Let us pause for a moment, those of us of a certain age, and consider. Consider what? How the feck much things have changed. Sometimes actually for the good. Yes, yes, there is much, much change for the worse. Vicious demagogues rule a major American political party. Everywhere you go, an 800-pound gorilla named Wally (last name Mart) squats upon the squashed remnants of main streets where it used to be pleasing to stroll, shop and stop. Crosley Field is no more. Phil Collins is still on the radio.

On the other hand, I just popped into my MacBook Pro a CD by Habib Koite, who I’m to interview for a feature story in advance of his appearance with his band Bamada March 7 at the Clay Center in Charleston, WV. My iTunes program speaks up: “Yo ho, Master,” it says (it understands its role in our relationship). “Would you like, sire, for me to add this CD to my library. You down with that?” (more…)

A little Neruda is always a lot. Here is the ending third of  “Sonata con algunos pinos” (“Sonata with some pine trees”). You’ll find the full poem in “Extravagaria.”

… what justifies not being?
where did other people take you?

It is good to have a change of clothes
of skin of hair of work

to get to know the earth a little
to give your woman new kisses

to be a part of clear air
to disdain all oligarchies

when I went from fog to fog
navigating by my hat

I never found anyone with directions
they were all preoccupied

they were off to sell things
nobody asked me who I was

till I got to recognizing myself
till I set off a smile

in the half sky and the warp of branches
let us make peace with our tiredness

let us have talk with roots
and with disenchanted waves

let us forget about hurry
the teeth of the efficient

let us forget the shadowy
miscellany of those who wish us ill

let us make a profession of being earth-bound
let us touch the earth with out beings.

One of the Catch 22′s of  obscure blogging (aren’t most bloggers obscure ones?) is that you may feel that since only 17 people read your posts on any given day (actually, 113 on Friday; 64 on Saturday; and 47, so far today) you are free to write any old damn thing. Free to be ridiculous or to over-share because, hell, no one’s really paying attention, right? But then, as e-mail scandals demonstrate, everything you write on the Web is hidden in plain sight. It could come back to haunt you, all that over-sharing or venting, all that exertion and postulation. All that earnest prose and stinky fish yanked from the stream of your consciousness, then flopped, half-cooked onto the plate of a blogpost: Here’s a snack! So, it is with cautiousness and trepidation, shot through with the urge to join the exhibitionist party, I’ve recently begun to post regularly. I could flee at any moment, I should tell you, leaving this blog to join the dead ends, ghost towns and 404 File Not Found valentines hosted by ISP’s across  Blogostania. Because, really, is all this time in front of my computer, seated at my backyard picnic table, smoking an 8-5-8 (and hunting down an 8-5-8 Web link on my MacBook) really worth it for you 47 people? Do I even know you?

It’s a little like the streaking craze that swept through America back in the day in the early ’70s. Everyone’s doing it — or enough people are doing it that we keep reading about it. So, feck it all, let’s us do it. My only streaking experience came one night at J.’s house when I was a senior in high school back in Ohio. He’d stolen my girlfriend. Well, if there were a Wikipedia listing on the episode, it might recount that V. left D. for J., possibly because D. had failed to renew his temps and J. had a killer powder-blue convertible. But that would be a disputed interpretation caused by D’s abashed disappointment and inability to drive V. to the Pizza Hut anymore. Much less to make out in the backseat, except in your parent’s driveway, which is never cool. And J. had indisputable charms, not the least being he was tall, handsome and the mayor’s son. In any case, D. got to visit the boudoir, not to mention the bloomers of one of J.’s fading loves a few years hence in college, squaring our dance card. (See what I mean about over-sharing?) (more…)

“We wear gray in the big meadow and there are three thousand enemy in blue, much cannon and machinery behind them. The shadow of the valley passes over our eyes, and in the ridge of the mountains we see the white clouds as Christ’s open chest. Many of us start weeping and smiling because we will die and we know. Last week we thought we were immortal.

~ from “Ray” by Barry Hannah

“The gypsies don’t clap the rhythm, they applaud it.”

~ Jean Cocteau
“Past Tense: The Cocteau Diaries” with a good riff on them, here