pol

Brokeback Mountain – Ang Lee. Finally a film where the characters aren’t sent into the drag queen, double entendre, fag hag, ghetto clichés that Hollywood has been foisting upon us for far too long. A sad tale indeed, sad straight couples, sad towns, sad workers, sad lovers, but the scenery is beautiful. David said, “all I could think through the entire movie was this guy needs therapy”. Ennis Delmar is a sad character unable to break out of his closed world, his lover on Brokeback Mountain try’s to get him out of the shell – seeing the tenderness of him in those unclenched moments, but to no avail. After all that beauty you know there can only be lonely streets, ramshackle homes, poverty and ignorance – not only in the towns, homes, churches – the lives are filled with loneliness that can not be cured by touch. It’s a truly sad commentary on the world we live in – love can be lost so easily – count your blessings if you have it and can share it.

tunes – Another Green World

Another Green World – Eno. Recording by Brian Eno. Cover art designed from “After Raphael” by Tom Phillips. Recorded for Island Records July and August 1975 vinyl pressing. 33 1/3 rpm. All compositions by Brian Eno. Produced by Brian Eno and Rhett Davies. Side One: Sky Saw, Over Fire Island, St. Elmo’s Fire, In Dark Trees, The Big Ship, I’ll Come Running, Another Green World. Side Two: Sombre Reptiles, Little Fishes, Golden Hours, Becalmed, Zawinul/Lava, Everything Merges With The Night, Spirits Drifting. Sky Saw – Ballsy bass makes your hips want to move awkwardly, syncopation is tribal and a string sound of wails makes this a great opening track. Contributing artist: Phil Collins, Percy Jones, Paul Randolph, Rob Melvin, John Cale, and Eno Over Fire Island – Laid down bass and tapping makes my mind wander to Eno’s collaboration with David Byrne “My Life in the Bush of Ghost” which my friend Wil gave me back in 1981, Boise, I remember listening to this album over and over between my life in Boise, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland. Personal favorite off of “My Life” “Mountains of Needles”. Phil Collins, Percy Jones, Eno. St. Elmo’s Fire – Eno’s muffled vocals, with a bouncy organ. Blue August moon with trippy organ riffs. In Dark Trees – Eno only with treated rhythm generator, Hawaiian guitar sweeps and atmospherics. The Big Ship – Eno organ swells and treated rhythm generator. Building crescendos. I’ll Come Running – Robert Fripp, Paul Randolph, Rod Melvin, Eno. This song is one of my favorite songs of all times. Possibly the top one. I like the poppy beat, the inflection of Eno’s voice, the great guitar range, the description of Fripp’s guitar playing – Restrained Lead Guitar. Who couldn’t love a song with the lyric of I’ll come running to tie your shoe. I love this song so much I have asked David that when I do pass off this earth that if he is still alive – he insist that this song be played at my services or at least at the cemetery, this and the Smith’s song “There is a Light that never goes out”. Another Green World – wraps up side one – simple Eno growing sound that reminds me of Ferde Grof’s Grand Canyon Suite. Eno only Somber Reptiles – Eno only. Beat and atmospheric wails on organ and guitar. Definitely has the feeling of sitting out in the desert basting on a rock. Little Fishes – Eno only. Atmosphere, hollow twinges and pangs. Fratisa Organ and Prepared Piano. Golden Hours: Organ beat grows with tinkles on piano keys, percussion moves in, Eno’s voice – reminds me a winter day here in the desert when the light falls and the dark brooding San Jacinto cuts into the night sky surrounded by the blue shimmer eating into the night sky – it is a moment that has often made me want to cry. Robert Fripp, John Cale, Eno. “Perhaps my brain’s have turned to sand – oh me oh my”. “Several times I see the evening slide away” Becalmed: Eno only. Like seagulls floating above your head on the coast. Wind, gray sand, slow waves. Zawinul Lava: Phil Collins, Percy Jones, Paul Rudolph, Rod Melvin, Eno Somber meditation. Everything Merges With The Night: Brian Turnington, Eno. – Guitar strumming and Eno singing. Swelling atmospheres behind Eno’s voice. Organ and guitar instrumental. Spirits Drifting: Eno – When Everything Merges With The Night ends there is an abrupt jump to the final song – which is heavy on organ chording and atmospherics. Other Contributors: Fred Firth, Bill Kelsey, Ian MacDonald, Phil Manzanera, Carol McNicoll, Ritva Saariko, Peter Schmidt, Pete Townsend, Robert Wyatt. Back cover photo: Ritva Saariko Go into your vinyl stacks and explore the past – all in all this is one of my favorite pieces of music and I am so happy David has digitized it. I know we both have painted to the music on this album many times over, it holds some very special moments for me. Next up: Fine Young Cannibals by Fine Young Cannibals. Andy Cox guitar, Roland Gift singing, David Steve Bass/Piano/Keyboards. Martin parry Drums, Graeme Hamilton trumpet, Gavin Wright violin, saxophone on song 4, sax and piano solo on 9, Graeme Hamilton organ on 9 and backing vocals on 10 Beverly, Gloria and Maxine Brown, backing vocals on 5 Jimmy Somerville, backing vocals and drums on 2 Jenny Jones Record 1985. Cover photo by Anton Corbijn, Back cover by Paul Slattery, Cover art and design KB. Production Engineer Mike Pela Side One: Johnny Come Home, couldn’t Care More, Don’t Ask Me to Choose, Funny How Love Is, Suspicious Minds. Side Two: Blue, Move To Work, One A Promise, Time Isn’t Kind, Like A Stranger. For those asking what happened to Fine Young Cannibals they have not disbanded but have not produced for sometime – Roland Gift has recently put a solo CD out Label: Universal Int’l, ASIN: B000062TJ1 2002. Those owning the music say it is a good listen. Advert record sleeve plastic printed with white and black ink. I.R.S. sells out! Yes, sells out! Hopefully sells out of these culturally acceptable items. “Oki Dogs, 1980″ by Ed Colver 3 ft x 4 ft poster $7.00 each, I.R.S. baseball type jersey with black or white sleeves, $10.00 each, sweatshirt $15.00 each. The Cutting Edge 3 color heavy duty white cotton t-shirt. $8.00 each. Police Around the World. 75 minutes of Police on video $30.00 each available in Beta and VHS. We Got Your Ears, Now We Want Your Eyes! The Beast of I.R.S. Video presenting The Go-Go’s, The English Beat, Wall of Voodoo, R.E.M., The Alarm $30.00 each Beta and VHS.

