Stop Blowing Holes in My Ship!!!

From Archetypes to À'rebours

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:08:07 GMT

Have been meaning to do this for months...

...post what I find as I find it along the way.

A map.

So much has already gone by.
For that, I will just have to list where I've already been.
And recreate the sequencing as best I can, if after the fact it seems important to do so.

Because one thing always leads to another.
I discover/learn/notice something and that discovery makes something else make sense.

Like doing a jigsaw puzzle. But completely in my mind.

At first I was reluctant to record the process.
Just flights of fancy, mine. No substance. No sense.
Just nonsense.

But the pieces that I was finding kept making sense.
Again and again it happened.
And each time I would think to start mapping it.
And each time I would think of what had gone before.
How I should have been writing it down all along.
And then not write it down.

A cartographer that works with invisible ink is more than less than unhelpful.

So, with blue/black ink in my pen, I'll begin.
Ici.
......................................................................

Hache marks on today's trees.
My breadcrumb trail into the thicket.
(I will return later to lay the connecting threads.)

But these breadcrumbs cannot be eaten, carried off, or blown away.
For I have written them down!
................................................

• Archetypes found.
• Archetypes NOT found (possibly more important).
• Oscar Wilde (again).
• The Picture of Dorian Gray.
• À rebours.

À rebours!
Mon Dieu! C'est encroyable! Vraiment? Oui.
And it stunned me.

And it keeps happening.
I send myself searching, today I started at wikipedia: 'archetypes'.
I follow anything that catches my attention. I shamble, I trip, I waste scads of time.
But sometimes, amazingly, a glass wall smacks me upside the head, and I fall onto treasure!
Something about the finding of what can't be found.
"À'rebours" (book).

Here another trail opens up: 'The Libertine'

• Against Nature (translated title of book).
• Huysmans (author of book).
• Mr. Huysmans (portrait painter, film, 'The Libertine')
• ??? Real name of painter? If not, then there are more connections to explore.
• Against nature, against reason, against constancy... Wilmot
• And/or author of play/screenplay, Stephen Jeffries

Reading list additions:
'The Picture of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde
'À rebours' by ... Huysmans
'The Libertine' by Stephen Jeffries

Meet-up at Graceland

Thu, 09 Apr 2009 22:54:14 GMT

"Meet-up at Graceland"

New tag...
a bread bin for thoughtcrumbs I notice sur mon chemin,
traveling snaky roads into "Grace /Wastelands".

Userpic...
T.S. Eliot & Elvis Presley 12" album covers are the base.
"Grace /Wastelands" cd jacket & inner booklet sit on top.

This tag is for the astonishing catgut that ties them together,
"Grace /Wastelands".

A work of great beauty.

Starless: a drabble-ish

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:01:33 GMT

NC-17 drabble-ish for the prompt "blanket"

"Don’t move. Let me.”
***

Come down hard, full on.
And rise, rippling, clinging to the very end until there is almost no more.
And take a breath. Breathe.
And push down and slide with all your might and striking bottom rise again.
With every pass, no two alike, the Breath does say, “Alive. Alive. He is alive!”

Now, spilling salty comet tails of Life, Death cannot claim him.
Weary now, wanting nothing more from the remains of this day.
At least nothing that money can buy. He can hold no longer and begins to fall.
***

Dreamless Sleep and her starless blanket are the first to reach him.
She wraps him tightly and bears him to a silent place far away, where Pain cannot find him and Memory dares not follow.

MIXTAPE: The Cold Bed

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 04:00:08 GMT

The Cold Bed: a mixtape inspired by "Conversations with Imaginary Lovers" by
endoftheroad55

MIXTAPE: The Cold Bed: listen here

A Great Black Pit - Sweeney Todd soundtrack
Todd Violence (aka Tom Violence) - Sonic Youth - EVOL
Shadow of a Doubt - Sonic Youth - EVOL
Morning Song - Charlotte Gainsbourg
Love Don't Live Here Anymore - Rose Royce
Abattoir Blues - Nick Cave
The Cold Bed - World of Skin
Let It Come Down - Swans - The Burning World

with subliminal ST bits mixed in

Todd Violence - Sonic Youth - EVOL
My violence is a dream
a real dream
a skinny arm
a crush on living sin
my violence
is a sleeping head
nodding out to rising bliss
I left home for experience
carved 'suck for honesty' on my chest
my violence is the number
coming out of prayer
find it in the father
find it in a girl

there's a thing in my memory
holding on for dear life
with a feeling of secrets
beating up under my flesh
my tongue is tied
I'm sleeping nights awake
Todd violence is a dream
coming out of a girl

Shadow of a Doubt - Sonic Youth - EVOL
Met a stranger on a train
He bumped right into me
I swear I didn't mean it
I swear it wasn't meant to be
Must of been a dream
From a thousand years ago
I swear I didn't mean it
I swear it wasn't meant to be
From the bottom of my heart
He was looking all over me
Together ever after
He said
You take me & I'll be you
You kill him & I'll kill her
Kiss me
I swear it wasn't meant to be
I swear I didn't mean it
Kiss me
Kiss me in the shadow of
Kiss me in the shadow of a doubt
Kiss me
Kiss me in the shadow
Kiss me in the shadow of a doubt
Its just a dream
Its just a dream I had
Nononoooooh
Swear it's just a dream
Just a dream
Dream I've had
No
No
No
No
Take me to it
Take me to her
Maybe
Maybe it's just a dream
It's a dream
It's just a
Just a
No

