ฮาร์ปซิคอร์ด (I think I could survive in a cabin)

more Roy Zimmerman. this I guess is, as they say in the restaurant business, not so fresh, but as the sun sets on George W Bush's empire the broader questions it raises feel as pressing as ever.

Sarah Palin recently told donors in Englewood Colorado that Obama "is someone who sees america... as being so imperfect, emperfect enough, that he's willing to pal around with terrorists who would target their own country." what a revolting piece of morning-after-buffalo-wings shit she is. (she's talking about William Ayers, from the weather underground, to whom Obama has failed patriotically to refuse saying hi when they bump into each other around hyde park & at meetings.) I mean, planes don't fly thru hurricanes -- this is a new low, isn't it? meanwhile, in the nation Barbara Ehrenreich notes: "This year marks the 160th anniversary of The Communist Manifesto and capitalism -- aka 'free enterprise' -- seems willing to observe the occasion by dropping dead." I have also been thinking a lot about how sort of unfair it is for bankers to make the world end.

mostly I have been thinking about which records I will bring to my post-democracy cabin.

(by the way, did you hear what lovely Dennis said, in the house of representatives? after he voted in a non-bailout-supporting way? he said this:

it is not as tho we had no choice but to pass the bill before us. we could have done this differently. we could have demanded language in the legislation that would have empowered the treasure to compel mortgage servicers to rework the terms of mortgage loans so homeowners could avoid foreclosure. we could have put regulatory structures in place to protect investors. we could have stopped the speculators.

this bill represents an utter failure of the democratic process. it represents the triumph of special interest over the public interest. it represents the inability of government to defend the public interest in the face of great pressure from financial interests. we could have recognized the power of government to prime the pump of the economy to get money flowing thruout society by creating jobs, health care, and major investments in green energy. what a lost opportunity! what a moment of transition from democracy and towards domination of america by global economic interests.

in the house of representatives he said this! as if anybody'd be listening there!)

one recording I will bring to my cabin is this one, of Pharoah Sanders playing feelin' good. it's played with real force, & I think I'll enjoy that. there is a kind of a distracted quality to it, a lot of mismatching gestures thrown out. but it also feels sincere, & for me it holds together in a kind of hot, diffuse way. I hope my cabin has a view of the mountains.

I know cabin livin' may prove hard, but if there are still sunrises I will want to hear this, the third track from the record LAmmERGEIER, by the various & interesting duo of Richard Youngs & Simon Wickham-Smith, co-presidents of the Society for Guys With English-Sounding Names & really worthwhile musicians. I love the sounds they find, the structures they build out of them. the principles may overlap with those that decide the architecture of cabins.

& I think I'd like to have this lovely & strange recording of Andrej Vinogradov singing a song called uzh kak po mostu-mostochiku (уж как по мосту-мосточику, which you might understand to mean something like going now, beginning to go, across the bridge, the little bridge) it's a lovely snow-sounding song, & the harmonies are rich & a little surprising. times will be hard. I will probably be glad that I have a cabin.



so, by the way, has anyone got a nice cabin to sell? all offers heard...