I have two main associations with the word gay as used before the sexual revolution: Nietzsche's The Gay Science (which I always make sure to shelve next to his Ecce Homo) and a song called "The Jolly Switzer." This comes from an older generation of Mormon children's songs, but when I was very young there was one older gentleman in our ward who taught it to a few kids, who taught it to others, and it became an underground hit. We were too young to be aware of the psychiatric meaning of gay; we just thought it was a funny song. The old man pronounced Switzer with a long i, and so we did, too. The lyrics, such as they are, run as follows:
I'm a gay tra, la, la,With my fa, la, la, la,And my bright, and my gay tra, la, lee;Then a laugh, ha, ha, ha,And a ring, ting, ting, ling,And a sing, fa, la, la, la, la, lee.
Looking up the song now just to make sure I hadn't hallucinated the whole thing, I find that the lyrics are attributed to Bret Harte. Wait, surely not the Bret Harte, celebrated and much-anthologized writer of Wild West fiction? Are you telling me he wrote "The Jolly Switzer," too? A regular Renaissance man! Apparently, yes, it's the same Bret Harte. I find this very satisfying, much like the discovery that the John Bongiovi who sang "R2-D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas" was none other than the future Jon Bon Jovi in his debut as a recording artist.
I searched Harte's Wikipedia page but unsurprisingly found no mention of his contribution to Mormon children's music. Looking under "Dramatic and musical adaptations," though, I did discover that the 1975 spaghetti Western Four of the Apocalypse is based on a couple of Bret Harte's stories. The Four Horsemen are a recurring theme around here and were just mentioned again in my last post, "Into the mouth of the whale."
I also thought it interesting that Bill's comment that led me to look up "The Jolly Switzer" was on a post whose title includes both "Jupiter" and "Ides of March." Jolly and jovial are synonyms, with the latter word literally meaning "under the influence of the planet Jupiter." The name Bret recently came up in "Bret Michaels" (April 19), about a singer who was born on the Ides of March.
When I searched my blog for bret just now, I found only one post that wasn't referencing that recent Bret Michaels post: "Black men and old ones" (March 2025), referencing "the Bret Easton Ellis character Patrick Bateman." Realizing I know essentially nothing about Ellis (I know of Patrick Bateman via cultural osmosis but have never actually read American Psycho), I did a quick Google search to find out what else he had written. This came up:
Yes, that's yet another instance of the "Red and blue spectacles," on the cover of the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less Than Zero. Just prior to writing this post, I had checked Synlogos and found a new post by Vox Day also called "Less Than Zero" (referring to his own anti-evolution AI slop book Probability Zero).
Remembering that I had used a Patrick Bateman "dubs guy" meme here recently, I looked it up. The post is "My plan for a sync experiment" (January 28), where Bateman is pointing to a logo that says "Double Well." I just brought up "Well Well" -- specifically two repetitions of the word, not the more usual three -- in the comments on "Happy God Is a Whale Day."
7 comments:
Apparently Less Than Zero includes a lot of "gay" content in the modern sense of the word.
The only Bret Hart (I know it is missing the e) I was familiar with was in WWE/ WCW. Bret Hart's nickname was famously "The Hitman", which is a reference to a hired assassin. Seemed interesting, given Ides of March and Pharazon connections you laid out here. His longtime nemesis/ rival was the character Bill Goldberg, who ended his career apparently with a mistimed kick to the head.
When I saw that word Zero, by the way, I saw it as a name (i.e., Cipher/ Cypher).
Lastly, Switzer really fits in well here. As in Switzerland, Switzer comes from Schwytz or Swedan, it looks like, which meant "to burn", specifically in clearing off vegetation by an act of burning. You know where I would go with that... the burning of the Eressean lilies by Pharazon.
That hint has potentially been with us all the way back to some of the images/ symbolism of the Bern, Switzerland LDS temple, with Bern as a homonym. For example, in the combined videos from Woodkid of "Iron" and "Run boy run", which both feature the Bern, Switzerland temple.
And what an interesting name Bret Hart is, by the way... The Brittany Deer/ Stag.
If I recall correctly, Brittany is another reference to Wales (Whales).
Bill, if Zero is Cypher, the lowest of the low, who or what is Less Than Zero?
Not sure - don't know where I would take it. Just flagging that I thought o Cypher in seeing Zero.
One potential avenue of thinking starts with what Joseph Smith wrote down in D&C 122, about the Son of Man having descended below all things... all things I would view as a comprehensive statement, and not just hyperbole, so that might factor into the statement.
"The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?"
D&C 122 points back to D&C 88, and reference first to the Comforter, and then to Jesus himself:
"He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth;"
And there is a cross-reference I found to Hebrews:
"For verily he [Jesus] took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham.
Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.
For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted."
That is a theme I have been exploring, obviously, even in the context of Pharazon, in Beings taking on themselves the sicknesses of their people in order to understand how to help them.
On the spine the mention of "Ellis" immediately after the "Less than Zero" might be connected to that train of thinking. Ellis is another form of Elias. I brought that up recently in your clinkscales post where you mentioned your dream of Duke Ellington. Ellington is Ellis Town. Interestingly with this author, you have another mention of a Town, and to the East (Easton), and with Bret as we noted with Bret Hart(e) we have reference to Brittany, Briton, and Wales (Whales).
The Brittany connection is interesting given France as well as the "Brittany Spears", which I linked to Seer Stones, and thus also Spectacles. In my strange words from 2019/2020, there is mention of someone(s) going East, as well. In that context was mention of a "story to tell" - this apparently will be a 'new story' or a novel, as called out on the cover of this book.
And it gets better in terms of the story this book cover is supporting via symbols.
As I was hitting publish on the last comment, I thought I should take a look at the image you posted one more time. I noticed the publisher at the bottom of the spine: Simon and Schuster.
Simon is, of course, the other name of Peter. Schuster means "Shoemaker". So we have Peter and a Shoemaker. Shoemaker is a big theme (as are just shoes in general, as you know), and recently came up in the wallpaper experience I shared a few days ago.
The Shoemaker in my story is the Holy Ghost, and I've mentioned him together with Peter several times, for example with those earlier Gimgoru and Gimgithil (the Gim G's) narrative threads. So I think notable to see Simon and Schuster in this context given the other symbols, names, etc.
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