Just because I really like Keith Emerson.
…
DISTAL MUSE – OBSERVATIONS, OPINIONS, EPHEMERA, & VIEWS
Steel-trap smiles made room on the stage, a shuffle of seats, a place where chances die or lives are made, all the welcome of the seen-it-befores and the willingly-impressed, squeezed into a need for the new, hope for discovery, and fear of not-good-enough.
The room itself prepared for betrayal, but the ears plugged back into the main artery, on the off that something might open a vein or just shut out the silence.
The Kid opened his case and took out a pair of hands. Everyone gasped at the tendons and callouses, the length of the reach and the curl of long use. …
Smoke pirourettes around the shrinking shapes of idle speculation. Ritual anticipation settled for the inevitable triage of experience and achievement, dues and wisdom, invitation and exclusion.
Sax throated obligatory admiration, mood recycled in reserve, and the shadows pressed faceless to the glass, watching the shark-moves of truth encircled by motifs, melodies, modes, and measures.
Do you even know, they asked, what it is you want to say, never mind how to say it? Do you have a mouth to match your measures? Chords for your chords, a tongue for your tune? The heart for your beat?
The Kid folded his wings, shuffled his stand, arranged his perspective, and raised his sites.…
I hung out in a small spot of night on the fringes of No Smoking and Adults Only.
Thick air, eighty proof attitude, and shadows that kept your seat for you during intermissions.
The stage belonged to a round of changing keys, facile fingers, and moods found in forgotten closets, abandoned buildings, after hour garages, and overlooked streets, brought in by saxes, axes, horns, and skins wearing misery wrapped up in puzzles, suits that only glowed in moonlight, who spoke in tongues unheard by day.
One night they were handing out faces to the smiling, voiceless crowd, laying foundations for towers that never rose, sending messages in forgotten codes, when the Kid walked in, case under his arm, hat cocked, eyes clear behind opaque wisdom no one sought. …
So it is. I’ve been crunching away on line edits all week and having a good time. The weather has been pleasant, at least compared to last week, and a couple of mornings I’ve been able to turn off the air and open the windows while working. I loaded up the CD changer with classical—Respighi, Strauss, Grieg—and did fresh ground coffee.
During breaks, I’ve been playing with pictures again. You know, you make damn near anything fascinating, even beautiful in a dark, bizarre way, with enough patience and mods. For instance:
Someone pointed out that in the past something like this would have taken a dozen Kodalith masks and posterization steps. …
This weekend, it’s supposed to be all over. Harold Camping of the Family Radio evangelist organization has announced the Rapture for May 21st—at six P.M.
In my own little patch of interest, the SFWA Nebula Awards will be given out this weekend. If Mr. Camping is right, this will be the last of these. Going out in grand style, that.
I don’t have a lot to say about this other than it’s silly. It’s one more reason that makes me wonder about the people who follow this kind of nonsense. I can’t help but think that, beneath all the sanctimony and babble, a lot of these folks are just, well, unfortunate. …
A friend of mine, the estimable Erich Veith, came by my home a bit over a year ago and we recorded a long interview. Erich has finally gotten around to editing it and has begun posting segments on YouTube. Here’s the first one. (I still haven’t figured out how to embed videos here, so bear with me.)
Erich runs the website Dangerous Intersection, where I post opinionated blatherings from time to time and Erich graciously allows me to hold forth in my own idiosyncratic manner. Why he thought people would also enjoy watching and hearing me as well, I can’t say, but I enjoyed the process and from the looks of the first three (which are up at Dangerous Intersection) I don’t think I came off too badly.…
Personal gripe time. This is one of those instances where I believe The Market is a hydrocephalic moron and people who put their undying faith in get what they deserve.
Shortly after the 4th of July just past, a St. Louis radio station changed hands. KFUO 99.1 FM had, for sixty-plus years, been our commercial classical station. Before the first Gulf War, our local NPR affiliate, KWMU, was largely a classical music broadcaster, but after that first foray into Mid east adventurism they became pretty much All Talk All Day. Mind you, I like some of what they offer—Fresh Air, Talk of the Nation, Diane Rheem—but I am a lover of music. …
Last night I went to the coffeehouse at which I’ve been playing (after a fashion) music for the last few years. This is not a grandiose thing. It’s a church basement. Two bucks at the door, open mic, lots of folks bring a tray. But joy is where you find it.
The ringleader of this musical congeries, a gentleman named Rich, who plays marvelous guitar, sent an email a week ago to a horn player named Russ and me with the chords to that exegesis of 20th Century smooth rock, the Atlanta Rhythm Section’s Spooky. Later he sent us a rough chart for the arrangement and I spent a week working on my book and occasionally practicing the tune.…
Over on her blog, Kelley Eskridge has a video of a “Bono Moment” in which you see two distinct types of fans interacting with U2’s lead singer. Check it out and come back here.
Okay, the guy in the t-shirt obviously is carrying on a conversation. he may be being a fan, but he hasn’t lost his mind. The female is being…a groupie, I guess. Though the groupies I’ve met in my time have been a bit more specific about what they wanted and had a better plan on how to get it. In any event, the questions Kelley raises are interesting and relate on so many levels to so many different things. …