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September 27, 2007
connoisseurs of disaster
This song feels like a box. Two hands wide, two hands tall. Dark, fine-grained wood. Few knots. Reach inside it once and you can feel cold, hard snow falling. The second time: wind-lapped leaves brushing up softly against your fingers. This is a box you can walk around town with, keep in the trunk of your car in case of emergency, and use as a nifty means of surprising strangers or loved ones. It is elegant and useful. You can forget about it for some time (careless), for a decade maybe, and the shape of it is still the same- as boxy and woodheaded as ever- but inside it will feel very different indeed (thorny, dusty, sandy, wet).
'Haneros Haluli', the klezmer song, is almost one hundred years old, from what I can tell. Hala Strana's version has only been around for six years. Listening to 'Haneros Haluli' makes me want to find the sort of place that would have this song playing in its streets. You can listen to it on the album "Fielding", which is available here.
Posted by Kevin at 11:24 AM | Comments (0)
September 17, 2007
the picture theory of meaning
A suit of armor- one of the old, old ones, with just a narrow slit for the eyes and one of those bird-beaky helmets- comes alive in the red-carpeted hallway of a neglected wing of an extensive mansion. His new life is a surprise. He works his legs and arms, moves around the house awkwardly, and holds in his glove-hands whatever he finds: a ball of lint, a potted plant, the pull-string of a curtain. He thinks about the knight: what happened to him? He sees a garden through a bay window, full of bright red tassel flowers and snapdragons. He can feel it in his hands: he will pick them all.
Adam and Alden - Blade Run Out
Last fall, I wrote a short story while listening to nothing but Adam and Alden's 'Live at Blue Monday' recording and a few songs from Smog's 'A River Ain't Too Much to Love'. There was something about Adam and Alden's music that just fit the tone and setting of the story so well- their songs are so pretty and elegant, and so rousing as well (not that my story fit that bill, but the music definitely helped me along). Listening to Adam and Alden gives me the same sort of wild buzz in my chest that I get when walking in the woods on a cool day, or when swimming out into the ocean- there's a natural aspect to their songs, something strong and beautiful. 'Blade Run Out' might be my favorite of the bunch, and not just for the fact that the last 20 seconds or so of the song seem to quote the theme from MacGyver.
Posted by Kevin at 12:43 PM | Comments (0)
September 06, 2007
Kickers and Punters and Grad School
Still alive, remarkably. I'm about a month into grad school, MFA program in fiction. Future looks bright. Upon graduating, I can look forward to receiving numerous offers to adjunct at community colleges in the viciously rural and isolated areas of the country, where I will impart my questionable knowledge upon a variety of unsuspecting students. Maybe I'll pursue my dream of becoming the first professional logger/soccer player. Good money in that, I figure.
Football has started once again, and I feel good about that.
Music coming back soon. I have more free time than ever, so hopefully I can get back to the way things were in '05 (the pinnacle of this blog, in my opinion). Who's listened to that James Blackshaw album, "Cloud of Unknowing"? Blew my goddamn mind.
Posted by Kevin at 09:39 PM | Comments (0)