SLPAD - 80 - quick notes on frog chorus

[Michael Bailey]

In the car, when they turn off onto the dirt road leading to the cabin:

“Around them thousands of frogs chanted to themselves
               in an inexplicable set of chord changes, to the glory of
certain ambiguous principles“



Then as they couple:

“Around them frogs intoned a savage chorus, gradually it seemed to
them—spasmodic as
               they were, blinded yet curiously aware of this as little
more than an entwining of
               little fingers, a touching of beer mugs, a McCall’s
togetherness—working itself into a pedal bass for a virtuoso duet of small
breathings,
               cries; he puffing occasionally at the cigar throughout the
performance, the ball cap
               tilted carelessly, she evoking a casually protective
feeling, a never totally violated
               Pasiphae; until at last, having subsided, assailed still by
stupid frog cries they
               lay not touching.”


First it’s a chant, background for a building excitement which even jaded
Levine seems to be feeling (“ah, sweet mystery of life”)

Then the frogs “intone” a “savage chorus”, modified adverbially by
“gradually”, as if rising along with their copulation’s rhythm, its stages?

Then, as omnia animaliae they become triste post coitum, Levine & (we’re
informed by the narrator’s power of omniscience) Buttercup perceive less
charitably “stupid frog cries”


I remember reading Aristophanes’ “The Frogs” & offhandedly relating
“brekkekkekkex koax koax” to “coaxial cable” -

Assuredly a helpful excursion (-;

Is there some more helpful intertextual goodness?

>From Wikipedia:

“The call of the Frog Chorus, "Brekekekéx-koáx-koáx" (Greek: Βρεκεκεκέξ
κοάξ κοάξ), followed by a few of Charon's lines from the play, formed part
of the Yale <https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Yale> "Long
Cheer", which was first used in public in 1884, and was a feature of Yale
sporting events from that time until the 1960s.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/The_Frogs#cite_note-YAM1-9>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/The_Frogs#cite_note-YAM2-10>
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/The_Frogs#cite_note-YAM3-11>Lake
Forest Academy
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Lake_Forest_Academy>'s
teams are known as the "Caxys", a name derived from a similar cheer.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/The_Frogs#cite_note-12>

“The Long Cheer was echoed in Yale graduate Cole Porter
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Cole_Porter>'s song
"I, Jupiter" in his musical *Out of This World
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/Out_of_This_World_(musical)>*,
in which Jupiter sings "I, Jupiter Rex, am positively teeming with sex,"
and is answered by the chorus "Brek-ek-ko-ex-ko-ex-SEX!
Brek-ek-ko-ex-ko-ex-SEX!"
<https://en.wikipedia.org/api/rest_v1/page/mobile-html/The_Frogs#cite_note-YAM2-10>
 “