PopMatters

Blue Train

I took some good advice I received and decided to play some of MY music to my kids. Usually the kids insist KIDS MUSIC... nursery rhymes, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Mary Poppins, The Sound of Music etc. We were taking a morning drive to Wolf Haven International, Washington state sanctuary for wolves. (Very cool by the way... Wolves move very differently than dogs. Their sense of smell is 100 greater than ours. They don't howl at the moon. That just happens to be the time of month when they are most active. Or something like that!) Anyway, I put on Blue Train by John Coltrane.


Unfortunately (or fortunately), my 2-year old fell asleep almost instantly. My 5-year old managed to make it through the whole album without asking to change it. I tried to point out the various instruments that were soloing at any given moment. "Do you hear the drums? How about that trumpet? Do you know what instrument that is?" I suppose a 5-year old liking jazz is a lot to ask for. However, I am forever imprinted on Barry Manilow and Mac Davis based on years of exposure from 8-track tapes!


"Oh Mandy! You came and you gave without takin' But I sent you away, oh Mandy! You kissed me and stopped me from shakin' And I neeeeeeeeeeeed youuuuuuuuuuuuuuu..."


John Coltrane: Blue Train ---Ink Blot Magazine

The Walkmen

Bows And Arrows

Down Beat's Jazz 101

the koan explodes
like an atom bomb in my head
the sound of one hand clapping
the gateless gate
two hours of space

The ring is mine! It's mine! MINE, I TELL YOU! My PRECIOUS!

solitude
release the mind into nothingness
empty as a perforated cup
wild flowers close their petals at night
to the sounds of billie holiday
and ice clinking in a glass
midori spills in strange places
the tab is paid as doors are locked
silent watching streetlights

back to the basement
sitting still like a lotus
legs crossed
left foot on right thigh
right foot on left thigh
spine straight in a line
left hand over right
making an oval with the thumbs
floating over the navel
and wait for nothing

um... ouch

Iggy and the Stooges, 1970

I am the passenger
And I ride and I ride
I ride through the city’s backside
I see the stars come out of the sky
Yeah, they’re bright in a hollow sky
You know it looks so good tonight
I am the passenger
I stay under glass
I look through my window so bright
I see the stars come out tonight
I see the bright and hollow sky
Over the city’s a rip in the sky
And everything looks good tonight
Singin’ la la la la la-la-la la
La la la la la-la-la la
La la la la la-la-la la la-la
Get into the car
We’ll be the passenger
We’ll ride through the city tonight
See the city’s ripped insides
We’ll see the bright and hollow sky
We’ll see the stars that shine so bright
The sky was made for us tonight
Oh the passenger
How how he rides
Oh the passenger
He rides and he rides
He looks through his window
What does he see?
He sees the bright and hollow sky
He see the stars come out tonight
He sees the city’s ripped backsides
He sees the winding ocean drive
And everything was made for you and me
All of it was made for you and me
’cause it just belongs to you and me
So let’s take a ride and see what’s mine
Singing...
Oh, the passenger
He rides and he rides
He sees things from under glass
He looks through his window’s eye
He sees the things he knows are his
He sees the bright and hollow sky
He sees the city asleep at night
He sees the stars are out tonight
And all of it is yours and mine
And all of it is yours and mine
Oh, let’s ride and ride and ride and ride...
Singing...

- Iggy Pop

IN MY CRAFT OR SULLEN ART

In my craft or sullen art
Exercised in the still night
When only the moon rages
And the lovers lie abed
With all their griefs in their arms,
I labour by singing light
Not for ambition or bread
Or the strut and trade of charms
On the ivory stages
But for the common wages
Of their most secret heart.

Not for the proud man apart
From the raging moon I write
On these spindrift pages
Nor for the towering dead
With their nightingales and psalms
But for the lovers, their arms
Round the griefs of the ages,
Who pay no praise or wages
Nor heed my craft or art.

