Sunday, August 30, 2015

Five thoughts



i.

look at your anger - it is very menacing. like a billowing monsoon cloud - but if you go there it is just mist. likewise if you look at the thought of anger it will vanish like frost in the morning sun

ii.

sing to god with the harp-sing to him with the harp-sing to our king with the harp - sing to him with the harp-god is the king of the whole earth-sing to him with the arp played skillfully.

iii.

Nothing but love over there where jesus is, ohh Nothing but love over there where jesus is (help me say it) Nothing but love over there where Jesus is, I wanna go, I wanna go, ohh Wait a minute bring it down Listen

iv.

“Praise be to you, my Lord, through our Sister, Mother Earth, who sustains and governs us, and who produces various fruit with coloured flowers and herbs”.

v.

Truly it is Y*u who fashioned them and Y*u know their nature: they are but flesh and blood; man comes from dust and to dust returns; he gets his food at the peril of his life; he is like broken earthenware; like withering grass and fading flowers; like a fleeing shadow and a driven cloud; like a puff of wind, like vanishing dust, like a dream that flies away. But Y*u are the King, living, everlasting G*d.

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Shine on brightly

photo-guys
Al smiles bravely, Jack looks confused, Jim is all knowing. Aug 2015, San Francisco, 7 Mile.

One week ago. So great to see Al Smiley and his wonderful wife Bev. Who took this picture. Along with the essential curator of futuristic antiquity, Jim Augusta Haas. Al appears and I am happy. How did we get here? Jim Hass says I know just the place. 7 Mile. It was a long road here. And I get there early. So studiously use up time. I look at the nearby Cow Palace (Is this the ugliest building I have ever seen in my life? Is this where Goldwater was nominated? Hard to comprehend.) So I drive up to the part of Mission that Google workers are still avoiding, and get a phone charger at a Walgreens, in case, y'know, someone wanted to call me. And go to 7 Mile. The legend is that this was a stage coach stop. Pony Expressionism. For all I know it was a station on the Canterbury Tales route, cause it has the scent of trouble and hope. But I sit in the corner, and then Jim appears in the other corner (some enchanted evening!) just in more or less from Mexico. And then Al appears. Liked it when he recalled the Shepard plating Research & Development, the smocks and the chrome kazoo. One2Many in NYC. With Ken and Charlie up by Sacred Heart woods. Film art class, which forever make us filme experts, making 'So you want to be a beaver'' at Shoop Park, what songs id they play at the Nitty Gritty ("Hanky Pany'' I say…The (New) Blues Band recalls Al, St. Standing, the Farm, the Draft Lottery. To hear about his birdseye view on the America's Cup and Montery today. Spain! And then Whoosh down this hill . It's the edge of San Francisco and portal to Brisbane. To the airport in 15 minutes.. and winging home. But I remember!One

Friday, August 14, 2015

Ode on Jeff Hull Northeastern Installation 2015



I be in my car
in the morning going to work
I be in my car
in the morning going to work
when i should chance upon
a great installation of art.

I went down the old avenue.
Up where the Red Sox used to play.
When Cy Young was the all-star.
And Roosevelt was the dominating blade.
I'd drive by drive by dirive by.
And my eyes would start to play

So
I am sending you a big telegram in a rosy bygone song 
Within a perished kaleidoscope upon old Nessie's tail.

Seeing a:

Spinning rock wheel in Navajo Abyss;
Blue Notes dripping from a Skinny Guitar Being of Plasma;
Capt America – Serialized – Stigmaticized – Blooped and –Shim Sham Shimmicized;
Paisley Hulk rising dour in a cascade of loggerheads on Phoam beyond the Date of Expiration:
Night hawk eye eyeing confetti prey;
Amoebas Osmosing Amber, Fluffy marshmellow man on fi-o;
Dirigibles colliding with ferris wheels in Eiffel's vortex the horror
The bliss in the labyrinth of Paregoric Strata; and,
A comic custard Pie of Thorns just looking for an Arbuckle.

And more
dont you know
until
I keep on driving
in the morning going to work

It did me no harm
all i know is in a song
I would dream an inky fluid
of the essential march of time
of a fun house maze of mirrors
of metamorphism ready and unending.

- Jack Vaughan, August 2015

Friday, August 07, 2015

Bard blather

We would all like it if the Bards would make themselves plane or we think we would. The poets however are not easily diverted from their high mysterious ways. A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer; he approaches lucid ground where warily like a mariner who is determined not to scrape his bottom.poets pleasure is to withhold a little of his meaning, to intensify by mystification. He unzipped the veil from beauty but does not remove it. A poet other likelier is a trifle glittering. E.B. White, One Man's Meat.

I think I like to be kind of you fill in the blank about poetry. I think I like the extraworld that emerges from some 'mystification'. I think I am at sea with this, so chancing upon EB WHite's comment, while pseudo summering near Hingham harbor, gave me a start.-JVaughan

Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Grab that bus


Grab that bus

I will wait until the day comes 
i'll follow 
all your capers. 

I'll see you on a sunday bus
or in the funny papers.
-Jack Vaughan, 2015

Pic above C at Smithsonian Chicago bus exhibit Apr 2015

Saturday, August 01, 2015

Phantom woosh



Click on the above image to play Phantom Woosh Momma. Sometimes I feel like a fellow I saw in Chicago. It was titularly Louis Meyers' gig, but as is wont in Chicago, many muscians comes by and gets up for a number. This fellow came up and sang his long-ago hit Stoop Down Baby (and let your daddy see). (I guess it was Chick Willis). (If you look this up on YouTube you get access to a whole lotta very dirty songs.}

Clearly he had sung it a gazillion times. It was in his heart. He had one note, but dammit he played it. I have become that way with this riff about Phantom Jets. They were still in use in Vietnam era. Their woosh for me forever resonates in the canyons of my mind. I'd like to put it down. Put it down and start singing Stoop Down. I have been mucking about with Apple Garage Band. Just trying to get it to work. I dont know how to make it record anything longer than 8 bars. Spose I should Google it.  -Jack Vaughan