From Siegfried Verbeke (by jail mail) in Durance Vile
LETTER 28
From Siegfried Verbeke (by jail mail) in Durance Vile
Dear Carlos
I see you are still alive and kicking….
Carlos is urgently requested to come to Mannheim
[COMMENT: a German jail -C.P.]
as we need a fourth man (women are not allowed) to play cards. The Gang of Four.
[COMMENT: Sounds like they are playing bridge. I don't play bridge. I play poker. -C.P.]
They are collecting revisionists like stamps.
[COMMENT: If they are collecting us like stamps, they can lick our backsides while they are at it. –C.P.]
I hope to be back at last at the end of [year deleted]…. Good song about Siberia…
I feel we're going to win, that's why I'm still smiling.
SIEGFRIED VERBEKE
JVA [German abbreviation for jail]
Oberer Fauler Feltz
D-69117 Heidelberg
30 DECEMBER 2006
[COMMENT: The "song about Siberia" is from the movie SILK STOCKINGS, a satire on Communism, words and music by Cole Porter. The Stalinists send their greatest composer to Paris for the premiere of his greatest composition, ODE TO A TRACTOR. In Paris, an American has decided to jazz up the composition and turn it into a musical comedy. The composer is outraged. Meanwhile back in the USSR, they are worried that the composer won't return. A commissar says, Don't you realize that if he doesn't come back, that means he no longer has any talent? Then he gets on the phone and says, Do you have a copy of "Who's Still Who?" (I think that's a great gag). Meanwhile 3 Soviet agents in Paris are worried about getting recalled and sent to Siberia. One of them (Peter Lorre) is really complicated-brained, and one of the others says, Oh, don't be so Russian.
The three agents then do a song and dance number that goes as follows: [approximate excerpt only, transcribed from memory]
When we meet in sweet Siberia,
Far from Bolshevik hysteria,
We'll go on a tear
For our friends will all be there,
In cheery Siberia.
etc. etc.
[Note: The third and fourth lines keep changing]:
When it's cocktail time, 'twill be so nice,
Just to know we'll never have to ring for ice
etc.
When we meet in sweet Siberia
Where the snow is so superia, etc.
You can bet, all right,
That your Christmas will be White,
In cheery Siberia.
etc. etc.
When we meet in sweet Siberia,
In Siber-eye-eer-eye-eria
The labour laws are all so fair,
There's never any unemployment there,
In cheery Siberia.
When we meet in sweet Siberia
To protect us from diptheria
We can toast our toes on the lady eskimoes
In cheery Siberia.
When we meet in sweet Siberia
Where the weather's so superia
The sun shines bright
They also say it shines all night
In cheery Siberia.
Let's see if those dumb censors think this is a code or something.
CARLOS
13 JANUARY 2006
Winter sports in the Arctic, 1938
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"Silk Stockings" is available on video or DVD from amazon.com
For the correct lyrics, see: Complete Lyrics by Cole Porter, edited by Robert Kimball, foreword by John Updike
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