Dream weirdness: the song

As a follow-up to the Zippy on weird dreams, here’s the lyric masterpiece in the genre, Gilbert & Sullivan’s “Nightmare Song” from Iolanthe:

The lyrics, in quatrain verses with the rhyme pattern A B C B (with internal rhyme in most of the first and  third lines, and then a burst into rhymed couplets as it rushes towards the end);

Love unrequited robs me of me rest;
Love, hopeless love, my ardent soul encumbers;
Love, nightmare-like, lies heavy on me chest,
And weaves itself into my midnight slumbers…

When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache
And repose is taboo’d by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose
To indulge in, without impropriety;

For your brain is on fire, the bed-clothes conspire
Of usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counter-pane goes, and uncovers your toes,
And your sheet slips demurely from under you;

Then the blanketing tickles, you feel like mixed pickles,
So terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you’re hot and you’re cross, and you tumble and toss,
‘Til there’s nothing twixt you and the ticking.

Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap,
And you pick ‘em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns, and politely declines
To remain at its usual angle!

When you get some repose in the form of a doze,
With hot eyeballs and head ever aching,
Your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams
That you’d very much better be waking;

For you dream you are crossing the channel, and tossing
About in a steamer from Harwich,
Which is something between a large bathing machine
And a very small second class carriage,

And you’re giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat)
To a party of friends and relations,
They’re a ravenous horde, and they all come aboard
At Sloane Square and South Kensington stations.

And bound on that journey, you find your attorney
(who started this morning from Devon);
He’s a bit undersized and you don’t feel surprised
When he tells you he’s only eleven.

Well, you’re driving like mad with this singular lad
(By the by, the ship’s now a four-wheeler),
And you’re playing round games, and he calls you bad names
When you tell him that ties pay the dealer;

But this you can’t stand, so you throw up your hand,
And you find you’re as cold as an icicle,
In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks)
Crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle.

And he and the crew are on bicycles too,
Which they’ve somehow or other invested in,
And he’s telling the tars all the particulars
Of a company he’s interested in;

It’s a scheme of devices, to get at low prices
All goods from cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors) by treating retailers
As though they were all vegetables:

You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman
(first take off his boots with a boot tree),
And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot,
And they’ll blossom and bud like a fruit tree;

From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green peas,
Cauliflower, pineapple and cranberries,
While the pastry-cook plant cherry brandy will grant,
Apple puffs, and three corners, and banburys;

The shares are a penny and ever so many
Are taken by Rothschild and Bering,
And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake
With a shudder, despairing…

You’re a regular wreck
With a crick in your neck,
And no wonder you snore
for your head’s on the floor
And you’ve needles and pins
From your soles to your shins,
And your flesh is acreep
For your left leg’s asleep,
And you’ve cramp in your toes
And a fly on your nose,
And some fluff in your lung
And a feverish tongue,
And a thirst that’s intense
And a general sense

That you haven’t been sleeping in clover;
But the darkness has passed, and it’s daylight at last!
The night has been long, ditto, ditto my song,
And thank goodness they’re both of them over

Sticky expressions

Yesterday, a Zippy with the “found mantra” Vampire Manga Dog condo — an expression that lends itself to obsessive repetition. Such sticky expressions are a recurrent theme in Zippy, and they’re related to another sort of sticky expression, the “verbal earworm”, an expression that you can’t get out of your head. In my experience, verbal earworms often originate in found mantras.

Five-Ku on Channing Tatum

In the New York Times Magaine on 3/24/13 (p. 49), a Five-Ku,

five haiku poems about a current celebrity or cultural phenomenon. (Past examples include haikus about Susan Sarandon, Russell Crowe and classic horror films.)

This week in Five-Ku, we present five short poems on the career of Channing Tatum. During the extensive research and reporting phase of this project, however, we made an important discovery: Channing Tatum’s name is delightfully, and quite possibly infinitely, anagrammable. (link)

An English teacher

In the background, my random iTunes produced Chita Rivera singing “An English Teacher” from the original Broadway cast album of Bye Bye Birdie. A little masterpiece: the earnest middle class aspirations of Rivera’s character Rosie; the complex angularity of the text-tune relationship (lyrics by Lee Adams, music by Charles Strouse);  the extraordinary performance by Rivera (I have now listened to another dozen versions, and nothing comes close to the first Rivera). I tried to find a YouTube version of the cast album, but no dice; instead, something even better: Seth Rudetsky deconstructing Rivera’s performance of this first number in the show, here.

