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Now I will finally have rest, I know,
For all that used to be my soul to me
Unknowingly has followed her to go
First to the port, and then across the sea.
Now in the night, they light me candles but I feel
That out of the smoke your image flows.
And I don't want to know that time will heal,
With time all passes and all goes.
What is my soul? 'Tis but a desert there:
A pile of cobwebs and some scraps of song...
Why do you stand over my soul and stare?
For every other thing she took along.
Now in the night they light me candles but I feel
That out of the smoke your image flows.
And I don't want to know that time will heal,
With time all passes, and all goes.
My soul is but a tangle of lost ways.
Dig into it, and you will find there, well,
A couple of half-dialogues, a couple turns of phrase,
And every other thing has just gone straight to hell.
Now in the night they light me candles but I feel
That out of the smoke your image flows...
And I don't want to know that time will heal -
It does not heal, it cripples,
And with it all passes and all goes.
--- Vladimir Vissotsky, translation mine.
Compare the above translation to the one by Andrei Kneller which I read long after composing my own:
My friends light up the candles for me still,
And in the smoke, your image is outlined,
And I don't want to know that time will heal,
That everything will pass away with time.
No longer will I ever lose my verve,
For any burden on my soul and any pain,
Unknowingly, she took along with her--
At first, into the port, then on the plane.
Inside my soul there are deserted lands.
What are you seeking in this fruitless blur?!
There are just fragments of old songs and webs,
And all the rest she took along with her.
Inside my soul are goals without means.
Go dig inside,-- you'll find there, by chance,
Two simple phrases and unfinished scenes,
And all the rest is now in Paris, France.
My friends light up the candles for me still,
And in the smoke, your image is outlined,
But I don't want to know that time will heal,
That everything will pass away with time.
I like my version better; although perhaps his refrain is just as good, the original does not specify who is lighting the candles, and indeed in some versions I have heard, the verb changes slightly in the second refrain, implying that the evening itself is lighting the candles. Kneller chose to translate "все цели без дороги" as "goals without means," concentrating on the цели 'goals', while I concentrated on the дороги - 'way, road' and translated it as "a tangle of lost ways." Besides, although Vissotsky's wife was from Paris, the original song never mentions Paris; it says "а остальное все пошло ко всем чертям" in that line, 'and everything else went to all the devils' and you will agree mine is a closer translation there. "What do you seek in that fruitless blur?" represents "Ну что стоите над пустой моей душой?" which is literally "Why do you stand over my empty soul?" And only a non-native speaker of English would rhyme "still" with "heal" unless they are desperate. We both took liberties with the first two lines, which are "Теперь я не избавлюсь от покоя. Ведь все, что было на душе на год вперед..."; literally "Now I shall not be rid of rest, since everything that was in my soul for a year ahead..." A phrase very liberal to interpretation, but I feel mine is the closer one.
Okay, enough translators' competition. That song was stuck in my head because depression is a catching disease; but all will be explained in good time.
Late last night I finally found Slavonic Languages on the Routledge publisher's website; I hope all will go well. My family is now obsessed with watching the Russian TV serial The Chiromancer, about a man who can read people's palms and thus know their future. My father has suggested to me several times that I become a chiromancer, although he does confuse it with "chiropractor," a profession for which I have great respect but which I have no interest in pursuing.
I know a little about chiromancy/palmistry here and there - it is a lot to memorise. I know the principal types of hands and the names of the principal lines and mounts; but remembering what all the different shapes and formations mean is a different thing entirely. Long fingers mean scrupulousness over details, and a square means protection; I remember that much. But do not come to me expecting me to read your true future; I can try, but I will not charge money for it; it is too unreliable. All I know about my own is that I have a long Line of Life, a very branchy Line of the Head and an even more branchy and broken Line of Fate, and a very wide triangulated Line of Heart. I have a triple bracelet as well, on both hands, which Desbarolles claimed was rare, but I have seen it frequently on people when I had the sense to look at their hands. And if my left hand is correct, according to a rumour I have not confirmed in a book, I will be married once, but according to my right, it is three times. One marriage and two affairs?
Maybe if someone would teach me chiromancy; it is not a thing I can learn easily from a book. I do not learn easily from books in general.
Anyhow, this morning at 8:00 I finally persuaded myself to get up, and by 8:35 I was in the school math office, handing over the calendar. I met Lady Runfar and Lady Melpomene there, as well as the Finance teacher, and they were overjoyed to see the calendar, but offered that I wait to hand it over to Lady Cauchy or the Dark Lord. They know that my closest bonds are with those two, but they seem not to have noticed that the Dark Lord and I have fallen out recently; maybe he only acts so depressed when I am around, although it is a complete enigma to me why. Anyhow, he was not there that morning, but I stuck around enough to meet Lady Cauchy. I told her I will bring Choco Leibniz for her as well. She showed me a box of Choco Leibniz she had gotten from another friend of hers. "I started the whole thing!" I cried. "Now everyone is doing it. I am getting bored of it, myself," I said. "How about something else?" "No, don't," she replied, "I love this." "How about a caramel pecan pie? Well, that will be a little harder to transport on my bike." Telling them I had errands to run, but I will be there for the assembly, I departed.
Errands meant wandering. I wandered a little around the Rideau Centre, dropping into Benjamin Books when it opened to check if perchance Slavonic Languages was there. Alas, their linguistics selection has been immensely decimated, leaving only a book on semiotics and Hebrew Syntax, which last I already have a copy of (great late-night read...) I flipped through The Ultimate Prom Guide - somehow I survived my prom without knowing if I was a Princess, a Femme Fatale, an Earth Mother, or an Avant-Garde Girl type myself; I have already mentioned that my clearest memory of the prom is of dancing the Virginia reel. Nothing else interesting met my wandering eye. Some shoes that I have liked for a very long time are now on sale, but I really cannot spare the money when it comes to a choice between shoes I already have plenty of, and hot water. And the Body Shop is sold out of most Candied Citrus products, except for lip balm. I did not want to buy stuff anyway.
