La Mascotte is the title of a comic operetta written by French composer Edmond Audran in 1880.
The story is that of a a farm girl who brought good luck to whomever possessed her, so long as she remained a virgin. The title was French slang derived from the Provençal term masco, meaning witch. With a degree of musicianship rarely seen in such lighter productions, the operetta ran for over 1,000 performances between 1880 and 1882. This popularity led to it being translated into English and staged at the Comedy Theatre in London beginning on October 15, 1881, and the Gaiety Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts beginning April 11, 1882.
The title was translated into English as "The Mascot", which initiated the use the word 'mascot' in the English language to mean an animal, human, or thing which brought luck.
Act One
There it is: the head of heaven
A ghost of sunlight afternoon a bewitchment called Sunday.
No one wishes to be taken by surprise.
Three word-up 7:30 boys on the corner:
I'm miss'n the flow the polished heat the angles of today:
the last day of July 2005
You wonder about the limits
unable to begin
feeling the spirits enraptured w/sleep
spent the morning cleaning dried tears from eyeglasses
earthbound feeling the real need to phone-up Brad Pitt and lay down advice:
You've been dwelling over the future far too long.
It's dark, it's lonely and there's no way home.
Without periodontal surgery how can you expect anyone to take you seriously.
If you're groovin keep movein comeon sure it hurts deep inside.
Higher ideals don't mean the same thing to boilin dogs ya yo.
Beyond all that lost-to-your-friends-blue resides Orion. lay down ghosts.
You're my luck rabbit's foot in the palm of my hand in the form of a star.
Staring out at the lawn green witchery of the Civic Center lawn:
Dharana dhyana samadhi hypnosis whammy it hurts eating cake too.
Lies lies: when you hide the truth you get angry suck up universal bleak-days.
Ray Noble and his orchestra: the ultimate stamen double on the beat wicked on deck
I was only a child but I was expected to examine the big concepts such as God
who am I: stigmata in both wrists finely polished inanimate social halfglimpse
giving up everything everything bursts through with bucketfuls of more.
brightly colored bad girl sad girl early evening green sunlight awashes now
the clever hops of finch family out for late lunch on the fire-escape landing:
like everybody else you think breezily sensual tales of your best past sex episodes.
strong westerly breezes pick up speed racing in from the Pacific Ocean
as the evening unfurls just outside of town near where the sun is drowned
Civic Center Sycamore leaves so bright lushly verdant and robust a month ago
have begun their yearly decline into gray stained trance: first sign of autumn.
San Francisco mulling over itself with gossip and the voodoo hoodoo of SUCCESS
can be seen shopping for soft warm winter jackets reinventing the meaning of charm.
what worries you most is the nagging call it intuition you're living wrong and
everybody telling you you're not known and not living right you need an update.
call it a spurious glimpse into the terror just around the corner: closed-circuit TV
I wonder now where I'll be when the yearly BIG DISASTER that will arrive sure as
can be this autumn. every year the same thing: BIG AUTUMN/WINTER WORLD DISASTER.
like the Huns over the hills just you wait just you worry just you wait what up.
life is not logical. nature has an unknown logic. the soldiers will not be coming home
change nowadays means transform into more like us even if it's me I mean that
I can't help myself: the 808 kicks in the strings pluck hard & god knows I sing.
Now look: the Civic Center lawn throws up a bluff of suggestion: all is well.
Sam Spade fog puts on its hat and sky opens out into exactly nothing exactly
I try to wish my fears away but find I'm unable to prevent the door from opening.
I stare absentmindedly at the lawn of the Civic Center at the Sycamores at the
expired ideology of memory at far-off places: there's India looking like an
elephant head there's no substitute for love in the wait for you: I know I know:
dialectical materialism is old-fashioned the light I love now will turn to night
years glide by like clouds I dream of magic carpets why is the new generation doing
it's best to exterminate me the same old questions don't elicit new responses:
Marcel Duchamp's Door as a Substitute for Two Doors is my mascot today.
after my good life I phoned James Joyce, residing now at the Don't Bother Me Hotel
he put the sway of the train into perspective: Let us leave theories there and
return to here's hear. O Jimmy I said I could just hug you. Don't he said.
---------------
Act Two
I'm all alone staring into space.
It's freezing. Sagittarius has suddenly entered with a smile on his face attempts
to form a physical bond with underlying metaphysical messages:
the expiring day the evening is spread out against the sky like a
sing-along to the bouncing ball
----------------
Act Three
it's the word.
the weakness of human flesh is heir to
that unfeathered two-legged thing
kettle drums at midnight
My friends, believe me, there will be no other like you
wish fervently for a place with better views, greater ceiling height and 24-hour room service
the more religious-minded, happily enscounced in a "position" will assure you
in heaven bacteria will grow to the size of giant moths which will chew holes in you
they will insist you prepare for life-eternal by wearing cashmere
I was asked to observe this:
see it but pretend to not be noticing
the hunter pursues the hunted but the hunted
must not ever know it is being pursued: it is the story of two boys walking along
the bank of a wooded stream following the movements of fish swiming up-stream
looking up one boy notices across the bank an older boy pursuing them with an
arrow tautly strung in his bow. the hunter must be nothing in search of something.
we're condemned to be forever blessed with what approaches us
I wasn't happy with this explanation but I thought to myself: human misery
you may kiss the head of a burning candle but you won't like it
evening has grown still more gray
Pacific Ocean breeze has calmed to a gentle breathing
frail and weak a feeling of the infinite surges through my mind
then lies down to be petted
I imagine myself on a diesel locomotive made of days
passing through the Great Southwest
the train stops for a thirty-minute body wash in Albuquerque
I picture myself buying a turquoise wish-bringer from a sandy-faced craftsman
my mind blushing like a strawberry-gold god about to burst into a guitar solo
I imagine myself to be the product of divisions and multiplications of a single cell
I can make your body shine
--------------------------
Epilogue
tomorrow is another day
New Order Blue Monday
I will step out
into the deep sleep
suffering the pursuit of dreams
arrow poised
hungry
turquoise in my pocket
-- Jeff Wietor
