Today you can still disappear; It’s the reappearing as someone else that is complicated.
A few hours of existence, a legend for eternity. The man who vanished into thin air with a fortune in a daring irreplicable no-one-was-hurt, except maybe D.B. Cooper himself, crime.
The man who always comes back in popular culture. Which ending will be the most popular?
They are still searching for Amelia Earhart.
The Bat Cave lasted only three years. That’s 27 human years. Young enough and old enough for an unstained legacy.
Plato’s Heraclitus. Even if his paraphrase is incorrect, the idea is interesting. It’s more popular than the original. Easier to understand, no riddles to solve and a tendency to turn on light bulbs when it’s first heard.
It’s the same river even if the water has changed. The change is invisible to the naked concept.
I like Miles. I saw him play the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1991. And I had never heard a piece that I wanted to own.
I don’t know to whom I should tip my hat. I know where in social media it was shared. I just don’t know who did the sharing.
It might have been my mood. Another song by another jazz great had caught my attention. I also listened to that one twice. Maybe the next time it shows up in one of my feeds I will add it to my playlist.
I listen to it again, beat style, in a coffee shop, after tea. Miles haunts the funky bass line. Throw in a sitar, a panoply of other instruments. I’m tripping along to the beat.
I probably have heard it before. It must be the mood. It’s now on my playlist.
Same, same, only different. The perfect body is still an ideal, materialism has adopted new toys and the paper fantasies have moved.
People are still looking to space for their workless utopias.
Idealism meets reality. Wannabe messiahs lost in time. Romeo, Juliet and Hamlet. Tragic endings.
Hey Timothy Leary, would you still say that the internet is the new LSD bringing visions of peace and love.
At night I dream. I romanticise the 60’s. I don’t want to turn back the clock, I want to bring forward the hope, the fight, for a new golden age of peace and love. Sooner than later the youth will revolt against the establishment. It’s their future.
I wake and let the sunshine in.
We starve
Look at one another
Short of breath
Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation
Of moving paper fantasy
Listening for the new told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes
Somewhere inside something
There is a rush of
Greatness, who knows what stands in front of
Our lives? I fashion my future
On films in space
Silence tells me secretly
Everything
Everything
Manchester England England
Manchester England England
(Eyes look your last)
Across the Atlantic Sea
(Arms take your last embrace)
And I’m a genius genius
(And lips oh you the doors of breath)
I believe in God
(Seal with a righteous kiss)
And I believe that God believes in Claude
(Seal with a righteous kiss)
That’s me, that’s me, that’s me
The rest is silence
The rest is silence
The rest is silence
We starve
Look at one another
Short of breath
Walking proudly in our winter coats
Wearing smells from laboratories
Facing a dying nation
Of moving paper fantasies
Listening for the new told lies
With supreme visions of lonely tunes
Singing
Our space songs on a spider web sitar
Life is around you and in you
Answer for Timothy Leary, deary
Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sunshine in
Let the sunshine
Let the sunshine in
The sun shine in…
If you know Brad Sucks, the upbeat music will feel familiar, you will recognize his auto-tuned voice and you know that his lyrics are what makes each song different.
If you don’t know Brad Sucks, you will hear a happy tune, what a voice sounds like when it is obviously auto-tuned without exaggeration and discover interesting lyrical ideas like using irony for self-deprecation. And you may decide he doesn’t suck.
I know Brad Sucks and if I realize my potential to be a fun guy I can stop limiting my emotions to micro-doses. Or is that, if I stop limiting my emotions to micro-doses then I can realize my potential to be a fun guy?
I was feeling like I had some potential
of maybe one day becoming a fun guy
I could see myself goin’ through the motions
with a dedication and a devotion
to letting go
I was dreaming that I had to eventually transition to being a fun guy it was strikin’ in my brain like lightning with a little help from psilocybin
Yeah I’ll be in touch with the dirt and the earth and the bugs and the birds and the drugs and the bees Send my body to somebody who wants it I won’t have any need for it anymore wherever I’m going I’ll be in touch
Oh my god it’s getting harder to focus on one day still becoming a fun guy I like it like I like my emotions in teeny tiny micro doses
Yeah I’ll be in touch with the dirt and the earth and the bugs and the birds and the drugs and the bees Send my body to somebody who wants it I won’t have any need for it anymore wherever I’m going I’ll be in touch
I am running away from the chatter on the internet. Seeking refuge in music. The line catches my attention. In the moment, it captures my feelings about the headlines, about how whatever insignificant subject dominating the news is analysed beyond reason.
I know the song well, probably sing along to parts of it, but I have never really paid attention to the lyrics. (This is not unusual for me but is it unusual?) I start replaying the song and look up the lyrics.
A quick read through stops at Saturday’s child, the one that works hard for a living. These are lyrics with depth. I go back to the top.
The lyrics are a treasure trove full of references — pleasant distractions.
Althea, a mythological Greek queen. A tragedy with all the trappings. A prince’s unrequited love, treachery and revenge. Avunculicide, infanticide and suicide.
My research leads me to one fact, explaining why there is so much to the lyrics, and trivia. The lyricist is a poet, Robert Hunter, born Robert Burns, a great-great grandson of The Robert Burns and officially a non-performing band member of The Grateful Dead.
I head back to the conversation between Althea and the singer. Ophelia‘s fate. Hamlet! More dead uncles, dead princes and dead queens.
