Summer 40: thoroughly

Matthew ELeave a comment

Most treasured Zann,

We had a plan. But the first real challenge would be coming and going from the palace. “The way I got here isn’t really practical,” I had told Wryth. “You have to infiltrate Cas Crid and hope everything goes just right.”

“There must be a way. There are greenkind here in the palace who visit the world frequently,” she said.

“Then let’s get hold of one of them.”

She tapped her chin speculatively. I knew she was thinking what I was thinking. Abducting a lauran noble? They’d kill us. And probably go to war with Amaydya.

Of course, it would be easy to just physically walk out of the place. We could do that. But that wouldn’t put us in the normal world where all the people lived. That’s why, when I tried going to the palace recently on the coach, I found the place empty. The greenkind had removed their court to some kind of realm that wasn’t exactly the same one that we humans lived in. And that realm was where Wryth and I were now.

Our favourite idea was to just break the spell, or whatever it was, that was keeping the palace just outside of existence. It was going to have to happen eventually anyway. But I pointed out to Wryth that this would put us in conflict with the royal greenkind, the Valnelatars and all that, before we wanted to be. And she pointed out to me that if we did break the spell they’d probably just do something else instead and we’d be just as badly off. So we didn’t pursue it.

“One considers,” Wryth said, gazing into the air, “In Amaydya we have little knowledge of the greenkind. Just what we hear from Crideon and its surrounding lands. But we do have stories of, oh, the strange people of the forest. The pranks they play on one, and so forth.”

“That’s hard to imagine,” I said. “But go on.”

“Yes. In one such story, the lost children must find their way out of the mazes and webs of the forest people. Spells that keep them lost and entrapped. So they pull a trick on the magic spells. They wear their cloaks and caps backwards on their bodies, does one see, and then the mazes and webs think that they’re walking in the other direction, and does not keep them bound in the spells.”

I thought about it. I had never heard of anything like that. “Do you really think it’s that simple?”

“I don’t know. But one could attempt it quite easily.”

“I like it,” I said, and stood up. She collected an extra guard cap and shortcoat from her guardpost, and we went down to the main gate.

We were standing in the sun, putting the uniforms on backwards, when a greenkind man cleared his throat.

I looked over. He was looking at us skeptically, and the cords around his sword were hanging free. He was in uniform, like us, except that his was gleaming white from his shako to his slippers. It was, of course, one of the royal greenkind guards of the Immaculate Zone.

The Immaculate Zone were the personal guards of the Valnelatar family. They never cooperated with the Rosolla Guards, and in fact preferred to pretend that we didn’t exist. They were a burning pain in the pisser.

“A moment, goodfolk,” he said. Right away, putting us in our place. You call someone “goodfolk” if you want them to dig a hole in your lane. Or shine your boots. “You are Amaydyan guards?”

“I am an officer of the Amaydyan guards,” Wryth answered. “My colleague borrows our uniform because of the unseasonal chill in the air.” The weather, by the way, was sunny and warm.

He frowned at her and moved his hand around me, as though he was feeling the air near my body with the back of his hand. Then he poked my leg.

“Ow,” I said. “Don’t do that.”

“Who are you?” he asked.

“My name’s Srix,” I said. “Who are you?”

“I am Llyll of the Immaculate Zone. Do you know what that means?”

“That you wipe thoroughly?” Wryth tilted her head forward at an angle that didn’t suggest that she found anything amusing.

“It means that you cannot lie to me.”

I knew this, of course. They could determine the truth of anything you said to them. They had all kinds of annoying little tricks like that. “I’ve just been telling Wryth here that you fellows in the Immaculate Zone were all very handsome and pleasant and that I liked you very much.” This time Wryth did smile, just a little.

Llyll frowned again. I don’t think he was used to being the butt of the joke. “The Immaculate Zone is charged with keeping danger from threatening the royal family at all times. And you are redolent with forbidden magic. Who are you?”

I didn’t want to talk to him about the magic. It was probably the effect of tasting the Sauce back during the Nap that he was detecting, and that conversation couldn’t go anywhere good. Might as well give him some truth that he wouldn’t know what to do with. “I am a special operative of the Rosolla Guard, and I’m on a mission to resolve the current crisis. I’ve encountered many different kinds of magic on this mission and you aren’t authorized to know about any of it. But if you want to keep the Valnelatars safe, you should be helping me.”

