Killer Kitties

I spent a few hours today in Brussels, perusing the vinyl shops that are to be found in this mosaic city that no one can really put a finger on about liking or not. Regardless, I got some real gems today that I am sure I will be writing about in the near future.

However, for this post, it is what it is not that is what it is that is what I am interested in, namely the paradox of image and sound. The disjunct between perception and reality on one level and the reality of perception on the other.

I did purchase Led Zeppelin's "Presence" today at the Juke Box Shop on Anspach Blvd. in Brussels, but the video that was in my mind with LZ could not be more different, or could it?

"Presence" was the turning point, down turn or turn off point for legions of Zeppelin fans around the globe. It just didn't make sense as to how the creators of a stairway leading to the heavens of rock or the physical graffiti of a generation could create this? It was a conundrum and enigma for many, enough so to signal the prophetic Swan Song fall of Icarus from scaling the heights of the heavens with his waxen wings of glorified human ego. The higher they fly, the faster they fall...

The dynamics of "Presence" notwithstanding, one of the most "serious" sounding tracks from Zeppelin could arguably be the "Immigrant Song" from Led Zeppelin III. It deals with the tragically-laced history of the Norseman Vikings coming southwards, leaving a trail of pillage and rapacious destruction in their wake. The second-most "serious" song might be "Kashmir" from Physical Graffiti, though incorrectly cited by Damone in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" as the second side of Led Zeppelin IV (also known as Zoso or "Symbols" on which it is not).

However, there is a video out there that makes me smile, irrespective of the source, and the "seriousness" of the content, kittens from Valhalla just make me laugh out loud. Sometimes taking the unfamiliar, filtered through the familiar and then re-filtered through the unfamiliar to the mundane can have quite an effect that is something more than mockery and can just be good fun, such as the Viking Kittens.

LIfe on Mars?

Without a doubt, one of the best live music performances I have ever seen was David Bowie for his Sound+Vision tour at the Frank Erwin Center in Austin. It was one of those situations where I decided to go about 30 minutes before the show, walked up to the arena, no ticket in hand and purchased one from one of the entrepreneurs who are wont to be found in front of such events, and I took advantage of their sense of emporium skills and bought an incredible 3rd-row floor ticket to see Bowie.

At the time, 1991-2, the acoustics of the Erwin were reprehensible at best, but to be about 20 feet from Bowie was worth every nails-on-the-chalkboard miscue of the PA system, or lack thereof. I knew that I was truly in the presence of musical genius, which Bowie is.

However, as with many things in life, it is often much later that we find out the details of events and the oddities of Space and Time begin to show through in Low moments or again in epiphanies and revelations.

What struck me so odd of all about Bowie, someone whose work I have admired for many, many years, is that I didn't even look into him until somewhat recently. I just liked Bowie. I knew that the curious eye discrepancy was due to a youthful encounter, disfiguring his vision for life, though probably enhancing his quest for sound as well.

But, only quite recently did I look up the "meaning" of "Life on Mars" and found that it is somewhat of an Alice in Wonderland perspective of a young girl listening to the news. Now, the song makes perfect sense. Having a daughter of my own who is beginning to be quite aware of the world around her, and its imperfections, the detail of what the devil this song was about became crystal clear, like a diamond bullet through the forehead, if you will.

The world is a mysterious place and the world of adults is quite as mysterious for children as it is vice versa for adults to remember the world of our youth. J.D. Salinger's "Nine Stories" is akin to Beethoven's Ninth (as interpreted in the movie Immortal Beloved) of bringing this troubled connection of youthful innocence and adult folly into focus.

Bowie's "Life on Mars" does so likewise, and suddenly a song took on a whole new meaning for me.

Pondering Poi Dog Pondering

If you have not yourself purchased, received, or dreamed of receiving a digital-reproduced delivery of LP's to your computer, then, well, perhaps you are quite a bit younger than I am. However, a couple years ago I was given a turntable apparatus that could translate the LP to digital and I was over the moon, so to speak. Unfortunately, there was a discrepancy  between my computer and the register of the LP in question, and for some reason, I could not connect my computer to the phonograph, for a couple of years.

In the meantime, I have purchased a new laptop after more than a decade of devoted service, and low and behold, the new laptop supports my LP-conversion program.

And, I am in heaven.

I have been listening non-stop to John Denver, Kiss, Rush, Pink Floyd, Blondie, ZZ Top, Marty Robbins, Bach, Manfred Mann, King Crimson, and a whole host of others that defies explanation.

In short, what can we say about the LP?

First and foremost, it calls for patience, something that for sure is a lost art/virtue. We want it now, and we want it NOW. Not a few seconds ago, but NOW!!!

