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MY OLD MAN LIVES IN A GARBAGE CAN:

GIFTS FROM MY FATHER

 

 

My old man gives me gifts. All the time. Always has, as long as I can remember. He gives them to me still. I’m gonna share some of the gifts I’ve received from him with you.

 

First, there are the musical gifts. He has enormous breadth of taste and reference which he infused in our house beginning with those giant speakers he built himself. Dad, remember Joan Baez and  the teak floors on Pisang Road ? I still sing Banks of the Ohio exactly the way she did. Remember when we went to the Folk Life Festival in DC and listened to Lightnin Hopkins, live? My blues collection gives me  reliable comfort. There was the Schulwerk by Carl Orff, turned into a ballet in Portland. I’ve made that first piece into, Gassenhauer, my ringtone and I smile when my phone rings. And when my Fine Son sends me Phillip Glass music, I know where he gets his taste.

 

Dear Reader, here is what my old man wrote to me recently about music:

 

“I have tweaked my stereo to a high point and have been going through my collection of CDs often wondering why I bought some of them but just as often finding forgotten treasures.  One such is Prima Voce's Treasury of Opera, mostly recorded between 1910 and 1935.  Marvelous voices and for some strange reason more attractive to my ears than  recordings by Renee Flemming.  It may not be the voice so much as the difference between analogue and digital or it just may be that old recordings have their own charm in the same way that engravings of 19th century ballerinas stimulated Joseph Cornell.  If you get a chance sometime listen to Tito Schippa, Benianimo Gigli,  Rosa Ponselle or Claudia Muzio.”

 

His visual sensibilities are highly refined, or maybe subtle is a better word.

 

Here is Dad’s latest review of photography books:

 

 “I now have a bookshelf in the living room next to my coffee table and I can pick up a volume at  random and browse through it while listening to music.  I recently looked through a book of photos by Daido Moriyama and Nobuyoshi Araki both of whom have dark post war visions of Japan and photographs by Father Browne of prewar Ireland.  I like each of them but I like Father Browne better.  The Japanese photos present a powerful unified vision whereas Fr Browne has a diversity of interests and his photos are altogether more kindly and humane.”

 

Your granddaughter sees poetry everywhere. She's a lot like you.

 

Here is Dad on Yeats:

 

“If you can find it you might enjoy Yeats'  "The Secret Rose" and "Rosa Alchemica" stemming from his early poetry and his involvement with the Society of the Golden Dawn.  Here is the last line from his introduction, "no shining candelabra has prevented us from looking into the darkness, and when one looks into the darkness there is always something there."

 

Dear Dad, if you’re reading this, IT means you’ve navigated  the links I’ve sent you and you can see that I have published your writing on the internet so that all these people can enjoy your perspectives and terrific writing too. So, back to the title of this piece. Remember the old jazz song we liked so much, and that I sang to you when we walked on the Pacific Crest Trail? Look what I found below. It’s okay, just click it and you’ll laugh. My gift to you.

 

Thanks for the gifts, Dad!

 

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPKilTpa-CM