I had a leisurely lunch at the Bagelshop, perusing the reviews of Munich and Rumour Has It... before heading back to the school. I arrived in the middle of their lunch hour, and saw the teachers putting white ties and black jackets on. That had been the distinctive gangster costume for Guys and Dolls.
I waylaid Lady Cauchy. "I bet you a thousand dollars you can't tell me the colour of your tie," I laughingly quoted the musical from memory.
She understood the line immediately, and covered her tie with her hand (in the play, Sky Masterson covers Nathan Detroit's tie with his hand as he says this line, in the middle of all the other gangsters who are all also wearing white ties, and Nathan, stuck, says "I won't take that bet." Men.) "Yeah, there's white ties all around him, he can figure it out, right?"
"Was that line in the original play?" I asked, remembering the many modifications the school had made to the script of Grease four years ago.
"I think the tie was blue."
"But the bet was there, right?"
"Yes. You'd think he'd know, with everyone around wearing the same ties."
I am sure a bootleg script for Guys and Dolls would be on the Internet somewhere; I am just not determined enough to look for it. Lady Cauchy got swept away by other teachers not yet having their ties. "Have you practiced yet?" I overheard. The reply: "No." I began to look forward to this.
Suddenly Lord Toby, my former grade 10 English teacher and the teacher advisor of the school newspaper, the Acta (not its real name) caught up with me. He was resplendent in the season's Santa toque, the only headgear ever allowed in the school for non-religious purposes of sorts. "Why, hello Tourmaline! Would you like a copy of the latest issue of the Acta?"
"Actually, Society Max gave me one." It featured a review of the NAQT tournament in it, that I had to browbeat the students into writing, and since only three or four of them wrote bits of it, it was not very structured. There is a really good reason why my tenure as chief editor of that paper back in grade 12 was horribly awful, and don't anyone dare say that is false modesty. I cannot lead and I cannot motivate. I make a really good second-in-command --- the Dark Lord may yet remember this, and many others do too --- but I cannot browbeat people into following deadlines all by my charismatic self.
"I liked it," I continued. "I especially liked the fact that the Guys and Dolls review answered a persistent question of my life."
"And what is that?" asked Lord Toby.
"How to spell chané. I never knew that. I have been doing chanés for years, and I never learned how to spell the word. It is just," I quoted many, many dance teachers, " 'chané, chané, chané, chané...' " Piqué, obertas, chané, chané, chané, chané... And - front! Front! Front! Front! I shall be hearing Luiza's voice chanting that to the end of my days, and I giggled at the memory.
Lord Toby promised me he would be in the assembly. Upon his departure, I was seized with the desire to do some chanés myself (they are the simplest turn in jazz dance. Stand sideways, with your ankles close together. Now take a step to face the other way, back foot now in front, keeping ankles close together. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat as many times as necessary. Of course, you have to spot as well...) I was dancing, humming to myself, when Lady Melpomene passed me and grinned at me. I grinned back. There is a poster in the School of Dance that says "I dance in empty elevators." I mean to steal it someday.
After a short while I stopped dancing, read the National Post review of Breakfast on Pluto, and then proceeded to the second-to-front row of the assembly. Up on the stage the first act was already performing - it was four students, none of whom I recognised, in a band - a lead singer with an electric guitar, two electric guitarists in the back, and a drummer who sang as well. The drummer and the lead singer were okay, enthusiastic, but I kept on wondering whether the two back guitarists were asleep or just automatons - they showed no emotion or enjoyment whatsoever that I could see, and their only movements were on their guitars. I could not understand a single word of the song: the only exception was that when the drummer echoed the lead singer several times, he was possibly saying, "Seven-thirty," but that is a completely unreliable guess. I leave it to the reader's imagination to reconstruct the rest of the lyrics from that.
The guy in front of me turned around, and I suddenly recognised Cuchulain, wearing a white space jumpsuit and cradling a space helmet. I figured that the Space Simulation club, which he is part of, was somehow participating. He tried saying something to me, but the music from the stage was too loud. We only managed to talk after the song ended and the next act, with acoustic guitars this time, came onto the stage. Cuchulain mentioned to me that the organisers cut the act "The Passion of the Locus," featuring Lord Locus, who bears a startling resemblance to Jesus Christ and had been teased for it as long as I have been in this school.
That next act was the two co-presidents on acoustic guitar, as well as the gentleman who played Big Jule in the musical playing a bongo drum, someone I did not recognise on double bass, and someone else, who was very good, on the drum set. Several girls sitting in my row and in the row behind me, squealing, moved up to sit beside Cuchulain. "So I guess it is the usual schoolgirls with crushes on co-presidents?" I observed to Cuchulain, who only had time to reply, "I guess so," before the act began.
To have a crush on your school co-president is a very natural and normal thing when you are in your junior years; I recollect the co-presidents in my years were quite handsome, and though the bulk of my affections had been occupied elsewhere, I had acknowledged that. I acknowledged also that looks greatly influence the candidates' success among the younger voters, which explains the trend of handsome co-presidents by natural selection. But I did not expect as high a quality of singing as I got --- the co-presidents were actually good. They sang "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In On Christmas Day In The Morning," (the first time I learned the tune to that song, although I have long been familiar with the New Year's Day version of the lyrics.) This was followed immediately by "I Had A Little Dreidel," then a scat version of some of "Sleigh Ride," and finally, which brought some of the crowd to their feet, "Felíz Navidad." I leaned back in my seat and enjoyed myself.
Then the gentleman who had played Nathan Detroit in the musical got on stage doing a Woody Allen impression. Now that lad had been very very good as Nathan Detroit, but I think he was brilliant as a neurotic Woody Allen who was faced with producing the school Christmas assembly and managing two co-anchors who hated each other. A voice from the back told him that, "Woody, your last movie sucked," and "Voices will help you." "Voices? The voices in my head?" "No, the (school) voices."
