moon traveller herald

  It is indeed a matter of great difficulty to discover and effectually to distinguish the true motions of particular bodies from the apparent, because the parts of that immovable space in which these motions are performed do by no means come under the observations of our senses.-Newton Epitomime for more on this - Cut to the chase: Theory was overthrown by Mach and then Einstein. The above is the result of an August vacation many years ago.

  Ran in 2008 Bo Diddley died. There are probably some competitive flamenco cats that I am not aware of - but I would rate him greatest rhythm guitar player of all time. The guitar as percussive motivator in his hands was total banshee force, but full of invention. He also had a lyrical approach that was in its turn incredibly rhythmic and original and also humorous. Mona, Who Do You Love, You Cant Judge a Book, Road Runner .. so many numbers that were part of my best days. He created a foundational style of rocknroll and he did so by reinventing the instrument called the guitar. Who would say he did not have his hand on the pulse of his time as much as the Nasa astronauts or the Beats? Say Man, Mumbles, Ride on Josephine, Cadillac, Cops and Robbers. His super session with Muddy Waters and Little Walter. An all instrumental Checker record of his I used to have. Certainly unique. Some good articles have traced his tremendous influence. Let me add a few: The Doors doing Who Do you Lo...

  Dir Rbt Frank; narration Jack Kerouac; music: Dave Amram. Includes Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Peter Orlovsky, Larry Rivers. 1959

HISTORY             SPACE RACE               BLUES POETRY   Firstly reading Susan Sontag.  Going back down these old roads now – I find myself somewhere between Col Smythe-Smythe cleaning his skeet shooter or Saul Steinberg hand drawing memorialization holy cards of Italian Futurists, Fascists, architecture and Clouds with Holes. How this here ramble got to over 2,000 words I will never know. Have a great Summer! -JV Science-fiction and action serials often provide us with the specimen "Techno Villain," or Villano tecnológico.  I don't recall this figure being called out in the cannon criticism of the late Susan Sontag, but the idea set me to ruminating. Nemo is the classic template, said by some to be based on Odysseus. Today, barons of technology walk the corridors of power, or fall down the stairs of the Corrid...

  Watched a bio on Keith Haring last night...and realized my el marko icons are of his school! he seemed like a nice fellow. Well meaning, intelligent, hard working, creative, great brush and paint handler, improvisationalist. This drawing was inspired by Jim Haas's Blues Ruminations. Yknow, how Wolf sings 'my left hand's itchin'? he and others have also sung of the eye movement that is predictive. jv

  i just talked with my baby/by the telephone/she said Stop what you're doing/and come back home/I can't hold out/I cant hold out too long/i get a real good feeling/talking to you on the phone - Elmore James

Went to a special showing of Escape from New York by John Carpenter starring Kurt Russell and Lee Van Cleef. It was part of the movie science program at the Coolidge Corner Theature.  I didn't see this movie when it came out - it was in the late 70. In the early 70s I had been in New York and formed my own vision of dystopian urban future there. For that reason perhaps, when it was released, I skipped the movie - I was probably reticent about the commercial aspects of it  - a Hollywood Hell - and probably shamed that I hadn’t finished a dystopian epic poem by then myself. Manhattan becomes one big Attica in the film…a prison surrounded by water barriers, brutalist concrete walls. It oant escape some viewers that the Manhattan map above bears resemblance to Gaza, now a scene of siege. Last night was Great to just revel in the commercial aspects of it on the large screen now many years later, and after coming to terms with my own view of the city then.  The film w...

We were celebrating Mardi Gras a few weeks ago, listening to New Orleans and New Orleans-style music. Pulled out an old EP 45 by Boston's Ron Levy Bluesman Band. Coconaut Milk. Then, found that Ron had posted it to his YouTube page [see below].  Back in the day Ron let me create the Sleeve for this record. I got to gather some of my buds {Dave Hofstetter took the pic} and "Find" some art [the images of city and feet were from "1001 Afternoons in Chicago" by Ben Hecht 1922 [Racine's own]].  Layout is cool. You look at the graphic objects enough they finally start talking to you! Anyway I worked hours and hours on this. I loved Record Covers and would try my own hand. And my hand is clutzy. Ron came over to check it out. He looks at it and says "that's funky." And I say "Funky, good or bad?" And Ron says "Funky good" and smiles.  I was so relieved, and happy. I started trying to create newsletters in the basement when I was 6....

  by Jack Vaughan

Excited to introduce the writing of Cecelia Estrada Vaughan to these pages! - J.V. About Luigi Russolo - 1885 – 1947 Machines that scream: inventing Futurist Music … “Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention of the machine, Noise was born. Today, Noise triumphs and reigns supreme over the sensibilities of men.” Luigi Russolo writes, “Each sound carries with it a nucleus of foreknown and foregone sensations predisposing the auditor to boredom, in spite of all the efforts of innovating composers.  All of us have liked and enjoyed the harmonies of the great masters. For years, Beethoven and Wagner have deliciously shaken our hearts. Now we are fed up with them. This is why we get infinitely more pleasure imagining combinations of the sounds of trolleys, autos and other vehicles, and loud crowds, than listening once more, for instance, to the heroic or pastoral symphonies.” This futurist manifesto, “The Art of Noises,” became, perhaps frustratingly, t...

