Tag Archives: music

South America

Saliendo el submarino

Upon reaching the driver’s scheduled break stop where passengers might stretch their legs as well as grab compressed bites to eat, that was while letting off those who’d reached their destination but before boarding any joining the journey, strange thoughts of oxidation and reduction struck Matt Pfarrer. He hadn’t needed to consider the processes since high school. He wondered why they arose on the way to Near the End of Argentina.

The motorcoach to Selknam had steadily emptied southward bound. Watching the transport’s rows open up after every arrival, he noticed replacement passengers never equaled the departures. Standing in the midst of one of those towns anywhere in the world that solely seem to exist, no, to serve as way stations for long-haul busses, modern-day stagecoaches really, Pfarrer asked himself did those boarding them ever balance or, better, exceed the departures.

He asked himself had there ever been a full bus whose terminus was Selknam. Continue reading Saliendo el submarino →

Observed

Solstice Serenades

Despite the mounting profusion of ads for Halloween, the bloom of summer remains fragrant. Besides, this was written in September. At least two weeks yet before Michael Myers, Freddie Krueger, and Jason Voorhees start invading screens for marathon gore sessions. Continue reading Solstice Serenades →

Quarropas, South America

Antipodes: Aftermath and End

Party people milled throughout Axman’s house. Then, he and an assemblage of housemates rented a structure only a cheery paint job saved from being judged Gothic.

This event occurred on a December 2009 night, in Quarropas. Our host had convened what we’d come to call “a gathering.” He scheduled “gatherings” once or twice a month.

From about the late 90s into the farthest aughts, how many party Friday and Saturday nights slid into late next morning inside his house? Looking back from June 2019? Too few and not damned near enough! Continue reading Antipodes: Aftermath and End →

Dim Neon, Poky Town, Quarropas

Saloons Instead of Salons

This is how perception has re-formed amid the Mojave and the Southern Nevada mountains – bands like the Eagles and the Pure Prairie League sound more appropriate here than they ever did down in Arizona’s Sonora Desert and certainly back East in New York. Those guitars and keening voices cut through the Mojave’s harshness.

Although the poignancy of the bands’ ballads further emphasize the region’s emptiness, each offers relief to the barren horizon and the few figures populating it. Hmmm. Figure that out.

People often ask whether I miss New York, and if so what do I particularly miss. My pat reply is usually, “Whatever I miss was already gone before I left.”

Until recently that response sufficed because it was the only truth. Continue reading Saloons Instead of Salons →

Quarropas

Good Ether

Hear music as ether. Good ether.

With zero apologies to Marcel Proust, music not madeleines better allow ourselves to re-immerse ourselves in the past and fully revivify it. Not so much live music at that as tunes sound engineers have massaged down to their last notes. To me, too much concert music sounds ragged. Live performances allow bands license to mess with the perfection which either narcotized or motivated me in the first place.

I generally prefer my ether unadulterated and exactly the way I’ve come to favor it. Continue reading Good Ether →

Pop Culture, Tales Out of School

Show Me a Sign

Promiscuity suits me. But that isn’t the impetus behind my Las Vegas residence.

No, instead raw economic necessity and the complete disappearance of Brigadoon, a k a, Quarropas, my New York former hometown, propelled this move 2400 miles west.

Funny. Living now in a place celebrated for catering to inhibitions hasn’t added to my libertinage. With all the candy at hand – literally – I’ve been disinclined to grab more sweets. Perhaps when the goods were deemed illicit and their acquisition only furtively gained treats, did they sweeten my tooth. Continue reading Show Me a Sign →