231. Conversation w/ } Spider & the Undiscovered Bug.

…carefully typewritten by myself when I was fifteen (or thereabouts), 3 pgs. of a play dedicated to my then-girlfriend. Here’s an excerpt:

SPIDER: I saw a movie the other night.

UNDISCOVERED BUG: Oh? & what was it called?

SPIDER: I believe it was called A Boy and His Dog.

UNDISCOVERED BUG: Sounds nice.

SPIDER: Oh, no. It wasn’t nice. But I thought you might be interested to hear about it because it's a love story.

UNDISCOVERED BUG: Yes! Yes, Spider, that might prove interesting.

SPIDER: The boy—I don’t recall his name. Let’s call him Smith-Corona Coronamatic. Smith-Corona Coronamatic went underground where most of the human race lived to find a girl. He wanted her very badly.

UNDISCOVERED BUG: He was in love with her?

SPIDER: I’m sure of it. When he found her, he & she were stuck underground. They worked together to escape. She said she loved him & he said she loved her too.

UNDISCOVERED BUG: & they lived happily ever after with the boy’s dog?

SPIDER: No, the dog & the boy ate her.

Spider’s retelling of A Boy and His Dog (1975) deliberately misunderstand the movie—but that’s me, appropriating a film to tell my own story. That story being about the indignities of love.

The film, by the way, is a black comedy set in the wake of WWIV during the year 2024. I’d like to know how the human race survived WWIII, but I suppose we’ll find out soon enough.

The MS. is missing its first page & whatever else I wrote after pg. 4. The last page introduces a character who is clearly a stand-in for me: Paperboy. (I delivered newspapers for several years, back when newspapers were carried in big canvas shoulder-bags early in the morning by gals & lads who rode bicycles & saved their tips to pay for college.) This part of the play doesn’t exactly make sense. Paperboy is depressed. Radiator told him he “is a stupid idiot” but Grapefruit told Paperboy she loves him. Paperboy then renounces Spider & Undiscovered Bug. They’re not the gurus he thought they were, apparently.

[ image: a screenshot from the opening sequence of A Boy and His Dog ]

230. Marie de France & } Tales from the Darkside.

 

King Arthur dishes out wives & land to all who helped repel the Scots & the Picts—all except Lanval. No one puts in a good word for Lanval. He’s excellent, but not one to boast. & the knights who notice Lanval envy him, so they stay mum. “Now [Lanval] was in a plight, very sad and forlorn.”

Aimless, he decides to “take his ease” in a meadow. It’s a strange meadow; his horse senses this but Lanval does not. He takes a nap. Or maybe he’s awake. Two maidens arrive & ask, on behalf of “my damsel,” that Lanval follow them to her tent. The tent is fabulous (“There is no king under the sun who could afford it”) & the damsel inside is fabulous.

She offers Lanval her love & wealth, but w/ a single stipulation: he mustn’t tell anyone about her.

For a time, Lanval enjoys the damsel’s company & his new found wealth—but the knights, who previously ignored Lanval (specifically Gawain), decide to invite him to a garden party & there, at the party, the queen (Guinevere, I presume), hits on Lanval. Lanval rebuffs her advance. She says, “I have been told often enough that you have no desire for women. You have well-trained young men and enjoy yourself with them.” Lanval denies he’s gay & tells her he is “loved by a lady who should be prized above all others I know.” He adds that the queen is worth less than even the poorest girl in the kingdom.

In turn, the queen promptly tells Arthur that Lanval made a move on her at the party. Lanval is put on trial; to defend himself, he tells the court about the damsel—& realizes, the moment he does so, that he’s broken his promise & lost her.

Since he can’t produce the damsel in court, he’s jailed. His sentence will be banishment. Unless… at the very last moment the damsel arrives. She declares her love for Lanval & no once disputes that she’s more beautiful than the queen. Lanval is freed, & he rides with the damsel to Avalon.

Now, there’s plenty that’s different about “Lanval” & the Tales from the Darkside episode “Ring Around the Redhead” (based on John McDonald’s story)—but there are striking similarities. The damsel—Keena, she’s named—offers not only beauty & material wealth but also intellectual gifts that appear to be magic. The hero—Billy, not Lanval—is in love with her knowledge & w/ the promise of a life in the perfect world where she’s from. Although Billy is not accused of insulting a queen, he’s in jail, about to be executed, unable to prove to anyone that there ever was a Keena. Lanval’s advocate is Gawain; Billy’s advocate is a journalist. At the very last moment, before Billy’s execution, Keena returns & whisks him away to her perfect land—Avalon.

