: “Well, by all means, keep playing.  Maybe it will inspire us.  What could we possibly use in church in place of the organ? Is there any sort of lightweight, portable instrument that we could use to accompany the singers?  Is there anything we are overlooking?  Anything at all?”  (They go back to silent thinking.)

Greta (from the floor): “Why not guitar?”

(They all think about it for a moment.)

Fr. Mohr:  “A guitar? In church?”

Mr. Zingler: “Impossible.  Can’t be done!”

Julia: “Why?  Because it hasn’t been done before?  Not a very good reason.  Why can’t we use the guitar tonight, in place of the organ?

Fr. Mohr: “She’s right.  It’s so obvious. How did we not see it?  We use the guitar for accompaniment! Franz, can you learn some Christmas songs on guitar?”

Franz: “Of course.”

Mr. Zingler: “Fr. Nostler isn’t going to like this!”

Julia: “All the more reason to do it!” (She picks up Greta and twirls her.) “Oh, Greta, you saved the day!”

Scene 4

Play: “OK, so we have the words to ‘Silent Night,’ and we have the music to ‘Silent Night,” but when do the two parts come together?”

Frolic: “I’m glad you asked.  The melding of the two halves took place only an hour before Christmas Mass, in a quick meeting between Franz Gruber and Julia…”

Julia: “OK, and how about the closing song?  What are you going to do for that?”

Franz: “I was thinking ‘Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer’… (Julia looks at him blankly.) “Just kidding.  How about ‘Joy to the World’?”

Julia: “Sounds great. Hey, I was thinking of something.  You said you were going to play ‘O Holy Night’ for Communion.  I have an idea for something to do immediately after that, something we can do for Father Mohr, as a gift.”

Franz: “A gift?  What is it?”

Julia:  “Remember that song you were playing today?  That quiet, contemplative one?   Well, I was thinking how perfectly that music matched up with a poem Father showed me today.” (She takes out the paper.)  “I was wondering if maybe you could turn this poem into a song and sing those lyrics at Mass tonight.”

Franz (scanning the lyrics): “Well, it’s certainly last-minute… but I think it’s possible. But on one condition: you sing it.  Please.  You have such a lovely voice.  It’s a talent, given to you by God.  Just like how Father’s talent with words is a gift. You know what Jesus said in His parable about the talents: you can’t bury your talents down deep.   You have to show those talents to the world.”

Julia (smiling shyly): “Ok, I’ll do it. Let’s go practice.”

Scene 5

Frolic: “And that’s the story of how the song ‘Silent Night’ came to be.”

Play: “I’m sort of dubious about the historical accuracy of that story…”

Frolic: “Well, we may have modified a few of the details for dramatic purposes…”

Play: “Like the talking mice?  What about the little girl saving the day? Or that Franz Gruber just so happened to have music that exactly fit the poem?”

Frolic: “OK, we may have taken some liberties there.  But the words really were written by Father Joseph Mohr, and the music really was composed by Franz Gruber, and the two really did debut the song in their church on Christmas Eve, 1818.”

Play: “And the performance was so lovely and stirring that it even brought a smile to the face of Father Nostler, whose heart grew three sizes that day…. Right?”

Frolic: “Well, not really, but sure.  Why not?  It’s Christmas!  Now, before we close, let’s return to Father Mohr’s church, as our merry band performs ‘Silent Night’ for the very first time.”

Play: “Can we join in too?”

Frolic: “Well, we’re not really part of the action, Play.  We’re the narrators!”

Play: “Oh, come on!  Why quibble with details!”

Frolic: “Oh, what the heck!  Let’s do it!  And invite the mice too! Hit it, Franz!”

(All twelve members of the cast sing “Silent Night.”)

Silent night, Holy night
All is calm, all is bright
‘Round yon virgin , mother and child
Holy infant so, tender and mild
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

Silent night, Holy night
Shepherds quake, at the sight
Glory streams from heaven afar
Heavenly, hosts sings Hallelujah.
Christ the Savior is born,
Christ the Savior is born.

Silent night, Holy night
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth,
Jesus, Lord at thy birth.
ALL” “Merry Christmas!”

 

 

Promises to Keep (To Myself, To Write a Blog Post)

A few evenings ago, I hosted a discussion of Winter Poetry at my local library. While I was selecting the poems to include, my wife said I had to pick Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snow Evening,” because… well, it’s THE winter poem. But that was why I didn’t want to include it; I dismissed as too over-exposed, too well-traveled (like the path in that other over-exposed Frost poem).

I compromised by pairing “Stopping by Woods” with a lesser-known Frost poem, “Dust of Snow.” At the time, my motivation for linking the two began and ended with the fact that they both had “snow” in the title.

In the end, I’m glad I listened to my wife, because it turns out I didn’t know “Stopping by Woods” as well as I thought.  And I’m glad I juxtaposed it with “Dust of Snow,” because both poems seem to share a similar theme.  One illuminates the other.

Let’s tackle “Stopping by Woods” first.  And even though even my dad could probably recite twenty percent of it, here it is anyway,,,

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer  
To stop without a farmhouse near  
Between the woods and frozen lake  
The darkest evening of the year.  

He gives his harness bells a shake  
To ask if there is some mistake.  
The only other sound’s the sweep  
Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

I’ve always believed that the poem is about a man contemplating suicide.  (That said, in the past, I’ve asked my students to convince me the poem is about Santa Claus,  I swear, if you consider the “darkest evening of the year” and the “harness bells” and the “promises to keep”… well, a pretty convincing case can be made.)

Now, if you look at the poem as a man contemplating suicide, the “darkest evening of the year” is not literal but figurative. He’s gone to a dark place. (As an aside: as an astute reader from my discussion group pointed out, the “darkest evening of the year” does not have to be the Winter Solstice. That would be the longest evening of the year, but not necessarily the darkest. Never considered that before…)

The “suicide” reading becomes more clear when you consider the geography of the poem. So, our narrator is stopping “by” the woods.  Now, he’s not IN the woods; he’s on the outskirts.  But the woods are definitely calling to him; he thinks they’re “lovely.”  In this interpretation, the woods– which are empty, frozen, dark, deep– represent death.

Somewhere else, maybe behind the narrator, is the “village.”  To me, that represents his life, with all of its problems, responsibilities, obligations– his “promises to keep,” in other words, whatever has made him so depressed. If he goes into the woods, he’ll never have to return to the village. Or, to put another way: if he chooses death, he’ll never have to face those “promises” again.

Suddenly, something snaps him out of this trance: the harness bells.  He realizes he has “miles to go” before he sleeps– and in this case, the “sleep” is the permanent kind. At the end of the poem, he is leaning toward life; he’s choosing the “miles” before the “sleep.”  For the moment, at least.

Now, keep all that in mind as you consider the one-sentence poem “Dust of Snow”…

The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued.

Pretty simple: a bird in a tree shakes snow down on some unsuspecting dude. But naturally it’s a “more than meets the eye” thing. (Who would have guessed, right?)  

