for hearts that don't make sense

Goodbye Sky Harbor
Is tomorrow just a day like all the rest
How could you know just what you did?
So full of faith yet so full of doubt I ask
Time and time again you said don't be afraid
If you believe you can do it
The only voice I want to hear is yours
Again
I shall ask you this once again
And again
He said:
"I am but one small instrument."
Do you remember that?
So here I am above palm trees so straight and tall
You are smaller, getting smaller
But I still see you

Books and music. These are the things by which I am able to keep myself alive (and a cat in my lap, too ... sometimes). It's fun when those two things intertwine, particularly when just by happenstance you find that two things you love very much, have found a connection to each other. So, as I sat perusing the internet this afternoon, I found the lyrics to a Jimmy Eat World song (a band that connects other things in my life in strange and wonderful ways), off their album "Clarity," that I like a bit and read that it was based on one of my most beloved books, John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany. It's a book that I've now read four times, each time it captures me in different ways.

John Wheelwright is one of my favorite characters of all time. And the scene that the lyrics of the above song describe, which takes place toward the end of the novel, are a lovely tribute to the doubt and faith that pervades the whole book. Religion is a loaded topic for me. In fact, there is not much good I have to add with regard to organized faith. But I am full of faith--I am full of belief. I tend to place it in myself and those I hold closest to me--I choose my faith the way I choose to keep those who capture me, close. They are what I accept as my soul. So, there is something about John, a recognition, as it were, about his doubts with regard to Owen's unfailing trust in the unknowable, without allowing that to have any doubt about Owen--his best friend.

There are plenty of heady conversations and monologues in the book about belief, written in a manner that I always found to be some of the most intelligent and gentle of ways--layer upon layer of knowledge and theory. Each side is represented in Irving's trademark quirky brilliance, with pain and tragedy and moments of pure innocence. Small moments of truth. There is criticism, certainly--but always handled in the searching way that all things one places one's life's faith in should be. And it is intertwined with questions of fate and justice and the hypocrisy of blind belief. And John, the straight man to Owen's "prophet" (if there can be such a thing), points his finger to the sky (and looks down on Owen from the sky, in this instance) still questioning Owen's absolutes.

Never one for absolutes myself, I enjoy the view from above, searching the horizon without expectation, looking forward to the answers, should they ever reach me. Clarity, indeed. Thoughts on that, another night.

she gets you on her wavelength

“I knew it was a song about Montreal, it seemed to come out of that landscape that I loved very much in Montreal, which was the harbour, and the waterfront, and the sailors' church there, called Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours, which stood out over the river, and I knew that there were ships going by, I knew that there was a harbour, I knew that there was Our Lady of the Harbour, which was the Virgin on the church which stretched out her arms towards the seamen, and you can climb up to the tower and look out over the river, so the song came from that vision, from that view of the river. At a certain point, I bumped into Suzanne Vaillancourt, who was the wife of a friend of mine; they were a stunning couple around Montreal at the time, physically stunning, both of them; a handsome man and woman; everyone was in love with Suzanne Vaillancourt, and every woman was in love with Armand Vaillancourt. But there was no ... well, there was thought, but there was no possibility, one would not allow oneself to think of toiling at the seduction of Armand Vaillancourt's wife. First of all he was a friend, and second of all as a couple they were inviolate, you just didn't intrude into that kind of shared glory that they manifested. I bumped into her one evening, and she invited me down to her place near the river. She had a loft, at a time when lofts were ... the word wasn't used. She had a space in a warehouse down there, and she invited me down, and I went with her, and she served me Constant Comment tea, which has little bits of oranges in it. And the boats were going by, and I touched her perfect body with my mind, because there was no other opportunity. There was no other way that you could touch her perfect body under those circumstances. So she provided the name in the song.”

I love that.

I've already noted in a previous post that "Suzanne" is not a favorite Cohen song of mine. This is not popular opinion, as one of his most famous songs, it is considered a true classic. Lyrically, I don't deny that it's lovely, but in verse, it loses something for me. However, in preparation for a trip to the north country a month from today (exactly so), having recently taken part in a photowalk in my home neighborhood, I have been looking into doing something with my time while in my favorite troubadour's homeland. So I did some research and found the streets I will need to cross ... the "valued avenues of discovery."

