Sunday, January 28, 2024

the indescribable essence of vinyl

 


"Is there anything under the sun that does not have an indestructible essence?" LS

Friday, January 26, 2024

tom waits | radio


When I listen to old field recordings, maybe you’ll hear a dog barking way off in the background. You realize the house it was recorded in is torn down, the dog is dead, the tape recorder is broken, the guy who made the recording died in Texas, the car out front has four flat tires, even the dirt that the house sat on is gone—probably a parking lot—but we still have this song. Takes me out when I listen to those old recordings. I put on my stuff in the house, which is always those old Alan Lomax recordings.

When I was first trying to decide what I wanted to do, I listened to Bob Dylan and James Brown. Those were my heroes. I listened to Wolfman Jack every night. The mighty ten-ninety. Fifty thousand watts of soul power. My dad was a radio technician during the war, and when he left the family when I was about eleven, I had this whole radio fascination. And he used to keep catalogues, and I used to build my own crystal set, and put the aerial up on the roof. And I remember making a radio on my first crystal set, and the first station I got on these little two-dollar headphones was Wolfman. And I thought I had discovered something that no one else had. I thought it was comin' in from Kansas City or Omaha, that nobody was getting this station, and nobody knew who this guy was, and nobody knew who these records were. I'd tapped into some bunker, or he was broadcasting from some rest stop on a highway thousands of miles from here, and it's only for me. He was actually broadcasting from San Ysidro near the border. What I really wanted to figure out is how do you come out of the radio yourself.

Photos for MAGNET by Christian Lantry

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Index: Christmas Readings


Tim Anderson | Ivory in the Desert
Tim Anderson | Loneliness Can Be Contagious

Connie Braun | A Christmas Gift from the Sea

Frederick Buechner | The Annunciation
Frederick Buechner | Emmanuel
Frederick Buechner | The Face in the Sky
Frederick Buechner | Gabriel

Robert Farrar Capon | Advent
Robert Farrar Capon | Better Watch Out
Robert Farrar Capon | Naughty or Nice

Truman Capote | A Christmas Memory

Tom Carson | Snow Angel

Nicola Colhoun | Creche

John F. Deane | Driving To Midnight Mass in Dublin on Christmas Eve

Annie Dillard | Feast Days
Annie Dillard | God in the Doorway

Dina Donohue | No Room

Craig Erickson | Christmas Rant

John Henry Faulk | A Child's Christmas in Texas

Lawrence Ferlinghetti | Christ Climbed Down

Paul Flucke | The Secret of the Gifts

Steven Garber | Always Winter, Never Christmas

Rev. J.M. Gates | Death Might Be Your Santa Claus

William Gibson | Butterfingers Angel

Lorenz Graham | Every Man Heart Lay Down

Wayne Harrel | The Camels of Ancient Yore

Rory Holland | Frail Humanity
Rory Holland | Nativity

Garrison Keillor | The Seven Principles of a Successful Christmas

Ron Klug | Joseph's Lullaby

David Kossoff | Seth
David Kossoff | Shem

Rudi Krause | one way
Rudi Krause | unforeseen

Madeleine L'Engle | O Sapientia
Madeleine L'Engle | The Tree

Peter La Grand | Christmas Memory

Mike Mason | Three Fools

mehgyver | thanks everyone

William Nicholoson | Christmas Drinks Party

Lance Odegard | Impossible Dream

Richard Osler | Advent Poems 2006
Richard Osler | Afterwards

Karl Petersen | Joseph's Night Watch

Ron Reed | Clay
Ron Reed | It's a Wonderful Life

Sheila Rosen | No Safe Place

Mike Royko | Pretty Well Picked Over

Luci Shaw | Advent III
Luci Shaw | December
Luci Shaw | Madonna and Child, with Saints
Luci Shaw | Mary Considers Her Situation
Luci Shaw | Presents

