So this is how it all ends, not with a bang but with a whistle. You know how to whistle don’t you? Well, I tell you one thing, you won’t get there by banging stuff around. Put your lips togetherness blow? Sure, if you got the embouchure down. Otherwise, it’s a raspberry and a spit take, Bacall. There’s just so much time left on the shot clock, and there you go with the whistling. No time for final bows or last words, the game ends and I’m still arguing with the officials. Thanks a lot, whistly—.
I float towards the fizzle as the world of mouth lazes into the past tense, these balloons full of static sticking to the pillars, the holdup from foundation to the firmament. The sky holds its hands high, long ago giving up its gelt. The least kerfuffle leaves my old heart gasping, treed kitten in every limb, and left with well-armed titans to battle bare-fisted and weak kneed. Another fine kettle of fish ahead full steam, working to the last whistle.
These are the words that find their way into bones that aren’t so funny, the truth in the joke that hurts. I work with whatever is gifted, when I’m out I’m out. I came of age back in the old days of New Vaudeville, I carry on with the bit until I do it to death, then I do it more. It’s fungible if you talk to it right. It wasn’t until decades later that the shtick got stuck and we sank into the clowniverse. Most of all culture is a spell, it’s a call and response, it’s that old mad djinn vamping around the ritual. A scuff of the knuckles along the ivories to scrape out the scales, a Meisner Technique to keep the plates spinning, breath spent anding every yes. Now you see it, now, not so much. Plus, there’s wind chimes.