STetc ch38, cosi

[Michael Bailey]

The play premiered on June 18, 1917, in Milan. But the 2003 New York Production with Tony Randall, under the name "Right You Are," is set in 1930s fascistic Italy.

https://www.theatermania.com/news/right-you-are_4178/




I stayed off the list for a few months when I realized my negativity about OBAA was inappropriate. I have vowed to eschew pointless negativity (pointful negativity is usually implicit anyway & goes without saying: evil is bad, type of thing) and focus on the implications of the text as they appear to me, while doing my best to attract more comments of all sorts and engage in courteous discussion. So, I apologize for deprecating "rays" in geometry. They're close cousins to vectors, and goodness knows we couldn't do without those!

"Co...si e,
(Se vi pare),"
Yes and so it is, if
That's-how, it-looks, to you...
No use say-ing,
"Whoa, oops, I'm sor-ray,"
Just 'cause you don't see
What all them others do...
With the sky full
Of storms and thunder,
Thinkin' they're under
Some heaven of blue,
Ehi, don't worry!
Mah ol' goombah-nay, co-wo-wo-
-si e...se, vi, pa-re..."

Chazz accompanies himself on a concertina, an instrument which is quintessentially cute in and of itself (imho) and somehow associated with monkeys.


Why? This very question occurs in a thread on concertina.net (of course):
https://www.concertina.net/forums/index.php?/topic/1736-whats-this-about-monkeys-anyway/

"I have no doubt that the pizza guy (and all your other acquaintances) are thinking about a crank organ (I hesitate to call it a hurdy-gurdy because that word more correctly refers to a cranked string instrument) and the association (in the popular imagination, if not in fact) between organ grinders and monkeys. Kind of like concertinas and sailors."


  *
Oh, yeah - sailors! Wearing marinieri, no doubt, with those horizontal stripes.


"As for reality, the only time I've ever seen a monkey together with a concertina was when I visited a friend who had a pet monkey. [:)] <https://www.concertina.net/forums/uploads/emoticons/default_smile.png>  I doubt that those who imagine the connection have ever seen any musician performing with a monkey. (I remember a busker with a monkey in New York, but the monkey itself was the attraction. Neither man nor monkey had a musical instrument.) The association seems to come from people who don't mentally distinguish different portable, unfamiliar instruments. But for what it's worth, I have never encountered anyone suggesting that monkeys were associated with concertinas. (Jokes about snakes or rats when I play tin whistle is another story.)"

"As for the seriousness or otherwise of concertinas, it does say in one of Thomas Hardy's books referring to the Melstock Quire that they were replaced in the church by a sober chap who played hymn tunes on a barrel organ after the band played a jig by mistake ("The devil amoung the tailors" I think it was)."


So it's a stretch to picture Chazz trying to somewhat insultingly get Hicks to dance to his tune, and mostly unwarranted. Even though the power relations in the discourse tilt that way, don't they?

Plus the purport of the song is more like friendly advice to a potential recruit, not to try to "bring down" the happy mood of those (like Chazz himself, really, although his intro verbiage to the song shows his skepticism: "Long as you don't start believin none of the propaganda they all keep throwin at you")