- Dylan Thomas

drink up, baby, stay up all night
the things you could do, you won't but you might
the potential you'll be, that you'll never see
the promises you'll only make

drink up with me now and forget all about the pressure of days
do what I say and I'll make you okay and drive them away
the images stuck in your head

people you've been before that you don't want around anymore
that push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

drink up, baby, look at the stars
I'll kiss you again between the bars where I'm seeing you
there with your hands in the air, waiting to finally be caught

drink up one more time and I'll make you mine
keep you apart deep in my heart separate from the rest
where I like you the best and keep the things you forgot

the people you've been before that you don't want around anymore
that push and shove and won't bend to your will
I'll keep them still

- Elliot Smith

Chinese character for "nothing"

driving down the sun
smell the fumes on the blacktop
to run myself into the pavement
or keep it on the road another hour

to mark a circle in space
this is where i am at
but who am i?
and what time is it?
skipping breakfast running late
drinking from a karma storage device
10 minutes of superstring theory
surrealist compliment generator
to short-circuit all logic
and find her in many realms
hiking between the nothingness

to have a mill to grind
the circle like a tesla coil
to read the electrical arc of her mind
699 steps between the clouds + the earth
displaced heated + ionized
jacob's ladder climbing spark gap
she is at the end + the beginning
the first few seconds before a switch is thrown
my questions are like answers
699 steps again + again + again

Attempted my first enso art yesterday. Out on the back deck with my two daughters. They were kind enough to share their watercolor set with me. These two are my favorites out of the bunch.

3 days

Sounds on the drive down to Stump Town after work Friday night

1. And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead "Worlds Apart"
2. Beck "Guero"

Frank, his wife Ava and I got an early start on a Columbia River Gorge hike Saturday morning. One stop for for scones, an old-fashioned chocolate donut and a 20 oz (sorry, Venti) White Chocolate Mocha and we were off. Horsetail Creek-Oneonta Creek Loop...only 2.7 miles but I did stop to smell the purple flowers [prettius flowericus], stick my arms under Horsetail Falls, and push on the moss covered rocks like they were pillows. Next time, I want to plan ahead to get soaked so I can scramble up the cracks of the Oneonta Gorge itself. Looked like so much fun!

Photo by Andrew Beckham

Lunch:
LUCKY LABRADOR BREWING COMPANY note cool dog logo and dog friendly atmosphere... Frank and I sat outside surrounded by sniffing, barking, staring dogs checking each other out. I thought it was fun but I think Frank really was in dog heaven. A future dog owner who just hasn't fixed the holes in his fence yet!

Powells Books on Hawthorne found one book I was looking for (Essential Zen by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Tensho David Schneider) and one I was not (The Little Zen Companion by David Schiller). Favorite quotes so far from the latter:

"If you have to ask what jazz is, you'll never know" - Louis Armstrong

and

"Fundamentally the marksman aims at himself." - Zen in the Art of Archery

Saturday evening:
OH-MY-GOD!

Kung Fu Hustle - a true mind-blower!

"Imagine a film in which Jackie Chan and Buster Keaton meet Quentin Tarantino and Bugs Bunny. Yes. That describes it nicely." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

"A martial arts film that's gloriously nonsensical and kickass deflationary (the Chinese title is simply Kung Fu)... The movie plays with accelerated action as much as any since the advent of sound. Chow also dotes on CGI mutations, subjecting body shapes, weather patterns, and space itself to a variety of eccentric shifts. Meanwhile, the characters vent their proscenium-bending complaints: 'It's tiring being tough!' 'How come every time you get hurt you recover so fast?'... The indescribable assortment of space-warping, shape-shifting, gravity-juggling shenanigans are worthy of the Elder splash panels in early Mad or the digital effects in Michael Snow's *Corpus Callosum... The fights were choreographed by master Yuen Wo Ping and, escalating from straightforward kick-punch-and-parry through aerial acrobatics to delirious CGI freestyle, they are as spectacular as they are laughable... Kung Fu Hustle is a kung fu parody that's also a terrific kung fu movie. " - J. Hoberman, Village Voice

Sounds on sunday drive home:

1. Madeleine Peyroux "Dreamland" - an eclectic mix of blues and jazz and anything else that she feels like wrapping her beautiful voice around - she's coming to the Chateau Ste. Michelle Winery September 17th... very tempting.
2. New Pornographers "Electric Version" - best band since the Bay City Rollers
3. Jeff Buckley "Grace" - I have to listen to this in short spurts - too depressing otherwise

Coffee stop on the way north, picked up two postcards:

A train in the street, October 22, 1895


Albert Einstein and daughter Margot, New York World's Fair, 1939

If you try you'll miss it

What is wrong? What is right? What is left?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Joshu asked Nansen, "What is the Way?"

