But is it dolphin-free?

Thursday early morning: cold, dark, and clear.  Cars along the curb are heavily frosted.  On the lighter colored paint jobs, as my headlights slide across their icy flanks, it looks like their paint has oxidized, flattened, and cracked.  Even the nicest of curb-side cars now looks like it has a junk-yard paint job. The effect will, of course, fade with the rising of the sun, but this early morning frost is objective in its treatment.

Thursday, pretender that it often is, will be too busy to pretend to much of anything with me today.  A Board meeting this evening means a long day for us early risers, and meetings, projects, and preparation will handily fill the space between now and then.

A really nice mix of tunes this morning.  Nick Drake started off the set with a song that appears sadly prescient when filtered through his young death by overdose, and the poetry of the lyric is powerful:

Summer was gone and the heat died down

And Autumn reached for her golden crown

I looked behind as I heard a sigh

But this was the time of no reply.

The sun went down and the crowd went home

I was left by the roadside all alone

I turned to speak as they went by

But this was the time of no reply.

The time of no reply is calling me to stay

There is no hello and no goodbye

To leave there is no way.

The Bad Plus followed this up with a rip-roaring bit of frenzied and percussive musicality that in no way honored the somber nature of the tune it followed, but which succeeded in totally changing the mood of the moment.  I can't decide if this song's title (Layin' A Strip For the Higher-Self State Line) is the antithesis or  embodiment of "dolphin."  

Aside: dolphin, here, refers to something that came from a Meyers-Briggs workshop I participated in several years back.  The instructor added an animal to each of the four usual quadrants of MB scoring: fox, beaver, owl, and dolphin.  The dolphins were the folks who (speaking very generally here, mind) were feeling and creative oriented.  I would expect a capital-a Artist to fit into this group, for example. This same animalistic training led to the notion of "dolphin-free" training to mean training that was oriented at folks who go apoplectic at the sight of chairs arranged in a circle or the notion of sharing feelings in a group setting. For the record, I was an owl.  Sorry, this was a long aside. 

Andrew Bird wrapped this set up with his catchy and lyrically amazing Oh No. Check out an opening sample of the lyrics:

in the salsify mains of what was thought but unsaid

all the calcified arhythmitists were doing the math

it would take a calculated blow to the head

to light the eyes of all the harmless sociopaths

oh arm and arm we are the harmless sociopaths

When was the last time you heard the word "salsify" used in a sentence?  A root plant, it's use in this sentence suggests the deeper "mains of what was thought but unsaid."  Bird penned, back in March 2008, a very interesting short piece on the art of song writing, and talks about the thoughts and tale behind this particular song. The inspiration was a crying infant on a plane.  Quoting from the above-linked article:

"In the instance of this song I was on a flight from New York back to Chicago and a young mother and her 3-year-old son sat in front of me and it was looking to be the classic scenario of the child screaming bloody murder. However, I was struck by the mournfulness of this kid's wail. He just kept crying "oh no" in a way that only someone who is certain of their demise could. Pure terror. Completely inconsolable. It was more moving than annoying.

So when I got home I picked up my guitar and tried to capture the slowly descending arc of that kid's cry. It fit nicely over a violin loop that I had been toying with which moves from C-major to A-major."

Very good stuff from a very unique musician.  Here's the full playlist, in typical dolphin-free lineation:

 - Nick Drake: Time of No Reply

 - The Bad Plus: Layin' A Strip For the Higher-Self State Line

 - Matthias Lupri Group: Wish Song (Prelude)

 - Mark Isham: Ife

 - Andrew Bird: Oh No