Celebrations and Solitudes

Consort with Madness

2010-08-22T22:57:00.005-04:00

Poetry by le thi diem thuy, author of The Gangster We Are All Looking For.

Another Gone

2010-08-14T13:51:00.000-04:00

Ah, Abbey, what is the world going to do without your presence?

Jali/Jeli

Actress

Woman of Conscience
Paradigm of Beauty
Bringer of Compassion

Please watch the above videos, preferably with all your attention. There was a great interview with her by Amiri Baraka in a jazz magazine a while back, which I cannot find online. Abbey was a poet. Not just in her songs, but on the page. I wish there was more in print to show for it (see the anthology Confirmation), but there were more than just musical reasons that she blurbed Jessica Hagedorn's Dangerous Music. My huge regret is that I never saw her perform live.

Inspiration in Desolation?

2010-08-13T22:55:00.000-04:00

It's the contributions that build the community. Then the community contributes in turn. How long have I had that wrong? The gift withered in the empty vessel.
Outside the circle, the visions vaporize blue. The voices fluctuate between crosswave cacophony and barely audible whispers from beneath the heavy stone lid. Tongue tenses against clenched teeth. Throat dry. Home is some place else, elusive.
Breath, take this doubt from me. Clear my veins of clay so I can build again.

Paintings by Ben Jones

Oodles of Ooloi

2008-10-09T15:05:00.000-04:00

Years ago, when I had a fairly long daily commute, I quickly burned through all of Octavia Butler's books that were in print at the time. There was something about the situations and the character interactions within the work that captured very familiar feelings and sensations, despite the unfamiliar field where those phenomena took place. Critics and readers have pointed out the racial, sexual and gender themes that weave through her novels. For me, however, their profundity came not just from those "real world" topics, but from the characters' reactions to them, which was captured not just in dialog but within the narrative itself. Bewilderment, claustrophobia, pessimism, compassion, tranquility, realization. It is a reminder that the real world is surreal enough in itself (Charles Burnett's masterpiece of filmmaking, The Killer of Sheep, which I will touch on at a later date, is an example of a work from another genre that captures that impression perfectly). What has attracted me to so-called Science Fiction is indeed that abstract center of sensation and feeling. I will never forget opening up John Brunner's Jagged Orbit to see that the first page was nothing but "I-," and the second page was nothing but "solationism." I think it even gave me goosebumps. Another obvious example is of course Samuel Delany's Dhalgren, which pulls the reader into a psychosexual, sense-bombarding, world of confusion not unlike our own samsara, with a touch of Maldoror. I once talked to someone about this book who complained about the fact that nothing "happens," nor is anything solved or resolved. I believe she missed the point. Getting back to Butler, the reason she is on the mind is because I have been listening to Nicole Mitchell's tribute to her, Xenogenesis Suite, and really digging it. I was admittedly disappointed in Mitchell's last album, Black Unstoppable, because her recordings up till then were so uniquely her sound, using uncommon instrumentation to create a flowing yet angular, inspirited experience, but Unstoppable felt locked in by forms. Xenogenesis is pure magic. Even if the listener is not familiar with the source material, the music will take he or she into that very feeling I described above. There is transcendence, (re)connection, and catharsis. If only Octavia Butler were around to hear it. I envision her listening to it at home in isolation, her eyes enlivened with the knowledge that her creation in turn inspired another beautiful creation.

Eat me at the King of Southern-Fried Chicken

2008-10-08T05:35:00.000-04:00

R.I.P. Charles Wright

"Charles Wright’s THE WIG marked a change in African-American fiction. All of us who wanted to 'experiment,' as we were seeing our painter and musician friends experiment, used it as a model. Though some would call me the literary son of Ralph Ellison, in the 1960s I was the younger brother of Charles Wright."-Ishmael Reed

October Revolution

2008-09-28T03:08:00.000-04:00

The last couple of weeks in October are going to be insane when it comes to live music in the area. Funds are limited, so of course choices must be made, but how does one choose? Check it out:

Evan Parker 10/17 & 10/18

Paul Lytton 10/20 & 10/21 not with Parker (how did this happen?), but with Nate Wooley on both dates and including Fred Frith on the 21st

Billy Bang 10/21

Archie Shepp (pictured with that amazing two 'bone front line of Rudd & Moncur) 10/23

