Lake monsters have been part of folklore and legends around the world for centuries. These mythical creatures are said to inhabit large bodies of water, often lakes or lochs, and are believed to have various supernatural powers. One well-known lake monster is Nessie, the creature said to inhabit Loch Ness in Scotland. However, while many people find the idea of lake monsters fascinating, others believe that there is a curse associated with them. The curse of the lake monster is said to bring bad luck and misfortune to anyone who encounters these creatures or disturbs their habitat. It is believed that those who have encountered lake monsters have experienced a series of unfortunate events, ranging from accidents and illnesses to financial ruin and even death.
It is believed that those who have encountered lake monsters have experienced a series of unfortunate events, ranging from accidents and illnesses to financial ruin and even death. This curse is said to be passed down through generations and affects not only the person who encounters the lake monster but also their family and loved ones. There have been numerous reports of people who claim to have encountered lake monsters and subsequently experienced the curse.
Forever: Squints, The Sandlot and “This Magic Moment”
Spoiler Alert! The following is from the screenplay of The Sandlot. I also discuss the film a lot. Everyone should watch it already.
BENNY
Yeah she does. She knows exactly what
she’s doing.
SQUINTS
I’ve swum here every summer of my adult
life… and every summer there she is.
(LOSING IT)
Lotioning… oiling… smiling.
(TEETH CLENCHED)
I – can’t – take – this – no – more!
THE GANG WATCHES AS SQUINTS
pushes through the water, pulls himself out, and walks really
fast to the diving board (taking off his glasses to impress
her as he passes.)
SCOTTY
What’s wrong with him?
YEAH-YEAH
(WORRIED)
Don’t-know, but that’s the deep end,
and Squints can’t swim!
SQUINTS
walks the plank to the end. Looks wantingly toward
THE LIFEGUARD
who smiles back at him.
SQUINTS
holds his nose. Takes the deep leap. Hits the water and…
UNDERWATER
…sinks like a stone. Squints grins as he founders.
THE GANG
lines the edge of the deep section.
BERTRAM
Squints!
HAM
Oh my God! He’s drowning!
THE LIFEGUARD
to the rescue. Seconds pass… she surfaces and lays a limp
SQUINTS
ON THE DECK
Everybody at the pool gathers ’round. The Lifeguard lays
Squints flat. She administers mouth-to-mouth.
The gang watches on tense as hell.
Squints peeks at them through a secretly opened eye. As the
Lifeguard is “saving” his sneaky life, Squints can no longer
restrain himself, he grabs her – gives her a sloppy SMOOCH!
She tears away. Stands up over his wimpy little form:
LIFEGUARD
You little pervert!
She grabs Squints by the scruff of the neck. Run-walks him
toward the exit, and chucks his boney butt into the hedges. The guys scramble
out, dragging their clothes after them. They help Squints
up.
The quality, quantity and omnipresence of early R&B and Doo Wop songs are such that everyone has a favorite and, with rare exception, all the favorites are different. In fact, because overwhelmingly the songs are so idealistically and musically pure, and I can recall them with such vividness, when I hear someone else’s favorite, I curse myself for it not being mine as well. In turn, my own favorite is constantly changing and this particular musical galaxy keeps on giving. At present, it’s given me The Drifter’s “This Magic Moment.”
To correct myself, The Sandlot actually gave me this song on a platter (not The Platters) when I was seven years old. It was a wonderful age to have seen that movie and the moment when The Drifters chime in is still an all-time favorite that prompted me to make a 15 Great Songs from Movies I Love playlist. Even though I’ve seen 143 times, I always thought that the sultry, romantically assaulted, but understanding lifeguard’s name was Wendy Peppercorn. Maybe I’ve eaten too many chain restaurant specialty burgers. Her name in the movie is Wendy Peffercorn which, although still strange, is a slightly more realistic surname. Her beauty, Squints’ cunning and me being seven are all woven into my love of this very special tune.
It’s a shame that, in order to maintain dramatic timing in the movie, the song is edited to omit the first bars of the song that are perhaps its most lasting feature—the frenetic strings. The omission is necessary in the film, but it takes away a fitting introduction into the fantasy that is the rest of the song. The magic moment that is musically manifested in the ensuing two and a half minutes is literally magic; it’s a place and time that is different from all others, like the lovers have fallen into an unsustainably blissful adventure that is the romantic equivalent of a Twilight Zone trip. I shouldn’t say unsustainably though, because I believe Ben E. King when he assures the listener that it will “last forever.” It can’t and won’t, but ignoring this complication is the point.
The brave Michael “Squints” Palledorous is himself immediately whisked away and unceremoniously dumped on the grass outside of the pool by the very woman with whom he lived his moment. The rest of the retreating kids, amazed and proud of their friend’s dangerous trick, probably aspired to a simpler happiness. Young boys playing baseball in the remembered heaven of summertime in 1960s small-town suburban America might have agreed with the first half of one of the song’s most seminal lyrics: “Everything I want I have.” Just given this portion, it seems like a naïve statement, or even a hardline stoic philosophy—like saying “I am complete”—but Squints wanted, or needed more. His actions mimic the culmination of the line: “Whenever I hold you tight.” Heroically speaking, it was a folly to reach so far and he was punished, albeit lightly. There is no such retribution in “This Magic Moment,” because there is no disgruntled lifeguard, only the silent second half of a lover’s union whose willingness is apparent by the look in her eye. This makes the artist-lover completely content, as he is in many other songs. Even Wendy herself gives Squints a forgiving, and suggestive, smile and wave.
