Bach's BwV 1009 is KILLING ME.

No, this title does not refer to some weird rash I received at the hands of the masses. It's the 1st movement of Suite #3 of Bach's Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello (clarinet)...

At least I know why I am bound for the grave at an early-ish age.
Oh man.
This piece of music is ridiculously beautiful.
Learning how to play it is like hanging out with someone you didn't think actually existed for the first time, or seeing toads mate by chance.

Constant WTF. WTF. How in the F did the man manage this?

They are just SCALES people. But not the kind you find on half dead lizards who roam the back alleyways near your home in Tuscan, Arizona. Oh no.

A completely different set of scales entirely.

The Eflat he introduces halfway through is a dagger to the heart, freshly wounded, staining-the-paper.

Come on. How did the guy sleep at night? I can barely deal with this stuff, and he WROTE it.

Bach must have been an insomniac.

Which reminds me, oddly enough, the Goldberg Variations were written for this young hot thang (Johann Gottlieb Goldberg) to play to this old Count at night before bed. Because he, too, had "trouble sleeping"....

People

Have been thinking much lately of relationships with others. Different types of people, and different types of relationships.

Like relationships with those you have to work with. Blabbing away. Patience. Oh patience. How far you are from me, how often! And such seemingly small doses you offer when you do get close!

Kathe Kollwitz seemed to posses an infinite amount of the stuff, however. Her drawings and prints of human relationships echo a certain type of shared space created between beings that offer one another large quantities of patience pie. Each line reconfirming that profound connection we can have to one another through all the murk and muck and dirt.

If my head could be anything in particular right now...

It would most definitely turn into this postcard of a chicken and rabbit, talking over their lives and what they will be eating for dinner, likely.

You can tell. This is a SERIOUS conversation about food. They are going into detail here, and will shortly consume what they're discussing.

Prima Donna

My friend was just mentioning that he needs little confirmation in his life to prove that he is, indeed, a big ole' prima donna.

Deep down, I think I may be, too.....

Oh dear. My cat Bingo, pictured here, is most definitely a prima donna as well. Anyone else?

Current Reads

I just got a really nice edition of Tortilla Flat, which is one of my all-time favourite books by John Steinbeck. He's not for everyone, as he shakes sentences down and strips them of all flourish and ornament. It would have been interesting to see Proust and this guy go at it, at a party, or your local bar.

However, like Bob Dylan or Bach, the man's got a knack for turning even the most hard-rock of phrase and the most simplistic seeming line into absolute poetry.

Here's one just for proof, you unbelievers: "The afternoon came down as imperceptibly as age comes to a happy man." This starts off Chapter V, entitled, "How St. Francis turned the tide and put a gentle punishment on Pilon and Pablo and Jesus Maria".

Oh, Steinbeck! How you woo me with such straightforward clarity!

Downing a cold guiness while waiting for the stress to ease up.

I'd rather be here. And I am, in this photo. So why not for realz?

Interesting, what life asks in terms of patience and perspective. Oh, perspective. How great thou art.
I think about this on a daily basis, walking to work, being frustrated about one thing or another, and then in but a moment, POW, it's all over.

Tad cliche, but darn true, too.....

Of too much coffee, and a Psalm (or 2) and Rain....

I am going to see M Ward tonight, and I have to admit, I have not been this excited to see a live musician in a long, long time. Listening to Psalm from End of Amnesia right now, and expecting to be interrupted at any moment, which is always what happens when I begin the journey of trying to hear this little gorgeous ditty.

Although "ditty" hardly does it justice. Not that ditty is a bad word, (although it sounds like "dirty", another word that very much has similar prejudices going against it). Her Majesty by the Beatles is a ditty, and is wondrous, and most of Guthrie's tunes could be considered in the hey-ditty-ditty light and would look good there, alright, so I ain't trying to say anything against these pearls of songs.

But this song is not a ditty. And calling it such would just not be placing it into the shoes that it feels most gracious in, really. Songs need to dance the dance they were made to dance. Um....yeah. Perhaps you know what I mean.

and a wee bit too much coffee (1 too many, 2 for the show, 3 there's no chance so there you go).....

Does this really work?

Just to try things out here.....
Smell of meat/campfire wafting in 8 stories high.