I Talk To The Trees

Chet Baker / Stan Getz: I Talk to the Trees

Deep at the bottom of the well no warmth has yet returned,
The rain which sighs and feels so cold has dampened withered roots.
What sort of man at such a time would come to visit the teacher?
As this is not a time for flowers, I find I have come alone.
--Su Shi (1037--1101)
Visiting the Temple of Auspicious Fortune Alone on Winter Solstice

(Ex-) Governor Christie Traffic Jam

Jimmy Fallon / Bruce Springsteen: Governor Christie Traffic Jam


in the day we sweat it out on the streets
stuck in traffic on the GWB
they shut down the tollbooths of glory
'cause we didn't endorse Christie
sprung from cages on Highway 9
we got three lanes closed
so Jersey get your ass in line
whoa, maybe this Bridgegate was just payback
it's a bitchslap to the state democrats
we gotta get out but we can't
we're stuck in Gov. Chris Christie's Fort Lee, N.J. traffic jam

Reason For Being

Seldom Scene: Reason for Being
Framingham, MA...2/16/13


Ben Eldridge (banjo)
Ronnie Simkins (bass)
Lou Reid (mandolin)
Dudley Connell (guitar)
Fred Travers (dobro)

Dreamland

DJ Algoriddim: Dreamland mix *


there's a land that i have heard about
so far across the sea
to have you on my dreamland
would be like heaven to me

we'll get our breakfast from the trees
we'll get our honey from the bees
we'll take a ride on the waterfalls
and all the glories, we'll have them all

and we'll live together on that dreamland
and have so much fun
oh what a time that will be
just you wait, wait, wait and see

we'll count the stars up in the sky
and surely we'll never die




* Dreamland: Wailers
Dreamland: Bunny Livingstone & The Wailers
Dreamland Version: Upsetters
Dreamland: Winston Wright & The Upsetters
Dreamland Version: U Roy
Dreamland Dub: Upsetters
Dream Land: Bunny Wailer
Dub Dreams (Dreamland): Bunny Wailer
Love Land: Dub Specialist
Dreamland (Single Mix): Marcia Griffiths
Dreamland Dub : Marcia Griffiths
Natty Dub In A Dreamland: Bojangles

And Her Hair Hung Gently Down

Robert Hunter : Reuben and Cerise...3/28/84

the truth of love
an unsung song must tell
the course of love
must follow blind
without a look behind
Reuben walked
through the streets
of New Orleans 'till dawn
Cerise so lightly in his arms
and her hair hung gently down





Jerry Garcia: Reuben and Cerise


Phil & Friends w/ Joan Osborne: Reuben and Cerise...10/29/05


Yonder Mountain String Band; Reuben and Cerise...6/19/09

Un Canadien Errant

Whitehorse: Un Canadien Errant

Un Canadien errant,
Banni de ses foyers,
Parcourait en pleurant
Des pays étrangers.
Un jour, triste et pensif,
Assis au bord des flots,
Au courant fugitif
Il adressa ces mots:
"Si tu vois mon pays,
Mon pays malheureux,
Va, dis à mes amis
Que je me souviens d'eux.
"Ô jours si pleins d'appas
Vous êtes disparus,
Et ma patrie, hélas!
Je ne la verrai plus!
"Non, mais en expirant,
Ô mon cher Canada!
Mon regard languissant
Vers toi se portera..."
--Antoine Gérin-Lajoie (1842)


Leonard Cohen: Un Canadien Errant


Nana Mouskouri: Un Canadien Errant

A Canadian wandering afar,
Banished from hearth and home,
Would gaze at the northern star
And weep in the strange lands he roamed.
One day, with thoughts full of woe,
He sat by the river’s edge.
To the fugitive current below,
These are the words that he said:
If you see my country some day,
My country in sorrow’s thrall,
Go tell my friends faraway
That I remember them all.
O days of charm you have passed,
You vanished like summer rain.
And my fatherland, alas!
I never will see you again.
No, but on my dying day
These eyes will be filled with tears
As my longing look turns your way,
O Canada, ever so dear.
--Brian C. Puckett (2011)


Bonnie Dobson; Un Canadien Errant

Caturday

Cat Power: Naked If I Want To

would you let me
walk down your street
naked if i want to?

can i shoot fireworks
on the fourth of july?

can i buy
an amplifier on time?
i don't have no money now,
but i will pay you
before i die.

