Though they don’t wear watches, the owls seem to return, never having left, occupying the big trees with meaningful chatter. Maybe it is just the time of year or maybe it’s the time of day. Joni knows the line. We enter this realm by a new trail found from the chair, expanding on life through a window. Based on recently mined data, the path is as smooth as the surface of Europa yet not quite as polished as a quantum-stabilized atom mirror. We feel Debussy’s faun hiding in a structure of minor chords before the incongruously placed fire hydrant invites momentary confusion, interrupting our attempt to get back to the garden.
Seeking explanations, we query Carlos, The Man’s spirit guide, his mentor for many years despite the raptor’s infatuation with juvenile semiotics. The guru pauses, flexes his throat, and this he told him. “Invisible forces will defy forecasts and remove the stars from the sky. Flags will whip and snap like candles in the wind, falling on the same conclusions. You will be pushed and bounced about with the violence of a pinball wizard. At length, you will drop into the rabbit hole. Oops, there goes the gravity, or something like that. Seeing your feet above your head you will become the star dust and react to protect the infrastructure. There will be some pain but the fortress will survive, minor collateral damage on the peripheries. You will settle down by the river and face a crossroads, opting for the road less travelled. Pumping up a rugged terrain, you will hear a melody, getting it into your soul like the shoes of the fisherman’s wife. Yet you soar, light as a feather. Open your eyes, follow the master plan, you can fly.”
The Man slowly closes his eyes in frustration and returns to the window. Part two picks up on the previous theme with a screen crowded by galleons of geese headed southwest, returning to the lake after a morning of pillaging fairways. Below the aerial acrobatics, a spry fox, arriving late, prances across the crisp snow. The Man then sees himself standing behind the piano. He would watch the keys and transpose to B-flat on the fly. With his limitations, it was easier than reading the jumble of dots and lines on the paper. And he remembers learning that those minor chords led, not so indirectly, to the Lydian Chromatic Concept of Tonal Organization. A theory Russell shared with Miles and Trane. Hence, Miles’ Mode and John’s brilliant modal interpretation of My Favorite Things. Voila, with only a few degrees of separation, Debussy to Julie Andrews.
Peas and Hominy
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Lyrical and vinyl.
I hear a needle scratchin', a pen inkin', and decades blinkin'.
Nicely wrought.