Gone

Dear Those Who Have Gone On,

I was looking through some boxes of snapshots-  I know you will recogninize the feeling- like so many drifts and avalanches of déjà vu.  All those different people, so many of them dead and gone, or forgotton, and many of them are me.

It's an exisitential crisis in saturated color on a 5 inch scrap of paper.  It probably isn't good for humans to have this much self awareness.  On the other hand, why is it so sad?  Why would years that I know were perfectly good years, perfectly fabulous times, now gone, bring sadness to consider them?  Is it just "the missing," or is it "the lost and never was anyway?"  I do not know.  But I intend to keep on poking at the sleeping beast.  Yesterday must have some meaning, some relevance for today.  But, it's like a dream you can't quite remember; all sliding away even as it forms on the back of your eyeballs.

Looking at the past in photographs is a form of transcendental time travel, only it isn't working right.  Whatever working right would mean.  I don't think it would mean that everything would prove to have a rhyme and a reason, but I think it would allow you to proceed with less doubt and more truth.  It would mean that you could be that bright spirit that you would like to be, without having to wish for it. 

Anyway, when I saw your picture, I thought of you, and I wanted you to know that I miss you.

Can You?

Dear Hopeful and Hopeless,

Your song for today, and I wish you both good luck, you're gonna need it.

200

Two hundred days.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nearing the Solstice.

Dear Listening and Looking,

Here is your song for today.  I know, I said a had a problem with the whining squeal of the mandolin, and here we are, with my words for a tasty snack.  Still, ask yourself, does this song really need the mandolin?  Another case for keeping the mandolin. 

After consideration, let's leave it for now, but plan to seriously review mandolin use soon.

by beautiful chance

Dear Lucky,

A bit of writing by the composer of your song for today caught my eye, because it was a review of a book about Debussy.  As I read the review aloud to the staff here at the Dodo, we played some of the works mentioned in the article.  Then, we played this piece by the reviewer of the book, to sort of bring it all home.  It's really lovely and I know you will enjoy it immensely.























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The Snout.

Dear Getaway Drivers,

I just read a book that got me to thinking... about memory and story and their intersections and overlaps.  I'd tell you all about this book, except that I am going to give it to you for Christmas, and I don't want you to go buying it yourselves.  Maybe I will tell you about it January, after everyone has opened their gifts.  Anyway, this book got me to thinking....

About the Mercury car known as the Snout.  No one remembers the Snout.  I drove it all over the place, with cops on my tail.  I have searched this world wide web over and I cannot find this car- it had a black vinyl top and the rest of the coupe was white.  It was a time when stock cars were on primetime tv and movies were about outrunning the dunderheaded law in Pontiacs.  Those times are long gone and so is a definite identification of the Snout. 

The Snout was parked in the driveway for a good long while, and I couldn't drive, but I could jump into it, with the window down, and pretend the doors were welded shut and that we had to hurry to outrun the g-men.  I had two good girlfriends in those days and they would sometimes play at detective with me, or at getaway car, in the Snout.  I feel like maybe I enjoyed these narratives more than they did, because, now that I think about it, they were mostly actors in my pretend theater.  They seemed jolly enough about participating, though. 

It's a shame we will never know what they thought about all these cops chasing us after we'd robbed a bank.  I wonder if either of them have ever gone back and dug up the money? 

a short film