The Black Angels, “Young Men Dead”

Teddy Roosevelt is known as many things, but he was perhaps most proud of the title “Colonel.” So enthusiastic was he to prove himself in war, he traded the comfort of a plush leather chair in the office of the Secretary of the Navy for cans of rotten beef in a tropical landscape that would follow him in recurring bouts of malaria for the rest of his life. But for all of its consequences, leading his Rough Riders to victory during the Spanish American War in 1898 was the event which most shaped the renowned former president; it was the event that made him a man.

Which is why Roosevelt had been sounding the call for American involvement in World War I for three solid years by the time the U.S. finally joined the Allied cause in 1917. Much to the chagrin of Woodrow Wilson, once America entered the fray…Teddy wanted in too. He begged the Secretary of War to allow him the honor of assembling a brigade to hurt the Huns, but was rejected; he was, after all, no friend of the administration in line for special favors. Although likely for the best, as his health was rapidly deteriorating, he was heartbroken, knowing his time was near its end and wanting to leave his corpse on the battlefields of Europe.

But the Roosevelt name found its way into headlines nonetheless. For such an avowed war hawk, his sons had no choice but to take their place in the first American wave to the front; Theodore, Jr., Kermit, Archie and Quentin all played their parts. While most of his sons were fit for war, young Quentin the Aviator was not. The youngest at 19, engaged to a Whitney heir and of a sweeter temperament than the rest, he felt compelled to go to war so as not to disappoint his illustrious father.

Disappoint him he did not. Shortly after his squadron was sent to the front, Quentin took two bullets to the head and his airplane dropped from the sky. Buried where he fell by the Germans who found him first, his grave became a fount of courage for Allied soldiers who made a shrine of his temporary resting place.

While he was certainly proud of his heroic progeny, Roosevelt carried the burden of Quentin’s death until his own a short few months later. Which leads one to ponder the musings of Nathaniel Hawthorne from an article titled “Chiefly About War Matters,” which ran in the Atlantic during the Civil War:

“It is a pity that old men grow unfit for war, not only by their incapacity for new ideas, but by the peaceful and unadventurous tendencies that gradually posses themselves of the once turbulent disposition, which used to snuff the battle-smoke of its congenial atmosphere. It is a pity; because it would be such an economy of human existence, if time-stricken people…could snatch from their juniors the exclusive privilege of carrying on war. In cause of death upon the battle-field, how unequal would be the comparative sacrifice! On one part, a few unenjoyable years, the little remnant of a life grown torpid; on the other, the many fervent summers of manhood in its spring and prime, with all that they include of possible benefit to mankind. Then, too, a bullet offers such a brief and easy way, such a pretty little orifice, through which the weary spirit might seize the opportunity to be exhaled!”

In a word, just what Roosevelt wanted.

J. Tillman, “Firstborn”

She realized would never touch the ivory on her mother’s piano again. It, as with all she had known, was fracturing to other places. It had left its place beside the hearth. Far from her reach, Foreign to her sight. Washed clean free of provenance to dwell in a home with no mind for such things.  No longer a gift from her father, who now laid snugly in the ground. No longer there to gather the family ’round.  Another memory gone.

Now just another piece of furniture on which to place a drink.

She Keeps Bees, “Vulture”

Power is curious. Unless continually moving, like a rolling stone, its blood coagulates and forms a crust through which its captive can see but not do, feel but not find.

When Power stagnates, it feeds off the flaneurs, we the ones who are continually underfoot. Ever moving, ever changing what we are and what’s around us, Power watches us until the time is right. Then, swiftly, it descends, jaw clenched tight in anticipation. Hoping. Wanting to transmute to look like us, be like us, obliterate us in physical form.

But to no avail. Because we are the makers of meaning; we are that hallow reference on your tongue; we are the content on a continent flooded with vacancies.

We ARE what it is NOT.

Regina Spektor, “Blue Lips”

The last few months my father was alive, he was bedridden. First by choice, but then without it. He passed the time by reading magazines and scanning the Sports Section of the LA Times for news of his beloved Dodgers, or perhaps the Lakers. Depending on the season.

Then he stopped; he must have had his fill. No longer interested in much, he would stare at the ceiling for hours and then at his hands, which he would hold above him, repeat the same motions and shake his head in disbelief as if to say, “These are not my hands. Not MY hands.”

Palm up. Palm down. Palm up. Fist. Palm down.

Grimm Dancers

There was a king who had twelve beautiful daughters. They slept in twelve beds all in one room; and when they went to bed, the doors were shut and locked up; but every morning their shoes were found to be quite worn through as if they had been danced in all night; and yet nobody could find out how it happened, or where they had been.

Then the king made it known to all the land, that if any person could discover the secret, and find out where it was that the princesses danced in the night, he should have the one he liked best for his wife, and should be king after his death; but whoever tried and did not succeed, after three days and nights, should be put to death.

[Click Here to continue reading “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” by the Brothers Grimm]

Laura Veirs “I Can See Your Tracks”

We are nothing if not creatures of habit. This is how we become stuck in a rut, running and humming as we do around the same variables. Which is why we require context.

Context: The part of a written or spoken statement that surrounds a word or passage and that often specifies meaning. OR The circumstances in which a particular event occurs: SITUATION.

Because those who suffer from this disease they call nostalgia want nothing more than to be surrounded, to muffle the daily grind in order to soothe and give one meaning. And meaning is fluid, a mixture of content that changes like shaken cans of paint decaying in the backseat of a forgotten ’49 Hudson.

So the question becomes: Can you change your vehicle?

Distraction

Morning Commute plays The Hotel Utah on Wednesday, June 15th. Doors open at 8, but if you get there earlier the food is good, the bartenders are friendly, and the history of the place will absorb you. For $8, that’s not bad.

It’s human nature to stray. If not in body, then in mind. At least from time to time. Which is why you see my gaze soften and stare away. But it’s not you, it’s me. Just me chasing shadows through the recesses of my own regrets. Rephrasing attempts left undone and muddling the things too rigid to affect things as they should

So, no. I won’t be able to make if for coffee because…


Urban Wayfarer

Eleanor Murray / “Street to Ride” [Click Song Title to Listen]

Prisms formed along his walls, light fragmenting light in the most peaceful chaos he’d seen in months. And if it weren’t for that weekend in New Mexico, he would never have found his way. But he was safe now; he had stones of turquoise counter-balanced in his perspiring palm, shifting ever so slightly and guiding him yonder.