The Hurdy-Gurdy Man

Just saw Zodiac yesterday. It's a movie based on an actual killer by the name of Zodiac, who haunted San Fransisco in the 70's. The movie was good...very watchable, although I'm sure some, if not most, might disagree. It's directed by the same guy who made fight club and seven...both awesome movies. Frequently in the movie (starting from about ten minutes into the damn thing), I had no idea what was going on. As it turned out, I wasn't alone...my friends didn't get a lot of parts either. Outside the theatre, I tentatively asked them a question about the movie, not wanting to look like the guy who's the slowest in getting the film. I needn't have worried. My question sparked a whole melee of questions. Basically, to summarize, all of us loved the movie, but nobody understood much of what had happened between the beginning and the end.

But that doesn't matter. It's a good movie - the kind you'd want to get on dvd and go over a few times just to nail down the sometimes scene-to-scene epiphanies that the main characters have. I think it deserves being watched over and over. Like Memento. Or fight club. Or Mulholland Drive. Or the few dozen other classics that make you feel like you have the IQ of a cabbage the first time you sit down to them with a huge bag of popcorn in your lap.

Anyway, coming to the title of the post, and the main reason for this blog, the hurdy-gurdy man is one of the songs in the movie's soundtrack, and I fell in love with it the first time I heard it in the movie. It's a 60's song, and it's got such a fantasy-world, trance-like feel to it.

'Twas then when the hurdy gurdy man
Came singing songs of love
Then when the hurdy gurdy man
Came singing songs of love

It must be fun being the hurdy-gurdy man - the one oasis of sanity, love, and all other values we platonically hold dear to us. I really want to be there when he finally comes walking down the road like the pied piper, making heads turn in wonder. I want to be in the crowd that gathers behind him, letting him lead the way down whichever paths he divines. And I want to learn his songs - the hurdy-gurdy songs of love.