Lyric Earwig

This song was in my head a great deal this week. And by “in my head” I mean that every time I woke up in the night for four nights running, this song was playing on my internal soundtrack. I found myself humming it when my mind wasn’t on anything else. I sang it, always in French, though I have only half-memorized the words, so there was a good deal of mumbling inside my head. Over and over and over. For four days, all day, all night, even in my sleep. Even in my dreams.

It’s always been a song, not a poem per se. The music was written by Kurt Weill in 1934, during his exile in France, as incidental music for the play Marie Galante.

The music, which I adore, is a tango in the style of a habanera. It’s sweet and sad and exactly captures the longing for escape from what Europe had become in the 1930s, or was about to become. Within a year of writing this music, Weill would flee France for the United States — one of the lucky few.

The song was given lyrics in 1946 by Roger Fernay. Fernay, the son of a music publisher, studied to become a lawyer but decided he’d rather be an actor instead. He worked on the French stage for about a decade, then became a writer for stage and screen. He spent the rest of his career unionizing writers and working on international copyright law. “Youkali” is his principal claim to fame.

Here is the exquisite Ute Lemper, the German chanteuse and actress renowned for her interpretation of the work of Kurt Weill, performing it exquisitely:

Youkali

by Roger Fernay (my translation interspersed throughout)

C’est presqu’au bout du monde Ma barque vagabonde Errant au gré de l’onde M’y conduisit un jour L’île est toute petite Mais la fée que l’habite Gentiment nous invite A en faire le tour

It was almost at world’s end That my vagabond little boat, Wandering at the will of the waves, Conducted me one day. The island is very small But the spirit that lives there Kindly invited us To take a walk  around

Youkali, c’est le pays de nos désirs Youkali, c’est le bonheur, c’est le plaisir Youkali, c’est la terre où l’on quitte tous les soucis C’est, dans notre nuit, comme une éclaircie L’étoile qu’on suit C’est Youkali

Youkali, it’s the land of our desires Youkali, it’s happiness, it’s pleasure Youkali, it’s the land where you leave all your worries behind It’s like a shaft of light in a dark night The star we follow It’s Youkali

Youkali, c’est le respect de tous les voeux échangés Youkali, c’est le pays des beaux amours partagés C’est l’espérance Qui est au coeur de tous les humains La délivrance Que nous attendons tous pour demain

Youkali, it’s the respect from vows that are exchanged Youkali, it’s the land where loves are shared It’s the hope In every human heart Tomorrow’s deliverance That we all await today

Youkali, c’est le pays de nos désirs Youkali, c’est le bonheur, c’est le plaisir Mais c’est un rêve, une folie Il n’y a pas de Youkali

Youkali, it’s the land of our desires Youkali, it’s happiness, it’s pleasure— But it’s only a dream, a madness: There is no Youkali.

Et la vie nous entraîne Lassante, quotidienne Mais la pauvre âme humaine Cherchant partout l’oubli A, pour quitter la terre Se trouver le mystère Où rêves se terrent En quelque Youkali

And life carries us along In tedium, day by day. But the poor human soul, Searching everywhere for oblivion, Has, in order to escape the world, Managed to find the mystery Where dreams burrow themselves In some Youkali.

Youkali, c’est le pays de nos désirs Youkali, c’est le bonheur, c’est le plaisir Mais c’est un rêve, une folie Il n’y a pas de Youkali

Youkali, it’s the land of our desires Youkali, it’s happiness, it’s pleasure— But it’s only a dream, a madness: There is no Youkali.

Lineage

My parents are appearing in my dreams with disturbing frequency now.

After my father died in 1982, I saw him in dreams and dream-states only once in a while. He was about 3/4 the height he was when alive, and he was often mute or had a gag over his mouth.

Then he went away. Couldn’t access him through dreams or journeys. This phase lasted a good dozen years. When he reappeared, he was (a) of a “normal” age, neither young nor old, (b) relatively healthy, and (c) almost without exception not married to Mom. In many dreams they had been married once, but they had divorced or separated. (In waking reality, they had a three-month discussion of separation, but then he became ill, and they reconciled and were very close again.)

In the the ten months (exactly) since Mom’s death, she has appeared uniformly strong and healthy and vigorous and independent, just as I believe she always wanted to be. Sometimes she was much younger and prettier than I knew her, sometimes she was like herself in her 60s, which were a vibrant time for her.

For the last month or two, Mom and Dad have both been showing up in my dreams. When they appear in the same dream, Mom is tired but healthy, while Dad is extremely ill, walks with a cane, can’t see well, and has balance problems. They are usually long divorced, but have come together for some event or over some situation in their lives where they need to work together.

Last night Dad was cold and arrogant, listed to the left when he walked, and his left eye didn’t seem to work well. I was trying to help Mom get ready for a visit from some old friends of theirs. They were best man and matron of honor at my parents’ wedding, and remained fairly close emotionally to my parents throughout their lives, even if they weren’t always in close contact. These friends died in the early 1990s. Now last night they’re all alive, and I’m helping Mom prepare drinks and food for the party, while Dad is doing his best to annoy people.

So strange. When Mom was in her last stages, she’d talk about reuniting with Dad, and it was always with great longing and affection, as if this would be rest and home to her. By the time Dad died, they were close and loving, and he and I had the best relationship we had ever had, which has made his post-death appearances all the more confusing.

I have no doubt whatsoever that these dreams are all very Freudian or Jungian, and mean very dark things about me, me, me, but I’m fascinated at how visceral it all is: I wake up feeling terribly disturbed at seeing them together again, changed, uncomfortable, when both my hope and my honest belief is that they are happy and whole and free.

What’s in a Mistake?

One reviewer called this poem “deceptively simple, direct, moving, and thoroughly astounding, full of political, religious, and cultural truth.” Wowser. I’m sure I haven’t yet plumbed its depths, but I certainly love what it says about human error, and the work of correcting it. It reminds me of the art of making a Persian rug, though this is a rather different take on the subject.

The Printer’s Error

by Aaron Fogel

Fellow compositors and pressworkers!

I, Chief Printer Frank Steinman, having worked fifty- seven years at my trade, and served five years as president of the Holliston Printer’s Council, being of sound mind though near death, leave this testimonial concerning the nature of printers’ errors.

First: I hold that all books and all printed matter have errors, obvious or no, and that these are their most significant moments, not to be tampered with by the vanity and folly of ignorant, academic textual editors.

Second: I hold that there are three types of errors, in ascending order of importance: One: chance errors of the printer’s trembling hand not to be corrected incautiously by foolish professors and other such rabble because trembling is part of divine creation itself. Two: silent, cool sabotage by the printer, the manual laborer whose protests have at times taken this historical form, covert interferences not to be corrected censoriously by the hand of the second and far more ignorant saboteur, the textual editor. Three: errors from the touch of God, divine and often obscure corrections of whole books by nearly unnoticed changes of single letters sometimes meaningful but about which the less said by preemptive commentary the better.

Third: I hold that all three sorts of error, errors by chance, errors by workers’ protest, and errors by God’s touch, are in practice the same and indistinguishable.

Therefore I, Frank Steinman, typographer for thirty-seven years, and cooperative Master of the Holliston Guild eight years, being of sound mind and body though near death urge the abolition of all editorial work whatsoever and manumission from all textual editing to leave what was as it was, and as it became, except insofar as editing is itself an error, and

therefore also divine. From The Printer’s Error, 2001, Miami University Press, Oxford, Ohio. Copyright 2001 by Aaron Fogel.