American Idyll

yes, the river knows

Monday, March 18, 2024

175 Minutes From 47 Years Ago


Grateful Dead: Winterland, San Francisco...3/18/77




jet to the promised land
mississippi half-step
it's all over now
sugaree
new minglewood blues
peggy-o / cassidy
scarlet begonias
fire on the mountain
samson and delilah
brown-eyed women
good lovin'
ship of fools
estimated prophet
terrapin station
drums ~~ not fade away
st. stephen
around and around
uncle john's band



MOHAVE POINT FROM MONUMENT CANYON
INNER GORGE OUTSIDE CLEAR CREEK CANYON
REFLECTIONS IN PHANTOM CREEK
SEVENTY-FIVE MILE CANYON WITH MOOSE

Saturday, February 24, 2024

You Must First Invent The Universe


Grateful Dead: 2/24/74




If you want

to make

an apple pie

from scratch,

you must first

invent

the universe.

--Carl Sagan


Friday, February 16, 2024

We See This Empty Cage Now Corrode


Bob Dylan: Visions of Johanna




people keep telling me
you know,
you ought to stop writing
racetrack poems,
you have no idea
how boring they are.

well, I was at the track
the other day
and I had to go in
and take a piss.
I unzipped and stood there
grabbing and groping
and tugging.
I tugged and I groped and
I grabbed
and the guy next to me
said:
"my god, you must really
have a lot of it..."
and I told him,
"nothing like that, sir,
I've got my shorts on
backwards."
I got it out
from underneath
and pissed half of it
down my leg.
then I went out
and caught a
six to one shot
who won
by four lengths.

this is just another
boring poem.


--Charles Bukowski
I Can't Stop

It Is A Dance We Do In Silence

Jackson Browne: Our Lady of the Well...(NYC 1972)

Now more than ever do I realize
that I will never be content with a sedentary life,
that I will always be haunted by thoughts of a sun-drenched elsewhere.
--Isabelle Eberhardt
The Nomad: Diaries of Isabelle Eberhardt

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

You Make Me Smile With My Heart


Miles Davis: My Funny Valentine...2/12/64

Frank Sinatra: My Funny Valentine

Being with you and not being with you
is the only way I have to measure time.
--Jorge Luis Borges
The Book of Sand


Tuesday, February 13, 2024

A Keg Of Beer And An Accordion Revisited


Brahms: Hungarian Dance No. 1



No. 4




I asked the professors
who teach the meaning of life
to tell me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives
who boss the work
of thousands of men.
They all shook their heads
and gave me a smile as though
I was trying to fool with them.
And then one Sunday afternoon
I wandered out along
the Desplaines River and
I saw a crowd of Hungarians
under the trees with
their women and children
and a keg of beer
and an accordion.
--Carl Sandburg

No. 5


Monday, February 05, 2024

We Could Hear The Distant Howling Of Wolves

Thelonious Monk: "Round Midnight...Norway 1966

Then we looked back and saw where the clear line of Dracula’s castle cut the sky; for we were so deep under the hill whereon it was set that the angle of perspective of the Carpathian mountains was far below it. We saw it in all its grandeur, perched a thousand feet on the summit of a sheer precipice, and with seemingly a great gap between it and the steep of the adjacent mountain on any side. There was something wild and uncanny about the place. We could hear the distant howling of wolves. They were far off, but the sound, even though coming muffled through the deadening snowfall, was full of terror.
--Bram Stoker

Sunday, January 28, 2024

A Step In The Right Direction


HORSESHOE MESA / OUTSIDE COTTONWOOD CANYON / MANDALA OF OM


Max Romeo: One Step Forward






And a step backward,
after making a wrong turn,
is a step in the right direction.

--Kurt Vonnegut

Thursday, January 25, 2024

Amanda Did You Choose Your Tune?


TOWER OF SET / SHIVA TEMPLE / ISIS TEMPLE


John Cale: The Endless Plain of Fortune **





Old Taylor said
Old Taylor meant to cry---oh my
Field Marshall meant
Field Marshall went away again
watch out below---the tides
lean heavily like wine
we are all innocent
in spite of you and me

then Martha went
yes Martha went away again
down in Transvaal
where crocodiles and men fight on
they would have played all night
even with loaded dice
it's gold that eats the heart
and leaves the bones to dry

Segovia watched
gendarmerie and all---that's all
the radio man
Amanda, did you choose your tune?
she walked away in time
she walked a crooked line
so gracefully she turned her head
and smiled---away




Monday, January 22, 2024

So As To Look Ready For Anything




Grateful Dead: feedback...1/22/68

1/22/78

Christopher Robin
was sitting
outside his door,
putting on his Big Boots.
As soon as he saw
the Big Boots,
Pooh knew
that an Adventure
was about to happen,
and he brushed the honey
off his nose with
the back of his paw,
and spruced himself up
as well as he could,
so as to look
Ready for Anything.

--A. A. Milne
Winnie-the-Pooh


Sunday, January 21, 2024

Roaring Forever Down


A PYRAMID TO WHICH EACH OF US BRINGS A STONE


Sharon Allen: Like a River




The torrent, swollen by the melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house. The shaft into which the river hurls itself is an immense chasm, lined by glistening coal-black rock, and narrowing into a creaming, boiling pit of incalculable depth, which brims over and shoots the stream onward over its jagged lip. The long sweep of green water roaring forever down, and the thick flickering curtain of spray hissing forever upward, turn a man giddy with their constant whirl and clamor.
--Arthur Conan Doyle

Friday, January 19, 2024

I Ask Myself The Same Question


I always wonder why birds choose to stay in the same place
when they can fly anywhere on the earth,
then I ask myself the same question.
--Harun Yahya



CONDOR SEVENTY-FOUR

Powered by Blogger