Llyll didn’t like that, but it was all true, so he couldn’t object. “And your name?”

“My name is Srix,” I said, meeting his gaze, speaking carefully enough that he knew that I knew that he knew that I was lying. “We’re going now, and you can give us a nice little kiss to welcome us back when you see us again. Which you will.” And we strode off through the main gate.

And Wryth’s silly trick with the backwards clothing worked! I could see the old coach stop at the bottom of the hill.

“I see the rumours one hears of the good relations between the Rosollas and the Zone are true,” Wryth said. “Isn’t he authorized to hear about your experiences?”

“No. They’re my experiences, and I didn’t authorize him, so he’s not authorized. This was a good trick, by the way, with the caps and coats. I wonder if it works more than once.”

“One must roll dice on occasion,” she said, and took a sheaf of Amaydyan intelligence reports out of an inside pocket, so we could consult them about our destination.

I’m so sorry,

Ybel

On Three Points of Usage

Matthew E4 Comments

Nobody likes to be told what to do. And I’m not. This is not me saying, “Hey, idiot, you’re writing it wrong, smarten up.” No. You’re going to do what you’re going to do, and I’m fine with it. I’m collecting these here because some of you out there may actually be wondering, what exactly is this word and how does it work? Here is my best understanding.

  1. whoop/whup:

To whoop is to shout exuberantly.
To whup is to hit: the Merriam-Webster website says it means “to administer a beating to, especially as punishment, [or] to defeat decisively”. (I think it’s onomatopoeic.)
So you don’t whoop someone’s ass; you whup someone’s ass.

Tangentially relevant here:
a 1993 song by Tag Team, titled “Whoomp! (There It Is)”
a 1993 song by 95 South, titled “Whoot, There It Is”
“woot”, or “w00t”, an interjection meant to convey enthusiasm (One can whoop “woot!”)

  1. whale/wail/wale:

To whale can mean to go hunting whales, but also it can mean to hit something as hard as you would need to hit a whale in order to have some kind of effect on it. (Merriam-Webster again: “lash, thrash [or] to strike or hit vigorously [or] to defeat soundly”.) So if you’re beating someone up, you’re whaling on them.

To wail means to cry loudly.

“Wale” actually is a word; it’s the side of a boat. Like “gunwale”. Back to Merriam-Webster: there is an old definition of “wale” that means “to mark with welts”! Learn something every day. So if you want to say that one guy “waled on” another guy, the dictionary says you can. Now what I think is that people who spell it this way intend to say “whaled on”, but don’t know that that’s the word they want, and this meaning of “wale” is a coincidence. But what I think doesn’t matter here.

It’s not clear to me what exactly Wayne said, in the movie Wayne’s World, when he complimented Cassandra’s band Crucial Taunt. He said either “You guys whale!” or “You guys wail!” He could have meant that they kick ass, or that they sing great. Either one works.

  1. yea/yay

“Yea” means yes. Like when you’re voting on a proposal you can vote “yea” (not “yay”) or “nay”. This is also the kind of “yea” you use when you’re estimating size (“about yea big”). I don’t know why.

“Yay” is the word you’re using when you cheer something. Now strictly speaking this should also be “yea”. If we’re being hardasses about it. You’re cheering by saying yes! It totally works. (There’s a Doonesbury comic from the 1970s where a boy is cheering for a policeman he knows, and it’s rendered, “Yea, Sgt. DeRosa! Yea, Sgt. DeRosa!”) But the spelling “yay” has entered the language and it’s fine to use it for the case where someone’s cheering.

—

I will not be checking back with you about any of this for compliance.

Review: Coyote vs. Acme

Matthew E3 Comments

I saw Coyote vs. Acme a few days ago. This isn’t (despite my title) exactly a review of it, although I can provide one. It’s more, there was a part of the big reveal that the movie didn’t go into as deeply as it could have, and I’d like to explore that a bit.

There will be spoilers! Govern yourselves accordingly.

First, a quick review: CvA is the first use of the Warner Brothers’ cartoon characters that I’ve seen since the original shorts that is actually funny. It’s a funny movie! I was so glad that it was funny; that’s the most important thing for it to be. But it’s also very smart, and, like many movies that I’ve admired over the past few years (including The Odyssey, One Battle After Another, Sinners, and Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Movie), it focuses on some part of our society that is now or always was terrible, and savagely attacks it in such a way that we can only admire its effectiveness. It’s also very touching in a few scenes; I won’t spoil them. I will give one piece of advice for those who haven’t seen it: no matter what else is happening, don’t take your eyes off the Coyote! There’s a good chance he’s going to do something funny. It’s a great movie in many ways; comes with my highest recommendation.