tunes

We are slowly translating our library of vinyl albums to iTunes – digital. David has just finished digitizing “Ask” an EP by the Smiths – 1986 Sire Records – Side 1 – “Ask” 2:59 Produced by John Porter, Mixed by Steve Lilywhite, Composers (Morrissey, Marr) Morrissey [voice], John Marr [guitars], Andy Rourke [bass guitar], Craig Gannon [second guitar], Mike Joyce [the drums], additional voice by Kirsty Maccoll, Sleeve design my Morrissey, Layout by Caryn Gough, Recorded in London 1986, Side 2: Cemetery Gates: 2:39, Produced by Morrissey, Marr, Mixed by Stephen Street, From album The Queen is Dead, players same as above, second song Golden Lights: 2.38, composed by Twinkle, all above the same. Cover star: Yootha Joyce (1927-1980) Thames Television, “If it’s not love, then it’s the Bomb that will bring us together”. 45 RPM, ROUGH TRADE, SIRE RECORDS. SPECIALLY-PRICED MAXI-SINGLE. Next up: Quiet Sun [MainStream] Antilles Records. Distributed by Island Records, 7720 Sunset Blvd., Los Angeles, CA, Paris landscape on the cover – contributing artists: Charles Hayward: Drums, Percussion, Keyboards, Voice, Dave Jarrett: Fender Rhodes & Steinway Grand Pianos, Farfisa & Hammond Organs, VCS3, Phil Manzanera: Electric 6 & 12 string Guitars, Treated Guitars, Fender Rhodes Piano, Bill MacCormick: Electric Bass, treated Bass, Back-up Voices, with Eno: Synthesizer, Treatments & Oblique Strategies, Ian MacCormick – Back-up Voices. Cover design: Nigel Soper, Photographs: Richard Wallis, published 1975, Engineer Rhett Davies, Assistant Engineer: Robert Ash. Side 1: Sol Caliente (Manzanera) 8:02, Trumpets with Motherhood (Hayward) 1:30, Bargain Classics (Jarrett) 5:37, R.F.D. (Jarrett) 3:09, Side 2: Mummy was an asteroid, daddy was a small non-stick kitchen utensil (MacCormick) 6:09, Trot (Manzanera) 5:00, RongWrong (Hayward) 9:39.

