decent sea

and, well, this of course:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyOrn73B0MY

august bends like willow trees

we are here and it is now. further than that all human knowledge is moonshine.
h.l. mencken


my mama was living in the upstairs of a small brick house on wabash st in fort worth the summer i was born. she had been attending philosophy and psychology classes at tcu not very far away, and not far from her family's home on lubbock st. my dad was in wash dc, they were separated at the time. my great-grandparents were nearby on simondale drive, a street named for the other contender, a neighbor, in the street-naming of the city of fort worth for the winding avenue their own house had been built on at the top of the hill; there were only two at the time, the allreds and the simonses, and since they didn't respond to queries about being chosen, the name went to simon. my mom would walk across berry past the bank another two blocks all the way to the campus, pulling a wagon with her brother johnny when she was little, finding places to have picnics or to see the exhibits at the science building. her mother got her master's degree in english there, and my dad's mom was working in the tcu library when they met, enabling him to get a bachelor's degree in economics and history without the burden of tuition fees.

i do not like being hurried. no, i do not. but when i arrive, i really do. there had been talk of inducing labor, and the morning my mom went into labor was the day scheduled for inducing. neither of us like being hurried. my mother's voice singing when i was little was a great part of what made my body and my thinking and my perspective, and she never sounded hurried.

such a long time ago, but also now. in much the way a river starts at a source somewhere high in a hill somewhere and flows down into the quadrillionth generation of life's forms which have stemmed from it; there is no measure.

my mother was late to work this week, packing a box of gifts for me. there have been whispered phone calls between her and my sister and juliet. i am very happy: we have started the celebrations days early, i have had such sweet calls, patience! say all the clouds. so i am patient.

the perfect storm

"what would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?"

(ellen bass)



SER-ious-ly.

the hardy boys

here is me and my sister practicing in the evening. i think we are quite getting the hang of it.


"human beings, in
their generous endeavor to construct a hypothesis that shall not degrade a first cause,
have always hesitated to conceive a dominant power
of lower moral quality than their own; and, even
when they sit down and weep by the waters
of Babylon, invent excuses for the oppression
which prompts their tears."

(thomas hardy, return of the native)


thank heavens i dont have those sort of problems. disappointment et al

(ps garrison keilor totally loves ellen bass: see? and see?)

two of cups, two of swords

storms gathering up along the coastline every day, just for a downpour. the frogs are going haywire every evening, and we keep eating the same soup, but those are not things to complain about.

jeff called from the road, in albuquerque: apparently there are many things you can have tattoo'd on your body that actually avoid the requisite regret, like instead of "betsy" you can go for "your name here" instead. 'course if you think that sort of thing'll fly with yer lady, think again. but he's playing shows out there and we're wrapping up the transfers here.

tomorrow is alice's birthday so am off to make aduki brownies. and a reviewer from belgium didnt like the record. he said (had to translate from the original language, and i quote): "sufficient artistic ways, but the music only excessive doenerij difficult. more rope is a basic song with an acceptable body, head and tail." i dont think that's any sort of way to talk about other people, do you? mind you, dont blame the reviewer for sounding like an idiot, blame google-translater, a great tool if you dont mind being confused. perhaps the poor fellow thought he had heard music like this before? anyway i appreciate that he took the time to listen. that's what polite people from texas by way of england say ;)

prepping set list for a show coming up, thinking to sing only songs with an acceptable body, head and tail.

bear mush for bears

skyping stromstad sweden at 11:35 AM on a call from my brother who's on tour at present. he called from an island called furholmen where he is doing a residency at a venue there. learned a swedish word: fargad, meaning colored, like: colored like the sky and sea (fargad av himmel och hav).