THE SIGNAL from David Katznelson
“Before all masters, necessity is the one most listened to, and who teaches the best.” ― Jules Verne
What will travel be like post-pandemic? I have friends who are gunning to set sail across the world, racking up the miles like they did in the old days. But for those whose work demanded a lot of travel: does our new zoom reality give us road-weary veterans a break? Or do we go back to the frantic trips to the airport, late night red-eyes and early early morning marathons to both get the traveling done and be home with the family for as much time as possible?
Former poet laureate Elizabeth Bishop (whose birthday is today) wrote a poem (below) wistfully pondering the richness behind traveling and staying at home. As poems can often do…no matter how long ago they are written…she leads us through a beautiful process of weighing the pros and cons of getting up and going. And for a person such as myself, who pre-pandemic had to travel the country, sometimes 3 cities in 4 days…it is a meditation that feels good to plug into.
I don’t miss the business travel; I miss seeing friends along the way. I miss Mississippi and Glastonbury and the museums of the towns I get to visit. But damn, it has been great being home waking up with the family every morning and hanging out with the records.
What will travel look like post-pandemic?
Happy Monday.
The Family Life of Ralph Ellison
This new research piece from the Library Of Congress does a deep dive in Ellison’s upbringing and sheds light on how he became the literary giant that he is. Just reading about the community of literary giants he was able to plug into is incredible.
When The Giants Of Indian Classical Music Collided With Psychedelic San Francisco
A compelling account of acid-guru Stanley Owsley’s fascination with Indian music (my friend Josh Rosenthal hipped me to an audio news story about it here).
NICK CAVE WINS LEGAL BATTLE OVER “TRUTH BE TOLD” ARTWORK IN UPSTATE NEW YORK
It is not lost on me at how appropriate of a metaphor it is that during a time of Jewish Space Lasers and an impeachment trial that visual artist Nick Cave got into a legal tussle with the city of Kinderhook, New York around his art piece “Truth Be Told” which is scrawled across a gallery there. It seems that the village code enforcer (?) Peter Bujanow worried about the piece’s message if in case it was not a piece of art…but a mere sign. It’s moments like these that make one feel sad that John Oliver is not in season…
I read this over the last weekend…an attention-grabbing real life whodunnit: In 1952, a vicious double murder at Crater Lake stunned the nation. The FBI and the Oregon State Police came up empty-handed. Then, 26 years ago, the granddaughter of one of the victims picked up the case.
Ed Pearl, man behind the legendary Ash Grove music club, passes away
My friend Mike Minky posted yesterday that Ed Pearl has died. Pearl created The Ash Grove, a club in LA, that showcased some of the most legendary artists of all time..and recorded many of them. The club and the man were beloved by most everyone who was lucky enough to be a part of the scene from the late 50s through the 70s. I wish I could have seen Howlin’ Wolf or Gene Clark or Townes Van Zandt when they graced the venue’s stage. There does not seem to be a public obituary yet, so this post links to an essay about Pearl and an interview.
QUESTIONS OF TRAVEL
by Elizabeth Bishop
There are too many waterfalls here; the crowded streams
hurry too rapidly down to the sea,
and the pressure of so many clouds on the mountaintops
makes them spill over the sides in soft slow-motion,
turning to waterfalls under our very eyes.
- For if those streaks, those mile-long, shiny, tearstains,
aren't waterfalls yet,
in a quick age or so, as ages go here,
they probably will be.
But if the streams and clouds keep travelling, travelling,
the mountains look like the hulls of capsized ships,
slime-hung and barnacled.
Think of the long trip home.
Should we have stayed at home and thought of here?
Where should we be today?
Is it right to be watching strangers in a play
in this strangest of theatres?
What childishness is it that while there's a breath of life
in our bodies, we are determined to rush
to see the sun the other way around?
The tiniest green hummingbird in the world?
To stare at some inexplicable old stonework,
inexplicable and impenetrable,
at any view,
instantly seen and always, always delightful?
Oh, must we dream our dreams
and have them, too?
And have we room
for one more folded sunset, still quite warm?
But surely it would have been a pity
not to have seen the trees along this road,
really exaggerated in their beauty,
not to have seen them gesturing
like noble pantomimists, robed in pink.
- Not to have had to stop for gas and heard
the sad, two-noted, wooden tune
of disparate wooden clogs
carelessly clacking over
a grease-stained filling-station floor.
(In another country the clogs would all be tested.
Each pair there would have identical pitch.)
- A pity not to have heard
the other, less primitive music of the fat brown bird
who sings above the broken gasoline pump
in a bamboo church of Jesuit baroque:
three towers, five silver crosses.
- Yes, a pity not to have pondered,
blurr'dly and inconclusively,
on what connection can exist for centuries
between the crudest wooden footwear
and, careful and finicky,
the whittled fantasies of wooden cages
- Never to have studied history in
the weak calligraphy of songbirds' cages.
- And never to have had to listen to rain
so much like politicians' speeches:
two hours of unrelenting oratory
and then a sudden golden silence
in which the traveller takes a notebook, writes:
'Is it lack of imagination that makes us come
to imagined places, not just stay at home?
Or could Pascal have been not entirely right
about just sitting quietly in one's room?
Continent, city, country, society:
the choice is never wide and never free.
And here, or there... No. Should we have stayed at home,
wherever that may be?