Met a stranger on a train
Bumped right into me
Swear I didn't mean it
Swear it wasn't meant to be
Must've been a dream
From a thousand years ago
Kiss me
Kiss me in the shadow of a doubt
Kiss me

Morning Song - Charlotte Gainsbourg
Last night i saw a ghost
He seemed familiar to me
I welcomed him
With open arms
He said my name
And laid me down
Awoke the dreams still sleeping in my bones

You are my precious ghost
I close my eyes to see
I've touched you once again
You spent the night with me

Guilty were our pleasures
Nameless was our crime
Come back my forbidden ghost
One more time

You must leave i understand
So tell your lie to me
How in the morning everything will be alright
Yeah but to get to the morning first you have to get through the night

Love Don't Live Here Anymore - Rose Royce
Chorus:
You abandoned me
Love don't live here anymore
Just a vacancy
Love don't live here anymore

When you lived inside of me
There was nothing I could conceive
That you wouldn't do for me
Trouble seemed so far away
You changed that right away, baby

(chorus)

Love don't live here anymore
Just emptiness and memories
Of what we had before
You went away
Found another place to stay, another home

(chorus)

In the windmills of my eyes
Everyone can see the loneliness inside me
Why'd ya have to go away
Don't you know I miss you so and need your love

(chorus)

Abattoir Blues - Nick Cave - The Lyre of Orpheus
The sun is high up in the sky and I’m in my car
Drifting down into the abattoir
Do you see what I see, dear?
The air grows heavy. I listen to your breath
Entwined together in this culture of death
Do you see what I see, dear?
Slide on over here, let me give you a squeeze
To avert this unholy evolutionary trajectory
Can you hear what I hear, babe?
Does it make you feel afraid?
Everything’s dissolving, babe, according to plan
The sky is on fire, the dead are heaped across the land
I went to bed last night and my moral code got jammed
I woke up this morning with a Frappucino in my hand
I kissed you once. I kissed you again
My heart it tumbled like the stock exchange
Do you feel what I feel, dear?
Mass extinction, darling, hypocrisy
These things are not good for me
Do you see what I see, dear?
The line the God throws down to you and me
Makes a pleasing geometry
Shall we leave this place now, dear?
Is there someway out of here?
I wake with the sparrows and I hurry off to work
The need for validation, babe, gone completely berserk
I wanted to be your Superman but I turned out such a jerk
I got the abattoir blues
I got the abattoir blues
I got the abattoir blues
Right down to my shoes

Cold Bed - World of Skin
instrumental

Let it Come Down - Swans - The Burning World
Some men are made of steel and blood
Some fall from heaven when their time does come
Some of us we run from A shapeless form
And some men they hide from a howling storm
Now I will wander through the falling flames
And I Wwill drown in the burning rain
Sha la la la la la la, let it come down
Sha la la la la la la, let it come down

There is a place with nothing to gain
There lies the lover ho has broken no chain
He sits by the window and he stares at the dark
She feels for the knife that will split his heart
Now we are betrayed in the cold black pain
And a fire will rain down again and again
Sha la la la la la la, let it come down
Sha la la la la la la, let it come down

MIXTAPE: AWE 2nd Anniversary

Fri, 30 May 2008 22:35:54 GMT

PIRATES - AT WORLD'S END - 2nd ANNIVERSARY MIXTAPE

"Hoist the Colours", with an accidental manipulation starts it off.
??? Next is the surprise song - it's the song that I started digging through my records to find after my second viewing of AWE - it shows that Beckett, unfortunately, was not an anomaly in that time.
"Hoist the Colours", again, this time with intentional manipulation.
Reprise of the surprise song, this time a live version.
Then Jack issues 4 commands - one for each of our heroes - Jack & Elizabeth & Barbossa & Will
Beckett sinks and
the Seas return to their rightful Owners.

It remains playable for 14 days from today.
I hope you enjoy listening, my dear pirate friends.
http://www.fuzz.com/fan/mysticeyes/mixtapes/a692733f6c46771a

WORLD TURNED UPSIDE DOWN

In 1649
To St. George's Hill,
A ragged band they called the Diggers
Came to show the people's will
They defied the landlords
They defied the laws
They were the dispossessed reclaiming what was theirs

We come in peace they said
To dig and sow
We come to work the lands in common
And to make the waste ground grow
This earth divided
We will make whole
So it will be
A common treasury for all

The sin of property
We do disdain
No man has any right to buy and sell
The earth for private gain
By theft and murder
They took the land
Mow everywhere the walls
Spring up at their command

They make the laws
To chain us well
The clergy dazzle us with heaven
Or they damn us into hell
We will not worship
The God they serve
The God of greed who feed the rich
While poor folk starve

We work we eat together
We need no swords
We will not bow to the masters
Or pay rent to the lords
Still we are free
Though we are poor
You Diggers all stand up for glory
Stand up now

From the men of property
The orders came
They sent the hired men and troopers
To wipe out the Diggers' claim
Tear down their cottages
Destroy their corn
They were dispersed
But still the vision lingers on

You poor take courage
You rich take care
This earth was made a common treasury
For everyone to share
All things in common
All people one
We come in peace
The orders came to cut them down

HOIST THE COLOURS

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho,
thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.

The king and his men
stole the queen from her bed
and bound her in her Bones.
The seas be ours
and by the powers
where we will we'll roam.

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.

Some men have died
and some are alive
and others sail on the sea
– with the keys to the cage...
and the Devil to pay
we lay to Fiddler's Green!

The bell has been raised
from it's watery grave...
Do you hear it's sepulchral tone?
We are a call to all,
pay head the squall
and turn your sail toward home!