泉云、平常心是道。

"Ordinary mind is the Way," Nansen replied

.州云、還可趣向否。

"Shall I try to seek after it?" Joshu asked.

泉云、擬向即乖。

"If you try for it, you will become separated from it," responded Nansen.

州云、不擬爭知是道。

"How can I know the Way unless I try for it?" persisted Joshu.

泉云、道不屬知、不屬不知。

Nansen said, "The Way is not a matter of knowing or not knowing.

知是妄覺、不知是無記。

Knowing is delusion; not knowing is confusion.

若眞達不擬之道、猶如太虚廓然洞豁。

When you have really reached the true Way beyond doubt, you will find it as vast and boundless as outer space.

豈可強是非也。

How can it be talked about on the level of right and wrong?"

州於言下頓悟。

With these words, Joshu came to a sudden realization.

---------------------------------------------------------------

Mumon's Verse

The spring flowers, the autumn moon;

Summer breezes, winter snow.

If useless things do not clutter your mind,

You have the best days of your life.

THE GATELESS GATE - Chapter 19. Nansen's Ordinary Mind is the Way

Jack Kerouac, New York City, 1959

This cool cool cool cool cool postcard showed up in the mail today.... from my Dean Moriarty of the South. (Thanks!)

"He was like the cyberchrist, spreading his arms for humanity..."

Ordered this ring for myself last night... right hand, ring finger.

Ring of Barahir
Heirloom of the House of Isildur
"For this ring was like to twin serpents, whose eyes were emeralds, and their heads met beneath a crown of golden flowers, that the one upheld and the other devoured"
The Silmarillion: "Of Beren and Luthien"

I think I am having a bad hair month. Is that possible?
Is there some sort of record I should be shooting for?

"A brushed circle - the enso - is a traditional Zen calligraphic motif. It can mean many things: enlightenment, the present, completion... Just as one Zen philosophical tenet would be nowness, one important Zen aesthetic bias would be space. Sometimes you need to mark a point in space."
Powells Books - Essential Zen by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Tensho David Schneider

Enso - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.
e. e. cummings

lost and found
to laugh and to cry
move from day to night
the hours drift by
clouds and mr blue sky
serendipity approved by the usda
high fidelity love and death
and the space in between
ok computer karma police
matthew sweet altered beast
snuffing a candle out
with my fingers and spit
god not again


strangers and friends
hello and there she goes
lost in translation
the moments before goodbye
oregon chai
coffee and doubt and a daylight bombing raid
airports and moving parts
staying where you are at
stormy weather
passion in black ink
the cats on my bed
blocking my feet

Radiohead - Airbag

In the next world war
in a jack knifed juggernaut,
I am born again.

In the neon sign,
scrolling up and down,
I am born again.

In an interstellar burst,
I am back to save the universe.

In a deep deep sleep,
of the innocent,
I am born again.

In a fast German car,
I'm amazed that I survived,
an airbag saved my life.

In an interstellar burst,
I am back to save the universe.

In an interstellar burst,
I am back to save the universe.

In an interstellar burst,
I am back to save the universe.


Radiohead - Karma Police

Karma police
arrest this man,
he talks in maths,
he buzzes like a fridge,
he's like a detuned radio.

Karma police
arrest this girl,
her Hitler hairdo
is making me feel ill
and we have crashed her party.

This is what you get,
this is what you get,
this is what you get,
when you mess with us.

Karma police
I've given all I can,
it's not enough,
I've given all I can
but we're still on the payroll.

This is what you get,
this is what you get,
this is what you get,
when you mess with us.

For a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself.
Phew, for a minute there,
I lost myself, I lost myself.