Yikes.

And, it suggests imperfection. How many times did I have to "persuade" the needle to move forward in all of these LP's? Quite often. And, it made me realize how intolerant we have become with regards to  reproduction of sound and entertainment. We want everything perfect. We want life to be perfect.

Wake Up.

Life is not Perfect.

Listening to Kiss Alive II, it is not perfect.

Pondering Poi Dog Pondering, I was moved to wonder about their existence still. I have their eponymous LP here and have been listening to them and remember so much. Liberty Lunch and Poi Dog Pondering defined the end of the 80's and beginning of the 90's in Austin.

So, I looked them up and found this video from that time period. If I am not mistaken, and I am about 90% certain if not more that I am the blonde guy with the red shirt and god-forbid-white shorts in the video as I am pretty sure I remember being there that day for this recording as I was a bit of a Poi Dog junkie at the time and followed them quite closely. I used to be in many places in Austin for "events" and am pretty sure that is me, and yes, I did once possess such white shorts,... the horror, the horror.

But, the fact of the matter is is that there is nothing better than just living the moment, as this video tries to portray. These were times in Austin well before SXSW was even an event to be known.

Not to knock that as it is great that Austin founds its way upon the map of discovery, but this video reminds me of the humble roots it used to have, or like Gotye, like someone I used to know.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XC4Vu1hofU

enjoy.

Walken the Line

There is a curious attraction to the unattractiveness of Christopher Walken that to me defines a nation.

Mr. Walken is beyond talented and can make the best of us winch when it comes to being creeped out. And yet, there is an strikingly familiar and comforting feeling when we see him. It is almost like a constant of Chaos in the storm of Chaos.

Something that CW, if I may, inserts into his movies is an element of dance, as he is, not unlike many of his contemporaries and those before him in showbiz, multi-talented and singing and dancing is one of his clauses that he chooses to include into various manifestations, not to mention an off-Broadway rendition of the "The Dead," which ironically I did not see, though another did, and Walken apparently shined in that twist of Dedalus as well.

Why am I thinking, then, of this video right now, tonight?

I do not know.

But, for some reason, it was so appropriate. Maybe it is for you as well, your...weapon of choice.

Hope Come Over Me

A few months ago I purchased Moby's most recent CD called "Destroyed" in a very cool CD and Vinyl store in Brussels, which has a surprisingly large number of these types of shops interspersed throughout the more touristy sections of the old center of town. Yet, that is what is curious about Brussels, one minute "huh?" the next minute "wow," and so it goes. Ad nauseum.

To put it bluntly, the first time that I listened to "Destroyed," I was less than impressed, in fact, rather disappointed. However, I let is sit idle for a couple of months, intrigued by the story behind the CD, but not yet ready to give it another chance. In the liner notes, Moby says that the majority of the songs were written in or about cities after hours, when he felt like he was the only one up, or even alive. Apparently he has bouts of insomnia while on tour, and these songs were the voices of those cavernous cities at night. As I said, intrigued, but hard to get the bitter out of my mouth.

When I returned recently from the US, however, I began listening to the CD with a different attention, not one that was attached to what I knew about Moby, but rather one that was just simply listening. In the past week, it would not be an exaggeration to say that I have now listened to "Destroyed" well over a dozen times in its entirety and I have learned to appreciate the nuances that I skimmed over the first time. Sometimes, we just need to put the CD or book down, or as Robert Pirsig wrote in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, whatever it is that has us stuck. I was stuck on not liking "Destroyed."

While listening to it yet again this morning as I was contemplating the Huxley articles I have been reading, I decided to do a bit of digging on Moby. I knew that he had picked his nickname from the supposed kinship to Herman Melville, the august American autodidactic author of Moby-Dick, and that he was an extreme vegan and ardent animal rights activist as well as a believer of Christ's divinity, though is in direct opposition, much like Kierkegaard was, with the majority of those calling themselves Christian, though who like charity and mercy. This much I knew. I also have several of Moby's CD's including some obscure tracks cut well before he was the emperor of sampling.

And then, something rather odd happened. I was looking up information about "Play," his 1999/2000 CD which I bought about that time as well, and that jettisoned him into Stardom with 10 million copies sold after relative obscurity for a decade. And, on the track that I remember hearing for the first time on the radio in Austin, "South Side," I saw that Gwen Stefani of No Doubt was the back-up vocalist. Huh? Wow. I have listened to that song perhaps well over a hundred times and never realized that it was her on back-up. Well, had I ever seen the self-parodying, campy video, which I have posted below, this would not have been a question. It is kind of hard to miss that it is GWEN and MOBY in flashing lights, literally.

