The Traditional Posting of the Link

pinched from http://centreofthepsyclone.wordpress.com/2011/12/14/war-is-over-if-you-want-it/

Ah the holiday season. Like repeated viewings of Charlie Brown, debating the disgustingness of eggnog, and avoiding the Little Drummer Boy, this most wonderful time of the year wouldn't be complete without the traditional link to the Happy Holidays (If You Want It) mix, a set that contemplates war, peace, life, loss, childhood, Christmas, and polka. It features hand-turned 78s, a vintage Soviet kids’ record, radio recordings, Tchaikovsky, Vince Guaraldi and FDR.  I hope you enjoy!

http://soundcloud.com/sighafstrom

Track Listing: 

·         CH 3/72 Reuge musicbox, "Nutcracker Suite"

·         The Philadelphia Orchestra, Piotr Ilich Tchaikovsky's "Waltz of the Flowers", from "The Nutcracker Suite"

·         Frank Knight, et al, "FDR 'Day of Infamy'"

·         John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band, "Happy Xmas (War is Over)" 

·         George Harrison, "All Things Must Pass" 

·         Moreno Veloso, "Deusa do Amor" 

·         The Vince Guaraldi Trio, "What Child Is This" 

·         Meryl Streep and George Winston, "The Velveteen Rabbit" 

·         David Bowie and the Philadelphia Orchestra, Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" 

·         Sir Adrian Boult and Members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, "The Viola" 

·         The Philadelphia Orchestra, Tchaikovsky's "Chinese Dance", from "The Nutcracker Suite" 

·         Frank Knight, et al, "President Truman Announces Hiroshima 'A' Bomb Attack" 

·         Sirat, "Moon Over the Ruined Castle" 

·         The Philadelphia Orchestra, Modeste Moussorgsky's "Night on Bald Mountain" 

·         Philip Glass and the Kronos Quartet, "Temple of the Golden Pavilion ("Like Some Enormous Music")" 

·         Donovan, "Season of the Witch" 

·         The Broadway Cast of Hair, "Aquarius" 

·         Walter Cronkite and Crew of Apollo Eight "'...On The Good Earth'" 

·         The Vince Guaraldi Trio, "Skating" 

·         The Philadelphia Orchestra, Tchaikovsky's"Dance of the Reed Flutes", from "The Nutcracker Suite" 

·         The Firesign Theatre, "The Further Adventures of Nick Danger" 

·         Alex Pulaski and the Polka Dots, "Holiday Polka" 

·         They Might Be Giants, "Famous Polka" 

·         Jan Waters and his "Polk-Alongs", "How Good for Me Polka" 

·         Cantor Josef Rosenblatt, "Achanu Kol Beth Israel (Our Brother Israel)", 

·         “Teremok”

·         Music Hall Drama Group and Orchestra, "Santa's Surprise" 

·         "Jingle the Christmas Mouse" 

·         The Christmas Carol Orgy-
from the albums "'Twas the Night Before Christmas", by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians, and "Hi-Fi Christmas Party", by Domenico Savino and his Orchestra and Chorus; Charles Smart and James Blades, "Holy, Holy, Holy" and "Eternal Father"; Monks of the Benedictine Abbe, En Calcat, with Boys' Choir from L'alumnat, "Christe Redemptor (Christ the Saviour)" and "Hodie Christus Natus Est (Christ Was Born Today)" 

·         Simon and Garfunkel, "7 o'clock News/Silent Night" 

·         Jiminy Cricket, "When You Wish Upon a Star" 

·         15 1/2" Regina musicbox, "Silent Night" 

Recorded live in Oakland, California, December 2003

The First Writing In Ages And I Fully Intend...

Sunday afternoon at the Country Estate - a condo in suburbs north of San Francisco. I'm poolside, drinking a shandy and listening to Thelonious Monk, Brad Mehldau, Stevie Wonder. The sunshine is plentiful, but the air holds some cool, hinting - or perhaps overtly revealing - that just outside our sparkling sunbelt, the fog rolls, asserting itself, throwing its weight around. It's also an oblique reminder that summer is on the decline - oblique because in these parts, we still have glorious Indian Summer ahead of us before the seasons turn earnestly chilly.

