VIRGO Week of Feb. 22-28
Here are tips on how to get the most out of your time with the other signs of the zodiac during the next three weeks. With Sagittarius: Think bigger and go further than you normally do. With Libra: Enjoy beautiful things together. With Cancer: Make yourself easy to give to. With Taurus: Let him or her help you get less theoretical, more practical. With Aquarius: Collaborate in making the flow of ideas crackle and splash. With Capricorn: To deepen your bond, laugh at hypocrisy together. With Pisces: Join together in feeling rich emotions about a person or situation you both care about.* With Gemini: Dare to express three of your different sub-personalities. With Aries: Remember that spontaneity leads to truth. With Leo: Playfully brag to each other. With Scorpio: Dive down together, going deeper than you could have by yourself.
* We received the key to our new house Feb. 22.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY / Courtesy Rob Brezsny
Virgo Feb. 15-21
It's time to take down the "Under Construction" signs and clean up the messes from your works in progress. At least for now, your heart has lost its drive for further renovation and rehabilitation. Whether you think you're ready or not, then, it's time for a grand re-opening. I suggest you offer free toasters or other incentives to pull in new clients, as well as to coax disaffected old ones into returning. It may also help to put up an "Under New Management" sign.
Virgo Feb. 15-21
It's time to take down the "Under Construction" signs and clean up the messes from your works in progress. At least for now, your heart has lost its drive for further renovation and rehabilitation. Whether you think you're ready or not, then, it's time for a grand re-opening. I suggest you offer free toasters or other incentives to pull in new clients, as well as to coax disaffected old ones into returning. It may also help to put up an "Under New Management" sign.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
YES, I'M A WITCH
Until I have time to evaluate Yoko's new album myself, here are excerpts from a post by Thom Jurek courtesy of allmusic.com (http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:4tfqoara5ijx~T1)
Yoko Ono inspires either reverence or indignation whenever her name is mentioned. Being the surviving widow of John Lennon is no easy task, either. But for the last six decades, Ono has been an artist first and foremost. Lennon helped to make her a recording artist. Her own records have been both celebrated and reviled, but her catalog stands on its own and it holds up as a reflection of the artist in her time (italic emphases mine—bst). "Yes, I'm a Witch" is a collaborative album with a twist: each of the 16 artists involved with this project was given Ono's entire catalog to listen to and pick a track. They were given the vocal tracks to each song they chose and were also able to pick any instrumental tracks they wanted to use. Most decided to keep just the vocal. ...
That said, this is no ordinary collaboration. There isn't anything lazy or lackluster about the way these artists use Ono's vocals and her phrasing—and in some cases the accompanying music. The sum total is not only that Ono is relevant in the 21st century, but more than that, it's—perhaps — that the 21st century is ready for Ono. ...
Ono's ... voice and words are woven into, juxtaposed against, folded on top of, and haunted like a ghost through the middle of each of these songs. ...
Until I have time to evaluate Yoko's new album myself, here are excerpts from a post by Thom Jurek courtesy of allmusic.com (http://allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=10:4tfqoara5ijx~T1)
Yoko Ono inspires either reverence or indignation whenever her name is mentioned. Being the surviving widow of John Lennon is no easy task, either. But for the last six decades, Ono has been an artist first and foremost. Lennon helped to make her a recording artist. Her own records have been both celebrated and reviled, but her catalog stands on its own and it holds up as a reflection of the artist in her time (italic emphases mine—bst). "Yes, I'm a Witch" is a collaborative album with a twist: each of the 16 artists involved with this project was given Ono's entire catalog to listen to and pick a track. They were given the vocal tracks to each song they chose and were also able to pick any instrumental tracks they wanted to use. Most decided to keep just the vocal. ...
That said, this is no ordinary collaboration. There isn't anything lazy or lackluster about the way these artists use Ono's vocals and her phrasing—and in some cases the accompanying music. The sum total is not only that Ono is relevant in the 21st century, but more than that, it's—perhaps — that the 21st century is ready for Ono. ...
Ono's ... voice and words are woven into, juxtaposed against, folded on top of, and haunted like a ghost through the middle of each of these songs. ...
