She sounded out her parts to maestros past and future. Her present cadenza had no conductor nor audience. Each crack in her dresser drawer, each homeless utterance - each moment unsung in his direction seemed a small squandered melody. Then the aliens landed.
She gathered matches - traditional Martians, thwarted by fire (or was it the flu?). She summoned her league of right fielders and henchmen, madams, pimps, and minstrels. They in turn assembled house sitters and vagrants, junkies, jugglers, asthmatics and undead sled dogs. From old waning reels which they baked for one last spin they gleaned the instructions. Distorted directions, confused by crackling playback but clear enough for the first three steps.
The fourth step however was paramount. Consensus was on the side of division. She insisted instead the proper quarter step was unity. He appeared presently, always presently, as if in agreement. They throttled the invaders as one, proving their tactical assessment. It was all in the wrist, in the swivel of the hips. But no happy ending; funny how visionary strategy could be so shortsighted. The last fourth of action indeed called for unity: with the strange visitors. They came in peace.
Thursday, May 9, 2013
Sounded out her parts
When Christ
When Christ came back for 40 days, was he still fully human or was he just fully divine?
Before Easter
Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to be for the next few hours.
Friday, February 8, 2013
Smiley While
Library Industries' very personal compilation(s) of best of the officially (except as noted*) available Smile / Smiley Smile era tracks, prior to 2011 release of "Smile Sessions"
 front cover |
Look! Listen (vibrate too), I’m playing this Smile/y mix right now and I don’t want to distract myself from it at all so I ain’t gonna write too hard. This music is sacred to me in a very profane world. Listening to it properly is more important than writing about it successfully. Consider this speed-blogging on something I've spent years loving and thinking on and talking about in far more coherent ways. Because sharing this music with y’all Right Now is what counts.
The tale of The Beach Boys' SMiLE album is well represented on the internet / you can read about it everyanywhere. Not here; I shall skip those facts.
Years ago before computers played consumers their music & allowed us (those consumers) to arrange things into playlists I used my Philips CDR785 3-CD Integrated CD Recorder to assemble the best (my personal favorite) versions of all the SMiLE era and Smiley Smile tracks which had become officially available by then. I called this collection “Smiley While.” I think I named it such not just 'cause it sounded like "Smiley Smile" but also because I had this idea that the whole notion of time was essential to what would have been SMiLE; that time had notoriously become (or was perceived as) an enemy of SMiLE; that time had passed it by; yet it was timeless really. And so on. Smiley While. I grew up against The Beach Boys; couldn't stand 409 (though I lived in one in future years) but later I had heard Pet Sounds, Smiley Smile, Sunflower, Friends, etc... and this Smile era stuff was the greatest. No further Smile era tracks were to become officially available until much later, on the recent Smile Sessions. None of that 2011 set is in evidence here, though some of these same takes were used therein, in same or similar mixes / edits. What’s here is best of what I could assemble before then and at least one essentially, intrinsically, truly beautiful person has told me they gosh LOVE it far more than the official 2011 Smile Sessions reconstructed SMiLE so who am I to not finally share it with the world? I recall reading or dreaming that even Brian Wilson said the final version in that box was sunnier than SMiLE would have been. We’ll never really get to SMiLE; it never really happened and box sets don’t change that.
Notice where there was any version available not from Smiley Smile I instead used that other version? (Those versions all hail from the first Beach Boys "...Thirty Years Of..." box set. For Heroes And Villains I indeed used the Smiley Smile / final single version and the box set variations). Compared to Smile era versions or demos, the Smiley Smile counterparts were dismissive almost denigrating yes denigrating utilizing often a cheap humor that shows the band perhaps uncomfortable with the beauty they should have unashamedly presented.
You’ll notice NO eventual Sunkist commercial. Personally I can't believe that if Wilson had finished SMiLE, with all that remarkable new music & all that lyrical brilliance from Van Dyke Parks, on what by all accounts was to be a single LP, he would have actually included Good Vibrations which had already been out and a hit for many months, So I left it off. Plus, it bugs me. Irritating lyrics from Mike Love and I find the parts that showcase him insufferable. Every time he says "excitations" I get almost angry. And even though it is a stellar production, to me it sounds borderline gimmicky compared to the Smile tracks that followed. [It is a sad coincidence that I am finally posting this at the time of the hit single's Theremin player's death...]