Now here’s the part I want to talk about. I did do a search to see if anyone else has touched on this, and didn’t find anything, although it’s very possible I just wasn’t looking in the right places. And if anyone who has more expertise on the topic wants to improve on what I’ve said, then that’s great, I want that. And what I want to address here is the way the movie almost, but doesn’t quite, confront the bloody core of racism in the U.S.A.

To do that I’ll have to explain the nuts and bolts of the plot. We know from the opening scene of the movie, a flashback, that the Acme corporation is up to something nasty. It’s performing horrible experiments on cartoon characters, but there’s somehow more to it than that. Then we see our man Wile E. Coyote using various Acme products to try and fail to catch the Road Runner; the Coyote always gets horribly maimed in these efforts. Sometimes it’s partly his fault and sometimes it’s the fault of his Acme-made equipment. He decides that he’s going to sue Acme for all of his pain and suffering, and goes to Albuquerque to get a lawyer. The lawyer and the Coyote investigate, and eventually discover–and Acme CEO Foghorn Leghorn confirms in testimony in front of Congress–that Acme tests its products by selling malfunctioning prototypes to cartoon characters, so that they can then sell improved versions to human beings. Foghorn Leghorn testifies that this is all worth it because the human beings benefit so much from the improved products that it doesn’t matter how many cartoon characters suffer explosions and other damage during testing. After all, they’ll be okay by the next scene anyway. And Congress has to admit that Acme hasn’t broken any laws in doing this, because, as we learned in an earlier scene, Acme writes the laws in the first place.

You with me so far?

So that’s what’s in the movie. As it is, it’s a pretty anti-corporate movie, which I appreciate, and I’m glad it was allowed to see the light of day. Would have been perfectly on-brand for the studio to just sit on it forever, and honestly I don’t know why they didn’t.

Anyway, CvA could have gone a lot further than it did in its criticism. I guess I understand why it didn’t; it’s very difficult for the people of the United States to really confront racism in public, and a kids’ movie–well, it’s arguably a kids’ movie–is not the logical place to start.

Let me throw a series of points up here. The first one is: cartoon characters are Black people. There’s been a lot of discussion in recent years about how the design and, oh, entertainment style of the early cartoon characters owes much to minstrel shows. (Consider these linked articles for more on this point: First Second Third) And that doesn’t even take into account the degree to which cartoon characters are identifiably Black to Black people today. (More links: Fourth Fifth).

Second point: various entities in the U.S. do have a history of using Black people as guinea pigs in tests. (Sixth)

Third point: Foghorn Leghorn is the whitest possible Warner Brothers character.

Fourth point: one feature of anti-Black racism is the belief that Black people don’t suffer pain the way white people do. (Seventh)

Fifth point: Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, a great influence on this movie, itself uses cartoons as symbolic representations of Black people in its treatment of gentrification in 1940s Los Angeles.

For these reasons, I believe that Coyote vs. Acme is symbolically about the treatment of Black people in the U.S.A. and how difficult it has been to get any legal remedy for it. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that the creators of the movie would know the background I just cited. And I think it’s part of why Warner Brothers wasn’t enthusiastic about releasing it, and it’s part of why I’m glad someone finally did.

(One of my friends suggested that Coyotyssey is the Barbenheimer of 2026.)

Summer 39: insignia

Matthew ELeave a comment

Dearest Zann,

Wryth led me back inside the palace. “If you would like a sword, to replace your guard sword,” she said, indicating my empty scabbard, “we have some very good ones in our suites. One does not like to boast. But Amaydyan weapons are far superior to whatever garden implements the greenkind allow you.”

“That’s very generous of you,” I told her. “But, no, thank you. I don’t use weapons.”

She thought about this. “Why is that?”

“Because I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

Wryth paused again. Generous of her to assume that my stances were well-thought-out enough to be worth contemplation by a second person. “How can one fulfill the duties of a palace guard if one is not willing to hurt another? For that matter, how can one save the city against its many problems if one is not willing to hurt another?”

