HALLELUJAH SQUARE
I have a friend, let’s call him Dan, who talked to me for a little while on Saturday about an album called HALLELUJAH SQUARE. There were six smiling men and women on the cover and the men were all dressed alike and the women were all dressed alike–except for the shoes! It was a very religious-looking album and we wondered why it wasn’t important to wear matching shoes if you were wearing matching clothes when you are making a very religious album like HALLELUJAH SQUARE that doesn’t seem to have any dark overtones or irony or anything like that in it. Then we thought – perhaps it IS important to wear shoes that DON’T match when you make religious albums. Why? The answer to this is something that we don’t quite know yet.
PART TWO
We also wondered why it wasn’t called HALLELUJAH SQUARES, like HOLLYWOOD SQUARES – we thought that this would be really good marketing at a time in which HOLLYWOOD SQUARES was a very popular TV show. Then again, if you can’t afford matching shoes for the cover of your HALLELUJAH SQUARE album, you might not have made sound marketing choices in the past and so might just be the latest in a series of poor marketing decisions – but then again, being spiritual isn’t all about marketing yourself – it’s about God and singing about all the things that are important to you.
I am sorry that we didn’t look to see what the songs were on the HALLELUJAH SQUARE album. But not real sorry–just a little sorry.
PART THREE
We also wondered if the square was an important religious symbol. Circles, sure, all the time, circles, and triangles also, sometimes. But what about squares. I asked Dan, who said I don’t know, do you? And I said, No, I thought that you would know and Dan said, well, it’s not technically ‘squares’ anyway, it’s ‘Square’and so we asked Pete who said something that seemed unrelated to the shapes we were talking about that was more about an album by Robert Fripp which we both thought had a better title than HALLELUJAH SQUARE and it was called or his group at least was called THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN which changed the conversation a bit, and I asked Dan if he had ever heard of anyone in the Bible described as a ‘gentleman’ and he said What? and I said, For instance, has anyone ever said There was once this interesting gentleman named from Anathoth named Jeremiah but he said No, I never have heard that before; Me neither, said Pete. The Bible doesn’t talk much about gentlemen someone else who was looking through the Big Joe Turner vinyl said and I said But they do talk about gentle things like lambs and Dan and Pete, who rarely agree on many things although they do at times, said, Yes, lambs.
PART FOUR
We all thought that perhaps if the HALLELUJAH SQUARE singers were to wear their unmatching shoes and form a big circle for the album cover that this would be a great cover. Or a big bubble would be nice. If they sang from inside the bubble that would make an interesting sound. But the album should say something about how the SQUARE singers recorded their first album inside a bubble on the cover I think. Otherwise the sound would seem creepy rather than interesting. I imagine a bubble that is jelly-like and a swimming pool-blue. Kind of scary.
It makes you think a little bit about Hell.
Sometimes we wonder what would happen in Hell, and what shape Hell might take. Bubble or square or cube, nobody can escape, that’s for sure. You know, when you have a jelly bubble enveloping a Christian singer who is afraid and wondering if he did bad things that he forgot and he starts screaming and saying Is this Hell? Is this Hell? Is this Hell? and then starts kicking and you see one brown boot penetrating the gel membrane, and then from another singer a black boot, or sandal, and then a different shade of brown boot and all these boots get stuck in the membrane and all the sreaming for all eternity and so on. My friend whom I called Dan because, actually, his name IS Dan, is a good man. He is always doing good things for people. I think he would be more earnest and concerned than I about the fate of the singers in a gel membrane bubble such as this and so I asked him what he would do and I mentioned all the details that of the scenario, making certain to include the black boots, the brown boots, the sandals, square v. circle, gelatinous membranes and Hell. How could people in such a dire situation possibly escape, Dan?
Pinking Shears, Dan said.
Really? Is that a real term Dan? I asked. Yes, Pinking Shears is a real term Dan said. I laughed. Pinking Shears! Pinking Shears! Can you lend me a pen? I want to write that down. Pinking Shears. And Dan said, Yes, here is a pen. Whoa! I said. Dan, that is MUCH too nice a pen to write down the words Pinking Shears with and Dan said, or retorted
PART FIVE
No, please, be my guest and so I did and I wrote down Pinking Shears and the ink flowed ever so gracefully from the pen just as I thought it might and then I took the piece of paper and folded it twice lengthwise and placed it in my breast pocket and said goodbye to Dan and goodbye to Pete and left feeling happy on a beautiful Saturday morning thinking Pinking Shears Pinking Shears to myself and knowing in my heart that I didn’t really feel any closer to solving any problems or to understanding anything and how happy I was really I was happy at that just the way things are.
