Dust in the Wind, by Kansas

Video by YouTube uploader Uselessdirector who says it was filmed in 1977 by his dad. The film very nearly became dust in the wind itself until it was restored from its deteriorating 8mm format. He caught it just in time. It was made in Findley Lake, New York near Lake Erie. The Tribe is a group of friends.

The writer at American Digest is captivated by this video. He waxes poetically at some length. He says a lot more about it than I'm putting here. Vanderleun is a thoughtful sensitive writer.

Looking a little deeper into the Net I found a few things worth noting. For one thing it is possible, through the odd but wonderful Google Street View to compare “Then” with “Now” and confirm, as if we did not know it with every cell of our being, that “Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky.”

...

What was the memory I was following when I first found this film? It was the memory of that song heard first in the summer of 1977 somewhere in London, New York, or Burgundy. I loved the summer of 1977. It was one of my favorite years. It was one of those luminous years when everything seemed to fall right and come together into something you could assign to happiness. I’d wait 26 years for the next one. 

Hey, me too. That was the year I bought my house. The year I began the journey of attaining an undergraduate on my own. In slow motion, a few classes at a time.

Oops. Edit. Video added. Apologies.

This probably won't interest you, but this song stuck out for another reason.


I practiced to it quite a lot. I had to because it was played so often. Even if only mentally.  The song is frustratingly slow to practice to. My dictionaries did not have the signs for key words. Book dictionaries. I own the biggest one made. Online dictionaries do not have a sign for "dust." Although people do have a sign for it. Dust, rust, powder, grains granules. One dictionary shows "dirt" and another dictionary shows "dusting" as wiping with a cloth.

So way back then I asked my friends, "How do you say dust? How do you say wind? How do you say blowing? How do you say dream? How do you say curiosity?"

I have my way of showing this in sign and I've had it for forty years. It's as clear as a bell. My eyes close, my moment is a tick of a clock, that clock tick leaves, my dream is a textbook dream, a "d" that wobbles outward from the side of the forehead, all that passes before my eyes, I pinch my neck for "curious" watching it pass. My dust is particles rubbed in the fingertips, similar to "wet" and "damp" and "soft" except they're particles that sprinkle down and  get blown in a steady lateral wind as shown in this video repeatedly, not particles in the palm of the hand blown with a gust from the mouth.  Old is a long narrow beard pulled downward from the chin like King Tut's burial mask and layered coffins, "song" is a hand sweeping across the opposite arm. Water is "W" tapped at the lips, while "drop" is a single droplet falling from that. Sea is "water" + waves rolling forward to infinity. "All" is one hand scooping everything around it into the opposite hand. Crumbles is not cookie crumbles sprinkling downward, nor is it a standing person brought to his knees, rather, crumbled is a clawed structure placed on a flat palm that collapses with both hands indicating the flattening outward, that is, a structure crumbles. "Refuse" is a thumb jerked backward over the same shoulder.

It's all so very clear. It's crisp. No extra movement. No bouncing around. No waving.

You don't even have to speak the language to see it.

And now having seen this song this way half a million times from the perspective of performing,  it distresses me to see it mangled so violently.

Let's watch and see what people did with this song. They each have good points, I must say, and they each distress me in many other ways.

First, my favorite, always the best, Soph.

1) She has a fan to her face. Everything about her setup is excellent, plain background, plain dress, no interference, no extra movement, then that fan. She's being artistic with her hair and I don't care for that.

2) She spells "dust." Because there isn't a textbook sign for it. Meanwhile all the youngsters improvise.

3) Poor sound quality. Treated as if sound is insignificant.

Her moment "now disappears." Her dreams are explosively fantastic and pass before her, as one car passing another, rather than behind her. Her wind is billowing. She says "are" a useless sign. Her "old" is a wild huge beard not anything like textbook.

You can tell which song she is singing without sound. She is true to the lyrics. She is transliterating, not translating. I like her a lot. She is always reliably very good.

(I can do without the "terp by")

ThenewASLgirl does what most do, she introduces "sign music name d u s t i n t h e w i n d b y k a n s a s dust wind music person name k a n s a s." 

Worst air guitar in history. Somehow the neck twists so the strings are fingered upwardly. Honestly! She's never held a musical instrument in her life. Her violin is even worse. She holds an air-violin but doesn't finger at all, she just clasps the tuning pins. The forward perspective of the camera makes her non-fingering hand appear HUGE. She does show a guitar playing and a violin playing, but ridiculously poorly. 

The rest is pretty good. Her wind is wavy, and side to side, very un-windlike. Her "endless sea has huge swells and really rolls off to infinity. Her "do" in "all we do" is actually "people talking" Compare with Soph's accurate "do" a sort of piano playing hand configuration, or like holding a  rolled towel. Her "refuse to see" has no "see," or no "comprehension" she shows exaggerated "refuse" with additional "shunting aside." 

Neither she nor Soph show "o-o-o-o-o-h" Soph does a shaken closed "C" for that and this girl does a shaken "Y." Neither of them convey the sound of "O" nor its pitch rising." 

"d u s t i n t h e w i n d b y k a n s a s "

His dreams are explosively wildly expansive that pass over his shoulder. Curious.

His "dust in the wind" is a "cloud stretched"

Same same song. (they're not old)

I have no idea what she's doing for "moment." I get no sense of a tick of a clock nor any sense of time whatsoever.

Her textbook dreams do pass before her eyes, the curiosity is conveyed by facial expression.

"dust in the wind" is incomprehensible. Are we even talking the same language? Her "dust" is my "express" or my "control (the reins)," her "wind" is my "zero."

Is she from France, or what?

Next, her "all they are is dust in the wind" is "life happens control."

You know, interpreting is one thing, and making shit up is another.

"Same old song" is "same-o, same-o, same-o" there is no effort whatsoever in conveying the lyrics to this song, it's tempo, its feel, it's emotion, nothing.

"Just a drop of water in an endless sea" is shown as "world big but select this here"

"All we do" is shown "we here, point for point on a list, will happen but dumped and pushed away"

Okay. I give up. I stopped halfway. She's pissing me off.

This whole thing put me off this song for the next two decades.

These fuckheads ruined it for me.

There is one more and he's worst of all. I don't even know what he's trying to do with the real cello.

Fuck this song. I now hate it. Fuck the whole idea of nostalgia and resentful fatalism. Fuck these gross interpretations. I've had it.