Running After My Hat

Emerging, Blinking, into the Sunlight

August 6, 2011 by John 7 Comments

If you’ve been visiting RAMH for more than a few months, you probably know I’ve been a bit… distracted recently. And it’s probably going to happen again in a few weeks, when I again take up my rock hammer, rope, and lanterned helmet, wandering back into Seems to Fit for the Nth and final time.*

In the meantime, I’ve got some sprucing up to do — in the real world, for sure:

Heaps of printouts, notes (sticky and otherwise), fruit-and-grain-breakfast-bar wrappers, reference books, recorded but unlabeled CD-ROMs — all of that will vanish from within a dozen feet of my elbows. [Hmm. “Feet of my elbows” — now there’s a phrase I don’t think I’ve even seen before. And probably with good reason.] I’ll add things back into the daily home routine that I’d put aside; maybe I can again watch an occasional movie on a weeknight, and sleep in a little in the morning before getting ready for work. Maybe The Missus and I can play some cards. And maybe I can once again read for more than five minutes before dropping off to sleep.

I’ve also got some dusting and renewal to take care of around Running After My Hat. This won’t necessarily involve changing the look itself — replacing the “theme” — but I’ve been thinking about it. I’ve got a bunch of draft posts in the hopper on favorite but time-sucking topics, posts in the What’s in a Song and Perfect Moments categories especially.

(My erstwhile but long absent co-blogger has even knocked plaintively on my window a couple of times, signing to me through the glass, waggling granite fingers as though manipulating an invisible keyboard. He seems to long for personal expression.)

And finally, I’ll be trying to spend more time and care in visiting other people online. Yes, I know why I’ve been too preoccupied to do more than look through so many windows in passing. It couldn’t have been otherwise, and I won’t say I regret it, exactly. But I’ve missed the back-and-forth at some favorite blogs. It’s past time to go rapping on their windows, too.

____________________

* Er, well, the Nth and final time of my own choosing. After which, others will start to chime in. They may have no suggestions at all, but I don’t count on it.

Getting Through the Day (and Knowing It)

August 5, 2011 by John 3 Comments

[Image: xkcd.com #324. The image’s title attribute there says, “Sometimes the best fun looks like boredom.” (Click image to enlarge.)]

From whiskey river:

Questions Before Dark

Day ends, and before sleep
when the sky dies down, consider
your altered state: has this day
changed you? Are the corners
sharper or rounded off? Did you
live with death? Make decisions
that quieted? Find one clear word
that fit? At the sun’s midpoint
did you notice a pitch of absence,
bewilderment that invites
the possible? What did you learn
from things you dropped and picked up
and dropped again? Did you set a straw
parallel to the river, let the flow
carry you downstream?

(Jeanne Lohmann, from The Light of Invisible Bodies)

…and:

There is nothing more alone than being in a car at night in the rain. I was in the car. And I was glad of it. Between one point on the map and another point on the map, there was the being alone in the car in the rain. They say you are not you except in terms of relation to other people. If there weren’t any other people there wouldn’t be any you because what you do, which is what you are, only has meaning in relation to other people. That is a very comforting thought when you are in the car in the rain at night alone, for then you aren’t you, and not being you or anything, you can really lie back and get some rest. It is a vacation from being you. There is only the flow of the motor under your foot spinning that frail thread of sound out of its metal gut like a spider, that filament, that nexus, which isn’t really there, between the you which you have just left in one place and the you which you will be when you get to the other place.

(Robert Penn Warren, from All the King’s Men [source])

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Midweek Music Break: Jazzy Joni

August 3, 2011 by John 13 Comments

Joni Mitchell, or so I thought around the time I first heard of her, epitomized the sweet-and-fragile visuals of hippie-folk culture.

(With her long straight blonde hair, oh-so-slender frame and a voice to match, with her acoustic guitar and simple attire, she seemed a Mary Travers wannabe — maybe her gawky delicate second or third cousin, who admired her from a distance at family reunions and weddings.)

