Really? Sounds rather Trumpian, no? To paraphrase Clemenza, “Leave the watch take the canolis.”
I happen to be particularly passionate about the Tin Woodman, as you might have gathered, as I once played him in an outdoor summer stock production of Oz; silver makeup streaking in the muggy New England heat.
Though it was a play with music taken from the movie, the director, given her sensibilities, added a rather serious monologue directly out of L. Frank Baum’s book. It tells a sensitive story about the quest for love. Yet, it is a bit gruesome and it would have stopped the movie cold. And it’s a tale so tricky in the telling. Especially to kids. Though menace and maniacal violence have always played an integral part in the canon of kiddie literature, haven't they.
I close with it in full.
“I was born the son of a woodman who chopped down trees in the forest and sold the wood for a living. When I grew up, I too became a woodchopper, and after my father died, I took care of my old mother as long as she lived. Then I made up my mind that instead of living alone I would marry, so that I might not become lonely.
There was one of the Munchkin girls who was so beautiful that I soon grew to love her with all my heart. She, on her part, promised to marry me as soon as I could earn enough money to build a better house for her; so I set to work harder than ever. But the girl lived with an old woman who did not want her to marry anyone, for she was so lazy she wished the girl to do the cooking and the house work. so the old woman
went to the Wicked Witch of the East and promised her two sheep and a cow if she would prevent the marriage. Thereupon the Wicked Witch enchanted my axe, and when I was chopping away at my best one day, for I was anxious to get the new house and my wife as soon as possible, the axe slipped all at once and cut off my left leg.
This at first seemed a great misfortune, for I knew a one-legged man could not do very well as a wood-chopper. So I went to a tinsmith and had him make me a new leg out of tin. The leg worked very well, once I was used to it. But my action angered the Wicked Witch of the East, for she had promised the old woman I should not marry the pretty Munchkin girl.
When I began chopping again, my axe slipped and cut off my right leg. Again I went to the tinsmith, and again he made me a leg out of tin. After this the enchanted axe cut off my arms, one after the other; but, nothing daunted, I had them replaced with tin ones. The Wicked Witch then made the axe slip and cut off my head, and at first, I thought that was the end of me. But the tinsmith happened to come along, and he made me a new head out of tin.
I thought I had beaten the Wicked Witch then, and I worked harder than ever; but I little knew how cruel my enemy could be. She thought of a new way to kill my love for the beautiful Munchkin maiden, and made my axe slip again, so that it cut right through my body, splitting me into two halves.
Once more the tinsmith came to my help and made me a body of tin, fastening my tin arms and legs and head to it, by means of joints, so that I could move around as well as ever. But, alas! I had now no heart, so that I lost all my love for the Munchkin girl and did not care whether I married her or not. I suppose she is still living with the old woman, waiting for me to come after her.
My body shone so brightly in the sun that I felt very proud of it and it did not matter now if my axe slipped, for it could not cut me. There was only one danger—that my joint would rust; but I kept an oil-can in
my cottage and took care to oil myself
when ever I needed it. However, there
came a day when forgot to do this, and,
being caught in a rainstorm... but before I
saw the danger, my joints had rusted, and I was left to stand in the woods until you came to help me. It was a terrible thing to undergo but during the year I stood there I had time to think that the
greatest loss I had known was the loss of my heart.
While I was in love, I was the happiest man on earth; but no one can love who has not a heart, and so I am resolved to ask Oz to give me one. If he does, I will go back to the Munchkin maiden and marry her.
Love Quote
“Many times I've been alone and many times I've cried
Anyway you'll never know the many ways I've tried
And still they lead me back to the long and winding road
You left me standing here a long, long time ago
Don't leave me waiting here, lead me to your door.”
