Sat here with a bag of midget gems (the only sweet), a naughty can of budweiser – it might facilitate a much-needed nap – some Roland Kirk playing and looking at the rain out the window. I've been so busy working on music projects these last couple of days plus entertaining the daughter that I'm suffering today – worn out. But spiritually sound, don't y'know. Spiritually sound... I rarely get depressed, regarding it as a waste of energy when I don't have quite so much to draw on these days anyway. But I guess that I'm lucky, being blessed with an optimistic frame of mind, unlike some. My late wife Barbara, for one, a wild and vibrant life-force when she was up - but who suffered terribly from depression all of her life – maybe related to childhood traumas that I never discovered the full truth of. I look at my daughter and see a lot of my optimism – she has had a rough road these last years and travelled it with integrity and a sense of humour. Which, given her age, is no mean feat. Days like this I realise how futile it would have been to struggle on with the straight job – at least at the moment.
But a blessed weariness is descending – I think it might be time to fall on to the scratcher, as the Irish used to call a bed/mattress, with a book and Roland stoked up on the cd player.
See you later...
9 comments:
Oh bother! I just wrote you a nice comment and it got lost...
Never mind..
A poignant blog today Rod. I hope you are feeling ok. I'm glad that you are spiritually sound. I am normally truly upbeat and optimistic but recently, things have gone a bit pear-shaped due to stress and over-work.
You have a good rest and a sleep. There's nothing quite like it, there really isn't. And what book are you reading? Pray, do tell. I'm an inquisitive bugger!
Take carexxx
Here is a little lullaby:
The Loughborough night air,
Is singing tonight.
The open window,
And a tired eye.
The slow internal sub-division,
And this final construction,
Before sleep.
Book is Of Time and the River - Thomas Wolfe - alongside Charles Olson Selected Poems...thanks for the lullaby! Off to kip again now as night time and scratcher is calling...
Hope you're feeling less tired today. More midget gems perhaps?
Having an odd day... letter from lit agent expressing interest in my book so sending complete manuscript off next monday after a quick look through again... mixed emotions as on the one hand - ecstatic! and on the other - caution... a long way to go yet... but the fact that someone wants to have a look is good news... this afternoon - chest xray as my doc wants to cover all bases - then it looks as if we'll have to cancel our open space gig this week due to lots of people pulling out - (metaphorical mass coitus interruptus) - actually I'm not that bothered as the festival we have planned in May will be much more interesting... more music coming up tomorrow...
Good look with the book!
I keep getting a yen to read Olson, as I've never really investigated his work before - which is odd because he's right up my particular back alley.
Ooh Betty.
OOOH, that's fantastic about the book. Let us know what happens. I'm really excited.
I'm sorry that your gig has been cancelled....people are lazy bastards on the whole, and then they moan because there's nothing interesting to go and see. Grrrr. I'd come and play with you (another ooh Betty moment!) it would be great...
The one in May will be much better - if it's bigger.
Look forward to hearing more about the book - is it fiction or about music? Your writing is very interesting. And it's great to 'hear' people using words like 'hegemony' on blog. Brightens up my day..
Was it Muddy Waters who sang 'I've got my hegemony working but it just don't work on you?' Or was that a mojo...
Olson is a fascinating character, whose essay 'Projective Verse' helps to clear the decks for much of American (and some English) poetry., The Maximus poems are worth sticking with, although he is on the whole more accessible than his former master Pound. His impact through Black Mountain College was considerable as well - a place I'd like to have gone to - complete fucking madhouse but it produced someof the first mixed media/happenings and hothoused a whole slew of writers/artists - Robert Creeley, Rauschenberg, Robert Duncan, Cage, Franz Kline, De Kooning, Merce Cunningham and others too numerous to google. His theoretical stuff is dense but very interesting - especially Call Me Ishamel - he had an eccentric prose style which takes some getting used to - but I'm a fan. For some time now I've been playing around with the idea of a book on The American Sublime as defined by Olson -'I take SPACE to be the central fact to man born in America, from Folsom cave to now. I spell it large because it comes large here. Large, and without mercy.' Ooh Betty...
And that Olson was 7 foot tall. And he was married to O'Grady who was very close to Burroughs, you know.
It's a cornucopia of magnificent facts today.
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