The Sound of Trumpets In All of This

I first came to an awareness of the connecting line between music and linguistic consciousness when I began listening carefully to the guitar work of Jerry Garcia, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, et al. Guitar solos of all kinds are like a special language that would be spoken by the human soul before it is born into the world. Everything from gentle, dancing sonic expressions of love and joy to the waling and shrieking sense of desperation anyone would feel before they had learned to speak about this world where so much unnecessary hate and selfishness get in the way of human growth and dignity.

Continue reading “The Sound of Trumpets In All of This”

Queequeg

I had been ill and disjointed for many weeks and that can be quite an assault on the mind. I am writing in the year of coronavirus and the beginning days of what is quite properly being called an uprising and it’s worldwide. My illness carried with it all the signs of coronavirus covid-19 SARS-CoV-2, but with a powerful preponderant emphasis on gastric turmoil and effluvium. Those symptoms would rise up and then subside every few weeks beginning in late April. This ebb and flow went on for three months until we realized it was all due to my handling a cardboard large trunk of old correspondence brought up from twenty years of basement storage. Letters, cards, drawings, and photographs were fully populated with mouse droppings, fur, and urine scented nestings. Likewise, I am sure that every packet or two of memories that I took up to sort through emitted strange, ephemeral mixes of old dead rodent bacteria and virus along with mold and mildew spores and the very dried saliva of death itself.

Continue reading “Queequeg”

Long and Dense into the Future

All this confrontation with mortality and a world spinning out of control with anger, confrontation, irony, and the true demon of humanity all around us. You get to a certain age and start taking stock. It’s all so weird especially when you live in the future like some of us do.

There are so many things I need to do before I die. Most important is the need to organize all my work and make sure that I print out all the goosey stuff in my computer — much of which was ignited by inspiration but has somewhat disappeared with other ignitions and inspirings piled away on top. I think of the present as the only thing important and the future as music that I am already listening and food that I have been eating, but the past is just piles of stuff and people pretending they know what happened; piles of words and sound and sparkling images. Futility and bass solos.

Continue reading “Long and Dense into the Future”

Blog at WordPress.com.

Up ↑