swans on town lake

there they were, six of them, just moving along as calmly as you please.



thank you to everyone who has pre ordered the record. i will be doing more recording in may so the deadline for pre order will get moved up a month. its looking like a very different kind of indie release thing, prob limited pressing for orders and press.

"ooh baby, baby, its a wild (new) world."

very funny to be watching swans and hearing diamond dogs and baby take off your cool at top decibel.

the brooklyn recovery

unhunh. mike doughty was over at antone's last night (well, tonight still but it's late) and i gotta say, i feel much better. i think it's called a reality check? or, like, um, a big fat help?!? yeah.

it was good to have a little brooklyn in the house, the band is so tight by now you could feel the love, as pete kept sayin. its where music gets to take off, far as i can tell, everything else is just a warm up.

bad and aint that good

listening to nina today.









there's an article of many in the papers in berlin about enzo's death. apparently him moonlighting as a chauffeur has him in some sort of spotlight that mightve made him cringe. i dont know. i know he was carrying some big folks around during the berlinale and for film shoots, whatever- did you know he loved blatant pop? that he was terribly shy? think i'll stop talking about him now, just let the papers take over. here's the link.

for reals

photography by theresa dill.

there are some things you can do something about. like, you can take a shower. or you can change your laundry detergent if you find it unsatisfactory. but god help you if you try to be what you are not, or stop being what you are. actually god cant help you then, because you are so against god at that point you might be beyond helping. believe me, i know. stick with changing your detergent, it'll go better, and next time you do the laundry you will be pleased and still what you are.

take this for instance: i thought to apply for a day job recently, which i think of when i think i cant stand any more goddamn poverty/uncertainty/sorrow, somehow thinking i could do that, even though in my whole life ive never been normal and have no plans to be. it doesnt mean i dont envy normal people, the kind of people who can actually pull off a job that goes from the same hours to the same hours and you go to the same place like a big building and you are called something and its on your office door they know you and you wear things they would expect you to wear: this i envy hugely. like also, people who have lived in the same house forever, and it has all their things in it and they know where everything is and it would be a huge shock if anything got moved. or lost. or caught on fire or something. i really envy those people, but i know that in spite of occasionally trying to be like them, i never will be. it just isnt in the cards.

but you know those kids books, where the dinosaur family or the rhino kids get up on a school day and their mom has packed up their lunches or whatever, and they go off to school and everything seems about alright, except one of the dino babies has three heads. and it's very noticeable. you know, three heads. and the school children--because children are hugely intelligent -sonically, intuitively, kinesthetically, clairvoyantly- tease and point it out but painfully. here it is: if you do have three heads, and if you are any kind of creative artist you do, get used to it. relax. do not apply for the jobs that other people do very, very well: you will only frighten the customers and no one will write your music.

try this:

stop rain.

word

"we must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes towards us out of the future,
and instead acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about it.
we must look forward with absolute equanimity to all that may come,
and think only that whatever comes is given to us by a world-direction, full of wisdom.
it is part of what we must learn in this age, namely:
to live out of pure trust,
without any security in existence,
trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world.
truly nothing else will do if our courage is not to fail us."

enzo

a really wonderful person died yesterday. actually on sunday he was found. young guy, 31 i think. but i only heard yesterday, and the terrible thing is, there's nothing to be done now but the praying. esp this one: please god, may i not miss my opportunities to help.



his name was enzo and he was a berliner, film world. apparently an amazing dancer--club dancing that is. he made it his sport. he could walk into any of the various clubs in berlin and everyone knew him. and liked him.

i have people who loved him, and so i did too. nobody's sure how he died, or why. its certain we have the time we have, and no more, and the merciful delusion of endless days in the sun is just that.

but his name was enzo, and im saying a word for him.

song of a man who came through

not i, not i, but the wind that blows through me!
a fine wind is blowing the new direction of time.
if only i let it bear me, carry me, if only it carry me!
if only i am sensitive, subtle, oh, delicate, a winged gift!
if only, most lovely of all, i yield myself and am borrowed
by the fine, fine wind that takes its course through the chaos of the world
like a fine, an exquisite chisel, a wedge-blade inserted;
if only i am keen and hard like the sheer tip of a wedge
driven by invisible blows,
the rock will split, we shall come at the wonder, we shall find the hesperides.

oh, for the wonder that bubbles into my soul,
i would be a good fountain, a good well-head,
would blur no whisper, spoil no expression.

what is the knocking?
what is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody wants to do us harm.



no, no, it is the three strange angels.
admit them, admit them.

d.h. lawrence