I became insane with long intervals of horrible sanity. Edgar Allen Poe
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all. - H. L. Mencken Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so -Bertrand Russell What I have been telling you, from alpha to omega, what is the one great thing the sigil taught me — that everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken at will from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness. If the sigil were proved to be the top of a tomato-can, it would not alter that big fact, nor my fixed faith. No Harrowby, the common names we call things by do not matter — except to show how very dull we are ... -James Branch Cabell
March 09, 2018 - 11:40 a.m. I'm listening to The Roches as I write; let's see if they can inspire me. I'm feeling uninspired. All my writing ideas are political rants and I am trying to take a break from political rants. They make me feel like I'm bailing out the Titanic with a thimble. After writing that I conked out. I've been waking up well before my alarm recently while going to sleep no earlier. I've also been getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom. That leads to not getting enough sleep. I then fall asleep with a computer on my lap. This is not the same as the medication induced sleepiness I used to have. I dropped those meds. I'm feeling no more anxious and I'm far more alert. I was always jealous of the people that could fall asleep in an instant. I have slept in the same room with people that have fallen asleep mid-sentence while I would be trying to get to sleep for half an hour after that. Now I'm one of those people. And I can sleep well in a boat!I'm very sad that I'm missing Anaïs Mitchell tonight at the Rubin Museum. Why didn't I ask her if I can merch? I did last time she played there. I am not even sure if this was anxiety. I might have just been an idiot. Oh well, it hasn't been that long since I've seen her. If you are going say hi for me. Tomorrow I'm seeing Joe Crookston. I believe there are still tickets available. He's playing at First Acoustics, that's Coco and Bruce's house. Joe is a maximal element on the partially ordered set of musicians. That doesn't mean that he's better than everyone else; it means that he is at least as good as anyone he can be compared to. All musicians cannot be compared to each other. How can you meaningfully compare Woody Guthrie and Duke Ellington? What they did was too different. Joe totally engages you. Most of his songs are ballads, in the folk sense, songs that tell stories. They are not ballads in the Broadway sense, songs that are slow and lyrical. Joe is dynamic. He never drones. He doesn't talk sing as most story-tellers do. He uses dynamic, his guitar and fiddle are more than accompaniment. He stomps so hard paintings come off the wall. Anaïs is a maximal element too. Like Joe she is a force of nature but unlike Joe that only comes out in her music. When she talks, she is sweet and gentle. She does not have the malevolent look of someone with an IQ of 250. That only comes out when you listen to what she says. That is why I have always compared Jean Rohe to her even though their music and voices are nothing alike. The scope of their visions and their personalities are similar. Oh great, now I'm even sadder I'm missing Anaïs. I'll have to concentrate on thinking about Joe. After writing 2000 words two days in a row I've been writing compact essays of late. I'm not going to force myself to write more. Eating is a more productive use of my time. I signed the Pro-Truth Pledge: please hold me accountable.
Memories: Not that Horrid Song - May 29, 2018
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