It may be futile to speak of seminal lyrics in this song because the words are wonderful and few, making them all seem equally important. A post, or treatise, could be written about any one. The most physical of the lyrics, “Until I kissed you,” “While your lips are close to mine,” are actually the most pedestrian. Obviously, the song’s glorious message is the paradoxical ephemeral and eternal nature of the moment mentioned. It’s a paradox to which I devote no small amount of time because art in general is obsessed with it, and art itself is the paradox—the creation of something out of nothing with the intention that the something will impossibly outlast the nothing. I’m honestly trying, poorly, to avoid a treatise here. I’m enamored with the concept of the moment being “Like any other / Until I met you.” Meaning, it was unlike any other, but the surprise, the spark and tingle of something, or someone, new, is essential. I turn, for the sake of elegance, to Alain Badiou, and his words from In Praise of Love:
Love always starts with an encounter. And I would give this encounter the quasi-metaphysical status of an event, namely of something that doesn’t enter into the immediate order of things. […] On the basis of this event, love can start and flourish. It is the first, absolutely essential point. This surprise unleashes a process that is basically an experience of getting to know the world.
Given Squints age, somewhere between boyhood and adolescence, it was certainly a crash course in worldliness. This all-important surprise “event” is at the heart of why we are so entranced with romance, in our own lives and in the stories of others. There are two songs I’ve been listening to recently that remind me of this feeling. From Bob Dylan’s “Simple Twist of Fate”: “She looked at him and he felt a spark / Tingle to his bones; and Dexy’s Midnight Runners’ “Come on Eileen”: “Oh, I swear / At this moment / You mean everything / You in that dress / My thoughts I confess / Which are dirty / Ah, come on Eileen.”
For the sake of these examples elucidating something, instead of simply lyric-dropping well-known phrases, the latter is clearly about longing for a different moment that is explicitly stated in “This Magic Moment”; the appeal at the end is for more than a kiss. However, it’s not a stretch to imagine The Drifters using their moment as a euphemism. With such importance placed on it, and such eternal prowess involved in it, sex may be what the moment is all about. After all, only certain things are “Sweeter than wine / Softer than the summer night.” I don’t mean to sully, in comparison, the innocent intentions of Squints at the pool, but this is the largest disparity I have between the movie and the song. Writing this 20 years after I saw The Sandlot, my idea of magic moments has changed as well, although, it shouldn’t be forgotten, to the one who experiences it, if the feelings are true, whatever it is, all eternal moments are equal to all others.
This raises the question about the objective importance of the moment, however—that is, can there only be one? If it is to be for eternity, it seems likely that this is the case. To return to the opening, whirling barrage of strings, and their subsequent use throughout the song, the listener is hurled into a song that seems to have something of the eternal itself. The moment “Will last forever / Forever till the end of time.” Not only is it overstated, but the way King warbles it sends the song into its most cosmic sequence. The strings come in again like a vortex. The backing singers drone “Magic” like it will never end. The whole things moves as if mimicking some infinite radiowave, peaking and troughing past moons and quasars and galaxies until it will find the Platonic ideal of Wendy Peffercorn herself. Then it will smirk and look up with one devious eye and keep going. Even with the chaos, the song’s structure is so simple, its melody so beautiful that it seems like it could go on and on, in Squints’ own words about another timeless thing, “FOR-EV-ER!” King’s present-tense delivery confirms the feeling.
These are all the reasons I love the song and its connection with The Sandlot, but even that couldn’t make me write for so long about it. This moment, in the end, is one that I’ve had, as hopefully everyone has, and I can’t believe it’s singular. It’s irreplaceable and wonderful, essentially timeless, but more than one timeless thing comes to mind. A song like this celebrates it because it’s so precious, and, hopeful. It doesn’t have the loss of “Unchained Melody”—it’s concrete and youthful—“This Magic Moment” is chained, always, to itself; but it doesn’t end there. Here’s a short caption from the final narration in The Sandlot:
…Squints grew up and married Wendy Peffercorn…
Maybe, sometimes, it does last forever, pushing past rational understanding and an overwrought blog post.
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Some people have reported strange occurrences, such as unexplained noises, objects moving on their own, and feelings of being watched. Others have reported more serious incidents, including accidents and illnesses that they attribute to the curse of the lake monster. While many of these reports can be attributed to natural causes or mere coincidence, there are those who believe that the curse of the lake monster is real. These believers argue that the curse serves as a warning to those who do not respect the natural world and its creatures. They believe that by disturbing the habitat of these mythical creatures, humans are inviting bad luck and misfortune into their lives. However, skeptics argue that the curse of the lake monster is nothing more than superstition and myth. They believe that the reported incidents can be explained by rational explanations and that there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of a curse associated with lake monsters. They argue that people may simply be attributing their misfortunes to a mythical curse in order to make sense of their experiences. In conclusion, the curse of the lake monster is a topic that divides believers and skeptics. While some people claim to have experienced the curse firsthand, others dismiss it as mere superstition. Whether the curse is real or not, the stories of lake monsters continue to captivate our imaginations and fuel our fascination with the unknown..
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