"My funny valentine,
Sweet comic valentine,
You make me smile with my heart.
Your looks are laughable,
Unphotographable,
Yet you're my favorite work of art.
Is your figure less than Greek?
Is your mouth a little weak?
When you open it to speak
Are you smart..?"
Maybe your Valentine's Day plans got messed up by the weather. Or maybe the weather's an affirmation that it was best to not have plans anyway...?
I always have "My Funny Valentine" playing in my head for the holiday. The first version I heard was sung by Nico, recorded years after she was with The Velvet Underground -- I didn't know any of that background at the time; I just picked up lots of records as a kid, that looked weird and interesting.
She sang so poorly it was charming, and the song stuck with me. The lyrics matched her voice that way. Years later I finally heard the classic Chet Baker vocal. It's funny because they both sung with a flat affect -- it's likely each of them was strung out when they recorded.
I like that the song's focused on flaws & imperfections instead of a manic, idealized love. It's grounded and real. But it slips into something too despairing when I associate it too much with the biographies of doomed artists.
It's one thing to be clear-eyed and honest and to still love anyway. But sometimes that perspective is the fuel for a cynicism that's not clear-eyed or honest after all. Doomed posturing, a rationale for shooting yourself up full of distraction to not have to deal with the world directly.
"Tragically hip" is the phrase that comes to mind. A tedious variety of "cool." It's disappointing in art because the art should be OF the world but transformational. Instead, it's about how the artists' sensitivity makes them retreat from the world.
My take. You don't have to agree. I want to see more courage, less retreat.
I was walking through downtown yesterday. It was mostly empty, mostly closed. There wasn't that much snow but it doesn't take much for Portland to seize up.
It wasn't even that cold. Hardly any ice, nothing too slippery.
It was a little bit like wandering in the first weeks of the pandemic. Most the people I saw probably lived on the streets, scattered out from camps along the freeway or Old Town or abandoned buildings' lots and doorways. Either slumped, passed out, hunched over, or hyped up and darting from one spot to another.
I talk about this too much but it's always in front of me.
City vehicles used to have the slogan "the city that works" painted on. And the city was quirky -- maybe overly utopian & precious -- but optimistic, and it seemed to function well.
Haven't seen that slogan anywhere in a while. Seems like the optimism's evaporated or stagnated. Cloudy skies don't help.
"Keep Portland Weird" still applies, but there are a lot of varieties of "weird." It'd be better to be more discriminating.
Still, it was beautiful downtown. Without people, I focused on the details of old buildings, the odd storefronts I'd never noticed, squares of purple glass embedded in the sidewalks, signs and stickers and murals and tags...
The air was mostly still until I got closer to the river. The wind was cold. I stood in the park by the waterfront and watched some guy spin his Audi around an empty parking lot for 20 minutes, practicing his drift.
As I got closer to home, this dude approached from the other end of the block and then passed by, headed to the Whole Foods. His hair was freshly faded. He was staring at his phone, tapping madly with his thumb. He wore a backpack over his chest, with a plastic bubble portal in the middle, his cat staring out at me.
It was a good walk and it made for a cozy evening.
Happy Valentine's Day!