This poor little robot is so very much like me.
{sigh . . . }
Almost there, almost there, almost there . . .
Turn up the volume and grab a warm and soothing cup of something
and click ‘play’.

For me this post signifies many things:
loss,
discovery,
deletion,
pain,
expectations,
choices,
devil-is-in-the-details,
denial and
ultimately
The
truth . . .

Cryptic, I know and I apologize for my strange and mysterious ways.
The following poem has been used for many purposes over the years,
based on its various interpretations.
Methinks, that’s why it’s such a great piece of literature.
It spoke multitudes to me tonight.
If you’ve read it, read it again.
If you haven’t, you are in for a real treat.
I’ll be off in the distance chasing away the endless cumulonimbus clouds
again . . .

The Road Not Taken

by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler , long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Sometimes when I’m having a hard time coming up with something to write about
I put on a piece of music guaranteed to stimulate a brain wave or two.
I’m currently listening to Charles Ives and his Concord Symphony,
specifically ‘Hawthorne’, the second movement of the piece.
Ives isn’t for the average listener, believe me.
It’s some strange and beautiful stuff.
When I first listened to this particular piece years ago,
I wondered how one man could physically play it.
About three minutes into ‘Hawthorne’ you hear these pentatonic (all black notes) clusters,
an impossibility for the right hand alone given what the left hand is doing at that point.
Trust me.
It’s impossible.
Or so I thought.
I would find out years later that the performance notes for the Concord
require a piece of wood that must be cut to a certain size and
must weigh approximately 8oz or some crazy ass shit like that.
The board is gently ‘layed’ across the black notes on the piano giving the massive ‘cluster’ effect that I heard (and loved)
Nope Ives is not for the faint of heart simply because of the harmonic complexity of his music.
One minute he can sound like Chick Corea while the next he’s Scott Joplin on an acid trip.
I would recommend that everyone listen to Ives but I fear you’d call me insane.
If you want to experience something insanely creative by a lowly insurance salesman from Danbury, Connecticut,
go for it.
Ives is incredible and one of a kind.
I heard someone play something by Ives many years ago and it was something of a religious experience.
Truth.
Check it out.
Be sure and stop back for Weird Wednesday!

~m

For those of you that choose to listen:

Hawthorne Part 1
Hawthorne Part 2

These are performed by Marc-Andre Hamelin,
an amazing pianist and great interpreter of Ives.

Strange mood this evening, peoples
Felt like some appropriate night music.
Enjoy.

Say hello to ‘Sebastian’s Voodoo’ . . .

I close my eyes
trying to dream of something better than this
anything true, a slightly bruised honesty would do
Maybe it’s because nothing feels safe anymore

So I close my eyes
and dream of distant Norwegian lilies
of beautiful and colourful things, the slumbering truths of my past
Although nights of black rain are making it so hard to sleep

But I close my eyes
And dream of opening them to the tragedy of a bleeding truth;
that life is never quite what it appears to be
to these sad and sleepy eyes of mine
And that innocence can only be found caught between the teeth of angels . . .

Did anyone see this coming?
Poor Manny.
Oh, shit, I mean, rich Manny.
I’m struggling to pay my mortgage and this lying asswipe is making how much a year?
I’m going to bed.
Maybe I should look into some hypodermic needles.
Or not . . .

Sometimes, the problems you must face
are more than you wish to cope with,
and tomorrow doesn’t seem to offer any solutions.

You may ask yourself, “Why me?”
but the answer is sometimes unclear.
You may even tend to feel that life hasn’t been just or fair
to burden you with such obstacles.

The roads any of us choose to follow are never free
of bumps or curves,
but eventually the turns lead to a smoother path ahead.

Believe in yourself and your dreams.
You will soon realize that the future holds many promises
for you.
Remember . . .  difficult times don’t last forever.

~Geri Danks

{dedicated to my three girls}

Pamela and I were outside raking the endless falling leaves the other day,
actually it was on our anniversary.
I know, romantic, huh?
It’s a mundane chore such as this that allows the grey matter to play around a bit,
reminisce about autumns past, maybe even give the constantly buzzing hemispheres in my cranium a bit of a vacation from the vagaries of the daily rat race.
I began thinking about my life as being partitioned into ‘seasons’,
and that from where I stand I am currently in the midst of my own personal autumn.
It’s a time of great change, a biological necessity and ever so slight rewinding of the clockwork that makes me tick.
I accept the fact that my life has experienced changes from as far back as my days of ‘spring’.
I do find it sad though that my endless summer has come and gone taking with it certain elements of youth, the embers of the burning innocence that once defined my life reshaping my thoughts on a daily basis.
This is my autumn, I think,
when my eyes focus on an enormous pile of leaves that need to be raked onto the tarp and dragged behind the shed (where all the bad leaves go).
I stare at the pile of vibrant colours,
the burnt yellows and searing reds, like a fire in front of me.
Things change and life continues to change me.
Caught inside the moment, in my mind I see three little girls going down the slide headfirst into a pile of leaves that I’ve left just for them, Pamela running into the house for the camera, never one to miss an opportunity for a silly photo.
I see myself raking, smiling, listening to those echoes of laughter and the beautiful sounds of a fall
that was so damn very long ago.
It’s no surprise that I miss it, almost as much as I miss the old me that was raking those very leaves.
I shake myself out of this melancholy daydream and notice
that the sky above me is a putty grey replacing the daydream skies of an innocent blue from a thousand moments ago.
As I drag another tarp full leaves to the opposite end of the yard,
I smile, because off in the distance I can hear the sound of a rusty swing
going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth . . .
And as the leaves continue to fall, I continue to rake

Every night I walk through the pulsing heart of Chinatown
here in Boston on my way to the train.
I’ve witnessed a kaleidoscope of urban situations
from drug deals to being solicited by “China Blue” of the night.
There’s a muted sense of mystery lurking around every dark corner, dimly illuminated by paper-cut hanging lanterns and humming neon.
Occasionally, I get a whiff of pungent sesame oil in the air creating visions of steaming woks
and maniacal chefs in the process of creating some outlandish order of Dim Sum.
I pass by the Lucky 88 Supermarket on Essex Street and glance in, surprised to see a beehive of activity.
From the front window I see a fish tank filled with anything but what I consider to be a fish.
It’s a subculture that thrives amidst the sometimes chaotic city of Boston.
Chinatown is also a place where I would never want to find myself at 3AM.
Crimson lace dragons peer from the backlit and smoky windows of Villa Moon,
a quiet restaurant tucked away on one of Chinatown’s many dark side streets.
While there’s something oddly enticing about it, there’s also a sense of foreboding and no access,
a ‘you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave’ kind of mentality.
I know it’s all in my head but it’s what my eyes see.
As the fall days melt into winter dusk, the sun sets earlier and my journey to South Station grows just a bit stranger.
The shadows stretch and move, neon and fluorescent lights from the stores and restaurants give the ever so slight suggestion of a carnival at night.
Maybe that’s what this is.
It’s only when I take the time to actually ‘see’ this mysterious place that I come to grips with its all too stygian appeal.

Dim Sum, Fried Wontons.
Stir fry and Karaoke.
Boston’s Chinatown . . .