It's a wide, wooden chest. It is larger than you expect. Two people could fit inside.
The first thing you put in the chest is a bowl of cherries.
The next thing you put in the chest is a chandelier, its lights still going. Then you add postcards, old glasses, a watercolour set. A tennis racket, never used. A large map, rolled up. Bike spokes, binoculars, pussywillows, linen. A window. A brick. One CD, four books. You take one of the books back out and set it on the floor. You pour some tea into the chest. You pour some wine. You add spent matches, old lightbulbs, melted snow. Sea salt, sugar, and ink. You fill the rest with broken chairs, the chairs you threw from your window into the parking lot last night. The broken chair-legs look like the masts of ships.
You close the chest. You lock it with a deadbolt. The lock is never as good as you remember so you wrap it up in belt after belt, round and round, and thick hemp rope, and chain, and fishing line.
And you do not douse the chest in paraffin. You do not let it blacken and crackle and turn into ash. You do not haul it to street-side for the garbage-men to pick up, for the recyclers to pick through. You do not throw it in the lake. You do not give it to the fishes. You do not toss it from an airplane; it does not smash in the desert, it does not leave a crater.
No, you leave the chest where it sits in the middle of your floor. You throw a giant carpet over it. You set on it a potted fern and a stack of magazines. Maybe a shoe-tree for your dress-shoes. And as you all know, you pretend the chest's not even there.
[More of Carl Spidla. "Blackfly Rag" was recorded at the Mile End Mission on April 27, not five feet from where I sat cross-legged. It's one of my favourite songs of 2008.]
---
Montrealers ought to go see Receivers at O Patro Vys tonight, where they will be launching their luminous debut record.
Elsewhere: Go gaze upon the marvel that is Jez Burrows' Destroyer screenprint, analyzing Destroyer's Rubies with whimsy and verve. Jez helps to maintain the indispensable It's Nice That.
Posted by Sean at May 29, 2008 11:34 AMThank you.
Posted by Ashton at May 30, 2008 4:04 AMI love this. thank you, indeed. and I wish there was an album or something more I could hear from him.
Posted by Laura at June 3, 2008 10:57 PMBlackfly Rag and the other songs on Carl Spidla's Myspace page are wonderful. Any chance of posting the full Mile End Mission show?
Posted by howard at June 3, 2008 11:08 PM
and it will begin playing. All songs are also available to download: just right-click the link and choose 'Save as...'