And that little ditty, doesn’t even reference the two highest profile events in our pop culture, that only moved into February since 2004, the Oscars and the Super Bowl. Oh yes, and there's Presidents Day. Which came about in the demotion of Lincoln and Washington, whose birthdays were once celebrated separately, on the 12th and 22nd of the month. And let us not forget that February is Black History month.
...Beyond the Heart-shaped Box of Chocolates
But the focus here will be on Valentine’s Day. One within which I only recently heard referred to as the "season of love" (a bit of a stretch). Its imperative to openly express one’s love--- as though a special day is needed to do that--- often via a heart-shaped box of fancy (high caloric, saturated fat-loaded, diabetes-inducing) chocolates, is but a transparent gesture to cover one's butt. Cute. But a bit silly, really.
It’s a day at which I once threw shade (before shade was ever said to be thrown). And I brought New Year’s Eve along for the ride. With apologies to those annoying analogies that used to be a staple on the SAT’s…
New Year’s Eve is to HAPPINESS, as Valentine’s Day is to LOVE
But as the years melt away, I’ve softened up on the day (and in many other places). If anything, beyond an excuse to have a classic gin martini at the King Cole Bar (Cocktail Hour in a New York Minute, 2016 MUSE-LETTER), while we pretend to be F. Scott and Zelda), it has served to stimulate thoughts as to the want and need for a love of some substance. And on the lengths to which Homo sapiens (and the monarch butterfly), will go to find it. Or on the flip side, where sloth resides, the wait until it finds us? Assuming of course, that like a lost wallet, it can be “found.”
Love Quote
A Poem, a Dream, a John Lennon Song
Some time ago, inspired by my formative years which were frequently spent hanging out at the neighborhood candy store, I wrote a poem. It appeared later on my website. (Well, it didn’t exactly appear, I put it there).
With the belief that “Art is never finished, only abandoned,” which is attributed to da Vinci, (did he feel that way about the Mona Lisa?), and has been said specifically of poetry on occasions, I returned to it last month. And sure enough, found reason to rethink it (i.e. less about a purgatory... more about a love), tweak it, and add further illustration.
Love Quote
“Who can say where she may hide?
Must I travel far and wide?
'Til I am beside the someone who
I can mean something to ...
Where...?
Where is love?”
--- Lionel Bart
Love Quote
PLATO
"Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet."
In truth, “Real Love” was hardly considered a blockbuster. Seen more as a novelty by some, as it “reunited” the Beatles, if but for a moment, it received mixed reviews. A critic for the Boston Globe was particularly dismissive of all facets of it.
“The song is a bland, midtempo number with lyrics that hardly rank with Lennon’s best. ‘Seems that all I really was doing was waiting for you,’ he sings repeatedly in some of the more intelligible passages. Conclusion: No amount of studio tinkering can save a bad demo tape.”
What jumped out at me, beyond the strains of its bittersweet melody, is that my “Paulie’s” poem was thematically in sync with what “Real Love” was getting at. Accidentally of course. But it seems particularly apparent in these lines.
I am big on small coincidences--- as indicated in a Muse piece last month--- but small on big coincidences. So when a notion of some sort of “harmonic convergence” seems to occur, which I’ve labored to describe here, I lean towards skepticism. Yet, who has not paused to ponder and wonder at one time or another, at an irony or improbability… “What was that all about?”
In this case, a poem, by way of a dream, finds a companion in a wistful sentiment expressed in song. And it’s a good one: the need to sometimes go a long distance--- be it built on a road of yellow bricks, or as here, the less firm blocks of time--- to find real love. I’ll leave it there. (But just what were all those closed doors about anyway?).
Love Quote
“I wonder how many people don't get the one they want but end up with the one they're supposed to be with.”
The Tin Woodman’s Story
To what extent would one go to “find” love? And what one would be willing to sacrifice along the way in that quest?
In the movie, the tinsmith is falsely blamed. Which is of course so typical, be one of flesh and blood or even of tin: lay the blame elsewhere.