The first stanza paints a pretty grim picture: crows always have bad connotations, as does hemlock.  (Socrates, for example, was executed via a cup of poison hemlock.)  And let’s face it: getting snow knocked down on you is rarely thrilling..  

But these three negatives somehow add up to a positive in the second stanza. The “dust of snow” is akin to a baptism; it cleanses him.  We don’t know what was going on before, what he regretted or “rued,” but for some reason, this event ironically gave him a “change of mood.”

And that, right there, is what links the two poems.  Both poems have to do with a small, seemingly insignificant event that triggers a serendipitous “change of mood.”  So, in “Dust of Snow,” this brief cascade of snow “saved” his day.  And in “Stopping by Woods,” the horse shaking his harness bells may have actually “saved” the narrator’s life, in that it broke him out of his depressive spell. 

If you think about, small things do have the power to change our moods.  One day, you might be feeling great, until a parking ticket brings you down. Or you may be bummed out, and then a co-worker says something that strikes you funny, or you hear a song on the radio that speaks to you. or maybe someone offers you a Twizzler– and that simple event turns things around. 

Only I’m not sure the “Stopping by Woods” guy is completely turned around. :Yes, he’s turning away from the dark woods in the final stanza… but I don’t really get the sense he’s giddy about it. The woods are still “lovely” to him, after all.  And then there’s the final “miles to go before I sleep” business.  I never understood why Frost repeats himself, but I wonder if the repetition could suggest a sense of resignation, a sense of “oh, well.”   After all, the “promises to keep” haven’t gone away; he still has to face them.

So, yes, with the help of the folks who shows up for the poetry reading, I gained some new insights about these two poems.  But perhaps more importantly I learned/ re-learned a few other things as well…

1. Just because you think you know something doesn’t mean you shouldn’t give it another look.“(And I do know that I am paraphrasing John Keating from Dead Poets Society:  “Just when you think you know something, you have to look at in another way.”)
2. Juxtaposing two texts often helps to illuminate both.
3. Art is meant to be shared. Something great usually happens when you interesting and interested people start sharing ideas.

Now I’m going to warp this up, as I have “miles to go before I sleep” as well. (Actually, I’m just going to watch re-runs of The Office with my family.  Don’t suppose there’s a Frost poem about that…)

Field of Dreams/ Catcher in the Rye Connections– Revisted

Author’s Note: six years ago now, I posted an article on my old site (teachertrenches.blogspot.com) about the connections between the film Field of Dreams and the J. D. Salinger novel Catcher in the Rye.  And since the movie came out twenty-five years ago this summer, I thought I would re-post it.  Hey, who’s not a fan of re-cycling, right?

By the way, my wife Sheri now has a sister blog, Hearing God’s Whisper.  She just started it, but she already has some really great content. I’m really proud of her. You can access it here.   

Finally, just today, I have a piece running on an awesome site called LikeTotally80s. The article celebrates the song “The End of the Innocence,” which– like Field of Dreams– came out in the summer 1989.   You can check out the piece here. 

* Whew *… OK, enjoy…

* * * * * * * * * * * * * 

So what does Field of Dreams, a 1989 film about spectral baseball players in an Iowa cornfield have to do with The Catcher in the Rye, a classic novel about a depressed 1950s teenager wandering through New York? I’m glad you asked!

First off, the most obvious connection: for the three of you out there in Internet-land who may not know this,…

• Field of Dreams, the film, is based on the novel Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella.
• In the film Field of Dreams, Ray Kinsella goes to Boston to find a reclusive novelist named Terrence Mann.
• In the novel Shoeless Joe, Ray Kinsella goes to New Hampshire to find a reclusive novelist named J. D. Salinger.

That’s right: Terrence Mann is loosely-based on J. D. Salinger. And I say “loosely-based,” because Salinger is not a large, black man with a voice that sounds suspiciously like Mufasa. But like Terrence Mann, both the real-life J. D. Salinger and the character J. D. Salinger from the novel Shoeless Joe are hermits who stopped writing (or at least, stopped publishing their writing) at the peaks of their careers.

Incidentally, you really can’t teach Catcher without talking about Salinger’s biography; over the years, it seems more people are more interested in what Salinger hasn’t written in the past forty years than anything he’s ever has actually written. (You can find out more on Salinger’s perculiar reclusiveness in the documentary, J. D. Salinger Does Not Want to Talk.) And the Terrence Mann character provides a way to segue into Salinger’s infamous reclusiveness.

Beyond the Mann-Salinger connection, the film shares some thematic connections withCatcher. You can find the real biggie in Terrence Mann’s famous climactic speech. (Come on: You know the words– say it along with us!)

“People will come, Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway, not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it: for it is money they have and peace they lack. And they’ll walk out to the bleachers; sit in shirtsleeves on a perfect afternoon. They’ll find they have reserved seats somewhere along one of the baselines, where they sat when they were children and cheered their heroes. And they’ll watch the game and it’ll be as if they dipped themselves in magic waters. The memories will be so thick they’ll have to brush them away from their faces.

People will come, Ray. The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been baseball. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But baseball has marked the time. This field, this game: it’s a part of our past, Ray. It reminds of us of all that once was good and it could be again. Oh… people will come Ray. People will most definitely come.”

The whole speech, and especially the parts I italicized, is about the biggest dream of them all: regaining childhood innocence. And Ray’s field makes that impossibility possible. That’s why those thousands of cars show up at the end: to get back to a time when there were no mortgages, no gambling scandals, no fallen heroes. That’s childhood, essentially.

Holden desperately wants a place like Ray’s field. He wants to be the “catcher in the rye,” the guardian who keeps kids from losing their innocence, from falling from grace. He knows it can’t happen in real life, but he wants it anyway. (Of course, a place like Ray’s field can happen in the movies– an artform which Holden claims to hate. If Holden actually saw Field of Dreams, he’d probably dismiss it as being “corny” or “phony.” Or at least, he’d say those things, but who knows what he’d really feel deep down? )

Holden’s desire to be a “catcher in the rye” relates to his fundamental fear of change. This seems odd to say, since he has been to four different high schools, but Holden can’t deal with change and flux. This relates to one of the most important and most overlooked symbol in the book, for my money– just as significant as the “catcher in the rye” symbol: the “big glass cases,” which Holden talks about at the end of Chapter 16.

Holden marvels at how the “big glass cases” you find at museums preserve things: they keep objects and moments frozen in time. “Certain things they should stay the way they are,” Holden says. “You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone.”

Holden could probably really use a place like Ray’s ballfield, a place where time stands still, where the flux of life is held in stasis. Basically, the Iowa ballfield is the equivalent of Holden’s “big glass case.”

Of course, if Holden heard a voice telling him to build a baseball field, he would never do it. For one thing, building the field takes work; Holden won’t even pick up the phone to call Jane Gallagher. In addition, Holden, despite all his posturing, is too concerned with what everyone else thinks about him. (Remember, in the movie, all the locals think Ray Kinsella’s crazy, the “biggest horse’s ass in three counties.”)