   The Anvil of Civilization  When I first got to this town, honey -- I had a library job at night. I would take the last Red Line train out of Boston South Station. Would run like the devil -- to make my connections. I had to catch that train. Had to make the South Shore all right. And the Second-Shift Postal Workers from South Station Annex They’d be getting on too.  And I came to befriend Fred - Mail Sorter 1st class. He carried the Boston Herald American going south to Nantasket. It was midnight run, mind you, and his Herald was becoming Yesterday’s news. I knew no one. And found a friend in Fred.  Tired. We would speak. In short sighs. As workers do. Devoted as much attention to the streaming landscape. Eyeballing it in stupor. World where halogen lights were passing car lots.  As much our minds were on Watergate, a confused situation simmering like oatmeal in America's kitchen then, we thought about war, and watched the side of the tracks. ~~~~~~~...

Bessie after the war By the green sea Ruminating. Lee’s been through here. Hannibal too. Playing whisk and canasta On the fold up map table Trading armies like baseball cards On a rainy summer day. Thinks to make a surf board And drift out like a ship. - Jack V.

  I was idly Web surfing and I found this in the Records of the Wisconsin Historical Society. A beautiful poster promoting Sunnyland Slim appearance at Gordon Commons at the University of Wisconsin in Madison way back in the day (Donation: $1.50; beer 25 cents). Playing with Sunnyland were my friends Harry Duncan and Paul DeMark A story to this one has to do with the billing of "Little" Eddie Taylor - one of the Chicago greats - a story that I will pass on for now. Posters were a People's Art Form back in those days. You would post them on telephone poles, you would cop them after the event, you would put them on your wall, you would study them, and think about what they meant. Posting this today especially because it is Sunnyland Slim's birthday anniversary. As we often say: "He was a man amongst men." Strong character, strong heart, strong voice. Now a strong memory. https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM58549# Eddie Taylor story - Paul DeMark

i. I jumped into semiretirement with both eyes open. No good reason to feel old. Then a bad reason came. The COVID-19 pandemic. Which percolated up in February and March of 2020. I’d sit in the evening, sometimes in the afternoon, in front of the TV, pondering. I have never really been a binge-style TV viewer. Until the pandemic. Which found me in the old rocking chair. Just sittin in the old rocking chair. Watching things I’d never usually watch. Flames darted from the cloud of Pandemic uncertainty: In the background of the pandemic were events leading up to Right Wing Zealots storming the US Capital intent on undoing the year’s election, rending old friendships and family ties. I’d like to enumerate some of what I watched: Vast of Night / The Prisoner / Star Trek / Upload / The Greek Myths. More I am quite sure – all watched with the gnawing yet comforting sense that there was nothing else I really could or had to do. Nothing to say but "Emergency call from Outpost #4" or ...

 One day late but this would have been my sister's birthday. Found a card I'd made for her in 1976, featuring her favorite Celtic coach, Tommy Heinsohn , who passed this year just gone. I think she liked the fact that he was so animated - almost like a Edgar Kennedy in a Marx Brothers skit. Switching to announcing added many years to his life span I'd venture.

Dear Reader: As the fateful election year of 2016 began, like so many other crimson-blooded Boomers, I had begun friending, tweeting and Instagram posting. T’was fun to re-write headlines as they should have first been writ, or to heckle the pitcher from high grandstands. So easy to spit in the ocean. What else could I do? I began to think I could think like the birds at the feeder – they would call me out if I were late with the bread heel.  I would apologize. I started doodling with a “Pencil 53” stylus and iPad. I was attempting to draw two birds – agnostic little fellows, but named Blue and Red. They would converse on a telephone line. I never got too good drawing these things. Sometimes Red had a cardinal’s eye mask – mostly not. Blue could appear without wings. But I needed therapy and it was therapeutic. The therapy formed around heuristics from jobs, chores, sports, vaudeville and elsewhere. Some I contrived – “whatever we do will have to be doable.” Others I stole – “funny...

At the heart of Beat writing is the idea that spontaneity is crucial in expression. The method is best summarized in Jack Kerouac’s “Essentials of Spontaneous Prose” – featuring such an apothegm as “Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind” and “Blow as deep as you want to blow.” The immediate guide for Kerouac was jazz, most especially the bebop form led forward by Charlie Parker. But among the other influential jazz players there were many others that Kerouac followed. And among these was Lee Konitz, vaunted alto saxophonist who passed away last week at 92 in New York, from complications of Covid-19 and pneumonia. Although the brutal coronavirus caught up with him, Konitz was truly a survivor, one who followed his own beacon across a cavalcade of styles of jazz, continuing to play until very recently. His connection to Kerouac is enduringly important. Born in Chicago, Konitz as a lad was inspired by Benny Goodman. He went on to play with the Claude Thornhill orchestra, Stan Kento...

The crystal hit the waves. The clarinet played the lattice.  The jack the knife sprang. The V.U. meter measured amps of micros. The crystal hit the waves.  - Jack Vaughan

The back story is that once there was a Chinese Food Restaurant in Hong Kong and the proprietor wanted an English name on the marquee. He needed a translation of something like ''Noble Lotus Noodle''. So he searched the term on the WWW and got a 404 as a result, and it ended up in neon out front. [Click to Enlarge.]- Jack Vaughan

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