April 30, 2008 – 11:40 pm
I got this through one of my guilty pleasure sites – cuteoverload.com. Its a little baby ‘phant from the Baltimore Zoo!!! Oh man, I love little animals.
I think I’ve decided that the name of my next album/ep/compilation will be:
Dreamtigers
It. Is. Perfect.
Except for one thing: Dreamtigers is the name of a Jorge Luis Borges short story and was (briefly) the title of the book “El Hacedor” (The Maker) after the original publisher thought the original title was too theological. I’m not clear on copyright law as it affects titles of 48-year old works being used by completely unknown artist of a different medium out of respect and admiration. I don’t think there will be a problem, but I like to give people their due. My last album had a Cash cover on it, and I paid the royalties on that, fair and square, for instance.
I had this epiphany last night. After seeing the two Katies play a few songs at the French Quarter and eating one of their shrimp baskets, I went home and tried to go to sleep. After an hour, I gave up and grabbed my Borges and headed for the living room. It wasn’t long before I realized that (unsurprisingly) everything that I had been thinking about and writing about had already been thought and written – and here it was. The story ‘Dreamtigers’ does not measure even a full page. But it was long enough to sencapsulate the last few years of my life.
That’s why it’s the new title, and that is why Borges was a genius.
I also had an intense desire to learn Spanish at that moment. For those of you who may not know much of Borges, he was an Argentinian author who wrote in what is known as “Magic Realism” or “Irreality.” One publisher notes that The Maker aka Dreamtigers “explores the mysterious territory that lies between the dreams of the creative artist and the ‘real’ world.” A lot of his work deals with the truth or concreteness of the imagined and ephemeral, and his storytelling weaves quotations, historical narrative, fiction, the gods, and the impossible together in such a way that each is completely inseparable from the other… heck, unless you are as obscenely well-read as Borges must have himself been, its not just inseparable, sometimes its indistinguishable. The point is, Borges has really affected my songwriting after “The Shortest Distance…” and you should read him.
In other news – comments are working – all the comments you left lately have not been lost and are posted now. I just had to approve them – DOH!
April 18, 2008 – 12:14 pm
The rapid increase in foreclosures and rapid decline in home values that has occurred recently hasn’t been distributed uniformly across the country. California has been one of the worst hit, which really seems fitting. They also benefited from one of the quickest run-ups in home prices. Makes sense to me.
I’m not going to get all economic on you, and I don’t really care all that much about home values in California, but I saw something yesterday that brought all of this to mind. I saw an add looking for a programming contractor in CA that had mortgage foreclosure experience. I thought this was odd, and moved on. A little while later, I happened across another tech-type add that wanted people with experience in the SAME THING. Apparently, the housing bubble bust is good for programmers… If they keep their homes, that is.
a href=”http://www.dinosaursandrobots.com/2008/04/blockhead-edward-and-nancy-kienholz.html”>Good morning. Read this.
So I’m calling this #43 – even though the last song you’ve seen is #36. I’ve demo’d some songs that I haven’t uploaded, and to keep the numbering consistent, I’m calling this 43 – deal with it.
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April 11, 2008 – 10:06 am
Album Title Brainstorm:
Fairy Tales
Now What?
Science Fiction
Worlds Unknown
Retro-Future
Boom Times (song would need re-writing to use this name)
I don’t know if comments are back up or not yet. Sorry, k-dog is working as hard as he can on them.