Finally, Holden is too self-absorbed to do something to help someone else. And that’s really what the building of the field was for Ray. Just like he said to Shoeless Joe near the end of the film, “I never once asked what’s in it for me.” And his selflessness allowed Ray to realize his dream of playing catch with his dad. Holden’s a lot of things, but you’d never really call him selfless.

There are other smaller connections too (Allie’s baseball mitt with the poems on it, the name “Richard Kinsella” appears in Catcher), but the connections I detailed above get to the heart of both texts. Showing the movie in conjunction with the novel highlights the themes in both texts; plus, it’s an excuse to show a timeless classic in class. And maybe, if you get “meta” with me for a moment, that timelessness can be a connection in itself.

Serendipity time: this past weekend, I was watching the Red Sox-Orioles game, and Kevin Costner was in the booth with Don Orsillo and Jerry Remy. (Some of Field of Dreams, remember, was shot at Fenway.) And Costner was saying that, while making millions at the box office is nice, he’s more interested in making movies that stand tghe test of time. (I’m paraphrasing, but that was the general gist of it.)

Well, he may not have passed the “test of time” with Dragonfly, but he definitely did with Field of Dreams. The film has aged well– so well, in fact, that it doesn’t age. And in that sense, the film Field of Dreams is like the “field of dreams” it showcases. Maybe Holden’s idea of the “big glass case” is not so impossible after all.

Thoughtjogger, Vol 1: Soundtrack of a Jog

So, last week, I went out for a short jog, and I had an idea. (Yeah, I had the idea a week ago… it just took a while for me to write the darn thing…) Anyway, the idea was this: why not write a blog entry on the songs randomly playing on my iPod during my run? Hey, it’s just as inane as 91% of all the other stuff on the Web, right? So, in a very much particular order:

“Runaway,” Bon Jovi: Even though this song is their first hit (in fact, it essentially pre-dates the band, in that Bon Jovi the guy was performing it before he assembled Bon Jovi the band), I just figured out the lyrics recently– as in, like, today.

To me, the song was always about a girl who turned to prostitution because her daddy never showed her love when she was a kid. The lyric at the beginning about the gaudily made-up women lays the groundwork for this interpretation, and the “Now she works the night away” line at the end cliches it.  But then there’s that part in the second verse, that begins “Now you sit home alone ’cause there’s nothing left for you to do.”  What’s that all about?

Then I realized I was falling victim to that ol’ poetic pitfall: ambiguous pronouns.  See, the song makes reference to a “you,” only sometimes the “you” is the girl, and sometimes, the “you” is the dad.  So in the second verse, the “you” is the dad sitting home, looking at pictures of his daughter, beating himself up for not being there for her when she was younger and thus sending her down this path of self-destruction. So, really, this song is about the importance of paternal love in shaping a child’s fate.

And thus, I have spent more time thinking about this song than perhaps anyone else in the world (with the possible exception of Bon Jovi himself).

“You Give Love a Bad Name,” Bon Jovi: Hey, whaddaya know?  Two Bon Jovi songs in a row, even though I had the iPod on shuffle!  What are the odds?  (Actually, I guess I could figure out the odds quite easily: 529 songs on the iPod, 10 of which are Bon Jovi. Of course, the same song is not going to play twice in a row, so that means… Ahh, screw it.  I lost interest.)

When I was out running, I almost skipped this one, not only because it came on the heels of another JBJ song, but because, after nearly twenty-eight years, I have perhaps grown a little weary of it. Heck, after twenty-eight years, even Bon Jovi himself is probably sick of it.

This got me thinking: Is “You Give Love a Bad Name” Bon Jovi’s “signature song”?  I mean, it’s one of his signature songs… but is it THE signature song? I’d probably give the honors to “Livin’ on a Prayer”… but it’s close. (And where does “Wanted Dead or Alive” fit in?  Is it a dark horse?)

“Doctor My Eyes,” Jackson Browne:  Juxtaposin’ Jackson gives us a great contrast here, with the upbeat piano coupled with sort of depressing lyrics.  And apparently, the first incarnation of the song was even grimmer. The central metaphor of the song has always been the same: a guy goes to see a doctor because he believes he’s having problems with his eyes– particularly, his tear ducts don’t seem to be working.  But the doctor can’t help him because the guy’s problem is not physical but metaphysical: the guy has soured on everything he’s seen in life and has “learned how not to cry.”

At the urging of some record company folks, Jackson removed some of the more pessimistic lyrics (e.g. a reference to an “Angel of Darkness”), sped up the piano, and added bongos. The result is Jackson Browne’s first big hit and a surprisingly great running song– yes, even better than “Running on Empty.”

“Bad,” U2: Another surprisingly great running song– and I say “surprising,” because it’s allegedly about heroin abuse. Even though never released as a single, this is the song that made U2 the Best! Band! in the World! back in 1985, thanks to Bono’s antics at Live Aid.  If you haven’t seen the Live Aid performance, check it out, especially the part where Bono jumps into the crowd and embraces two female fans, after the security plucks them out of the packed-like-sardines crowd.

The name “Bad” is actually fitting, since the Live Aid performance has a “Bad” news/ “Good” news thing going on:

“Bad” News:  the crowd interaction (plus some snippets from Lou Reed and the Rolling Stones, which Bono threw in) stretched “Bad” out to twelve minutes, which meant they didn’t have time for their third song (“Pride”).  As a result, the band was initially disappointed with their set; in a 1987 interview, guitarist Edge admitted, “We came offstage after Live Aid, and we thought we had really blown it.”

“Good” News: fans really appreciated Bono’s spontaneous persistence in getting to those fans, the song sounded great, and the whole thing put U2 on the mainstream map.

“Boy in the Bubble,” Paul Simon:  Not necessarily a great running song (with that funky, South African piano accordion), but a fascinating song nonetheless.   To me, the song is about advances in technology, both good and bad:  the “boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart” (good) juxtaposed with the “lasers in the jungle somewhere” (bad).  Allegedly, Paul Simon once said the song is about “hope and dread… but coming down on the side of hope,” and I guess the repetition of “these are the days of miracle and wonder” in the chorus underscores that sense of hope. (For a way more advanced analysis of this and apparently every other Paul Simon song, click here.)

By the way, is  “boy in the bubble and the baby with the baboon heart” just about the best alliteration in pop music? At the very least, it’s tied with Warren Zevon’s “little old lady got mutilated late last night” from “Werewolves of London”…

“Here’s Where the Story Ends,” The Sundays: And here is where the run ends, as it turns out. Great song, and I love the poetry of the line “a little souvenir of a terrible year.”  As for the rest of the lyrics?  In truth, I couldn’t understand all of them; even when I went back and finally read the lyrics, I didn’t understand them. (Who knew she was talking about a “shed” in the chorus?  What happened there?)  But I love the sound nonetheless, and I always thought it should have been more popular.

And there it is– the musical score for that day’s run.  I’ve heard some folks say that they don’t like to listen to music as they jog, but personally, I don’t know how you could run without music.  A good song can get your feet moving as well as your mind– and even give you the material for a blog post.

