It’s not zeugema.  It’s not even syllepsis.  I’m still searching for the rhetorical term that describes an author’s artful shift of meaning through repetition.

It’s definitely wordplay of sorts, but unlike a pun (”He kneads me,” Dot says of her new lover, Louis the baker, in Sunday in the Park with George after claiming earlier to love the “size” of artist Georges Seurat), the play I’m talking about is dynamic.  It’s not two meanings implicit in one word; it’s two meanings generated from the same word or phrase when sung in two different contexts.

I’ll discuss three  examples from two musicals, Sweeney Todd and Gypsy, but it’s not as if I’m choosing from a wealth of possibilities as I have in earlier posts.  The infrequency of this construction is so dependent on character and context that I have to conclude that it’s pretty hard to pull off.  What I like about these three is examples is that, though they share a common technique of shifting meaning through repetition, they’re all extremely different, varying both in terms of how they’re constructed and what they reveal about character or contribute to meaning of the work.

The opening scene-proper of the Sweeney Todd is a duet of sorts between Antony, an idealistic sailor, and the horrifically wronged Sweeney Todd.  As they enter the port of London aboard a ship (Sweeney Todd is returning illegally from imprisonment abroad on a “trumped up charge”), Antony delights at the sight of the city:

I have sailed the world, beheld its wonders
From the Dardanells, to the mountains of Peru
But there’s no place like London!

And soon, in a move more sophisticated than mere verbal irony (”Even after the party, I feel great today.”  ”Ugh, yeah, I’m really feeling great, too.”), Todd joins Antony in a repetition of the line “There’s no place like London,” continuting thusly:

You are young. Life has been kind to you.
You will learn.

He goes on to offer his perspective on the “hole in the world like a great black pit” known as London, giving sincere emotional potency to his jaded (and perhaps more accurate) view that nowhere else in the world can compare, in terms of cruelty and inhumanity, to the city at the mouth of the Thames.

Sweeney Todd offers another example of meaning that shifts through repetition at the end of the first act, an example just as dark as the first, but also extremely funny.  I like this example quite a bit because it captures the spirit of the musical so well.  It’s dark and it’s tragic, but it’s also witty and over-the-top.  It comes at the end of the song “A Little Priest,” in which Mrs. Lovett and Sweeney engage in a blinding array of puns and jokes about that various professional folk they will serve up in meat pies now that Mr. Todd has cut the throat of his first victim.

They conclude:

Todd	Have charity towards the world, my pet!
Lovett	Yes, yes, I know, my love!
Todd	We’ll take the customers that we can get!
Lovett	High-born and low, my love!
Todd	We’ll not discriminate great from small!
	No, we’ll serve anyone,
	Meaning anyone,
Both	And to anyone
	At all!

Surely, the word to has been used to no greater effect than in shifting the meaning of the repeated anyone in relation to the slippery transitive and intransitve verb serve, especially when humans, er, serve as both direct and indirect objects. (Hey, I think I’ve convinced myself this is, in fact, an example of syllepsis after all.)

Labels aside, Sondheim’s most powerful lyrical shift through repetition has to be the moment in “Rose’s Turn” from Gypsy in which Rose briefly reprises “Everything’s Coming up Roses” (double meaning as plural and possessive intentional, of course) before launching into her final tirade against her daughters (and herself).  

The reprise is marked by a calming shift in the music, and a comforting return to a familiar song after the jarring burlesque nature of the opening of “Rose’s Turn. ” Rose sings:

I had a dream.
I dreamed it for you, June.

Indicating to her long- and still-absent daughter that her goals of show business success were somehow selflessly motivated by the desire for June’s good, it’s as if she hears the echo of Herbie’s criticism as she continues:

It wasn’t for me, Herbie.
And if it wasn’t for me
then where would you be,
Miss Gypsy Rose Lee?

The dual meanings of “it wasn’t for me”–in addition to clarifying the need for the subjunctive mood in English–get to the core of Rose’s character.  She didn’t do what she did out of the selfish need for attention and validation of worth; nor did she do it purely for the good of her daughters.  She did it for both. And when she realizes she may come up empty on both fronts, you’ve got the makings of a pretty devastating moment.

For me, anyway.

Other entries in this series include…

# 6: Guest blog on Assassins
# 5: Guest blog on Gypsy
# 4: Density and Intensity
# 3: Lyrics as conversation and dialogue
# 2: Lyrics as expression of character and dramatic theme
# 1: Lyrics as expression of complexity

One of my (many) favorite things about the city is its subway system. The first thing I buy on nearly every trip is my 7-day unlimited MetroCard at the airport.  For a mere $25, I can get anywhere I want in the city, provided my destination is serviced by one of the lines on that iconic map.

