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14 August 98
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I'm listening to Spyro Gyra's Three Wishes again. I had
something else in mind, but, I have discovered that my turntable
isn't working-- and it wasn't that long ago when I last used it,
either. It's a good piece of equipment-- top of the line Bang &
Olafson when I bought it (they had "rounder berrins" I was told)--
but, I guess even B&O cannot withstand the ravages of time, and
one of the friggin belts is gone. Rats. I was really looking
forward to listening to some new old tunes...
Like Jeff Beck's Blow by Blow: You Know What I Mean, Diamond
Dust, AIR Blower, Cause We've Ended as Lovers, Constipated Duck--
great guitar. And there's Boz Scaggs'
Let's see, what else is in the record box… I haven't looked in a
long, long time... ZZ Top Fandango, an old favorite when I
was working in the motorcycle shop... Beatles, of course... Hubert
Laws... Synergy Sequencer... John Williams Boccherini
Quintets-- a half speed master of Bernstein & the Orchestre
National de France doing Ravel's Bolero... Harry James... Oscar
Peterson... the Strausses: Deutsche Grammaphon's Digital Aufnahme
aus der Berliner Philharmoniker playing waltzer, polkas, marche &
overturen... Chopin! I used to actually be able to play the waltzes
myself on the piano! Now I can only manage to keep up with a few
of the songs on Jimmy Buffet's Coconut Telegraph-- and
I can't manage the improvisations... Wait! Here's the Scott Joplin!
Ragtime I can still play!
What else... Elsa Lanchester Songs for a Shuttered Parlor!
Great bawdy ballads and I didn't even remember I had them! And
there's Antonio Carlos Jobim... The Ventures... Kismet! Alfred
Drake, Doretta Morrow, Joan Diener, Henry Calvin and Richard
Kiley! I preferred Howard Keel to Alfred Drake, but, Bru gave
me this recording for my birthday-- no! Christmas the first year we
lived in Endicott-- he knew I loved the musical... Music for
Bellydancing! Ferrante and Teicher? Tom Jones! My god. I bet
there's even an Englebert Humperdink in there somewhere-- what
a collection. I have got to get the turntable fixed!
It's funny. Music has always been a part of my life, ever since
I can remember. Always there was music. Records, radio-- my own
incessant inadequate attempts at rendering my favorite songs on
the piano-- and then there were the voice lessons! Oy--! But it was
music. Always music. And yet, recently, I feel as if I've
just emerged from a great silence into a world where I have
discovered music all over again. It's a strange feeling. Almost
as if I had been suffering from tone-deafness, and now I'm well
again. I don't quite understand what has happened, but
something has changed, and now I want-- need to hear music.
And now, changing the subject completely:
the other day I sent off an e-mail to Tom Turpin, an entomologist
at Purdue, the fellow whose site on fireflies I linked to on the
1 August 98
page. I was asking him whether he'd ever seen or heard
of any blue fireflies. See, I have this very vivid memory of a
night when I and my friends saw four colors of fireflies-- green,
yellow, orange, and blue-- up in the Cahill's field where we had
been playing baseball until dark. The colors were very distinct.
I have often since seen green, yellow and orange fireflies, but
never again have I seen a blue firefly, so, I thought, why not
ask an entomologist about it? I figured he could probably tell me
where the blue fireflies now hang out, and maybe I could go there
and see them again.
Well, Mr Turpin answered my e-mail, but I found his answer...
annoying. He was very nice, he said he didn't think I was mistaken,
but that an individual's color perceptions were… might not always
be accurate, and that green often appears blue. Nuts. I know blue
when I see it-- especially when I'm seeing green, and orange, and
yellow, too. Compared to green, this was definitely blue. I know
I am not mistaken, and I know I wasn't dreaming-- at least, I'm
pretty sure...
Who can know, for sure, that what one remembers is true? It's an
interesting question, isn't it? The entomologist doesn't admit of
blue fireflies-- and he oughta know-- so, I'm wondering this: did
I really see blue fireflies? I haven't seen any since. Do they
exist? If they do, why haven't I seen any? Where the heck are they?
It's really bugging me.
I need proof, so, if any of you have seen-- or even just
heard of-- blue fireflies, please let me know. Thanks.
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