Sproing

Q and I wanted to get an old Ronson table lighter back into shape so we took Le Cook Fou with us over to the shop to get flints. I also bought us two vanilla cherry colas. Outside the shop we were cautiously opening the bottles when a man stopped and said "you look like you're working for the bomb squad." We appreciated the observation and just smiled at the man, focusing more on the task at hand. So when we started walking Q said "That was my old music teacher! I wish I could remember his name - that's gonna bug me all day now..." It was good to hear Q having a fond memory, for once, of a regular school experience. (Q switched to an unschool at the end of grade 3). Later when we got back home and changed the flint and filled our precious stainless steel genie lamp 50s lighter with fluid it was still not working well. So we explored it. We had out the jewelers tools and popped a long thin threaded screw which held the mechanism together under pressure and, sproing, the whole thing exploded into tiny mustardseed-sized sprockets and springs all over the counter. It took us an hour and a half to get it back in one piece and now it's a goner of a lighter, functionally. It's sitting on the shelf with some other curios including a hurdy gurdy that plays "Yesterday" and a cluster of unripe bing cherries that had fallen in our garden.

Q and I watched Born to Boogie and the doc accompanying it featuring Tony Visconti interviewed by Rolan Bolan. I loved seeing how Visconti's experience with his friend is still occurring and not something of a museum piece. He didn't have to cast back in his mind to recall because he's a parent of all that living music. I love to see male Bolan fans for some reason. The footage of the Wembly stadium showed an older audience than I'd expected to see - the young women were mouthing the lyrics with passion and the few fellows there, in sweater vests, were going absolutely ape. That looked exactly natural. I love how some artists make glitter look down to earth. Like Sun Ra - on him there's nothing more natural looking than pale blue face paint and full sequins, whether as a balaclava or as Marc had it in a teddy-cut wide-lapelled blazer. And why men don't wear Mary Janes is beyond me. We need to see more draping in garments. Outside of the musical footage the film is a collection of handy images that carrying the most bang for the buck: messy eating and handling of food, runways, animal costumes. I think that's enough of a scaffold for an improv'd happy rich man's home movie (not like that mel gibson thing with all the caro syrup) and not as jivey as I had feared. Anyway - as Tony Visconti said, Marc's not gone.