December 2008

Welcome to the new month. I realize that I have not posted since October!
October, seamless, extravagant...
I recall your oranges and rusts

Already the steel grey decay of November has flown away with Summer's late birds!

December is the bonus month, added gratis to the grinding year, as a maroschino cherry to a holiday cocktail...
meditations on music...what a sweet escape!
enchanting, entrancing bouncing melody and meter...
doorway to a dream!
fantastic, vaulted chamber within
what sweet melodies run upon the strings
the disembodied puffs of angels
harmonious proportion
within ear's memory
ceasing time
if ceasing time, then ceasing mortality
then ceases fear of death
I'm dreaming of a white Christmas just like the one's I used to know

Listening to Peggy Lee, dreaming of Christmas past, pondering the strangeness of time, and if time be strange, then it is life itself that is strange. Strange but sweet. It came to me as a surprise when Pete Seeger said "music is an escape". I understood a deep truth in what he said, and here is a man who knows everything about songs which he promoted one thousand times over all the world over! Yes, music is an escape...Somehow that took the wind out of my sails since music is for me a daily obsession---a very pleasant obsession, I might add. There is nothing about music that does not fascinate me. But an escape, a crutch? I guess so.

So let's say you devote all of your life to an obsession like music that never cashes in in any practical sense and you learn that it is an escape. Does that instantly make you into a loser? Quite the contrary, as we see in Don Quixote, there is something inherently noble about a human person that devotes themselves wholeheartedly to some one or some thing without measure. The ultimate insignificance of the thing we devote actually renders the nobility of its quest nobler!

I was at a wild party on Saturday night so I am not going to mention any of the particulars of the party for fear I might inculpate my friends! After the hilarity of the evening which did not let up until well past midnight, I declared: "Maybe I partied too much," then pausing so as to let that sink in on one of the veterans, added, "well, who's to say?" And this encrusted dude says, "yeah man who's to say what's too much partying?" That gave me a laugh and then it was party over and down from the mountain. Now it's Monday night.

One of the reasons I am opening up and disclosing the truth is probably vain, but it is calculated with regard to leaving behind a literary legacy. Of all the monkeys favorite games, writing must also present a kind of escape. Dreams of indelibility, is it too much to ask? Not for Quixote.

1000 Fing'r'd World

Rhumba

Wolfram Tunes Generator

The Tune Generator is an online synthesizer that anyone can easily use to create musical compositions. Click here to be directed to the Wolfram Tune Generator page:

http://tones.wolfram.com/gen/G621JNAxT3F3tOIMz19NkqFsIuPiWEwedmz18bhHbERzP

Faith's Compass

Between the jaggedstraights of reason and the sweltering swamps of fear lie faith and spirituality;
My ship shatters on the sharp, ragged rocks of reason;
My foot falters in the sweltering swamps of fear
In between these dwells faith in balance
Avoiding excess of emotion and surplus of cynicism.

Spirituality is the compass
To hold center knowing what is essential in the heart of faith.

(Poem based upon an original idea communicated on telephone by Alan Kleiner on 07-01-08.)

The Literary Genius of St. Paul

Sojourn to the Middle Valley

Illumine Thou Me!

Three 'Pecking ' Ducks

Library at Mercersburg Academy

Googleberry

Yearling

Magnus! (oryctalagus cuniculus)

Corporate America Embraces the Bhagavad-Gita

"Not surprised," said R .Juna. "It's all about 'bhagavad bux' and besides, with Hinduism the customer gets every other religion including atheism, all at the same cost!" intoned Harry K. dreamily. "More bangha for the buckha!!" :)

check it out and read all about it at: http://bhagavad-america.blogspot.com/

The 'Shrine' Oak at Whitetail

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Dead Sea Scrolls

A little story is required with this photo! While listening to unreleased Crunchkin "Blue Spruce" recording, the book you see in the middle of this photo was found floating in my bath (hence the candle and you can see the plug, etc. ). Now this would not be as strange were it not for the fact that I had just poured a great deal of dead sea salts from Tel Aviz, Israel into the bathwater, and oddly enough the water somehow attracted this book (Penguin edition of Dead Sea Scrolls) to fall in the water. Wierd, eh?

New Hofner Bass Guitar w/Agnus

Self portrait

A Mighty Fortress is Our God

A Great Summit of Vocal Performance by Steve Green! Enjoy. (click on the the title above)

Mass at the Carmelite Monastery on February 16, 2008

 

Loretto Wheat in February

 

As gnats do multiply on brackish waters
So do worries number without her arms;

Thoughts peck into coiled gray matter
To aggravate the burden of this fleshly matter;
I would cast its dull carcass to the ground
And learn whether spirits fly!

But dust outwits time’s debate
And as it was before shall once again be
On its cruel white watch the moon yet spins
And tugs water’s dark waves beneath me

Leaden sleep lulls my fingers down
words escape my pen
her eyes shine like shimmering stars in the blue night
and her face is fair

Edit me as you like
I shall never forget
The charmed hour before dawn
When poetry nudges her to speak.