Vinyl Diaries XVIII: Tunng

Photo by DG Jones

Tunng
The Famous Spiegeltent
14 January, 2008


Around a bend, beyond a bush, beneath a bough, he sat.

‘Goo goo g'joob’, he would say, though there was nobody there to hear.

‘Goo goo g'joob,’ the walrus added, just in case someone had recently passed.

They had not.

Upon a bough, beyond a bush, around a bend, he appeared.

‘Ha,’ said he, ‘I am here it seems, and that, I must say, is that.’

The Cheshire Cat was pleased indeed to find he had appeared just where he had, for if he had appeared anywhere else, then he wouldn’t be here, and that would be no good at all.

‘I am here and here I am and that is that as that is that,’ he added, for effect, for he liked to hear the purr of his voice.

‘And once I know where here is, then here it is that I shall certainly be.’

The walrus looked up from his restful repose to hear what all the fuss was all about, but he could see not a thing.

‘What is this that I hear, yet cannot see?’ he wondered to himself.

Yet ‘Goo goo g'joob’ is what he actually said, for that is what it is he would say, when he was to say what he said.

Beyond a bush, around a bend, beneath a bough, Eeyore did pass. Well, to be exact, he did not pass, but waited so as to pass. Alas, thought he, he could not pass, for in his way, and it was a very long way, was a walrus.

‘In my way, and it is a very long way, such a very long way for me, I seem to see what I can see is a walrus sitting right in front of me.’

Such is what Eeyore though, and such is what he said, for for Eeyore to say is to think and, indeed, to think is also to say. For one really must say what one thinks, and should most certainly think what one says, if one is to make one’s way – and it is such a very long way – through this very long life we lead.

The walrus was, indeed, sitting before Eeyore, in a way that Eeyore could not help but notice was a rather glum seeming way, that is to say, in a way that seemed as though glum was here and so was the walrus, and the two were indeed as though one. But whether as one or as two, it mattered to Eeyore not, for as two or as one something would need to be done, if he were ever to get beyond the bend and beyond the bush and beyond the bough.

Beyond a bush, beneath a bough, around a bend came – of a sudden – a maid.

‘And what kind of maid could this be?’ wondered the Cheshire Cat who, from upon the bough, had watched as Eeyore came upon a walrus and wondered aloud as to the fact of the walrus being beneath the bough and barring his way.

‘And what kind of maid could this be?’ wondered the walrus to himself, noting that she was a maid most fair.

‘Goo goo g'joob?’ the walrus said, just so, with just the faintest trace of an upward inflection to match the ever-so-slightly raised eyebrow that accompanied what he considered the most appropriate question in the circumstances.

‘And what kind of maid could this be?’ wondered Eeyore aloud, for as we know, aloud is how he wondered.

And thus the maid, beneath the bow, came to answer.

‘Marian,’ said she, for that was her name.

‘I am known, hereabouts, for the most part, when known at all, by those who know who I am, or come to know who I am, by way of wondering who I am, and learning that who I am is I – Maid Marian.’

‘I see,’ said the Cheshire Cat, from above the bough, who had taken quite an interest in wondering and learning and knowing who this Maid – who was now known to him as Maid Marian – had been. And was. And, perhaps, would be.

‘I see,’ said Eeyore, for he could, of course, see, although only on occasion for he was tending, for the most part, to hang his head quite low, so low in fact that his eyes were brought level with Maid Marian’s knees, which – as far as he was aware, though he had not, it is true, actually asked – were not also called Maid Marian, by those who knew her or otherwise.

‘Goo goo g'joob’ said the walrus, to – it must be said – the consternation, bemusement, and curiosity of, respectively, Eeyore, the Cheshire Cat and Maid Marian.

‘And what brings you all here?’ asked Maid Marian of the three, despite still not being able to make eye contact with Eeyore, understand what it was the walrus was trying to say, or even see the Cheshire Cat.

‘Some kind of party perhaps? A gathering to celebrate a birthday? A meeting to decide upon exactly what type of cheese the moon is made of?’

‘I’m stuck,’ said Eeyore, ‘hopelessly stuck.’

‘I am here and here I am and that is that as that is that,’ said the Cheshire Cat, for he had so liked the sound of it earlier that he could not help but purr it again, just so.

They all turned to the walrus. He simply shrugged.

‘And what brings you here?’ asked Eeyore, not because it was the polite thing to ask, though it probably was, but because if he was going to be stuck he may as well try and find out how everyone got stuck there, just in case by tracing backwards from the answer they gave it offered a way out – though of course it would not, for nothing was that easy in life, least of all becoming unstuck once one was so very stuck.