- [T]here's Shitake Monkey's "O'Oh," where he sets Ono's killer singsong verses against a wall of samples and breaks. The track includes a killer sample of the opening riff of Grover Washington, Jr.'s classic "Mister Magic" as the base groove.
- The Blow Up use "Everyman Everywoman" as a full-on psychedelic rave-up worthy of the Kinks circa 1965.
- Le Tigre drop the bass-throbbing bomb electronic funk with horn loops and backing choruses on "Sisters O Sisters."
- The Apples in Stereo choose "Nobody Sees Me Like You Do" and turn it into a psych rock love ballad full of vulnerability, ringing bells, and sweeping refrains outlined with synth strings and a big fat keyboard through the middle. (That said, no one will ever touch Rosanne Cash's aching version of the song on "Every Woman Has a Man Who Loves Her," the astonishing tribute album of Yoko cover tunes that John set in motion before he was taken from us.)
- The Brother Brothers make "Yes, I'm a Witch" into a towering industrial funk metal groover.
- Cat Power merely illustrates Ono's voice with a piano and her own subdued backing vocals on "Revelations."
- The glorious treatment Pierce gives to "Walking on Thin Ice" underscores the loss and heartbreak in the lyric before turning into an acid-drenched celebration of life where tears are part of everything at one time or another. The violence in the mix offers a different dimension to the sparse delivery of the original and brings back the feeling of chaos that Ono must have felt with Lennon suddenly gone. It's among the most impressive selections on the set.
- Antony and Hahn Rowe's treatment of "Toyboat" is everything you would expect from him: it's tender, simple, childlike. Antony's reverbed piano lines the cut as drum loops and Rowe's double- and triple-tracked violin float around Ono's vocal. It's the most beautiful thing here.
- The Flaming Lips simply do their thing to "Cambridge 1969/2007." It sounds more like a Lips tune than anything, and the artist's individual identity suffers a bit because of that huge wall of music and noise they construct.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
The Writer's Almanac for Sunday, February 11, 2007
Poem: "The Psychiatrist Says She's Severely Demented"
by Bobbi Lurie
from Letter from the Lawn: Poems by Bobbi Lurie
© CustomWords. (buy now)
The Psychiatrist Says She's Severely Demented
But she's my mother.
She lies in her bed,
Hi Sweetie, she says.
Hi Mom. Do you know my name?
I can't wait for her answer, I'm Bobbi.
Oh, so you found me again, she says.
Her face and hair have the same gray sheen
Like a black and white drawing smudged on the edges.
The bedspread is hot pink, lime green. Her eyes,
Such a distant blue, indifferent as the sky. I put my hand
On her forehead. It is soft, and she resembles my real mother
Who I have not spoken to in so many years.
I want to talk to her as her eyes close.
She is mumbling something, laughing to herself,
All the sadness she ever had has fled.
And when she opens her eyes again, she stares through me
And her eyes well up with tears.
And I stand there lost in her incoherence,
Which feels almost exactly like love.
Poem: "The Psychiatrist Says She's Severely Demented"
by Bobbi Lurie
from Letter from the Lawn: Poems by Bobbi Lurie
© CustomWords. (buy now)
The Psychiatrist Says She's Severely Demented
But she's my mother.
She lies in her bed,
Hi Sweetie, she says.
Hi Mom. Do you know my name?
I can't wait for her answer, I'm Bobbi.
Oh, so you found me again, she says.
Her face and hair have the same gray sheen
Like a black and white drawing smudged on the edges.
The bedspread is hot pink, lime green. Her eyes,
Such a distant blue, indifferent as the sky. I put my hand
On her forehead. It is soft, and she resembles my real mother
Who I have not spoken to in so many years.
I want to talk to her as her eyes close.
She is mumbling something, laughing to herself,
All the sadness she ever had has fled.
And when she opens her eyes again, she stares through me
And her eyes well up with tears.
And I stand there lost in her incoherence,
Which feels almost exactly like love.
Friday, February 9, 2007
I saw Blue Man Group tonight.
It was a safe harbor of postpunk pop culture absurdity
to the initial wave of media frenzy that was already washing over
the dead body of Anna Nicole Smith in all its fleeting voluptuous stiffness.
The 21st century now has its candle in the wind
(Cue audience cell phone glow* and clown-headed mourning devil horns**:)
...