The two co-anchors came on; their real first names are Colin and Lindsey. Colin had played Harry the Horse in the musical, and I think he found his niche as the ham to end all hams. He was loudly berating Lindsey for making a big dent in his bright red Porsche in the parking lot. Lindsey beautifully replied, "I don't know what you're talking about," herself playing the proverbial primadonna to the hilt. Then as they both settled down on the anchor couch, Woody Allen came on, saying, "You're on in five...three...Cue!"
Still making beautiful melodrama , the co-anchors, (mostly Colin, with Lindsey glowering and saying "Yeah, great," at the right moments) introduced themselves and Colin began telling of the teachers' adventures last Christmas vacation. "Lord Locus participated in a Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Locus." Everyone hooted and Cuchulain grinned at me, "They've kept it!" "Let's see a clip," Colin continued, but got no results from the curtain.
"Hey wait a minute," Lindsey interrupted. "We need to see a clip. you said? What clip? Clip as in movie clip? Clip as in hair clip? Clip as in I clipped your car clip?"
Of course that was the excuse for Colin to attack her again. And that was how the assembly writers hid the fact there was no actual Passion of the Locus.
Colin continued, "Lord Toby, on the other hand, read a speech from the Good Book."
Lord Toby came on, wearing the same Santa toque, a sweater, and carrying what appeared to be a Bible. He began reading in the most overblown passionate-preacher style, "And the Lord said..." For a while it seemed like he was actually reading a Bible passage, with some of the audience responding in places with "Hallelujah," etc. I do not know whether those were planted members of the audience or spontaneous, but I suspect the former. Then the real fun began:
"And the Lord said, 'Thou shalt go to this place, which is the school gymnasium," (it was the auditorium, but never matter), "and thou shalt wear thy G-Unit hat," (he suddenly pulled off the Santa toque and put on a black baseball cap saying G-Unit), "and thou shalt wear thy bling which I shall provide," (to the hilarity of the audience, he pulled out from underneath his sweater a gold dog tag literally the size of half a car license plate) "and thou shalt do the moves I commanded you to do."
Lord Toby's breakdancing ability was well-known back in my days as a high school student, yet since he is one of the most popular teachers in the school, it never fails to thrill his audiences. Rap music came on, and he did a bit of breakdancing. Then a youth, probably the star of the breakdancing club, came on and showed some moves of his own, and Lord Toby and the youth withdrew, to the applause of all.
Then, to a "commercial break": Bedivere, one of my trivia players and the best one at Canadiana, came on stage, before a closed curtain, along with a girl I did not recognise. She presented him with a folded sweater.
"Here is your Christmas present, Bedivere."
"Geez, that's very nice of you." (Unfolds it.) "It...it's a sweater. But I wanted an iPod!"
The curtain parts and out comes Cuchulain, in space jumpsuit and space helmet, and hands Bedivere a white object the size and shape of an iPod. Until Bedivere turns in in profile and we realise it is a laminated white card.
"Wow! A Space Sim membership card! Wow, that's even better than an iPod!"
Voiceover: "Remember the best gift this Christmas for your friends and loved ones: a Space Sim membership card."
Other highlights of the program included a rapping Santa, accompanied by some hiphop dancers, singing "My Gifts" to the tune of a song by the Black-Eyed Peas that I have occasionally heard but cannot place; Colin was pleased by the song, but Lindsey reprimanded Santa for copyright infringement. Also the hiphop dance club performed, featuring a solo by a girl who I think does belly dancing and is very good at it. Sometimes when watching hiphop, I think "I want to do this," and then I look at it more closely and realise it is not my style at all.
A pianist performed, and then there came what I have been waiting for: the youth who played Sky Masterson and the teachers are performing "Luck Be A Lady Tonight."
The soundtrack featured vocals, and alas, Sky was just a little bit behind them. But that was not the important part. The teachers, obviously led by Lady Melpomene, began acting out the "Luck Be A Lady Tonight" dance.
In John Wyndham's The Chrysalids, he describes an image of several ducks swimming in a pond: "They swam in a kind of ballet except for one fat duck who was always a little late and a little wrong." Now imagine the reverse of this: one person knows what she is doing, and all the rest are a little late and a little wrong in various ways. Lady Melpomene, besides many years of competitive dancing in her youth, had choreographed the whole thing back for the musical, and she confidently danced, nodding to the people around her when their cues were. Of course, if you are watching the teaching staff doing any kind of physical activity en masse, and you want a laugh, look at Athaira's grade 11 Ancient Civilisations teacher, the Lord of Diversity Among The Protozoa. His dancing, even more so than his basketball, must be seen to be understood - or not understood, but described anyway. "Rolling in the aisles" is an exaggeration, but I think only hardwired student discipline stopped the audience from doing exactly that.
But the ambition to stop the co-anchor bickering was achieved in the last number: one of the two gym teachers, Lord Riquet, came on stage with a music stand and dressed as a conductor. Then on came the other male gym teacher, Lord Ozymandias (traveller from an antique land) --- wearing gym clothes and high striped socks, and carrying a trombone. He tooted the trombone towards the music stand for a few seconds, then, following Lord Riquet's conducting, tooted at the co-anchors, trotted around the auditorium, tooting over the audience in all the four corners, then returned to toot the trombone over the heads of the co-anchors again. It made me very glad I was not sitting in a corner; I have full appreciation for the power of the trombone.
Then Woody appeared, trying to make peace among the co-anchors still ("So what, Colin, if Lindsey dented your car? So what, Lindsey, if you've seen better days?" as he said before) and brought with him a peer mediator.
Pointing to each in turn, she said something to the effect of, "We must accept each other as we are, selfish, (Colin) greedy, (Lindsey) and neurotic (Woody)...But as newscasters, we must stick together. Because newscasters are better than regular people."
