So, this entry may be a bit disjuncted; if so, I apologize.
Just some random thoughts:
I'm reading World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks...utterly phenomenal. Literary, intelligent (featured on NPR's Talk of the Nation!) allegorical, political, and genuinely scary - it's one of the best books I've read, and is helping to lessen the awful aftertaste of Atlas Shrugged.
Tonight, my squaw and I are heading off through the darkness to La Pena's, an Ecuadorian place in the north of Chicago. It has become a tradition (and something of a symbol) for Patricia and I to go there on the last day of school every year. I'll say, in December, "It's only six months and three days until La Pena." There's a fantastic mural on the wall there. It makes me think enormous things. The place has somehow gotten all tied up with big images of freedom and light, and has thus taken on an import wholly out of proportion with its actuality...
Jay Bennett of Wilco died recently - this saddened me deeply. Jay was an integral part of the Wilco sound from 1995 through Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001) - the band's glory days - and was ignominiously dumped, due to conflicts with Jeff Tweedy, just after YHF's completion. Afterwards, he faded into obscurity as Wilco got big.
About two months ago, just out of the blue, I bought Jay's album The Palace at 4 a.m. I'd been meaning to forever - the title is just so evocative and I wanted to see if the music matched. (It does; it sounds like what Wilco should sound like - unlike the last two Jayless Wilco albums.) Then, shortly thereafter, I rented the movie I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, which documented, amongst other things, Jay's firing. The movie made Jay Bennett look like a schmuck. He was not.
I have come, in the last few months, to very much identify with Jay, for he, like me, was a person who had ideas and had no problem (joyfully) sharing them. The rest of Wilco took this as a threat, as evidence that he was taking everything over, and dismissed him, and made him sound like a chump in the process. I've faced similar attitudes - people think I'm controlling and domineering, that I take over things, and this is not ever the case. I've found myself on the outside of a closed circle more than once just for saying "Hey, how 'bout we try this," when no one else has anything to say. It's a painful experience.
I saw a bit of myself in Jay Bennett, someone who went through the same things. And shortly after I rediscovered him, he died, and I took it very hard.
But it wouldn't do to change, would it? It wouldn't do to become the type of person who withheld my ideas just to fit in. I'll honor Jay's memory in that way. Had he not spoken up, Wilco may not have become one of my favorite bands. They may not have made such glowy, echoey, wonderful, maddening, difficult, lovely music. They may not have spoken to me in the awkward, broken place in which I found myself shortly after I broke up with my first girlfriend.
So, rest in peace, man. I love you. Jay Bennett (1962-2009).
...
To end on a lighter note: I thought I'd list some things I like (and want to do more of) and a poem I wrote.
Things I like:
Being up very early in the morning.
Drinking coffee outside early in the morning.
Reading on the beach.
Riding through tunnels.
Backpacking into solitude.
Long, deep-sleep afternoon naps and their accompanying dreams.
Waking up from these naps. It takes a long time, but then life breaks out.
Afternoon thunderstorms.
Writing something great and then walking around feeling like a writer.
Twilight in cities, when the lights come on.
The smell of oceans.
The way the world smells when it rains.
Outdoor cafes.
World music.
The new hat I bought. I look like Hemingway/ a douchebag.
Humidity. Rivers. Jungles. Valleys. Islands.
Late-night thunderstorms.
Always traveling.
The following is a poem/ lyric I wrote.
I’ve dreamt of Zambezi The mud-fat Mbini I’ve followed the dirt tracks To small distant cities I’ve waited for nightfall The ascension of evening When the Maseru tradewinds Blew dust from the hills Your silence still stings me Your dead eyes defeat me Your coldness still clings To the backlighted clouds O, I’m dreaming of home I’ve clung to the beacons Of fog lamps and searchlights The Skeleton Coastline Is illumined and ghostly Cafes at midnight Toasts to old suffering A volley of music From the Windhoek slums I’m swept into sleeping By the hum of a rainstorm With a warm, blue-eyed angel Whom I’ve never known O, I’m dreaming of home I lie in the corner Of her moody apartment So gently she sways To a rhythmic sonata I’ve met her in Bata A depot in Kinshasa At a minibus stop In the Bloemfontaine hills In cafes in Nairobi We sipped from dark coffee As the rainsqualls tapped rhythms And puddled on sills O, I’m dreaming of home Her eyes were the color Of cloudbursts and lightning Her breath had the scent Of the sea’s ebb and flow Her voice was the murmur Of breakers on islands The soft hiss of billows On distant atolls Her fingertips told me A story of longing A tale I’d believed Only I’d ever know O, I’m dreaming of home |
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