Sufjan Stevens | Christmas Tube Socks

Richard Tillinghast | One Night in Galilee

Diane Tucker | Advent Couplets
Diane Tucker | Christmas Couplets

Various Authors | Joseph & Mary

Richard Waller | Engineer's Christmas


david waltner-toews | if he were born today: christmas 1974

winter night in palestine

clean and cold as polished steel

 

arabs rest their sheep

among rocks and thistles

like a patch of scruffy spring snow

on the hillside

 

somewhere behind them

in a desert cave

a small fire holds the vengeant night

at bay

men and women commune with clammy handshakes

and guns: the bread of death

 

below the shepherds

Israeli soldiers patrol the occupied city

stop to fidget at a small bar--

a sign at the city gate reads:

all arabs must register 

with the military authorities

in the city of their birth

 

the shepherds, remembering the sign

joke about it;

they were born in tents

they do not leave their sheep

 

suddenly a rocket

sleek as a sacrificial blade

splits the belly of silence above them

exploding, shrieking into the streets below;

the streets answer with gunfire rattle

boots running on concrete

trucks

searchlights against the hills

 

the shepherds huddle behind a rock

their sheep are bleating, bleating

 

more rattle of guns

the bleating stops

 

lights out, motors choke into silence

boots stomp back to the bar

nervous laughter curls up like smoke

incense to the unspeaking

mask of night

 

down a cobbled alley

from the bar

in a small lean-to

anxious, calloused hands

are pushing some goats away

from their manger

nearby, on a bed of dirty straw

a palestinian woman groans

pushing with all her prayerful might

against the pain in her belly 

bill bunn | away from the manger

One Christmas, Linda bought the kids a plastic manger scene. She wanted the children to interact with the figures, play with the players, major and minor. I agreed with her. There's no better way to get into a story than being able to interact with it in some physical way. Here were all the season's big stars – the baby Christ, the angels, the shepherds, Joseph, Mary and the barnyard cast – built from durable, kid-friendly plastic.

 

At the beginning of December, when we decorated the house for Christmas, we set up the new manger scene. But we had forgotten about the democracy of toys. In this republic, all toys – regardless of symbolic value – are created equal. And any toy may interact with any other, depending only on the elasticity of the operator’s imagination.

Understandably, Christ and cast were popular. Everyone seemed to want him around. Christ would not stay put.

 

The baby Jesus ended up visiting with our Lego populace. He frequented the company of stuffed animals, despite the immense difference in scale. Another time, I found Jesus stuffed into the chimney of a dollhouse. He was helping his brother, Santa, the kids explained. I found him driving the Barbie Corvette with Barbie, down at the end of the hall.

 

The rest of the cast took their cue from the baby. I saw a wise man and the donkey, helping a farmer drive a tractor in a castle. I found Mary and another wise man helping a set of Lego firemen rescue animals and medieval soldiers from a train wreck. It was as if the manger was only a pose, like a picture taken at a party that the stable cast would strike for a moment, a starting point from which they would begin.

Then, Jesus lost his head. One of our children or one of his or her friends had broken the head off the plastic Jesus. He was a toy, and the heads of toys are often removable. A child had tried removing it but ended up breaking it.

 

In our hearts we were deeply disturbed. It was okay for Barbie to lose her head, or Ken to lose his, but not the Christ child. Who would do such a thing? Why not one of the shepherds? Why not Joseph? But the body was found headless, the plastic neck snapped.

 

We searched for the head in the big Lego tub. In the toy boxes in people's rooms. In drawers and under beds. No head.

 

Who had beheaded the Christ child? This was a deliberate act. So began our crusade.

 

"Who took Jesus' head?" we asked, and we heard silence. We asked the question in many different ways: calmly, urgently, sadly, happily, indifferently and with deep concern. Nothing. Or rather, everything.

 

Elise thought she saw it in various places throughout the house 

(that made us suspect her). 

May insisted she hadn’t done anything 

(which made us suspect her). 

Ezra got tired of us asking the question and confessed 

(which made us conclude it was him), 

but then his story wouldn’t hold 

(which made us suspect him). 

 

Each one carried shades of unshakable guilt. Linda and I, too, felt pangs of guilt. Maybe they hadn’t broken it. Maybe they were all telling the truth. The inquisition ended in failure.

 

We phoned the manufacturers and asked them to ship a new Jesus. They could make no guarantees, but we hoped that his arrival might happen before Christmas. 

