I know you can tell that I got a little lazy on this post, but it’s a good kind of lazy. Continuing by jumping train car to carriage, I got stuck on the thoughtful man in the previous post, covered in roses. And remembered this photo, thinking, “I’ll use Book of Love’s ‘I Touch Roses'”, but then I listened to it and I thought, “That was fun in a 1980s disco, but now. . . nah”. Then I thought of Grace’s “La Vie en Rose”, found the video and decided to contrast it with the classic Piaf version.

THEN I thought of Gertrude Stein’s famous quote from her poem “Sacred Emily” and kind of got excited because, yes, I know that “la vie en rose” doesn’t mean “rose”, it means “pink”, but if a rose is a rose, I can do whatever I please and call it AHRT. It would also give me the chance to brag that I once wrote a thesis on Gertrude Stein’s stream-of-consciousness style of writing as incantation, spells that lulled the reader into a magical state of nonlinear blah blah blah. I pulled that crap off, too! Ha!

So, yeah, I only ever listened to the Piaf on the rare occasions when I would attend the parties of bachelors of a certain age, most of whom are dead, now: “Theatre, dahling”. So it is definitely not something I can personally recommend, but every thoughtful person should listen to it once. Grace’s version, however, I remember hearing for the first time as the last call on a Saturday night at the Pyramid Club, and crying at the beauty of it all.

Shush. It was late. It is late. Say goodnight, Grandpaw.