But getting from A to B is only part of the appeal of the New York City Subway line.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a big fan of reading geographically appropriate literature, and the sometimes lengthy trip from one end of a borough to  the other provides plenty of time to savor the likes of Salinger, Pete Hamill, or Claude Brown.

Colin and Sarah's first ride on the subway, Summer 2007.

And, of course, there’s something authentically urban about riding the subway.  Only 70 or so cities in the world have an underground system, and the scale of human population that necessitates such transit naturally plays out in the riding experience.  Without precise knowledge of where you are on a line, you can infer accurately whether you’re in a place that’s desirable to go to, or get away from, depending on the time of day.  As an observant visitor, I find that riding on the subway provides snapshots into the real life of the people of the city.

The first five notes of Bill Evans’s take on the Gershwin/ Heyward folk opera aria “I Loves You Porgy” are an intoxicating, atmospheric invitation to one of the most beautiful collaborations by a jazz trio, rivaled (in my mind) only by that same trio’s rendition of another tune from Porgy and Bess, “My Man’s Gone Now.”

The track begins with Evans playing a single note on the keyboard, and as the melody builds slowly upward, a line descends from the initial tone until the chord is fully realized on the downbeat.  The bass joins with a dull pluck balanced by the first of many extended shimmers from the cymbal.  It’s expected at this point for the musical tension of an introductory partial measure to be resolved, but in this case we gladly endure the suspense of an extra note (the first syllable of “Porgy,” if you’re familiar with the lyric).

I hope you saved a sparkler and some BBQ to enjoy as you read guest blogger Charles Weinberg’s directorial vision for Sondheim’s controversial musical Assassins.

I’ve been working on a production of Assassins in my head for the past two years.  It should be noted I’ve never seen a production of the musical (or really any musical for that matter).  In a way, this might work to my advantage, freeing up some directorial decisions.  The way I picture the musical in my head is that it’s set in Lee Harvey’s head; since I’m producing this, that puts Oswald’s head inside my head.  Inside his head are the voices of all past assassins, successful and not, manifestations of his mental illness wrestling with his conscience.

Once the multiple frame narratives are established, it gets chronological, starting with Booth.  Lincoln will be in the “actual” audience, watching My American Cousin on a stage on top of the stage.  The audience, in turn, becomes part of the cast: an audience playing the part of the audience.   As Hamlet refers to his distracted globe on the stage at the Globe, so the theater becomes a symbol for the mind, a collective consciousness of what it means to be “American”, and just as “everyone has the right to shoot the president” is a perversion of the American dream, so the contradictory and disparate components of the audience suggest a sense of national schizophrenia–allusive to the schism that divided the nation and allowed for John Wilkes Booth to exist.  To quote Lincoln quoting the Bible: “A house divided against itself cannot stand,” so it is with the mind in Jim Stevens’s poem “Schizophrenia.”  To recap…we have voices inside the voices of the voices, we have symbols inside the symbols of the symbols, and we have allusions to allusions inside allusions.

Though this Fourth of July is comaparably mild (and rainy) here in Southern Illinois, it’s an appropriate time to add my “keeping cool” recollections to those begun by Charlie, [dan] , and Ryan.  The Fourth typically marked the beginning of sweltering weather that would continue through early September.  By that point in the summer we had been relying on our go-to cool down plan for well over a month: swimming in the Lake of Egypt.

My childhood neighborhood, pictured awkwardly at right courtesy of Google Maps, was on a peninsula that thrust itself out into the lake.  Once you turned onto our road (not known as “Clifty Heights Drive” back then, by the way), the only ways out were to turn around or swim.

Every house had a backyard that ended with the  lake, so every summer morning presented only one decision: Whose dock would be home base for our more or less day-long  swim?

Our house was on the west side of the neighborood, thus facing a much more open section of the lake.  This meant we would get some boat traffic and consequent wave action if we swam there.

Inspired by the Pitchfork interview model (in which people discuss “the music they loved at five-year interval points in their lives” with the goal of getting “a detailed roadmap of how their tastes and passions helped make them who they are” or learning something odd and obscure) and prodded by [ dan ], I hereby submit my list.

Like any exercise, this task reveals some trends but leaves out hugely significant ones.  I need a separate entry explaining the absence of pop culture influence through the typically formative years.  My family’s odd relationship with music (and most other consumer goods) as well as my inability to take a critical stance on this documentary will play into that entry.  Until then..exchange your grandma’s dollar for tokens…I’ve got a fever that’s driving me crazy!!

Age 5 | “Pac Man Fever” (Buckner & Garcia)

I don’t remember the presence of too many records in our house growing up, but I can vividly recall this album’s iconic cover and the giddy feelings conjured by hearing the sounds associated with Aladdin’s Castle in the Carbondale mall coming out of our huge record player/stereo console.

