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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
 Posted - 04/24/2018 : 10:25:42
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| The experience was poetry in motion to young Newbury. After work was done, as waves rocked them up and down and back and forth, the men joked and passed the bottle. Celebrating the moment, Mickey would make up a song. The shrimpers would laugh and cheer; the seagulls would cry, and Mickey would sing again. As the sun set off the ship’s stern, bottlenose dolphins danced to the beat of the boat. Meanwhile the ocean - always the same, always different and always powerful - provided majestic rhythm and transition to Newbury’s music. |
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San Diego
Swinger
509 Posts |
Posted - 04/24/2018 : 21:15:59
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 Encore, Joe. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2018 : 19:15:40
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| "My father taught me to paint and smudge pastel and charcoal. My mother, a bright star, appeared nightly. I hadn't been introduced to her yet. Black limousines. Priests benign and smiling. The creak when they went into the ground. The crowd dismayed. No one I knew there." He's leaning forward on the deck. Sun in his hair and on his shoulders. Elbows on his knees. His tanned hands intent cleaning brushes with turpentine. A small pyramid of rags on the table. "Why this story so often?" she asks him. "It keeps getting safer," he says. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2018 : 19:19:09
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| The warped rocker's uneven rhythm. Stars in the gentian-dark sky. His mind alive with midnight. They're sitting on the deck eating ice cream. Moonlight on the spoons. He tips his dish up and lets the melt run into his mouth. "C'mon..." he says, and he grabs the pole and the bucket. "Now...?" she says, but he's already moving to the watery edge. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2018 : 19:23:46
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| "I'm angry," she says. "Better already," from him. She says, "I got the days mixed up..." "Me too..." he grins, "...by the calendar on the fridge." Border crossers. San Ysidro gate. Wake of diesel fuel. Combustible horizon. Too late to turn around in this ether. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 04/26/2018 : 19:27:54
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| Winding black-top one lane road backing up to a National Forest. Copper sink and fieldstone fireplace. Autumn on the mountain. Steep slopes and craggy outcrops. Breathtaking view from the deck. Snow on the peak from last year. "Do you think the dead remember?" she asked him. A deer suddenly lifting its head in the clearing. The clouds white-shouldered and quiet. The space filling with leaves again. |
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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
Posted - 05/03/2018 : 10:15:34
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If verse and melody floated around Newbury’s universe until captured is not the point. When he sensed a song was out there, or in there, delivery became the mission. This is not the same as pulling an obstinate rabbit from a hat, but is closer to the point made by Michelangelo in a 16th century letter: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”
Except Newbury did not claim to work in just three dimensions. His domain was the fifth, and he humbly described himself as “just a conduit.” “Good writers can’t take any credit for their work,” he explained. “All they can do is take credit for workin’ hard for the people who receive it.”
Starin’ out the window all I wish is
I could hear the words I’m hearin’ in my head THE SAILOR |
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Egbert
Swinger
Netherlands
813 Posts |
Posted - 05/06/2018 : 03:20:31
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| It takes exhausting efforts trying to get a grip on the words hovering in my head. Love ya, Joe! |
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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
Posted - 05/07/2018 : 08:38:29
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| Lova ya too, E. Please give my very best to your family. |
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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
Posted - 05/07/2018 : 08:41:10
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| Meanings and associations came to mind as Mick wrote, but some layers were not evident. He frequently discovered new levels of significance in his work. “Not only do I continue to find new meanings... My songs are like a priest and psychiatrist rolled into one... waiting only for me to ask a question.” Townes Van Zandt said, “His voice is like from outer space,” and Kristofferson wrote, “Perhaps... he is a visitor from outer space.” From outer space or inner space or a conduit to the fifth dimension, Newbury’s music is art, uniquely beautiful art... expressed as a fusion of sincerity and simplicity. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 05/07/2018 : 17:31:07
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He made brief visits to the 5th dimension in April 2001. "It was beautiful," he said, "...a mist of light. Hey! not yet!" he said, and came back to us. But who knows what time is there...
