recent album purchases

marissa nadler - songs III: bird on the water
radiohead - in rainbows
wilco - sky blue sky
devendra banhart - cripple crow
chris dorman - to begin again
phil wintermute - handful 'o dirt
breathe owl breathe - ghost glacier
múm - summer make good
bowerbirds - hymns for a dark horse
frontier ruckus - the orion songbook

THESE ARE ALL GREAT ALBUMS.

thanks again for the orange juice

i thought about you all the time
and i wrote some things on paper
after a while i felt like i was being tested
but that feeling grew tired as the time grew later
they say that love knows no bounds
they tell me all kinds of things
i knew i'd made a few bad choices
and that a single chance could change the situation
i went on journeys through the city
chases through my imagination
wound up mistaking you for another
on more than one occasion
there's something lasting and eternal
in your presence
that led me back to you
if you only knew
how much i wanted you
maybe you do
i couldn't take the pain
and now it's back again
what else could make me feel this way
other than the memory of witnessing your happy face?
to shed my attachment to just that
i asked someone to throw the paper away
through all of this i still claim
that i will never forget your name

Sometimes when I'm by myself, I ask you questions.

There is the beach. Nice, yeah?



If I think of it, I might share this picture with you.






What is patience, really?

first day the snow stuck (11/16/2008)

written 11/17/2008:

all of the water you should have been drinking
all of the brain cells that vetoed your thinking
how many people does it take to explain
that life isn't fair and it sure isn't easy?

there's a lot that existed before you and i did
and i admit that i am just part of the lineage
my anxiety subsides for a moment that lasts for someone's lifetime
the give and take supplies nothing and something all at once

leave it to me to make the profound observatory statement
this is when the word plural comes in with ironic placement
and all the purrs of a lifetime add up and really come through
thanks, Rosa
i feel better

Oh

"Oh"
by Zach Power
11.13.08


while my head goes through cycles
the rhythm continues
and somewhere outside i am sitting and listening, carefully
embracing a pen recording events

down the street midnight traffic is minding
their cell phone calls, speedometers,
license plates, green yellow red lights
all while driving forward
the wind chime gently sways

rain drops have lost their immediacy
now resting on yellow leaves
waiting on gravity to again give them the rush
of free falling to earth
which they love so much

how i rest in the middle
between fact and fantasy
living so casually it makes me want anything
that might just be good for me
as long as it's good for you too

oh, how i struggle with the world
in ways i find so unimaginable

oh, how i want to find my way
through the illusions that seem impassible

oh, how you fill me with your spirit
so untarnished and remarkable

it all just makes me oh, so humbled
by the mystery of what we are

oh, how it makes me want to sing
oh, how it makes me sing

by now the passion is back in me
and there's so many memories flashing by
pushing their way to the surface
and i can't sit still
while my body gets these chills
there's just so much that's calling me back home
wherever that may be

i never meant to leave so recklessly
i didn't give myself enough time
to think through the consequences
of saying goodbye to everything i knew

what can i do now but hope and pray
that i might make it back to say
that you made me what i am and
i thank you for everything you've done
will you be there?

oh, how i struggle with the world
in ways i find so unimaginable

oh, how i want to find my way
through the illusions that seem so impassible

oh, how you fill me with your spirit
so untarnished and remarkable

it all just makes me oh, so humbled
by the mystery of what we are

oh, how it makes me want to sing
oh, how it makes me sing
oh, how it makes me want to sing
oh, how it makes me sing

oh, how it makes me sing

"Musical Intelligence"

Your result for Howard Gardner's Eight Types of Intelligence Test...

Musical

25% Logical, 37% Spatial, 39% Linguistic, 39% Intrapersonal, 14% Interpersonal, 51% Musical, 16% Bodily-Kinesthetic and 14% Naturalistic!

"This area has to do with rhythm, music, and hearing. Those who have a high level of musical-rhythmic intelligence display greater sensitivity to sounds, rhythms, tones and music. They normally have good pitch and may even have absolute pitch, and are able to sing, play musical instruments, and compose music. Since there is a strong auditory component to this intelligence, those who are strongest in it may learn best via lecture. In addition, they will often use songs or rhythms to learn and memorize information, and may work best with music playing in the background.

