Island of Noise

Fly silly seabird
No dreams can possess you
No voices can blame you
For sun on your wings
My gentle relations
Have names they must call me
For loving the freedom
Of all flying things
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach out of cry

I came to the city
And lived like old Crusoe
On an island of noise
In a cobblestone sea
And the beaches were concrete
And the stars paid a light bill
And the blossoms hung false
On their store window trees
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach out of cry

Out of the city
And down to the seaside
To sun on my shoulders
And wind in my hair
But sandcastles crumble
And hunger is human
And humans are hungry
For worlds they can't share
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach out of cry

I call to a seagull
Who dives to the waters
And catches his silver-fine
Dinner alone
Crying where are the footprints
That danced on these beaches
And the hands that cast wishes
That sunk like a stone
My dreams with the seagulls fly
Out of reach Out of cry

JM (1968)

Exercise Plan

I was bemoaning the fact that I can't hire someone to exercise for me.

The ideal would be a temporary mind swap. My contractor would go to the gym in my body and exercise for me, and I'd be in his body reading a book. Afterward, I'd be healthier and he'd be smarter.

Woot!

In It was linked directly from the lead RealClimate story yesterday, and a nice one it is indeed. Nice to know Ray is getting so much attention, and a bit daunting to know I am.

Ray linked to my Bambi vs Godzilla posting, which is really just a quote from David Mamet.

No Shortcut to Freedom

OK, it's painfully sappy in that pedestrian folksinger way, but true enough just the same:

Chorus:
One blue sky above us
One ocean lapping all our shore
One earth so green and round
Who could ask for more

And because I love you
I'll give it one more try
To show my rainbow race
It's too soon to die.

1.
Some folks want to be like an ostrich,
Bury their heads in the sand.
Some hope that plastic dreams
Can unclench all those greedy hands.

2.
Some hope to take the easy way:
Poisons, bombs. They think we need 'em.
Don't you know you can't kill all the unbelievers?
There's no shortcut to freedom.

(Repeat chorus)

3.
Go tell all the little children.
Tell all the mothers and fathers too.
Now's our last chance to learn to share
What's been given to me and you.

(Repeat chorus one and a half times)

- PS (1967)

Yinglish

The most realistic glossary of Yiddish words commonly used in English that I have seen is under your nose in this clicky thing, what, you never saw a computer before?

Homage a M Cohen

So in honor of the explicitly Cohenesque recent discovery in my old diaries, I thought it would be churlish to pass up the opportunity to go see a Leonard Cohen tribute concert this weekend.

Irene and I and friend Linda accordingly trucked ourselves out to beautiful downtown Marble Falls (a fairly remote town but it has a nice downtown, a bit tarted up for the tourist trade which has its plusses and minuses) where we took in a marvelous show put on by the astonishing (and amazingly eclectic) group Strings Attached. It was among the best concert experiences of my life. They managed not only to present the poetry but to make a musically coherent and varied experience out of, let's face it, LC's perpetual droning. Amusingly it was a flawless performance except for bobbling the lyrics of the one hit song, you know the one, the one with the garbage and the flowers.

I also enjoyed the random reference to cooolllld snoooowy Monntreal in the stage patter; you could almost hear the shivering. It was T-shirt weather in Central Texas yesterday.

They were brilliant. Watch out especially for the astonishing young vocalist Molly Venter.

Some of us (names are embargoed) were reduced to tears at various points during the show. I am eagerly awaiting release of the recording of the very performance we attended.

I am now a Will Taylor/Strings Attached fan for life. (They also have done a Led Zepellin tribute! A Paul Simon tribute is coming up and I can hardly wait for it.)

Austin really lives up to its billing as the music capital of the world and I find it a great joy and privilege to live here.

Hallelujah

Now I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew her
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, and she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

You say I took the name in vain
I don't even know the name
But if I did, well really, what's it to you?
There's a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn't matter which you heard
The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

I did my best, it wasn't much
I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch
I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
And even though
It all went wrong
I'll stand before the Lord of Song
With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

-my homeboy, LC of course

On Moving South

Be flexible! cries the pragmatist within me - why can't you write your diary on this steno notebook passed through an iron grill of a half-closed drugstore on Christmas night, a Saturday, this fuckless bicentennial year.

Be poetic! cries my muse, wondering at the instant add water and stir summer into which I have suddenly been propelled, writing weak poetry or is it strong prose propped up against a garbage bin under the shade of a street lamp flooded palm tree.

Be with me! cries my disease, but she whom it addresses cannot hear.

Be still! cries the December summer wind.

- mt, Christmas 1976, Gainesville FL

Asian Restaurant in Texas

Spotted in a mini-mall outside San Antonio, the Aw Dang Asian Restaurant...