Little spring

[muckefuck]

There's a Chinese expression, 小春 ["little spring"], that I know I've seen before though I haven't been able to find it in my dictionaries. I recall it was either a poetic term for fall or the name for a period of warm weather late in the year--something like "Indian/St Martin's summer". "Summer" suggests too much heat to describe the weather we had today and one week ago today; the mild temps and humidity--so unlike the crisp, dry air I associate with fall--make me think of spring. It was especially startling last week, coming right on the heels of the first snow flurry of the season, but there's still something disorientating (just kidding!) about walking home through the lakefront park when the trees are almost leafless and not being cold in only a jacket.

Today was also like a little spring of the mind after two days of gloominess. I even saw bright orange sunlight, although the talk on the radio was only about "dense fog". Last night, my dinner with monshu was the one event scheduled for the weekend that went more or less to plan. Despite being from Safeminick's, the lamb was quite tender and lean and the cranberries and walnuts worked well in the orzotto. At the end of it all came the last of the pie with the last of the whipped cream. And my odd neck injured has healed to the point where I was finally able to [CENSORED] his [CENSORED] again. Go me! While pressing thigh against a strange bear on the el this morning, I thought again about the shambles that Nuphy's body is in--and realised that in all my moping about it yesterday, I completely failed to note that his mind isn't in the least impaired. That's no small thing. bunj and e. came over Sunday morning and we had the most delightful chat about opera. I'm sure he and bunj could've talked about the Ring for hours. I tought of this today and it made me glow with thankfulness and relief.

Musical dreams last night. The more surreal one had me in my bed as my "younger brother" J. (I think I was the middle of five brothers) tried to attack me with lampstand. We were tussling, I was screaming to wake the whole household, and then somehow it became my two younger brothers tussling and me trying to break it up. This led to a massive family council--and I mean massive. Apparently, all the older kids in an extended family of hundreds were assembling to discuss accusations of incestuous molestation. About twenty-five of us split off and formed a rap circle. No, I mean that musically--any contribution to the discussion had to be rhythmic and, preferrably, rhyming. I was predictably bad at it, but I managed. It ended up in a teary breakthrough with my younger brother "Foster".

Weird.

Later, I was driving down the highway listening to one of my favourite "scam" (unlawful dupe) tapes, the Repo Man soundtrack. Except not one of the songs were ones that appeared on the real album. The two I remember were an early Fixx tune that was so stripped and punk, it took forever for me to recognise the artist. The eponymous refrain was:

Cool world rising
Cool world rising

spoke-sung in a staccato manner with a burst of "hollow" guitar at the end of each line. (I've been trying all morning to identify a song with the same guitar sound and failing.) After this came a frothy song by a one-hit wonder girl group (think Go-Gos, but without the gravitas--more like Belinda solo) called "Boys Are (So Warm)". The chorus went:

BECAUSE BOYS ARE soft and quiet
'CAUSE YOU KNOW BOYS ARE peaceful and warm

the part in CAPS being shouted by the all-female chours and the rest sung solo by the sweet-voiced lead. Damn, I wish I knew musical notation! In the wee hours, I was trying to think of ways to notate the tune, but I didn't use any of them and now it's badly faded. At the time, the songs seemed like minor 80's masterpieces, but I'm sure if I turn them over in my head long enough, I'll find that they're actually very derivative as their models finally occur to me.