BACK DOOR PRETTY, MARCH 2010
photo © bob arnold
photo © bob arnold
Monday, March 29, 2010
BOZ SCAGGS
Here's the LP to look for in the dollar bin, it's waiting for you. There's a photograph of Duane Allman naked in there, and he shouldn't be dead. Some of his best playing is on this LP. William Royce Scaggs was born in Ohio, and by the time his family had moved to Texas and settled in, the boy was "Boz". And he could sing Jimmy Rodgers, as he proves in this song below. Click on it and go to Texas.
photo: http://images.jamsbio.com/images/boz/boz.jpg
Saturday, March 27, 2010
VICTOR JARA
Activist, singer, songwriter, renown theater director and member of the Communist Party of Chile, Victor Jara was tortured and murdered along with thousands in the Chilean Coup of 1973, which likewise brought down President Salvador Allende and broke the heart and took the life of Pablo Neruda. Jara was beaten and played with by monsters, his musician hands busted worthless, and a game of Russian roulette forced upon him by goons under the leadership of Jose Adolfo Paredes Marquez who was formally charged with Jara's murder in 2009. The military regime destroyed a vast majority of the musician's master recordings - burned them. If not for the courage and love of his wife Joan Jara, who retrieved her husband's battered body in a street in shanty town Santiago, and also smuggled out of Chile her own copies of his recordings, we might not have this song. Listen to it rise like the greatest bird.photo: cubalmater.wordpress.com/.../
Friday, March 26, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Monday, March 22, 2010
LOVERS OF THE EARTH
Today in a supermarket in town, coming back from a job of land clearing, we stopped at a local grocers and found a few things, plus a sack of sunflower seeds since Sweetheart just can't stop feeding the birds she feeds all winter long
It is Springtime now
The bears may come for this seed if she isn't careful
At the checkout an old timer watched her buy the seed and before I packed it he asked her (and ignored me), "Are you going to eat those, or plant them?"
A gentle question
Sweetheart smiled and said, "Feed the birds"
His eyes grew in size
Bob Arnold & Sweetheart have been together an awful long time.
But nothing is longer than an old timer.
painting (detail) "lions & tigers & bears" © bob arnold
painting (detail) "lions & tigers & bears" © bob arnold
Sunday, March 21, 2010
THE OLDEST TREES
bristlecone pine in a grove called the Forest of Ancients
Link to the great trees here
all's well, Bob
image: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/old-tree-gallery/all/1?npu=1&mbid=yhp
bristlecone pine in a grove called the Forest of Ancients
Link to the great trees here
all's well, Bob
image: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/old-tree-gallery/all/1?npu=1&mbid=yhp
Saturday, March 20, 2010
FAIRFIELD PORTER
When I think of a spring day (or summer), as right now,
I think of a Fairfield Porter painting.
I think of a Fairfield Porter painting.
When I paint, I think what would satisfy me is to
express what Bonnard said Renoir told him :
make everything more beautiful.
~ Fairfield Porter (1907-1975)
image: http://www.sovek.com/images/articles/am92_05/FairfieldP-p49-small.jpg
Friday, March 19, 2010
THOMAS A. CLARK
The Hundred Thousand Places (Carcanet Press, UK)
Thomas A Clark lives with his wife, the artist Laurie Clark, in the small fishing village of Pittenweem on the east coast of Scotland. His latest collection is a single poem, though I would submit it is a single poem gathered by almost 90 pitch perfect smaller poems all going in the same direction toward the earth. Tom's poems have the uncanny ability to show us the light of day and the light of ourselves all at once. Timeless.
once again
for the first time
morning
.
if you stretch out
in the long grasses
your weight is distributed
over the headland
to rest as lightly
on the crushed grasses
as sky on sea
.
what you feel
you can contain
what you see
you will become
.
all the little knots
of anxiety and tension
slowly unravelling
of affection and disaffection
slowly unravelling
the dried grasses trembling
if you move
lightly
events will start
up from your feet
.
a stone from shade
carried for a mile
cool in the hand
.
birch sapling curving
slightly twisting
out from the slope
rising and turning
in what might
be called a gesture
if a gesture can be
prolonged indefinitely
.
a breeze
of small birds
moving through
birch leaves
.