--moby grape

Man is the Reasoning Animal.
Such is the claim.
I think it is open to dispute.
Indeed, my experiments have proven to me that he is the Unreasoning Animal... In truth, man is incurably foolish. Simple things which other animals easily learn, he is incapable of learning. Among my experiments was this. In an hour I taught a cat and a dog to be friends. I put them in a cage. In another hour I taught them to be friends with a rabbit. In the course of two days I was able to add a fox, a goose, a squirrel and some doves. Finally a monkey. They lived together in peace; even affectionately.
Next, in another cage I confined an Irish Catholic from Tipperary, and as soon as he seemed tame I added a Scotch Presbyterian from Aberdeen. Next a Turk from Constantinople; a Greek Christian from Crete; an Armenian; a Methodist from the wilds of Arkansas; a Buddhist from China; a Brahman from Benares. Finally, a Salvation Army Colonel from Wapping. Then I stayed away for two whole days. When I came back to note results, the cage of Higher Animals was all right, but in the other there was but a chaos of gory odds and ends of turbans and fezzes and plaids and bones and flesh--not a specimen left alive. These Reasoning Animals had disagreed on a theological detail and carried the matter to a Higher Court.
--Mark Twain
Letters from the Earth: Uncensored Writings

Don't Dig Here

David Crosby/Graham Nash
Don't Dig Here
Grass Valley, CA.
9/10/11

i hope you're coming in peace with good intentions
i've got something to say that might save your soul
this sign is a warning so pay attention
open up the earth you could lose control

this place is full of shit that kills
maybe us and maybe you, it's true

you can dig for diamonds in the dust
and you can dig forever if you must
but if you dig this mountain high and clear
there's much to fear
just don't dig here

we considered ourselves a powerful culture
the bully pulpit waved the flag on high
we feasted on the carrion like vultures
across the land the bones were piling high
against the sky

then we filled the mountain to the brim
sealed it in, just don't pull the pin

you can dig for diamonds in the dust
and you can dig forever if you must
but if you dig this mountain high and clear
there's much to fear
just don't dig here

you can dig for diamonds in the dust
and you can dig forever if you must
but if you dig this mountain high and clear
in the atmosphere
just don't dig here




We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using Nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy--sun, wind and tide. I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.
--Thomas A. Edison

La Pistola y El Corazón

David Hidalgo/Marc Ribot
La Pistola y El Corazón
Denver, CO.
1/10/13

no sé como decirte
no sé como explicarte
que aquí no hay remedio
de lo que siento yo
de lo que siento yo

la luna me dice una cosa
las estrellas me dicen otra
y la luz del día me canta
esta triste canción
esta triste canción

los besos que me diste mi amor
son los que me están matando
y las lágrimas me están secando
con mi pistola y mi corazón
y aquí siempre paso la vida
con la pistola y el corazón

no sé como amarte
no sé como abrazarte
porque no se me deja
el dolor que tengo yo
el dolor que tengo yo

esta noche tan oscura
con sus sombras tan tranquilas
y el viento me sigue cantando
esta humilde canción
esta humilde canción

los besos que me diste mi amor
son los que me están matando
y las lágrimas me están secando
con mi pistola y mi corazón
y aquí siempre paso la vida
con la pistola y el corazón

--david hidalgo/louie pérez

i don’t know how to tell you
don’t know how to explain
that there is no remedy
for what i feel inside
for what i feel inside

the moon tells me one thing
the stars tell me another
and the light of day sings me
this sad sad song
this sad sad song

the kisses you gave me, my love
are the ones that will kill me
and the tears i’ve cried are drying
with my pistol and my heart
and my life here goes by
with the pistol and the heart

i don’t know how to love you
don’t know how to embrace you
because this pain i feel
this pain i feel
won’t leave me alone

the night is so dark
with its quiet shadows
and the wind keeps singing
this humble song
this humble song

the kisses you gave me, my love
are the ones that will kill me
and the tears i’ve cried are drying
with my pistol and my heart
and my life here goes by
with the pistol and the heart