Cecil Taylor 10/24

Marilyn Crispell 10/26

Whew. There are actually some others (like Toumani Diabate and TV on the Radio) that spill into November. Well, Shepp and Crispell are the only two I've never seen. Archie Shepp is one of my favorite musicians/improvisers/composers, which should be reason enough for that show to be the first choice. However, I do have one concern, and that is he might settle into his Ben Webster bag for the whole set. Don't get me wrong, I love Webster (a lot), and I love the way Shepp handles breathy ballads in that mode and tone, but Fire Music is what I'm yearning for. Cecil I've seen quite a few times, and none of those shows were less than beatific. In fact, many folks I've befriended, loved, or greatly admired were at the same C.T. poetry reading back in 2000 which was backed by Positive Knowledge, Marco Eneidi, and Ledoh! Portions of that reading can be seen in the C.T. documentary All the Notes. Marilyn Crispell would be nice to see; her solo work covers every mood and musical facet imaginable. Her piano playing provided some of the most intense communal surges on perhaps one of the greatest musical recordings I've ever owned. Parker, Lytton and Bang are actually in my price range. One should feel blessed for even having these options. Any suggestions?

Ecclesiastes 3

2008-09-28T01:19:00.000-04:00

The starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) are beginning to moult their summer plumage. Since moving to northern California, this phenomenon has been one of the many subtle signs of seasonal change that I have come to depend on. A fact that teases my imagination even more (when I consciously choose to ignore the scientific explanations) is that the starlings' beaks change from yellow to black in the winter. I used to wonder if I was seeing two different species or sexes. There are of course other ways to spot seasonal transitions in the region, especially in riparian areas. Sycamores, black oaks and black cottonwoods stand out among Monterey Pine, coast live oaks and Douglas Firs with their autumn colors. The flowers on the buckeyes wilt away, and pear-shaped seed capsules hang from their branches. Walnuts with husks that smell green form and fall. Poppies no longer carpet meadows. Blackberry brambles no longer bear fruit. During San Francisco winters, when it's not raining (something that has been a bit lacking the last couple of years), Orion's belt (or The Three Kings) is a constant companion in the night sky, visible despite the billions of artificial lights. This was my last summer in San Francisco, and perhaps I'm getting sentimental. The first few lines from that Fever Tree song, "San Francisco Girls," suddenly come to mind.

Personal Version of Chaos

2008-09-27T02:44:00.000-04:00

Somehow I missed the news that Mauricio Kagel passed away earlier this week. His work has always appealed to me due to its complete disregard for borders between disciplines. Creative people that have this quality (Art Ensemble of Chicago, Brecht, the Black Artists Group and Cecilia Vicuna all come to mind) seem to be deeply in touch with the mysterious animating forces of the universe. No hyperbole intended. Many times a trickster is necessary to show humans just how insignificant their structures and systems imposed on nature really are, and Kagel definitely had those anarchic traits. There is a very good interview with him here.

Now Ask Yourself...

2008-09-24T04:46:00.000-04:00

Who's the Mac?

www.kitundu.com

Viparinama-dukkha

2008-09-10T01:53:00.000-04:00

Memory: Once when I was in Marcus Books in San Francisco, which is located in a sort of liminal space between Pacific Heights and the Fillmore District (the people who live in Pacific Heights call it "Lower Pacific Heights"), I had a conversation with the woman working there about redevelopment and gentrification. At one moment, we both silently looked out at the passing crowds of "Specific Whites," and I asked: "How do you deal with that every day?" She replied: "It's all illusion, baby."

Is it? Really? Does that mean that my dismay at the changes occurring in the city is simply due to an emotional attachment, and that I should just let go? Granted, if one obsesses over changes that seem impossible to prevent, those charged thoughts will be rather destructive. I don't want to become an old misanthrope. However, shifts such as those we are experiencing in one urban city lead immediately to contemplation of immense issues that seem way beyond an individual's capability to act on.

Many people (including me at times) focus on the pseudo-hipsters (you have to be hip to something to deserve that name-somebody needs to bring that Ted Joans book back into print*) and their impact on the Mission, but there have been much more conscious actions taken to uproot San Francisco neighborhoods in favor of a new population. Of course the city's redevelopment agency has a notorious history, one that created the situation with the Fillmore District referenced above and the forced evictions from the International Hotel, but there have been more subtle but just as destructive moves being made within the last decade.

