by Peter Berryman
Short Quotes Unremarkable In Depth
I have a new hobby, which isn't surprising, because sometimes I think I begin a new hobby every hour or so, and end an old one. Attention Deficit Disorder? Maybe so, but actually I have a feeling it's closer to Retention Deficit Disorder. Maybe it's due to all the glue I sniffed with my first major hobby which was building model airplanes. Ah, I can still remember the aroma of Ambroid glue, which was mostly acetate dissolved in acetone. Who knew that my love of balsa wood and silkspan was really the thrill of the buzz? Unfortunately, acetone is good for brain cells like tongues are good for snowflakes.
Anyway, nowadays I often can't remember precisely what the driving passion of yesterday's hobby was, so I invent a new one on the spot. Fortunately, most of these recent hobbies are ruminative and need no solvent stronger than java.
The other day I found myself sitting in our fading green chair in the living room and gazing absentmindedly (my normal hobby-shifting mode) at a lineup of books on a dim and dusty shelf somewhere behind the grapefruit tree. In the back of my mind (a damp dumpster) were my last two columns which had to do with finding Universal Laws in songs, and now I wondered about finding these in books. Paging through a few paperbacks randomly, looking hither and thither for Whither Zither fodder, my thoughts turned to wondering about the less important sentences and phrases in books, and, eventually, in songs.
I very quickly found a good number of fantastically unremarkable examples, which I began to collect with the help of the high tech randomizing procedure called "Let the Book Flop Open and Point with your Eyes Closed." I would operate this process then allow myself a little editorializing by searching for the shortest, most innocuous sentence near my pointing finger. These I loosely assembled into a pointless and odd collection of what I call, until I think of something better, Short Quotes Unremarkable In Depth, or SQUIDs. Here are some examples:
For the last couple columns, looking for Universal Laws in song lyrics (like Roger Miller's "You can't roller-skate in a buffalo herd"), I came up with very few. When I look for SQUIDs I find them in almost every song. No doubt this is largely because a SQUID is very loosely defined, even more so than my Universal Law definition (see Whither Zither #76 or #77). A SQUID, in fact, is any short, uninteresting sentence, so as you might imagine, there are plenty of them everywhere. A person can talk for a full day and never use anything but SQUIDs. I know I do. But what I think fascinating is how many memorable song lines, when read as unmoored prose bits, come across as being SQUIDlike:
Are SQUIDs richer possibilities for song
material than the Universal Laws of the last two Whither Zithers?
You sure find more of the former than the latter in any songbook
you pull off the pile. Consider these possible song verses built
upon the first list (above) of book-found SQUIDs, which appear
below in bold type:
-----
Everyone gaped at Sally,
Swaggering through the alley,
Flinging her fez and furpiece in the air...
-----
Grandma turned her cheek;
Mother didn't speak;
Father took his fav'rite book
And left home for a week...
------
I stared at the back of Zach's head
Who mumbled aloud as he read
But I couldn't hear what he said
While playing my tuba in bed...
-----
MaryLynn grabbed his gun
Geraldine called him daft
Johnny said everyone run
Elinor only laughed...
-----
We moved a bit closer
Our distance was shrinking
I tried to engross her
But what was I thinking...
-----
Though trees were killed
They drank their coffee
Though birds were stilled
They drank their coffee
Though ponds were filled
And mines were drilled
Unless it spilled
They drank their coffee...
-----
...And so forth. They sound pretty believable as song verses,
don't they? Well, okay, maybe not entirely, and they are going
to win no berths in the next Rise Up Singing songbook,
to be sure. But if put to appropriate melodies, and sung with
pizazz, conviction, and an accordion, they could sound at least
halfway songy, wouldn't you say?
So as this SQUIDdly hobby turns and slithers back down the shady yesterlane to join my model airplanes and Universal Laws of yore, I'm still left with the haunting impression that it remains interesting how drab, prosaic lines can be transformed by context and melody into blockbusters of memorable art, and how this happens more frequently in song formation than does the arranging and rearranging of Stellar Heroic Revelations In Majestic Poetry, or SHRIMPs.