This one's a doozy...

The other day I asked some of my female friends through email to give me their thoughts on a particular biblical passage. This wasn't to inspire any kind of religious discussion, but to help me flesh out a character for a femme-centric piece I'm writing. I stumbled across this section of scripture when I Wikied "Song of Solomon" a.k.a. "The Song of Songs". I know a little about this psalm because Sergio Leone quoted it in his 1984 film Once Upon a Time in America, a particular favorite of mine. Some of the words from this display of adoration are read in the film by a very young (I'm guessing around 13 years old, and surprisingly effective) Jennifer Connelly, to a boy whose character is also played by Robert DeNiro in two different time frames. This cinematic aside doesn't necessarily (we'll get to that later) have anything to do with what I'm working on, but I thought I'd mention it. BTW, Once Upon... also features what I believe to be one of the 2 or 3 greatest film scores ever composed, this one by Ennio Morricone. It's hard to hear his music and not be inspired to do SOMETHING.

I'm going to post this quote from the Song of Songs below, and note that I simply asked my friends for a reflexive reaction, as women, to the words, in any kind of form.

Here you go:

**

The watchmen who patrol the city found me: "Have you seen him whom my soul loves?"

I opened for my beloved, but my beloved had hidden and was gone; my soul went out when he spoke; I sought him, but found him not; I called him, but he did not answer me.

**

Continuing along this chain of events, someone in the house today had turned on Antiques Roadshow, and one of those weird appraisal dudes was looking at a painting by Alphonse Mucha, and though the work was titled "Job", it featured a woman.



I Wikied the artist and linked to a gallery of his work, thinking maybe there would be an image that reflected the aforementioned excerpt from the S.O.S. I found a couple forlorn women (a common subject in the medium, I know), but the one that stood out was a poster advertising an actress playing Joan of Arc.



And I thought, as Joan was crazed from her visions that she was unable to fully explain or gain sympathy for, such is the plight of the woman roaming the city looking for her love in the S.O.S. And just as Joan was eventually burned at the stake for her words, deeds, and beliefs, I'll surprise you by mentioning that there's a continuation to the lines from the S.O.S. (which I excluded for conciseness, and what I believed at the time was a lack of relevance to my own ideas), and here they are:

**

The watchmen who patrol the city found me; they smote me and wounded me; the watchmen of the walls took my jewelry off me.

**

Interesting, huh? Again, I'm not interested in any kind of bible study, or trying to form some kind of DaVinci Codesque conspiracy theories about Joan acting out lines from the S.O.S., but the underlying credo in my artistic endeavors (and view of the universe) is that everything really is connected, somewhere down there. When I write verse, it's coming from a deep subconscious pool of thoughts and ideas that all swim together in the same water. They don't discriminate. Usually our conscious minds call these things forth in particular orders and patterns; when you speak to your friends you don't blurt out run-on sentences in stream of consciousness fashion (well, maybe Bob Dylan used to). But when you paint, or play music, or write verse, or whatever, you have the option of opening that gate, that filter, and letting it all out at once. It's hard for many people to do this. Some use L.S.D. I consider myself lucky. One could take this a step further and imagine being able to harness the information of the Collective Unconscious (you can Wiki that one yourself for a little Jungian treat), but this post has become pretentious and out-there enough so I'll just bring it all back home:

If Job is the man that god tested personally, and Joan is one whose beliefs were tested, theoretically, in a less direct fashion by god, than it seems they have a lot in common. There's a jumping off point here for a discussion of religion and gender, but it's not what I'm interested at this moment. For now I'm content to let these images and words stew a bit and see what comes out. Combined with what some of you have already given to me, it's good stuff.

Thanks for sharing, and letting me share. Feel free to discuss below, be you male, female, or somewhere in-between, and I'll certainly participate.

Canoe in Rehearsal pt. 3

I didn't know Frank's junk could sing either. I guess he's saving that one for the next show. Again, click to enlarge, but uhh...be careful what you wish for.

Thanks to the whole band for letting me be a noisy fly on the wall.

Canoe in Rehearsal pt. 2

Oh yeah, you can also click to enlarge these. And we're talking LARGE.

Canoe in Rehearsal pt. 1

Here's the band gearing up for their big show at the Red House last Saturday:

"BALLAD OF A FROGMAN"

See what a little self-pity can deliver? Again, just completed, forgive the subtle and not-so-subtle puns. Like the scorpion said, I can't help it, it's in my nature. Comments and interpretations welcome.

***

BALLAD OF A FROGMAN

I may sing rays,
discreet the sound
whisper o’er the bayou by me
hop a track and Punch-a-train
with gin mill odious odes
barbershop quartet offensive
warped vorpal sword
of vocal chords
pulled to pluck mal marrow’s arrows
at tame and tender targets

all saints dey earn der hey lows
and high falutin salutin
writhing in squid ink
on a papyrus palimpsest
hier’s sins scrubbed with aujourd’s deed
small price peddled for a pedestal
spelding is correct, gloria
fish who loved to be loaved
content to bubble unaired prayers
split the diffidence
‘tween sunbaked blessings
and fogrolled curses,
tinfoiled again.

The short, happy life of a blog

Do people often begin blogs with the best intentions, only to sputter and fade weeks out of the starting gate? There are many, I imagine, who are quite content, and physically able to jot down whatever random thoughts enter their head on any given day and spew it out into the e-atmosphere, not necessarily because they're giving the people what they want, but because they just feel a need to Get It Out, and there are others (like myself, to an extent) who feel they need to make some kind of constructive entry every time they post.

While I've been a "writer" since 2nd grade, when I used to fold a sheet of paper in half, and fold it again to make a little book, ignoring whatever was being taught on the day (usually because I was ahead of the pace chosen to accomodate the slower learners, if you'll permit me a moment of egotistical confession), I haven't been one of habit since. My successes on the page have come in short bursts of inspiration, and I'll leave you to make your own Freudian metaphor with that one. I've been lazy for so long I don't have the energy to try and remember when I wasn't. It's not a point of pride, believe me, but it's the reality until I find the will to change it. I even downloaded one of a well-known motivational speaker's compact discs just to see what the fuss was about, but I haven't gotten around to listening to it yet, as I'm busy watching the entire collected episodes of various cancelled television series that may or may not be worth the time I'm investing in them, and buying used books at a rate of about 10x the speed at which I'm reading them. You see the problem?

And am I the only one whose concentration while reading has frayed a bit from the long hours logged on the internet, clicking away on half-connected whims to the point where you feel you're back on the couch again with 300 cable channels, unable to stay on anything for more than 30 seconds? It's taken a serious effort to buckle down and burrow into a book like I used to, and this last week I've made some progress, limiting my time online, and giving myself a good hour a day to read.

It hasn't helped the writing much, though. For a while I was churning out verse at a fairly decent rate, for one stretch when I was reading at a weekly open mike, and once when I was living in Paris and didn't have much use for the mostly indecipherable television stations. I've only written one thing in the last 4 months (see blog entry below), and my hopes for being more productive in that department while on the road appear to be yielding somewhere along the on-ramp, blinker desparately signalling for, well, safe conduct.

I don't think I'll ever be of a mind to come here every day and tell you what's on my mind, but I'll try and steal the odd moment when I'm at my most eloquent or thoughtful and share. After my recent Tom and Jerry posting I thought I'd go on more about the program, as I think it's fascinating for a variety of reasons, but no promises.

Anyway, here's somethingt topical that isn't about me: if you haven't seen Grindhouse, it's a hell of a good time, and worth the ticket price. See it with an audience.