The “Promposal” Phenomenon

“So, you’re saying skywriting’s out, then?”

“I’d say so.”

Scotty knew whom he wanted to ask to the junior prom: Jill, from AP Biology.  He just didn’t know how to ask her.  And as any sixteen-year-old Romeo-in-training can attest, the “how” is infinitely more important than the “whom.”

His peers—guys not just at school but across America, for the past five or six years—have set the bar almost impossibly high as far as promposals are concerned.  You have the Showstoppers, who make the whole school their stage, by asking their potential dates over the intercom or at an assembly.  Or the It-Takes-a-Villagers, who enlist the aid of friends, teachers, principals, even custodians in their quest for a dance partner.   (Example: teacher hands out a pop quiz, except one girl gets a special quiz with a single question: “Will you go to the prom with Joe?”)

And let’s not forget the Spellers, who inscribe “P-R-O-M?” on every imaginable surface:  on ceilings, in glow-in-the-dark stars; on car windshields, with a thousand sticky-notes; and, of course, on food items—donuts, cupcakes, and pizza (delivered to the date’s front door by an unsuspecting pizza-guy).

Scotty didn’t know how he could possibly top these Promposal Wizards.  He only knew that his attempt had to pass the C.U.B. Test: it had to be Creative, Unique, and Bold.

“Here’s a thought,” Scotty’s mother said one afternoon. “Why not just ask her—you know, with words?”

“Are you kidding?” Scotty scoffed. “No one does that anymore.”

“I don’t know. It seems like it’s all getting a little out of control…”

A little? Scotty thought to himself.  A little out of control?  It’s  ridiculously, outrageously, obscenely out of control.  All of it. He knew senior girls who spent over $700 on their proms.  If everything else about the night is over-the-top, why should the asking be any different?

“Maybe you should try something simple,” Mom continued. “Buy a single rose, go to where she works, and just ask her. Girls love that kind of stuff.”

“No, it has to be a Grand Gesture,” Scotty said. “Remember the three criteria: Creative, Unique, and Bold.”

“Wow. You’ve given this a lot of thought.  I didn’t think guys even cared about proms.”

“We don’t,” Scotty assured her. “But when one guy comes up with a clever idea, we all have to scramble to think of something better.”

“So, all this madness is the result of an over-developed, hyper-masculine sense of competition then?”

“Well, that… but it’s also about hedging our bets,” Scotty explained.  “It’s harder for a girl to turn you down when you make such a public display of the whole thing.”

“Or you can look at it another way,” Mom countered.  “You’re afraid that she might say no, so you want to make the whole asking process as impersonal as possible.”

Scotty considered what she said for a moment.  But only a moment. “This is how it’s done now, Mom,” he insisted. “So you want to help me or not?”

His mother shook her head.  “I just wonder what you guys plan on doing when you get older, and you want to ask someone to marry you.  If you’re going to such lengths for prom, what will you do for an actual marriage proposal?  Pay NASA to write ‘Marry Me?’ on the moon?”

“Now you’re being absurd. Focus.  I’ll throw some ideas out, and you tell me what you think. How about I’ll make an elaborate YouTube video, involving all of her friends and family, like that guy did to the Bruno Mars song a few years ago?”

“Sounds like a lot of work.”

“How organizing a flash mob?”

“Even more work.”

“How about a Flamingo Flocking kind of thing, where I go to her house in the middle of the night and spell out the word ‘PROM’ in pink flamingos on her front lawn?”

“Too… weird.”

“How about I buy her a kitten, and I attach a fake prom ticket to its collar?  And then afterwards she gets to keep the kitten!”

“No, no, no!  Scotty, you can’t involve a living creature in your crazy scheme– especially since the odds are pretty good you might not ever talk to this girl again after this one night!”

Scotty gave up. His mother clearly didn’t understand. But her words must have seeped through because later that night, Scotty thought of a brilliant promposal.

Was it Creative?  Well, not necessarily.  But it was definitely Unique, something no one at school would even consider.  And was it ever Bold.  In fact, it might be the boldest thing he had ever done.

The next morning, he was going to walk over to Jill while she was at her locker and say, “Would you like to go to the prom with me?”  In a million years, she’d never expect it.

He toyed around with his mom’s idea of buying her a single rose.  But then he thought, “Naahh.”  Just seemed too much.

Note from Mark:  Please keep the family and friends of Maren Sanchez– the young woman from Milford, CT who was fatally stabbed on  the day of her prom just over a week ago.   

Ultimate Ending

“Well, Vince asked me a couple years ago (to go into the WWE Hall of Fame)… and I said no.  I said they had to tell the right story. So we negotiated for two years to get to the place where I knew they’re going to tell the right story.”

Ultimate Warrior (during an exclusive interview on WWE.com, posted April 5, 2014)

For almost two decades, Ultimate Warrior’s story was one without an ending.  It had colorful, larger-than-life characters. It had stirring (albeit somewhat indecipherable) speeches.  Most of all, it had conflict– and not just the “between the ropes” kinds of conflicts, but the “multiple-terminations/ protracted lawsuits/disparaging DVDs” kinds of conflicts.   Yes, The Ultimate Warrior’s story had it all… just not an ending.

And honestly, it didn’t seem an ultimate ending was coming anytime soon, at least as far as Warrior’s relationship with World Wrestling Entertainment, the company that made him a star, was concerned.  There was just too much bad blood between the two.

And just how bad was the blood? Well, in 2005, the WWE released a DVD entitled The Self-Destruction of the Ultimate Warrior, which alleged (among other things) that Warrior (a) couldn’t wrestle and was reckless with his opponents; (b) refused to go out for his SummerSlam 1991 match unless he got a raise; and (c) was a stand-offish jerk that none of the other wrestlers could stand.

Now, I admit: I bought the DVD and found it entertaining.  But I also acknowledge it was completely one-sided and pretty mean-spirited.  At the very least, it didn’t help mend any fences between Warrior and his former employer.

Then, several months ago, came the announcement wrestling fans thought they’d never hear: the Ultimate Warrior was being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.  Upon hearing the news, all members of the WWE Universe seemingly had the same reactions: (1) How cool is that? and (2) What is his acceptance speech going to be like?

Will he give a signature “speaking-in-tongues” promo, complete with a lot of snorts and bizarre imagery? Will he go off on an ultra-conservative political rant (as he was known to do in his “real” life)?  Will he tee off on everyone involved in the Self-Destruction DVD?  WWE promised they were going to give Warrior a live mic, so it was anyone’s guess.

As it turns out, on the night of the Hall of Fame, Warrior didn’t do any of those things.  Yeah, he addressed the DVD, said that it angered him and made him sad (without ever really conceding that he may have played a part in the contentious relationship he had with WWE).  But mostly he remained upbeat: he congratulated superstar John Cena for all the work he does with the Make-A-Wish Foundation; he suggested that the WWE use the Hall of Fame to honor not only the superstars on camera but the unsung heroes who work behind the scenes; he said he was excited to serve as an “ambassador” for the WWE; and most of all, he expressed his love for his wife and two daughters. (“The most awesome thing I will ever do,” he told his daughters from the podium, “is be your father.”)

