Semi-anecdotal, Jan. 31, 2010

When I was with my mother last weekend, I read her the poetry that we had written to each other, various friends and relations, and had some discussion. She was a farm girl from Iowa, born in 1930, whose mother was a gifted enough musician to play piano for silent films, given a few chord changes. My mother asked me, "what is it like when you are together personally, when you communicate at this level already?"

What could I say?

I told her that our hearts just beat as one. That we are always there.
I couldn't say much more at the time, so I choose to say it now.

And that when I am with my brother Jim then we just ride out out the traffic jams of Mumbai and we roll on through the night and we never understand fear because we have rolled across the alps at 100 mph with all of our lovers and we always trusted each other to the death because we have put our blood on the stage together and anything other that was just a misunderstanding, or failure of elucidation of vision. There was never, ever, any question of competence from either side.

And that when I am with Johny that we are operating at a lower frequency, one that we can't expect the others to understand, but that we are working on a complete understanding of, that we have not yet found a western explication of.

And that when I am with Peter, that I am always knowing that there are so many things that are well understood by those that came before us, that we both umay understand, but are so damned hard to explain.

And when I am with Tracy, how well I understand that it is not the same thing to be a woman than a man, and that I am not really capable of understanding more than that. Noone ever gave to us what she gave us, and we should be eternally thankful for teaching us so much about herself, and about womanhood.

I would like to think that I learned something from trying to be a rock-and-roll star

Aphosirsm, Jan. 31, 2010

'They'll never replace the cowboy. No machine could stand the abuse.'
American cowboy saying, not to be attributed here.

Anecdote, Jna. 31, 2010

It must have been about 1964, when a man who was some sort of uncle from my mother's side of the family pulled up in front of the house in Berkeley in an old station wagon full of stuff with an ultra-modern fold-up bike stuffed against the back window. He said, "When I see boys like you, I always give them a hug!" and he gave me a nice hug. He was short and stocky and somewhere between Jewish and Irish. I don't believe he even stayed the night. I said to myself when I met him, "well, there's an option."

Anecdote, Jan 30, 2010

A friend of mine is in the hospital with a large pulmonary embolism and a gastric bleed. He is blind, and just has a thumb and forefinger on each hand, and can't walk. They put a filter up in his vena cava yesterday to catch the clots. He lay on a stainless steel table all day while they did it. Later, he said, "I'm doing better now."

Aphorism, January 27

If you are in too big a rush to stop and think, then you are in too big a rush.

Anecdote, Jan 27, 2010

When I was living in Nebraska in 1978, I had the opportunity to be standing in the near vicinity of a train derailment, as the train approached me. I stood still, and processed the images as fast as I could. I saw a cloud of dust, as the first cars crumbled upon each other and some coal cars flipped. The following boxcars rolled out of the cloud of dust like oversized, oblong, dice, while I calculated tbeir location and wondered how sure I was of my calculations. Later, all was still.

Verse, Jan. 25, 2010

A bird flew through my chest the other day,
and left a hole where once my blood had been.
A gaping chasm, ripped from hope and flesh,
The tattered edges fluttered in the wind.

I marveled at the beauty of the bird,
and at the grossness of the wound it tore.
It caught a breeze and carried on it's flight
toward some sweet nest on some exotic shore.

I shouted 'No! You cannot fly like that
Through hearts without a care for how they mend.
You have to exit back the other way
To touch this man and make him whole again.'

The bird had heard my cry and wheeled around
to hear a moment's worth of my lament.
It said, ' Well put, I've felt that way myself.
So sorry that this time your chest was rent.'

And then the bird flew on, it's song unchanged,
while I stood still, to think about my state.
Then stuffed the hole with flotsam best I could,
and set my teeth, and held my head up straight.

What lesson could I take from this sweet gash?
When should I smile and simply take the blow?
How could I learn to turn this to my good?
Who should I blame, or will I ever know?

For I have been the bird that flew right through,
and left a broken carcass in it's wake,
and wheeled back to assess the wounds,
and then took wing to seek another fate.

Can birds fly ever wing-to-wing, as two
or will the winds identify their paths?
Can two wounds ever stanch each other's flow,
or would that only be two lesser halves?

So sing on, bird, and sing on sweetly too!
And wound, I beg you, sing your sorrows well!
For on the earth we are but dust that blows,
and we live neither in Heaven nor in Hell.

today's anecdote

I won't go through all of the iterations of the anecdote, non-being, nothingness, and the various connections between each of them, but I will consider it a unique experience to be able to write the post after the comments nonetheless.

