The double exaltation of Bud Powell.

I don't think I knew the name Bud Powell until last week, when I heard Bob Dylan's new song, "Murder Most Foul," which names the brilliant jazz pianist in the second-to-last line:

Play "Love Me Or Leave Me" by the great Bud Powell
Play "The Blood-stained Banner," play "Murder Most Foul"

Last night, I was reading — and getting close to the end of — Woody Allen's autobiography, and I came across this:

I never thought having biological children was doing them any favor, bringing kids into this world. Sophocles said to never have been born may be the greatest boon of all. Of course I’m not sure he would’ve said that if he ever heard Bud Powell play “Polka Dots and Moonbeams.” Soon-Yi and I chose adoption to try and make life better for a couple of orphans already marooned on this orbiting psychiatric ward....

And then on the last page of the book, summing up, he says "If I could trade my talent for any other person’s, living or dead, who would it be? No contest—Bud Powell."

Here's "Polka Dots and Moonbeams":



If you're wondering what the lyrics are, Frank Sinatra will sing them for you, here.

A country dance was being held in a garden
I felt a bump and heard an "Oh, beg your pardon"
Suddenly I saw polka dots and moonbeams
All around a pug-nosed dream...

Everyone seems to be telling her story at long last, so here — after "decades of silence" — comes Soon-Yi Previn.

New York Magazine has the big story. The author is Daphne Merkin (her name has been commented on many times, so spare me) who has been friends with Woody Allen for 40+ years and pronounces herself "mystified" by his "almost Aspergian aloneness" and "genuine diffidence." Here's some material from the second half of the article, about the relationship between Woody and Soon-Yi. I'll get to

Both of them are vague on how and when their friendship turned sexual — “It was 25 years ago,” she says... "and to the best of my memory I came in from college on some holiday and he showed me a Bergman movie, which I believe was The Seventh Seal, but I’m not positive. We chatted about it, and I must have been impressive because he kissed me and I think that started it. We were like two magnets, very attracted to each other.”....

“I know this is no justification,” she goes on, sitting across from me, her back ramrod straight. (“Posture,” she says quietly to Allen whenever he begins to slump. “I married her for her posture,” he quips.) “But Mia was never kind to me, never civil. And here was a chance for someone showing me affection and being nice to me, so of course I was thrilled and ran for it. I’d be a moron and an idiot, retarded” — she pauses here, mindful that this is one of her mother’s words for her — “if I’d stayed with Mia.” She adds, as if to set the record straight, “I wasn’t the one who went after Woody — where would I get the nerve? He pursued me. That’s why the relationship has worked: I felt valued. It’s quite flattering for me. He’s usually a meek person, and he took a big leap.”....

“I was madly in love with him,” she announces. It sounds completely heartfelt and as though it just happened yesterday. “Completely attracted to him, physically and sexually. I know he’d said that I’d meet someone in college, but I’d already decided. I came to realize how understanding he was and what a sweet person he was. He grew on me.” In an email she sends me, she slightly revises the scenario, showing a different side of herself, one in which she comes across less as the vulnerable, virginal girl she was than as a charming flirt: “I think Woody liked the fact that I had chutzpah when he first kissed me and I said, ‘I wondered how long it was going to take you to make a move.’ From the first kiss I was a goner and loved him.”...

The couple have two adopted children (two judges investigated each adoption, as is routinely done, and okayed them) because of Soon-Yi’s strong convictions about the narcissism inherent in having biological children. “I could definitely have children,” she says, “but I was never interested. I find it the height of vanity and very egocentric. I don’t need kids out there who have similar traits to me and look similar to me and Woody. Why is one’s DNA so special? Why would one keep on breeding when there are so many kids out there who need a loving home?”...

Now that the girls are grown... the couple are more close-knit — you might call it symbiotic — than ever. Allen describes how they spend their time together as “parallel play,” which makes Soon-Yi laugh. “Parallel play,” she repeats. “Yes, I think you’re right..."

... I ask Soon-Yi whether she thinks she’s been reshaped by her husband. “Reshaped?” she asks. “I mean, he’s given me a whole world, a whole world that I wouldn’t have had access to. So if you mean that way, then yes.”...

Lots more in the article. I've skipped most of it. I'll go back to the get-Mia things later.

ADDED: Maybe I'll stick with my original skipping of the get-Mia stuff. I'm seeing this:

My statement on New York Magazine: pic.twitter.com/xml6pdaZqb

— Dylan Farrow (@RealDylanFarrow) September 17, 2018