Archives : all posts by Dan

Bastardgeist - "Coast"

How they make crayons. Truth serum†. Ox Tongue, chilled. A secret handshake, hands in pockets. The dawn an hour early. Flight plan explained. The synchronous footstep, the synchronous kiss, the synchronous moment when a book falls off the shelf and Germany invades Poland. A shower in reverse. Theatre of protest. A buckle, tightened. A suicidal tulip (Tulip?). Meaningless words, the way the sun is meaningless, the way the wind is totally meaningless. [Pre-Order]

Fleetwood Mac - "Tusk" †"It was over before it even started." [Buy]

Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guébrou - "The Homeless Wanderer"

I took Meena's son Patrick on a trip across the sea. Patrick was a genial boy, quiet, and like myself at that age, liked numbers and games. There was a daily game of Bingo on the ship, and we structured our days around this. And dinner. And a cocktail when the skies were the right colour of grey. That summer I didn't go to Africa, I took care of Patrick, whose mother, unbeknownst to me, was falling in love.

A friend of a friend invited me one night to a party at Sigmund Freud's house. I left Patrick with Mrs. Pritchett and stopped for a cocktail on the way. It was a dry night in July and I felt like a freed but saddled man, out of prison, but still in shackles. I saw the artifacts that Freud had and I didn't want to tell him but I suspected they were all fakes. I talked to a woman named Carolyn who seemed allergic to eye contact, and a short man kept begging for the room's attention to show some of his rather transparent magic.

Meena communicated to me through Patrick, which was, again unbeknownst to me, the first sign of trouble. Tell Robert hello for me, make sure to hug him twice at bed, once for me. I merely thought it was the kind of sweetness you send to someone you truly love, not needing to tell them directly, and not a way of simply keeping home fires strategically alight.

The nights I would spend. Whole nights when I could have been in Africa, uncovering time itself, spent on the porch smoking into the apple tree and thinking about Meena. Her wrists, her calves in a light dress, her stomach that seemed to prove to the world that simple function was the greatest beauty. A bridge got people across a gap, a bowl served soup to the hungry, and Meena's stomach would swallow that soup and stuck slightly out and all these things were perfect.

[Buy]

Eleanor Friedberger - "Other Boys"

There was no pronoun smoother than the air that night. She, he, them, it, all good. Skateboard smooth, and a cool warmth like hell in a power outage. She glided, glode, glade along the tops of the neighbour's hedges to the bar, and there sang a boy in a beard, the light casting his face in still frames, ones you could hang on a nail in a cafe, or cut out and keep flat in a book. She held her elbows together like they might just fly open and hug a stranger. She dimpled so hard her cheeks took over, fuzzily everything. The effect of loving someone who sings is unlike anything else†, the beam of light that binds you together, amidst a crowd who can see it, for sure they can see it, is like a breeze with your name on it, it's the only reason anyone has ever danced alone.
-buy-

Fleetwood Mac - "Never Going Back Again" †he marriage was in a field of green, all of the sun was out, it was a full sun that day, and at the very last moment, the wedding turned inside-out. "We're not marrying each other anymore," they said. "We're marrying all of you instead," they said, before they kissed, smiling, and pressed Esc. -buy-

The Frogs - "The Benefits of AIDS (live 07/16/89)"

"...are you ready for this?"

I have a 16 year old and nothing gets through to him. Nothing sparks his interest in anything. He'll spend hours in the bathroom, and when I go in there after, the mirrors are streaked in grease. He'll go for "walks" for hours at a time, especially in the summer. He intentionally schedules his work shifts to conflict with family events, I'm sure of it. Father's Day this year was a nightmare. People say he'll get through it, or that he just needs to find something that gets him excited, but I'm starting to think that thing might be dangerous.

[out of print]

Blackout Beach - "Sending Postcards to a Ghost (BT)"

In the dark woods we walked toward the grove where Henry was going to eat a tree. He was 13 now and that was the year you ate a tree. The tree that had been planted at his birth, right next to Lily's and mine and little Benjamin's, looked strong in the moonlight. Mother told the story of the prophet eating a tree as an example of human's integration with nature: It is our best friend, it is our hardest enemy, it is our provider and our murderer, it is merely the hallway we pass through and yet it is all we ever see. And Henry ate. He tore pieces off, they ripped easily in his strong young hands, it often looked like he was peeling bread. He looked off, at nothing, while he chewed and sucked on the wood chips. It needed to be done very slowly. The chip needed to be saturated enough in the mouth that it could be plied apart with the tongue, that's what Father said, then he could swallow. We left him there that night and the walk back seemed like we had given up on searching for him, like Henry was lost and that we just hoped he would come back on his own. That night in bed I watched the wax form a puddle on the desk and thought if Henry survives I will give him my bicycle because he looked so sad when his broke on the rock. I didn't want to swing my head down to look at his empty bunk, it seemed like I would see something I didn't want to see.

Inside, there was plumbing, crackers, lanterns and a fishing rod. And out there, Henry ate a whole tree.

[Buy]

Double Dagger - "The Mirror"

My brain is fine, but my body has mental problems. My body is a stupid, lumbering animal. My body is silent almost all of the time, but when it speaks, it speaks in illiterate, bleating pain. My body is of two minds, the lazy and the insane. In all the history of bodies, my body is just like the rest, except one invisible notch higher, one imperceptible inch closer to something light years away. My body is a refresher course in trust. I can take a hint, body, but your hints don't make any sense.

[Buy]

I Am Oak - "Don't I Know Enough"

In the most unhopeless way, there is nothing you can do. Here I am, old, and saddled with regret and pain, and you are asking me for advice. I must look similar to how I feel, and you want to hear what I would do differently if I were young like you. You want to hear the warnings of the old so you can see the future, sidestep the cracks and perils and walk the edges of disaster so you can be just like you are now when you are my age. Well like I say, and do not think I am being discouraging, there is nothing you can do. Sure, eat better, less, breathe deeper, walk longer and learn to dance, but I will not tell you to let go of pain, to live the life you want and not the life others expect of you, I will not tell you this. Because you are young, your project is not finished, whereas mine is done and its holes are showing. There is nothing you can do, you will either end up like me or more likely end up like you.

[Reissued by Snowstar]