Thirty years later and still the King

My very first music boyfriend. My first hardcore media crush. The man whose movies, godawful though many of them were, had me hastening happily home from school to watch afternoon marathons of them. The man whose voice, rolling out of my father's quadrophonic stereo speakers, blew me away even at the tender age of eight.

Dad always used to claim that the first words out of my mouth were "play more Elvis, Daddy!" I can't testify to this one way or another, but some of my best memories of Dad and me were of the two of us with a pair of headphones hooked into a double jack, listening to Elvis belting out "Way Down" or "American Trilogy", and I remember the thrill of hearing "Also Sprach Zarathrustra" and then "See See Rider" rumbling in those headphones--because it meant that the concert was starting. Dad's Elvis concert records were always the best to listen to--even as a kid, I was awed by the sheer volume of massed voices screaming in adulation. Even on that final Elvis in Concert record, when his voice was all but spent, his audience still loved him. I think it was that that first taught me about what kind of power a performer can wield in song. Dad told me, too, of going to see Elvis shows and being hoarse from screaming his own approval for three or four days after.

I remember my mother with tears in her eyes listening to "Suspicious Minds" on the radio, murmuring "Bless his heart".

I remember the huge, huge collection of inserts in the Sunday newspaper in Louisville when Elvis died, though I barely took in the impact of it at the time. And I remember Dad trying to pull an April Fool's stunt on his cousin Danny the year after, sending poor Danny out into a snowstorm on the premise that there was a headline claiming Elvis was still alive. Dirty rotten trick to pull, but it really just went to show how much Danny loved Elvis too.

I remember starting to collect his records myself, and being odd girl out in middle school because of it. Other kids always gave me shit about that--"he's dead," they chided. I didn't have the bravery to shoot back, "So's Beethoven, but people still listen to him anyway!" I thought it, though. And now that I'm grown up, I can say it with perfect equanamity. Because now I understand how all the grownups at the time felt.

When Dad died, I went back and listened to all the things he and I listened to together. I still can't listen to "Don't Cry Daddy" or "Kentucky Rain" without tearing up.

I named my first computer after him. I've played MUSH characters based on Elvis, and I've had other characters that have sung his songs. He's been in the back of my mind--and my hormones--with every singer or actor since then I've admired. I've even found Elvis in my SF--the quite nifty Jack Womack novel Elvissey, as well the anthology The King is Dead, where I read the original "Bubba Hotep" short story. And I snickered quite a bit at the Alternate Presidents anthology that featured "President Presley". ;)

There are Elvis movies that are too awful for even me to watch--but some of 'em, I'll get back out every so often, and they'll always make me smile. (What can I say, I'm a sucker for a gorgeous black-haired, blue-eyed guy serenading a girl till her knees turn to water.) Elvis' moves on stage--even in a movie, but better still in a concert--still kill me. And I'm still listening to and loving his music. Sometimes, I try to even play it on my own guitar.

Tonight I raise a glass to Elvis while I watch Viva Las Vegas on TCM. The King is dead. Long live the King.

2007 Book Log #65: The One-Armed Queen, by Jane Yolen

Just to give you an idea of how behind I am on getting my To Read shelf cleared out, Jane Yolen's The One-Armed Queen--the followup to Sister Light, Sister Dark and White Jenna--has been on the queue for NINE YEARS. The thing came out in 1998. It has taken me until now to actually read it.

Was it worth my wait? Eh, it was a decent enough novel. It didn't particularly blow me away, and the interspersing of snippets of myth, legend, song, and "historical" research through the story sometimes struck me as annoyingly distracting and sometimes as a rather cool meta-level interpretation of the story... which, I suppose, is a sign of it not quite working for me. The same for the title character, Scillia, adopted daughter of the Jenna who was the heroine of the previous two books. She starts the story off as an angsty child who mostly annoys the tar out of me, and finishes as more of a catalyst for others to act rather than someone really driving the action herself. While I can see why this was in character and appropriate for her, it was still unsatisfying for me as a reader.

So. All in all, kind of ambivalent about this one. Yolen's way with a word is solid, and I do like the songs that were leavened all over the novel, but ultimately I could have taken or left this one. Two and a half stars.

Meanwhile, this'll be interesting

I have a shiny new endoc, since my old one moved down to California to be closer to family there. Today was my first appointment with the guy. I told him I was more or less feeling adequate, modulo a few niggling annoyances that have been with me really ever since the whole thyroid removal in the first place--e.g., periodic mental sluggishness and recurring weight issues, even though I walk 3-4 miles a day and my T4 levels keep reporting as "normal"--and the first words out of his mouth were to suggest trying me out on some T3 along with my regular Synthroid dosage.

For a while now I've been wondering whether I'm one of those people who need to do that mix, and it was a bit of a relief to hear that suggestion come out of him so solidly. So he sent me home with a prescription for 5mcg of Cytomel, and I'll be starting that tomorrow along with the Synthroid.

Let's see what this does, and whether this stabilizes my pokey metabolism. Yay, new med to take twelve days before I go on a two-week vacation! ;)