Hand Clapping Games

River Bay Day Camp
That's me, second from left.
(August 1978)

The girls had secrets. This was understood. There were no girls in our house (mom wanted a girl, apparently that’s why they had me) so I remained ignorant of even the most basic facts of girlhood until I started dating one.

But as I was saying, girls had secrets. And they had mysteries. They could divine the future and probe the inner-most thoughts of their friends and others through the use of a cootie-catcher. 

They passed notes and looked at you and whispered (or in my case, they didn’t look at you and whispered) and they executed intricate hand-clapping games with bravely-recited, risqué lyrics.

Miss Suzy had a steamboat
The steamboat had a bell
Miss Suzy went to heaven
The steamboat went to …
HELLO operator
Give me number nine
If you disconnect me
I'll kick your big …
BEHIND the 'frigerator
There was a piece of glass
Miss Suzy fell upon it
And cut her big fat …
ASK me no more questions
Give me no more lies
The boys are in the restroom
zipping up their …
FLIES are in the meadow
The bees are in the park
Miss Suzy and her boyfriend
Are kissing in the D. A. R. K.
D. A. R. K. D. A. R. K.
Dark Dark Dark!!

When I was ten, the cool girls really liked to say the word “ass.” Like in that Blondie song, you know the one.

There was this oral tradition among children which goes back generations (see: Ben Is Dead) where songs like these were passed along without thought of where they came from or where they might lead. Do kids still recite "Miss Suzy" while clapping, or jumping rope?

Regardless, I am thinking of composing some verses for this thing I'm working on. I think it will be fun!

River Bay Day Camp, 1963
Cleveland Memory Project

On Self-Control

One of my notable character traits, which I assume is related to my being the youngest in a trio of brothers, is my sharp tongue. 

The eldest sibling doesn’t need to prove their dominance, they simply are; always bigger, always stronger. The middle child is the mediator, to be sure, and also circumspect. Like Janus, they sees both ways, being younger and older, and yet not definitively either.

The youngest, this youngest, exerted his personhood the only way he could. With his mouth. If he got physical, his older brothers could always smother him with a pillow until he could no longer fight. This is a thing that happened. Why throw a punch, when depriving the offending child of oxygen is so much more effective and doesn’t leave a bruise.

So, I had a big mouth. Witty, but also vulgar. And when cornered, I lashed out. I graffitied, writing with soap on mirrors, pencil on desks, chalk on boards, carving into wet cement. When, in sixth grade, I was caught writing something particularly nasty about someone on a table in the library, a panel was convened to try and channel my impulses.

My guidance counselor asked if I was interested in creating a middle school newspaper. 

"Sure!" I said. 

Fine, he said. Create one.

Unfortunately, I am not an eldest child, I had no sense of independent initiative and required guidance, not knowing how to ask for it and none was provided. I continued to stew in silent resentment through my middle school years.

The high school did have a weekly newspaper and I was finally able to express myself through cartoons. I also wrote the occasional story or opinion piece which were inevitably disastrous, my penchant for unfortunate and often irrelevant metaphors distracting from whatever point I was trying to make.

Words can be an ugly tool. Worse, when you have an affinity for using them but only for the expression of resentment and spite. These were the early  plays I wrote to either drive a wedge between myself and people who cared about me, or to kick them in the ass on the way out the door. I need not elaborate. Some saw their way onto area stages, others did not, but they were read. It was ugly. And stupid. And embarrassing.

Practicing restraint is one thing, it requires constant vigilance. My wife deserves all the credit, not for teaching me restraint, but for sharing with me more a open engagement and understanding of the world and the people in it. It’s humbling, and this humility has helped me to finally, as so many before had recommended, think before I speak. And to edit, edit, always edit. And also to know when its best to delete.

The Name of the Game (song)

The Name of the Game was released in October, 1977. The first single from the ABBA album ABBA: The Album, it reached number 12 in the United States, and (I was unaware of this until I read the Wikipedia entry) the distinctive bass line was inspired by Stevie Wonder’s I Wish.

I was nine years old in late 1977. What I find amazing is that even at that young age, I knew exactly what the song was about: A young, self-conscious woman (we will say she, the lyrics are sung by self-identifying women) making an appeal to an apparently worldly, probably older man (we will call this person he) a man with whom she has made an emotional connection, to please be honest about what is happening between them.

However, the real impact of this song cannot be understood in the shorter, 3:58 version which was the American radio edit, which omits the entire second verse. I had the album, it was the first pop record I ever bought, so I was aware of the difference.

I have already described what it was like growing up, consuming the pop culture of the late 1970s. I had created for myself a somewhat dark image of adult interpersonal relationships. My parents might be square, but my own adulthood would apparently be one of mistrust, and fleeting, furtive coupling.

This song, especially, in its complete 4:51 album version, affirmed and confirmed this theory. The first verse marks her as insecure, and describes her disbelief that anyone would pay her any attention at all.

