Jiminy Cricket

There's a line in one of Bright Eyes' new songs, the one we discussed a few days ago, "The Brakeman":

Got a cricket for a conscience
always looks the other way

Because songs rattle around in my head, I find myself thinking about and saying things that are connected to the music I listen to (and I know that many of you are the same way). So ol' Jiminy has been hanging around for a few weeks now.

When was the last time you saw Pinocchio? If you haven't seen it as an adult, I recommend a re-watching. Made in 1940, it really reveals how we as a culture have changed our strategies with children. The morals in the movie are hard hitting and quite judgemental, and there is no attempt to "live and let live." Right and wrong are clearly delineated. It also makes a nice comparison for the movie AI which is a more disturbing version (contemporary, post-modern) of the same story. Note especially the blue fairy. But that is not my point.

I want to talk a little about Jiminy. Before those lines (above) hit my consciousness, they must have been roaming around in my subconscious because within days I told my therapist that I didn't have a cricket for a conscience, but a big, mean brute. She didn't even know what I was talking about. She said, "a cricket?" I reminded her of Pinocchio, but she still had not remembered Jiminy Cricket as Pinocchio's conscience. I found that interesting because it is what I remember most about the story. That glorious song:

When you wish upon a star
Makes no difference who you are
Anything your heart desires
Will come to you

When you heart is in your dreams
No request is too extreme
When you wish upon a star
as dreamers do...

I guess I still cling to that. Me, with my brute conscience, which unlike Oberst's conscience NEVER turns away, I'm the dreamer, still hopeful that passion can move mountains.

No request is too extreme.

Today is my beloved's birthday, and for all the ups and downs, for all the growing pains, I still believe in wishing. I still believe that we can make stuff happen. But I don't think that right and wrong are easily defined. Sometimes we can live our entire lives looking long and hard at the blue fairy.

So, happy birthday C. I am wishing on my star. May all of our holiday weekends be full of dreams.