This is my very favorite Christmas song of all, on my favorite of all Neil Young albums (grossly maligned and neglected, though it is), with which I want to wish you all a great holiday season and a fine, creative new year.
And, because I can't resist, here is my second favorite Christmas song of all :
Not too shabby for a lapsed agnostic, eh?
at the hermit's hut, too--
an upturned face awaits
the stars
(If you have trouble with the above link, cut and paste this:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/06/neil-young-and-patti-smith.html)
Speaking of writing, I will be doing a lot more of it in the foreseeable future, just not nearly as much here at Issa's Untidy Hut. I've been solicited to produce a piece of writing that I'm at once honored and humbled to be doing. It will take me more than a few months to do, so the lights will dim down here for awhile, though they won't go out entirely.
I'm going to try to live up to my Wednesday Haiku commitment to post once a week and, if I miss a week now and again, at least you may trust it's with good reason and not by neglect or intent.
What the writing project is I need to keep under wraps for the moment. You folks will be among the first to know once there is clearance.
SydBarrett, the creative force behind the first, classic iteration of Pink Floyd and whose long shadow is still cast over the band's legacy to this day, made some excellent solo recordings. They are, well, odd, as you might expect, as Syd was on a slippery slope downwards for quite sometime. Yet his later songs are, occasionally, brilliant, as you also might expect, and this week's selection fits the bill. Set to the words of James Joyce's 5th poem in his collection Chamber Music, "Golden Hair" is at once totally unexpected and very welcome.
Golden Hair - James Joyce
Lean out of the window,
Goldenhair,
I heard you singing
A merry air.
My book was closed;
I read no more,
Watching the fire dance
On the floor.
I have left my book,
I have left my room,
For I heard you singing
Through the gloom.
Singing and singing
A merry air,
Lean out the window,
Goldenhair.
Here's a lengthy video in 2 parts, with some remarkable early footage of Floyd in performance, plus an interstellar ride through the times as they were:
If you haven't seen the video of the entire new album Le Noise by Neil Young with Daniel Lanois producing, check it out below. I would imagine it will only be up for so long. If you don't have the time or inclination to watch the whole thing, at the 11:40 mark is a great acoustic song about war, titled "Love and War," that should not be missed (just discovered, though embedding is disabled, you can watch and listen to it separately on YouTube here:
Said a lot of things
That I can't take back
Don't really know if I wanna
Been songs about love
I sang songs about war
Since the backstreets of Toronto
I sang for justice
And I hit a bad chord
But I still try to sing
About love and war.
In Memory of May 4, 1970: Kent State - Abraham & Isaac - George Segal, 1978.
One of the more controversial pieces of art over the last 50 years, George Segal's bronze sculpture in memory of the Kent State killings, utilizing the Abraham and Isaac biblical story as analogy, still remains an emotional flashpoint for those who remember the murders of Jeffrey Glenn Miller, age 20, Allison B. Krause, age 19, William Knox Schroeder, age 19, Sandra Lee Scheuer, age 20.
Leonard Cohen's song "The Story of Isaac" utilized the same story to similar purposes on his album Songs from a Room, recorded ten years earlier. The opening verses are a simple lyrical retelling of the story. The final two verses, however, plainly draw the analogy to the Vietnam War, which was at its worst around the time of the song's composition:
You who build these altars now
To sacrifice these children,
You must not do it anymore.
A scheme is not a vision
And you never have been tempted
By a demon or a god.
You who stand above them now,
Your hatchets blunt and bloody,
You were not there before,
When I lay upon a mountain
And my father's hand was trembling
With the beauty of the word.
And if you call me brother now,
Forgive me if I inquire,
"Just according to whose plan?"
When it all comes down to dust
I will kill you if I must,
I will help you if I can.
When it all comes down to dust
I will help you if I must,
I will kill you if I can.
And mercy on our uniform,
Man of peace or man of war,
The peacock spreads his fan
In Memory of the Kent State Massacre. Photo by John Filo.
Since I'm thinking about (and now watching) Popa Chubby's rendition, I couldn't in good conscious not acknowledge the finest rendition of all, sans Cohen himself: Jeff Buckley:
Counterfeit father of an Industrial City,
mama encased in Europe,
my life sways like a kite line
thru rented rooms odd jobs,
to days I only thot had ended
before I was born
W. T. Ranney
the trainer lets
his monkey hold it...
New Year's kite
Sent along by the wonderful poet, Michael Newell, this short talk addresses inspiration via her own experience as a writer. The incredible stories of Ruth Stone and Tom Waits (remind me sometime to tell you another Tom Waits story, this one about driving and "the hair in the gate") are why you should show up for this, but what will hook you, reel you in, and land you, happily, in the bucket for this evening's repast is one simple word: inspiration.
In spire ... the breath in. In spire: to inflame, to blow in:
c.1300, "immediate influence of God or a god," especially that under which the holy books were written, from O.Fr. inspiration, from L.L. inspirationem (nom. inspiratio), from L. inspiratus, pp. of inspirare "inspire, inflame, blow into," from in-"in" + spirare "to breathe." Online Etymology Dictionary
Spirit. The thing, that which moves us, moves in us, moves about.
The is.
on my sleeve catching his breath... worn-out firefly
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