I was an impossible case
No-one ever could reach me
But I think I can see in your face
There's a lot you can teach me

In its brief, radio-ready incarnation, the song just rises and rises and rises to the chorus, begging the question, what’s the name of the game?

The second verse, however, makes her sound almost pathetic, as though she thinks of herself as some kind of social outcast.

I have no friends, no-one to see
And I am never invited
Now I am here, talking to you
No wonder I get excited

Because there is a second verse, the heights of the chorus is abruptly brought back down to Stevie Wonder’s pilfered, down-beat bass line. The lyrics then dive so much deeper into the narrator’s personal insecurities, which become even more pronounced, and her surprise that this beautiful mentor has focused his attention on this neophyte, out of an entire crowd.

You might even say he is grooming her.

Her complete shock at this development leads her to ask, “would you laugh at me, if I said I care for you?” That’s a special kind of fear, and now instead of asking for the ground rules of the game, she now sounds afraid it’s just a game. Is he using her? Can he be serious?

This second verse raises the stakes tremendously.

Again, at the age of nine, I got this. I understood it. And even then I was worried I might one day be treated the way she is.

As a child it never occurred to me that I could be the one who treats someone else that way.

Which is all to say, I am entirely unhappy with the manner in which this song is employed in the musical Mamma Mia! Altering the lyrics somewhat, it becomes a somewhat creepy plea from a young woman asking an older man if he is not, in fact, her biological father. So glad they didn't use it in the movie.

I have said too much.

Cat and the Canary (film)

I have adapted Agatha Christie mysteries for the stage, The Mysterious Affair at Styles and The Secret Adversary. However, it was my older brother Henrik who was mystery-obsessive. It was he who introduced me to Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe, Ellery Queen, and he was quite an expert on Sherlock Holmes.

I say he “introduced” me because though throughout my childhood these tales were in the atmosphere, I didn’t take an interest. I wasn’t into puzzles and plotting, and to be honest, mysteries scared me. Someone’s dead -- and we don’t know why or how it happened? The unknown is horrifying to me.

I understand that it is the solution to mysteries than many find so reassuring, they bring order to chaos, and suggest that every problem has an answer, that all loose ends will eventually be tied. These people are also probably have religion for the same reason.

I always flash back to that moment when the victim is dying, perhaps violently, shocked, and afraid and alone. The tragedy itself is not made softer by there existing an explanation. Perhaps I am an atheist for the same reason.

My brother took me to this film once -- twice, actually. He would have been fourteen, I was only ten. We went twice on two different days, probably over a weekend. Maybe we took the bus, maybe my parents dropped us at the mall, can’t remember, I was ten. The film was Cat and the Canary, a stylish, period remake of a film made famous as a Bob Hope picture in the 30s. This 1978 version was considerably more bloody. Grisly. It was the seventies.

Cat and the Canary is one of those "bumped-off-one-at-a-time" mysteries in which the house itself is the murder weapon. I was fascinated by the twists and turns, the disappearances, the horrible, clever ways people were separated from each other, and then craftily dispatched. I was also horrified. I was unable to sleep. I was terrified someone would come through my window or stab me through the bed.

My brother was scolded for taking me to see it, to see it twice. I protested that I had asked him to take me to see it again, and so attention was turned to me. I was made to feel foolish. “If it scared you so, why would you want to see it again?”

I carried this with me as I became an adolescent and we moved into the era of the slasher film -- and cable TV. From Michael Myers to Jason Voorhees to Freddy Kruger, I abstained. I just didn’t watch them.

Now, slasher movies aren’t necessarily mysteries, but mysteries can be slasher films (see: Psycho) and I have watched each, but it is the moments of isolation and despair which frighten me the most. The Vanishing comes to mind. Never seen it, know how it ends, that’s enough to keep me awake at night.

So when it came time to adapt a Sherlock Holmes mystery into a play for children, there was more than one reason to avoid plots featuring violent crimes -- or any violence at all. When we produced Jabberwocky three years ago, there is a scene where a child confronts a bully the wrong way, by hitting back. With a stick.

It was meant to be an example of making a bad choice. And yet, talkback after talkback, this was the kids’ favorite part. It was what they best remembered, it elicited the most joyful reaction. They loved seeing that one kids hit the other kids with a stick -- and they hadn’t even seen it! The beating took place off stage, with one child character chasing the other behind a curtain and then hearing the bully cry out in pain.

Now, many of Doyle’s mysteries are murder mysteries, so it couldn’t be any of those. There are a few thefts in his tales, but none presented situations that interested me -- or more importantly, supporting characters that would interest children.

The education department brainstorm non-violent crimes, which included theft, extortion, vandalism, fraud, embezzlement, forgery, pickpocketing, arson, the receipt of stolen goods, and counterfeiting.

For the past several months, these ideas have been simmering, and I have been making notes, and reading story after story, and stringing together original ideas for a brand new mystery of my own.

Because there was one very important element lacking in all of Sherlock Holmes’ adventures, and it was that which would not only set this story apart, but satisfying a great many details of the upcoming outreach tour.

Strong female characters.

To be continued.