Sometimes her songs seemed to come out of that culture, too, especially the hits like “Both Sides Now” and “Big Yellow Taxi.” They cemented (in my mind) the image of a dreamy mystic tinged with social consciousness. I saw her in person in 1969, at the Atlantic City Pop Festival held a couple weeks before Woodstock; that restive crowd, especially in the context of her preference for small clubs, drove her from the stage in tears before she’d even finished a single song. (I vaguely remember thinking something adolescent-male shallow like, What the heck is her problem?!?) Obviously — obviously — she was way too delicate and inconsequential to have much staying power in the rough-and-tumble of rock…

Haha. Yeah, I know: what a jerk.

Eventually it sank in that her songs were complex little bundles of sound and sense, which only seemed simple if, like me, you had never really listened to them. Even when it’s just her and her guitar or piano, she interacts with her music, plays with it, responds to it — especially when she moves out of contemplative mode, relaxes, and takes up the rhythms of jazz.

Her first song which hit me that way was “You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio,” from 1972’s For the Roses. The grinning-over-her-shoulder, winking lilt fits the lyrics like a saddle. “If your head says forget it / But your heart’s still smoking”: oh, what I’d give to have written such a poised, nuanced line!

[Below, click Play button to begin You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 2:39 long.]

[audio:youturnmeonimaradio_jonimitchell.mp3|titles=’You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio’|artists=Joni Mitchell]

Lyrics:

You Turn Me On, I’m a Radio
(Joni Mitchell)

If you’re driving into town
With a dark cloud above you
Dial in the number
Who’s bound to love you

Oh honey you turn me on
I’m a radio
I’m a country station
I’m a little bit corny
I’m a wildwood flower
Waving for you
Broadcasting tower
Waving for you

And I’m sending you out
This signal here
I hope you can pick it up
Loud and clear
I know you don’t like weak women
You get bored so quick
And you don’t like strong women
‘Cause they’re hip to your tricks

It’s been dirty for dirty
Down the line
But you know
I come when you whistle
When you’re loving and kind

But if you’ve got too many doubts
If there’s no good reception for me
Then tune me out, ’cause honey
Who needs the static
It hurts the head
And you wind up cracking
And the day goes dismal

From “Breakfast Barney”
To the sign-off prayer
What a sorry face you get to wear
I’m going to tell you again now
If you’re still listening there

If you’re driving into town
With a dark cloud above you
Dial in the number
Who’s bound to love you

If you’re lying on the beach
With the transistor going
Kick off the sandflies honey
The love’s still flowing
If your head says forget it
But your heart’s still smoking
Call me at the station
The lines are open

Not “The End,” But Maybe The End

July 30, 2011 by John 15 Comments

Nothing definite yet, of course. (It won’t be definite until I wash my hands of the last galley edit, ha.) But I think Seems to Fit ends as follows:

Woot.

Step by Step, and an Ounce at a Time

July 29, 2011 by John 3 Comments

[Image: Beast of Burden, a sculpture by Sarah Perry. For more information, see the note at the foot of this post.]

From whiskey river:

Burlap Sack

A person is full of sorrow
the way a burlap sack is full of stones or sand.
We say, “Hand me the sack,”
but we get the weight.
Heavier if left out in the rain.
To think that the stones or sand are the self is an error.
To think that grief is the self is an error.
Self carries grief as a pack mule carries the side bags,
being careful between the trees to leave extra room.
The mule is not the load of ropes and nails and axes.
The self is not the miner nor builder nor driver.
What would it be to take the bride
and leave behind the heavy dowry?
To let the thick ribbed mule browse in tall grasses,
its long ears waggling like the tails of two happy dogs?

(Jane Hirshfield [source])

…and:

I think there is choice possible at any moment to us, as long as we live. But there is no sacrifice. There is a choice, and the rest falls away. Second choice does not exist. Beware of those who talk about sacrifice.