Yo, ho, haul together,
hoist the colors high.
Heave ho, thieves and beggars,
never shall we die.

Lost in Culiacan: The F/L Monkey

Fri, 30 May 2008 06:44:18 GMT

Has anyone else realized that Sands is the original "un-dead monkey"?

Sands' Older Sister Flips Through His 45's (drabble)

Thu, 15 May 2008 03:17:00 GMT

Again, created for Raven's drabble prompt, "music".

Naturally, Sheldon has a skate punk record collection to die for.

Film: Once Upon a Time in Mexico
All song titles and artists are real. The A side / B side pairings are fiction.
Rating: R for language, same as the film

Sands' Older Sister Flips through His 45's and is Horrified by What She Finds

That’s 45 rpm, not caliber. Up in his old room at his parents’ house in Pasadena. 80’s skate punk, before he went to New York, and went apeshit for show tunes. Disc after seven inch disc of prophetic vinyl.

Everything Turns Grey / Living in Darkness - Agent Orange
Bullet / Die, Die My Darling - Misfits
In My Eyes - Minor Threat
Coup d’Etat - Circle Jerks
I Saw You Shine / Shed No Tears - Flipper
Slave to My Dick - Subhumans

And the oldies he stole from her:
Secret Agent Man
Town Without Pity
Paint It Black
I Fought the Law (and the Law Won)

Sands Develops a Sudden Fondness for Bells (drabble)

Mon, 12 May 2008 08:06:35 GMT

Created for Raven's drabble prompt, "music".

Doggerel, pure doggerel and a pedigreed mongrel one at that...

Once Upon a Time in Mexico
(The tune, 'My Favorite Things', from "The Sound of Music")
Rating: R for language, same as the film.

Puerco pibil and lime chased tequilas,
Not skull fucked and eye plucked by two faced chiquitas.
It’s the big dance number, “Hey, I pull the strings!”
These are a few of Sands’ favorite things.

Metal, collectible lunchbox for pay-offs,
“Marilyn Manson” or “Titans, the; Clash of”?
Oh yes, he would kill you, if you didn’t sing.
Want to hear more of Sands’ favorite things?

Girls in tight t-shirts with no AFN badges.
Best loved of all were his eyes and eyelashes.
Boy on bicycle whose bell ting, ting, ting, tings,
Head cocked with ear pricked, hears favorite things.

Author's Note: I don't even know where this one came from. Not a TSOM fan.
Some parts offered themselves up while others refused to cooperate at all.
Happy over "chiquitas" - turns out it really does mean what I intended.
Thanks very much to M @ work for helping me to hear the boy's bell was tinging, not ringing.
And for her enthusiasm. Bless her, after I read it to her she said, "You should quit and just write."

DMC drabbles discovered

Mon, 12 May 2008 03:45:45 GMT

Traipsing through the hold of the Pearl, this Wednesday past, my petticoat snagged.
Glancing down and around, to see what held me, I spotted a bit of paper and, a large splinter, splayed off, catching my hem.

"Oh. My old drabbles.", and leant over to unhook my skirt and pick up the scrap.

I shook it out and examined it in the lantern light.

"H-m-m. Not so bad."

Funny what the universe will fling back at you.
. . . . . . . . . . . .

HEAT WAVE: Captain Jack Sparrow "Well Done"
Author's Note: Envisioning what it must have been like for Jack and The Pearl, to be ripped from the moisture laden tropics and flung, into a world of painful, utter dryness. The first one. Ever.

My memory of disembarking at National Airport in WDC and walking smack into solid, liquid air when I went to visit aslowhite, long before the pirate found us.

Small Iggy Pop and Joy Division references. Arbitrarily, things in nature are capitalized.
(Post DMC, pre-AWE for the Zone's "Heat Wave" challenge - 100 words.)

It’s not the Heat, it’s the (lack of) Humidity...
Eternal cloak of velvet Moisture. Intimately touching all parts of Body and Being.
The Caribbean.
To breathe the solid Atmosphere, at once hot and wet, with no separation between Skin and Air.
Inner and outer. Steamy Mists and Fogs.
The Sea’s own friendly way of blurring the line between the Earth and the Heavens.
Bringer of Life, and more Life, and then Decay. God’s greening Earth turned Hell on Earth.
Burning Sands. Salt, with no Sea. Blue brutal Sky. Blast furnace Heat.

Captain Jack Sparrow and his Precious Pearl are waiting.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

PEARLS OF WISDOM: A Conversation Between A Woebegone Jack and His Precious Pearl
Author's Note: The agony of the dessication process continues. Composed after AWE, but still drawing on a vision I have of Jack & TD, before Calypso canon. I see TD as the human manifestation of The Pearl. Maybe/Someday I'll be able to write more than a drabble about that pairing.
(Post DMC, pre-AWE for the Zone's "Conversation" challenge - 100 words).

“Come, Jack, you must sleep. I'm making shade for you.” In the desert she made a murmuring sound, like ripples breaking in the shallows, filling him with a sense of well being. Not possible.

“My Luv, I’m sorry you’re in this mess. Never thought you’d be dragged under. Beastie brought you back to me, carried us both away.”

“Your floorboards are cracking...I’ve got to find water for you. You must/shall have water...”

Dropping to his knees, he leaned against her, finally allowing his body to rest, in the little strip of shade along her belly.

“Sleep.” And he did.

