Ella, poets who suffer pain should fall in love with girls named Jane

[sovay]

Tonight was my family's annual Halloween party, which this year was full of children: my niece as Elsa from Frozen, Fox with the tail and ears of a black cat, Peter as a Rowling wizard, two granddaughters of a family friend (accompanied by their aunt rather than their mother, which it's good someone told me, because otherwise I thought I was having a terrible time telling faces in that family apart) in black-and-orange Halloween regalia. There was mulled cider and a lot of pizza and pumpkin-carving, which was the only time all evening I had a chance to sit down until people had left. spatch's pumpkin reminded me of Sesame Street's Yip Yips and my sister-in-law of Hyperbole and a Half. Mine is the traditional cat. It was a good time.





For about a day and a half now I have been listening to the original television cast recording of Stephen Sondheim's Evening Primrose (1966) with Anthony Perkins and Charmian Carr. It's wonderful music—four songs plus reprises and about half an hour of incidental music, lyrical early Sondheim. Given its whimsical, macabre, Twilight Zone-ish plot, I can understand why the musical never had more than a cult following, but at least two of its songs developed enough of an independent afterlife that I had encountered them in the wild before finding last month's YouTube clips and the other two are equally as strong, if more difficult to excerpt. (And clever. The lines that lead to the title of this post are a heartfelt but out of his depth poet trying to rhyme the name of his beloved: "Ella, gay as a tarantella / Pure as larks singing a cappella / Let my poem be your umbrella—") I am seriously thinking of trying to get hold of the DVD. And I still wish Perkins had done more musicals.

Comments

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, glad you had fun. I like the pumpkins!

[sovay]

Aw, glad you had fun.

Thank you! It was exhausting but worthwhile. Today I am finishing an editing project, which is not exactly restorative, but at least does not involve a lot of running around and carrying pumpkins.

I like the pumpkins!

I am happy with how ours came out. People did some really nice things. choco_frosh and Peter's was heraldic, a dragon with crossed swords. gaudior's was a white pumpkin with little toothpick-pinned cut-out ears.

[percysowner]

Wow! I remember seeing Evening Primrose when it was broadcast. Thanks for letting me know I can find it again.

[sovay]

Thanks for letting me know I can find it again.

You're welcome! I hope you enjoy it when you do.

[jesse_the_k]

Great lyrics, lovely work from spatch

[negothick]

Love that story ("Evening Primrose," by John Collier). It sounds "Twilight-Zone-ish" because other Collier stories, and many Collier-inspired ones became episodes of the Twilight Zone. Tangent has more here: https://www.tangentonline.com/old-time-radio/1467-evening-primrose-by-john-collier

[sovay]

It sounds "Twilight-Zone-ish" because other Collier stories, and many Collier-inspired ones became episodes of the Twilight Zone. Tangent has more here

I am familiar with Collier's short story and his work for the The Twilight Zone, but I appreciate the double-check and the link. I've never heard the episode of Escape. (The major site I use for the show is ambivalent about it.)

[sovay]

Great lyrics

The more I listen to Evening Primrose, the more I'm impressed by it. "I Remember" is an entire song of childhood memories of the natural world expressed in similes from the department store in which the singer has lived since she was six: "And ice like vinyl on the streets / Cold as silver, white as sheets . . . Leaves / Green as spearmint, crisp as paper . . . Trees / Bare as coatracks, spread like broken umbrellas."

lovely work from spatch

I shall tell him! His cartooning skills really came out in this one.

Now I MUST see this...

[jesse_the_k]

...because it sounds fabulous. Thanks again for your detailed introduction to mid 20th century cinema!

...and my library has the DVD. Life is good.

Re: Now I MUST see this...

[sovay]

Thanks again for your detailed introduction to mid 20th century cinema!

You're welcome! Technically this is mid-20th-century television, but I hope you enjoy it!

...and my library has the DVD. Life is good.

You definitely win.

[gwynnega]

What great pumpkins! The party sounds lovely.

[sovay]

What great pumpkins! The party sounds lovely.

It was very busy, but worth it. We put the pumpkins on the front steps when we got home.

[asakiyume]

It does look like one of the Yip Yips! And the cat is inspired; I'm impressed by those thin whiskers. I've done No-Face from Spirited Away and a face that's supposed to look like the Cat Bus from Totoro but doesn't really. I'll try to take pictures.

And that poet needs to pull himself together; Ella's not that hard to rhyme--Jane is arguably *harder* to rhyme, unless you're writing rock lyrics. JANE JANE, YOU DRIVE ME INSANE, JANE. (sung screamo style)

[sovay]

It does look like one of the Yip Yips!

It's been sort of unofficially named that.

And the cat is inspired; I'm impressed by those thin whiskers.

Thank you. It is the one kind of jack-o'-lantern I can reliably carve.

I've done No-Face from Spirited Away and a face that's supposed to look like the Cat Bus from Totoro but doesn't really. I'll try to take pictures.

I'd love to see them. No-Face is a great idea for a jack-o'-lantern.

And that poet needs to pull himself together; Ella's not that hard to rhyme

In a later song, he is dreamily reprising, "Très naïve, yes, but molto bella . . ."

JANE JANE, YOU DRIVE ME INSANE, JANE. (sung screamo style)

Heee.