Raw Goods

Gotta joke for ya.

Astronomer and a musician walk into a bar.
She's not really a musician, and
He's not really an astronomer, but
That's all right, you see:
He's not really a man, and
She's not really a woman, either.

It's 1921 and Woody's has just opened in Philly.
Our friends both came down from Boston
Where they met at his house;
She's a piano tuner
and he's a dilettante
Who wanted to learn The Firebird.

Woody's is roaring; queens and bull dykes abound:
Here's where they come up with their scheme.
He'll work her job one day,
She'll work his,
then together,
they'll make cosmic music.

He buys her a drink, tells her a story: "See, kid,
I like you; you're all right in my book.
I don't mind you got a dick
'cuz you don't act like it,
even when you pretend."
They laugh, cuz they know it's no joke.

"This is the plan," he says, and whispers in her ear.
The next week, back in Cambridge, she becomes
A Human Computer Who Traces the Stars.
Twenty-five cents an hour,
She catalogues and charts
Photographic plates shipped from Peru.

Arequipa, Peru: home of a photographic telescope
Since 1849 - a Gold Rush on the galaxy.
Mahogany tube captures ancient light
Transfixes with silver emulsion,
Daguerre's invention,
and mules cart crates to steamboat prows.

Back in Massachusettes, she pores over the prints,
Measures and calculates luminous spots
Bent and refracted through a
Fifteen-inch lens.
"It's a drag,
but not as bad as the billy-club cops."

She and he met, you see, when riot police stormed
Wilde's University, that sacred place consecrated
for Harvard's young queers:
Professors and students,
Janitors and all
Raised a glass to Oscar to have themselves a ball.

He, meanwhile, took a hand to the crank
(automated pianolas play while you drank),
Perforated paper in rolls of rag stock
Take a steady hand
to punch in each spot;
Do it evenly, you're as good as Stravinsky.

Back at Woody's, they trade their reports:
"Give me a handjob, I'll give you a snort."
"That's not the deal,"
says she to the he
(or was it he to the she?)
"We're here to make music, and do that politely."

"Right, right," said he, and so they proceed;
Exchange of the days makes each move more sprightly.
To the piano store they repair, after
A twist of the lip,
a sip of the drink;
Punch measured holes to make the stars appear ink.

"Calculate the distance between Andromeda and Vega,"
"Transpose the magnitude of an F-sharp harmonic,"
Photon traces become scale races:
Invisible hands work the keys
Make any sound you please
Constellations shift from heavens to their faces.

Here's the rub:
It sounds like crap,
but the trade was a blast.
John Cage, can ya take it?
I knew that you could.

posted by judy j @ 3:32 PM