We watched the days combine down. Grew more irritable with each other and felt some new edges to the quarantine. In that clinical way the help turns tables at large events or restaurants so I did with my family: no expression or sentiment, just another day. I think I got the drawstring from these hippy pants stuck because I can’t loosen the knot and have to pull them down and back up again to pee. The vivid technicolor of the day, like a filter makes it ultra-real. Is this me looking down on my life as I recede, scanning it a final time before I go? And if it is, then let me go slowly so I can take in every valley and tree, how the light plays on the land, how the night comes on softly and slow…
Outside it was cooling off and the bugs were coming on so I lit the citronella and watered the garden. I cleaned up after the kids, adjusted the fans. Thought about my work day, forgot where I was in the week. Took a cold shower, had a last drink. We had another week to go in July. And then it would be August.
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Categories: microblogging, prose, writing
Bill Pearse 
For a second, I thought you were making music, Bill. Then I realised it was another Bill, and one I’m familiar with, nonetheless. I normally listen to experimental sounds and contemporary operas, but when I’m nervous for an exam, I listen to Indie Folk. Have you heard of Aldous Harding? She got me my drivers license.
I’m not fond of first-person narratives, but I admit, I’d read an entire bible-length book of yours if it was written in this lenticular emotional realism you seem to pull together. It’s sublimating for the mind. You’re like Lawrence Durrell but veritably talented, like Heinrich Böll, but no one reads Böll anymore, because they are reading Durrell. I abhor this world.
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Ha, nuts! Your comments blow my little mind! Are you in Brazil or Portugal? Or Venus? I’m just wondering how you’re online and operating at such a high function in your part of the world. Or if you’re some super, we’ll-crafted algorithm WordPress is beta testing?! At any rate, gosh thanks. I have only seen a thumbnail of Aldous Harding to answer your question, but will have a listen. I’ve been nicking Bill Callahan lyrics as post titles a couple times this past week, now.
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I’m not algorithmic, Bill, have you read my poems? Wait, hold up. Actually I sort of get what you mean, haha!
I’m in Portugal. I’ve been to Brazil a few times, but I’m not Brazilian, I’m only Portuguese. If you slap a cryptomeria thrice in three different branches, though, I magically appear and kick you in the left shin, so I suppose I’m a bit cosmical in that regard.
Her new sounds are a bit more Jodorowskian and thus more in my maddened lane, but her earlier work, especially stuff like Swell Does The Skull, it’s just, just perfect.
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Hell yeah, that’s all good. Thanks for taking the algorithm comment in good measure. And for the tip on that Aldous person…love the cryptomeria reference, dang you are a black belt with the words. Next time I’ll bring my numb-chucks.
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Joao-Maria,
Thanks for writing about Aldous Harding. I’ve started streaming her music. Not inclined to stop.
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And thank you both for that, I’m in! That’s funny I just saw her associated with another musician I like (recommended on Spotify). Hi Carl and happy summer to you! Hope you’re well. Bill
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Life is lovely my friend! Especially when I get to read your posts.
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Aw shucks thanks for that sir! Enjoy the day…
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I’m happy, Carl. After writing, introducing folks to artists of my enjoyment is probably my second most fulfilling thing that I do.
And she truly is something else!
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We have to do more musician-swapping then JM, please…my only real intersection with Portuguese-speaking musicians includes Caetano Veloso and the Tropicalia crew. But there’s a world of music, isn’t there? Funny you listen to Indie Folk when you’re nervous, I wonder if they tap into your core “nerves” and help release that tension somehow.
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I’m unsure of the reason behind it. My mother listens to Greek music while she sings. She does not know Greek.
No, there really isn’t a world of music, I wouldn’t say. Tropicalismo and Bossa Nova are what I’d recommend from Portuguese-speaking music. Beyond that you have MPB, stuff like Mallu Magalhães and Ana Frango Eléctrico, and there’s also my side of the ocean, where we do have Fado and Folk and the like, but I don’t listen to much of it. I like Portuguese instrumentalists, like Filho da Mãe, Norberto Lobo, Sensible Soccers (which I spoke of recently in my blog), oh, and if you like some mellow alt-rock that you can’t understand, Tresporcento is quite good, I think.
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I’m getting Vashti Bunyan with some Chelsea Wolf from this Aldous! Will be perfect for fall and darn nice now, too…thanks for the reco!
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One of the few advantages to this time is the amount of it spent in reflection, introspection, and an inward examination of the soul. That said, the open road beckons and is just waiting for us to throw caution to the wind…and drive around the block to at least see something new.
Hold on to your drawstring. We’ve got a long haul ahead of us, I fear.
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Ha ha…”hold on to your drawstring,” right Kiri. Nice to hear from you again. Yes, we’ve been taking many “drives.” Odd, that. Hope you’re holding up well yourself and agreed, on the introspection. I see it coming in spades in about three months from now.
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Only three months? You are a lot more positive than I would have expected. I’m expecting the entire year and likely the next school year to be a loss. I may need to borrow a drawstring if it goes on longer than that.
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Yeah, the foreseeable future is more like it. I was thinking in 3 months it’s going to start sucking a lot more when we’re forced inside and the light drops out of the sky, that’s all. Drawstring or a noose!
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Still slightly stunned by a visit from the karma police, I won’t go for anything fancy, Bill. I enjoyed the poetry of this a lot, and the odd and pleasing phrase “cooling off and the bugs were coming on” like an evening in or out of heat.
I’m also intrigued by writing in the present as if it’s the past. You mess with my chronometer a lot, which is also what the world seems to be doing at present, but not so friendlyly.
-Bruce
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Writing in the present as if it’s in the past: that’s kind of exactly what I’ve been doing since this lockdown thing for some reason. “Odd and pleasing” in a personal way. Grateful for your friendship and my friends are too, thanks for joining our little club. Really makes my week to have a chance to see and talk to you in person! “In person!” Be well. To friendlyly.
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Never really been part of a club before. More loner than group-er. It’s rather fun. (And I hope my voice isn’t too loud. I get excited easily these (strange) days, especially when actually interacting with people about music!
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You’re not too loud! Keep it coming man. The enthusiasm is great and shared. Good to interact with people too, as well you know…loner!
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You disabled comments again on Twilight Gazing, Bill!
People want to comment, Bill!
You have fans! We must be kept happy!
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Ah Jeez. That WordPress. It’s not me, I swear! Gremlins! But thank you, it’s kind of you to let me know. I’ll go fix that and make myself a coffee. Happy Friday!
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