Spirits in the Night, Part 1.
I was a fool to believe the promise of February’s drunken warm breeze. Winter doesn’t relinquish in a day.
It’s a mess out there. Snow, slush, rain, ceaseless. The streets are full of potholes, deep wounds from scraping steel plow blades, testing the suspension and attention of vehicular wayfarers.
In a car, there’s a jab to the spine. On a bicycle, an unmentionable jolt. But in both stories the world momentarily falls away. Surprise, frustration and wonder at the sudden hollow space, a microscopic cliffhanger and the powerful machines that could so easily chew up the pavement and turn it into sweet emptiness.
A similar blank page is what I frequently seek. It is a struggle to establish clarity in the present moment, to willingly/unwillingly fall into an instant of nothing. To hold a new, unmarketable thought and the follow the thread until it is understood. Or until it is masterfully misunderstood. Conversation, dreams, sex, songwriting — discovery, from start to finish.
“I read the news today, oh boy
Four thousand holes in Blackburn, Lancashire
And though the holes were rather small
They had to count them all
Now they know how many holes it takes to fill the Albert Hall
I’d love to turn you on.”
An alveolate connection is as visible now as it was when I was thirteen. Not only the size of the emptiness, but also the struggle to quantify that emptiness and give it life through music. The eternity of being turned on by the mind of another human being.