I was first in Montreal just before my 10th birthday, the second time a little after that. The last time I was there was a pre (post?)-honeymoon, five years after the marriage ... only appropriate as the love was decided by a Cohen quote and the proposal produced in front of the Chelsea Hotel ... "I remember you well ..."

So I offer up this ... as Cohen quotes Irving Layton ...

"A poet is deeply confilcted and it's in his work that he reconciles those deep conflicts. The place is the harbor. It doesn't set the world in order, you know, it's the place of reconciliation. It's the conssolumentum, the kiss of peace."

And these links these evening, that which express thought and song ...

the mathematics of angels
Speaking Cohen
Un Canadien Trouvé

I will be touring Westmount, some time in early May, to walk along the hill and look down at the harbor I'll stroll down Avenue Belmont and take a snap or two of #599, hopefully the frost will have been driven from the trees, and a bloom will appear.

And I couldn't resist one last brilliant snippet, before ending this evening's post ...

"Nowadays there's a great deal of confusion between Art and Religion. Since religion has failed so many people, they look to Art for Salvation. I wish them luck in this enterprise." --Leonard Cohen, Megamix, 1992

every heart vibrates to that iron string

"After silence that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music." - Aldous Huxley

Twice in recent weeks, I have found myself walking home to the tune of "Jane Says." I am half expecting to open the door to my apartment tomorrow afternoon to a private performance by Perry Farrell. A few weeks ago, I turned the corner of my block to an acoustic finger-picked version on the steps of the building just next to mine, the singer's voice subtle and sweet, sealing a moment that will forever change the memory of the song for me. And then, several days later, as if to insist that I not ignore this shift, it haunted my night crying out in its original recorded form through the window of a parked car.
It was more than half a lifetime ago that Jane's Addiction released Nothing's Shocking. It was, in fact, August, 1988, a few days before my best friend and (eventual) muse's 16th birthday (oh, but we were not so young as that, never). My family and I had just moved out to the Rockaways, and those first few days in the new apartment, in the new life that we would find ourselves in, were as brain-tryingly hot as they have been in NYC these past few days. August has always been a stormy month for me, and not just for the thunder and lightning that seem to strike my thoughts this time of year.
The sense of the mutable (I have always loved that word) is not something I often encounter when I have a song with a specific point of reference for me. When a memory is displaced, as the thoughts that follow when I hear that Jane is done with Sergio now do, it makes me reconsider remembrance and the power of the subconscious. It is a curious thing; the past is still there, the original connection, not completely disappeared--no--rather, it is as if its potency has been smudged. All the more curious as the associations within the two memories--summertime, the heat, proximity to home, the significance of the just completed conversation, the recognition of an important moment in your life--don't fall into each other, they remain parallel, layered as thoughts, not quite touching, but almost.

an outburst of the soul

So, this unapologetic Yankee is back from a visit from below the Mason-Dixon line. Having enjoyed touring as groupie with the aforementioned band, Mr. McGregor on the magical mystery Southern tour in the Carolinas (North & South). And a fabulous time was had in Columbia, the hometown of Mr. McGregor's bass player, Dennis. The band played one of their best sets ever, and enjoyed a guest appearance by old buddy Vic, keyboardist for The Thirsties (another terrific indie band) at the super music venue, Art Bar. And in the up-and-coming hipster town of Winston-Salem they stumped the crowd at The Garage, offering up a gig the likes of which had apparently never been seen before by the locals ... heh. Both shows were a rip-roaring blast as usual, and the guest appearances by friends and former bandmates added to the trio's already joyful sound and presence on stage.

And thanks to cheap digital cameras and the power of the internet, you can be a part of it now, too ... Enjoy. We all did ... and the hens didn't seem to mind either ...



