Friday, March 27, 2009

 

I continue to get the best email.

The following is excerpted from a recent missive sent by our west coast correspondent.
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BTW- Today, I asked the English teacher (Amsterdam coffee house, poetry-liberal/literature/writing major in college) I work with, if we can still use the word "Fabulous" in LA... so she put her fingers in quotations and shrugged "Fabulous"; thus I repeated, with extra emphasis ala Ab-Fab. Then I asked her, "How many s's are in the word 'pronounce'?” Without batting an eye, she tilted her head up, slightly crooked, looked me dead on and said: "Six"...

I took a big breath, then turned on one foot and walked out of the class.

Friday, March 20, 2009

 

The Songs of Theo Schaffer - part 2

As I mentioned previously my young friend Theo (aka 3) has given me permission to post some of his song lyrics that they may be seen by a larger audience. The caveat that some references within his work may be obscure is especially true of the following song. Here I will chalk them up to his being an avid reader, a comic fan and possessed of a fertile imagination, in another darker place some might see them as glimpses of history and even a hero’s journey.
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Have to Be
Words by Theo Schaffer music by Ian Brady & Theo Shaffer

I was lost and I was found
Like luggage for a jet plane bound
Not passenger but stowage class
Until time came to break the glass.
Take my heart and take my hand
I have a dream, do you understand?
This is where we have to go
From Idaho to Chicago
We are all there is to know
Family, friends and overflow.

So it was
So it is
Hard to believe
We’re only kids
Follow me and we’ll be free
This is who we have to be

Cornered in an alleyway
Climbing walls and laser play
Garbage fists and claws of fire
We’ve come too far. We’re going higher.
Huddled in the dark man’s nest
So many arms in which to rest
Hiding on a pilgrim ship
With comic books and bitten lips
We found a fifth to fill our ranks
To ether ghosts we gave our thanks

So it was
So it is
Hard to believe
We’re only kids
Follow me and we’ll be free
This is who we have to be

With guns and trucks black eagle came
To terrorize and to defame
The fire was lost that we might see
The horror that could come to be
The princess tortured in her ice
Mental magic cast the dice
Dying storms the world engulfed
We shepherded by the wolf
Fled along the open road
To haven's hope and streets of gold

So it was
So it is
Hard to believe
We’re only kids
Follow me and we’ll be free
This is who we have to be


Now I’m here in New Amsterdam
Still trying to build my master plan
You’ll have my heart if you take my hand
I have a dream, do you understand?
I’m flying high on angel wings
I’m seeing far too many things
We’ve fallen far. We’re climbing fast.
More chasing me than just the past
There’s more places that we have to go
Than U.N. Plaza and old SoHo

So it was
So it is
Hard to believe
We’re only kids
Follow me and we’ll be free
This is who we have to be
This is who we have to be
This is who we have to be
Have to be
Have to be
Have to be
Have to be

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Thursday, March 12, 2009

 

late night mumblings

March comes
The winds rise
Rending the old
That he new may arise
A force of change
Eviscerating
Or invigorating
Which
The choice is yours

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

 

The Songs of Theo Schaffer - part 1

My young friend Theo (or 3 as he is also known) has given me permission to post some of his song lyrics that they may be seen by a larger audience. He and his band, Lost Luggage, are still a little reticent about posting videos of their performances but given that their school’s policy on such things is a bit vague and there exist far more potentially dangerous attentions to attract than those of the dean such caution is not unwarranted. This is the first installment in The Songs of Theo Schaffer. Some references may be obscure but given that he is only just fourteen and lives in a world much darker than this one I think he’s off to a pretty good start.
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You Took My Hand
Words by Theo Schaffer music by Ian Brady & Theo Shaffer

Children fall and skin their knees
Some might want to think that’s me
But I don’t bruise that easily
Though the odds were stacked against us
Trapped behind their tallest fences
Escape, escape was on our minds
So they brought down their boots and clubs
Brought their searchlights and their guns
And they let loose their dogs to terrify

And then you took my hand
And magic filled the air
Magic not my own
I felt wings I hadn’t grown
When you took my hand
And everything came clear
I knew why I was here
I felt wings I hadn’t grown
When you took my hand

We were cattle herded to the slaughter
They didn’t care that we were sons and daughters
Of people they would never know
Up into our crying places
We put on our bravest faces
I didn’t know if I would break or bend

And then you took my hand
And everything came clear
I knew why I was here
I felt wings I hadn’t grown
When you took my hand


Out of the prison, out from the pain
To seek and find our freedom train
In cities strange on highways stranger
Your eyes wide in the face of danger
I didn’t know what you would do
Were you sure of me
Like I was sure of you
It was time to take a stand

And then you took my hand
And we were stronger than any foe
We knew what we had to know
I felt wings I hadn’t grown
When you took my hand
And magic filled the air
Magic not my own
I felt wings I hadn’t grown
When you took my hand

Friday, March 06, 2009

 

I Left My Heart

I’m missing San Francisco. Unlike a normal person I did not miss it so much as the snow fell and I was cut to the bone by icy winds. No, I miss it now as we are teased and tickled by Mother Nature into believing that maybe this time the blush of spring is really just around the corner. I missed the snow when winter came and I was in the land of sunshine, although really at that point it mostly rained. There is something ingrained in me I suppose that the world must sleep so that it may then reawaken. As longer days and occasional mild breezes tease my mind free of the tangle of daily drama so that it may be lofted on zephyrs of daydream I think of warm days and sun-filled streets bustling with people free of their layers of wool and thinsulate not focused on the slippery concrete and brick beneath their feet but on the trees and gardens and flowerboxes all around them bursting with color and life. And that… leads me to San Francisco.

My first city is beautiful in her Easter finery. Boston wears spring like a joyous young lady of another age in an exuberant hat, ribbons down her back, a frilled parasol in her one hand as the other holds up the skirts of her new dress so that she may dash with shockingly childish glee in the direction of the ice cream vendor as her chaperone is left to heave her grey severity off of a park bench grumbling in the proverbial dust. San Francisco I have never seen in spring. I have seen her sunning herself oiled and glittering in a long hot summer that extends its reach far into autumn. She is distracted, seemingly lost in her own dreams as she sips a margarita beneath the broad brim of her thrift shop hat the dark lenses of her cat’s-eye sunglasses masking a gaze that may focus on the throng, the Maupin novel, the bougainvillea or nothing at all. Somewhere a window opens and the air is infused with a sensuous beat. In one fluid motion she rises, doffs her hat, plucks a cold beer from somewhere, perhaps nowhere, and taking a long slow draught begins to dance, a glorious confusion of sensuous undulation and peals of innocent laughter at once alone, before an audience, at one with a crowd, part of a tribe. How can one not miss that?

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