In the meantime, the headless Jesus was too much to look at, so my wife crazy-glued the head of a Lego person on his shoulders. The sunglassed eyes of the Lego head looked far too smug to sit on Christ's shoulders, and the head would accept different hats or helmets, all of which seemed blasphemous, but it was much better than a headless baby.

 

Many years earlier, Linda and I had travelled to Rome, to the Sistine Chapel, to see Michelangelo’s frescoes. I remember staring up at the roof, considering, with the rest of the mob, the space between God’s and Adam’s hands. What could that gap mean? What was Michelangelo’s thought? I think it was a practical consideration. If the two hands had touched, things would have become weird – Michelangelo’s deity might not have stayed put.

 

The new Jesus arrived in a small box a few days before Christmas. Was this the Advent or the Second Coming? Once out of the packaging, he was more popular than ever. Despite our sternest warnings, he consorted regularly with all toys, regardless of their shape and size, regardless of where they were made. He obviously wasn’t going to stay in the manger, though the picture on the box suggested this might happen.

 

It's time to set up our nativity scene again. I arrange the figurines on the coffee table, according to the picture on the box. As I lay Christ into his moulded manger, I realize he won't be here long. Within minutes, the last place I'll find him is in the manger. For in our house, God can be touched, so there's no telling where he might end up.

 

richard tillinghast | one night in galilee

We were looking to bed down for the night,
get the flock together safe and the dogs
keeping watch. Rain had started to fall.

Then the sky blazed
and we heard music--
commanding and lofty
but warm-hearted and human too.
It reached out and
found us where we lay.

Fear not, a voice said.
And out of the voice merged a figure.
He looked like a man
but we knew he wasn't.

How could we welcome such a one?
Offer him goats' milk to drink?
Find place for him in our tent,
smelling as it did of tallow and long days
handling animals,
on the move for months?

Before we could make up our minds
the air came alive with angels' wings--
air that a moment before had been
heavy with mud-mist and sheep funk.
The sound of their wings
was a river at floodtide.
Their plumage dazzled our eyes,
this choir half glimpsed
singing their message
of peace on earth,
a royal family in a stable,
a baby who was a king.

And when they had gone away
into heaven,
we looked at each other dumbstruck.
It was night again,
the dogs hung close and kept quiet.
Then someone said, Let us go and see.

richard waller | an engineer's christmas

I. No known species of reindeer can fly. However, there are some 300,000 species of living organisms yet to be classified. While most of these are insects and germs, this does not completely rule out flying reindeer (which only Santa has ever seen). 

II. There are approximately two billion children (persons under 18) in the world. However, since Santa apparently does not visit children of Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Buddhist religions, this reduces the workload for Christmas night to 15% of the total, or 378 million (according to the Population Reference Bureau). At an average (census) rate of 3.5 children per house hold, that comes to 108 million homes, presuming that there is at least one good child in each. 

III. Santa has about 31 hours of Christmas to work with, thanks to the different time  zones and the rotation of the earth, assuming he travels east to west (which seems logical). This works out to 967.7 visits per second. This is to say that for each Christian household with a good child, Santa has around 1/1000th of a second to park the sleigh, hop out, jump down the chimney, fill the stockings, distribute the remaining presents under the tree, eat whatever snacks have been left for him, get back up the chimney, jump into the sleigh and get on to the next house.  Assuming that each of these 108 million stops is evenly distributed around the earth (which, of course, we know to be false, but will accept for the purposes of our calculations), we are now talking about 0.78 miles per  household; a total trip of 75.5 million miles, not counting bathroom stops  or breaks. This means Santa's sleigh is moving at 650 miles per second —  3,000 times the speed of sound. For purposes of comparison, the fastest man-made vehicle, the Ulysses space probe, moves at a poky 27.4 miles per second, and a conventional reindeer can run (at best) 15 miles per hour. 

IV. The payload of the sleigh adds another interesting element. Assuming that each child gets nothing more than a medium sized Lego set (two  pounds), the sleigh is carrying over 500 thousand tons, not counting Santa who is invariably described as overweight. On land, a conventional reindeer can pull no more than 300 pounds. Even granting that the "flying" reindeer could pull ten times the normal amount, the job can't be done with eight or even nine of them --- Santa would need 360,000 of them. This
increases the payload, not counting the weight of the sleigh, another 54,000 tons, or roughly seven times the weight of the Queen Elizabeth (the ship, not the monarch). 