(Muriel Rukeyser)

…and:

I have been a lucky man. To feel the intimacy of brothers is a marvelous thing in life. To feel the love of people whom we love is a fire that feeds our life. But to feel the affection that comes from those whom we do not know, from those unknown to us, who are watching over our sleep and solitude, over our dangers and our weaknesses — that is something still greater and more beautiful because it widens out the boundaries of our being, and unites all living things.

(Pablo Neruda)

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Knowing What You’re Looking At

July 22, 2011 by John 9 Comments

[Image: graffiti artist Bansky visited a subway archway in central London, adding a caption to a wall which just happens to fall within the view of a surveillance camera.]

From whiskey river:

All men, at one time or another, have fallen in love with the veiled Isis whom they call Truth. With most, this has been a passing passion: they have early seen its hopelessness and turned to more practical things. But others remain all their lives the devout lovers of reality: though the manner of their love, the vision which they make to themselves of the beloved object varies enormously. Some see Truth as Dante saw Beatrice: an adorable yet intangible figure, found in this world yet revealing the next. To others she seems rather an evil but an irresistible enchantress: enticing, demanding payment and betraying her lover at the last. Some have seen her in a test tube, and some in a poet’s dream: some before the altar, others in the slime. The extreme pragmatists have even sought her in the kitchen; declaring that she may best be recognized by her utility. Last stage of all, the philosophic skeptic, has comforted an unsuccessful courtship by assuring himself that his mistress is not really there.

(Evelyn Underhill, Mysticism [source])

…and:

You’re like a witness. You’re the one who goes to the museum and looks at the paintings. I mean the paintings are there and you’re in the museum too, near and far away at the same time. I’m a painting. Rocamadour is a painting. Etienne is a painting, this room is a painting. You think that you’re in the room but you’re not. You’re looking at the room, you’re not in the room.

(Julio Cortázar [source])

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Midweek Music Break: BettySoo, “Never Knew No Love” and “Boxcars”

July 20, 2011 by John 6 Comments

Like Patty Griffin (to whom I’ve seen her compared), BettySoo knows how to love a musical note, how to hold it, shake it, and/or bend it for maximum emotional effect. Like Griffin, she specializes in a genre which both is and is not quite country, folk, pop, and/or rock. And like Griffin, the woman knows how to write a song.

All of which triggers a bit of cognitive dissonance when you find out that BettySoo is a five-foot-tall, apparently twenty-something Korean-American. Say what?!?

Let’s start this off with one of her own tunes, the driving “Never Knew No Love.” The video’s unofficial; while L.A.-noir-style film stills at first glance might seem a long distance away from the lyrics, the combination (“Never knew no man like the one you been missing / Never knew no love could break love’s vow”) actually works pretty well.

Lyrics:

Never Knew No Love
(BettySoo)

When the sun’s still beating down September
Can’t touch your toes to the pavement in the afternoon
Swinging out front, wondering whether
Sins of the summer gonna come
Catch up with you soon

Never knew no dirt didn’t come off in the kitchen
Never knew no stain like the one you’re hiding now
Never knew no man like the one you been missing
Never knew no love could break love’s vow

Fan my face but the moving just makes me hotter
Try to sit still as the creek down by the way
That dry bed ain’t seen no fresh water
Spent the last two months drying out without the rain

Never knew no dirt didn’t come off in the kitchen
Never knew no stain like the one I’m hiding now
Never knew no man like the one I been missing
Never knew no love could break love’s vow

Can’t go back to the water’s edge
ain’t no water…
Can’t go back to his arms
ain’t no water…
Can’t go dip beneath the glass surface
ain’t no water…
Can’t dry off in the summer sun

Never knew no dirt didn’t come off in the kitchen
Never knew no stain like the one I’m hiding now
Never knew no man like the one I been missing
Never knew no love could break love’s vow

Now dial the energy way down. Here she is with dobro-/guitarist Doug Cox, in a twosome they call Across the Borderline, performing Butch Hancock‘s “Boxcars.” Again, this does not appear to be an official video: it’s barely a video at all, just a single still photo which gradually fades in from a black background (and eventually fades back out). I think this helps to focus the mind on the lyrics, the shambling-blues rhythm, and the undiluted talent running out of the speakers.