Bob Byrne, writing for Black Gate (“Birthday Reviews: John D. Macdonald’s “Ring Around the Redhead”), dismisses the episode:

The story was adapted in 1985 for an episode of Tales from the Darkside, starring John Heard and Penelope Ann Miller. By all accounts, it was forgettable and did not justice to MacDonald’s writing.

I can’t dispute this, since (I’m embarrassed to admit) I haven’t read McDonald’s story (I will!). However, “Ring Around the Redhead” is one of my favorite episodes of Tales from the Darkside, one I rewatch often.

I don’t claim that McDonald took inspiration from “Lanval”—although there’s no reason why he mightn’t have. We can, however, be fairly sure “Ring Around the Redhead” wasn’t influenced by Roxy Music.

[ Image of Keena from Tales from the Darkside "Ring Around the Redhead" ]

229. Abbey Road sketches } (home demo).

 

A student wrote “zone-off” instead of “zone-out.” She zoned-off. I dig it. Like, to get-off. Zoned-off to “I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”—but, as often, study / attend to it.

Oversized load & “Old Brown Shoe.” A house on a flatbed. Mom & Dad bought a house on a flatbed & set it where the old house used to be. Stood in the pit where the old house was & Marci said, “Yr grinning, Adam.”

“Sun King” begins w/ nighttime sounds.

Choosing a name fr yrself. “Oh, Darling!” Mom & Dad name you X but yr called Y. What of us who don’t make or acquire a nickname? Anything we don’t need to decide / think about is good.

Steer the car beneath the wheels of a K-Line tractor trailer. “He shut his eyes & came out…” the countdown “1, 2, ah 1, 2, 3, 4.” Cars keep losing the lane. Veering into mine “Oh, I’m losing my cool.”

Or you all came in too late.

A bright blue car full of plants. Not potted plants. Rooted in the upholstery. Grassland in the back seat. Driver in a camo poncho, stalked by a lioness; she’ll wait until the car is in park before she pounces.

228. Cricket for } Mira Calix.

 

Mira Calix is dead. I bought Eyes Set Against the Sun (2006) at a record shop in Cambridge. Not long after, the shop closed. This was before the restoration of vinyl. “the stockholm syndrome” begins w/ plucked strings. Autoharp? An electronic squelch repeats. A voice & a beat. Calix chants, “he said, ‘walk away.’” There’s a full moon this morning. At the Road Runner gas station damsel flies rise up & down in the lights. I brush them aside as I wait for the car’s tank to fill. Frogs gulp. Across the street the reservoir. Animals that live in mud. Calix incorporates a cricket—briefly—at the end of “the stockholm syndrome.” A nod to Nunu. Mira Calix is a field during the hot of summer. “eeilo” is mournful; “the stockholm syndrome” isn’t joyful but energized. Last night I thought of a scene w/ a jet-black cricket chirruping in someone’s bedroom. Mine, I suppose. The presence of the cricket erased the barrier between indoors & out-of-doors. I was annoyed—I wanted to be well-rested for the next day (today) but I’m not sure I was awake. I dreamed I went to a train station to meet a girlfriend I haven’t seen in decades. When she arrived, I recognized her immediately. Her hair was gray but I knew her by her size & by her gait & I laughed. Now it’s 4:39 am & dark & I’m on a highway. “the way you are when” a plucked cello. Mira Calix is dead young; dead is on my mind. Green shoots, the azalea will flower pink soon. All this w/out—after Mira Calix.

[ Composer Mira Calix died March 25. ]

[ for the now defunct Coldfront I wrote the following in 2017 about Calix's Nunu: Black sky white flora fringed pink and green. “piece not about the field recording” Here is a home movie wave. Whales in captivity. “I frantically” Treated strings and insects. Sailboats. “wasps, flies, larvae hatching, butterflies beating, and with this menagerie” A little girl dances in her swimsuit; wade in: track: “NUNU” taken from “3 commissions” ep music by MIRA CALIX filmed by PAPA CALIX directed by AV; TV ©2004 www.warprecords.com “site specific music” Walk backwards into the garden. Ingest to transform the sun. ]