This called for the co-presidents to come on again with their guitars, and Big Jule, accompanied by someone else playing the bongo drum this time, rapped out an abridged "How The Grinch Stole Christmas," while all the participants in the assembly came on stage to dance mosh-pit style, and most of the audience stood up and danced too. Yours truly included.
It was almost over, but not quite over. To the sound of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, the curtain opened, to reveal Lord Bromide, Athaira's grade 11 chemistry teacher and master of the Gummi Bear Sacrifice, kneeling in an orange tutu on the floor (seriously, a Romantic tutu, in orange, and with costume bumblebee wings on his bodice, and white ankle socks). Lady Lissa, our grade 11 English AP teacher and one of the most memorable personalities ever, stood above him. Then she helped him rise and they began dancing the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy --- obviously inexpert, but I did catch myself wondering if Lord Bromide had any dance training. That was the second major highlight of the assembly. How come I almost always recollect those assembly events that involve teachers?
All in all, a very satisfying assembly, the best to my recollection since my high school days. But the day was not done: I still had Choco Leibniz to hand over. I made my way out of the crowded auditorium, saying hello and wishing happy holidays to people I knew. I saw Lady Melpomene in the hall, and congratulated her on being the only dancer who knew what she was doing. But I still could not find Lady Cauchy, so I knocked on the door of the math office.
The Dark Lord opened. I inquired the whereabouts of Lady Cauchy; his answer was a location which I do not now recall.
"Ok," I replied. "Would you like dark chocolate?" I invoked a long, long story I will recount someday, involving Iselen, sine graphs, the Andrea Gail, periodic tables, five-point seatbelts, plane ejector seats, and the beginnings of a tradition to exchange dark chocolate. Besides, it is Christmas.
"No."
I stopped. "That is the oddest thing I have ever heard. What is wrong with you?"
"Nothing. Let's just leave it at that."
"Okay. I hope it passes. Have a happy holiday."
I went out and searched briefly for Lady Cauchy some more, before getting the idea of simply leaving the Leibniz on her desk. Of course, that involved disturbing the Dark Lord some more, but I tried to be smooth about it and proceeded quickly to her office, to write her a note promising the LaTeX file of the fractal formulas (four images from my first calendar are framed and hanging in the wall, with their fractal formulas written elegantly on the matting. Three out of the four formulas are wrong. It bothers me.) The Dark Lord continued his dark tasks in his office.
As I wrote, Lord Locus came into his own office and greeted me. "Nice dancing," I complimented him. "How many times did you practice?"
"Just about never," he replied, laughing. I later overheard that they did practice twice.
I finished my note, and as I walked out of the math office, I quickly spoke the worry that was burdening my soul: "I hope the Dark Lord I knew and loved comes back someday."
He only grunted in reply.
I passed by Lady Lissa's office, to see her there, and I highly complimented her on her dancing.
"How many times did you rehearse?"
"Never. We did it right there on the stage. I kept on telling Lord Bromide he was the Sugar Plum Fairy; he wanted to do the Dying Swan. I think he still did the Dying Swan."
"Does Lord Bromide have any dance training?"
"No," she laughed. "He has good balance."
She was clearing up her room for the Christmas break. "And how are your cats, Lady Lissa?" I asked her. She is a notorious cat lover.
"Cat. She is doing well."
"One cat? I thought you had more."
"The other cat is gone to kitty heaven."
"Oh, I am sorry about that. How long ago was it?"
"Oh, it was a couple of years ago."
"My, we have lost touch. Well, I will pass on your greetings to Athaira; she is doing wonderfully in English."
"Please do. And have yourself a very happy holiday."
"To you and your family as well."
I left the building. But the Dark Lord's depression was contagious; I could not find it in myself to be cheerful anymore. I recited my lovely litany against (for) depression, angry at him for ruining my mood as well as his own.
I recollected the mood I was in, back that terrible summer when I was told the dearest person on earth to me had cancer. Then it was all I could do to wait out the weekend, until I could come to the only other comforting shoulder I had, collapse on it, and have him hold me while I sobbed until there were no more tears. And then I felt a little better, but it was a long time until the person I loved got better, letting myself spend a day without tears. Remembering that almost made me cry again. Or perhaps I wept at the thought of losing someone without losing him.
I knew looking at gemstones would not ease me, so I went home, wrote part of this and went to sleep, catching up on far too many days when I was up at six. Now it is 2 am, and I have wreaked havoc on my circadian rhythms.
I'll be half asleep
And you'll get up at three
who'll give you time to cry?
who'll give you time to find yourself?
- Hawksley Workman, "Smoke Baby," a song that first attracted me because of the similarity of its harmonies to Luc Plamondon's "Tu Vas Me Detruire" from Notre Dame de Paris:
Cet océan de passion
Qui déferle dans mes veines
Qui cause ma déraison
Ma déroute, ma déveine
Doucement j'y plongerai
Sans qu'une main me retienne
Lentement je m'y noierai
Sans qu'un remords ne me vienne
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
Et je vais te maudire
Jusqu'à la fin de ma vie
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
J'aurais pu le prédire
Dès le premier jour
Dès la première nuit
Tu vas me détruire
Mon péché, mon obsession
Désir fou qui me tourmente
Qui me tourne en dérision
Qui me déchire et me hante
Petite marchande d'illusion
Je ne vis que dans l'attente
De voir voler ton, jupon
Et que tu danses et tu chantes
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
Et je vais te maudire
Jusqu'à la fin de ma vie
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
J'aurai pu le prédire
Dès le premier jour
Dès la première nuit
Moi qui me croyais l'hiver
Me voici un arbre vert
Moi qui me croyais de fer
Contre le feu de la chair
Je m'enflamme et me consume
Pour les yeux d'une étrangère
Qui ont bien plus de mystère
Que la lumière de la lune
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
Et je vais te maudire
Jusqu'à la fin de ma vie
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
J'aurais pu le prédire
Dès le premier jour
Dès la première nuit
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
For all that used to be my soul to me
Unknowingly has followed her to go
First to the port, and then across the sea.
