Just a Note or Two
Wayne Shorter,
Words...
I am silent. Mercer starts the waxer. It was permis-
sion for this he sought. I think of nothing in particular.
A cry goes up in the street outside, and there comes into
my sight the Negro my aunt spoke of. He is Cothard,
the last of the chimney sweeps, an outlandish blueblack
Negro dressed in a frock coat and bashed-in top hat and
carrying over his shoulder a bundle of palmetto leaves
and broom straw. The cry comes again. "R-r-r-ramonez la
chiminée du haut en bas!"
"One last question to satisfy my idle curiosity. What
has been going on in your mind during all the years
when we listened to music together, read the Crito, and
spoke together--or was it only I who spoke--good Lord,
I can't remember--of goodness and truth and beauty and
nobility?"
Another cry and the ramoneur is gone. There is noth-
ing for me to say.
"Don't you love these things? Don't you live by
them?"
"No."
"What do you love? What do you live by?"
I am silent.
"Tell me where I have failed you."
"You haven't."
"what do you think is the purpose of life--to go to
the movies and dally with every girl that comes along?"
"No."
A ledger lies open on her desk, one of the old-fash-
ioned kind with a marbled cover, in which she has al-
ways kept account of her properties, sundry service sta-
tions, Canadian mines, patents--the peculiar business
accumulation of a doctor--left to her by old Dr Wills.
"Well." She closes it briskly and smiles up at me, a smile
which, more than anything which has gone before,
marks an ending. Smiling, she gives me her hand, head
to one side, in her old party style. But it is her withhold-
ing my name that assigns me my new status. So she
might have spoken to any one of a number of re-
motely connected persons, such as a Spring Fiesta tour-
ist encountered by accident in her own hall.
We pass Mercer who stands respectfully against the
wall. He murmurs a greeting which through an exquisite
calculation expresses his affection for me and at the
same time declares his allegiance to my aunt. Out of the
corner of my eye, I see him hop nimbly into the dining
room, full of fizzing good spirits. We find ourselves on
the porch.
"I do thank you so much for coming by," says my
aunt, fingering her necklace and looking past me at the
Vaudrieul house.
- Percy, Walker. The Moviegoer. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. 225-227. -
Read Lancelot (and The Moviegoer). Profit.
My Dime Dancing is Through,
Davidb
Words...
I am silent. Mercer starts the waxer. It was permis-
sion for this he sought. I think of nothing in particular.
A cry goes up in the street outside, and there comes into
my sight the Negro my aunt spoke of. He is Cothard,
the last of the chimney sweeps, an outlandish blueblack
Negro dressed in a frock coat and bashed-in top hat and
carrying over his shoulder a bundle of palmetto leaves
and broom straw. The cry comes again. "R-r-r-ramonez la
chiminée du haut en bas!"
"One last question to satisfy my idle curiosity. What
has been going on in your mind during all the years
when we listened to music together, read the Crito, and
spoke together--or was it only I who spoke--good Lord,
I can't remember--of goodness and truth and beauty and
nobility?"
Another cry and the ramoneur is gone. There is noth-
ing for me to say.
"Don't you love these things? Don't you live by
them?"
"No."
"What do you love? What do you live by?"
I am silent.
"Tell me where I have failed you."
"You haven't."
"what do you think is the purpose of life--to go to
the movies and dally with every girl that comes along?"
"No."
A ledger lies open on her desk, one of the old-fash-
ioned kind with a marbled cover, in which she has al-
ways kept account of her properties, sundry service sta-
tions, Canadian mines, patents--the peculiar business
accumulation of a doctor--left to her by old Dr Wills.
"Well." She closes it briskly and smiles up at me, a smile
which, more than anything which has gone before,
marks an ending. Smiling, she gives me her hand, head
to one side, in her old party style. But it is her withhold-
ing my name that assigns me my new status. So she
might have spoken to any one of a number of re-
motely connected persons, such as a Spring Fiesta tour-
ist encountered by accident in her own hall.
We pass Mercer who stands respectfully against the
wall. He murmurs a greeting which through an exquisite
calculation expresses his affection for me and at the
same time declares his allegiance to my aunt. Out of the
corner of my eye, I see him hop nimbly into the dining
room, full of fizzing good spirits. We find ourselves on
the porch.
"I do thank you so much for coming by," says my
aunt, fingering her necklace and looking past me at the
Vaudrieul house.
- Percy, Walker. The Moviegoer. New York: Vintage Books, 1998. 225-227. -
Read Lancelot (and The Moviegoer). Profit.
My Dime Dancing is Through,
Davidb