MIXTAPE: it's one and the same

Sun, 11 May 2008 08:17:06 GMT

A set of music I built up around a Pete Doherty song:

it's one & the same

Just under 22 minutes. The posting period is 14 days from today.
First posted: 14 February, 2008

What's on it?
If I tell you what's on the tape, it'll spoil the surprise....
(but for anyone who knows the Pete Doherty song already,
I think you'll hear it coming like a giant lorrie on the M...11, is it?
That's what my dj friend Last Will would say when he'd make a really obvious segue...
He'd say "I bet you could hear that one coming down Telegraph Avenue."

When you click on the link above, it will take you to my page on fuzz.com.
Wait a moment for the cassette case to open.
My set of music will start playing for you.
You do not have to register, sign in or download anything.

The beauty of it is that I get to play dj again.
The songs are credited to their appropriate owners under the lj cut.

The segues are my creations.
Segues are the transitions between songs, no gaps, like aural conjugal visits.
If you like the way I put them together then please let me know. I'd love to hear from you.

PLAYLIST (links to amazon.com)
Songs/Artists/Albums/Length of Song

Track #1: Flowers/The Clean/Compilation @ 3:25

Track #2: Unreflected/Mazzy Star/So Tonight That I Might See @ 3:42

Track #3: Honest James/Thurston Moore/Trees Outside the Academy @ 3:50

Track #4: Unstookie Titled/Babyshambles/Shotters Nation @ 4:30

Track #5: Fri/End/Thurston Moore/Trees Outside the Academy @ 3:31

Track #6: That Time/Regina Spektor/Begin to Hope @ 2:39
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SONG: "Flowers"
ARTIST: The Clean from New Zealand
ALBUM: 'Compilation'
LABEL: Flying Nun/Revolver
LYRICS:. . . . . . . . . . . .
will have to do it by ear... still to come
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SONG: "Unreflected"
ARTIST: Mazzy Star
ALBUM: 'So Tonight That I Might See'
LABEL: Capitol
LYRICS: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
One says life is fortunate, isn't this so?
Be an unreflected feeling on the short and final slope
Laughter cuts ?
In our memories we don't have much to say
We don't have much to say
We don't have much
Follow anybody, is that what you do?
Maybe transfixed to something else to do
Another story, another life, that's life
Another life, that's life

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SONG: "Honest James"
ARTIST: Thurston Moore
ALBUM: 'Trees Outside the Academy'
LABEL: Ecstatic Peace
LYRICS:. . . . . . . . . . . . .
Come back honest James
Come back to your town
Take your shadow's mistress
From our fertile ground.

Never one to cry out
But it's gone on too long
Every song is empty
Without your friendly tone.

Come back honest James
Your brother he is here
He rode into the darkness
and he needs you to be near.

Why don't you just tell him
what's inside your heart
Let love take over
you know the devil just ain't that smart.

And I'll always love him
And I'll always love him
And I'll always love him
And I'll always love him

......................................
SONG: "Unstookietitled"
ARTIST: Babyshambles
ALBUM: 'Shotters Nation'
LABEL: Astralwerks
LYRICS:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
you smoke your cigarettes down to the bone
and you bow to vakit, like you vow to back it
ah you bow to vakit all the way home

too busy to know, just that you've thrown (?)
and you bowed to vakit, like you vowed to back it
vowed to back it all the way home

and she calls my name
calls my name
she calls my name
oh yeah

you tumbled my game
ah you tumbled my game now
you tumbled my game
oh yeah

you smoke your cigarettes all down to the bones
you vowed to back it, you bowed to vakit
and you bowed to vakit on the way home

too busy to know, just let it go (?)
now how'd you hack it?
now what made you sack it?
oh bowed to vakit all the way

suppose my name
suppose my name
'pose my name
oh yeah

it tumbles your game and
it tumbles your game, yeah
tumbled your game
oh yeah

...
comes alive and then goes

...
if i don't need you, oh
come listen a while, sing for (?)
a true love of mine
bow to vakit and ...
piping all the way home

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
SONG: "That Time"
ARTIST: Regina Spektor
ALBUM: 'Begin to Hope'
LABEL: Sire
LYRICS:. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Hey remember the time when I found a human tooth down on Delancey
Hey remember that time we decided to kiss anywhere except the mouth
Hey remember that time when my favorite colors were pink and green
Hey remember that month when I only ate boxes of tangerines
So cheap and juicy, tangerines

Hey remember that time when I would only read Shakespeare
Hey remember that other time when I would only read the backs of cereal boxes
Hey remember that time I tried to save a pigeon with a broken wing
A street cat got him by morning and I had to bury pieces of his body in my building's playground
I thought I was going to be sick, I thought I was going to be sick

Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Parliaments
Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Marlboros
Hey remember that time when I would only smoke Camels
Hey remember that time when I was broke
I didn't care I just bummed from my friends
Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum...

Hey remember that time when you od'ed
Hey remember that other time when you od'ed for the second time
Well in the waiting room while waiting for news of you I hallucinated I could read your mind
And I was on a lot of shit too but what I saw, man, I tell you it was freaky, freaky
....................................................................

mixtape: corona - the people will survive

Fri, 21 Mar 2008 07:39:09 GMT

Send me a message and I'll repost the mixtape. They're only good for two weeks.

Starts in the Red River Valley and journeys backwards & forwards in time.

Red River Valley
Mother of Earth - Gun Club
Cyclone of Rye Cove - The Carter Family
The People Will Survive - The Minutemen
Love Dissolve - Angst
Wicked Way - Yo

In my head I've always called this set "The People Will Survive" which is the opening line of The Minutemen's "Corona". The theme, I think, is endurance. And the music spans 1929 to 1985. Corona is a Mexican beer.

