Glory Be
June 3, 2009 5 Comments
Dear Millicent,
I have been thinking about your thoughts on happiness, and its knotted opposites. Today I couldn’t get the happy started. The weather was gloomy, and worry for my beloved cat (very sick, not eating much, looking tired even when she sleeps) was part of everything. In times of bad news I go very Catholic, with a dose of Oprah. St. Frances has been on my wrist, and thinking the possible of the impossible has been part of my language. Today was one of the days where I had the anticipation of future pain that I think was noted as a “mature” response to difficulty. This slightly pleased me.
But my other response to difficulty is bright shiny distraction, often maudlin. I was thinking today, while getting weepy in a parking lot after realizing that I had forgotten my wallet at home (a first world tragedy, indeed), of a Will Smith sequel to I am Legend called I am Maudlin. Back to happiness and shiny distractions: the glory of the musical.
Musicals are art, and I don’t fully trust anybody who thinks the form is, by definition, stupid; I hope they are uninformed. Actually, I may trust them, but just not with my heart. Some of what a musical can offer:
- Articulation: While it may seem unnatural to sing one’s conversation, there are other times where it is so perfect: I think it has to do with volume and tempo. For example, I am often disgruntled at the status updates of acquaintances on Facebook. But that sentence didn’t quite deliver my fleeting social ire and pained ego. Don’t worry, Sondheim and Barbara Walsh have nailed it:
- Joy: Just look at what one improvisational musical in a food court can do:
- More drama through joy:
More soon,
Lovies, CF
Carla Fran
millicent
Millicent and Carla Fran
Dearest Carlita Fran,
The food court musical is so interesting, isn’t it? People’s faces–the kids’, especially.
The first musical I ever saw was Cats. I was 8. I don’t remember a plot, but I remember being deeply, deeply moved at the time by the cat that sang “Memory.” It was only recently, flipping through my copy of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats while thinking about yours, that I realized Cats, the musical, was T.S. Eliot’s creation.
It may be just because I had you and detective stories on my mind, but I started to wonder, reading this, if our haunted house didn’t admit of a simpler explanation:
If the area window was found ajar
And the basement looked like a field of war,
If a tile or two came loose on the roof,
Which presently ceased to be waterproof,
If the drawers were pulled out from the bedroom chests,
And you couldn’t find one of your winter vests,
Or after supper one of the girls
Suddenly missed her Woolworth pearls:
Then the family would say: “It’s that horrible cat!
It was Mungojerrie–or Rumpelteazer!”–And most of the time they left it at that.
Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer had a very unusual gift of gab.
They were highly efficient cat-burglars as well, and remarkably smart at a smash-and-grab.
They made their home in Victoria Grove. They had no regular occupation.
They were plausible fellows, and liked to engage a friendly policeman in conversation.
I’m sending you a complement to St. Francis. She is invoked against rodents, the fear of rats and mice, and is the patron saint of cats and those who love them.
Love, love, and love.
M
This does certainly explain the rats, and the bumps in the night in that house. If only we had known to grumble aloud to Rumpelteazer! I like that they are chatty cats.
Your dear complement is burning in prayer to St. Gertrude, both calming the ghosts and fears of the past, and helping with requests of safe harbor, peace and love for my own little kitty, who has also been known to take off with the Woolworth pearls and build castles out of the winter vests.
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