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Homage To Luis Bunuel
We have a DVD of Un Chien Andalou out on loan. Late last night I thought I'd watch one of the extras (so I can post the disc back today and feel that I've had my money's worth.) I expected a half hour tit-bit. Turns out it's a feature length biography of Bunuel. So there I am, way past midnight, wishing the great man would hurry up and die.
He was an endearing old cove. A bit of a domestic tyrant (one gathers) but his wife and sons humoured him and got on with their own lives behind his back.
When members of his family were late for dinner one evening (he was fanatical about time-keeping) he put the dish of paella on the living room floor and danced on it.
I woke up around four o'clock. I remembered how Bunuel and Dali had experimented with automatic writing- and thought I'd give it a shot myself. I started stringing words together in my head without pause for thought- and soon went back to sleep.
So here's today's exercise. A slice of automatic writing (or typing.) Ready, steady, go.....
Automatic Script
And if the cat isn't ready for the dousing I propose to give it, that's too bad, but it will happen anyway. Ho, ho, he said and looked up to the beacon on the hill. Flags were there. Flags of many nations- all fluttering and spluttering in the breeze. They will have trouble getting over the fence, he thought. And then she arrived, swaying and clicking her castanets. He was entranced. The air grew purple round them. Rain fell and the helmets of the conquistadors glittered in the wintry sun.
That'll do. Very Spanish. Hmmm....
And Once More Because It's Fun
The trees cast long shadows over the deer park and the two sisters lay on the tartan rug and watched how the raindrops clung to the barbed wire fence. Nothing could be worse than this, said Eloise. And nothing could be finer, said Joan. A high cloud obscured the sun. The clowns came prancing by in procession. One of them clashed a huge pair of cymbals. And then came elephants. Tall white elepahants with Howdahs on their backs . And the sisters rolled out of the way to avoid being trampled.
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I puzzled over Mr Zebra and then remembered that there's such a thing as a zebra finch. At least I think there is. Am I right?
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I was obsessed with zebras. I saw him and screamed "ZEBRA ZEBRA!" And my best friend said, "MR. ZEBRA, like that Tori Amos song!" Thus, Mr. Zebra he stayed. He always kept me company while I smoked my cigarettes and had my coffee in the mornings, sweet little thing. I will never forget his death, it was one of those days of adolescence we think the world is over.
My boyfriend had broken up with me because even though I was pretty, this new girl he was dating was really pretty on the inside, which was a quality I was lacking. Upset, I went home and tried to shower and the water heater exploded (I was not injured and no damage besides the loss of the heater occurred). I went outside for an emergency cigarette, looked up and the swing was still.
Standing on a table, I looked down, and Mr. Zebra was curled up next to the little fountain we had placed for him to bathe in, dead.
Needless to say, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. I was beside myself. Totally inconsolable.
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What a piling up of disasters.
I remember finding a mouse of mine dead. He had jumped up onto the outside of his playwheel and it had spun under his feet, trapping him against the bars. I guess he probably suffered a heart attack.
His name was Archimedes.
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As for Tori... I always pictured myself killing my ex when I heard that song, to be honest, but I can't speak for Tori. But if you think about it, you have the megalomania of a Kaiser, you have a hole that's cold, you have a little fund, and a goodtime fella. Then you have some strychnine in the ratatouille, you have a mind being blown and then you have a premature burial.
I must have been projecting, somehow it made a lot of sense before. [Laughs]
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God, the angst of it, the questions for my poor mother, the long talks about fish heaven and Jesus caring, yes He does, too...
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I had one called Torty and my sister had one called Buddleia. There were others whose names I forget. (I guess they hardly lived long enough to make an impression.)
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It developed lumps under its arms. Kate cried. "Mom, I think he's blind, too."
I took him to the vet, and the vet said, "These mice only live a couple of years."
"What should I do?"
"We can euthanize him for you for five dollars."
I left Mousie and his sad little red cage with the red wheel and drove home sniffling. Kate cried for an hour, and then, being good old Mom, I took her to the pet store and bought a hamster.
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And my kids had gerbils. I like gerbils. You fill there cage with newspaper and they shred it with their teeth.
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I remember seeing him with the clarity of long absence, and I saw at once that he was no longer quite sane.
Out of the void of eight years, and there he suddenly was, holding a gerbil house.
He disappeared again that afternoon back into the ether from which he'd come, and he reappeared when Kate graduated from high school. By then the gerbil and its multi-tubed home had long ago been traded for a cat.
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I looked at her like she was crazy and said, "that doesn't make sense, mommy, but maybe if we bury it, a hamster tree will grow?"
Kids are such wonderful things.
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I wish with all my heart that a hamster tree had grown there.
--Remember the wonderful tree in one of the Oz books? It grew lunchpails! Pickles and sandwiches were attached to the inside of each lunchpail on little stalks Dorothy could snap off. The leaves were--of course!--paper napkins!
Don't you wish!
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Dorothy arrived in a chicken coop. She was washed overboard on her way home from Australia, I think.
Like so many children's stories, the adult creatures seemed inexplicably angry and capricious.
Remember Alice in Wonderland? Even the flowers were hostile.
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Now you've made me crave a nice cucumber sandwich and some tea--all this before 7:30 a.m.! [Laughs]
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I put him in a little Tiffany's box--it almost matched his plumage--and buried him in the middle of the plumeria grove. We sang (or rather, cried) Hello, Mr. Zebra to him and left him leis of gardenias and hibiscus.
After that, whenever I head that song, I did not refrain from singing at the top of my lungs--like if I scream he will hear me. It's silly. But it feels good. After posting about this, I dug out my Boys for Pele CD and had a go.
And it was such a relief.
Sweet bird. If only I could have told him that four years later, the same boy who broke our hearts asked me to run off with him. He would have had a giggle at that, I know it.
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