I feel like this music should be credited to Brian Wilson, Van Dyke Parks, et al. more than to some entity known as The Beach Boys. I wish I lived in a world where at first sign of resistance to this spectacular artistry Brian had kicked Mike Love back to pumping gas and instead started a band with Van Dyke Parks. Called it Dumb Angel or something. And really finished SMiLE. In lieu of visiting that alternate Earth, please enjoy my playlist.
I searched so strenuously to be able to legit-present a playlist for my blog visitors to hear, with links to purchase the tracks. Even joined sites I’d ignored for years, all in this effort. Yet Last.fm, iTunes, eMusic, Amazon, the new MySpace, Spotiface - they all failed us my Brothers & Sisters. All tracks can be purchased however from 7Digital. (You can also find the CDs used or new from various vendors). The tracks and the official sources from which they hail are listed below with links to the albums at 7Digital. I found they all sound to be at fairly matched volumes in years of listening and playing for others, if using the editions of these releases which I own on compact disc and which you can get from 7digital as high quality 320 kpbs MP3 files:
01} Heroes And Villians (demo w/ Van Dyke Parks) 2:23 from "Endless Harmony Soundtrack"
02} Fall Breaks And Back To Winter (Woody Woodpecker Symphony) 2:18 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #
03} She's Goin' Bald 2:17 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer ^
04} Little Pad 2:29 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #
05} Vegetables Promo 0:55 from "Hawthorne, CA: Birthplace Of A Musical Legacy" (Disc 2)
06} Cabinessence (Track Only) 3:58 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 5)
07} Heroes And Villians 3:37 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer
08} Wind Chimes 2:33 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
09} Heroes And Villians (intro) 0:36 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
10} Surf's Up (track only) 1:41 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 5)
11} With Me Tonight 2:17 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #
12} Gettin' Hungry 2:27 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer ~
13} Whistle In 1:05 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #
14} Our Prayer 1:07 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2) #
15} Heroes And Villians (alternate version) 2:57 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
16} Heroes And Villians (sections) 6:41 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
17} Wonderful 2:03 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
18} Cabinessence 3:32 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
19} Do You Like Worms 4:01 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
20} Vegetables 3:30 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
21} I Love To Say Da Da 1:35 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2) #
22} Surf's Up 3:39 from "Good Vibrations: Thirty Years Of The Beach Boys" (Disc 2)
23} You're Welcome 1:07 from 2001 "Smiley Smile / Wild Honey" twofer #
all songs by Brian Wilson/Van Dyke Parks except # by Brian Wilson; ^ by B. Wilson/Love/Parks; ~ by Brian Wilson/Love
 |
| back cover, w/ Vegetables Promo |
 |
| back cover, w/ Mrs. O'Leary's Cow |
Or just by playing the widget at top of this blog's sidebar.
I even made album art. See it all around? Gosh. Smile at that.
This combination of Brian Wilson & Van Dyke Parks is a special American genius touched nowhere else. And, great playing abounds from fabled session cats. Please, please enjoy. I love you all.