Now in the night, they light me candles but I feel
That out of the smoke your image flows.
And I don't want to know that time will heal,
With time all passes and all goes.
What is my soul? 'Tis but a desert there:
A pile of cobwebs and some scraps of song...
Why do you stand over my soul and stare?
For every other thing she took along.
Now in the night they light me candles but I feel
That out of the smoke your image flows.
And I don't want to know that time will heal,
With time all passes, and all goes.
My soul is but a tangle of lost ways.
Dig into it, and you will find there, well,
A couple of half-dialogues, a couple turns of phrase,
And every other thing has just gone straight to hell.
Now in the night they light me candles but I feel
That out of the smoke your image flows...
And I don't want to know that time will heal -
It does not heal, it cripples,
And with it all passes and all goes.
--- Vladimir Vissotsky, translation mine.
Compare the above translation to the one by Andrei Kneller which I read long after composing my own:
My friends light up the candles for me still,
And in the smoke, your image is outlined,
And I don't want to know that time will heal,
That everything will pass away with time.
No longer will I ever lose my verve,
For any burden on my soul and any pain,
Unknowingly, she took along with her--
At first, into the port, then on the plane.
Inside my soul there are deserted lands.
What are you seeking in this fruitless blur?!
There are just fragments of old songs and webs,
And all the rest she took along with her.
Inside my soul are goals without means.
Go dig inside,-- you'll find there, by chance,
Two simple phrases and unfinished scenes,
And all the rest is now in Paris, France.
My friends light up the candles for me still,
And in the smoke, your image is outlined,
But I don't want to know that time will heal,
That everything will pass away with time.
I like my version better; although perhaps his refrain is just as good, the original does not specify who is lighting the candles, and indeed in some versions I have heard, the verb changes slightly in the second refrain, implying that the evening itself is lighting the candles. Kneller chose to translate "все цели без дороги" as "goals without means," concentrating on the цели 'goals', while I concentrated on the дороги - 'way, road' and translated it as "a tangle of lost ways." Besides, although Vissotsky's wife was from Paris, the original song never mentions Paris; it says "а остальное все пошло ко всем чертям" in that line, 'and everything else went to all the devils' and you will agree mine is a closer translation there. "What do you seek in that fruitless blur?" represents "Ну что стоите над пустой моей душой?" which is literally "Why do you stand over my empty soul?" And only a non-native speaker of English would rhyme "still" with "heal" unless they are desperate. We both took liberties with the first two lines, which are "Теперь я не избавлюсь от покоя. Ведь все, что было на душе на год вперед..."; literally "Now I shall not be rid of rest, since everything that was in my soul for a year ahead..." A phrase very liberal to interpretation, but I feel mine is the closer one.
Okay, enough translators' competition. That song was stuck in my head because depression is a catching disease; but all will be explained in good time.
Late last night I finally found Slavonic Languages on the Routledge publisher's website; I hope all will go well. My family is now obsessed with watching the Russian TV serial The Chiromancer, about a man who can read people's palms and thus know their future. My father has suggested to me several times that I become a chiromancer, although he does confuse it with "chiropractor," a profession for which I have great respect but which I have no interest in pursuing.
I know a little about chiromancy/palmistry here and there - it is a lot to memorise. I know the principal types of hands and the names of the principal lines and mounts; but remembering what all the different shapes and formations mean is a different thing entirely. Long fingers mean scrupulousness over details, and a square means protection; I remember that much. But do not come to me expecting me to read your true future; I can try, but I will not charge money for it; it is too unreliable. All I know about my own is that I have a long Line of Life, a very branchy Line of the Head and an even more branchy and broken Line of Fate, and a very wide triangulated Line of Heart. I have a triple bracelet as well, on both hands, which Desbarolles claimed was rare, but I have seen it frequently on people when I had the sense to look at their hands. And if my left hand is correct, according to a rumour I have not confirmed in a book, I will be married once, but according to my right, it is three times. One marriage and two affairs?
Maybe if someone would teach me chiromancy; it is not a thing I can learn easily from a book. I do not learn easily from books in general.
Anyhow, this morning at 8:00 I finally persuaded myself to get up, and by 8:35 I was in the school math office, handing over the calendar. I met Lady Runfar and Lady Melpomene there, as well as the Finance teacher, and they were overjoyed to see the calendar, but offered that I wait to hand it over to Lady Cauchy or the Dark Lord. They know that my closest bonds are with those two, but they seem not to have noticed that the Dark Lord and I have fallen out recently; maybe he only acts so depressed when I am around, although it is a complete enigma to me why. Anyhow, he was not there that morning, but I stuck around enough to meet Lady Cauchy. I told her I will bring Choco Leibniz for her as well. She showed me a box of Choco Leibniz she had gotten from another friend of hers. "I started the whole thing!" I cried. "Now everyone is doing it. I am getting bored of it, myself," I said. "How about something else?" "No, don't," she replied, "I love this." "How about a caramel pecan pie? Well, that will be a little harder to transport on my bike." Telling them I had errands to run, but I will be there for the assembly, I departed.
Errands meant wandering. I wandered a little around the Rideau Centre, dropping into Benjamin Books when it opened to check if perchance Slavonic Languages was there. Alas, their linguistics selection has been immensely decimated, leaving only a book on semiotics and Hebrew Syntax, which last I already have a copy of (great late-night read...) I flipped through The Ultimate Prom Guide - somehow I survived my prom without knowing if I was a Princess, a Femme Fatale, an Earth Mother, or an Avant-Garde Girl type myself; I have already mentioned that my clearest memory of the prom is of dancing the Virginia reel. Nothing else interesting met my wandering eye. Some shoes that I have liked for a very long time are now on sale, but I really cannot spare the money when it comes to a choice between shoes I already have plenty of, and hot water. And the Body Shop is sold out of most Candied Citrus products, except for lip balm. I did not want to buy stuff anyway.