Lyrics (note: these are the original lyrics; BettySoo throws in numerous free-form twists and swirls of her own):

Boxcars
(by Butch Hancock; performance by Across the Borderline)

Well, I gave all my money to the banker this month
Now I got no more money to spend
She smiled when she saw me comin’ through that door
When I left, she said “Come back again”

Well I watched some lonesome boxcar wheels turnin’
down the tracks out of town
And it’s on that lonesome railroad track
I’m gonna lay my burden down

I looked for my little lady in the lost and found
But she had already been claimed
I’m gonna find me a ticket to ride
Through a town that never had no name

Nobody may care where I go tonight
But baby if the truth be told
I’m goin’ down to the railroad tracks
Watch them lonesome boxcars roll

[instrumental break]

I was raised on a farm the first years of my life
And life was pretty good, they say
I’ll probably live to be some ripe old age
If that dirty dog death won’t stay outa my way

This world can take my money and my time
But it sure can’t take my soul
An’ I’m goin’ down to the railroad tracks
Watch them lonesome boxcars roll

There’s some big ol’ Buicks by the Baptist Church
Cadillacs at the Church of Christ
I parked my camel by an ol’ haystack
I’ll be lookin’ for that needle all night

You know there ain’t a gonna be no radial tires
turnin’ down the streets of gold
I’m goin’ down to the railroad tracks
Watch them lonesome boxcars roll

[instrumental break]

Have you ever hear the whistle on a fast freight train
beatin’ out a beautiful tune
If you ever seen the cold blue railroad tracks shinin’
by the light of the moon

If you ever felt the locomotive shake the ground
I know you don’t need to be told
Why I’m goin’ down to the railroad tracks
Watch them lonesome boxcars roll

I know even less about playing or singing music than I do about why music works. But really, that is some stringwork there. And that is some voice.

___________________________

Addendum: Something about “Never Knew No Love” sounded familiar to me… not the lyrics but the actual sound, the music. I might be thinking of early-1990s Melissa Etheridge. “2001,” maybe. Or, no, even more, “Ain’t It Heavy”:

[Below, click Play button to begin Ain’t It Heavy. While audio is playing, volume control appears at left — a row of little vertical bars. This clip is 4:24 long.]

[audio:aintitheavy_melissaetheridge.mp3|titles=’Ain’t It Heavy’|artists=Melissa Etheridge]

Do We Ever Really Get It?

July 15, 2011 by John 14 Comments

[Image: looking up into the Ring Around a Tree playspace/bus shelter in Fuji, Japan. Click to enlarge; see the note at the foot of this post for more information.]

From whiskey river:

I always gained something from making myself better,
better than I am, better than I was,
that most subtle citation:
to recover some lost petal
of the sadness I inherited:
to search once more for the light that sings
inside of me, the unwavering light.

(Pablo Neruda)

…and:

We must know that it is not enough just to see what the Mind is, we must put into practice all that makes it up in our daily life. We may talk about it glibly, we may write books to explain it, but that is far from being enough. However much we may talk about water and describe it quite intelligently, that does not make it real water. So with fire. Mere talking of it will not make the mouth burn. To know what they are means to experience them in actual concreteness. A book on cooking will not cure our hunger. To feel satisfied we must have actual food. So long as we do not go beyond mere talking, we are not true knowers.

(Takuan Soho)

…and:

If you were to put aside what you know because of what other people told you, how much of what you know do you truly know for yourself?