Three giant TV screens.
CONSTANT TEXT MESSAGES RUN NING
DI GI TAL READOUT S A CROSS TH E S T A G E .
When the readouts weren't TEXTING,
they were displaying kinetic commentary on the music.
LOUD, PULSING, PERCUSSIONS BEAT
in to
THE AUD I ENCE' S E ARS.
(A video camera obeys
ROCK STAR LESSON # 23:
Get to KNOW Your AUDIENCE
by plunging down a fan's throat all the way
to his sphincter, I guess.
pristine pink innerds lit up under a scope's blaring kleig.)
Then there was the music, and the muscial references. AD-DC. VAN HALEN. the girl from ipanema. OZZY OZOMATLI whiipit good Did I mention Pink Floyd? Great originals, but great covers too and ROCK STAR LESSON # 287: BACK A POPULAR SOCIAL CAUSE
(It chose to protest global warming with BMG in videoscreen masks.)
For their first encore, three-dimensional giant bits of burning paper floated down from the three GIANT TV screens, skittered across the DIGITAL READOUTS while TWOM AN GRO UP (backed up by three percussionists, two guitarists, bass, keyboards/vocals and klaxon-powered female vocal) beat big fluorescent plastic spoons on a black tuba/z apparatus. (I thought of, who was it, Trent Lott?: 'THE INTERNET IS A SERIES OF TUBES ... ") molding in our ears the rythm of BABA O'RILEY ...
...
EXHIBIT 17
(TEXTED THE DIGITAL READOUT:)
THIS PIECE OF PAPER FLOATED
(TEXTED THE DIGITAL READOUT:)
THIS PIECE OF PAPER FLOATED
TO EARTH NEAR BLUE MAN'S APARTMENT
IN NEW YORK CITY
...
SEPT. 11, 2001
... Klaxon-powered female vocal:
IN NEW YORK CITY
...
SEPT. 11, 2001
... Klaxon-powered female vocal:
Out here in the fields
I fought for my ideals
I put my back into my livin'
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don
I don't need to be forgiven
...
...
Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, yeah. ani di franco woulda been proud. Joan Osborne coulda sung harmony.
textmesage powerthroatedchickvocal unDENIABLEEPIPHANYERUPTINGINYOURBRAIN
(choreographed)
Y O U ' R E A L L W A S T E D
(choreographed)
Y O U ' R E A L L W A S T E D
Yoko would have fit right in,
Grace Slick's White Rabbit in an electric green and blue maryjane
moby would just need to duck his head in a blue paint can
jerryrubin laurieanderson thediggers
PATTISMITHGROUP
TALKINGHEADS
PATTISMITHGROUP
TALKINGHEADS
A N D Y W A R H O L 1 5 M I N U T E SSSS
.................................. hare krishna hare hare krishna
.................................. hare krishna hare hare krishna
all we are saying is Give Peace a Chance
(I wondered in what parallel universe's Vegas lounge
BMG would be collab-aborting
with George and Giles Martin on "Love"
instead of Cirque do Soleil.
And I can't wait to see "Love" - that's not intended as any slam.)
. . .
...
. . .
It was 40 years ago today,
Ed Sullivan let a Brit band play
on that same stage that
David Letterman reminded us about it from tonight.
40 years later, Blue Man Group's first encore lent new poignancy to a lyric it didn't even have to sing:
("One," might be the answer if, say, Eric Clapton or some other target were the butt of a vicious joke)
( ... it would also be a good name for a song)
...
* These have evidently replaced the salutes that smoky-hazed fans used to signal with flickering lighters, back in the day.
Friday, February 2, 2007
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY / Courtesy Rob Brezsny
VIRGO week of Feb. 8-14
"You've been walking the ocean's edge, holding up your robes to keep them dry," writes Coleman Barks in his translation of the 13th-century poet Rumi. What he means is that you've been too tentative and inhibited in your relationship with the tidal forces of love; you've been holding back from giving your total devotion to the primal power that fuels the universe. "You must dive naked under and deeper under," Barks and Rumi continue, "a thousand times deeper!" Consider taking the poets' advice, Virgo. If you can't manage diving a thousand times deeper, try to least make it a hundred times. Happy Valentine Daze!