V. 600,000 tons traveling at 650 miles per second crates enormous air resistance --- this would heat up the reindeer in the same fashion as a spacecraft re-entering the earth's atmosphere. The lead pair of reindeer would absorb 14.3 quintillion joules of energy per second each. In short, they would burst into flames almost instantaneously, exposing the reindeer behind them and creating deafening sonic booms in their wake. The entire reindeer team would be vaporized within 4.26 thousandths of a second. Santa, meanwhile, would be subjected to centrifugal forces 17,500 times greater than gravity. A 250 pound Santa (which seems ludicrously slim) would be pinned to the back of the sleigh by 4,315,000 pounds of force. 

VI. In conclusion, if Santa ever did deliver presents to all the good children on Christmas Eve, HE'S DEAD NOW. 

mehgyver | thanks everyone

Well, I just had a baby....
in a barn.

So, thanks everyone who brought gifts.
The gold, the perfumes.
All things babies love.

Also the child who inexplicably played drums,
like, right in my face.

This...
This was great.

Tuesday, December 19, 2023

christmas presence | set list, mon dec 18


MONDAY DEC 11
singers | jenaya barker, nelson boschman, garth bowen, jenny banai
players | rick colhoun (drums), saadi d'hoore (bass), james danderfer (reeds)
readers | ron reed, shauna johannesen, chantal gallant, shona struthers

ACT ONE
nelson | three ships
charles dickens | scrooge & nephew (from 'a christmas carol')
garth | hello christmas 
jenny | always in the season
nelson | o come emmanuel
shauna | snowbirds
jenaya | in the bleak midwinter
tillinghast | one night in galilee
garth | god rest ye

ACT TWO
jenny | christmas (baby please come home)
chantal | cupid (from 'nosegate')
nelson | joy to the world 
heids macdonald | there's room
jenaya | evermore
bill bunn | away from the manger
garth | alleluia 
annie dillard | feast days
jenaya | the holly and the ivy
robert louis stevenson | christmas prayer
jenny | silent night 

richard tillinghast | one night in galilee

We were looking to bed down for the night,
get the flock together safe and the dogs
keeping watch. Rain had started to fall.
 
Then the sky blazed
and we heard music--
commanding and lofty
but warm-hearted and human too.
It reached out and
found us where we lay.
 
Fear not, a voice said.
And out of the voice merged a figure.
He looked like a man
but we knew he wasn't.
 
How could we welcome such a one?
Offer him goats' milk to drink?
Find place for him in our tent,
smelling as it did of tallow and long days
handling animals,
on the move for months?
 
Before we could make up our minds
the air came alive with angels' wings--
air that a moment before had been
heavy with mud-mist and sheep funk.

The sound of their wings
was a river at floodtide.
Their plumage dazzled our eyes,
this choir half glimpsed
singing their message
of peace on earth,
a royal family in a stable,
a baby who was a king.
 
And when they had gone away
into heaven,
we looked at each other dumbstruck.
It was night again,
the dogs hung close and kept quiet.
Then someone said, Let us go and see.

Monday, December 18, 2023

twyla tharp | on generosity



Generosity is luck going in the opposite direction, away from you. 

If you're generous to someone, if you do something to help them out, 
you are in effect making them lucky.

This is important. It's like inviting yourself into a community of good fortune.

christmas presence | set list, sun dec 17


singers | joellel lush-tatum, leora cashe, zaac pick
players | mark bender (bass), lincoln tatum (drums), jaye krebs (piano)
readers | ron reed, heids macdonald

ACT ONE
joellel | please come home for christmas 
frederick buechner | emmanuel
zaac | maybe this christmas 
leora | sleigh ride 
joellel | i've got my love to keep me warm 
dina donohue | no room
heids macdonald | there's room
zaac | christmas song
mike mason | commotion!
leora | tidings of comfort and joy 

