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Wednesday, October 24th, 2001
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10:34a - Bruce
I meant to post this earlier, but it slipped my mind.
Have a look: Here's a link to Bruce, my friend 5's (old?) band. This site contains links to .mp3s, info on other releases from Pan Dimensional Smong Rabbit Research Records, and, incidentally, a hip story called "Dennis the Wolfman".
There's also a startling short movie detailing a brief moment in the life of an unusually large fish.
current music: 5: "Scratch the Dog (and the Dog Yawns)" (share your thoughts)
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11:25a - Funky Céili
Black 47 is playing nearby this weekend. I'll be there.
I've been listening to more of Daniel Johnston lately. I've heard a few comparisons to Wesley Willis, of all folks, and that piqued my interest. I like Wesley Willis a lot, and what I've heard of Daniel Johnston's music is good - it's very, very catchy. But lyrically, and certainly musically, I wouldn't think of Wes - I think of Beat Happening and the Halo Benders, of Tales from the Birdbath (and maybe Sicko) and even a little of Yo La Tengo. Most of all I think of Half Japanese and Jad Fair's solo material; D.J. worked with Jad, actually, and they might have been mutually influential on one another, but they have their own roots. Noisy fun-loving three-chord power pop with a hint of a punk edge.
current music: The Field Mice: "Let's Kiss and Make Up" (3 louches | share your thoughts)
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7:19p - Kaisen
This feels good.
It's a beautiful night, windy and smelling billowy and ochre and tired and leafy. I walked out under the trees and just...inhaled for a while before I came in to work tonight. True to form, the windows are open. There's a glass of merlot on my desk. There is achingly beautiful music playing. I feel that sort of smiling for no reason or every reason sense of peace.
Earlier, I feasted on Unakyu. Aaahh.
I heard from a dear old friend. Another friend and I composed a lengthy letter to him from the plane to Denver and the roads through Nebraska and into Dakota, and him in San Francisco. He, laughing, said he could not read my writing, which is normally impeccable, and this is further humorous as his, love him though I do, is the most scrawled and illegible distillation I've ever taken pains to decipher, this time or before.
I found and ordered a copy of The Story of Creation, with videos and interviews with Ride, My Bloody Valentine, Primal Scream, and Creation founder Alan McGee. So I withdraw my question from yesterday. Or whenever it was that I asked.
And I heard from my bodywork teachers, who have made me a very tempting offer. This past January, I returned to Praia da Luz with them and was the assistant teacher and practise supervisor for the 2001 Portugal Massage Intensive. This coming year, they have offered me a house-sitting gig: living on Grandview Farm, their grand old house in North Bennington. It has what's quite possibly the best massage and bodywork studio I've seen and worked in, and they've said I'm welcome to use the space to practise massage in the area. In addition, they said, I could run some practise sessions with a few students of theirs who live in the area and sign them off on a few things, and help keep up with their website and with requests for information on the Institute and the various programs offered. And they would pay me for this. Also, of course, their house is an easy walk to the campus of Bennington, and I'm sure with but a little talk I could again gain access to the electronic music and sound studios, to supplement my own studio which of course I'd transplant back to VT with me, G4 and sundry peripherals and instruments and all. There are professors, there, too, with whom I would love to study further.
I may well do it.
Furthermore, Judith is now supposed to hunt down up-to-date contacts for my dear old Aussie roommie Matthew, who I miss.
This album ("Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven!") has steadily grown on me since I got it nigh on a year ago. Especially the first track, the title track. It's impossible to talk of it without speaking of an emotional impact, a tangible shift in mood, a true conveyance. It is one, to me, of a depth of sorrow blowing away in a cold rain and giving way to a sense of hope and an abiding love. The slow, lilting guitar tone in the beginning is pristine. It sounds like an overflow. It is too soft to ever call a crescendo, but there is a delicate build, and this slow and patient build, with the far-off cadence of trumpets, is gorgeous. The second guitar enters and in the build the instruments seem to bolster one another. Bells enter, hesitant and proud at the same time. A new cadence forms out of the still-building first as the violin announces itself, and finally, the bass drum beating a steady heartbeat pulse enters with the bass guitar, playing a high octave placing it above the guitar. When, at last, the rolls on the snare enter along with an even one, two, three, four, repeat on the crash cymbal, it's one of the most cathartic senses of release I've felt in a composition. It's majestic. It's a curious sense of warmth in a would-be freezing landscape. It's brilliant, and brilliantly played. And I love the way that even as it washes away and the drums die with a final crash, you're not left totally alone and surprised by a sudden end. The movement ends, but the first guitar resolutely and immediately begins again, pushing on as the other instruments compose themselves.
current music: "Lift Yr Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven!" (6 louches | share your thoughts)
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