Lyrics
I
From Celia
Come, my Arthur, finish up
With that saucer and that cup.
Now that I’m a realtor,
I’m not moody anymore.
Elbow-deep in suds you stand,
Art, my sweet dish-doing man.
Now that we have traded roles,
Let us haste to merge our souls.
You’re in housework, I’m in houses.
Ev’ry move you make arouses
Me to seize the fruits of love.
Come, peel off your rubber glove,
Then — no, no, forget the laundry.
Turn the lights down, play an Andre
Kostelanetz tape, and we’ll
Close our new domestic deal.
II
To Jane’s Mind
When from aerobic exercise you rise,
You are no fairer, Jane, nor am I fonder.
For what I love in you is not your thighs
But how your forehead wrinkles when you ponder.
Other women may have higher pectoral
Development and glutei more taut.
They lack your expertise on the electoral
College and the state of modern thought.
And when you raise a complex current issue,
You’re always penetrating, always apt.
The times I want most eagerly to kiss you
Are when in chess I find you’ve got me trapped.
The books that I can’t fathom, Jane, you memorize.
I never get the jokes you think are cheap.
You scoff at films that dazzle my poor dimmer eyes,
And now you’ve learned Italian in your sleep.
So though I’m glad you limber up your frame, dear,
The thing that makes me hurtle through the ozone
Like Santa Claus behind his merry reindeer
Is just to see your mind without its clothes on.
III
To a Shy Person She Has Had Her Eye On
Bob, if I were twenty-four
Maybe I’d be charmed by your
Tendency to hint around.
But I doubt it. I have found,
In fullness of maturity,
That whatsoever’s said to me
Might just as well be said outright,
Right now — a modern woman’s quite
Prepared to hear what modern men
May have in mind. So try me; then
I’ll let you know if I can see
How we can cheat mortality.
I hate mortality, don’t you?
You do? You’ll say you do? You’ll do.
Let Me Count the Ways (39)
H EY, TO ME, ALL women are sexy. Right? All breathing women. If they want to be. As far as I’m concerned.
I mean where do I get off, picking and choosing, setting standards? What gives me the right?
Just because everyone is abuzz about my head-turning cameo in the ground-breaking new movie Plough, with what’s-her-name who looks so much like Jessica Lange? Just because I am built like a damn moose? Just because my wavy pepper-and-salt hair cascades down my back to where, if it went one quarter-inch further, you’d have to say I was a poof (but it doesn’t)? Just because the person whom I retain to keep that cascade precisely au point with tiny tungsten scissors is (her own idea) a lapsed, monokinied Shiite woman who weeps with shame? Just because it has come out recently that I share a small but elegantly appointed motor home with (the Iranian aside) three not only mouth-watering but also constantly (in a sophisticated way) salivating honeybunches (if the term offends, I withdraw it), one of whom has been known to sport pince-nez but no pants and the other two of whom are teenaged Polynesian twins, Awanna and M’tou, who raise and fight bulldogs on the side?
Just for these and many other reasons, you expect me to put myself in the awkward position of sitting down and taking pen in hand and laying my heart bare in order to tell you “What Makes a Woman Sexy”?
Well, all right. But not for those reasons.
I am going to do it — and I am going to do it with candor, and I am going to do it unflinchingly, and I am going to do it feelingly and straight — because I will do anything.
Well, anything I want to. Within reason. You never know these days what people think you mean, when you say “anything.” I don’t mean anything faithless, trashy, or painful.
So okay. Here are the 39 things that make a woman sexy:
If she has barbecue sauce on her mouth.
If she looks like she will do anything. That she wants to. That isn’t faithless, trashy, or
I
From Celia
Come, my Arthur, finish up
With that saucer and that cup.
Now that I’m a realtor,
I’m not moody anymore.
Elbow-deep in suds you stand,
Art, my sweet dish-doing man.
Now that we have traded roles,
Let us haste to merge our souls.
You’re in housework, I’m in houses.
Ev’ry move you make arouses
Me to seize the fruits of love.
Come, peel off your rubber glove,
Then — no, no, forget the laundry.
Turn the lights down, play an Andre
Kostelanetz tape, and we’ll
Close our new domestic deal.
II
To Jane’s Mind
When from aerobic exercise you rise,
You are no fairer, Jane, nor am I fonder.
For what I love in you is not your thighs
But how your forehead wrinkles when you ponder.
Other women may have higher pectoral
Development and glutei more taut.
They lack your expertise on the electoral
College and the state of modern thought.
And when you raise a complex current issue,
You’re always penetrating, always apt.
The times I want most eagerly to kiss you
Are when in chess I find you’ve got me trapped.
The books that I can’t fathom, Jane, you memorize.
I never get the jokes you think are cheap.
You scoff at films that dazzle my poor dimmer eyes,
And now you’ve learned Italian in your sleep.
So though I’m glad you limber up your frame, dear,
The thing that makes me hurtle through the ozone
Like Santa Claus behind his merry reindeer
Is just to see your mind without its clothes on.
III
To a Shy Person She Has Had Her Eye On
Bob, if I were twenty-four
Maybe I’d be charmed by your
Tendency to hint around.
But I doubt it. I have found,
In fullness of maturity,
That whatsoever’s said to me
Might just as well be said outright,
Right now — a modern woman’s quite
Prepared to hear what modern men
May have in mind. So try me; then
I’ll let you know if I can see
How we can cheat mortality.
I hate mortality, don’t you?
You do? You’ll say you do? You’ll do.
Let Me Count the Ways (39)
H EY, TO ME, ALL women are sexy. Right? All breathing women. If they want to be. As far as I’m concerned.
I mean where do I get off, picking and choosing, setting standards? What gives me the right?
Just because everyone is abuzz about my head-turning cameo in the ground-breaking new movie Plough, with what’s-her-name who looks so much like Jessica Lange? Just because I am built like a damn moose? Just because my wavy pepper-and-salt hair cascades down my back to where, if it went one quarter-inch further, you’d have to say I was a poof (but it doesn’t)? Just because the person whom I retain to keep that cascade precisely au point with tiny tungsten scissors is (her own idea) a lapsed, monokinied Shiite woman who weeps with shame? Just because it has come out recently that I share a small but elegantly appointed motor home with (the Iranian aside) three not only mouth-watering but also constantly (in a sophisticated way) salivating honeybunches (if the term offends, I withdraw it), one of whom has been known to sport pince-nez but no pants and the other two of whom are teenaged Polynesian twins, Awanna and M’tou, who raise and fight bulldogs on the side?
Just for these and many other reasons, you expect me to put myself in the awkward position of sitting down and taking pen in hand and laying my heart bare in order to tell you “What Makes a Woman Sexy”?
Well, all right. But not for those reasons.
I am going to do it — and I am going to do it with candor, and I am going to do it unflinchingly, and I am going to do it feelingly and straight — because I will do anything.
Well, anything I want to. Within reason. You never know these days what people think you mean, when you say “anything.” I don’t mean anything faithless, trashy, or painful.
So okay. Here are the 39 things that make a woman sexy:
If she has barbecue sauce on her mouth.
If she looks like she will do anything. That she wants to. That isn’t faithless, trashy, or
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