And she knows that I'm her shoo-shoo

My birthday was three days ago now, so I've been spending most of the last few days away from my computer.

As an early gift, a new Barnes & Noble franchise opened nearby me. It was quite different from the one I'd semi-frequented at a younger age; it was sleek and modern in design, with the playful children's section - once decorated with comforting characters with a cardboard-treehouse atmosphere - now boasting not much more than two LEGO tables, as large and well organized as it was. Too, the DVDs were arranged with spines to the world just like the books; I was used to them in a flip-able display, the media section sequestered away from the rest of the store, graphics evoking a hip mental state fueled by jazz and classical CDs hanging above a strange, barren pasture of vinyl albums pressed fifteen years ago and left to sit because no-one was buying records then and no-one is buying the bands now, and probably a listening station left to collect dust, and the selection of films skipping around in quality like children playing hopscotch. I already conspired to take advantage of the half-off Criterion sale, how well they treat their films, and took mental note of a lonely copy of Lola Montès, by Max Ophüls - the most beautiful use of color on the screen.

Most of the trip, though, was spent lamenting the cheap quality of just about everything we saw. Poor David Foster Wallace, poor Toni Morrison - Beloved, with a cover so thin the front sticks up? Really?

I considered a paperback Joan Didion before remembering I could buy an original hardcover on eBay for just a few dollars more, and I couldn't decide between the maybe five(!) Eve Babitz novels they had in stock, so I left with I'm With the Band only. It was the second time I've seen a book of Miss Pamela's out in the world, and boy, is it glorious. Her sexual frankness is as revolutionary as it is stone-old hilarious. If only women nowadays felt free enough to spend their spare social time in the nude - not that that or her pretending to be the bride to her girl friend's groom are what people seem to be remembering when they read it. Bisexuality is for the boys nowadays, and it's usually forced upon them psychically by girls who have taught themselves that masculine vulnerability is something one-note and something to be fetishized, who are probably the ones who need the excess nudity the most.

It feels serendipitous reading her recount of her recoil against Robert Kennedy's assassination, though, as sparklers flicker across the country. Unfortunately for most who may stumble across these pages, I would suppose I'm proud to be an American. There isn't much I can do about it, anyway, and everyone who goes rash about how much they hate having been born within these borders doesn't know what it's like to get physically nudged out of conversations by hotshot boys who think they're more 'radical' than you. I've never been 'radicalized', anyway. Disillusioned, maybe, but I lean towards words that don't buzz. Nothing I do is radical; it's all natural.

All in all, I'm out to remain healthy and communicate myself to others and not let myself get too anxious about those most heinous vices of throwing out built-up plastic grocery bags and fabric scraps, and someday I will have a great little family under my belt in a beautiful little house far away from civilization (though close enough to all the good antique shops), and I'll be able to say that in the buildup to all of that I never wanted anyone else to get hurt or suffer or die. More people ought to have being proud of such as a goal in life.

Think of it this way: I stopped reading The Air-Conditioned Nightmare thirty-some pages in a short while back because Henry Miller, bless him, was saying every thing that people say nowadays about America, America, blah-blah-blah, and yet none of these recent people have any clue who Henry Miller is, or his importance to literature or how his struggles paved the way for them to speak in such ways. If no one knows what the right way to govern a country is in the first place, then who can act as if they know everything? Most of these people probably haven't gone on any sort of a road trip through their country to properly soak it all in, talked to people from all walks of life (and I mean all walks of life) along the way, let alone been to Europe long enough to form a definitive opinion on the opposing systems of living, or at all. You'd even think they'd never been in the backseat of a car passing through on some nature road as the sun's going down, illuminating every blade of dewy grass and cluster of leaves with a fine, warm gold. Not even as a child.

Before we talk about literacy in this country, let's discuss letting children be illiterate to such pretentiousness. Let the children write innocently and incessantly. Then, read their books...

Have you ever ridden horses through a rainstorm?

Well, let's get back into this, shall we?

I hoped to keep this webpage as a living document of my sewing experience however many months ago. Then, as it does, life happened. Now, I'm back here, returning to [this] form.

That is the simple explanation for why I took a break from this blog. The more complex one is my ever-at-odds-with-each-other personal attention to my writing as a whole, especially as I have been submitting much of my creative work to assorted literary magazines. 'Previously published work' is obviously not at the front of my brain, hence.

The reality is is that if I am going to write, I might as well have others see it, and I might as well keep in practice regardless of what it builds within me. Let's call it the diary that happens to be anthologized in real-time slivers as opposed to transcribed from leatherbound journals years after I pass.

Too, blogging [is a word I have come to have an increasingly prominent disdain for - ] is something so rooted in fleeting moments, shot straight from the heart. Each fleeting moment becomes monolith, building blocks of a person's life. If I write about something I enjoy, I'm the Fill-in-the-Blank Girl, ever squealing and mewling and drooling. (I plan not to write about too many things I dislike, since that itself I dislike.) If I write about doing something new, I feel as if I'm portraying myself as some neophyte, stumbling as I check off boxes with my left hand. If I write about something past, I feel as if I'm clutching on some long-gone feeling I'm unable to let go of the memory of. I don't live through a veneer of nostalgia, nor am I defined by anything external to me-myself-I.