VIRGO week of Feb. 1-7
When Martin Luther King Jr. was 12 years old, he was so depressed he tried to commit suicide. I'm glad he didn't succeed. He grew up to be one of my heroes: a peaceful warrior who fought for justice with militant love. Studying his life, I learned that it's possible for a man to have both a well-honed intellect and a fierce spiritual faith. He showed me that uplifting passion, lyrical language, and inventive imagination are essential elements of political activism. He proved you can be devoted to divine mysteries without turning into a fundamentalist fanatic who hates non-believers. In accordance with the astrological omens, Virgo, I urge you to draw inspiration from a hero who means as much to you as King does to me. For extra credit, find out how this indomitable soul managed to triumph over his or her life's low points.
I'll have to think about this one. Like Brezsny's, my heroes tend to be dead: Lennon. Brautigan. Other musicians and poets and writers. One of them just passed this week: Molly Ivins. Which reminds me of another" my mother. Lucy was a newspaper writer too, a reporter and a columnist who plied her trade for papers that are either dead themselves (The Buffalo, N.Y., Courier-Express) or hanging on by their tearsheets (The Bradford Era, The Salamanca Press). Those of you who never had the pleasure of sitting down around that silly pink dinner table at 608 Broad Street will never know the serio-comic melodramas she used to regale the family with (told through various characters, with different voices and accents, and the occasional prop) as she re-enacted pedestrian things like city council meetings or sitting out in the hallway waiting for the Hospital Authority or the Seneca Nation council to come out of their interminable closed sessions. Mom and I had many disagreements in our years together, but the last time I saw her--emaciated and gray on her nursing home bed, I kissed her on the lips and she whispered to me words I'm never forget, words that, again, you'll never know.
This one's for you, Mom.
VIRGO week of Feb. 8-14
"You've been walking the ocean's edge, holding up your robes to keep them dry," writes Coleman Barks in his translation of the 13th-century poet Rumi. What he means is that you've been too tentative and inhibited in your relationship with the tidal forces of love; you've been holding back from giving your total devotion to the primal power that fuels the universe. "You must dive naked under and deeper under," Barks and Rumi continue, "a thousand times deeper!" Consider taking the poets' advice, Virgo. If you can't manage diving a thousand times deeper, try to least make it a hundred times. Happy Valentine Daze!
. . .
...
FREE WILL ASTROLOGY / Courtesy Rob BrezsnyVIRGO week of Feb. 1-7
When Martin Luther King Jr. was 12 years old, he was so depressed he tried to commit suicide. I'm glad he didn't succeed. He grew up to be one of my heroes: a peaceful warrior who fought for justice with militant love. Studying his life, I learned that it's possible for a man to have both a well-honed intellect and a fierce spiritual faith. He showed me that uplifting passion, lyrical language, and inventive imagination are essential elements of political activism. He proved you can be devoted to divine mysteries without turning into a fundamentalist fanatic who hates non-believers. In accordance with the astrological omens, Virgo, I urge you to draw inspiration from a hero who means as much to you as King does to me. For extra credit, find out how this indomitable soul managed to triumph over his or her life's low points.
I'll have to think about this one. Like Brezsny's, my heroes tend to be dead: Lennon. Brautigan. Other musicians and poets and writers. One of them just passed this week: Molly Ivins. Which reminds me of another" my mother. Lucy was a newspaper writer too, a reporter and a columnist who plied her trade for papers that are either dead themselves (The Buffalo, N.Y., Courier-Express) or hanging on by their tearsheets (The Bradford Era, The Salamanca Press). Those of you who never had the pleasure of sitting down around that silly pink dinner table at 608 Broad Street will never know the serio-comic melodramas she used to regale the family with (told through various characters, with different voices and accents, and the occasional prop) as she re-enacted pedestrian things like city council meetings or sitting out in the hallway waiting for the Hospital Authority or the Seneca Nation council to come out of their interminable closed sessions. Mom and I had many disagreements in our years together, but the last time I saw her--emaciated and gray on her nursing home bed, I kissed her on the lips and she whispered to me words I'm never forget, words that, again, you'll never know.
This one's for you, Mom.
Love always,
your red-headed son
(the living one, eventually to be somebody's hero, I hope)
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