ACT TWO
leora | arias of peace  
zaac | light under the door  
annie dillard | god in the doorway
joellel | who would imagine 
leora | finally christmas day 
annie dillard | feast days
joellel & leora | jesus, what a wonderful child 
charles dickens | a christmas carol 
zaac | finding christmas  

heids macdonald | there's room

There’s room.
Honestly.
There’s room.
There’s room
for the uncle
that loves the gawdy decorations
and the kids running cut-out paper snowflakes along every banister, 
and the teenager who is embarrassed to admit they still want to decorate the tree.
So, the cool aunt with the buzz-cut
whose wife is just as cool 
inviting them to help out
is just the ticket.
There’s room for deep inhales and longer exhales, 
because the spicy smell of apple pie in the oven reminds you
of mom. 
And that is wonderful
and lonely
and triggering.
Because mom was complicated. And there’s room for that. Honestly. 
There’s room.
There’s room
for Hanukkah candles burning in window sills
and for the cookie platter
supplied to the shift workers for whom Christmas day
is just another shift.
There’s room
For family – all sorts.
For re-uniting family:
perhaps dysfunctional but trying.
For found family:
perhaps that crew of queers who can’t go home anymore. So, they say to each other,
“There is still pumpkin pie on the menu!”
For grieving family:
Perhaps rotating cigarette breaks on the steps to the hospital, when the walls of the palliative room are closing in.
And there’s room for the words,
“I hate Christmas,”
because why does everyone die in December?
There’s room.
Honestly.
There’s room.
There’s room
for putting up the tree
the day after Halloween and leaving it
till spring. 
There’s room
in the Christmas eve service
for everyone.
So church, remember that.
And there’s room
for the person that can’t darken a pew.
Afterall,
The Christ child grew into person
who had a thing or two to say about
the religious establishment’s treatment
of “the least of these.”
There’s room
for loneliness.
You are not alone in this.
There’s room
to forgive
and for not knowing how to yet.
There’s room
for the same stories told over and over:
of babes and misers and angels and red-nosed reindeer, and prophetic stars and lassoing the moon,
and poor, ordinary, occupied people...
waiting.
There’s room for mulled wine and chocolate and
Those caramel covered marshmallow things. 
HONESTLY! THERE’S ROOM! 
There’s room
at the table for the ones who never seem to fit. Maybe that’s you.
In which case,
there’s room for you – 
along with the shepherds and stargazers
and unwed pregnant teenagers and dreamy carpenters and livestock:
all welcome when
there was no room
at the inn.
Because gathered round love
(humble and asking for nothing)
There’s room for you.
Honestly.
There’s room. 

*

please do not publish, perform or distribute without permission from the author:
heids macdonald : heidsmacdonald@gmail.com

Sunday, December 17, 2023

david waltner-toews | if he were born today: christmas, 1974

winter night in palestine
clean and cold as polished steel

arabs rest their sheep
among rocks and thistles
like a patch of scruffy spring snow
on the hillside

somewhere behind them
in a desert cave
a small fire holds the vengeant night
at bay
men and women commune with clammy handshakes
and guns: the bread of death

below the shepherds
Israeli soldiers patrol the occupied city
stop to fidget at a small bar--
a sign at the city gate reads:
all arabs must register 
with the military authorities
in the city of their birth

the shepherds, remembering the sign
joke about it;
they were born in tents
they do not leave their sheep

suddenly a rocket
sleek as a sacrificial blade
splits the belly of silence above them
exploding, shrieking into the streets below;
the streets answer with gunfire rattle
boots running on concrete
trucks
searchlights against the hills

the shepherds huddle behind a rock
their sheep are bleating, bleating

more rattle of guns
the bleating stops

lights out, motors choke into silence
boots stomp back to the bar
nervous laughter curls up like smoke
incense to the unspeaking
mask of night

down a cobbled alley
from the bar
in a small lean-to
anxious, calloused hands
are pushing some goats away
from their manger
nearby, on a bed of dirty straw
a palestinian woman groans
pushing with all her prayerful might
against the pain in her belly

photo | ray h. mercado

 


Thursday, July 13, 2023

gary nay | vancouver paintings


sunday services


the beach store


border town



beach grove store



morning motel



my night at the nat



real real gone



reflections



on the drive



it's just lunch

all paintings by gary nay
available at his website 

ishiuchi miyako : postwar shadows

 










Saturday, July 01, 2023

ron reed | canada day in steveston


All the mixed feelings.