That was Saturday night, April 5th.  On Sunday night, April 6th, Warrior made an appearance at WrestleMania XXX, in front of 75,000 fans in the New Orleans Superdome chanting his name.  And on Monday night, April 7th, for the first time in eighteen years, Warrior appeared on Monday Night Raw and delivered an old-school Ultimate Warrior promo– complete with rope-shaking.

And on Tuesday, April 7th, while walking to his car with his wife, Warrior died of a massive heart attack.

This isn’t the first time wrestling fans had to hear that one of their favorites dropped dead.  (Warrior was 54, which sadly is a little on the old side as far as wrestling deaths are concerned.)  But Warrior’s death is unusual for two main reasons.

First, his death comes right on the heels of his homecoming.  Many wrestlers have been on the outs with the WWE at the time of their death.  But Warrior came back– to the company, to the fans, to the limelight.  That makes a big difference.  Compare the attention Warrior’s death is getting to the meager testimonies given to Randy “Macho Man” Savage, who died back in May 2011 (also of a heart attack).  Back in the 80s and early 90s, Savage had been just as big a star as the Warrior (if not a bigger star), but when he died, he had been gone from the WWE for seventeen years.  Warrior came back, if for only a few days.  But he came back.

The second thing that makes Warrior’s death so unusual  is that we essentially got to hear his “last words”– not his actual last words, of course, but his character’s last words.  And man, are those words bizarrely fitting. Here’s what he said in his eerily prescient final promo on Raw, April 7th:

 No WWE talent becomes a legend on their own. Every man’s heart one day beats its final beat. His lungs breathe a final breath. And if what that man did in his life makes the blood pulse through the body of others, and makes them believe deeper in something larger than life, then his essence, his spirit, will be immortalized– by the storytellers, by the loyalty, by the memory of those who honor him and make the running the man did live forever.

You, you, you, you, you, you are the legend-makers of Ultimate Warrior. In the back, I see many potential legends, some of them with warrior spirits. And you will do the same for them. You will decide if they lived with the passion and intensity. So much so that you will tell your stories and you will make them legends, as well. I am Ultimate Warrior. You are the Ultimate Warrior fans. And the spirit of Ultimate Warrior will run forever!

When I think about that speech, that de facto eulogy, I keep returning to that line from Twelfth Night: “If this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn in as an improbable fiction.” (Yep, I just quoted Shakespeare in an  Ultimate Warrior tribute.)  Truly, if this happened in a movie– the prodigal son returning home and then suddenly dying, not twenty-four hours after delivering a speech about beating hearts and eternal spirits– I’d dismiss it as hopelessly corny. But it actually happened.  In real life.

In terms of years, Ultimate Warrior’s career in the WWE was relatively short.  But he definitely made an impact.  You can say the same thing about his death.  It’s sort of like a pay-per-view event:  if your last match is memorable, you can sort of forgive some of the less impressive stuff on the undercard.  You need that great ending. And Warrior got that.  It’s a tragic ending, certainly, but it’s a great one.

In an online interview that aired just three days before his death, Warrior said he wanted to make sure that the WWE told the right “story” as far as the Ultimate Warrior’s character is concerned. As it turns out, they didn’t need to.  The Ultimate Warrior’s story– complete with its ultimate ending– tells itself.

 

 

 

The Second Annual St. Patrick’s Day Literary Quiz

It’s time, once again, to GO GREEN or Go Home.  It’s our 2nd annual, 17-question St. Patrick Literary Quiz. (To see last year’s quiz, click here.)  All questions have to do with Irish stuff– Irish writers, Irish-American writers, Irish characters, or even just random Irish literary references.  Answers follow. We wish you all the luck o’ the Irish!

1. For James Joyce aficionados, what is the significance of June 16,1904?

a. the birthday of Joyce’s daughter Lucia
b. the day Ulysses is set
c. the day that Michael Furey (from “The Dead”) died after waiting in the rain outside Gretta’s window

2. In the Harry Potter series, what is the name of the Irish-born Gryffindor student and best friend of Dean Thomas?

a. Bartemius Crouch Jr.
b. Colin Creevey
c. Seamus Finnigan

3.  In The Secret of Roan Inish (based on the the book The Secret of Ron Mor Skerry, by Rosalie K. Fry) is inspired by Irish legend of skin-shedding seals who become human. What are these seals called?

a. corkles
b. cormorants
c. selkies

4. What is the full name of Oscar Wilde?

a.  Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde
b.  Oscar Felix O’Connor Wilde
c.  Oscar Sullivan McConville Stuart Wilde

5. In Yeats’ poem “The Wild Swans at Coole,” how many swans does the narrator see during his earlier visit to Coole Park?

a.  46
b.  59
c.  99

6. Irish author Eoin Colfer is best known for penning which book series?

a. Artemis Fowl
b. Warriors
c. Cirque du Freak

7. In Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, the Lilliputians are at war with a race of people over how to open eggs.  The Lilliputians prefer to open the little end.  Which race of people are also known as “Big-Enders”?

a.  Brobdignagians
b.  Blefescudians
c.  Laputans

8.  Why get off the topic of Gulliver so swiftly?  (Pun, pun…)  What is the name of the race of intelligent horses in the last part of GT?

a.  Houyhnhnms
b. Struyldbrugs
c. Yahoos

9. Which of the following is the name of a Marian Keyes novel?

a. Mango
b. Strawberry
c. Watermelon

10. Seamus Heaney died last year, on August 30, 2013. According to his son Michael, minutes before he died, he sent his last words to his wife via text message.  The message?  The Latin words “Noli timere.”  What does that mean in English?

a. “It’s time.”
b. “Don’t be afraid.”
c. “This is not the end.”

11. Which Irish-born author wrote The Country Girls Trilogy?

a. Edna O’Brien
b. Maeve Binchy
c. Emily Lawless

12. How does the ending to George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion differ from that of the musical/ film My Fair Lady?

a. Pygmalion: Professor Henry Higgins gets into a boating accident and dies; My Fair Lady, he survives the accident.
b. Pygmalion: Eliza Doolittle rejects Higgins; My Fair Lady: Higgins realizes he misses her, and she comes back to him.
c. Pygmalion: Eliza married Colonel Pickering; My Fair Lady: Eliza marries Freddy Eynsford-Hill

13.  In his song “Rave On,” Van Morrison alludes to which of the following poets?

a. John Donne
b. Walt Whitman
c. William Butler Yeats
d. All of the above

14. Which Irish-born mutant superhero had a brief tenure with the X-Men?

a. Banshee
b. Gambit
c. Havoc

15. In Oscar Wilde’s novel, who is the painter of the titular picture of Dorian Gray?

a. Alan Campbell
b. Lord Henry Wolton
c. Basil Hallward

16.  In Hamlet, which character swears “by Saint Patrick”?

a. Ophelia
b. Hamlet
c. Polonius

17. Complete this James Joyce quotation: “The demand I make of my reader is that he should devote ______________ to reading my books.”

a. “one hour a day”
b. “three days a week”
c. “his whole life”

Answers:

1.  b. the day Ulysses is set
2. c. Seamus Finnigan
3. c. selkies
4. a.  Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde
5. b. 59
6. a. Artemis Fowl
7. b.  Blefescudians
8. a.  Houyhnhnms
9. c. Watermelon
10. b. Don’t be afraid
11. a. Edna O’Brien
12. b. In My Fair Lady, Eliza returns to Higgins, but in Shaw’s original version, she leaves him
13. d. All of the above
14. a. Banshee
15. c. Basil Hallward
16. b. Hamlet (Act I, sc. 5, while talking to Horatio)
17. c. “his whole life”

How’d You Do?