I had a leisurely lunch at the Bagelshop, perusing the reviews of Munich and Rumour Has It... before heading back to the school. I arrived in the middle of their lunch hour, and saw the teachers putting white ties and black jackets on. That had been the distinctive gangster costume for Guys and Dolls.
I waylaid Lady Cauchy. "I bet you a thousand dollars you can't tell me the colour of your tie," I laughingly quoted the musical from memory.
She understood the line immediately, and covered her tie with her hand (in the play, Sky Masterson covers Nathan Detroit's tie with his hand as he says this line, in the middle of all the other gangsters who are all also wearing white ties, and Nathan, stuck, says "I won't take that bet." Men.) "Yeah, there's white ties all around him, he can figure it out, right?"
"Was that line in the original play?" I asked, remembering the many modifications the school had made to the script of Grease four years ago.
"I think the tie was blue."
"But the bet was there, right?"
"Yes. You'd think he'd know, with everyone around wearing the same ties."
I am sure a bootleg script for Guys and Dolls would be on the Internet somewhere; I am just not determined enough to look for it. Lady Cauchy got swept away by other teachers not yet having their ties. "Have you practiced yet?" I overheard. The reply: "No." I began to look forward to this.
Suddenly Lord Toby, my former grade 10 English teacher and the teacher advisor of the school newspaper, the Acta (not its real name) caught up with me. He was resplendent in the season's Santa toque, the only headgear ever allowed in the school for non-religious purposes of sorts. "Why, hello Tourmaline! Would you like a copy of the latest issue of the Acta?"
"Actually, Society Max gave me one." It featured a review of the NAQT tournament in it, that I had to browbeat the students into writing, and since only three or four of them wrote bits of it, it was not very structured. There is a really good reason why my tenure as chief editor of that paper back in grade 12 was horribly awful, and don't anyone dare say that is false modesty. I cannot lead and I cannot motivate. I make a really good second-in-command --- the Dark Lord may yet remember this, and many others do too --- but I cannot browbeat people into following deadlines all by my charismatic self.
"I liked it," I continued. "I especially liked the fact that the Guys and Dolls review answered a persistent question of my life."
"And what is that?" asked Lord Toby.
"How to spell chané. I never knew that. I have been doing chanés for years, and I never learned how to spell the word. It is just," I quoted many, many dance teachers, " 'chané, chané, chané, chané...' " Piqué, obertas, chané, chané, chané, chané... And - front! Front! Front! Front! I shall be hearing Luiza's voice chanting that to the end of my days, and I giggled at the memory.
Lord Toby promised me he would be in the assembly. Upon his departure, I was seized with the desire to do some chanés myself (they are the simplest turn in jazz dance. Stand sideways, with your ankles close together. Now take a step to face the other way, back foot now in front, keeping ankles close together. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat as many times as necessary. Of course, you have to spot as well...) I was dancing, humming to myself, when Lady Melpomene passed me and grinned at me. I grinned back. There is a poster in the School of Dance that says "I dance in empty elevators." I mean to steal it someday.
After a short while I stopped dancing, read the National Post review of Breakfast on Pluto, and then proceeded to the second-to-front row of the assembly. Up on the stage the first act was already performing - it was four students, none of whom I recognised, in a band - a lead singer with an electric guitar, two electric guitarists in the back, and a drummer who sang as well. The drummer and the lead singer were okay, enthusiastic, but I kept on wondering whether the two back guitarists were asleep or just automatons - they showed no emotion or enjoyment whatsoever that I could see, and their only movements were on their guitars. I could not understand a single word of the song: the only exception was that when the drummer echoed the lead singer several times, he was possibly saying, "Seven-thirty," but that is a completely unreliable guess. I leave it to the reader's imagination to reconstruct the rest of the lyrics from that.
The guy in front of me turned around, and I suddenly recognised Cuchulain, wearing a white space jumpsuit and cradling a space helmet. I figured that the Space Simulation club, which he is part of, was somehow participating. He tried saying something to me, but the music from the stage was too loud. We only managed to talk after the song ended and the next act, with acoustic guitars this time, came onto the stage. Cuchulain mentioned to me that the organisers cut the act "The Passion of the Locus," featuring Lord Locus, who bears a startling resemblance to Jesus Christ and had been teased for it as long as I have been in this school.
That next act was the two co-presidents on acoustic guitar, as well as the gentleman who played Big Jule in the musical playing a bongo drum, someone I did not recognise on double bass, and someone else, who was very good, on the drum set. Several girls sitting in my row and in the row behind me, squealing, moved up to sit beside Cuchulain. "So I guess it is the usual schoolgirls with crushes on co-presidents?" I observed to Cuchulain, who only had time to reply, "I guess so," before the act began.
To have a crush on your school co-president is a very natural and normal thing when you are in your junior years; I recollect the co-presidents in my years were quite handsome, and though the bulk of my affections had been occupied elsewhere, I had acknowledged that. I acknowledged also that looks greatly influence the candidates' success among the younger voters, which explains the trend of handsome co-presidents by natural selection. But I did not expect as high a quality of singing as I got --- the co-presidents were actually good. They sang "I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing In On Christmas Day In The Morning," (the first time I learned the tune to that song, although I have long been familiar with the New Year's Day version of the lyrics.) This was followed immediately by "I Had A Little Dreidel," then a scat version of some of "Sleigh Ride," and finally, which brought some of the crowd to their feet, "Felíz Navidad." I leaned back in my seat and enjoyed myself.
Then the gentleman who had played Nathan Detroit in the musical got on stage doing a Woody Allen impression. Now that lad had been very very good as Nathan Detroit, but I think he was brilliant as a neurotic Woody Allen who was faced with producing the school Christmas assembly and managing two co-anchors who hated each other. A voice from the back told him that, "Woody, your last movie sucked," and "Voices will help you." "Voices? The voices in my head?" "No, the (school) voices."
