mushinnoshin

we needed about three songs before we got our heads around the fact that yes, we were actually here. In the same room with Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen! And he was onstage singing these songs to us.

Yep, that about sums it up. I’m still buzzing from one hell of a fantastic show.

how do I explain
when I in pain
fail to refrain,
as even yet
it remains,
that I at best can claim,
to be insane?

No, the gaping whole, the vacuum abhorred,
the discipline — bored;

Oh sure, I agree, superficially –

I just wish I knew
how to share with you

the frozen crystal tear to which I cling,
my only rock within this thing.

So big congratulations to my dear little sister who ran off and got married last week! Nothing fancy, they did a little private pseudo-eloping thing, honeymooned for a week, then had a family lunch reception today. Met the new in-laws and my new step-niece, they all seem nice.

This of course leaves me as the last single of the siblings. I just hope my parents aren’t holding their breath or things could get ugly. Because frankly, I’ve just about given up. I had an almost funny train of thought about odds and lightning striking on the very day you win the lottery, but I’ll try and spare the pessimism. I’d really like to be more optimistic, but history speaks for itself.

It’s not even like I really have a right to complain, there have been plenty of opportunities. But after spending the first fourteen or so years of my life watching my parents engage day after day in a miserable, bitter, loveless cold war, I learned too well the lesson, and find myself today completely incapable of sustaining any sort of relationship with another human being that isn’t founded in a great friendship.

And how often do you make truly great, life-changing friendships? So far I can still numerate them on my hands.

With someone to whom you’re also physically attracted? Well I think I’m up to about four on that count.

With someone who also finds you attractive, and isn’t already spoken for or otherwise unavailable?

Sigh.

What might be the worst part is that it always seems to lead to losing the friend, too. And soon enough you’re afraid to make any more of those, either.

So, yeah. Here’s looking forward to the day when my sister and her husband build an apartment over the garage to take in her half-crazy alcoholic brother, his piano, and his cat.

Holy shit. Let me tell you how in love I am with the movie Once.

It would be hyperbolic of me to say that it has paralleled my life — but absolutely it tangentially intersected enough to feel like a 90 minute sucker punch to the heart.

I do have to share one particular scene, in which The Guy tells The Girl to write the lyrics to a song he wrote — he’s tried, but it’s too romantic, and his words just aren’t right –

to which point I give you the song I wanted Monica to write and sing: Downshift

She chose not to, so you’re stuck with me.

Friday night was a real treat, as the phenomenal percussionist Evelyn Glennie performed a concerto for percussion and strings with the Nashville Symphony. It was an interesting piece, working in three movements — wood, metal, and skin, each focused around instruments of the named varieties. What I didn’t realize until a friend mentioned it during intermission — Dame Glennie, who, by the way, is almost completely deaf, was the same amazing talent that had blown me away some time back at the Belcourt in the performance documentary Touch the Sound. HIGHLY recommended for all my musically oriented compadres.

That this fantastic performance was followed by a rendition of the 10th symphony by my man Shostakovich was a most tasty icing.

Saturday afternoon I made my first visit to the Yazoo Brewery Taproom to refill a couple of growlers I’d gotten as a Christmas present from Kate & Karsten. Refilled one with my standby Dos Peros, and the other with a Rye Porter that I’m sipping as we speak. Good Stuff. I’ve gotta say though, I did the math, and it seems a bit “off” to me — $8 for a half gallon (64 ounce) refill, when I can get a six-pack (72 ounces) at Kroger for $7.50? You might think we’d get a deal since you’re not giving us any new glass and we’re not paying retail markup… well, it’s allright, I suppose the trade off is that you can’t get the porter at Kroger. Or the snooty satisfaction of buying your beer direct from the microbrewer.

I followed that up with The Diving Bell and the Butterfly at the Belcourt — a beautiful and thought provoking film about a paraplegic locked inside himself, unable to communicate with the outside world (except by the extraordinary efforts of those committed to helping him). Of course it touched me, and made me think, how awesome would be a story about someone who had the same problem metaphorically, about someone whose inability to commune with the rest of humanity was purely psychological.

Oh, right.

Which reminds me, I discovered after watching Mona Lisa Smile that Plath’s masterpiece will soon itself become a movie. I’m not entirely sure how I feel about that, but I do have an open mind enough to look forward to it.

the poet? laughing, hardly.
words like jazz; the river’s water
rampaging through his submerged hands
he captures by cupping
very little

oh certainly he assuredly
plays with placement and pronunciation,
enunciation; still an actor though at core,
a vaudeville comic skilled
in serving satire
in surreal sincerity;
loving language, and — its sensuality

But poetry?
Not me.

Not, at least, in that which I
know how to let you see.

So I’ve been in the house for about a year now, which means I’ve had my piano back for about a year as well. When I say “my piano”, what I really mean is my grandmother’s piano, which I’ve been banging on in one house or another since I was about four. It has survived abuse, neglect, and at least two fires, but now it’s finally home with me.

Well anyway after a year of banging on it again, my chops are starting to get back into pretty good shape. And over the last few weeks, now that I’m actually hanging out in this room, I’m really starting to play the hell out of it. And the bamboo floors in here give us some fantastic high-reverb acoustics that really play right into my sustain-drenched style. I do admit I rely too heavily on that pedal. I am working on it.

So anyway, I wish like hell I had a recording of some of my sessions this weekend, good stuff would have been captured. But as it is, the notes float into the abyss, an unnoticed footnote in the tapestry of human existence, the sound of the tree falling in the forest. So be it.

If I had a recording, I think I’d name it — “Vodka Is No Substitute for You.”

-

Yeah. I think I need a refill.

-

You’ll have to forgive me, I’ve got “Dark Side” on again. The lunatic is in my head.

So I watched The Godfather this weekend. I suppose it’s a sign that my clock is ticking that my first thought was — “Wow. I think I wish I had a family”.

Not that I’m even sure that I do. Maybe. I mean sometimes I do sometimes I don’t and I think all I really want is for you to be here trying to convince me one way or the other.

Instead of me just sitting here, wondering, what the hell are we doing, what the hell am I doing, and how long can I wait?

As long as I have to, I suppose.

What else can I do?

And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes … I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.

How very cool! Winston just introduced us to The Blog of Henry David Thoreau.

It’s the waiting that’s so hard,
or so they say, but it makes sense –
when we Know but want to question anyhow;
the sane approach I’m sure, but sanity?
Not our suit.

Can we explain
what we don’t understand?
When all we know is wind,
but we’ve no doubt that wind uplifts?

No, we can but feel,
and though feeling brings the fear we also find
it brings us warmth
and Hope

And there we hang our hat, on hope –
that peace at last may live among us.

We only have to let it in.

savoring this time
thrilled and frightened, as we find
that yes, we reflect