--english translation by johannes beilharz

Alexandra Leaving

Sharon Robinson
Alexandra Leaving
Olympic Stadium
Amsterdam, Holland
8/21/12

suddenly the night has grown colder
the god of love preparing to depart
Alexandra hoisted on his shoulder
they slip between the sentries of the heart

upheld by the simplicitys of pleasure
they gain the light, they formlessly entwine
and radiant beyond your widest measure
they fall among the voices and the wine

it's not a trick, your senses all deceiving
a fitful dream, the morning will exhaust
say goodbye to Alexandra leaving
then say goodbye to Alexandra lost

even though she sleeps upon your satin
even though she wakes you with a kiss
do not say the moment was imagined
do not stoop to strategies like this

as someone long prepared for this to happen
go firmly to the window, drink it in
exquisite music Alexandra laughing
your firm commitments tangible again

and you who had the honor of her evening
and by the honor had your own restored
say goodbye to Alexandra leaving
Alexandra leaving with her lord

even though she sleeps upon your satin
even though she wakes you with a kiss
do not say the moment was imagined
do not stoop to strategies like this

as someone long prepared for the occasion
in full command of every plan you wrecked
do not choose a coward's explanation
that hides behind the cause and the effect

and you who were bewildered by a meaning
whose code was broken, crucifix uncrossed
say goodbye to Alexandra leaving
then say goodbye to Alexandra lost

say goodbye to Alexandra leaving
then say goodbye to Alexandra lost

--Leonard Cohen/Sharon Robinson




Sharon Robinson
Alexandra Leaving
Olympia Hall
Paris, France
9/29/12

when suddenly, at midnight, you hear
an invisible procession going by
with exquisite music, voices,
don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now,
work gone wrong, your plans
all proving deceptive--don’t mourn them uselessly.
as one long prepared, and graced with courage,
say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving.
above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say
it was a dream, your ears deceived you:
don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.
as one long prepared, and graced with courage,
as is right for you who were given this kind of city,
go firmly to the window
and listen with deep emotion, but not
with the whining, the pleas of a coward;
listen--your final delectation--to the voices,
to the exquisite music of that strange procession,
and say goodbye to her, to the Alexandria you are losing.

--Constantine Cavafy
The God Forsakes Antony

Return Of Redtail Hawk

Kate Wolf: Pacheco / Redtail Hawk

And all the host
laughed and wept,
and in the midst of
their merriment and tears
the clear voice
of the minstrel
rose like silver and gold,
and all men were hushed.
And (s)he sang to them,
now in the Elven-tongue,
now in the speech of the West,
until their hearts,
wounded with sweet words,
overflowed, and their joy
was like swords,
and they passed in thought
out to regions
where pain and delight
flow together
and tears are
the very wine of blessedness.
--J.R.R. Tolkien

