My Funny Valentine

Sorry this song is a day late...



This, like many Rogers and Hart songs, is one of the best songs ever written and it is the best Valentine's song ever. Because, ironically, the greatest beauty, like the strangest, is almost impossible to photograph and capture.



For Karen

and Denise and Jonathan and Sharon and Henry Wozniak, Jr.

and all of my cats...

who have all loved me so much despite myself and whom I have loved so much back.

And, after all, Karen you were right -- you got top billing, way above my cats. You must be smiling in your heart up there and, like you said you loved to be, "in the wind." I was crazy about you pretty much the moment I saw you looking for my phone number on that receipt for Chinese Take-Out (or was it for the Chinese Laundry where you sent your shirts?) on our first (blind) date. Somehow, I think you did know that was me as soon as you looked over, before I answered the phone. You couldn't believe I was so funny looking, but you couldn't walk away either. And you smiled. You were befuddled, but you smiled.



When you left that day, as you left the subway car, I will never forget how you closed your eyes just after you said I could call you -- or whatever the words were that indicated we had connected and yes, this was definitely continuing. You closed your eyes and smiled and again to show me that I had reached in and found you and that you cherished me. Whatever it was I looked like...I felt...beautiful to you and it was one of the most beautiful moments in my life.



And when you said, in the car, on that crazy date when we were driving in a rainstorm to Staples which was already closing...Staples in New Jersey... that you loved to be "in the wind," you imprinted your smile in my heart forever. That's how I remember the lyric -- not "Smile With My Heart," as it seemst to be. I'll look for a book tomorrow which can give me the definitive answer. I have your play in my cabinet, but this apt is so disasterous, Jonathan, that I need to get out of it even earlier than my appointment today to meet with the genius Ira Siff, who also should be on this list, but isn't because I haven't embarassed him as I have embarassed all of the people on this list, by being goofy "in love" only because I am now, sadly, too self-conscious to let myself do that with someone so gorgeous and unavailable to me. To everyone, but Karen who is on this list, I have had to apologize in some way for that. Except for my cats, of course, which is why, Karen, it was hard not to say that I love them equally. But, they wouldn't drive their car as a snowstorm hit to get me and them so that we wouldn't be apart for a day on my vacation...because they can't. Which is why you get top billing...and also why they keep creeping back up - because they would, if they could. But, you were right. You remain top billing.



Of course, it's Rogers and Hart's "My Funny Valentine" which I will now credit, as I owe most of the good lyrics I know and the beat underneath my own, to Jonathan Levy for showing to me, in introducing me to Rogers and Hart and through his play, Ruth.



And, of course, Karen, like everyone on the list, but probably most, you were brilliant. But, genius, too, is too unfathomable to really call, "smart" and often, capable of some of the silliest moments in the world -- which were also the best. To steal from Jonathan again -- see The Marx Brothers, and anytime Karen and I went to go get something chocolate.


My funny valentine
Sweet comic valentine
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable. Unphotographable.
Yet youre my favorite work of art

Is your figure less than greek
Is your mouth a little weak
When you open it to speak
Are you smart?

But dont change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little valentine stay
Each day is valentines day.