Bright Smile, Dark Eyes

I recently came across this song by Josh Ritter entitled “Bright Smile.” It’s been getting a fair amount of airplay on the ipod these days, so I thought I’d share it with you along with some thoughts. Here’s the video that accompanies the song, so you can follow along wherever you are.


You’ll note that there are a couple of literary or historical references throughout the song. For instance, in the third stanza, he mentions Calamity Jane, Casanova, and a certain Darling Clementine.

Martha Jane Canary rose to some notoriety as Calamity Jane in the Wild West of the 1870’s. She befriended and claimed to have married (though this is disputed) one James Butler Hickok. Hickok, who himself rose to notoriety as Wild Bill, was prone to both gambling and paranoia. When playing poker, he always sat in the corner, fearing that otherwise, someone would sneak up behind him. On August 1, 1876, when Wild Bill sat down to play cards, the corner seat was not available. As a result, Wild Bill was sitting with his back toward the door when Jack McCall walked in, lifted his .45 to the back of Wild Bill’s head, and pulled the trigger. At the time of his death, Wild Bill had in his hands a pair aces and a pair of eights, or, as it has come to be known in poker lore, a “Dead Man’s Hand.” When Jane received word of what had happened, she unsuccessfully went after Jack McCall with a meat cleaver. He was later hanged. Jane was married numerous times, but people say she was always fondest of Wild Bill and even asked to be buried next to him. As for how she earned her nickname? One story says that Jane liked to tell men that to pursue her was to “court calamity.” Calamity, I suppose, was something of which a man named Wild Bill was never afraid.

And then there’s the story of Giacomo Casanova, a handsome and charming Venetian whose adventures spanned the better part of the 1700’s. His restless heart did not permit him to any more than dabble in a great many occupations: law clerk, novelist, playwright, alchemist, philosopher, diplomat, spy, and magician. The last of these would land him a five year prison sentence for witchcraft, but quite appropriately for a magician, or perhaps a witch, he escaped. Like Wild Bill Hickok, Casanova had an inclination to gamble, and he made millions after setting up a state lottery. Of course, Casanova is best known for his womanizing. In his autobiography, he mentions his most memorable 122 conquests. He summed up his philosophy on love: "Real love is the love that sometimes arises after sensual pleasure: if it does, it is immortal; the other kind inevitably goes stale, for it lies in mere fantasy." For all his studies in love, Casanova, it would appear, never found happiness. During his final years, he lived the solitary life of an uncelebrated librarian and wrote his memoirs “to keep from going mad or dying of grief.”

Clementine was the main character in an Old West folk song, which I remember singing in my first grade music class. Of course, as with many children’s stories or verses, this song is much darker than I remember. The song is about a miner that falls in love with a fellow miner’s daughter, named Clementine. Clementine was chasing ducks into a lake, when she stubbed her toe and fell in. Because her lover did not know how to swim, he could only watch from the shore as Clementine died. Thus, he bellows, “Oh my darling, oh my darling, Oh my darling, Clementine! You were lost and gone forever. Dreadful sorry, Clementine. ” However, his sorrows, as you will see, are short-lived, “How I missed her! How I missed her,/ How I missed my Clementine,/ But I kissed her little sister,/ I forgot my Clementine.” What? This is a children’s song? But wait, there’s more. At this point, Clementine, as you can imagine, is not a happy camper. She has no other recourse but to come back as a ghost to haunt her former lover’s dreams; “In my dreams she still doth haunt me,/ robed in garments soaked in brine.” But Clementine is out of luck. The song ends with the miner telling us how he’s moved on, “How in life I used to hug her, Now she's dead, I draw the line.” Yikes. Dreadful sorry, Clementine.

Earlier in the song, Josh Ritter refers to a fourth historical character – French philosopher and logician Pierre Abelard. Abelard was the premier philosopher of the early 1100’s. Thousands of people from all over Europe came to hear him lecture. His brilliance, charisma, and success soon landed him the position of canon and Chair at Notre-Dame. He was on top of the world. And then he fell in love. A young girl named Heloise, brilliant in her own right, moved to Notre-Dame with her uncle, a canon named Fulbert, and she soon fell under the tutelage of Abelard. Abelard and Heloise began a love affair until Fulbert caught heed and separated the two. Abelard and Heloise then had to see each other in secret, until she got pregnant, at which point, the two ran off to Brittany. Uncle Fulbert was not a happy camper. To appease Fulbert, Abelard proposed a secret wedding that would legitimize the union. (A public marriage was impossible, given Abelard’s vow of celibacy.) Heloise would have preferred to remain a mistress, but she finally relented. Fulbert, meanwhile, let slip word of the marriage and soon Heloise was bombarded with questions. Heloise denied the allegations of marriage and even joined a convent to escape suspicion. When Fulbert received word of this, he erroneously assumed that Abelard had abandoned his niece and sought revenge. He broke into Abelard’s room in the middle of the night and castrated him, which disqualified Abelard as a priest, ecclesiast, and husband. Abelard was ruined professionally and he joined a monastery. Heloise had to bear a worse fate, it appears. She was still in love with a man that was no longer capable of loving. The letters that Heloise wrote to Abelard from her convent, which document her torment, can be found here.

Indeed, 18th century English Poet Alexander Pope retold the story of Abelard in his poem “Eloise to Abelard.” In it, he includes the famous line:

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd.

Of course, the third line provided the inspiration for the Charlie Kaufman film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” which starred Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, and Mark Ruffalo. a scene of which you will find below. The movie is a modern re-telling of the story of Abelard and Heloise.





So, how does this post end? How am I going to tie all these seemingly disparate stories together? Easy. You see, first we started with a song by a 21st century musician, named Josh, and then we met a 19th century Jane, a Bill with two aces up his sleeve, and a guy named Jack with a .45. We met an 18th century Italian librarian who had known better days and a 49er, his two daughters, one of whom was a Clementine, and, lest we forget, her apologetic lover. And then of course, there was a 12th century Parisian philosopher, his dear Heloise, and her vindictive uncle Fulbert. This, in turn, led us to an 18th Century Pope and back to a modern day Charlie, and his troop of actors: Jim, Kirsten, Mark, and Kate, who herself played a Clementine in the above movie. And now there’s only one person left to meet - John Graham. And now that you’ve met him, I can say that all 19 people you’ve met so far are within 6 degrees of separation of the actor that played John Graham in the movie “In the Cut,” which also starred Mark Ruffalo, namely, Kevin Bacon.