Who said anything about produce?

Hear the music, and get down with your carrot self. Check out the website www.incurable-allure.com

Saturday, March 31, 2007

Harry the Door

A door is a door is a door.
Or so they say.

But not this door.
This door was different.

This door’s name was Harry, which was already uncommon, as doors rarely have names.
Occasionally you will meet a door named Archibald, or Woodrow, perhaps even an Edward, but not a Harry.

Harry liked his name though. It kept him content, and as we all know, there is nothing more important to a door than being content.

Well, almost nothing.

Harry was ajar. He was open. Quite wide, in fact, and had been so for about eight years now, which in door days, is quite a long time.

Harry was a very important door, or would be if he’d been shut for eight years. But an open door… an open door was a direct contradiction to Harry’s very purpose in doordom.

For you see, a door is meant to close, otherwise it’s merely a doorway, and the door, or rather, Harry, hangs on his hinges unused.


Harry’s mind rarely strayed from his predicament, for its cause lay directly in front of him for the past eight years.

That cause was Professor Cummings.


In the past, the Professor had always been a friend of Harry’s. Opening, shutting, opening, shutting. Every day it was the same routine. The Professor would climb the eight hundred and sixty two and a half stairs up to Harry, swing Harry open with a push of his flappy hand, grasp the tree trunk of a rope that hung from the ceiling, and with a mighty tug from his tusklike shoulders, he would ring the bell and call the students to class.

And so it went, every day, and Harry enjoyed this thoroughly. He enjoyed the affectionate pat from Professor Cummings’ weathered palm, he enjoyed the vibrations in his hinges as the mammoth bell would gong, he enjoyed watching the Professor clasp his hands over his ears immediately after releasing the rope and cursing loudly, only to be offended once more by the groaning sentinel that was never on the lookout, for it’s eyes had long since been silenced by the very ringing it produced.

And by the fifth or sixth ring, the Professor would stop cursing, grab hold of the large bell, and attempt to slow it by heaving his weight against its swing, which always ended in his being shoved backwards onto the stone floor, grunting.

“You may be big!” the Professor would shout, “but I’m bigger!”

Which wasn’t quite true, thought Harry, for the bell surely equaled, if not surpassed, the weight of Professor Cummings, who would then stand and rest his leathery hands on the stone, looking out over the campus for a moment.

“Yes, Harry”, He would say, through thatched lips, “Looks to be another day.”

Then he would turn, grasp Harry’s knob, and shut him as he left.
That was Harry’s favorite part. For as we all know, doors love being shut.

But all that was quite a long time ago. The ancient ringing of the mammoth bell hadn’t called the students to class for many months. Professor Cummings hadn’t shut Harry in quite a while. And now Professor Cummings was getting quite old, laying on the stone before Harry. So old, that he was, in fact, dead.

First had come the birds, eager to pick away at the fresh skin of the deceased. Then the rats, gnawing at bones, lashing out at one another in vicious quarrels for rotting organs.
Then the flies, sucking away the blood and laying their maggots to tunnel through the flesh till all that was left was the bone of Professor Cummings.
...And a tiny indentation in the great bell, where the Professor had unintentionally struck it with his head after shouting to the departing ship that never turned back.


One by one, the bats came, no longer blackballed from their roost by the ringing of the great bell, now silent as Harry lay open.
The bats dropped their guano, and picked at the last of the solid bones, and carried every last bit of Professor Cummings away, except, that is, for the skull.

The skull had been too heavy for the bats, and now it rest gazing up at Harry through vacant eye sockets.

And now the wind blew, and even the bats were gone, chased away by the mist from the waters, slowly rising to the tower beneath Harry, just months after the Professor’s unfortunate accident.

And no more students traversed the green lawns, below, for the Atlantic had crawled inland and swallowed up all but the bell tower, and Harry, and Professor Cummings’ skull.

And Harry was open. Eight years now. A disgrace to his doordom.

Harry’s hinges shook, but it was not the timber of the great bell, it was the Atlantic crashing her mighty arms against his tower. But this time, as his rusty hinges shook, Atlanta finally ripped them loose, after nibbling for eight long years.

And Harry ceased to even be an open door.

And Atlanta took a great swell, and with one foul crash, she invaded the tower and carried Harry away from Professor Cummings forever.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Chicago Avenue

So, In an effort to get back to the good old days, where I was posting new stories and poetry and things like that, here's a vignette I wrote today.
-A

Chicago Avenue


It is Sunday, March 11, 2007

First day of daylight savings

First thaw of the year

The sun is out at 5:30 as I leave the theatre building with Brea, my director for Machinal, the show I’m composing music for. We’ve just seen “The workroom”, in the new studio.