So Canadian. Mostly Chinese families, waving Canada flags and dressed in Canada T-shirts and Canada hats. South Asians in their teens and twenties with their dates. A few white folk, sprinkled in for contrast. A Japanese woman, gorgeous in a black kimono.

Food trucks and tents from everywhere. Baba's House Polish sausages and pyrogies. Another truck with Greek and Mexican food. The Namaste Indian food truck, Persian saffron ice cream from Cazba Restaurant, pancake breakfast for Ukrainian relief, southern barbecue, grilled cheese. Salmon from British Columbia. And Japadogs and Teriaki Boys. A world's worth of food arrayed in the Japanese Cultural Centre parking lot. 

The kimono woman conjured for me the memory of Steveston's fishermen, and their families who worked the cannery, rounded up after Pearl Harbor and interred far inland, far from the sea, far from the homes they could never return to. A friend once wrote a poem about the graduating class photos that lined the halls of his alma mater, Steveston High. Year after year, so many Japanese faces. Until the class of 1942. 

Canada Day. I've always been wary of patriotism, which makes me as Canadian as a Canadian can be. All the more so in recent years, and much more since May 2021, thinking of the people who lived here before we showed up and shoved them aside, and worse. I was sad not to see any of those folks there in Steveston on Canada Day, Musqueam or Tsawwassen or Kwantlen people. Maybe they were there, I didn't see everybody. But maybe not. There would be more than enough reasons for that.  

There was "a police presence," very Canadian cops strolling the streets, smiling, nodding to the people. I didn't see any guns. The Sikh officer with the beard, some other guys, a few policewomen, standing around in the shade of a tree having what I guess was a cop coffee break? Double doubles all round? Like the Boston Red Sox infield converging on the pitcher's mound in the bottom of the eighth clinging to a one-run lead with two Blue Jays on base, but much more relaxed. (Don't talk about the ballgame.)

A block down Moncton Street, kids gathered around a fancy cop car, a couple officers showing off all the gadgets. A few blocks north of beautiful downtown Steveston, one solitary guy patrolled the residential streets, writing enough parking tickets to offset most of the extra police department expenses for the day.  

My daughter's American friend asked asked if Canada Day celebrates the day we defeated the British. I thought that was charming. As Katie said, "a very American question." In more than one way. I responded that, no, it celebrates the day we defeated the Americans! (Red Sox - Blue Jays notwithstanding.)

But I was only joshing. That wouldn't be July 1, it would be August 16. Or August 24, though we really don't get to claim that one. Or October 13. All things considered, 1812 was a bad year for south-of-the-border dudes who picked fights with Canadians. But we've mostly gotten along since then. (We won't talk about the Women's Hockey...) (Which, by the way, was called "ice hockey" on a little quiz I saw today, a test to determine How Canadian You Are. Demonstrating that the quiz was cobbled together by a Yank. ICE hockey? There's not a Canadian alive who calls it ICE hockey. That's like saying "water swimming." Jeez.)  

(And also by the way, I must note that the test rated me as only 75% Canadian, because I scored only 18 out of 24 - an honest and self-deprecating admission which identifies me unequivocally as 100% Canadian, regardless of whether I've had a double double or been up the CN Tower. And the CN Tower, I must point out, is in TORONTO, which every Canadian in the rest of the country knows is NOT in fact a part of Canada. So the test was totally bogus.)

Apart from Aaron Wong's Elvis tribute, all the musicians I happened to hear today who weren't in the Steveston High School band were as white as I am, and at least as old. Probably singing their folk songs and playing their jazz in Vancouver parks and on Kitsilano coffee house stages half a century ago, long hair and bellbottoms, when they were the revolution. Now they just look like Old White Folks. Just like me. What we used to call "The Establishment." One fellow dated himself by mentioning Bobby Gimby's Centennial ditty, "Ca-na-da..." but it didn't sound like anybody in the crowd besides me had any idea what he was talking about. "Now we are twenty million..." Or the three white guys in the quiet little garden by the Steveston Museum - hey, the fiddler couldn't have been much more than thirty, a kid! - who played Irish tunes on Uillean pipes and the bodhran, and sang the tragedy of the Irish people, centuries of genocide and enforced famine and exile, and I thought, we really don't treat each other very well.  

