July 27, 1999

"Take your warm hands off my cool thigh," sounded like a mother to her kid, but I couldn't see from over by the bargain books at Barnes & Noble. A great line for a song...you're welcome to it. It's a striking bit of found poetry...a gift from Apollo.

I was wandering around that particular store thinking about Jeff's sarcastic but good advice in Chronic Relations that I should read a book sometime and get a clue about things in the world. So I ended up with Making Your Own Days by Kenneth Koch and a collection of essays (Poetry, Language and Thought) by the dreaded and formerly dreadful Martin Heidegger (maybe it's time to give him another chance). I also picked up a copy of The Oxford American, their loaded Southern Music issue with a great CD sampler. It starts with an a capella Leadbelly rarity, a little early Dylan (yeah, a Minnesotan but he's singing "Oxford Town"), Alex Chilton, Dusty Springfield (another honorary southerner), Geechie Wiley, D.L. Menard, Nina Simone.....and it goes on. It's even got Oliver Hardy singing "Shine on Harvest Moon". This is awesome stuff.

Then I rumbled over to Best Buy (is this place starting to sound like Joliet?) and picked up Alejandro Escovedo's Bourbonitis Blues. I'd seen him in Houston long ago when he was with Rank and File. He's mostly rockin' on this one, but tosses in a few slow ballads (as twisted homage to his punk roots: VU's "Pale Blue Eyes" and a perverse, slow, and effective cover of Gun Club's "Sex Beat"). I also purchased a copy of Low's Secret Name, which I'm saving for later this evening. Andreux included a few of their tunes on a tape not long ago, and I liked what I heard...and they're from Minnesota (home of some very great sounds).

While I'm on music, might as well mention that Dylan's Biograph arrived a few days ago. (So it took me 15 years...I'm a slow learner.) It's packed with mostly gorgeous alternate versions of mostly familiar songs.

In other news, I got an e-mail from Mom who read yesterday's journal and wanted to thank me for ranting about religion at Sara. But I fear she read into it what she hoped to see. I ranted but I didn't preach. Our "conversation" was more along the lines of "what could these things mean?" If I was preaching at all, it was against fundamentalism in all of its devious forms, even inside the RCC. That kind of literalism and authoritarianism sucks the life out of our rich spiritual traditions ......and DRIVES ME CRAZY.

Of course, maybe Mom knows that's the line I'd take; in which case, it's nice to think that she approves. Our lives are journeys of the spirit; there are many paths, many songs to hear and sing along the way. (Yeah, I'm damn liberal in these matters. My faith keeps me from worrying so much about what other folks believe. I'm plenty busy tending my own garden. I trust that they're doing the same.)

In the meantime, "Take your warm hands off my cool thigh."