Primitive country. Primitive western.
Primitive punk country & western.

I like the idea of someone that knows The Carter Family's music and gets turned onto The Gun Club. Or, conversely, a Minutemen fan discovering The Carter Family from this.

The one that always gives a faraway look to my eyes is "Mother of Earth" by Jeffrey Lee Pierce's group "The Gun Club" from their album Miami. My junkie lyric love, deceased.

SPOILER TITLES
Red River Valley - Gene Autry

Mother of Earth - The Gun Club - Miami

Cyclone of Rye Cove - The Carter Family

Corona - The Minutemen - Double Nickels on the Dime

Love Dissolves - Angst - Lite Life

Wicked Ways - Yo

LYRICS, etc.
Red River Valley by Gene Autry
From this valley they say you are going
We will miss your bright eyes and sweet smile
For they say you are taking the sunshine
That has brightened our path for a while

Come and sit by my side if you love me
Do not hasten to bid me adieu
But remember the Red River Valley
And the cowboy who loved you so true

Won't you think of the valley you're leaving
Oh how lonely, how sad it will be?
Oh think of the fond heart you're breaking
And the grief you are causing to me

Come and sit by my side if you love me
Do not hasten to bid me adieu
But remember the Red River Valley
And the cowboy who loved you so true

As you go to your home by the ocean
May you never forget those sweet hours
That we spent in the Red River Valley
And the love we exchanged mid the flowers

Come and sit by my side if you love me
Do not hasten to bid me adieu
But remember the Red River Valley
And the cowboy who loved you so true

Mother of Earth - Gun club -Miami
I've gone down the river of sadness
I've gone down the river of pain
in the dark, under the wires.
I hear them call my name

I gave you the key to the highway
and the key to my motel door
and I'm tired of leaving and leaving
so, I won't come back no more

Oh, my dark-eyed friend
I'm recalling you again
soft voices that speak nothing
speak nothing to the end

Oh, Mother of Earth
the blind they call
but, yet stay behind the wall
their sadness grows like weeds
upon my thighs and knees

Oh, Mother of Earth
the wind is hot
I tried my best, but I could not
and my eyes fade from me
in this open country

THE CYCLONE OF RYE COVE - THE CARTER FAMILY -
Rye Cove Cyclone
Rye Cove Cyclone
(A.P. Carter)

Oh listen today and a story I'll tell,
In sadness and tear rimmed eyes,
Of a dreadful cyclone that came this way,
And blew our schoolhouse away.

cho: Rye Cove (Rye Cove), Rye Cove (Rye Cove),
The land of my childhood and home,
Where life's early morn I once loved to roam,
But now it's so silent and lone.

When the cyclone appeared it darkened the air,
And the lightning flashed over the sky,
And the children all cried, don't take us away,
But spare us to go back home.

There were mothers so dear and fathers the same,
That came to this terrible scene,
Searching and crying each found their own child,
Dying on a pillow of stone.

Oh give us a home far beyond the blue sky,
Where storms and cyclones are unknown,
And there by life's strand we'll clasp the glad hand,
Our children in their heavenly home.

Note:The song is called The Cyclone of Rye Cove, and it's on
Carter Family CD, My Clinch Mountain Home (Rounder 1065
on the New Lost City Ramblers album Rural Delivery No.
According to the notes, A.P. Carter wrote the song shortly after
the disaster, but the record was not released until after the
event. CB

CB

Corona - The Minutemen - Double Nickles on the Dime
The people will survive
In their environment
The dirt, scarcity, and the emptiness
Of our South
The injustice of our greed
The practice we inherit
The dirt, scarcity and the emptiness
Of our South
There on the beach
I could see it in her eyes
I only had a Corona
Five cent deposit

FILM: "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" (100 word drabble)

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 04:08:04 GMT

“Gilbert! Gi-i-i-lbert!”

Becky. Becky was yelling. Something’s wrong! Not hearing the delight in her voice, he tore down the stairs to the yard and found her, by the evergreen trees.

Mittened hand gesturing to join her, they drop together in the snow.

"Look, Gilbert, the first crocuses."
Mittens off, bare fingers cupping the little flowers. Her skin, like the petals, milky white, violet veined. Shocking tangerine stamens, secreted within.

There, on their knees, supplicants to the pines, she gave absolution.

Their new life revealed, Gilbert vows the sins of the father will not pass to another generation.

re: yesterday's Yeats

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 18:10:52 GMT

This is a fan-fiction BEGGING to be written.

"I had wild Jack for a lover;"

Somebody?
Anybody?

http://www.levity.com/digaland/celestial/yeats/crazy.html

FILM: "Dead Man" (Garage Game)

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 19:49:31 GMT

Somehow, this all just pooled out this morning.

"William Blake and the Pools of Light"

William Blake #1
Saturday, December 8th, 2007

I saw him as soon as we turned down our street.
We were returning, about 10 o'clock, from my company's holiday dinner. I said to pull over and park right away, because I was afraid that the approach of a car in the driveway would frighten him. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of our house, looking around and then down, to consult a paper he had with him. The glow of the three newly risen moons seemed to hold him.

