“American Pie” and the Religion We Buy
A Grown-Up’s Tale From a Sentient Beetle
Some clues here might indicate that this is for kids, but it’s not. Well ultimately it is, because they become grown-ups, and the ideas we feed them, so to speak, determine what their perspectives are made of, which will determine how much happiness and satisfaction they’ll have, and how they’ll pass that along to their own kids, or maybe how they’ll program their A.I. Chilldrin (TM).
Either way, what we pass along, what we “buy” along with the other things we buy, matters somewhere to someone along the line, if not to us. And it also comes from somewhere, no matter how unique and fortunate and wonderful or horrible my or anyone else’s generation is said to be, the ideas that create it, or yours, came from somewhere.
Okay sure, there is the matter of synthesis, sometimes, but you still have a kind of palette of ideas to work with. Well, and some colors go out of style for a while, then they’re back in, sort of, but anyway, it might seem like there’s an infinite number of combinations to make, and maybe there is, in a way, so maybe my point in this unexpectedly lengthy analogy is that if we’re going to paint pictures of reality that then become reality for us and others, and we are, and they do, then maybe we should at least question the palette we’re given.
That’ll do for now. That’s kind of what this is all about, at least at times. Today it’s about a poem that I was given by a beetle that shows up in my dreams. In these dreams, as you may already know, he tells me about a girl who has him showing up in her dreams as well. And she’s trying to make him become real, in a sense. (I just watched A.I. Artificial Intelligence finally this past weekend, so that was a funny and relevant coincidence in my real world.)
On to the poem. First, you’re gonna see some twists, a different mix, of some conventional tropes like with witches and what they might say. Also, since poems need to have a certain rhythm that the words don’t always cooperate with intuitively, I’ve put extra hyphens in where words need to be mashed together. Maybe the sing-song-iness of this is a little childish, but I think that’s okay.
(There are thousands of words in poems in This Story so far, and hundreds of thousands of words in prose, but this poem is from near the beginning, so you don’t need to know about all that really. More upon request.)
The Ultimate Hunt for Need Versus Want
Need versus Want,
that dismal droll hunt,
but a search that can forestall disaster.
Not our native tongue,
especially the young,
but a quest that will pay ever after.
And let’s first concede,
that as herds we’ll stampede
at the smallest critical provocation.
There’s a new witch in town,
and the stake’s in the ground
for burning heretics of what drives this young nation.
The witches, their demons, in an ironic twist,
have suggested that More’s not the answer,
that it’s more of a question,
as in “More?” — a suggestion
that More is more of a lecherous romancer.
In stitches, the witches, in another strange twist,
laughed at Francophiles glorifying the French tryst,
that embrace of temptation to follow the skin,
as-if no harm comes from what…the cat can drag in.
“And where would we be without dissatisfaction?”
They quipped in sarcasm, yet another infraction.
“Set them alight! Rid the earth of their blight!”
Cried the crowd in proud righteous and indignant reaction.
“Be sure that you buy whatever they’re selling!
Keep your eyes on the screen! There’s no better truth-telling!”
“Set them ablaze! With their old-fashioned ways!
We’ve tried exorcizing their demons for days!”
Then Rhettie awoke,
from her dream,
and she spoke of potato-like trolls in their midst.
Disguised as round rocks,
humming hymns ‘round the clock,
repeating the instructions that the heretics resist.
Hymns that decried
any Want be denied,
in fact adding Wants that had not yet been eyed.
The-trolls-especially extolled
something Rhettie had-been-told
to question lest-she-fall,
become another “Rocked-and-Rolled.”
Grandma Dorie, a clever and observant sweet owl,
a woman, independent of trends,
read-the-words of all-the-music, and could not help but scowl,
at the meanness and means to what seemed like bad ends.
“Rhettie,” she’d say as they lay there in bed,
with Rhettie, around nine at the time,
“It’s-not-only Rock ’n’ Roll and I’m afraid that instead…
it’s a fountain of blood-and-tears, with rhythm and rhyme.”
“The Rolling Stones sang ‘It’s only Rock ’n’ Roll,’
but I liked ‘American Pie.’
I knew what Mick meant, and I-could-see a funny glint,
a hint-of-power, a kind of wink in his eye.
“‘American Pie’ had some hints of its own,
about-the-death of a sweet kind of tune,
and the death of three guys…and a tone,
and a groan, and a new kind of throne…and it all came too soon.
“Rhettie, it’s not-at-all only Rock ’n’ Roll;
that’s why I don’t really like it.
It became a religion, it has taken a toll.
The kindling was ready, there-was-a-match, this would strike it.”
“Grandma, I don’t really know what you mean,”
Rhettie remembered-saying-that a lot.
“Someday I will. I-wish I could be queen,
and make sure we really-want what we buy and what-we’ve-got.”
“Just remember Indstead,” and Grandma patted her on her head,
and said, “Think on your own, read a lot, and don’t dread,
what the sheep or the shepherds might say, at first,
because-they change their minds, and you might find,
from lagging behind, better grass and better water…for quenching their thirst.”
So Rhettie remembered, and-went-off in her dreams,
gleaning the meanings and making up scenes.
She knew that she’d never, really, be-a-queen,
but she’d study, and learn just what grandma might mean.
And there came a day, after college, and some fray,
that Rhettie…met a bug, green-and-blue.
Metaphors galore, just like Grandma, maybe more,
so she put it all together, in…The Stories of Stu.
“Or is it Stories for Peace?“ she’d later ask her new friend,
Wally, of Star City, at Matches.
“I mean, their tricks, they don’t end, and my grandma, she’d contend
that it’s all about attention, you know, to what it…attaches.”
So yes, Rhettie and Wally, and The Stories of Stu.
With a bit of a twist, like the witches, a new brew,
and it might, it might, take a minute to see…
It’s a different kind of story,
with intentional, unconventional, lurking…ambiguity.
We all change our minds from our wonderings, the great finds,
and we look to the stars in the sky and our minds.
And while I might be writing some stories for you,
and you can blame me, I’ll blame the bug, Stu.
