Thursday, May 05, 2005
Eco/Echo/Ecco-locations and Nyro
More babe-mouthings:
"Mom, I have a headache in my feet."
"If I were a judge, I'd make sure no one eats meat."
(Whither veggies? They die, too.)
Sag-baby, not batting an eye:
"When you kill an animal, nothing grows back in its place."
Tom's Ribs, be afraid - be very afraid.
As for the big babes:
After all the narcissistic profiling, Quad's wife looks over his shoulder, sez: "Where's Nyro?"
Where indeed, goofball. No, I am not a fifty year-old teen re-clamoring for Laura in a dither in the lovely wisteria hysteria we call the 60s, though I did know her through her various interpreters of the day; knew, too, a haunting face - soul sister, but someone I would have deemed too messy to mess with in those daze. I've been messed with and messy enough through the years to lose that ardent prejudice. Folly. But, would I have crowned her then as the van morrison-ette of distaff soul? No. Still the face, though - and whatever it was trying to communicate to a pea soul too small to see. A few champagne-buzzed Sunday afternoons in an Austin sweat, she and Edith Piaf out the back door, but I was still missing the point.
I heard on the news - odd, since I hear so little on the news - of her death to the cancer, and thought, 49 - how young. She actually seeped into that day's aquifer deeper than I would have expected, so she must have been calling even then.
I am, like mr. pynchon (though I suspect he is dissembling, and I am not), a slow learner. I time capsuled my raw nerves on a 20-year time delay, so when the dead or led or jmorrison or wind cries mary come roaring through long after the party, take your pick: is quad pathetic, mildly amusing, or just ontologically stunted? No, ontologically pathetic is not a choice.
Year or so ago, then, the nyro clock must have gone off. (I know: it was more than 20.) I was in the Oakwell branch of the Tres Leches biblioteca flipping through CDs, there's that inspired diva thang photo with her piano, hmm, Angel in the Dark.
Well, long story short, I burned that disk straight to the heart: it lived in player and brain for 6 months. I know I risk excommunication from Tribe Nyro when I say that Angel is THE album, and yes, I have gone back to them all and "Desiree" is pure angelwing, "Poverty Train" has its very cool changes, and I love the groove of Eli's fade-out, but early Laura, bless her, has the sound of youth running for its life, ain't got enuff time for all this, and I am going to EAT this microphone 'fore I'm through. Adrenaline and cigarettes. Early Nyro is an all-out sprint, everything coming at you. Chica hasn't yet learned the long slow distance.
Every damn song on Angel, whether she wrote it or not, becomes HERS. I'm even tempted to say some such foolishness as the ones not hers are more hers than her own, but that just tells you how glued to the speaker my ear was that first night with a song like "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," a song I'd long ago dismissed as having heard enough of. She takes that one out for a nice long walk. When she delivers that gorgeous slurring in "Walk On By" - broken in two - that's a stab wound to the heart: you know it ain't just penny lover she's passing in the street. That's chemo talkin' to the Angel of Death.
My rapid obsession delved enough to know that, depending on your politics, Angel wasn't even supposed to make it to the shelves. Lilywhite gets her say, natch, on the liner notes. In the big bio, she suffers the Stalin purge. I'm sorry, I'm damned glad all manner of sensibilties were strained - even Laura's, if true - to deliver this gorgeous masterpiece to a man dying in his own stew.
God bless Ms. Laura Nyro. She be one Serious Playground.
"Mom, I have a headache in my feet."
"If I were a judge, I'd make sure no one eats meat."
(Whither veggies? They die, too.)
Sag-baby, not batting an eye:
"When you kill an animal, nothing grows back in its place."
Tom's Ribs, be afraid - be very afraid.
As for the big babes:
After all the narcissistic profiling, Quad's wife looks over his shoulder, sez: "Where's Nyro?"
Where indeed, goofball. No, I am not a fifty year-old teen re-clamoring for Laura in a dither in the lovely wisteria hysteria we call the 60s, though I did know her through her various interpreters of the day; knew, too, a haunting face - soul sister, but someone I would have deemed too messy to mess with in those daze. I've been messed with and messy enough through the years to lose that ardent prejudice. Folly. But, would I have crowned her then as the van morrison-ette of distaff soul? No. Still the face, though - and whatever it was trying to communicate to a pea soul too small to see. A few champagne-buzzed Sunday afternoons in an Austin sweat, she and Edith Piaf out the back door, but I was still missing the point.
I heard on the news - odd, since I hear so little on the news - of her death to the cancer, and thought, 49 - how young. She actually seeped into that day's aquifer deeper than I would have expected, so she must have been calling even then.
I am, like mr. pynchon (though I suspect he is dissembling, and I am not), a slow learner. I time capsuled my raw nerves on a 20-year time delay, so when the dead or led or jmorrison or wind cries mary come roaring through long after the party, take your pick: is quad pathetic, mildly amusing, or just ontologically stunted? No, ontologically pathetic is not a choice.
Year or so ago, then, the nyro clock must have gone off. (I know: it was more than 20.) I was in the Oakwell branch of the Tres Leches biblioteca flipping through CDs, there's that inspired diva thang photo with her piano, hmm, Angel in the Dark.
Well, long story short, I burned that disk straight to the heart: it lived in player and brain for 6 months. I know I risk excommunication from Tribe Nyro when I say that Angel is THE album, and yes, I have gone back to them all and "Desiree" is pure angelwing, "Poverty Train" has its very cool changes, and I love the groove of Eli's fade-out, but early Laura, bless her, has the sound of youth running for its life, ain't got enuff time for all this, and I am going to EAT this microphone 'fore I'm through. Adrenaline and cigarettes. Early Nyro is an all-out sprint, everything coming at you. Chica hasn't yet learned the long slow distance.
Every damn song on Angel, whether she wrote it or not, becomes HERS. I'm even tempted to say some such foolishness as the ones not hers are more hers than her own, but that just tells you how glued to the speaker my ear was that first night with a song like "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," a song I'd long ago dismissed as having heard enough of. She takes that one out for a nice long walk. When she delivers that gorgeous slurring in "Walk On By" - broken in two - that's a stab wound to the heart: you know it ain't just penny lover she's passing in the street. That's chemo talkin' to the Angel of Death.
My rapid obsession delved enough to know that, depending on your politics, Angel wasn't even supposed to make it to the shelves. Lilywhite gets her say, natch, on the liner notes. In the big bio, she suffers the Stalin purge. I'm sorry, I'm damned glad all manner of sensibilties were strained - even Laura's, if true - to deliver this gorgeous masterpiece to a man dying in his own stew.
God bless Ms. Laura Nyro. She be one Serious Playground.