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San Diego
Swinger
509 Posts |
Posted - 05/07/2018 : 17:57:38
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| His art is timeless. As he is. He still scolds and cajoles. Oh, yes, he does. Ron and I had this conversation. Writing things down in the middle of the night...his fingerprints on every page. Love you, Joe. Send me an email so I can talk to you. |
Edited by - San Diego on 05/13/2018 18:46:14 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 05/07/2018 : 18:08:53
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| The Book of Days. The index. The hand-drawn map with a legend. Bas-relief on the cliff side where waves ruffle edges blue and white the sky. All the star-sparked spangled places where he shuffles the deck in his dreams and wakes up with blue chalk dust on his fingers like ambidextrous da Vinci. Smoke in some doorway. Alive on both sides of the aisle before Passports were required. Notes in her pockets. Doodles and faces. His crowded slant letters. His blue heart way. His coast to coast area codes. "Jus' tell the story..." he says, "Don't explain it." |
Edited by - Ailinn on 05/06/2019 17:37:58 |
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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2018 : 07:48:00
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Hi Ro,
I'll call you soon, friend.
Love ya,
Joe |
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Joe Z
Windchimer
USA
1819 Posts |
Posted - 05/10/2018 : 07:53:50
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As used in the song Sailor, “Double-headed eagle” could be a reference to “double eagle,” a 20 dollar gold piece first issued to the public in 1850 following the California Gold Rush; metaphorically then, it may mean money or riches. The term might also allude to the song Under The Double Eagle, the benchmark Sousa piece, used by pickers to acknowledge a master guitar player... metaphorically then, mastery of music.
Say you double-headed eagle
Say you can teach me how to fly
Double-headed eagle is also the oldest crest in the world, a symbol of power more than 2,000 years before the building of King Solomon’s Temple. It is an emblem of Masons, the oldest and largest worldwide fraternity dedicated to the brotherhood of man under the fatherhood of a Supreme Being. Below the Masonic double-headed eagle is the phrase, “Spes mea in deo est,” meaning, “My hope is in God.” When Mick sings, “Say you double-headed eagle / Say you can teach me how to fly,” perhaps he is communicating a fundamental cabala. Faith in God can teach us how to fly.
In the end, he leaves it open, allowing the listener freedom to interpret what will “teach me how to fly.” Riches, music or God... King Solomon pursued the subject as well. The song is a fine example of how Newbury’s music can get to the bottom of things but also lift us up to the highest heavens.
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Edited by - Joe Z on 05/10/2018 07:55:03 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 05/13/2018 : 18:53:20
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| I never saw my mother perform a domestic chore. She spread cream cheese on a slice of white bread for me after I scraped my knee on a forbidden maypole. She cut off the crusts and covered it with maraschino cherries. |
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San Diego
Swinger
509 Posts |
Posted - 05/20/2018 : 19:34:53
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| Watermelon day. Rosy in the center, green at the edges. Paper streamers and balloons in the trees. Hamburgers, hotdogs and tacos. A farm to table salad bar with produce for guests to take home. A picnic for Sunrise House. Kids and grand kids and great grands. My old friends Robber and Garret with new baby Ian. Elise and McKenna. His blue BIC still behind his ear. A brand new iPhone clipped to his belt. Marco's "Royal" lemon cake, and a Guess Who? picture gallery. The park full of music. A spell on the crowd clapping to Michael Row the Boat Ashore. Hands on their hearts for America. An old fashioned Sunday afternoon to remember. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2018 : 21:38:49
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| Cityscape scraping the clouds beyond Shelter Island. The Bay so crowded you can step from one boat to another. And a last one that takes you out beyond the fog where you board something fateful. Leap of faith, he says. It happens like that. Don't hesitate. Hands on the rail. Chevron wake on the water slipping under the bridge. |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2018 : 21:42:22
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| Doors that open and close. Rooms with the past intact. Hummingbirds in the bougainvillea. Footprints in the grass. Pinches of jasmine sticky and sweet in the courtyard. Evenings stippled with stars. A tree with low limbs they could sit in looking up a long time. |
Edited by - Ailinn on 05/30/2018 18:25:16 |
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Ailinn
Windchimer
2217 Posts |
Posted - 05/27/2018 : 21:44:25
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| Air 71, water 64. Mostly sunny. Back to you, Blaine. |
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The Nightly Vigil