Like She Was the Last Hope Thursday, February 12, 2004

This lyric has been kicking around my head all week. Joe Henry, "Short Man's Room":

This is a short man’s room
The better-heeled watch your head
I still got my one good eye
I keep it right next to my bed
I keep all my money down here
I dressed it to look like a shoe
I’m saving up for a pair
Then I’ll have more money than you
I drink more than maybe I should
But I don’t go out when I do
I put my feet up in the window
And I ride my dreams like a canoe
Then I write letters to the newspapers
And I dance to the talk radio
I’m a volunteer fireman each Christmas
’Cause there’s brandy wherever you go
My dad was a natural tenor
He worked at the mine in Lenore
My mother was a mule-skinner
And a bandleader during the war
I once thought that I’d live forever
I pitched in the Indian Leagues
But now I guess I learned some better
You’re only as good as your knees
The better-heeled watch your head
You’re not near as tall as you’re thinking
’Cause this is a short man’s room.

I love it, particularly the bit about the Indian Leagues. I can't figure out if it's genuinely sympathetic writing, though, or just an alt-country put-on: See how much I know about average guys? Splitting hairs, but that's what we're here for.

The Secret Things, all three of them, roll on.

@ 5:43:00 PM, ,

Pavlov's Bell Monday, February 09, 2004

Breezed through a couple of books I loved as a kid: "A Dog on Barkham Street" and "The Bully of Barkham Street." As square and lovable as your mom and dad. The first book concerns a basically nice kid who gets tormented by the fatso next door; the second book tells the same story from the bully's point of view. As a kid I was intrigued that you could switch perspective like that, and that the basically nice kid turned out to be, on closer observation, something of a shit, while the bully wasn't so bad at all.

As I said, it's a pretty square book, with lots of stern, sensible fathers and fluttering mothers. But there's a certain complexity to them you don't often find in kids' books, especially in the bully's tale. We aren't made to sympathize with him for some outre reason (his parents beat him up etc.), but because he's struggling to be good and falling short. He knows it, everyone around him knows it, but they don't know how to solve it. Interesting.

Why all these kids' books? It's either this or the Norman Podhoretz Reader.

@ 9:22:00 PM, ,