Through all the changing scenes of life

(About music rather than language.)

Woke yesterday to a piece of shapenote music that I’ve heard but never sung: Psalm 34th (that’s the tune name; the text begins, “Through all the changing scenes of life”), as sung by Norumbega Harmony on their album Sing and Joyful Be. It has a nice rhythmic effect in the chorus that makes it memorable to me.

The gay underwear anthem

[Mostly about queer sexiness and gay sex, but with comments on poetic form.]

Heard dimly across the room, a song with an insistent chorus that was apparently about bluesy underwear (or, just possibly, boozy underwear). On my iTunes, but it struck no chord of memory for me. I came closer, and it resolved itself into Pansy Division singing “Groovy Underwear” (originally on Deflowered, then in the collection The Essential Pansy Division). Ah, the gay underwear anthem, a theme song for my underwear postings.

Double dactyl in Dutch

From Anne Cutler, I learn that the light verse form the double dactyl is popular in Dutch — I knew it only in English, where it originated — thanks to “an outstanding practitioner of the art” (as Anne put it) in the Netherlands who writes under the pseudonym Drs. P. (Drs is an academic degree). A while ago Anne was inspired to try her own hand at it in Dutch, with a bit of an academic sting in its tail.

Ducks

Back from Stanford Hospital since Saturday morning. Things move very slowly on weekends. so nothing much has happened. I sleep most of the day, attended by Ned and Elizabeth. Not yet able to move around much, nor have I mastered the intricacies of the walker, which are considerable, and the effects of the pain medication (lots of oxy), which are complex, sometimes overwhelming.

But on more pleasant fronts, there’s the PBS Nature show I saw on tv (on Friday? my time perceptions are unsteady indeed), about ducks. A “duckumentary”; I suppose that was inevitable. Full of wonderful shots of ducks of many kinds — alone, in families, in flocks.

We were taught that every species of duck is either a dabbler duck or a diver duck. Or, as Gilbert & Sullivan would have it:

Every duck and every drake
Is either a little dabbler
Or else a little diver.

Hey, I’m coming back to life very very gradually.

Velasco strikes again, trochaically

In the last slutwear (for hustlers and lovers) episodes, we saw a P.O.V. toga line on this blog and an Andres Velasco sheer fishnet line on AZBlogX. Now Undergear offers more black sheerness from Velasco, in a Marrakesh line of sheer black lace underwear that’s a bit too revealing to be WordPressable. You can view the Andres Velasco® Marrakesh thong and bikini on my XBlog, along with the metrically interesting ad slogan:

Racy, lacy wrappings
For private celebrations

and some delicious ad copy.

Toga toga toga!

Today, from the Undergear people, hype for some loungewear that looks like it’s intended for rentboys in a male brothel — in particular a toga far removed from either ancient Rome or John Belushi in Animal House:

Note the well-worn double entendre on Greek. In fact, the smoldering young men are so taken with their sexy clothes and what they’re leading to that they’ve fallen into a line of iambic tetrameter (with the internal rhyme shapes – drapes).

On the left: P.O.V.® TOGA SLEEVELESS SHIRT & P.O.V.® TOGA CROPPED PANT [$49 & $38], with the ad copy:

Turn bedtime into your own private party with this sexy men’s loungewear from the P.O.V. Collection. Named for their alluring shape and silky drape, the P.O.V. Toga men’s sleeveless shirt and cropped pants are made from a light, airy blend of nylon/spandex with a sexy cutaway front. The lounge shirt’s sensual stripes, comfy pullover and cutaway front is sure to lead the way to the bedroom. The matching pants feature an elastic drawstring waist for a great fit and easy access.

And on the right: P.O.V.® TOGA ROBE [$55], with almost the same copy:

Turn bedtime into your own private party with this sexy sleeveless men’s robe from the P.O.V. Collection. Named for its alluring shape and silky drape, the P.O.V. Toga Robe for men is made from a light, airy blend of nylon/spandex with a sexy sleeveless design. The lounge robe’s sensual stripes, comfy hood and thin rope belt is sure to lead the way to the bedroom.