Careers which suit those with this intelligence include instrumentalists, singers, conductors, disc-jockeys, and composers." (Wikipedia)

Take Howard Gardner's Eight Types of Intelligence Test at HelloQuizzy

translate the message

translate the message
come on
translate the message
come on

the art is in the heart beat
the art is in the heart beat
the earth is in your heart beating
your heart beating

do you remember
when you laughed because i smiled?
i was smiling behind my eyes
back where it's dark most of the time
i was smiling from far inside
where i could feel you in me
i knew you could see me
i can see your love
do you remember
when you laughed because i smiled?

translating the message
come to
translating the message
you are already there

i know what I'm trying to say
what I'm going to communicate
do you believe me?
here's what's going on
my ideas are gifts from you
that's the truth
you've found it

the art is in the heart beat
the art is in the heart beat
the earth is in your heart beating
your heart beating

do you remember
when you laughed because i smiled?
i was smiling behind my eyes
back where it's dark most of the time
i was smiling from far inside
where i can feel you in me
i know you can see me
i can see your love
do you remember
when you laughed because i smiled?

the art is in the heart beat
(translate the message)
the art is in the heart beat
(come on)
the earth is in your heart beating
(translate the message)
your heart beating
(here's what's going on)
your heart beating
(my ideas are gifts from you)
your heart beating
(that's the truth)
you've found us

"Chain Smoking Blues" and "Silence"

"Chain Smoking Blues"
by Zachary Power

Bus full of bodies heading southeast
Got a pocket full of Geographical photos to hold my grease
Somewhere in the future there's a 7:30 zone
Where I'll be I don't know

Babies shoutin out and it only makes me scream
Got a doorknob that's not turnin
Let my days turn into weeks
Custer could not muster the great dash on the wealthy street
You know you've found the Bank of Holland
When you're sittin on your feet

Got the chain smoking blues, baby
Ain't nothin else like this
Yellow bags and rusty cabs I've seen and still I'm feeling sad
There's no other way around it
Can't you hear that engine crank?
Got the chain smokin blues
I think I'll have another drink

Something was forgotten
When you looked the other way
A spirit from the Rapids of your own belittled thinking tank

Diamonds return to the lobe
While the trees do grasp for green
The remedy is not reserved, it is only looking to the east

The streets call out in silence
The colors are all there
And back again to focus the fire hydrants sing their prayers

If you catch a glimpse of Coldbrook street
You know to comb your hairs
Unless they are all shaved off by the razor, you have the right to stare

Chain smokin blues inside me
And all inside of you
I saw you nod your head and grin while I was playing with my wears
Got the chain smokin blues all around me
And I've got no time to care
Unless you hop on that four-legged shuttle-bug,
There's a chance for neither here nor there
Got the chain smokin blues
I feel this every day
While scratch and sniff luggage speaks down through the fog and grey
Those chain smoking blues will not bother anyone
Come out and dance among us in the winter's setting sun

I met a man without knowing
His name or date of birth
He smiled at me and offered me a handful of his earth
The salty sweet did catch me in a shining golden time
As I witnessed just another one of your good deeds
For the two of us agreed that not a soul among us
Was feeling too complete
I think he was my brother, now waiting for his next street

I coughed because I lied in shock, still weary of my rights
Hermitage memorandums won't steal my life tonight
Yours is safe as well
I know this deeper feeling Joy
So do the TVs on the ceiling
They pick their battles just like boys

Got the chain smokin blues
Uninterrupted yet again
Semi drivers fade into the distance and I can only laugh
It is amazing that you hear this
While you fix your midnight vest
Chain smoking blues in blackened hues
Are pointing me back to the west

In and out of silence
Up and down from the floor
Back and forth between these eyelids
Once again being explored
You tip your cap in silence
I nod my head in trust
We've all been waiting patiently
For someone to show up

Chain smoking blues, I've got your back in mind
Chain smoking blues, in due time you I will find
Thanks for the touch of love, there is no finer kind

(written March 11, 2008)