The Nob Hill Gazette helped me realize this. For those who don't know, the Gazette is a free monthly newspaper that comes to the doorsteps of the nabobs in both Nob Hill and Pacific Heights. The paper's wedding column is called "Mergers and Acquisitions." Reading was revealing, especially two issues I still have somewhere in storage. One contained an article discussing Bayview/Hunter's Point, and how it is going to be the next hot neighborhood in San Francisco, and that real estate was at that time still affordable there. Of course there was mention of how the area was being cleaned up and improving. The next issue contained a letter to the editor in which a reader was overflowing with pleasant surprise and plans to invest. The end of the letter was virtually gushing with the realization that Bayview is the "sunniest" area of the city.

At the time, I was working at Candlestick Point, and as I was riding the 15 bus down Third Street on my way to work, I would look at the construction sites for the Third St Rail, and all the new buildings popping up everywhere and grit my teeth. I then of course had no idea that development plans would even include my own workplace.

*Actually, the whole Village scene that eventually became popularized and commercialized after the Beat Generation hype on the surface seems similar to what is happening now.

An Incident Here and There

2008-09-03T23:56:00.000-04:00

On the topic of invocations, I recently picked up HD’s Trilogy again for the first time in a few years. Till I was hipped to her later work, I couldn’t get into her poetry at all. It seemed so dependent on Greek mythology, that it felt like once you took away all the prancing satyrs and such, there wasn’t much left holding the poems together. The writing of Trilogy was apparently a major (psychological/creative/spiritual) transformation for her. As the bombs began dropping during World War II, she chose to stay in London, and the actual and contemplative experiences of those horrors induced visions (Remember when people still admitted to having those? What happened? Did the new age movement mess all that up for us?), which in turn evoked memories of past visions. What did she see? An eternal, primordial feminine principle that she imagines as playing an active part in the shaping of both the universe and human events, and a tree that reminded her of Christ and his pagan predecessors. Suddenly, within the text are all dimensions of historical time (the then and the now which will soon be then) and HD’s personal or literary experiences of that time. She weaves in and out many ancient traditions to trace the path of the mythological presence/entity she envisions, making those stories and deities very much alive in the present. Although she might have been too dependent on source material like that old, tired horse The Golden Bough, it works. In the third section when one of the three wise men looks upon Mary Magdalene (on her way to the crucifixion) and sees not just the Virgin Mary, but a woman before Isis, before Eve, before Lilith-a feminine before forms, I could not help but become a participant in HD’s transcendent passion. It’s a similar sensation, a meeting of various embodiments of the numinous on one plane, to what occurs in Bessie Head’s A Question of Power (if you have never read this novel, please do seek it out) or Flaubert’s Temptation of St Anthony (which was in turn parodied in one of the wildest "chapters" in Ulysses). I won’t go into further details which would ruin anyone’s reading of the book with boring analysis. It’s one of those works of art you want to discuss with someone only after they’ve already been on the journey.

The Wings of a Three-Toed Frog

2008-09-03T22:46:00.000-04:00

Some mornings I need Nina Simone more than I need caffeine. Specifically: “Funkier than a Mosquito’s Tweeter.” It’s impossible to drop the needle on this song without movement from some body part beyond those in the ears. The LP that this cut comes from, “It Is Finished,” is also one of Nina’s better albums, and one of the few that is almost listenable from first groove to center label (I can’t bear to listen to “Mr. Bojangles”). Throughout her career, her albums were very inconsistent; for every profound masterpiece like “Backlash Blues” (especially the live versions) or “The King of Love is Dead,” there was a Bee Gees cover or a song with nausea-inducing arrangements. The latter type always reminds me of those awful awful Paul Mauriat records I used to constantly come across in my digging days:

Imagine the rhythm section recording in a hissy but well-padded and fuzzy-carpeted studio while the backing orchestra is crammed into a gymnasium down the hall, and it’s all recorded in analogue onto four-track. One pop music cover on “It Is Finished,” however, is nitty gritty fOnky (with a capital O), and has some things to say that didn’t come across in the original (a similar thing occurs with Hendrix’s version of “All Along the Watchtower” and Curtis Mayfield’s beautiful version of “We’ve Only Just Begun,” which gives the lyrics a whole new context), and that is Nina’s version of “The Pusher.” Also, there’s the yearning whimsy of “I Want Some Sugar in My Bowl,” which rides the top of its stripped-down arrangement. Then there’s one of the most haunting, most captivating compositions in the Priestess’s discography: “Dambala,” an invocation to the Vodoun loa (or lwa) of the same name, plus much more, for the lyrics contain history, mystery, myth, and an individual expression of the collective emotional reactions to those aspects. Everything in the world stops when I listen to this song. She celebrates this tradition on another cut on this record, “Obeah Woman,” which ends the album.