Why Can I Not See Myself in Your Eyes?

Memories retained from childhood always seem to evoke sweeter sensations than their sources would warrant. An old television show, a silly song, the smell of wet asphalt; these things, if experienced for the first time, are rarely in the realm of extraordinary. Yet, armed with the heavy perfume of impalpable nostalgia, these fragments of recollections weigh heavily on our hearts and can elicit the strongest of emotions.

The Rankin and Bass classic, The Last Unicorn, is one of those rare cases that seem to shake simple nostalgia and bear fruit of new and intense understanding. I have vague memories of a warbly VHS recording from long ago, but when I watched it again recently, it struck me in a way entirely separate from simple familiarity. All in all a beautiful, lovely story.

Having heard much praise for the original book, and of Peter S. Beagle in general, I picked up a copy on a whim. The cover itself is underwhelming, which is a pity. The text deserves far better than the canned Photoshop texture and drop shadow effects.

But the work within is truly magical. It walks the line between an honest fantasy and self-referential parody in such a way that even the most obtuse of facts become completely believable. Prince Lír can talk of slaying dragons and being a hero with every bit of knowledge that we as readers have come to know of them. Princesses must be saved, nefarious plots by an evil brother or uncle must be thwarted, and a weapon exists somewhere to conquer any foe. But despite this breaking of the fourth wall, it never becomes a joke. Prince Lír is as real as any character, and this goes as well for the rest of the stellar cast. Fans of the film will notice that all of the characters are a bit darker than they are portrayed in the movies, but they are all that much more believable for their faults and moments of bitterness. Molly Grue actually ends up being one of the most positive characters.

Most of all, the character of Amalthea intrigues me. The author describes her in a way that conveys her magical heritage to exactness. Her beauty transcends beauty, so that even her imperfections seem to enhance it. Her struggle with her new feelings, with what she has become, and what she used to be, enchanted me to the end.

The prose itself is surprising, too. Beagle eschews the classic collection of comfortable clichés in favor of new and telling similes and metaphors. The Red Bull's “horns as pale as scars” conveys an exactness of color and the resulting emotion of the frightened characters in a way no adjective could have. And sound, the inexplicable sense that is often the most difficult to describe in words, is always treated with an artful reverence that manages to makes us hear with our eyes.

Beagle's unrelenting use of simile does become distracting and grating at times. Few things are simply as they are, and the power of the simile is lessened through its pervasiveness. No one just laughs. Rukh's chuckle like matches is striking (no pun intended) when it is first used, but when every laugh is like the sound of snakes through mud or an ax falling on wood, it ceases to be a creative descriptor and becomes a parody of itself. It's a shame, because there are beautiful images made of the simplest of events. Whether Schmendrick's words march out of his mouth like soldiers or Lady Amalthea glows as brightly as a flower, there are truly affecting phrases wrought throughout the book.

In case I have somehow failed in making it clear, I recommend this book with great fervency. If you have seen the film, you will find yourself well at home with much of it – Beagle wrote the original screenplay, after all. If you have not, then I can only recommend it that much more. It's one of the great fantasy stories of our time.

An Odious Aromatic Epidemic

It's quite isolating when you realize you are in the vast minority of opinion on a subject. That said, I can't help but verbalize how utterly baffled I am by America's obsession with fragrances. Not a single commercial break lilts by without at least three wholly separate olfactory assaults. Concentrated artificial scent gives me a severe headache, but more than that, I just can't wrap my head around the idea of wanting everything to smell like something else. Do we really want our washed clothes to smell like Mountain Breeze Citrus Blend instead of the pleasant subtle scent of freshly laundered cotton? Are our meals so lacking in flavor that we need the extra gusto of Juicy Green Apple and FD&C Yellow #5 embedded into our dishes? Are our houses so full of nasty offending smells that we need plug-in air fresheners that reactivate with Flower-berry Harvest every 8, 12, or 18 minutes?

That's not to say that all scents are bad. There's a certain pleasant romanticism about a light feminine perfume or a coconut-y shampoo. But when people put on enough that you can smell them from six feet away and so thickly that the residue from their hands left on a shopping cart can subsequently apply so much to your own that you cannot remove it after three thorough hand-washings, it just seems to me there is something egregiously wrong with everyone's noses.

So, as a quick off-the-top-of-my-head experiment, I'm going to make a list of a series of scents that the average person, if they don't labor on the way m0re difficult than it should be task of purchasing fragrance-free products, will apply to their person in the day.