I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus

FIRESIGN THEATER: I THINK WE'RE ALL BOZOS ON THIS BUS



The piece opens as a bus appears on a typical suburban road identified as Dutch Elm Street in Fifth Area. When it stops, vegetable-shaped holograms pop out of thin air and sing a song inviting people to board the bus and visit The Future Fair ("A fair for all and no fare to anybody!"). The main character, a young man named Clem boards and takes a seat next to his soon-to-be companion, Barney, who is one of many circus clowns (called bozos) already on the bus. They are taken to the Future Fair, where they hear an announcement that they are "about to experience a period of simulated exhilaration" presented using a technique called "technical stimulation", and encounter several virtual-reality-like, quasi-educational rides and exhibits similar to those at Disneyland and the 1964 World's Fair.
They exit the bus and Clem enters "The Wall of Science", a science-themed exhibit featuring recreations of historical events. The presentation includes two men, "The Honorable Chester Cadaver" and "Senator Clive Brown", demonstrating a "model government" (which runs on electricity). When one of them asks Clem his name, he hesitantly responds "Uh... Clem" and the central computer stores his name as "Ahclem", addressing him as such. Later in the recording, the computer addresses Barney, who honks his nose horn when stating his name, as "Barney (honk sound)". This is the first in a series of attempts by the computer to interact with the pair as another human would, but failing because inaccurate pattern recognition is a poor substitute for genuine understanding.
Clem and Barney join other tourists in various exhibits and rides, and eventually encounter a simulation of then-President Richard Nixon similar to the "audioanimatronic" President Lincoln at Disneyland. But instead of merely making a speech, it answers visitors' questions with vague, positive-sounding replies only remotely related to the questions and completely unrelated to the citizens' concerns. When Clem reaches the front of the line, he puts the President simulator into maintenance mode by saying, "This is worker speaking. Hello." The computer responds with "Systat: uptime" and the length of time the it has been running. Clem then attempts to crash the system by confusing it with it questions it can't understand, or sometimes, even parse. For example, "Why does the Porridge Bird lay its egg in the air?" is interpreted in several ways, such as "Why does the poor rich Barney (honk) delay laser's edge in the fair?", but the computer's speech-recognition software rejects them all as probably erroneous. This finally causes the "President" to put itself out of service and shut down, but the attack fails to bring down the Fair's entire network.
As Clem meets up with Barney on the Funway (a collection of carnival style attractions and games of skill), he discovers that the Fair's security is looking for him. The loudspeakers repeatedly page for a "Mr. Ahclem" and the hologram of "Artie Choke" informs him that "Deputy Dan" will come for him. Clem then uses the hologram of Artie Choke to create a holographic image of himself and sends it into the system a-la Tron, to confront the central computer, "Dr. Memory". His confusing questions cause this computer to crash too, bringing the fair to a halt.
The entire experience is then revealed to be a vision of the future as seen in the crystal ball of a Gypsy telling the fortune of someone with the same voice and name of Barney.

--Firesign Theater:
I Think We're All Bozos On This Bus
1971

An Octet From The Tiny Desk

The Civil Wars

Barton Hollow
Twenty Years
Poison & Wine

------------------------------------------



Lisa Hannigan

Knots
Little Bird
Passenger

-------------------------------------------



Flaco Jimenez
(w/ Max Baca)

Margarita
La Paloma
Cada Vez Que Cae La Tarde

--------------------------------------------



Lyle Lovett
(w/ Matt Bulla)

Cowboy Man
If You Were To Wake Up
Good Intentions

---------------------------------------------



Tinariwen

Adounia
Takkest Tamidaret
Tenhert
Tahlamoyt

----------------------------------------------



Richard Thompson

The Money Shuffle
Stumble On
Demons In Her Dancing Shoes

-----------------------------------------------



Yo-Yo Ma/Edgar Meyer/Chris Thile/Stuart Duncan
(w/ Aoife O'Donovan)

Quarter Chicken Dark
Attaboy
Here And Heaven *

------------------------------------------------



Gaby Moreno

No Regrets
Ave Que Emigra
Sing Me Life

And Life To Go On For Evermore

BUT NO PERFECTION IS SO ABSOLUTE
THAT SOME IMPURITY DOTH NOT POLLUTE.
--WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
(rape of lucrece)

Kendra Ulrich : NRC Meeting on SONGS restart 12/18/12*

* conveniently held 2700 miles from
the communities in the most immediate danger

Richard Burton reads The Hand that Signed the Paper

If we apply our minds directly and competently to the needs of the earth, then we will have begun to make fundamental and necessary changes in our minds. We will begin to understand and to mistrust and to change our wasteful economy, which markets not just the produce of the earth, but also the earth's ability to produce. We will see that beauty and utility are alike dependent upon the health of the world. But we will also see through the fads and the fashions of protest. We will see that war and oppression and pollution are not separate issues, but are aspects of the same issue. Amid the outcries for the liberation of this group or that, we will know that no person is free except in the freedom of other persons, and that man's only real freedom is to know and faithfully occupy his place - a much humbler place than we have been taught to think - in the order of creation.
--Wendell Berry
The Art of the Commonplace

WHITHER THE CORIUM?

