Divine University

I wrote this when Billy visited me in RVA six months ago, but has since been locked away in a notebook on my shelf. Just found it; thought I would share. Richmond walkabouts are a lot of fun when you've got a good friend with you...

___

Hidden alley arrow marquees

Light kindergarten paintings,

And old men tell of divine universities;

Their skulls growing tall

like sidewalk flowers.

And all the midnight bugs

Are doing drugs,

Getting stoned from streetlamps high above.

They dance with each other

'Til they die.

And I know their names

And they know mine.

And one asked me once

If I knew the time...

My brother holds an injured eye

Under naked motel light,

A likely soul for the capital fire,

And dry as false hopes

Seeking short-minute kin

In early alley mornings,

And cold unforgiving.

I wish I had an answer.

There are few kings, and they are not you.

And when they turn their backs,

You turn yours too.

It's such an easy fix, it flows

Like pipe between the bricks.

I was looking for you the moment I met you.

It's time for you to come home.

interactive kinetic playgound

My friend Joel created this fabulous art-piece/playground. My friend Robin and I chased each other through the veils on a full-moon...
http://vimeo.com/20989308

It is All Music

"The more one studies the harmony of music, and then studies human nature, how people agree and how they disagree, how there is attraction and repulsion, the more one will see that it is all music."- Hazrat Inayat Khan

New Radio Show Streams Here!

Murky dolphin (short story)

I saw you in a dream. The water was filthy, and I could still see your eye, the outline of your tail. You were alone, but seemed to be smiling. We played together. I felt like I should try to help you, somehow.

I crawled out of the water, shaking from cold. Where was I? Scotland? Ireland? Some Northern country, though the roads and parking places were by now filled with sewage and standing water like in the rutted slum roads of South America. Not steaming hot though.

I remember hiding behind a car parked in near-turquoise sludge. Was it reflecting the sky? Sometimes there are those stagnant pools that grow weird hyper-colored bacteria. I don’t know. I just wanted to get back to you. What had possessed me to be in that murky water?

It was as if I awoke there. I suddenly became conscious of my position as you investigated me. Some part of me wonders if this is really real? If this is a message from my future-self, tickled by a dolphin snout somewhere in freezing-cold, filthy water in some other time? Your eye seemed very real, and like it was probing my brain, smiling, but not maliciously.

Why were you alone? Somewhere in my memory I think of a lone dolphin off the British Isles, but I can’t remember why. People come to visit you by boat, give you illicit ham sandwiches. Where are your pod-mates? Your lover? Your wife? You seemed to me male, not that I could see that far in the polluted water. How is your eye so clear? How could you see me so clearly?

It seemed salty, and green, and murky. Am I remembering this correctly? I am transcribing this from a conversation I had. I told the story to Sean while he was searching for a bottle, lying on the floor in a super-drunk stupor. A murky dolphin? Whaaat? he giggled and slurred, trying to get the top off, his coordination not quite coordinated enough.

We were in my mom’s kitchen, in a haze. My sister Lillie appeared, looking out over the bar at the living room, ignoring Sean like he was a dream, like he was from another time, like she couldn’t see him clearly through the murkiness that pervaded. He was giggling again, still trying to get the top off.

She was melancholy, in a staged-theatre kind of way. I never see the rug as dirty, until you are around. What? I wonder. It’s comparative. When other people are here, I yell at them, ask them to take their shoes off to save the white carpeting. I can see now it is really brown. Dingy. Your being here makes it seem less white.

I know distinctly that this is about time. That this is about not being around. Seeing things as others would see them. Others you respect, others you wish were around more often, to see more clearly. I don’t think I’m judgmental.

I don’t care about the dingy path through the white rug (it’s true, it’s there, you can tell people have tramped dirt through there). It’s clear that she would not care either, if it weren’t for my presence. Sean is still on the floor, banging the bottle and reaching for the under-sink cabinet.

I feel a mild sense of panic for him, him getting into that cabinet when he’s already too drunk to twist off a plastic bottle-cap. I don’t make a move to help him. The scene is dissolving and I join Lillie in looking out over the bar in a melancholy haze, mouthing words that don’t come out as sounds but more like bubbles.

Charlotte Savage 9-26-2011

Richmond's Finest

This guy... this guy knows.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rYDG_BU1dFA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=4vVZi3Xwjug

Gull, everybody.

Out of Africa, Into the Big Space

Episode 1 (1st hr) by into the big space

Out of Africa, Into the Big Space
Demo Episode Submitted as Proposal to Baton Rouge Community Radio
hosted by Eric Roy

Episode 1 (1st hour)

1. Nuru Kane – “Colère” (Senegal) // Riverboat
2. Soothsayers – “Freedom” (UK) // Red Earth
3. Hayvanlar Alemi – “Hayalgucu Sporkulubu” (Turkey) // Sublime Frequencies
4. Dara Puspita – “Pesta Pak Lurah” (Indonesia) // Sublime Frequencies
5. Circle – “Vaanen Valtiatar” (Finland) // Ektro
6. DJ / Rupture – “a01” (USA) // Tigerbeat6
7. Neal Pattman – “The Mogul” (USA) // Art of Field Recording
8. Group Bombino – “Boghassa” (Niger) // Sublime Frequencies
9. Yaaba Funk – “Me Nye Me Dofu” (Ghana, USA, Martinique, Jamaica, Italy, Germany, UK) // Hereandnow
10. Flying Lotus – “Do the Astral Plane” (USA) // Warp
11. Man City Lion – “Na Doo” (Thailand) // Sublime Frequencies
12. Afriampo – “ヤーヤーエー” (Japan) // Supponpon
13. S.E. Rogie – “African Gospel” (Sierra Leone) // Real World

Out of Africa, Into the Big Space will be a music show that harnesses the human spirit in its most exploratory, wide-eyed form in tracks from around the world. African music will be an essential part of the show. The Out of Africa hypothesis - which postulates that all Homo sapiens originate from Africa - will be enacted sonically, bridging the massive breadth of African jams with rhythms from around the world, including places like India, Turkey, Haiti, Japan, Eastern Europe, the US, the UK, South America, Finland, and Thailand. Acoustic and electronic will both be embraced fully. The sounds, bands, and vibes experienced first hand while working at an Afrobeat venue in London will be shared, all the while creating an atmosphere both entrancing and inspiring. Efforts will be taken to introduce listeners to underground sounds from these regions in addition to more classic tracks. Commentary will be informative, but brief. The focus will be on the music, sometimes relaxing, sometimes danceable, sometimes more challenging – always inspiring. The goal is to create an atmosphere both foreign & inviting. However, there will be moments of oddness & unfamiliarity (isn’t that one reason we travel?).

This show will NOT be:
- A playlist of tracks from world music collections available at Whole Foods.
- Exclusively international, efforts will be made to illuminate connections between American sounds both new and old and those around the world.

So I've been getting back into Refused and "Evil Empire"...

(from a dream I had last night)

Hand-me-down

falling sky,

every time you close your eyes

I take a picture.

I only know you when you're gone.

My teeth fall out

and into clouds.

Away with a breath,

like Medusa blood,

like a boat

on a dry bed

at the edge of the world.

A sandcastle...

You want this to happen.

All collars, all colors.

We won't stop 'til we eat each other.