Friday, April 25, 2008

the sixteenth late friday night eclectic buffet

friday evening - a sprinkling of rain, the driveway packed with street-hockey playing boys, and in the background, ash ra tempel's release "gin rose" is playing.

tonight then, let's start with a little piece on rain.

rain

i opened my eyes
and looked up at the rain,
and it dripped in my head
and flowed into my brain,
and all that I hear as I lie in my bed
is the slishity-slosh of the rain in my head.

i step very softly,
i walk very slow,
i can't do a handstand--
i might overflow,
so pardon the wild crazy thing I just said--
i'm just not the same since there's rain in my head.
shel silverstein

when it's raining outside - in the late night - it's a sound that fills me with the strangest joy - probably because it is a sound that has more to do with warmer times, and also because i love rain. as much as i love the sun. i love the sound of it on the roofs and on the windows.

it all began for me in an armstrong-siddeley with my family on a trip to wales. the rain beat on the roof of that very old car as we ate a sandwich picnic bought at market that day. tomatoes and cheese and bread. i was so powerfully touched by that sound and the feeling of us all being together and safe inside that car. even now when i tuck my son into bed and he asks for the window to be open so that he can hear the rain i know deep inside me - he knows exactly what i know. the deliciousness of the sound and feeling of rain.

the impressionists had a sense of (among almost everything) the sensuality of rain, and here’s a lovely example . . .
camille pissarro
the road: rain effect (the versailles road at louveciennes)
1870

back to the very present and especially to an artist who has some very lovely cool work on her blog. becca stadtlander has a really lovely collection of her illustrations going on at becca stadtlander illustration . here are a couple of tastes:
boy with coin
houses and doilie
finally, here's booker 'bukkah' white singing "aberdeen, mississippi blues". it has the exact chord changes and vocal inflections as one of my favourite blues tunes - "parchman farm".
a beautiful tune by a talented blues musician.

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