In 'putting myself out there' in such a manner, I wonder, do I kill a part of myself that is humble? Do I stab mystique, privacy, the sanctity of myself as a whole and autonomous person in the hardened belly? Do I infinitely tarnish how even one person in the world will view me forever? My life isn't revolutionary nor is anyone's. Communicating the humanity of others is what is most important to me. In 'putting myself out there', in framing my life and experiences as something someone else should 'care about' and devote time to, do I chew a bit of my own humanity off, as you would a fingernail? Is there a hangnail there?

Will it grow back? Yes.

Let me talk about Terry Reid...

Terry is a singer. He still performs and I hear his performances continue to be very wonderful. He is most often juxtaposed with fellow vocalist Robert Plant - primarily because Terry infamously turned down pal Jimmy Page's offer to front Led Zeppelin. I'm not one for the rock mythos, the choicely strange or seismic stories that surface over time and come to define the legacies of artists. The whispers aren't even true half of the time, and I really don't care about a car in a hotel pool at the end of the day when the music is good and the people making it are honest. The recent documentary, Becoming Led Zeppelin, is existent proof of the redundancy of pretending that such discussion is important. I was lucky enough to see it in the theatre when it was released with a good friend of mine - he helped unearth some footage from an early festival performance of the group from the basement of its author, so we had the added bonus of getting to cheer for his name rolling by in the credits. While the film starting at a ridiculous hour of the night - the only time that worked for us - probably contributed to me not getting a full positive experience with it, it was simply not a satisfying watch. It only skimmed the surface of the group's origins despite being focused around them and a good two hours long. There was also a choice section where the group's rise was juxtaposed with the moon landing, rocket-as-phallus and all! It was likely the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen in a film, and I have seen everything Ken Russell made that had a theatrical release.

And it's a shame. From every recount I've heard Robert Plant seems like a really down to earth, sociable kind of guy. He seems hard-working, creative, and grounded, which is how I like people and how people ought to be. And while Terry Reid can be seen as quite commendable for not giving a puddy about joining an embryonic version of the group [or Deep Purple, for that matter] it's his own work that matters, not some passed-down tale that only exists to overshadow it.

I am, however, amused by a seeming link between Jimmy's Yardbirds in '67 and Terry on this album the following year both quoting 'Tinker Tailor', the schoolyard rhyme. The 'birds would soon 'age out' of such hop-skip-and-jump music - or had they already with that bit in Blow-Up? - with their dissolution and the rise of the meaty and meticulously composed body of work - Becoming...'s best feature, aside from the old footage and stills of Robert with baby-mod bubble hair, was definitely the ample time given to Jimmy explaining his process. But Terry - Terry revels in a childhood innocence perverted. "Why is it that we're just looking for someone? We're just trying to realize. I never thought of you, never knew that love was so true." Sonically his 'Tinker Tailor' sounds like my life, strutting around with soldier-sail feet slipped in heels that I let crush my toes. But I keep on walking, around the swirl, through it; with the wind, against it. It is paralyzing.

 His rendition of 'My Baby Shot Me Down' is too, and I get out of it what I think I am supposed to get out of Led Zeppelin: complete surrender. It is not controlled or solemn like the better known Cher or Nancy versions, but lovelorn wailing that surges into psychotic footstomp.

Elsewhere on the album Terry draws 'Season of the Witch' out ten minutes, then 'Summertime Blues' into six or so. Both fair-faced fun-time Donovan poetry and youth-angst discharge become dirges in his hands, against his guitar. Is he called 'Superlungs' simply for his other interpretation of Mr. Linda Lawrence's work, or is it his ability to make you so aware of the air you're breathing?

Terry makes music about the stepping stones to living a full life, about learning those choice lessons and watching those situations that just feel off from the sidelines only to realize weeks, months, years down the line that you evaded something that would have utterly, drastically, ruinously changed your life. Which is what his record is about to me. It's about humanity, that quality I hold so dear, and all its nebulous manifestations and trappings. I think Bang Bang You're Terry Reid is my favorite title of any album. What does it mean? I'm Terry Reid? What do I mean? 

I bought the album, quite the beautiful copy, at Tom's Music Trade two days ago. It's a little slice of heaven of a place on most days. Two days ago, though, I was pretty anxious. Anxiety is fleeting; men with bangs are forever.

I also bought an issue of the Trouser Press for the first time in eons. I was a real snot-nose the last time I bought one. It has an angel who thinks Their Satanic Majesties Request is under-appreciated on the cover. He, too, has bangs.

Then I happened to put one laying atop the other so I happened to take a photo and put pretty filters over it to make it look like as much a fairy tale as the music all is. It took me all of two minutes to decide which ones.

I love writing.