Highways

Dear Highway Goers,

A  beautiful song for you, for today.  Here's another little highway song, because here at the Dodo, we love the open road.

Here's a little film on how to be your own William Tyler.  Oooh, that Organizer box is the bomb!

My Poor Old Wooden Head

Dear Six Stringed,

Listen to this!  I think this might be the most perfect guitar song.  Here are some chords- play it and see if it isn't so.

Yes, there is the questionable position of objectifying Native American statuary; but, really, it's a wildly surreal unrequited love song, and I am completely charmed by the notion of the two statues communicating.  It reminds me of another tragic tale:  *The Duel.  Let it be your moral for the day.

We'd be just nowhere without my man Hank Williams- can you imagine playing a guitar without I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry?  When Old Blue (who is actually rather new, and mostly green) and I set down to play, we bring the wisdom of the old songs with us- we are every guitar and every singer and we put our selves right into the spaces that Hank and Leonard Cohen and Joan Baez and a million others have sung wide open for us to play in.  It's a really great space to be in- don't be shy about it.  Listen to Clyde Waters and tell me you don't feel good there, in that cold river with Fair Margaret. 

I found this Ted Talk the other day, and the presenter addresses this ineffable thing, this is-ness, this space of feeling that can be invoked through sound.  Give it a listen, if you have the time to contemplate such things.  If you don't have the time, then, won't you please sing along with Hank?







*The Duel
Eugene Field

 

The gingham dog and the calico cat

Side by side on the table sat;
‘T was half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Nor one nor t’ other had slept a wink!
      The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
      Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat.
            (I was n’t there; I simply state
            What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)

The gingham dog went “Bow-wow-wow!”
And the calico cat replied “Mee-ow!”
The air was littered, an hour or so,
With bits of gingham and calico,
      While the old Dutch clock in the chimney-place
      Up with its hands before its face,
For it always dreaded a family row!
            (Now mind: I’m only telling you
            What the old Dutch clock declares is true!)

The Chinese plate looked very blue,
And wailed, “Oh, dear! what shall we do!”
But the gingham dog and the calico cat
Wallowed this way and tumbled that,
      Employing every tooth and claw
      In the awfullest way you ever saw—
And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!
            (Don’t fancy I exaggerate—
            I got my news from the Chinese plate!)

Next morning, where the two had sat
They found no trace of dog or cat;
And some folks think unto this day
That burglars stole that pair away!
      But the truth about the cat and pup
      Is this: they ate each other up!
Now what do you really think of that!
            (The old Dutch clock it told me so,
            And that is how I came to know.)

Lost Highway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nearest, Furthest and Dearest Ones,

I am little threatened, a little scared, a little loathe to lose my highway.  What I mean, of course, is that I prefer to continue to drive my car, and make my own mistakes, and not have to discuss too much of it with Hal.  The car, for me, is a symbol of a kind of sovereignty.  It is a wildly powerful machine, a car; and they let you first drive one in your formative years.  Which might be why it will always feel to me a little like Christmas morning to pull the strap across my chest, bandolier-like, turn the key in the ignition, place my hands at 10 and 2 o'clock, and think:  Is everything go?  It will always feel like a fine beginning to me, like an adventure.  Driving has never felt like a chore to be avoided, like cleaning grout or filing taxes.  This, they tell me, is partly due to genetics, but I prefer the conceit of believing that it is my own personal choice to be a pirate, a gadabout, a pilgrim, and a gallivanter.

Did I tell you about the thing with the light bulbs?  I abhor those efficient bulbs with their ghastly bluishdeath glow, and so I bought a C-note's worth of incandescent bulbs some years ago.  Yes, it did feel like I had gone a little mad, hoarding light bulbs like that.  And so we come to the automobile: Can I get a big box of older cars that will let me do the driving and just use them up for the next however many decades?  Would that seem crazy to you? 

By the time the self-driving car hits the shelves, I will be through with my mourning, because I am already seeing that what I really worry about, what I am most afraid we might lose, is not just the chance to drive along in an automobile, but some piece of being human.  When I figure out precisely what human attribute I fear we are losing, you will hear from me, and we can try to save it together.  In the interim, please enjoy these three songs:

 

 

one

 

two

 

three

 





 four.