moles

By way of scrutiny from my mother and ex-boyfriend, I learned that my face contains numerous small flat black moles. I say flat to qualify moles because they aren't raised as I thought defined moles, but I can't think of what else to call them. My mom once called the two that are in proximity, in a sort of diagonal that follows their course between cheek and chin, twins. The fact of her saying this is fuzzy, but has sharpened from my thinking it.

Murakami has a thing for ears, and as I recently discovered, moles. I read a story of his the other day that made me smile hard and aloud: "There was a single mole, he noticed, on her right earlobe. His older sister had a mole about the same size, in the same spot. When he was little, he used to playfully rub his sister's mole when she was asleep, trying to rub it off."

The story, called Chance Traveler, begins by saying that he is narrating this story in his own voice. He wants to relate some strange events that have happened to him, that never get much response when he tells them in conversation. Even when written, people don't believe him because they assume that as a novelist, all his stories must be just stories. He'd like to try again, after telling us these strange events are real, and says he'll "stick to the trifling, insignificant ones."

This is the first one:

*

"From 1993 to 1995 I lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I was a sort of writer-in-residence at a college, and was working on a novel entitled The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. In Harvard Square there was a jazz club called the Regattabar Jazz Club where they had lots of live performances. It was a comfortable, relaxed, cozy place. Famous jazz musicians played there, and the cover charge was reasonable.

One evening the pianist Tommy Flanagan appeared with his trio. My wife had something else to do so I went by myself. Tommy Flanagan is one of my favorite jazz pianists. He usually appears as an accompanist; his performances are invariably warm and deep, and marvelously steady. His solos are fantastic. Full of anticipation, then, I sat down at a table near a stage and enjoyed a glass of California Merlot. To tell the truth, though, his performance was a bit of a letdown. Maybe he wasn't feeling well. Or else it was still too early for him to get in the swing of things. His performance wasn't bad, it was just missing that extra element that sends us flying into another world. It lacked that special magical glow, I guess you could say. Tommy Flanagan's better than this, I thought as I listened--just wait till he gets up to speed.

But time didn't improve things. As their set was drawing to a close I started to get almost panicky, hoping that it wouldn't end like this. I wanted something to remember his performance by. If things ended like this, all I'd take home would be lukewarm memories. Or maybe no memories at all. And I may never have a chance to see Tommy Flanagan play live again. (In fact I never did). Suddenly a thought struck me: what if I were given a chance to request two songs by him right now--which ones would I choose? I mulled it over for awhile before picking 'Barbados' and 'Star-Crossed Lovers.'

The first piece is by Charlie Parker, the second a Duke Ellington tune. I add this for people who aren't into jazz, but neither one is very popular, or performed much. You might occasionally hear 'Barbados,' though it's one of the less flashy numbers Charlie Parker wrote, and I bet most people have never heard 'Star-Crossed Lovers' even once. My point being, these weren't typical choices.

I had my reasons, of course, for choosing these unlikely pieces for my fantasy requests--namely that Tommy Flanagan had made memorable recordings of both. 'Barbados' appeared on the 1957 album Dial JJ 5 when he was a pianist with the J.J. Johnson Quintet, while he recorded 'Star-Crossed Lovers' on the 1968 album Encounter! with Pepper Adams and Zoot Sims. Over his long career Tommy Flanagan has played and recorded countless pieces as a sideman in various groups, but it was the crisp, smart solos, short though they were, in those two particular pieces that I've always loved. That's why I was thinking if only he would play those two numbers right now it'd be perfect. I was watching him closely, picturing him coming over to my table and asking, 'Hey, I've had my eye on you. Do you have any requests? Why don't you give me the titles of two numbers you'd like me to play?' Knowing all the time, of course, that the chances of that happening were nil.

And then, without a word, and without so much as a glance in my direction, Tommy Flanagan launched into the last two numbers of his set--the very ones I'd been thinking of. He started off with the ballad 'Star-Crossed Lovers,' then went into an up-tempo version of 'Barbados.' I sat there, wineglass in hand, speechless. Jazz fans will understand that the chance of his picking these two pieces from the millions of jazz numbers out there was astronomical. And also--and this is the main point here--his performances of both numbers were amazing."

*

I typed that all out, because I like to forgo cut and paste in favor of re-typing writings (lyrics, quotes, so on) and because in a Murakami story I read a couple months ago he wrote:

"Just below her shoulder blades were two small moles, lined up like a pair of twins."