The answers to these questions, are at the core of the Tin Woodman’s story in the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Which are never really addressed in the loosely adapted classic 1939 movie. Though that adaptation, indisputably, far exceeds the merits of the book as a whole.
Just how did the Tin Woodman come to be made of tin in the first place? And what were the repercussions? Aside from the obvious threat of rust?
TIN WOODMAN: It's empty. The tinsmith forgot to give me a heart.
DOROTHY AND SCARECROW: No heart?
TIN WOODMAN: No heart.
Then following the lead of the Scarecrow, he shares his plight and aspirations in song. It is a musical, after all. But no mention is made of a betrothed within these lyrics.
When a man's an empty kettle,
He should be on his mettle.
And yet I'm torn apart.
Just because I'm presumin'
That I could be kind-a human,
If I only had a heart.
I'd be tender -- I'd be gentle
And awfully sentimental
Regarding Love and Art
I'd be friends with the sparrows...
And the boy who shoots the arrows
If I only had a heart.
Picture me....a balcony....
Above a voice sings low. (Backup voice “Wherefore art thou Romeo”?)
I hear a beat....how sweet!
Just to register emotion
Jealousy -- Devotion --
And really feel the part,
I could stay young and chipper,
And I'd lock it with a zipper, (Say, what?)
If I only had a heart...!
Again, no words of any specific love, nor mention of a beloved.
After a long and arduous trek in pursuit of this vital core of organic and spiritual existence, the would-be wizard gives him this cheap heart-shaped watch which he pulls out of sack (a facsimile of which can be bought online for $4.95, by the way), along with lots of self-serving and pithy sentiment. Which concludes with a highly questionable bit of philosophy.
A heart is not judged by how much you love,
but by how much you are loved by others.
Predictably, other details were forgotten soon upon arising. But the song, “Real Love,” remained.
Written by Lennon toward the end of his life, it was never officially released until 1995, almost 15 years after his death. It played on a radio broadcast (though BBC1 refused to), in conjunction with Valentine’s Day, and soon after, prominently featured (along with “Free as a Bird”) as part of a Beatles anthology broadcast on ABC.
Overdubbed by the Paul, George and Ringo in tribute to John, it became in effect, a new Beatles song; some 25 years after their breakup. And it was accompanied by a serendipitous video that opens with John’s white “Imagine” piano rising. A click on this montage will take you there. It's worth a viewing as over 16 million visits will attest.
No sooner had I updated the “Paulie’s” poem, came a dream.
We all dream of course. Or are in a dream-like state for at least a couple of hours each night, according to sleep experts. But unless they involve a long narrative or defining sensory moment, most wind up on the cutting room floor of morning. At least for me. I can’t even remember where I put my glasses fully awake (and woke), let alone remember some fragment out of time unleashed in the darkness.
Love Quote
The exception to my forgetting dreams immediately upon awakening, occurred soon after reworking my “Paulie’s” poem. I had one of some length, in which while walking down a corridor, bordered by closed doors toward an image up ahead, I heard a song with which I am familiar. Though hadn’t heard it for some time. Absent any lyrics, it had the feel of a movie soundtrack.
Confessions of a Geriatric Prom Queen
The focus of her writing is seniors. And her anthology of stories, "Confessions of a Geriatric Prom Queen" (Random Harvest Press) “…hopefully will encourage others, to drop a few hang-ups and grab what’s left of their lives with gusto and giggles.“ Even in the face of adversity, which the following story taken from her book, illustrates.
Available on her website. Click on the book cover.
Guest writer Lila Lee Silvern is a graduate of the UCLA Theater Arts Department, and has a Masters in Bilingual Education from California State University. She has had numerous educational materials published and has appeared in the KLCS series “The World Comes to Los Angeles.” A frequent reader at the Story Salon, the longest running storytelling venue in Los Angeles, she recently participated in reading her work within a musical performed at the famed Colony Theater in Burbank. She is also a member of the Independent Writers of Southern California where we first met.