15-17 Correct: Pot o’ Gold!

11-14 Correct: Shamrock-star!

6-10 Correct: Lucky Guesser

2-5 Correct: Green around the Gills

0-1 Correct: Potato Famine

Everything Is Awesome… And Everything Lego Is Awesomely Imaginative!

Note from Mark: The Oscars are this Sunday, and I probably won’t be watching– solely because I haven’t seen any of the movies up for any of the major awards.  But in honor of the Oscars, I thought I would re-post an article related to a movie I did see– The Lego Movie (still #1 at the box office, by my last count).

This piece, whcih originally appeared in an online newspaper called The Faster Times way back in August 2011, is about the  “new” way of playing with Lego’s.  And what is the new way?  Basically, it involves following the instructions, building something cool… and never taking it apart again.

This bothered me on two levels. As a former Lego aficionado myself, this “one and done” seemed completely foreign and not particularly fun.  And as a parent, it seemed a huge waste of money.

Apparently, I am not the only one who wonders about this.  When I recently saw The Lego Movie with my son, I was intrigued to see that the filmmakers brilliantly worked the “following the instructions vs. following your imagination” debate INTO the film.    

Anyway, here’s the original post, from August 2011…

My 11-year-old son and I had reached an ideological impasse. Naturally, it involved Legos.

From the moment he wrapped his tiny, toddler fingers around a big red Duplo, Charlie has had a love affair with Legos—one that my wife and I wholeheartedly endorsed. Granted, i

t’s not the cheapest hobby out there. (I’m looking at you, $1800Ultimate Collector’s Millennium Falcon!) Nor is it the neatest; thanks to the crunch-coating of little bricks scattered all over the place, I haven’t seen our playroom carpet for seven years. But we can overlook the downsides of Lego-collecting, because the mini-figures are cute, and because playing with Legos fires the imagination and sparks creativity.

I mean… they do, right? At least, they did back in the 1970s, when I was first introduced to the infectious little bricks. Oh, sure, the Lego-folks would provide simple instructions, and I’d follow them—once. But I always found more satisfaction in creating something on my own—a boxy spaceship, say, or an asymmetrical, multicolored house. I didn’t always have the exact

right piece I needed, but I improvised. And finally, after hours of painstaking, hunched-over work, I beheld my completed masterpiece… for about three minutes, at which point I took the thing apart and started building something else.

My son Charlie, however, takes a different approach.

Charlie, you see, was born into the age of “sets”—pre-fab collections such as Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Atlantis, Power Miners, Ninjago. Of course, growing up, I had sets, too, but they were nowhere near as intricate and sophisticated as these bad boys. In fact, the vehicles and buildings contained in these modern sets are almost too intricate and sophisticated—to the point that you don’t want to take them apart. Ever.

And even if Charlie did feel inspired to take apart one of his creations, he may find himself faced with a curious problem: some of the pieces required to make the original contraption are so specific, so particular to that set, he may have trouble using them for anything else.

So, yes, Lego sets have evolved, but you have to wonder: have they evolved to the point where they actually discourage the imagination and creativity that they’re supposed to instill?

Basically, it comes down to a battle of wills: on one side, you have me, a product of the generation that believes that Lego creations aren’t meant to be models or monoliths, that the new sets tend to straitjacket creativity, and that building something once seems like an incredible waste of money. Then, across the divide, you have my son Charlie, who puts his sets together with an engineer’s precision, who has plenty of imagination, thank you very much, and who considers deliberately dismantling something you labored for hours on a waste of time. Besides, why would you take apart something as freakin’ cool as the Ninjago “Garmadon’s Dark Fortress”?

Hence, the ideological impasse.

And this isn’t just me being a crank—or if it is, at least I have some company. A September 5, 2009 New York Times article quotes child psychologist who has my back on this issue: “When you have a less structured, less themed set, kids have the ability to start from scratch,” says Dr. Jonathan Sinowitz. “When you have kids playing out Indiana Jones, they’re playing o

ut Hollywood’s imagination, not their own.”

And a gentleman known only as Seth who writes for the site MoxieBird puts it this way: “When you buy your kid a Lego set today, you’re buying 300 pieces that have no magic inside. They’re created to be used in very specific, singular ways. And by the time your kid is finished building with them, it’ll be attributed to his or her ability to follow instructions really, really well.”

Flanked by these experts and utterly convinced of my self-righteousness, I decided to give my son a patented “when-I-was-a-lad” lecture about the proper way to play with Legos. Before I did, though, I thought I’d look at things from Charlie’s point of view. And I mean, literally: I crouched down and really examined one of his newer sets, the “Portal of Atlantis.”

I survey the black-and-maroon temple, home to the evil, trident-wielding Portal Emperor and his Squid-Warrior goons, finally fixing my eyes on the ominous shark façade in the center.

I tug on the shark’s head as its jaws yawn open to reveal a set of stairs leading to the Portal, a circular doorway with eight crystal fangs that can only be unlocked by the turn of a special key, one of five keys spread throughout the ocean. Once opened, the intrepid divers can finally gain access to the mythical kingdom for which they’ve long been searching: the lost city of Atlantis.

And as I toured through this rich, textured world (and read up on the back-story provided by Lego.com), a realization washed over me: what a neat place to play.

See, I don’t really remember “playing” a lot with Legos as a kid. The creating was the playing. Not only that, but our end products weren’t necessarily worth playing with. Look at the sets available thirty years ago. A house. A police station. The occasional fire boat. And another house. Quaint and all, sure… but honestly, how far can you go with those?

On the other hand, this new generation of Lego enthusiasts actually plays with their

creations. Just the other day, for example, I overheard Charlie playing with his Lego Slave 1, the infinitely cool spaceship piloted by Boba Fett. When I asked him what he was doing, he explained, “Well, Bossk hijacked the Slave 1, so Boba Fett had to get into a police car to get him.”

The fact is, they do play, these kids. They do play with their Legos. It may be a different kind of play than I’m used to, but who am I to say it’s not

“play”? Who made me the Emperor of the Imagination Portal?

