tumblrbot asked: WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE INANIMATE OBJECT?
A fine writing implement.
I think [Richard Fariña] was creating himself in a way where I could see the strings, whereas in Dylan’s case, I couldn’t see the strings—it seemed so organic. So Richard made me a little uncomfortable. Dylan was offensive in that he would really be rude to people, and Dick wouldn’t really be rude to people. But Dick was like ‘Look at me—here I am. Dig me!’ Dylan was like, ‘Look all you want. You’ll never see me.’
— Mitch Greenhill quoted in David Hajdu’s Positively 4th Street.
I read an interesting article about the remunerative careers of successful writers. Really, it’s all about T.S. Eliot’s day job in a bank, the stability and security it provides, his rise through the ranks, and his eventual departure for a career in publishing. While I was reading it, I was listening to John Fahey’s 1973 masterpiece, Fare Forward Voyagers. The difference between the two couldn’t be more stark. Fahey died in a welfare motel outside of Portland, a diabetic who had lately become a minor celebrity on the college radio circuit. Where Eliot’s shrewd business acumen guided his career toward ever-increasing opportunity, prestige, and financial reward, Fahey’s troubled childhood haunted him throughout his life, leading him to spurn the music that initially brought him notice. At the end of his life, his meager earnings came from selling collectible records he found in Goodwill bargain bins and his own royalties on a Christmas album recorded in 1968. Oh, the name of this record and all its songs? From Eliot’s “The Four Quartets.”
Photo credit: Bob Clevenger
Growing up, it never seemed strange to me that Woody Guthrie was an Okie. He took his place alongside Will Rogers, Chuck Norris, Garth Brooks, and Mickey Mantle in the Pantheon of state greats. We sang “This Land is Your Land” in elementary-school music classes. Of course, we never learned about the homegrown tradition of populism and radicalism that spawned Woody Guthrie and other unnamed radicals. They also never taught us all the bawdy songs that would later appear on Mermaid Avenue.
Contemporary technology has made demands for recognition a constant and exhausting fact of life. From the private lives of individuals to the collective striving of mass society, electronic media are awash in the desire to be seen, heard, and acknowledged. That’s why Meg Baird’s album Seasons on Earth is such a relief. It’s simple, undemanding, and self-assured. Plus, Steve Gunn plays on two tracks.
Every summer, my parents would cart my brother and me to the Juneteenth Heritage Festival for a free evening of family fun. Although the festival was in the Greenwood District, the 1921 race riot was never mentioned by my parents, or by anyone else. Most of the music was unremarkable, the festival an opportunity for aging bar bands to shake the dust off and remember the good old days. We would head home around dark when the headliner would take the stage, and in my memory it always a smooth soul-jazz band with synthesizers and drum machines, something like George Smallwood. My guess is that most of the families that looked like mine also turned tail, thinking that the funnel cakes were the main event.
An unbelievably mild January has thrown everything off-kilter here. Wildflowers are already blooming, and the trees are sure to follow soon. An old man told me last week that we’re due for a monster snowstorm in February. Could be. While washing the dishes after breakfast, I put on Matt “MV” Valentine’s What I Became. It’s a dislocating record, like walking into a Grateful Dead show in the middle of “Dark Star.” It’s also a sad record, channeling Neil Young ca. Tonight’s the Night. I wonder if global warming will put an end to seasonal affective disorder?
Our little one wouldn’t nap today, which made for an unpleasant early afternoon. Fearing for our sanity, we headed for the nearest nature preserve and had a great hike in the unseasonably warm January weather. I had a sleeping toddler on my back in no time, making it possible to keep up a basically invigorating pace. Back at home, I opted to keep up the vigor with some rock music: a little Acid Mothers Temple, a Japanese psychedelic band notable for 40 minute noise-fests. On the other hand, you have to give AMT credit for living by their principles: “Do whatever you want, don’t do whatever you don’t want.” It was vetoed in favor of the Velvet Underground’s Loaded. By the time “Sweet Jane” started up, I couldn’t even pretend to protest.
I had a compressed work day yesterday, meeting several converging deadlines in the stretch of two hours. And all of that under my communal office’s unyielding fluorescent lights. No UFO’s Soft Coast, recently out on Spectrum Spools, was the perfect accompaniment. Its shifts through many styles and genres in the space of 30 minutes mirrored my own workday. In trying to get a new project off the ground, I took No UFO’s with me to pick up a copy of this book from the stacks.
