April 30, 2009
THE RIGHT WASN'T ALWAYS THIS WAY
"There is no position on which people are so immovable as their religious beliefs. There is no more powerful ally one can claim in a debate than Jesus Christ, or God, or Allah, or whatever one calls this supreme being. But like any powerful weapon, the use of God's name on one's behalf should be used sparingly. The religious factions that are growing throughout our land are not using their religious clout with wisdom. They are trying to force government leaders into following their position 100 percent.
If you disagree with these religious groups on a particular moral issue, they complain, they threaten you with a loss of money or votes or both. I'm frankly sick and tired of the political preachers across this country telling me as a citizen that if I want to be a moral person, I must believe in 'A,' 'B,' 'C,' and 'D.' Just who do they think they are? And from where do they presume to claim the right to dictate their moral beliefs to me? And I am even more angry as a legislator who must endure the threats of every religious group who thinks it has some God-granted right to control my vote on every roll call in the Senate. I am warning them today: I will fight them every step of the way if they try to dictate their moral convictions to all Americans in the name of 'conservatism,'"
– Barry Goldwater, Congressional Record, September 16, 1981.
April 24, 2009
TWO FROM THE GREAT ONE
Never give all the heart
Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.
-- W. B. Yeats
When You are Old
When you are old and gray and full of sleep
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true;
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face.
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
-- W. B. Yeats
...
April 17, 2009
REBIRTH
Spring is like a perhaps hand
by E. E. Cummings
III
Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere)arranging
a window,into which people look(while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here)and
changing everything carefully
spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things,while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there)and
without breaking anything.
...
From you have I been absent in the spring... (Sonnet 98)
by William Shakespeare
From you have I been absent in the spring,
When proud-pied April, dressed in all his trim,
Hath put a spirit of youth in everything,
That heavy Saturn laughed and leaped with him,
Yet nor the lays of birds, nor the sweet smell
Of different flowers in odor and in hue,
Could make me any summer's story tell,
Or from their proud lap pluck them where they grew.
Nor did I wonder at the lily's white,
Nor praise the deep vermilion in the rose;
They were but sweet, but figures of delight,
Drawn after you, you pattern of all those.
.....Yet seemed it winter still, and, you away,
.....As with your shadow I with these did play.
...
Spring and All
by William Carlos Williams
By the road to the contagious hospital
under the surge of the blue
mottled clouds driven from the
northeast-a cold wind. Beyond, the
waste of broad, muddy fields
brown with dried weeds, standing and fallen
patches of standing water
the scattering of tall trees
All along the road the reddish
purplish, forked, upstanding, twiggy
stuff of bushes and small trees
with dead, brown leaves under them
leafless vines-
Lifeless in appearance, sluggish
dazed spring approaches-
They enter the new world naked,
cold, uncertain of all
save that they enter. All about them
the cold, familiar wind-
Now the grass, tomorrow
the stiff curl of wildcarrot leaf
One by one objects are defined-
It quickens: clarity, outline of leaf
But now the stark dignity of
entrance-Still, the profound change
has come upon them: rooted, they
grip down and begin to awaken
...
A Blessing
by James Wright
Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom.
...
Family Reunion
by Jeredith Merrin
The divorced mother and her divorcing
daughter. The about-to-be ex-son-in-law
and the ex-husband's adopted son.
The divorcing daughter's child, who is
the step-nephew of the ex-husband's
adopted son. Everyone cordial:
the ex-husband's second wife
friendly to the first wife, warm
to the divorcing daughter's child's
great-grandmother, who was herself
long ago divorced. Everyone
grown used to the idea of divorce.
Almost everyone has separated
from the landscape of a childhood.
Collections of people in cities
are divorced from clean air and stars.
Toddlers in day care are parted
from working parents, schoolchildren
from the assumption of unbloodied
daylong safety. Old people die apart
from all they've gathered over time,
and in strange beds. Adults
grow estranged from a God
evidently divorced from History;
most are cut off from their own
histories, each of which waits
like a child left at day care.
What if you turned back for a moment
and put your arms around yours?
Yes, you might be late for work;
no, your history doesn't smell sweet
like a toddler's head. But look
at those small round wrists,
that short-legged, comical walk.
Caress your history--who else will?
Promise to come back later.
Pay attention when it asks you
simple questions: Where are we going?
Is it scary? What happened? Can
I have more now? Who is that?
...
The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina
-- Miller Williams
Somewhere in everyone's head something points toward home,
a dashboard's floating compass, turning all the time
to keep from turning. It doesn't matter how we come
to be wherever we are, someplace where nothing goes
the way it went once, where nothing holds fast
to where it belongs, or what you've risen or fallen to.