If these garments seem too modest and understated, Undergrear also offers some sheer black fishnetwear that will show off your junk for the enjoyment of your, um, companion of the evening; these can be viewed on AZBlogX, here, under the heading “Slutty loungewear”, along with a digression on the sarong.

Now on (male) hustlers, who also work under the names callboy, escort, and rentboy / rent-boy / rent boy. (Some trade on their careers as models, pornstars, or (sexual) masseurs, and advertise themselves under those job titles. Male sex worker now seems to be the technical term used most often by researchers on this world.) From Wikipedia:

Male prostitution is the act or practice of men providing sexual services, usually to other men, in return for payment. When compared to female prostitutes, male sex workers have been far less studied by researchers, and while studies suggest that there may be differences between the ways these two groups look at their work, more research is needed.

[and back to the toga theme:] … Male brothels existed in both Ancient Greece and ancient Rome

There is, however, a fair amount of literature written primarily from “inside” the hustler world. Among the books in my library:

Adams, Matt. 1999. Hustlers, escorts, and porn stars: The insider’s guide to male prostitution in America. 2nd ed. Las Vegas NV: Insider’s Guide.

Dorais, Michel. 2005 [French original 2003]. Rent boys: The world of male sex workers.  McGill-Queen’s Univ. Press.

Friedman, Mack. 2003. Strapped for cash: A history of American hustler culture. LA: Alyson Books. [the glossiest of these books]

Itiel, Joseph. A consumer’s guide to male hustlers. NY: Harrington Park Press.

- 2002. Sex workers as virtual boyfriends. NY: Harrington Park Press.

Lawrence, Aaron. 1999. Suburban hustler: Stories of a hi-tech callboy. Warren NJ: Late Night Press.

- 2000.  The male escort’s handbook: Your guide to getting rich the hard way. Warren NJ: Late Night Press. [nuts and bolts for a guy who’s thinking about getting into the life]

Rechy, John. 1963. City of Night. NY: Grove Press. [fiction]

- 1967. Numbers. NY: Grove Press. [fiction]

- 1977. The sexual outlaw: A documentary. NY: Grove Press. [nonfiction]

Steward, Samuel. [writing as Phil Andros, a number of fiction books with hustler characters]

- 1991. Understanding the male hustler. NY: Harrington Park Press.  [fiction presented as memoir]

Sycamore, Matt Bernstein. 2000. Tricks and treats: Sex workers write about their clients. NY: Harrington Park Press. [sex workers both male and female]

Whitaker, Rick. 1999. Assuming the position: A memoir of hustling. NY: Four Walls Eight Windows.

(Not all the authors have been able to resist the lure of jokey phrases in their titles: “getting rich the hard way”, “tricks and treats”, “assuming the position”.)

There is at least one documentary about guys in the life:

101 Rent Boys [produced/directed by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato] is a 2000 documentary film that explores the West Hollywood hustler scene. The producers recruited 101 hustlers from on and around Santa Monica Boulevard and paid each of them $50 for their time. The boys, who were from diverse ethnic, racial, regional and economic backgrounds, were interviewed in motel rooms on such topics as how they entered into prostitution, their sexual orientation, drugs and their first johns. The film focuses on a few of the boys more extensively while much smaller clips of other subjects are used. (link)

The film is, by turns, thought-provoking, funny, bleak, moving, and disturbing.

Meanwhile, the world of gay porn is packed with films featuring hustlers; the rentboy looking for love, or finding it unexpectedly, is a recurrent theme of the genre (which often veers between romance and hard-driving sex), though sometimes the hustler life is just an easy hook to hang a series of sex scenes on. And then there’s the puppy-dog enthusiasm of the guy who runs the Gay Rentboys site:

I travel the world looking for the hottest hustlers money can buy, film my interactions with them like reality style TV, and get them to have hot gay sex for my cameras. Then I review them for you. I love to get these hot and horny young guys to do all kinds of kinky stuff like pissing on each other and getting straight hustlers to get gay fucked for the first time. Currently my site features US rent boys, Czech rent boys and Thai rent boys and I will be filming in a city near you soon!

(Regular readers of this blog will have noticed the verb gay fucked, of course.)