Odds and Ends about other stuff.

Peacock mating news, a trip to the Getty, Fan of the Day, and Rape.

This posting is something I feel like I need to do intermittently. By which I mean, focus on things that have my attention and have nothing at all to do with what looks like the collapse of our democracy by people I think are both evil and sadistic.

1. Bill, the Peacock, starring in “LADIES GET LUCKY.’

Bill started coming by and hanging out about a year ago. And before too long, he was accompanied by 5 females and a younger male who looked just like him. Come spring, Bill struts around the ladies, who never even look up.

The ladies are all “Ignore him, Loraine. Pretend you don’t see him. You’ll just encourage him.” “Okay. Sorry, Eileen. You got any smokes on ya?” Then the ladies turn their focus toward me because of my venerated potential for peanut distribution.

The Ladies.

However one afternoon, not too long ago, when I was outside with my peanuts and my phone, FINALLY one of the ladies decided to take Bill up on his grandiose offer.

As usual in nature, the bigger the swagger, the smaller the result.

And so, for the moment, we bid a fond farewell to Bill. Though he seems to be doing something right. There are 8 peacocks in the pack now.

2. FAN OF THE DAY.

On weekends, I often buy sandwiches at a place that has a blackboard posted by the kitchen. That blackboard reads FAN OF THE DAY

Slowly but surely, I found myself beginning to get obsessed with those changing names on that blackboard. Every time I went in to the store to pick up a sandwich, I’d immediately head over and have a look to see who won. And I confess, I’d begun to get a little envious. Plus, I couldn’t help but notice that there didn’t ever seem to be any women fans of the day. Time, I thought to myself, to break another glass ceiling.

So the next time I ordered a sandwich, I confronted my sandwich preparer directly. “How does one became a candidate for Fan of the Day?” I asked her, “ I need to find out if I am eligible.”

She peered at me over the top of her glasses. and raised her eyebrows. “You have to come in here way too much.” she said, nodding knowingly. “WAAAY too much. You don’t want it.”

“Ahh.” I said. So I took my bag of sandwiches and went home.

#3. A VISIT TO THE GETTY

The Getty Center has been a favorite place of mine since I got here over 2 million years ago. I like almost everything about it, including the tram you must take up the side of a fairly steep hill. I even get a thrill out of the fact that everyone on the tram (and there is usually quite a crowd of people) is someone who decided, on this day, that a good thing to do would be to go to a museum full of art and antiquities. It’s a nice antidote to the conclusions I have had no choice but to draw recently about my fellow human beings.

Plus when I disembark from the tram, it always feels to me like I am arriving at a city somewhere in Europe (where I have gone during a fantasy that takes place back before our current administration made Americans the object of hatred to our European friends.). Anway, every visit I encounter something singular that astonishes me. This time it was:

EXHIBIT A. THE WORST DRAWING OF THE 12th CENTURY

This 12th century illustration in a manuscript that was titled “The Five Senses”, contains the worst drawing of a human ever to be continuously exhibited for fourteen centuries. The name of the artist is not mentioned which, in this case, is a second stroke of luck for him. (The first being that he managed to get a drawing this terrible exhibited at top of the line museums for FOURTEEN CENTURIES!) If ever there was an example of how notoriety and exposure in the arts is no sign of accomplishment, it has to be this.

4: FUN with RAPE WHEN AMERICA WAS GREAT AGAIN THE OTHER TIME.

As you may know, the last few weeks I have been reviewing single gender magazines from the 1950’s and ‘60’s.

I found this fun rape thing when I scrutinized a ‘MALE’ magazine from 1958.

And this fun thing in TRUE magazine circa 1968

But I think there is nothing that so clearly reveals the amount of empathy for women victims of sexual assault that existed in America in the 1950’s and 60’s (when it was great again the other time) than this rollicking, frollicking main-stream good- time song from “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.”the Academy award winning “big and boisterous hit outdoorsy musical extravaganza” about a group of large, healthy (and presumably un-datable) white men who decide to go ‘into town’ and abduct a group of women as their wives. It is based on that adorable, hilarious slice of ancient Roman history known as “The Rape of the Sabine Women.”

‘The Rape of the Sabine Women’ is described in Wikipedia as “an incident in which the men of Rome committed mass abduction bride kidnappings for purposed of marriage with women of other cities in the region.”

There are many MANY paintings of this event by all of the art history greats. Each of them is sufficiently detailed so we can clearly see that a good time was had by all.

Yet none of these paintings and/or sculptures gets to the core of the ridiculous emotional reactions exhibited by the histrionic abducted women quite the way the upbeat good-natured song “Sobbin’Women” from the 1954 Broadway smash “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” does. In fact, the music by Saul Chaplin and Gene de Paul, with lyrics by Johnny Mercer, won an Academy Award for best score that year.

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Here are most of the lyrics. Notice the delicacy with which the so-called “kidnap victims” are described.

Tell ya ′bout them sobbin' women

Who lived in the Roman days.

It seems that they all went swimmin′

While their men was off to graze.

Well, a Roman troop was ridin' by

And saw them in their "me oh my",

So they took 'em all back home to dry.

Least that′s what Plutarch says.

Oh yes!

Them a woman was sobbin′, sobbin', sobbin′

Fit to be tied.

Ev'ry muscle was throbbin′, throbbin'

From that riotous ride.

Seems they cried and kissed and kissed and cried

All over that Roman countryside

So don′t forget that when you're takin' a bride.

Sobbin′ fit to be tied

ADAM

Now let this be - because it's true,

A lesson to the likes of you,

Treat 'em rough like them there Romans do

Or else they′ll think you′re tetched.

SIX BROTHERS

Them a women was sobbin', sobbin′,

Sobbin' buckets of tears

On account o′ old dobbin',

Dobbin′ really rattled their ears.

ADAM

Oh that aint all

Oh they acted angry and annoyed

GIDEON

But secretly they was overjoyed

ADAM

You might recall that when corralin' your steers

BROTHERS

Oh, oh, oh, oh them poe little dears.

SIX BROTHERS

Them a women was sobbin', sobbin′, sobbin′

Weepin' a ton

ADAM

Oh yeah

Then sobbin′ women

“Oh them poe little dears”. (“But secretly they was overjoyed!”)

Now that America is great again, maybe the newly revamped Kennedy center will collaborate with some of the prominent assault and domestic battery convicts in the current administration on a production of a rousing good time musical based on the story of Gisele Pelicot. (google her.) Fingers crossed.

5. THREE WAY TIE FOR SQUIRREL OF THE WEEK

Amid considerable controversy, a three way tie was declared.