dinner dance

This morning exercising in basement had Destiny's Child on boom-box:  their version of the Bee Gees landslide hit "Emotion" is like -- beyond perfect.

That phrase -- "in the words of a broken heart" -- the words express a sad thing, a "down" thing, but the musical notes go up -- climbing as if on astral stairs, soaring....

It's over and done but the heartache lives on inside

And who is the one you're clinging to instead of me tonight?
And where are you now, now that I need you?
Tears on my pillow wherever you go
I'll cry me a river that leads to your ocean
You never see me fall apart

In the words of a broken heart

It's just emotion that's taken me over
Tied up in sorrow, lost in the song
But if you don't come back
Come home to me, darling
You know that there'll be nobody left in this world to hold me tight
Nobody left in this world to kiss goodnight
Goodnight
Goodnight

I'm there at your side, I'm part of all the things you are
But you've got a part of someone else
You've got to find your shining star
And where are you now, now that I need you?
Tears on my pillow wherever you go
I'll cry me a river that leads to your ocean
You never see me fall apart

In-the-words of-a-broken-heart
It's just emotion that's taken me over
Tied up in sorrow, lost in my soul
But if you don't come back
Come home to me, darling
You know that there'll be nobody left in this world to hold me tight
Nobody left in this world to kiss goodnight

Goodnight

And where are you now, now that I need you?
Tears on my pillow wherever you go
I'll cry me a river that leads to your ocean
You never see me fall apart

In the words of a broken heart --

It's just emotion that's taken me over
Tied up in sorrow, lost in my soul
But if you don't come back
Come home to me, darling
You know that there'll be nobody left in this world to hold me tight
Nobody left in this world to kiss goodnight
Goodnight

In-the-words-of-a-broken-heart it's just e-motion

that's taken me over

Tied up in sorrow, lost in my soul
But if you don't come back
Come home to me, darling
You know that there'll be nobody left in this world to hold me tight
Nobody left in this world to kiss goodnight
Goodnight
(Goodnight)

--------------------------------------------
"Ingrate" is a funny old-fashioned word that you don't hear people say very much anymore.  It means a person who is ungrateful.  (Maybe we don't hear the word "ingrate" very much anymore because in modern times people are all so grateful....?! Hmmh.  That would be nice.  Think people just forgot the word "ingrate."  It fell into disuse.)

I happened to see the word, out of the blue in a memo written by Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1974:
"I expected that for a long time our countries [India and the U.S.] were destined to remain in the grip of stereotypes about one another.  Americans would see 600 million ingrates.  Indians would see the white imperialist enemy."

------------------------------ Most human beings, I think, need to feel that their hard work and efforts are appreciated -- that the people they work with, or serve, have gratitude.  We would be embarrassed to say it, & sometimes even to think of it, & we don't think about it most of the time, & most people don't expect a "red carpet" to be rolled out for them -- mostly they expect (hope) only to not be hurt. 

To be not-hurt.
And to be paid.

{excerpt / Moynihan letters} - Journal entry about the arrest of an Indian naval officer accused of spying for the United States, leading Moynihan to conclude that the U.S. should simply pull all C.I.A. operations out of India, since they learn little anyway.

AUGUST 6, 1974
TUESDAY

Grimsley arrived first to report the Indians have arrested a naval officer who has been providing us useless information about the Russians.  We do not work against the Indians.  We work with them.  But evidently we cannot resist a Lieutenant Commander who comes up at a dinner dance and tells some spook he would like to get on the payroll.  He has told all.  Three Amricans must depart immediately.  And so now I have a CIA source in jail in Bombay, an ex-CIA informer on bail in Delhi (they let Drobot out), and two poor kids in jail as spies in Calcutta, the judge there having announced he will try them under the Official Secrets Act and in camera. . . . What may I ask is a man to do with the rest of a day that begins in such manner?  I content myself with a long letter to Eagleburger saying that Kissinger must pull the C.I.A. out of India.  It is a devastating liability while it remains. . . . Unquestionably we would get better and cheaper information.  The alternative is to remain on the front page of the Indian press for yet another decade, with a quarter of the charges true and three quarters believed to be true by the most sophisticated and best informed people in government.

------------- {end Excerpt}
{Daniel Patrick Moynihan:  A Portrait In Letters Of An American Visionary
Edited / Steven R. Weisman
Copyright, 2010.  Pub. in U.S. by PublicAffairs, a member of the Perseus Books Group.  New York, New York.}

"What may I ask is a man to do with the rest of a day that begins in such manner?" seemed amusing, to me.  Along with -- but evidently we cannot resist a Lieutenant Commander who comes up at a dinner dance and tells some spook [spy] he would like to get on the payroll. ...  : )

This book collects a bunch of writings by Moynihan -- memos, letters, and diary entries, and covering the same years approx. as Arthur Schlesinger's collected Journals.

I really really like reading about recent history (to me, "current events" from only a few years ago...) in the words that people wrote, right then, at the time. Not with hindsight or "spin" applied years later when people have a need to summarize.  The Schlesinger and Moynihan writings are not summarizing, they are observing, analyzing.  This is what I wanted!  It is like Bob Dylan's music -- I didn't know that was what I wanted until I heard it and then I went, "There!  That's it!  That's what I've been lookin' for!"

-30-