"September Song"

“Oh, it's a long, long while from May to December
But the days grow short when you reach September
When the autumn weather turns the leaves to flame
One hasn't got time for the waiting game”
--“September Song,” a Sinatra standard


…I was listening to a jazz talk on the radio and the host was saying that she had interviewed an opera singer who took issue with Sinatra’s emphasis on consonants instead of vowels when he sang, one of the few technical criticisms the host had heard of Sinatra. I wondered if that emphasis was Sinatra’s rejection of easy beauty—of an enveloping femininity—and his affirmation of a fundamental masculinity. Who knows? Sinatra was able to be eloquent and direct, sensual, combining the different aspects of human nature, of mind and instinct…


…Fame is a tool, and when partnered with intelligence and talent it can yield cultural authority—but when you have no cultural authority the frustration can lead to the use of curses and insults for their crude force (believing any force is better than no force)…


“The days grow short when you reach September” Sinatra sang: and Septembers have been significant for me—of course, they have been significant for everyone. School classes often begin in September. Cultural events often begin to deepen and multiply in September. I first left Louisiana and arrived in New York in September; and last September left New York and arrived in Louisiana…


The best thing I have done in the last year is to review my appreciation for literature, reading the language and vision of people who have seen or imposed an order on the world (or on how they think about the world), people who have found or made meaning.


So much else remains undone, or if done then unrewarded…


…I have been reading a book on theatre, which includes an argument for experimental plays: but, I do not think difficult, obscure work can be the central work of any culture, unless the desire is to create a mystery cult—requiring special introductions, guides, interpretations. A religion of obfuscation and revelation—something that must be taken on faith rather than established with proofs. Rituals appropriate for nighttime and old caves, not daylight and open fields…I would like to think that it is possible to be profound and understood—and that is what I have believed about the best literature…