All the Luck
Jan and I were having lunch at a cute little Mexican restaurant in Ventura. We talked about our grown up kids and their problems, our old dogs and their vet bills, plays, musicals and of course men. We always got around to men. We could be hiking in the Sierras or at a serious lecture, or sunning ourselves on the beach, when we inevitably got around to men, the good and bad men in our lives and our hopes for the future 10 or 20 years we expected to live.
It was the first time Jan mentioned her fall. “I was on the way to the movies with my granddaughter, when I tripped over nothing, no reason at all, and almost fell into the arms of this man crossing the street in a motorized wheelchair. He had the most beautiful smile and the sexiest brown eyes. I felt like such a klutz.”
Jan was the kind of person who would see beyond a person’s limitations, physical or mental and into their souls. She was also an actress, singer and voice teacher and thrived on drama. She had sung in Las Vegas, but not topless, she was always quick to add. I didn’t know her when she was the young ingénue in musicals in high school and college, or the star of local small theatre productions.
She was still beautiful in her mid-sixties, tall and statuesque with hazel eyes and light brown hair and very good bone structure. Though her beauty was more subtle now; her voice much weaker in the last few months, and now this problem of falling and complaining of joint pain was troubling. Still, the mischievous smile as she talked about the attractive man in the wheelchair proved that the same high school girl passion for rescue and romance had not waned.
Jan had been divorced from her high school basketball star-husband for several years, but there were two men in her life that we could talk about. One was a retired actor and director. He had been her passionate, jealous lover when they first met, but now after several years they were just platonic friends, who went to dinners and took little trips, but slept in separate beds.
“It’s better this way,” Jan said. “We get along much better as friends.”
“And what about your new man?” I asked.
“You mean, Bert?” she laughed. “I’ve actually known him since third grade. We went all through school together. I hadn’t seen him for years and then we met a few months ago at a friend’s funeral. He’s asked me out a few times.”
“Is he a theatre person?” I asked.
“Not really”, she answered. “He was the audio visual monitor in high school, the one who set up the projector or helped backstage. Now, he’s more a country western cowboy kind of a guy. He wears Navajo belt buckles and cowboy boots and loves to go to swap meets and garage sales.”
Neither of the two men in her life was with her when she got the news about the cause of the fall near the movies and the one on her stairs and the other one at work. It wasn’t caused by the pinched nerve one doctor suggested or a reaction to steroids as another diagnosed.
It wasn’t MS or Parkinson’s, as I feared. It was worse. Jan finally responded to the many messages I had left on her answering machine. I knew immediately by the sound of my friend’s voice that it was not good. She wept, “They think I have ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease.”
Jan’s three daughters rallied to her support. Her gentlemen friends were there for her. Philip, the aging Shakespearean actor, one time lover and now, friend, finally was able to tell her how much she meant to him. Bert was there to look after her little dog, Kiddo, and to help her move from the split-level town house to a rented house without stairs. He had wanted her to take her on a camping trip, before she got the bad news, but Jan had in a very kind way, explained that maybe it was better for their relationship, if they kept it platonic. With some relief, Bert responded, “Ya betcha”.
Several months passed. It wasn’t easy to reach Jan. She was busy seeing doctors, nutritionists, and therapists in different cities and participating in a variety of experimental healing programs. I finally was able to get past the answering machine and hear her voice. It sounded shaky, but her spirits were high. There was so much she wanted to share. We set a date for lunch.
This time we went to a restaurant close by. I drove and let her out by the door, so she wouldn’t have far to walk while I parked. She leaned on my arm as I helped her to a seat.
“ Well”, I said, “so what’s new?”
I expected to get a full report on her ALS treatment, but instead she looked at me and said, “I’m in love. I have a sweetheart.”
“ Is it Phil, or Bert or the man in the wheelchair with the beautiful eyes?”
