Whither Whistlin'?

Does anybody remember whistlin? I'm not sure. This morning I spent a few idle minutes sitting on the back porch doing nothing but listening to birds whistle. Mellifluous cacophony. One in particular sounded most familiar: choooo choooo ch ch ch ch chooooo. Either that bird's been around a helluva long time, or that mating call's been so successful it's been passed down through the generations. I remember lying in my bed as a kid underneath an open window as the morning breezes rustled the large acorn tree's upper limbs right outside the window. That same choooo choooo ch ch ch ch chooooo greeted me to a new day.

It all got me thinking. Does anybody whistle anymore? Seems like you could always count on some old guy entering your daily orbit whistling some old air. And those old guys could whistle, some of them even appeared to be able to harmonize with themselves. I can't remember the last time I encountered someone who was randomly whistling a tune. Could it be that rock songs don't lend themselves to easy, happy whistling (try whistling "Johnny B. Goode" or "Get Off My Cloud"--you're liable to give yourself a hernia or heart attack), and that now that many old guys are children of the rock era, whistling is becoming obsolete? Has the social kibosh that's been put on whistling at girls filtered down to eliminating all whistling? Why, when I think of whistling, do I always think of men? Except, naturally, for Lauren "Just Put Your Lips Together And Blow" Bacall.

My dad was a decent whistler, tune-wise, but he was a Michelangelo of the loud, hey you! whistle. He could quickly contort his mouth and, with no help from any fingers, let out a shrieky whistle that could startle a desert monk. I wish I had inherited that attention-getter. As it is, I painstakingly taught myself the two fingers from each hand stuffed on top of a folded back tongue whistle. Not bad (though it must be twenty years at least since I've utilized it), but nothing compared to the old man's. But again, when was the last time you heard such a hey you! whistle?

Now I'm not as up on current popular music as I used to be, and for all I know Lady Gaga is a whistlin' dervish, but when was the last great song to employ whistling? Besides those great movie theme songs I don't even have to mention, and the Andy Griffith Show theme song, of course, I do remember a few great rock songs with significant whistles. In fact, while pondering all of this today I heard Otis Redding whistling away his time sitting on the dock of the bay. The Beatles of course whistled their way through "Two Of Us" and Peter Gabriel not only whistled but mentioned whistling tunes in "Games Without Frontiers." I'm sure there are a host of others, but those are the ones that stick on the tip of my tongue. As well as my good old friends the Meat Puppets, who not only have a song called "The Whistling Song," which doesn't really whistle, but a song called "Maiden's Milk," which is all about whistling.

I don't know, maybe I'm old and nostalgic, but I think if we whistled more, maybe we could reduce some of the negative energy around these days. Something tells me things would be a little more civilized with more whistling in the air. So go ahead now, put your lips together and blow.




Meat Puppets--Maiden's Milk

Touch, Part 1

I had an English professor in college who was mesmerizing. It wasn't that he was a great teacher; he was competent enough, probably moreso for all I knew at the time, but he certainly wasn't one of those handful of teachers I've had in my life (to be honest I can think of more high school teachers than professors) whose classes were events, who made you almost physically and certainly intellectually excited just coming to class everyday. And it wasn't as if his voice were anything immediately memorable: no great accent to ride while you jotted down notes, no rapid fire delivery that challenged you to keep pace, no booming quality that kept you awake and alert, no distinct verbal tics to listen for and keep a running tally of (my first year of teaching two students stayed after class once to show me their slashed-mark scoreboard of how many times I had uttered the erudite phrase "awright" in one forty-two minute session; I think the Guinness [book, not beer] people would be interested in the number)--no, if anything this particular professor had a very soothing, almost soporific speaking voice. And it wasn't even the fact that this professor had only one arm (the other was a prosthetic device with one of those clamping-hook devices); I had had and would have more teachers with some kind of physical "abnormailty" and believe me, after day after day sitting in class, you get used to any sort of "freakish" distraction to the point where it isn't a distraction any longer (although for some reason there was an air of incongruity about this guy and his arm: he was pretty young, mid-thirties would be my recollective guess, almost male-model good looking, and possessed that soothing voice talking about the Romantic poets: in my limited imagination and understanding at the time [maybe still now] a guy like that didn't seem to be the type to have one false arm, which I know sounds terribly stupid, but believe me, the total picture of this guy just didn't all add up neatly for some reason).

Nevertheless, all of this didn't serve to make him mesmerizing, and the more I think of it it's not so much the guy that was mesmerizing but just one thing that he did: light a cigarette. Sure he eventually smoked the cigarette, which in and of itself, while certainly a can-you-believe-it-now! teachers used to be able to smoke in class (I had others), was no big deal. It was the very act of him, maybe two or three times in the course of a ninety minute lecture, lighting a cigarette which mesmerized me and I'm sure most of the other twenty or so students sitting around the large table. For this guy with his hook arm, taking out his pack of cigarettes, removing one of them, putting it in his mouth, getting his lighter out, managing to flick it and then light the cigarette, and then put everything away again, all the while going through the natural gestures of one soothingly elucidating a point or two about Keats or Blake, the whole process was about a three to four minute production, performance even, and I'm pretty sure he was very aware of the hypnotic spell he cast on us all as he "went through the (very functional) motions." It was almost as if he knew he had a crucial point to make about some poem, and at just the right moment he'd begin the long process of getting that cigarette lit because he knew we'd wake up and take notice, be collectively centered on his hands (sic) while almost subliminally he would be able to get his point across in his soothing voice.

I can't quite call it a work of art, but watching that guy light those cigarettes a half a dozen times a week over the course of nine weeks in the winter of 1985 was an aesthetic experience that hasn't been rivalled for its particular grace and singular functionality in the twenty-five years since.

The point of all of this to follow in tomorrow's post. Right now I've got to run to a tailgate, football game, and then a movie.

Peter Gabriel-I Have The Touch