“Maybe one can’t. Maybe I can’t.”

“And so?”

“And so I’m not going to release a weary sigh and resolve to pick up the sword again. Because that isn’t in me anymore. Because if we could solve this problem that way, someone would have done it already. Because I don’t believe in it.”

“Well. One must admire your bravery.”

“Not if you don’t want to. This city is full of brave people. May I make a speech?”

She laughed. “Please do!”

“Thank you. I’ve had many adventures recently and met so many brave people. Citizens and guards, humans and greenkind, wizards and children and revolutionaries and criminals and eccentrics and fools and one giant anteater. They’re all willing to take their chances against the world and everything that the world can throw at them. The worse things get, the braver they become. But things have kept getting worse. Maybe bravery isn’t what we need.”

“Then what?”

“I don’t know. But if there’s a solution, I’ll find it.”

We were silent, climbing tower steps. Eventually, Wryth said, “Presumably the objection to swords would also apply to strong magic.”

“That’s embarrassing,” I said. “I had actually been hoping for some kind of magical solution. But you’re right. It’s just another kind of sword.”

“Or, that’s what it seems like to two guards, at least.” And that also was true.

“Are the Amaydyan roosts much farther? I’ve never been there before,” I said.

“No reason one should have, if one is a palace guard. The embassies bring their own guards with them. Our rooms are somewhat higher, I fear. In better days there are magical chambers to move us up and down the towers, but now that the palace is sequestered from the outside world, those conveniences are unavailable.”

“Oh well.”

“Just so.”

We were both used to exerting ourselves all day, but still, we were panting when we finally reached the Amaydyan rooms of this high tower. The four guards there waited alertly for us. Wryth indicated me and said, “This fellow is Ybel. He’s an important Rosolla Guard. One should know him, if one meets him elsewhere.” They saluted, that weird Amaydyan salute where you spin your hand around. “Anything to report?”

“No, ensign,” one said.

“Good. Continue.”

We entered a large round room in which clerks and guards were suddenly trying to look busy. Wryth surveyed them briefly and led me to a spiral staircase in the centre of the room. We descended.

Down here was a small bureau, very well appointed, where an elderly woman at a table was painting a small object. She looked up. “Ah, Wryth. And a new person.”

“Yes, Lord Ambassador,” she said. “This is Ybel of the Rosolla Guard. I’ve been conferring with him on the current conditions.”

“Good, good. Have my new figures been delivered? One observes that the last ones were very unsatisfactory.”

“No, Lord Ambassador. The artisan has fled the city. We’re trying to find a substitute.”

“Oh dear. Well, do keep me informed about that. I’m just finishing up the Parthage officers today.” She held up the thing she had been painting: a little figure of a soldier in a yellow uniform, brandishing a poleax. “The insignia isn’t molded properly at all, but I can paint it so that one cannot notice.”

“Very skillful, Lord Ambassador. Do you have more orders for me?”

“No, no. You always know what to do. Thank you, Wryth. Honoured to have met you, Ybus.” Wryth saluted and we withdrew. She took me up two staircases to her own small bureau.

“So,” I said.

“Yes.”

“What you’re telling me is that we’re working alone here.”

“One suspects that this is the case.”

“Then it’s a good thing that we’re both so wise and clever.”

Wryth nodded gravely, and got out a slate and some chalk, and we began to plot.

Love,

Ybel

Summer 38: clamped

Matthew ELeave a comment

Dearest Zann,

A strong pair of hands clamped my shoulders and pulled me backwards. Ambe’s foyer furnishings clung on as hard as they could, which lost me a lot of skin from my arms, but whoever was pulling me away was stronger. I fell back against them and we tumbled back onto the grass.

I twisted around to see who had saved me. It was Wryth, the Amaydyan guard officer. “Are you hurt?” she said.

“Not badly,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

“I am pleased to be of use. Does one encounter such hazards often in this palace? I confess your peril was one I had no knowledge of.”

She helped me to my feet. “I think it’s a spell that Ambe uses to guard her lair when she’s not in it. Which I should have thought of before pushing my face in there. Foolish of me.”

“I see. A magical spell that is also your colleague, then. And mine,” she said, grinning.

“Ay, I guess so.”

“I saw you crossing the courtyard. I caught you up because I wished to speak with you.” She pointed to a canopied greenfolk thing where people could sit.