The two co-anchors came on; their real first names are Colin and Lindsey. Colin had played Harry the Horse in the musical, and I think he found his niche as the ham to end all hams. He was loudly berating Lindsey for making a big dent in his bright red Porsche in the parking lot. Lindsey beautifully replied, "I don't know what you're talking about," herself playing the proverbial primadonna to the hilt. Then as they both settled down on the anchor couch, Woody Allen came on, saying, "You're on in five...three...Cue!"
Still making beautiful melodrama , the co-anchors, (mostly Colin, with Lindsey glowering and saying "Yeah, great," at the right moments) introduced themselves and Colin began telling of the teachers' adventures last Christmas vacation. "Lord Locus participated in a Mel Gibson movie, The Passion of the Locus." Everyone hooted and Cuchulain grinned at me, "They've kept it!" "Let's see a clip," Colin continued, but got no results from the curtain.
"Hey wait a minute," Lindsey interrupted. "We need to see a clip. you said? What clip? Clip as in movie clip? Clip as in hair clip? Clip as in I clipped your car clip?"
Of course that was the excuse for Colin to attack her again. And that was how the assembly writers hid the fact there was no actual Passion of the Locus.
Colin continued, "Lord Toby, on the other hand, read a speech from the Good Book."
Lord Toby came on, wearing the same Santa toque, a sweater, and carrying what appeared to be a Bible. He began reading in the most overblown passionate-preacher style, "And the Lord said..." For a while it seemed like he was actually reading a Bible passage, with some of the audience responding in places with "Hallelujah," etc. I do not know whether those were planted members of the audience or spontaneous, but I suspect the former. Then the real fun began:
"And the Lord said, 'Thou shalt go to this place, which is the school gymnasium," (it was the auditorium, but never matter), "and thou shalt wear thy G-Unit hat," (he suddenly pulled off the Santa toque and put on a black baseball cap saying G-Unit), "and thou shalt wear thy bling which I shall provide," (to the hilarity of the audience, he pulled out from underneath his sweater a gold dog tag literally the size of half a car license plate) "and thou shalt do the moves I commanded you to do."
Lord Toby's breakdancing ability was well-known back in my days as a high school student, yet since he is one of the most popular teachers in the school, it never fails to thrill his audiences. Rap music came on, and he did a bit of breakdancing. Then a youth, probably the star of the breakdancing club, came on and showed some moves of his own, and Lord Toby and the youth withdrew, to the applause of all.
Then, to a "commercial break": Bedivere, one of my trivia players and the best one at Canadiana, came on stage, before a closed curtain, along with a girl I did not recognise. She presented him with a folded sweater.
"Here is your Christmas present, Bedivere."
"Geez, that's very nice of you." (Unfolds it.) "It...it's a sweater. But I wanted an iPod!"
The curtain parts and out comes Cuchulain, in space jumpsuit and space helmet, and hands Bedivere a white object the size and shape of an iPod. Until Bedivere turns in in profile and we realise it is a laminated white card.
"Wow! A Space Sim membership card! Wow, that's even better than an iPod!"
Voiceover: "Remember the best gift this Christmas for your friends and loved ones: a Space Sim membership card."
Other highlights of the program included a rapping Santa, accompanied by some hiphop dancers, singing "My Gifts" to the tune of a song by the Black-Eyed Peas that I have occasionally heard but cannot place; Colin was pleased by the song, but Lindsey reprimanded Santa for copyright infringement. Also the hiphop dance club performed, featuring a solo by a girl who I think does belly dancing and is very good at it. Sometimes when watching hiphop, I think "I want to do this," and then I look at it more closely and realise it is not my style at all.
A pianist performed, and then there came what I have been waiting for: the youth who played Sky Masterson and the teachers are performing "Luck Be A Lady Tonight."
The soundtrack featured vocals, and alas, Sky was just a little bit behind them. But that was not the important part. The teachers, obviously led by Lady Melpomene, began acting out the "Luck Be A Lady Tonight" dance.
In John Wyndham's The Chrysalids, he describes an image of several ducks swimming in a pond: "They swam in a kind of ballet except for one fat duck who was always a little late and a little wrong." Now imagine the reverse of this: one person knows what she is doing, and all the rest are a little late and a little wrong in various ways. Lady Melpomene, besides many years of competitive dancing in her youth, had choreographed the whole thing back for the musical, and she confidently danced, nodding to the people around her when their cues were. Of course, if you are watching the teaching staff doing any kind of physical activity en masse, and you want a laugh, look at Athaira's grade 11 Ancient Civilisations teacher, the Lord of Diversity Among The Protozoa. His dancing, even more so than his basketball, must be seen to be understood - or not understood, but described anyway. "Rolling in the aisles" is an exaggeration, but I think only hardwired student discipline stopped the audience from doing exactly that.
But the ambition to stop the co-anchor bickering was achieved in the last number: one of the two gym teachers, Lord Riquet, came on stage with a music stand and dressed as a conductor. Then on came the other male gym teacher, Lord Ozymandias (traveller from an antique land) --- wearing gym clothes and high striped socks, and carrying a trombone. He tooted the trombone towards the music stand for a few seconds, then, following Lord Riquet's conducting, tooted at the co-anchors, trotted around the auditorium, tooting over the audience in all the four corners, then returned to toot the trombone over the heads of the co-anchors again. It made me very glad I was not sitting in a corner; I have full appreciation for the power of the trombone.
Then Woody appeared, trying to make peace among the co-anchors still ("So what, Colin, if Lindsey dented your car? So what, Lindsey, if you've seen better days?" as he said before) and brought with him a peer mediator.
Pointing to each in turn, she said something to the effect of, "We must accept each other as we are, selfish, (Colin) greedy, (Lindsey) and neurotic (Woody)...But as newscasters, we must stick together. Because newscasters are better than regular people."