Earlier, I had asked my husband and son to hang our light globes in the front and they had managed to do that. Not using a ladder, my son, born acrobat that he is, had scrambled up the tree, and out, onto the limbs, to place the balls, one large and two small, about 14 and 10 inches in diameters. Now, in the dark, these "Dandelion Lights" were just as the box had promised, "brilliant floating puffs", dangling from our bare limbed ash tree. Too brilliant. We joke that we have a solar system in the front yard. But yet, they enable us to see, at midnight, the early narcissus, budding below. Embarrassingly, we can in fact, turn off all of the interior room lights in our front room and still have sufficient illumination to read, when sitting near the window.

So, I was not surprised by the rather stunned look on William Blake's face as we approached.
"Someone you know?" my husband leaned towards me and asked.

"New tenant for the garage apartment."

"Oh. I'll leave you to that." Skeptical of the concept, he headed up the walk, unlocked the front door and went in. A trailing sliver of light was all that remained in the doorway. I approached William Blake. Sadly, his traveling suit was more brilliant than the lights I have just described to you. He also held a "WANTED MAN" poster in his hand. He seemed lost.

His doe-like eyes, behind glass, met mine, also behind glass. I felt a pang shoot to my heart as conflicting senses of innocence and experience shone from his eyes, radiating by a light of their own, to mine.

"You must be William Blake."
"I am. Do you know my poetry?"

From my research, I knew this was a test. Not wishing to be blown away in my own front yard, I quickly replied. "Yes I do. But I only know some of it, and not as much as I would like. I would learn more, should you choose to share it with me."

Thankfully, that seemed to placate him. He relaxed.

Looking down, at the poster, I mentioned quietly, "It seems your reputation precedes you."
Looking down also, he tensed, his fingers tightening and the poster began to quiver.

Balling and flinging in one motion, he threw it away.
"That is not me. Not me. It must be some other, William Blake. The world appears to be full of them."

To distract him, I suggested we go in.
"Tomorrow, in the daylight, I'll show you the private entrance to your room. You'll have your own key. You can come and go as you please. But tonight, come on, we'll go through the house and you can meet everyone."

"Everyone?"
"My family. The other people that live here, too. Follow me."

And he did. Up the few steps, to the door, still ajar. And into the front room. The living room. The definitely lived in room. The warmth of the house met us, and suddenly aware of that, I hoped it wasn't too much for him, having been out in the cold for so very long.

Surveying my same old sights, I tried to imagine what he was seeing for the first time. My son, upside down and backwards with one leg flopped over the sofa arm, playing his handheld electronic game, made no change in position with our entrance. I watched William Blake as he looked around, taking in the odd assortment of old things, the too many books, the threadbare Wilton "Anglo-Persian", the toy animals, missing eyes and stuffings, but loved. And watch him take in the new things, boxes glowing with knobs and numbers and lights, square glass-like cases with pretty pictures everywhere, no clue to the music within. And the pools of light. Like in the front. He was drawn to them. Gentle moth.

"These pools of light, without flame? What magic is this?"
"Electricity. It travels in wires. If you look close, everything has them. It gives us light and heat now. Easily. Too easily." Thankfully again, that seemed to be enough of an explanation for him.

Sniffing the interior air, and looking round at the lights, he said, "This is better, kerosene always did give me a headache."

At another pool of light, something caught his eye. A paper flower.

(word count = 812)

re-birth of mysticeyes

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 18:11:34 GMT

Resurrecting my old persona in the digital age...
http://www.fuzz.com/userManage/mysticeyes

On October 22, 2007, a chance meeting between myself and the folded SF Chronicle on the counter as I waited for my coffee told me of a new internet company where you can upload your

streams of music
and people can LISTEN to them.

LISTEN, not download, save, buy, imagine from a playlist or any of that messy other stuff.
The idea is that of the mixtape. Or for me, the segue. I got to do my "mixtapes" on the air. So I was spoiled because to me how the songs actually fit and blend together is the art. The whole is more than just the sum of its parts.

The mysterious conjugal moment between two songs creates a third element.
A mystery, a divine revelation. A dynamic thing.

So just picking out songs and sequencing them, well I can't just do that.
They have to overlap. Or not. By my hand.

So I actually never made "mixtapes".

aslowhite, I don't think you've ever heard anything I've ever done. I'm sorry.
Think long sets from WHFS that told a story and made you feel something.
Think WGTB and anything goes.
I got to be mysticeyes at KALX from July 1983, til sometime in 1991. The end is blurred.

Now I have new ideas that I've been wanting to try out and I started yesterday.
I got my name, mysticeyes. Do you know how hard it is to get that combination? Good thing they're a start up.

So, there's nothing there yet.
Except my name.
And a picture.
And some words.

So you can look at the blank slate right now and I'll send word when you can listen.

You don't have to register to listen.
The stream lasts 14 days from when I upload it.
You won't be inflicted with spamdreck for visiting either.

Very happy.

FILM: OUATIM: Agent Sands #2

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:58:30 GMT

Costume Challenge (100 word drabble):
Agent Sands: Dressing the Part
100 word drabble

PART 2: THE OFFERING

From far away he tracked their approach. Women’s voices, lilting and musical, carrying life. First, the open vestibule. Now staircase, ascending. Sparkling, tinkling sounds of laughter and speech. As they neared his open door, the tone poems fell away.
***

“Señor Sands?”

“Si?”

“We have washed and mended your clothes.

They are here. When you are ready.”

Echoes of his petulant self still rattled around the lonely space that had opened within.

“Why? Why would you do that?”

No answer came and the door clicked closed.
Not sensing the smiles that accompanied the laying of the garments, reluctant fingertips fought remembrance.

