sarahbug mahayana like a lady bug but only a gazillion times bettah 020417 ... mahayana contrary to the name she never does bug ][test the theory][ 020418 ... Daria Spag, where are you, dont you answer to your old nickname anymore? 020419 ... god i got a johnny mantis record 020620 ... oldephebe Johnny Mathis that effete mullatto crooner conjures up images of pink bubbles and Donna Reed and the 50's that deliciously delusional, diachotomous decade. America weaved its myths and said open wide or you'll be excluded from participation in the meritocrasy. Here's the pablum, here's the pap - mmm now doesn't that just fill you with a warm feeling. All is well we like Ike -and look the maw of post-modernism bequeathing to us our new Saints and gods - a new kind of reverance and religiosity - Oh TV electronic prodigy how swiftly you make the lonely hours pass - I've got no time to think about the evil of Jim Crow - no time to ponder the predations and sujugations of the patriarchy - got my TV dinner and my plastic box - listen to the chattering cyclops - and my children will have people magazine and entertainment tonight - and all kinds of schlock to sling on their smocks - hide our hearts in the hubris of a carefully constructed facsimile of a pined for reality - TV - do you know what you mean to me? Tv you crystallize and validate the fantisies I've cultivated in those perfect and pink first few years. and who me question the party line - don't speak such heresy! TV tells me the truth and if you were smart you'd sign up and join the team too! Come on! we can cleanse you of that liberal, Communist taint. You'll fit neatly in that mold even if we have to cram you in there. Hey look these ArE the halcyon days. You think you a usurper a dissident? Haha You don't begin to comprehend the magnitude of what your suggesting. Affluence my friend, affluence of the soul, affluence of the mind, little islands of affluence - amongst the indentured class. C'mon son play ball the right way. Enlightenment? That's for the french and effete dilletantes. I'm really beggining to question your patriotism son. We have no interest in straddling the widening cultural and generational chasms. Patriarchal WASP orthodoxy, staid and safe, if it was good enough for our forebears its good enough for me. Watch yourself son, your beggining to bear the taint of racial and cross cultural pollination. Put on your boots after you've shined them, make sure that crease and cuff are flush - practice your goostep and learn to get along with the get along. Ah the fifties 030809 ... oldephebe Yeah I know my previous post has nothing to do with sarahbug - it's just that the whole Johnny Mathis referance made all these connections to old films and the attempted inculcation of a revered, and venerable choir master out on the Mainline in Radnor PA. His name was Dr. Zerr and he'd taught the scions of inordinantly rich families for at least what 5 decades? And so there I was brown skinned and a head full of kinky hair, not quite an afro. More of a preppie approximation of one. And here I was singing these anthems of the antebellum south. Broadway musicals rendering african americans into caricatures in one broad melodic swath. "Come on son! You've got a fine voice, you should really get into it. Old Man River is always the crown of our spring program." His aged cherubic face incensed to a crimson shade. A few obdurate strands of gray hair clinging to his head. He was a brilliant choirmaster and I learned much from him. Sometimes he'd take me into his office and talk of those halcyson days, he wasn't bigoted or anything, just ah kind of not quite avuncular more professionally paternal and ah not really accustomed to dealing with blacks outside the old comfortable subserviant relationships (porters, attendants, maids, and even a few waiters here and there) where every one knew their roles had read the script and everythings ran smoothly. he even gave me some valued advise with restpect to majoring in voice and what books I could read, and how to make up that defecit I had in solfeggio - reading music in what's described as perfect relative pitch, he said I had the ear and the talent I just needed to brush up on theory. But he'd get wistful, and take a few of us back with him down those corridors of memory, state choir try outs in '57 boy he had a banner crop that year he'd say. And Jimminy Cricket people! C'mon get it right stop dallying! Oh how we enjoyed his vituperations, his antiquated expressions. He was alright though. By the start of my Junior year I'd say he began to confide, wait not confide but sort of reflect upon his life as a choirmaster, he made sure we wore our little crimson blazers with the faux ivy league ties (for the kids who didn't have a father who'd attended Brown or U of Penn or Yale or Harvard or Dartmouth or Columbia. I think the one he procured for me was an approximation of the princton tie. And suggested I wear a white V-Neck sweater over my button down shirt. Sartorially though I'd probably have done it without his prompting. Umm it was kind of weird going into these capacious Mansions and private clubs and putting on a real hummdinger of a show for aged captains of Industry, aged belles of the ball and retired Lawyers and physicians. I think he only selected about 15 percent of the choir to make the rounds with him. "Been doing this probably since your foks were kids son." I'd get some pretty strange looks at first but once they realized I was with Dr. Zerr and they heard my boy tenor voice (my voice hasn't changed since the beggining of 8th grade, I hate it) why then those terse questions and brittle smiles just melted away. And my weren't they suprised at how well mannered and articulate I was, "why he almost sounds ... I don't feel uncomfortable at all around this afro-american." AT least not during the 5 or ten minutes we were encouraged to banter with those reeling senescents, you know make social contacts, unfurl the old blue blood pedigree - and all that - but I managed to endure it by speaking about broad themes, old songs and the like - how charmed they were, I'd get the whole spiel later about how so and so were so impressed at how I seemed to be acclimating, how comfortable i appeared and gee he can't be from the Heights 'cause I'd have employed his father blah blah. Oh and I had a few History teachers in Highschool and college who were relics, I mean really obdurate relics of that so called age of innocence and affluence. We've all been caught in the clutches of an anuncular teacher or family friend, someone just inordinatly garrulous (like me!) and you've got to elegantly finess your extraction from his ode to earlier days. Maybe I'll just start a new blathepage about the fifties and sling my dung there. Oh yeah Dr. Zerr rest in peace, he passed away several years after I graduated from highschool. I'm sorry I wasn't in town to attend his funeral The old guy was okay. later 030809 ... oldephebe relentless inner critic: uvuncular not ununcular *sheesh* so many words and could you at least spell them right? oldephebe:I'm workin' on it. 030809 ... Mahayana so {beautiful} 030810 what's it to you? who go blather from