“ None of the above”, she said. “It’s Doug, another friend from high school. I met him at a high school reunion.”
I was sorry it wasn’t Audiovisual Bert, who had an unrequited, unreciprocated crush on her for all these years. I thought maybe Shakespearean Phil finally woke up and proposed.
“I’m sorry too,” she confessed. Bert had been so steady and loyal. And Phil was trying to make amends. But it was Doug, who captured her heart and imagination and made her laugh and blush like a teenager.
The three men remembered Jan as she had been in high school and as a glamorous actress. They seemed blinded to the reality that she was having trouble walking and her speech was slurred. To them her eyes still sparkled, and her dimple showed when she smiled. She still stirred their ardor as if they were young again.
Two months later I received an invitation to her wedding and thought, “This kind of thing only happens in the movies.”
Doug with the gray hair, and a wonderful sense of romance and humor, was the one who proposed to the girl he had a crush on since high school. She was honest about her prognosis. She was in a wheelchair. He knew what the future held for both. But they were determined to enjoy each moment.
I went to the wedding held at her daughter’s home. Her doctor spoke before the ceremony about the importance of trusting your heart. An actor friend conducted the ceremony with grace and tenderness. Jan was held up by her brother and Doug. It was as if little hearts hovered over them. They smiled and kissed when they were pronounced man and wife. We were outdoors. There was a gentle breeze in the late afternoon. Tissues and hankies were clutched and dabbed and tucked in pockets and purses as we all posed for photos. A recording of her voice singing “Funny Valentine” played in the background.
I visited Jan a few weeks after. She could no longer speak. She communicated with a keypad that transmitted her words in another voice. She had difficulty swallowing. Doug was at her bedside, making sure she was comfortable.
I related Jan's condition to another friend, and expected her to sigh sympathetic- ally, but instead she said, "Imagine that! Jan, with ALS and a dim future had three men wanting to marry her. What are we doing wrong?”
I think Jan would appreciate that. No one wants to feel they are a victim. It’s not a role she ever wanted to play.
Love Quote
terminado
February 2020
February 2020
The Quest for Love
In a departure for this thing I call a Muse-Letter, which usually strives each month to be eclectic (perhaps to a fault? "Behold the Pencil"...? FEBRUARY, 2018 MUSE-LETTER), this issue is essentially of a singular theme: the quest for love. Corny? Of course.
It’s a bit of a read, perhaps best taken in increments. It will be peppered along the way with some brief quotes on the subject at hand, seven in all, by some well-known folks ranging from Dr. Seuss to Plato. And as always, there will be digressions. Most, brief. Others, such as a Beatles “reunion,” a bit more extended. Apropos, as haven’t the Fab Four always been suckers for, and unable to resist, the writing of love songs both poignant and shmaltzy? As will be shown here, the former. So we're not going too far afield.
February Briefly Considered...
If "April is the cruelest month," this one is the quirkiest. What with its oddities, faux-rituals and
dose of absurdity. Including this year, the incomprehensible Iowa caucusing. Seriously,
try to explain it, to say, a Ukrainian. Or how about...this?
I once imagined this magnetic refrigerator-door poem.
Special Theme Issue Featuring...
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The Quest for Love
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February Briefly Considered...
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...Beyond the Heart-shaped Box of Chocolates
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Love Quotes (interspersed throughout)
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A Poem, a Dream, a John Lennon Song
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The Tin Woodman’s Story
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Confessions of a Geriatric Prom Queen
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All the Luck
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muse-letter \’myüz-‘le-tər noun
1: a personal message, inspired by a muse of one's own creation, addressed to a person or organization, in the course of which, the sender becomes absorbed in thought; especially turning something over in the mind meditatively and often inconclusively.
2: a letter from a poet, or one who envisions oneself as such, in which he or she “muses” on that which is perceived to be news, or newsworthy, usually in some ironic or absurd way.
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