(John Tarrant)

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Midweek Music Break: Carlos Santana (and Peter Green)

July 13, 2011 by John 14 Comments

He sounded like nothing else on the rock landscape at the time. When you first heard Carlos Santana’s music, your mind did a little double-take: What is that?!? Afterwards, it pretty much made no difference which song you encountered: above all, you could count on that guitar, cutting like a singing knife through the jazzy, infectiously smoky rhythms.

“Black Magic Woman” (from the 1970 Abraxas album) had been written a couple years earlier, by the great blues guitarist Peter Green in Fleetwood Mac’s original configuration. As Wikipedia notes:

…[A] curious blend of blues, rock, jazz, 3/2 afro-Cuban son clave, and “Latin” polyrhythms, Santana’s arrangement added conga, timbales and other percussion, in addition to organ and piano, to make complex polyrhythms that give the song a “voodoo” feel distinct from the original.

The version of the song on Abraxas actually opened and closed with a riff on a melody called “Gypsy Queen,” by Hungarian jazz guitarist Gábor Szabó. It’s a little like eavesdropping on some ritual in a Caribbean jungle clearing. Here’s Santana:

Lyrics:

Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen
(by Peter Green; performance by Santana)

[instrumental]

Got a black magic woman
Got a black magic woman
I’ve got a black magic woman
Got me so blind I can’t see
That she’s a black magic woman
She’s trying to make a devil out of me

Don’t turn your back on me baby
Don’t turn your back on me baby
Yes don’t turn your back on me baby
Stop messing round with your tricks
Don’t turn your back on me baby
You just might pick up my magic sticks

[instrumental]

Got your spell on me baby
Got your spell on me baby
Yes you got your spell on me baby
Turning my heart into stone
I need you so bad, magic woman
I can’t leave you alone

And here’s the original, from Fleetwood Mac’s The Pious Bird of Good Omen (1969).

(This version is a lot shorter than many of the live-performance recordings available, such as those on YouTube.)

It’s been great to see Carlos Santana’s career booming again. This most recent phase, after a long dry spell (some of it without a label), kicked off with his 1999 album, Supernatural — particularly, the hugely best-selling single with Matchbox Twenty’s Rob Thomas: “Smooth.” Says Wikipedia:

On Billboard magazine’s rankings of the top songs of the first fifty years of the Hot 100 singles chart, “Smooth” was ranked as the number-two song overall (behind only “The Twist”) and the number-one rock song in the history of the chart.

Here’s the video:

Lyrics:

Smooth
(by Rob Thomas and Itaal Shur; performance by Carlos Santana and Rob Thomas)

Man it’s a hot one
Like seven inches from the midday sun
I hear you whisper and the words melt everyone
But you stay so cool
My mu equita my Spanish Harlem Mona Lisa
You’re my reason for reason
The step in my groove

And if you say this life ain’t good enough
I would give my world to lift you up
I could change my life to better suit your mood
Cause you’re so smoothAnd just like the ocean under the moon
Well that’s the same emotion that I get from you
You got the kind of lovin’ that can be so smooth
Gimme your heart make it real
Or else forget about it

I’ll tell you one thing
If you would leave it would be a crying shame
In every breath and every word I hear your name calling me out
Out from the barrio you hear my rhythm from your radio
You feel the turning of the world so soft and slow
Turning you round and round

A hot time in that city, hmm?

The Whole Sweet World Is a Garden

July 8, 2011 by John 7 Comments

[Video: Rowlf and Fozzie collaborate, after a fashion — and much to their surprise — on an instrumental version of “In an English Country Garden“]

From whiskey river:

The thing about Zen is that it pushes contradictions to their ultimate limit where one has to choose between madness and innocence. And Zen suggests that we may be driving toward one or the other on a cosmic scale. Driving toward them because, one way or the other, as madmen or innocents, we are already there.

It might be good to open our eyes and see.

(Thomas Merton [source])

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