“emotions”

Today I acquired a newfound respect for journalists and a new reminder of just how easy it is to fool oneself. More details will follow but this note tonight is for me, I don’t want to forget this moment.

I’d never heard of Jerome Kern. Much less of The Platters, apparently a pretty popular “doo wop” (!) group from the 60s. But in 1933, it turns out, Jerome Kern wrote a purdy, small song called Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, which The Platters in turn recorded and made famous in 1959.

And in 2006, today, serendipity brought me the song, played by Roxy Music (who are oh-so-very-cool), and it made me smile.

Yup, I am aware of it’s glaring cursileria, but it’s late at night and I’m strangely happy, so shut up and read the lyrics:

...so please let me write this and sleep afterwards:

Siempre me gusto que Mafalda festejara la llegada de la primavera. Nunca esta de mas un motivo para alegrarse. Llego la primavera, Chés!

I’ve been walking a lot lately, walking and driving, and I’ve seen more people in the last 2 weeks than in the past 2 months. What never fails to surprise me every time I pay attention is the multiplicity of their circumstances. What troubles that sad woman in the car behind me? That man right there is obviously cheating her wife. The father on the coffetable at my side talks to his daughter and son about graduation trips, money, leisure, the future, whatnot. That well-off lady over there, the one sipping her coffee and chatting with her friends, doesn’t know her two tweens are being stabbed to death right now by the ex-boyfriend of her eldest daughter.

I read somewhere, Savater I guess, about a dying old lady who, confined to bed, comforted herself thinking that, somewhere, someone was making love at that very moment. I couldn’t find that particular quote (there go 3 hours), but my quest wasn’t entirely fruitless. I chanced upon the same thought carried to the extreme: a (looong) list of right-now happenings. It’s often quite tacky (cursi)—Andrea’d love it—but surprisingly original at times (specially at its many gay moments).

Tonight I’m happy—truly, simply.