I really and truly believe that the people of earth are rising up and
the politicians will have to stand aside and give us what we want.
We want the earth to continue and we want to live; and have children
and life to go on for evermore.
--Helen Caldicott

Reaching For The Sky Just To Surrender

Tom Rush: What's Wrong With America


i would like
to remind

the management
that the drinks
are watered
and the
hat-check girl
has syphilis
and the band
is composed
of former
ss monsters
however
since it is
new year's eve
and i have
lip cancer
i will place
my paper hat
on my concussion
and dance
--leonard cohen

Old Sheps

Ramblin' Jack Elliott
Old Shep
Henry Miller Library
Big Sur, CA.
8/1/07


old Shep he has gone
where the good doggies go
and no more with old Shep will I roam
but if dogs have a heaven
there's one thing I know
old Shep has a wonderful home

Hank Snow: Old Shep


Red Foley: Old Shep


Walter Brennan: Old Shep

Dance A Jig For Geordie

STEELEYE SPAN : CAM YE O'ER FRAE FRANCE?







Cam ye o'er frae France? Cam ye down by Lunnon?
Saw ye Geordie Whelps and his bonny woman?
Were ye at the place ca'd the Kittle Housie?
Saw ye Geordie's grace riding on a goosie?
Geordie, he's a man there is little doubt o't;
He's done a' he can, wha can do without it?
Down there came a blade linkin' like my lordie;
He wad drive a trade at the loom o' Geordie.
Though the claith were bad, blythly may we niffer;
Gin we get a wab, it makes little differ.
We hae tint our plaid, bannet, belt and swordie,
Ha's and mailins braid—but we hae a Geordie!
Jocky's gane to France and Montgomery's lady;
There they'll learn to dance: Madam, are ye ready?
They'll be back belyve belted, brisk and lordly;
Brawly may they thrive to dance a jig wi' Geordie!
Hey for Sandy Don! Hey for Cockolorum!
Hey for Bobbing John and his Highland Quorum!
Mony a sword and lance swings at Highland hurdie;
How they'll skip and dance o'er the bum o' Geordie!
Cam ye o'er frae France? Cam ye down by Lunnon?
Saw ye Geordie Whelps and his bonny woman?
Were ye at the place ca'd the Kittle Housie?
Saw ye Geordie's grace riding on a goosie?

--Cam Ye O'er Frae France

Hallelujah Everybody Say Cheese

The main reason Santa
is so jolly is because
he knows where
all the bad girls live.
--George Carlin

Santa Claus Conquers The Martians

MST3K : Santa Claus Conquers the Martians

The stores along
Hollywood Boulevard
were already
beginning to fill up
with overpriced
Christmas junk,
and the daily papers
were beginning
to scream
about how terrible
it would be if
you didn't get your
Christmas shopping
done early.
--Raymond Chandler




Jimi Hendrix; Little Drummer Boy/Silent Night/Auld Lang Syne

It's The End Of The World (As We Know It)

There is one story and one story only
That will prove worth your telling,
Whether as learned bard or gifted child;
To it all lines or lesser gauds belong
That startle with their shining
Such common stories as they stray into.

Is it of trees you tell, their months and virtues,
Or strange beasts that beset you,
Of birds that croak at you the Triple will?
Or of the Zodiac and how slow it turns
Below the Boreal Crown,
Prison to all true kings that ever reigned?

Water to water, ark again to ark,
From woman back to woman:
So each new victim treads unfalteringly
The never altered circuit of his fate,
Bringing twelve peers as witness
Both to his starry rise and starry fall.

Or is it of the Virgin's silver beauty,
All fish below the thighs?
She in her left hand bears a leafy quince;
When, with her right hand she crooks a finger, smiling,
How many the King hold back?
Royally then he barters life for love.

Or of the undying snake from chaos hatched,
Whose coils contain the ocean,
Into whose chops with naked sword he springs,
Then in black water, tangled by the reeds,
Battles three days and nights,
To be spewed up beside her scalloped shore?

Much snow is falling, winds roar hollowly,
The owl hoots from the elder,
Fear in your heart cries to the loving-cup:
Sorrow to sorrow as the sparks fly upward.
The log groans and confesses:
There is one story and one story only.