I am think about more and more.
I told Althea I was feeling lost Lacking in some direction Althea told me upon scrutiny That my back might need protection I told Althea that treachery Was tearing me limb from limb Althea told me, now cool down boy Settle back easy, Jim
You may be Saturday’s child all grown Moving with a pinch of grace You may be a clown in the burying ground Or just another pretty face You may be the fate of Ophelia Sleeping and perchance to dream Honest to the point of recklessness Self-centered to the extreme Ain’t nobody messin’ with you but you Your friends are getting most concerned Loose with the truth, maybe its your fire Baby I hope you don’t get burned When the smoke has cleared, she said That’s what she said to me You’re gonna want a bed to lay your head And a little sympathy There are things you can replace And others you cannot The time has come to weigh those things This space is gettin’ hot You know this space is gettin’ hot
I told Althea, I’m a roving sign That I was born to be a bachelor Althea told me, OK that’s fine So now I’m trying to catch her
Can’t talk to you without talking to me We’re guilty of the same old things Thinking a lot about less and less And forgetting the love we bring
This version is well-known. Because it was copied, not covered.
I am biased towards original versions so ignore my liking it better. Two electrified folk guitars, a bass. No drums, no bow, no theatrics. It’s the opposite of the big heavy sound of Led Zeppelin’s version yet it’s not that different.
It starts gently. The rhythm gets more intense, angry. Then the lead builds up the intensity leading to an anguish filled climax. It’s dark and beautifully simple.
It may help to know the flower is a red spider lily. The Japanese plant it in graveyards to stop the dead from being eaten – it’s poisonous to rodents.
But that is too simple. Of course it comes with myths.
One says it guides souls to the other side.
Another says it blooms along the path of lovers fated to separate forever.
You might think I’m posting this song because the flower blooms around the autumn equinox. That’s just a coincidence. It’s part of a rebuttal for my friend, the Pink Light Sabre and it’s better as a soundtrack than a sound file. The sword dance even goes with his blog’s moniker.
And while I’m throwing a few facts around, the traditional instrument is a Tsugaru-Shamisen. Japanese folklore tells of a vassal to Lord Tsugaru who was a remarkable swordsman and fought a white serpent-god. Nothing to do with this story (I think) and I’m not going to mention that the instrument obviously comes from Tusgaru, a peninsula in northern Japan.
I know you are now wondering, what would this be like in concert.
OK, I know no such thing. I just like performance a lot and I could not decide which version was more powerful.
This song is not in my collection. The tune does nothing for me. However, I really like the idea of a mindful watch.
I bought a cheap watch from a crazy man
Floating down canal
It doesn’t use numbers or moving hands
It always just says now
Now you may be thinking that I was had
But this watch is never wrong
And If I have trouble, the warranty said
Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On
And it rained, It was nothing really new
And it blew, we’ve seen all that before
And it poured, the Earth began to strain
Pontchartrain leaking through the door, tides at war
If a hurricane doesn’t leave you dead
It will make you strong
Don’t try to explain it, just nod your head
Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On
And it rained, It was nothing really new
And it blew, seen all that before
And it poured, the Earth began to strain
Pontchartrain buried the 9th Ward to the 2nd floor
According to my watch the time is now
Past is dead and gone
Don’t try to shake it, just nod your head
Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On
Don’t try to shake it, just bow your head
Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On” — Jimmy Buffett, “Breathe In, Breathe Out, Move On”, Take the Weather with You (2006)
Earlier that year I discovered that the kiosk in the Basel train station sold The Rolling Stone magazine.
I am returning home from a client’s. I get to the record reviews. The album is described as an ambitious attempt to create a Wall for the 90’s. The concept is weak, the music less so.
I am intrigued. I am also wondering how it is that I have never heard of The Smashing Pumpkins.
I have to change trains. My ritual for the Bern train station is a stop at the CD shop. Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness is on listen and on sale. I like what I hear and the album joins my collection.
Even though no one knows, I am still embarrassed that they are new to me. I fill in the blanks of my knowledge about the group. The positives are about the music, the negatives about the singer.
Over time I see that whenever someone actively dislikes the band, I hear comments about Billy Corgan’s pretentiousness, arrogance and other ad hominems. After a while I figure out a why: the programming director of the local indie-rock station did not like Billy Corgan.
“Shakedown 1979
Cool kids never have the time
On a live wire
Right up off the street
You and I should meet
Junebug skipping like a stone
With the headlights pointed at the dawn
We were sure we’d never see an end
To it all
And I don’t even care
To shake these zipper blues
And we don’t know
Just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed
Into the earth below
Double cross the vacant and the bored
They’re not sure just what we have in store
Morphine city slippin’ dues
Down to see
That we don’t even care
As restless as we are
We feel the pull
In the land of a thousand guilts
And poured cement
Lamented and assured
To the lights and towns below
Faster than the speed of sound
Faster than we thought we’d go
Beneath the sound of hope
Justine never knew the rules
Hung down with the freaks and the ghouls
No apologies ever need be made
I know you better than you fake it
To see
That we don’t even care
To shake these zipper blues
And we don’t know
Just where our bones will rest
To dust I guess
Forgotten and absorbed
Into the earth below
The street heats the urgency of now
As you can see there’s no one around” — The Smashing Pumpkins, “1979,” Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness (1995)
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