Indian Summer is just ridiculous. Beautiful and perfect and calm, warm sun, long sunsets, a sense that everything is just good in the world. Of course, then the sunsets get longer as October stretches in, rain maybe even falls a time or two, then daylight savings abruptly ends one night at 2am, and we're plunged into darkness till we spring forward next year. 

But that's ages from now - two months - so for the moment, I will drink my shandy by the pool and stay in the warm sun and avoid thinking anything outside of summer being endless. 

There are three men in suits carrying bibles and stalking around the condo complex. They go from door to door silently, I assume proselytizing but who knows - it's the perfect disguise for robbing houses on a Sunday afternoon, and doors could be unlocked around these parts. They've noticed me and are noticeably  not looking at me, in the sun with my bikini and my drink. Monk's Honeysuckle Rose plinks away thought the little speakers on the side table.

Alex, love of my life, is up in the Country Estate writing and recording bass clarinet parts for a new song.  The low, throaty tones mix in the breeze with the sounds of a prop plane, rustling leaves, bird songs, the ubiquitous cars-on-road, my keyboard strokes, Brad Mehldau Trio, and occasionally a human voice.  And a weed whacker.  It is Sunday after all.  

I feel like I can hear the pool, but it's imaginary synesthesia.  It is a thing of beauty, though: artificially tropical blue, Caribbean-colored, from a bleachy bluish white in the shallows to a deep, clean sky at the 9 foot end. There's something perfect about a swimming pool: a promise of perfection, a dream, a myth - contained and controlled, but wet and therefore wild. David Hockney saw it, got it. Flying into an airport near a neighborhood rich with swimming pools, one can't help but look down into them and think "this is the place". A Talking Headsian paradise.  

Or something like that. Anyway, my shandy is running low, and I must must must keep writing - the first writing in ages, and I fully intend...

We're In Business!

Yippy! I here by declare my new business, Ace Holiday Gift Wrapping Service, officially open! Although I did the soft launch on Friday, yesterday was the roll-out-the-carpet day, in which I blasted email, tweets & facebook posts all over the internets. And frankly, today I'm tired, but no rest for this elf! There are gifts that need wrapping! If that includes yours, give me a buzz or email - 510.408.7441 or ace@acegiftwrap.com

And here's the lovely, fancy, magnificent website!

If I Was On Top Of Things, I'd Have Posted This For Valentine's Day

My love for you
is like a zombie.

Deep in its grave-dirt it lies
animated but unalive.
It twists, squirms, digs, climbs

until a fingernail pokes up through the daisies,
and then fingers (not quite ten),
and then the hands, wrists, arms, elbows,
and the horrible head.
And then it pulls itself out, like coming up out of a swimming pool,
lifts itself out of the dirt,
crookedly stands.
Corroded, worm-gnawed, full of holes,
the brain basin mucked with mildew,
its skin more a paste, and its eyes puddings.
Arms outstretch, and off it stumbles.

Meanwhile, back at my house,
dark, quiet, not a creature stirring, etc.
I’m asleep in my bed, covers up to my chin
AND THEN I AWAKE TO THE CRASH!
Stiff zombie arms wrecking through the window,
through the blinds bending and tearing from the sill.
They clatter with the glass shatter,
the zombie crashing in.

I try the praying, the incantations, the charms.
The zombie is unimpressed, and hungry.
It comes at me with great zeal, its teeth clack, its filthy fingernails rasp,
and the smell – have I mentioned the smell?

The smell is sweet like strange fruit,
like an mango, but sweeter, so sweet its sour,
like a thousand mangoes smashed in a sour brown mash simmering in the sun,
smells like bruised cherries, chewed pits, banana peels,
like a softly rotting cantaloupe.
The zombie smell is putrid, and pervasive,
and in no time I have this wet rotting sweetness in my pores, at the roots of my hair,
under my pajamas, inside me. The smell.

Meanwhile, the zombie
bites my face,
like seriously it bites so hard it breaks the skin. I grunt and push away, push hard into the flimsy flesh hanging loose from zombie ribs. My cheek burns, spit-streaked. The zombie's sallow teeth are exposed, my blood vivid against its lipless maw. The zombie rushes at me, and I punch, I kick, I thrash, but still it rushes. I punch the bony face and an eyeball slops out. I kick it in the bony thigh, old bone splinters, but the zombie is undeterred. It has a supernatural strength borne of a singular ambition, a focused, singular intention
To eat my brain. To consume my flesh. To have all of me.