Shampoo ~ Fresh Rose and Herbal Blend
Conditioner ~ Tropical Coconut
Lip Gloss/Stick ~ Strawberry
Make Up ~ Unidentifiable but none the less-labeled "Fragrance"
Shaving Cream ~ Again, unidentifiable "Fragrance"
After Shave ~ Burns so good
Toothpaste, Floss, and Breathmints ~ They all smell the same, so let's just keep it simple.
Deodorant ~ Zesty Cinnamon Spice!
Bar of Soap ~ Irish Springs, apparently.
Hand Soap ~ Dial Special Blend of Noxious Fumes
Laundry Detergent ~ Mountain Breeze, from some unknown continent of nasty
Fabric Softener ~ Spring Breeze, which is apparently totally different from the Mountain variety.
Body Lotion ~ Because Irish Springs isn't enough
Fragrant Tissue ~ God forbid your posterior isn't rose petal scented
Air Freshener ~ Flowery Garden or Christmas Tree, pending if you spend more time at home or in the car
Fragrant Feminine Hygiene Products ~ This is just...WTF on every level. I'm sorry
Perfume or Cologne ~ Celebrity du Jour

Of course, the list is weighted to women, but even if we toss out a handful, the average person has at least a dozen completely conflicting scents on their person. One dozen smells. Even if you loved any of these smells to death, what would be the point anymore?

I just don't get it.

Songs Without Words

I have the infamous habit of playing pianos I really should not be playing. Likely you have seen them before: pianos sitting woeful and lonely in a lobby or salon, their keys displayed unabashed and immodest in some sort of vain hope that it can feel the caress of a pianist before its due appointment, one that night or the afternoon, or in the worst of cases, in the distant future of days, weeks and months. The keys beckon, and my straight-laced goody-two shoes slip off as I slink into the familiar give of the leather seated bench. The piano smiles and I play.

Most of the time, it goes relatively unnoticed. Some may stay and listen a while, others simply pass by and assume, despite my unrefined state of dress, that I am simply the entertainment for the day. I have to admit I feel oddly alive at this, that I can pass for a hired pianist, though my repertoire of memorized songs is more finite in scope. One time in the Beverly Hills Hotel, I was playing this wonderfully gaudy gold painted piano. My family was taking pictures, and this drew the attention of a woman sitting at a nearby table. “Who is that strange person that keeps taking pictures of the piano player?” she muttered in disgust.

Pianos in malls are another favorite target of mine, but alas and alack, the mall staff has gotten into the terrible habit of locking their pianos when not in use. Such savagery! But I suppose it is a necessary bondage. 5 year-olds do not the gentlest pianists make.

But once, in some mall or another in Louisiana, the piano was thankfully unrestrained, and I slipped by the red velvet barricade and played away across the white and black. I began and ended with a favorite piece of mine, a selection from Mendelssohn's Songs without Words translated variably “The Gondola Song,” “The Venetian Gondola Song,” “The Venetian Gondolier Song,” and my personal favorite for its beautiful simplicity, “The Gondolier.”

As I rose and was walking away, I could feel someone rushing up behind me and shouting. My adrenaline raced as I turned around. Had my sneaky key tappings finally caught up with me? Would I be reprimanded for evading the oh-so-secure red rope? The worries seem lacking in retrospect, but at the time, my heart raced. But the person behind me was no irate security guard or pianist planning on pounding me for reappropriating his piano's playing, but a pleasant blonde-haired girl. I was under the impression she was older than me, but honestly I was still so harried that I was still having trouble realizing I was not in trouble. She gushed over me, saying that she loved my playing. She asked if it were Chopin, and I blubbered out that, no, it was a piece by Mendelssohn, “The Gondolier.” She seemed surprised by this, and mentally noted the name of the piece. We exchanged a few more words that I hardly remember, and my family and I went along with our business.

As time progressed, I wondered if I should have given her my name, an email address, or some other sentiment as that. It was not every day that someone even vaguely in my age range had a genuine interest in classical pianists. Later in the day, I returned to the piano and played once more, hoping that perhaps another round of Mendelssohn would resummon what had disappeared. However, she never came. For the next few years, every time we returned to that mall, I would sit down at that same piano and play for a spell, still wondering that, by some minute chance of the cosmos, it would reach her ears once again.

Eventually, the piano was locked up as so many had, and then disappeared altogether. The place is now occupied by a rather uninspiring stall hawking the latest in bean bag chair design. I rarely think of that piano anymore, but when I do, I can't help but wonder what kind of girl my “fan” was, and if, had the conversation led this way or that, we could have been some sort of friends. I suppose life is full of little moments like that.