What the bubble always points to,
whether we notice it or not, is home.
It may be true that if you move fast
everything fades away, that given time
and noise enough, every memory goes
into the blackness, and if new ones come-
small, mole-like memories that come
to live in the furry dark-they, too,
curl up and die. But Carol goes
to high school now. John works at home
what days he can to spend some time
with Sue and the kids. He drives too fast.
Ellen won't eat her breakfast.
Your sister was going to come
but didn't have the time.
Some mornings at one or two
or three I want you home
a lot, but then it goes.
It all goes.
Hold on fast
to thoughts of home
when they come.
They're going to
less with time.
Time
goes
too
fast.
Come
home.
Forgive me that. One time it wasn't fast.
A myth goes that when the years come
then you will, too. Me, I'll still be home.
...
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most
by Tommy Wolf (music) and Fran Landesman (words)
Once I was a sentimental thing,
Threw my heart away each Spring;
Now a Spring romance hasn`t got a chance
Promised my first dance to Winter;
All I`ve got to show`s a splinter for my little fling!
Spring this year has got me feeling like a horse that never left the post;
I lie in my room staring up at the ceiling,
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most!
Morning`s kiss wakes trees and flowers,
And to them I'd like to drink a toast;
I walk in the park just to kill lonely hours,
Spring Can really Hang You Up The Most.
All afternoon those birds twitter twit,
I know the tune, "This is love, this is it!"
Heard it before and I know the score,
And I`ve decided that Spring is a bore!
Love seemed sure around the New Year,
Now it`s April, love is just a ghost;
Spring arrived on time, only what became of you, dear?
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most!
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most!
Spring is here, there`s no mistaking
Robins building nests from coast to coast;
My heart tries to sing so they won`t hear it breaking,
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most!
College boys are writing sonnets,
In the "Tender passion" they`re engrossed;
But I`m on the shelf with last years Easter bonnets,
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most!
Love came my way, I hope it would last;
We had our day, now that`s all in the past!
Spring came along a season of son,
Full of sweet promise but something went wrong!
Doctors once prescribed a tonic,
"Sulphur and molasses" was the dose;
Didn`t help a bit, my condition must be chronic,
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most!
All alone, the party`s over,
Old man Winter was a gracious host;
But when you keep praying for snow to hide the clover
Spring Can Really Hang You Up The Most!
...
April 14, 2009
April 13, 2009
April 10, 2009
A VENERATION
Sunday Morning
1
Complacencies of the peignoir, and late
Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,
And the green freedom of a cockatoo
Upon a rug mingle to dissipate
The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.
She dreams a little, and she feels the dark
Encroachment of that old catastrophe,
As a calm darkens among water-lights.
The pungent oranges and bright, green wings
Seem things in some procession of the dead,
Winding across wide water, without sound.
The day is like wide water, without sound,
Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet
Over the seas, to silent Palestine,
Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.
2
Why should she give her bounty to the dead?
What is divinity if it can come
Only in silent shadows and in dreams?
Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,
In pungent fruit and bright green wings, or else
In any balm or beauty of the earth,
Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?
Divinity must live within herself:
Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;
Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued
Elations when the forest blooms; gusty
Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;
All pleasures and all pains, remembering
The bough of summer and the winter branch.
These are the measure destined for her soul.
3
Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.
No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave
Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.
He moved among us, as a muttering king,
Magnificent, would move among his hinds,
Until our blood, commingling, virginal,
With heaven, brought such requital to desire
The very hinds discerned it, in a star.
Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be
The blood of paradise? And shall the earth
Seem all of paradise that we shall know?
The sky will be much friendlier then than now,
A part of labor and a part of pain,
And next in glory to enduring love,
Not this dividing and indifferent blue.
4
She says, 'I am content when wakened birds,
Before they fly, test the reality
Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;
But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields
Return no more, where, then, is paradise?'
There is not any haunt of prophecy,
Nor any old chimera of the grave,
Neither the golden underground, nor isle
Melodious, where spirits gat them home,
Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm
Remote on heaven's hill, that has endured
As April's green endures; or will endure
Like her remembrance of awakened birds,
Or her desire for June and evening, tipped
By the consummation of the swallow's wings.
5
She says, 'But in contentment I still feel
The need of some imperishable bliss.'
Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,
Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams
And our desires. Although she strews the leaves
Of sure obliteration on our paths,
The path sick sorrow took, the many paths
Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love
Whispered a little out of tenderness,
She makes the willow shiver in the sun
For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze
Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.