FILM: OUATIM: Sands Drabble #1: The Birthday Suit

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:52:26 GMT

Agent Sands
Costume Challenge (100 word drabble):

PART 1: THE BIRTHDAY SUIT

Little boy nightmare, cucuy.
Waking in a strange place, in a strange bed. Naked.
Jaybird naked under the sheet.

Bedtime story time. “Yes, I had a mother. I wasn’t hatched from an egg, was I?”
Sheldon Jeffrey and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

He loved that story, had always laughed. Stupid kid.

***
At least Sands thought he was awake.
Days and nights, sleeping and waking, fever and pain, process and painkillers were melding a new mind. He thought he would be sick. Before his gut reacted, another sense took power.
His ears pricked to a new sound.

Agent Sands needs help

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 18:48:20 GMT

Hello...911?

I've got someone here. Uh, I mean I found someone out in the street. He's in pretty bad shape. Well, "he's still standing" but I mean he's been shot...Looks like 3 places. Thigh. Left thigh, outer. That looks bad. Bleeding but not a lot. Right thigh, lower, inner. Not as bad. Left upper arm, to the outside. Same, bleeding but not a lot, like seeping. Yeah, he was standing when I found him, but now he's slumped down now. Is he conscious? Uh well yeah kind of.

Excuse me, sir? My name's e_piphanie and I'm going to try to help get you out of this mess. I've got 911 in the States on the phone. Seems crazy doesn't it. But I've heard crazier. It's a really good connection, let's see if this will work.

OK, they want to know your name. Can you tell me your name?

"My name is Agent Sheldon Jeffrey Sands. I work for the Central Intelligence Agency. I throw shapes. I set them up and watch them fall."

Something about the CIA. He's pretty out of it right now. He's got some kind of head injury, he's got this goo running all down face. I mean bloody goo. Like he's bleeding but not bleeding. I don't know I can't explain it. I've never seen anything like this.

Check his pupils. No, he's still got on sunglasses. I'll take them off. Sir, I'm going to...OK, OK let go now. It's ok. I'll do it slow, ok. They want me to check your pupils. The eyes tell a lot about what kind of shape the head's in...ok?

Alright, he's letting me take them off now. [SILENCE...DEAD SILENCE]

911 Operator: Are you still there. Could you get a read on his pupil size?

WHISPERS: No.

911: Can you speak up? I can't hear you.

WHISPERS AGAIN: No. No pupil size.

911: What? Can you speak up. I'm still not hearing you. You mean you can't see the pupil size? Is there blood in the eye?

SANDS, though drifting in and out of consciousness, rallies and reaches towards the phone with his good right arm. She said NO. NO PUPIL SIZE. GET IT, "FUCKMOOK? I HAVE NO EYES!" PERIOD. END OF SENTENCE. NADA. NOTHING. NIHIL. SIN. SANS. SANDS.

Just get me a fucking EMT down here quick. And they better be good. Where? Oh for chrissakes, MEXICO. Culiacan.

Are you game, iamrightthere, "this could get messy"?

Words in quotations are from the film:
Once Upon A Time in Mexico by Robert Rodriguez
Johnny Depp plays Agent Sheldon Jeffrey Sands

“And what mark did Jack leave on you?”

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 05:14:23 GMT

Clicking the wondrous link below will take you to a special place where you will find:
COMMENTS: My thoughts about Jack and Beckett and the, as yet unknown, mark that Jack left on Beckett.
"MARKSMANSHIP: A Conversation, between Lord Cutler Beckett and the Prisoner, Jack Sparrow." (a 100 word drabble speculating about the nature of the mark and how it came to be)

CONTENT: Adult in nature (but, sadly, nothing graphic)

“And what mark did Jack leave on you?”, some thoughts and a drabble to answer the question
The drabble (way) below was originally written after the fact, for a Johnny Depp-Zone challenge entitled "Conversations With the Captain". To honor the release of AWE, it was to compose a 100 word conversation between Jack and any other Pirates character. After I wrote it, I wondered if it would meet with The Code at The Zone. I showed it to my friend, Aslowhite, while on vacation this summer. She told me that I had written slash. Oh. And she told me about LiveJournal.

I have my own pet premise about the nature of the relationship between Jack and Beckett. I've listed the clues I've found in the film and the way I've read them. By the time you reach the drabble, maybe you'll agree?

THOUGHTS ON BECKETT & JACK & THE MARK:
I, too, have thought long and hard about T&T’s question, via Will Turner, to Beckett, “And what mark did Jack leave on you?”
Many speculated that Jack’s “eunuch” comments were a clue, but T&T have said that it wasn’t a physical mark. So, many speculated that it was the financial loss and humiliation suffered from Jack’s refusal to carry human cargo.

I think the giveaway is not the running eunuch joke, but something a little south of that point. If you’re facing north.
“Oh, bugger!”, Jack’s bon mots in DMC. “Oh bugger”, may be closer to the mark. In fact, it may even be the “mark”.

It sounds harmless to American ears. Think of the millions, yes, millions who saw DMC and don’t have a clue about the the meaning of this phrase that Jack just tosses out now and again. People probably figured it had something to do with bugs, right? Gore even had Ve Neill paint a bug on Cannibal Island Jack’s nose.

And in fact, it is on Cannibal Island that he first utters it. Having just seen the EITC items in the hut. “Oh bugger”, represents Jack’s alternate universe with Beckett in contrast to Elizabeth and her marker, rum.

Out on a limb here, but maybe a naughty British word to mark a naughty act between two naughty Britons?

Think how in talking about playing Captain Jack again in DMC, Johnny told of his research and the horrible conditions and crude acts that real pirates endured. And that reference to the cabin boy.

