a brown businessman’s bar
“I’m having a huge fifteen cent beer in a bar off the waterfront but a brown businessman’s bar and at the hem of the financial district with Emil-like feathers and men drinking at long bar—I say ‘brown’ bar not in jest, red neons or pink ones too shine in the smoke and reflect off dark browned panels, the beer is brown, tabletops, the lights are white but embrowned, the tile floor too . . .”
—Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody, 1972.
the great black bird
“. . . it’s as though I was battling black evil birds tonight and not anything human, something that the Devil sends, not the world, and the great black bird broods outside my window in the high dark night waiting to enfold me when I leave the house tomorrow only I’m going to dodge it successfully by sheer animalism and ability and even exhilaration, so goodnight”
—Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody, 1972.
dream golden
“This movie house of mine in the dream has got a golden light to it though it is deeply shaded brown, or misty gray too inside, with thousands not hundreds but all squeezed together children in there diggin the perfect cowboy B-movie which is not shown in Technicolor but dream golden . . .”
—Jack Kerouac, Visions of Cody, 1972.
a silver light far up in the sky
“I think it must have been just after ten in the morning when I saw a silver light far up in the sky. A brilliant flash of silver. That’s right, it was definitely light reflecting off something metal. That light moved very slowly in the sky from east to west. We all thought it had to be a B-29. It was directly above us, so to see it we had to look straight up. It was a clear blue sky, and the light was so bright all we could see was that silver, duralumin-like object.
But we couldn’t make out the shape, since it was too far up. I assumed that they couldn’t see us either, so we weren’t afraid of being attacked or having bombs suddenly rain down on us. Dropping bombs in the mountains here would be pretty pointless anyway. I figured the plane was on its way to bomb some large city somewhere, or maybe on its way back from a raid. So we kept on walking. All I thought was how that light had a strange beauty to it.”
—Haruki Murakami, Kafka On The Shore, translated by Philip Gabriel, 2005.
A deaf composer
“‘A deaf composer’s like a cook who’s lost his sense of taste. A frog that’s lost its webbed feet. A truck driver with his license revoked. That would throw anybody for a loop, don’t you think? But Beethoven didn’t let it get to him. Sure he must have been a little depressed at first, but he didn’t let misfortune get him down. It was like, Problem? What problem? He composed more than ever and came up with better music than anything he’d ever written. I really admire the guy. . . .’”
—Haruki Murakami, Kafka On The Shore, translated by Philip Gabriel, 2005.
a splendid torch
“Life is no brief candle for me. It is sort of a splendid torch which I have got hold of for a moment and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations.”
—George Bernard Shaw.
Cloud Gate Dance Theatre of Taiwan
Click here, and then click there, for your Father’s Day moment of Zen.
inscribed vinyl
Pictured is the fourth side of the two-disc vinyl version of Low’s Things We Lost in the Fire from 2001, an extreme example of a phenomenon that we might call inscribed vinyl.
Usually these inscribed vinyl messages are more discreet. Their size is limited to the “run-off” area after the end of a song, and so they are easily overlooked. According to my Google research, now spanning into its third day, a “matrix number” is usually inscribed here to identify the pressing before the paper label is applied. But sometimes there is a message directed at a wider audience. The earliest such message may have been a charming “Phil loves Ronnie” on one of producer Phil Spector’s early 45s from the 1960s. I don’t know which 45, if it was a Ronnettes 45, or anything more. (OK. This may just be a rumor, but Phil’s been in the news lately so I thought I’d mention it.)
I have more confidence in the following sightings: on the Grateful Dead’s album Anthem of the Sun there is an inscription that reads “The faster we go, the rounder we get,” on their Terrapin Station the question “Where do you keep your stereo, Jer?” and on John Lennon & Yoko Ono’s Double Fantasy one can glean the message “one world one people.” (Where is John Lennon now that we really, really need him?)
These inscriptions are not to be confused with “backmasked” messages in the music itself. These are sonic vocal snippits which make no sense until the record is played in reverse and the hidden message is revealed. Some of these are the famously feared “satanic” messages of the 70s and 80s. Unlike inscribed messages, which have yet to be fully studied, these backmasked messages are neatly listed, for our convenience, on one page of the ever-growing and amazingly handy Wikipedia.
Click here, if you think you can handle them.
the Golden Floor
“That is indeed very good. I shall have to repeat that on the Golden Floor!”
—A.E. Housman, responding to a risqu’ joke told to cheer him up just before he died, 1936; Daily Telegraph, February 21, 1984.
a brief crack of light
“The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness.”
—Vladimir Nabakov, Speak, Memory, 1951.