Wednesday, November 18, 2015

There's One Sure Way to Stop Traffic on the Blog

Yep, and that's to put my music on it but this is no lament as it's too cheap and easy to blame that on people who are antagonized by the various political positions I may take.  You can be a complete flaming asshole and make millions, Gene Simmons proved that.

The reaction doesn't deter me and I continue to work to build strength through rigorous attention to diet specifically so I can lift the Galaxy Guitar only by holding the twang bar and shaking her until she screams.  Not so long ago, simply lifting her was a strenuous effort.  She's a heavy guitar but not so heavy as that.

Note:  you would not even believe the sound of that.  Some have heard it live at times but it's not something I would do frequently because she deserves more respect than that.  She can handle it because the Godin xtSA is the best and strongest guitar I have ever played but that doesn't mean push her, only to play her to every limit she knows, all of which are beyond my own.


We were talking of creativity earlier and I don't regard myself as particularly creative because I have no idea how I do it.  Something goes off in my head and there are only two answers:  do it now or forget it forever because it may not ever come back.

The poem, "How Can I Sleep" for Paris, was written in maybe five or ten minutes and the only consideration in my head is whether I want anything rhyme as I go along.  That varies and it makes no difference to me either way but whatever floats that into my head will bring the need to rhyme it as well.

Sometimes a couplet comes to my head but that's all and the thought is as above, write it now or lose it because it won't be retained.  The poem which follows will spill out in a few minutes and this no great feat because I don't know how I do it.

This is the same reason I often refer to the Necromancer but he's not the demonic swine of legend as this one looks to your soul to see your future but he doesn't take your soul for his own.  He's the same source as the poem and some may want to call him God but it makes no difference to me.  I don't feel a sense of reverence but definitely one of gratitude.

Composing to a purpose is not what I do because I only want to hear the guitar do something I like.  There was a desperate feeling after Paris was attacked and this came immediately, "War is for the Generals."

"War is for Generals" is hardly complete and this is not a cop as I tell you flat, I don't know the song ... or ... I didn't know it before I started.  There is no composition in terms of this needs the related minor chord or some such.  It just does not happen.

This sounds like a back-handed way of crediting myself with genius but it's not true because I don't have much of a notion of anything I play before I play it and that's true any time I play.  Using the looper gives me some chords I have recorded previously but, many times, I don't even remember the key and you can hear that in the play.  That will sort itself and off we go.


Part of my intention has been specifically toward Impressionism because that approach to painting has always moved me tremendously for its truth and its immediacy, also in terms of subjects which are not lofty but rather people as we live our lives.

One of the best Impressionist paintings ever, in my view, is "The Potato Eaters," by Vincent van Gogh and it portrays people so poor they survived by picking up the potatoes which fell off produce trains.


The image is almost certainly not accurate to color but I'm not such a purist I can tell even though I have stood in front of it, for quite some time, in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam to try to absorb it.  How a Potato Eater such as myself ever got to Amsterdam is a whole different story but there has been a number of lives within this one.

Maybe this is perceived as self-deprecating but that's as easy as me saying people don't follow the music because my politics suck and I pissed them off.  Maybe but not likely.

4 comments:

jsmn said...

Funny story, about ppl so poor they survived by picking up potatoes which fell of produce trains. Haven't heard that before. As far as I know he just wanted to depict a peasant family, inspired by a painting by Jozef Israels.

Unknown said...

I think I read that in Irving Stone's "Lust for Life" - must look for a citation

Unknown said...

From the WIKI, in his own words: Van Gogh said he wanted to depict peasants as they really were. He deliberately chose coarse and ugly models, thinking that they would be natural and unspoiled in his finished work: "You see, I really have wanted to make it so that people get the idea that these folk, who are eating their potatoes by the light of their little lamp, have tilled the earth themselves with these hands they are putting in the dish, and so it speaks of manual labor and — that they have thus honestly earned their food. I wanted it to give the idea of a wholly different way of life from ours — civilized people. So I certainly don’t want everyone just to admire it or approve of it without knowing why."

As to potatoes falling off trains - must look some more.

Unknown said...

Hmm ... not really worth it as it doesn't change things that much. I'm fine with writing that off as Stone trying to be dramatic.