A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

GLOAMING IS A GOOD WORD TOO: Via our frequent commenter Bill, here's an interesting piece by blogger Brendan Wolfe, whose blog is called "The Beiderbecke Affair" after the famous jazz musician (or perhaps an obscure television show?). It's a list of the songs he chose for the occasion of proposing to his beloved Molly (who said yes).

Wolfe has a gift for writing. I especially liked this passage about Thelonious Monk's lovely ballad “Crepuscule with Nellie”:

"I love his decision to use the otherwise obscure word crepuscule. It may mean “twilight,” but its consonants are too jagged and sharp for anything that’s, you know, just pretty. Baudelaire dug this sort of ambiguity, too, and he began his poem “Le Crépuscule du soir” with a reference to the “charming, friendly evening of the criminal” (or “Voici le soir charmant, ami du criminel”)."

Wolfe's list is not especially similar to the sort of songs I would choose in connection with a proposal, but I generally like what he has to say about them. I don't like "Bette Davis Eyes" as much as he does and I can't imagine anyone preferring the version of "You Were on my Mind" by Jay and the Americans over the nearly perfect original by Ian and Sylvia.

This may come as a shock to you, but I did not make a mix tape when I asked my wife to marry me (let's just say that I was WAY too spontaneous to think that far ahead). But I did send her a card with some flowers a few days after she said yes and included these lyrics by Jackson Browne in the card:

"Give up your heart and you lose your way
Trusting another to feel that way
Give up your heart and you find yourself
Living for something in somebody else"