For a minute there
I lost myself, I lost myself.
Phew, for a minute there,
I lost myself, I lost myself.

one-hundred-thirty-two-miles-per-hour
there's you and me and everyone we know
a hurricane emily of spill your guts
and have another drink
taping my third eye
on the back steps of frank's house
i have no answers
only questions and symbols
clouds change their face as they
move across the sky highway
airports have beginnings and endings
water fills a cup and drains from a gutter
from the deep end everything is above your head

music for airports
the crackles you hear in the silent parts

"Who are you an agent for?"

Music for Airports liner notes

beer & lamentations
hanging out with the
desolation angels in my head
a weekend in Havana
raising the Kursk of me

baptizing myself under the water
sinking but still breathing
waiting to hit bottom
a shell pounded by liquid movements
the deep end is living all over me


to surface in a hail of bubbles
if i can breathe
i can float

Days like this, I don't know what to do with myself
All day and all night
I wander the halls along the walls and under my breath
I say to myself
I need fuel to take flight

And there's too much going on
But it's calm under the waves, in the blue of my oblivion
Under the waves in the blue of my oblivion

Is that why they call me a sullen girl, sullen girl
They don't know I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea
But he washed me shore and he took my pearl
And left an empty shell of me

And there's too much going on
But it's calm under the waves in the blue of my oblivion
Under the waves in the blue of my oblivion
Under the waves in the blue of my oblivion
It's calm under the waves in the blue of my oblivion



Fiona Apple - Sullen Girl

Sounds:

Paul Young - "The Secret of Association"

Urge Overkill - "The Supersonic Storybook" - "The Candidate" is the greatest song about a Robert Redford movie EVER...

Beck - "Guero"

Visions:

Pushing Gin - The foppish weirdo who wants you to drink Tanqueray.

Powells.com Interviews - Nick Hornby

Salon.com Arts & Entertainment Where no TV show has gone before: "With its hot, androgynous heroine leading the remnants of humanity against evil, God-fearing robots, 'Battlestar Galactica' is boldly re-creating sci-fi TV."

Siunin Wong Fei-hung tsi titmalau (aka Iron Monkey) (1993)

Plugs for Graphic Novels:

Planetary: All Over the World and Other Stories by Warren Ellis

Sin City - The Hard Goodbye -- 2nd Edition (Frank Miller's Sin City #01) by Frank Miller

Transmetropolitan: Back on the Street by Warren Ellis

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill

Top Ten: Volume 1 by Alan Moore

Indian Motorcycle - America's First Motorcycle












The VintageWeb Classic Cars Picture Archive: Motorcycles







Triumph Motorcycles - "It wouldn't be so bad if it was another woman, at least I could compete."



"I would want this as my last motorcycle. A beauty to die with. A show stopper..."
- GYPSY MOTORCYCLES





Euro Spares - Graphics Page #2

















Wisconsin Historical Images Search Results

vermouth + gin
bourbon + sin
hammer + tin
a voice without a soul
speaking of gravity + physics
things fall apart
if you pull hard enough

nuclear flower pot

comfortably numb with
my head against a wall

Motorcycle Hall of Fame Museum - 1953 Triumph Thunderbird

"...A hardtop. With a decent engine. And make sure it's got a big trunk!"

Sin City - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Frank Miller's SIN CITY - The Official DVD Website

ouroboros

ready to tanqueray?
poison for your pain
this is no dream
the end is the beginning
snake devouring itself
bittersweet symphony

"One Martini is not enough. Two Martinis is too much. Three Martinis is not enough."

- origin unknown

strings
the ties that bind
to burn in anger
set the world on fire
semblance to resemblance
there and back again
etching out each letter
dust settles under pressure
after slipping through fingers

from the book "Hurricane" by David Wiesner...

first it giveth
then it tanqueray

rub off coats of old paint
unveil the painting from itself
to survive stand out endure
as an object of life
god’s withdrawal
a monk of why
a full copernican revolution
creating the strongest emotion
my mind is capable of feeling
i will never understand it
to turn away betray
doesn’t the sun revolve around us?
terrain of the unmeasurable
a view of the unpresentable
first to giveth and then to taketh away?

cracks in the oil paint
pigment fades on peeling flakes
self-preservation
find my substrate

Stick a toothpick in it, it's done...