She causes boys to pile new plums and pears
On disregarded plate. The maidens taste
And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.
6
Is there no change of death in paradise?
Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs
Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,
Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,
With rivers like our own that seek for seas
They never find, the same receding shores
That never touch with inarticulate pang?
Why set pear upon those river-banks
Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?
Alas, that they should wear our colors there,
The silken weavings of our afternoons,
And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!
Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,
Within whose burning bosom we devise
Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.
7
Supple and turbulent, a ring of men
Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn
Their boisterous devotion to the sun,
Not as a god, but as a god might be,
Naked among them, like a savage source.
Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,
Out of their blood, returning to the sky;
And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,
The windy lake wherein their lord delights,
The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,
That choir among themselves long afterward.
They shall know well the heavenly fellowship
Of men that perish and of summer morn.
And whence they came and whither they shall go
The dew upon their feel shall manifest.
8
She hears, upon that water without sound,
A voice that cries, 'The tomb in Palestine
Is not the porch of spirits lingering.
It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.'
We live in an old chaos of the sun,
Or old dependency of day and night,
Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,
Of that wide water, inescapable.
Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail
Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;
Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;
And, in the isolation of the sky,
At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make
Ambiguous undulations as they sink,
Downward to darkness, on extended wings.
Wallace Stevens
April 07, 2009
"YOU GUYS DON'T UNDERSTAND. YOU'VE ALREADY LOST."
an Iowa state senator speaks about his daughter. he gets it. the debate is over. it's just a matter of generations passing on the mantle of power...like I said, as long as people keep dying, marriage equality is coming...
...
April 06, 2009
PROJECTS
my new partner in crime: an old black charvel strat body, repurposed with a set of harmonic design Z-90 pickups (my new favorite magnet flavor) a strat middle pickup, callaham strat bridge, grover locking mini tuners, and a neck that is one part highly-figured flame maple and one part brazilian rosewood slab. after messing about with different string gauges and neck adjustments, I settled on good old-fashioned regular light strings and so this guitar really plays effortlessly. great cutting bridge tone, fat hi-fi neck tone, and the in-between settings are totally fender-approved, maybe with a bit more hair. the fun part is how this guitar was developing as I went along with the session...at the final guitars session I had it all done, and the way it played and sounded was damn satisfying...
the saga of my henriksen jazzamp 10 is worthy of its own blog post, if only to tell the story of how a small yet forthright company stands behind its products (this amp went back to the evergreen CO factory no less than THREE times before they got it functioning consistently), to the point of replacing every internal component just to be sure it was foolproof. the punchline: I bought this amp used. there was no enforceable warranty! take it from me, it's a wonderful, warm and dynamic voice for jazz guitar, and with customer support like I received, I simply don't see how you can go wrong. no youngster on the other end of the line either: I dealt with the owner/proprietor himself. it's good to have the amp home. time to get some gigs with it, let it pay back a little for the hassles and consternation it caused!
here is the sophisticated signal path I used on the final jeff coyle guitar session...
basically, my new favorite stompbox pedal. I hate to gush, but this pedal is really top-notch. I have a small army of overdrive/distortion pedals at this point, and I'd have a hard time knocking this one off the pedalboard to make room for any of the others. it's very versatile and touch-sensitive.
I wanted to do a few acoustic tracks but didn't have one with me. this takamine 12-string was at the studio but its setup was all wack. someone had tightened the truss rod until the high strings were all buzzing right on the fretboard. so, I borrowed an allen wrench and carefully loosened it to the point it could be played in the first position at least. nice little guitar. I have a feeling it will be visiting my humble guitar shop before long. maybe install a new bridge saddle and/or bone nut...
here's the setup we used for the last coyle session. we've used this same formula all along--an SM57 along with a Royer ribbon mic, into great river and daking pre's/comp's/eq....the silverface bassman into 4x12 cab wasn't used this time (though I did use this combination to good effect last time). instead, I was completely enamored by the little fella sitting beside it....
so it was actually two gear epiphanies I had--after the fulltone OCD, this egnater rebel-20 actually has me thinking about buying (yet) another amp. it's versatile (tons of tweaking options), small (ridiculously small and light for something tube-equipped) and can sound like a nice clean chimey vox or fender and when you push the gain it goes into the most wonderful old marshall-y sort of overdrive. and all this for about 500 bones they tell me. seriously, I'm getting one.
that's it for now. I can't wait to hear the early rough mixes. most of the aforementioned (aside from the henriksen) was used on saturday and I thought we got some good sounds and performances...
...
