Oh, a sleeping drunkardThe idea behind this has to do with what Bokonon/Vonnegut calls the karass.
Up in Central Park,
And a lion hunter
In the jungle dark,
And a Chinese dentist,
And a British queen --
All fit together
In the same machine.
Nice, nice, very nice;
Nice, Nice, very nice;
Nice, nice, very nice --
So many different people
In the same device.
"If you find your life tangled up with someone else's life for no very logical reason," writes Bokonon, "that person may be a member of your karass."Which is as concise a definition as is necessary. So many paths, so many lives we cross, and somewhere along the way we all intersect, intermingle, diverge.
"Man created the checkerboard; God created the karass."There's more. A decade or so after Vonnegut wrote this calypso a band out of Los Angeles named Ambrosia turned it into a song for their first album. When they started out they were influenced by the harmonies of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young and the prog rock experimentation of King Crimson. They were "discovered" by conductor Zubin Mehta and played with the LA Philharmonic, and were the back-up band for the first Alan Parson's project album before they were ever able to get a recording contract. Most don't remember their early songs like "Holding On To Yesterday" as much as they do their later soft-rock schlock "You're the Biggest Part of Me," "How Much I Feel," and "You're the Only Woman." So sad.
But when they still had their souls they managed to add a few more verses to round out Vonnegut's and had themselves a little classic FM hit.
Nice, Nice, Very Nice
(Vonnegut Jr. - Puerta - Pack - North - Drummond)
Oh a sleeping drunkard Up in Central Park
Or the lion hunter In the jungle dark
Or the Chinese dentist Or the British Queen
They all fit together In the same machine
Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device
Oh a whirling dervish And a dancing bear
Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire
Or a teenage rocker Or the girls in France
Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance
Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device
I wanted all things to make sense
So we'd be happy instead of tense
Oh a sleeping drunkard Up in Central Park
Or the lion hunter In the jungle dark
Or the Chinese dentist Or the British Queen
They all fit together In the same machine
Nice, nice, very nice
Nice, nice, very nice
So many people in the same device
So many people in the same device
If I could make *%#@! Blogger accept my audio plug-in I'd have the song linked here. Instead, you'll have to visit someone else's blog to hear this opus.
4 comments:
My husband and I were just talking about the karass the other day. (We couldn't remember the name of it, though, so we called it "The thingy that Vonnegut wrote about.")
Somehow, "so many people in the same device" made me think of literary device. Perhaps those people are tangled up because they're in some *$#@#!ing author's novel. Have you seen Stranger Than Fiction?
Love the way you do your research and give us the extended story.
And what is a literary device if not the hand of divine fate (the Author Almighty) guiding those characters toward their destinies?
Have not seen Stranger Than Fiction yet. It's full of everything I like, except it's about writers. I always find movies about authors leave me wanting to cleanse my palate with documentaries, for some strange reason.
Nice, nice very nice indeed. Thanks for all the wonderful trivia.
Post a Comment