happy enough now. you bet. wrapped up Catcher today wherein right near the end we get this famous bit

I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. I was damn near bawling. I felt so damn happy, if you want to know the truth.

and of course by this moment in the novel we want to know the truth... and we do know it. most of us. we're all riding that "beat-up-looking old horse" going round and round in the rain. it's our living here now. that's all. and the rain falls down like somebody's tears to cleanse our misery. but not quite. getting to compassion is all. some of the sophomores even got it, i think, if their most imperfectly perfect message board posts are any measure. happy enough now. you bet. a bit of compassion for all the little broken things.

"you got to get behind the mule in the morning and plow" i could work it every day if tom waits was doing the soundtrack. what kind of movie would that be - where the characters could hear the music. they wouldn't bust out singing like one of those crazy musicals, but they'd know the music was there and every now and then they'd do a little shuffle or a jump, nod their funny wise noggins to the beat. so even when old tom growls that "misery is the river of the world" you know something could be okay if "everybody row". which is what happens in mike leigh's translucent bittersweet Secrets & Lies, finished by the juniors in britlit today.

you get the funny sense there'd be less mental illness in the world if we knew better how to sing. and when. not just the formal training... more like what thoreau says about birds and their nests, what he wishes for people and their houses. sing your soul. whatever color or condition it may show. do a little dance. come on. dylan made it safe for us all. happy birthday, bob. i mean, who sings anymore? it's all canned, ain't it? who even knows the words? i sure don't. that's why when i sing to the cat i make them up and get all tangled trying to hit some perfect rhyme, trying to be very witty and all just to keep the cat on her toes so to speak. but i fall down laughing at my own stupid brain. you laugh too.

Now I brood, I grimace, how quickly the day goes,
how full it is of sunshine, and wind, how many
smells there are, how gorgeous is the distant
sound of dogs, and engines - Blessed art Thou,
Lord of the falling leaf, Lord of the rhubarb,
Lord of the roving cat, Lord of the cloud.
Blessed art Thou oh grapefruit King of the universe,
Blessed art Thou my sink, oh Blessed art Thou
Thou milkweed Queen of the sky, burster of seeds,
Who bringeth forth juice from the earth.

Gerald Stern