You can see more from the shows now that Mr. McGregor is Live! on YouTube.

the heirs to the glimmering world

I was lucky enough to see one of my newest favorite bands, The National, this past Sunday at Webster Hall. I found them a few months ago doing a combo Google Search for "Leonard Cohen," "Tom Waits," and "Nick Cave." And up came a link to them. And despite their exquisitely tortured tunes, I don't necessarily see the meta-connection with that trio, having now become more familiar with their work--I'd be more likely to compare them to early mopey-Cure or (possibly) The Smiths, with some Joy Division thrown in, as sung by Nick Cave--I was immediately smitten. And I loved them even more for the crowd they produced--perhaps that had to do with its late Sunday evening start time, but whatever the reason, there were few attitudes, little, if any, ironic posing; their fans seem to be as all-encompassing as their music. And speaking of going out late on a school night, may I also add that, among the wonders of the evening was the fact that they went on only 6 minutes past the scheduled start time. And that has to be a NYC concert first. Bless them.

Originally from Ohio, The National formed in New York in the late 90s, that includes brothers Scott (guitar) and Bryan Devendorf (drums), Aaron (bass) and Bryce Dessner (guitar), and beautifully scruffy vocalist Matt Berninger. And after four albums in just five years (their Self-titled debut, Sad Songs for Dirty Lovers, Cherry Tree, and Alligator), they have compiled quite a fine discography. With a sound that lurks somewhere in between alt-country-rock and British pop and lyrics that float eloquently from metaphorical to wry filth, they somehow manage to avoid the trap of many brooding indie bands by never falling to preachy self-consciousness. And not to ever take themselves too seriously, there is always a catchy up-beat tune (a la "Mr. November" or "Lit Up") to break up the melancholy of their more devastating pieces ("Val Jester," "Slipping Husband").

Live, they pull this emotional back-and-forth off effortlessly, so much so, you might wonder how they manage to contain those moments of primal energy within their dusty fatalism, but they do, beautifully. Happily, the set list included all of my favorites, including three of the four songs above, plus "City Middle," "The Geese of Beverly Road," "Secret Meeting," "Wasp Nest," and "Murder Me Rachel," among others. As the evening wound down, checking my watch in the hopes of getting home before turning into a pumpkin (at my advanced age, the time for that has been getting earlier and earlier), I crossed my fingers and mumble-pleaded for one more song. A specific one song, the one of theirs that has been added to my list of "utterly tragic" loves, "Daughters of the Soho Riots" (that link, and all other song title links, lead to the song online, but if you have OSX Panther, you can download this cool Widget, with "Daughters" plus two other great songs). And bless them again, they ended the evening with a rendition of that world-weary and heartbroken tune that was so beautiful the sentimental dope in me (another side-effect of old age) had tears in her eyes. Sigh.

On a lighter note, my partner in crime that evening, ms. jessimae (the fabulous and lovely wife of Mr. McGregor's bass player/singer) were tickled and amused by the opening act--who we finally decided was, if not entirely serious, was entirely certain of his convictions--Baby Dayliner (aka Ethan Marunas)--in fact, even his fans aren't entirely sure. I find CD Baby's description of him rather interesting (you can listen to more music here, too), if possibly off-target ... "Brooklyn's Baby Dayliner is upbeat, joyous, earnest, and romantic, all at once. He combines Leonard Cohen's songcraft [okay, this I don't see at all, and I can find Cohen in just about anything. - vod], the electronic pulse of New Order, and the jiggy performance style of Al Green." Frankly, I can only giggle at the memory of him on stage; tall and lanky--a cross between Morrissey and Footloose-era Kevin Bacon (with better hair than both ...), we were thinking more Simply Red-ilk. The two of us spent much of his performance peering at each other from the corners of our eyes not sure whether we were actually supposed to be giggling. No, not really sure at all (a line of lyrics "my heart is a homey," [really] had us both practically on the floor, not least of which because of his sincerity at uttering it.), but a few giggles is never a bad thing while waiting for the main act to go on.