“Oh. Well. What would you like to talk about?” We sat down on the thing.

She made a squaring-up gesture. “Our delegation to Crideon is in a difficult position. This court is cut off from the rest of the world, and is doing nothing to address the catastrophe outside. Some of the rebels are demanding that we be turned over to them as prisoners.”

“They are?” Not the ones at Cas Crid, I thought, Acea would never stand for that.

“They are. Many of your countrymen have no love for mine. One struggles to imagine a resolution to this conflict. So I am spending a lot of time thinking what to do. And when I see you, I think, perhaps he would be good to talk to.”

I nodded slowly. “I want to stop it all,” I said. “I don’t know how, or who can help, or what to do next. But I’m going to do something, because I don’t know who else is. Will you help? If you can?”

Wryth considered. “I remember you pushing a bench, at a wedding, to save your guards from being killed. I thought to myself, that is a clever man, not just to push a bench, but to know that the bench must be pushed. It is why I thought I should talk to you. Yes, I will help, if I can.”

I hadn’t expected to feel such relief. “Thank you,” I said. “Again.”

“How does one begin such a conspiracy?”

I reached out my hand and she shook it.

“Perhaps you’d like to speak to the Amaydyan ambassador?” she suggested.

That sounded like a good idea.

All my love,

Ybel

Mr. Brightside (the Killers, 2003)

Matthew ELeave a comment

Mr. Brightside – the Killers (2003). #10 in the U.S. and U.K., #5 on a couple of Canadian charts. Diamond in the U.S. and Canada, 12 x Platinum in the U.K. An anthem of the Millennial generation, I guess, sort of, maybe. Billboard best song of 2005. Most successful single never to top the British charts.

I don’t like this goddamn song. I don’t really want to not like it–it’s got a very promising title, sounds like it could be a superhero name, always a good sign–but I don’t. There’s just something about rock music of the 21st century that tends to sound draggy and dreary. I don’t know what it is. But it’s exacerbated here by the way the singer holds a monotone on some of the prominent lyrics. Maybe it gets the effect they were going for but it makes it particularly unpleasant for me.

I don’t like the song so much that I thought I just didn’t like the Killers at all. This was reinforced by some of their Christmas music that I simply couldn’t make friends with for any reason. But since then I’ve heard some more Killers music, both Christmas (“Christmas in L.A.”) and regular (“Human”), that I do like, so, fine. The Killers can stay. But they have to leave this number outside.

Probably the reason why so many people like it so much is the same reason I don’t like it so much: the radio played it to death. I remember hearing it of a morning on our clock radio and thinking, “Every morning?” It was too much. Why couldn’t they pick something pretty? And another thing: the little rhyme trick they pull where it makes you expect the singer to say “and she’s touching his dick” is only clever the first ten thousand times you hear it. Do you realize how serious this is? This song has got me speaking out against cheap tricks. I’m ashamed of myself, I really am.

I Still Have Faith in You (ABBA, 2021)

Matthew ELeave a comment

I Still Have Faith in You – ABBA (2021) written by Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus. Nominated for Record of the Year; #9 on the Canadian digital music sales chart, #2 on the Swedish charts. Platinum in Sweden.

This was the lead song from ABBA’s big comeback album, Voyage. It’s not the best ABBA, but it’s pretty good ABBA. It showed that, after forty years, they can still make it work like they used to. If you missed them, they’re really back.

“I Still Have Faith In You” seems to be about the singer of ABBA wondering if she can still make music with the band like she used to. She thinks so, there’s definitely some of the old magic around, but she isn’t sure of her own ability to rise up to the necessary level. Whether she can or not, though, she’s taking heart that she knows the rest of the group can.

But it doesn’t have to be about that. It could be sung from the point of view of a woman unsure about restarting an old relationship. That’s possible. Look at the lyrics and tell me it isn’t possible. Why aren’t we interpreting it like that?

This is what these music types do, sometimes, with their charisma and their razzmatazz. They get us to like them, to identify with them. To invest in their story. ABBA are four Swedish people who sang several dozen catchy songs forty to fifty years ago. No reason why they shouldn’t try to make a comeback, but how can they presume that a song about whether they can manage that comeback, whether they’ve got the internal resources to live up to how special the group used to be, would be something that would engage our empathy?