So have I softened on my “Legos Kill Creativity” stance? I was suspecting I might be, but then something happened recently that confirmed it. I was trying to unearth something in our perennially cluttered playroom, when I saw my son’s Slave 1 on the floor. The inner geek in me came to the surface (it didn’t have far to travel), and I picked up the hallowed vehicle to marvel at it. Naturally, in the process of handling it, part of the front hull crumbled apart.

Now, I could have left it partially disassembled, in the hopes that it would force Charlie into building something new, something different. But I didn’t. In truth, it didn’t even occur to me. Instead, I immediately and instinctively picked up the fallen pieces and delicately put the ship back together. After all, this is the Slave 1, for crying out loud: How could I let it fall into disrepair? Besides, Charlie may have some unfinished playing to do.

“Dear Sir or Madam, Will You Read My Blog?” Five Beatles Songs That Tell Stories

“Dear Sir or Madam, will you read my blog?/ It took me days to write, will you feed my dog?”  —“Paperback Writer,” the Beatles (slightly paraphrased)

The recent hullabaloo about the Beatles’ 50th anniversary got me thinking: “How about a blog post about the Beatles songs which tell stories?”

It seemed like a great idea– and by “great,” I mean “easy to write.”  Not so, as it turns out.  The Fab Four don’t have as many “story-songs” as one might think.

Before I even started digging through their extensive discography, I determined that, in order to qualify as a “story,” a song needed to have three elements: characters, plot, and conflict.  (Obviously, other factors go into a story, but I settled on those three.)  With those criteria in mind, I was able to eliminate a whole bunch of songs. For example:

• Songs That Don’t Have a Conflict: the happy love songs (“Love Me Do,” I Want to Hold Your Hand,” etc.); the “kiddie” songs (“Yellow Submarine,” “Octopus’ Garden”); the “life lesson” songs (“Let It Be,” “We Can Work It Out,” “Here Comes the Sun”)
• Songs That Only Have Conflict: “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer,” “Help!”
• Songs That May Have Characters, Conflict, and Plot, But They Just Don’t Have Enough Information To Qualify as a “Story”: break-up songs (“Yesterday,” “You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away,” etc.)
• Songs That Are More Nostalgic Musings Than Stories: “Penny Lane,””Strawberry Fields Forever”
• Songs That Are More Poems Than Stories: “In My Life,” “Blackbird”
• Songs That Are More Character Sketches Than Stories: “Paperback Writer,” “Get Back,” “Lovely Rita Metermaid”
• Songs That Are Just Weird Psychedelic Trips: “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” “I Am the Walrus”
• Songs That Lack Cohesion, Since They’re Actually Two Stories Mashed Together: “A Day in the Life”
• Songs That, By John’s Own Admission, Are Just “Gobbledygook”: “Come Together”

You get the idea.  In the end, after much internal fussing and fighting, I unearthed five songs that fit my criteria of “story-songs.”  In no particular order:

“Rocky Raccoon”

• Characters: cowboy Rocky Raccoon; his ex-girlfriend, Nancy “Lil” Magill; Nancy’s new boyfriend, Dan
• Conflict: A jilted and jealous Rocky wants to shoot his romantic rival
• Plot: A good ol’ gun-slingin’ Western, the song recounts how Rocky challenges Dan to a draw. Unfortunately, Dan’s not only better with the girls, he also has a quicker trigger-finger. Dan shoots Rocky first.  Rocky ends the song back in his room being treated by a seemingly less-than-competent doctor. (The doc is “stinking of gin.”)
• Fun Fact: McCartney originally called the main character “Rocky Sassoon.”
• My Take: Unlike many of the Beatles’ story-songs, this one is pretty straight-forward and easy to understand.  Yeah, no one will rank this as a favorite, but I do like the twist that the guy out for revenge is the one who got shot.

“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”

• Characters: The narrator and his paramour du jour
• Conflict: The narrator might be struggling internally with his infidelity (See “Fun Fact”)
• Plot: An independent woman (with a job, an apartment, and clear sense of what/ who she wants) takes the narrator up to her room; they drink some wine and talk until two, and then… who knows?  After all, when she says, “It’s time for bed,” is that an invitation (“time for US to go to bed”) or a dismissal (“time for ME to go to bed”)? On the other hand, the song starts with the great line, “I once had a girl , or should I say, she once had me,” which is none too subtle.  Eventually, our narrator ends up sleeping in the bathtub. (Really?  I mean, you mentioned she didn’t have a chair, but… isn’t the tub a tad uncomfortable?)  When he awakes, she’s has left for work.
• Fun Fact: Lennon allegedly wrote this song as a confession of sorts for all the affairs he had while he was married to his wife Cynthia (the mother of Julian).
• My Take: Personally, I think it’s pretty straightforward: woman meets man; woman and man get to know each other biblically; in the morning, woman leaves for work, while man sits in front of the fireplace reflecting on the previous night’s escapades.  Some listeners, though, have a slightly different take: the girl has rebuked the narrator’s advances, and he resorts to arson as his way of getting back at her.  Yep: arson.  It all comes down to the “I lit a fire” line, which some interpret to mean he set her entire place ablaze, rather than he lit a fire, you know, in her fireplace.  An intriguing interpretation, sure, and one that’s not completely outside the realm of possibility… but I don’t buy it.  (After all, he says “I lit a fire” not “I lit the fire,” right?)

“Ticket to Ride”

• Characters: Narrator and his soon-to-be ex-girlfriend
• Conflict: The girlfriend wants to break up, but he doesn’t want to. (Unfortunately, he doesn’t have much say in the matter.)
• Plot: The girlfriend wants to end things, not necessarily because the narrator did anything wrong, but because she doesn’t want to be tied down to anyone. (“She could never be free while I was around,” he explains.)  The narrator’s bummed out, but he’s also mad that she’s NOT bummed out.  (“I don’t know why she’s riding so high…” he fumes).  The song ends without saying for sure what happens with these two; still, the fact that she has a ticket to move somewhere else can’t be a good sign.
• Fun Fact: Apparently, McCartney said the title is a pun: she has a ticket to a British seaside town named Ryde. Meanwhile, Lennon says the song is about prostitutes in Hamburg, Germany.  So take your pick.
• My Take: Music has given us plenty of break-up songs, but “Ticket to Ride” is unique in that it’s a pre-break-up song.  Our narrator has not yet been dumped, but he’s pretty sure it’s imminent– maybe even “today.”  Anyone who’s been in that situation knows that feeling.

“Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da (Life Goes On)”

• Characters: Desmond, Molly, their kids
• Conflict: Uh… gee… not sure there is one… things seem pretty swell for the Jones family, actually… sure, maybe Molly gets a little resentful sometimes that she’s out slaving away in the band while Desmond stays home putting on his pretty face, but other than that…
• Plot: Desmond Jones, who has a cart in a marketplace, meets Molly, a singer in a band.  He proposes (with a twenty carat ring that seems considerably out of his price range); they marry, buy a house, and have a couple of kids.
• Fun Fact: McCartney borrowed/ stole the chorus from his Jamaican friend Jimmy Scott, who used to say “Ob-la-di, ob-la-da, life goes on.”
• My Take:  The lack of a conflict almost made me cut this from the list.  The song might be too “happy ever after”… which is weird, because isn’t “life goes on” a platitude you’d say after something unfortunate happens?  What does Desmond and Molly’s life have to go on from, exactly?  Come on, Paul: get some tension in there!  Maybe Molly buys a ticket to Ryde and ends up having an affair with the “Norwegian Wood” guy?