in a calm, clear voice

A little levity is in order. I think I'm gonna hurt myself if I keep those long posts up ... Plus it's April Fool's Day, and an atheist holiday, apparently, and that's as good an excuse as any to feel like I deserve the day off to celebrate. So, a short interlude to mention the terrific show I saw last night out at the Wreck Room in "East Williamsburg" (aka Bushwick, don't tell my father ... heh). Super space, with pool tables and those awesome old tin ceiling tiles, though the mics were a little off, which was a shame. In any event, have taken up part-time groupie status for a friend's band, Mr. McGregor, self-described "trailer-punk-trio" (this is what working in publishing does to you ...). And when they're not being rowdy, they do a great backup for the equally wonderful Mouse (aka Susan Margolis), a petite alt-country/folk singer/cellist/bass player with an absolutely incredible voice. Got to see them all perform way-the-heck downtown a couple of weeks ago, the venue was not on top of things, so they got bumped back a few hours (from 8:30 to 1:30 ...), but I was definitely glad to have stuck around for it, if she was exhausted or rushed, it didn't show a bit. As for Mr. McGregor, they're a riot to watch, with a raw and bawdy Southern-Punk-Pop-Rock sound ... and they do a mean version of Heat Miser ...

On the heels of Mr. McGregor was Candy from Strangers a loud and fun band from San Francisco, though my first guess would have been LA, since the adorable and formidable lead singer Ruby Jordan reminded me of a cross between Exene Cervenka (formerly of X) and Johnette Napolitano (Concrete Blonde).

Good stuff all around. Phew. That was easy ...

for everything you have missed

I have had to add "music" to my blog's description, since, really, there is no way for me to get away from it. I thought at first that I would simply add "writing," because it is sometimes the lyrics, more than the tune, that capture you--there are so many moments in life I can find a chorus for. But, I will sit with "music" for now, since it has found me again. I went to see an old friend perform tonight (a fellow Astorian, so perhaps that will be another way I tie this all in--ah, connections). I have been slowly touching on all the things I let go in my past life. Many old friends. Myself. I have written a little about the effect of this before. There are songs that can take you out of time in such an instant that it is physical. I have about 16,000 songs in my iTunes Library. Many of them not placed by me. Hundreds of the ones I would call "mine" are not there, but I am finding them again, slowly. Because I let go of music for a long time; and though I would find a great tune now and then, I mostly did only to share it, then give it away. I realize I've spent so many years listening to someone else's soundtrack that I've been unable to hear my own--and unfortunately, that's not as bad a metaphor as it seems, it's quite literal. And no, I do not say that to play on tragedy. None of that. There was life and love and memory in all of that listening. So many songs the reason behind the combination; their passion and meaning perhaps why it remained longer than should have been allowed (connections). Now to put all those years into a playlist.

The person who performed tonight was introduced to me by a friend, and it was through our love of Cohen that we realized each other's existence. My friend was at first a co-worker, so there is the publishing angle, for all of you keeping track ... the pleasure of this evening began with snippets of Cohen (and Neil Young ... heh) during the set up, and the rest of the night, equally sublime. I have the new CD here and will listen, but his first, "Her Sacred Status, My Militant Needs," after five years, is still one that I can turn to. And while I have not yet been graced with a live performance of the following, this is indeed, in word and chord (with its beautiful guitar), one of the songs that has been replayed, over and over, to get me through the days. Ladies and Gentlemen ... Mr. Richard McGraw ...

Click on: "A Poem/Confession" to begin ...

______________
Fabulous:
The History of Music, 1965-2004, according to We Hate You and Your Horrendous Taste in Everything

i wish i was in new orleans

... I can see it in my dreams
arm-in-arm down Burgundy
a bottle and my friends and me
...
tenor saxophone calling me home
and I can hear the band begin
"When the Saints Go Marching In"
...
I'll drink you under the table
...
New Orleans, I'll be there
...

Some Tom Waits to celebrate Fat Tuesday ... (I'll probably be sued for posting that many lines of lyrics ... but for a good cause, though ... heh).


[Mardi Gras, 1950-something, that's Grandpa with the glasses behind the bar]

A little decadence goes a long way in healing (trust me).

Mardis Gras History & Timeline
Mardis Gras 2006--Official Site
Mardis Gras Inc.
Mardis Gras Countdown
Mardis Gras Central

Cheers, New Orleans.