{"id":4170,"date":"2014-07-18T18:41:15","date_gmt":"2014-07-18T18:41:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=4170"},"modified":"2014-07-26T03:43:40","modified_gmt":"2014-07-26T03:43:40","slug":"recent-hauntings-does-american-democracy-stand-a-ghost-of-a-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=4170","title":{"rendered":"Recent Hauntings: Does American Democracy Stand a Ghost of a Chance?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I took this photograph shortly after the small tin piano-shaped music box on top of the buffet shelf began playing its\u00a0song, after several years of sitting silently. The music box formerly belonged to my deceased mother (who happens to be pictured beside the piano with my late father).<\/em><\/p>\n

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I’m a bit bewildered by small, spooky occurrences of late, that resonate with sentiment.<\/p>\n

I’ve experienced three such happenings lately.<\/p>\n

Now, feminist scholars of 19th<\/sup> century literature, especially written by women,<\/p>\n

inform us that sentiment ain\u2019t a bad thing, culturally speaking.<\/p>\n

Uncle Tom’s Cabin<\/em> was the feminine John Brown, they might argue.<\/p>\n

Yes, I get that.<\/p>\n

But a recent afternoon I was browsing through Tocqueville\u2019s Democracy in America<\/em>,<\/p>\n

feeling burnt and wired, after a lousy night\u2019s sleep.<\/p>\n

Then, I hear a slight tinkling, teasing my brain.<\/p>\n

I walk into the dining room…<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be damned if it ain\u2019t my late mother’s piano-shaped music box<\/p>\n

that\u2019s sat on the buffet silently for a couple of years.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, it’s playing its tinny little heart out, a few feet away<\/p>\n

from the cassette tape of my eulogy of father Norm\u2019s funeral,<\/p>\n

which appeared, out of nowhere,<\/em> not long ago right on the bookshelf.<\/p>\n

The piano’s melody is touching but sappy: \u201cWe\u2019ve Only just Begun\u201d by Paul Williams,<\/p>\n

which\u2026The Carpenters nailed together into a hit.<\/p>\n

The piano\u2019s song \u201cbegan\u201d a few years ago<\/p>\n

when I first wound the tin piano up,<\/p>\n

shortly after Sharon\u2019s funeral. I let it play out —<\/p>\n

or so I thought — then eventually set it down in the dining room.<\/p>\n

Now I’m compelled to ponder Sharon’s affection for the melody, a sunny C major chord<\/p>\n

which takes a striking modulation to seven successive minor chords<\/p>\n

offset by one E Major 7. The minors help “sell” such sappy lines as “white lace and<\/p>\n

promises…” The wide intervals of the phrases do as well.<\/p>\n

So, Williams had a craftsman’s command of music.<\/p>\n

And now the dippy lyrics nag at my brain<\/p>\n

though I wanted to read more of what Tocqueville had to say<\/p>\n

about “the people” informing the intelligentsia,<\/p>\n

with his certain faith that American people<\/p>\n

were fairly intelligent.<\/p>\n

My own Tocquevillian faith in “the people”\u00a0is tested regularly,<\/p>\n

as much as my faith in a higher power,<\/p>\n

but I seem to persist in such battered, residual beliefs,<\/p>\n

still simmering in the petrie dish of my brain.<\/p>\n

Rolling Stone<\/em> lists \u201cWe\u2019ve Only Just Begun\u201d<\/p>\n

as 405 among The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And to be clear, the Paul Williams who wrote that song<\/p>\n

is not the same one who started Crawdaddy <\/em>magazine,<\/p>\n

one of the really seminal rock critics.<\/p>\n

If Paul Williams the critic were still alive, it would be interesting<\/p>\n

for him to meet\u00a0with Paul Williams, the soft-rock songwriter<\/p>\n

and have them argue whether the song<\/p>\n

deserves to be in the all-time top 500.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a pop song. Often played at weddings.<\/p>\n

These days I sometimes wish I was 30 years old<\/p>\n

and could have Jeffrey Foucault sing his wedding song<\/p>\n

\u201cOne for Sorrow\u201d (two for joy they say) at my wedding.<\/p>\n

It always lifts my spirit. And he writes a hell of a lyric.<\/p>\n

But then, how different is Williams’ song than<\/p>\n

some of the Tin Pan Alley Songs I\u2019ve played on piano —<\/p>\n

plenty romantic, and for Norm and Sharon’s wedding anniversary?<\/p>\n

\u201cMy One and Only Love\u201d and mom\u2019s fave \u201cHere’s That Rainy Day.”<\/p>\n

I feel the heart tug and resist, or do I?<\/p>\n

After all, The Carpenters sort of made my skin crawl.<\/p>\n

Strange thing is, poltergeists don\u2019t seem to. Not quite yet.<\/p>\n

As long as they don’t start tossing furniture around the room<\/p>\n

or de-alphabetize my CD library, or turn on an “Addams Family” video and, along with<\/p>\n

Boris and Natasha, do a steamy tango with my startled cat (supple Chloe could at least handle<\/em> the kicks, the boleo<\/em>, the head snaps and the female’s deep backwards back bend. But I doubt she would dig it. And I’d be “Ghost Busters” spooked.)<\/p>\n

But what of the weirdness of these\u00a0occurrences?<\/p>\n

Dad’s eulogy tape surfacing mysteriously a few weeks before mom’s piano plays,<\/p>\n

out of the blue?<\/p>\n

I shrug it off, sort off.<\/p>\n

But still.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d like Tocqueville to be in the room with those two Paul Williams.<\/p>\n

Tocqueville seemed to feel that “we” the people “had only just begun, to live.”<\/p>\n

Ditch the “white lace,” expand the lovebirds’ first-person plural to<\/p>\n

“We the people…” He wrote a 700-page political science masterpiece<\/p>\n

based on America’s “promises.”<\/p>\n

It would be a conversation with four writers, if I attended.<\/p>\n

I’d prefer not to talk much.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d be a Kakfa-esque bug in the corner,<\/p>\n

too ugly for anyone to acknowledge.<\/p>\n

So, I keep following my psyche through my mid-afternoon Twilight Zones<\/em><\/p>\n

but also keep thinking and writing because<\/p>\n

Norm and Sharon would want me to, I’m sure.<\/p>\n

Then, there’s my dead ex-wife Kathy, and the third<\/em> creepy occurrence — which fit<\/p>\n

her impish personality to a T (too complicated to explain here, having to do with a computer\u00a0screensaver “joke.”)<\/p>\n

I’ll just say Kathy, who died in 1999,<\/p>\n

was bugging me to finish my long-postponed blog remembrance<\/p>\n

of her — by her birthday, which I finally did.<\/p>\n

So maybe that’s one spook silenced.<\/p>\n

Maybe.<\/p>\n

Unless I start pondering the “astrological psychic energy” of birthdays and anniversaries<\/p>\n

and of “Occurences at Owl Creek Bridge” \u00a0yet to come.<\/p>\n

_______<\/p>\n

The Kathy Naab remembrance is posted here:https:\/\/kevernacular.com\/?p=1547<\/a><\/p>\n