Stacks

Have decided to once again tackle Auto de Fe written by Elais Canetti. It has been a while, possibly 15 years. My copy is dog-eared, stained from coffee. Boise. The cover of the book is lavender, very straight forward titling, with a photo of the author taking up one third of the cover. I find myself surprised by the text – when I read the novel I thought I had given care to remembering the nuances of the writing, carefully trying to hold the writing in my mind instead of being a reader racing through the text, not enjoying the texture of the words, but only living through the story. And yet that is what I was. This is a new book, a new story. The first chapter of the first book – A Head Without A World – opens with Professor Peter Kein talking to a small boy in front of a book store, Mr. Canetti’s language translated into English is choppy but fitting to the character. After leaving the child with a promise to look at one of his books, he encounters a stranger on the street, well encounters is the incorrect phrase, he ignores a passerby who is asking him a question, who doesn’t realize he is on the street he is asking directions to, Kein is beaten by this passerby as he grows angry to Kein’s indifference and Kein in turn writes in his notebook of Stupidities, that he failed to realize the seriousness of his indifference. The chapter ends with Kein sitting down to his writing desk after talking to his housekeeper, who will play a big part in the rest of the story. Professor Kein is the owner of the largest collection of books in the city. He is a sinologist (a student of Chinese history and language and culture) and absolutely dissolved from the world of man. The pages of books are more valuable than interpersonal relationships, intellectual meanderings better than discussing the weather, and the matters of daily of life are the mere dust balls that catch upon the flooring of his carpeted library. Frugal, stoic, under the spell of words, under the spell of ideas, under the spell of higher education and snobbery Professor Kein exists. This is the entrance into his lonely world. Mr. Canetti won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1981, his “The Voices of Marrakesh: A Record of a Visit” is short and vivid, his autobiographical “The Memoirs of Elias Canetti: The Tongue Set Free, The Torch in My Ear, The Play of the Eyes” recounts early life in Vienna and Europe, it was here I learned about Robert Musel, Isaac Babel, Karl Kraus, and his book “Crowds and Power”. I remember reading this book slowly as I said above, listening to Charles Mingus’ “Mingus Au Um” especially the tracks entitled: “Self-Portrait In Three Colors” and “Fables Of Faubus”. I remember it was a journey of not only words, but a journey of notes. It seems to me today that music has turned into a different partner, my reading habits are different and listening to music is a background environment instead of a center of influence. We are listening to “Dear Heather” by Leonard Cohen this morning – we have had it since it’s release, but neither one of us has really listened to it fully, it is sweet and soft. An excerpt from Auto De Fé “But no mind ever grew fat on a diet of novels. The pleasure which they occasionally offer is far to heavily paid for: they undermine the finest characters. They teach us to think ourselves into other men’s places. Thus we acquire a taste for change. The personality becomes dissolved in pleasing figments of imagination. The reader learns to understand every point of view. Willing he yields himself to the pursuit of other people’s goals and loses sight of his own. Novels are so many wedges which the novelist, an actor with his pen, inserts into the closed personality of the reader. The better he calculates the size of the wedge and the strength of the resistance; so much the more completely does he crack open the personality of his victim. Novels should be prohibited by the State.” Elias Canetti Auto de Fé

Monstera

We transplanted a split leave philodendron from our old house to the new one – well is it really new – we have lived here now 12 years. (So much for vagabonding and sojourning) – Every year for the past couple of years the plant which we keep shaded during the hot Coachella Valley summers has produced a large ivory white flower – about 8 -10 inches long, it rises out of the branch – a spike of green white material, slowly turning to yellow – to white, as it opens up into a cathedral housing the stamen – a cylinder of green – somewhat like a corn cob a soft yellow flour color, the shell flower is stiff and dry to the touch. There doesn’t seem to be a smell. The flower dries up over a period of a month and wraps itself around the cob – almost like s seashell – housing the cone while it ripens – going from ivory white to an earthy brown and the cone turning to a rich earthy green with small eight and six sided tiles covering the fruit that the cone actually houses. Through the winter and spring it will stand straight up in the air and then will drop off. We ate one the first year – it tasted like a kiwi.

Stacks

All The Names – José Saramago – author of Balthazar and Blimunda. Slow meandering Kafka Kastle walk, meandering through labyrinths of lists, stacks of paper and emotionally cold, one slowly finds the way into the deep alley of the lead character Senior José, low-grade clerk of the Central Registry – where computers do not exist, neither do ciphering machines, telephones or humanity. This is a Tower of Babel circular city, stretching out to the ends of the earth with it’s non-existent boundaries between civil duty and life. Caught up in a search for the subtle, Senior José slowly walks out of the labyrinth, to become a thief and lady’s man only to find himself languidly captured within the web of the Chief Register, a web surrounds this small insect of a man, who thinks that his small meanderings beyond the normal are not detected. The hand that plays each string is not only licking it’s chops over the discovery of this bit of life, it enjoys watching his escapades and takes pleasure in the notebooks the Senior meticulously notates his explorations of the bigger world. It is a dusty habitation, card stacks of the living, divorced, married, born and buried. Lines of like-minded souls inhabit the world of the Senior, fascists all – the lowly clerk has is jury of peers, his guilt is his motivation. The one moment of wakefulness he experiences, the luxuriousness of resting in the belly of an olive trees shadow in a cemetery is interrupted by the chance meeting of the world of chance embodied in the figure of the Shepard who is purposefully changing, names and markers in the cemetery of the suicide. A mad idea this – the philosophy of the absurd in a world of order. I found myself slowly trapped within the pages of this short novelette which became a one page read a night – savoring the slow unraveling and remembering how other writers had slowly weaved their web around me – ensnaring me to read further. I am reminded of Klien in Cannetti’s Auto de Fe, Pollo in Terra Nostra by Fuentes, the man in Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamson, Morvagine by Blaise Cendrars, Dahlgren by Samuel R. Delaney, The Queen of the Whores by William Vollman, Berlin AlexanderPlatz by Doblin, the letters of Rilke to his friend Lou Andreas-Salome, letters to Felice from Kafka, Karl and Rosa by Doblin, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, The Rosy Crucifixion by Miller, Cities of Interior by Nin slowly everyone of them moved within my soul, wriggled, reminding me of where I touched them first, read them, who was around me, what tastes, what sounds, music, cigarettes, coffee, friends, times, a jumbled cachaphony.