you will have to go
all round it
to see it
have to stay
with it
to know it
Thursday, March 18, 2010
THE HISTORY OF POETRY
I read poems
Until the day was late
The windows all black
That world was gone
The woodfire was all the
Company a man would need
Except a dog was nearby and
Whenever I went to tend the fire
The dog thought I was reaching
For her, a genuine moment
Of intimacy
I read until I nearly drifted off —
It was then I thought of
Another poet from another
Time I knew as a friend and
How when visiting with him
He would step outside the door
Of his house and while in his yard
And a view to the surrounding
Hills and sweep of farmland
He would speak by heart the
Poems of Robert Frost
Who cares now? No one —
The poet I visited ended up
In a nursing home and one day
I called him to share the news of the
Death of a dear mutual friend, also a poet
Who had a falling out with this friend but
He needed to know, and someone said he would
Come to the phone and I waited for a very long
Time not quite imagining he would ever be there
Until what sounded like crutches, pausing, and the
Voice that once recited Frost from his heart said hello
I read poems
Until the day was late
The windows all black
That world was gone
The woodfire was all the
Company a man would need
Except a dog was nearby and
Whenever I went to tend the fire
The dog thought I was reaching
For her, a genuine moment
Of intimacy
I read until I nearly drifted off —
It was then I thought of
Another poet from another
Time I knew as a friend and
How when visiting with him
He would step outside the door
Of his house and while in his yard
And a view to the surrounding
Hills and sweep of farmland
He would speak by heart the
Poems of Robert Frost
Who cares now? No one —
The poet I visited ended up
In a nursing home and one day
I called him to share the news of the
Death of a dear mutual friend, also a poet
Who had a falling out with this friend but
He needed to know, and someone said he would
Come to the phone and I waited for a very long
Time not quite imagining he would ever be there
Until what sounded like crutches, pausing, and the
Voice that once recited Frost from his heart said hello
from Invent A World by Bob Arnold (Mountains & Rivers Press)
photo © bob arnold
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
"A DEPARTMENT STORE"
Here's a photograph from back in the 90s when we one day had a tag sale (the only one) and put out all sorts of stuff. Like typical gypsies we loaded the truck and drove up the road a short ways and found a friend who gave us an open space, and we unloaded the truck and put the belongings for sale (or give away) all onto the truck or around the truck and made a general fair day of it all. We remember a handful of woods neighbors showed up for it and took away some things. It was really the fun of it. Our dog Bo was alive and he was there. Our son Carson was maybe 10 years old and he helped decorate the truck. I see many of the kids books he didn't want any longer (moving up in his reading) are on display. A colorful bunch of regular books are there, too, always good to have around.
And then Sweetheart noticed some of our wedding gift kitchen dishes are on the roof of the truck. Wedding dishes? Sure enough. It might be making sense that when a friend told us recently, and not at all kindly, that we run "a department store", he might have something there. Of course if it is a department store, it's a department store with lasting cheer and all are welcome. In the one we sponsor today — just grown up a bit from that little-pickup-truck-that-could with its books and dishes — it has spread around into three buildings, and mainly books...with a little music and cinema, and lots of poetry published in small printed booklets always meant to give away to friends and friends of friends.
By the way, this pickup truck, some years later, was sold to a Vietnam vet with one leg and lots and lots of wanting this truck. We bought it long ago from a friend for $900 and the cap came with it. The truck was loaded with pig manure when we came to buy it. Wet and heavy, so we knew the springs were good. We knew the truck wasn't fussy. It was German built. We later taught our son how to drive the truck, standard. He figured it out in about a day. I taught him by driving it in a field with him, round & round. Then we took off down the back road along the river.
I believe all the books in this photograph sold or were given away. I don't see them around here anymore. On the back tailgate are boxes and crates of old LPs, pretty good stuff. They were going for $1 each. A guy came out from town and took them all away, paid us $100 and he got much more than 100 LPs. He had a treasury chest record store in town filled to the ceiling with vintage LPs costing way too much and a bear to go through, but on a rainy day you could have some kicks in there dreaming and talking the usual nonsense with another dreamer. Then his place burned down when the apartment complex above him burned up, and a freezing middle of the night downtown fire was put out with gusto by a local team. All the fire and all the water came rushing into this guy's dreamland. The shop had one of those attractive metal ceilings scalloped and styled like a bakery cake. It still hurts when I see him.
photo © susan arnold
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Sunday, March 14, 2010
GEOFF MULDAUR
There are many voices out there I love to listen to, but I'm stopped dead with Billie Holiday, Skip James and Geoff Muldaur. Muldaur has a warble that would fit into my woodlot on an April morning, things just breaking from winter to spring. Is that a bird or peepers, I'd wonder? Then rising out of the great nowhere would come fiddles, washboards, by-crikky string instruments and there was some of the Muldaur sound...born of blues, folk and maybe best known via the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. Since the early 60s, Muldaur with varied friends, family, associates of all kinds has been playing a strong lineage of very great music: clean, sassy, dance-to-it, toe-tap-to-it, get-lost-in-it music. It's one of those beautiful things, and going at its own speed and understanding, so it falls many times under the radar of how to get successful in crass America. Much of the best in this country has been swept under the rug or out the door, so peek under your rugs everyone. Take a look around the dooryard.
With a cover art by Ed Ruscha, announcing modernity, and an inside sounding about as old but fresh as anything possibly could get, these are the Texas Sheiks. Drawing from traditional tunes and a few choice blues masterpieces. Including Muldaur, guest player Kweskin and a sterling bunch of musicians ranging from all around the Woodstock, Austin, Berkeley folk scene. This one has it. "Blues in the Bottle" is 100 years old running on the youngest legs you've ever seen.