PART TWO
We also wondered why it wasn’t called HALLELUJAH SQUARES, like HOLLYWOOD SQUARES – we thought that this would be really good marketing at a time in which HOLLYWOOD SQUARES was a very popular TV show. Then again, if you can’t afford matching shoes for the cover of your HALLELUJAH SQUARE album, you might not have made sound marketing choices in the past and so might just be the latest in a series of poor marketing decisions – but then again, being spiritual isn’t all about marketing yourself – it’s about God and singing about all the things that are important to you.
I am sorry that we didn’t look to see what the songs were on the HALLELUJAH SQUARE album. But not real sorry–just a little sorry.
PART THREE
We also wondered if the square was an important religious symbol. Circles, sure, all the time, circles, and triangles also, sometimes. But what about squares. I asked Dan, who said I don’t know, do you? And I said, No, I thought that you would know and Dan said, well, it’s not technically ‘squares’ anyway, it’s ‘Square’and so we asked Pete who said something that seemed unrelated to the shapes we were talking about that was more about an album by Robert Fripp which we both thought had a better title than HALLELUJAH SQUARE and it was called or his group at least was called THE LEAGUE OF GENTLEMEN which changed the conversation a bit, and I asked Dan if he had ever heard of anyone in the Bible described as a ‘gentleman’ and he said What? and I said, For instance, has anyone ever said There was once this interesting gentleman named from Anathoth named Jeremiah but he said No, I never have heard that before; Me neither, said Pete. The Bible doesn’t talk much about gentlemen someone else who was looking through the Big Joe Turner vinyl said and I said But they do talk about gentle things like lambs and Dan and Pete, who rarely agree on many things although they do at times, said, Yes, lambs.
PART FOUR
We all thought that perhaps if the HALLELUJAH SQUARE singers were to wear their unmatching shoes and form a big circle for the album cover that this would be a great cover. Or a big bubble would be nice. If they sang from inside the bubble that would make an interesting sound. But the album should say something about how the SQUARE singers recorded their first album inside a bubble on the cover I think. Otherwise the sound would seem creepy rather than interesting. I imagine a bubble that is jelly-like and a swimming pool-blue. Kind of scary.
It makes you think a little bit about Hell.
Sometimes we wonder what would happen in Hell, and what shape Hell might take. Bubble or square or cube, nobody can escape, that’s for sure. You know, when you have a jelly bubble enveloping a Christian singer who is afraid and wondering if he did bad things that he forgot and he starts screaming and saying Is this Hell? Is this Hell? Is this Hell? and then starts kicking and you see one brown boot penetrating the gel membrane, and then from another singer a black boot, or sandal, and then a different shade of brown boot and all these boots get stuck in the membrane and all the sreaming for all eternity and so on. My friend whom I called Dan because, actually, his name IS Dan, is a good man. He is always doing good things for people. I think he would be more earnest and concerned than I about the fate of the singers in a gel membrane bubble such as this and so I asked him what he would do and I mentioned all the details that of the scenario, making certain to include the black boots, the brown boots, the sandals, square v. circle, gelatinous membranes and Hell. How could people in such a dire situation possibly escape, Dan?
Pinking Shears, Dan said.
Really? Is that a real term Dan? I asked. Yes, Pinking Shears is a real term Dan said. I laughed. Pinking Shears! Pinking Shears! Can you lend me a pen? I want to write that down. Pinking Shears. And Dan said, Yes, here is a pen. Whoa! I said. Dan, that is MUCH too nice a pen to write down the words Pinking Shears with and Dan said, or retorted
PART FIVE
No, please, be my guest and so I did and I wrote down Pinking Shears and the ink flowed ever so gracefully from the pen just as I thought it might and then I took the piece of paper and folded it twice lengthwise and placed it in my breast pocket and said goodbye to Dan and goodbye to Pete and left feeling happy on a beautiful Saturday morning thinking Pinking Shears Pinking Shears to myself and knowing in my heart that I didn’t really feel any closer to solving any problems or to understanding anything and how happy I was really I was happy at that just the way things are.
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