I've reached the age of needing grandpa strings for my glasses. I can't read anything within my arms' reach while wearing my glasses so I can go hours without wearing them, and if I took them off then moved from where I started reading it often takes me five blind minutes to find them. This getting old shit. Fine metaphors abound. Here's my right eye
Reading is physically harder now that my left eye can barely see through glaucoma's fog: three weeks from today it will have knives jabbed into it to try and dissipate some of the fog then stop fog's counterattack (plus eyedoc will yoink-out the old windshield and install a new one). Insurance will cover all but the deductible says eyedoc's office manager. Takes ten minutes and I'll feel zero nada no pain, says eyedoc. We'll, um, see.
But I read fine, as in I can pick up a book and see and read the text in it, engage with it. I'm reading well, as in I'm enjoying reading and retaining and thinking about what I've just read. The issue, after six decades of reading: I can't finish a novel. I set a pace that matches my interest and enjoy processing what I've read and am eager to pick it up again when I next have a minute's chance, and then I'll end a chapter or turn a page and of a sudden, SCREECH! I not only don't want to read the book in that moment, I don't to read it, viscerally, since: as I type this sentence I can't imagine me finishing any of the novels. Fine metaphors abound. Here's my left eye
It doesn't seem connected to any particular catalyst or spastic reaction to that particular day's most clussterfuckic obscenity, though no doubt Cumulative Clusterfuckic Trauma accounts for part, and that's the true clusterfuckic obscenity. And it's not just reading: I mentioned here before how certain musicians and bands that once got constant playtime in my ears and head I viscerally don't want to listen to in my ears and, especially, in my head right now. Two poets (not Ashbery, though I say something catty about *Breezeway* at the bottom of the grid below). One restaurant. A certain road in Michigan (Waterloo-Munith), the fuck did that road do to me. My home disc golf course, the one with the sign on 22 that says it is sponsored by me and Seat Six. But every novel the current ongoing eternity. I was 7/8ths through loving Faulkner's *The Hamlet* yesterday when SCREECH! BURN! Fine metaphors abound. Terry Hall would have been 67 today, this is one of my dozen favorite songs ever, still!
TAPESTRY
John Ashbery
It is difficult to seperate the tapestry
from the room or loom which takes precedence over it.
For it must always be frontal yet to one side.
It insists on this picture of "history"
in the making, because there is no way out of the punishment
it proposes: sight blinded by sunlight.
The seeing taken in with what is seen
in an explosion of sudden awareness of its formal splendor.
The eyesight, seen as inner,
registers over the impact of itself
receiving phenomena, and in so doing
draws an outline, or a blueprint,
of what was just there: dead on the line.
If it has the form of a blanket, that is because
we are eager, all the same, to be wound in it:
This must be the good of not experiencing it.
But in some other life, which the blanket depicts anyway,
the citizens hold sweet commerce with one another
and pinch the fruit unpestered, as they will,
and words go crying after themselves, leaving the dream
upended in a puddle somewhere
as though "dead" were just another adjective.
Seat Sicks
ReplyDeletethis morning i came across a fictitious photo of jim morrison, jimi hendrix, and janis joplin sitting at a cafe table on a new york sidewalk, and thought - among other things - 'i'd like to see peter rowan perform one more time' - and then i wondered where and when he might have shows scheduled - and it turns out that there's one thirty miles away on wednesday - so i bought tickets for self and spouse
ReplyDeleteat this place, the order in which you arrive determines your choice of seat - you sit at long tables, perpendicular to the stage - you have an opportunity to purchase food and drink - it is my understanding it is customary but not strictly required to do so - my plan is to be there wearing my n95 mask, sitting in the less crowded area in the back, drinking a root beer through a straw - eating in a large crowd of strangers is a risky business for someone in my condition
a song expected to be in the set list is "land of the navaho" - one summary states:
DeleteGemini said
"Land of the Navaho," a standout track by bluegrass and progressive folk icon Peter Rowan, is a haunting, atmospheric tribute to the spiritual and physical landscape of the American Southwest. First appearing on the 1975 album Old & In the Way (with Jerry Garcia) and later on his solo projects, the song blends traditional bluegrass instrumentation with a "high lonesome" mystical quality.
Key Themes and Elements
The Sacred Landscape: The lyrics paint a vivid picture of the high desert, specifically the Four Corners region. It references the "red rocks," "painted desert," and the "blue shadows" of the mesas, treating the land itself as a living, breathing character.
Cultural Reverence: Rather than a simple travelogue, the song explores the Navajo (Diné) connection to the Earth. It touches on themes of endurance, the ancient nature of the culture, and a sense of quiet solitude found in the vastness of the reservation.
Musical Atmosphere: Rowan often employs a distinctive, yodel-inflected vocal style in this song that mimics the wind or a distant coyote. When performed with a mandolin or fiddle, the music oscillates between a driving rhythm and a sparse, ethereal stillness.
Spirituality and Passing Time: There is a recurring sense of the mystical—references to the "Great Spirit" or the "ancient ones"—suggesting that the past and present coexist in the desert air.
Cultural Context
Rowan wrote the song during a period when he was deeply influenced by his travels through New Mexico and his interest in Indigenous rights and spirituality. It remains a staple of his live sets, often serving as a centerpiece for extended instrumental improvisation.
1/speaking of indigenous persons and landscapes of the southwestern united states, a retiree who lives in my neighbourhood has shared with friends and relatives the following passage from Douglas Preston's book Talking to the Ground (1996/2019). In it, a Navajo spiritual leader tells the author "the Earth has said ‘Have patience, there is no way you can stop this turn, this cycle. The world is already unbalanced. It’s already on its way, going full momentum. And in this manner, when the world ends, you will eventually go in a peaceful manner. In a respectful manner. Because you human beings, you may be gone, but the Earth is always here. It will revive itself’".
Delete2/a relative of this retiree asked a text-producing robot:
A/Please express the Navajo's prophecy as if it were a poem by Walt Whitman
B/Contextualize the old man's concern - is there reason to think this pessimistic attitude he has taken on may come to pass? And even if so, how can his last days - and years, one hopes - be more comfortable from a psychological and philosophic perspective - although an agnostic, he prays with his cradle Catholic wife every day "As we begin this day, help us to live with awareness and with love, and to be truly grateful for all we have been given."
C/the plagiarism machine emitted a sequence of words, pointing out, in a seemingly reasonable manner, some considerations along the lines of:
"Unsustainable" means change, not necessarily rapid civilizational collapse
Humans have survived climate shifts before (not at this scale or speed, granted)
Technology and social organization can shift faster than doomers typically model
Regional variation matters—some places will fare far better than others
The difference between "very bad" and "extinction/total collapse" is morally enormous