I love it when it’s possible to (explore transitions between songs). That’s something that I am better at than I am at other things. That’s one of the things that I am good at. Eventually, like, if I have a place to go, eventually, I can get there and make it pretty seamless. Because for me, the relationship between one thing and the other is always obvious. You know what I mean?
Even if it’s completely invisible to everybody else, to me, it’s always really obvious, and all I need to do is know both halves and eventually I’ll find a place that works, the walk between the two. Like Weir sometimes does it, but has sort of a blockier notion, you know? Which is okay. But for me, I like that invisible thing. I like that sleight-of-hand approach. (Excerpt from Petter Conners’ Cornell ’77)
I tried to visualize the manner in which the evil spirits operated. The minds and souls of people were as open to these forces as a plowed field, and it was on these fields that the Evil Ones incessantly spread their evil seed. If their seed sprouted to life, if they felt welcomed, they offered all the help that might be needed, on the condition that it was used for selfish purposes and only to the detriment of others.
These creatures that inhabited the human soul observed keenly not only man’s every action but also his motives and emotions. What mattered was that a man should consciously promote evil, find pleasure in harming others, nurturing and using the diabolical powers granted to him by the Evil Ones in a manner calculated to cause as much misery and suffering around him as possible.
Only those with a sufficiently powerful passion for hatred, greed, revenge or torture to obtain some objective seemed to make a good bargain with the powers of Evil. Others, confused, uncertain of their aim, lost between curses and prayers, the tavern and the church, struggled through life alone, without help from either God or the Devil. (Exceprted from Jerzy Kosinski’s The Painted Bird)
I sit on the fire hydrant protective pole and think about this intelligence of ours. The buildings are big and I am impressed by that. I watch the people pass, the conversations, always on the phone, that Doppler effect, remarkable, words whole and real with the smiling, angry face, shards fleeting by, almost seizing that, like music, trying to compose those notes, understand that language. Yeah, it seems like hieroglyphics now, walking sideways, feeling so smart and full of it, and then not. Intelligence. My faux mantra. Life is being in it. Intelligence is understanding that. And so then? Then is the word. What is behind the locked door? The memory as a child of something not there. The reason for addiction. What goes on around that corner?
We imbibe. We rock and deride. We dream. What else can do that? And, essence of it, is intelligence in those very things? Irony of ironies, what if that is the only thing, to be wet and erect, and that we only need to stay delighted or angry or just freaking about that. We are the intelligent ones. Who else could dream up the idea of a disco ball, something so pure as that, that has no name nor gender or race. It just spins and plays all the right music.
Smart. Be smart. Meaning I should…what? Seek more? Strive? Find comfort? What any of that means. Being conscious of these things? To know where I come from? To love my origin story, my family and friends? Embrace those moments, revel in that existence. To be, as simple as that. That seems to be the credo. Intelligence. To look for a way beyond the inevitable, that good old death syndrome. Stay medicated in what I take. Is it just knowing that? That awareness? To reflect and smile, hitting the plot points, knowing the stage of life and sticking to that. In other words, if we are to leave the work of thinking in the corner and focus on the marketing, the rights be sold off, then what? Because it is just us, talking back and forth, saying something about intelligence but really just wanting to fuck. As intelligent as that can be. Meaning, in the end that this idea of intelligence might actually be something else, something not of us, not in our purview, given our limited attention.
Music and light is something we embrace. Music. And light. How could that be intelligent? Remembering we have the quantum observer issue clogging our way. Whatever I say, that’s me and not it. In other words me listening to music isn’t the music. It’s just me listening to music. A memory, an attempted sharing of an essential emotional response. Here and then not, that moment in the water, that breath like no other, that bubble in my head, keeping me moving forward without the lord, without the fan nation, without my beloved dreams, knowing it’s biology and chemical reactions, and thank god they invented the bar, even if that’s biology too, that zeal, that’s the thing, how we get into the darkness and find that it is just the same, things to be built, peace to be had. And so again, this intelligence thing and if we actually have that…
