Harold Sikkema reads Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky

When airplanes (in literature and song) fall from the sky, there is liable to be some manner of "Happy Birthday" whether your name is Conor Oberst or Salman Rushdie, whether you perish or are reborn. Even if another name or fate possesses you, there may yet be candles and cake.

To demonstrate, I have interwoven selected words from the the song "At the bottom of everything" and from the audiobook of Salman Rushdie's Satanic Verses.

TRANSCRIPT:
Oberst: "There was this huge Mechanical Failure and one of the engines gave out"
Rushdie / Narrating: "Flew too close to the sun is that it?"
Oberst: "And they started just falling and 30 thousand feet."
Rushdie / Chamcha (trying to reason the miracle out of existence) "God, we were lucky, he said, How lucky can you get?"
Oberst (strumming percussively): "It's a birthday party. It's your birthday party: happy birthday darling."
Rushdie: "Born again, Spoono, you and me. Happy birthday, mister; happy birthday to you."

Oberst, having published his song "At the Bottom of Everything" in 2005, follows chronologically after Rushdie's 1988 Satanic Verses, but perhaps both the artist and the author exists rather in the imaginary place that might be described as a perpetual birthday.

Happy Birthday (Mister / Darling)

Audio

McMaster University Choir is pleased to present Handel's Messiah at Centennary United Church, 24 Main Street West. Sunday December 2nd at 3pm. TIckets are $15 for adults and $12 for students, and they are available at the door or at http://www.mcmasterchoir.ca. We hope to see you there!