Clear evidence that I experienced this musical masterwork on vinyl: the first four songs are burned in my memory, while the last four are totally unfamiliar.

Age 10 | ”Rock Me Amadeus” (Falco)

Regarded by some as the “the single worst pop song recorded in the entire decade of the 1980s,” I must have liked something about this mess of a synth-pop-chant tribute to Wolfgang.

My brother got me the cassette of Falco 3 as a present, and I gave it back to him when the other songs “weren’t as good” as “Rock Me Amadeus.”  Classic.

Age 15 | “Recipe for Love” (Harry Connick, Jr.)

While others were in the throes of adolescent angst and smelling teen spirit, I was happily swingin’ to the big band sounds of Harry Connick, Jr.  Sarah introduced me to this disc, and I eventually came to appreciate Harry as a piano player more than a singer.  He doesn’t play much on this album, and the tracks alternate “happy”/”sad” a bit too drastically and predictably, but I can trace my interest in jazz piano to recordings such as this one from high school.

Earlier this summer, I heard someone describe a task as a “whiteboard project.”  It took a second for me to process the connection.  She was referring to a project with enough parts, players, and relationships to warrant the use of a flexible visible representation (such as a whiteboard) to facilitate thinking.

It wasn’t until a week or so later, though, that the aptness of the term struck me.  I was sitting in the living room, surrounded by books, trying to determine the interrelationships among various factors in a process when I looked up and saw it.  It was Colin’s whiteboard, which Sarah had intelligently brought out from the safety hazard that is our computer room so we can play Pictionary and other games with him this summer.

Now, I’m not one to label myself  as a “visual processor.”  I don’t necessarily believe in those categories to begin with, and I like to think that the learning situation—not a limiting self-description—determines the most appropriate mode of processing information.  But when I saw the promise offered by all that white space and those colored markers, the next step was obvious:  It was time to draw.

I’ve visited New York City a number of times, under a number of circumstances: for work, with family, solo, and with students.  This summer I had the opportunity to hit the city with friends, one of whom was a Gotham neophyte. 

The following images represent a carefully edited collection of highlights.

The rain did not let up on the first day in the city, so we ducked into a little gallery called the Met and took a sophisticated viewer response approach to the art by finding a piece looked like each of us.

Cue up Lee Greenwood! Nothing inspires more pride while boating past Lady Liberty than a close encounter with the armed militia.

This trip to Coney Island brought me face to face with a rickety high-speed slice of Americana: The Mighty Cyclone. My right elbow still aches from the jarring twists, turns, and dips.

Bartender and patron at McSorleys Old Ale House, Est. 1854.

Other entries in the New York stories series:

• Vol. 5: Some historical sites
• Vol. 4: Eating in the city
• Vol. 3: The Brooklyn Bridge
• Vol. 2: Green spaces in the city
• Vol. 1: Central Park

As I look forward to participating in Pat’s demonstration today—and think back on the others I’ve seen or coached—I’m reminded  just how beneficial a process these activities are. The centrality of demonstrations in the NWP Summer Institute model clearly stems from the organization’s core principles (scroll down), among which are

• Teachers at every level—from kindergarten through college—are the agents of reform.
  
• Professional development programs should provide opportunities for teachers to work together to understand the full spectrum of writing development.
  
• A reflective and informed community of practice is in the best position to design and develop comprehensive writing programs.
  
• Collectively, teacher-leaders are our greatest resource for educational reform.

Part (okay, most) of what attracted me to the UIWP is the fundamental belief in teachers of a particular community as the professionals best suited to improving instruction in that community.

To paraphrase Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben, though, to assume that much power requires the acceptance of a great deal of responsibility. At the heart of that responsibility, I think, is finding your voice as a teacher practitioner and allowing yourself to build the capacity to talk about your teaching practices. This isn’t a stated goal of the Summer Institute or the demonstration model, but it’s implicit in it and central to it.

I vividly recall the first time I talked with colleagues about teaching in an authentic way—not as part of a protocol, professional development experience, or university course—but as a small group of teachers planning to substantially revise a class we all taught. I was surprised to find how uncomfortable I was to participate in that conversation, how unaccustomed I was to revealing my underlying attitudes toward teaching and articulating my thoughts about how we might improve learning and instruction through altering our curriculum and practices.

With thanks to Charlie for the headline idea, I cautiously announce the reawakening of Filkblog.

I set my alarm for 5am to have plenty of time to update my blog theme and customize appearance (thinking this may motivate me to keep at it?), but I woke up at 2 and got to work.

I’m returning to the UIWP, birthplace of this blog, for Visitors Day this morning, so I hope to have a legitimate post up today, and we’ll see where things go from there…