THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“It is a curious thought, but it is only when you see people looking ridiculous that you realize just how much you love them. ”― Agatha Christie
It has been one of those weeks that I have really been missing my Dad.
First with the SF Giants clinching post-season play. My Dad took me to my first baseball game…played catch with me all the time in the ally in back of our house…and attended years of spring training games in Arizona with me. We watched the last innings of the last Giants world series game together…the one where Madison Bumgarner threw his historic relief innings…the same Bumgarner that my Dad and I together watched throw triple-A ball in pre-season. He would have been the first person I called after hearing this week’s news.
And tonight starts Yom Kippur, a holiday that I spent with my parents almost every year of my life, highlighted by the final hours of Yom Kippur day, where my Dad and I would sit in temple together…having fasted the entire day and feeling it, swaying almost hallucinatorilly as the sun went down. I was never much of a service goer, but realized somewhere along the way that he was going alone…he would sometimes sit with his sister Eddie and our family friend Roddy Langsam…but he would be without his sons. So I started accompanying him…and it became our tradition…past the time that Aunt Eddie and Roddy were able to join. My brother Larry starting coming too and my Dad had sons on either side of him as he practiced the late afternoon tradition he had done with his dad: signing himself into the book of life as the gates closed during the final moments of Yom Kippur. In the later years, pondering one’s mortality got heavier as my Dad got more frail.
After all that time, the ritual of that late part of Yom Kippur developed a deep meaning for me, as any ritual or habit tends to do after being practiced and practiced. Now it is a tradition I do with just my brother. Maybe one of my kids will eventually sit with me. And if not, I can always sneak in some Primo Levi or some other dark writing to keep me company…and meditate on my memories of being with my Dad.
For those who observe this holiday of Yom Kippur, may it be a meaningful one.
Spiritualized :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview
Even though there are a lot of soft balls thrown at Jason Spaceman and not much in the way of: WHY THE HELL WONT YOU PLAY WITH THE SPACEMEN 3 AGAIN? or WHAT WAS THE DEAL WITH YOU SAYING YOU WERE GOING TO RETIRE AND ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT? This is a strong interview going over some of his deep music history and theory…and he even calls out my friend Peter Wiley for being a good guy….
George Wein, Jazz Festival Trailblazer, Is Dead at 95
Anyone who knows Jazz…who plays Jazz…knew or knew of George Wein. Maybe one of the greatest supporters of the art form???? RIP.
Hamlin Garland’s Mad Quest for the ‘Buried Crosses’
Garland would have been 161 yesterday…and if you HAVEN’T heard of him, Alta magazine, who continually do truly interesting deep dive reporting on revelatory stories, published this beauty recently….
Werner Herzog to tell story of Japanese soldier who refused to surrender
Herzog is definitely one of my favorite film directors of all time…and is always doing something that finds him in the news. This year alone, he created motivational posters that people loved, was reported to have hypnotized the entire cast of the 1976 film Heart Of Glass, and is writing a memoir…and then there is always the story about him making a film of him eating his shoe. And yet…there is always more…and it always sounds great…like this new book he is writing….
The Never-ending Story of Glitter, 20 Years On
My friend Greg and I were in the audience for opening night of Glitter…we had to see the horrible spectacle. The Holywood movie theater was barely 30% full and the heckling was abound. When one audience member hurled a few barbs at the screen about Mariah as has-been, the guy in front of us got up and yelled right to the film’s star, "DON'T LISTEN TO HIM, MARIAH! HE JUST JEALOUS!" The film was a catastrophe, and this article nevertheless is a great read.
The Highwayman
By: Alfred Noyes
PART ONE
The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees,
The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
And the highwayman came riding—
Riding—riding—
The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.
He'd a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin;
They fitted with never a wrinkle: his boots were up to the thigh!
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.
Over the cobbles he clattered and clashed in the dark inn-yard,
And he tapped with his whip on the shutters, but all was locked and barred;
He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
And dark in the dark old inn-yard a stable-wicket creaked
Where Tim the ostler listened; his face was white and peaked;
His eyes were hollows of madness, his hair like mouldy hay,
But he loved the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's red-lipped daughter,
Dumb as a dog he listened, and he heard the robber say
"One kiss, my bonny sweetheart, I'm after a prize to-night,
But I shall be back with the yellow gold before the morning light;
Yet, if they press me sharply, and harry me through the day,
Then look for me by moonlight,
Watch for me by moonlight,
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way."
He rose upright in the stirrups; he scarce could reach her hand,
But she loosened her hair i' the casement! His face burnt like a brand
As the black cascade of perfume came tumbling over his breast;
And he kissed its waves in the moonlight,
(Oh, sweet black waves in the moonlight!)
Then he tugged at his rein in the moonlight, and galloped away to the West.
PART TWO
He did not come in the dawning; he did not come at noon;
And out o' the tawny sunset, before the rise o' the moon,
When the road was a gipsy's ribbon, looping the purple moor,
A red-coat troop came marching—
Marching—marching—
King George's men came marching, up to the old inn-door.
They said no word to the landlord, they drank his ale instead,
But they gagged his daughter and bound her to the foot of her narrow bed;
Two of them knelt at her casement, with muskets at their side!
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, through her casement, the road that he would ride.
They had tied her up to attention, with many a sniggering jest;
They had bound a musket beside her, with the barrel beneath her breast!
"Now keep good watch!" and they kissed her.
She heard the dead man say—
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I'll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!
She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good!
She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood!
They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years,
Till, now, on the stroke of midnight,
Cold, on the stroke of midnight,
The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!
The tip of one finger touched it; she strove no more for the rest!
Up, she stood up to attention, with the barrel beneath her breast,
She would not risk their hearing; she would not strive again;
For the road lay bare in the moonlight;
Blank and bare in the moonlight;
And the blood of her veins in the moonlight throbbed to her love's refrain.
Tlot-tlot; tlot-tlot! Had they heard it? The horse-hoofs ringing clear;
Tlot-tlot, tlot-tlot, in the distance? Were they deaf that they did not hear?
Down the ribbon of moonlight, over the brow of the hill,
The highwayman came riding,
Riding, riding!
The red-coats looked to their priming! She stood up, straight and still!
Tlot-tlot, in the frosty silence! Tlot-tlot, in the echoing night!
Nearer he came and nearer! Her face was like a light!
Her eyes grew wide for a moment; she drew one last deep breath,
Then her finger moved in the moonlight,
Her musket shattered the moonlight,
Shattered her breast in the moonlight and warned him—with her death.
He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.
Back, he spurred like a madman, shrieking a curse to the sky,
With the white road smoking behind him and his rapier brandished high!
Blood-red were his spurs i' the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat,
When they shot him down on the highway,
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
And still of a winter's night, they say, when the wind is in the trees,
When the moon is a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas,
When the road is a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor,
A highwayman comes riding—
Riding—riding—
A highwayman comes riding, up to the old inn-door.
Over the cobbles he clatters and clangs in the dark inn-yard;
He taps with his whip on the shutters, but all is locked and barred;
He whistles a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there
But the landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Bess, the landlord's daughter,
Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.