Luckily, it is then I notice my trusty chainsaw in the corner!,
and my machete!
I angle our brawl, steer it just so -
and then I have my weapons!
The chainsaw chokes to life,
the machete gleams.
I swing my arms.
The machete catches under the chin, pops off the jaw.
And the chainsaw gets an arm, right above the elbow -
off. Onto the floor.
I swing and swing and swing
and the parts fall freely.
Of course I nick myself here and there
a cut, a gash
but a gash is a scratch when faced with the fate of being eaten by a zombie.

The awful zombie is in pieces on the floor.
This is of great relief,
but now, what, a pile of zombie parts in my house?
I put it in a garbage bag, a hand, a foot, a chunk (neck maybe?).
The pieces ooze,
the cuts have opened bad pockets of puss, maggots, curdled gore, runny marrow.
And the bag is heavy. Mostly bones, some mold, some meat, but still
it weighs a ton.
I drag the bag bumping down the stairs,
across the street, through the field by the gully,
into the woods, into darkness, into dew.
With shovel, pick ax, bare hands
I dig. The ground is damp, old, cold, but the musty dirt smell soothing. I dig

dig and dig and dig, deep as I can,
deeper, there is no purpose in putting any kind of zombie in a shallow grave.
I must ignore the shuddering sack, the black plastic bag spasms,
kick the twitching bag down the hole
and cover it, reverse it, put the cold clay back,
a low, smooth mound compact as asphalt. I jump a jig up and down
for satiety, to ensure it is tamped.
No problem.
Done.

Back at home, board up the broken window,
sweep the glass away. I'll get curtains;
I never liked blinds anyway.
And anyway, the place needed a good wash, a scrub,
the smell of bleach astringent in the sweet rot.
I wash off the gore and muck,
blood, mud and moisture.
I wash off the smell, the sweet sour brown syrup.
The house is restored.
All is warm, clean, replaced, at peace.
I go back to bed, covers up to my chin.

Meanwhile,
deep in its grave-dirt the zombie lies
animated but unalive.
It twists, squirms, digs, climbs -
rezombifies.

Repeat.

Repeat repeat repeat
because
my love for you
is like a zombie.

Please be so kind as to take my amazing survey. Thank you.

P-A-R-T-A-Y-!

Leaving New York

Good morning, New Jersey! The sky is just getting light as I ride the train to the airport. I turn and look out the window, back behind us, and see the top of the mighty Empire State Building pointing like a stinger into the clouds.

It rained last night, a lot. The sound of it kept me awake. I kept listening to that rain and imagining myself out in it in my sandaled feet, schlepping my soggy bags and trying to hail a cab. Fortunately, the real walk was dry, and the cabs were plentiful.

The Empire State Building’s stinger recedes from view. Here’s a sports stadium, and a lot of old train tracks, ship yards, and machinery. This, I suppose, is the town of Newark. The sky is still quite dim and gray. The clouds are breaking a little to the east and almost turning pink. They say it’s going to be hot in the city later today. My stop is next.

In the last few minutes, I stopped writing, departed the train, made my way across the station to the little airport train, and got aboard. In that time, the clouds opened all across the sky and now day lights through. The sun hasn’t crossed the horizon yet, but it’s close.

The little airport train crosses over brown, motionless canals. The trees grow right up to the banks, and huge pink flowers on tall stalks stand in the edge’s muck. The trees and canals give way to the sprawling tarmac, and the airplanes huddle around the terminals getting full and empty of people, soon to include me.

My experience of being in New York City is like a metaphor for the whole of my experience of life. I never quite get to do everything I wanted to do, or see everything I wanted to see, or be with all the people I wanted to be with. My best scheduled plans never quite turn out because they are interrupted by the unexpected, the wild, the impossible. And at the end I’m glad to go home, because it’s home, but feel like I need just a little more time, if I just had a little more time, I could have made it all work.

The other people on my flight - my fellow travelers, my aerial companions - queue up to board the plane. They look disaffected, some of them even appear miserable. But companions, we’re going to fly! In the sky! In a few hours, we’ll be on the other side of the continent.

If I can’t stay here, I might as well be willing to go. I pack up my phone and my water bottle and, in a moment, my notebook and pen, and take my place in the line to board the plane.