JR has been a regular contributor to GANTOB since its inception, with a question in the first book, contributions to the second book through the “Demokratisation” of December 2023, and contributions towards 52 Pamphlets, which will ultimately become the third book. He sent me his new mind expanding piece (below) yesterday. The day before, I had sent him a spare pamphlet, pencil, tea slip and annotated sheep.
Throughout the GANTOB project JR and I have had a to and fro of ideas. We discovered that we had both read Thomas Pynchon’s 1966 book The Crying of Lot 49. We learned of our shared love of Vienna and the art of Hundertwasser. We exchanged photos and pictures of Antony Gormley sculptures last summer. And we have also used some of the same project management techniques professionally. I could go on.
There are so many references and hooks in JR’s piece below that I encourage you to search for any phrase or word that you find interesting and reflect in the comment section below. In particular, I draw your attention to the word “mondegreen”. The Oxford Dictionary defines it as “a misunderstood or misinterpreted word or phrase resulting from a mishearing of the lyrics of a song”. The word’s origin is rather marvelous. The Oxford Dictionary gives it as “Mondegreen, a misinterpretation of the phrase laid him on the green, from the traditional ballad ‘The Bonny Earl of Murray’”.
Some enthusiastic GANTOBers have, in the past 24 hours, sourced a few examples of modegreens that are included at the end of this post. But for now, over to JR…
KODAKROAMIN’ FOR MADELEINES (by JR)
Time passes. Circumstances alter. People change.
Time isn’t holding up. Time isn’t after us.
Time is an estimate. Time is an asterisk*
Forever changes.
The ineluctable modality of the visible, while vision remains.
Some days we live like there’s no tomorrow
Some days we move through solid air.
Rewind. Distract. Go back. Let’s take the boat out (don’t wait for the darkness). Search for our personal madeleines. Fire up the Time Teleskope and let’s go Kodakroamin’
Get the box down from the loft. My God it’s hot up there! Blow off the dust, mess up the table. Open the packets one by one.
“Kodakchrome gives us the nice bright colours, gives us the greens of summers, makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah” (*Paul Simon copyright 1973)
The heat has stuck the photographs together. Should I peel them apart or soak them? Can’t wait to soak them all. Peel. They tear sometimes. The colour of one sticks to the back of another. Damn, patience is a virtue but when was I ever virtuous?
There are so many. Can’t find the right ones. They must be here somewhere. Time plays tricks. Did I ever actually photograph it? The big disc, The Sun Disk? Arnie Tomato’s magnum opus in Piazza Meda. The sculpture that captivated us. The one we returned to. The Time Teleskope does not lie. I know we were there. More than once we stopped the car on the way home in the small hours. Parked the 124 illegally, crossed to the island and pushed the heavy disc round and round on its axis. Until the bearing seized sometime round the winter of 1984. Sometimes we could catch the first rays of the morning on the bronze, bounced them round the piazza. Like reflecting sunlight off your watch and annoying the teacher in the classroom. We would have been too drunk to photograph it then, unless one of us had a pocket point and click. But if we didn’t do it at night I know I went there with the Pentax and took “proper” pictures. These are what I’m searching for. The smell of a life in Milan 40 years ago. I’m having a U2 moment, but I will find them sooner or later. She will see them again.
Meanwhile, under the photographs we find a small box. Inside is a bronze disc. A medal made by Arnaldo Pomodoro for the city. It has some heft. It’s tactile, sits well in the hand. That will do. Not a photograph but still a Milanese madeleine. She can hold it if the darkness comes. Feel the textures, smell the metal.
To the next box. Smaller, fewer photographs. Fuji film from a different continent. 5 years younger. Less familiar images, not so much time spent in Japan. Not quite holiday snaps but there’s a definite “prove I was there” feel to some of them. Pieces of machinery, the insides of factories. Just in Time, Kanban, Kaizen, engines, motorbikes, trains, ships half built. Eventually it is there in my hand. A photograph of The Sleeping Dragon, (which may be a misremembered name but I’m holding it). North Kyoto. The finest arrangement of rocks and stones you will ever see (Is there water underground, under the rocks and stones?). Ryoan-ji Zen temple. The silence. The stillness. The calm that comes from clarity in the mind. And vice versa. Contemplate the stones. I can hold the picture again now and with the Time Teleskope I can send my mind back. I have found a Japanese madeleine to savour.