‘Well I’m glad you asked – I was on my way to pick some berries, blackberries in fact, with which to make a pie...’

‘Pie!’ exclaimed Eeyore, for if there was one thing that could turn his mind from being stuck it was the thought of pie.

‘Yes a pie,’ smiled Maid Marian, pleased at Eeyore’s brief flirtation with mental if not physical unstuckedness.

‘I was on my way to pick some blackberries, when I heard your voices. They were mingling so beautifully, I thought you must have been performing a little impromptu concert beneath this bough.’

The Cheshire Cat looked at Eeyore, Eeyore looked at the walrus, the walrus looked at Maid Marian.

As one, they blushed. The Cheshire Cat, though ostensibly still invisible, turned a deep scarlet kind of invisible. Eeyore looked like a beetroot with very floppy ears and a strange saggy tail, while the walrus looked like a giant tomato, with tusks.

'Were they really?' asked Eeyore, who had never before heard the word 'beautifully' uttered in association with anything he had done.

'Were they really?' asked the Cheshire Cat, who loved to hear glowing praise he could associate with himself, despite having little difficulty in taking almost anything said about him in a way that he could deem glowing.

'Goo goo g'joob?' asked the tomato with tusks, reminding them that he was, after all, still the walrus.

'Why yes, they were,' said Maid Marian, a new twinkle in her emerald eye.

'You know, I have an idea. You should all join me tonight, and we shall perform songs right here beneath this bough.'

'And what will we sing about?' asked either Eeyore or the Cheshire Cat, it's not too important which.

'Why the usual of course,' answered Maid Marian, thinking briefly about what the usual would be.

'Tea and freedom, friends and your eggs getting cold, catching bullets in our teeth, raves on a riverboat and housewives who rob banks. That sort of thing.'

'We'll sing about singing as the sky collapses and being turned into a hare by the decree of village committees and wind-up birds and running away across the fields and buying a dog and calling him Pete,' added the Cheshire Cat, warming to the idea.

'And sleeping inside the north wind in a coracle at sea and black twisted branches that hid all the things that we did and threading wasps onto string,' murmured Eeyore, saying the first things that came into his head so as not to miss out, though in his heart of hearts he really just wanted to find out more about this blackberry pie.

'And what kind of music will it be?' asked the Cheshire Cat.

'Well what kind of music do you like?' asked Maid Marion.

'I'm somewhat partial to the Beta Band, but my heart is in folk really,' admitted the Cheshire Cat, flinching slightly lest he be deemed less than cool for admitting such a thing.

'I think The Books are onto something' threw in Eeyore, lowering his head even further in the hope that nobody saw his well-worn Smiths t-shirt. 'That Animal Collective also has a certain way of making you think, at the very least.'

The walrus said nothing, but began nodding in a very contagious way. He was thinking he quite likes the sound of several species of small furry animals gathered together in a cave and grooving with a pict.

'Well it's settled then,' said Maid Marion, in a very 'it's settled' kind of way.

'Our music will be a glitch-tinged rustic folktronica, a new primitivism if you will, drawing on all that we know about the deepest darkest reaches of this here forest, channelling ancient spirits to produce music that on first aural glance appears upbeat, yet has a lingering undertow of something just slightly unhinged and sinister.'

'That's all very well,' thought and said Eeyore, 'but let's get our priorities in order. Namely, will we be able to drink lots of tea? Will there be sweets involved?'

'Of course there will be plenty of tea, that's really the whole point - it will be the finest tea rider you have ever seen. Sweets will also play a central role. In fact, we shall have a song called Sweet William, and we shall pass out sweets to the audience and their job will be to join in the making of music through creative rustling of the cellophany wrappers.'

'And what shall we be called?' asked the Cheshire Cat, looking at Maid Marion.

Maid Marion looked at Eeyore.

Eeyore looked at the walrus, who buy now was fast asleep, his tongue lolling languorously from his mouth.

'Tunng!' he exclaimed, in a moment of inspiration (for he was not one to spell very well, especially in moments of inspiration, either in thought or in speech).

'We shall have a special sign, hanging from this very bough - "Upeering Toonite - Tunng."

And appear they did. And such was the rapture with which their performance was received, they decided that far from being stuck, the bough was exactly the kind of place to be, if one was to be anywhere, and if they were going to be in such a place they may as well make the most of it.

'And we all had a lovely time' said they, and they said it was a lovely time.

The rest, as they say, is history (and herstory too, for the Maid beneath the bough had no small part to play, as you can hopefully see).