Dwell on her graciousness, dwell on her smiling,
Do not forget what flowers
The great boar trampled down in ivy time.
Her brow was creamy as the crested wave,
Her sea-blue eyes were wild
But nothing promised that is not performed.

--Robert Graves
To Juan at the Winter Solstice

REM: It's The End Of The World (As We Know It)

Road To Nowhere

Talking Heads: Road to Nowhere

He tried to think
of something to say
but could not.
He'd had this feeling before, beyond the numbness and the dull despair.
The world shrinking down about a raw core of parsible entities. The names of things slowly following those things into oblivion. Colors. The names of birds. Things to eat. Finally the names of things one believed to be true. More fragile than he would have thought. How much was gone already? The sacred idiom shorn of its referents and so of its reality. Drawing down like something trying to preserve heat. In time to wink out forever.
--Cormac McCarthy

Name That Tune-Up

Grateful Dead: assorted tune-ups from 1977


The temperature of Heaven can be rather accurately computed. Our authority is Isaiah 30:26, Moreover, the light of the Moon shall be as the light of the Sun and the light of the Sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days. Thus Heaven receives from the Moon as much radiation as we do from the Sun, and in addition 7*7 (49) times as much as the Earth does from the Sun, or 50 times in all. The light we receive from the Moon is one 1/10,000 of the light we receive from the Sun, so we can ignore that. The radiation falling on Heaven will heat it to the point where the heat lost by radiation is just equal to the heat received by radiation, i.e., Heaven loses 50 times as much heat as the Earth by radiation. Using the Stefan-Boltzmann law for radiation, (H/E) temperature of the earth (-300K), gives H as 798K (525C). The exact temperature of Hell cannot be computed. [However] Revelations 21:8 says But the fearful, and unbelieving shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone. A lake of molten brimstone means that its temperature must be at or below the boiling point, 444.6C. We have, then, that Heaven, at 525C is hotter than Hell at 445C.
--Applied Optics vol. 11 (1972)

The Band 12/31/83

The Band
San Francisco Civic Auditorium
12/31/83

rag mama rag
long black veil
the shape i'm in
it makes no difference
milk cow blues
mystery train
king harvest
stage fright
the w.s. walcott medicine show
you don't know me
caledonia
chest fever
java blues
hand jive

Rick Danko – bass, vocals, guitar
Levon Helm – drums, vocals
Garth Hudson – keyboards, saxophone, accordion
Richard Manuel – piano, vocals

with help from

Terry Cagle – drums, vocals
Earl Cate – guitar
Ernie Cate – keyboards
Ron Eoff – bass

The Band: Music from Big Pink


The Band (second album)

QE4EVA

(click to embiggen)

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over,
their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight,
restore their government to its true principles. It is true that
in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring
the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt.
If the game runs sometime against us at home, we must have patience
till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back
the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are
at stake.
--Thomas Jefferson


Eden Roemer/Jane Jensen: Work Free



Autumn is always a time of Fear and Greed and Hoarding for the winter coming on. Debt collectors are active on old people and fleece the weak and helpless. They want to lay in enough cash to weather the known horrors of January and February. There is always a rash of kidnapping and abductions of schoolchildren in the football months. Preteens of both sexes are traditionally seized and grabbed off the streets by gangs of organized perverts who traditionally give them as Christmas gifts to each other to be personal sex slaves and playthings.
Most of these things are obviously Wrong and Evil and Ugly — but at least they are Traditional. They will happen. Your driveway will ice over, your furnace will blow up, and you will be rammed in traffic by an uninsured driver in a stolen car.
But what the hell? That's why we have Insurance, eh? And the Inevitability of these nightmares is what makes them so reassuring. Life will go on, for good or ill. But some things are forever, right? The structure may be a little Crooked, but the foundations are still strong and unshakable.
--Hunter S. Thompson
Kingdom of Fear

Children Of Doomsday

If you
drink much
from a bottle
marked poison
it is certain
to disagree
with you
sooner or later.
--Lewis Carroll





NATIONAL RADIATION MAP