Go Back to the Beginning – 09/28/2018
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Go Back to the Beginning – 09/28/2018
Moonlight turned my world into an Edward Weston print. Rolls of clouds creep over the mountains defined in grades of silver by our proximate neighbor. The woods take on an eerie detail of contrasting shadows. Though much brighter than a moonless dawn, I find myself stumbling off the path. Wandering. Thin clouds now drift past the moon like lace curtains softly billowing on a distant window, the solitary light in an otherwise dark façade. I gaze voyeuristically, losing my way, pausing. I look back and realize I must return to the beginning. Vizzini said to go back to the beginning.
Peas and Hominy
Cool, dark, quiet. No heating apparatus. No fans. No outside noises. Over the quiet a coyote barks. Epistles form around the protruding bank up the draw.
10/05/2018 (From 09/28/2018)
And the beginning comes closer. We’re hoofing it, the beginning and I, up a long hill, concentrating on our breathing, slow and steady but working towards a crescendo. We notice that we’re breathing to The Shoes of the Fisherman’s Wife Are Some Jive Ass Slippers from the Charles Mingus Let My Children Hear Music album. It’s not the first part of the piece but further on, after about the fourth or fifth nice change, it builds in a three chord progression then doubles up on the tempo. If we time it right we reach the top where Selly Rd. comes in just as the large group rendition in our head resolves into more of a dirty swing for a downhill romp. Then we’re going through the gates on Center and headed to the U. City Library, riding along in the funhouse that is St. Louis summers in the early 70’s. We had just learned that we could checkout albums from the library. We were teaching ourselves about Jazz, not just the beginning and me but there were a couple of Jimmies, a Glenn and maybe a few others. We hit the used record bin at Streetside Records on Delmar, sneak into music festivals, find a stack of old vinyl in a cabin in the Ozarks and make use of any other resource available that would expand our knowledge of the medium, even TV. So I check the library and see this Mingus LP. ‘Nough said; composition, improv, tight. And the song titles definitely caught the eye of a young man who might end up writing some shit that people could want to read.
Peace and Harmony
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