"Silence"
by Zachary Power

Inside something greater
Than I could ever describe to you
We are circling our conscience
As if it were something new

For all the longing and struggles
There's far to many moments
That sneak by
Feels so empty

Now the need to create
Foundations in word and sound
Compound daily, building interest
Like rain in the clouds

But it's not yet upon us
Only thoughts swirling around
Yesterday is so far away
Feelings being emptied

Where did you go?
Silence before the answer
What's left before me?
The answer is silence

What do we know
About the choices we've made?
There's only silence
To sing the words on this page

Outside our lives
There's no such thing as the future
What I've learned is that
We walk away for a reason

If there's only one reason at all
One reason for it all
It does a good job of changing faces

So tell me what is your danger?
We both seem too scared not to stay strangers
I could be waiting for a signal
We could be waiting here together

Where did you go?
Silence before the answer
What's left before me?
The answer is silence
What do we know
About the choices we have made?
There's only silence
To sing the words on this page

There's only silence
To sing the songs of yesterday
There's only silence
To sing the messages relayed
There's only silence
Only silence

(written 12 October, 2008)

nearly 3/4 of a century after it's publishing, I have read "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley

Am I the Savage described in Brave New World?

...


I played guitar and keyboard today, for maybe a total of one hour. It is difficult to conjure the energy for music these days. Oh, yes. I also played a bit of C-Harmonica. Musically meditated on my song, Voice Of Your Voice, for most of today's session.

...


I miss Nina and the people of Lansing and East Lansing. I hate that my fears became so much of an obstacle for me that I could not persevere, dig my fingers into reality, and make the situation work out. Now, almost four months later, I don't know where things are headed with my "new life" in Traverse City. I wait and wait, for something so indescribable that sometimes I can actually feel pain. Looking at the near-full moon tonight stirred different feelings. Humbleness. Desire. Hope. Emptiness. Reducing my feelings into the words of this blog feels very desperate at this moment. Wishing for resolution for so many things at once is no easy burden to bear. If only time wasn't so easily wasted.

It's a Black Cat in the night.

Sounds that nestle in your ears
Were born from blood over the years.
Resiliently and without haste,
They manifest and propagate.
Elastic bands and adrenal glands
Pulse in unison throughout the land.
While the hands of children talk to the moon,
The plans of lovers fail all too soon.
Changing seasons leave none untouched.
The painter buys a new paintbrush.
Captive thoughts of any kind
Breed hopeful business within the mind.
A fragrant breeze of dust and pollen
Soon leaves the day's work forgotten.

gone to be sprayed by industrial sized water sprinkler

Rearranging thoughts you are having while moving through imaginary, engineered comfort spots. The subtle breeze of a tapestry tips you off and you find yourself inhaling softly. It's costly these days to dream like you did before you felt lost. Words put side by side, hoping to catch a rhyme, sleeping while there's daylight, drinking water at night, faking isn't taking, nay-say to "outside places" and "unknown faces." You say you don't know what is but there's nothing else to see ,smell, taste, or feel. If nothing's real, what makes everything so empty and why decides that how is unimportant. I lived inside a city's limits for most of my life, rarely taking time to see what else could be beyond distant buildings and highways. Now I am here. Here I am Now. Now here am I. Same face, different place in the same old space that doesn't seem so familiar anymore. With a simple life for my own standards, I make small moves every day, slightly impacting the giant world of today. There's a twisted circumstance waiting for me out here, and in there the circumstance sees me as a strangely freaked-out version of itself.

RE-ORDER PRODUCT NO. 9903

before 2:10AM, JUL/18/2008 -
KSCR Los Angeles (stream): David Vandervelde - Track 02

before that-

spider with seven legs
subliminal marketing by

beverage brands (governors)

glass shards on the hardwood

floor where my elbows rest

this isn't classic rock, boys

and girls

computers for my generation

tell us the e-coli in Empire's

water has been cured, please

reality is the video game

of the brain, and in

dreams you're at the theatre

without heart-stopping butter-

bathed popcorn crunches

apply for credit on-line just

because you're bored.

must corrupt my

corruptions

to harvest

favorable

vibrations.

google is

a word

they made

up to flip

your lips

into jib jab

mode.

cigarettes

don't taste like candy

anymore, they taste better

than candy.

don't get me wrong, i like

google-ing, and i love computers.

don't get me wrong!

NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 2:25AM!!!!!!!-

KSCR Los Angeles (stream): The Hello Sequence - All Of These Things

Before 2:25AM-

I'm just doing stuff. That's what I do.

Imagination for the Immediate

Immediately I struggle to find words to blog about. I just received a facebook message from my old friend, Ian. A link to a music project of his and a friend, called Sam Dip. The music was entertaining and I would like to hear more of their collaborations. It's strange to think about friends of the past, and whether or not you can still be friends with someone you've only conversed with through the internet for several years, not really even remembering when the last time was that you saw them in person. It has got to be at least four years since I've seen Ian in person. I like that I can still make contact, and the internet has made such contact very much a convenience.

A moth is crawling around on the wall beside me. Earlier, it was circling the top of the lamp shade, as if it was just there doing its little dance to warm up and soak in the light bulb's energy for a few minutes.

I really want to get back on top of my life. Right now that might start by going to bed and calling it quits on this blog! I've got to work at 4:00pm so there isn't much of a rush, but it will probably be best to lay down sooner rather than later. Gooooooood night!

Conversations about the nature of reality

Many times when I am in a group of people I feel there is something else being said, behind the words, that is thrown about. Right now I'm thinking about calculus type stuff like derivatives and integrals, and how what goes on in my head while talking to whomever I may be talking to really becomes quite an introverted expression of nothingness. It seems that for months now, the matters at hand become less important than the rawness of inspired communication itself. If I ask you, "What color is dominating your field of vision today?" and you respond along the lines of, "Green has been very prevalent but if you ask me in five minutes I'll probably say that it would be charcoal, because that is the color of the pavement that I will be staring down at while I walk," then the subject is still color but the idea of color may very well take on an entirely different meaning to you and myself for the rest of that day. The question somehow was derived from sources of information that are not easily identifiable, though one could possibly point out a few points in time and connect dots (completely off subject: how many dots make up a line that is 3 cm. long?). The answer integrates all of the thoughts and ideas of the person asking the question leading up to the question, and so the build up of the question is transformed and taken to a higher level (by acting as a point of connection to an outside mind).

In other randomness, I just finished tea (cinnamon), realize it is almost 11:30pm (clocks... bah!), and now feel that this post is coming to an end within the next 80 heartbeats.

---

Oh yes... I sent a message to Derek Whitacre, the creative mind behind The Moscow Coup Attempt, in which I asked if I could be his apprentice! I think that would be fun. The Moscow Coup Attempt is a musical/visual project that I have been very fond of for a few years, ever since I stumbled upon the MySpace page. Go to the website for information. Go to the music page and listen, then go to the film page and watch. It's great stuff. Amazingly creative work.

The Moscow Coup Attempt (Official Website)

Photo by Sarah Frank

More books I did buy

Here's the scoop on my most recent trip to Front Street's Horizon Books:

• Bhagavad Gita (translated by Eknath Easwaran)
• all is change the two-thousand-year journey of buddhism to the west (by Lawrence Sutin)

Here's the scoop on my lack of interest in typing anything else:

I am waiting for tea to cool off

Blenders are loud distractions, but sometimes the noise is helpful. If you are mixing something good, I don't care what sound your blender is making, especially if you make extra for me! Today I'm not interested in blended eggs & such... I have already had two egg & potato burritos. That tea should be done now. I put a strawberry in the tea strainer with the "Peaceful Penninsulas" green tea.

I'm reading The Beat Hotel by Barry Miles these days. Out on the porch with tea, smoke, and book I shall be minutes from now... Following up the completion of the Jack Kerouac story, The Dharma Bums, I went over to Horizon Books and purchased The Beat Hotel, which is an account of the lives of Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, and Bill Burroughs (along with others involved in the Beat generation) during the years 1957-1963, with much of that time spent in Paris.

(Two paragraphs of blogging a day seems like more than enough)