You’re Welcome.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Lucien Stryk - the poet as my teacher
I am deeply saddened to learn of poet Lucien Stryk's passing. He was my teacher, for a couple of undergrad semesters right when I discovered I was a poet (he supported this notion of mine). I bumped into him on his way to our class the one & only time I blew off class. I told him I was skipping class; he said it was a wonderful idea; I should not come to class for it was a lovely spring day - the birds were outside and i should be too. I agreed the day was lovely but I admitted that in fact I was going to a dark basement to practice with my band - for which I sang & wrote the lyrics (poetry,therefore). He immediately announced that this too was a fine way to spend my time in lieu of attending the day's class. We were both rather amused and this meeting has remained one of the most entertaining & most reassuring coincidences I've ever experienced. Later, in a graduate independent study where we met occasionally to discuss my work he told me "Raymond, I cannot show you how to write." I already understood this but was a little surprised he expressed it that way; what followed displayed his winning dry humor. He told me that at that point he couldn't assist me any further than he had, that I already was a good writer: my writing was vibrant , imaginative , and that "It's particularly strong when you're upset about some woman." That last line was insightful, to the point, and one of the funniest things anyone has ever said to me (though I don't remember whether or not we laughed). That was our last class. Maybe I saw him in the hallway or something a couple of times after that; I don't recall. For the next ten years until I moved out of state, I would look in every record store hoping to find a copy of his Folkways LP so I could drive out to DeKalb, say hello, and have him sign it. I never found a copy, and never drove to DeKalb to say hello. Years later, living in Los Angeles, I bought it online - Lucien Stryk: Selected Poems Less than a year ago, before moving out of California, I walked through Pershing Square in downtown Los Angeles and contemplated his reading of his "Christ of Pershing Square." Those who have read it know what a great writer he was; those who have heard him read it (or anything) - in person or on the Folkways record - know what a fantastic voice he had. But upon just now learning of his death, these great talents are not what first came to my mind. What I first thought of was how personable he was, & funny he was - and how in the brief time we knew each other he used that humor to show how well he knew me. It was a skill he showed in class a lot, using unexpected humor to demonstrate his understanding of his students and their work. This was part of another great talent- his gift for teaching. I will always be grateful to have been his student, and to have enjoyed his humor. I'm glad to have brought him some enjoyment through my writing, which he exhibited through engaged and dramatic descriptions of my poems. I knew him only a short time, but will always remember him as a great writer and teacher. And though his writing is very serious, I remember him clearly as a poet with precise timing and a grand sense of humor.
Friday, November 2, 2012
It's Daylight, America
Okay America:
My Belated Write-In Presidential Candidacy / Exactly-On-Time Announcement of new party for the Future
Disclaimer / Points of Certain Failure regarding November 6, 2012 Write-In:
• Many states have write-in registration requirements / deadlines, all of which I've missed.
• No write-in candidate could ever win White House (William Fife Knowland & Strom Thurmond won Senate seats…)
Platform for the future, starting now:
• no patriotic appeals, except as noted*
• separation of state and church (notion will sell better to the anti-government pro-religious fervent with this simple repositioning of nouns)
• tax reform, emphasizing an inheritance tax (percentile increase with age of wealth)
• marriage (& divorce) equality, even for plural marriage as seen in origins of "Governor" Romney's church (this is a dirty tactic to smear Mr. Romney; the plural marriage component likely to be abandoned in event of Mr. Romney's loss this coming Tuesday or whenever election outcome is eventually determined)
• a new branch of the military, dedicated exclusively to defending the sun; this is exception as our sole *patriotic appeal. We will pledge to claim the sun, the source of all life on Earth (… charging other nations for Sun Power & immediately remedying our economy forever into a state of dominance) for America, just as we placed the flag on the moon.
This will allow me,
as candidate,
to run
on endless pun
as America's Sun;
my name after all is the very solar Ray [legal name: Raymond. But I have history of also going by Ray, so there should be no concern that anyone can "Barry Soetoro" me. My birth certificate is yellow, like the sun, but I'm all Red White & Blue]. As untold billions (generated from aforementioned "Aristocrat Tax" as well as other, as-yet undisclosed means) will be spent, and lives lost, in this Solar Territory Expansion we will need to posit this as brave courageous and patriotic — but also strategic — ultimate drive for Energy Independence: acquiring and harnessing the greatest source of power in our solar system. Also, as it's the source of all life, this should inoculate our party (with a platform championing reproductive rights, birth control, and sexy new methods thereof) against any charges of not being pro-life enough.
Party to be named:
DAYLIGHT PARTY.
Again, being named "Ray" I am a natural candidate.
• full openness and transparency, exemplified by our signature Earthbound legislation, the "Daylight Act" (actualizing the second meaning of the Daylight name, in the “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.” sense)
• exposing the fatal flaws of both parties, which with each passing minute render the Republicans too evil and greedy, the Democrats too ineffectual and weak and compromised, and either/both too indistinguishable to lead This Great Nation, the Rightful Guardian of the Sun, These Free and Remarkable United States.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)