Bryan Ferry is sixty-fucking-eight years old today. Christ, we're all old. High Egoslavian Holy Day, his music, solo too (some of it) but of course primarily Roxy Music, is in the inner circle of acts that rotate in and out of the two non-permanent spots in my Sillyass Deserted Island Game. Here's some kayfabe - I look back in archives at these birthday's to see the songs I want to repeat; a year ago today I was creeped out that Ferry looked too much like Mitt Romney. It wasn't fear of a Romney presidency - long-timers can vouch I bet pints in January 2009 that Obama would be reelected (and none took the bet) - I hated that any flavor asshole put music I loved in my head. If Obama looked like Kate Bush that would ruin a bit of her music for me too.
- I survived, I got over it, I had forgot.
- The Return of ScubaDog. I'd do that here if I could. Yes, I know it looks much better on a wide screen than a square screen. Fuck it.
- Which way to heaven?
- Swarovski Kristallnacht.
- We like Ike, man.
- This week in water.
- BRT!
- Purple Line! Of course Columbia Country Club won. It's only twelve feet, but fuck the Columbia Country Club.
- I don't care.
- Laytonsville! One of my vivid memories as a six year old was news of the fire that burned down the Laytonsville fire house - I was the kid who played fireman, who would take empty shoe boxes and make fire stations out of them. There was a photo of it on the front page of the Washington Sun that I saved, and Elric's father would drive us out every weekend to look at the ruins which smoldered for two months.
- SeatSix, who wasn't born yet when Elric's father would drive us out to look at the smoldering ruins of the firehouse (and wouldn't be for another seven years), remembering Ligeti's metronome piece, posted here often, sends me metronomes.
- UPDATE! Gaddis, for those of you who do.
- On Nobel lit bettting.
- Dear _______.
- White out.
SOUNDS OF THE RESURRECTED DEAD MAN'S FOOTSTEPS, #17
Marvin Bell
1. At the Walking Dunes, Eastern Long Island
That a bent piece of straw made a circle in the sand. That it represents the true direction of the wind.
Beach grass, tousled phragmite.
Bone-white dishes, scoops and bowls, glaring without seeing.
An accordion of creases on the downhill, sand drapery.
The cranberry bushes biting down to survive.
And the wind’s needlework athwart the eyeless Atlantic.
And the earless roaring in the shape of a sphere.
A baritone wind, tuned to the breath of the clouds.
Pushing sand that made a hilly prison of time.
For wind and water both move inland.
Abrading scrub — the stunted, the dwarfed, the bantam.
A fine sandpaper, an eraser as wide as the horizon.
Itself made of galaxies, billions against the grain.
Sand: the mortal infinitude of a single rock.
2. Walking in the Drowning Forest
Pitch pine, thirty-five-foot oaks to their necks in sand.
That the ocean signals the lighthouse.
Gull feathers call to the fox that left them behind.
Impressions of deer feet, dog feet and gull claws.
The piping plover in seclusion.
Somewhere the blind owl to be healed at sunset.
Here is artistry beyond self-flattery.
A rootworks wiser than the ball of yarn we call the brain.
A mindless, eyeless, earless skin-sense.
To which the crab comes sideways.
With which the sunken ship shares its secrets.
From which no harness can protect one, nor anchor fix one.
He knows, who has paddled an hour with one oar.
He knows, who has worn the whitecaps.
Who has slipped from the ferry or leaped from the bridge.
To be spoken of, though no one knows.