Except, of course, that they’re right. We do care about all that; we are glad that they’re back, and that they still have faith in each other, and in us, and we in them, and that the group was and is special. Parasocial relationships gonna parasocial. It’s a great trick. All the more so because the joke isn’t on us: it’s on all the people that it didn’t work on.

Summer 37: Amb?

Matthew ELeave a comment

Dear Zann,

The portal, or gate, or whatever it was that I had jumped into, looked dangerous, but jumping into it wasn’t quite as reckless as it seemed. What I figured was, where would a couple of resistance wizards want to open a door to? Either back into the real world or, maybe, into the palace. Either of those would be fine with me. And the harp music did suggest the palace to me. They certainly wouldn’t be opening a door to any demonic realms, not with Acea in charge.

So I wasn’t surprised when I tumbled onto a stone floor in some kind of large dim space. It smelled like the palace. It was quiet, though, and there was nobody around, and I didn’t quite recognize the room I was in. It was too big to be anything but a ballroom, but it didn’t look like a ballroom. I got up and wandered to the far end, and found a little corridor leading away, with a staircase leading up. Up was good; I ascended.

I could hear some sounds in the distance, now. Nothing alarming. Just normal noises that meant there were people around the place. That was reassuring, because the last time I had come to the palace, there had been nobody there. Of course, that time, I had come here by a regular road, and this time I came by magic. The greenkind, I wondered, might be able to live in the magic palace without having to live in the physical palace.

I tried some more corridors, and found a door that looked like it ought to lead to another staircase. I opened it. No staircase. It was a small bower with a greenkind man drowsing in a chair. He had a poetry book on his lap. He opened his eyes, and said, “What is it?” I know this fellow, I said to myself.

“Oh. Nothing, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you; I took a wrong turn. But… I think I know you from somewhere.”

“It’s possible,” he said, rubbing his eyes. “I have been somewhere.”

I searched my memory. “You’re… I think I helped load some boxes onto your boat. Swings and swings ago. You weren’t paying much attention to me, but… you threw this coin overboard,” I said, and showed him the coin from around my neck.

“Shit!” he said, and scrambled to his feet, knocking the chair over. He quickly got behind it. “Keep that thing away from me!”

I stepped back, politely, and said, “Why? What does it do?”

“Nothing!”

“Then what’s so terrible about it?”

“It’s not… You know what? I don’t want to talk about it. Take it away from me. I don’t ever want to see it again, and if you have any decency, you’ll keep as far from me as you can yourself. I’m sorry for everything but go.”

“I’ll go. But if there’s anything you could tell me about…” But he was covering his eyes so he didn’t have to look at me, and drinking brandy right from the bottle. “I’ll just go, then. Sorry to disturb you.”

I left him, turned two more corners, and found myself in the good old Strawberry Gallery. From there I stepped out into the grassy inner bailey of the palace. Sunshine! Late morning, it looked like. I wondered what there was to eat around here.

There was a fresh breeze off the river. I stepped up a little hill to catch more of it. Why did I miss the palace? I really didn’t belong here. What pleasant memories could I have of the place? But I did like it here and wished I could stay, maybe even live here, somehow.

There were other greenkind around, but nobody close. Ambe’s lair was right over there, though. Could she possibly be inside? I doubted it. But I could check.

I opened the little door and stuck my head in. “Amb? Are you here?”

A patch of moss on the gnarled wall formed itself into a mouth and said, “Amb? Are you here?”

“I guess not,” I said, and went to leave, but the mat below said, “I guess not,” jumped up, and grabbed my hands.

“Ow!” I said, and tried to break free.

“Ow! Are you here?” said the coatrack as it reached out to grab my head and pull me inside.

“Piss off!” I said, fighting against all of this.

“Amb? Piss off,” said the wall, opening up to accept my body into a dark crevice. “I guess not. Ow!” agreed the coatrack, pushing me in.

All my love,

Ybel

Summer 36: unforgivable

Matthew ELeave a comment

Oh, Zann…

“Now then,” Fafafa said, “Gods, it’s good to see you. I suppose some things make more sense to you.”

“You fighting in the resistance, you mean? Yes. I suppose Quoon and Ostavon are also part of it? Are they all right? It’s good to see you too.”

“Of course, yes, they’re fine.”

“And what about Wande?”

He sighed. “Yes. I’m sorry. She was. But she’s not with us now. I don’t know what happened to her. Or her little girl.”