This called for the co-presidents to come on again with their guitars, and Big Jule, accompanied by someone else playing the bongo drum this time, rapped out an abridged "How The Grinch Stole Christmas," while all the participants in the assembly came on stage to dance mosh-pit style, and most of the audience stood up and danced too. Yours truly included.
It was almost over, but not quite over. To the sound of the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, the curtain opened, to reveal Lord Bromide, Athaira's grade 11 chemistry teacher and master of the Gummi Bear Sacrifice, kneeling in an orange tutu on the floor (seriously, a Romantic tutu, in orange, and with costume bumblebee wings on his bodice, and white ankle socks). Lady Lissa, our grade 11 English AP teacher and one of the most memorable personalities ever, stood above him. Then she helped him rise and they began dancing the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy --- obviously inexpert, but I did catch myself wondering if Lord Bromide had any dance training. That was the second major highlight of the assembly. How come I almost always recollect those assembly events that involve teachers?
All in all, a very satisfying assembly, the best to my recollection since my high school days. But the day was not done: I still had Choco Leibniz to hand over. I made my way out of the crowded auditorium, saying hello and wishing happy holidays to people I knew. I saw Lady Melpomene in the hall, and congratulated her on being the only dancer who knew what she was doing. But I still could not find Lady Cauchy, so I knocked on the door of the math office.
The Dark Lord opened. I inquired the whereabouts of Lady Cauchy; his answer was a location which I do not now recall.
"Ok," I replied. "Would you like dark chocolate?" I invoked a long, long story I will recount someday, involving Iselen, sine graphs, the Andrea Gail, periodic tables, five-point seatbelts, plane ejector seats, and the beginnings of a tradition to exchange dark chocolate. Besides, it is Christmas.
"No."
I stopped. "That is the oddest thing I have ever heard. What is wrong with you?"
"Nothing. Let's just leave it at that."
"Okay. I hope it passes. Have a happy holiday."
I went out and searched briefly for Lady Cauchy some more, before getting the idea of simply leaving the Leibniz on her desk. Of course, that involved disturbing the Dark Lord some more, but I tried to be smooth about it and proceeded quickly to her office, to write her a note promising the LaTeX file of the fractal formulas (four images from my first calendar are framed and hanging in the wall, with their fractal formulas written elegantly on the matting. Three out of the four formulas are wrong. It bothers me.) The Dark Lord continued his dark tasks in his office.
As I wrote, Lord Locus came into his own office and greeted me. "Nice dancing," I complimented him. "How many times did you practice?"
"Just about never," he replied, laughing. I later overheard that they did practice twice.
I finished my note, and as I walked out of the math office, I quickly spoke the worry that was burdening my soul: "I hope the Dark Lord I knew and loved comes back someday."
He only grunted in reply.
I passed by Lady Lissa's office, to see her there, and I highly complimented her on her dancing.
"How many times did you rehearse?"
"Never. We did it right there on the stage. I kept on telling Lord Bromide he was the Sugar Plum Fairy; he wanted to do the Dying Swan. I think he still did the Dying Swan."
"Does Lord Bromide have any dance training?"
"No," she laughed. "He has good balance."
She was clearing up her room for the Christmas break. "And how are your cats, Lady Lissa?" I asked her. She is a notorious cat lover.
"Cat. She is doing well."
"One cat? I thought you had more."
"The other cat is gone to kitty heaven."
"Oh, I am sorry about that. How long ago was it?"
"Oh, it was a couple of years ago."
"My, we have lost touch. Well, I will pass on your greetings to Athaira; she is doing wonderfully in English."
"Please do. And have yourself a very happy holiday."
"To you and your family as well."
I left the building. But the Dark Lord's depression was contagious; I could not find it in myself to be cheerful anymore. I recited my lovely litany against (for) depression, angry at him for ruining my mood as well as his own.
I recollected the mood I was in, back that terrible summer when I was told the dearest person on earth to me had cancer. Then it was all I could do to wait out the weekend, until I could come to the only other comforting shoulder I had, collapse on it, and have him hold me while I sobbed until there were no more tears. And then I felt a little better, but it was a long time until the person I loved got better, letting myself spend a day without tears. Remembering that almost made me cry again. Or perhaps I wept at the thought of losing someone without losing him.
I knew looking at gemstones would not ease me, so I went home, wrote part of this and went to sleep, catching up on far too many days when I was up at six. Now it is 2 am, and I have wreaked havoc on my circadian rhythms.
I'll be half asleep
And you'll get up at three
who'll give you time to cry?
who'll give you time to find yourself?
- Hawksley Workman, "Smoke Baby," a song that first attracted me because of the similarity of its harmonies to Luc Plamondon's "Tu Vas Me Detruire" from Notre Dame de Paris:
Cet océan de passion
Qui déferle dans mes veines
Qui cause ma déraison
Ma déroute, ma déveine
Doucement j'y plongerai
Sans qu'une main me retienne
Lentement je m'y noierai
Sans qu'un remords ne me vienne
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
Et je vais te maudire
Jusqu'à la fin de ma vie
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
J'aurais pu le prédire
Dès le premier jour
Dès la première nuit
Tu vas me détruire
Mon péché, mon obsession
Désir fou qui me tourmente
Qui me tourne en dérision
Qui me déchire et me hante
Petite marchande d'illusion
Je ne vis que dans l'attente
De voir voler ton, jupon
Et que tu danses et tu chantes
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
Et je vais te maudire
Jusqu'à la fin de ma vie
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
J'aurai pu le prédire
Dès le premier jour
Dès la première nuit
Moi qui me croyais l'hiver
Me voici un arbre vert
Moi qui me croyais de fer
Contre le feu de la chair
Je m'enflamme et me consume
Pour les yeux d'une étrangère
Qui ont bien plus de mystère
Que la lumière de la lune
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
Et je vais te maudire
Jusqu'à la fin de ma vie
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
J'aurais pu le prédire
Dès le premier jour
Dès la première nuit
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
Tu vas me détruire
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