We stop now, for today. We have madeleines to feed on, mementos to hold, emotions to unpack and new dreams to build. Time you can enjoy is never wasted.
JR, 28 June 2024
- Note from JR: I discovered today that I have a long standing “mondegreen”. I thought the line from “Once in a Lifetime” was “Time is an estimate”, but the lyrics on David Byrne’s official website say “Time is an asterisk”. Other lyric sites have “Time isn’t after us”. Irritatingly the lyric sheet in my copy of “Remain in Light” does not give all the lyrics, it truncates after the “Same as it ever was” repetition. I listened to the live version on “Stop Making Sense” just now and it’s hard to tell.
JR and I discussed some of the points further.
About mondegreen JR writes: “It really is a great word isn’t it. I love the way it came about. I’m sure you’ve looked it up.
I must be prone to them. It was only when discussing Bowie’s Jean Genie with Paul Hanley one day in about 2010 that I discovered that the Jean Genie loves chimneystacks. I always thought he “loves your moustache”. Funny how confirmation bias works. It seemed much more logical to me. I mean does any other pop song mention chimneystacks? (Or, comes to think of it, moustaches? 😀).
I still think “time is an estimate” makes sense, and that’s partly why I wear a Picto watch.
I like Picto watches. The dial with the dot rotates to mark the hour instead of a traditional hand. Created by 2 Danes.
“Picto® was created by the two young hippies Steen and Erling in the 80s. In a time when everyone was busy talking about ‘time is money’, and ‘every minute counts’, the two creators went in the diametrically opposite direction. With Picto® you are encouraged to set your own agenda. Here, the day is not divided into minutes and seconds. It is rather an indication of time.”
Or in other words “time is an estimate”!
And some other examples:
This one is from Slipmatt, via csidewolf:
“There are two types of people in this world… Those who know the lyrics to ‘Freed From Desire‘ [by Gala] are ‘My love has got no money he’s got his strong beliefs’ and those who think a ‘Trombelese’ is an actual thing”.
And another from csidewolf: Paul McCartney in Wings’ Live and Let Die, via podcast 25 of Chart Music: the TOTP podcast, and detailed further on a fan site:
“this ever changing world in which we live in”; or is it possibly “in which we’re living”?
NIk G aka YMoF has this one from The Rembrandts’ “I’ll Be There For You“, the theme song for Friends. He writes, it’s not “when the rain starts to fall.” It’s “when the rain starts to pour”.
Gaynor writes that her “favourite misheard lyrics are from Pearl Jam’s song Black. To be fair Eddie [Vedder] is famed for his sometimes unintelligible mutters and growls and any PJ track is a bit sing the screams, job’s a good un!
Black has been with me for ever. In fact they played it at Manchester on Tuesday and I cried a bit I was so overwhelmed. This misheard lyric is impossible to sing correctly even when you know the correct lyrics:
“Sheets of empty canvas untouched sheets of clay
HER LEGS spread out before me as her body was there”
or
“Sheets of empty canvas untouched sheets of clay
WERE LAID spread out before me as her body was there”
The second is correct, but I don’t know anyone who sings the correct words.
Ed’s a mumbler……
Also theres an unspoken rule as Eddie is so baritone. When ever you say Eddie, it has to be your deepest EDDDDDIIIEEEE.
And finally, a few from me: “Winthrop my babop” instead of “Withdraw my labour”, in Scottish band Hue and Cry’s Labour of Love. Not much of the song makes sense without a lyrics sheet, and I say that as a Scot.
For a few months it was “agents of groove groove” rather than the correct version which I need not repeat here.
A source of debate with The Benefaktor is The Electric Light Orchestra’s Can’t Get it Out of My Head, with either “Walking on a wave she came” (my view) or “Walking on a wave’s chicane” (The Benefaktor’s preference). You decide.
And Dexy’s wonderful song Now, which begins with the lyric “Well it was way back in the 40’s from the western part you came”, which I have messed around so much over the years that when I find myself singing in the shower it becomes “Well it was way back in the 40’s when the circus came to town”, and sometimes other versions entirely. Lyrics are there to be reinvented, even when it drives everyone around you up the wall.
Mondegreens are positively encouraged.
Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this pamphlet. There is still time to contribute to the final two pamphlets, as long as you have your text and/or image in by 23:23 on 30 June 2024.
Pamphlet 50 of the 52 Pamphlets
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