April 03, 2009
"WE ARE COUNTING ON YOU"
from today's TELEGRAPH (the tory UK paper):
...Fighting tears at one point, she described her audience as "the future leaders of Great Britain and this world". She said: "Although the circumstances of our lives may seem very disengaged, with me standing here as the First Lady of the United States of America and you just getting through school, I want you to know we have very much in common. "For nothing in my life ever would have predicted that I would standing here as the first African-American First Lady. "I was not raised with wealth or resources or any social standing to speak of." She spoke of the importance of love, strong values, education and a "whole lotta hard work" as she described her childhood, and said: "You too, with these values, can control your own destiny, you too can pave the way. "I am an example of what is possible when girls from the very beginning of their lives are loved and nurtured by people around them. "I was surrounded by extraordinary women in my life who taught me about quiet strength and dignity. "Whether you come from a council estate or a country estate, your success will be determined by your own confidence and fortitude. "We are counting on you, we are counting on every single one of you to be the best that you can be." Mrs Obama provoked hysteria at the school as she arrived, as more than 300 onlookers lined the street nearby....
I just had to post this today, as I am full of pride that we have such a great first lady. goodbye to the plastic smile let-them-eat-cookies of Laura or the cold remove of "they're better off" Barbara Bush, or even the politico-morphing of Hilary Clinton. Michele Obama is doing more for US-UK diplomacy than the last administration did in eight years (even with the regular and reliable fellating from Tony Blair)... it's call inspiration. you can see it in those girls' eyes. for once, a GOOD sign for the future... witness the audacity of hope...(or as the brits sometimes say: girl power)...
...
"NAKED UNDER A SUMMER COTTON DRESS"
...we've kinda gotten away from our friday poetry series, so let's celebrate this rainy friday with a great one from the mighty pen of Gary Snyder, an old favorite of mine about a (first?) young love that was left behind...
Four Poems for Robin
by Gary Snyder
Siwashing It Out Once in Suislaw Forest
I slept under rhododendron
All night blossoms fell
Shivering on a sheet of cardboard
Feet stuck in my pack
Hands deep in my pockets
Barely able to sleep.
I remembered when we were in school
Sleeping together in a big warm bed
We were the youngest lovers
When we broke up we were still nineteen
Now our friends are married
You teach school back east
I dont mind living this way
Green hills the long blue beach
But sometimes sleeping in the open
I think back when I had you.
A Spring Night in Shokoku-ji
Eight years ago this May
We walked under cherry blossoms
At night in an orchard in Oregon.
All that I wanted then
Is forgotten now, but you.
Here in the night
In a garden of the old capital
I feel the trembling ghost of Yugao
I remember your cool body
Naked under a summer cotton dress.
An Autumn Morning in Shokoku-ji
Last night watching the Pleiades,
Breath smoking in the moonlight,
Bitter memory like vomit
Choked my throat.
I unrolled a sleeping bag
On mats on the porch
Under thick autumn stars.
In dream you appeared
(Three times in nine years)
Wild, cold, and accusing.
I woke shamed and angry:
The pointless wars of the heart.
Almost dawn. Venus and Jupiter.
The first time I have
Ever seen them close.
December at Yase
You said, that October,
In the tall dry grass by the orchard
When you chose to be free,
"Again someday, maybe ten years."
After college I saw you
One time. You were strange.
And I was obsessed with a plan.
Now ten years and more have
Gone by: I've always known
where you were--
I might have gone to you
Hoping to win your love back.
You still are single.
I didn't.
I thought I must make it alone. I
Have done that.
Only in dream, like this dawn,
Does the grave, awed intensity
Of our young love
Return to my mind, to my flesh.
We had what the others
All crave and seek for;
We left it behind at nineteen.
I feel ancient, as though I had
Lived many lives.
And may never now know
If I am a fool
Or have done what my
karma demands.
...
April 01, 2009
COLBERT'S LOVE LETTER TO FOX'S NEW HIRE
| The Colbert Report | Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| The 10/31 Project | ||||
| ||||
funny. and perhaps a little too easy? then again....that's what I remember thinking back in the early days of wondering-who-in-their-right-mind-would-ever-watch-this-crap... before I learned that they were dominating the tv ratings...a feeling I'll just call "reaganesque"--that creeping feeling of wonder at just how many imbecilic nabobs out there are in thrall to an obvious snake oil salesman, be it bill o'reilly, rush limbaugh, or this new guy with the penchant for the boo-hoo.
...
SOMETHING I'D RATHER WATCH INSTEAD OF AMERICAN IDOL (BETTER MUSIC TOO)
...