“Eleanor Rigby”

• Characters: Eleanor Rigby, Father McKenzie, the narrator (who looks at all the lonely people)
• Conflict: A sort of a “man’s inhumanity to man” kind of thing going on
• Plot: In Act I, we meet Eleanor, a lonely spinster who wears a lot of cold cream to make herself appear younger.  Presumably an employee at a church, she is first seen picking up rice after a wedding; we get the sense she wasn’t at this wedding, nor at any wedding, ever– including her own. Act II introduces the equally lonely pastor, the sock-darning Father McKenzie, who is writing a sermon no one will hear.  (Why won’t they hear? Because no one comes to church?  Because no one actually listens to him? Because he won’t actually give these sermons, even though these are things he really wants to say?  All delicious possibilities.) Finally, in Act III, Eleanor has died and Father McKenizie presides over her funeral; in a Gatsby-esque sort of scene, no one else is at the funeral.
• Fun Fact: McCartney had several names for the characters, including Miss Daisy Hawkins (for Eleanor) and Farther McCartney (for Father McKenzie).
• My Take:  The best Beatles story-song– and one of the best Beatles songs, period.  The song has it all: great metaphors (“wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door” and “buried along with her name”); a great mood, thanks to the string quartet;  and great (albeit pathetic and tragic) characters.  Plus, it leaves you wondering: How did Eleanor get so lonely?  Why didn’t anyone help her? Why doesn’t the narrator help her?  (Instead of just looking at all the lonely people, Mr. Narrator, why not say ‘Hi’ to her once in a while, so she wouldn’t be so damn lonely all the time?) And most importantly: who are the Eleanor Rigbys in our own lives?

Are there other Beatles songs that tell stories?  I’m sure.  But I need some assistance sussing them out.  So, to my audience: Won’t you please, please help me? Help me? Help meeeeeee?

Super-Literature-Trivia-Bowl

Since today is the Super Bowl, and since football is the only pro-sports organization (to my knowledge)  that has a team named after a work of literature– i.e. the Baltimore Ravens, named after the Edgar Allan Poe poem– we thought we could re-post our “football in literature” quiz form last year… with a few additions. (We had fifteen questions last year, but now, we’ve added five more, plus a bonus.)

Feel free to bring these questions to whatever party you’re attending this evening and quiz your friends during one of the game’s slower moments.  And yes, we recognize it will have to be a pretty lame party if you have to resort to asking literary questions.  (I know we made that same joke last year.)

1. What American novel features a neighbor named Roberta (formerly Robert) Muldoon, a transsexual former tight end for the Philadelphia Eagles?
2. In William Faulkner’s The Hamlet, a young schoolteacher named Labove plays college football to pay for his education, even though he’s not crazy about the game.  (Labove sends home cleats to the members of his family who can’t afford shoes, which is very sweet; on the other hand, he also falls in love with an eleven-year-old girl named Eula– definitely not sweet.)  For what university does Labove play football?
3. In Death of a Salesman, what is the name of Willy Loman’s oldest son, the star football player who never graduated from high school?
4. And where was this character supposed to go to college?  (He threw into the furnace his sneakers imprinted with the name of the school.)
5. What novel takes place during World War II at the Devon School, where students invent a game named blitzball, a combination of rugby and football?
6. This young-adult novel which features a character named Darry, the captain of his high school’s football team who could have gone to college on a football scholarship; however, after the death of his parents,  he gave up on his dream to take care of his brothers, one of whom is named Ponyboy. What is this novel?
7. Who is the narrator of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, a Native American ex-football player who now pretends to be a deaf-mute?
8. Which Tennessee Williams play features a former professional football player named Brick, whose possible romantic feelings for his former teammate Skipper may be the source of his current alcoholism?
9.  What is the name of the H.G. Bissinger non-fiction book about the Permian High School football team (from Odessa, Texas), which was the basis of a movie (2004) and a TV show (2006-2011)?
10. In the 1986 novel and the 1994 film version of Forrest Gump, Forrest earns a scholarship to play football for what university?  (Big Hint: In 2002, Winston Groom– the author of the novel Forrest Gump— wrote a book about this school’s football program, entitled The Crimson Tide.)
11. I am an American author who played high school football and, during World War I, drove an ambulance in Italy for the American Red Cross.   I later drew on these experiences when I created Nick Adams, a former football player and World War I soldier, who is the protagonist of more than twenty short stories.   Who am I?
12.  “When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.  When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football again were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury.” These two sentences begin which beloved American novel?
13.  The film Stand By Me features John Cusack as Dennis, a star high school football player whose death haunts his younger brother Gordie.  On what Stephen King short story is Stand By Me based?
14. What 1999 coming-of-age young adult novel features an introverted narrator named Charlie and a closeted gay football player named Patrick?
15.  On the Road author Jack Kerouac had a scholarship to play football for an Ivy League university, but after cracking his tibia and squabbling constantly with the coach over his lack of playing time, he dropped out of college completely.  Which university was it—Brown, Columbia, or Princeton?
16. In The Great Gatsby, what is the name of Daisy’s husband, “one of the most powerful ends that ever played football” at Yale?
17. I am the sixteen-year-old male narrator of a great American novel.  My story begins as I am standing all alone on Thomsen Hill, next to a Revolutionary War cannon, as my school Pencey Prep’s football team plays Saxon Hall.  I am just about the only one not at the game—except for the kid who lives next door to me, an acne-ridden senior named Ackley.  Who am I?
18. What little-known (and rightly so) 1986 Robin Williams/ Kurt Russell film about a man who wants to replay an ill-fated football from high school takes its title from the first line of a Dickens novel?  (The question is asking for the name of the movie.)
19. Which Pulitzer-Prize-winning author, famous for his “Rabbit” novels, has written a short story called “In Football Season”?
20.  Which Robert Cormier young adult novel opens with high school freshman named Jerry Renault throwing up after trying out for the football team?Universoi
21. BONUS:
    1. As a follow-up to Question #8, about the Tennessee Williams play:  what was the name of Brick and Skipper’s team? (Hint: it’s fictional.)

Answers

1. John Irving’s The World According to Garp
2. University of Mississippi (Ole Miss)
3. Biff Loman
4. University of Virginia
5. A Separate Peace
6. The Outsiders
7. Chief Bromden
8. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
9. Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream
10. University of Alabama
11. Ernest Hemingway
12. To Kill a Mockingbird
13. “The Body”
14. Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
15. Columbia
16. Tom Buchanan
17. Holden Caulfield
18. The Best of Times
19. John Updike
20. The Chocolate War
21. BONUS: Dixie Stars