Distance

At the far end of the playground a woman perches on a bench, visibly upset. She clutches a bag of pretzel shards in a frail hand. Scattered about the bench in several directions and distances lay a litter of lifeless squirrels. She eyes them mournfully, her shoulders sagging in a posture of defeat. Her body is wrapped in a dusty overcoat to shut out the autumn wind, the belt drawn tightly across her midriff. She instantly brightens as an animate squirrel bounds out of the underbrush and scurries towards her, balances on the metal rim of a trashbin, watching her with blank eyes. Her skeletal fingers dig through the bag and emerge with a fragment of pretzel, and crescents of pretzeldust buried under her nails. She offers this to the squirrel, who twitches a whisker, then hungrily accepts. It downs the pretzel in a frenzy of teeth and claws, then hops off the bin, staggers a few brief steps, nose raised as if sniffing danger. The squirrel gets barely a foot from the bench before collapsing on its side, breathing heavily until the breathing stops entirely. The look of anguish returns to the paper skin of the woman's face, her eyes yellow with moisture. "Why are you playing tricks on me?" she utters to the inert creature. She prods it with the tip of her shoe. Not harshly, just a gentle poke. "Wake up. Why are you pretending to sleep? Wake up!"

The Return of the Bride of the Ghost of...

So David Berkowitz, notorious Son of Sam, has renounced serial murder in favor of Christianity (as if the two were mutually exclusive) & offers his own Official Home Page to spread the Word of the Lord. Maybe this is common knowledge to the masses, but I stumbled onto it by mistake & was somewhat amused, in a dismal sort of way.

Zaireeka!

I need to arrange a Zaireeka listening party. Set up four stereos in each compass direction facing inwards, provide some wine & some voodoo candles, recline in the center on a rug, then cue up the CDs & listen. Problem is, all the people I would want to invite to such a thing are inconveniently scattered across the country.

Yesterday I dumped the four CDs onto my computer & cakewalked the tracks together, just to get a sense of what it would sound like. But that's cheating - definitely not the aural equivalent. You can't stack up the tracks like cartoon gels - you need to build a hologramic temple of sound.

More Songs About Seaweed & Twine

Recently I've been mulling over the possibility that, as online music purchasing grows more prevalent, consumers will lean towards buying individual songs, no longer fettered by the physical limitation of the CD itself. They'll simply go online & download that last particular song that was lodged in their head when they heard it over the loudspeaker while buying wallpaper earlier in the day. Thus, with the consumer's ability to pick & choose exactly what they want to hear, the artist will inevitably lose control over the context of the music. The decades-old concept of the album as a deliberate artistic structure will be abandoned & we'll return to the pre-Sgt Pepper milieu of songs existing of themselves. The concept album will become an artifact. Not to mention cover art.

The only thing I lament about this likelihood is that instant gratification could rob us of hidden treasures. I can't imagine how many times I've bought an album, picked out a few songs as my favorites & concentrated mainly on those, only to later discover one of those supposedly "weaker" tracks contained some subtle piece of magic that I never would have recognized had I left them off my shopping list just because they didn't grab me first time around.

Humans, being creatures of arrogance, most of the time act too hastily for our own wellbeing - flailing around & knocking things over. Sometimes it's better to let an impulse stew for awhile before we act on it. We don't always recognize a good thing first time it rears its head. That's all I'm saying.

"The only public conveyance was the streetcar. A lady could whistle to it from an upstairs window, and the car would halt at once, and wait for her ... too slow for us nowadays, because the faster we're carried, the less time we have to spare." ~ The Magnificent Ambersons

The Night is Young & We Have Umbrellas In Our Drinks

It's a drag coming back to Boston after a stay in NYC. I may be outgrowing the proverbial city of beans in favor of the proverbial city of apples. It's like going on one of those kiddie rides at a theme park after tackling the big kahuna of roller coasters. Walking home through Somerville at two in the morning - the streets are deserted, except for the occasional taxi driver nodding off & plowing into a hedge. Everything shuts down at night. Windows are dark, sidewalks are barren. Bars in Somerville close at one & there's nowhere to go but home to bed. Store 24 closes at midnight. Never figured out what the "24" is supposed to signify. The quantity of chewing gum brands, perhaps? If this was NYC, I'd be having a tasty grilled cheese sandwich in a sadluck diner right now, & watching a wino chew on his toenail in the next booth.

Tonight was the sixth incarnation of Ukulele Noir, a monthly event I try not to miss - where ukuleles & porkpie hats collide. Craig Robertson accompanied by 2/3rds of the Sob Sisters (swoon), the falsetto croonings of Rick Russo, the dynamic duo of Tim Mann & Greg Hawkes (yep, the guy responsible for all those chirps & grunts in The Cars), the tuneful Melvem Taylor & the Fabulous Meltones, & straight outta Ohio, Tom Harker & his Prodigal Sons. Now, first, I find it mildly surprising that there are this many ukulele enthusiasts in the Boston area. And second, I find it odd that they all choose to assemble at the Skybar, which is a "beer in plastic cups"-style dive sandwiched between an auto body shop & a baseball field. Then again, they host a goth night as well, so let's hear it for juxtaposition.

I'm going to seek out the identity of the stenchridden lugnut who drove the 12:05 am number 87 bus out of Lechmere roaring past me without stopping & shall cause grievous injury to his person. Yet because of him I stopped into Toad & heard a smokin' jazzfunk band called The Freelance Bishops - one of the tightest combos I've heard in eons. Sort of like an atomic clock with sex appeal. The horn player blew into a device called an EWI that sounded like an elongated electronic kiwi. Due to that & the keyboardist's vintage Rhodes, they often reminded me of something midway between Jan Hammer-era Jeff Beck & incidental music from an episode of Barney Miller. Good merchandise.

Sleep tight, Somerville - you despicable early risers.