I spent the weekend with my parents and one of my daughters at Deep Creek, where some of the band shared one of my honeymoons. At one point during the weekend, my parents and I had a brief discussion about what it was like to grow up in a house where one of the highest compliments ever offered was "well, maybe, you're not all bad."

Today's Verse: 22 January 2010

The old man's quite an asshole
The old man's quite a shit
He fills a tub with spittle
And takes a bath in it

Aphorism of the day Jan 21, 2010

Don't make no difference, baby.
'Cus I know that I can always try.
There's a fire inside of everyone.
etc.

Magnetic Fields documentary

I just saw this in Pitchfork magazine:

"A new documentary will be released this spring about cranky, erudite Magnetic Fields mastermind Stephin Merritt. Directors Kerthy Fix and Gail O'Hara (of Chickfactor magazine) shot the as-yet-untitled film over ten years, chronicling Merritt's career and personal life, neither of which he's been particularly eager to discuss in interviews.

According to a press release, "Included is the backstory of Merritt's first musical forays, his development as a writer-- from proofreader and copy editor at Spin to becoming one of Time Out New York's most dynamic scribes-- and his response to charges of elitism and racism."

The film will screen at the Mezzanine in San Francisco as part of the San Francisco Film Society's SF360 Film+Club screening series, with an official premiere to take place at an unnamed American film festival this Spring. After the screening, there will be a Q&A with Merritt, Fix, and Merritt's bandmate and manager Claudia Gonson. The previous night, the Magnetic Fields will play at Oakland's Fox Theater, and they also have a show scheduled for the night after the screening at San Francisco's Herb Theatre."

But will they include Johny Blood?

Today's anecdote Jan 20, 2010

One time we went to a party and the dudes there didn't want to play the music that we brought, so instead of shedding any blood that night, we scheduled a rematch and we served only bourbon on ice and we taught them how to dance even though we didn't know how and at the end of the party somebody lay on the floor and was whipped with a belt by a half-naked transvestite. Nobody asked for a re-rematch.

Today's aphorism, Jan. 20

If one of your old friends, who was the valedictorian of his engineering school, doesn't seem to be able to remember your name or how to spell, don't wait more than a year to do something about it.

Today's Aphorism, Jan. 19, 2010

If you want to fly, then you will have to spread your wings.

Today's Aphorism, Jan. 18, 2010

One afternoon in the Neauveau Palais des Exhibitions, outside Geneva, I unloaded a truckload of beverages with an older fellow named Georges. He was a nice fellow who had taken some lumps, but we both had it in us to do the job in rhythm, quite nicely. When we were done, we stood by the side of the truck, and he said, "How will we do it, Jaamze, how will we find a way to give ourselves?"

Song for Lhasa de Sela

Night rings like a bell
The rotted day fell
The end of the world
Or just a new year
You're not here

I hear a skylark
From the town that has gone dark
Eternal nightfall
My room's now too small
And you're not here
You've gone away
You're gone

You climbed the high tide
An arrow in your side
Pierced by the sharp thorn
Flesh whole and untorn
You're gone

You left your heart open
Aflame yet unbroken
That unwanted house-guest
The crab inside your breast
Took you away
And now you're gone
You're gone

today's aphorism, Jan. 16, 2010

Some people would like to be measured by the gifts that have been given them, and others by the gifts that they have acquired. There are others would choose to be measured by the gifts that they have given.
The lilies of the field, on the other hand, have not yet asked to be measured.

Today's Aphorism - Jan. 15. 2010

We all have both angels and monsters living inside us. Be careful who you are feeding first.

Ahoy there, mateys!

Good News

I just wanted to note that it is really awesome to experience human life on earth.
Ellen got a job offer this morning as the Medical Director at a small in-patient unit between
DC and Baltimore. Her grandfather on her father's side was a single-parent greengrocer in Harlem. Her grandparents on her mother's side lived in the Garment District. I think she's done some good work out there, that's bit very easy to understand, and I'm very proud of her. I don't know what percentage of the human population ever gets offered a job as the Medical Director, butI know it isn't large. Congratulations to Class of ('80/Febiie/'81) alumna Ellen Minerva. Nicely Done, from the guy who saw the whole process!