To go skating on your name

I had a very interesting piece of news today that I can’t share yet, but will post here when I can. In looking for the proper celebratory music, Tom Waits’ Alice gleamed from the shelf, perfect. On it went.

(It will come as no surprise to you that I love that album.)

So many of these songs transport me to a sweet, innocent, clangy, maybe steampunky time, somewhere not quite here, but close. The title song tickles the edge of myself: letters, words, and meaning combining into a circling cut, through something frozen:

It’s dreamy weather we’re on
You wave your crooked wand
Along an icy pond
With a frozen moon
A murder of silhouette crows I saw
And the tears on my face
And the skates on the pond
They spell Alice

I’ll disappear in your name
But you must wait for me
Somewhere across the sea
There’s a wreck of a ship
Your hair is like meadow grass
On the tide
And the raindrops on my window
And the ice in my drink
Baby, all that I can think of
Is Alice

Arithmetic, Arithmetock
I turn the hands back on the clock
How does the ocean rock the boat
How did the razor find my throat
The only strings that hold me here
Are tangled up around the pier

And so a secret kiss
Brings madness with the bliss
And I will think of this
When I’m dead in my grave
Set me adrift and I’m lost over there
And I must be insane
To go skating on your name
And by tracing it twice
I fell through the ice
Of Alice

And so a secret kiss
Brings madness with the bliss
And I will think of this
When I’m dead in my grave
Set me adrift and I’m lost over there
And I must be insane
To go skating on your name
And by tracing it twice
I fell through the ice
Of Alice

That end bit, “And I must be insane/To go skating on your name/And by tracing it twice/I fell through the ice/Of Alice,” eluded me for a long time. Finally I realized that “the ice of Alice” meant the letters of the word…

But what’s really on my mind is “Kommienezuepadt.” Watch this weird little video of on youtube: “Kommienezuspadt.”

(Pretend German)
Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt

Sei punktlich
Sei punktlich
Sei punktlich

Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt
And we can’t be late
And we can’t be late

(Pretend German)
And we can’t be late
Kommiene, Kommiene
Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt

(Pretend German)
And we can’t be late
And we can’t be late
And we can’t be late
And we can’t be late
Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt

Sei punktlich
Sei punktlich
Sei punktlich

Kommienezuspadt
Kommienezuspadt

Ha, ha, ha, ha
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha
Ha, ha, ha, ha
Kommienezuspadt

(Pretend German)
And we can’t be late
And we can’t be late
And we can’t be late
Sei punktlich
Sei punktlich
Kommienezuspadt
Kommiene, kommiene, kommiene, kommiene
Kommienezuspadt