A few of our favourite things, from the Farnsworth invention (Discursive Aside page 13)
I know you know these paintings. But I want to share them with you anyway, because these are a few of my favourite things. And when the dog bites, when the bee stings, when we are feeling sad, we simply remember our favourite things, and then we don´t feel so bad:
Long before I knew what were crisp apple strudels or Schnitzel with noodles, I watched and danced to Rogers and Hammerstein´s The Sound of Music in Chinese translation, broadcast on the Farnsworth invention, in my living room (which was also my bedroom, our dining room, and the room that housed the august refrigerator, which I lovingly decorated with Japanese cartoon stickers of girls in fancy dresses). The living room was my winter bedroom only, because summers I slept on the covered and enclosed balcony. Winters it was me, the refrigerator, our foldup dining table leaning against the wall (when not in use during meal times), and the stove with the pipes going up corners and leaving black soot encircling the walls. In that room was also the upright piano, my hedgehog which made a racket nights, and my yellow-breasted Chinese bird who sang.
In the kitchen which was too small to hold the refrigerator, was once where the ultra-expensive orange-powder lived for a brief, glorious time. This item was a lot like Tang, an artificially flavoured and coloured powder you added water to to make a semi-orange juice. Oh! it was ambrosia before water, and nectar right after. Hard to get and so costly, it was meant as a gift to those worth bestowing upon. And I only got to try it but rarely, and the effect was like pineapples on Marguerite in I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, a feast of the gods.
When I watched The Sound of Music then, and there, in our fifth-floor walkup apartment, on our TV which lived beside the other appliances and furnitures of note and my small bed, I did not know that one day (today, actually), my own kids would be watching marionette theater with their Oma, and be plenty fond of Schnitzel with noodles, not to mention crisp apple strudels.
A Stein raised to the Farnsworth invention!