Now, this is no revelation worth calling upon the heavens for in epiphanic bliss, but it just goes to show how little attention we can pay sometimes to something that is right in front of us. The genius (and I don't use that word lightly, nor did he) of Huxley is that he takes the minutiae of life, that which is right in front of us, and brings it to our attention, and it is hard not to feel the one-handed clap of realization smack our forehead, wondering if indeed, "wow, I've could have had that V-8" after all. The Devil is in the Details it is said, and so is a whole other Universe of discovery, usually right in our own backyard, so to speak, if we have our eyes wide open.

Amazing Grace

About six years ago, I had the sweet pleasure of having lunch with perhaps one of the most remarkable people I may ever meet in my life, Judy Collins.

For most, Judy Collins is the voice of the ballad, Amazing Grace, and her version has become the standard against which all others are measured. She is the gold standard of Grace. Often, as has been the case with other “famous” people I have met, that standard is merely fools’ gold, or at best a veneer of gold-plated appearance. However, if you ever have the blessed opportunity to meet her, you will see that there is no pretense, nor filter in place.

This song has become a staple for many occasions and will be heard across most Anglo-speaking countries tomorrow under the auspices of St. Patrick’s Day when mostly Americans will flock to Irish-styled Pubs with English names, and listen to Scottish Pipes and Drums play “Amazing Grace.”

Yet, the song itself was written by John Newton, a former slave trader, who was making amends for the atrocities of the profession that he had helped flourish. The agenbite of inwit, or re-morse of conscience, again has lead to one of the greatest hymns in the history of the English language. From what can be considered one of the worst desecrations of humanity, slavery, comes something so incredibly beautiful and moving, that it almost shocking to think of the hand that penned it.

That is the mystical power of Time though, that what may at one point be the seemingly absolute worst moment in the history of either our lives, or the history of humankind, as a direct result, over Time, something great may come of it. The Greeks did not ask if one was “happy” at any given Time, because one cannot measure true happiness, or eu-daimonia (literally, good spirited), by a single moment, but by the sum total of our lives, which, unfortunately, if you do the math, means after our deaths. In other words, the Pursuit of Happiness, is futility in praxis, for the results, we will not know in this lifetime, for a pursuit is ongoing, unto Death.

My sister worked with the acclaimed film Director Terrence Malick for his award-winning movie, The Tree of Life, which pits the world of Grace and the Mother against the world of Nature and the Father within the heart of the Son, who is a combination of the two. Leibniz, an 18th Mathematician and Logician, as well as co-inventor of the Calculus and who was a Philosopher and Ethical Thinker (in the days when dallying in a variety of things won you praise, not scorn and derision as in today’s hyper-specialized world), was greatly interested in the concept of Theodicy, or the presence of Evil in a world created at the hands of a Perfect God. How is it possible? Leibniz believed that we live in the “best of all possible worlds”  and the key element is Love, and Love over Time. For, Leibniz wrote about the world of Grace and the world of Nature and the struggle, which was played out between them, through Love.

Our world is full of Grace in every day life, in the small, simple pleasures, but, it is also full of the brute force of Nature, in Death and in tragedy. It is how we combine the two, and how we will find the elegance of Grace in the awesome power of Nature’s indifference that will determine us, it will make us who we are. And, it is a process. From being blind, one can see.

I could not find this on Youtube, but here is an Amazing a capella rendition with lyrics. Thank you, Ms. Collins

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1465794/amazing_grace_judy_collins_and_the_choir/ 

I Touch Roses

Who wrote the Book of Love?

Going through some old CD's, I came across Book of Love recently. I remember listening to this as a cassette tape while living in The Woodlands in the summer of 1987 when I was down there training for swimming, trying to decide if I would in fact pursue a swimming career in college. We would swim for about 3 hours each morning, then again for 2-3 more in the murky Houston humidity. In between, I would go back to the home that I was staying at and put on my Walkman II (yes, a real one) and listen to a few cassettes that I had including this, Depeche Mode's Black Celebration, Kiss Alive II, Rush, Led Zepplin, and various random mixes that I had made, as if that was not random enough.

I never had the 45 of this song, but when I stumbled across the CD, then looked it up, thinking about my cassette, it was a natural progression to the 45 I guess.

That summer changed a lot for me, and is the subject of a novel I am currently revising. 25 years later, much has transpired, but the Book of Love still makes me smile. Like bands such as the Art of Noise and the Eurythmics, there is just something so patently 80s in all its quirkiness that does make one wonder that we ever made it through them.