Marion Brown's European Recollections:
The Organ Grinder and the Monkey
Introductory Note:
Marion Brown
I taught at Bowdoin College for three years and I got my degree at the same time. I went from there to Wesleyan University to get a masters degree in Ethnomusicology. And from that point I have been a part-time teacher. I just teach part-time so I have enough time to pursue my music and my own interests, whether they be creative or scientific.
Are you an animal lover? Did you ever have a dog?
I like animals very much. I've observed animals very closely. But I think Ben Webster was the greatest at that. I heard a lot of stories about him. In Amsterdam everyday he would go to the zoo. And he knew the animals personally. He photographed them. He talked to them and he had a card from the city of Amsterdam, so that he could go to the zoo without paying. It was a life-time admission.
I used to have a dog. I don't have animals now, but I like them. I look at them sometimes and think about their approaches and things, their mentality.
I have lived in places where there were rats and roaches. I have been around cats, horses, cows -- everything. And I like monkeys. Monkeys are very interesting.
I also like to watch street performers, when they have animals in their work.
Now, an interesting thing to me, used to fascinate me in Paris. I used to see these people. They would be gypsies, I was told, and they even appeared to be gypsies to me. They would come out on the street. They would have a little record player and they would have a goat, and a monkey, and a ladder. They would come and set this ladder up in front of you. They would open this ladder and play some music. The goat would go up the ladder and stand on the top of the ladder with all four feet. The people would go around hustling, holding the cup to get the money from everybody, while all the time the monkey did nothing but laugh at it all; and do some somersaults, or jump around. I always found that to be interesting. Because I always said to myself, everybody was working for the monkey, that the monkey was the boss. And I said, 'Wow! They are under the control of this monkey!' -- It was always the same. The monkey never did nothing. He didn't help the goat go up the ladder. He didn't collect money. He didn't turn on the record player. He just jumped up and down and did flips, flip-flops all around, and that was nice.
And there was this man in Paris. He used to stand on the corner Boulevard St. Michel and Boulevard St. Germain. He was the rat-man. He had a rubber rat. And he used to hold this rubber rat in his hands. When a woman was passing, suddenly he walked up to her and let this rat jump over. And these women would go, 'Eeeeeee . . . ,' screaming real loud. It was real funny. I thought it was interesting, that he was into this. What you could see in it was that he was a rat. I noticed it when I looked at his face. It was like a rat's face. He even let it jump on the woman I married one day.
But I like animals. I don't like to see them in the zoo. But where else can you put them? I mean, I wouldn't want to go outside either to see a tiger or a lion walking up and down the street. It's a kind of hard to see any being, human, animal being, cooped up. But at the same time, beings are funny; all beings become like animals when they are in another environment, either aggressive animals or animals full of fear -- just like me, when I first went to New York or came to Europe. I was like some type of animal. I was just afraid. I was in another place. I didn't know my way. Everything looked the same to me. I had to get used to being there. In the South we had dogs. They were never kept inside. These dogs would roam around, free to go and come as they wished. I don't like to keep animals in the house with me. My way of having a dog is just put his food some place and leave the dog, so he can come in and out and say, 'Hello! What's going on?' And then go right back outside and be himself.
As far as plant life goes, I like watching plants But I have never grown anything. I have never grown anything. I have never done any gardening, or farming. But what I see in plants and things, I like the shapes and the colors. That is one of the reasons I like to walk the streets so much, especially here in Europe, I like to look at the market places. You have beautiful market places. I like to go and watch all the fruits. I walked outside in the morning and I was staring in the windows. I was looking at all the ham and sausages and stuff. And I saw some ham that I thought was very nice. My ex-wife's father would really like to have one of those hams. So, I go and I look at everything.
I am into everything I see. If I don't understand it, I just look at it. I am fascinated. I am constantly fascinated by what I am looking at.
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