On a personal note, I met Geoff Muldaur in a girls school gymnasium where I was awaiting a friend about to graduate out of high school. Muldaur was waiting like I was for the same person, in this case, his daughter Clare. He hadn't been seen in some years on the music scene and was just about ready to break back in with a new solo recording Secret Handshake. A singular masterpiece. His daughter had walked into my classroom at age 15 and said she didn't write poetry but she wrote songs. Looking at her I knew those songs were poetry so I said, bring to class those songs and bring your guitar. Really? she piped up. Really, I said. She played in my classrooms the next three years, or until I got fired, or did I walk-away in time? I'd already been there twenty years, coming in two months of the year every winter to make a very important extra payroll to see my family ways through. Worked with hundreds of joyful wonder students. It was a drive down from the back woods and I didn't even drive. Many good people gave me rides, when I wasn't driving an old clunker illegally, and I never missed a class, not one, in twenty years. Talk about folk, while listening to the blues.
the rooster chews tobacco
There are many voices out there I love to listen to, but I'm stopped dead with Billie Holiday, Skip James and Geoff Muldaur. Muldaur has a warble that would fit into my woodlot on an April morning, things just breaking from winter to spring. Is that a bird or peepers, I'd wonder? Then rising out of the great nowhere would come fiddles, washboards, by-crikky string instruments and there was some of the Muldaur sound...born of blues, folk and maybe best known via the Jim Kweskin Jug Band. Since the early 60s, Muldaur with varied friends, family, associates of all kinds has been playing a strong lineage of very great music: clean, sassy, dance-to-it, toe-tap-to-it, get-lost-in-it music. It's one of those beautiful things, and going at its own speed and understanding, so it falls many times under the radar of how to get successful in crass America. Much of the best in this country has been swept under the rug or out the door, so peek under your rugs everyone. Take a look around the dooryard.
With a cover art by Ed Ruscha, announcing modernity, and an inside sounding about as old but fresh as anything possibly could get, these are the Texas Sheiks. Drawing from traditional tunes and a few choice blues masterpieces. Including Muldaur, guest player Kweskin and a sterling bunch of musicians ranging from all around the Woodstock, Austin, Berkeley folk scene. This one has it. "Blues in the Bottle" is 100 years old running on the youngest legs you've ever seen.
The Texas Sheiks
On a personal note, I met Geoff Muldaur in a girls school gymnasium where I was awaiting a friend about to graduate out of high school. Muldaur was waiting like I was for the same person, in this case, his daughter Clare. He hadn't been seen in some years on the music scene and was just about ready to break back in with a new solo recording Secret Handshake. A singular masterpiece. His daughter had walked into my classroom at age 15 and said she didn't write poetry but she wrote songs. Looking at her I knew those songs were poetry so I said, bring to class those songs and bring your guitar. Really? she piped up. Really, I said. She played in my classrooms the next three years, or until I got fired, or did I walk-away in time? I'd already been there twenty years, coming in two months of the year every winter to make a very important extra payroll to see my family ways through. Worked with hundreds of joyful wonder students. It was a drive down from the back woods and I didn't even drive. Many good people gave me rides, when I wasn't driving an old clunker illegally, and I never missed a class, not one, in twenty years. Talk about folk, while listening to the blues.
Clare Muldaur
http://www.claremuldaur.com/
http://www.claremuldaur.com/
geoff muldaur photo: http://www.xyz.net/~seldarts/2005_FolkFestivalFavorites/Geoff_Muldaur.jpg
the texas sheiks photo: www.nflyagency.com/artistpages/sub_MULDAUR.htm
the texas sheiks photo: www.nflyagency.com/
clare muldaur photo: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1225/1361276366_540298c3e7.jpg
Saturday, March 13, 2010
CE ROSENOW
With a lovely cover by Morris Graves ('Shore Birds') and a slender grace delivery page by page, Ce Rosenow quietly comes by for a visit from the Pacific Northwest.
longing for something
an unknown seabird
soars out of sight
~
unemployed —
salt water stings
my sunburn
~
harbor dusk —
sound of the boats
shifting in their berths
~
dying fire . . .
I sit quietly
with my ghosts
~
Pacific by Ce Rosenow, 2009
Mountain Gate Press
2105 Glencoe Road
Hillsboro, OR.97124
With a lovely cover by Morris Graves ('Shore Birds') and a slender grace delivery page by page, Ce Rosenow quietly comes by for a visit from the Pacific Northwest.
longing for something
an unknown seabird
soars out of sight
~
unemployed —
salt water stings
my sunburn
~
harbor dusk —
sound of the boats
shifting in their berths
~
dying fire . . .
I sit quietly
with my ghosts
~
Pacific by Ce Rosenow, 2009
Mountain Gate Press
2105 Glencoe Road
Hillsboro, OR.97124
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