We part. I make my way down printers row, through the deserted, vacant downtown on this Sunday afternoon in early march.

I enter the LaSalle st. subway to make my way north on the blue line, back home before I have to go tile a bathroom.

On go the headphones, on goes the iPod Shuffle as I hunker into the station and await the coming train.

I hear the clarinet of joyous klezmer celebration, clapping, wailing trumpets, fiddle,

I shuffle and sway slightly, my true feelings betraying my façade to the station.

Rumbling, on comes the train, round the bend and right to me. I board the front car and notice its vacancy. This is a day of vacancies. A vacancy of cold, a vacancy of crowd, yet today is more full of life than all the winter’s been.

I sit facing front and realize than I can see through the front window and view the oncoming tunnel.

I wait, I move closer as we descend down through the tubular depths, gliding past lights and signs briefly illuminated by our headbeams in the darkness.

A light approaches, we glide into Jackson

Glide into Monroe

Glide to Washington

Glide glide glide through the dark world of the underground

Then suddenly, the CURVE TOWARDS CLARK APPROACHES

We’re not going to make it, are we? It’s so steep, so tight! And just as the windshield and headlights prepare to kiss the curvature of concrete, it slides on past for moment after moment as we spin our tangent, a thing made of straight lines turning in a seemingly effortless cheat of option.

Glide into clark, glide down the ramp, deep into the belly, towards the long stretch to grand, past lines of staggered bulbs, illuminating a rat

A crawler

A cord

A sign

Up and down, an invisible roller coaster of secret joy, spinning and twisting, wheels nonexisting

Glide into grand, on a cushion of air.

The Grand Station

That which is wonderful

And though the Voice of CTA now says “This is grand… and Milwaukee

We still know it’s grand.

With its euphoric blue lights at its stairways, a cool pleasing mother I will never touch, save for sight

And as soon as we see her, grand is gone, and a fat lady with skin both black and white sits in front of me to the side, so I can still see our path

With lights swooping past, gliding me home to Chicago, and up jumps the station and out jumps me

Double take, for now that I’ve seen the way here, is here really here?

Turning left up the stairs past the wet red floor that is always wet and red

and a floor

Out of the cage turnstile

Up into the clear and onto Chicago avenue

Joel rubin still playing his clarinet in my ears, more joyous than winter’s been

And I take a breath and smell the same smells I always smell upon exiting

The sewage, highway, wastewater, pizza, distant bakery

The birds are chirping past me, past the fire station, walking west, a young man

Clarinet clarinet clarinet

Army surplus on the left “Don’t Tread On Me!” says the snake

Over the Dan Ryan, slipping smoothly beneath

Clarinet, yada da,

The wind through my clean hair I washed this morning

The wind through my clothes and my eyes

My bag swinging at my left

My laptop hanging at my right

An old man smoking cigarettes, taking the first few puffs turns the same way I do

Clarinet, saxophone, joyous occasions call for dancing and shaking and hopping

Birds chirping

Hand on my iPod,

Pause

The Baptist church is having evening service and rocking down the walls

Clapping stomping sweating praising!

A little boy has the door propped open with his leg, looks at me

HA HA HA HALLELUJA!

Unpause

Clarinet up down up down screaming for what we know but can’t see

On the right, the park, children running with sticks clacking the metal fence, old woman sitting on the steps of the Ida Crown natatorium

Young couple walking past me as I near Ada, the smile and the laugh with the breeze and the early rays of the first sunlit afternoon of the love

Bubble bubble

Turning left on Ada, walking south, past the school for kids who aren’t smart

Guy sitting on steps with cigarette and cell phone

Looks at me

Fire escape

Parked cars

Fire escape

My parked car

Is still there, I have to check

Fire escape

Key in knob, door slam sticky, I shut it

Turning left up the stairs, second floor, the sun illuminating every shade of brown possible,

Door is unlocked

Roommate is home

I am home

Windows open

I sit.


Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Itzhak Perlman is damn cool



So, recently, while listening to "Together" a Duet album with Itzhak Perlman and Placido Domingo, it dawned on me just how much Itzhak Perlman kicks ass.
Now, don't get me wrong, Placido is pretty great too, his performance as Figaro in The Barber of Seville is by far my favorite of any I've heard. But in terms of sheer amazing musicianship, Mr. Perlman takes the cake.

I enjoy this video particularly. For obvious reasons.


Honestly, this guy is amazing. He contracted Polio at the age of four, and still walks around on crutches, so someone always carries his violin out on stage for him.

He's won 9 Grammys, and performed all over the world.


Oh, and the coolest thing of all, He's signed the toilet at the Lied Center at the University of Kansas, where I went to band camp.