The start of wind

Thursday, the great pretender, rolls around again. His pretense, that he almost brings the weekend with him, is less plausible in this holiday-shortened work week. That seems counterintuitive, shouldn't a short week make each day feel that much closer to the next weekend? But for some reason, this week, every day feels impossibly far from Saturday and crammed full of importance and insistence.

That is part of the first week of a campus quarter. Most folks have been gone, and now they aren't. Suddenly everything has the out-of-proportion importance of the last-minute. Everybody needs something, and most of it is more important than anything else could possibly be. This settles down by week three but for now, the pace of campus life is much like the winds that have been so insistently buffeting us these past several days.

The first three tracks from this morning's commute have bite. They have intensity about them.  Your Name Is Snake Anthony, from Medeski, Martin, and Wood's Uninvisible album, is one of those rare musical/poetic treats. Spare and rhythmic hip-hop-influenced jazz with a wonderful spoken poem/lyric:

Back in 19 and 92

We were good, man

We were traveling all over Finland, England, we went over to London, too

We were up and down the Hudson river

We were shedding a lot; we lived in our sheds

Go to church where the blinking light was

Park by the Olympic sized swimming pool

Snake Anthony knew Mr. William

Why, he could help you move your fine Chinese, if you needed them moved

He also helped us find the start of wind

What he really helped us find was,

To discover that we were the best

When Snake Anthony came out on the road with us

We went to the West of Highway 61, we didn't go to the East

You can go to the West-South, 

you can go to the East-North, no one ever does

They just want to go to Phoenix, to find the start of wind

If you go West of 61 you're going to have to have tone, 

you're going to have to have time, 

and you're going to have to have space

And uuuh-huh, Snake Anthony was not a small Japanese woman

When Snake Anthony came out on the road with us,

We knew we were the best, the very best

When Snake Anthony came out on the road with us

You can listen to/view a music video of the recording at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twAeppZOo_s

Good stuff, though this week doesn't need to bring Snake Anthony out on the road with it to help us find the start of wind. It already has us in its full sweep.

The full playlist:

 - Pixies: Cecilia Ann

 - Wilco: At least that's what you said

 - Medeski, Martin, and Wood: Your Name Is Snake Anthony

 - Sara Bareilles: Love Song

 - Bruce Cockburn: Someone I Used To Love

Posted via Hermes.