Two Glimpses of Reality

No.1,  O Lorde!

When the local kiwi girl singer—she’s only seventeen—called Lorde started to win all the prizes ever, I asked my wife if this kid had more than one song, as it seemed to me there was only one rather tuneless piece aired every time her name was mentioned.  

“Oh, yes, of course,” said my wife.  

“Well,” I nodded knowingly, “there is always another song on the other side of the record, isn’t there?”

When the laughter quietened down a little, I was made to understand that nobody makes, let alone listens to, records any more, not 78s, 45s or 33 and 1/3s, and that pop music was strictly on DVDs and videos, downloaded (whatever that means) and played on ipads, smartphones and other things I had never heard of.

“Where have you been for the last fifty years?” they said. 

This wasn't my wife speaking now.  It was the voices in my head that admonish me for my virtually total disconnection with the real world.  Their admonishments, however, since they are made up by myself, are probably more ironically teasing than serious accusations of some unforgivable crime against humanity.

“Fifty years?” I reply.  “Much longer than that.  Did I ever tell you about the time I went to hear Alan Freed at the Brooklyn Paramount in 1953 or 1854 for the first rock n’ roll show ever and got a free record of Greasie Spoon at the door, and how I—?”

“Yes many times,” my inner voices replied, somewhat exasperated. “We know very well your pride in being an old grouch, a curmudgeon and a pompous ass.”

“But did I tell you about the day I told my students in the university that I have had no connections with any popular music since—?” I started to say.

As usual, even as they ganged up on me, which is, naturally what I wanted, they groaned, and let me go on with my stories.  Meanwhile my wife got on with whatever it is she usually does as such times.

“Not to bore you,” my usual spiel began, “but there was a time when…” and so on and so forth, as the tired record spun itself round and round in my head.

By the time I was finished and chuckling contentedly to myself, they had all gone away, except my wife who, pretending to listen, got on with her own wood-carving or painting, occasionally muttering something which I took to be interest and approval. 

“Very nice, dear,” she said.  “Do you want to do the cooking this evening?”

It was the kind of question that signaled the need for penance in regard to another long session of meaningless babble and the requirement that I prepare our evening meal while my wife put away her tools and washed up. 

No. 2, Of Cuspidors, Chamber Pots and Ashtrays

The next morning, as soon as I had completed most of my ablutions, I turned on the television to watch the latest news from the Ukraine and the invasion of the Crimean Peninsula.

“This,” I said to my wife, who walked out with her hair uncombed and her face in a frazzle, “is more frightening than anything else.”

“What is?” she asked, searching for some hairbrush to clear away the tangle before her eyes.

“Well, you know,” I said, “how all the recent wars have required jungle fatigues and desert camouflage.”

She mumbled something I took to be an agreement, though that would certainly have been a surprise.

“But now.  Look at them,” I said pointing at the unmarked Russian troops standing in front of various naval and airbases.  “This is a winter war.  It looks familiar.  It is like armies I knew when I was growing up.”

“And?” my wife asked, somewhat interested, though probably more concerned about finding her way into the kitchen to begin making breakfast.

“Yes, well, that’s why I only like to watch black and white movies from the 1930s and 1940s.  They show the world as it was and should be.  Today—“ I made a noise mid-way between ffehh! and blehh!—“nothing looks real.  The whole world has become make-believe.”

I could hear banging of cupboard doors, clanking of pots and pans, and the swish of water squirting into a kettle.

“You don’t believe me, do you?” I shouted in the direction of the noise.

“Oh, but I always do.  You’ve been telling me that since before we were married.”

“And it’s  still true,” I said emphatically.  

“You want a world where they still have chamber pots in hotel rooms, cuspidors in the lounge, and ashtrays in all other places.”

“Don’t think that is funny,” I answered.  

There was silence, so I went on: 

“I would feel much happier with a dial telephone, you know.  And a real typewriter with ribbons.  That, my little chickadee,” I said, “ is real, natural and true.”

“Of course, it is my dear,” she answered.  “Do you want eggs or cereal today?”