Think of John Wilmot & “A Ramble in St. James’ Park”. Johnny’s movies often have similar threads and mentions incorporated back and forth among them. The Libertine was released between BP & DMC and specifically quotes Wilmot,
“Nightly now beneath shade
Are buggeries, rapes, and incests made.”

Think of how Beckett says unequivocally about the compass, “Sparrow keeps it on his person at all times”. He doesn’t say “with him” or “most of the time”. No, it’s ON his person at ALL times. Don’t you wonder how he can possibly know that?

Think how Beckett seems to be vexed by Jack Sparrow. To Beckett, all words and actions refer back to Jack. He’s certain Elizabeth plans to give the Letters of Marque to Jack.

Think back in AWE, when Jack is first brought to Beckett’s cabin, he instinctively rubs his branded wrist in the doorway. They immediately fall into a patois of familiarity. Both are resuming roles that declare both of them are privy to intimate details about the other.

Beckett immediately addresses him familiarly, as "Jack", not "Sparrow" which he had used all along when referring to him to others. He knows, with his back turned, exactly what Jack is doing. (Going through the silver tea things looking for Davy Jones’ heart).

The drink stealing bit also denotes familiarity. Norrington would never have offered the drink and would have sneered in disgust when Jack takes, and drains, Beckett's glass. It is this little sequence that informs us what is going on. This is where we learn that Jack and Beckett are lovers, with Jack taking the upper hand and Beckett following his lead.

Think how Jack knows Beckett’s tastes well enough to question, with cynical astonishment, his new interest in Elizabeth. "What interest could she possibly be to you?"

Mirroring each other, think how the painting of Beckett shows the same pose that Jack assumed in the longboat, as they traveled up river to visit Tia Dalma in DMC. The Napoleon pose, hand in the buttoned coat, noble head, tilted upwards. Who is copying who?

Think how just as Jack was shown in that pose in the longboat in DMC, a military snare drum rhythm surfaced in the music.

They seem to have served together. But who served who? And why? And to what point and purpose? Oh, and the flirting, fluttering of fans in the cabin.

My drabble implies that Beckett got considerably more than he bargained for on the day that Jack was branded. These words would be spoken in Beckett’s cabin in AWE after Jack is brought to him as a prisoner.
Jack was a prisoner of Beckett’s once before, but now it's Beckett who's in thrall...

DRABBLE:
MARKSMANSHIP: A Conversation, between Lord Cutler Beckett and the Prisoner, Jack Sparrow.

“Jack, let’s let bygones be bygones. You know, between the two of us, I suffered far greater agony than you and that little ”P” mark. Why do you still rub it so, as if it was just done yesterday?”

Jack instinctively rubbed his forearm. He spoke, “Agony? Hardly. You enjoyed it. Every bit. Start to finish. And when I’d had my way wiv’ you, ‘twas you beggin’ “Stay Jack, don’t leave.”

He was angry now, remembering the day he had been chained to the wall in Beckett’s private quarters, stripped and branded. The stench of scorched hair and melting skin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(I think it’s completely within the realm of possibility that Captain Jack Sparrow could be freshly branded, naked and chained to the wall and still come out on top of the situation. So to speak.)

Many thanks to my dear friend (since 7th grade), Aslowhite, who held open the Fan Fiction Door for me and said “There are many, go see”. And who also explained to me what slash is.

And to a newer, but nonetheless dear, friend, endoftheroad55, who is responsible for all words that followed the initial "Heat Wave" 100.

SANDS::Vignette #1: Pixie Dust

Tue, 04 Sep 2007 17:29:54 GMT

Fandom: Agent Sands, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, OUATIM, Johnny Depp
Disclaimer: This writing was inspired by the 2001 film "Once Upon a Time in Mexico". The character, Sands, created by Robert Rodriguez, who wrote & directed, and brought to life by Johnny Depp. See the film, purchase the dvd and soundtrack cd.
Dedicated to all those who refuse to accept that their big dance number with Sands is over.

Ultimately I'd like to make this "3D", with music and maybe even images.
Not necessarily a video. Something else.
A sound collage as seen through the fevered mind's eye of Sheldon Jeffrey Sands.
Summary: An atmospheric, uncounted word drabble type exercise; setting the stage for hopefully more things to come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Mid afternoon doldrums had crept into Culiacan. A post-partum Day of the Dead depression. Most of the townspeople had withdrawn indoors or to the exterior building shadows, waiting for the day's heat to break.

The Palladian style windows of the Presidential suite had been flung open, wide with abandon, to capture any passing, errant breezes that strayed towards the 3rd story apartments. The languid spin of the ceiling fan feigned an effort, but ultimately failed, at its task of keeping the air pleasant. To be fair, the fan was only partially responsible for the unhealthy atmosphere. A stream of Colorful and Creative invective spewed unceasingly to the Heavens from the room's bedridden occupant. Their celestial journey was interrupted as the fan gently whapped the crystalline shards of pure vitriol, swirled them round, polished them just a bit, and then rained them back down on the occupant and his companion. Sparkly, vitreous safety glass pebbles captured and contained the brilliant essence of the dangerous shards, ultimately rendering them completely useless as tools of damage. They fell, like defective pixie dust, all around him; unable to enable flight.

Insert Colorful Stream of Invective here...

At the moment though, his companion's hands were busy with their own vitreous problems. She seemed immune to the vitriol and unaware of the pixie dust. She had three days to stabilize him enough for travel. Stabilize Sands. Sure. Piece of cake. She looked again in her bag. Nope, no magic there.