But everybody was treating each other just fine today in Steveston. There was plenty of food to go around, which helps, and nobody was at war with anybody, not here, not right now, anyhow. Bygones were, apparently, bygones. So Canadian.

Tonight, fireworks bursting in the night air. Which won't remind most Canadians of bombs, or rockets' red glare, won't be mistaken for gunfire. Unless they immigrated from Ukraine in the past year or so, or from a major American city almost any time, or served in the Canadian forces to "keep the peace" overseas somewhere, sometime. 

All the mixed feelings.

sharon singleton | the dock-sitters

To sit on a dock which has 
walked out on stiff legs
twelve to fifteen feet away
from the weedy shore,
one board after another
reaching outward, drawing 
your gaze across the unblinking 
eye
of the lake whose color 

deepens further out, to sit 

on this dock which seems 

to want to hold you, even 

rock you a little, to dangle 

your feet, whiter in the green 

cool water, to gaze down 

into that silent world where 

minnows eddy around 

your toes, where sand 

has agreed to be shaped 

by ripples of water, 

where reeds and water lilies 

witness to you as that 

which endures. To look out 

on that lake, as birds dip low, 

as quiet men in boats peer 

into the depths, cast 

their lines searching for 

what is shadowy, elusive;

to lie back on gray, splintery 

sun-warmed boards 

in the silence of light—

is to allow that tight band 

constricting your breath 

to loosen, is to quench 

your dire thirst for

the present. To sit

on such a dock is one 

of the forgotten beatitudes—

blessed are the dock-sitters, 

for they shall soon feel 

shriven, their humor restored 

and their pant legs 

cool and damp.

 

Sharron Singleton 

sixfold

 

 

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

my movie montages


I love the movies. And I like making things. So I spend a lot of time making movies out of the movies. Here are links to some of my ongoing montage projects.  (Note: They're always best with headphones, or good speakers. The bigger the screen the better.)

Here's the latest...

or one month at a time...
A Month At The Movies In Two And A Half Minutes 
October | dates only | dates + titles 
November | dates only | dates + titles   
I prefer the versions with no titles, just a stream of images and sound. But if you're curious about what movies the clips are from, or about the events depicted, there are versions including those things as well 

Date Movies
The whole obsession began with the project of finding date references in movies.  It started with watching The Longest Day on June 6, 2004, which led to the search to find one movie for each day in the calendar year. Which led to finding a lot more than one movie clip for each day of the year. Which led to making montages for specific days, usually the birthdays of friends. I've created maybe seventy of the darn things, but most of them were posted on a defunct Vimeo account. Here are links to a handful I've put up on the YouTubes.
Jan 6  
Jun 7  
Sep 2  
Dec 22  
 
Dial V for Video
A tribute to video stores, a trailer for International Independent Video Store Day. 40 movies in 4:32.  Here.  

Good Time Diner
My son-in-law plays in a band, and they thought it would be a blast to project movie clips behind them while they play, and during breaks. So I got to make some really long montages! Welcome to the diner! Here's a minute-and-a-half trailer for one of their gigs, but unfortunately there are some restrictions for viewing the longer montages at the moment.  When I get those sorted out, I'll post links here. In case anybody's got 45 minutes to spare sometime...  ,

NT GUILTY: You need a good lawyer?
Movie clips about lawyers and the law, a graduation present for my daughter Katie's graduation from law school. Probably my favourite. Montage, not daughter.  Here

The Movies Go To The Movies: Marquees
A chronology of movie-going, as seen in the movies. A work in progress; here's how far I got by May 30 last year, starting with a 1915 screening of "The Curse Of Drink" at The Gem (from the film "On Moonlight Bay") through to "The Bicycle Thief" at The Rialto in 1991 (as seen in "The Player"). 

Earth Day International Film Festival: End of the World Edition
And here's the trailer for an imaginary film festival. Just for fun.