“Oh! I know where they are. Don’t worry about that. They’re well.”

“They are? You’ve seen them?”

“Ay,” I said. “But the resistance.”

“Ay. All simple enough. We couldn’t tell you about it, because you’re a Rosolla Guard, obviously. You must know that. In fact, we still can’t tell you about it.” A few of the other soldiers relaxing in this courtyard were close enough to overhear us. I could see them straining their ears to eavesdrop.

“Yes, you can. Please know, I’m not your enemy. I’m… I’m just trying to fix all this. And I need help. I know Acea hates me, but… is Acea your leader?”

“Ay. Why does he hate you?”

“I could never explain it. It… never mind. My point is, Lord Clear is the enemy. And the greenkind have done unforgivable things, but they’re not the enemy. And I’m not either. And we have to make it all right for us all to be here. Somehow. And I’m the only one who wants to do that, and I need help.”

He shook his head dismissively. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. How are you going to fix the whole city? You’re not making sense. But see here. You know I’ve done a lot of fighting, over the years.”

“Of course I know that. But–“

“This isn’t the first time I’ve had a friend on the other side. And, whatever you think, I do care about that. I don’t like having to treat you like an enemy–“

“Then don’t!”

“–but now that you’re here it doesn’t matter. I can just put you somewhere safe until this is all over, and I don’t have to worry about us killing you in battle!”

“Put me somewhere! Faf, no, I have to help–“

“It’ll be somewhere comfortable. We’ll feed you. And let you out after we’ve won. You can just relax. We’ll bring you books. You won’t have to worry about anything.” He signaled a couple of soldiers to come over.

“Like piss I won’t! I’m not just going to sit in a box while the world changes all around me! You don’t even know what it’s about! I need to–“

“What are you doing there?” he asked, indicating my left hand. I looked down. I had pulled my coin, on its thong, out from under my tunic and I was digging its edges into my fingers, without knowing. “Is that your magic coin?”

“Ay,” I said. “I don’t know–“

“You’d better give it to me,” Fafafa said, reaching for it. “I’ll hold on to it for–“

“Get your own,” I said, standing and shoving him back over his bench. I used the bench to vault myself over him and run for the nearest door. There were resistance soldiers all around us and I couldn’t avoid them for long, but I knew I couldn’t let them take me.

“Hey!” Fafafa shouted, lying on his back flailing his arms. “Take him! Don’t kill him!”

A couple of alert soldiers blocked the nearest door. Next closest thing was a low window. This was going to hurt, I thought, and dove into it.

I crashed through the glass and slats, and it hurt, and I fell to the floor below. The window may have been low from the point of view of the courtyard, but it was high in the wall of this room. Two women were in here, backed against shelves and cabinets in surprise. “Day,” I said to them.

“Day,” one of them said automatically. “Who are you? What’s happening?”

“Can you get me out of here? The soldiers want–” I looked around. There was a long table with a lot of glassware on it. Many books. A map of the city on the wall, next to a map of the stars. Two purple lights bobbing around in the corner. “You’re wizards? With the resistance?”

A soldier stuck his head through the broken window. “Amele! Hold him there!”

One of the other items in the room was a wooden frame, standing alone, on a swivel. Faint black-and-green smoke was coming out of it. Inside it was a green void, with small yellow lights chasing each other around deep inside. I could hear music, faintly, from it. Harp music.

“Never mind,” I said. “That’ll do.” And I dove through it.

Love,

Ybel

Ya Ya (Lee Dorsey, 1961)

Matthew ELeave a comment

“Ya Ya” – Lee Dorsey (1961) written by Lee Dorsey, C.L. Blast, Bobby Robinson, and Morris Levy, unless some part of that isn’t true. #7 on the Billboard Hot 100, #1 on the Billboard R&B charts. Covered by many other famous acts.

So simple and challenging that it might as well be for little kids. Cheerful, easy to sing, full of nonsense words. On the one hand, why talk about it? On the other hand, why aren’t there always a few songs like this on the charts?

Anyway, the truly admirable thing here for me is the slow start. “Oh… well… I’m…” and then Dorsey’s breath catches and that, right there, that’s where the genius comes in. That part where his breath catches and he jumps into the rhythm of the song, that’s what, as Josh Lyman would put it, makes it art. Replace that with AI, you SOBs!