Monday, May 25, 2015

Memorial Poem Grinder


When things like Memorial Day come along, I have often posted some poetry readings. This follows here on the heels of an event where the Audionaut Collective appeared. This goes with a post yesterday of Ira Talking Song Hayes. It includes a poem by Li Po. Also Jack Vaughan's Foley's on Dover, Dr. Ransil's Garage and When will I arrive? Poetic allusions are made to Gene Autry, John Nash, Memphis Minnie.

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Talking song ballad for Day of Memorial 2015


Had a great day yesterday at a poetry reading I attended and, if you know how poets are, you know somebody like me is going there imaging some insane concave of dead air may descend, a poet may get cotton mouth, and the call goes out "is there a poet in the house?" "Here I am!" I shout. And I'd been thinking about it being Memorial Day Weekend, and I'd been thinking of Peter LaFarge's  Ballad of Ira Hayes, so I worked it up in my mind, and plopped it on the piano here. When Johnny Cash put it out it floundered - he bought a full page in Billboard to promote it. Have much appreciation that the Hingham Veterans Dept. dutifully placed a new Veteran's flag on my fathers grave which I today visited with my mother. My brother Michael sings with me here. More guff: With all due respect to Peter LaFarge I post my rendition of the Ballad of Ira Hayes. God bless our service people and veterans on this Decoration Day. I want to remember the Battle of Iwo Jima and Ira Hayes. In my hometown into memoriam a float would cause gasps - a replication of the the Flag Raising. War is always in the air. And we should remember. And we should remember the brothers and sisters that battle has so wounded. There are superior versions of this - I  point you to Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, Buffy St. Marie and author Peter La Farge. I didnt nail it but I thought I'd share it. I'm joined on it by my brother Michael. Happy Memorial Day.

Blue Moon of Protoplasmic Drop Kick


Jeff Hull Art as Process on Display Through Labor Day


Artist Jeff Hull's work on display: A tremendous effect, collected from a trove amassed over a periods of years. Here is a casual collection of spontaneous drawings that are part of a larger process  Never before such large drawings in such concentrated manner. To see them, the marks and density, over many (26) panels – a city block really – is quite amazing. Truly among the most astounding collections of art you will ever see. The corner of Huntington and Parker is where it's at.
                                                                                                                      – Jack Vaughan

RelatedTitanic Transmissions - MoonTraveller 2008
Titanic Clothesline Saga - MoonTraveller 2008


Saturday, May 23, 2015

Working poem of news Number 1205



Graduates: If you read the paper most everyday

in your own time mind you can come to be  a universe master.

Something can go big and surprisingly wrong

but to you it seems logical -

because you can see the developing evidence in your daily paper looking backward.

Like God watching the Preakness

I stopped time once, watching Kuwait invasion on TV at bar,

while reading day's paper with previous day's news of possible armed buildup on border

(and night before was reading Seven Pillars of Wisdom, which begins in Kuwait.)

So I understand the Unknown Known.

To be continued

Sunday, May 17, 2015

BB King, at 89


The pioneering blues singer and guitarist B. B. King, who won over a dozen Grammy Awards and is perhaps best known for the song “The Thrill Is Gone,” died on Thursday in Las Vegas. He was 89.
Mr. King was born in 1925, the son of sharecroppers in Mississippi. He had a career that began in the 1940s, kicked into high gear in the last years of the 1960s, and continued full-throttle until last fall, when he canceled a tour citing poor health.
The British singer-songwriter and guitarist Eric Clapton, who drew inspiration from Mr. King as a young musician and collaborated with him on the 2000 album “Riding With the King,” shared a tribute to Mr. King on his Facebook page.




On BB King's passing .. Norman Wilde at Soulville really hipped me to BB King. Remembering: at Soulville you could get a free 45 if you bought an LP. I'd get the Blues Project, or the Dirty Blues Band...he would slip in "Dont Answer the Door," "(I'm Going to Move to) The Outskirts of Town". Led me to buy other 45s outright "Sweet 16" and then one that hit on WLS: "Paying the Cost to be Boss". Pretty early I saw the guitar roots of Michael Bloomfield. BB on ABC. I would go back home and pretend I was BB (me 'playing' a tennis racket'). There is a lot of rumination on trust and lack thereof in his songs. Funny to say but for 17-year-old Jack it had a very high resonance. Sweet 16 is my favorite throughout many version. I knew his days were diminishing, obviously. I feel an essential era of blues ends his death. There was a triumvirate-plus - twas him, Muddy Water, Howlin Wolf, and I guess I might add John Lee Hooker. Was fortunate to see all but Wolf (which Cecelia did see) (and I did see Wolf's boot) Saw BB in the 80s with Rich Mack at the Channel. In the 00s with Mark Schlack (BB jammed with Jeff Beck) at Great Woods. At theFleet Pavillion with Jake in the 00s too (out of work and won the tickets – that's a blue tale! W Bloomfield's old bud Elvin Bishop on bill).When people pass I look at the blank card and only one thing comes to mind: 'There must be a better world somewhere.' It's a Doc Pomus song, and BB sang it. BB King must be there. Ride on Riley. (The picture here is "Live at Cook County Jail" which Mike Brusha had in his collection. Also - I was lucky I got to hang out a bit with Ron Levy, great Boston blue piano player who appeared on that LP) - Jack "It' all history to me" Vaughan

Related
I remember Soulville, mama - MoonTravellerHerald
Remembering Mike Bloomfield - MoonTravellerHerald
Forgotten rememberances - MoonTravellerHerald

Sunday, May 03, 2015

The Reasonable Disposition of Morning And Circular Time



Graduates: We live in a world quickly and quietly passing by. Sometimes when the birds sing their song we become a part of it. What happens is like dark matter between The two worlds. The one of Plato which is a beautiful world of measurement mechanics and mathematics, and the other of the nonplatonic world of calculus shortcuts. sometimes we join the parade in between. Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling had it as the 6th Dimension - ''the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his hopes.'' its an odd coffee on the Yaqui Way of Knowledge. Sometime as on this Kentucky Derby Day the race follows the form and the spectacle is quite beautiful.* Most usually its a stragne mix where things dont quite work out - newspaper sentences float in wind.

*In Nightmares, a lecture in Seven Nights, Jorge Luis Borges, channeling Botheus, (p.27) wrote "God sees the whole race; he sees in a single eternal instant the start, the race, the finish. He sees everything in a single glance; and in the same way he sees all history."